Of course they do! Who is denying them free will? No one and no thing.

I don't believe we were "created" so it's blatantly obvious to me that we have free will.

are you referring to moral absolutism?

in the case of genuine free will... of course we do.

i dont see any strings attached to me. I can do as i please. when i please. how i please. and with whom i please.

i might get into trouble for some of it, but i can still do it.

Yes we have free will. And we choose what we will or will not do depending on our beliefs..
Sometimes I do things I feel I shouldn't or after I do it feel I should not have done it. But if I did not do it then my will would not be free. Something would hold me down and keep me from doing it. the little NO FREE WILL MONSTER!. Boy, that was deep..

Oh, I dunno. I think to at least a certain degree our lives (or at least aspects of them) are determined by other factors beyond our control, i.e. genetics, social norms, personality etc.
But, for example, you're a witness of some car accident or something. You can either CHOOSE to walk away, or offer some help. What do you do? You can answer now, but how much will it reflect your true actions? If it ever did happen (and let's hope not) you might act differently to what you expect, and this might depend on where you are, who's involved, how caring you are, how outgoing you are, what you feel you 'should' do, maybe even the weather. So even if you *think* you've got a free choice in your actions, it may not be so.
Meh, I dunno lol it's psychology, it will never be resolved.

Ditto.

I am something of a moral abosolutionist in regard to free will. I have the option of doing anything. What I will do is governed by my own experiences, cultural norms and societal norms.
The Mayoruna deliberately put the secretions of poison frogs on their children in a specific ceremony; in the United States if you did that Child Protective Services would be all over you. Neither is right or wrong; both are operating under cultural norms.
Both have used free will to determine whether to follow this norm or not.

Yes you were created. In your mother's womb, remember? I didn't say by anybody or anything, just created, which is quite obvious that we all were. Whether it be by nothing or something, we were all created, I don't care which.

"Who is denying them free will"? I didn't say that anybody is denied free will, quite the opposite, I'm saying that it is forced upon you when you are created, you do not have a choice in the matter of having it, nobody chooses to have free will, a fairly strange undertaking wouldn't you say?

To create, there must be a hand doing it. (not a literal hand). Having sex is not "creating" life, it is causing your two halves to combine and becoming another member of the species. Life does not start at conception, or fertilization. Life started billions of years ago and hasn't stopped since. The egg and sperm are alive already. They do not "make" life.

The word "create" implies intent, and that's why I refuse to use it.

But semantics aside, that doesn't matter. No over-blow force created me. No omnipotent being called me into existence. No deity controls my thoughts. Thus, I have free will.



Again, I was not created. No life was created. It evolved. Nothing "made" it. Life literally developed into existence, if you understand anything about basic evolutionary theory. Nothing made it. Nothing created it. Environmental conditions caused it, but it was not created. Again, to create, there must be a being doing the creating.

Nothing was forced upon me. I was born, period. Free will comes from the fact that no person or deity can determine what I do. That is how I determine free-will. I cannot pass my hand through a table, but that is physics stopping me. Physics is a law of nature, NOT a sentient being. I cannot "do" many things because they are physically impossible. However, among the things that I as a living human being can do, nothing is preventing me aside from the "laws of mankind". Nothing DETERMINES what I do of the things that I am physically capable of doing.

Nothing is pulling the strings. I absolutely believe in free will, and so anyone or any law etc that denies someone free will and personal rights is something I find very offensive. It's why I'm pro-choice.

Well, fantastic, you are obviously very secure in your opinions and have given them alot of thought. Good job.

Are you a catholic?

Ya know, because they love the whole free will thing, they even invented it.
Maybe you should think about joining.

What???


I agree with Birch and Lion. We have free will in the sense that we are not controlled by any higher being.... but we don't in the sense that we are constrained to the situation we were born in (physical, genetic, environmental, mental, sociological, etc.)

Heck no, lol. I am not christian at all. I am not part of any major religion.

I don't think "free-will" and "absolute choice" are in any way related. If you physically can't so something, you have the free will to find a way to do it. But if it is physically impossible, that doesn't mean you don't have free will.

Your "will" is not related to your physical body, so physical boundaries don't factor in to your free will.

So, besides all of these seriously important things that are very horrible and need to stop and never do, I'm in control!

Eureka!

What a sad sad state of being.

What horrible and important things?

Death? War? The growth of unwanted body hair? Taxes?

...I'm not even sure what woops' position on this is.

Death is a physical thing that is not something related to your "will" (which is something separate from your body in a non-literal sense).

War is caused by humans. It is their will to go to war. Following the rules of someone else is entirely up to you. You don't have to do as they say.

Body hair is again a physical thing and not related to will.

Taxes are a human thing that you could ignore if you wanted to. It's your choice. Will humans impose punishments on you for evading taxes? Yes, but it was still your free will, your choice, to disobey.

Involving laws and rules removes the esoteric meaning of free-will that I thought this debate was getting at.

So I guess nobody here believes that they don't have free will? Well that makes sense right, most people naturally wouldn't want the idea that anything and everything they do is being controlled by some being far beyond their capabilities or level of comprehension. So I'm just wondering, do you think we're all just bias and aren't justified in believing about anything that is external to our knowledge, and that we only base such beliefs on sense experience.

I don't know, I, like everybody else would like to say I am in control of my actions and have free will. But I can't say there cannot be beings that (while are not necessarily God or Godlike) can be superior to us and could control our freewill without us consciously knowing about it. I.E. The Matrix, it was based off of that. If a superior being was specialized in deceiving, there is no way we could know if we are being manipulated right.

I guess one can argue that they do have free will because they choose what they think and could do anything they want right now this moment such as smack themselves or pick up a book. True, but we can be deceived into believing such a thing as well? We could be "programmed: for instance, to "at 11:07, to refute Mikos claim and then decide 15.3 seconds later to agree after some consideration".

So, I have no clue, I can do my best to believe that I have free will, but the truth remains regardless of how I feel right? Whether or not I can refuse to believe I have free will, if I really don't, what would change really?

I think Lion79 and I don't think we have complete free will.

I would say that while I don't believe a higher power is in direct control, I would say that societal standards do define our lives to a certain point.

Why, I was just moaning about the seemingly universal 'start time' at work of 9am. Who made that ridiculous decision?