Do atheists believe in free will?

So, I'm having a tough time keeping up with the volume of stupid thinking in the world today, which is why I haven't posted here in quite a while.  By the time I have time to write about any foolishness in the world, a whole new batch of idiocy is making headlines.  Still, part of the rampant "stupid problem" is that so many people are in a rush to move on to the next big thing, allowing just enough time to demonstrate their ignorance first, apparently in an effort to move on before their ignorance becomes plain even to themselves.  So, with that said, here are a few observations from the last few months.

Obama apparently thinks that apologizing amounts to accepting full responsibility for killing innocent people.  Not surprisingly, though, that thinking only applies to him.  Most of us regular folk could expect to be put to death.

On the day that Ted Cruz announced his candidacy for President, there was a spike in searches for Tom Cruise on Google.  Do I need to say more?

After the U.S. government announced a deal with Iran, Iran made the statement that there was no deal, only a framework for a deal.  And apparently, while making a speech, the Ayatollah responded to chants of "Death to Americans" with something like "Yes, yes, of course, death to Americans."  Well, perhaps I'm just taking this all out of context, or maybe, something got lost in the translation.

I seem to be seeing a growing number of people that think that a declining birth rate is something to be worried about, and yet, I don't really see any good reasons why that's a bad thing.  So, I'm asking you.  What is bad about a declining birth rate?  Honestly, I can't think of one major problem that reducing the population of the world wouldn't at least help fix.

And while I'm asking questions, here's one for the atheists out there.  I know you're out there.  And don't get me wrong, I'm not attacking your disbelief, I'm just trying to understand it.  I probably wouldn't even care except that I recently read "The God Delusion," by Richard Dawkins , in which he apparently labeled me as an atheist.  Of course, not me specifically by name, but by the way in which I think about God.  At any rate, the question is pretty straight forward: Do atheists believe we have free will?

I truly don't see how they can, other than the way that most people end up believing they have free will, which is by the appearance that we exercise free will all the time.  Some would say that as I write this, I'm clearly exercising free will, but of course, it isn't really clear that I could have done anything other than write this, since this is what I'm doing, and I can't go back and see if I could have done anything else.

So, the dilemma arises from the idea that we are nothing more than a mass of chemicals all reacting with each other.  In order for me to exercise free will, I would need to be able to control the outcome of those chemical reactions, but as yet, I've never found that I actually have that kind of control of chemical reactions.  They happen, or they don't, and my will has nothing to do with the outcome.

Of course, the previous paragraph is referring to chemical reactions outside myself, which might be a totally different thing.  But, when I think about chemical reactions inside myself, it gets worse.  Because, if I'm just a mass of chemical activity, then, what exactly is my will?  Where does it come from?  Is it really possible that a chemical reaction has a will of its own?  This doesn't seem to be the case since I can create a situation in which certain chemicals always react in a particular way, whether or not those chemicals want that reaction to happen.

In short, I'm just having a problem understanding how a chain of chemical reactions can be controlled by my will, and further, how a chain of chemical reactions can, in fact, have a will.  I'm sure there is an simple answer to the question, and I just haven't happened on it yet.  So, if you don't want to comment here, drop me an email at quasisane@comcast.net.  I know, I really shouldn't put that here, but I already get so much spam that I don't think it matters much.

Speaking of spam,  a while back I started to sign up for Obamacare, because, you know, it's all awesome and stuff, and besides, it's yet another thing the government says I have to do.  Anyway, for a while there, that action was the source of the majority of spam I as getting.  It was nonstop.  The truly funny thing about it was that I had forgotten my password, and tried several times to use the "I forgot my password" option on the website.  Each time, I was informed that I would receive an email, but I never got one.  I did, however, get other emails from healthcare.gov including one to remind me to file my income taxes.  I still don't know what my password is, but luckily, I got insurance elsewhere.  And before Obama gets overly excited, it actually had nothing to do with Obamacare, so no, Barrack, you cannot take credit for saving me.

