Sometimes I really love the view that non-believers in Free Will have of the universe they live in and what that implies about what the universe thinks of them.
They postulate essentially an enormous cuckoo clock, in which all sentient beings are just automatons doing what they've been programmed to do, endlessly. In their view of the universe, many of these automatons think that they're making their own decisions, but they aren't really. That's just an illusion. In reality, they're just acting out actions designed by something or someone else, whatever or whoever wound up the clock. What is most fascinating is that many of the automatons who believe in this Cuckoo Clock Universe present them- selves as if they were "spiritual seekers," that is, as if there were something that was in their power to *do* that would facilitate or speed up their evolution towards the goal of "enlightenment" they aspire to. What I don't understand is why, if they are incapable of "doing" anything, they believe that there is anything they can do to facilitate their enlightenment. Even more puzzling is their reverence for spiritual teachers who they feel are "enlightened." According to their view of the universe, none of these "enlightened" beings can do diddleysquat, either. They are just as much automatons as the people who revere and follow them. And if the whole thing is one big deterministic cuckoo clock, then there was nothing the "enlightened" could *ever* have done for them. Me, I think this is a pretty dismal view of the universe, one that indicates that the universe (which many of these supposed "spiritual seekers" believe is sentient) doesn't really think very much of them. It doesn't allow them any freedom or autonomy, and allows them no say in their own lives. Everything is programmed, and there is nothing they can ever do that will affect anything else, *includ- ing* their own enlightenment. And if they ever realize this "enlightenment" they seek, the only thing that's happened for them is that they supposedly realize that they're automatons. Big whoop. I'm much more comfortable with a more Buddhist view of the universe in which everyone has Free Will and thus can affect not only their own lives but the lives of others. Teachers in such a universe would actually be accomplishing something, not just speaking as automatons to other automatons. But if that's the way they want to see the universe they live in, so be it. At least now I understand why so many of them seem so chronically unhappy and why so many of them actually long for annihilation. If I thought I lived inside an enormous cuckoo clock and that nothing I had ever done or will ever do mattered, I'd probably hope for "soul suicide" myself. :-)
