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I’m not arguing about “free will”.

My questions are about what the article and the referenced studies found regarding the “belief or lack of belief” in free will and how THAT influences behavior.

In a nut shell, belief in “free will” causes people to behave better towards others vs. those that think free will is an illusion.

The left and so-called progressives have been working for well over 100 years trying to convince people that they have NO FREE WILL. Most of their efforts are very subtle, but occasionally we find very outspoken advocates of the concept. Most of these advocates are dedicated Darwinists’ that have recognized and embraced the logical conclusions of evolution.

I find the study as something the evolutionists would rather not talk about.

We can take a high level, objective view and say “ of course not”. They are the left and they are evil or at least stupid.

However, when you talk to someone on the street virtually every single one will say that, “Yes, We have free will”.

But then the question of why are so many of them willing to promote both overtly and covertly, stand silent and not challenge the lefts assertions is beyond me.

The fundamental question is a simple yes or no answer.

Virtually everyone answers YES.

Yet, for the past 100 plus years virtually every American institution has been co-opted into one form or another of the advancement of NO.

It makes no sense.

It runs completely counter to the human instinct.

IMHO, this question, asked by our conservative politicians will define them and will lead to a landslide victory never seen before.

The question, however asked by the politician should not be a statement or asked directly.

You make a good point, but there is more to behavior (good or bad) than just belief in free will. Ted Bundy was an evil man, yet based on his own testimony during his last trial, it is reasonable to conclude that he believed in free will, granted he was clearly a sociopath. The left tends to disbelieve in moral absolutes, and thus they are more capable of evil. This is also why liberals tend to excuse the bad behavior of criminals. They blame poverty for crime, yet ignore the fact that many poor people are not criminals. The liberals and leftist are on a quest to deny you your free will. They want to control you for their own personal gain. In other words, the leftist want to be GOD.

Good post.

"...In a nut shell, belief in “free will” causes people to behave better towards others vs. those that think free will is an illusion..."

It certainly explains why. If you have no free will, then anything you do, no matter how good or bad, is something that you just had to do. It was preordained.

No free will is a free and simple explanation for any kind of behavior.

I was having a discussion with my brother tonight about the concept of hypocrisy, and how it is the favorite weapon of liberals.

They consider themselves free of the stain of hypocrisy, because they have no standards. Anything goes.

My questions are about what the article and the referenced studies found regarding the “belief or lack of belief” in free will and how THAT influences behavior.

OK--given that, then yes--a lack of belief in free will does tend to cause one to be more nasty, mean, and abrupt than otherwise.

I know from my experience right here on FR that that is the case. I try to no longer interact with them because they are quite dismissive and cannot debate intelligently.

I think it is unreasonable to suggest that there is some conspiracy among liberals to convince us that we don't have free will.

There are lots of scientists and philosophers and theologians who have good (though not compelling) reasons to believe that we don't have free will.

Pretty much everyone agrees that our free will is not absolute, i.e. that we are more likely to do things we will later wish we hadn't when we are tired, angry, amped up, etc.

Most people, liberals and conservatives, have inconsistent views with regard to free will. Free will is a very difficult topic that most people think is real easy.

It's similar to our naive view of reality. We all know that tables are solid. We can see with our own eyes that tables are solid. And by solid most people mean filled up with stuff. But it turns out that tables are mostly empty space, and they only appear solid due to the interactions of photons with the fields set up by the atomic nuclei and electrons.

What we see is not necessarily what we get. What makes "sense" is not necessarily what is the case.

If peoples' beliefs about free will affect their behavior then that seems like an interesting scientific fact in favor of there actually being free will. However, I think the best that can be argued for in that case is the sort of free will described by Dennett, i.e. we're adaptive robots.