Question for Atheists

[robvalue]

I think the initial post touches somewhat on my favourite subject, free will. If we're all just chemicals and we follow the laws of nature and person A is led to the conclusion that god exists, and person B is led to the conclusion that this claim is untrue, how can either be wrong?

If in fact there was no other way things could have happened, because there is no free will, then indeed neither position is "right" or "wrong", but in fact nothing means anything at all. No one is making any decisions, this is not a discussion, it's me being a puppet typing.

Personally I don't believe we have free will, I think it is desirable to consider ourselves more than the sum of our parts and somehow in control. I don't know if this can ever be proven true or false, but from the way I see science going and experiments about being able to predict your decisions before you "think" you have made them, I feel free will could end up being discounted.

But nothing is to be gained by assuming we don't have free will, you can only lose, in the case that you actually did. And nothing can be proved from assuming no free will, because nothing means anything and no other events could be happening.

We have to make certain fundamental assumptions before we can even begin to reason at all:

1) What we experience is real, or at least a realistic interpretation of reality
2) We have free will, and so can choose to reason one way or another