Renew My Faith

It has been many a year since I have seen a decent fireworks show. Small family ones or just a small pack. It is always fun to celebrate something, especially what the 4th of July represents. I have never been a patriotic man and definitely not a nationalist. Having pride in ones country is arbitrary. I have never found it to useful to have pride in something you were born into. Pride in being an american, pride in being white, black. Being given something from birth is not really anything to be prideful about. If someone has pride of ones nation or even color then what if you were born in a different nation or different color. Would you still have pride of what you are? Nothing wrong with pride in itself but having pride over something that you were born with is silly.

A person should have pride that a nation gives freedom to everyone. Not just a select self-deemed rightful people. It is a shame that even a country that prides it self on having freedom still does not give it to everyone. It is a shame that we are losing more and more freedoms. That more and more laws that are said to protect us are simply oppressing us, simply doing more harm then good.

Happy 4th of July my friends.

“Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death”. Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775

Early afternoon yesterday I took my 11 year old nephew and baby nephew to the school play ground. While we were going to the swings we spotted a wallet. My eldest nephew picked it up and I asked him to hand it to me. I only checked to see if their was an address and which there was. It was right up the road so I decided to play with my nephews for a bit on the swings and take it back when we head home. My nephew said he wanted a reward. I had to tell him that a reward should never be asked for nor expected. You return things to the proper owner and let them decide. If they do not offer any thing then take in the solace that you helped someone.

After a bit of fun I took my nephews to the house and knocked on the door. The teen owner opened the door and I held up the wallet. The teen said “wow, my wallet” grabbed it then shut door. Could of at least said thanks but I just figured that the parents never told their kids how to react to different situations. Maybe that is why we are in such a mess now.

At least I was able to teach my eldest nephew a lesson in returning property to the rightful owners. He did ask me a question. He asked, “what if you found just money on the ground”. I thought for a moment and paraphrasing here. If the owner of the money can not be identified then you can keep it. If the owner can be identified then you should return it like you would any thing else. Just because you find something does not mean you can keep it. The old phrase “finders keepers, losers weepers” is just for people who does not want the moral hiccup to get in their way of keeping things that do not belong to them.

Over the past months I have been pondering over the concept of free will. Not mealy on the religious terms but in life itself. I don’t think I have fully grasped the concept of what I am going to try to articulate but bare with me.

Merriam-Webster describes free will as the following.

1 : voluntary choice or decision
2 : freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention

I call free will the Illusion of free will for two simple concept reasons.

The first part “illusion” is made of “the past can predict the future”. This means that your past actions can if known predict what you may do. Simple enough example would be the following.

My mother knows me very well I think and if there were three items in the fridge. Let’s say 1 bottle of beer, 1 bottle of water and 1 glass of milk. Which would she say I would take? My mother would with most certain say I would take the milk.

Free will would depict that one can change their mind. So even though I would choose the milk. Free will would allow me to change my mind or move out of my normal role and say take the beer.

So the first part can predict our future but since we can change our minds. Which changes our future which has not happened yet then free will could exist in that adaptation.

So this Illusion of Free Will states to me that even though my past can predict my future. It won’t always be able to tell what I would always do because the future has not happened.

Now if you move onto some of the religious documents on free will. Then you may, I think have a problem.  If we take the judeo-christian god who is suppose to be omniscient.  Then what we have here is that there is a god who knows every variable in our path.  Who knows what road we will take or better yet  knows all roads that are available and what is down each road.  To me this comes as a problem for then it is not technically free will.

Another concept of religion is that god has a master plan and guides us to that plan. This by definition defeats free will. If a path is already chosen by someone or something else. Then it is not free will. You may go along with this plan freely but to me that does not make it free will to have something decided for you that you simply go along with.

So we have the illusion because we can predict our actions from our past but can change our minds since the future has not happened.

What are your opinions my friends?

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