Finally for an atheist, Maimonides' philosophy shows us what happens if you remove all anthropomorphic content from your conception of God: you remove all content of any kind.
But, according to Locke's conception of freedom, you are most certainly free with respect to your arm's rising: (i) if you will that your arm rise, you have the power to raise it, and (ii) if you will that your arm not rise, you have the power to forbear raising it.
"Or it could be that, by adjusting your conception of God, you could harmonize your beliefs, so that they fit together in an intellectually coherent and respectable way".
Your conception of freedom which you describe as "winner takes all" if played by the same rules is a ludicrous contender for the idea of fairness.
The same was true of Transformers, it took us five years to get the first one made, there were plenty of people who had no conception of why you'd make a Transformers movie.
As Tom Dean, a researcher at Google, told us, "Programming is [challenging for artificial intelligence] not because it requires concentration and attention to detail but because the path from the conception of what you want to accomplish to the realization of code that actually accomplishes it requires artistry, insight, and creativity as well as incredible mental dexterity".
Imagine that the world were made fully just, according to whatever conception of justice you require, and that the island of Atlantis them rose into that just world; imagine further that every Atlantean were possessed of a small quantity of diamonds, which made them significantly more wealthy than the average person.
Still, you hope to find something, or maybe you fear finding something, that will completely change your conception of the parent you thought you knew.
Self-expression is total, immediate, without conception of time, and you can only express that if you are free, physically and mentally, from fragmentation.
It's a loving, conscientious way to prevent the conception of a child you can't bear to raise and don't want to abort.
