Y-DNA distribution across Brazilian regions and an intriguingly high % of Y--DNA I

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I've just read this study (Male Lineages in Brazil: Intercontinental Admixture and Stratification of the European Background) on the distribution of male lineages of Brazilians and there is something that struck me as very intriguing and, I think, difficult to explain. They have a somewhat respectable sample of Brazilian males (1,217), though it would certainly be recommended not to expect a perfect demonstration of the actual Y-DNA makeup of the country, given how large and diverse Brazil is and of course the very nature of these studies at least in developing countries, i.e. most of the individuals who volunteered to have their DNA collected live in large urban centers with good universities, not exactly a good representation of the rest of the country.

With all that said, what do you think can explain this:

There is a surprisingly high percentage of haplogroup I, 8.9% as a whole and reaching a (for me) astounding 11.5% in the Northeast of Brazil, the region that least received the post-1830 non-Iberian immigration, and until the 1880s the most populous region (now the 2nd one).

I thought I1 and I2 lineages would correlate a more Eastern/Northeastern European influx, but that definitely is NOT the origin of most Northeastern colonial immigrants from Europe as far as I know. Could the Dutch have left such a noticeable impact on Y-DNA when their Dutch Brazil in the northeast lasted less than 30 years, and also - according to their Portuguese defeaters, at least - they were expelled en masse from Brazil? There was also some short settlement and longer trading voyages by Frenchmen in the Northeastern coast.These hypotheses, though, wouldn't solve the issue that I is also strong in the North (10%), never occupied by the Dutch or French.

I thought of a clear mistake in the analysis or a very skewed and misleading sample, but looking at the other Y-DNA percentage they look totally reasonable and explainable: highest E1b1a (8.2%) in the Northeast, the largest center for slaves in roughly ~1530-1780; highest R1(xR1b), i.e. mostly R1a, in the South (5.5%), by far the main destination of the Germans and Slavs; highest Q1a2 (8.1%) in the North, the last region to be effectively colonized outside the coastal region and still today with the largest Amerindian population. So, everything fits just right, except for that high I1+I2 percentage in the Northeast/North!

As an aside, I found it interesting that, even with the relatively minor contribution of non-Western European Y-DNA (Amerindians, Africans, other Europeans), the haplogroups E1b1b (10.9%), J (10.1%) and G (5.1%) are very present, adding to a full 26.1%, more than 1/4 of the male lineages. That really indicates how strongly the (traditionally/originally) non-IE lineages resisted in Portugal.

Another interesting finding, though maybe coincidental due to patterns of the demographic formation, is that the Y-DNA distribution of the Brazilian Northeast appears as the most Central European-shifted among the 4 regions (i.e. a bit closer to France and, lesso, Italy), while the Southeast has the Y-DNA makeup closest to Portugal's, even though it's received the largest and most diversified number of immigrants from 1860 to our days. I really don't know what to make of those results, how to explain them fitting into Brazilian history. What would you suggest/hypothesize?
 
In 2007 nine famous black Brazilians took part in a DNA test, organized by BBC Brasil, that included testing of the Y-chromosome-haplogroup (for females the father was tested). The results showed a similar surprise as the study you mention. I cannot open all the relevant pages on the BBC Brasil's website, but in at least two cases the haplogroup was I1: the singer Djavan (according to eupedia, I don't see it on the BBC Brasil site myself) and the father of actress Ildi Silva:

http://www.bbc.com/portuguese/reporterbbc/story/2007/05/070514_dna_ildisilva_cg.shtml

http://www.bbc.com/portuguese/reporterbbc/story/2007/05/070522_dna_djavan_cg.shtml


Djavan and Ildi Silva are both from the Northeast. Djavan's paternal ancestry is apparently Dutch (I don't know for sure if that means his ancestors arrived during the Dutch rule in the 17th century).
 
I've just read this study (Male Lineages in Brazil: Intercontinental Admixture and Stratification of the European Background) on the distribution of male lineages of Brazilians and there is something that struck me as very intriguing and, I think, difficult to explain. They have a somewhat respectable sample of Brazilian males (1,217), though it would certainly be recommended not to expect a perfect demonstration of the actual Y-DNA makeup of the country, given how large and diverse Brazil is and of course the very nature of these studies at least in developing countries, i.e. most of the individuals who volunteered to have their DNA collected live in large urban centers with good universities, not exactly a good representation of the rest of the country.

