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The idea of the individual as constantly becoming lines up well with the story of evolution, though the leap from there to free will is a little difficult for me. I think that as an individual I do have free will. Each choice is my own, and I am responsible for the direction in which I go. This is all well and good if I live on a remote island by myself, but in my community I do not always have free will. I am subject to the will of the state and the community. Maybe the idea of free will is a function of the western obsession with individuality.

So far as we are all connected to one another we do not have free will. I cannot choose what course my friend will take in her life, though her choices may affect the direction my life takes. I cannot, according to the theory of evolution, choose the direction evolution will take. Though I may be constantly becoming, as evolution is ceaseless, I cannot choose the direction of this becoming because it is also directionless. In this sense I do not have free will. I may be able to choose some things, but I cannot choose my own personal evolution.
Evolutionarily speaking we can’t direct where we will got because it’s a group effort. Religion evolved because we realized that we are part of this vast whole, we can feel it but we can’t name it.
These are most likely half finished thoughts, but I am becoming!

Danielle Joseph