First, my apologies if I repeat myself sometimes



TEDISM

First, my apologies if I repeat myself sometimes. In some places, I will go into details, and at others, I will do a few words and go into detail elsewhere.

I have always had an interest in religion, and related subjects. My mum took me to Salvation Army meetings when I was a child. My next brush with religion was when my mum attended a spiritualist meeting, and had her wedding ring stolen! In the RAF I learnt about hypnotism, and went on to read a lot about paranormal subjects. You can read of the details on my personal web site

Over the years, I developed my ideas about Tedism, and freewill. More recently, I have been drawn to pulling all my ideas together, and rationalising them.

Once a month, where I live, we have a Christian service, and for company, and to hear the music, I attended. This was for about four months, when I felt uncomfortable, and ceased to attend. It wasn’t until Christmas last (2005) that it dawned on me why I felt uncomfortable.

For fifty years I have said, “I would give my right arm to have a religion.” I believed that I would get support through my bad domestic times by having a faith within me. This eluded me because I could find no logic or common sense in any faith. I have spent hundreds of hours talking to people of various faiths, debating the principles of their religion. However, last Christmas, watching the TV, a thought came to me. I pictured a boy of about six years old, being told by his mother, “Come on son, put up your stocking, and get to bed early, for Father Christmas will be coming over the rooftops in his sleigh, pulled by the reindeer.” The little boy looks up to his mother and just says, “That’s silly!”

Note, he didn’t go into the logic of how it was impossible for Father Christmas to do this. Moreover, it struck me that instead of all the debates that I had had over the years, I should have just said to them all, “That’s silly!”

Why could I not have a faith? Because none made any sense. So, in pulling all my ideas together, they had to make sense.

I started from an assumption of faith, the existence of a ‘God’, but that thereafter all proposals had to make sense. What evolved was Tedism.

GOD

For the past 50 years, I have not given any credence to the concept of a “God” or that we have ‘free will’.

For me, religion has been seen as, “A socially accepted psychosis”. For about a year, as an intellectual exercise, I have tried to reconcile the Christian ‘Good God’ with the evidential evil that is among us.

The bible was written by men about 900BC to 800BC. These men were ‘before their time’ (homo-superior). They had ideas of how the world was created, but lacked the scientific knowledge to formulate their ideas. Subsequently, their writings were used and abused for the benefit of those seeking power and riches.

It is possible to sift out the few grains of wisdom that are left within the tonnes of dross in the bible. I will try to quote these.

While in the RAF, I read the bible from cover to cover. Obviously, I did not retain it all!

It is also not believable that Jesus did not leave any writings. It is most likely that had he existed then he would have. I develop this theme elsewhere.

I am going to keep my points of view to the Christian faith, but other faiths have similar inconsistencies.

Examples of my musings are :-

“Why did God create the polio virus, and the malaria agent?” Both catastrophically kill young people.

“Why does God allow natural disasters to occur?” As the insurers put it “An act of God.” In these disasters, the poor & weak suffer most.

“Why does God allow more than one religion?” There are over 150 different Christian sects in the UK alone.

“Why did God create Adam, & then make Eve from Adam?”

“Why didn’t Jesus leave any writings?”

“Why did Jesus refer to ‘shepherds’ and ‘fishermen’. They all eat their charges!”

“Why did Jesus make his disciples eat his flesh & drink his blood!”

There are problems that are more contentious within the Bible.

Why does God (for it is claimed that He is the author) condemn male homosexuality, but bless incest between father and daughter(s)?

The Bible says :-

Leviticus 20:13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination : they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

Above homosexuality is condemned. Below, after the sacking of Sodom & Gomorrah, incest is blessed and the offspring become leaders of two tribes!

Genesis 19:33 And they made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.

Genesis 19:34 And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father : let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.

Genesis 19:35 And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.

Genesis 19:36 Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father.

Genesis 19:37 And the first born bare a son, and called his name Moab: the same is the father of the Moabites unto this day.

Genesis 19:38 And the younger, she also bare a son, and called his name Benammi: the same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this day.

