Affiliated:
I agree with you. If Christianity was indeed meant for all mankind, then all mankind would have had it from beginning rather than a conscience which is subject to the morals of the time and place. For example one's conscience wouldn't prick if it was the acceptable tradition to have sex with siblings.

Your sentiments make "perfect" sense and god is wicked!! from a secular point of view, but alas, god is not secular. He is not a "man" of the majority but chooses a minority to reveal his ways and privileges to. Yes I say it again: "HE IS MEAN!!!". But what can you do? He is god and his laws are absolute. I'm only glad that I'm one of the few who have this privilege(with it's difficulties and responsibilities) to know him. I must divorce myself of all human sentiments.

And when I say god is for all, it means that he chooses people regardless of race, sex, ethnicity, etc. Human laws may evolve, but god's remain constant.

Yet his judgments are righteous in that he judges everybody according to his/her conscience. Note that conscience does not mean convenience. He would not hold an atheist to christian standards, nor a moslem, Buddhist, etc, people who preach otherwise simply do not understand god and that is majority of humanity today, yes including our mainstream churches. People who glory in numbers and crowds(like they do in our "churches" today) have absolutely no understanding of god. When churches seek to appeal to popular culture in opposition to spiritual principles, then they have absolutely no understanding of god.

Kay 17: If God granted man freewill why did he thereafter create commands?

where exactly did god give "free will" as you put it? Did he not say: "if you keep my laws blahblahblah..", then "so and so" will happen? "And if you disobey my laws blahblahblah..", then "so and so" will happen? If the freedom to choose between these two is what you mean by freewill, then you are correct.

okeyxyz:

Your sentiments make "perfect" sense and god is wicked!! from a secular point of view, but alas, god is not secular. He is not a "man" of the majority but chooses a minority to reveal his ways and privileges to. Yes I say it again: "HE IS MEAN!!!". But what can you do? He is god and his laws are absolute. I'm only glad that I'm one of the few who have this privilege(with it's difficulties and responsibilities) to know him. I must divorce myself of all human sentiments.

OK. Good to know. So in summary God created humans in a particular way then would punish them for being "human"? or as you put it having human sentiments. About choosing a minority. God then created the majority just to punish them? That doesn't seem too God-ey to me. It sounds more Satan-ey. When you say God is mean, God says He is Love and just and blah blah blah. So are you talking about the christian God?

okeyxyz:
And when I say god is for all, it means that he chooses people regardless of race, sex, ethnicity, etc. Human laws may evolve, but god's remain constant.

No laws have evolved more than God's laws from a biblical point of view

okeyxyz:
Yet his judgments are righteous in that he judges everybody according to his/her conscience . Note that conscience does not mean convenience. He would not hold an atheist to christian standards, nor a moslem, Buddhist, etc, people who preach otherwise simply do not understand god and that is majority of humanity today, yes including our mainstream churches. People who glory in numbers and crowds(like they do in our "churches" today) have absolutely no understanding of god. When churches seek to appeal to popular culture in opposition to spiritual principles, then they have absolutely no understanding of god.

That isn't the standard the bible says God judges people on. Anybody who doesn't accept Jesus and follows all God's laws and some other things are going to eternal torment. Nothing to do with conscience

Affiliated:
OK. Good to know. So in summary God created humans in a particular way then would punish them for being "human"? or as you put it having human sentiments. About choosing a minority. God then created the majority just to punish them? That doesn't seem too God-ey to me. It sounds more Satan-ey. When you say God is mean, God says He is Love and just and blah blah blah. So are you talking about the christian God?

What can I say??

No laws have evolved more than God's laws from a biblical point of view

More than evolved, the laws you refer to have been totally and absolutely abolished!!

That isn't the standard the bible says God judges people on. Anybody who doesn't accept Jesus and follows all God's laws and some other things are going to eternal torment. Nothing to do with conscience

A common mistake. Paul, Peter and the rest of the apostles wrote letters to fellow christians, commanding them on doctrine. Now today's christians want to impose these doctrines on non-christians.

okeyxyz:

What can I say??

More than evolved, the laws you refer to have been totally and absolutely abolished!!

A common mistake. Paul, Peter and the rest of the apostles wrote letters to fellow christians, commanding them on doctrine. Now today's christians want to impose these doctrines on non-christians.

