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Free Will and Loving/Rejecting God
#1
Free Will and Loving/Rejecting God
Correct me if I am wrong? The purpose of free will is so that we can freely chose to love god. Because the Christian god is so dazzlingly wonderful, if he physically introduced himself, we would automatically love him and he wants us to have the freedom to reject or accept him.

However, Lucifer lived in heaven and knew god but rejected him. So did several of the angels who followed Satan instead of god.

There are incidents in the Old Testament of individuals talking to god. Was their free will to accept or reject god destroyed because of their direct observations of the Hebrew god.? God not only talked to Abraham, he debated with him the number of righteous people who would turn aside his anger against Sodom and Gomorrah. In Exodus chapter 33 it says that Moses spoke to god face to face

11 And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle.


My question is why is free will necessary only for modern people and not bronze aged nomads or the angels?
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#2
RE: Free Will and Loving/Rejecting God
Good point. It's probably because it's one of these trendy new apologist answers that is meant to just derail the conversation, but which falls apart if you look too closely.

Sure, Yahweh appears in front of me, and tells me he's exactly as in the bible. I retain the free will to tell him to fuck him. And I would. So there's no problem there.

I also have the free will to decide whether I'm convinced that this is really Yahweh. How can I tell?
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#3
RE: Free Will and Loving/Rejecting God
The eventuality of it all. Considering that god has lived through out the ages up till now. People just changed it around people will get smarter and the people
preaching the bible to well rounded smart individuals won't get through to them. So when it comes to free will they yell and mock and or scream at non believers and shun
them because well its simple fact that god of the bible is to evil to exist. All in all its just apologists trying to get more believers hell if you believe in it fine you don't congrats
you win you have a free mind of clutter.
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#4
RE: Free Will and Loving/Rejecting God
In all seriousness I really enjoy answering your threads... I think because for me they seem to all be from someone who has given their belief or lack their of some serious thought.. Or at least you do a really really good job mimicking orginal thought. (You don't cut and paste crap from other atheists, and demand an answer)

Niceness aside time to make the donuts!

(January 2, 2015 at 11:25 am)Nope Wrote: Correct me if I am wrong?
this should be a period as you are making a statement and not asking a question. (You "asked"Big Grin)

Quote: The purpose of free will is so that we can freely chose to love god.
actually 'free will' is an Ancient Greek construct that the church adopted into its doctrine. It is not a biblically based philosophy. In fact the opposite is true. The bible says we are slaves. Slaves to God or slaves to sin.

Quote: Because the Christian god is so dazzlingly wonderful, if he physically introduced himself, we would automatically love him and he wants us to have the freedom to reject or accept him.
actually it's not God that dazzles us. It is his 'stuff' that the wicked covet.

Quote:However, Lucifer lived in heaven and knew god but rejected him. So did several of the angels who followed Satan instead of god.
indeed lucifer wanted what God had over and above what God gave him.

Quote:There are incidents in the Old Testament of individuals talking to god. Was their free will to accept or reject god destroyed because of their direct observations of the Hebrew god.? God not only talked to Abraham, he debated with him the number of righteous people who would turn aside his anger against Sodom and Gomorrah. In Exodus chapter 33 it says that Moses spoke to god face to face

11 And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle.


My question is why is free will necessary only for modern people and not bronze aged nomads or the angels?

because if you look up the philosophy of 'free will' you will note the earliest concepts of it started with plato's governance of rational thought, and Aristotle's thoughts concerning the works of voluntary actions. While these do predate the church it does not predate Abrahamic religion as a whole. It looks like Augustine (4th-ish century) was the one who introduced the concept of 'free will' into the church.

So again, the philosophy of 'free will' was added long after the bible was written, before the. We were known as slaves to sin or slaves to God. Christianity was the introduction of the choice or choosing to be free from sin, and to take on the yoke of Christ.[/quote]
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#5
RE: Free Will and Loving/Rejecting God
Dirch at least... your one of the smarter theists and can agree that the bible is BS. Big Grin
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#6
RE: Free Will and Loving/Rejecting God
(January 3, 2015 at 3:48 am)Drich Wrote: Or at least you do a really really good job mimicking orginal thought
.

Meow! I think you just burned me. Have you been hanging around with stereotypical 'mean girls'? LOL


Quote:So again, the philosophy of 'free will' was added long after the bible was written, before the. We were known as slaves to sin or slaves to God. Christianity was the introduction of the choice or choosing to be free from sin, and to take on the yoke of Christ.
[/quote]

I am curious. When Christians on this site say that the reason that there is evil in this world is because of free will, do you correct them? It sounds as if you don't believe in the concept at all.

Does you form of Christianity ever depress you Drich?
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#7
RE: Free Will and Loving/Rejecting God
(January 3, 2015 at 1:21 pm)Nope Wrote: Meow! I think you just burned me. Have you been hanging around with stereotypical 'mean girls'? LOL
i was just covering my bases. (Just incase you were plagiarizing your thoughts rather than quoting them like everyone else.)

Quote:I am curious. When Christians on this site say that the reason that there is evil in this world is because of free will, do you correct them? It sounds as if you don't believe in the concept at all.

Does you form of Christianity ever depress you Drich?

I don't correct anyone's theology unles they directly contradict a matter of salvation or they directly ask me for my thoughts. 'Free will' is not a salvation based matter so it doesn't need to be corrected. (It does not change anything)

Why should my beliefs depress me? Because of slavry? Knowing the truth is freeing. How can a slave be free? Look at the story told of Joseph. Even as a slave of pharroah, he was placed over all of egypt. That no one in the land had more authority than he, except pharroah himself.

Slavery does not mean God makes me a black guy and puts me in a field picking cotton on some southern plantation as most of you think. Being slave to God means answering to Him and being faithful to what you have been given.

If this life is any indication of the next, I look forward to an eternity of service.[/quote]
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#8
RE: Free Will and Loving/Rejecting God
(January 2, 2015 at 11:25 am)Nope Wrote: My question is why is free will necessary only for modern people and not bronze aged nomads or the angels?

Well there is your problem. You're trying to make sense of that which is to be accepted on faith. To be as faithful as Drich requires you to suspend all efforts at making sense of any of it. Only then will the holy spirit come inside you (if you laugh here God will strike you down) and cause you to babble with the tongue of an angel. If you make it this far you may join the ranks of the saved which everyone else will call the undead. Let the sinners laugh. You will know that only a babbling fool makes it into heaven where he will have a seat at the table with God Almighty. Of course, you won't know what anyone else is saying but that's alright, neither do they. You will all bask in the perfection of mindless babble and a well deserved sense of superiority. Thus sayeth the Drich.
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#9
RE: Free Will and Loving/Rejecting God
Faith is joke its a plain sad joke. To believe in something that never happened and to believe it to be true is the greatest and meanest joke ever played ever.
If i were to say there is a magical tea cup made of pure gold orbiting the world and if you have enough faith it will come out of orbit to you and give you riches
and fame, apply that to god you see how funny it is.
Atheism is a non-prophet organization join today. 


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#10
RE: Free Will and Loving/Rejecting God
It is weird how people instantly dismiss that as "crazy", as well as all other current religions, and all past religions, but somehow the religion they happen to have grown up with makes total sense. Except to the people of all the other religions, of course.

Indoctrination again, mainly. Their brains have been violated.
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