I’ve never taken free will as an argument that you can choose who you are, what you’re willing to believe, what kind of things you enjoy, how you feel etc. Free will is usually spoken of as autonomy of actions, that you can choose what you physically do. I still don’t believe in free will in that sense either, strictly speaking though. We all have a very convincing illusion of free will and feel like we can, but most scientific discoveries in biology and chemistry that I’m aware of point to a level of cellular and molecular determinism. Everything that happens seems to mostly be an inevitable reaction if you dive deep enough into it.

We have this body and brain with limitations, and chaotic variables that come in from our environment impact us, our cells and brain chemistry reacts to whatever is going on based on what it’s been given and we often have much less control over things than we’d like to think. If any at all ‍

It’s best to behave on the optimistic presumption that you can change things for the better, just like its best to behave as if karma is absolutely gonna even the score. But theres no guarantee for any of it.

IMHO, we can't control what we learn or experience -- but what we do have control over is how we deal with it. If I didn't feel this wholeheartedly, then I never would have been able to be where I am in my life.

So you just utilized your free will to decide to ignore your free will. You could just as easily decide that chocolate doesn't exist anymore and then you wouldn't have a problem.

so if you don't have free will, who decides what happens with our own life? coin toss?

I agree. I wish that made me feel better about some questionable choices that I have made in my life.

There is some support to your theory
[nationalgeographic.com]

I can’t really see this in the same way as you do. Free Will to me is having the ability to choose between different courses of action without the influence or hindrance of others. I know that there are moral and other implications which have to be considered in making some of these decisions, but they are still solely mine to make. Free will to believe or not believe in a god or gods can only be made in the full knowledge of evidence, of which there is none, so that’s an easy choice to make. If, on the other hand indoctrination has happened in childhood, and belief is not due to a conscious choice, then it’s due to coercion and not free will.

Without a free will doctrine, the Catholic schools my lifelong Catholic dad sent me to wouldn't have been able to teach guilt or shame.

Quitting Catholicism intellectually took only the time to compare Catholicism with the other xianities, and then to compare the xianities with the other world religions. That they all had a form of the xian Golden Rule helped me leave the protective "box" I was in.

Quitting Catholicism emotionally took much longer. I had to deal with the guilt and shame it taught, and then with the helplessness it taught.

I agree so far as belief. As Schopenhauer pointed out, we have no control over what we believe. But that doesn’t rule out control over other areas does it?

You can build a robot that appears to have free will, but in actuality all its decisions depend on programming, memory storage, random number generation or calculations. A robot has no conscious awareness—how can it have will if it isn’t even aware of its existence?

Maybe our bodies are like robots and have no awareness or free will. There is conscious awareness however, coming from somewhere, that nudges the body into certain actions. As an analogy think of a self-driving car. The car’s actions are automatic—no fee will is involved, but a human with conscious awareness can step in and indirectly control the car.

I think you have a way of seeing cause and effect, determinism and free will that misdirects you. Free will is the ability to make a choice when given things to choose between. One cannot say they do not have free will since they did not choose to be born, one cannot choose to be born. Determinism has more to do with objects and the laws of physics than with the choices we make. We cannot say we were determined to do a particular thing since at some time there was a point where a choice could have been made. I can decide to go to church, or I can just go because it is what my people do. One could make a choice even if one does not make the choice. Personally, I choose not to go to any church unless there is an architectural or artful attribute that should be noticed given the opportunity. Kind of doing this off the top of my head so it may be hard to follow. Free will has nothing to do with cause and effect as one can decide that any of the options available, that would be given by what could be seen as a cause, are not what one is going to do. There is more to this but I am running out of brain cells. Now chocolate is one thing where choice can be debated. For me chocolate is always acceptable.

Ahh...perfectly stated musings on the tricky subject of free-will. If you’ve not read up, perhaps reading into experiments into free-will or “do we have free will” would be of interest to you!

Generally, there’s your brain, doing it’s thing. It is free, and it is a free agent. But then there is the YOU that you claim to be (your conscious you)...which is actually just a consciousness that is trying to make sense of what the brain is doing, and the decisions it makes... and your conscious You is simply making excuses up for why the brain made a certain decision! For all practical purposes, they are separate...your brain, and the “conscious you”. While YOU have some control over your brain, your consciousness’ role is to interpret the brain’s output. In essence, we live most of our lives just thinking we control our brains, when it is the other way around.

As someone who suffers from chronic depression (a glitch in my serotonin-reuptake inhibitors - that and red hair... the fates are toying with me ) without a daily intake of certain chemicals I can't function. So, I'm with you on the whole idea of free will.

I was born an Atheist Feminist and used my free will to condem the lies told to me as a child age 5 December 25th 1957 I concluded fat Santa Claus could not come down our skinny chimney and boy Easter bunnies laying candy eggs on dogshit lawns was the same pattern of lies as an alleged vaginal virgin birthing an alleged baby gawd in a dirty donkey stables EVERY DECEMBER 25TH all 3 lies to deprive me of my Feminist Atheist birthright and I used my free will to read many bibles to ridicule and condemn the horrors therein....genocide incest misogynistic rape and violent unsafe abortions infanticide and anti-science
...3 does not equal one and 1 does not equal three....there are exactly zero alleged gawds known anywhere in our observed universe just as are the impossible perpetual motion machines

Nature/Nurture. Bit of both. Free will within parameters.

Too many facets to free will for so many!

If you follow your gut over your heart is that free will?

If you get into any form of relationship with those that have more problems that you?

Not drinking the koolaid is that free will?

Seems there is no right or wrong question or answer when it comes free will!