Ouroboros Posted November 4, 2010 Share Posted November 4, 2010 End3, are you serious? Free will ends in Heaven? My impression from LNC and Rayskidude is that free will continues, but God makes sure no one wants to use their free will to sin. The will is free but still changed somehow. So which one is it? Why would I want to go to Heaven if Christians can't even give a straight answer to what Heaven is? You would like me to speculate on Heaven? You could if you wanted to, but it still would only be one person's speculation. If you would look at it as a sales offering, the specifics of the product can be very important for the customer to make a good choice. Is Christianity even a good choice or "product" if it can't be properly agreed upon by the many Christians? Some Christians believe free will still will exist unchanged in Heaven, and some do not. Which is it? And can one single view be clearly proven to a point where there is no doubt that this is the view all Christians should have? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest end3 Posted November 4, 2010 Share Posted November 4, 2010 If you would look at it as a sales offering, the specifics of the product can be very important for the customer to make a good choice. Is Christianity even a good choice or "product" if it can't be properly agreed upon by the many Christians? Some Christians believe free will still will exist unchanged in Heaven, and some do not. Which is it? And can one single view be clearly proven to a point where there is no doubt that this is the view all Christians should have? How can it be agreed upon if we all have different experience? Heck, we can't even agree that if the sign says "SALE", that there is truly a sale. Good question, you have to evaluate something common between both sides and common to experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted November 4, 2010 Share Posted November 4, 2010 How can it be agreed upon if we all have different experience? Do you mean that Heaven only exists as an experience and not as a real place? Do you mean that everyone will have their own experience of Heaven? So some will have free will and some will not, depending on what they believed? Heck, we can't even agree that if the sign says "SALE", that there is truly a sale. Good question, you have to evaluate something common between both sides and common to experience. Right. But if Heaven is a real place, then Heaven is something that is objectively true, not just a subjective experience. Right? So objectively true and real would mean that only one kind of Heaven and there should be a consensus if free will exists there or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted November 4, 2010 Super Moderator Share Posted November 4, 2010 There are several places in the Bible that indicate there is no free will anyway when it comes to believing. There is free will in choosing whether to commit a particular act or not. That aside, logically, those who would make it to the Christian Heaven have ostensibly already given over their will to God. If you try to do God's will while you're alive, why wouldn't you continue to do so after getting into Heaven? It should be easier without the devil's temptations. Free will becomes moot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OnceConvinced Posted November 5, 2010 Share Posted November 5, 2010 So heaven has God limiting our free will so that evil can't exist there. Yet we are gloriously happy for ever and ever. God wouldn't be the one limiting IMO Leinad.....we would give it up. Why couldn't this be done before the fall, unless he wanted us to sin and plan on "rescuing" us later? I think it argues for humanity as a creation then being nothing more than "robots" made to worship God. LOL. So we would volunteer to be "robots" worshipping God? But for us unbelievers, we are being threatened. God is saying to us "either become my mindless zombie robot or burn in hell for all eternity". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oddbird1963 Posted November 5, 2010 Share Posted November 5, 2010 I think if there is going to be no sin in heaven, then free will has been obliterated. And none of the Christians have really given a coherent answer as to why, if god is satisfied to obliterate or modify free will in heaven, he could not have done that in the first place and enjoyed his little pet humans in their little garden playground and eliminated generation upon generation of unspeakable horror and suffering on the part of the creation he supposedly loves soooooooo much (John 3:16). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nightflight Posted November 5, 2010 Share Posted November 5, 2010 Children exhibit a better representation of loss of free will? Its a bad thing, right? And yet said children are rewarded with eternal bliss. Would that all humanity get such a deal. I believe that is what we are saying, that if we had no free will, we WOULD have a pass, but be robotic in a sense. Do children have a chance to exercise free will except by some stretch of the definition? And yet children do get a free pass, which is my point, that free will can't be all that important if some are allowed paradise without it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oddbird1963 Posted November 5, 2010 Share Posted November 5, 2010 Children exhibit a better representation of loss of free will? Its a bad thing, right? And yet said children are rewarded with eternal bliss. Would that all humanity get such a deal. I believe that is what we are saying, that if we had no free will, we WOULD have a pass, but be robotic in a sense. Do children have a chance to exercise free will except by some stretch of the definition? And yet children do get a free pass, which is my point, that free will can't be all that important if some are allowed paradise without it. It certainly means that the excuse "god wants us to freely choose him" is a bogus answer as to why the christian god, if he existed, allows so much suffering and pain in the world. Whatever god does to make heaven a place full of people who freely worship him yet do not disobey him could and should have been done in