Free will

[The Grand Nudger]

Free will is the ability to choose, correct?

Not as far as I'm aware, no.  The two are commonly equivocated upon, though, for such obvious reasons as it being plainly simple to show that choices exist and are made..whereas this free will business is a bit of a rabbit hole.

I am finding myself at a loss at understanding the majority atheistic view in relation to free will.

I'm not sure that there is one.

Even if there was, in reality, a being that could predetermine everyone's life down to mere seconds.....there's no way.

There are entirely too many variables in place and even mathematics cannot solve this one.

*Magic. The proposition inferred here simply states that such a being does exist and can do that. Perhaps meaningless on it's own, but try to square it away with other propositions which a person might try to include as equally and simultaneously true and you've got something to talk about. I'm of the opinion that it doesn't matter whether or not anything or anyone can solve that, whether or not any being exists which can claim the ability....only that it be possible to do so. If the future can be known, in truth, regardless of whether or not anyone knows it or how...we're woefully wrong about ourselves, the nature of our decisions, the relationship to cause or effect, and our ability to steer either. In short...we're wrong about everything associated with free will.

Free will has always been and always will be in an individual's control due to the decisions that individual makes every second of his conscious life.

To state that one does not have free will because an imaginary being prevents it is ludicrous.

It has not always been that, it isn't now...and I've certainly said no such thing, so..... ? At it's heart, free will has been the notion that the human mind/consciousness/soul..wtf ever...is a sort of mini prime mover. It sets motion, it doesn't -get set- in motion.