[Fish Bot]

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But not even religious people suggest that so I'm starting with the assumption that it isn't true.



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That is not entirely true, most religious people believe in free will, but there are still a large number of people who do not.

As you said in your original post free will has to be correctly defined before we can determine whether it actually exists. I tend to think the most common definition of free will in the religious since is the ability to choose between good and evil. According to that definition free will cannot exist because humans from birth only desire evil because we are all born with a sin nature (according to the bible).

If you step back and take a look at our every day decisions in life, for example whether or not you take a shower in the morning is based on your desires. If you wake up and feel dirty you will desire to clean yourself, some people rarely have a desire to clean themselves. People cannot change their desires; your desires cannot be willed differently than what they are. People choose to do that which they desire, and desires cannot be created or changed, therefore we are all slaves to our desires. So the real question is not whether we all have free will, it’s where do our desires come from.

For humans to truly have free will our "will" would have to act independently of our desires or any other outside factor. This means that you would have to exist in an unconscious state of comatose while your "will" made all decisions for your life.

The fact is logically there can be no such thing as free will because it is not possible for our will to act separately from our desires. We “Will” the things we desire, and desires cannot be willed.