Free Will: Fact or Fiction

[Reasonable_Jeff]

Okay my atheist friends. Do you fellas (and ladies) believe that humans pocess free will? Why or why not?

I've heard atheists have different perspectives on this and thought this might be an interesting discussion.

[frankiej]

That depends on what you mean by "free will".

[jonb]

Free of what, paper-clips?

[Whatkins]

Define free will for us.

[Reasonable_Jeff]

Merriam-Webster's second definition:

2 : freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention

[Whatkins]

Then of course I believe people have free will. A god who steers the will of his subjects (and leading some of them away from him) would be nonsense to me.

[Mister Agenda]

Ech, you've already brought determinism into it. There's no way to know for sure that our decisions are not determined by prior conditions. Free will is what we call our perception of our ability to choose between alternatives. We at least have that.

[Mystic]

There is a variety of factors that influence our will. But I would say despite that, at the end, we have enough struggle room, for there to be free-will.

But our will isn't completely free nor is it completely a slave to factors.

I feel the same is true of beliefs. I don't think we easily FREELY chose our beliefs, but that we struggle between beliefs and there is a free-will in that. We don't always accept the truth even if it is proven to us. Nor do we always reject baseless belief. And we sometimes chose to critically think and sometimes we chose not to. We give into bias or we struggle against it.

[TaraJo]

Merriam-Webster's second definition:

2 : freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention

If by "prior causes" you include the chemical reactions in our brain, no, we don't have free will. If anything, we're slaves to those chemical reactions.

[Reforged]

Lets look at this from a purely physical perspective;
You're heavily influenced by your genetics and your environment, both of which you have no control over. Every action you make is a reaction to somebody or something around you.
In what way does this allow for this thing people call "free will"?

I am a product of my experience and my genetics, as are my actions. This may define me as any number of things but I have little choice as to what the result is as I am ultimately confined to the limitations imposed on me and the bias I have been subjected to.
My actions are a product of who I am not what I will.
In my humble opinion that makes them more significant.