“It IS an instinctual stimuli-response”
Exactly. Therefore in the evolutionary atheist view it isn’t really reason as we understand it. In that world view there is no free will, and no reason which is a function of free will.
I am always amazed that the cognoscenti so cavalierly dismiss free will. But I guess they have to.
No it IS reason as we understand it. The point is we have an INSTINCT to LEARN and apply reason. There’s still plenty of free will, we have the ability to ignore our reason, and to apply an additional level of reason, and to seek news things and expand our reason. Using my previous example if we couldn’t apply free will to our reason no kid would ever grow up to be an electrician.
I’m amazed by how much you make up your own definition of things and then insist that people who think that way are wrong even though nobody thinks that way.