// There are plenty of people in my family that refuse to learn from life experiences or try new things because "the plan" is already set in stone

In my study of both Judaism and the yogic tradition, what you described is NOT the intention.

Free will (fundamental to religion) means our choices matter. I am equally "capable" of helping or hurting someone. I realize I can do either, but I know which one resonates with me deeply and which one is abhorrent.

All religion in its pure form is empowering people to grow and change for the better. Stagnation you are talking about is real, but those people are missing the point I fear.

That's objectively not true. The reason religion talks about virtue and sin so much is because it's understood that each person has the power to chose one or the other. That's the fundamental free will, all stems from it.

I don't think that's the (main) reason that religions focuses on virtue and sin, but that's kind of to one side.

Free will does suggest that all prophets are making educated guesses, rather than receiving divine insight into future events. In Christian mythology there's the classic Matthew 26:21 bit that atheists like to point out in any discussion about free will (or lack of).

I don't have any insight into the texts of the other two large organised religions, but I'm sure there's a some number of distant predictions in those that stretch the 'everyone has free will' claim.

I'm sorry to hear about the folks in your family who believe that way. In my experience and opinion, that's not the message that should be learned from belief in a higher power.

The best way to describe the difference is through a parable that's often told - the man who is stuck on his roof top during a flood. The man is stuck on top of his roof, praying to God that he should be saved from the rising water. A series of first responders arrive, by boat, by helicopter, etc; the man waves them all off, saying "God will save me".

After the man drowns, he meets God in anger, saying "why did you not save me?" God replies, "I sent a boat and a helicopter.. what more do you expect?"

The message I get from this parable is that your life experiences are far from pre-ordained, and that you are not hopelessly dependent on some other higher power for your welfare. Exactly the opposite! You must seize the opportunities you're given and grow to appreciate and nurture the natural abilities you have in order to live a fulfilling life.

I've always wondered what the response is to people who are in that situation, but no boats or helicopters show up, and they simply don't survive. How does that interact with god's plan?

Please don't take this as a "Gotcha" question, it's just something I've always wondered

I don’t consider that a gotcha question at all. There are so many examples of evil in the world so it is easy to question the role of God’s plan. I’m not the best person to ask as I don’t necessarily believe that there is some sort of master plan. I’m also not overly religious even though it may sound that way in this thread. I think that religion can give people a sense of meaning deeper than yourself- something that is sorely lacking in today’s society IMO.

As far as your question, I would recommend reading Viktor Frankl’s book A Mans Search for Meaning. It’s powerful as any book you’ll ever read and give you an insight to how at least one person persevered through the most horrific of circumstances.

Different religions bring different views on it. The puritans believed that their material work improving the land for elect humans, and the wealth that resulted, was a sign of divine grace. Other religions and sects of Christianity see wealth as abhorrent.

But we're not talking about causation here. Causation - or the scientific method - is just one small part of life. The source for motivation and creativity should be seen as a much grander scale than causation.