If free will was not real

[bennyboy]

Again, this is your experience. Your experience doesn't have to suffer from this change of perspective(it hasn't in mine), except in some small areas - like exacting retribution beyond what's necessary because of emotional evaluation of the offender.

Fair enough.

But notice how you're arguing from the POV that it's wrong because it's uncomfortable, is what you're basically saying here, which is what a lot of theists would argue about God.

I'm not uncomfortable with it, and in fact I accept that determinism is likely the case. But discarding the concept of free will due to determinism isn't really useful, IMO. We treat ourselves and each other as free agents, even when arguing against this freedom. The reality is that in the human world, people think, feel, make decisions and do stuff, and "freedom" refers to the experience of acting on decisions without compulsion or obstruction. It doesn't need to have anything to do with determinism/indeterminism at all.

Life without God would be hell, you're lying if you're saying it isn't and if you're saying it is then you aren't really a non-believer. -- Except that's not even true, like I just said, your experience of reality doesn't suffer at all. You'll still make decisions just as before, you won't fall into some depression because you know everything you'll do in your life is completely predetermined. You'll just carry on on with your life as it is. You know what would have to happen for your enjoyment of reality to really suffer? To see into the future. To know exactly what is going to happen and not be able to change it. That would really suck. But this? This is merely about accepting objective reality.

The reason I carry on living as though I'm free is because I'm free. I can demonstrate this to myself as often as I want. The idea of determinism is fine, but it is not usefully descriptive of the experience of living life and making choices.

As for "objective reality," this is a hush word-- it is an implicit demand to accept the philosophy of the day or be branded delusional. Christians once knew God to be real, beyond any reasonable doubt. People knew the world to be flat. I do not know whether determinism is real. . . but it doesn't matter. A definition of "free will" which demands one be free from causation is broken.