Hypothetical Question (Re: Free Will vs. Safety of a Loved One)?

Question

You have a husband / wife whom you love and respect very much.

One day, they inform you that they are going to jump into a bonfire and die a horrible death because they've decided that the fire doesn't exist and they won't be hurt. Do you respect their free will and let them jump into the fire, even knowing that they are wrong and that they will be burned, or do you do everything in your power to haul them away from the fire, regardless of the intrusion on their "free will"?

If YOU love your spouse enough to keep them away from the fire, then why doesn't GOD love atheists enough to keep them out of hell? The atheist who doesn't believe in hell is the same as the husband who doesn't believe the fire exists. The "free will" of said husband is nothing compared to his safety, so shouldn't the same thing be true of us?

Does God not love us as much as we love each other?

Some of you still think I'm trying to convert you. I'm not a Christian - I'm asking a question about something I don't understand about the Christian God.

I'm not sure how to make it more clear. :(

Answer 1

I exist, and therefore I would do everything in my power to stop my husband. (I don't need to spell out the rest, do I?)

Answer 2

well, it would depend on the size of the fire i guess. but, if it were one that they surely could never escape alive or without serious injury, of course i would do everything in my power to keep them from it.

it's just like hiding a drunk friends car keys so they don't kill anyone.

yes, i would hope a god would care about it's children enough to save them

i read one of your other questions, and it's answers. i don't think people understand the manner of the questions asked. i think you're trying to open people's eyes to the truth of religion from a non religious viewpoint. am i close?

edit: to make things more clear, just add in a detail that you're not christian and just curious. i often do this, but even then some of them still have a hard time understanding LOL

Answer 3

God is a "consuming fire". Theres a story about two walking through a fire to prove they couldnt get burned, but when people looked into the fire, they saw three people. Two went in, two came out...but who was the third? God. Anyway, my bible teaches me that "To be absent from the flesh is to be present with the Lord". When an athiest dies, he/she will go directly to God, but since the great judgement hasnt happened yet, you're not going to be judged upon arrival. But let me point something out to you...if you are kind to people, compassionate toward your fellow human beings, you do charity work, then you're already working for God. Even if you dont believe in Him, he still believes in you because you are His child and all the good things you do are going to be remembered and counted. Its like if you had a parent who wasn't there physically with you, but watched you from afar to make sure you never got hurt and had everything you needed. Would you believe that parent didnt exist, simply because you couldn't physically see them? God loves us MORE than we love each other, kiddo. If He didn't, we would have blown our dumba.ss selves up years ago....

Answer 4

A person who has decided that a fire which is burning in his or her presence does not exist is a person who is a danger to him or herself and/or others. Such a person is clearly incapable of forming rational judgements. To the extent that the person is deluded, the person is incapable of exercising free will. Such a person ought to be restrained and treated for whatever psychological or neuroligical condition led to the delusion that the fire does not exist.

As to God, there is far less evidence for the existence of God than there would be in the case of the fire cited above. As a result, the analogy is flawed.

God, if such an entity exists, appears to be entirely indifferent to life on earth.

Answer 5

Frankly, at the point that my wife decides to jump into a fire it's not about love, it's about her crumbling mental health and my sense of loyalty and obligation to her, nothing more. Sure, that loyalty is part of what you call love but the other parts of what you call love are probably flying out the window as I try to talk her out of this foolish endeavor. I'm really sick of analogies that use that one word (love) like the moral goulash it is without acknowledging as much. The god of the bible doesn't even acknowledge that people to whom god talks are mentally sick (he can't, what sick circus freak having just carved some instructions on stone tablets would come down from the mountain and say, "oh, by the way, I'm stark raving mad").

Answer 6

solid exercising, thank you. the concern with #one million is that we are coming from judgements that diverged from happiness. whether we are gaining from the journey for some objective or purely getting back to the tip of exhilaration, love and perfection, i don't understand.yet we don't make up expertise that takes us back alongside the way, yet remembering what grow to be consistently ours. The soreness of choosing the unloving direction we made up on our very own. this is the ego's distortion. God because of the fact the Holy Spirit can use what the ego has made to convey us back to certainty. that's a controversy of ways we glance at it. The ego says that God made it up and we soak up that projection because of the fact if we can placed it off on some distant different then we predict of that we are going to not experience plenty soreness of guilt. the way out, however, is throughout the time of the distortion fairly than blaming. For a individual who has chosen the ego's interpretation, the signposts of the outer worldwide proceed to end in soreness. If we are bodies in basic terms, life is futile because of the fact soreness and demise are inevitable except you win on the activity of survival of the fittest. interior the worldwide, winning in basic terms comes with somebody else dropping. The signposts do exist, even however, that get us by using each and every painful journey to the certainty and bigger love on the different ingredient. yet they're in basic terms given to you in case you ask interior fairly of in seek of outer solutions interior the worldwide from the analytical, take aside strategies that sees us as separate beings in bodies. soreness then will become in basic terms something interior the previous, a dream, which you have found out from fairly of the inevitable destiny this is sweet to worry. i think of I addressed a number of your factors and perhaps filled some holes. R EDIT...the reason i exploit God is via the fact in the journey that your are going to establish a difficulty it may be precise to actual life or it has no utility. you could set it up as a strategies created it and that could desire to be Buddhism or as a Father writer set it up and that's Christianity.

Answer 7

If that person is in his right mind, you have to respect his decision to jump into the fire.
People have done many things thinking they won't get hurt---jumping off cliffs thinking they could fly for one. Taking drugs for another.
It's the Christians responsibility to plead with that person not to ruin his life by jumping into the fire. God pleads with him too.
That's what Christians are doing ( or supposed to do)---warn others about the fire. God's word tells about the fire. If one doesn't believe it, what else can you do?

Answer 8

Well we also have that little thing called freedom of religion too. So free will+freedom of religion= stay out of my life.
Its people like you insisting you are right, that its all out of love and that you won't give up that makes people leery of Christians and Christianity in general. There isn't a single person in this country who doesn't know what Christianity is about. If they want to learn they will come to Church. I am happy with my beliefs. I won't lie to myself and to you to say I believe what you believe just to make you feel better about my burning.

Answer 9

When someone looses their mind and lost of all self protection......they tend to loose their free will rights until they are better.

I would take that spouse to a therapist and find out what's the deal is. Don't give that person an option due to the fact that he could die. Do everything in your power you have to.

Answer 10

The fact that we all are alive, is the prove that the force nourishes us. Hence "God" loves you, whether u see it or not.

About the 'fire' thingi, always allow minimum resistance.
Give some resistance, just enough, not too much, not too little.

And then leave them on their free will.
Always respect Freedom of Choice.

Answer 11

I would let them jump in and then quickly kick them out the moment they let me know they discovered the reality by their screams. This way they learned, exercised free will, and are safe.

No, he does not, he only loves those who serve, kneel and submit to his hierarchy, because they are the only ones who would think such an as* is real and deserving of their servitude.