A further concern is, how I put it, “Suffer little children to come unto me, and I will visit the sins of their fathers upon them.”

The Bible also says :-

Matthew 19:13 Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them.

Matthew 19:14 But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.

The Bible then says that the children will suffer for their fathers’ sins –

Exodus 20:5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

The bible also says :-

Exodus 20:13 Thou shalt not kill. Note, there are no conditional clauses, no small print, just those four words “Thou shalt not kill.” That commandment was handed directly from God to Moses cut into stone. It does not say, “ …… except when you are told to.” It does not say, “……. Anything else except humans.” It does not say, “…….. except Nazis, heathens & infidels,” Even to take an anti-biotic is a sin, as God created those bacteria, germs & viruses and, “Thou shalt not kill.” God proscribes no exceptions!

WHAT – (WHO) IS GOD

For the past year, or so, I have been trying to reconcile what I see around me, with a loving ‘God’.

I use the term 'God' to anthropomorphise my vision of a non-material being that is a brain that spans the universe(s). He/She/It is not related to the 'Father Christmas' figure of many religions!

Here I give a ‘Janet & John’ view of how the universe, ‘God’, and eventually us, came into being.

Before God, the universe was filled with non-sentient energy. By some fluke, this energy developed into a sentient consciousness. This is similar to how sentient humans developed from non-sentient amino acids.

This sentient ‘brain’ is God. (a brain, comprised solely of energy, that fills all space.)

It was all knowing, for it had the only ‘brain’! It was all present, as it filled the universe! It was all powerful, because it was all the power in the universe!

However, he (I will use ‘he’) was not very happy. He said to himself, "I am not satisfied. I feel only 90% complete."

So, he took one ninth of his energy and made it into material, and, as quantum particles, it was scattered across space. "There! That can look after itself, and grow. I will not influence it. When it has developed and grown to twice its worth, I'll bring it all back and I will be complete

These quantum-entangled particles were scattered evenly throughout space and remained static, at absolute zero, until there was a slight movement by one particle. This caused other particles to move and collide. As they collided and merged, the mass grew greater. As the mass grew greater, the movements became faster. Gravity was formed that led to the creation of a massively dense singularity. The singularity E X P L O D E D! In the explosion, time, space and matter were created. This event was the essential trigger for the formation of the galaxies and eventually to our development.

God did not design the universe. He stood aside and allowed it to develop according to ‘natural’ laws."

Now, we have a hypothesis that should appeal to both deists and astrophysicists! Here is an explanation of ‘God’ that allows the ‘Big Bang’!

Astro-physicists tell us that over 90% of the universe is missing! They call the missing matter ‘dark matter’. Is this undetectable matter the God bit that was not sent out as the universe? I assure you that I developed my 90%/10% theory at least 25 years ago, before the ‘dark matter’ theory showed that 90% of the matter in the universe could not be detected. A lady, who shall remain nameless, tried to get me to set up a new religion. She wanted to con people and make money!

WHAT ARE HUMANS?

In the quantum world, particles have strange qualities. They can't have their speed and position measured at the same time. They can become entangled, so that what happens to one will instantaneously happen to the other, no matter how far apart they are. These particles can also travel in time in that they can react to events that have not yet happened. Also, they are affected by being observed and can change from one form to another.

Humans are made of these particles, nothing else.

Suppose that humans are like one of those "join the dots" puzzles. They are just a lot of particle dots, joined by lines of force, and that is what is seen.

We are all part of that one ninth part of God that was strew across the universe. When people join their thoughts together, the sum is greater than the parts. So, prayer works. When we see cruel events happening, we can't "blame" God, other than that he is allowing things to happen ‘in absentia’. Other principles can flow from this idea and most would be acceptable to most religions.

Is it possible that some humans have people inside them. Are those people driving civilisation's progress?

