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… Most of what goes on in our mind/brain is unconscious, but, conscious or not, choosing an interpretation is the exercise of our free will. The ability to interpret events, that is, create meaning, and to choose between alternative meanings arise out of the way our body and brain function. Creating meaning is one of the systems whereby our body/brain/mind operates.
However, the range of meanings we can choose from is limited by how much we have learned in our life. This is why being a child is so difficult. This is why organisations that want to have power over us, like the State, the Church, and Big Business, try to control what we know. The less we know, the less choice we have. This is also why the BBC must be cherished and protected, and its high standard of truth-telling maintained, no matter what the contingencies of the moment may be. We need those who inform us to give us the best version of the truth they can find, while all the time acknowledging that the best they can provide is an approximate truth.
To claim to be in possession of an absolute truth is to claim the impossible because all we can possess is our interpretation of what we have experienced or been told. If God made us, then this is how He made us. One of the consequences of this is that there are as many forms of Christianity as there are people who call themselves Christian. The same can be said of every religion.
A great many people interpret what they have been taught by their religious leaders in ways that cause them and/or others considerable pain and suffering. Some people interpret ideas such as the Christian belief that we are born in sin and therefore must seek salvation to mean that they are intrinsically bad and must live their life striving to meet the highest standards of goodness, but always being in fear of failing and being punished. This kind of interpretation leads to misery, despair, and depression.
Many people believe that, because they hold certain ideas, they are morally superior to those who do not hold these ideas. In believing this they commit the deadliest of the deadly sins, namely pride, but they do this willingly because they believe that their moral superiority entitles them to patronise, proselytise, and, under certain conditions, maim and kill those they despise.
The way our brain functions means that we are constantly choosing which interpretation we will give to every event. From each interpretation come our decisions about how to act. However, our freedom of choice has the consequence that we cannot avoid the two necessary conditions of choice. Choices exist only in a state of uncertainty, and we are responsible for our choices.
bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/atheism/people/rowe.shtmlWhen people fear uncertainty and dislike taking responsibility for what they do, they create for themselves the illusion of certainty and irresponsibility by choosing to be a child who is obedient to a god or to a political leader. In doing this they refuse to accept their very nature, that is, what it is to be a human being.