With all that said, what do you think can explain this:

There is a surprisingly high percentage of haplogroup I, 8.9% as a whole and reaching a (for me) astounding 11.5% in the Northeast of Brazil, the region that least received the post-1830 non-Iberian immigration, and until the 1880s the most populous region (now the 2nd one).

I thought I1 and I2 lineages would correlate a more Eastern/Northeastern European influx, but that definitely is NOT the origin of most Northeastern colonial immigrants from Europe as far as I know. Could the Dutch have left such a noticeable impact on Y-DNA when their Dutch Brazil in the northeast lasted less than 30 years, and also - according to their Portuguese defeaters, at least - they were expelled en masse from Brazil? There was also some short settlement and longer trading voyages by Frenchmen in the Northeastern coast.These hypotheses, though, wouldn't solve the issue that I is also strong in the North (10%), never occupied by the Dutch or French.

I thought of a clear mistake in the analysis or a very skewed and misleading sample, but looking at the other Y-DNA percentage they look totally reasonable and explainable: highest E1b1a (8.2%) in the Northeast, the largest center for slaves in roughly ~1530-1780; highest R1(xR1b), i.e. mostly R1a, in the South (5.5%), by far the main destination of the Germans and Slavs; highest Q1a2 (8.1%) in the North, the last region to be effectively colonized outside the coastal region and still today with the largest Amerindian population. So, everything fits just right, except for that high I1+I2 percentage in the Northeast/North!

As an aside, I found it interesting that, even with the relatively minor contribution of non-Western European Y-DNA (Amerindians, Africans, other Europeans), the haplogroups E1b1b (10.9%), J (10.1%) and G (5.1%) are very present, adding to a full 26.1%, more than 1/4 of the male lineages. That really indicates how strongly the (traditionally/originally) non-IE lineages resisted in Portugal.

Another interesting finding, though maybe coincidental due to patterns of the demographic formation, is that the Y-DNA distribution of the Brazilian Northeast appears as the most Central European-shifted among the 4 regions (i.e. a bit closer to France and, lesso, Italy), while the Southeast has the Y-DNA makeup closest to Portugal's, even though it's received the largest and most diversified number of immigrants from 1860 to our days. I really don't know what to make of those results, how to explain them fitting into Brazilian history. What would you suggest/hypothesize?

That's a tough one. Y dna I1 today definitely correlates best with Germanic and secondarily with Eastern European lineages. It's possible, I suppose, that even in thirty years the Dutch left behind enough mixed race boys who might have gotten lucky in terms of male descendants. There is some degree of luck involved in which man's male line survives.

However, is some of that "I" I2a? There is I2a in Spain, but I don't know about Portugal.

As to your last paragraph, probably the Northeast comes out as most "Central European" like precisely because of the presence of "I" in such respectable frequencies.

I think a lot would depend on if you're grouping really specific R1b lineages, for example, or just R1b in general.

Italians, especially Northern Italians, have a lot of R1b. In my area it's 50-60%. It's just that it's not the "Spanish" sub-lineage. It's very often U-152. So, if you're just using R1b, or even R1b 312, the Italians, or Germans, for that matter, who also have very respectable amounts of U-152, would group with the Portuguese. The Germans also have very high levels of R1b U-106.

Oh, it just occurred to me. Was their any Italian migration to the northeast? People from the Veneto carry a very respectable amount of R1b. That might have added to the Dutch derived proportion.

Look at Maciamo's maps of ydna "I" here:
https://www.eupedia.com/europe/maps_Y-DNA_haplogroups.shtml
 
