[€uroMeinke]

I think I use a similar approach as Alex but come to a different conclusion in that I seem to experience of free will, the ability to make choices and direct my life, and have no reason to suppose the counter-intuitive, that my conscious decisions are an artifact of some deterministic process.

But I'm existential/phenomenological in this thinking - that is, regardless of whatever the metaphysical reality is, it is essentially unknowable and consequently irrelevant to how I perceive or act in my life - to Alex's last paragraph, even if there is no free will, it's stupid to claim it as an excuse. To me that's about the same as shrugging and blaming God's will.