dds08 said:

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Texaggie7nine said:

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Well to me, after looking more into human psychology and evolution, it makes much more sense that many people function better with those beliefs, regardless if a god exists or not.

And it's good that you have allowed your own compassion to reason yourself out of what most gather from the scriptures. That's what I did.

But it's really tricky to get around the notion of hell. If it exists at all, then you must believe many humans will go there. You stated before that those people WANT to be away from God. So I ask you again. Will those people be happier spending eternity in hell than being with God?

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One must ask, why is there a Hell at all? Hell was made for Lucifer when He decided he was as good as God or above God. His righteous pride warped into hubris.

People who have a warped sense of pride (much like Lucifer did) in this life want to be put in a place, after this life, where they can continue on worshipping themselves or loving money (which is the root of all evil). People who worship power, or greed or themselves knowingly at the expense of righteousness are already too far gone anyway. To them, spending an eternity with the Heavenly Father would be Hell.

Whose to say Hell will be all that bad a place anyway? After spending so much time there, whose to say they won't get accustomed to it. As bad as prison is, some people cannot function outside of being institutionalized, much like Shawshank Redemption. They'd rather be dead than live in society as a free person.

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This is utter tripe.

Doesn't the bible say of Judas, presumably condemned to hell, that it would be better for him were he never born? Non-existence > hell per the gospels. So, that's wrong.

It's been expressed on here plenty of times, but hell is yet another confounding and seemingly unjustifiable problem with christianity. Not worth getting into on yet another thread.

Finally, there is this notion of glorifying money, power, or self above god and at the same time living in heaven would be hellish, per your perspective. I'm of the opinion that if you took Gordon Gecko (worshipping money I guess?) Hitler or Stalin (sought power and control and would do whatever it took to get them) or anyone else in history and showed them god's glory as described in Christian text, every single person who ever lived would be incomprehensibly awed by it and would make any sacrifice necessary to be close to that glory.

It's only because we've for some reason decided that faith is important that we say you can't have knowledge while earning salvation or while you are working to earn it. Here I know some of you are going to say you can't earn heaven, blah blah blah, works are useless, and all that. For that group of people, you can substitute the above with "earning" heaven by the act of saying you're a useless turd and need Jesus in your life and all that jazz.

dds08 said:

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john32f said:

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Religion is the only facet of life in which we value faith without evidence as being virtuous. If I go to a broker with my life savings and ask him why I should put my savings there and his response is that I should simply have faith in him without any proof whatsoever and I do so, I'm not virtuous, I'm a fool.

Faith without evidence isn't a virtue, it is a convenient crutch to overcome the hurdle of there either being no proof of something or conflicting evidence. You're miraculously cured of cancer at age 27 and get to live a full, long length -- God is great! Praise be him! You're killed in a car wreck at age 21 because someone isn't paying attention and runs a red light -- I know this looks bad, but its okay because even though you can't understand it, God has a plan.

Ultimately, faith is what you hide behind when you realize there is no congruent rectification of the problem of evil with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent god.

And hey, the perks of accepting the above is you no longer need to think of yourself as this wretched creature that deserves to be burning in a pit of fire for eternity absent some dude getting nailed to a cross 2000 years ago. Cheers!

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Do you worship proof and evidence?


Hmmm.... from the way Satan works, I'm pondering on how Satan would exploit a person who has so little respect for faith.

OR

How the Lord would put tests and challenges in your life journey that would get you to see how you used faith unknowingly in the past or get you to realize how you took faith for granted. Perhaps he would give you an opportunity to see how absolute faith in the scientific method/evidence/proof was futile. I dunno. He works mysteriously.

You're not much of a risk taker, are you?

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This is also tripe.

Question I asked before still stands:

Is your free will diminished if God appears before you and says, "Hey DDS, here's a checklist of things you need to do in order to get to heaven. Otherwise, you're going to go to hell. And here's what heaven and hell look like. Your choice. Have fun."

Secondly, why the test? It's absolutely counter intuitive to what we would expect from a loving god.

Finally, the risk you are recommending taking cannot be quantified. You're "risking" your whole life, so to speak, for an enormous reward, but there are 3 elements to evaluating risk. 1. Risk itself, 2) reward, and 3) probability of success. The third is completely immeasurable. That's a pretty big issue.

