Free Will Explained: How Science and Philosophy Converge to Create a Beautiful Illusion

A compelling essay on free will from an internationally recognized authority on atheism, and author of God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction.
 
Do we have free will? And if we don’t, why do we feel as if we do? In a godless universe governed by impersonal laws of cause and effect, are you responsible for your actions? Former evangelical minister Dan Barker (God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction) unveils a novel solution to the question that has baffled scientists and philosophers for millennia. He outlines the concept of what he calls “harmonic free will,” a two-dimensional perspective that pivots the paradox on its axis to show that there is no single answer—both sides are right. Free will is a useful illusion: not a scientific, but a social truth.   

Dan Barker is a former-evangelical-preacher-turned-outspoken-atheist who, along with his wife Annie Laurie Gaylor, runs the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to the separation of church and state. He has written numerous articles for Freethought Today, an American freethought newspaper, and is also the author of Godless (Ulysses Press) and God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction (Sterling).