free will does not exist

No, you are correct in saying that I see free will in rational and critical thinking and I will further that point here in my closing arguments. Rationality As I said before, free will is rational thinking. Though the thought must occur to me before I can rationally think about it and weigh the pros and cons of the given situation, is it not true that once the thought had occurred to our dreadful human being, that he would then have two possibilities? One is that he chooses to untie the girls and let them go while the other is that he chooses to not untie the girls and, in fear, malice, thoughtlessness, or any other cause, just let them die. In this case, since that possibility existed, it would seem that free will lies in the final decision and is a product of rational thinking. Determinism is purely the idea that every thought has a predictable cause and every decision, in hindsight, is predictable. It is that all of these natural, experiential, and predicable processes always lead to certain decisions. My argument is that this is true, but for as long as there exists the possibility of them choosing to have untied the girl, or me not entering this debate, or rejection of evolution, exists, then so does free will. It is entirely possible that though I subconsciously felt the need for a change in thinking, that I could have rejected evolution and Atheism all together. Though the factors that led up to my decision were unchangeable, there exists the possibility that evolution and Atheism would not be the change I chose. For instance, I could have rejected Evolution and Atheism for an agnostic view to both the Theory of Evolution and the Existence of any god or gods. Deism is also a thought that occurred to me, but I did not accept that either, even though the same factors were at play for Atheism as was for Deism. Physical and Experience replacement Once again, the fact that if I had been put into his life from birth to death that nothing would have changed because of the factors present in his decision does not indicate that he was without free will. If you look at it from a compatibility point of view, free will is the result of determinism in the form of making a rational decision. Conclusion In conclusion, free will exists in Rational thinking and is philosophically proven by the possibility of another choice in any situation so long as the Determinist process allowed for the factors to be decided on by the Rational thinker, or agent. The ability to weigh pros and cons while thinking outside of emotion stems from the unchangeable factors that led up to the choice. However, we still have to weigh those pros and cons out and decide on what is the best answer to the situation. This form of free will and Determinism coexisting is called Compatibilism. This was my source throughout this last round. It was a very interesting article by Stanford University in their Encyclopedia of Philosophy. . http://plato.stanford.edu... My Thanks to the Pro Pro, I thoroughly enjoyed this debate. It accomplished all of my goals and was very enlightening. Before this debate, I had not really thought about free will and whether it existed or not. It turns out that I not only had an opinion, but I had one that was a huge Philosophical side of a debate still raging!