Can prayer change God's perfect plan?

[Edwardo Piet]

All I ever thought I was talking about when discussing Free Will is the ability to pursue whatever it is that we will to pursue.  It's about as simple as that.

This is why compatabilism is inane. It defines free will in a way that everyone believes in, in an extremely trivially true way and in such a way that there would be no free will debate in the first place if all free will meant was 'the ability to will what it is that we will to pursue'.

The question is whether the will is free. And just labelling the will as 'free will' or pointing to distinctions we already know exist--like the difference between unintentional and intentional actions--doesn't address the question.

Compatabilism only admits that we could have done otherwise in slightly different circumstances. We already know that. The whole point is that most people think that when they do an action they could have done otherwise in precisely the same circumstances. And they're wrong. So compatabilists are only misleading people by calling ordinary mundane willpower 'free will' when most people believe in something more.

Compatabilism is okay if the first thing compatabilists do is make it very clear to people what kind of free will they DON'T have is; the kind they believe in. The problem is compatabilists don't do that because they're more worried about people becoming fatalists and more interested in being condescending than actually being honest and direct with people. They know that if they started by telling people the kind of free will they don't have they'd scare the shit out of most people. Sure, people are wrong to be afraid but happily being misunderstood about the concept of free will and happily misleading people is not the answer. The kind of free will most people believe in is a much more dangerous belief than fatalism. Hatred itself is irrational once the classic version of free will is no longer believed in.... but love still makes sense. Because hatred presumes that someone ultimately has control over their actions. It's irrational to hate a bear for killing someone for example. We don't seek retribution against animals. Not rationally anyways. It's the same without the classic version of free will. Hatred becomes irrational and rationally unjustifiable once you realize the classic version of free will is impossible. But love still makes sense because although you can not rationally hate an animal... you can certainly rationally love one.