Does Free Will Cause Wars?

[james bond]

Karl Stromberg said in "The Spy Who Loved Me"
The Spy Who Loved Me (film) - Wikipedia

Come on, Mr. Bond. Within minutes New York and Moscow will cease to exist, global destruction will follow and a new era will begin. I’m not interested in extortion, I want to change the face of history. Today, civilization as we know it is corrupt and decadent. Inevitably it will destroy itself – I’m merely accelerating the process.

Even the movies reflect this, Mr. Bond!

Your example just proves my point. In your link, it says, "The main villain, a megalomaniac planning to trigger World War III and destroy the world, then recreate a new civilisation underwater." He's planning this, so he decided ahead of time to do evil and cause WW III. With free will, one has to be able to choose evil, bad, wrong, etc. At every moment, you are able to choose between good or bad.

Animals do not have free will
Still these creatures are capable of attacking humans and each other.

I think the only difference is humans is more organized
Much more capable of making WMD
Much more capable of inventing efficient ways to kill
If animals have that, I'm sure animal wars aren't far off.

View attachment 18192

So what causes wars?

Psalm 140:1-2

Rescue me, Lord, from evildoers;
protect me from the violent,
who devise evil plans in their hearts
and stir up war every day.

Genesis 6:5

The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.

View attachment 18193

Animals seem to have a limited free will. They're not robots.

>>Psalm 140:1-2

Rescue me, Lord, from evildoers;
protect me from the violent,
who devise evil plans in their hearts
and stir up war every day.<<

The evildoers chose to do evil. Again, at every moment one can commit evil. This happened in heaven with Lucifer, so it can happen anywhere unless people choose to obey and worship God and not choose evil. Eventually, this will lead to Armageddon.

 

[james bond]

God gave Man dominion
that practice was intended to be used to subdue this world....and learn of reality in doing so

Man turned on his fellowman
oooops

Exactly. We had Cain kill Abel. Free will caused this. It can not cause it, too. Maybe that's what I have to add.

 

[Bird123]

Again, you have nothing to back up your claim that ignorance causes wars. It's power, bullying, fighting for resources, black vs white division, and now atheism leading to Communism that will cause wars. It's free will.

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True Intelligence is beyond those petty issues. When one truly Understands, the bad choice of war is no longer a viable choice one could make.

 

[james bond]

\
True Intelligence is beyond those petty issues. When one truly Understands, the bad choice of war is no longer a viable choice one could make.

The issues aren't petty. Even if it is petty, if it leads to wars, then are the issues still petty?. For example, we could say Iran and Iraq fought over one letter in their names. Maybe that wasn't the reason, but it led to other disagreements. Humans are always rational.

Even intelligence has its limits as we have had MAD, but now the power of limited nuclear weapons make that conceivable as a valid strategy. We also have terrorism. I don't think countries start out choosing war, but it ends up being an intelligent choice when tensions rise to the breaking point.

 

[Bird123]

Ok, I'm getting bombed.

I'm not disagreeing with your post, but free will is what allows one to make that choice. To choose evil instead of good. To choose ignorance when provided with knowledge.

Free will may not be a direct cause, but an indirect one.

If we have free will, then how does ignorance cause wars?

If we do not have free will, i.e. our choices are predetermined, then how does ignorance cause war?

Free will is a crucial part of learning. If you had no free will and a choice was forced on you, you would make the opposite choice as soon as you had your freedom just to discover what the other choice is.

No one chooses ignorance. The choices we make are our choices we choose to learn about. Bad choices often supply much more learning than good choices. When one has their belly full of war, one tries harder at the peace table to negotiate peace. It doesn't end there. Our choices bring many lessons so one can experience the many sides of our choices.

True wisdom will find a way to avoid war because true wisdom knows what war actually is.

 

[Bird123]

The issues aren't petty. Even if it is petty, if it leads to wars, then are the issues still petty?. For example, we could say Iran and Iraq fought over one letter in their names. Maybe that wasn't the reason, but it led to other disagreements. Humans are always rational.

Even intelligence has its limits as we have had MAD, but now the power of limited nuclear weapons make that conceivable as a valid strategy. We also have terrorism. I don't think countries start out choosing war, but it ends up being an intelligent choice when tensions rise to the breaking point.

Petty is petty. Excuses will not change what something is. War will never be intelligent. Some might choose it because the real solutions take more work, but that is no excuse for what is the right thing to do. Intelligence is going to do what is best for all ,rather than what is best for myself.

