Christians cling to free will, saying its one of god's greatest gifts to mankind. Or is it that man did not have free will until he fell from the Garden of Eden?

Regardless, we do in fact have the ability to do anything we want to within the realm of possibility. But just that simple statement limits free will.(another topic perhaps)

Does the bible go into any details about how a person is created now? Such as at which point the person actually has possesion of his soul and rights to free will? I will make some assumptions until someone clears this up for me.

Really, regardless of my above question, we are forced into existance. It is not like there is a line of unborn souls saying "Oooh Pick me Pick me." I know there is something about a Well of souls. Does god actually give the soul a choice of existing or not? Assuming an answer of no, I will continue.

Since, we were not presented with the issue of existing as a human or not at all, and were just born, this in itself seems to be a contradiction to free will.

And since mankind is now inherently evil thanks to Adam and Eve, or any of us if we were in there shoes, that means that to merely be born is to be born into sin. Since we 1) Did not ask to be born, 2) Certainly did not ask to be born into sin, I say that the very act of being born is a violation of free will the christian god is supposed to have given us.

Lemme review this mess. Ok, we are free willed creatures. We are born into sin, without having an intial choice between good and evil. Therefore, since God (or whomever) forces us into an evil existance, we do not have free will.

Trip with me for a sec. Lets say that God goes to the well of souls, or has an angel to handle it. Lets say this angel described the modern world, sin, gods love, etc, to you, and said "If you choose to be born, you will be born into a sinful, evil life and you will have to strive to get into gods favor. If you choose not to be born, you will cease to exist." Would you have chosen existance, or would you have chosen non existance?

My point here is that if we are supposed to be free willed individuals, why did we not get a choice on existance at all? I for one, assuming christianity is true, and those were the terms (Essentially, they are according to the bible) I certainly would have chosen not to exist.

Eager for thoughtfull responses, not blind preaching.

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Originally posted by megashawn:
I mentioned this in another topic and will try to elaborate here.

Christians cling to free will, saying its one of god's greatest gifts to mankind. Or is it that man did not have free will until he fell from the Garden of Eden?

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Man had free well even before he was put out of the Garden of Eden. He had the choice whether or not to disobey God or to obey God. He chose to be disobedient, and was therefore punished. And man still has free will today(that is very obvious).
Yes, free will is an important gift; would you make it so that your child has NO free will? Put it in that perspective.

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Does the bible go into any details about how a person is created now? Such as at which point the person actually has possesion of his soul and rights to free will? I will make some assumptions until someone clears this up for me.

Really, regardless of my above question, we are forced into existance. It is not like there is a line of unborn souls saying "Oooh Pick me Pick me." I know there is something about a Well of souls. Does god actually give the soul a choice of existing or not? Assuming an answer of no, I will continue.

Since, we were not presented with the issue of existing as a human or not at all, and were just born, this in itself seems to be a contradiction to free will.

And since mankind is now inherently evil thanks to Adam and Eve, or any of us if we were in there shoes, that means that to merely be born is to be born into sin. Since we 1) Did not ask to be born, 2) Certainly did not ask to be born into sin, I say that the very act of being born is a violation of free will the christian god is supposed to have given us.

Lemme review this mess. Ok, we are free willed creatures. We are born into sin, without having an intial choice between good and evil. Therefore, since God (or whomever) forces us into an evil existance, we do not have free will.

Trip with me for a sec. Lets say that God goes to the well of souls, or has an angel to handle it. Lets say this angel described the modern world, sin, gods love, etc, to you, and said "If you choose to be born, you will be born into a sinful, evil life and you will have to strive to get into gods favor. If you choose not to be born, you will cease to exist." Would you have chosen existance, or would you have chosen non existance?

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My point here is that if we are supposed to be free willed individuals, why did we not get a choice on existance at all? I for one, assuming christianity is true, and those were the terms (Essentially, they are according to the bible) I certainly would have chosen not to exist.

Eager for thoughtfull responses, not blind preaching.

"Waiting for your modern Mesiah to take away all the hatred that darkens the light in your eyes, still I'm waiting on..." - Disturbed

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We never had a choice; we were created in intercourse of two people, and were just created.(I don't want to go into detail)
If you want to know if humanity had a choice of whether or not humanity was created in the first place, well then go back to Genisis. You see, God created the Earth in hope that it would be peaceful(oh my, how its changed!) and it was. Adam and Eve were supposed to populate the world so there would be more humans, more peace to go around. So I guess we didn't exactly have a choice; it was like an idea that God had.
I applaud your questions.

There are Christian religions that contend that people's fates are inescapable from birth. They say that the only thing you can control is your faith in God. They claim that only the degree of this faith determines the fate of your soul. There was one religion (I can't recall which) that believed that even your faith was predetermined. Essentially, it was fore-ordained frm the beginning of time all that happened on Earth, and the destination of every soul.

