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Psychiatrist muses on free will vs. dishonest fatalism

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Theodore Dalrymple here:

Listening as I do every day to the accounts people give of their lives, I am struck by the very small part in them which they ascribe to their own efforts, choices, and actions. Implicitly, they disagree with Bacon’s famous dictum that “chiefly the mould of a man’s fortune is in his own hands.” Instead, they experience themselves as putty in the hands of fate.

It is instructive to listen to the language they use to describe their lives. The language of prisoners in particular teaches much about the dishonest fatalism with which people seek to explain themselves to others, especially when those others are in a position to help them in some way. As a doctor who sees patients in a prison once or twice a week, I am fascinated by prisoners’ use of the passive mood and other modes of speech that are supposed to indicate their helplessness. They describe themselves as the marionettes of happenstance. More.

Question: How much of this is what people have been led to believe by implicit teaching of metaphysical naturalism in schools and popular culture of all kinds?

See also: There’s a gene for that… or is there?

How can we believe in naturalism if we have no choice?

and

“I will ” means something after all

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Study explores whether atheism is rooted in reason or emotion - Jan. 2015 Excerpt: "A new set of studies in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology finds that atheists and agnostics report anger toward God either in the past or anger focused on a hypothetical image of what they imagine God must be like. Julie Exline, a psychologist at Case Western Reserve University and the lead author of this recent study, has examined other data on this subject with identical results. Exline explains that her interest was first piqued when an early study of anger toward God revealed a counterintuitive finding: Those who reported no belief in God reported more grudges toward him than believers." https://uncommondescent.com/just-for-fun/fun-study-explores-whether-atheism-is-rooted-in-reason-or-emotion/
Verse and Music:
Psalm 16:11 You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. Mary Mary - Shackles - Music Videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7eZD3TKn_M Michael W. Smith - You Won't Let Go - LIVE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNZusL1OHG4
bornagain77
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AMERICA: To Pray Or Not To Pray - David Barton - graphs corrected for population growth http://www.whatyouknowmightnotbeso.com/graphs.html
If anyone doubts those sobering numbers cited by David Barton, here is the raw data on crime statistics for America from 1960 to 2013:
United States Crime Rates 1960 - 2010 (Please note the skyrocketing crime rate from 1963, the year prayer was removed from school, thru 1980, the year the steep climb in crime rate finally leveled off.) of note: The slight decline in the violent crime rate from the mid 90s until now is attributed in large part to tougher enforcement on minor crimes. http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
Believing in God has consistently been shown to be advantageuous both emotionally and for living longer:
Andrew Sims, past president of Royal College of Psychiatrists, has said: “The advantageous effect of religious belief and spirituality on mental and physical health is one of the best kept secrets in psychiatry and medicine generally. If the findings of the huge volume of research on this topic had gone in the opposite direction and it had been found that religion damages your mental health, it would have been front-page news in every newspaper in the land (from Is Faith Delusion).” more In the majority of studies, religious involvement is correlated with well-being, happiness and life satisfaction; hope and optimism; purpose and meaning in life; higher self-esteem; better adaptation to bereavement; greater social support and less loneliness; lower rates of depression and faster recovery from depression; lower rates of suicide and fewer positive attitudes towards suicide; less anxiety; less psychosis and fewer psychotic tendencies; lower rates of alcohol and drug use and abuse; less delinquency and criminal activity; greater marital stability and satisfaction… We concluded that for the vast majority of people the apparent benefits of devout belief and practice probably outweigh the risks. http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2015/03/video-lecture-by-john-lennox-explains.html Atheism and health A meta-analysis of all studies, both published and unpublished, relating to religious involvement and longevity was carried out in 2000. Forty-two studies were included, involving some 126,000 subjects. Active religious involvement increased the chance of living longer by some 29%, and participation in public religious practices, such as church attendance, increased the chance of living longer by 43%.[4][5] http://www.conservapedia.com/Atheism_and_health