Okay!  That's about all I have time for.  I'd love to hear from you, so feel free to comment (I think I have an antispam thing activated so you'll have to do the annoying "type the characters in the picture" thing), follow @quasisane on Twitter, find me on Facebook, or email me at the previously mentioned address.  It's all good.

Word games

10 Phrases Progressives Need To Ditch (And What We Can Say Instead)

Let's start with the first term "progressives" need to ditch: "progressives."  You're liberals.  You're not different just because you call yourself something different.  Progressive implies that you're forward-looking.  You're not.  You just think you are, perhaps because you have fooled yourselves by calling yourselves "progressives."

Now that I got that out of the way, let's look at what these "progressives" think they need to reword.

(1). Big Business: That's what it is.  But the "progressive" author of the article thinks we should call it "unelected government."  Um, no.  If big business is in fact some sort of government, it is definitely not unelected.  Every dollar that gets spent at Walmart, for example, is a vote for Walmart and its corporate interests.  If you have ever spent a dollar at Walmart, you have, in effect, elected them.  If you don't like what Walmart stands for, then shop elsewhere.  And what about government?  If  corporations are really that powerful, then why does the U.S. have such a high corporate tax rate?  It seems to me that if corporations had so much political pull that we could actually consider them government, the first thing that would be eliminated is corporate taxes.  Only, let's not call them what they aren't.  Is Walmart big?  Yes.  Is Walmart a business?  Yes.  Therefore, Walmart is "big business."  On the other hand, is Walmart unelected?  No.  Is Walmart government?  No.  Therefore, Walmart is not "unelected government."

Now, get over the idea that "we are powerless to hold [corporations] accountable."  Take action and stop spending money there.  In other words, be progressive.


(2). Entitlements: Here, the author is just concerned about the connotation of the word "entitlement."  The meaning is simple, though.  Entitlements are payments that an individual is entitled to by law.  How it sounds to "progressives" doesn't much matter.  It is what it is.

(3). Free Market Capitalism: Not many people believe that our economy can be characterized as "free market capitalism."  It clearly isn't.  The author makes the claim that "free market capitalism is a 20th-century utopian ideal that has amply been proven an unworkable failure, and damaging to society."  Number one, I don't think it has ever been proven "an unworkable failure," although I have my doubts that people can live up to the standard of ethics required to make it workable.  The failures might actually have more to do with government intervention in the economy, rather than an outright failure of "free market capitalism."  Suffice it to say that if one is referring to any economy in the world today, then, yes, we shouldn't call it "free market capitalism."  It doesn't exist.  There is no need to come up with a different name for it.

(4). Government Spending: Sigh.  Is the government spending?  Yes.  Only "progressives" want to call it "investing in America."  "They invest in education and infrastructure that wouldn’t prove profitable for businesses, but which still benefit society in the long-run."  Progressives like to say this kind of thing as if it's a self-evident, known fact.  The fact is that government "investment" in education has not resulted in any long-run benefit to society.  Now, it's more like a runaway freight train, devaluing the education that people used to work for; now diplomas are handed out for showing up, and there doesn't appear to be any way to stop it.  Well, not without some pain.  So... everybody gets one.  Everybody wins a prize.  We're all entitled.  And this is where the term entitled actually deserves a negative connotation.  The author may have a point mentioning infrastructure, but maybe that's only an illusion.  We don't pay for roads and bridges and other types of infrastructure directly, so we don't know the actual cost.  If we did, we might decide we don't need as much as we think we do now.  Something not mentioned by the author is police and fire departments.  Those, I think, are better left in the hands of government.  But I wouldn't call those expenses investments either.  So, yeah, "government spending" should just be called government spending.  Let's not call it something different in order to make it more palatable.

