The bible tells us that when Jesus returns, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that he is lord. In order to do this won’t god have to violate a lot of free will?

Their will be billions of people who will look back at all the pain, the sorrow, the agony, anger, violence, misery, injustice and suffering that has permeated human history, and when god reveals his ultimate plan, they will say, “No! The end doesn’t justify the means.”

These people will have to be forced if every knee is going to bow and every tongue confess.

But if god is the same unchanging today, yesterday and forever, why was he unwilling to violate free will not even to prevent suffering and evil, but is now will to violate it to force people to worship him?

Does anyone else have a problem with the priorities of this psycho egomaniac? No, I should say with the people who dreamed up this psycho egomaniac and called him god.

There are quite a lot of theological acrobatics on that matter.

On the other hand, god, as usual does nothing. Not even to prove, he exists.

It's the church(es) violatiing free will. Or trying to violate it these days, since they're not as powerful as in ages past. It's these guys, who invented and penned down the above. No, I have absolutely no problem with that. To have a problem, it would need an existing power enforcing it.

Ca-mon, this is fantasy. They make up the rules as they go along. Luke, I am your father! See how it works.

(February 26, 2016 at 5:32 pm)Rhondazvous Wrote: The bible tells us that when Jesus returns, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that he is lord.   In order to do this won’t god have to violate a lot of free will?

Their will be billions of people who will look back at all the pain, the sorrow, the agony, anger, violence, misery, injustice and suffering that has permeated human history, and when god reveals his ultimate plan, they will say, “No! The end doesn’t justify the means.”

These people will have to be forced if every knee is going to bow and every tongue confess.

But if god is the same unchanging today, yesterday and forever, why was he unwilling to violate free will not even to prevent suffering and evil, but is now will to violate it to force people to worship him?

Does anyone else have a problem with the priorities of this psycho egomaniac? No, I should say with the people who dreamed up this psycho egomaniac and called him god.

The situation is actually more dire than that. The Bible says that God desires that everyone shall be saved. However, God is alleged to be omniscient. This means that God knows (and has known) from the beginning of time there are some people who will never believe and others who will never repent. The logical conclusion of this is that God knowingly and deliberately allows for the creation of human beings who will never be saved, and will suffer eternal torment (of whatever form is in vogue these days). Since God is omnipotent as well as omniscient, there is nothing that the unsaved can do to surprise God, ie, to believe, repent and be saved. This is precisely equivalent to human beings having no free will.

In short, the God of Love and Forgiveness damned you to eternal torment before you were born. Nice, huh?

Boru

Yep.

The system, as it is described in the Bible, does not allow for free will.

If god created the universe...

If he could have could have created a different universe than this one, but chose to create this particular universe...

And if everything happens according to his plan...

Then, I had no choice to be exactly how I am. A skeptic and a disbeliever.

And on a side note. Yahweh "hardened Pharaoh's heart" on several occasions when he was ready to free the Hebrews. If that isn't violating someone's free will, what is?

Omnipotence and free will are mutually exclusive, logically.

Bingo lolly.

Boru

Omnipotence/omniscience is your immoveable object. Free will is your unstoppable object. When your unstoppable object meets your immkoveable object, what do you have?

Gamma rays?

(February 26, 2016 at 5:50 pm)abaris Wrote: There are quite a lot of theological acrobatics on that matter.

On the other hand, god, as usual does nothing. Not even to prove, he exists.

It's the church(es) violatiing free will. Or trying to violate it these days, since they're not as powerful as in ages past. It's these guys, who invented and penned down the above. No, I have absolutely no problem with that. To have a problem, it would need an existing power enforcing it.

I am reminded of what the jews did in 1948 (I don't have to ask you to correct me if I got the year wrong) to force the fulfillment of biblical prophecy concerning a nation being established in one day.

As for forcing people to bow and confess Jesus as lord, what was the inquisition about. There is a famous sculpture of Jesus where the hands were broken off and a sign underneath says "He has no hands but yours."

(February 26, 2016 at 7:47 pm)Rhondazvous Wrote: As for forcing people to bow and confess Jesus as lord, what was the inquisition about. There is a famous sculpture of Jesus where the hands were broken off and a sign underneath  says "He has no hands but yours."

That's why I said, when they still got power. I don't see that now. Not with christianity anyway. There's no theocracy on the horizon. Well, if you get unlucky enough to get Buttface Cruz elected, that may change, but otherwise, no.

As for the jews. I don't need to correct you. But the majority of the settlers of 1948 were still Zionists. And the Zionist movement was largely leftist in nature. The Kibuz was in fact kind of a communist experiment. Sharing everything. Next to no posessions for the individual.