This sort of begs the question: Is it truly free will if it must be GIVEN to us, and not inherently a part of us to begin with?

This is completely contradictory to the Bible, which says that God is perfect. It also says the we are created in his image and likeness. How can we be imperfect if he is perfect, yet we are created in his image?

If he died to save us all from Hell, then why do our actions matter? How can our bad behavior send us to Hell if he already died to save us?

God gave us our lives and existence. Anything inherit, including free will, is given by HIM.

God is perfect, yes. Because His a perfect Creator, He made us humans in His own image and likeness. All of us humans has that inherit nature of being loving, caring, good, kind just like God. But because of free will, some humans decide and choose to go the different path (violent, rude, evil, brutal). Our actions make us imperfect. And God is fully aware of that.

I don't believe in Hell. But I do believe that God opens the doors of heaven for all of us. He understands our bad behaviours, but that doesn't make Him love us any less. We are His children and he loves us no less than the Pope or the Saints.

I guess what I was getting at is that free will can't be given. Once it is given, it is no longer free will because it is forced upon us.

If God could give free WiFi I would become a devout Christian and go to church for the rest of my life.

Anyone know God's WEP encryption?

I hear Satan is offering free 4G mobile broadband. But you have to sign over your soul, pretty much the same as a Sprint contract.

The Flying Spagetti Monster is offering something similar, but you have to give it your first-born child or something.

That's because the idea that everything has a "purpose" or a "point" is purely a human construction. Once you remove yourself from the pompous, human-centric view that everything revolves around us as a species, you realize this.

@ The Virgin

I don't believe in God, so a lot of what you've said doesn't really make sense to me. I was raised Catholic so it's not the first time I'm hearing any of what you're saying.

I just find that the majority, if not all, of these responses ignore the question rather than address it.

If god uses WEP, then he's a moron, and his shit will get hacked in a matter of minutes. It's all about WPA2 + TKIP. Praise the lord.

:laughing:

On an off topic: The Virgin, do you believe God will accept you into his heart as a gay person?

Disclaimer: I fully support gay people and am always torn about whether its allowed by God or not. Personally I think it has to be, it seems to me people are born with it, little children show signs of being gay even! God created us to be imperfect.

Sort of on topic: I'm no theologist, but if you commit a crime such as murder and hate crimes, and do not have God in your heart there is no way you will get into Heaven or be cleansed etc. I'm not entirely sure about reformed murderers etc, but the consensus is that God will look back on an individuals life, weigh up how they behaved, treated others and whether they had any love in their hearts and determine if they deserve an all access pass to heaven or not.

On topic: I believe my life is predestined, but I have no clue into what the destiny is. Some people are given insights into how their destiny will be by being given certain roles to take in life that are important for God. You can argue that free-will is really predestined, but God knows all of us so well that he can pin point we will make certain decisions over others. Some decisions will be good, others bad but it's all about us growing as a person and learning about ourselves. Mistakes happen (drug abuse, prostitution, lying and adultery), however, there is always time to change your ways and give back to others/repent in some form/connect with God.

That brings up a good point...
If god has a plan for everyone, and everyone's life is predestined to turn out a certain way, then, considering the fact that some folks will turn out to be horrible people, then was that god's plan? And if so, doesn't that make god an asshole?

Is it destiny when people carry out horrible acts of violence and sick, twisted shit?
Or did Hitler just stray from god's path by choosing free will?

What about people that are mentally incompetent or ill, and are violent psychopaths with no touch in reality and go on rampages? Are they choosing free will? Or is it destiny? Certainly, some folks are not even legally accountable for their actions.

Finally, natural disasters, diseases, etc... people dying when they may have been good, or bad, or innocent kids... what path were they on? What choices did they make? I'd like to think that if there was a god, he wouldn't use human beings as pawns, but I'm a little stuck on the math...

I think the idea is that destiny is a purpose that God would have for you. A role that He wants you to fulfil and that He's supposed to give you the tools to succeed in. So yes, Hitler would have strayed from the path. I'm not sure what the Catholic Church's position on people who don't belong to Catholic Church is either. It used to be that you would go to Hell if you weren't Catholic, then it was that you your soul would just be obliterated, and some even say you would still get to go to heaven if you were a good person.