Texaggie7nine said:

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A few things here. So Hell was made for Lucifer as what? A punishment? A place to just keep him separate from heaven?

Also, with God being omnipotent and all, wouldn't He have known, while creating Hell, that his beloved creation (humans) would also end up going there as well? So it's not like you can say "Well God didn't really intend Hell for any humans when He made it.."

If Hell is just a place to be separate from God, why does the Bible have so many scriptures that WARN against it as something to fear? If it were just a place to go hang out without God and enjoy your eternity being a godless heathen, why wouldn't Jesus or other writers of the Bible have said something like "If you love God and want to be with him, then live for him and obey, but if that's not your bag, then God also created a place you can go be at for eternity and do whatever you want without God."?

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Quote:

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A few things here. So Hell was made for Lucifer as what? A punishment? A place to just keep him separate from heaven?

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It was not necessarily a punishment. It was a place Satan could pursue his hubris to its potential. In Hell, one can have the freedom to pursue their hubris to it's fullest. Consequences aside, you're walking a path that progressively gets further and further away from God.

Not to mention Lucifer and all his followers being a risk to all the angels in Heaven who wanted to genuinely and truly follow God.

With the way the Lord's presence works, if Lucifer would have stayed in Heaven, he would have been burned into true nonexistence. Just being in the Lord's presence as a sinner can kill. The exact moment he became guilty of hubris, he was perhaps burning and couldn't get away from the Lord fast enough. Same way Adam and Eve were banished from Eden. Satan was sent to Hell in an act of mercy.

But there's only so much we can know about the spiritual realm or what happened in Heaven.

Some of this is speculation. Some is not.

Quote:

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Also, with God being omnipotent and all, wouldn't He have known, while creating Hell, that his beloved creation (humans) would also end up going there as well? So it's not like you can say "Well God didn't really intend Hell for any humans when He made it.."

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I believe, and I could be wrong, He made Hell for all His creation who choose to not follow Him, Angels and Humans alike.

Quote:

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If Hell is just a place to be separate from God, why does the Bible have so many scriptures that WARN against it as something to fear? If it were just a place to go hang out without God and enjoy your eternity being a godless heathen, why wouldn't Jesus or other writers of the Bible have said something like "If you love God and want to be with him, then live for him and obey, but if that's not your bag, then God also created a place you can go be at for eternity and do whatever you want without God."?

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This is all over the Bible if you know where to look. Sometimes it comes right out an say it, other times it's implied.

Seriously for you to even ask that question, makes me question how much of the book you've read and understood.

john32f said:

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dds08 said:

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john32f said:

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Religion is the only facet of life in which we value faith without evidence as being virtuous. If I go to a broker with my life savings and ask him why I should put my savings there and his response is that I should simply have faith in him without any proof whatsoever and I do so, I'm not virtuous, I'm a fool.

Faith without evidence isn't a virtue, it is a convenient crutch to overcome the hurdle of there either being no proof of something or conflicting evidence. You're miraculously cured of cancer at age 27 and get to live a full, long length -- God is great! Praise be him! You're killed in a car wreck at age 21 because someone isn't paying attention and runs a red light -- I know this looks bad, but its okay because even though you can't understand it, God has a plan.

Ultimately, faith is what you hide behind when you realize there is no congruent rectification of the problem of evil with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent god.

And hey, the perks of accepting the above is you no longer need to think of yourself as this wretched creature that deserves to be burning in a pit of fire for eternity absent some dude getting nailed to a cross 2000 years ago. Cheers!

---

Do you worship proof and evidence?


Hmmm.... from the way Satan works, I'm pondering on how Satan would exploit a person who has so little respect for faith.

OR

How the Lord would put tests and challenges in your life journey that would get you to see how you used faith unknowingly in the past or get you to realize how you took faith for granted. Perhaps he would give you an opportunity to see how absolute faith in the scientific method/evidence/proof was futile. I dunno. He works mysteriously.

You're not much of a risk taker, are you?

---

This is also tripe.

Question I asked before still stands:

Is your free will diminished if God appears before you and says, "Hey DDS, here's a checklist of things you need to do in order to get to heaven. Otherwise, you're going to go to hell. And here's what heaven and hell look like. Your choice. Have fun."

