Frai Jonah said:
I was theorizing to myself about what turns people into willing food. I found the subject very complex and diverse.
What makes people exploitable? One subcase of this seems to be that some people like to give away the freedom to think for the self in exchange for abolition, even partial abolition, of doubt. Laura's "if you think there is free lunch you are it" comes to the same.
I'm thinking about it, and it always seems to come down to the trap of an
'easy way out', perhaps due to a pre-defined path which then leads to a sort of self-imposed free-will violation due to taking the choice not to use it. (yeah: use it or lose it!)
For example, believing that a single source, is the ONE 100% correct source of all knowledge - well, that's an easy way out, because if I was to accept such a scenario, then I no longer have to exercise any discernment - "the book says it, so it MUST be true.", "he's questioning the book, so he MUST be wrong", etc - its all cut and dried, and pre-processed with no requirement for personal effort.
The suggestion that some external force is going to swoop down and 'save us', if taken seriously, absolves us of any responsibility to DO anything for ourselves, and violates the whole idea of free will.
To willingly surrenders one's 'God-given' free will seems like a very strange thing to do in the name of said god/God. It is like not accepting a precious birthday present - but throwing it back into the givers face, saying "I understand that what you've just given me is one of the most precious things in the universe, and that you must have given it to me for a very good reason, but actually I've decided: not today, thank you. I don't want it!".
Yep, I think that it is very succinctly put to say "there is no free lunch, and if you think there is free lunch then YOU are it" That really covers it, for me.
EDIT: c@t, that last link you provided, to the other thread, seems to be broken.