I Have a Question

@Doomflower Wow girl! It feels great to know someone can relate! Absolutely. It’s the, “Love me or else.” It’s a superficial existence that lacks any depth or true meaning. I honestly think multitudes of people haven’t actually taken the time to truly think about these issues.

@Specialyouare it kind of scares me when people talk about loving this god. I'm like... HOW!? and if they think that's love they must be very shallow.

You do have freewill.

@SheikYerbouti how do you square omniscience with free will?

@Doomflower Easy. Omniscience is essentially knowing everything. Freewill is having a choice. I don't see a conflict.

@SheikYerbouti If I did not choose to exist.
If I did not choose my brain, instincts, or body.
If I did not choose this world or what it contains including plants, animals, and people or the fact that we have to screw these plants and animals for survival.
As a result of the consequence of our parents having sex we are FORCED to adapt through reward and punishment to be found pleasing, productive, and harmless to others OR we are negatively labeled, sent to be fixed, locked up, or terminated. All for the sake of remaining alive.

Tell me what in all of this we had ANY original choice in and aren’t just forced to suck it up, smile, and play puppet?

I mean this with all the respect possible because I actually want to get down to honest and polite logic and common sense.

@SheikYerbouti I'll try and be brief with this as it's a deep subject and I have to work soon.

First of all... can you choose to love someone? Truly? Can you choose to love someone who threatens you with infinite torment if you don't do what they want?

If something is worthy of being called a god is it not all powerful (omnipotent) and all knowing (omniscient)? Most agree on these two points if on no other.

So this all knowing God created everything knowing how it would turn out how do we have any choices?

Think of the devil. God created the devil knowing in advance that he would choose rebellion and be tormented in hell for all eternity. He could have done things differently and set it up with a happy ending but chose not to and the inevitable result of that decision was also his choice by default. He might as well have just saved time and created the devil already in hell.

@Specialyouare You do not have a choice of being born. That was up to your parents, they could have chosen otherwise. Forced to adapt part is questionable in its implications. More to the original question, you are in no way forced to believe in, or love, God.

@SheikYerbouti if I have free will why can I not choose to believe in God?

I don't choose my beliefs. I believe that which is most likely true based on available evidence. The evidence for any gods are lacking to say the least.

@Doomflower Without going into a heavy theological treatise, which I don't have a degree in...You can choose to love someone. God did make Satan, who through his pride, was cast out of heaven. So, he did have a choice there.

Why would God created a being, if he only wanted absolute obedience? What would be the point. It wouldn't be authentic. Forced love isn't love at all. Hence, you do have freewill.

@Doomflower You can choose to believe or not believe. Ask an atheist. I chose to believe after years of searching and inquiry.

@SheikYerbouti and I bet Christianity was the dominant religion in your community. Why didn't you choose Islam or Judaism?

@Doomflower In the US, Christianity is the dominant belief. I initially studied Buddhism (so do a lot of Christian converts, I've discovered ) and Eastern religions. Then, still searching, got interested in Islam. However, it was Christianity that "spoke" to me.

@SheikYerbouti wow what a surprise 🙄

@SheikYerbouti I understand what you mean. You say that you’d rather God give you two options (Heaven or Hell) (Himself or “Satan/The World”) than just have everyone automatically obey him. You say that God knows the future, but doesn’t intervene with the choices people make based on the options placed in front of them.

I get it.

The point I bring though is that we are nonetheless forced to obey, indirectly perhaps. We are forced because no one wants pain/hell. So if someone tells you, “If you do this you get paradise, if you don’t you get burned”; it is pretty obvious we will all pick NOT getting burned. It isn’t genuine devotion to someone, it is devotion that is done out of convenience. Similar to a gold digger saving themselves from pain and hunger by marrying a rich person.

Now about free will.
Free will means we have choices and are free to choose.
I won’t deny we do have options after we are born.
Now we didn’t choose to have to choose between these options and hence are forced to adapt.

Did we choose to have to eat plants and animals to survive? Nope.