 

[james bond]

Free will is a crucial part of learning. If you had no free will and a choice was forced on you, you would make the opposite choice as soon as you had your freedom just to discover what the other choice is.

No one chooses ignorance. The choices we make are our choices we choose to learn about. Bad choices often supply much more learning than good choices. When one has their belly full of war, one tries harder at the peace table to negotiate peace. It doesn't end there. Our choices bring many lessons so one can experience the many sides of our choices.

True wisdom will find a way to avoid war because true wisdom knows what war actually is.

>>Free will is a crucial part of learning. If you had no free will and a choice was forced on you, you would make the opposite choice as soon as you had your freedom just to discover what the other choice is.<<

You're preaching ot the choir. It's the atheists who say there is no free will and that our choices are based on determinism. They think it's because of some scientific finding of brain activity before an conscious action was taken. However, we are finding now that this wasn't the case at all. Atheists are usually wrong.

>>No one chooses ignorance.<<

I didn't say that, but intelligent people choose wars, too. I already had a thread on what the proper strategy is based on Nash Equilibrium. Political leaders play that game.

As for ignorance, we have had a lot of ignorant people take violent action, as well. Our Congressman Steve Scalise was shot just because he was a member of the opposing party by a liberal. Part of this is due to fake news and what the liberal media pumps out. It isn't true. Their journalism has squandered to the lowest level. We should blame them. And people will continue to choose CNN and NYT as their source for news and continue to choose ignorance. I ended my subscription to the NYT long ago (their arts and entertainment section is still good) because their news is editorial content and not news.

 

[Willamena]

I think all people are for world peace, but we have not had world peace in anyone's lifetime. In Christianity, God gave free will to the angels and it caused war in heaven. Later, God gave free will to humans and it led to the fall. I don't think the fall led to war. The fall led to:

intrusion, death, disease, pain, suffering, emotional anguish, but not war. One could argue that war outputs the aforementioned so they're related. Yet, what caused war in the first place? It wasn't sin. It was free will. Thus, how could a perfect world still have had free will, but no war?

No, people cause wars.

 

[Thief]

No, people cause wars.

you might get some resistance on that one

many believers claim jihad (war for God?)

I prefer peace
and may have to fight for it

 

[james bond]

No, people cause wars.

And people have free will.

God gave them and the angels free will. We know almost all of civilization was destroyed in Noah's Flood. It is prophecized in the Bible that we will all die during the final battle of Armageddon. We do not know the time, but the place.

This Is Where The Final Battle Of Armageddon Will Be Fought
This Is Where The Final Battle Of Armageddon Will Be Fought

 

[MonkeyFire]

Omniscience was the most proud Angel in Heaven. However, one day God gave free will and Knowledge, aka Lucifer the Angel of light and had to rebel.

 

[DavidFirth]

you might get some resistance on that one

many believers claim jihad (war for God?)

I prefer peace
and may have to fight for it

Even a Jihad is just people causing wars based on their religious beliefs. In fact I believe in most such wars Jihad is declared as a "valid" excuse to start a war or a revolt for reasons that are not religious at all. .

 

[Bird123]

>>Free will is a crucial part of learning. If you had no free will and a choice was forced on you, you would make the opposite choice as soon as you had your freedom just to discover what the other choice is.<<

You're preaching ot the choir. It's the atheists who say there is no free will and that our choices are based on determinism. They think it's because of some scientific finding of brain activity before an conscious action was taken. However, we are finding now that this wasn't the case at all. Atheists are usually wrong.

>>No one chooses ignorance.<<

I didn't say that, but intelligent people choose wars, too. I already had a thread on what the proper strategy is based on Nash Equilibrium. Political leaders play that game.

As for ignorance, we have had a lot of ignorant people take violent action, as well. Our Congressman Steve Scalise was shot just because he was a member of the opposing party by a liberal. Part of this is due to fake news and what the liberal media pumps out. It isn't true. Their journalism has squandered to the lowest level. We should blame them. And people will continue to choose CNN and NYT as their source for news and continue to choose ignorance. I ended my subscription to the NYT long ago (their arts and entertainment section is still good) because their news is editorial content and not news.

Perhaps, it comes down to how one defines intelligence. One can have a high IQ or ability to figure things out, however when one lacks the knowledge that comes from understanding all sides, then the high IQ person will create things such as war until they really understand what they are choosing for everyone.