Better reasons to quit Christianity

[spockrates]

Sounds much like Reformed Theology to me. Calvin would be proud!

1. It does not fit with certain passages of the Bible that contradict it. Seems to me a Christian should adopt a position that is consistent with the books they profess to be divine in origin.

2. The goal of God according to most Christian views is to promote love among people for each other and for him. It seems to me love is impossible without freedom of will.

I would not expect you to defend (1), so let's consider (2). Please explain how a person could freely love God without the freedom to choose to not love him.

I wasn't aware I was presenting a purely Calvinist view, rather one that seemed to follow logically from the proclaimed properties of God. If God has these properties then hard determinism follows, as far as I can tell.
I won't try to defend against 1., because I don't care how often the Bible contradicts itself. 2., however, is just another form of 1.; basically, Xtians will tell you their God is loving and promotes love, contradicting free will. But wait, why is love something you must choose? Regardless, that doesn't really matter.
Love supposedly contradicts the qualities their God (sometimes) has, like omniscience and the ability to make a universe. If God had free will at the time of creation it follows that we didn't and vice versa. Neither one nor two contradict my arguments. Defining God out of this dilemma is an option, as is forfeiting free will and all that comes with it.
To defeat this, you must
1. Redefine your God, or simply arrogantly tell me I have defined him wrong and the passages I used to do so somehow didn't mean what they say.
or,
2. Concede the argument, giving up your free will as an illusion.

There is a third option: Suggest a different purpose God has in mind. You said:

No, you got it. Here's why I think that this would have to be the case in a world with a God whose attributes included omnipotence and the power to create:
If this creator has the power to make any world he wants, then it follows that he necessarily takes free will from the equation. Reason being, if it is the case that he can make any world, he chose a world where events played out a certain way. If he chose a world where events played out a certain way, then all the events of that world are subject to his will. If all events are subject to his will, then nothing that occurs in that world is against his will (unless he is too stupid to make a world where everything matched his will) and all choices you could possibly make are null. Choices are nullified because the your will is really the will of that God, having chose the universe where you would make the decisions you are making and not different decisions. To rephrase, you aren't the arbiter of your own choice, the omniscient God chose the world where you would choose as you do. True free will isn't subject to a God's choice of a world.

What if the world (or reality) God intended to make was one in which you and I have freedom of will? Would it then necessarily follow that God would have to create a reality with no freewill? I'm thinking the purpose of God the Bible describes is to create us to be free to love, or hate as we choose. For without choice, love is impossible. The Bible indicates the end game of God is to promote this love that requires freedom, I believe. I can cite several passages to this effect, but perhaps this will be sufficient to demonstrate why I hold this opinion. John records Jesus as saying:


34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

(John 13)


To counter this premise, you would need to show either (a) God's ultimate goal is not that we love him and each other, or (b) love is possible with the complete absence of freewill.

I would not ask you to accept this argument, but if I've inadvertently made some factual errors, or logical errors, please point them out.

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Perhaps it would help to imagine a scenario where a being without freewill exists. Let's say you are a scientist exploring deep space hundreds of years from now. During the trek, you create a drug that gives you perpetual youth, so that you might live forever. Unfortunately, the members of the spaceship's crew all refused to take the drug. One by one they die of old age, eventually leaving you all alone.

You decide to make a companion for yourself--a robot. You create this robot to look like a beautiful woman and program her to say she loves you. She can never say otherwise, for this is how you programmed her--without the freedom to choose to not love you. When she says the words, "I love you," are they a genuine expression of love? If so, why?

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Not sure I understand. Seems to me that all this suggests is that Matthew might have plagiarized Mark. It does not appear to demonstrate Matthew never not wrote the gospel bearing his name. Am I missing something, or have I correctly state the point you are trying to make?

I think you are backing up my point, but you haven't connected the dots in your mind. I think because we can say that Matthew most likely plagiarized it, it then greatly undermines the claim that the Apostle Matthew who witnessed Jesus for himself wrote his own Gospel, the Gospel of Matthew. I think a witness would have no logical reason to not use his own experience as the basis for his work.

Perhaps you right, Matthew got much of his material from Mark. But why would this mean that Matthew did not write the gospel attributed to him? He could have included the information from Mark's gospel because he agreed that it was factual and chronologically correct. He (like John) could have then included additional details omitted by Mark. I don't yet see a problem.