So what you are saying is that you have your own brand of Christianity? Lol. Interesting

Greatgenius I see you

Affiliated:

The subject matter at hand is freewill and not freedom. Read the initial post again

freedom and free will are one and the same. just diffrent words. freedom is choice. choice or free will is freedom

Kay 17: If God granted man freewill why did he thereafter create commands?

God gave no commands to no one. only free will.

engrtee: There is nothing like absolute freedom

why do you say so

Affiliated:

Greatgenius I see you

lol interesting thread so i had to grace my presence

OK. Everyone should pause and take a moment to visit 1Godfather's website http://www.gfpanorama.com/

Its absolutely fascinating

okeyxyz:

where exactly did god give "free will" as you put it? Did he not say: "if you keep my laws blahblahblah..", then "so and so" will happen? "And if you disobey my laws blahblahblah..", then "so and so" will happen? If the freedom to choose between these two is what you mean by freewill, then you are correct.

However, everything changes if commands are followed by punitive measures, then free will is deliberately and intently diminished, because punishment is accompanied by an intention to enforce compilance.

Its different from deliberately jumping off a cliff

greatgenius: freedom and free will are one and the same. just diffrent words. freedom is choice. choice or free will is freedom

God gave no commands to no one. only free will.

This will contradict the concept of Sin. And the accounts of the Bible as a lawgiver. The 10 commandments and the Mosaic laws.

okeyxyz:

where exactly did god give "free will" as you put it? Did he not say: "if you keep my laws [/b]blahblahblah..", then "so and so" will happen? "And if you [b]disobey my laws blahblahblah..", then "so and so" will happen? If the freedom to choose between these two is what you mean by freewill, then you are correct.

God did not give no commmands to anyone. you have or should i say others have done it for you. the rules or laws of the universe are not commands.. you cannot deem God to have unconditional love and at the same time see her as having conditional love. he is either one or the other.

what you have deemed as God "punishing" you are just the lwas of nature at work. the laws of casuse and effect.

Kay 17:

This will contradict the concept of Sin. And the accounts of the Bible as a lawgiver. The 10 commandments and the Mosaic laws.

what is sin..sin simply means missing the mark nothing more nothing less..there is also no such thing as the 10 commandments

*Grabbing popcorn and drink*

Affiliated: Many religions justify God ultimately sending almost all of mankind to an eternal punishment that our most evil minds cannot even comprehend.
The basis for this justification is that God gave us freewill and we didn't choose Him.
Aside from the pettiness and jealously that statement portrays, did God really give us freewill?
Looking at it from an unbiased perspective, I was born on this earth without being given a choice. If there was freewill, I should have been able to choose if i wanted to exist or not. But once I can make that choice, then I already exist.
In essence I was not free to make that choice so religion cannot subsequently claim that humans have freewill.

We only have partial freewill from a religious point of view

1) The first sentence of this post is unnecessarily broad and therefore empirically false. First, of the thousands of religions or religious beliefs out there, only a handful (3 to be precise) are MONOTHEISTIC. This fact invalidates the idea that many or even a sizable proportion of religious beliefs have a clearly defined position on this matter. Secondly, in Christianity, it is understood that while God is absolutely sovereign and has the power to cast a sinning soul to hell, it is not his wish for any soul to separated from him in the end. Therefore having invested humans with free-will, or to put it another way, having made humans free moral agents, we must thus bear the pre-specified consequences of our rational decisions and actions. On this view, God doesn't so much as send people to hell as it is the case that people who INTENTIONALLY and CONSCIOUSLY reject God and his prescribed blueprint for daily living have on their own chosen to separate themselves from God. A loving father may say to a young child "I strongly encourage you not to play with fire. I forbid you from sticking your finger into an open flame". To the child, this is a commandment from the father. However, the child has freewill and may choose entirely on his own to obey or disobey his father. If he disobeys his father and eventually burns his finger, or worse sets the house on fire in his father's absence, he has no rational grounds upon which to decry the consequence of his actions. The choice was there; he freely chose to disregard his father's commands, and has automatically reaped the consequence.