Secondly, why the test? It's absolutely counter intuitive to what we would expect from a loving god.

Finally, the risk you are recommending taking cannot be quantified. You're "risking" your whole life, so to speak, for an enormous reward, but there are 3 elements to evaluating risk. 1. Risk itself, 2) reward, and 3) probability of success. The third is completely immeasurable. That's a pretty big issue.

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Quote:

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Is your free will diminished if God appears before you and says, "Hey DDS, here's a checklist of things you need to do in order to get to heaven. Otherwise, you're going to go to hell. And here's what heaven and hell look like. Your choice. Have fun."

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I don't understand your question or where you're getting at. So I'll answer as best I can. This wreaks btw of oversimplification of things that have too much substance.

No, it's not diminished. You don't have to do those things on the checklist.

On another note, The Lord is The God of Freedom. How exactly can anyone learn to truly be free apart from Freedom Himself? There are two styles of freedom. Love(Good) and Evil (counterfeit freedom).

Quote:

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Secondly, why the test? It's absolutely counter intuitive to what we would expect from a loving god.

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Asking that is like asking why anything needs to grow.

john32f said:

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dds08 said:

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Texaggie7nine said:

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Well to me, after looking more into human psychology and evolution, it makes much more sense that many people function better with those beliefs, regardless if a god exists or not.

And it's good that you have allowed your own compassion to reason yourself out of what most gather from the scriptures. That's what I did.

But it's really tricky to get around the notion of hell. If it exists at all, then you must believe many humans will go there. You stated before that those people WANT to be away from God. So I ask you again. Will those people be happier spending eternity in hell than being with God?

---

One must ask, why is there a Hell at all? Hell was made for Lucifer when He decided he was as good as God or above God. His righteous pride warped into hubris.

People who have a warped sense of pride (much like Lucifer did) in this life want to be put in a place, after this life, where they can continue on worshipping themselves or loving money (which is the root of all evil). People who worship power, or greed or themselves knowingly at the expense of righteousness are already too far gone anyway. To them, spending an eternity with the Heavenly Father would be Hell.

Whose to say Hell will be all that bad a place anyway? After spending so much time there, whose to say they won't get accustomed to it. As bad as prison is, some people cannot function outside of being institutionalized, much like Shawshank Redemption. They'd rather be dead than live in society as a free person.

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This is utter tripe.

Doesn't the bible say of Judas, presumably condemned to hell, that it would be better for him were he never born? Non-existence > hell per the gospels. So, that's wrong.

It's been expressed on here plenty of times, but hell is yet another confounding and seemingly unjustifiable problem with christianity. Not worth getting into on yet another thread.

Finally, there is this notion of glorifying money, power, or self above god and therefore living in heaven would be hellish, per your perspective. I'm of the opinion that if you took Gordon Gecko (worshipping money I guess?) Hitler or Stalin (sought power and control and would do whatever it took to get them) or anyone else in history and showed them god's glory as described in Christian text, every single person who ever lived would be incomprehensibly awed by it and would make any sacrifice necessary to be close to that glory.

It's only because we've for some reasoned decided that faith is important that we say you can't it before or while you are working to earn it. Here I know some of you are going to say you can't earn heaven, blah blah blah, works are useless, and all that. For that group of people, you can substitute the above with "earning" heaven by the act of saying you're a useless turd and need Jesus in your life and all that jazz.

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Quote:

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Doesn't the bible say of Judas, presumably condemned to hell, that it would be better for him were he never born? Non-existence > hell per the gospels. So, that's wrong.

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I seriously cannot even.

The amount of mental reasoning to untangle this.

You're implying Jesus was implying Hell in His statement. We don't know where Judas will end up. God has yet to judge him.

I think you're taking things out of context a bit and overlooking the literary devices at play. You're taking things literal that are inherently figurative.

Put yourself in Judas shoes, For a person dealing with the guilt/remorse of selling out a friend (sinless and innocent I might add) for money which led to this same friend's brutal death would make anyone not want to live anymore, especially if they knew of a way to get the same amount of money via honest, righteous means.

Evil has a way of twisting, turning and bending things out of shape. Judas went for the next best thing to nonexisting, suicide.

