Christains, do you actually understand the concept of free will?

Question

Your position is that god does not force anyone to worship him - ergo we have free will.

Interestingly, your god made the consequences of our decision polar opposites - heaven and hell - and by making the choice eternal bliss or eternal torture, god has in effect stacked the deck in his favor, for only an insane person would willingly choose an eternity of torture, agreed?

So our free will is only the freedom to choose between pleasure or pain? How is this a choice? If your god TRULY wanted to give us free will, he would either NOT REVEAL the reward/punishment awaiting us after death, or he would have given us two equally attractive choices, which would show RESPECT for our intelligence AND our free will, while also PROVING his benevolence beyond a shadow of a doubt. THAT, of course, would be a being WORTHY of admiration.

As it stands now, the "free will" your god gives is in name only. When examined closely, it's no different than coercion

I guess I should have clarified... I was referring to the free will of whether or not to worship the Christian god. Not the free will to make trivial choices like answering this question.

Answer 1

THIS is a GREAT question!!! OBviously you are rather intelligent, (A rare trait these days!!)

Ok, i currently study ancient laguages, however prior to this, I had reached a point where things didnt make sense anymore...and God seemed to be well, a total hippocratical, irrational, player of favorites"master of puppets".
So, I looked up hell in the Strong's Concordance (a popular bible trnslation guide, has semi-original Herew-Aramaic, and Greek)
HEll is listed as
Sheol- the place of the grave, where NOTHING goes on, death has prevailed.
Greek tanslation of hell is Gehenna- pre-modern landfill, which naturally burns to emit noxious methane gas.
AND THATS IT!!!! so where does this "hell,; where muscular Harley-riding Satan dances with delight as he hoses down "sinners" with fire, torturing eternally those whom have made mistakes??
It came form bad translations, and Papal influence.
Church wants to brainwash people into believing that god is mean; and will punish you if you dont conform and listen to what they tell you about HIm.
so what could possibly be true about him?
there are 4 words in the Greek language for love
(love parent-child, love for God, love between adults, love for fellow man) but in english, we only say "love"...so you can see how things DO NOT translate well into english. Couple that with church influence, and thats where we get this post-Crusades view on hell.

The truth of the matter is that there just are no texts to support hell being an actual place, created by god, to punish people and angels who didnt listen.
God is our Father. How could a Father ever be happy for eternitywatching, or even sentencing from a distance, His beloved children, who for one reason or another, just misunderstood His true nature and character and therefore wilfully, in ignorance willed not the light that was within them?

He couldn't. I had the same synopsis in my head one day long ago, that you have now. Just know that what we have been taught about god as children growing up in America today is pretty much a b.s. lie., regarding the whole punisher, doting grandfatherly-type who's just waiting to crash down thunder and lightning upon us.
The true God is everything people truely want him to be in their heart of hearts (whether they;ll admit or not), and anyone can discover these things thru cold. hard fact. That is, a quick language investigation to discover how the wording was originally intended. The english-speaking version of the bible is awfuly jaded as result of these gross misinterpretations along with religious-governmental powers. BUt with this dark veneer scraped aside, one can uncover the face of the truth, which shines with true mercy; and believable stories, and understanding of many mysteries and powers, i.e. things NEVER spoken of in "organized" religion, things that actually are interesting, and relatable, and relative, ect.
So, with that all said..:) ....happy trails and good luck along your journies... :)

Answer 2

First I must say that all Christians are not the same. But mainstream Christianity seems to have an unrealistic view of freedom in particular. The modern concept of hell came from Dante not Jesus. The Bible was produced by the Holy Roman Empire and withheld from the people for over a thousand years. True to a book with so many contradictions there are two opposite descriptions of hell; An eternal fire and outer darkness. I never could figure out how a fire could be dark.
What I find curious about Christian mythology is the belief in a god that is so vicious and cruel and they call it love. The word brainwashed comes to mind.

Answer 3

When examined closely, it's no different than coercion

- Only if you take an Arminian viewpoint, which is prevalent in Christianity today. Calvinism denies the ability to look to God for salvation, it must be given to us by a loving God, and salvation is given to some, not all. We call these people the Elect.

Therefore, heaven and hell are not choices on a menu. They are something that the elect have, and the reprobate do not. When Adam sinned, he plunged all of mankind into a nature that no longer has fellowship with God except by his grace.

Does that clarify things at all? If you look at mankind as completely guilty and standing condemned before the Lord, then your question goes away.

