{"id":9221,"date":"2016-08-26T07:30:03","date_gmt":"2016-08-26T11:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/freelancechristianity\/?p=9221"},"modified":"2016-08-26T07:30:03","modified_gmt":"2016-08-26T11:30:03","slug":"they-will-never-take-our-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/freelancechristianity\/they-will-never-take-our-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"They Will Never Take Our Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Although I read incessantly, I don\u2019t read a lot of magazines. The only magazine I currently subscribe to is The Atlantic<\/em>\u2014I appreciate the excellent writing and quirky features, but don\u2019t exactly wait by the mailbox for each monthly edition to show up. Instead, they tend to pile up on the little table next to my side of the bed, waiting to be perused when I am between authors in my novel reading. I\u2019m currently in one of those spaces, having just finished my fourth consecutive Arturo P\u00e9rez-Reverte mystery a few days ago and not ready to start a new, large reading project just a week before the semester starts. \"394-They'll<\/a>Accordingly, I started plowing through the three summer editions of The Atlantic<\/em> that have accumulated on my nightstand since June. Inside the June edition, whose cover includes two-thirds of Donald Trump\u2019s head peeking in from the right side announcing a lead article entitled \u201cThe Mind of Donald Trump\u201d (an oxymoron if I ever saw one), I found this: \u201cThere\u2019s No Such Thing as Free Will\u2014Here\u2019s why we all may be better off believing in it anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stephen Cave: There\u2019s No Such Thing As Free Will<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Cave\"<\/a>The article is by Stephen Cave, a philosopher who runs a \u201cCenter for the Future of Intelligence\u201d at the University of Cambridge. His article is well-written and engaging\u2014so much so that I suspect he may have had help with it. Trust me, I know whereof I speak. I have spent over twenty-five years learning to write in ways that make core philosophical issues accessible and interesting to non-philosophers\u2014it ain\u2019t easy. First, it\u2019s important to clarify what philosophers usually are referring to when they use terms like \u201cfree will\u201d or \u201cfreedom.\u201d \u00a0<\/strong>Just before the final battle in his 1995 epic \u201cBraveheart,\u201d Mel Gibson\u2019s William Wallace screams to the Scottish army that They may take our lives, but they\u2019ll never take our freedom!!<\/strong><\/p>\n