2) It is extremely irrational or at best laughably idiotic to posit that freewill must not exist because you were not given a choice as to whether you would be born or not. What sort of unthinking objection is this to the idea of freewill? Some of you atheists just blather on without really thinking about what you might be saying. Pray tell, how can you be given a choice as to whether you would be born or not? To whom would this choice be presented to? Isn't it even clear to all and sundry that for any choice to be presented to you in a matter, YOU must at least first of all be here for the choice to be given to you? You cannot have any say as to whether you would be born or not. That decision was made by your parents. Having been born however, you possess as a free moral and rational agent the ability to make your own choices when you are confronted with moral situations. If you claim to not have this free-will, you do not caricature the idea of God or of theism; indeed you would merely be insulting yourself as you immediately mark yourself out to be something slightly less than fully human.

3)You may need to explain what you mean by "partial free-will". My guess is that when this is explored, it may turn out to be that what you derogatorily refer to as "partial freewill" is what most people understand free-will to mean. I'm inclined to think that when it comes to free-will, our freely willed actions are total and complete. I do not see freely willed actions as susceptible to minute divisions therefore notions like "half freewill", or "partial freewill" are patently misleading.

the concept of sin has been exaggerated and misunderstood. for instance one has sinned when they say they are trying to go to say new york from new jersey but instead ends up in Atlanta. thats what sin is. missing the mark. are you going to punish yourself for being in atlanta?

understand that God has given you all the tools of life to live it as you choose. he does not care what you do with your life just as a mother does not care for what her children play when she sends them out to play. playng hide and seek or tug of war does not matter to her one bit. now she will hope that they do not get hurt but what they play does not matter to her.

Affiliated:

Thanks for the blog plug up there, but honestly, I have not been faithful to my blog like I really should be. I don't think I have written anything spectacularly interesting lately. I just may start to write more on Religious, Science, Philosophy issues even though I realize that not too many people seem to be interested in these matters.

If I may be bold, I'd say that a paradoxical relationship has not successfully been established between Free-will and Religion. That is an assertion that deserves to be fleshed out in greater detail, and sadly, it hasn't. When an effort is made to that end, then we can be better positioned to understand the argument. Are the people claiming to see this paradox arguing that one proscribes or prohibits the other? If they are, I'd like to see this argued out more conclusively. If not, what exactly is the Freewill-Religion paradox?

I'm pleasantly surprised as well. Even that damned heathen okey is behaving himself, though he refuses to bow to his superior atheist and agnostic overlords, and may even have some points, however tenuous.

DANCE OKEY, DANCE!!!

Sorry, I'll leave now...

1Godfather: If I may be bold, I'd say that a paradoxical relationship has not successfully been established between Free-will and Religion. That is an assertion that deserves to be fleshed out in greater detail, and sadly, it hasn't. When an effort is made to that end, then we can be better positioned to understand the argument. Are the people claiming to see this paradox arguing that one proscribes or prohibits the other? If they are, I'd like to see this argued out more conclusively. If not, what exactly is the Freewill-Religion paradox?

This, more or else, may be justifiable. Is there a false dillema? I don't think so personally, but the nature of the problem may be more nuanced...

wiegraf: I'm pleasantly surprised as well. Even that damned heathen okey is behaving himself, though he refuses to bow to his superior atheist and agnostic overlords, and may even have some points, however tenuous.

DANCE OKEY, DANCE!!!

Sorry, I'll leave now...

I think he's doing well. Go okey, go!!!

Reyginus: I think he's doing well. Go okey, go!!!

Very well, honesty is all we ask for, not word redefinitions... God is mean, simple and short.. Then let's understand why he's mean...

Hw ya end btw?

@weigraf: I dey see u...

musKeeto:
Very well, honesty is all we ask for, not word redefinitions... God is mean, simple and short.. Then let's understand why he's mean...

Hw ya end btw?

@weigraf: I dey see u...

I had a very busy day.
I'm not home with debates this season.

Reyginus: I had a very busy day.
I'm not home with debates this season.

All d best with whatever you're working on.. Hope say we go still dey see u around sha...

musKeeto:
Very well, honesty is all we ask for, not word redefinitions... God is mean, simple and short.. Then let's understand why he's mean...

Hw ya end btw?

@weigraf: I dey see u...

Not that I'll ever admit that, but my friend here next to me thinks he's doing decently.

musKeeto:
All d best with whatever you're working on.. Hope say we go still dey see u around sha...

