1. What is the role of free will to an atheist?

Comment #106868 by rk12si on January 3, 2008 at 3:51 pm

Dear Dr. Dawkins,

I am a great fan of your book "The Selfish Gene". I really like the idea that we or so called "living things" are just a complicated "non-living thing".

Well, in Buddhism and in Ancient Indian religion there is a concept of "Enlightenment". This basically means to see the truth and most importantly "I" disappears.
This means that till the point of "Enlightenment" the mind creates this fake identity called "I". On enlightenment it is realised that there is no such "I", who has control. But the decisions or choices just happen in the Human body. That is, more like a robot. So basically what Buddhism is saying is what you are saying, that there is no freewill and that only cause and effect exist.

I give you an analogy. Lets take a river that follows through a mountain. The river turns around the mountain because of simple physical laws. But imagine this river had a mind. As the river is flowing it takes a left turn and then a right etc and this mind of river thinks that "I" am taking these turns.

What is your comment on this?

P.S. I really hope there is freewill...perhaps ERP