Njorl

If freewill does not exist, how could god have freewill? He is the creator of life and man is made in his image.

Without freewill we are only computers processing data based on instinct.

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First off, we are created by aribitrary choosing. I'm sure you're well aware that DNA is created completely by chance (in a range of specific probabilities).
That's all there is to it; but you know, God said that he knew us before we were concieved. This means that he knew us before we entered the world, and were no longer in our mother's womb

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Well, I didn't want the biological explanation, as it leaves out creation/placement of the soul. I was more interested in the process of the soul entering the body.

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I applaud your questions.

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Why, because there easy to answer with lines from the bible? I did not ask for a recount of genesis. I'm not interested if humanity had a choice to exist or not, but more so the individual.

Even, as you put it, we are conceived by two people having intercourse. This also does not give the individual a choice in being born into sin.

Obviously, souls are not evil until they are born into this evil existance. Unless each individual soul is consulted before entering a body, then quite simply we are forced, against our will, to be born into sin.

No rational being would choose an existance where he had to spend his entire short life praising a being who threatens them with eternal suffering for disbelief.

Please spare me the typical "The bible says this" speech. Do you remember God asking you if you wanted to be born into a sinful existance? Or do you not have any clear memorys until you were about 3, 4 years old?

I'm saying, it is obvious that we are free to make choices, such as what to eat, who we associate with, car we drive, house we live in.

By god/jesus inflicting the original sin on every single human, it does not give us the initial choice between good and evil. At birth, we are evil, sinful if you prefer. That is not free will to choose between sin and god.

And this, my friends, is yet another illogical fallacy of your beliefs.

So one could consider the soul as an incomplete aspect of man. One devoid of thougth and emotions. It is this lifetime of physical existance which molds not only the soul, but also our thoughts and emotions. It is only these things which will carry on into the afterlife. Just as our physical body is the vessel that houses all of this in our lifetime it is the soul that carries it all on into the afterlife.

Some of that all could be refined a bit. More of a spur of the moment output. There is possibly even some biblical references to go along with it.

Oh and on a little side note there is nothing that states that the soul is not given a choice. It could be that you and I are in possession of souls that chose to be born. However I personally do not perscribe to that idea.

"God wants Spiritual fruit not religious nuts"
- Community Fellowship Baptist Church Sign

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Actually megashawn it does nothing to show any fallacy of beliefs.

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Sure it does, unless you've already convinced that any word that contradicts the bible is false.

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It could be that you and I are in possession of souls that chose to be born.

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This is my point here. If we did not have this choice, and sense our birth was not of our choice, then we have intial conditions in which we are born into evil. We do not get to choose between good and evil, but are merely "inherently evil. That is not free will.

If you can (even with your bible):

1) Deny that man is born into Original Sin
2) Show that god gives each individual the right to choose between beginning existance in sin or in rightousness

then I don't have much of an arguement. However, since I doubt you will accomplish this, I fail to see how a Christian can claim to be a free willed individual. As I've said in other discussions, You have the ability to make choices, but if god makes the intial choices for you, then that IS NOT FREE WILL.

That would mean, god is a liar. The bible says god doesn't lie, so that would mean the bible is rubbish. Essentially, it is a hole you have to ignore to keep your good faith.

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Originally posted by megashawn:
Well, I didn't want the biological explanation, as it leaves out creation/placement of the soul. I was more interested in the process of the soul entering the body.

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I applaud your questions.

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Why, because there easy to answer with lines from the bible? I did not ask for a recount of genesis. I'm not interested if humanity had a choice to exist or not, but more so the individual.

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Obviously, souls are not evil until they are born into this evil existance. Unless each individual soul is consulted before entering a body, then quite simply we are forced, against our will, to be born into sin.

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No rational being would choose an existance where he had to spend his entire short life praising a being who threatens them with eternal suffering for disbelief.

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Please spare me the typical "The bible says this" speech.

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Do you remember God asking you if you wanted to be born into a sinful existance?

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Or do you not have any clear memorys until you were about 3, 4 years old?

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I remember my christening, when I was only 40 weeks old.

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By god/jesus inflicting the original sin on every single human, it does not give us the initial choice between good and evil.

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At birth, we are evil, sinful if you prefer. That is not free will to choose between sin and god.

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And this, my friends, is yet another illogical fallacy of your beliefs.

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Yeah, according to your untenable postulate. It is not in bible, its not a part of Christian belief. So where did your postulate come from?

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You're talking like that's a fact. It isn't; its purely hypothesis.

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It is hypothesis. I wouldn't even call it that, more like fantasy. It only becomes factual when you assume belief in the bible.

