The Concept of Freedom (Free Will in Zoroastrianism)

Absolutely, Dino!
But please remember that when we vast majority of people in the world speak of a "free will" (such as the Christian or Muslim free will to choose or oppose God/Allah) they mean will as something SEPARATE from the body, that which the gods can hold responsible when putting us humans before their moral courts (such as on judgment day). Therefore also spearate from drives and desires, not the battlefield of drives and desires and their eventual compromise.
That drives and desires combat with each other to control the will of a body (and thereby produce a self in our minds) is a very modern idea of "will" which is not historically associated with free will but rather has its roots in the thinking of Freud and Nietzsche. Which is why I prefer to talk of drives and desires instead of will and our ethical mission as Mazdayasni to set those drives and desires free.
Ushta
Alexander

2009/11/14 Special Kain



Dear Rory,

You're right. If you know somebody's beliefs (and that somebody's drives and urges, too), then you also know how they will act in different situations. But I wouldn't dismiss "free will" as hastily, since our wills are nothing but temporary alliances between drives, urges, beliefs and learning experiences, and such beliefs and learning experiences are always social in the sense that they're based on socially shared meanings and collective experiences.

The lesson that we can learn from this is that nothing in this world is totally isolated or primordial in any sense. All things are somehow related to other things etc. It's not about strictly isolated objects, such as two opposing human wills, but about the relationship between them (the OPPOSITION between two human wills). The more we learn to know about such relationships (and we're always a part of them, we're always a NODE in this game) and the more we learn to manipulate them, the more freedom we attain. And, as you can see know, this freedom is equal to wisdom. Isolated objects aren't free, nor could they ever attain any kind of freedom prior to joining the game.

This is why freedom is always related to The Social and to intelligence.

Ushta, Dino

--- Rory schrieb am Sa, 14.11.2009:


Von: Rory
Betreff: [Ushta] Re: The Concept of Freedom
An: Ushta@yahoogroups.com
Datum: Samstag, 14. November 2009, 20:05



Dear Alexander,

Wonderful! I love this stuff!!! "Any WILL separate from drive and desire is of no interest to us whatsoever, it is even alien to Zoroastrian thought. This is precisely why we are ETHICAL people and actually amoral." and "In other words: Zarathushtra did not even in his wildest dreams imagine a "will" which wanted to be "free". He would have asked what we should ask: Who came up with such an idea? And why? Answer: The pharaohs. And guess why?"
I have just got back from Zimbabwe where I have seen this in action. The leader there (Robert Mugabe) is a tyrant and is the exact opposite of what you describe, he has STRICT MORALS and ZERO ETHICS. People are totally confused by his behavior because they don't understand his morals. Once one understands them then it is easy to understand his behavior.

Ushta,
Rory