But back to your mention of nonexistence and Hell, there's a possibility there are worse things than Hell or nonexisting.

Quote:

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Finally, there is this notion of glorifying money, power, or self above god and therefore living in heaven would be hellish, per your perspective. I'm of the opinion that if you took Gordon Gecko (worshipping money I guess?) Hitler or Stalin (sought power and control and would do whatever it took to get them) or anyone else in history and showed them god's glory as described in Christian text, every single person who ever lived would be incomprehensibly awed by it and would make any sacrifice necessary to be close to that glory.

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No man alive can be shown God's Glory and live.

Quote:

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It's only because we've for some reasoned decided that faith is important that we say you can't it before or while you are working to earn it. Here I know some of you are going to say you can't earn heaven, blah blah blah, works are useless, and all that. For that group of people, you can substitute the above with "earning" heaven by the act of saying you're a useless turd and need Jesus in your life and all that jazz.

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Uhh. OK.

1. On Judas. That's the pretty common interpretation of Jesus' words. Judas betrayed him, gave into despair, hung himself in a state of despair, and was condemned to hell.

2. On seeing god's glory leading to your death. Got a source for that? Sounds real nice and lovely and all that, but also kind of... like complete rubbish. I think all-powerful god could figure out a way to more concretely lay out the rules for us. You're sidestepping the significant issue, which is that a faith based approach to laying out rules for salvation is about the worst way possible to approach it. As a child, my mom telling me face to face in no uncertain terms that I shouldn't steal cookies from a cookie jar or there will be punishments would be a much more effective way of getting me to do so (and in no way jeopardize my free will) than if someone else who I've never met leaves me a note saying my mom told them to tell me not to steal cookies from the cookie jar lest there be consequences.

3. Paragraph was a bit jumbled. I edited it. Here're the cliff notes. Faith without any evidence is overrated.

So, from your posts, are we to assume you think virtually all of the Bible is allegory and not to be taken literally.

It seems every time someone brings up a specific point made by the Bible, you want to make everything non-literal.

Macarthur said:

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So, from your posts, are we to assume you think virtually all of the Bible is allegory and not to be taken literally.

It seems every time someone brings up a specific point made by the Bible, you want to make everything non-literal.

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The King James version is incredibly poetic.

Some things are literal, some things aren't.

John32f: You mention Judas hung himself. As you know, Matthew says he hung himself whereas Acts seems to directly contradict this. In order to harmonize these conflicting stories, you must do some serious logical gymnastics (the following link does just that):

https://answersingenesis.org/contradictions-in-the-bible/how-did-judas-die/

Fine by me. Only point is that hell isn't considered to be a place that takes some getting used to but on the whole ain't so bad, as dds seems to be suggesting. Obviously going there, were it to exist, would be quite a bit less than ideal. But that's a whole different thread than this one.

john32f said:

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1. On Judas. That's the pretty common interpretation of Jesus' words. Judas betrayed him, gave into despair, hung himself in a state of despair, and was condemned to hell.

2. On seeing god's glory leading to your death. Got a source for that? Sounds real nice and lovely and all that, but also kind of... like complete rubbish. I think all-powerful god could figure out a way to more concretely lay out the rules for us. You're sidestepping the significant issue, which is that a faith based approach to laying out rules for salvation is about the worst way possible to approach it. As a child, my mom telling me face to face in no uncertain terms that I shouldn't steal cookies from a cookie jar or there will be punishments would be a much more effective way of getting me to do so (and in no way jeopardize my free will) than if someone else who I've never met leaves me a note saying my mom told them to tell me not to steal cookies from the cookie jar lest there be consequences.

3. Paragraph was a bit jumbled. I edited it. Here're the cliff notes. Faith without any evidence is overrated.

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Quote:

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1. On Judas. That's the pretty common interpretation of Jesus' words. Judas betrayed him, gave into despair, hung himself in a state of despair, and was condemned to hell.

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No one is condemned to hell until Jesus comes back to condemn them to Hell.

The scriptures in Matthew 27 don't mention anything about Judas being condemned to Hell.