Are THEY (homo superior) already here? And, have THEY been here for a few hundred thousand years? Did they "colonise" the most suitable animal by placing their minds into apes and manipulating the genes? Are THEY really US? There may be humans that do not have people in them. Has the time come for the "junk" DNA to be activated and the next step made? Can we ever be allowed to be aware of the true situation? Are there some that are aware and are on medication to suppress their understanding?

It is impossible for us ever to know the truth. Our brains will never be powerful enough for us to gather all the information, collate it, and understand. We can only use our limited intelligence to consider possibilities and probabilities.

There are human beings. There are also people. Some people decide to inhabit humans. Humans are subjected to sequential, random, and chaos events and have no free will. The people in the humans have decided to 'go along for the ride'. When the ride is over, they return to 'the other universe'. The analogy is that of enjoying the thrill of a roller coaster ride and getting off at the end.

'The other universe' is one where everything is composed of energy. There is no matter. People exist as pure mind - pure thought. Each communicates with each other by thought. There is no need for food. There is no gender.

For development, people decide to inhabit a body, so that when they return, their worth is improved.

People may have an effect on the humans who they inhabit by an osmotic effect. Is this how humans have developed at such a super hyperbolic rate over the last one (two?) hundred years? Is there a kind of feed back of the knowledge of the people to the humans.

As the people gain experience, wisdom and knowledge they will develop and become worth more.

At "THE END" all people will return to become part of God again. He will say, "I am now perfect."

FREE WILL

When growing up in my teens and twenties I had the opinion that there was no free will, but did not have the ability to argue it very well. In my thirties and forties, I developed the idea of 'limited free will'. (an apparent contradiction in terms!)

I have now concluded that we do NOT have free will!

Compare the forces controlling weather and climate, with the forces controlling the brains of humans.

The weather does not 'decide' to rain on London any more that a person 'decides' to travel to London. The rain on London is caused by a long stream of interactions of heat, moisture, and sea movements. In the same way, a person's 'decision' to go to London has been preceded by a long stream of interactions of genetics, upbringing and contacts with others.

Writing this as a good example! It would not be being written; if a long, long stream of events going back, at least, to me buying a computer. But, it must go back even further than that. Again, at least, to my birth. AND .......... ! Even my birth was the result of the same 'soup' of interactions.

Think of the domino effect. The first domino moves in an arc but a fraction of an inch. Yet, it initiates a wave of reactions that causes a stream of effects. Even this stream of effects, is affected by the precise placement of each domino.

Now! Imagine a four dimensional domino effect - in space and time. But, instead of dominoes, substitute particles. The interaction of events would be impossible to predict.

We, and everything around us, are made of particles that combine to form all the material of the universe.

When thinking of free will, think of the brain as being a micro weather system. Small changes at random times can cause large effects. It is said that, "A butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can cause a tornado in Japan!"

The 'chaos theory' (I don't know anything about it!) may explain how apparently planned actions are caused by a set of random events conditioned by chaos.

Think of our brains as being subject to sequential, random and chaotic events, then you may get a glimpse of the picture in my mind.

On a Melvin Bragg programme on TV, the topic of free will was discussed. This is an abstract of the views of Baroness Susan Greenfield, a leading neuroscientist and author of 'The Human Brain'. She reflects the thoughts that I have put here.

Extending the point above, of the dominos, to the snooker table. Once the white ball leaves the tip of the cue, its path is predetermined by the mass of the balls, the friction of the table, the angle of contact, even if there is chalk on the white ball (a kick), and many other variables.

The route, actions, and reactions following the ball leaving the cue, are, at that time, predetermined. The skilled player, having extensive experience, can, with some certainty, predict what is going to happen to the balls. You see? Predict! Therefore, he assumes that the ball has a predetermined path.

However, his ability to predict is not perfect. He cannot take into account all the parameters, because he does not know them. But, I repeat again, once the ball leaves the end of the cue, its path is predetermined. "Stop!" I hear you say, "Someone could come along after the ball has been hit, and affect its path."

My premise, at this point, does not consider this. But, later!

