Okay... I'm going to break down this FREE WILL argument...?

Question

Christians. Free will you say? We all have free will and we either choose God or we don't. Right? Okay. So then tell me this, what made YOU choose God and an atheist NOT choose God? Explain to me how one chooses and one doesn't. The ONLY POSSIBLE explanation is that those who choose are born with the genetic leaning towards religioous belief (genetic makeup w/ a predispostion to believing in a higher power) and environmental influences (neighborhood, parents, etc.) If these are not the factors that determine how one "chooses" God... please explain what made you able to choose him and what makes some one else UNABLE to choose him. Doesn't there have to be SOMETHING that seperates you from those who don't believe? Think before you answer please. I'm begging you. Please. THINK!!!

P.S. Again, I am a Christian who does not want to hide behind weak justifications that don't make sense. I want REAL answers to life's hardest questions.

Answer 1

I disagree with your "genetic leaning" argument.

I was raised atheist. My parents are atheists (well, were...Mom seems to be agnostic these days or even mildly Christian at times). I didn't believe in God. In high school, a small number of my friends became born-again Christians and I was intrigued. I tried to believe in God as they did because it sounded so nice to have that kind of hope, but no matter what I did, I couldn't make myself believe in God.

After a while, I didn't want to believe in God any more. I went to college and had some rough months. I decided to join a Christian group because I remembered my Christian friends were always nice and welcoming. Instead, the college group I joined was rude and judgmental. I was not "up to their standards" in any way and they made me feel horrible.

As my life progressed, all I could see was hypocrisy in Christians. I didn't want to be like them, and I didn't want a God in my life at all.

But then, as a young adult, God showed Himself to me in a very real way. It was rather instantaneous. I couldn't help believing in God after that moment. It wasn't what I wanted. I even argued with Him for a while, trying to convince Him that He didn't want me. Finally, I accepted the truth (with a warning to God that I'd probably turn away more people from Christianity than any of the Christians who turned me away from it in previous years).

Since then, who I am as a person has changed. I am so fundamentally different, I can hardly believe it. I used to argue with everybody; now I don't want to argue, I want peace. The slightest inconvenience used to tick me off; now I just shrug and move on.

So in my experience, what separates those who believe from those who do not is that encounter with God.

Trouble is, those of us who are expected to "be" Christ on Earth fail repeatedly, so we are the ones who most often deny atheists the opportunity to encounter God.

Answer 2

I believed because I was told to do so as a child. I was told to do so from not only my parents, but friends, relatives, and even the church itself.

I believed until I was old enough to really think and ask questions of myself that I had not been able to answer before. Questions that were left unanswered in the church. Questions that nobody had a real answer to. I asked my questions to lots of people, even people on the Internet.

What answer did I get in the end? It all boiled down to simply having faith. Noticing the pattern, I soon realized that it was just a fall back answer for when they didn't know either. So then I asked myself why should I believe in something if nobody knows what the hell they're talking about?

I am "atheist" because I have no reason to believe. It had nothing to do with outside influences other than my own findings in seeking out answers.

Answer 3

not genetic background, but environmental influences, yes. many people only believe in a religion because their parents tell them to.

you should look up "hard determinism", a philosophy with implications there is no such thing as free will.

anyways, i believe that all people go to heaven, despite their beliefs, and that there is no Hell. therefore, the fact that some are born into circumstances that would prohibit them from beleiving in God is inconsequential. however, it is still important for them to learn good morals, whether it be through religion or elsewhere.

Answer 4

God chose us before we were born. So yes, I do think that there is some predestiny there....

I knew when I was four years old that I was a child of God. I have never doubted it. My genealogy is full of Ministers all the way back to the 1600`s at least. So maybe there is something there.

He knew us before we were born. He opened our hearts and ears before we were born.

However he did give free choice. It is up to us to make the desicion to accept him. He accepts us just as we are..

Peace and God bless from Texas <><

Answer 5

And why does God hate all those people raised in non-Christian majority countries? Just by letting them be born, he in essence damns them to eternal punishment.

They aren't raised Christian, so it is much harder for them to accept the gospel. Most people just inherit their religion from their parents.

So why does God love you and make it easy for you to "be saved", and turn around and make it almost impossible for a child in India to "be saved"? Seems kind of unjust.

Answer 6

Most all have heard the "message."
Some choose to believe it, some choose to not believe it.
That choice--is that individuals free will to believe or not believe.

And, my mother (no father involved) was not a Christian woman when we (my siblings and I) decided we wanted to go to church.
We are the ones who talked her into going, not her us.