Ofcourse. I will always be peeping.B-)

Kay 17:

However, everything changes if commands are followed by punitive measures, then free will is deliberately and intently diminished, because punishment is accompanied by an intention to enforce compilance.

Its different from deliberately jumping off a cliff

This is good. I should pay more attention

OK. to 1Godfather. I am the original poster and I'll try to briefly address all the issues you raised.

1. All of the religions believe in God[s] as religion is the service of God[s] and even the religions that believe in many Gods all have a head God. Now many religions have the concept of this punishment by the Head God. I think my bad was saying God rather than God[s]

2. On Christianity God is believed to have created everything that exist including all possibilities. Therefore sending people to Hell and people choosing Hell are two different things. You paint the picture of people choosing Hell as if God had no hand in it and can't do anything about it when He was the one that set the system up. Based on Christian logic, it is God's wish for many souls to be separated from Him and that's why He structured the system so

3.

1Godfather:
Pray tell, how can you be given a choice as to whether you would be born or not? To whom would this choice be presented to? Isn't it even clear to all and sundry that for any choice to be presented to you in a matter, YOU must at least first of all be here for the choice to be given to you?

Exactly. That's why I said its a paradox as one cannot have free will in that regards. You later go on to say that man has total and complete free will but I'm saying that's not the case since man didn't have free will from beginning [The choice to exist or not] So it is impossible for man to have total and complete free will.

Finally.
Paradox: An argument that apparently derives self-contradictory conclusions by valid deduction from acceptable premises

Free will: 1 : voluntary choice or decision *I do this of my own free will*
2 : freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention

Merriam Webster dictionary

Kay 17:

However, everything changes if commands are followed by punitive measures, then free will is deliberately and intently diminished, because punishment is accompanied by an intention to enforce compilance.

Its different from deliberately jumping off a cliff

Freewill - and this definitely needs clear emphasis - does not rise or fall on whether there is punishment or reward for a purportedly freely willed action. In other words, any freely willed or freely executed action is completely independent of the consequences for said actions. Actions do not lose the quality of their being freely executed merely because there may be punishment or reward for them. I suspect a serious conflation is going on here. To counter the idea of freewill is not (as you seem to be thinking) to suggest that people may have strong disinclination to refuse a prescribed action because of some possible negative consequence - it is quite plainly to suggest that people are automata or robots and have no say or control over their actions; it is to suggest that questions of morality are about as involuntary as the body's autonomic processes like heartbeat, digestion, respiratory rate etc. As a matter of fact, in daily life we see that people are in fact capable of refusing to comply with some directive despite any accompanying promise of reward or punishment. Such refusal is only possible if people are free moral agents and not genetically pre-programmed automata.

Affiliated: OK. to 1Godfather. I am the original poster and I'll try to briefly address all the issues you raised.

2. On Christianity God is believed to have created everything that exist including all possibilities. Therefore sending people to Hell and people choosing Hell are two different things. You paint the picture of people choosing Hell as if God had no hand in it and can't do anything about it when He was the one that set the system up. Based on Christian logic, it is God's wish for many souls to be separated from Him and that's why He structured the system so

1)Once again, the Christian concept of hell is that it is some place of eternal separation from God's loving and warm presence, reserved for those who have voluntarily rejected God. Such persons have of their own freewill decided that they do not want God, and therefore have legitimately marked themselves out for separation from the God they have vehemently opposed and rejected. This really doesn't require much mentation on anyone's part to see how that any rebellious entity who decides NOT to abide by the dictates of a society may in a short while be removed from that society by incarceration. God does not delight in the death or loss of anyone - he is not a sadistic entity that has created a torture chamber for people. But in his capacity as creator and God, he has set forth his own rules for his own creation and built into the equation consequences for the deeds and actions of men. The actions or lifestyle that aperson ultimately lives is in a sense the person's own assent or disagreement with the dictates of this divine order and thus these actions will in the end result in happiness for some as they are united with the fountain of all joy and happiness , or sorrow and damnation for some as they are separated from that same fountain of happiness. It is literally too simple a point that should be grasped immediately. I say it is his own universe and thus his own rules. You are perfectly free to counter that you do not concede the point that the universe is his or that he even exists in the first place. You would be arguing honestly if you were to do this. But what you cannot however do is to argue with his own rules claiming that his rules somehow circumscribed your freewill. That will not fly.

