Does the concept of "corruption" invalid the precept of "free will?"

[eris esoteric]

Does the concept of "corruption" invalidate the precept of "free will?"

In other words, if you can become "corrupted" by the presence of bad things near you, simply by the fact of their existance, does that mean you don't have free will to resist the effects of the corruption?

[poseidon]

I guess I'm confused. You ALWAYS have the free will to resist the effects of corruption. I can't think of a situation where you wouldn't.

Let me give some examples:

Suppose I live by a park where it is a known drug dealer hangout (and, for the record, I used to). Drugs are cheap and readily available there. I simply cannot imagine a situation where I would go to the park to buy drugs.

Or, let's say that I live by a well-known red light district with lotsa hookers (haven't, although I've stayed at some seedy hotels with lotsa hookers). Simply because that's there doesn't translate to my either:

a. prostituting myself or
b. buying a service

and I can't possibly imagine a situation where I'd do either.

I was once a bank teller. I handled hundreds of thousands of dollars daily. Never once did I have the desire to steal, pilfer, "borrow," etc.

Perhaps I'm not fully grasping the concept of what you're trying to ask. If I'm not understanding, would you be kind enough to elaborate and clarify?

[pluckyduck]

eris esoteric said

Does the concept of "corruption" invalid the precept of "free will?"

In other words, if you can become "corrupted" by the presence of bad things near you, simply by the fact of their existance, does that mean you don't have free will to resist the effects of the corruption?

I'll take a stab at this.

Some people have a stronger free will than others, some people are more easily corrupted (more easily influenced). I don't think (under normal circumstances) that one person corrupting another is an excuse, but it can be an explanation.

Put an easily influenced person in a morally straight upbringing and environment, you've got a morally straight person. Put an easily influenced person in a morally confused or morally bankrupt upbringing and environment, you have the opposite.

In the real world, right and wrong comes with many shades of grey, lest you couldn't explain so many other morally right people fudging their income taxes or the abundance of "white" lies. How far into the grey folks go has a lot to do with the norms around them, I'd think.

Andrea

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

Usually when I hear "corruption" I hear it with "of a minor." I think Andrea alluded to that with "some have stronger free will than others." Granted, it's one thing to dangle a chocolate donut in front of someone who's trying to diet, saying "here, mmm, isn't this yummy?!" and quite another thing to ply a date with alcohol to make him/her less inhibited in the hopes he/she will forget all about that vow of chastity, but corruption seems to apply in situations where someone is doing what they can to weaken a person's free will, or take advantage of a situation where the will is already weakened or not developed enough to withstand the onslaught of bad influence.

[erik_kosberg]

Free will includes the freedom to make poor choices.

[eris esoteric]

Jeff said

Perhaps I'm not fully grasping the concept of what you're trying to ask. If I'm not understanding, would you be kind enough to elaborate and clarify?

Your answer indicates to me that you understood what I was trying to say. Basically, I'm curious about the concept of corruption, or the "spreading of sin," because in the usage that I hear from some people, it seems as though they are saying that if a person near them is sinning, it means that eventually that sin will cross over and corrupt them. Which, if I understand the concept of "free will" correctly, would be implying that the people "corrupted" don't have free will.

Personally, I believe that people are capable of acquiring free will, if they choose to, and that outside influences, either good or bad, CAN influence a person without their conscious understanding, until they make an effort to understand what they are allowing other people to put into their heads.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

Well, there's also the notion that by allowing a sinner to sin, you're also culpable. If I know the man next to me is going to commit murder and I do nothing to stop it, I'm also guilty of murder. But it gets a little annoying when you bump into someone who thinks if he doesn't convert you to his brand of theology, he's allowing you to sin and therefore is a sinner himself...

[frazzledspice]

We live in a culture where media bombards us with sex and materialism.

I don't think it prevents us from exercising the free will to do the right thing, but, culturally, standards change, so that what was considered "wrong" thirty years ago isn't considered wrong today.

For example, I have a cousin who is getting married soon. He has lived with his fiancee for over ten years (problems getting divorces and annulments.)

My family NEVER would have condoned this behavior thirty years ago. Other than praying for his immortal soul, he would be persona non grata in their house.

But today, they have vacationed with him, dined with him, attended parties with him. They like his fiancee very much. They probably still think his living with his fiancee is wrong, but they accept both of them as they are (and I agree.)

Our acceptance of out-of-wedlock sex has led to a 30% illegitimacy rate. This isn't good for society or for children. Teens who have grown up in a sexually-charged atmosphere in music and on TV don't even consider waiting till marriage. The question is usually not "if" but "when."

Oral _____, which was considered a huge no-no when I was young (and I wasn't afraid to write it, just didn't want that icon to come up) is now considered as casual as a good night kiss.

Is it that teens today can't exercise their free will or that the definition of sin has changed?

[pluckyduck]

eris esoteric said

Personally, I believe that people are capable of acquiring free will, if they choose to, and that outside influences, either good or bad, CAN influence a person without their conscious understanding, until they make an effort to understand what they are allowing other people to put into their heads.