And what if you were never told about the Bible or anything? Well then I think you're supposed to not be accountable and you would just be obliterated (your soul that is).

I don't think the Catholic church has Limbo anymore (this is where they used to say that children who died in birth went for example). But I think they decided to get rid of that (much to the pain of mothers who had believed for decades that this was where their child had gone).

The Bible wasn't written at a time when mental illness for example was understood. It was often misunderstood that the person was under the possession of the devil or something. Back then they would have said the person was responsible and accountable for their actions (and so the circumstances of the rest of their eternity would be dictated by them).

Now I'm not sure what the newest beliefs are. I doubt it's the same... normally you get a none answer like that only God can make that judgment. I also find that most of my Catholic family don't actually know what the Catholic church's stance is on these things...

red is a primary color. but if you mix it with blue it becomes purple; with green it becomes brown; with yellow it becomes red; etc.
same as with free will, it's given by God pure and clean. it's up to has what things we want to mix it with to produce an outcome.


i know you believe in God. The fact that you capitalized the letter G when mentioning Him is proof enough. Don't worry, even the faintest belief from His children makes HIM smile.

of course, most members here rather goof off and talk about sex and stuff than God.

As I've previously mentioned, God loves ALL OF US. No matter, who or what or where we are, no matter what we do in life, no matter what. When we all die, each one of us will have that heavenly oppurtunity to meet Him. And as you approach Him, He'll smile at you and simply say "I Know My Child, I Know".


:clap:

out of all the posters in this thread, you're the sanest.

our actions truly don't matter. Look it up in the bible and it will tell you this indirectly. the only way our bad behavior will send us to Hell is if we die and decide to not acknowledge Him and repent for our sins.

lol I was going to make a similar comment but you beat me to the punch. A perfect being would upgrade his **** to the most secure. WEP is so easy to get into.

This is a common misconception. Some people believe that God will look over your life and see whether you were inherently a good person or bad one past off of your past decisions but that's not true at all.

When he died on the cross for our sins, all we have to do is repent and believe that he is real and voila up to heaven you go.

That's why I said earlier that you can be the most wicked person but if you repent for your sins and acknowledge him as your lord and savoir then you are technically "saved". You won't go to hell when you die within mins. Probably one of the main reasons that people pray and do this while on deathrow. Mainly because they are scared of the afterlife and they rather do this and get to heaven than to just keep believing that their body is just going to rot in the ground.

Wait. I think they burn inmates bodies that would be most cost effective

How can you say it's a misconception when you haven't died, faced God himself and gone through the process?

There's no way in hell (parden the pun), God will just let someone into Heaven who have been wicked and evil (following the ways of the Devil) because they randomly repented at the end. It's down to whether they have actually accepted God and are honestly wanting to change. Even then who knows. No one does, it's down to God.

I'm just telling you what the Bible states.

I can ask you the same question

How can you say what you are saying when you haven't died, faced God himself and gone through the process?

I don't know for sure, I don't claim to.

best suggestion i've read since i joined here.

The bible says nothing about homosexuality. It is equated to masturbation and sex with a woman on her period. It is deemed useless as sperm (or the possibility of life from said sperm) is lost.

According to the bible, if the murderer repents on his death bed then he will be saved and go to heaven. But on the inverse, if a righteous man does good deeds his entire life, but does not accept God into his heart (either via refusal, never being exposed to the religion, etc), he will burn in hell.

Not really. The idea of free will is the complete antitheses of the the Calvinistic version of predestination as most view it. I think you're hitting on what I said earlier. Is it really free will if God supposedly designed it and forced it upon us?

That is a complete cop-out, and you're entirely missing my point. It is not free will if we had no choice in the matter, and God forced it upon us. It's really a secondary, more philisophical issue than the matter at hand. You can't force free will upon someone, beacuse once you do, it ceases to be FREE will, see what I'm saying?

This is just your belief. One amongst many others

It's no more far-fetched than any other religious belief.