(5). Gun Control: Again, the author doesn't like the sound of this term.  "That sounds like you want to control people..."  Um, that is exactly what is meant by gun control.  "It sounds so nice, non-coercive, and reasonable."  Yeah, and one thing's for sure.  We don't want it to sound anything like what it is.  It isn't a matter of wanting safety; it's a matter of controlling.  In case the author hasn't noticed, our government is big on control.  Much of what our government does is, in fact, an attempt to control individuals.  Of course, I think that the excessive control that the government tries to put on us contributes to much of the irrational behavior people exhibit.  Gun control is, again, a matter of control.  The government does want to control who has guns; they want to control how many and what kind of guns.  To call it "gun safety" makes it sound like a class you take to learn how to handle a gun.  It's more than that.

(6). Illegal Aliens: Are they in the country illegally?  Yes.  Are they aliens?  Yes.  But, let's not call them that because, again, we don't like the sound of it.  Here, the author wants us to believe that illegal aliens are only here because big business wants them here.  Well, I guess if you're willing to give big business that much power, maybe they are unelected government.  So, let's call them "undocumented citizens."  They are undocumented, and "undocumented" sounds way smarter than "illegal."  Because it's a longer, bigger word.  You just can't argue with someone when they have a really big vocabulary.  But are they citizens?  Nope.  Apparently, progressives want to try to slip that word in right after the big, fancy word "undocumented."  Maybe nobody will notice.

(7). Pro-life: Here, I'll have to agree with the "progressive" author.  Once a child is born, conservatives generally don't care much about the child's life.  But being against unrestrained abortion doesn't have to be called "anti-choice" either.  Who ever decided that making a bad choice (having unprotected sex) should then entitle a person to make another, in my opinion, bad choice?  And if "progressives" want to make an argument that even with protected sex sometimes women get pregnant... um, that's why they invented abstinence.  Having sex is not a right.  It is a responsibility, and one that shouldn't be taken so lightly as these "progressives" seem to take it.  There's an old saying: "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time."  Grow up and accept responsibility for your actions instead of thinking that it's okay to just throw a fetus in the garbage because you have the right to decide that.

(8). Right-to-work: I don't like unions.  I've never joined a union.  Unions have too much power.  Enough so that they can actually force an employer out of business.  Perhaps I have benefited from unions.  There was a time when unions served a purpose.  And they may again.  It's unfortunate that people need to have this sort of protection just to work and be paid a reasonable wage.  It's unfortunate that unions will push for more than a reasonable wage in order to be able to collect more in dues.  It's unfortunate that people are generally greedy.  "...union shops pay better wages to their employees..."  Maybe.  But at what cost?  How many jobs end up lost because some businesses can't pay union wages?  The term "right-to-work" may not be exactly right, but there's no need to try to spread the lie that unions are only good.  They're greedy just like the rest of us.

(9). The Environment: Huh?  What's not to like about "the environment?"  The author would prefer we referred to the environment as "shared resources."  I, for one, personally loathe the overuse of the word "share."  The term "shared resources" makes the environment sound like an ice cream cone that you share with a friend.  No, it's more important than that.  It isn't something that we just let each other use until it's all gone.

(10). Welfare: 'When conservatives talk about “welfare,” they make it sound like this pit people wallow in forever, rather than a source of help that’s available when we need it – and that we pay for through our taxes.'  In some cases, it IS a pit people wallow in forever.  Yes, we pay for it through our taxes.  Some people don't, though.  Some people just collect.  Still, there is something to be said for the author's alternative term "social safety net."  If people actually acted as if it were just that simply because of the name change, then I'm all for it.  Unfortunately, it often doesn't work that way.  And there might even be an advantage to the negative connotation of the term "welfare."  Maybe people are less inclined to depend on "welfare" than on a "social safety net."  Then again, maybe it wouldn't make a difference.

Instead of playing word games, "progressives" should try to live up to their self-styled label.  If not, why not just call yourself a liberal?  That way, we all know what you mean.