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Well, the Bible says there is good and evil out there....as does I think every religion. But someone you think is wrong probably thinks they're right and you're wrong. But I don't think God (though my concept is different from yours) is here to give anyone free rides.....we have to deal with each situation as it comes to us.

At the end of the day, the only opinion that matters is God's. He will make the final decision on each and every one of us and I have faith he will do it the same way he has documented in the Bible. And if I am wrong, I'll end up going from ashes to ashes and not know any better or come back as something else in reincarnation and not remember my mistakes from the last life anyway. It is all good.

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Imagine a Father and child in a home. The father says that the child may leave at any time, but locks the child in. That is not free will. Evil entered the world by the child making a CHOICE to leave his Father's house. And the father is waiting and calling for that child to come home, as illistrated beautifuly in the parable of the Prodigal Son

Have you ever had a spouse or girlfriend who was unfaithful? Many people know what that is like. You find yourself flipping tables crying out "Why is she out there with him? Doesnt she know how much I love her and long to shelter her and love her?" That is a jealous love. The love of God is jealous in the same way. Would it be true love for a man to force an unfaithful wife to come back home and keep her there in chains? NO. Would it be love for God to keep us locked up in a room where we never actually make a choice to love him? NO. How can true love be illistrated in both circumstances? By laying ones life down to show her how much you love her and calling her back.

God can be described as a loving father who walks with his child down a busy street. He says "Dont run out in the road, you will get hurt. Dont run into anyones yard, you could get bitten. Walk with me on the straight and narrow, let me guide you and protect you" But most children dont stay with the Father, they run out into the road or into the yards and get hurt.

When Adam and Eve ate from the tree, the knolledge of good and evil entered their hearts and the world. Up until that moment they had only known good, which was the presence of God. That was the reality before the fall, now we live in the reality after the fall. How can you know what light is without knowing the darkness? How can you know what darkness is without knowing of the light?

The young man illistrated in the parable of the Prodigle Son was brought up in a good home with a loving father, yet the father the did not keep the son from making the choice to blow his inheritance on riotous living. What if the father had kept the son at home and not allowed him to venture into the darkness and make his own decisions? What would have happened? The son's curiousity and lust for the world that he had built up in his heart would have only increased and he would have become bitter against his father. The father let him go from the light into the darkness, and it was after that that the son realised the full extent of the darkness and the beauty and warmth of the light.

When he came home did the father curse him for his sins? NO. But rather "When he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry. But the older brother became angry over the fact that his sibling had failed and squandered his inheritance, and yet was welomed back with unconditional love and celebration, while he had served faithfully and had never asked for anything. The father came out to him and said " ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.’”

That is how God sees us. God is calling the prodigals to come home. He does not desire hell for anyone, but rather he is calling everyone home.

But just as the father walking the path allong the side of the road may have said to his child, Jesus said "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it."

That is a very eloquent argument. But through it you are still implying that a Gods actions are still constrained by the rules of Logic: If he is omnipotent they are not.

You refer to Adam and Eve, but was it not God who created the serpent and the tree and all the rest. If he is omnipotent, he is also omniscient, so he knew what was going to happen. Therefore he could have created a world, in which evil was not nessescary.

In our current world, free will may be more important than the eradication of evil. But it was God who created this set of circumstances. He could of created a world where free will didn't exist, or a world where no value was placed upon free will. From our current set of circumstances, this view is highly unattractive.

But consider the myth of sysiphus. Sysiphus pushes a rock up a hill endlessly, when he reaches the top he must start again. This obviously sounds like hell, he has no choice. However consider that sysiphus knows nothing else. To him pushing the rock up the hill is his goal in life, his entire being is devoted to pushing this rock up the hill. In other words he has no knowledge of free will. In this case, is it such a bad life.

If humans had no free will, but they also had no knowledge of the concept of free will then we would not desire it. Therefore it would be possible for evil not to exist.

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At the end of the day, the only opinion that matters is God's. He will make the final decision on each and every one of us and I have faith he will do it the same way he has documented in the Bible

That may be true, but as an agnostic, I consider it my right to question the morality and viabiltity of any concept of God. Therefore it is important for me to be engaged in these sorts of discussions.

While I understand and respect your right and desire to question God and his viability and morality, I am not as tempted to to do, as I find it akin to the pot looking up at the potter and asking "Why did you make me this way? Why didn't you do this part a different way?"