I've just read this study (Male Lineages in Brazil: Intercontinental Admixture and Stratification of the European Background) on the distribution of male lineages of Brazilians and there is something that struck me as very intriguing and, I think, difficult to explain. They have a somewhat respectable sample of Brazilian males (1,217), though it would certainly be recommended not to expect a perfect demonstration of the actual Y-DNA makeup of the country, given how large and diverse Brazil is and of course the very nature of these studies at least in developing countries, i.e. most of the individuals who volunteered to have their DNA collected live in large urban centers with good universities, not exactly a good representation of the rest of the country.
With all that said, what do you think can explain this:
There is a surprisingly high percentage of haplogroup I, 8.9% as a whole and reaching a (for me) astounding 11.5% in the Northeast of Brazil, the region that least received the post-1830 non-Iberian immigration, and until the 1880s the most populous region (now the 2nd one).
I thought I1 and I2 lineages would correlate a more Eastern/Northeastern European influx, but that definitely is NOT the origin of most Northeastern colonial immigrants from Europe as far as I know. Could the Dutch have left such a noticeable impact on Y-DNA when their Dutch Brazil in the northeast lasted less than 30 years, and also - according to their Portuguese defeaters, at least - they were expelled en masse from Brazil? There was also some short settlement and longer trading voyages by Frenchmen in the Northeastern coast.These hypotheses, though, wouldn't solve the issue that I is also strong in the North (10%), never occupied by the Dutch or French.
I thought of a clear mistake in the analysis or a very skewed and misleading sample, but looking at the other Y-DNA percentage they look totally reasonable and explainable: highest E1b1a (8.2%) in the Northeast, the largest center for slaves in roughly ~1530-1780; highest R1(xR1b), i.e. mostly R1a, in the South (5.5%), by far the main destination of the Germans and Slavs; highest Q1a2 (8.1%) in the North, the last region to be effectively colonized outside the coastal region and still today with the largest Amerindian population. So, everything fits just right, except for that high I1+I2 percentage in the Northeast/North!
As an aside, I found it interesting that, even with the relatively minor contribution of non-Western European Y-DNA (Amerindians, Africans, other Europeans), the haplogroups E1b1b (10.9%), J (10.1%) and G (5.1%) are very present, adding to a full 26.1%, more than 1/4 of the male lineages. That really indicates how strongly the (traditionally/originally) non-IE lineages resisted in Portugal.
Another interesting finding, though maybe coincidental due to patterns of the demographic formation, is that the Y-DNA distribution of the Brazilian Northeast appears as the most Central European-shifted among the 4 regions (i.e. a bit closer to France and, lesso, Italy), while the Southeast has the Y-DNA makeup closest to Portugal's, even though it's received the largest and most diversified number of immigrants from 1860 to our days. I really don't know what to make of those results, how to explain them fitting into Brazilian history. What would you suggest/hypothesize?
over 1 million North east italians went to brazil between 1875 to 1914 , check this site , a dialect of venetian still spoken in brazil and the links on the bottom of the page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talian_dialect#cite_note-autogenerated7-9
https://web.archive.org/web/2004031...ideoinf/periodic/precedenti/01/6/espirito.htm
so whatever maciano has for a combination of Veneto, Friuli and trentino, that would be the Haplogroups that would have been part of this 40 year migration

https://www.eupedia.com/genetics/italian_dna.shtml
 
There's I1 everywhere in Europe, even little hotspots like Palermo, Sicily. German numbers I've seen 15-18%, same for English. There are high numbers from Belgium and the Nederlands too.

Here's a pic put together by Richard Miller based on 2015 official populations:

Spain and Portugal had it in lower proportions but still within hundreds of thousands of men.

I1 map.jpg


The circles are scaled for population size, rather than percentage. There are more Italians with I1 than Norwegians due to the higher pop of Italy.

The Brazil question is percentage: 8.9% which could be explained by this map, especially if the more affluent citizens are more likely to be tested.
 
Since the mass immigration of the late 19th century didn't effect the North and Northeast very much, the higher than expected percentage of I there was likely brought about by early immigrants. It could be that some of the most prominent plantation owners, who owned many slaves, just happened to belong to Haplogroup I, and that they were able to produce a lot of offspring with their concubines for many generations. Their descendants could have spread to the North and the rest of the country. Haplogroup I does not necessarily point to non-Portugese ancestry of course; I1 and I2 combined are still 6.5 % of Portugese lineages, looking at eupedia's list of Y-haplogroups per country.
 
I read some very reasonable and enlightening assumptions for this fact here. Thank you very much! Maybe is the truth a combination of several of those possibilities in different proportions?

As Angela says, some mixed-race boys of Dutch descent may have got lucky, especially since the Dutch are really known to have left descendants here in the Northeast of Brazil, even entire extended families who maintained their surnames (Vanderlei/Vanderley and Hollanda, from Holland, are still common surnames in many cities there). I also know that some non-Portuguese families somehow got permission to settle in Northeastern Brazil still during the colonial era and became extremely important there (I mean, filthy rich for the local standards), with special mention due to the Cavalcanti (of Italian descent, and Wikipedia says they came from Florence) and Brennand (of English descent).