There are computer programs based on snooker (and golf) where the computer gives you a set-up and asks you to strike the ball. The computer then takes the strength of the hit and direction, and develops the graphics for the outcome. You could stop the graphics, and ask the computer to give you the co-ordinates of the ball, after it has been struck. Predict the predetermined path of the ball!

If you could put a camera above a real snooker table, and feed the image into a computer, and the camera could give the computer ALL the data necessary, and the computer was powerful enough, the predetermined path could be predicted.

Back to the pin-ball machine.

Think of me as the plunger, the snooker player. I come through the door to play snooker. At the same time another person is coming though another door. The series of events take place that brings us together. I, hitting the ball with the cue, he diverting the route of the ball. The actions of the two of us are predetermined. If nothing changes to the conditions that caused our coming together, the outcome is predetermined.

Again, I hear you say, "But, Ted, there are a million things that could happen, You are not both robots."

Relating all this to the weather. If we have enough data, we can predict quite complex interactions. Your problem is not that ANYTHING can happen, only that only ONE thing CAN happen, conditional on a set of 'pre-actions'. Your problem is that you cannot collate and analyse all the complex variables affecting those actions.

All this talk of extraneous, actions affecting the route of the cue ball, are now going to become irrelevant!

For, I am now going to direct your attention, to an event in the pass.

Only twelve billion years ago was the 'Big Bang'.

There was this ball, kind of thing. It was all on its own. Nothing, NOTHING else! And, it had all the material of the universe(s) in it. Remember - nothing extraneous - just the ball. It imploded, exploded, and all the material shot off on its merry way! Its future was predetermined, for there could not be any extraneous action to affect its action, reactions. (There were nuffin - nuffin - else there!) The only outcome, was for it to obey the physical laws affecting it. The future of all the material was predetermined. The Earth was formed as a result of those laws. The creation of Earth was predetermined at the point of the 'Big Bang'. EVERYTHING that has happened since, has been dependant on that moment, and therefore, predetermined.

We are all part of an extremely complex set of interactions We carry out apparently random patterns of behaviour, that are, in reality, predetermined, and relate right back to the 'Big Bang'. These are, at this time, too complex to predict. However, that does not negate my premise!

"We do not have free will. All our actions are backwards related to the one original action, the 'Big Bang'."

When a fortune teller, successfully predicts the future, is he/she just able to be aware of the myriad data affecting the subject? Is he/she just a souped up version of the weather forecaster. A wonder to consider!

To conclude? You cannot decouple what you are doing or thinking, right now, from the few things you were doing or thinking, immediately before that action or thought. Nor can you decouple those actions or thoughts, from the myriad actions or thoughts that went before over the past 12.5 billion years! Every reaction must have an action preceding it. What you will be doing at midday next Thursday, has been, and will continue to be, predetermined before midday on Thursday! These simple statements prove that we have no free will.

The keyword in demonstrating that we have no free will is, “BECAUSE”. What you are doing now is BECAUSE of some thing(s) that have preceded it.

…….. QED.

THE END OF RELIGION

Where is humanity going? There must be a time coming when we are sophisticated enough to universally reject the illogical presentation that God exists & the conflict that it brings.

The 19th century was a hundred yeas of colonial, empire wars.

The 20th century was a hundred years of political wars.

He 21st century will be a hundred years of religious wars.

These wars will affect people such that they will become sick of the havoc wreaked by religion. In the same way that Europe united to expel fascism & communism, so the world will unite to expel religion. Europeans will be the pathfinders who show how religion can, and must be eliminated.

Over the next 25 years there will be an escalation of religious conflict, with a high rate of civil unrest in all countries. Attempts will me made to control the unrest with legislation and internment. This will have the effect of uniting all factions, as all religions will have riches and power to lose. There will be ‘arrangements’ to carve up the world, as in Europe after WWII.

“Those who do not learn from their history, will be condemned to re-live it!”

During the coming 25 years a new organisation will be formed, which will unite all secularists, atheists and humanists. There is, at now, a rising resentment among these shown in the increasing number of TV programs by people such as Dr Jonathan Miller, and Richard Dawkins. Other broadcasters have shown how the bases of religion are in power, ignorance & wealth.

