Sheep that follow others to safety or ones that drown in the flood?

Actually T, what I was referring to was YOUR words in that post - and your words, my friend, quite plainly left very little room for free will.  What little room they did leave pretty much referred to finding free will by looking inside yourself. Been there and done that with all kinds of books from all kinds of philosophers and thinkers east and west, mainstream and far beyond.

Maybe it is you who should go back and re-read what you posted, hmmmm?

Finding inner peace and tranquility is all fine and good - I recommend it highly.  But there comes a time to act and while it may be the "role" of a few people to lead, it is the "role" of everyone to use common sense to avoid and resist disaster instead of merely accepting doom as inevitable.  I submit that it is those who do submit who are the real sheep.

Picture a group of people in a low lying pastoral plain meditating and finding their inner selves, the meaning and the purpose of their lives.  For awhile all is pastoral tranquilty and peace rains supreme.  But in the distance you hear the thunder.  Then comes the rain.  And it gets heavier and heavier and the waters begin to rise and flood into the pasture.  Some people warned others when they heard the thunder and again when the rains came.  Perhaps that was their "roles".  But at some point it is everyone's role to take action to move to higher ground and shelter and try to save themselves.

Maybe the coming storm has made the path to safety uncertain and fraught with dangers, and some may fall to their doom.  However, those who do nothing will surely get swept away and drowned by the flood no matter how fervently they meditate, pray, look inside themselve or otherwise fail to get off their asses and take action.

If you drown that is not because it was predetermined that you were going to do so.  It is because you failed to exercise free will and good judgment.   Are the people who followed others to safety sheep?  No they are not.  Though they may not be leaders, they nevertheless used good sense and exercised free will to save themselves from sure doom.  Often the act of following itself is one of free will.  It is the act of meekly submitting that I find more sheeplike.  The act of staying and being drowned could be said to be one of free will too, but in my view it is more a failure to exercise free will.

DQ