In our present world of free will, it is not difficult to imagine what would happen if suddenly all laws, government, and forms of punishment were withdrawn. Every potential thief and even those who never thought about stealing would have a field day, and nobody would be safe. Sectarian violence would increase, causing extreme chaos and destruction. We can only begin to imagine what an aggressive country would do if there were no other powers to control the desire to spread whatever that country desired to spread. But the moment mankind understands what it means that will is not free, which prevents the very things for which government came into existence, it proves, beyond a shadow of doubt, the reality of God — this amazing mathematical power. Everything was timed so perfectly that you must catch your breath in absolute amazement when you contemplate the magnificence of this mathematical equation, which includes not only the solar system and the exquisite relationship that exists between the planets, but man himself and all the evil and ignorance that ever existed.
In our present world of free will...
OK, I agree for the sake of argument, will is presently free. What can we conclude, starting with this premise?
No bilby, will cannot be free, and there is no pretending that it is. But because no one understood why will is not free and what it could do to help us by extending the corollary, we are stuck using the only thing we can to prevent what we don't want: blame and punishment.
In the beginning of creation, when man was in the early stages of development, he could have destroyed himself were there no forces to control his nature.
Every single part of this is incorrect. The beginning of creation was billions of years before any man developed at all. And the idea that authoritarian control was necessary for the survival of early humans is a bald assertion that is almost certainly untrue.
Religion came to the rescue by helping explain the reason for such evil in the world.
Religion explains nothing, and isn't a monobloc anyway - there are myriad religions, all wrong, all valuable only as ways to manipulate other people into acting against their own interests.
It gave those who had faith a sense of comfort, hope, and the fortitude to go on living.
There is no evidence whatsoever for this claim.
Despite everything, it was a bright light in the story of civilization.
There is no evidence whatsoever for this claim, either.
However, to reach this stage of development so God could reveal Himself to all mankind by performing this deliverance from evil,
This not only hasn't occurred, and not only cannot occur, but also contradicts your claim that he only uses God as a metaphor.
it was absolutely necessary to get man to believe his will was free,
There is no evidence whatsoever for this claim.
and he believed in this theory, whether consciously or unconsciously.
There is no evidence whatsoever for this claim.
It became a dogma, a dogmatic doctrine of all religion, was the cornerstone of all civilization, and the only reason man was able to develop.
There is no evidence whatsoever for this claim.
The belief in free will was compelled to come about as a corollary of evil,
There is no evidence whatsoever for this claim.
for not only was it impossible to hold God responsible for man’s deliberate crimes, but primarily because it was impossible for man to solve his problems without blame and punishment, which required the justification of this belief in order to absolve his conscience. Therefore, it was assumed that man did not have to do what he did because he was endowed with a special faculty that allowed him to choose between good and evil.
In other words, if you were called upon to pass judgment on someone by sentencing him to death, could you do it if you knew his will was not free?
This is the logical fallacy of begging the question. He has not established that man's will is not free.
It also entails a contradiction. If man's will is not free, then the question "could you do it?" ceases to be meaningful.
To punish him in any way, you would have to believe that he was free to choose another alternative than the one for which he was being judged;
To pass judgement in any way, you would have to have free will yourself. If you don't, you are not
judging anything, you are just going through the motions.
that he was not compelled by laws over which he had no control. Man was given no choice but to think this way, and that is why our civilization developed the principle of ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ and why my discovery was never found.
These unsupported assertions are becoming tiresome. He clearly lacks the imagination to grasp that his readers might not already agree with him.
No one could ever get beyond this point because if man’s will is not free, it becomes absolutely impossible to hold him responsible for anything he does.
No, it doesn't. It might become unfair, or unjust, or unreasonable - but it's certainly still possible. Unfairness, injustice, and unreasonableness are commonplace and banal; We see them literally everywhere.
Well, is it any wonder the solution was never found if it lies beyond this point? How is it possible not to blame people for committing murder, rape, for stealing and the wholesale slaughter of millions?
Quite easily. Billions of people do exactly that every single day. Usually religion, tribalism, patriotism, or sycophancy are directly involved.
Does this mean that we are supposed to condone these evils, and wouldn’t man become even less responsible if there were no laws of punishment to control his nature?
It's hard to see how man could become any less responsible. We are ignoble selfish apes, most of whom lack the intelligence and imagination to avoid stuffing up our own environment, in pursuit of short term benefits.
Doesn’t our history show that if something is desired badly enough, he will go to any lengths to satisfy himself, even pounce down on other nations with talons or tons of steel?
Yup.
What is it that prevents the poor from walking into stores and taking what they need if not the fear of punishment?
Locks. Security guards. Conditioning. Probably a bunch of others. If he's going to ask rhetorical questions effectively, he's going to need to be less naïve (or to only adress audiences that are even more unimaginative than he clearly is).
The belief that will is not free strikes at the very heart of our present civilization.
There is no evidence whatsoever for this claim.
Right at this point lies the crux of a problem so difficult of solution that it has kept free will in power since time immemorial.
Yet some guy who can't imagine a locked door is going to solve it for us?
Although it has had a very long reign in the history of civilization, it is now time to put it to rest, once and for all, by first demonstrating that this theory can never be proven true.
No theory can ever be proven true. All he is doing here is showing that he does't know what a theory is, nor proof, nor truth.
CONTRADICTION DETECTED - LOGIC FAIL - WRITER CANNOT BE CORRECT
Oh well. That wraps up the thread then.
No contradiction at all.
Sure there is. He declares both that will is not free, and that we currently live in an age of free will.
Even if we take the charitable approach of assuming that when he says "
In our present world of free will...", he doesn't actually mean what he plainly says, and is instead employing clumsy rhetoric to say something like "The world is presently almost universally mistaken in our belief that will is free", then it follows that this situation cannot be changed,
unless he is wrong and we have the freedom to will it to change.
Not that such charity is deserved; If any of this were actually useful and important, he is derelict in his duty to mankind if he isn't clear and accurate in communicating it.
