Why Twinkies disprove God's existence

In a mislabeled post, Reppert presents the following claim:

What is coercion? In simple cases of coercion, one wants to do x, but through threat of force (a gun to the head), or maybe through the presence of a computer hooked up to one's brain, one does y instead.

But is there another type of coercion, in which another person uses motives that may be in place in order to bring it about that that person does what is contrary to their own best interests?

I saw a show (one of the 60 Minutes clones, can't remember which) in which an FBI agent or Lebanese was running a sting operation where he posed as an Al-Queda operative, got some teenagers to sign up for terrorist activity in exchange for money, and then had them arrested. The young kids agreed that they had been seduced by their own greed. But were they still coerced in some significant sense, because they were persuaded to act against their own best interests? Were they truly free even in the compatibilist sense?

http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2009/09/coercion.html

What Reppert is describing is not coercion. To say that acting against your self-interest is coerced behavior is a completely tendentious and idiosyncratic definition of the term.

What Reppert is really describing is something which borders on “entrapment,” not “coercion”–although the definition of entrapment is a bit fuzzy.

One can think of good cases and bad cases of entrapment. To offer a recovering alcoholic a drink to induce him to commit a crime would be evil.

However, to lure a terrorist out of hiding by something you know he finds very tempting would not be evil.

True to his bleeding-heart credentials, Reppert is resorting to the Twinkie defense. The Twinkies made me do it!

By his standard, you could never prosecute looting or shoplifting. The accused could always plead that he (or she) was induced to commit theft because the merchandise was appealing, and he was acting contrary to his self-interest by committing a crime with so little to gain–so he should be acquitted.

And, indeed, if Reppert were on the jury, I suppose there’s not a looter or shoplifter he wouldn’t tearfully acquit and hug on the way out the courtroom door. They are the true victims, not the evil shopkeeper.