With free will, we certainly have a right to question, but I, the pot, will never believe that I have more knowledge than the potter. Nor will I challenge the potter's methods, as without him I would not exist in the first place. He is more than my earthly father (who also would not exist without him). He is everyone's father and as such, deserves respect in my estimation. Sending his son as a sacrrifice for us, meaningless pots, just drives the point home that he wants and knows what is best for us, and is pained when we choose a different path.

I do wish you luck with your questioning and your search. God leaves the door open for everyone all of the time and it will be open for you when/if you decide to step through it by accepting his word.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by MarkhomAlert:


With free will, we certainly have a right to question, but I, the pot, will never believe that I have more knowledge than the potter. Nor will I challenge the potter's methods, as without him I would not exist in the first place. He is more than my earthly father (who also would not exist without him). He is everyone's father and as such, deserves respect in my estimation. Sending his son as a sacrrifice for us, meaningless pots, just drives the point home that he wants and knows what is best for us, and is pained when we choose a different path.

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I disagree Mark... IF there is a creator the creator has given men the free will to seek or not to seek. If there is a creator the creator has placed a very strong desire to seek answers, and to seek the absolute truth. Anything less your just playing a game of religion.

The question is how badly One desires to seek the truth. Would an individual sacrifice everything he or she knows and even willing to sacrifice his own life to find the truth.

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Would an individual sacrifice everything he or she knows and even willing to sacrifice his own life to find the truth

Luckily, that is not necessary. God gave His son's life for us and there is no reason for us to sacrifice ours in return. What is necessary, however, is to give our life over to God in acknowledgement that he is the one who created us. To put ourselves on a level where we feel that God owes us something or that we get to question His word -- well, that is the height of egotism and, in my estimation, not the proper thing for a pot to be doing.

Considering out life here on earth is nothing but a blink of an eye compared to eternity, however, if giving of one's life was a requirement for salvation (whcih it is not), then that is a SMALL price to pay, wouldn't you agree?

well hell, I do not believe hell or heaven are literal places that exist, I do think they are on earth heaven or hell are places we enter into with the decisions we make however hell is thought of as a place that is undesirable I think hell like heaven was derived to implant fear into our lives which is not how I choose to live, when can break our life down and see that we do enter into heavenly stages and hell stages via our choices but is a hell stage actually a bad place to be for it is our own lack of knowledge and wisdom that leads us there, therefore it is a place of promise for we can only grow from and attain wisdom and knowledge from these so called wrong choices, I have completely gone of track i am sure, oh well thats my thoughts, :')

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well hell, I do not believe hell or heaven

If I may ask, what do you believe happens after you die?

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well hell, I do not believe hell or heaven are literal places that exist, I do think they are on earth heaven or hell are places we enter into with the decisions we make however hell is thought of as a place that is undesirable I think hell like heaven was derived to implant fear into our lives which is not how I choose to live, when can break our life down and see that we do enter into heavenly stages and hell stages via our choices but is a hell stage actually a bad place to be for it is our own lack of knowledge and wisdom that leads us there, therefore it is a place of promise for we can only grow from and attain wisdom and knowledge from these so called wrong choices, I have completely gone of track i am sure, oh well thats my thoughts, :')

That's a hell of a long sentence...... I know that for sure....

Mark, I'll answer your question, because I have the same thoughts on the matter.... I do not believe in a heaven or hell either, though I admit that it sounds comforting to think that there would be a place like heaven.

Simply put, I have no idea what happens when we die, but as I don't remember life before I was born, I don't really worry about it. At the end of the day, if I've spent my life trying to live decently, then I won't fret if I'm wrong on God, because if there is a God, I'm sure he'll understand that questioning is a natural process, and merits will mean more than words or pledges of loyalty. Afterall, if there is a lord almighty, he would have been responsible for the programming within my head that has caused me to look at the world with wonder and curiousity and to no doubt question the intentions of men and of religion as a whole.......

Who knows though, I could be wrong, but in the end, if there is a God, I think he'll be more understanding than we can comprehend. That's just my two cents.....

Fair enough. Thanks for your response. While we may not totally agree, I do respect your views and wish you the best through questioning and searching for the right answers (if there are any right answers to be had). I think God has a plan for each and every one of us and is happiest when we are able to fulfill it while using our free will in the process!

