...yes, there are good people in any religion.

Anyway, how about that free will?

I am a Christian. (Protestant baptist to be specific)

Humans have limited free will in the sense that every one of us are not mindless drones, but free will is limited.

Ephesians 1:3-5 claims that salvation is predestined.



The fact that not everyone will be saved sounds cold and heartless unless you look at it from the POV that everyone is initially going to hell by default, and that God chose to save some of us.

In short, it may appear that you are choosing God, but only because God put it on your heart to search Him out.

Or in your genes

...so, God chooses to save some? Why the hell would you worship a being that created all of existance to go to Hell by default unless you can jump through his hoops? That's the most sadistic thing I've heard of.

Everything was originally created to be perfect and to be right with God. Once sin entered the world, it tainted everything including Adam and Eve (and recursively, everyone who would eventually come from them) Once this happened, humanity became separated from God.

Before God can show mercy or love, justice must be served for sin, or else God would be acting unjustly. You can either pay for it yourself (by dying and going to hell forever) or be redeemed through faith in Jesus Christ. (In this scenario, God is no longer angry when you sin because your sins, past, present, and future, have been paid for through the shed blood of Jesus).

See how this works?

Sin didn't "enter the world" though, God put it there originally, for he created "everything."

God did not create sin. Sin is not a created entity; it is merely rebellion against God's authority.

I remeber one time I got banned on a Christian forum.

I lol'ed.

So...god did not create the apple?

apple = fruit.

apple <> sin.



The notion that the apple was the forbidden fruit is not even Biblical.

I like apples. Apple pie.

So, you're saying God created everything. Nothing existed until he got bored. And then suddenly, pesky sin manifested in his perfect world and his only way to rectify this problem was by banishing everyone to hell unless they can tell him why they should be forgiven...

so if god created everything... did god create god?

where the **** did this cocky all powerful mother****er come from?

and how the **** do i get his job when he's too senile to keep going?

It's ok. Ronald Reagan says that if you devote your life to the white man, you'll be let into heaven. Praise White Jesus!

god is full of ****.

really.

i bet his boss is gonna come along any moment and say

"GOD, YOU LAZY *** BASTARD!

YOUR UNIVERSE IS ****ING ****TY, THROW IT IN THE TRASH AND START AGAIN.

Seriously, this job is simply not right for you, try picking up peoples litter or cleaning peoples toliets instead of doing this ****."

Or something...

Just mentioning the Catholic POV on the original question (I don't have the time to read the whole thread). I'm an engineer not a theologian, I must admit, but I think this is in agreement with Church teaching. Sorry if this is long (or too short).

Much of Catholic teaching centers around God being the only thing that is real, being the Creator. Christ is "the Word," or that original Truth spoken (God's self-image). I've heard of the Holy Spirit described as the love of the Father for the Son (which I suppose would mean that reality and love are the same thing, though I haven't read much into that).

This is what makes "sin" what it is. When one steals, for instance, one denies reality to oneself (in this case, and most cases, several realities: ownership, the relationship between the person and the victim, others negatively affected by the act). Murder, dishonesty, etc. are all made wrong by this reason. So essentially evil doesn't exist. It is the fact that it has no basis in reality that causes real negative affects.

Suicide is an "evil" act. It, like all "sin," denies one's place in the fabric of reality: one's family, friends, responsibilities: relationship with God, others, and oneself.

The Church, pretty much up until fairly recently, would not allow a person who committed suicide to have a Catholic burial. This practice was ended given that a true Mortal Sin (the only kind that would mean Hell, which in context of teaching would mean complete removal from reality: a choice, as well as a punishment) has to be

• a serious matter (check)
• committed with full knowledge of the gravity of the matter (given the probably mental instability: probably not)
• committed with full consent (ditto)

In conclusion: suicide is considered a sin, though the guilt of the committer is probably diminished or extinguished by mental illness.

Also, just because we have a choice in the matter doesn't make all choices or all mindsets in tune with reality.