Quote:

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You're sidestepping the significant issue, which is that a faith based approach to laying out rules for salvation is about the worst way possible to approach it. As a child, my mom telling me face to face in no uncertain terms that I shouldn't steal cookies from a cookie jar or there will be punishments would be a much more effective way of getting me to do so (and in no way jeopardize my free will) than if someone else who I've never met leaves me a note saying my mom told them to tell me not to steal cookies from the cookie jar lest there be consequences.

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If all your descendants all the way back to Adam and Eve had not chosen to sin, we would all have had the opportunity to see God and get the instructions from Him directly as you stated.

Quote:

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3. Paragraph was a bit jumbled. I edited it. Here're the cliff notes. Faith without any evidence is overrated.

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The fact that beings, in general, take risks is contrary to your statement. Something tells me you don't like a lot of mystery or ambiguity. You would make a terrible salesman. You would need to see evidence that the people would buy before you'd even try.

Taking things on faith without evidence gives one a chance to reap rewards that couldn't otherwise be obtained.

Quote:

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It was not necessarily a punishment. It was a place Satan could pursue his hubris to its potential. In Hell, one can have the freedom to pursue their hubris to it's fullest. Consequences aside, you're walking a path that progressively gets further and further away from God.

---

Again, this is very much like the take C.S. Lewis has in The Great Divorce. Souls left to their own devises that choose to not be with God.

However in a more in depth look, C.S. Lewis makes the case that all these selfish, egotistical things that these people do that drive them away from God, cause them to be miserable, pathetic creatures that just continue to go down the hole of their own misery. That they may indeed wish to not be in God's presence but because of their own blindness they do not know that they can be happy.

This makes one wonder. Why would a loving God create so many souls that He knew would end up in eternal misery in their own pathetic, egotistical prisons in their minds? If God Himself created reality and all that exists, it seems pretty crappy that the only 2 options are, forever happy and with God, or forever miserable and without.

Quote:

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This is all over the Bible if you know where to look. Sometimes it comes right out an say it, other times it's implied.

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I would love to see you provide scripture that implies that although those that do not follow Jesus may go to Hell/Gehenna, for them, they will be much happier there anyways. In fact, if that were the case, you could say that there really was true free will, as one could be content with or without God, so them choosing to follow God would be for love only.

I'm not going to bother going any further into point one or two with you because they're really not that material to my adjustment. The last thing I'll say is that you commented that my argument requires a significant amount of mental gymnastics while simultaneously putting forth the proposition the hell isn't that bad of a place and that people become comfortable with it. Theologically speaking there is no basis for that belief whatsoever. That should bother you. If it doesn't, you are trying to fit the data into your predetermined conclusion rather than following the data to the conclusion it leads you to.

With respect to my third point, you really don't seem to understand the distinction between making a decision without having the full picture (but having some of it) and making a decision with no evidence whatsoever,instead relying on faith. To be clear, the faith I'm describing here is belief in something that can be grounded in neither a self-evident truth nor in something that is physically observable. Given that belief in God requires faith, it is impossible to ascertain the probability that belief in God will be proven true. In any other circumstance, making a decision while lacking any knowledge of the probability of outcome would not be viewed as virtuous but foolish. That's not difficult to grasp. I don't understand then why faith is seen as virtuous and nothing you've said comes close to justifying the need for it.

PS I'm pretty damn good at sales because I'm good at quantifying value for people. I don't just tell them to have faith that what I'm selling them will be useful.

Macarthur said:

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So, from your posts, are we to assume you think virtually all of the Bible is allegory and not to be taken literally.

It seems every time someone brings up a specific point made by the Bible, you want to make everything non-literal.

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Okay, okay, I'll clean it up.

Quote:

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Matthew 26:24 New International Version (NIV)

24 The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born."

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To truly understand this with non-existence and Hell in mind, one has to put themselves in God's shoes, which I don't even like to even fathom the thought of but here goes:

My interpretation (could be wrong):

How was Judas born? How is anyone born? Hmm... God creates/forms them in the womb.

It grieves the Lord to create (bring into existence) someone and give him/her freedom, free-will, only to see His creation use that same free-will to choose greed at the expense of choosing righteousness. When we choose to not follow him, he starts to plunge into a deep grief. He only wants the best for us. (It's bad we even put the Lord in this position.) Then, as any parent knows, when they give their first child their first spanking, it certainly hurts them more than it hurts the kid.