As the majority of them came still in the 17th century, they had plenty of time to populate the sparsely populated Northeast of the 17th and 18th centuries (the population is supposed to have grown tremendously fast in the 18th and 19th centuries). For me, the successful history of these non-Portuguese families in the Northeast suggests that, when the Portuguese proudly said they had expelled all the invaders, they weren't really including those wealthy local families from whom they could extract many "favors". And, then, as all the colleagues said, there must've been many illegitimate mixed-race children of those successful pioneers.

Another very likely hypothesis, maybe adding to the previous point, is that a small subset of I1 and/or I2 pioneer Portuguese settlers was extremely successful in breeding with many women, slaves, servants or simply free concubines besides their own wives (it's documented to have been extremely common, since Brazilian colonies had many more women than adult men).

It's known that, especially among the later and enormous waves of Portuguese immigration in the 18th century (especially right after the disastrous 1755 Lisbon Earthquake+Tsunami), a majority of the Portuguese incomers came from the North of Portugal (and some even from across the borders in Galicia, to the point that, still nowadays, anyone who is very white and has a light hair is called "galego" in the Northeast!). That fits well with Maciamo's map of I1, which shows the highest concentration of I1 in the Iberian Peninsula right in Galicia.
 
I read some very reasonable and enlightening assumptions for this fact here. Thank you very much! Maybe is the truth a combination of several of those possibilities in different proportions?

As Angela says, some mixed-race boys of Dutch descent may have got lucky, especially since the Dutch are really known to have left descendants here in the Northeast of Brazil, even entire extended families who maintained their surnames (Vanderlei/Vanderley and Hollanda, from Holland, are still common surnames in many cities there). I also know that some non-Portuguese families somehow got permission to settle in Northeastern Brazil still during the colonial era and became extremely important there (I mean, filthy rich for the local standards), with special mention due to the Cavalcanti (of Italian descent, and Wikipedia says they came from Florence) and Brennand (of English descent).

As the majority of them came still in the 17th century, they had plenty of time to populate the sparsely populated Northeast of the 17th and 18th centuries (the population is supposed to have grown tremendously fast in the 18th and 19th centuries). For me, the successful history of these non-Portuguese families in the Northeast suggests that, when the Portuguese proudly said they had expelled all the invaders, they weren't really including those wealthy local families from whom they could extract many "favors". And, then, as all the colleagues said, there must've been many illegitimate mixed-race children of those successful pioneers.

Another very likely hypothesis, maybe adding to the previous point, is that a small subset of I1 and/or I2 pioneer Portuguese settlers was extremely successful in breeding with many women, slaves, servants or simply free concubines besides their own wives (it's documented to have been extremely common, since Brazilian colonies had many more women than adult men).

It's known that, especially among the later and enormous waves of Portuguese immigration in the 18th century (especially right after the disastrous 1755 Lisbon Earthquake+Tsunami), a majority of the Portuguese incomers came from the North of Portugal (and some even from across the borders in Galicia, to the point that, still nowadays, anyone who is very white and has a light hair is called "galego" in the Northeast!). That fits well with Maciamo's map of I1, which shows the highest concentration of I1 in the Iberian Peninsula right in Galicia.

Very interesting. I didn't know there was a big migration after the Lisbon earthquake.

I spent a seemingly endless semester taking a required course in 17-18th century English literature where we spent a god-awful amount of time reading Dryden and Pope, and particularly Pope's "Essay on Man, a book called "The Great Chain of Being", whose principal point was that we should just except the world as it is because it is an expression of God's will. Whatever IS, is right, in other words.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Essay_on_Man

Despite how much I hated the course, I very much remember how we talked about the insanity of trying to view every event, even horrendous ones like that earthquake, as somehow for our own good, because of course, this was the best of all possible worlds if God willed it so! :( I thought then and think now it's a bunch of malarkey. If there is a God, he must be very much hand's off. To think that any god worthy of being worshiped would will all this horror is the real blasphemy.

Sorry for the digression. Anyway, I remember looking at old prints and reading contemporaneous accounts. Obviously, it was a horror. I just didn't know it had an effect on immigration.

1755_Lisbon_earthquake.jpg


lisbon-burning.jpg


There are new things to learn all the time.

That stereotype for "Galegos" is familiar to me from my Cuban neighbor. He sometimes talks to me about genetics, and he was shocked at how much E-M81 they have, for example, and other "E" lineages. He has some of that ancestry too.

