I have spent sometime thinking about why, if there is a God, that the seed of doubt could be so deeply imbedded in so many people. After much thought, I came to a conclusion. I feel that God, if he exists, may actually plant doubt and atheism into some peoples constitutions for positive results. In my opinion, if there was 100% assurance of a God, Afterlife, etc; it would lead to a lot of human complacency. People would become too comfortable to create Art, philosophy, and other things that define human capability and struggle. So, what do you think? Do you think God would implant doubt and atheism into some people so that they could have the drive to accomplish great things?
btw…I do not mean to imply the god of any particular religion, so give me your opinion, not your religions
I don’t have “doubt,” I simply see no reason whatever to believe. The reason people don’t believe in Gods is the same reason they don’t believe in goblins or leprechauns…there isn’t any reason to, there isn’t any proof, and their existence would violate the known rules of the universe.
The real question is why so many people convince themselves that there is a big, invisible man in the sky looking over them.
The difference is that goblins and leprechauns live within our universe and therefore their existance would violate the known rules. God is presumably extra-universal (since he created the universe) and therefore not subject to the rules of the universe.
The Christian position (or at least the one I was brought up on) says that God doesn’t plant the seed of doubt Himself, but allows Satan to do it (see the story of Job for an example).
get back, Jojo…
The goblins and leprechauns that **I ** believe in reside in the exact same place as God. Therefore they ARE subject to the same rules.
…go home.
If God were to directly influence the way we think then it would no longer be true that we have free will. People come to their own decisions based on where and how they were raised. Doubt is a result of intelligence. No one can claim 100% freedom from doubt. even the most ardent believer has only belief to fall back on.
"Your Honor, if I were to directly influence the way the jury thinks, then the jury would no longer have free will. For the jurors to not have free will would violate the very essence of trial by jury. I will therefore not present any evidence demonstrating the defendant’s guilt; instead, I ask that the jurors have faith that what I am telling them is true.
“The state rests.”
Interesting theory. I think it goes back to the whole free will argument. Is everything that happens on Earth part of God’s plan, and free will is an illusion? Or did he simply wind us up like so many clockwork toys and let us go? Because if we didn’t have the free will to make our own choices and mistakes anything we did would be meaningless. We would just be following a script. So would he tinker with our minds in any way to interfere with this?
There are also scientific arguments for both sides of the free will argument. Our brains are just a collection of neurons and electrons. It can be argued that a particular state and stimulus would always produce the same result, so free will is an illusion. This is impossible to test, because neither the state nor stimulus to the brain is ever constant. It can also be argued that at the quantum level events are probabilistic, and the brain is complex enough and has enough feedback loops for this to be relevant. So people wouldn’t behave the same way in completely identical situations. Again, this is impossible to test.
However, my own view is that if a God really does exist (and I make no judgement on that) it is by it’s nature outside human comprehension, and that there is little point trying to understand it’s motives. As for free will, the experience of an illusion of free seems identical to actually having free will. So I don’t see much point worrying about it, although it can make for an interesting discussion.
Hope I haven’t diverged from the original point too much. 
I’m sorry, but I fail to see the link between belief in a God and
Great artists (painters, musicians,writers etc…) and others who contributed to teh development of human society were religious people.
Their religion was for many of these people in fact a source - sometimes even The Source - of inspiration.
So one could with a certain confidence say that without their belief in God, those people wouldn’t have created what they did create = we would have been deprived of their legacy to admire it and to leanr from.
Salaam. A
First, even if quantum events are “probabilistic”, that still does not posit a possible mechanism for free will (without evoking some supernatural elements). You would have to inject compatible moral sentience at the quantum level, in order for the brain to “make choices”. Otherwise, the probabilistic nature simply means that randomness dictates future action. In which case, the will isn’t really “free”, just non-deterministic. It’s still outside the control of the sentient brain.
Second, when you say quantum level events are probabilistic. You can mean many things, some of which are:
[ul]
[li]These events truly don’t follow necessarily after a ‘cause’ according to a logical rule framework. [/li][li]These events are deterministic but we just don’t know all the variables or connections yet.[/li][li]These events may be deterministic. But since we are physical entities tied to our scale of the universe and bound by the physical rules and constraints, we can’t ever dig deeper into the fabric of the universe. Hence they look probabilistic because we can’t know. But they are deterministic.[/li][/ul]
Without invoking a supernatural moral sentient cause*, I don’t see support for the notion of free will as that which is hoped for.
