Personal revelation vs. free will

[Drich]

Regarding OP:

Often the common response is that: "Even though god revealed himself, the person still had 'free will' in choosing whether or not to obey him."

It's a bull shit cop out of an explanation, but I've heard it before. What I find more interesting than the possible violation of "free-will" (which is already the biggest fucking joke in the bible), is that for some people, most living at or before the time of JC, god seems to completely waive the whole faith stipulation that he requires of the rest of us.

It's bull shit! I submit that Moses, Abraham, Isaac, the Apostles, and the multitudes of others never had to have any faith whatsoever. They had the hte supreme deity himself right in front of them. If the godboy was real, than they were truly never believers, but merely witnesses to a fact. I find this yet another repulsive attribute of the Babble. The rules constantly shift while god plays favorites and decides who of the billions of souls is going to be lucky enough to get the easy ticket home.



Obvious bull shit is obvious.

the writer of Hebrews seems to have a different understanding of those people and faith:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?sea...rsion=NKJV

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The title's rather self-explanatory, really, but I can expand since I don't remember seeing it addresed before. As far as I've been able to piece it together, the only source of information regarding God and all related aspects of the character is that well-known Big Book of Multiple Choice, the 'Holy' Bible. The mythology contained therein is what defines the God character, and we 'know' the mythology to be true because God is the equivalent of Thunderf00t's creation, The Ghost That Cannot Lie. In other words, the bible is true because God says it's true and we know God is real because the bible says it is and so on and so on. The lie is safe because it guards itself (Blake's 7 reference, for my fellow geeks out there.)

However, that's not the bit that interests me, in terms of this thread anyway. No, the thing I find hard to wrap my brain around is this idea of personal revelation. It's the card that is usually played once the believer gets close to the edge of realisation that it might all just be a story, because that's the only source they have. We've seen it time and again: "I know God is real because He has revealed Himself to me in such a way that it cannot be denied".

So my question to all that would be: what price free will in all this? If God (or Allah, or Quetzecoatl) appeared in front of you in a manner that took away all doubt of its reality and authenticity, hasn't your free will been taken away?

Anyway, a simple question, I'm sure, but I'm hoping to see what our resident believers think about it. Anyone and everyone's opinion is more than welcome, of course.

Free will is removed when one's instinct for self preservation over takes their will to rebell. The indivisual will is suppressed for the sake of eternal life. which seems to be the case with everyone I have spoken with here. "In that if God only provided absolute proof I would obey." However if one does not care to live with a given deity forever and is not afraid to face destruction or eternal damnation then free will is restored.

For instance If Allah turns out to be "the God" then I (baring devine intervention) would still spit in his eye, and gladly accept my eternal fate.