God is good but there is still suffering.

Point to the place where I said I'm a determinist.

Poor reading comprehension? Deliberate strawmen?

It would be futile to debate free will with anyone who thinks it's debatable.

I just won't do that.

You think it's not even debatable? Holy ****. You don't read much, do you?

Well, I did say Er . . . .

The free will vs determinism debate stretches back to ancient Greece and further to ancient India. I'll spare the details, since there's another thread where the topic is being...debated.

Nope. Not that you can easily avoid all that's written about it. The more modern 'debates' are especially amusing.

The truth in this field is best settled with hands on experimentation.
Go get your hands dirty.

*cough*

No debate, just advice.

In one post you're claiming that it's not debatable, in another you're claiming to be aware of the debate.

I'm aware of 'fantasy football' but see no merit or value in participating in it.

There's a lot to be said for starting with a question and seeing where the evidence points, instead of starting with an answer and trying to cherry pick and manipulate the evidence to fit it. It's the latter that enables fantasies like invisible, undetectable guys in the sky and the like, you see.

You assume a lot about me there, something in principle you have often advised against.

There are many questions not worth debating and many that are. Life experience should have taught you that by now. (just going on the evidence you provided there...)

Did I mention you specifically? No? Then who's making the assumption. I spoke generically for a reason. If I intend to refer to you specifically, I'll do so. Trust me on this.

The question of free will is particularly pertinent for theists. Without free will, the whole question of moral accountability, eternal reward and punishment disappears. I can understand the urge to assume that we have it, since questioning it is to question one's preferred theistic conclusion (and because it's a very difficult question), but every assumption is a huge potential for error. The fewer the better, especially if one is to restructure one's lifestyle and cosmology based on the outcome. There's too much hanging in the balance to just skip over the question.

There is little more disingenuous than the cop out of 'speaking generically' and then tying it to a separate subject, mocking it and hence making it individual.

And yes, I'm speaking specifically about you.

Speaking generically leaves you the option of deciding whether or not it applies to you. Also, it's a suggestion that you consider the possibility. When I intend an unambiguous accusation, I'll make it clear.

But we're straying way off topic.

That's because the (sub) topic you questioned, Free will, is logically not debatable. Without it, it would not be possible to have a meaningful decision. So let's debate something where there can be.

Might as well stray away...

Eh? Now you're swinging back to the claim that it's impossible to debate free will vs determinism, a debate that has been going on for centuries? How many sources do you want me to cite? Just pick a reasonable number.

Yes, that has been my claim from the start, why do you keep trying to lure me into debating it? To clarify what I already stated:

"Without it [free will], it would not be possible to have a meaningful decision (in any debate about it)."

IOW, if we did not have free will, all debates about it (and everything else) past, present and future, would be meaningless, regardless of any sources you could bring up.

That's as close to a discussion about it as I can go.

Well, unless you'd care to explain why you think that it would be impossible to have a discussion about free will unless we have free will. I don't see the logical contradiction or impossibility.

OK, Just in case you are honestly not able to see the contradiction and not just trying to do a 'gotcha' on me:

Let's say That at this point in your life you are not convinced that we have free will. Furthermore, let's say you think there is a chance that 'determinism' is the reality. If determinism is the reality, how the **** would you know? All your clever tools for thinking, logic, reason, philosophical truisms, etc., would just be the false pre determined patterns in your brain that you have no way of determining whether they are True or false. They are just the way you are predetermined to see things. Go all the way back to Aristotle. A is A? How do you know that? There may be some predetermined rule that says on the 100,000th time you look, A may actually be B.

That is probably the appeal that mathematicians find in their 'pure' field see/feel in it. They see their axioms as consistent and repeatable and so they cling to them as something outside and bigger than themselves with which to anchor their reality and so they cling to it at all costs, no matter how cold and sterile it leaves them. Here there is at least 'proof'.

No, I'm not questioning the laws of math. A really is A. Nor am I questioning the even more obvious existence of free will. Even thought the consequences of free will are harder to deal with.

But If determinism is the reality, I can save myself the trouble of thinking about 'it' and just say 'whatever ...'. Because nothing I 'thought' would matter anyway, it's all predetermined. And therefore, it's not debatable. Assuming 'free choice' is the only way that 'A is A' or 2+2 = 4 means anything.