Choosing whom you allow to influence you is a big part of free will. That's something in the front of my mind, what with my boys entering their teens....but the concept doesn't stop at the teens, it carries through our whole lives. We are greatly influenced by the people we are around, some of us more than others, but all of us to some extent.

I try to hang with people whose values I respect....I think about it beforehand. That's one of the reasons I hang at EA. We've got a good group of value based folks here, these are the friends I want. They make me better.

I've worked in the same business for 17 years, in part, because I respect the values of the family that owns the business. They make me a better person.

I think the first exercise of free will is to choose whom you will allow to influence you. You can always choose to not follow a crowd once you are in it, but you're way better off picking the right crowd first.

Am I hitting the subject here or missing the mark?

Andrea

[eris esoteric]

I don't know, I think you're nailing it pretty good, Andrea.

[poseidon]

Okay, I wanted to make sure I understood the question first, thank you Eris.

I agree with Erik -- free will includes the ability to make bad choices.

I know that the following is going to sound weird, but I'll clarify if needed -- peer pressure can be a huge influence to some people, and be of no influence to others. I think we all can understand that concept. The high school that I attended was full of super rich kids with lots of money and lots of spare time. Growing up in Miami, drugs were as easy to get as a can of Pepsi. There were parties every single weekend at someone's house, all the booze, drugs and sex that you wanted was there for the taking.

My brother was part of that crowd. He was off at parties all the time. I don't think that he was a hard-core druggie, but he was a drunk and I know that he used occasionally.

My best friend in high school was a major addict. He had a 4.0 going into his junior year and dropped out because he eventually fried his brain (last I heard, another friend of mine saw him drinking out of a puddle with his pants down around his ankles -- that was while I was still in college).

I went to the University of Wisconsin. This is the school that doesn't make Playboy's Top Ten Party School rankings only because (to use their words), "We don't rank amateurs with professionals." Again, booze, drugs and sex was readily available, all you had to do was find the party ten feet away and join it. If you didn't like that party, walk another ten feet, you'd find another.

I never drank until I thought I was mature enough to be responsible. That didn't happen until I met Michelle. We share a bottle of wine a couple times of month and we make cocktails once a week at home.

I've never done drugs. I waited until marriage to have sex, oral or otherwise.

Some people are just more hard-headed than others, stubborn, whathaveyou. I do classify myself as one of those people. I don't mean to say that I'm better than someone else because I'm that way, I'm simply stating that that's how I am. I've never quite cared about changing who I am or what I believe in to fit in and have fun. I think that's one reason why I've enjoyed mountain biking and skiing -- it is something that I can do alone (I prefer doing it in the company of others), be my own person, and have a blast.

I'd be a lying piece of crap if I wanted to pretend that I've never made a bad decision before. I've made more than my fair share. But, I can't recall that I made a bad decision because I became "corrupted" by outside influence. Most of the bad decisions I've made in my life have revolved around my own selfishness more than anything else.

[ms_n]

I agree with what has already been said. We have the free will to make choices, good and bad.

Your boasting is not good. Don't you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast -- as you really are.

I Corinthians 5:6, NIV

My study Bible notes comment:

Paul was writing to those who wanted to ignore this church problem. They didn't realize that allowing public sin to exist in the church affects all its members. Paul does not expect anyone to be sinless--all believers struggle with sin daily. Instead, he is speaking against those who deliberately sin, feel no guilt, and refuse to repent. This kind of sin cannot be tolerated in the church because it affects others. We have a responsibility to other believers. yeast makes bread dough rise. A lttle bit affects the whole batch. Blatant sins, left uncorrected, confuse and didvide the congregation. While believers should encourage, pray for, and build up on another, they must also be intolerant of sin that jeopardizes the spiritual health of the church.

As Andrea's example shows, we are influenced by those around us. Being corrupted by others around us is never an excuse. We have the choice to recognize our own humanity and degrees of being susceptibility to sins (some of us more in some areas than others, as Jeff said) and to choose who we hang with.

I think of it within the context of abuse. If you let someone in your home who is abusive to one member, the abuse affects everyone. That person cannot stay unless the abusive behavior is corrected.

[AuntieEmma[$]]

I think it's partly a question of maturation. A young child will be very strongly influenced by his family -- probably has little or no free will to resist those influences. A teenager and up into early 20's will have a strong urge to fit in with some group or to join some institution she admires. There is choice/free will as to which group or institution, but I think the urge to be accepted somewhere at that age is overwhelming. But after that, I think you can become a lot less susceptible to outside influences. And you also gain the ability to reevaluate your earlier influences, to some extent, and to consciously decide which to keep and which to discard.

In other words, I think that once someone is past childhood and very-early adulthood, if they say they "become "corrupted" by the presence of bad things near [them], simply by the fact of their existance," that, IMO, would be an excuse -- they would have fallen down on their job of being responsible for themselves.

[anderclayton]

I don't know. I've kinda linked corruption with addiction in a lot of ways and the question of whether addiction affects free will seems a bit tougher. I kinda got into thinking about that when doing a debate on whether smokers should be allowed to freely advertise their products or not.

