Is having free will really worth all the atrocities the human race has committed?

Question

Sure, life is beautiful, but we would know that if we had no choices--or it wouldn't matter, at any level.

Answer 1

Atrocities as in...war?famine?genocide? I believe the atrocities you speak of are not even remotely products of free will. War is never freely engaged. Genocide is never freely accepted. This aspects of human societal interactions are natural and inherent in our species. Kind of like how animals engage in territorial battles, or how electrons repel protons. These acts of atrocity are the results of a few, insular minority of insane people. For example, Hitler, one man, was responsible for the death of millions of people. Why would someone actually choose war over peace if they had true free will. These acts you speak of arguably can only occur with the suppression of said free will.

Answer 2

I don't think there is any point to life if we can't choose how we want to live. True, we don't have control over our genes and the actions of others, but we do get to choose what to do with what we've got. And while some people choose to hurt and kill, many choose to be kind, compassionate people, which they could not be without free will.

You are essentially asking if it is better to be a human being or a robot - I personally choose human being, but maybe that's just me.

Answer 3

convinced. Humanity is form of a self justifying virus. provide it a threat to despoil an surroundings and it is going to, each and every of the even as crying crocodile tears about the genocide of the 'noble savage' and the plundering of the bounty of the earth. i imagine very quickly the biosphere will manage our hypocritical abuses. it is going to commence small and construct to a wave of human extinction. Plague, drought, toxins, famine or some thing even more desirable hideous, it is going to come. and prefer 9-11 there'll be self righteous asses whining of their churches, "What did we do to deserve this? We were harmless of any wrongdoing! We were saints!" The Goddess of life would not care about our excuses. weigh down the nurturing Demeter in Her and the murderous Kali will spring forth. Extinction is Her way even as a species destroys its habitat.

Answer 4

Part of us humans carrying free will is to carry responsibility.
If not so many would ignore this fact, our free will would have more blessing to the human race. Wouldn`t it?
If we had no free will and no choices, we would not be human as that condition separates us from animals. Free will can be a blessing or a plague. I think we have no choice in that, as we are bound as humans to carry free will and therefore responsiblity.

Answer 5

Free will is very limited. One of the motivators that affect our free, will to a great degree, is Karma, (what goes around, comes around).

We are poked and prodded back on the path whenever we stray off. Our free will is unwontedly corrected by meta-physical forces.

Answer 6

What is the alternative?

To not have the ability to make any choices because we do not know what good and evil are? Would you really want to live oblivious to what love or joy is just so you'd never know suffering?

Answer 7

We are only free within the parameters of our awareness. Or we are only as free as we are brave enough to choose from the options we are aware of.

"One must always choose the path with heart in order to be at one's best, perhaps so one can laugh"
-Don Juan

That's all that matters.

Answer 8

We may have less free choice than we think we do.
In a way we are creatures of nature, brain chemistry, cell memory, genetics.......etc.

Answer 9

Oh yeah.Look at Mao's China. 11 million chinese deaths with no war.

Answer 10

there is no proof of a free will if you believe in desitny, genetics, circumstances you cannot control and well desinty again.