Much like it hurts parents to give kids consequences, it hurts the Lord to send them (those who don't want to follow him) to Hell for eternity. But hey, that's life. At least the creation is only there if they want to be there.

God doesn't create beings just to condemn them to Hell. Beings use their own free will to send themselves to Hell.

All this considered, one must question if the Lord regrets or questions creating some folks like Judas or even Lucifer, to begin with. I don't know.

It's part of the job; of being the Creator, watching some of the creation go awry, unfortunately.

EDIT: Moreover, we (as the Lord's creation) make a huge mockery out of Him; going through the trouble of creating us at all, to begin with, when we allow our sin to go so far as to qualify us for Hell, especially given the alternative.

From the Lord's perspective, just because some of His creation will inevitably choose to not follow Him doesn't mean the act of creating was a complete waste.

The Lord creates as He sees fit, but He knows, out of all his creation, some will follow Him! It's a numbers game.

Texaggie7nine said:

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Quote:

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It was not necessarily a punishment. It was a place Satan could pursue his hubris to its potential. In Hell, one can have the freedom to pursue their hubris to it's fullest. Consequences aside, you're walking a path that progressively gets further and further away from God.

---

Again, this is very much like the take C.S. Lewis has in The Great Divorce. Souls left to their own devises that choose to not be with God.

However in a more in depth look, C.S. Lewis makes the case that all these selfish, egotistical things that these people do that drive them away from God, cause them to be miserable, pathetic creatures that just continue to go down the hole of their own misery. That they may indeed wish to not be in God's presence but because of their own blindness they do not know that they can be happy.

This makes one wonder. Why would a loving God create so many souls that He knew would end up in eternal misery in their own pathetic, egotistical prisons in their minds? If God Himself created reality and all that exists, it seems pretty crappy that the only 2 options are, forever happy and with God, or forever miserable and without.

Quote:

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This is all over the Bible if you know where to look. Sometimes it comes right out an say it, other times it's implied.

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I would love to see you provide scripture that implies that although those that do not follow Jesus may go to Hell/Gehenna, for them, they will be much happier there anyways. In fact, if that were the case, you could say that there really was true free will, as one could be content with or without God, so them choosing to follow God would be for love only.

---

Quote:

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Again, this is very much like the take C.S. Lewis has in The Great Divorce. Souls left to their own devises that choose to not be with God.

However in a more in depth look, C.S. Lewis makes the case that all these selfish, egotistical things that these people do that drive them away from God, cause them to be miserable, pathetic creatures that just continue to go down the hole of their own misery. That they may indeed wish to not be in God's presence but because of their own blindness they do not know that they can be happy.

---

I'm telling you, I've never read that book. I've read a lot of his work. Just not that one.

I know you didn't read it. That's why I was explaining it to you.

dds08 said:

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From the Lord's perspective, just because some of His creation will inevitably choose to not follow Him doesn't mean the act of creating was a complete waste.

The Lord creates as He sees fit, but He knows, out of all his creation, some will follow Him! It's a numbers game.

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If an angel, who you knew for a fact was an angel came up to you one night and told you, before you were going to make love with your wife, that if you had unprotected sex that night, you and your wife would conceive a child that would be very troubled, that he would grow to hate life, you and your wife, all people.. he would hate everything and be nothing but a miserable person his entire life, and he would never be able to be helped out of his misery... that no matter what you did, what you changed about your approach to raising him, he would always be this way.... that he would die hating everything including God...

If this happened, would you continue to proceed with conceiving that child?

Texaggie7nine said:

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dds08 said:

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From the Lord's perspective, just because some of His creation will inevitably choose to not follow Him doesn't mean the act of creating was a complete waste.

The Lord creates as He sees fit, but He knows, out of all his creation, some will follow Him! It's a numbers game.

---

If an angel, who you knew for a fact was an angel came up to you one night and told you, before you were going to make love with your wife, that if you had unprotected sex that night, you and your wife would conceive a child that would be very troubled, that he would grow to hate life, you and your wife, all people.. he would hate everything and be nothing but a miserable person his entire life, and he would never be able to be helped out of his misery... that no matter what you did, what you changed about your approach to raising him, he would always be this way.... that he would die hating everything including God...