Moreover, free will, the soul, and God are really real.
The Case for the Soul - InspiringPhilosophy - (4:03 minute mark, Brain Plasticity including Schwartz's work) - Oct. 2014 - video The Mind is able to modify the brain (brain plasticity). Moreover, Idealism explains all anomalous evidence of personality changes due to brain injury, whereas physicalism cannot explain mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBsI_ay8K70
Due to advances in Quantum Mechanics, the argument for God from consciousness can now be framed like this:
1. Consciousness either preceded all of material reality or is a ‘epi-phenomena’ of material reality. 2. If consciousness is a ‘epi-phenomena’ of material reality then consciousness will be found to have no special position within material reality. Whereas conversely, if consciousness precedes material reality then consciousness will be found to have a special position within material reality. 3. Consciousness is found to have a special, even central, position within material reality. 4. Therefore, consciousness is found to precede material reality. Four intersecting lines of experimental evidence from quantum mechanics that shows that consciousness precedes material reality (Wigner’s Quantum Symmetries, Wheeler’s Delayed Choice, Leggett’s Inequalities, Quantum Zeno effect) https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uLcJUgLm1vwFyjwcbwuYP0bK6k8mXy-of990HudzduI/edit
Thus, it is not as if atheists have to trick themselves into believing something that is not true when they believe in God, free will, and the soul. Atheists merely have to stop denying what they already intuitively know to be true:
Design Thinking Is Hardwired in the Human Brain. How Come? - October 17, 2012 Excerpt: "Even Professional Scientists Are Compelled to See Purpose in Nature, Psychologists Find." The article describes a test by Boston University's psychology department, in which researchers found that "despite years of scientific training, even professional chemists, geologists, and physicists from major universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Yale cannot escape a deep-seated belief that natural phenomena exist for a purpose" ,,, Most interesting, though, are the questions begged by this research. One is whether it is even possible to purge teleology from explanation. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/10/design_thinking065381.html Richard Dawkins take heed: Even atheists instinctively believe in a creator says study - Mary Papenfuss - June 12, 2015 Excerpt: Three studies at Boston University found that even among atheists, the "knee jerk" reaction to natural phenomenon is the belief that they're purposefully designed by some intelligence, according to a report on the research in Cognition entitled the "Divided Mind of a disbeliever." The findings "suggest that there is a deeply rooted natural tendency to view nature as designed," writes a research team led by Elisa Järnefelt of Newman University. They also provide evidence that, in the researchers' words, "religious non-belief is cognitively effortful." Researchers attempted to plug into the automatic or "default" human brain by showing subjects images of natural landscapes and things made by human beings, then requiring lightning-fast responses to the question on whether "any being purposefully made the thing in the picture," notes Pacific-Standard. "Religious participants' baseline tendency to endorse nature as purposefully created was higher" than that of atheists, the study found. But non-religious participants "increasingly defaulted to understanding natural phenomena as purposefully made" when "they did not have time to censor their thinking," wrote the researchers. The results suggest that "the tendency to construe both living and non-living nature as intentionally made derives from automatic cognitive processes, not just practised explicit beliefs," the report concluded. The results were similar even among subjects from Finland, where atheism is not a controversial issue as it can be in the US. "Design-based intuitions run deep," the researchers conclude, "persisting even in those with no explicit religious commitment and, indeed, even among those with an active aversion to them." http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/richard-dawkins-take-heed-even-atheists-instinctively-believe-creator-says-study-1505712 When Atheists Are Angry at God - 2011 Excerpt: I’ve never been angry at unicorns. It’s unlikely you’ve ever been angry at unicorns either.,, The one social group that takes exception to this rule is atheists. They claim to believe that God does not exist and yet, according to empirical studies, tend to be the people most angry at him. http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2011/01/when-atheists-are-angry-at-god
bornagain77
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Disbelief in free will increases antisocial behavior:
The value of believing in free will: encouraging a belief in determinism increases cheating. - 2008 Vohs KD, Schooler JW. Abstract Does moral behavior draw on a belief in free will? Two experiments examined whether inducing participants to believe that human behavior is predetermined would encourage cheating. In Experiment 1, participants read either text that encouraged a belief in determinism (i.e., that portrayed behavior as the consequence of environmental and genetic factors) or neutral text. Exposure to the deterministic message increased cheating on a task in which participants could passively allow a flawed computer program to reveal answers to mathematical problems that they had been instructed to solve themselves. Moreover, increased cheating behavior was mediated by decreased belief in free will. In Experiment 2, participants who read deterministic statements cheated by overpaying themselves for performance on a cognitive task; participants who read statements endorsing free will did not. These findings suggest that the debate over free will has societal, as well as scientific and theoretical, implications. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18181791 (Materialistic) Scientists say free will probably doesn’t exist, but urge: “Don’t stop believing!” -2010 Excerpt: Studies found people who were told there is no such thing as free will were more likely to cheat under experimental conditions. "One of the most striking findings to emerge recently in the science of free will is that when people believe—or are led to believe—that free will is just an illusion, they tend to become more antisocial." For example, in an experiment involving money, some participants were randomly assigned to what was called a determinism condition: They were asked to read statements such as, “A belief in free will contradicts the known fact that the universe is governed by lawful principles of science.” Those participants stole more money than those who had been randomly assigned to read statements from what was called a free-will condition--who had read statements such as, “Avoiding temptation requires that I exert my free will." http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/bering-in-mind/2010/04/06/scientists-say-free-will-probably-doesnt-exist-but-urge-dont-stop-believing/ Disbelief in Free Will Increases Aggression and Reduces Helpfulness Abstract Laypersons' belief in free will may foster a sense of thoughtful reflection and willingness to exert energy, thereby promoting helpfulness and reducing aggression, and so disbelief in free will may make behavior more reliant on selfish, automatic impulses and therefore less socially desirable. Three studies tested the hypothesis that disbelief in free will would be linked with decreased helping and increased aggression. In Experiment 1, induced disbelief in free will reduced willingness to help others. Experiment 2 showed that chronic disbelief in free will was associated with reduced helping behavior. In Experiment 3, participants induced disbelief in free will caused participants to act more aggressively than others. Although the findings do not speak to the existence of free will, the current results suggest that disbelief in free will reduces helping and increases aggression. http://psp.sagepub.com/content/35/2/260
As well, disbelief in the soul increases psychopathic behavior:
Why Don't Psychopaths Believe in Dualism? The Role of Opposing Brain Networks Anthony Jack (Case Western Reserve University, Cognitive Science, Cleveland, OH In a theoretical paper linking the attribution of phenomenal consciousness to moral cognition, Robbins and Jack (Philosophical Studies, 2006) predicted that psychopaths would not perceive the problem of consciousness. New experimental evidence is presented which supports this claim: in a group of undergraduates it was found that support for a naturalistic view of the mind is positively correlated with the primary psychopathic trait of callousness. http://www.sonoran-sunsets.com/goinggreen.html The Inner State of the Non Local Mind - Johanan Raatz - video (Why Atheistic materialism necessarily leads to increased immorality) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtsNVds4XWI
As well, students who believe in God are found to be more 'moral' than atheists or agnostics:
Religious students more 'moral' than atheists or agnostics – study - March 2015 Excerpt: The study of 10,200 students and 250 teachers from 68 UK schools took place between February 2013 and June 2014 and is the largest of its kind. Researchers used surveys, moral dilemma tests and interviews. The religious students scored higher on the moral dilemma tests and within the religious group, those who practised their religion scored more highly than those who did not. Girls also scored higher than boys when faced with moral dilemmas.,,, The report takes as its starting point the growing consensus in Britain that virtues such as honesty, self-control, fairness, gratitude and respect, which contribute to good moral character, are part of the solution to many of the challenges facing society today. http://www.christiantoday.com/article/religious.students.more.moral.than.atheists.or.agnostics.study/49315.htm