Answer 7

'Omniscience' is logically incompatible with 'free will'. 'Omniscience', all by itself, is sufficient to put the lid on 'free will'; omnipresence and omnipotence are irrelevant. It is not necessary for god to intervene in order to negate 'free will' as a possibility. Omniscience negates free will all by itself.

If we really DO have 'free will', then an omniscient god is logically excluded. The logical fallacy lies in the premise that if god is omniscient, all outcomes are already known to god... everything that you think, decide and do... and everything that you WILL think, decide, and do.

For an omniscient being, all of existence over all of time is laid out as a tapestry before him... past, present and future, down to the smallest detail of material, of thought and of deed, and all is constantly in his awareness. There is no past, present and future from that perspective... there is only an eternal 'now'.

If that is the case, since god already knows everything that will happen, then everything is already decided... and as we go along through life, we are merely doing what has already been seen by god. Since god knows and sees everything that will happen, NOTHING that we think or do can be contrary to what god already sees and knows. We might THINK we have free will... but since we are merely acting out what god already sees and knows, this can be no more than an ILLUSION of free will.

Put another way, if you come to a point of decision, you have no choice but to take the path that god already knows you will take... there is no other option. That works all the way down the path of cause-and-effect... and, along the way, it even casts doubt on the validity of the concept of cause and effect. I don't want to get into that, though... it makes my hair hurt.

So, imagine that since before time began, since before the universe was created, god has 'known' that you would come to a point of decision at some spatial and temporal coordinate, and that faced with the possible paths A and B, you would take path A.

Now, during the course of your life, you arrive at that spatial and temporal coordinate where this choice exists. You evaluate the potential outcomes, and you have it in your head that you have 'free will', and thus, you are free to choose between path A and path B. However, since god is 'omniscient', and god 'knows' that you will take path 'A', then path B IS NOT an option... it IS NOT a matter of choice... it is a 'NECESSITY'. OF NECESSITY, you WILL take path A. Not 'must'... not 'can'... WILL take path A. You DO NOT have a choice. Path B is NOT an option... it is not even a POSSIBILITY. The best that you can achieve is the ILLUSION that you are free to choose.

So, either god is omniscient OR we have free will. It is QUITE IMPOSSIBLE for BOTH of these conditions to coexist.

The only way out of this logical dilemma is to limit god's power; i.e., start taking away things that god can see and know, until we get to a point where free will BECOMES a possibility. But when we start doing that, then he ceases to be omniscient... and thus ceases to be a 'supreme being'.

So... free will is an impossibility concomitant with an omniscient diety. The following sums up the possibilities:

1. There is no omniscient diety... therefore, the whole argument is stupid and irrelevant.

2. IF we possess 'free will' AND god exists, THEN, of necessity, it is IMPOSSIBLE that god is omniscient. (This does not preclude the notion of 'god'... it just means that he can't be as 'supreme' as one might think he is... or wish him to be.) You are (logically) obliged to acknowledge that god CAN NOT BE all knowing... and since omniscience is one of the things that makes god 'all powerful', then this means that god CAN NOT BE omnipotent, either.

3. IF god exists AND god is omniscient THEN, OF NECESSITY, it is IMPOSSIBLE that that we have free will, and you are (metaphorically speaking) nothing more than a piece on god's eternal game board; and, thus, "... man is not responsible for his actions."

Personally, I vote for number 1. You can pick any one you want... but YOU MUST PICK ONE, because there are NO OTHER possible outcomes... NO OTHER logically valid choices.

It is unfortunate (for the Abrahamic cults of desert monotheism) that the concepts of god were solidified as dogma a few thousand years before the philosophical discipline of 'logic' was dreamed up by the Greeks. Those that concocted the religion did not have access to the intellectual tools that would have enabled them to realize that they had messed up with respect to assigning god's impossible attributes. It wasn't until the 4th century that this logical impossibility garnered serious attention, and churchmen got their theological "dancin' shoes" on, trying to weasel their way out of the logical dilemma.

They did not succeed, and this issue continues to be debated even 'til this day. This logical dilemma (and the resulting 'cognitive dissonance') was a key element in some of the various 'heresies' that were spawned in the early days of Christianity.

However, the simple observation that these impossible beliefs still exist shows that this does not seem to have been a very big hindrance, under the simple expediency that "There is no problem so big that we cannot ignore it, until it will go away." Too bad for them, though... it DOESN'T go away.

Corporate religion is helped along by the fact that most 'believers' do not employ logic or critical thinking skills; heck... that's why they're believers in the first place. If they employed logic and critical thinking, they WOULD NOT BE believers. So, even though these concepts create a logical impossibility, it does not seem to present a significant problem for them.

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Answer 8

Do a study on predestination, election, and Calvinism.