Someone could do a research paper about that migration to the various New World countries, and see if it tracks by y lineage.
 
Yes, not only right after the 1755 Earthquake, but it really reinforced the huge influx of Portuguese people to Brazil in that century, initially triggered by the relative economic decadence of Portugal right when Brazil found huge mines of gold and diamond, and consolidated and extended the colonization to the vast inland of the country. In fact, the estimates are that "only" 100,000 Portuguese individuals had come to Brazil between 1530 and 1700, ~590 per year. Then, in the 1701-1760 period alone, the immigration jumped to 600,000 Portuguese people, ~10,000 every year on average. I couldn't find exact numbers for the period 1761-1807 (right before another huge influx when the entire Portuguese Crown fled to Brazil), but one estimate is 3,000 Portuguese immigrants per year, or ~140,000 until 1808.

To put all of the numbers above in perspective, the entire population of Portugal in 1736 was estimated at 2.13 million people, and 2.85 million in 1770. Some 700,000 people getting out of the country and heading to their most important colony was a massive exodus.

Brazil was made really "Portuguese" in that 1701-1760 era, not before. By the late 17th century, the whites were a tiny minority and the main language was Língua Geral, a creolized mix of Tupi and Portuguese, still spoken these days as Nheengatu in some small cities in remote parts of the Amazon. ;)

As for that "theological" explanation for evil and disasters, I can only say that they sound so simplistic and fanciful that they can become even childih, relying on a veritable panacea ("this? God's will... that? God's will... what about mutually contradictory things? Hmm, God's will? LOL). To me it looks like the reasoning of someone who, not being able to have a deeper and more complex understanding of God and of the cosmos, goes back to the most basic, primitive form of divinity, that of the "wise old man in the sky".
 
Very interesting. I didn't know there was a big migration after the Lisbon earthquake.

I spent a seemingly endless semester taking a required course in 17-18th century English literature where we spent a god-awful amount of time reading Dryden and Pope, and particularly Pope's "Essay on Man, a book called "The Great Chain of Being", whose principal point was that we should just except the world as it is because it is an expression of God's will. Whatever IS, is right, in other words.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Essay_on_Man

Despite how much I hated the course, I very much remember how we talked about the insanity of trying to view every event, even horrendous ones like that earthquake, as somehow for our own good, because of course, this was the best of all possible worlds if God willed it so! :( I thought then and think now it's a bunch of malarkey. If there is a God, he must be very much hand's off. To think that any god worthy of being worshiped would will all this horror is the real blasphemy.

Sorry for the digression. Anyway, I remember looking at old prints and reading contemporaneous accounts. Obviously, it was a horror. I just didn't know it had an effect on immigration.

Yes out of all possible worlds including ones without earthquakes, this ones the best. So if I decide go back in time to visit these guys, would they allow me to steal from them? To avoid being hypocrites, they would have to bc God intended this to happen, so it's all good.


Yes, Angela, this is davef schooling these well mannered British authors.....davef who laughs at crazy/immature YouTube vids until he's airless
 
Yes, not only right after the 1755 Earthquake, but it really reinforced the huge influx of Portuguese people to Brazil in that century, initially triggered by the relative economic decadence of Portugal right when Brazil found huge mines of gold and diamond, and consolidated and extended the colonization to the vast inland of the country. In fact, the estimates are that "only" 100,000 Portuguese individuals had come to Brazil between 1530 and 1700, ~590 per year. Then, in the 1701-1760 period alone, the immigration jumped to 600,000 Portuguese people, ~10,000 every year on average. I couldn't find exact numbers for the period 1761-1807 (right before another huge influx when the entire Portuguese Crown fled to Brazil), but one estimate is 3,000 Portuguese immigrants per year, or ~140,000 until 1808.

To put all of the numbers above in perspective, the entire population of Portugal in 1736 was estimated at 2.13 million people, and 2.85 million in 1770. Some 700,000 people getting out of the country and heading to their most important colony was a massive exodus.

Brazil was made really "Portuguese" in that 1701-1760 era, not before. By the late 17th century, the whites were a tiny minority and the main language was Língua Geral, a creolized mix of Tupi and Portuguese, still spoken these days as Nheengatu in some small cities in remote parts of the Amazon. ;)

As for that "theological" explanation for evil and disasters, I can only say that they sound so simplistic and fanciful that they can become even childih, relying on a veritable panacea ("this? God's will... that? God's will... what about mutually contradictory things? Hmm, God's will? LOL). To me it looks like the reasoning of someone who, not being able to have a deeper and more complex understanding of God and of the cosmos, goes back to the most basic, primitive form of divinity, that of the "wise old man in the sky".

