Do Atheists Believe In Free Will?

Question

I'm not sure how it's possible to believe that you are responsible for your actions without believing in some form of a creator. Without God and spirituality, you are nothing more than the sum of your parts and experiances incapable of doing anything that your environment tells you/programed you to do.

So do Atheist believe they are in control of their own actions? And if so, how do they solve this problem?

ikcarus: so what you're saying is you don't believe in free will... thanks.

Answer 1

I did choose to answer this question....

I believe in free will although it could be reduced to the firing of neurons based on biology and experience...We are not a result of our parts, we are these parts....

Good question....

Answer 2

You offer a false set of choices. It's not an either/or kind of question.

How do you come to the conclusion that only someone who does not believe in God is subject to the influence of their environment, experiences and makeup?

Are you suggesting that theists are not subject to being influence by their environment for example? Is it a coincidence that you being born into a society where certain religions are accepted and taught widely, or at least coming into contact with these influential religions where you live doesn't have anything to do with your beliefs? The fact that maybe people in your family and your friends believe the same things that you do doesn't qualify as environmental influence?

The funny thing is that I could argue just as much that people who believe in an almighty, all-knowing God cannot also believe in Free Will. There have been many religious people who didn't believe that people really had free will. John Calvin thought that people were predestined to heaven and to hell. It had nothing to do with free will. God had already made his decision.

I think you need to read up more about the complicated topic of free will.

Answer 3

You define what 'free will' actually means and we'll tell you whether we believe in it or not. Personally, I don't think such a thing exists - it's not even an intelligible question. I base this on the trivial observation that you cannot choose what to think before you think it. Thoughts come into your mind unbidden, and you cannot choose what your next thought is going to be, because you would have to already be thinking of it in order to choose to think it, and that leads to an infinite regression.

Undoubtedly there is the influence of cause and effect - something happens to you, and you then think about it - and perhaps there is also a completely random element, but the same could be said of the weather, and we don't say that the weather therefore has free will.

So, if we cannot choose what to think, then we cannot choose what to do either, since our actions are (generally) guided by our thoughts (and any action that is *not* guided by our thoughts wouldn't be characterised as 'will' of any sort anyway).

Hence, as far as I can tell, free will does not exist.

Answer 4

A Hindu master put it right:

"The atheist denies that which he cannot know; the theist affirms it. Both are deluded."

This does NOT mean that agnosticism is the only "right" position. It probably DOES mean that both the atheist and theist are motivated in their perspectives by fear of punishment for wrongdoing. It's like Darwin's presentation of the two options available to any animal confronted with a threat to its life: fight or flight. It seems that the atheist chooses battle and the theist refuge. A real fighter will endeavor to find the answer by direct experience; these are few rare guys like Jesus, Buddha and maybe self-sacrificing folk like Mother Theresa and Joan of Arc.

If you wholeheartedly accept the premise that there is no free will and that (maybe) something outside of space and time has written the whole script, then there's no need to take either the atheist or theist position. As my crusty old guru in Mumbai puts it, our deluded sense of "doership" is what makes us miserable. Our ego is indeed free to wander around on the mudflats of our mind, but that fantasy of freedom is of absolutely no use in daily living because it cannot affect or dictate outcome of any of our "actions".

Therefore, no one ever DOES anything, so no one is to BLAME for anything. Even genetically, we're at least 90% hard-wired with a maximum of 10% available as conditioning for change; so the argument that lack of blame would turn us all into sociopaths is invalid because we're already programmed (for the most part) NOT to be sociopaths. The function of the true sociopath is to serve as an opposite in the phenomenal world, the world of multiplicity.

The atheist's position is characterized by contempt, the theist's by exclusivity and false righteousness. Both attitudes are sadly destructive.

Answer 5

i have trouble solving this problem because i am too ingrained to let go of thinking i have free will, which i suspect i don't. (it also is difficult to say that the creator gives you free will as his presence in the equation raises it's own problems. But i suppose it suffices for you to point at the book and say look god says we have free will so we do.) But back to the athiests.

One solution is to redifine what free will is. We accept that i am just a physical being subject to all laws of physics and incapable of being without them. I am this machine, perhaps it runs on gears and pulleys and electronic signals passed through chemical soups but, sorry to say; that is the pitiful creature i call me. This thing i call me has free will, as much as i have free will. The creature is free to do as the mind decides and that is his freedom. If a dictator or police force told you NO and stopped you then you're free will was violated.

You cannot exist freely above what you are but that does not mean this thing is not free. I am this body and these thoughts i have; so to think of freedom apart from that only makes sense because we live in a supertisious world. If there was no sense of soul apart from the body the freedom from our body would not seem such a loss.

I control my actions because i am me and my body, some brains are defective, for internal and external reasons they are prone to violence or stupidity. His body acts under the same principals but because of the disposition to do bad things this brain and body combo must be isolated from society before they hurt someone.

Similarly a body that is helpful and nice is a pleasure to have around to mutually help your body.

Sometimes i do feel like a passenger along for the ride, but as you may notice you're not always making conscious decisions. When you get angry and say things you later regret. You feel sexual urges and sometimes impatient with no choice, often feeling motivated and driven to do things you don't want to do. Like get out of bed, go to work, to talk to the girl or not talk to her.

Answer 6

I'm not convinced that your supposition that free will exists only because there is a creator. We know for instance that both environment and genetics both effect how we make choices but they don't totally determine what is chosen. We can see this also in higher mammals, they may be trained or have instincts but they may also create or learn tool usage and make random choices not based on instinct. In any case, asserting that a creator of some sort is necessary to have free will needs to be totally proven before it can be accepted as fact.

That being said, I don't see a problem with free will and atheism.

Answer 7

Ok, atheists do not believe there is a god. They do not believe there is any supernatural being or any sort, that include leprachaunsm, elves and fairies. So, if they do not believe in anything like that, then how in the world can they believe that something is controlling them or prohibiting them from free will?

Atheists believe that a person will control his or herself. They do not believe that this control is a gift given to a person by Odin or Thor or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Answer 8

Atheists don't universally believe in anything, since we are all individuals who are only united by our belief in the nonexistence of God. We each have different views on everything.

Nevertheless I think your assumption is exactly backward. If we were created by an omniscient and omnipotent God, then we are subject to His will. Removing God is the only way to allow free will and individual responsibility. Nothing controls us.

Answer 9

Atheists have morality, too. The fact that they make up only about 1% of prison populations (compared to 75% professed Christians) holds some weight.

But that doesn't answer your question. To put it simply, atheists generally believe that violence, bigotry and irresponsibility is not only bad for one's self (in that it gets one punished by the law and generates discontent among people), but also that it is bad for society and the progression of the species.

Even rhesus monkeys have shown morality in tests, starving themselves for days upon learning that the button that gives them food also delivers an electric shock to another monkey.
This implies that it is instinct, the need to improve and help the species grow, that gives us our basic morals.
Of course, some moral issues are caused by perceptions of threat or competition (i.e., bigotry and the like).

I, personally, am a Shintoist. I believe in the philosophy, "live and let live." I did not get this from my faith; rather, I came to my faith because of this philosophy.

Answer 10

of course an atheist believes in free will. He more than anyone would feel responsible for his own actions. It is not the atheist who has been programed.

Answer 11

wha? are you crazy? ever think that 'good will toward men' or living by the golden rule might apply even if all you have to look forward to is a nice, square box, about 6 feet under? Our lives are being lived for the here and the now - ( this is how leaders use rely on religion to control our actions ) you are a prime example!