free will paradox

[fr0d0]

Of course it affects all of a believers life. It underpins our thinking and our actions. It's pretty unbelievable to you yes, because you don't understand why. I know why I believe. I understand the reasoning I followed to adopt the belief.

I never said it was unbelievable, fr0d0. To me it's unbelievable that you still believe it with the knowledge you've been attaining in this forum.

There is no knowledge imparted anywhere whatsoever on this forum or anywhere else that I have found that even begins to refute what I believe. I'm still searching, and if you find anything let me know and I'll check it out.

You see it is unbelievable to you. Did you ever understand it? I have my doubts, but I give you the benefit of them.

I don't need you to convince me of that. You seem to be saying the same as me, but then try to convince me of it. I don't need to prove it... I live and breathe it and know my fellow Christians do too.

I'm not fighting you here on that fr0d0, believe what you want, so long as it's true. Just don't tell me I'm going to hell like Godschild does, that's rude. And for gods sakes educate your children unlike that I received. Evolution is real. It is. No question, anymore. Prayer was not taken out of schools: it was just limited from being enforced by those in authority. Don't vote in assholes who let their religious dogma dictate how they legislate eVeryone's lives. Teach those kids how to use their own brains, hmmm? To look at both sides of the story not just one.

Future hell is of little interest to me. I'm interested in now, and what stops me from functioning. I guess you are too. Hate preaching = anti Christ. From what I've seen of GodsChild I don't think he/she's guilty of that. Are we talking hatred of dogma here? Is it the words you object to? I guess from you're history that you'd have a lot of baggage attached to the dogma, which GodsChild and I wouldn't recognise.

Evolution is real. Absolutely. No question. Nothing anti Christian about that.

Prayer cannot be enforced. Belief is not belief if it's forced/ Choice cannot be choice if there is no choice. Belief in God cannot be a choice if you're not given the choice to believe or not.

Let children use their own brains. Don't brainwash them with any biggotted information... atheist, Christian, whatever. Let them think for themselves.

1. God isn't soft. God's justice is real... or there is no fairness in the world and hopelessness prevails. Victorian ideas of hell fire are of that era. Preaching hate is anti Christ. I know there are such christians around today that do this.
2. No. Why should it concern me when?
3. Yeah we're living it.

1. Why must there be tit for tat? I have issues with this line of thinking because at it's extreme (which is exactly where humans take beliefs about deities), gods' justice is on earth enforced by the hands of men. What's more, is history is held onto with fierce vigor: you see it in the middle east, you see it in your own belief. The way I see it now fr0d0, is that without leaving those persecutions behind: mankind will not move forward. We will continue to wallow in our own co-hatred and discrimination. I know you see the world as one big ship being filled to the brim with darkness, one tiny point at a time.. But I don't see it that way anymore, and I'm not hopeless. I have so much more hope now, and I'm not self-defeated by my beliefs. I see hope for the future, and it starts with one theist at a time.

Why must there be justice you say? The cause of wars is the need to redress balance > enact justice. With christianity (I only speak for my own faith) there is a solution to redress balance and stop wars: that only God can be fully just. That God enacts justice posthumously.

Now leaving that behind: you have reason for wars and suffering. you have people abusing power, abusing religion to that end, and bringing suffering to us all.

Without forgiveness. Without what our civilisation calls "civilised": from (derived and justified though) our Christian heritage, you have utter hopelessness.

You were subject to crazy, self defeating and therefore absolutely anti God beliefs. Yes I would imagine that a neutral view is far healthier for you. It is clearly inferior to a world view that makes peace rationally justifiable.

By what logic are you saying that theism should be wiped out "one theist at a time"? Suddenly you appear to be a bigot.

2. I ask because unlike you many do believe Christ is coming, and they live their lives like tomorrow he may come. So they don't prepare for the future, they live for just today. Again, you may not care when or watch the world's goings on like the it's the End of Times, but many do. And I did grow up praying every night that Jesus come release us from the torment of this earth. It's depressive, and it made me unhappy.

What you are saying those people are doing there is anti Christ and anti God. This is quite clear. I wish you could see that.

3. I propose to you that the only holy war we are living is within your mind. That this 'war' is just "good" and "evil" for lack of better terms, the evil being proliferated and substantiated by theism. Without that shroud of demons and angels and laws and discourse about the laws, of discrimination and history-covet ism--or fights for your spirit and the struggle of where you go in the afterlife: life would be simpler, yes. But it would also be far more clear to those who are ruled by their religions that they're all being a bunch of douche canoes and Maybe, just maybe, we could all move on towards a future together.

The evil is being proliferated by people going against what the bible and theism states. Wether in the name of theism or atheism, or anything in between.

Moving towards a future without hope is not my idea of a good idea. You might think so but I don't think you've considered any alternative. How does a world without justice ever come to terms with that and live peacefully together? How do you stop human nature? I see no answers from you.

You can and do (just like any human) put yourself through hell most days. This is you pulling yourself apart from God and his desire for you to be fulfilled and happy.
Part of that hell is you unable to forgive where God can forgive anything. What I and Christians believe that you can't, is that justice prevails. Hitler (/insert person with a lot of bad acts to forgive here) will pay his dues just like anyone else.

That's interesting that you believe this, because I haven't been more happy in my entire life. I know I have work to do yet on myself but that's me de-programming myself from self defeat and imposed dogma.

Yeah... you aren't talking about a past good here. You're talking about a past lived anti God.