I figured most people opposing me would not need to assume it is true, so it should be a fact to you. We are born into sin. That is in the bible. If you dispute this, perhaps you are the one who needs some research time.

Essentially, to the best of my perceptions, knowledge, awareness, whatever, I do not remember being posed with a choice of making this existance evil.

But I see that since I am assuming the bible is true for my points, I would have to enter the whole Adam and Eve bs into the equation. I know all about how any man that would enter this situation would have made the same bad choices. This leads to yet, another problem.

God is perfect, all powerfull, without sin, blah blah. Since god is perfect, we are created in gods image. I don't neccasarily think that means we are exact clones of god, but we are based on him. Also, since god created us, free will and all, and puts us in a situation in which the way we were created would certainly lead to sin, how is this possibly fair?

Original Sin is all based on the fact that God created man with certain expectations of mans behavior. As is being discussed in other topics, it appears free will is quite random by nature. This poses a problem against gods Omniscience. If he knew what the outcome would be before he created man, why did he not make a better plan? He is perfect after all, isn't he?

I've heard people say things like "It is none of mans business to ponder gods plan." This is a rediculous stance. Why should I not ponder gods ultimate plan? This would restrict the free will which he blessed me with. Unfortunatly, everything we can put together of gods plan leads to conclusions that show God is either evil, or quite childish. Of course this can be ignored and people can go on there sheep like, free willed lives.

Do sheep have free will? Or is it the will of the Sheperd that guides the sheep?

Basically thinking along these lines, it leads you to various conclusions that dispute one part of the bible or the other, if not all of it.

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If he knew what the outcome would be before he created man, why did he not make a better plan? He is perfect after all, isn't he?

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I've pondered that as well. I've been told that its because we make our own choices, God can't predict what we're going to do. That sounds silly to me though...this calls for more research.
So, as a conclusion, we have freewill to an extent.
You make a good point, asking whether or not we choose to exist. I doubt it; I've been denying it but the apperent truth remains. We don't. But there's more to it isn't there?
Well, I'd better get going so I'll have to finish later.

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Originally posted by MajinVegeta:
Again, I must say that I applaud your very intellectual statements. You're right, we have free will to an extent but most people won't believe that's true. I mean, when you think about it, just because Adam and Eve messed up, then why do we have to be punished? its really not fair; but I'm going to try and understand why.

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If Adam would not f*** Eve, we would not be here. So they saved us from nonexistence and definitely deserve a great monument rather than punishment. God simply followed transient emotion then. I am sure he regrets now a great deal, but there is no way back, too late. He probably is drinking heavily since then, that is why we don't see Him much around today (unlike our ansestors who saw Him many times personally).

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This is my point here. If we did not have this choice, and sense our birth was not of our choice, then we have intial conditions in which we are born into evil. We do not get to choose between good and evil, but are merely "inherently evil. That is not free will.

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1) Deny that man is born into Original Sin

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2) Show that god gives each individual the right to choose between beginning existance in sin or in rightousness

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You have the ability to make choices, but if god makes the intial choices for you, then that IS NOT FREE WILL.

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That would mean, god is a liar. The bible says god doesn't lie, so that would mean the bible is rubbish. Essentially, it is a hole you have to ignore to keep your good faith.

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I don't neccasarily think that means we are exact clones of god, but we are based on him

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This poses a problem against gods Omniscience. If he knew what the outcome would be before he created man, why did he not make a better plan? He is perfect after all, isn't he?

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This would restrict the free will which he blessed me with

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Unfortunatly, everything we can put together of gods plan leads to conclusions that show God is either evil, or quite childish

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Do sheep have free will? Or is it the will of the Sheperd that guides the sheep?

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"God wants Spiritual fruit not religious nuts"
- Community Fellowship Baptist Church Sign

As time progresses, there will be more like me.

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Really, regardless of my above question, we are forced into existance. It is not like there is a line of unborn souls saying "Oooh Pick me Pick me." I know there is something about a Well of souls. Does god actually give the soul a choice of existing or not? Assuming an answer of no, I will continue.

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Ahh, but souls would have to exist to be given a choice in the first place. CREDIT TO MENTAT, for this impressive observation.

From what I understand, there is something about a well of souls. The sould do exist. I'm talking about is the soul given the oppurtunity to exist as a human or simply fade away into nothingness before ever having to choose between good and evil. Since, choosing to live is inherntly evil.

I never assumed the souls did not exist at some point. Of course they would have to exist to be offered a choice to begin with.

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But if I exist as a human, then I have already been pushed into an existance which is inherntly evil. I have no intitial choice of chooising between good and evil, but against my will, am forced into an existance of evil. Plain and simple, not free will.

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so? I'm forced against my will to walk on the earth's surface but I still have freewill. Yes, we inherited sin, but we still have the choice of whether to sin or not.