Logical Fallacy: Two False Negatives.
A person can make a choice AND still can be programmed to make that choice.
A person makes a decision mostly based on: the information and resources available as well as set precedents and acceptable norms. There is plenty of room (days, weeks, years, generations) to program a person before he takes that decision.
I don't see how this fits with the usual definition of 'programmed'.
Main Entry:
2program
Variant(s):
also programme
Function:
transitive verb
Inflected Form(s):
programmed or programed; program?ming or program?ing
Date:
1896
1 a: to arrange or furnish a program of or for : bill b: to enter in a program
2: to work out a sequence of operations to be performed by (a mechanism) : provide with a program
3 a: to insert a program for (a particular action) into or as if into a mechanism b: to control by or as if by a program c (1): to code in an organism's program (2): to provide with a biological program <cells programmed to synthesize hemoglobin>
4: to predetermine the thinking, behavior, or operations of as if by computer programming <children are programmed into violence ? Lisa A. Richette>
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/programmedI would assume that the way you have been using the term fits with 4. As soon as you say that choice exists, it is no longer possible to say that the behaviour was predetermined.
Of course, you can say take the philosophical position that there is no choice but I don't see how you can have both programming and choice.
wrong question then!
Hardly. From your answer I understood that you also see yourself as programmed. Given that it is very common for the non-religious to talk about the religious as being 'programmed' in a way that they themselves aren't, this is an important clarification.
Side Point: You give too much credit to our capacity for making a free choice. Why do you do that? Is it important for you to believe that our choices are 'free choices'? Does the world makes more sense to you when you maintain the belief that choices we make, are 'free choices'? I am curious to know if you put a lot of thought into it in the Past, or if you are just reacting to my attack on some comfortable Truth that you always took for granted.
How much is too much? Making choices is simply and everyday experience - as I suspect it is for you also. I haven't used the word 'free' so please don't put words into my mouth.
The chances of me eating Fava bean in the morning at least once a month is a good 90%. Your chances could be anywhere from 0.1% to maybe 50%. Why is it a difference? What else is different between us? At what point did I choose to like the taste of this tasty feces-looking pasty Brown vegetable in the morning?
Who cares. Your experiences have provided different influences to your choices than mine do but as long as choice exists, your behaviour hasn't been programmed by your experiences - just influenced by them.
The example I put forward is still valid. A Christian grows up to think life is precious, a muslim grows up to think chastity is precious. I will add a few more if discussing Christianity sends you on tangeants, a Sikh grows up to think fighting is cool, some indians grow up to think eating meat is disgusting, some think eating mice is cool.
No it isn't. You attempted to explain Christian choices relating to abortion and contraception in terms of a subconscious programming aimed at increasing the numbers of Christians (and hence Christians helping people from other religions was a malfunctioning of their programming). The fact is that as Dio has explained, this explanation fails to explain Christian behaviour on the issues you mentioned anywhere near as well as the fact that they really believe that life is precious. Of course, someone growing up as a Christian may well be strongly influenced in that direction by his family and community but it may also be the case that someone becoming a Christian later in life, adopts these beliefs and amends their choices accordingly.
Now you and me can disagree on the reason why our precious Christian grows up to think "Life is precious", but I will have to insist we do it on a different thread. And I request that you treat my example for what it is, in regards to this subject.
I have treated your example as it is. By looking to 'programming' rather than simply examining the beliefs you have made a howler.
I do diminish our own responsibility. I know we do not like to think like that but it is True. We do not like to think about 'diminished responsiblity' because we have, an entire system of reform and punishment, built on the premise that each of us is responsible for their action, and will only be punished for "our own action". But hey, the system is not perfect.
As for freedom of speech, In the West, we do not tolerate spreading of hate and murder (except perhaps in the USA although it is highly frowned upon). Why so? because we do not want to 'influence' 'impressionable' youth?
What does the word 'impressionable' mean to you?
And do you honestly believe that, once we become adult we become 'impervious' as opposed to being 'impressionable'? Or is it perhaps, that as we become adults, we just become better at building defences?
Now you put a bunch of kids in good schools and give them good homes, then on average, those kids will excel over kids in broken homes and in bad schools.
Two girls from a similar simple background, On a fateful day at the state college, One goes to meet a guy that will become her future wonderful husband, and the other one goes to get inducted in a cult.
Both village bumpkins were vulnerable to cults, but One got caught and the other escaped not knowing how lucky she was that day.
None of this contradicts anything I have said. But such influences does not result in the 'programming' (i.e. elimination) of choices.
Believing does *not* preclude programming and sub-conscious motivation. Even as the person might think they are making a 'free choice'.
I didn't say free choice. I'm sure the choices are highly influenced and encumbered - but they are still choices.
A person justifying child marriage, coming from an entire society that has an unusually high number of justifications for child marriages, he states, that he believes child marriage is okay for reasons A and B and C and D. Why do I have to give a high credence to the reasons he gives me? He is programmed to think like that. He was even fed those reasons. A nd perhaps his programming was so successful that he came up with some of his own reasons to justify the habit. Screw his reasons. His reasons are only a tool out of many other tools, that I can use to get a glimpse of his psychology and of how he was built.
His reasons are significant because they are things you need to deal with in order to encourage him to choose differently - no matter how they got there. Saying 'well you say that because you were programmed' actually provides no insights at all (and as you have shown often leads to mistakes) and encourages the belief (both in you and him) that change is not possible (or else needs some kind of violent 'reprogramming'.).
Is it their own? and why so? because they have their name on that choice? because they signed that choice and proclaimed it as their own choice made by their own free will under no stress or duress or threat or harm?
Yep. In fact its their own choice even if it is under stress or duress or threat or harm.
Well too bad. Because, I do not believe them. The choice was made by them. It came from them. It was their own voice and hand writing.
Then we agree.
But the information that went into formulating that choice, was not theirs. And people are predictable particularly, to doctrines that predate the human they influence by centuries and/or own a disproportionate amount of resources relative to this human they influence.
Which means that others are responsible for the information or other input they provide - but not for the choice.
Topic: Sam Harris. Right or wrong?