I spoke about stopping the crime as it's taking place, THE EXACT SAME WAY THAT ANY GOOD PERSON IS SUPPOSED TO TRY TO DO.
I am saying that rapes and murder are happening right now, and your friend is supposedly standing around watching them happen in utterly depraved inaction, when he supposedly has the power to intervene to stop them. No thunderbolts smiting the villains, no comfort to the victims, not even anonymous 911 calls to help them after the fact.
Not even a "Please don't" voice from heaven.
Right, I can see what you mean. But I don't see all that much difference from you being (metaphorically) shackled in advance versus the instant you try anything bad the shackles appear. I was not suggesting we humans shouldn't be doing law enforcement. We need our current laws for current reasons, and to use our current crude methods to curb criminals. But we're talking here about the design of an entire universe, which means whatever laws are in place are eternal (more or less).
Thing is you know in advance he wouldn't act to stop any crimes, or visibly punish any wrongdoers! But you don't even perceive this cognitive dissonance. That you actually *expect* God to be invisible and inactive and generally behave as if he's not there at all!
The thing is, you see, we humans aren't so good at the free will thing. We don't respect it all that much, and much of the time the free will of others is at minimum a nuisance to us, and at times so outrageous that we would prefer they just vanish. Most people want other people
under control, to be obedient, docile, and to do what they're told. This is not only convenient, but increases our personal security. It certainly reduces our anxiety and aggravation. We do not like it when people do things contrary to our desires, and we even often can't stand when they even say *or think* things we find bothersome. No, free will is not very high on our list of life priorities. So that's why it's hard to imagine what it would take if you prioritized free will
above all other considerations. It's quite alien to life as we know it now. I suppose we're not at the point where we can take what it would imply; things are too fragile, too touchy still. I would like to hope that one day we will be able to ratchet up our tolerance for diverging wills and not be afraid that it will destroy us. It might require better people, and better technology too (I'm a bit of a futurist/technologist).
But do please repeat, why stopping a rapist and a murderer, in ANY WAY, as the crime is taking place, is exactly the same as slavery.
But you aren't talking about scale, are you, just naming two atrocious things. But why would this god you have in mind abruptly stop you raping, but allow you to punch someone in the face? And why stop there, why would such a god allow you to call someone a bad name? That is a definite harm, even a distinctly material one since the brain is material. So which harms, in your ideal world, would you allow, and which would you intervene to stop? And it doesn't end there; but about suboptimal choices that are not
directly aggressive? Like, the Fed board wants to enact monetarist policies that have no basis in reality, and it will cause economic problems and the ensuing poverty and loss of jobs will definitely cause much suffering. Does god jump in to stop the Fed board making this choice?
One thing the Buddhists are really good at is noting the sheer extent and overwhelming abundance of harms and sufferings in the world. If you tried to eliminate them all, certainly even just the ones resulting from human choice, I suggest to you that you would leave essentially no room for free will at all.
Maybe let's think of it for a sec in terms of how you'd want a neighborhood to be. What we can agree on is we wouldn't want to move into a neighborhood where raping and murdering is happening. And if those were happening we'd hope the police were on it like a carpet. That would be better than nothing. But truth be told I still don't think I'd like to live in a neighborhood with lots of people trying to rape and murder, and with the police constantly (but successfully) stopping them just as they're about to happen. That would still not be for me. What would be better still, would be a place where people actually didn't choose to do so in the first place. Maybe having a super-strict police force could prevent that through fear. But the best neighbors would be ones who chose not to rape because they didn't want to; or better yet, because they wished the best for their fellows. Now the question is, how do you take a people who actually do want to rape and murder, and as a matter of historical progress, get them to a point where they are a brotherhood rather than a mob under the sharp eye of the police (quasi-Hobbesian)? And how do you make it so that this progress is a result of them wanting it, rather than them never having had the choice in the first place? I would put it to you that a bloody history is probably required in order for humanity to collectively progress toward something better. Star Trek certainly had the idea that things would have to get worse before they'd get much, much better. I don't think you get that better future if no one in history had
ever been allowed to do the wrong thing. But again, ALL of this is contingent on the premise that free will is the highest priority. The moment you displace that in favor of another value, of course you can suggest all kinds of things that would be possible.
