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The New Rodent Review
The Service Schedule at Free Will Baptist
Church
August 23, 2000
The Death of Einstein
and Free Will
There is a
certain randomness to the Universe. I know what Einstein said about God
not playing dice with the Universe and I don't believe everything is left
to chance. However, I do think that there is a certain balance in the Cosmos
between free will and pre-determination. The simple fact of the matter
is none of can determine what time we fall asleep at night why do we think
we have any control over our own lives.
Take for
instance things which exist beyond our control. And when I say things I
mean people. There are a good 5.75 billion people in this world who
will never even have the chance to meet me, know me, or even over hear
my name in a random conversation. They live their lives completely insulated
from any knowledge of Scott McCormick or of even knowing or caring how
their actions will or won't involve me. They could be a farmer in the middle
of India or a megalomaniacal dictator in Europe and they never consider
how their actions or inaction might effect Big Mr. Curly Head or any of
my Curly Head Pals. The fact that I don't even realize that these things
are happening or how they may be changing the way I live my life are proof
that most of my and your lives are beyond our control.
The world
leader drops a bomb, I'm dead. The farmer decides to grow wheat instead
of tea this year so the price of my Earl Gray goes up ten cents. Someone
chooses to move your favorite television show from ten o'clock on Wednesdays
to midnight on Thursdays. A guy jumps off a bridge during rush hour and
my car sits in traffic and overheats. It costs me a couple hundred dollars
I don't have.
The active
decision I made, to drive on the Beltway to go to Target to buy new underwear,
seems pretty stupid in retrospect. I didn't decide to sit in traffic and
I certainly didn't make the decision for that guy to jump off the bridge
during rush hour. It isn't the active decisions that I make that prove
or disprove free will. It is the decisions that are made by other people,
that I have never met, that truly demonstrate that my own life is beyond
my control.
While this
may not prove that there is an all powerful being out there gently nudging
my life along. Exerting his power over my life by having other people make
decisions for me. It does demonstrate that all of you yahoos out there
saying that destiny is just an excuse for those people who don't take responsibility
for their own lives. Think about all of the times in your life that you
have been sitting somewhere waiting for someone who is running fifteen
minutes late. Your the on waiting, when you made the conscious decision
to be early for a change.
That's
what life really is, one long life of waiting for someone to show up according
to your schedule. We have as much control over our own lives as we do over
everyone around us. That may be the last nail in the coffin of free will.
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