How in the world can you prove that your God influences the actions of people who contemplate him? Aren't hardcore Atheists not God's children? Aren't billions of Hindus or Chinese Buddhists not God's children?
You need to start by recognizing that all thoughts, words, and actions are controlled by cause and effect. Once you realize this, then you can start to figure out how you might influence all cause and effect, to see if you have any control whatsoever.
It can't be both badecker. It's either free will or not.
I agree with you.
Imagine a wealthy quadriplegic. He has free will. But he can't do anything. So, he gives his free will orders, and others do it.
Or imagine AI that comes to life, in its early stages. It has artificial free will, even though it may not realize it. This is said right in the name Artificial Intelligence.
Cause and effect shows us that we don't have free will. If we have free will, it is in a form that we don't scientifically understand, yet. But the fact that we have such determined artificial free will as we have, suggests that there is free will in us in some strange way.
Think of the implications of us having free will when all we can see is artificial free will. The basic implications of this are twofold (without looking at the God idea):
1. We are all artificial intelligence, or;
2. Either we free-will control C&E through some kind of space/time "hacking" of the basic initial cause(s) of all things, or our fundamental science/understanding-of-physics is completely wrong.
''But the fact that we have such determined artificial free will as we have, suggests that there is free will in us in some strange way.'' Right.. whatever makes you happy bro. If we have the tiniest amount of free will then cause and effect is meaningless, again, it cannot be both, if there is no free will and everything has a cause that has a cause, etc, then it's gods fault.