You are confusing the will in doing something with having free will. The doing something as an act of will does not make the will a free one. Acting freely on will does not mean the will is free to begin with, there is always ignorance of knowing if there are any or other more preferable acts that a person may have alternately and willfully employed. Even knowing there were actually no others for instance, may alter will. A will exercised freely is not the same as having free will. The possibility of not being able to know of many or no other options, limits will to forming only on ones apparently available, therefore it is a will not free.
"A will exercised freely is not the same as having free will." I would then respond that you lack, by your own definitions, the free will to come the conclusory statement shown above in quotes....as again, by your own definitions, you don't posses full knowledge of the entire universe and all the possible consequences of your actions. However, you came up with the above and below statements....of your own free will. However, enough demonstrating the nature of your sophistry. Will is completely free...no human power beyond full on brainwashing and mind control can disrupt the natural condition of free will. Anyone who has ever had a child knows that the human will is free to try to do what it wants. Since there is no barrier to trying, there is no shackle to free will. We are completely free to try, and that is free will. Will is the motivation, and has nothing at all to do with the degree of success or failure of the actions that follow which are instigated by the exercise of free well. It costs nothing at all to have free will. Now the consequences of acting with free will do so often come at a heavy price...
The limits you have put on the exercise of will, by suggesting there is insufficient data to make a decision, do not limit the ability to choose freely, consequently there is free will. Every day people make decisions freely, no one can stop them from the decision making process without altering their mind, so their will to decide is absolutely free and unencumbered. Ergo, free will....
You are re-defining my definitions then saying those re-definitions are wrong. I never mentioned insufficient data to make a decision. My argument was and still is insufficient data to have true free will Free and willingly making decisions every day, does not equate to the will which forms those decisions, being free also.
Proof #36 - Realize that God is impossible If you consult the dictionary, here is the first definition of God that you will find: "A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions." [ref] Most believers would agree with this definition because they share a remarkably clear and consistent view of God. Yes, there are thousands of minor quibbles about religion. Believers express those quibbles in dozens of denominations -- Presbyterians, Lutherans, Catholics, Baptists, Episcopalians, Methodists and such. But at the heart of it all, the belief in God aligns on a set of core ideas that everyone accepts. What if you were to simply think about what it would mean if there were a perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe? Is it possible for such a being to exist? Epicures thought about it in 300 BCE, and he came up with this: "The gods can either take away evil from the world and will not, or, being willing to do so, cannot; or they neither can nor will, or lastly, they are both able and willing. If they have the will to remove evil and cannot, then they are not omnipotent. If they can, but will not, than they are not benevolent. If they are neither able nor willing, then they are neither omnipotent nor benevolent. Lastly, if they are both able and willing to annihilate evil, how does it exist?" [See also Proof #31] In other words, if you sit and think about who God is supposed to be, you realize that such a being is impossible. Ridiculous, in fact. Take this quote from the Bible. In Matthew 7:7 Jesus says: Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! The impossibility of God is visible here as well. Based on Jesus' statement, let's assume that you are a child and you are starving in Ethiopia. You pray for food. What would you expect to happen based on Jesus' statement? If God exists as an all-loving, all-knowing and all-powerful parent -- a "father in heaven" -- you would expect God to deliver food to you. In fact, the child should not have to pray. Normal parents provide food to their children without their children having to beg for it. Yet, strangely, on planet Earth today we find tens of millions of people dying of starvation every year. Another way to approach the impossibility of God is to think about the concept of omniscience. If God is omniscient, then it means that he knows every single thing that happens in the universe, both now and infinitely into the future. Do you have free will in such a universe? Clearly not. God knows everything that will happen to you. Therefore, the instant you were created, God knows whether you are going to heaven or hell. To create someone knowing that that person will be damned to hell for eternity is the epitome of evil. Here is another way to understand the impossibility of God. If you look at the definition of God, you can see that he is defined as the "originator and ruler of the universe". Why does the universe need an originator -- a creator? Because, according to religious logic, the universe cannot exist unless it has a creator. A believer will say, "nothing can exist unless it is created." However, that satement immediately constructs a contradiction, because we must then wonder who created God. For a believer the answer to that is simple -- "God is the one thing that does not need a creator. God is timeless and has always existed." How can it be that the everything MUST have a creator, while God must NOT? The contradiction in the definition of God is palpable. As soon as your think about the concept of a perfect, omnipotent, omniscient being, you realize the impossibility of the concept. That impossibility is yet another way to see that God is imaginary.
Okay, so you are exercising your free will to define any way you like. Since you don't seem to want anyone to question your definitions of free will, and since you can offer no proof that your definitions are correct, fine by me. So you offer up your definitions, and then argument on that basis, so I will match blow by blow: There is sufficient data to have true free will, and.... Free and willingly making decisions every day, does in fact equate to the will which forms those decisions. The will that forms the decision is absolutely free to make decisions or not. No one can stop the decision making process for another as long as their mind is free and not under control by another.
..then like ZZzz you can't or don't or won't understand the straightforward argument or the glaring contradiction free will creates when applied to God ideas. No biggie surprise there either way.
I am saying you are entitled by your free will to your definitions, and I am entitled by my free will to think they are incorrect. I am exercising my free will, and I am not sure what you are doing, but I believe you are doing the same. Free and willingly making decisions every day, does in fact equate to the will which forms those decisions, being free also.