Please save the free will speech, it cant be applied here. Why? because God is making the choice to create an atheist, the atheist isn't making the choice because God has prior knowledge of them becoming one in the first place.
2007-07-23 15:30:47 · 37 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
We are all born innocent and pure. It's what happens to us along the journey and the choices that we make that have the impact on our lives either good or bad. Freedom of choice also comes with responsibilities ... not all choose to accept them. You'll see when your time comes I suspect.
2007-07-24 10:27:04 · answer #1 · answered by terminator 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I am answering believing that you will assume God to be real for the sake of the argument.
To assume that creating people with free will, who would choose to be atheists, is a mistake, is to assume to know the intent of God. God may have had a perfectly good reason for wanting atheists in the world.
The world itself was not designed to be perfect. It is slowly deteriorating, as is our sun and as is the rest of the universe. God made a choice to design the universe the way he did. Why would he design a universe that would die? Because it doesn't need to last forever.
Free will is a gift from God. He has minions of followers who are blindly obedient--the angels. They are in heaven with him, will always be in heaven except when they are commanded to serve here on earth, and are eternal. The gift he gave to man was twofold: eterenity in heaven AND free will. The catch is that we only get to choose one or the other; if we want the eternity in heaven, we have to give up our choices for life and serve Him.
2007-07-23 16:58:41 · answer #2 · answered by SDW 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You've just made a totally false assumption in your question. You think that if someone knows your future, then your choices are predestined. This is, in fact, not the case at all. If you were to step into a time machine and see me go to the park tomorrow, does that predestine my choice? Well, you already know what I will choose to do, but I still *freely* choose to go to the park which makes your knowledge of my future absolutely irrelevant to my freedom of choice.
Likewise, God can see the future, but you will still *freely* choose to be an atheist, regardless of God's knowledge.
If that doesn't help, consider this... what if you had a rewind button in your life, and there was no such thing as any god who knew the future. You've freely made all of your choices in life. If you go back in time to yesterday and see yourself, you know what you will freely choose to do, but the choices that you see yourself making are still made by your own free will.
2007-07-23 15:51:28 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Because your intelligence was not created. It has always been. God did provide you with a spirit and a body. You get to choose what you do with your intelligence. If God forced everyone to only do "right" or "good" that would take away any responsibility from you, not the other way around. Since you can choose to do good or evil, the responsibility is yours, not God's. If someone gave you a new car and you took good care of it, or alternatively decided to take it to the demolition derby, would you blame the giver of the gift for the consequences? No.
2007-07-23 15:43:51 · answer #4 · answered by Someone who cares 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
First I sense a hint of you not being an atheist in your question.
2. God allowed you to be born into this world and just like everyone else, you have been delt a measure of faith (Romans 12:3)
3. What you decide with your measure is entirely up to you, But God tells us to choose life. (Deutoronomy30:19)
3. Don't be fooled, You have a spirit created by God to last through eternity, Whether in heaven, or whether in hell,
4. I emplore you to choose Jesus and choose life this day. Tell God how you feel and pray that he will reveal Himself to you and don't run from him but excepting the calling of the Holy Spirit.
2007-07-23 15:45:09 · answer #5 · answered by Changed 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I don't follow your reasoning. I don't believe that God creates people knowing that they will be atheists or bus drivers or anything else.
I believe that God creates people and gives them free will. God may hope that people will exercise their free will in ways that will please Him, but He can't predict how they will turn out unless He preordains the outcome; and the minute He preordains any outcome he takes away with one hand the free will He gave with the other, which completely undercuts the legitimacy of His holding them accountable for how they use the free will He gave them.
To say that God can give his creatures free will and, because God is omnipotent and omniscient, He can at the same time predict (without influencing) what each of them will do with the free will He gives them and also hold them accountable for how they use it without taking any responsibility for it Himself is like saying that God is omnipotent, and because He is omnipotent He is unable to render Himself less than omnipotent in any situation whatsoever, including situations where He would, if able to do so, choose not to be omnipotent or omniscient.
2007-07-23 15:53:59 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Free will does apply here. Just because God knows what you will decide (i.e. he can see into the future and knows all) does not mean he makes the decision for you. If God were to make people and force them to be born again Christians, then all he'd really be doing is creating robots... ....bottom line is that you cannot "make" someone love you. Without free will, there is no love.
Ever hear the saying: "If you love something, set it free.... ..if it doesn't come back to you, then it was really never yours to begin with."
2007-07-23 15:40:36 · answer #7 · answered by JimDean 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Obviously God DOES make mistakes...he created people who, by nature, are "flawed"! He created Satan, too, did He not? And what of the flood? He nearly destroyed all of mankind and then decided that it was a mistake...and He had the strength to admit it...by promising he'd never do that again. I think it's wrong for people to think that God is not capable of making mistakes. The real lesson I think He wants us to learn (from the above examples I gave) is that even He can be wrong...and admit to it....and learn from it, and be forgiven as he forgives....I would think He would want us to follow in his footsteps and apply these lessons to ourselves and to others...so that we may be strong enough to admit our mistakes, learn from them, forgive ourselves and others, for trespasses. Wouldn't we all get along so much better if we did that? Just a thought.
2007-07-23 15:40:12 · answer #8 · answered by It's Ms. Fusion if you're Nasty! 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Do YOU KNOW if you will accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior twenty years from now?
If God created you to NOT believe in Him, isn't that a paradox that even atheists cannot explain?
Nowhere can you claim that God gave you the choice to NOT believe in Him. That is similar to your parents denying giving birth to you, when all the proof is on the certificate.
Your bucket holds no water whatsoever.
2007-07-23 15:37:19 · answer #9 · answered by n9wff 6 · 0⤊ 2⤋
Oh dear.
How do you know what every single atheist thinks the moment before they die?
Maybe that atheist was created for a reason. To help someone. Or to have a child that will change the world to his liking. There are a million maybe's.
Once again, There is no proof that every atheist dies an atheist, Only they know.
2007-07-23 15:34:22 · answer #10 · answered by chersa 4 · 3⤊ 2⤋