Moreover, when prayer was removed from public school classrooms in 1963 it had a broad devastating effect on the morality of America as a whole:
What Happened When the Praying Stopped? April 6, 2008 Excerpt: How did the removal of voluntary prayer from the schools of the United States (in 1963) affect our nation as a whole?,,, Figure 1 shows how drastically the actual knowledge of high school students began to drop at an accelerating rate after 1962. Barton notes in his report that the upturn in SAT scores since 1981 is due to the increase in private Christian educational facilities which began to flourish at that time. Statistics have proven that students from private Christian schools showed higher academic achievement and higher test scores. Figure 2: This graph shows the increase in sexual activity in unmarried teen-age girls after the 1962 Supreme Court decision. It is evident from the figures provided that in the years previous to the removal of prayer the rates remained stable and relatively unchanged. In the post- prayer years the numbers immediately began to soar. The sudden increase on the graph appears as if a great restraining force had suddenly been removed. Figure 3: Unwed women 15-19 years of age showed a phenomenal increase in the rate of pregnancies after the School Prayer decision. Note that the figure jumps drastically after the Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade decision which made abortion legal in the U.S. The United States now has the highest incidence of teen-age motherhood in any Western country. Figure 4: For the 15-19 and 20-24 age group, the rates of youth suicide remained relatively unchanged during the years from 1946 to the School Prayer decision in 1962. But in the years since, suicides among the same group have increased 253 percent, or an average of 10.5 percent per year. Figure 5: Stability in the family has also been affected since the 1962 decision. Divorce, single parent families, couples living together but not married, and adultery are areas of family breakdown which have experienced radical growth in recent years. In the graph above, the increase in single parent families (households with only a mother and children) are detailed. Note the dotted line at the bottom, which shows the rate of growth prior to the 1962 decision. Figure 6: Crime, productivity, and national morality had been on a fairly stable level prior to the 1962 decision, but that is no longer the case. It is obvious that such a quantity of students praying for their nation had a very positive effect on the course that this nation had taken. The rate of violent crime, as shown above, has risen over 330 percent. http://www.forerunner.com/forerunner/X0124_When_America_stopped.html What Happened When the Voluntary Prayer Was Removed From Schools In 1962? David Barton - starting at 5:37 minute mark of this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=LiudwVNTUWA#t=338 and continuing through the first few minutes of this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zo5L4f57H4
bornagain77
June 14, 2015
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I believe it was Clarence Darrow, famous defender of Darwinism in the Scopes trial, who said that criminals couldn't help themselves, that they were a product of society. The whole "blaming the victim" narrative is based upon a naturalistic worldview, of course. It isn't surprising that criminals employ it, even to themselves, to avoid responsibility.anthropic
June 14, 2015
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News:
Question: How much of this is what people have been led to believe by implicit teaching of metaphysical naturalism in schools and popular culture of all kinds?
Answer: 60 years of research into the personality variables of "locus of control" and "self-efficacy" of which Dalrymple appears to be ignorant: locus of control self-efficacyReciprocating Bill
June 14, 2015
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As a doctor who sees patients in a prison once or twice a week, I am fascinated by prisoners’ use of the passive mood and other modes of speech that are supposed to indicate their helplessness. They describe themselves as the marionettes of happenstance. More.
I'm shocked - shocked - to find prisoners banged up for a five-stretch have a sense of being helpless "marionettes of happenstance". Or that they deny any responsibility for their own actions.
Question: How much of this is what people have been led to believe by implicit teaching of metaphysical naturalism in schools and popular culture of all kinds?
I'm sure most of our prison population were steeped in the rich tradition of metaphysical naturalism at school and debate its finer points during those long hours locked away in their cells.Seversky
June 14, 2015
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