[grip_daddy]

Originally Posted by ATLian

Free will can exist, but not with an all-knowing god present.

I started by saying that without God, then man exist in obedience to natural laws; only. Would you please refute this?

[ATLian]

Originally Posted by ernestombayo7

Freedom presupposes agent causation – agents that have the capacity to exercise their causal powers spontaneously for various reasons. But agent causation seems to presuppose dualism(body and soul).And it is impossible to account for the existence of a soul in an atheistic worldview.

That's exactly why you won't hear atheists saying that soul's exist!

[ATLian]

Originally Posted by Ndigila2

How does free will exist in an atheistic world?

The "free" in "free will" means free from all external influences, which usually means god. Since atheists believe that there is no deity out there controlling you and your thoughts, and since they also believe there is no deity that knows all your future activities, and since atheists believe that you aren't accountable to any almighty god or whatever for you thoughts and actions, then in an atheists world, your will is free. It's pretty simple and straightforward.

[ATLian]

Originally Posted by grip_daddy

I started by saying that without God, then man exist in obedience to natural laws; only. Would you please refute this?

You said "Doesn't man existence in absentia of God subject man to actions controlled/defined by natural laws?".

Yes I agree that many of man's actions are controlled by natural laws e.g. you cannot jump over a 20 storey building because of gravity, and you can't swim to the bottom of the Atlantic because you'd be crushed by the water pressure, etc.

But I don't see how my free will that made me decide to log onto Mashada now instead of going out for a drive can be said to be controlled or influenced by natural laws. Please explain what you mean by that.

[Ndigila2]

Originally Posted by ATLian

The "free" in "free will" means free from all external influences, which usually means god. Since atheists believe that there is no deity out there controlling you and your thoughts, and since they also believe there is no deity that knows all your future activities, and since atheists believe that you aren't accountable to any almighty god or whatever for you thoughts and actions, then in an atheists world, your will is free. It's pretty simple and straightforward.

That's not the point. We are questioning whether in an atheistic world, humans have control of the internal influences.

If your body is purely a complex system(s) of spontaneous bio-chemical reactions, are you really making free will choices? Do you really have control of what goes on in your brain, or is your brain spontaneously responding to the external world?

[grip_daddy]

Originally Posted by ATLian

But I don't see how my free will that made me decide to log onto Mashada now instead of going out for a drive can be said to be controlled or influenced by natural laws. Please explain what you mean by that.

You'll need to explain that the interactions of your brain cells are not subjected to the laws of molecular biology, physiology, and chemical kinetics.

[ernestombayo7]

Originally Posted by ATLian

That's exactly why you won't hear atheists saying that soul's exist!

If souls don't exist,there is no freewill.Humans are just biological matter with lots of neurons and chemical operations governed by natural law and biological processes.

Your decision to post in mashada was just a bilogical process(neural,chemical and bilogical).

And if you believe in only the existence of the natural world,then you believe that everything that exists(including you and the brain cells) was caused by another natural cause.Therefore this leads to determinsism
i.e;

every event E can be explained as a result of the 1) laws of nature and the 2) state of the natural world immediately prior to E.

[ATLian]

Originally Posted by Ndigila2

That's not the point. We are questioning whether in an atheistic world, humans have control of the internal influences.

If your body is purely a complex system(s) of spontaneous bio-chemical reactions, are you really making free will choices? Do you really have control of what goes on in your brain, or is your brain spontaneously responding to the external world?

I'm not sure I understand your question. Are you implying that Christians "have control of the internal influences" of their bodies and atheists don't?

Let me ask you the question you asked, and see how you'd answer it from a Christian perspective: If your body is purely a complex system(s) of spontaneous bio-chemical reactions, are you really making free will choices? Do you really have control of what goes on in your brain, or is your brain spontaneously responding to the external world?

[ATLian]

Originally Posted by grip_daddy

You'll need to explain that the interactions of your brain cells are not subjected to the laws of molecular biology, physiology, and chemical kinetics.

Of course they are. So are yours. So what's your point? How does that negate or determine free will?

[ATLian]

Originally Posted by ernestombayo7

If souls don't exist,there is no freewill.

You just made a major unsubstantiated assumption that free will is in the soul. Please qualify that statement.

Do animals have souls? Do animals have free will?