This secular organisation will have 40% of the population in the UK, and will be active in politics. It will gain control of government and oust religion from monarchy and parliament. Religions will lose their privileged tax position. They will be banned from exhibiting their practices. Religion will be banned from all educational establishments & broadcasting. Training minors in religion will be banned under the child abuse legislation.

For the past fifty years, small groups and individuals have partially disestablished the church from parliament. A non-religious oath may be taken by MPs. We have Sunday trading, Sunday gambling, prostitution, birth control & abortion.

Other European countries have already divorced religion from state, and are legislating to remove power from religions.

Near the end of the 25 year period, the USA, where, at the moment, there is a rise in Nu-Cons, and fundamental Christianity, there will be rebellion, as they follow the revolution in Europe.

At about 2025 there will inter-country religious wars. As Revelations says, “East will rise against west.” Nice to get a warning from a book that will be banished! However, it could be argued that those intelligent writers of 2850 years ago, saw what I am seeing now!

The inter-country wars will stalemate, and this will cause agreements, and alliances to be formed.

Twenty-five years later, 2050, all hell will break lose, as one alliance makes a surprise nuclear attack on others. (As at Pearl Harbour) After three years, all will realise that it is a ‘no win’ war, and the international ban on religion will follow.

Now ……………. This armistice may last for a millennium, or two. But, we can be certain that religion will return, and the cycle will spin once more!

How do I know this? Think of me as a weather forecaster watching the winds, clouds, air pressure etc. and predicting the weather

Or ….. maybe …… I am just an informant!

AND WHAT ABOUT JESUS?

There is more evidence for the existence of WMD in Iraq, than there is independent, contemporary evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ. I put the information below of that which I have obtained from the web via Google. I suggest that visitors make their own search, and form their own conclusions.

The Christian gospels do not record actual events; they are the romantic visions of a small religious group!

Josephus' Account of Jesus

There are no Roman, or Jewish, records of the first century that refer to, nor support, the accounts in the Christian gospels ……… except one …. & only one, and that single record is suspect! Even if we allow this one suspect record …….. where is all the other independent, contemporary, evidence of the existence of Jesus Christ?

In Rome, in the year 93, Josephus published his lengthy history of the Jews. While discussing the period in which the Jews of Judea were governed by the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate, Josephus included the following account: 

 

“About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man.  For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had  first come to love him did not cease.  He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him, and the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.”

(Also see the reference to Josephus regarding the “Murder of the Innocents” below)

This account has been embroiled in controversy since the 17th century. It could not have been written by a Jewish man, say the critics, because it sounds too Christian: it even claims that Jesus was the Messiah (ho christos, the Christ)!

The critics say: this paragraph is not authentic. It was inserted into Josephus' book by a later Christian copyist, probably in the third or fourth century.

The opinion was controversial. A vast literature has been produced over the centuries debating the authenticity of the Testimony of Flavius Josephus.

A view that has been prominent among American scholars was summarized in John Meier's 1991 book, A Marginal Jew.

This opinion held that a mixture of writers formed the paragraph. It parsed the text into two categories: anything that seemed too Christian was added by a later Christian writer, while anything else was originally written by Josephus.

Unfortunately, this evidence was meagre and self-contradictory. Nevertheless, it was an attractive hypothesis, though most likely a false one!

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I have done further research, (Monday, 17 April 2006) and have been surprised at how much information there is about the lack of evidence for the existence of Jesus. I can find no independent information supporting the existence of Jesus.

I refer you to these sites :-







(now why did they choose that URL!?) summarises with this :-

“So, then, Christ may be said to be a fiction in the four senses that :-

1) It is quite possible that there was no historical Jesus.

2) Even if there was, he is lost to us, the result being that there is no historical Jesus available to us.

3) The Jesus who "walks with me and talks with me and tells me I am his own" is an imaginative visualization, and in the nature of the case, can be nothing more than a fiction.