This contrasts quite a bit with Canada, where the French really didn't immigrate much at all, really, perhaps because their economy was better for longer periods of time? Still, England's economy was good too, or at least not any worse than that of France, but a lot of British people immigrated. It's not as if the French didn't have religious freedom immigrants, either, but they had to go to non-French colonies, with a different culture and language. Maybe that was part of it, or maybe the climate in Canada has something to do with it? In the old days pre-central heating it must have been a horror.

From what I can tell from the genetics studies, the French Canadians started out as a very small group, and everyone who claims French Canadian ancestry descends from that very small group. That's how Angelina Jolie and Hilary Clinton are cousins, btw. They're all pretty close cousins of one another. All that inbreeding is part of the reason they get studied for recessive disease as well.

I've wondered in the past why it is that colonizers from the southern European countries took more women from among their slaves than did the colonizers from northern Europe. It happened, of course, or Amercian blacks wouldn't be, on average, 20% white, but it didn't spread into "white" society. I suppose part of it is that fewer Southern European women came to the colonies? I wonder if there were other factors, though?

That concept of "The Great Chain of Being" was used to bolster philosophical resistance to any changes in the social structure, so, some of the refusal to see that it was ludicrous (in my view) might have been because it kept the "lower orders" in their place. However, it left them in the ridiculous position of having to state that natural disasters must be part of God's plan. I mean, you can get turned off by traditional religious concepts just by looking at the evil that men do in the world, but it's relatively easy to explain away by saying that God gave man free will, and so God is not responsible. I tried that for a while. :) However, what about disease, and earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and on and on. Why is the world like this if it was created by an omnipotent and loving God? Modern priests who have any sense don't say to parents whose child has just died painfully of leukemia that it's God's will, but they do say things like I don't know why these things happen, but we have to trust in God. That became not enough for me personally even though I played around for years with the Christian existentialists, and the work of people like Teilhard de Chardin. If God just set the universe and nature "going", and then let both nature and man evolve to a destined "omega point", I guess it makes sense, but it doesn't satisfy me emotionally. Plus, de Chardin practically was excommunicated for that bit of philosophizing. :) The Church has since come around and is embracing many of his ideas, but I'm still ****ed off by all the suffering mankind has had to and will continue to endure before reaching that supposed "omega point".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin

@davef,
Hypocrisy is one of the defining attributes of humankind. I'm sure they'd find a way.

Ever heard this quote? Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue. We'd probably be worse off with no hypocrisy because that might mean we don't even know what virtue is...

My mother often put it to me in a much more kind and compassionate way when I would rail about the private morals and lack of kindness of someone up at the communion rail every Sunday, or even every day.

"If this is the way they are with going to church, perhaps if they didn't go at all they'd be so much worse." I don't know, maybe it does keep more people more often within bounds.
 
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"If this is the way they are with going to church, perhaps if they didn't go at all they'd be so much worse." I don't know, maybe it does keep more people more often within bounds. >>> Wasn't your mother a genius? I didn't think of it this way before, but it's totally reasonable and even profound... hahaha
 
I don't understand the free will so not god's fault thing. You invite the risk of having the free will to rob an elderly lady or declare war resulting in deaths. A smart, benevolent god would've seen that coming, right?

I'll be the one to blame if I allow a pack of junkyard dogs to frolick freely in a children's playground.
 
I don't understand the free will so not god's fault thing. You invite the risk of having the free will to rob an elderly lady or declare war resulting in deaths. A smart, benevolent god would've seen that coming, right?

I'll be the one to blame if I allow a pack of junkyard dogs to frolick freely in a children's playground.

Hundreds of thousands if not millions of pages of print have been devoted to musings about the nature and importance of free will within the Christian, Jewish and Muslim framework. This was the kind of stuff we deliberated every day for 45 minutes in my theology classes. That's every, single,solitary school day for six years of junior high and high school. There were days I felt like pulling out my hair, but I'll say one thing for it: it taught me how to do some pretty high order thinking and reading and writing. They didn't baby us, and they didn't think we were incapable.

It's much too complicated to get into here, and off topic as well, but I don't want to leave your question hanging.

