Blog post Feb 5

Blog Post Religion Online February 5 , 2016

I found determinism to be a very interesting concept. I think that are decisions that me make now are certainly shaped by what has come before us. There are different aspects of it that I think make a lot of sense, while others seem to be to far of a stretch away from free will.

One kind of determinism that made a lot of sense was Newtonian determinism. The example given was someone who has a start by interning at a business on music row, who then goes part time, and eventually takes a full time position from someone who relocated. I think that thinking in this form of determinism is a good way of being deliberate and intention with ones actions. In a lot of ways the decisions you make now will determine where you are in years to come. It all builds on top of itself. One aspect of this that I’m choosing to over look is that I don’t think that those choices are already determined. I believe that there is still a level of control that an individual has when going forward in their life.

The other two aspects of determinism that made sense to me were Cosmological determinism (Human life is subject to higher forces in which we have no control) and Cultural Determinism (We are a product of our immediate culture). The reason why a pair these two together is because aspects of both have logical aspects in our present society. For example, There are natural disasters that happen all the time that completely shape the lives of people who are effected. These are also events that we cannot control or sometimes even predict. This is also true for cultural Determinism when looking at people’s socioeconomic position. No one is able to choose the economic position that they are born into, and upward mobility is hard in America. Therefore, in some ways people’s decisions are deeply impacted by their culture without even being aware of it.

While I do think that all these aspects of determinism play key rolls in the path of our lives I don’t choose to believe that they have full control over the decisions in our lives. Part of what makes us human is our ability to make decisions. For that reason I think there is a very strong influence of free will in the paths our lives. For example, While the decisions in our past deeply influence the decisions in our future we may have a change of heart and decide to go in a completely different direction, or maybe that person who was born into a poor household with parents who were never there defeats all odds and goes to college and makes a living with his dream job. All of these aspects have great impact on our lives but I choose to think that we still have free will. For this reason, I think that my opinion can mostly be summed up into compatibilist due to its attempt to connect both determinism and free will.