If this happened, would you continue to proceed with conceiving that child?

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~sigh~

How many times do I have to mention on this thread that God doesn't know what any of His creation will choose to do with their free-will?

That would be contrary to freedom.

Anyway, 7nine that angel would not be from the Lord if I were to meet one like that.

There are exceptions though.

The Lord knew the Israelites would ask for a king.

The prophets foretold of a savior coming.

The only created being that God could possibly predict the entire future of was at best Jesus.

Is there free will in Heaven?

Quote:

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How many times do I have to mention on this thread that God doesn't know what any of His creation will choose to do with their free-will?

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I don't doubt this is your belief, but I'd say the majority of the Christians on this board hold a contrary opinion and would rather shrug and play gymnastics with free will than admit there are things god doesn't know. That could account for the confusion.

Yes, man's free will is not lost.

Texaggie7nine said:

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I know you didn't read it. That's why I was explaining it to you.

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I don't want you to think that I indeed read that book and am stealing ideas.

dds08 said:

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Texaggie7nine said:

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I know you didn't read it. That's why I was explaining it to you.

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I don't want you to think that I indeed read that book and am stealing ideas.

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So are all these views you have ideas you came to by yourself reading your bible? Or do you go to a church or share some type of community with other christians that believe the things you do?

Does that mean there is also sin, murder, rape etc in Heaven?

No.

Texaggie7nine said:

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dds08 said:

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Texaggie7nine said:

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I know you didn't read it. That's why I was explaining it to you.

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I don't want you to think that I indeed read that book and am stealing ideas.

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So are all these views you have ideas you came to by yourself reading your bible? Or do you go to a church or share some type of community with other christians that believe the things you do?

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Quote:

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So are all these views you have ideas you came to by yourself reading your bible?

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Which views are you speaking of?

Quote:

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Or do you go to a church or share some type of community with other christians that believe the things you do?

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Something wrong with the views? I hope I don't come off as being in some kind of cult.

Nothing wrong in my view. It's just that your views are quite different than the vast majority of Bible believing Christians. I'm just wondering if it is a product of finding a church or denomination that you really liked their message, or if you, like I did, came up with a lot of your own views of what the Bible says in order to keep your view of God's character in tact.

can you have free will without sin?

Texaggie7nine said:

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Nothing wrong in my view. It's just that your views are quite different than the vast majority of Bible believing Christians. I'm just wondering if it is a product of finding a church or denomination that you really liked their message, or if you, like I did, came up with a lot of your own views of what the Bible says in order to keep your view of God's character in tact.

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Hmm...well first and foremost I cannot take credit for all the knowledge/interpretations/views I get from The Holy Spirit, The Word, the reading of the Bible, and Sunday School. I cannot take credit for all the tests and challenges that have come my way, sent from God, in order to help in my growth and maturity.

I've been in the same denomination my entire life. As a kid I just went to my parent's church. I've moved away from home, 2 or 3 times and went to different churches of the same denomination. Currently, I'm back at my parent's church.

I could call something my "own view" but then again, I couldn't. The Holy Spirit helps me form interpretations. So it's moreso our view (when it's correct). When I'm off, or incorrect, it's just my own.

It's kind of like this:

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Deuteronomy 29:29 New International Version (NIV)

29 The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.

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So you believe God NOT to be omniscient in most cases. How then to you explain scriptures such as

Isaiah 46:10

10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:


or Revelation 1:8

8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

Also, do you believe all the prophets of the bible that have foreseen all the way to the end of times are more powerful than

Texaggie7nine said:

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So you believe God NOT to be omniscient in most cases. How then to you explain scriptures such as

Isaiah 46:10

10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:


or Revelation 1:8

8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

Also, do you believe all the prophets of the bible that have foreseen all the way to the end of times are more powerful than

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I believe He is omniscient.

Omniscient with respect to what? When you mention omniscient, what do you mean by it? What is your definition of omniscient?

It means to know everything there is to know. Everything that has happened and everything that will happen.

Texaggie7nine: If we have free will, that means we can make choices. Does God know which choices we will make? If so, then is it really a choice? If not, then it doesn't seem like God could be all knowing...