(November 22, 2014 at 4:36 pm)Esquilax Wrote:(November 22, 2014 at 4:25 pm)Nope Wrote: Most Christians will say that their god gave humans free will so that they would freely decide to worship and love him. Awww....who could be upset with that
However, the same free will is responsible for humans doing sometimes unimaginably horrible things to one another.
The other thing to keep in mind is that, for a god that supposedly created humans with free will for this purpose, the god of the old testament, the one closest to that original creation, wasn't so passionate about the concept.
The Old Testament god's first act against Adam and Eve when they exercised their free will was immediate, forcible punishment. Where's the respect for their free will? All they did was choose not to obey god's commands, the same thing that modern christians claim free will is for in the first place. When Lot's wife looked back at the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, god immediately turned her into a pillar of salt. Same deal, she should be covered under free will, but she wasn't.
The Amalekites? Dead. Human race too sinful? Death by flood. The binding of Isaac? No care for free will, just do as god says. And these are all examples from the original god's behavior. It's clear that free will wasn't god's original intention, it was an excuse added later when the problem of evil became less tolerable to people, as we got more humane to one another. It's an ad hoc rationalization, not something present in the original text.
Those are pretty good points that I had never considered. I often wondered why free will means that god can't show himself to humans today but he could visit with Noah and other Old Testament people.
It also makes no sense that Satan could rebel. If the reason behind free will is for humans to be able to decide freely to love god, why do angels who live in heaven and supposedly see god daily also get free will? If angels don't have free will, how could the Lucifer rebel?