2) You may need to reconsider what you are saying. There is NO SENSIBLE way of saying that you could be presented a CHOICE as to whether you should be born or not. Forget the point you think you just made and try to understand what I just said to you. You do not have a say in the issue of whether you would be born or not - that is just the plain truth. Freewill, or at least the principle which we are considering, operates only when we are appropriately in the domain of existing, sentient and rational creatures. What sense does it make to speak of the freewill that a yet-to-be-conceived baby has? None, I guarantee you. Therefore, you cannot shirk the demands of accountability for your freely willed actions merely by pleading that if you were given a choice, you would have chosen not to be born in the first place. That is just one choice you cannot ever get to make.

1Godfather:

1) Once again, the Christian concept of hell is that it is some place of eternal separation from God's loving and warm presence, reserved for those who have voluntarily rejected God.

God does not delight in the death or loss of anyone - he is not a sadistic entity that has created a torture chamber for people.

The Christian concept of Hell is not only a place of separation it is a torture chamber for people. I don't know which concept of Hell you talk of but I'll be quoting the bible's description of hell in my next post

1Godfather:
2) You may need to reconsider what you are saying. There is NO SENSIBLE way of saying that you could be presented a CHOICE as to whether you should be born or not.

Freewill, or at least the principle which we are considering, operates only when we are appropriately in the domain of existing, sentient and rational creatures.

Once again you are making my point for me. In the christian idea people like me shall be subjected to eternal torture. It definitely isn't my physical body that would experience this torture, it is my Soul or Spirit [Anyone]
My Soul or Spirit is supposedly eternal.
So once again, what I'm saying is 1. There is NO SENSIBLE way of saying that you could be presented a CHOICE as to whether you should be born or not 2. I did not have free will in that matter 3. I do not have total and complete free will

I said I'll be on my way, and really should...
Also, I should pay attention

1Godfather:

1) The first sentence of this post is unnecessarily broad and therefore empirically false. First, of the thousands of religions or religious beliefs out there, only a handful (3 to be precise) are MONOTHEISTIC. This fact invalidates the idea that many or even a sizable proportion of religious beliefs have a clearly defined position on this matter. Secondly, in Christianity, it is understood that while God is absolutely sovereign and has the power to cast a sinning soul to hell, it is not his wish for any soul to separated from him in the end. Therefore having invested humans with free-will, or to put it another way, having made humans free moral agents, we must thus bear the pre-specified consequences of our rational decisions and actions. On this view, God doesn't so much as send people to hell as it is the case that people who INTENTIONALLY and CONSCIOUSLY reject God and his prescribed blueprint for daily living have on their own chosen to separate themselves from God. A loving father may say to a young child "I strongly encourage you not to play with fire. I forbid you from sticking your finger into an open flame". To the child, this is a commandment from the father. However, the child has freewill and may choose entirely on his own to obey or disobey his father. If he disobeys his father and eventually burns his finger, or worse sets the house on fire in his father's absence, he has no rational grounds upon which to decry the consequence of his actions. The choice was there; he freely chose to disregard his father's commands, and has automatically reaped the consequence.

There are obviously more than 3 monotheistic faiths, the world isn't composed solely of judeo xtians, yes? And that's besides the point, the point is they usually dictate some sort of reward and punishment system, it need not be everlasting hell. This contradicts the notion of freedom, even if not free will directly. If you make a program with sentient ai and dictate to them what they can and cannot do, even if free will were genuine (ie determinism played no part in their decisions, highly unlikely, impossible probably, but we can ignore that) you are still interfering with their choice. You are telling them what they can and cannot do rather than letting them evolve naturally, that is clearly interfering with their freedom.

