From: farris@ruhets.rutgers.edu (Lorenzo Farris)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.newage
Subject: Re: Free will
Date: 16 Oct 92 17:26:05 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

In article <o4XPsB2w164w@uuisis.isis.org>, doug@uuisis.isis.org (Doug Thompson) writes:
: farris@ruhets.rutgers.edu (Lorenzo Farris) writes:
: : Free will in thought implies, IMHO, just what you suggested.  A
: : relatively simple freedom we have is that of attitude, and what we
[...]
: 
: The capacity to exercise will - or choice - does require training,
: awareness, patience, self-understanding, if one wishes to do it in
: 'complete freedom' with a reasonable amount of awareness of the
: implications of your various alternatives.
: 
[...]
: 
: I dunno about you, but if the serpent had hit on me instead of Eve,
: chances are good that I would have done just what she did.
: 
: =Doug

First the quibble: if not 'complete freedom', then what, almost-free
will? 
Otherwise, I agree with most of your post. Yes, everyone bears
ultimate responsibility for everything they do and think, and will one
day reap the rewards of it, in all the thought systems I know of other
than scientific materialism.  
We are all born with inherent predilections, and many more get heaped
on by cultural conditioning.  Their effect is so profound as to
completely cloud up one's perception of reality.  Even having an
intellectual understanding of this doesn't help much.
I look back in my own experience, where I had an awakening of sorts
over the past few years, and in light of what I know now, I feel very
fortunate, but bewildered at the change.  Recalling my previous
consciousness, I cannot imagine the person I was ever really being
aware. It was a mixture of good-fortune, and following my instinct,
that caused this to change.
I see the great bulk of people I meet in essentially the same state I
was in.  I can't bring myself to even begin to refer to what they do
as the exercize of free will.  I see instead unconscious, robotic
behavior with an illusion that choices are being made. I probably
still exhibit that myself for the most part, even now.
I think referring to all this as free will pretty much cheapens the
idea almost out of existence.
Yeah, Eve fucked up, she made a bad decision and paid for it, as we
all do, ultimately. What did Adam do, though? How much free will did
he get to exercize there?
Anyway, my point is that implicit in the idea of widespread free will
is exactly what Arnold accused Buddhists of. That if one has free
will, well they are just getting what they deserve, whether they go to
heaven or hell. I don't know about you, but from my particular
perspective, nobody could possibly have done anything bad enough to
spend an eternity in damnation.  Especially considering the points I
have made above. This has really been a digression on defining free
will, when my point was that perhaps this so-called divine justice is
not so just as some make it out to be.
			-Lorenzo
-- 
"The Hell Law says that Hell is reserved      ***************************
exclusively for them that believe in it.      *	Lorenzo Farris           
Further, the lowest Rung in Hell is 	      *	farris@ruhets.rutgers.edu
reserved for them that believe in it on the   ***************************
supposition that they'll go there if they
don't" -Honest Book of Truth; the Gospel According to Fred, 3:1