isn't the idea of religions to suppress free will and coerce actions against your 'natural' inclinations?
can a christian be a free thinker? I think so....they are on thier way out the door of limited thoughts and reason and expanding to open mindedness and doing own thinking and research...
here's to hoping!
if some religions are about 'submission' how can we say we are free to choose (with dire social consequences of conditional support based on our choices)?
2006-09-29 04:57:33 · 6 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Of course you can be free and religious. We have the choice to follow any given religion, or not. (At least in some countries.) Within any given religion, there is a whole lot of wiggle room within the laws of that religion regarding what one says or does.
That said, there is a lot constraining a person within religion, and within society, and within his or her own mind. We really enjoy very limited freedoms, whatever we may believe. There is a lot to stop you from acting on your first impulse at any given time, isn't there? So maybe it isn't exactly true to claim to be free, with or without religion. I'm ok with this. You?
2006-09-29 05:10:25 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Think about your life. What are you a slave to? Are you a slave to a job because you have payments to make? Perhaps you are addicted to alcohol and have never been able to kick the habit. Are you maybe addicted to sex or sex related things such as pornography? Are you a slave to your physical appearance, constantly looking in the mirror to make sure you still look good?
EVERYONE is a slave to something. So why not submit to the will of God. Only He is holy and pure.
You say we are close-minded to reason. But perhaps you are the one that has grown close-minded to God.
I promise no matter what happens, Jesus loves YOU.
2006-09-29 12:04:32 · answer #2 · answered by Josh 4 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Our choice is to love God or to leave Him. Those who choose to love Him, attain unlimited freedom and bliss. Those who want to enjoy separately from Him are put in this material world, where they can think that there is no God and they are lords themselves. In this condition living entity falsely identifies himself with his body and thus suffers from birth, death, old age and disease. However, because it does not want to give up trying to be false lord, it cannot become free from those things, unless it agrees to surrender to Lord. We can be free only in our constitutional position as eternal servants of the Lord, not in our false illusioned life trying to lord it over material nature and identifying ourselves with these bodies.
So if somebody sincerely accepts the real religion - surrender to the Lord and pure love for Him - they become truly free, they enjoy freedom beyond our wildest dreams. Our so-called freedom here is simply imagination and illusion compared to that.
2006-09-29 12:03:09 · answer #3 · answered by H. B 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
We have the free will to follow a religion or not to follow it. If we had no free will, there would be no say in what we believe, we'd be like robots.
2006-09-29 12:01:20 · answer #4 · answered by sister steph 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I don't think even God can do very much with some one who refuses to think for them self and think it throu.
2006-09-29 12:01:19 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
(wo)man is born free, but is everywhere in chains.
2006-09-29 12:00:03 · answer #6 · answered by pogstar 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