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"Why did you make me this way? Why didn't you do this part a different way?"

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While I understand and respect your right and desire to question God and his viability and morality, I am not as tempted to to do, as I find it akin to the pot looking up at the potter and asking "Why did you make me this way? Why didn't you do this part a different way?"

With free will, we certainly have a right to question, but I, the pot, will never believe that I have more knowledge than the potter. Nor will I challenge the potter's methods, as without him I would not exist in the first place. He is more than my earthly father (who also would not exist without him). He is everyone's father and as such, deserves respect in my estimation. Sending his son as a sacrrifice for us, meaningless pots, just drives the point home that he wants and knows what is best for us, and is pained when we choose a different path.

I do wish you luck with your questioning and your search. God leaves the door open for everyone all of the time and it will be open for you when/if you decide to step through it by accepting his word.

Look at it this way. In a sense you parents create you, because without them you wouldn't exist. Now I admire and respect my parents. However I certainly question t hem when I believe they are wrong. I am grateful to them for bringing me into this world, and for the fact that they love me, but that doesn't mean I am willing to sacrifice my independence.

And i suppose that is one of the major reasons I am not religious, I am never ready to sacrifice my independence of thought. And I think to do so is often very dangerous.

I think being egotistical is different. I don't claim to be always right. But even if Im never right, I still believe in my own right to think independently and ask questions

Truth is sticky. It's what we all seek yet we can never really know for sure.

Three things:

"My commitment is to truth as I see it every day, not to consistancy." -- Gandhi

"One man's savior is another man's lead boots." -- Chris in the Morning from Northern Exposure

"You carry heaven and hell with you." -- Sri Ramana Maharshi

Jet

Getting back to the what happens after you die question, I'd be interested in understanding what the "you" is first before I try to figure out what happens.

Any ideas?

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"My commitment is to truth as I see it every day, not to consistancy." -- Gandhi

Gandhi was the most politicaly correct being in the history of mankind...except when it came to bashing Christians. He is also a political figure so lets keep this about spirituality and leave the politics in chit-chat.

I just found this awesome quote:

"God comes to us in Jesus who is the way. We are like people who have fallen into a pit and in that fall have been injured. Our legs and our arms are broken. For anyone to lower a ladder into the pit and say, 'This is the only way out, climb it,' only adds to our desperation. But if the ladder is lowered not for us to climb out, but for one to climb down and lift our broken body into his arms, carrying us upwards and to safety -- that is good news indeed!"

That puts it pretty well. The religions built by the hand of man are based on works, man trying to get to God(which is impossible for the fallen man), while while Jesusism is about God trying to get to man.

Why does the fallen man refuse to be taken up out of the pit in the arms of the saviour? Well Jesus makes it very clear in John chapter 3: "And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed."

I would like to state that I am not arguing for "Christianity" as a religion. Religion is not the answer. Jesus essentially came to abolish religion, or as he said "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill". Pointing again to the fact that the law is really the ladder lowered to the fallen man who cannot climb up. The Cross is God climbing down that ladder to save the fallen man.

The word says "for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life". I would point you toward the Cross before any religion. This quote puts it well, "As Christians we do not believe in Christianity but in Christ. Christianity, as a complex of dogmatic teachings, liturgical rites and codes of behaviour, does not escape the ambivalence of our human, historical condition. As Karl Barth used to say, religion is always a shaky and relative thing: not religion as such, but the absolute Being to which it is directed is the true absolute."

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That is a very eloquent argument. But through it you are still implying that a Gods actions are still constrained by the rules of Logic: If he is omnipotent they are not.

Maybe I am not understanding your argument here. What is logic? The definition, according to some websight I googled, is "A branch of philosophy concerned with the distinction between correct and incorrect reasoning" So proper logic is correct reasoning. The correct reasoning, or logic, of God stands in opposition to human logic.

What do we want to do deep inside? We want to look after ourselves. We want to be served and praised. Jesus said that he "came not to be served, but to serve". We want to be first. Jesus said "If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all". We want to find ourselves. Jesus said "He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it".

Jesus said that you could sum up the entire Hebrew law in only two laws. 1:To love the lord God with all of your heart, mind, soul, and strength. 2: To love your neighbor as yourself. That kind of stuff is easy and fun to say, but try really living it out. It goes against the fallen nature, or "logic", of mankind.