MEBuckner
I’m pretty sure Quint Essence used “influence” as in directly control the brain, not the social/personal influence that you have mapped your analogy to.
*If the supernatural cause doesn’t have a sense of morality, then a person’s decisions aren’t guided by a sense of morality. Then, the free will argument is unfair when judging a person’s conduct.
Ultimately, when you come down to it, all theories invoking “free will” simply place the “control element” one layer below the current scope of examination, without explaining how this control element is “free”. If there are rules determining its conduct, then the control is itself determined. If there aren’t any rules, then its not a “control element” in the sentient manner of speaking, it’s random.
Well argued Gyan9. I don’t claim to understand Quantum physics awfully well. When I said “it could be argued” I should have said “I’ve heard it argued”. I know enough to understand the gist of the argument, but that’s about it.
As I understand it, some physicists believe the probabilistic nature of quantum physics to be inherent to the nature of the universe, while others believe there is an underlying determinism we can’t measure. I’m not aware of any experiments that could prove either viewpoint, as quantum events have never been observed at the macroscopic level. So really it boils down to a philosophical difference between physicists (please correct me if I’m wrong).
Good point. Do I understand you correctly? From a scientific viewpoint, even arguments that suggest our actions are non-deterministic don’t support the concept of free will?
Out of interest, do you have any personal beliefs about whether we really have free will or not? Or would you just consider the question to be inherently unknowable?
From the Wikipedia article: Free will is the philosophical doctrine that our choices are, ultimately, “up to us”
The ‘us’ refers to the human entity, the mind. Which depending on your belief, has as its driver, either the physical brain (“neurons and electrons”) or the “soul” (a supernatural entity). If it’s the former, then the best case for ‘free will’ depends on the freedom available in nature at the quantum level. Two states are possible: it’s completely deterministic, or there’s some (or all) true randomness. The former doesn’t allow free will and neither does the latter. It’s still not “up to us”. It is random. If it is affected or controlled in some way by any entity, then that’s determinism.
The other case is if the ‘soul’ concept is invoked. In which case, there’s this soul particle that charts future action. How? Either that soul follows its own set of rules set within the supernatural plane, which again could be completely deterministic, completely random or a mixture of both. And an analogous argument as the one applying to the quantum one can be made here as well.
The key point is that the “free will” needs a mechanism. All mechanisms are an algorithm either of a deterministic, or random nature or a mixture of these two. None of the cases allows for the popular notion of “free will”.
The scientific best case simply allows for an infinite number of branchings at a given point of time, but it does not address how a sentient mechanism would “make choices” “up to it”.
It should be clear, I don’t believe in free will, but then I have no choice :-).
If there is a god, I am sure he derives most of his amusement from observing humans and their pointless debates over whether he exists or not. 
There really should be a “lol” smiley on this board.
Thanks for that. My personal take on the free will argument is that what I experience is indistinguishable from actually having free will, even if it is really an illusion. So from a practical point of view I assume that I do, even though intellectually I recognise that I might not.
Turn that around: the real free will I experience is indistinguishable from an illusion, even if it is real
Then, why the attachment to real free will?
Personal preference. I prefer to believe my action have meaning. I don’t claim it’s a logical conclusion.
Interesting. I would find it more comforting to believe that I didn’t have free will. That way I could do whatever I wanted with no guilt.
But if you had no free will, you’d have no control over your actions, or the guilt you’d feel over them. Whereas if you did have free will you’d be able to choose your actions and avoid guilt to at least a degree.
so, i used to be a “no free will” person. now i’ve sort of revised my idea of what a “choice” is, and the concept is completely compatible with reality.
for example, if we are making a decision, and we have a number of options open to us, we provide the mechanism for the choice, and there is either 100% certainty that we will pick one option or there is some randomness involved. but does that mean that we didn’t have a choice? i don’t believe it does.
granted, i still feel quite sure that there is no such thing as “free will” in the way it is commonly described. we are the mechanism; it can’t be independent of us.
to address the op, if god is omnipotent, he could’ve made a better world without anyone who didn’t believe in him.
Rather off-topic, but if the OP plays video games, might I suggest Silent Hill 3? It has a theme that is interestingly correllated with the post.