Free will and determinism are not antagonistic

If we do not live in a deterministic world then that would suggest some outside agent... which is incompatible with a scientific view of the world. If we are not religious then it is difficult to make a case for free will. But it is possible for there to be an element of choice in life (or at least the perception of choice) as well as a lack of external agent. If the entirety of possible paths in life is laid out before us we can still choose from among them without recourse to religion. The outcomes in life might be infinite or approaching infinite (and we can have a sense of free-will) but there is nothing non-scientific about this. If at each point in the decision-making space it is possible for the universe to split (the unchosen path being forever consigned to darkness) then there is no incompatibility between determinism and free choice. That is to say there is no need to abandon the notion of our lives being something other than set in stone at the outset. The universe can be deterministic in the sense of there being no guiding hand from above but subject to (open to) free will in the sense of there being plenty of choices for us to make... or to not make.