Actually, that is how it works. Honesty is relative. I'm sure that someone facing death honestly does not want to burn in hell, so who is to say that they don't mean it?

Just a few notes.

I don't really remember now, but I'm pretty sure oj is right. The Bible doesn't mention homosexuality being wrong except for in a few cases, and it isn't any bigger a deal than some other minor stuff.

The Bible is kind of weird like that when you compare it to peoples perception of it. In fact, for example, the Bible doesn't condone marriage... it only says that if you're going to have sex (which you apparently shouldn't) it's not as bad if you are married...



And just a note about me capitalizing God. I do that because it's the name of the god of the Bible. God is specific; "god" would be just the concept without any specific religion attached as long as it was monotheistic. If there was more than one god it would of course be gods.

I capitalize the names of lots of things that I don't believe are real. Harry Potter, Gandalf, Zeus, Thor... it doesn't mean I have a belief in these things, I just have an on/off respect for the english language.

ok, i got you. so what's your take on free will?

Well see the thing that I despise about the Bible is that it is riddled with contradictions that's why some Christians that rely on it so heavily are pretty much hypocrites.

It's not their fault per say, it's the stupid ass Catholic church that decided to translate the scrolls incorrectly. I also feel like they tampered with the Bible to make it what they wanted it to say and they left out books on purpose.

There is a big lost in translation factor going on with the Bible that's why I no longer like it. I read through all of the old testament when I was 17 and the beginning parts of the new testament when I just had to give up on it.

People take from the Bible what they want. Three people can read the same verse and tell you three different interpretations of what they believe the verse said.

OJ is right about the homosexuality thing sort of. There is a verse that all Christians that know something about the Bible like to pull out of their ass to show you that homosexuality is considered a sin but on the other hand the bible also states that God loves all of his creations.

As far as the marriage and sex point. You are allowed to have sex but it's not supposed to be for pleasure and for procreation. It says that marriage is between a man and woman. The whole point about procreating out of wedlock isn't even mentioned in the bible as a bad thing, If I remember correctly. I could be wrong about that last bit. I'd have to see a verse saying differently but I don't think there is one.

my take on this thread, is that God doesn't "give" free will

man only assumes he has free will, when in fact everything is already predestined, like as I already going to type what I just typed, i only think i'm doing it out of my own volition, but this set of words is already in God's mind even before I typed them, it's predestined

You do realize that you just contradicted yourself don't you?

I think that we all inherently have free well, regardless of a God.

Like it's just an illusion of free will?

That's true. Christian's quote the Bible, but then say that "in the end, it's all up to God." The only sources of "God's will" that we have to go off of have all come from man. Doesn't anybody see a problem with that?

Ok, so can we agree that if this is the case, God must be responsible for both good and evil equally? Everything is both his accomplishment and his fault.

Hypothetically.

Yes.

I don't think he's responsible for evil - more like he brokered with the Devil this many souls are going to Hell.

So now he's negotiating with the Devil? Why?

The Devil gets a bad rap.

What happened was that he was God's right hand angel and loved God very much but he became jealous of God's new creations(humans).

This jealousy led him to do something I can't remember how it actually went down but he was casted out of heaven with other angels that decided to follow in his footsteps becoming known as Fallen angels.

God sent him down to earth to rule over earth and hell.

they already had a deal since Lucifer got kicked out of Heaven

And God created Aqualung.

Ian Anderson is God?

I suppose he is. It's more plausible than the recognized conception of a supernatural being anyway.

Your question is all I read. So, sorry if I missed anything.

God, the creator of all things can create freewill.

For Gods existence to be proven logically in this case, you must source the text.

"God Is love" for example.
"We are made in his image...and likeness"

therefore, as we have figured out by now. Nothing really loves you, desires to please you, and wishes to be with you forever unless you allow it to love you, freely. (by its own choice) Forced love or love devrived from pressure rarely is true in this sense. We all, for some reason, desire to be loved for exactly who we are on any given day. To be noticed and admired by that woman or man in such a way that all other needs for love are overpowered by that person.