4) "Christ", as a corporate logo for this and that religious institution, is a euphemistic fiction, not unlike Ronald McDonald, Mickey Mouse, or Joe Camel, the purpose of which is to get you to swallow a whole raft of beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours by an act of simple faith, short-circuiting the dangerous process of thinking the issues out to your own conclusions.”

It may be that I am selectively choosing my references, so please let me know of any independent reference.

THE MYTH OF THE MURDER OF THE FIRST BORN

The myth of the dangerous child was virtually universal in pre-biblical times.

The myth is that a child is born about whom certain prophecies have been made, and who represents a threat to a king or tyrant. The child is then removed from danger and later returns in triumph.

The story of one of the better-known dangerous children was told in the epic poem "Mahabharata", written two centuries before Jesus' birth. In it, we are told of the Hindu faith's virgin-born Krishna who was prophesied to be the destroyer of the tyrant Kansa, who heard of it and ordered all the male children born at that time to be killed. Krishna survived because a heavenly voice warned his foster father to flee with the child.

Dangerous-child stories exist of Buddha, Zoroaster, Hercules, Oedipus, Romulus and Remus, and many others All of these legends pre-date that of Jesus by several centuries. The most recent dangerous-child story -- that of Jesus, as told in the Bible by Matthew, deserves special attention.

At the time of Jesus’ birth, the world's population was about 200 million. There were about 209,000 inhabitants in Palestine at that time. The population of Bethlehem, and surrounding district was about 4,200. We can assume that the age distribution ranged from zero to about forty. Thus, there would have been about one-twentieth of 4,200, or about 210 infants and toddlers under two years who, apparently, were slashed to death by Herod's swordsmen.

If 210 children had been murdered by the Romans, there would have been unleashed a flood of contemporaneous lamenting poems, art, and journalistic accounts. But, the story of the murderous Herod is found only in the gospel according to Matthew;

- nowhere else in the Bible is this catastrophic slaughter mentioned, and no Jewish or Roman historians, of that time, say a word about this alleged sensational event!

The Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus (110 AD), who went out of his way to record every misdeed of despots and tyrants, was completely silent. Silent also was Josephus (40 AD), the Jewish historian who provided a detailed account of all the lesser evil-doings of Herod up to the end of his life; not a word did he write about Herod's massacre of the innocent children.

If this biblical account is false, then it must bring into question the whole of biblical testament. This assumption is further confirmed by the story above.

It follows, that as there was no independent, contemporary, confirmation of the existence of Jesus Christ, outside of the gospels, then there should be no record of his crucifixion. Indeed that is true. There are no independent, contemporary records of Jesus’ death. It was recorded, by the Romans, that two men were crucified, at about that time. One of whom was Barabas.

Furthermore IF, as the gospels say, “Pontius Pilate washed his hands of the matter, and handed Jesus over to the Jews for punishment.” Jesus, (if he had existed!) would not have been crucified, as the Jews did not crucify their wrong doers.

CRIME & PUNISHMENT

From what I have said under ‘Free Will’ it can be argued that no crime can be committed because the perpetrator has no control over his/her actions. That argument is true!

Nevertheless, it is my humble opinion that it is predetermined that society will never accept this. If I am wrong, and society accepts that we have no free will, then society is set to have a violent future!

What I am going to set out here is a proposal to eliminate crime from society. It will be provocative. Nevertheless, it is my humble opinion that it is predetermined that this will not be accepted!

Sorry if the above confuses you. The problem is that although everything is predetermined, nothing can be predicted with certainty. We can view the world as ‘normal’ people, or have fun assuming that we have no free will.

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To let you know that I have personal experience of being a criminal, this is my criminal record :-

1. c1963 Conviction for parking on the wrong side of the road, and no lights. Fined £2

2. c1967 Conviction for speeding. Fined £9

3. c1978 Conviction for assault, and threatening with a knife. Admonished

Let’s assume that we are viewing the world as rational, normal people, and that everyone is responsible for their actions and have free will.