Ander

[AuntieEmma[$]]

anderclayton said

I don't know. I've kinda linked corruption with addiction in a lot of ways and the question of whether addiction affects free will seems a bit tougher. I kinda got into thinking about that when doing a debate on whether smokers should be allowed to freely advertise their products or not.

Ander

Ah, a subject near and dear to my heart. I think that it's a shared responsibility. The smoker, no matter how deeply addicted, is still responsible for their own health and has the ability to choose whether to maintain or break their addiction (it may be excruciatingly difficult to break an addiction, but that's different from being out and out impossible). But the tobacco companies, by knowingly promoting a lethal addictive substance, are responsible for causing widespread deaths. So I think both the smoker and the companies are responsible. And I have no problem with bans on cigarette advertising or with lawsuits against tobacco companies.

(And I just realized that this fits in with what I had written before, because most people become addicted while they are teenagers, a time when IMO they are more susceptible to outside influences than they will be later in life. And the tobacco companies know that's the case, and they do deliberately prey on kids and teenagers, which makes them even creepier.)

P.S. There's also a difference between addiction and "corruption," IMO, because addiction has a physical pull on someone in a way that corruption does not. Both have psychological pulls, but addiction, in addition, actually gets into your brain and changes your chemicals around in a way that corruption alone does not. So addiction would be a stronger influence than merely having bad things "near you," as it was put in the original post -- because the addictive substance isn't just near you, it becomes physically an intrinsic part of you.

[Helen_B[$]]

When someone who one admires engages in an activity which might be considered sinful or wrong, one could be made to reconsider thinking of that activity in that way. After all, if Harry, who one really admires, drinks alcohol (binge drinks, gambles, sleeps around on his wife, fudges his income tax, etc.) maybe drinking alcohol is not so bad. One has the potential to influence the behavior and beliefs of many people because of one's own actions, and to be influenced by the actions of others as well.

[rmthunter]

It all works as long as you're talking in generalities.

Just to take a high-profile example (and one that affects me directly), homosexuality is held up in some quarters as the ultimate sin. Any mention of it that is not negative (and to some people any mention of it at all) is leading to "bad influences." However, there is a growing body of evidence that sexual orientation is hard-wired, and that I have no more control over loving men than Jeff does over loving women.

I don't really see how my being openly gay is going to influence someone who is openly straight to abandon his sexual orientation, and yet that is an article of faith among some. (And it has to be faith, since there's no evidence for it.) And here I am, the ultimate bad influence. That I happen to be a person with fairly strict moral standards has no bearing.

This just by way of pointing out that there are a lot of levels to this question. To put it in terms of people in their teens and early adulthood, what is the difference between "succumbing to bad influences" and "experimenting"? Is experimenting therefore "bad"? What about a young man who has been raised in a strict moral environment who discovers at, perhaps, age 18 that he much prefers the company of men? Has he succumbed to a bad influence, or just figured out, at least in part, who he is and perhaps given himself a leg up toward a happy and productive life?

I don't want to sound like a bleeding-heart liberal, but discussing this kind of question -- and I think it pertains to a lot of other behaviors that are considered "bad" -- without examing the reasons for the behaviors (and I mean specific reasons, although peer pressure and the like is a good start) is going to give you a nice forum discussion, but no answers. To ascribe it to "bad influences" or a propensity on the part of humanity for "sin" may make those pointing their fingers feel better -- or at least morally superior, with perhaps a tinge of envy -- but it doesn't answer any questions.

[poseidon]

rmhunter said

I have no more control over loving men than Jeff does over loving women.

That would just one woman (in case my wife sees this).

To put it in terms of people in their teens and early adulthood, what is the difference between "succumbing to bad influences" and "experimenting"? Is experimenting therefore "bad"?

Experimenting can be bad, sure. I wouldn't encourage people to experiment with a lot of things (cigarettes, drugs, stealing for the thrill of it, pre-marital sex, bloodletting, kiddie porn, abusive behavior, etc.). Some activities become addicting, some faster than others. When the thrill of experimenting wanes, some who want to reach that "high" will go on to bigger and badder stuff in order to acheive it.

Experimenting can also be good. I would encourage people to try new foods, see the world, discover a hobby, try a sport, etc.

It depends on what you're experimenting with.

[pluckyduck]

Funny. I would never have thought to mix addiction or homosexuality or such into a conversation on this subject. Interesting to see how "free will" and "corruption" branches when a group of people are talking.

I think more in terms of "slippery slopes", I guess because that's the kind of corruption I'm personally vulnerable to. Nobody nor nothing is going to threaten my core values, but it's so easy to slide into unattractive patterns when "everybody" around you is doing it (or somebody close to you is).

One of the *big* corrupters I've seen is money and how people handle it, especially when they have it. I never had it when I was growing up, and I was eat-peanut-butter-for-a-week-to-pay-the-rent poor until I was just past 25. I wore cardboard in my shoes because I couldn't afford new ones, that poor.

In my later 20's, I started making a little, but I fell into a crowd that made a lot