RE: The free will argument demonstrates that christians don't understand free will.
April 29, 2014 at 10:32 am
(April 29, 2014 at 9:21 am)Chad32 Wrote: I don't really understand this whole free will thing either. I recently talking to a new poster about it, asking if we have free will in heaven, despite that we can't sin. Apparently we still do, but we just choose not to. Still, I don't understand why that can't happen down here too.
It's just a way to absolve their god of negative issues. Like trying to ignore the old testament, aside from the ten commandments and the verses against homosexuality, despite that the old testament takes up two thirds of the bible and is the first impression we get of this god. If Jesus came and said he was making changes, I would expect some apologizing to take place on top of saying we're supposed to love our enemies now.
Exactly. They believe a world without sin is possible and can be enjoyed, yet they insist that we have to be able to hurt each other here because of free will. Some think we need to earn our way into heaven (why? It's arbitrary) or that we need to be able to hurt each other to show we love God (because he couldn't know that unless we could hurt each other, for some reason).
So, the entire argument becomes "God can make a world without suffering but he doesn't because we either need to arbitrarily earn our right not to suffer or because we need to show we're not sadists so God knows we really love him.". It's just friggin weird and incomprehensible.
(April 29, 2014 at 10:03 am)Chad32 Wrote: Also of course there's the story of the egyptian pharoah who was forced into saying no to Moses, so Yahweh could continue the plague. Up to and including killing innocent children.
Yeah, the "best" answer I've heard regarding that is "it's a bad translation, and God wasn't affecting anyone's free will, because I believe God would never do that".