There are about 75,000 people in jail, over 56,000 are recidivists. Nothing will deter, or educate this 56,000 away from crime. For the past fifty years, or more, every man & his wife have had a go at ‘curing’ recidivists. All have failed. All they have to show is a solitary success now and then. They then hold up this success as proof of the efficacy of their pet solution.

For me, the solution is obvious ….. we have to cull recidivists!

Let’s look at those already in prison. How do we determine who are recidivists. My definition is, “If they have been sentenced to three or more terms in prison, then they are recidivists.”

I use the term ‘recidivist’ to denote that I do not consider them human. I determine that normal humans do not repeatedly commit crimes against their fellow humans. Once we accept that recidivists are not humans, it makes it easier to cull them. It is not for us to find excuses for these recidivists. Recidivists are a sub-human species … Homo-Inferior.

The fact that either nature, or nurture, has made them recidivists, confirms that they have no expectation of ever being humans. A mad bull elephant has to be put down. There’s no point in talking to him!

The argument to cull recidivists is argued against on the grounds that, “Innocent people will be killed.” However, innocent people are being killed now. Firstly by the recidivist murderer. Secondly, by the judicial system that we have. It is just that different innocent people will be killed.

So, the first step is to cull all those prisoners that are recidivists.

The next step is to set free all other prisoners, on the understanding that if they commit further crimes, then they will be culled.

The resources released by this cull would be enormous. No prisons, no prison officers, no probation service, reduced court & police service. The saving would be in the four to five billion a year. Intangibles would be the benefits of crime being 1% of that now.

There would also be a complete reformation of criminal law. All statutes relating to crime would be superseded by one statute, “It is a crime to harm a person.” That would be the only crime. A jury would be used to establish whether a person had been harmed.

Punishment would be apportioned on a points basis, as is now for points on the driving licence. Say one point for shoplifting, and ninety-nine points for murder.

The only punishment would be execution. This would occur when a person accrued a hundred points. There would be no prison.

The allocation of points would be decided by a group comprising five judges and four lay persons.

The person is executed if a hundred points are accrued. Past criminality would be considered in sentencing.

Let me know how many points I would have accrued with my criminal record, as above

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I started the provocative proposals above with :-

“Let’s assume that we are viewing the world as rational, normal people, and that everyone is responsible for their actions and have free will.”

I now have to present my ideas for the situation if society DID accept the principle that we have no free will.

My arguments are the same as those above!

THE ARGUMENT AGAINST MY HYPOTHESES OF FREE WILL

I have looked at a few sites on the web, and have not found one that agrees with me!

This one gives an idea of the convoluted thinking of an over intelligent analysis.

I just say, “All actions are dependent upon a myriad of previous actions.” Can it be any other way?

“Are we just glorified robots ? Is a Porsche Turbo just a glorified ‘54 Beetle ? Perhaps - but what Glory.

The "freedom" in freewill is the glorious ability of our minds to reprogram themselves and to evaluate automatic thoughts and emotions. We all have this ability, and we all choose to utilize it to a greater or lesser degree. The effects of nature, nurture, random events, and past decisions are not eliminated, but can be modified by our ability to project consequences and by our power to influence choices - by our awareness of freewill itself. All of this abstract thinking, projecting and deciding is the product of mechanistic causation, determined but not determinable. It is this freedom that makes us human.

Let’s not squander our freewill by boxing ourselves in with irrational beliefs and counter-productive emotions, poor thinking, or lack of knowledge. The widespread awareness of this new understanding of freewill may help to usher in a great new era of human development based on a morality of reason and understanding, in which true knowledge of the nature of man leads us to a workable pro Optimal Living ethic and psychology, that minimize tribalism and foster individual responsibility. We can reach a new peak of human greatness: The third phase in human development - from primarily genetic determinism, to largely social determinism, to self-determination - is achieved by greater use of freewill and reason. The evolution of mankind is now in our own hands, the genie of freewill is out of the bottle and we cannot put her back. Let’s make the most of our free wishes.”

Peter Voss , July 97

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