Is there free will in heaven?

[Epimethean]

Mmmm, I love me some bad desires.

[reverendjeremiah]

Christians are dooms day cultists AND utopians. Sadly, their theology and world view are just as skewed and wrong as their utopia.

That wacky book of revelations is their description of their utopia, and what a strange concept of a "perfect" civilisation it is. to even qualify for a pass for this utopian society you must completely live your life according to the way the priests have laid it down in the bible. To top it off, these ways of living your life written in the bible not onlycontradict reality and human nature itself, but also contradicts other passages in the bible.

The laughable thing is, the only way a persona can enter this utopia is to die, and rise from the grave.

Then, to top it off, the idea of Heaven itself isnt much for an all powerful being. Its a cube, only a few miles wide and tall, made of transparent gold. All over the pillars of this cube are the names of the twelve tribes of Israel (yeah, the ones who raped, pilaged, slaved, and destroyed many who came across their path). In this cube it is said that Jesus will walk the streets of those who are allowed to enter, which is VERY uncharacteristic of this god-man, as for many thousands of years before he would not much as lift a finger to help a Christian child from getting raped and murdered...now suddenly wants to take an active and fatherly role in your life?

The concept of Hell is also again skewed in this book, as it says just outside of the walls of this cube are idolators, sorcerors, and whoremongers. If we are totake this as the final word on the afterlife of those not found in the book of life, then it can easily be said that, except for a few square miles, the entirety of Earth was converted into a lake of fire to turture all the damned souls. Its quite inhuman if you ask me. To wish and hope that a supposed "loving god" transforms our beautiful planet into a living hell for billions of people.

When people say "there are going to be so many people in heaven, its going to be wonderful." just remember that Heaven is specifically defined in Revelations as being only a few miles wide and tall. How many people can be fit inside that borg cube before they are rowed up like sardines?

[The Grand Nudger]

144,000, lol, to be precise. Also, I don't think you and I are allowed in. Wrong shade of lipstick. God's pretty big on the whole ethnic superiority bit, and you probably qualify as the smited, not the smitee.

[reverendjeremiah]

144,000, lol, to be precise.

Exactly, but dont mention that to the fundies, they will blow a fucking gasket...because even in that whipped brain of theirs, they can still calculate the odds of those numbers and realize that their chances of getting into heaven are impossible.

therefore, those numbers MUST be wrong. even if Jesus came down and told that fundy 144,000 himself, the fundy would think it was a sign that Jesus selected him to be of that number.

And yeah, God and Jesus himself were very particualr on race. Even Jesus himself said his message was first for the Jews (Hebrews/semites) and next for the gentiles.

Yeah, he has already chosen which 144,000 jews that will be saved before he even created the earth....so that is a BIG reason not to even worry about it. All of the tickets were given out as favors before the entire theme park was even conceived, much less built. No sense in waiting in line.

[toro]

Even though those assumptions are not in line with my Christian beliefs I can accept them for this conversation.
Premise:
1a. & 1b. – I see no problem with that thus far
1c. There has not been put in, any controlling assumptions about limiting that free will by “not allowing” something. Free will wouldn’t then be free.

2a. – I see no problem with that so far
2b.- There has been no established assumption for repentance at this juncture. If you’re going off of the standard Christian presupposition, judgement day would be the last time available for forgiveness of sin. I’ll go along with it since it hasn’t been established yet.

Results:

1a|2a : You’re assuming that there is no possibility of ever overcoming sinful nature, when by definition it is the qualification for entrance to Heaven.
1a|2b: Feeling pain wasn’t established in the assumptions. Major flaw with 2b is that re-admittance to heaven was not qualified. For an Annihilationist like myself this holds a load of issues, but noting the 2 exceptions or faults with the premise that would be sound logic.

1b|2a: same above
1b|2b: One would think that the intent of the law would still be upheld, especially since there is no interaction between subjects in Heaven. So it’s less about its effects on others in this scenario and more about the intent to sin.
1c: As I stated, free will without freedom to act isn’t free. See 3 below, only wa can talk and interact possibly.

1c: Agreed.

1a/2a | 1b/2a: The question though is whether or not a person can. This would mean that the requirement for getting in to heaven is not what a person does in this life, but whether or not a person will never sin for the rest of eternity. This means their choices are predetermined:

If they get in to heaven, then they will by definition never sin and they cannot (or else they would not be there in the first place). Hence, when presented with a choice, they will always pick one option. This is indistinguishable from predeterminism, because otherwise they could. Ergo, there is no free will in the common definition.

1a/2b | 1b/2b: The pain comment was included under the common assumption that heaven is wonderful and painless. I see no reason, if you object to this assumption to get rid of it, as it has little effect on the discussion at hand.

I don't see how qualifying re-admittance has much value as we are discussing infinite timelines. If there is a limit on how many times a person may be re-admitted we arrive at the same issue as levelled in 2a, simply extended N steps (where N is the maximum number of chances for re-admittance). After a person sins/sins N times, they are sent to hell and ultimately everyone ends up in hell. Or, their actions are predetermined and there is no free will in heaven.

If they are allowed to get re-admitted an infinite number of times, it does not matter what happens in their timeout, they either go to hell or get re-admitted as the timeline goes to infinity. They then may commit the same action an infinite number of times. Hence, sin is ultimately allowable and the law seems meaningless.

3: This seems to be one of the possibilities we arrive at. Either there is free will and we all end up in hell anyway, there is free will and heaven has no differentiable value from a godless existence, or there is no free will and we are God's garden gnomes. In all cases we do not have a heaven typically imagined by most people.

I think most people actually expect an eternity where they do whatever they want and everyone else simply accepts it. Most of us would agree most people are naive because don't really think about the topic thoug, IMHO.

Another potential response is that the afterlife isn't eternal. This however makes everything a bit arbitrary, do what you want for a shorter amount of time with no limits, or do most of what you want for a longer period of time, but ultimately we all end up in sheol not experiencing anything anyway.


Sorry for the late reply.