Do You Have Free Will? Or is it an illusion

For our June meetup we're going to explore the concept of free will.
On the face of it, you might think this topic seems straightforward. Most of us believe we have free will, and when we make a choice to do one thing rather than another, we are making a free choice.
But philosophers have been wrestling with the concept of free will since the ancient Greeks 2,500 years ago.
How many of us have made a categorical decision that we're going to lose weight, get fit, go to bed early, quit smoking or eat more healthily only to fail to follow through. Many of us have made these kind of commitments over and over, and failed more often than not.
To what degree does our conditioning: education, parenting, societal norms and any trauma we've suffered interfere with our free will?
An increasingly popular school of thought states that we have no free will, and we are simply hostages to our genes, our conditioning and our sense of free will is an illusion.
In recent decades this has become a mainstream view among neuroscientists, and authors like Sam Harris and Robert Sapolsky have promoted the claim that free will is illusory.
We will look at the scientific claims and see if they stand up to your scrutiny. Does the denial of free will contradict religious teachings? We hope you'll freely choose to come and contribute to the debate.

We’re a friendly bunch, and you'll be welcome to continue the conversation well past the meeting's official end at 4pm. Grab a drink at the bar and come upstairs for some lively, open and honest chat. All good faith opinions will be welcomed and respected. We don't charge for our events but we do ask for a small cash donation to help pay for the room and Meetup membership.