In the back of my Bible I have written in big letters the word Gospel, or "Good News", upside down and backwards in both Hebrew and Greek, just to remind myself that I live by the backwards upsidedown Gospel. I want people to be baffled when they look at my life. I think the power of God shows up more in someones life when they live at complete odds with the world system, because that is what will happen when you start walking that path.

My point is that God does operate by a "Logic" but it is his logic and it is a logic of love and selflessness and servanthood, and it is despised by the fallen man. It goes against the lust of our flesh and it goes against the programming we see on TV and recieve at school.

You know what, we can discuss back and forth(and I love it), but we are never going to understand all of the mysteries of God. There is always going to be some doubt and there will always be questions. It is a matter of faith. Abraham was a man of faith and it was accounted to him as ritchiousness. The word says that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen...By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.

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"If he is omnipotent, he is also omniscient,"

The book of Hebrews says " For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account."

But we do not have to fear God, because:

"Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need."

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I'd be interested in understanding what the "you" is first before I try to figure out what happens.

Just for clarification, are you saying you need to figure out who/what "you" are? If not, please clarify. If so, please clarify

I'm not a very spiritual person, but I've enjoyed reading this discussion and so wanted to chime in.

The idea of Hell (and indeed, Heaven) has always troubled me. A little bit when one's final resting place is based on actions, a lot when it is based on faith or belief.

The reason is this:
I don't think faith can be compelled. Either by outside forces or by an individual himself.

No amount of badgering, cajoling, torturing or anything else can force someone else's faith on you.

Further, you can say and say and say again to yourself, "I believe that Jesus died for my sins and there is no way to the Father but through him" or "there is no God but God and Muhammed is his prophet" but you can't simply will a faith into existence. No matter how many times you say these things, deep down in your heart of hearts you will know that you don't (or do) believe them. You either have faith or you don't, and no amount of trying to force yourself into belief will change that.

And I really dislike the idea that one's eternal future depends on something beyond his or her control.

Perhaps this is a simplistic view? Perhaps there are those that build faith within themselves through sheer mental effort? Perhaps there are subtler ways that one's free will can create faith? Perhaps so, but this is the way it feels to me.

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And I really dislike the idea that one's eternal future depends on something beyond his or her control.

I would dislike that too. Matter of fact, it would strike me as patently unfair. But that is where you and I disagree. To say people do not have the ability or the will to accept Christ as their savior goes against the teachings of the Bible. To make a person's belief system the same as their gender or race just doesn't seem to make sense to me on a practical level (i.e. no choice but to accept it because it is already determined).

Thanks for your thoughts, though. No harm in disagreeing with one another if you can learn more about the other's ideas

It's not that I see a person's belief system as pre-determined, set in stone from birth. It's more that the roots of faith (or lack thereof) are so deep and complex that a simple effort of will is not enough to create a specific end result.

To my mind the prime reason that people become Hindus (or Muslims, or Christians, or atheists) isn't because they choose to out of their own free will. The prime reasons have to do with the circumstances of their birth, the influence of family, friends and society, and millions of other events in their lives.

For some people these conditions may align in such a way that they actually can choose to accept or reject a given faith. For others, the idea of faith will always seem foreign and unneccessary, no matter what choices they make. Still others will feel a light of faith within, but will be unshakeably certain that the answer can not be found within an organized religion and will spend long years making choices that simply "feel" right to them.

But I just can't conceive that all people have the potential to reach any particular faith simply through the excercise of their will.

I'm sure that much of this comes from my doubts about the nature of free will.
While I haven't (may never) reach a final conclusion, I suspect that free will is at best an ability to decide between choices that are presented by the universe (which may or may not include the choice to have a faith.) At worst (and I must admit, most likely in my mind) there is no free will and all history is a mixture of predetermination and randomness.

If the first of these is true, then not all people have the ability to determine their final resting place. If the second is true, no one does.

(Thanks in turn to you Markhom and to everyone else taking part in this discussion. While it may not change my mind it's certainly got me thinking about many interesting ideas that I hadn't considered recently or, in some cases, ever. )

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it's certainly got me thinking about many interesting ideas that I hadn't considered recently or, in some cases, ever. )

That is really cool. And while I do have my belief system that is important to me, I completely 100% agree with you that the concept and idea of "free will" is one that could take a lifetime (at the very least) to get one's head around. It has left me shaking my head more times than I care to admit!!!