Fish in Space

This is a very tricky subject that delves deeper into philosophy than I'm really comfortable with. I enjoyed my introduction to philosophy class in college, and the professor clearly enjoyed debating with me, but I got turned off the topic when I started encountering people claiming Aquinas' Five Ways as proof that their god must exist since the concept is logically sound. The problem is that logically sound arguments don't always translate to physical evidence; just ask the Nineteenth Century scientists trying to verify cosmic ether . So let's begin at the beginning. What is "free will?" The definition provided by that link gives us a good place to begin: “Free Will” is a philosophical term of art for a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives. Summarized even further, it's our ability to make choices free from interference. "Determinism" then is the polar opposite of fr...

Today I ran across a discussion that rehashed the Problem of Evil , specifically some problems I had early on with how an all-powerful, all-knowing and benevolent god can create an entire universe knowing that the fate of its creation is to have 99% of it suffer in eternal torment that it inflicts on them. Some Christians try to reconcile this by saying that their god isn't truly omniscient, or doesn't exercise his omniscience all the time (ref: Mr. Deity ). Others claim that he willingly refrains from exercising his omnipotence in order to preserve free will and so forth. None that I've met are willing to concede that if he exists he saw the wholesale death and suffering of humanity and did nothing to correct it because he either doesn't care or wants that result. The problem, as far as I see it, lies in magical thinking. You have this god who is supposed to be looking out for you and your best interests. The world doesn't really seem engineered to give you the ...