I don't mean to offend you peacegirl but the bits that I've read from your posts don't make a lot of sense, even if you mean well.. It sort of reminds me of some of the beliefs of the Baha'i Faith. They believed that by the year 2000, we would enter the so called lesser peace. That didn't happen, did it? The next belief is that we would experience years of turmoil and then eventually, the entire world would become Baha'is and we would enter "The Most Great Peace", a time when wars would end, racial and gender equality would exist and life would be happy for all. These are just lovely fairy tales and in my not well educated opinion regarding philosophy, the idea that accepting we have no free will is somehow going to lead the world to some happy peaceful state makes about as much sense as the religion of my ex husband that I just mentioned. Sadly, he was obsessed with his religion. I guess it was determined to be that we divorced and I found a better partner who is an atheist.
I sometimes vacillate between hard and soft determinism personally, but to be brutally honest, It's not important to me, which one is correct. I simply think that our behavior is all the result of our genetic and environmental influences and new influences can sometimes change us.
But, the only good thing about believing that we have little or no free will, imo, is that is makes it easier not to be judgmental. One of the first things I was taught when I started studying to be an RN, was not to judge my patients, but to treat them all with the same compassion and quality of care. I did my best to do that for 42 years. It helped me to be more compassionate by not judging my patients, even though some could be mean and/or difficult to deal with. I'll spare you examples.
And, here's the thing, we evolved from the great apes, and they are often violent warriors with the exception of the matriarchal bonobos. But, even bonobos will be violent in some circumstances. They just usually use sex as a way to avoid conflict. Considering that we have little or no free will and that we evolved to be violent animals in some given circumstances, how on earth is accepting that we have no free will going to lead us to a better world? I didn't read all of your walls of texts as this is a place to discuss things, not a place to read a book that someone likes. Perhaps I missed your point, but that is the impression I got from what I have read. We can't change who we are as a species. Each one of us, who has good moral values can perhaps do some volunteer work, try to treat others well, avoid conflict, and sometimes even be a positive influence on others. But there have always been wars, violence, hatred etc. and sadly, as long as our species exists, there will be to some extent. Considering how we have a tendency to destroy our own habitat, now at a very fast rate, I do wonder how long our species might even exist, if we continue doing damage to our habitat at the current rate. ( No, I don't want to discuss that here )
The part about god in a recent post, sounds like gibberish to me. I assume you copied that from the author of your book. No?
Btw, I do agree that our justice system is a mess. I don't support the death penalty and I think prisons should be humane places that offer the opportunity for rehab, although a psychopath isn't going to be capable of changing, unless we discover some treatment for that brain disorder of the frontal cortex. You will never get enough humans to agree on that. The concept of free will is ingrained in most humans and very few are interested in having a discussion about it.
I'm not judging you, but I think you could accomplish more by volunteering in a school, or some other way where you could be a positive influence on a number of people who need help, instead of trying to convince people here that your favorite book will solve the world's problems. Your'e wasting your time. I'm retired and I have lots of time to waste.