To help answer the suicide question from a protestant prospective, committing suicide would not cost you your salvation, although even wanting to do so (not to mention carrying out the act) would be a fairly strong indicator that your Christian walk needs some serious help.

This stance is supported by

John 10:28 "And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." John 10:29.



We protestants go directly to scripture for theology because as a Christian, that is really all we need since scripture alone is the word of God. Church tradition is sometimes acknowleged on some issues, but it is not regarded to be as valid as scripture, and scripture always has the final say on an issue.

I sense a terrible end to this.

I tremble in anticipation

Roach, et al are correct. Free will contradicts with omniscience. This is not up for debate. It's proven. Free will with an omniscient god is a logical fallacy.

Then there's also a whole host of other inconsistancies and just outright inane things in the Bible. God is all powerful. God created everything, but sin is opposition to him or his will? Who the hell can do that? He's God. He's all powerful. That shouldn't be a problem. Why did he leave it there? Just for kicks?

That's pretty amazing, actually. A friend of mine hypothesized that a belief in god is a sign of an underevolved brain. Maybe he was onto something...

We are the next evolution of the human race.

Man, who didn't see this coming when you read the title to the thread.

Um, this might be several pages too late, but Roach, man...don't do it. Don't kill yourself. You've got your whole life ahead of you.

We can talk more if you want.

Yeah, suicide is bad because it's not God's will.

Rape and death, however, are good because that's what God wanted.

That *******!

Fortunately for us, God is patient. Sure, God is angry with the sin in the world and the world will experience God's wrath and infinite righteousness eventually.

When Satan fell, God dispensed immediate justice. Satan and the 1/3 of the angels that sided with him have no hope of redemption and are essentially a already-condemned group of entities simply waiting to be punished. In this way, God demonstrated His Holy nature and His absolute righteousness.

I suspect that the only reason why God is allowing sin to exist at all is that it provides an excellent way to demonstrate His love towards humanity by providing a path for redemption. God could have dispensed immediate justice on humanity like he did on Satan by wiping the slate of creation clean and starting over, but God didn't do that. Rather, God postponed justice until a later time and meanwhile provided us with a way back to him. Without sin, this aspect of God's character could not be as obviously shown.

How depressing.

Fairytales.

Free will and omniscience cannot both exist. If a choice exists, no one can know beforehand what the result will be. If that information can be known, then no real choice exists.

Different flavors of Christianity view the situation in different ways. For Catholics, free will does exist, hence the idea that good works can get one into heaven. In the past this went so far as people donating money to the church as a good work to rescue a dead relative's soul from Purgatory. Early Protestants, on the other hand, believed that free will did not exist, and that those Elect who were going to heaven were known from the beginning of time. Both seem to have toned down a bit in the past couple hundred years, but the dichotomy remains.

I can't think of any scripture that states that we have free will, though one could claim it was impied in the fact that written guidelines for how to live exist at all. There are, however, many scriptures that indicate that God is omniscient. You can find them by browsing anti-abortion websites.

>.>

haha, that picture is great.

God is just testing our loyalty with sin, because he's really insecure

Poor God

(and many others, this just happens to be the latest on this idea)

The "many worlds" interpretation of multiverse theory explains how foreknowledge and free choice can coexist. Not that I necessarily agree with the theory, but it does provide a possible answer to the paradox.



Two responses to this (the first being mostly semantics):
1) You definition of "Protestant" more accurately describes Calvinist. "Protestant" is a large umbrella encompasing many different beliefs in the area of predestination vs free will. The chief antagonist of Calvinism being Arminianism, which basically states that free will can exist without limiting God's power or contradicting the Bible. Both are Protestant beliefs.

2) I think it is extremely valuable to mention (as you did, so I guess I am agreeing with you) that different "flavors" or "sects" or "denominations" (or whatever you want to call it) of Christianity all have different beliefs on this subject. You can't just lump all Christians together on the topic of free will because it's easier and say they have to believe one thing. This is part of the reason why there are so many denominations in Christianity; because you can't answer some of these questions with 100% certainty (or even 80% certainty, or 60% in some cases, or... you get the point).

haha holy ****, it's funny how many of the posters of this thread are banned. banned banned banned.