the garden. I assume that in the Christian conception of things, god gets joy out of his people in the same way or a more full way in heaven than on earth. And on earth it is expected that people choose god of their own free will, otherwise god would get no satisfaction out of it. So, if that free will condition means that there must be the possibility of choosing evil over good and sin, death and suffering must exist then how can god get any joy out of his people in heaven? It's almost as if people become mummies or (there's that word again) robots in heaven. On earth god received great joy because people chose him. Now, it is not possible for them to sin. So, they are like preserved carcasses or androids that have been made to look like the people they were before they died. But, unlike the people they really are, they can no longer choose to sin. It's like an episode of the TV Show "Criminal Minds" I saw (or maybe it was from "The Dead Zone"). Looking for the perfect mate, this man would kidnap and operate on womens' brains with a drill in order to take away their will to resist. Sure, the man may get the behavior he wants out of a female, but the woman he would get as a result would be nothing more than an automaton. She would be no different than a wind up toy or a robot. So, if god has to drill a hole in our heads or limit our brain capacities (as with children) or take away all choices but good ones in order for heaven to be heaven, why didn't he do that to begin with? Because, obviously, he CAN take joy in that kind of free will deprived being. Or, if it is so important that at one point in time someone with free will chose him, why couldn't god have drilled a hole in Adam's and Eve's heads after they sinned the first time? Then, after Cain sinned his first sin, why couldn't he bring out the brain sucking vacuum cleaner? And the same thing for Abel. Surely he sinned at some point in his life. It seems like the best thing for everybody is to turn people in the automatons after at least their first sin. The point is this. If the christian god has compassion and if he is going to make humans into automatons eventually anyway, why not do it in such a way that millions upon millions of people won't have to starve, be beaten to death, hung, burned, sickened with plague, raped, tortured and sexually abused? No christian on this website or anywhere that I can find has ever given a coherent reason as to why in all the wisdom their god is said to possess his plan to preserve free will yet have a people to call his own has to be carried out at the cost of such miserable and humiliating suffering as has taken place on this blue planet. If God can tolerate no free will in heaven, then he could have tolerated it from the start. If there must have been free will at some point, then he can obliterate it much sooner as well. But he doesn't. That is why the thought of heaven, though an understandable wish is just a child's wish carried on into adulthood. I used to wish I could live in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory and drink chocolate milk out of the river running through the middle of it. But I outgrew that fanciful desire. Although, I must admit I catch myself thinking about it from time to time. And heaven is in the same category. We would all like to see suffering, death and sorrow end and our lives be stable. We would love for there to be no more war, conflict and emotional turmoil. So we dream. And, like all dreams, the dream of heaven is fraught with incoherence and inconsistencies. Unlike the dream of living with Umpa Loompa's and fizzes that make you fly, only a few have cast off that dream. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XcaliburGirl Posted November 13, 2010 Share Posted November 13, 2010 Oddbird, thanks for putting that so eloquently. Leinad, thanks for starting this thread. If God already knows (or appoints) who goes to heaven, then why not just put us all where we belong now? What's the point of playing out this silly game? Why hasn't the world ended yet? Does God need a certain amount of people to worship him before he just ends the whole charade? Why is there a physical earth with digestive systems and food and excrement and starvation? Why are we not all spirits or made of marshmallow? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deva Posted November 13, 2010 Share Posted November 13, 2010 [ It's almost as if people become mummies or (there's that word again) robots in heaven. On earth god received great joy because people chose him. Now, it is not possible for them to sin. So, they are like preserved carcasses or androids that have been made to look like the people they were before they died. But, unlike the people they really are, they can no longer choose to sin. It's like an episode of the TV Show "Criminal Minds" I saw (or maybe it was from "The Dead Zone"). Looking for the perfect mate, this man would kidnap and operate on womens' brains with a drill in order to take away their will to resist. Sure, the man may get the behavior he wants out of a female, but the woman he would get as a result would be nothing more than an automaton. She would be no different than a wind up toy or a robot. Agree. Its like Jeffrey Dahmer drilling holes in people's heads and pouring some acid in because it might make them willing slaves. It is that demented. Thank you for this post in its entirety oddbird. It was excellent. I really believe that most Christians do not think past the idea "I am going to meet my loved ones again in heaven." That makes them happy. Or the idea that simply the actual sight of their God will make them happy for all eternity. Really? For a zillion billion years? Indeed it is very problematic, the entire "free will" defense. So much in Christian apologetics hinges on something so flimsy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legion Posted November 14, 2010 Share Posted November 14, 2010 Yes, there is Free Will in heaven. You can choose between options 1, 2, and 3 and they are all good options. In heaven it's all good, yo. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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