Autodidact requested I create this thread so here it is!
I used to be a materialist and this very topic turned me towards mysticism and spiritualism.
If nature determines all things, doesn't that mean we are determined by nature? In a sense we all would be automatons, programmed by nature through our genes and environment, and in the end just stimulous-response machines.
Thoughts?
She also requested I register here to discuss the topic with you! And she's not easy to refuse....
I had exactly the same view until recently - in fact my justification for remaining a theist was that without some kind of dualism, there is no ultimate moral responsibility (which is NOT the same as saying that without
believing in dualism one cannot
behave morally). So I chose to
assume dualism (i.e. the notion that the thing I refer to as "I" is an autonomous moral agent), and embedded that in a theistic framework (if people can be dual, I thought I might as well get a dualistic universe for free).
A poster on another forum suggested that I read Dennett's "Freedom Evolves", and I did. It probably wouldn't have had the impact it did had it not been for some hints in the same direction from elsewhere, but the fact is that it had an enormous impact on the way I think about the relationship between my
self (that autonomous "I") and the rest of the universe, i.e. about religion (because I think that is what religion is - the way we think about the relationship between ourselves and the rest of the universe, including other people, of course).
Dennett's trick/insight is to regard the actual drawing of the boundaries of the self as a Self-Forming Act (SFA). In other words, the accepting of moral responsibility is the process by which we define ourselves as moral agents. Thus, if we assing the causes of our actions to genes, environment, or bad luck, we are also defining ourselves out of existence. However, if we define ourselves to include parts of those causal chains then we both accept moral responsibility AND acquire an existence.
I'm trying to summarise an entire book here, of course, and in the process missing out key logical steps and also imposing my own interpretation. But I found it deeply inspiring. I don't know whether I can legitimately call myself a theist still, although I still have a profound God-concept. But instead of resting it on what was, in effect, a kludge (an assumption of dualism not supported, although not falsified, by evidence), I now have a God-concept that is entirely natural. I don't know whether a natural God counts as a God, but mine does the same job as my old one used to, actually rather better, so, practically speaking, nothing has changed. Hence, I still call myself a theist.
Cheers
Lizzie
....and hi to autodidact! (hey, there's no hi smiley here....)