In the Christian tradition, free will is a gift, God's gift to man. According to Philo, it is what lifts us above other animals. By allowing us free will, God made us more like him, more of a partner in his creation. His goal cannot be achieved without us.

Now, that raises another question. It's a paradox, right? How can we have free will if God is omniscient? The Protestant formulation, i.e. predestination, is worse, in my opinion, than the Catholic formulations. The apologias for it never made any sense to me. If you are predestined to either be saved or not, to use your free will for good or evil, then you don't have any free will as far as I'm concerned. In my view, what sometimes happens when someone starts a new religion is that something is "proclaimed" without thinking through all the logical ramifications of that pronouncement. Later theologians have to try to clean it up.

In the Catholic view it makes a little more sense, but I stress that adjective. There is no pre-destination in the normal sense of the word. You can't will yourself to goodness by free will alone. You have to work with God's grace. However, it's the synergy between the two which leads to salvation.

"When God touches man's heart through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, man himself is not inactive while receiving that inspiration, since he could reject it; and yet, without God's grace, he cannot by his own free will move himself toward justice in God's sight". That's from the Council of Trent.

You do have total free will; there is no pre-destination. However, because God exists outside of time, God knows what you will choose. Imagine a man standing beside a stream. He sees not only what is in front of him but what is upstream and downstream from him.

I know that doesn't answer your objection. The fact still remains that in this scenario God would see the terrible use we would make of our free will. Can the "new heaven and new earth" not become a reality unless we fully participate? Will it be worth it?
 
Nope, none of that satisfied my objection but it was interesting nonetheless. I never read any religious or philosophical book besides 2 courses in undergrad but I do real well with thinking critically, though I don't often show it here. If this were a coding or puzzle forum, it'd be different. Heavy reading is out of the question for me, I'm a slow reader and my attention span is short as a caterpillar leg which I can credit to my ADHD.

And I wouldn't wrack my brain over god, it's all based on what was written on the fly without devoting more time into a more logical description of him which is what you said, I guess (its late). I feel no need to personally, especially as an atheist.

Never knew free will was that important. I understood what it is, but didn't know that there's that much written about it. I guess I'm smart but poorly read and inexperienced.


 
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Just for your amusement, I'll post here the graphs I've made for a Brazilian group I'm part of, based on the Y-DNA data of the study linked above. Each graph shows the Y-DNA distribution in each region of Brazil. Immediately noticeable, besides the unsurprising predominance of R1b in all regions, is that there are some moderately distinctive regional patterns:
1) higher than average E1b1a and I in the Northeast, the most important and populous until 1800;
2) significantly higher than average R1a in the South;
3) relatively higher E1b1b in the Southeast, the economic heartland of the country (São Paulo and Rio are there);
4) higher J (J1+J2) in the agribusiness powerhouse and traditionally pastoral Center-West;
5) much higher Q1a in the North (Amazon).

Y-DNA no Brasil por região.jpg
 
Just for your amusement, I'll post here the graphs I've made for a Brazilian group I'm part of, based on the Y-DNA data of the study linked above. Each graph shows the Y-DNA distribution in each region of Brazil. Immediately noticeable, besides the unsurprising predominance of R1b in all regions, is that there are some moderately distinctive regional patterns:
1) higher than average E1b1a and I in the Northeast, the most important and populous until 1800;
2) significantly higher than average R1a in the South;
3) relatively higher E1b1b in the Southeast, the economic heartland of the country (São Paulo and Rio are there);
4) higher J (J1+J2) in the agribusiness powerhouse and traditionally pastoral Center-West;
5) much higher Q1a in the North (Amazon).

View attachment 9496
Those percentages look as I would expect, thank you for posting.
 
If you consider the Y to be Germanic, then the Visigoths, but particularly the Suebi could be the answer. The Suebi established their capital in what is now Braga (trivia: the father of Daniela Mercury is from Braga).
The 2 biggest cities north of Porto are Braga and Guimarães (20km from Braga).


I've never seen more people with these two surnames than in Brasil (of course they are common in Portugal, but in Brasil it is striking). In the old days, common folks had a first name and probably the surname was from their hometown: Braga e Guimarães.
Considering that the North was always the most fertile area of Portugal, and that a lot of "Minhotos" emigrated to Brasil...


Of course, there is also the selection of the sample: people whose family have been there for generations; recent arrivals from other parts of Brasil, etc.
 

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