If a man's beliefs dominate his actions and his beliefs are outside of his control is free will an illusion?

Dang! This is hard to answer, but i like the question.

You say "IF." I believe a man's conscience SHOULD dominate his decisions.

"DOMINATE" -- not dictate.

Free will comes into play when a man defies his belief, ignores his conscience, or perhaps steps beyond the confines of dogma. Belief may well be beyond control, but actions often are not.

Without free will, is this even a man?

If what you said was true, then obviously free will is an illusion.

True, we have no free will, we are the obedient machine to our will and wants, but we do have a great measure of influence on our beliefs, and through that our actions.

Free will is just more sophisticated then objectively looking at human life as a choice. We are here because we all work everyday to continue living for our many-and-varied reasons.

People have a tremendous ability to lie and deceive themselves and see things that in reality don't exist. But human existence is a step removed from reality, so free will in humans is the power of our own beliefs, which our body and mind will then seek to adhere to.

You're hypothesis is faulty. Mankind is rarely dominated by his/her beliefs. If their beliefs truly plotted their course in life, there would be no greed, no war, no hunger, because the large majority of people would follow the examples of those they hold in high esteem. They don't.

Beliefs are within one's own control. I chose to accept the free gift of salvation, it was not forced upon me. Belief systems, especially when dealing with religious matters, are a matter of choice.

Ergo, free will is not an illusion - you can choose to help someone today or not. You can choose to wear blue socks or white. You can choose to do evil or good.

Hi, James. Your premises certainly lead to those conclusions. However, you may want to examine your second premise--that a man's beliefs are outside of his control.

People can believe things that aren't true. Believing the truth requires overcoming prejudices, exploring evidence dispassionately, and adopting critical thinking strategies. Each of these requires free will.

Cheers,

Bruce

Free will is an illusion because we exist in a causal universe. The rules of deterministic causality don't stop and pause to ask us what we think. We only think we have free will because our minds are far too feeble to understand the full complexity of causality and we use the idea of free will to fill in the blanks.

Your logic is funny. Your second premise "his beliefs are outside of his control" is essentially the same as your conclusion "free wil is an illusion."

Good question and it has been asked by many a great thinker - read "The Man in the Iron Mask" or "A Tail of Two Cities". You will get two interesting insights on the issue.

Sounds like it to me. That is why a person has to make a conscious effort to test out those beliefs.

Ones beliefs are usually within ones control.

We can choose to believe whatever we want. When we ignore evidence though, we self-delude.

Athiests feel more comfortable in their self-delusion because they don't feel they have to be accountable to a higher power.

The intelligent athiest must acknowledge the preponderance of the evidence pointing toward existence of a diety.

When an athiest states there is no God, he/she acknowledges that he/she has seen and experienced every aspect of every reality in every point in the universe - and therefore has determined there is no God.

By definition, the athiest then becomes God, because only God is omipresent.

The athiest proves him/herself to be a fool thereby the preponderance of the evidence pursuant to his/her testimony.