Answer 4

It's still a choice.... Even Lucifer had that choice. Do you imagine that Lucifer was insane? It's the Freedom to chose not to do evil. Bringing down to earth.... Free Speech.... you have the freedom to chose not to scream obscenities at small children. But the converse is also true. Without the choice it isn't free speech. You'd be a parrot, or suppressed. The choice to do the right thing is always there. As should be consequences for the wrong choice. (in the above example it would be the father of the children punching you out for being an idiot. Unfortunately,in this PC world the dad would suffer)

Answer 5

God does not force anyone to worship him or to make choices that honor him. Every person makes that decision by the way that they live their life everyday. I would agree that "only an insane person would willingly choose an eternity of torture" But look at our world. Isn't that what the majority are choosing? They seek to load up on hatred, adultry, stealing, idols, and other sins....Since most people are choosing to head down that road, its apparent that God isnt forcing anyone to believe anything.

What would be the point of having two equally attractive choices? There would be no point for most people to follow Christ then. Jesus came to save us from eternal damnation and if hell didnt exist, it would pull at the very foundations of Christianity.

When you look at what it means to follow Christ, it is much easier to not live for him....and people want the easiest for themselves now. So your theory doesnt really prove true....very interesting view though ;)

Answer 6

You are missing one huge thing. There is no proof or evidence of either Heaven or Hell. So, if there is no proof, you have freedom to believe what you want.

In addition, your concept of Heaven and Hell are a little off. We do not choose between pleasure or pain. The whole point of Heaven is that God is there. A person is joyful in Heaven because they want to be with God. If a person didn't want to be with God, Heaven would be torturous. Therefore, the choice a person is making is between God and no God.

In addition, free will means that we have a free desire. This means we can choose anything to be the ruler or master of our heart. God wants to be the King of our heart, the one we desire to serve and worship. This is our choice.

However, even human will was corrupted when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden. Our desire is far from God. We lust after everything else while God is like a distant stranger. And so, the heart of humanity is corrupt. It doesn't love God as it should.

Jesus came to repair the human heart. If we are willing to give our whole being to Him, He can transform us into a new creation. He can fill our heart with peace and joy, along with a new passion and love for God. However, He cannot do this unless we are willing to surrender everything unto His power.

No one is coerced, because you first have to believe it. If you don't believe in Hell, then why would you fear it? It would have no effect.

Answer 7

If you are a extreme fundamentalist or a person extremely turned off of spirituality by fundamentalism, you might think of religion as the whip and the carrot. However, the old testament doesn't even mention hell, only a place called shiloh, somewhat equivalent to purgatory. God's free will places us on par with him in that we have self awareness and a sense of choice. Our finite nature, places us on par with the rest of creation. God gives us the opportunity to create a heaven here on earth or a hell. You need only look at the newspapers to see which we choose more often. TAS

Answer 8

Outstanding thought process. But what of the idea, " That a mans mind can make a Hell of Heaven, and a Heaven of Hell." Who is to say that in all of God's infinite wisdom that one's poor choice does not influence a dozen others to make a good choice and earn him or her the benefit of a reward. The idea of free will and choice is also not something that is to be solely exercised in aspects of morality. Who is to say what is really moral. A church going person who would never help his fellow man or a stripper who would willingly stop a knife fight to keep someone from getting hurt? As with most people it appears that you are having a question concerning religion not necesarily GOD.

Answer 9

It's very obvious that you don't understand the concept of free will. Free will affects every single thought, feeling, decision, choice, move, action of our existence. We have choices of doing right and doing wrong. Sadly, things that are wrong often feel good so most folk opt for the feel good factor. God has to set boundaries because impurity cannot enter a perfect state without also making it imperfect. So the free will choice is to do right, which involves accepting Christ, or wrong which involves denying Him and God has told us the consequence of either. When we accept Him we want to do what's right at the cost of denying self, but oh boy, it is worth it. Interestingly it is only the non-believer who struggles with concepts of free will, sin and eternity.

Answer 10

I understand your viewpoint, and it makes sense. Lots of things from atheistic viewpoints make sense, and yet I believe in God.
I sort of bristle when you say "your" god, since I am convinced there is One God.........and I do not see Him as anything at all like the christian concept.........nor do I see heaven or especially hell as the way they portray it....
Here's how I see free will......
Free will is a bit like having a dog on a chain around a tree, it has the free will to do whatever it wants, within the bounds of that chain. There are just certain things we cannot do, even if we 'will'. The universe has certain laws and boundaries that cannot be overcome, at least as far as we know now. Just like the dog chain.