Have I got the free will to not believe in God and not go to hell?

Question

Sounds like God is blackmailing me... he KNOWS well that I don't want to go to hell so that's his sick little way of making me love him. Quite sadistic isn't it... how many christians "love" god because they're scared of going to hell? If I had people I would give them a chance to love me without saying "Oh by the way if you don't love me, you're going to be tortured forever". How many people would still love God if nothing was in it for themselves, ie. non-believers still go to heaven.

Answer 1

God is about as real as the sixth finger on my right hand.

Answer 2

Who's saying that God says that you will be tortured if you don't accept him right here right now? There are some folks who talk like that, but Jesus says some pretty heavy stuff about THEM, too.

I think your problem is the same as when it rains. You have the freedom the put up a rain screen or not. If you do, you'll stay dry, if you don't, you'll become wet. But you can't demand that you can walk in the rain without a rain screen AND stay dry.

God is simply goodness combined. So if you are on the side of goodness, you'll go to "heaven", in whatever form that will come (what do we know??) Freedom is by definition a part of goodness. So God will always include the freedom to make up your own mind. I don't think. Because he is, by definition, all powerful. If he wasn't, he wouldn't be God, i.e. he wouldn't exist and you would be asking stupid questions here about a non-existent dude. That's pretty stupid.

Your question implies that you think God is a pretty cruel, sarcastic dude. But God, by definition, isn't. If he was so cruel as you describe him, he wouldn't be God. Problem solved.

Answer 3

Free will or not, there are some laws that cannot be broken, i.e., you may decide with your free will, that you're going to walk on the ceiling - without scientific aid - but you can't,
because in and of yourself, you cannot break the law of gravity. You can decide anything you want to, and you can also decide that you will be accountable for the choices you make using your free will. Then, at the final judgement, you will be held accountable, or judged, according to your knowledge, and what you did with it during mortality. I don't think it's a matter of Him intimidating you or letting His TRUE FOLLOWERS berate, intimidate, and condemn you, it's a matter between you and Him. I think every true Christian should take care of their own relationship with God, and let all others do the same. That would be following the pure example and love of Christ.

Answer 4

I see what you're saying. Let me ask you, if you don't believe in G-d or a higher power, then how can you possibly believe in hell? Hell is never mentioned in Scripture, at least not in the Torah. Valley of Ghenna would be the closest analogy, I believe. Anyway, I don't think G-d is using hell as a marketing tool to win believers. You do, in my opinion, pose an interesting question in your last statement about how many people would love Him if there was nothing in it for themselves or the fear of hell was obsolete. I guess we'll have to wait and see!

Answer 5

Your question is not bad but your reasoning is. You do have the free will to believe or not to believe while in mortality. If you don't believe in Him now, then you don't believe in heaven or hell either so you have nothing to worry about.
That being said, after death, you will find out that He does exist, that He is real. Then you will have a chance to learn about what you have been avoiding during your mortal sojourn. God has declared that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is the Christ. Thus, after death, assuming you make it through mortality in a state of disbelief, you will discover the error of your ways. There will be a period of remorse while you repent of your mistakes, that is appropriately called hell, torment or prison. However, the time period for that torment is not endless or forever stretching into infinity as we know the term. The term eternal punishment simply means God's punishment because endless is one of His names. Thus, when you have completed your repentance, then the torment will be lifted and forgiveness extended according to what level of righteousness you have accepted. God has no desire to force anybody into worshipping Him. That is our choice, but yes, there are and will be consequences for those choices.
The hope that I extend to you is that if you never learned about Him and never understood the Plan of Salvation that He prepared for us, then you won't be held accountable for it. We are judged based upon what we do with what we know. Therefore, I exort you to learn more and make educated, wise choices.
Lovingly yours,

Answer 6

The real question is, do you have the free will to follow your own belief regardless of the consequences?

If you believe in God, Heaven, or Hell, any one of them, then yes, you have to believe in GOD.

Only if you do not believe that any of the three exists, do you get to be an atheist without consequence.

Answer 7

You have a choice to beleive in Him or not to. Just because you don't beleive in Him doesn't mean you're going to hell. I am not a beleiver in Him and I still live my life knowing I'm going to heavan because I'm a good person. I guess that whether you're going to hell or heaven is a matter of opinion, not facts. Also, Christians beleive that if you believe than you get a free ticket. You sould read this book, "Mormon Murders" it explains a lot about being a Mormon and a lot about Christianity.

Answer 8

No. God has done everything to warn you. Would it be blackmail to yell at you to get in the lifeboat if the ship had struck an iceberg and is slowly going down? Would you consider it narrow to warn you of impending doom? If it were truly blackmail, the following scriptures would be a severe contradiction.

2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that ANY should perish but that ALL should come to repentance.

Ezekiel 18:32
"For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,” says the Lord GOD. “Therefore turn and live!”

If it were blackmail, God would not have bothered sending a Savior to save you. It would be more like "obey me, or die". But in reality it is "you are already destined for death, turn and live!!"

Answer 9

I do not believe in Heaven or Hell, so I do not think God is blackmailing me. Although, sometimes I think I make my own life miserable by the choices I make. That is my hell.

Answer 10

It is your choice whether or not you believe in God. As far as heaven or hell is concerned, I don't understand why you are worried about going to either place seeing as how that would subscribe to a belief in some higher authority.

Secondly, God didn't create hell for his creation, which is you and me (humans); he created hell as a punishment for Satan because he decided to be like God, and subsequently waged war against God. We, as humans, are going to hell because of our decision, through Adam, our father, to disobdey God's rule. And so because we disobeyed, we are seperated from God by our sin, and hell, along with spiritual death, is the consequence of that decision.

Answer 11

You have got the wrong idea about who God is and who we are.
People who accept God know that it is not an free ticket we must live by His law to the best of our ability and do the works of faith that lead to salvation. The protestant view on justification is an error, the person who is a Catholic knows that it is by a number of passages in our lives that we grow into mature human beings and not get a rose co loured glass view of life.