Hi, I was just in Oklahoma so hope all is well there. You've defined free will interestingly, in such a way as to make it obviously repugnant. I would agree that that kind of "free will" would be reprehensible if you would agree that there may be some other type of "free will" that is intellectually defensible, honorable, and "kind". If you don't see the need to know, you cannot frame your beliefs as you would desire, and reality makes us "have to" do things we don't desire, then what are love, kindness, and responsibility at all? If everything is equally forced and no free will and responsibility exists, what makes one being or action more kind or loving than another? If someone believes in one of these strawman gods as you describe, patient theologians say to that person, "your god is too small". Is it possible that there does exist a greater arbiter of these moral standards than we ourselves? If the only beings able to judge what is right are we fallible folk and the imaginary, impotent deities we are accused of constructing, why do we believe in right at all? (Edit: originally said, less clearly, "impotent deities we construct".)

Hi, I was just in Oklahoma so hope all is well there.

You've defined free will interestingly, in such a way as to make it obviously repugnant. I would agree that that kind of "free will" would be reprehensible if you would agree that there may be some other type of "free will" that is intellectually defensible, honorable, and "kind".

If you don't see the need to know, you cannot frame your beliefs as you would desire, and reality makes us "have to" do things we don't desire, then what are love, kindness, and responsibility at all? If everything is equally forced and no free will and responsibility exists, what makes one being or action more kind or loving than another?

If someone believes in one of these strawman gods as you describe, patient theologians say to that person, "your god is too small". Is it possible that there does exist a greater arbiter of these moral standards than we ourselves? If the only beings able to judge what is right are we fallible folk and the imaginary, impotent deities we construct, why do we believe in right at all?