A thing about religious (and other) people and the illusion of free will

[Istvan]

Many of the decisions we feel like we make with our "free will" are heavily influenced by our genetic makeup and past experiences.

I don't think anyone really believes at this late date that we're in complete conscious control of our choices, and that our decisions are totally free from any influences like neurochemistry or socioeconomic status. Such an idea of "free will" is so absurd it refutes itself. But the no-free-will advocates (look at neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky, currently in the spotlight for another book about how free will is an illusion) throw out the baby with the bathwater, quite explicitly denying any difference between accidental and deliberate acts and invalidating any notion of moral responsibility whatsoever. Don't we want to make valid distinctions between people who can and can't be held responsible for their actions? Is it unthinkably moralistic to have qualms about living in a world where rape victims are just as culpable as their rapists?

The existentialist in me wonders why people even look at physics to tell us about the legitimacy of ethical decision-making in the first place. Just because physics exhaustively describes the movement of three-dimensional bodies through conventional time-space doesn't mean it's the appropriate source for answers about personal choices. And there are plenty of other things that only apply to our phenomenological life-world ---like language, love, art, justice and meaning--- that should go on the trash heap too if our basis for experiencing them doesn't exist at the subatomic level. If I said that physics proves the English language is an "illusion," or that we only "think" we're listening to a Mozart opera, people would have every reason to laugh. But for some reason, the idea that our choices matter is something we're so desperate to jettison that any old science-words will do.