Yep, your bad, among many—your likening of my expectation of at least some semblance of intellectual rigor/consistency/honesty in these discussions, with your “personalizing things,” is yet another one of your bads, especially since you yourself don’t hesitate to personalize things the instant you imagine that your ideology/beliefs are being threatened.

Regarding freewill, best I can tell, very, very few people, including most atheists, and including guys like Pinker, LeDoux, and Damasio, would argue or believe that we humans lack any freewill—in fact, I’d guess that most would consider the notion that sane human adults are somehow not morally responsible (the essence of free will) for their behavior to be ridiculous.

Perhaps the contention that we humans lack freewill/moral responsibility is a projection of sorts . . . regarding whether “something more interesting starts happening here,” I’m reminded, MM, of those lyrics by Eminim:

Now this looks like a job for me
So everybody just follow me
Cuz we need a little controversy,
Cuz it feels so empty without me.

There's a concept that really works
20 million other white rappers emerge
But no matter how many fish in the sea
It'll be so empty without me….