Can an atheist believe in free will?

[spengler]

Yes, depending on your definition of 'free will'.

I don't believe in predetermination.

I can't bring myself to believe in predetermination for the simple fact that it alludes to some greater mystical purpose in the universe, and I certainly cannot bring myself to believe that a dog getting diarrhea and crapping all over his owner's house house is an important and predetermined moment in the history of the cosmos.

You choose your actions (unless under the influence of something) and thus you are partly responsible for the outcomes of your life. You could have chosen not to steal. It's as bone-headed simple as that. You didn't. That doesn't mean that event was going to end that way before the earth was even formed. Even if that were true, what difference does it make? In the end, your thoughts are what led to the thievery. Your natural thoughts, not some foreign thoughts put in your head by some other force.

[achimelech51]

Theoretically, ultimately probably not (the macroscopic world of atoms and above seems to ignore the quantum randomness at the subatomic level)

In practice, the complexity makes determinism unworkable as a guideline for societies so we have to stick to simpler mechanisms that assume "free will".

[tai38]

If anything, Atheists believe more in free-will than anyone, do Christians not believe god is all knowing, and knows our future? If that is so, Christians have no control over their actions, as they have already been pre-determined by god...

Atheists, and myself, on the other hand accept that we make our choices and live and die by those actions and consequences. Of course there is free-will, if an atheist decides to take the bar of chocolate, it is he that decided it, of his own free will. If an atheist kills somebody, he is more likely to say he did it of his own making, where you are far more likely to hear a religious person say 'God told me to do it' (and don't even try to deny it)... So you tell me, who has more free will in that circumstance!?

Atheists have no free will? What a ridiculous concept.

[chadburne48]

Stealing is not morale

But its your choice your "free will"

God gave this to us make our own decision weather to follow him or not

He will not force us to obey it will based on our own choice our FREE WILL