How closely does the existence of free will and a conscienceness tie into being a religious individual? I know that religious peoples are far more likely to believe that concepts such as free will and consciencesses exist due to how much these two ideas aid in religion and humans being created by some god to ‘rule over the Earth’ or whatnot. But does the discussion of abstract concepts like those have a place outside of religions, in much more secular discussions?
I’d say they’re actually more suited to secular discussions, since “god” provides no value and explains nothing.
We get to choose for ourselves without external entities like a god or Satan telling us what to do. That said, with enough data, one could reliably predict many of people’s choices based on their history, experiences, habits and psychology, some of which are the result of other things acting on us, such as other people’s choices or natural forces or just randomness. Free will is essentially a discussion of psychology, human behavior and philosophy.
Consciousness isn’t actually that abstract - it’s an activity of the brain, just like a football game is an activity of players and a ball on a field. The “football game” itself doesn’t exist as a thing in its own right. Consciousness is a thing the brain does. Change the brain and consciousness is affected. From alcohol to a lobotomy. Separate the two hemispheres of the brain and you have two independently functioning personalities with different perceptions. Consciousness is basically a discussion of neuroscience.
These aren’t religious concepts in the slightest. They’re things humans have been thinking about since we became self-aware. Religions and gods were just primitive attempts at an answer that have stuck around longer than they needed to. They provide no more explanation for consciousness or free will today than they did for where lightning comes from. Adding gods and dodgy mythology pushes the answers further away; pretending to solve one mystery by invoking an even greater mystery. Religious authority lives entirely within the god of the gaps argument from ignorance.
For example, how exactly does the mechanism of a “soul” function, if this is being invoked to explain consciousness? It doesn’t explain anything, since nobody can describe in detail how it works, or that it’s even there. Even for natural phenomena we don’t properly understand, we can describe the effects of the phenomenon. For example, when we didn’t understand radioactivity, we could still detect and describe how it affected things exposed to it.
The superstitious origin of the soul myth even creates more problems. e.g. if a soul is inherently good or bad, then burning the bad ones for eternity is just torturing bad souls for being exactly how they were “made.” If the soul is a passenger to the biology of the physical human, then it’s being tortured or rewarded for what it had no control over. It’s incoherent nonsense.
Free will is contradicted by the religious claiming their god has a “plan”, not to mention its adherents praying to it. The idea that some entity has pre-created a destiny for you, or that anyone can ask that entity to change things to suit thir preferences (praying) is dehumanizing. And the fact these are mutually exclusive means they have no more idea about free will than they do about souls.
We have consciousness and self-awareness because it’s evolutionarily advantageous to us. It has allowed us to affect and control our surroundings more significantly than any other species. Not always to the better of the planet or other species - or even ourselves all the time - but evolution isn’t directed by morality, just by reproductive and survival success.
Whatever claim religion has over these concepts is a misappropriated one. It asserted false knowledge where it had none, and we’ve figured this scam out.
It’s time to put religions and gods over at the kiddie table with their nuggets and juice box and coloring books, while the intellectually curious and honest, the scientific, those with the courage to keep out magic and superstition, sit at the grown up table and have the adult discussions.