Of course we can all self-impose hells upon ourselves, it's a human right and quite typically is caused by external influences and traumatic experiences.

No. It's quite typically self imposed.

The difference is: and pay attention--when I now think about the iniquities done upon me by men: I don't live life with a burning flame of hope and satisfaction that justice will be served upon them in death by the all mighty god.

And you think this is pro Christ?!? Wow.

I don't get horrifically upset when I see similar issues go on around me, I have the strength to fight for the victims of those situations rather than cowering behind the belief that god is greater than me.

The love of Christ in you inspired you to neglect your fellow man. And this is pro Christ?? Wow

I'm now saved from opting to disregard the current state of things under the blanket belief that what is, is and will always be.

Your love of christ and justive lead you to leave the world to it's evil ways? Wow.

There's no unwinnable war that I'm fighting in my mind anymore--there's just life, and those in it, and a strong will to change it for the better.

The war is being won all of the time in Christianity. There is the benefit right now in changing those things which rob us of life, and the hope of justice which enables us to logically justify forgiveness, and avoid conflict.

There's just today, and tomorrow hopefully, and the rest of my life and that of my childrens lives and their childrens lives to fight for without leaning on the prospect that those who do wrong will be charged with eternal torment later so I need not do anything about it.

Well you escaped from that evil. Thank God.

No more do I live with a defeated attitude towards changing my circumstances in the delusion that I'm fighting a demonic force that's bound to keep me suppressed in this lifetime. I feel entitled to live this life fighting for a place in it just like everyone else, and it's liberating. My quality of life has improved.

I'm waiting from one reason from you to support your professed past belief in Christ, because all I'm seeing is the opposite. You keep coming out with this bile, and then attributing it to something beautiful, as men always do.

We believe in a posthumous judge where you're limited to the injustice of life served out in a persons lifetime. Hitler might have pretty much got away with it, and many people might feel that justice wasn't served.

I think about my tormentors, and I feel bad for them because they too endured some pretty rough shit for having lived this life. We all have a path to take, they took the wrong way and I am not going to let the ripple of their actions continue within me in this life, anymore. I brush off what they did quite easily now and I move on. I barely think about it anymore. And I definitely don't hold in my mind this belief that they'll be tormented in the afterlife for what they did, that's sadistic quite honestly.

Well yeah, they tortured themselves as well as committing such abominations to others. You no longer abuse others, and you've stopped abusing yourself.

You think Christians want people to suffer in the afterlife? You have some pretty screwed up ideas. I honestly find it hard to comprehend such ignorance of the basic concepts when you also seemingly profess a Christian past. Everything you've said conveys the opposite. I don't care what label you put on it. All of that is anti Christ. No question about it.

So what is messed up? Ickle you who just rejects good and chooses to be good and bad, and gets off scott free just like Hitler who was pretty twisted and did some horendous stuff? This is your reality. Pretty dire isn't it?

The only dire prospect for me in this scenario is knowing that in the future, someone with the same religious-infused dogma as Hitler may actually succeed at their endeavors.

People abusing good things, as people do. We should abolish anything good by that rationale then?

Why did I ask about the End of Times? Because there are right now people who believe that an anti-christ will reign free on all of earth, taking it over. They live in fear but more importantly: there's nutjobs out there making fiction a reality. There's an earth-bound religious war happening based on these beliefs.

Nutjobs are nutjobs. What are you going to do about that?

And you're wrong, I can see still what it is you see.

Everything you say is evidence of the opposite.

Why are you so bound to disown me from your beliefs? Is it frightening to see the truth or are you just playing ignorant?

What you call ignorant every Christian (trinitarian) on here is telling you is mistaken. Just who is it you're taking as authority here?

No one here is adopting that evil you call a christian past. Maybe we could petition Fred Phelps to come and vouch for you?

It's just that I can see too, what you refuse to see--or what you overlook in your belief that god is the allmighty and powerful and just god.

And what is that exactly? You agree with bastardisation of the text that support your bias?

Please support your assertion that I've bastardised biblical text in any way.

I do that at every opportunity. you never seem to continue those discussions though.

Let's start with just. god being just. You brought up that verse about him being just.
In the bible it states in gods own words that children and babies and mentally defectives are innocent.
Then god orders babies slashed from the mothers' wombs on grounds that their parents were morally bankrupt. (1)
In the new testament it says god does not change. So just because jesus died on the cross does not mean that the god of the OT is any
different now than he was before. Revelations pretty much cements that too. (2)

1. false assumption on your part there.
"Innocent like children" does not equal "all children are innocent".
Only a being capable of knowing the future could know if a child, or all of a persons decendants, turns out to be unforgivably (sic) evil right?

Wrong. Your god knows all possibilities so surely he must know that we are not damned automatically. If we were, and he's willing to prevent that damned life by ripping it out of the womb without giving it a choice: then he'd be wrong in doing so, for supposition states that he wishes to give us free will to choose him or to reject him. If he kills babies out of the womb who have not been able to sin: then he cannot judge them based on future sins that they never committed and still be a Just god. He'd have to send them straight to heaven, and hence over-ride his purpose of giving those spirits free willed choice.

If God knows all of time, then he knows what every life does before it begins. You are not damned automatically... but the choices you make are already known to him. Therefore he is not wrong, and your objection fails.

2. Jesus existed before time as God according to John. The divine revelation was acted out as it was destined to. Amid that process God appeared differently, but all the time God was unchanging.

So you believe in more than one god?

No silly. God is 3 persons.