Over at Uncommon Descent a good point has been raised about materialists (such as evolutionary biologist, Jerry Coyne) who deny the existence of free will and yet get angry at others for believing and doing things they (the materialists) do not agree with:
Another inconsistency of atheists who share Professor Coyne’s views on freedom is that they are nearly always angry at someone – be it the Pope or former President George W. Bush or global warming deniers. I have to say that makes absolutely no sense to me…. But please, spare me your moral outrage, your sermonizing, your finger-wagging lectures and your righteous indignation. That I cannot abide. You don’t lecture the PC on your desk when it doesn’t do what you want. If I’m just a glorified version of a desktop PC, then why lecture me?
Perhaps materialists would respond that they don’t have a choice but to get angry! Well, perhaps we don’t have a choice but not to care that they are.
Thinking to Believe 
April 27, 2011 at 6:18 pm
Free will is not compatible with there being a god – so the anger is partly at people who insist otherwise
even with determinism, maybe they have no option but to be angry – and yes, you have no option but to not care
personally, I don’t think that we’re either godbots or brainbots.
DNA is not destiny – there is randomness in the universe, and that means that nothing is actually pre-determined
so we can chose how angry we get, how we express that anger and where we direct the anger energy that is the knee jerk response to godbots in power, like Bush.
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April 28, 2011 at 11:15 am
On what basis do you claim free will is incompatible with theism?
Randomness at some levels may eliminate determinism at some levels, but randomness does not equate to freedom.
Jason
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May 1, 2011 at 1:38 pm
in religion, you have the “option” to obey and be rewarded, or not obey and be punished.
So, if you beleive that there’s something that can enforce the consequences of this “choice”, what options do you actually have?
You can only choice to obey and live in hopes that you obey well enough to be rewarded.
Since, no one is going to beleive in a deity under whom their eventual and permanent punishment is a forgone conclusion.
Free will is only compatible with no deities, because then everything – how you live – is down to your own decisions
death and what, if anything, that happens afterwards, is not in our control and we have no way to know that there’s anything to control.
as an aside, did you know that most of the world’s religions do not have the Abrahamic concept of life is a dress rehearsal for a permanent and eternal afterlife?
That most religions have the position that what you do in life impacts your life and afterlife and rebirth? The ideas of karma and reincarnation in many variations is more the norm in religions?
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May 2, 2011 at 11:32 am
You’ve missed the point. If materialism is true, then everything is determined, including your choices. Only if humans have a soul can we rise above this deterministic process to freely choose our course of action.
Jason
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May 3, 2011 at 11:23 pm
there’s no reason to assume there’s such a thing as a soul
and if there was something after death, there’s no reason to think that what we do in life – especially with our genitals – has any bearing on said afterlife
life isn’t a dress rehearsal for the ever after – if there is anything, it’s a natural part of the universe
if there is an afterlife, and life is a dress rehearsal, then having a soul and options make no sense, because to get into the good afterlife, you would have had to obey a bunch of rules – in which case, choice is moot.
so, under a god, we can’t use free will for fear of punishment – hardly a god worth worshipping
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September 16, 2015 at 5:13 pm
Bob the builder:
If you were gay I would not rule you as a waste of time.
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