ARGUMENT 1
"The you that you take yourself to be at this present moment isn’t in control of anything."
ARGUMENT 2
P1) All effects are caused by the laws of physics.
P2) You are not the laws of physics.
C1) You are not the cause of effects within your body.
P3) Free will only exists if you are the cause of effects within your body.
C1) You are not the cause of effects within your body.
C2) Free will does not exist.
ARGUMENT 3
Our entire corpus of scientific evidence shows that:
P1) Nervous systems are slaves to the laws of physics, and
P2) Bodies and minds are slaves to our nervous systems.
C1) Therefore our bodies and minds are slaves to the laws of physics.
P1) If our body and mind are slaves, then there is no free will.
C1) Our bodies and minds are slaves to the laws of physics.
C2) There is no free will.
ARGUMENT 4
P1) If there is free will, then a part of your nervous system must be free to violate the laws of physics.
P2) Anything that violates the laws of physics is supernatural.
P3) The burden of proof is on the person who claims belief in the supernatural.
C1) Until the believer in free will provides proof that nervous systems can violate the laws of physics, we can confidently conclude that there is no free will.
ARGUMENT 5
The only way to get free will is with magic (supernatural power to exceed the natural laws of physics), but even then free will is impossible because "free-ness" and "will-ness" are fundamentally contradictory. Even magical entities like God cannot have free will since it is impossible to simultaneously be free from constraints AND will to make a decision based on constraints.
ARGUMENT 6
Because "free" requires the lack of a value system and "will" requires a value system, the concept of "free will" becomes self-contradictory and impossible. Randomness achieves free-ness but lacks a will, since randomness is not selecting based on values. Agency gives us a will since we have the ability to make decisions based on our values, but those values are not free, they were forced upon us by our genetics and environment.
ARGUMENT 7
Choices = options * values * decision
If the salience of options isn't free, if innate value systems aren't free, and if value maximization calculations aren't free, then none of the components of choices are free.
ARGUMENT 8
In order to make a decision, an agent must:
1) identify options,
2) evaluate each option based on your innate value systems,
3) choose the option that maximizes your values.
Step 1 violates free will, because the process of identifying options is not free from constraints but rather is governed by sensory salience or psychic salience.
Step 2 violates free will, because the decision process becomes governed by a value system that you didn't have control over*. The idea of the "good, true, and beautiful" are all based on innate value systems that no one can freely choose, but are rather given to you by nature (genes) or nurture (parenting + culture + environment). We are slaves to our innate values of what we think is good, true, or beautiful. It doesn't matter if you are flesh or spirit.
*The only way a value system can be free is if the value system is freely chosen, but in order to freely choose a value system, one must appeal to a deeper innate value system in order to freely choose it - and the "freely chosen value system" immediately becomes unfree once it is constrained by the deeper innate value system that you are a slave to. The only way to generate a freely chosen value system is to have an infinite regress of freely chosen deeper value systems. Reductio ad absurdum - an infinite regress (within a closed system) is absurd, so we must reject the idea that it is possible to avoid being a slave to at least one innate value system.
Step 3 violates free will because the decision is not free, in that each option is not equally possible, but rather the decision is the determined result of a biological algorithm for maximizing one's values.
ARGUMENT 9
Will = make decisions (via constraints);
Free = no constraints (hence, don't make decisions)
How can you make a decision and not make a decision at the same time?
Decisions necessarily include constraints, constraints are inherently unfree, and constraints exist due to causes outside of you. Freedom requires a lack of constraints, but if there are no constraints, then nothing can guide a decision, so random unintelligent behavior is the only result of freedom.
We don't want random unintelligent behavior, so we don't actually want freedom. We can be happy that our will is determined, because that means there are smart evolutionarily-constructed processes to guide our will in intelligent ways.
ARGUMENT 10
Agency is not equivalent to free agency. Agency is the ability to act as an agent, and an agent is something that has the ability to act on its own goals. Bacteria are agents since they have the ability to act on their goals (like get food). Free agency means you have no constraints upon your ability to act as an agent. Unfortunately, the laws of physics exist and hence there are constraints upon every agent. This distinction is important because there are studies of criminals who only begin to have criminal impulses and criminal actions when they develop a brain tumor in specific areas. They are agents to act on their goals, but their ability to be an agent is dependent on the laws of physics in their brain. If you mess with the laws of physics in their brain, you mess with their agency.
Atheism does not immediately imply a lack of free agency. But a philosophic investigation of free agency will expose how it is incompatible with every ideology as free agency is a logical impossibility.
Our universe is a universe of causation. If a decision is decided upon, then there must needs be a cause for that decision. But each cause1 must have a cause2 behind it. If you keep digging through the causes you realize that all the causes land on things outside of your control - either your biological DNA is controlling your decisions, OR, your spiritual DNA is controlling your decisions. You didn't choose your biological DNA, nor did you choose your spiritual DNA. You don't control either type of DNA, rather they control you as they are the root causes. If the source of your decisions is outside of your control, then you are not freely controlling your decisions without constraints.