Free will, magic, superstition and religion

Well, Sunday's Thinkers' event by Eloise Pasteur drifted slightly off-topic, but since the discussion was really interesting, so Jinny suggested to continue it on the forums

For those who didn't attend, the topic was "superstitions", what they are, what they are for, and I guess we would be discussing if there are already a few SL superstitions or not.

Besides the totally skeptical view - "superstitions are plain sillyness and as such they should be abolished" - some interesting points were raised:

1. Superstitions are "minor magical rituals"
   
2. Superstitions are "mostly harmless" and as such they shouldn't be really discouraged.
   
3. Superstitions are contrary to major religions
   

The key issue was trying to define what exactly superstitions are and why they should (or not) be discouraged. We had two very strong arguments going on at the end of the session. Assuming that superstitions are a way to try to "bend the Universe to our will" (by focusing our mind/energies on an object/ritual and "willing things to happen", it's certainly a minor form of magic. Now most religions will condemn any type of "bending the Universe to our own will", since that is certainly contrary to God's Will, and, as such, superstitions should definitely be banned out of the picture.

However, this interestingly developed into a counter-argument: how do we know if, by adhering to some superstition, we aren't actually exercizing God's will? In that case, superstitions are "harmless" (or even beneficial).

In some cases, superstitions could be viewed as "beneficial", since they focus one's will/mind on something "good" to happen. An example was bringing your own "lucky charm" for a difficult exam. Assuming that you rely partially on what you've studied, "believing" in the "lucky charm" may focus yourself towards a positive attitude, and, usually, you feel "better", and this state of well-being provides for things "going ok" with the exam. So focusing the mind towards a particular purpose could be seen as "beneficial". This was given as a "secular" example of the same effect as praying to God to help us with our exams. If we get a good exam, it must show that we're "in God's favour", and, thus, "exercizing God's will". Or not?

But obviously this gives rise to a paradox. Imagine two people playing table tennis, each one with its own "lucky charm", and wishing luck for the game, ie. "willing the game to go well for themselves". Since we have opposing wills here, and we're clearly using superstitions ("charms" in this case) to bend the Universe to opposing wills, which one is God's Will?

Even if we say that one player had God's Will and that's why her "lucky charm" worked (ie. meaning that she was "better tuned" to God's Will), this seriously goes against our notion of "free will". So we succeed only when doing God's will, and our superstitions will only protect us if we are "on the right side of God" (so to speak).

But this is mightily unfair of God, and goes completely against a very well established fact: we have free will. So it seems safer to assume that engaging in superstition (or any other kind of magic) is just a way to exercise our free will, ie. in this case, "against God's Will". That seems to be the only way to "define" superstition: small magical rituals, of our own free will, trying to bend the Universe, and, thus, against God's will.

This would reinforce the idea that we shouldn't be superstitious at all, and that following superstitions is, after all, a "bad thing". Still, since we have a free will, we are able to do it.

So to continue that line of thought, we should think a little about "free will" and how to define it. A starting point seems to be "going against God's plan". Since we have several "guidelines" (from all major religions and several schools of thoughts) to follow, and since we seem to be surrounded by people that clearly don't follow those guidelines, something is wrong here. Either God doesn't care, or He doesn't interfere in our choices, or He is completely random and chaotic with His own "plan".

Christians, as well as all other religions believing in compassion, also believe that God does care, but does not interfere. An uncaring god would probably not take pains to give us any guidelines at all. And a random/chaotic god will hardly have a "plan" - and worse than that, we find the concept of "perfection" difficult to apply to such a "type" of god.

I'll let you go on with these thoughts for starters

Speaking for one minor school of thought (mine) and the way I understand Daoism (which is limited and doubtless flawed), the Dao doesn't give a damn what we do.

Trying to bend the universe to your will is part of the human condition - building a roof over your house so you don't get wet changes the universe in accordance with your desires and will after all.

Your description of God as chaotic and uncaring is precisely how I see the dao as working. It exists in the eternal now, the sum of everything that has gone before and the potential for what will come based on that, but it has no desire it 'merely' is what is. In fact you could argue that wu wei - waiting for the best moment to act - is implicitly an invitation TO interfere when according to your understanding the moment is best and right.

Once the humanists and confucians get into it the story becomes more complex, but that will have to wait. I must go to work.

I really ought to say that I am NOT a confucian scholar in any way sense or form. I know enough about what he wrote and thought to know I don't agree with large parts of it, and I disagree sufficiently strongly that my attitude is more one of 'I have better things to do with my life' than 'OK Let me try and work out why I disagree with you.'

But as I suggested earlier in it's original form Daoism has no special place for mankind. Man is one of the '10,000 things' that arises from the five elements and so has a place in the world but not a place of privilege. Confucianism took Chinese cosmology (the Celestial Emperor and so forth) and added them to the underlying daoist structure. Somewhat perversely this adds a great deal of the recent structure of Chinese society in which sons are/were valued more than daughters and the like. Quite how this arose from listening to the Dao and acting when appropriate I'm not sure, but it did.

Anyway, I know that many religions place mankind in a special position relative to the rest of the universe '...and God created Man in His own image...' for example, but in my mind this is when we start to get problems.

If god created me and gave me free will, including in that the ability to affect, or to believe that I can affect the universe in ways he doesn't want then I am forced to ask why. Perhaps I am deluded and I have no free will and this is all god's plan. Perhaps free will is true but a god that can sit back and watch us send our world to hell in a hand basket doesn't seem very caring to me, or doesn't seem like he has a plan.

The daoist in me is quite happy with this. The world is, and what I do changes it and I try to take responsibility for it. I make no distinction between 'magically' changing the world and 'exoterically' changing the world, I still take responsibility. Many people of many faiths do this too, although some will say they are not allowed to magically change the world. I'm not saying I'm unique in my attitudes, but as soon as I don't have a god with a plan things seem to make more sense to me...