Starboy

Does anyone know if the "free will" claim is a modern adaptation created by adherents in order fool recruits into ignoring the obvious slave orientation of Christianity?

Starboy

excreationist

I know. I wrote that in brackets just in case you didn't know. I thought your statement of "if only people would continue reading the Bible for just a single verse after the ones they find significant" may mean that you thought I was a believer who was defending the faith while leaving out important stuff. (Sometimes people suspect I'm a believer...)
The reason why I only quoted half of that verse was because the second half didn't seem directly relevant as far as our relationship with God is concerned.

Maybe the first bit about being completely devoted to God is just a thing to strive towards but God doesn't necessarily expect you to do it competely in order for you to be saved...
Like Matthew 5:48 - "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."
Also, part of obeying Jesus (out of love) would involve loving others...
e.g. he told his disciples
John 13:34 - "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
John 15:12 - "My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."
In my reply to beastmaster I talk about exactly how much Jesus loves people - compared to his (probable) love for God.

Another way of looking at the problem is this.... let's say the first commandment was "give all your money to God according to his will" - and the second commandment was "give equal amounts of money to yourself and other people"...
If God more or less says "use some of your money for yourself and others" then giving some money to others due to this command involves following God's will as to where the money goes. And doing things for others can sometimes be seen as doing things for God....
This is similar to:
Matthew 25:35-40:
On the other hand....
Matthew 25:41-46
So people can serve God by serving others.... and serve God (out of love) by loving others... (see Jesus's new commandment to his disciples, mentioned earlier)

Ojuice5001

I believe this as well. It seems like a good way to understand myself and the people I know. Not only do I not think I have free will, I would rather not have it if I had a choice.

excreationist

I think "free will" can mean making choices that no-one can predict... so if God doesn't know what you are going to do, you have "free will".
According to these lists of apparent Bible contradictions, God mightn't see or know all things - or require people to be tested in order for him to see what is in people's hearts.
Does God know what is in everyone's heart?
Does God know and see everything?
Also, Genesis 6:6 (The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain) suggests that this was unexpected - i.e. God didn't know what people were going to do and so they could be considered to have "free will". (I think the reason why we *seem* to have "free will" is simply due to not being able to completely predict all of our future decisions)

About the original post:
God is apparently all-powerful... he could make his plans and prophecies come true using brute force rather than necessarily having the ability to see into the future.

(Other apparent contradictions that may be related to this thread:
Does God want some to go to hell?
Does God love everyone?)

Barcode

Of course they would be acting differently -- people who place God at the center of absolutely everything are probably candidates for the local lunatic asylum. Or maybe they'll run off and become a Nun or whatever.

If acting differently means they are more selfish because they forget to focus on other people, then yes, I'll concede your point.

I suppose being loved by God has a powerful psychological appeal and tends to lead one to think ordinary humans cannot measure up.

Jamie_L

What makes this analogy feel right is that you did not create the apples. Imagine now, however, that you have the ability to make perfect apples and imperfect apples. If you make a world with a few perfect apples and thousands of imperfect apples, will the perfect apples feel particularly special? Will there be anything particularly special about your collection of perfect apples after you sort out the bad ones? It seems to me like you will have just spend a lot of unnecessary work to create a collection of perfect apples, when you could have skipped making the imperfect ones, skipped the sorting process, and just started with the perfect apple collection.
This makes somewhat more sense. Going back to your list of reasons why God wants us to love him, this seems to fit with wanting to feel important. God will feel less important if he knows we are programmed to love him. He must give us the opportunity to hate him.

But what does that mean? In order to have the opportunity to hate him, we must have no predisposed position. When presented with the notion of whether or not to love God, we must not feel incentive one way or the other. If we have incentive to love him, then that is effectively hardwiring. Likewise if we have no incentive to love him. So, in order to be "free" to chose love or hate, we must essentially have no good reason to do one or the other. This leaves us with no internal desire to guide the choice, resulting in an essentially random choice.

So, instead of programming computers to generate a 1 instead of a 0, God uses a random number generator, and keeps only those computers that come up 1. Is God going to feel more special because 1 came up randomly?

Jamie

excreationist

Jamie_L:
I've also responded to your Is freely-chosen love better than hardwired love? thread.

I think to make this analogy apply to humans properly, it would involve the apples growing on a tree... you'd see little blossoms(?) then see little apples appear... and gradually you'd be able to see how the apples turn out. And some might fall off the tree early or get eaten by insects or birds and so lose their chance at perfection. With humans, we'd start as foetuses that aren't really capable of loving specific things (like God) and gradually they'd be born and learn about God and maybe love him - or not. And their love for him would often vary over time depending on their mood or whatever.

Like I said, the apples have to grow on a tree... you don't make perfect and imperfect apples out of thin air. (Just like God doesn't make mature adults out of thin air - well except for Adam and Eve)

Not necessarily... we don't necessarily need to have a 50% chance either way... some people could have a 80% chance of loving God, some could have a 20% chance - depending on their upbringing, genetics, mood, etc... and their disposition could change over time if the personalities of the people change a bit.

As I said, you can have a predisposition about it... and then God can blame you for your choice. (If you acted totally randomly then he wouldn't be very justified in blaming you... or maybe he would be...) And besides blaming those who don't love him enough, he can rejoice in those who do...

Here's a kind of related Bible passage again:
Matt 18:12b-13 - ".....If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off."