His concern is valid, was he consulted before being brought into life then told to follow this covenant? No. Created yet or no, he was forced against his will, simple. He might come to later decide to comply with the laws, but so long as he was not consulted, it was done against his will. At the very least omnipotent could have asked his consciousness if he were willing to comply, yes? Or is that impossible for an omnipotent as well? (Note though the notion of omniscience and free will existing in the same universe is utter nonsense, but we can ignore that as well)

Even in today's societies, democracies exist. The people can collectively decide to make changes, individual rights are respected. If a person isn't happy with the society he lives in and has the means he can opt out by simply moving somewhere more suitable for him. Heck, he could move off to some no man's land if he were brave enough to take on the elements alone. Governments that don't allow these freedoms are considered autocratic and less free, with good reason. And yes, if it were possible, democracies would ask the unborn if they wanted to join their society, it isn't by force. In fact, if you wanted to join many societies, they would set criteria for you to meet and make it clear that by your joining they're society, you are now agreeing to live by their laws. In other words you make the very conscious decision to accept they're terms, they don't hold a gun to your head and say "sign these papers or die!".

So note, democracies aren't some supernatural omnipotent, they obviously do not have the option of asking you anything before conception, yes? However, free societies will give you the ability to opt out if you wish, and they won't hold a gun to your head while doing so. Religions? Not so much. Who do you think built hell (or whatever punishment)?

We are not all children, I did not ask to be born, I therefore do not owe any potential god anything. If chimps became conscious in the same way we are today and we continued to treat them like property what would be doing would amount to this; slavery. You can't really say slaves have choices, do you?

Tldr; Being a sentient I should have the option of not entering a covenant with any god, yet they usually don't give you this option willingly. They tend to clearly indicate they will actively punish you for not joining, that is no true choice at all. It's the same as asking someone to obey at gun point.

1Godfather:
2) It is extremely irrational or at best laughably idiotic to posit that freewill must not exist because you were not given a choice as to whether you would be born or not. What sort of unthinking objection is this to the idea of freewill? Some of you atheists just blather on without really thinking about what you might be saying. Pray tell, how can you be given a choice as to whether you would be born or not? To whom would this choice be presented to? Isn't it even clear to all and sundry that for any choice to be presented to you in a matter, YOU must at least first of all be here for the choice to be given to you? You cannot have any say as to whether you would be born or not. That decision was made by your parents. Having been born however, you possess as a free moral and rational agent the ability to make your own choices when you are confronted with moral situations. If you claim to not have this free-will, you do not caricature the idea of God or of theism; indeed you would merely be insulting yourself as you immediately mark yourself out to be something slightly less than fully human.

Above. Not true choice

1Godfather:
3)You may need to explain what you mean by "partial free-will". My guess is that when this is explored, it may turn out to be that what you derogatorily refer to as "partial freewill" is what most people understand free-will to mean. I'm inclined to think that when it comes to free-will, our freely willed actions are total and complete. I do not see freely willed actions as susceptible to minute divisions therefore notions like "half freewill", or "partial freewill" are patently misleading.

Above, not really read or paying attention (oops) but he probably means the extortion involved.

^Thank you

1Godfather:

Freewill - and this definitely needs clear emphasis - does not rise or fall on whether there is punishment or reward for a purportedly freely willed action. In other words, any freely willed or freely executed action is completely independent of the consequences for said actions. Actions do not lose the quality of their being freely executed merely because there may be punishment or reward for them. I suspect a serious conflation is going on here. To counter the idea of freewill is not (as you seem to be thinking) to suggest that people may have strong disinclination to refuse a prescribed action because of some possible negative consequence - it is quite plainly to suggest that people are automata or robots and have no say or control over their actions; it is to suggest that questions of morality are about as involuntary as the body's autonomic processes like heartbeat, digestion, respiratory rate etc. As a matter of fact, in daily life we see that people are in fact capable of refusing to comply with some directive despite any accompanying promise of reward or punishment. Such refusal is only possible if people are free moral agents and not genetically pre-programmed automata.

@greatgeniIus

Sin is simply disobedience to God's activated will (Commands). Its a contravention of instructions from God. To deny God's commands and rules is to deny sin.

Mr Godfather

Commands operate with a disregard for free will, commands preempt the free agent and EXPECT an automated response in line with stimulus either reward or punishment. To claim God grants and thereafter issues a Command, implies God immediately withdrew the free will at the issuance of the command or else a conflict evolves.

Its impossible to believe rewards and punishments are ineffective at a free agent, with our modern knowledge on psychology; positive reinforcement, conditioning play a big role our psychological setup. We impulsively avoid pain. We seek out pain to gain greater pleasure. Our bodies and minds are pre-tuned.

Hence to claim our free will is outside the influence of the consequence of our actions, is ridiculous.