You raise some very good points in that there are serious repurcussions depending on how we define people as being products of randomness versus the belief in free will. One of the key problems with how people choose to assign the importance of personal responsibility(free will) versus being products of randomness(How much, if any, blame should be placed on an individual) is that the absence of the belief in free will potentially leads to a decreased emphasis on individual rights and freedoms. (If you believe people should be treated as outcomes of randomness, then their choices and desires can easily be considered as less important.) Also, it would be boring and unhealthy to live life thinking of yourself as having little control over events. So, even if the amount of control one has is an overestimate, it is still probably a prefferable way to live. (Although it is a bit of a duality, one can of course acknowledge that they are outcomes of ‘chaos’ or randomness and still live their day to day lives from the viewpoint of having a large amount of control.)
But, both of those are questions about how individuals and societies define themselves, not about what is actually occurring. The larger point I was trying to make with my earlier posting is that people easily mistake random events for larger purposeful, ‘grand’ events. This admittedly doesn’t answer your question ‘Is there a God’ which is unknowable (but IMO doubtful, particularly in the way people usually think of God.) But just that things can occur without some great overseer or govenor micromanaging each and every event.
Good discussion from both you and Austin H. I understand that your opinions likely differ from mine and trackmans, but it’s nice to see that we can have a civil discussion about a topic that it is easy to become emotional and reactionary about.