Did we choose to be born in a world of money where if we don’t make money we starve and die? Nope.

Now let’s go deeper, and in no way to I mean to criticize or negatively label a Creator or a religion, this is just the beauty of analysis.

Again, we are here as the consequence of our parents’ action correct?
Yes.
So we are forced to deal with this life as a consequence of an action they took, correct?
Yes.
Think about our brain and body.
Did we choose or make any of it?
No.
Now think about the world with its people, with laws and belief systems already established BEFORE us being born into it.

We originally chose nothing.
We are forced to adapt IF we don’t want to die.
And even having to choose between life or death is a decision we are forced to choose about when we didn’t choose to exist and have to make this choice in the first place.

Be found pleasing, productive, and harmless for people to want you around, put up with you, or find you convenient or don’t be and experience a life of painful consequences.

Don’t you consider this as a “forced upon” reality?

@Doomflower Should have been Islam, right?

@Specialyouare Every creation must have a "Creator" of some sort. To know the exact reasons why, I'd have to be God (Creator ).

Even in a Darwinian world, you'd have to adapt to external environment not of your choosing. But, you can overcome and change your environment.

@SheikYerbouti My point is that it is SO WEIRD how God always seems to tell people who are seeking to join the religion almost everyone else around them practices.

As an atheist (You told me to ask one but I neglected to point out I AM one and of the strong variety at that) I literally cannot choose what I believe when it comes to gods. I cannot choose to believe in things that are internally inconsistent and contradict logic.

I don't know if you are deliberately obtuse or if you really can't understand how a being that controls every atom of every molecule and planned everything would ultimately control what we choose as "free" beings. Still there are other problems with free will.

For the sake of argument let us pretend we have free will.

There's a guy in prison who rapes and murders little kids. Why does God allow him to do that? Free will?

The rapist used his free will to violate the free will of others. If god had set circumstances slightly different so that rapist wouldn't rape no one's free will would be violated. If he intervened and stopped the rape/murder directly only one person's free will would be violated - the same as before. Only this time no one is raped and murdered and leaving behind a grieving family.

Immense suffering could be spared if God had just made humans so we had no desire to choose to harm each other while still having free will. It would be possible for a being that can supposedly do anything.

@Doomflower I think you have a problem with understanding free will. If it's not 100% then it cannot really be free.

There are Christians in predominantly Hindu lands and in Muslim. So, how do you explain that if you always adapt to majority belief. You yourself as an atheist are proof.

@SheikYerbouti You are assuming that there is a creation. There is absolutely no evidence that physical reality is a creation

@SheikYerbouti Please feel free to explain free will. I do not see how free will is possible with a god that is omnipotent and omniscient.

Is he so omnipotent he can outsmart his own omniscience? Then he isn't omniscient.

Is he so omniscient he can't be ignorant? Then he isn't omnipotent.

My point is that the vast majority of humans go with their culture's dominant belief system.

I am an atheist because I examined the claims made by theists and found all of them lacked the support necessary for me to believe them and all of the falsifiable claims were shown to be just that.

@CookieLuvsBunny What would it be then, an illusion?

@SheikYerbouti What do you think about devotion to God not being genuine once presented with heaven, hell, and his ultimate power?

If I tell you MJAZ70 that if you come to my birthday party you’ll get a thousand dollars, but if you don’t you will lose your chance at winning some money.... how is that a genuine devotion or action?

This is where, even supposing that Christianity were true, makes for a shallow relationship done out of what is convenient.

What is your take on this matter?

@Doomflower You're making a Calvinist argument. No free will and a "special elect". The mere fact that you don't believe based on criteria you use and I do based on criteria I use, how is that not free will?

If God is so powerful, can He make an object that He can't move? I've found these type of arguments silly.

@Specialyouare Again, if you have free will to believe you must also have the will not to. You can come up with all the "What If's" scenarios you want.

In your example, if I didn't come to your birthday that's money I'm not going to miss, can't lose what I didn't have.