Free Will, Decision making and religion

[JuliaL]

To sum it up, I'd say that the whole problem of Free Will stems from the fact that this notion is one of the most basic philosophical categories. Which means that it's either too underdefined, or outright undefinable or the definitions are too far from what an average human intuitively want. At least it is so at the current state of philosophy.

To add to what Parkers Tan said, if we consider more fundamentalistic interpretations of abrahamic religions, than any Free Will definition will do. Since if the threats of Hell were real any "normal" decision-making criterion works as if there were no Free Will at all.

I fully agree and would like to add that the closer I get to philosophical thought, the less certain of anything and the more confused I get.
My general principles lead me to think it is a conspiracy to extract money, but I'm not totally certain as to how.

At very least I will reject tithing, even in the face of threats of hell because that would not be acceptable behavior be it free or no.

The self is just an invisible database of values about our current and recent past. If I ask you if you are a patient person, or strong, or intelligent, you intuitively know an answer to these questions. That's transparently drawing upon that database of values. And these things might change over time, as in, "I was very impatient when I was younger, but I am not anymore."

So, if there is a time independent database of traits constituting the self, doesn't the existence of the database refute the claim that there are no unchanging aspects to the self? Not the entries in the database, but the fact that the database exists.