Since we will believe that we are made in his image, we therefore have simliar desires at our core to love God freely as he makes himself known over our lifetime. Also, to recieve love like our creator desires to recieve love. Freely, by 100% choice. I, myself, don't feel right with someone loving me out of fear that I will leave them, hurt them...etc.

God created free will. Free will is a good and perfect thing when used properly. "Every good and perfect thing comes from the Lord".

On another note, I don't believe in sin as truth. It might exist, but it's existence is a complete fabrication of things that were not supposed to be. Lies, and the father of them. If sin is not of God, it is of nemisis.

Again, proven by our daily lives. I feel it daily. The feeling of "thats not right", "thats not supposed to happen", "thats terrible", "I wish this or that would have never happened". EVERYONE does this. If it's a mother losing a child, a friend being murdered, loved one breaking your heart, or someone or something stealing from you. We all feel the same things. We ALL don't want these to happen, and when they do, we HATE and despise their existence.

In my mind , it is a result of something perfect inside of us that rejects these "realities" that only exist because of something wrong happening. It is a under-thought reaction that should always be investigated to furture make God, his existence, and his desires more real to the individual. It is a self-relevant truth that only does one harm to deny. But do as you please. When something is as universal as these hurt feelings and improper, harsh realities, there has to be something wrong with them as a whole. Logically, there has to be something entirely perfect, true, just and loving to balance it out. It is also the deductive origin of the countering feeling that rises when the "bad" things happen in our lives. The feeling of bad things having no place in life and the deep desire for them not to exist and to never have happened.

Certain 'truths' are only truths because of sin(or lies leading a person to act improperly...i.e. murder, cheating, stealing) created them. But knowing its root cause, you can no longer call it a 'truth', at least for yourself. I feel this is a big root to the "Freedom from Sin" discussed in Paul's letters in the New Testament.

Free Will, is the best thing that has ever happened. How else would a God that is the entire idea of Love find love? Furthermore, how would we find real love if it were not free? Its price is...unmeasureable. Its perfect versions (as described in Corinthians) i.e Love is Patient, Love is Kind, Gentle, Not Concited, Does not harm, envy...etc. these versions describe love acting perfectly, and never failing or hurting the user and the reciever. Now why is that so hard to accept? Don't we all want that? Isnt that the content of most music? Wanting, experiencing, or losing that very thing or idea.

How can you put a price on the wishes, hopes and dreams of 80% of music to date? Both instrumental and lyrically based, They were all written out of love for something. A woman, a relationship, a God, a child, an idea.

Something so priceless, could never be afforded or earned by anyone. Rich or Poor. That is why it's.

Many don't recognize the consistency of the story of Christ compared to the entire actions of God in the Old Testament. The entire Bible is often mistook for certain thing. Overall, it is a consistent, unceasing collection of a Creator rescuing his creation. Out of pure, simple and complex Love.

I'm reverting back to my simplistic theory:

Existence = God

God = Existence

There is no bearded old man or force that controls all.

God is all competing forces in existence, and there's probably a number with millions of digits of them, at various billions of degrees of power. I am not God, you are not God, Jesus wasn't God, and Allah isn't God.

Everything is a piece of God, and there's nothing mystical about it. Existence is a miracle, and free will exists because time is LINEAR and NONEXISTENT. It's simple a way for humanity to cope with our changes in comparison to the environment on an endless cycle beyond our grasp. One of which it's only our right to reasonably reach for.

Sounds like you got that from Star Wars.

I think Star Wars at least has fewer holes in the plot than most major religions...

this discussion is going nowhere. just accept the fact guys that God gave us free will. why's that so hard to do?

yes the discussion is going nowhere but why is it so hard for you to understand the religion that you decided to believe in?

God has a pre-determined future for you but he gave you the free will to believe in him or not.

The reason the discussion keeps going is because if someone already knows what choices you will make and what you will be doing in the future then you don't really have free will.

You have the illusion of free will.

Everything that you do in life is within God's plan for you.

well, for purposes of discussion, you do have a point.
but people who try to oppose that there is a God or God does not give free will knows that they're on the wrong side of the argument. Too bad for them.