Just had to respond to this real fast, with a huge whopping NO. quantum physics is one of my hobbies, and i perscribe to the many-worlds theory and know it very well. The many-worlds theory has absolutely nothing at all to the possiblity of omniscience and free-will coexisting. if god is omniscient, he knows what will happen in every single universe. he couldn't both have a plan and have the many-worlds theory, because in one of those worlds, or possibly in every single universe except the one where everything in his plan goes perfectly, his plan fails. if you believe that he's all-powerful, i doubt this is the case. free will and a plan from god are MUTUALLY EXCULSIVE. end of discussion! if he has a plan for us, that is 100% certain to happen, then we can not all have free will, because then there's a chance that every one of us will **** up.

I believe that if God loves us as much as the church says, then there is no Hell.

Think about it, why would he throw one of his own children that he "loves" into a flaming eternity?

It doesn't seem very christian when someone comes up and tell you to do something or you'll burn in hell.

That's too simplified. Anyone can ask for forgiveness at anytime and they will be forgiven if they really mean it.

Here's how I look at it:


We're God's children. He wants us to be happy, that's His plan. He knows everything, so he knows what will bring us happiness and what will not; that's why He gives us commandments.

Even though God wants us to be happy, he won't force us to be. He has given us free will to choose for ourselves what we want.

God has revealed His plan and commandments to mankind from the very beginning of the world so we would know how to wisely use our free will. The men that God authorizes to teach the world are called prophets, and the scriptures are the teachings He commands them to write.

We still have our choice of what to believe and live. Our Heavenly Father has promised He'll let us know if something is true if we sincerely ask Him in prayer and are committed to act on His answer.

Eventually we will all experience the concequences of our actions. This is where Jesus Christ comes in. We're all in the process of learning how to best live life, and we've all made sinful choices that will bring us unhappiness and keep us from returning to live with our Father in Heaven again. God knew this would happen, so before the world was even created He chose Jesus christ to be our Savior. By suffering the concequences of our sins, Christ made it possible for those concequences to be taken from us, and we be able to return to live with our Father again.

But God does not force forgiveness onto us either, we must choose it. Christ offers us salvation as we have faith in God's teachings, live them, and promise to continue to do so for the rest of our lives by being baptized by someone with authority from God. After baptism we recieve the Gift of the Holy Ghost, which will purify us from our sins and help us continue to make right choices. When we slip up, at church we can re-make our promise by taking the sacrament.


So, to sum it all up about Omniscience & Free Will, God has known from the beginning what we're going to choose, but just because He knew it was going to happen doesn't mean He forced anyone to do it. We all choose for ourselves and experience the concequences.

And here lies the problem. What some consider fun others may not. For example. God says sex before marriage is wrong, yet many people enjoy it.



You've hit the same contradiction everyone else has been discussing. If he knows what's going to happen why bother letting us live at all? Why not just send us straight to hell or heaven?

If God knows what is going to happen there is no choice; it's already been made. Can you choose something else that god doesn't know? No. So you cannot leave the path set by God.

Also, God must know what itself is going to do. So if it knows it's going to send someone to hell it has to otherwise it deviated from it's own plan and therefore doesn't know everything.

You know what would make this argument a lot easier? Removing God from the equation.

Banninating the countryside it's... MBeggarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!

[QUOTE=Kievan Mereel]So, to sum it all up about Omniscience & Free Will, God has known from the beginning what we're going to choose, but just because He knew it was going to happen doesn't mean He forced anyone to do it. We all choose for ourselves and experience the concequences.[/QUOTE]
I am REALLY happy somebody finally said this. <3 man, some serious <3!

[QUOTE=Kievan Mereel]

So, to sum it all up about Omniscience & Free Will, God has known from the beginning what we're going to choose, but just because He knew it was going to happen doesn't mean He forced anyone to do it. We all choose for ourselves and experience the concequences.[/QUOTE]

Bingo.

Also, Mormons are not Christians. They are a psuedo-Christian cult. But that's besides the point.