[Hit-N-Run]

Originally Posted by Sniffkin

You have totally contradicted yourself here. And you are so wrong either way.

"once you CHOOSE to believe that there is a God, a heaven and a hell......."
See? You said "Choose". What you are essentially saying is that you can CHOOSE to lose your free will. How can that be? You have a choice either way. So how on earth can you use your freewill to choose to lose your free will?

You obviously have a reading comprehension problem. Let me break it down so you can understand. I stated:

Your right about having the choice to believe in religion or not but once you choose to believe that there is a God, a heaven and a hell then you begin to loose your freewill.

You have the choice to believe in religion or not. That is freewill. If I choose not to believe then I am not bound by the rules of religion. Once you believe that the bible (or any other religious text) it real then you loose your freewill since the choice between obeying or disobeying the rules are so extreme. Like I said earlier, if you think the choice between going to heaven, a place of eternal happiness or going to hell, a place of eternal torture and suffering, is actually a choice you're a fool.

Now you can choose not to believe and regain your freewill but if you are a believer in religion you loose your freewill.

Originally Posted by Sniffkin

The rest of your paragraph which seems to attempt to be a summing up of religion in general is nonsense aswell. Your reasoning does apply to some religions, but to tar them all with that brush is either a lie or a lack of knowledge and understanding on the subject. But then, your argument is nothing unusual. It is a typically judgemental statement.

For a start, Christianity does not say you have to follow all the rules to go to heaven. It says we are incapable of following all the rules.

The only religion I can think of that my brush may be staining is Buddism. There is not heaven/hell dogma with that religion. The rest have the problems I addressed.

So you think you can pick and choose the rules to follow as a Christian? If you can then why have them at all? That is just some excuse for you to say "I'm getting into heaven because I'm a Christian even though I didn't follow the rules". I understand the whole Jesus died for our sins routine and if you pray for forgiveness you be let in the pearly gates. Just another form of subjugations of the masses.

Originally Posted by Sniffkin

Second, please tell me which one of the ten commandments is a violation of your free will that you think you should be able to ignore and why.

There are more rules in the bible then the ten commandments but here are the commandments and how they violate freewill:

1.) You shall have no other Gods before me. (Ignore)

I would think this one would be obvious as to how it violates your freewill. What if you would like to follow the teachings of The Budda along with Christianity? How about Ra, or Mars, or any other God. You can't or you go to hell. That's freewill????

2.) You shall not make for yourself any carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. (Ignore)

Refer to 1st commandment explanation

3.) You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain. (Ignore)

Freedom of speech and expression? Sorry but it's hell for you if you break the rules. An eternity of horrible torture if you use his name in vain.

4.) Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. (Ignore)

Better not choose to work on on the sabbath day. Your invisible sky friend is watching and keeping count.

5.) Honor your father and your mother. (Ignore)

So if your father is a drunk that beats you and your mother molests you you still have to honor them? How about giving honor when it is deserved, not because some all powerful, invisible being tells you to. If you don't follow the rules you know where your going!

6.) You shall not murder.

Good rule. But do you really need the threat of hell to make you not want to murder?

7.) You shall not commit adultery. (Ignore)

Why does the most powerful force in the universe care if someone cheats on their wife? Two insignificant specks of life doing it in the back set of a car and God cares? Anyway, you better not stick it to anyone else while your married or it's hell time for you.

8.) You shall not steal

Another good rule, but like I said above, do you need a God to tell you not to do it?

9.) You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

Another good rule. Don't lie. Once again, if you need the threat of eternal torture to keep you from lying your questionable to begin with.

10.) You shall not covet your neighbor’s house you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. (Ignore)

So now you can't think about wanting your neighbors pool or wanting to hump his wife. You can't even think about it or you are committing sin. Committing sin sends you to hell.

So there are three good commandments and the rest are shit. And those three can be be implemented secularly without the need for the extra baggage of religious dogma.

If you think you can be religious and have complete freewill at the same time you are delusional. You just can't do it. Your choice is to believe or not to believe. Once you believe your freewill is taken.

[Hit-N-Run]

Originally Posted by Mens Rea

Well said, Hit-N-Run.

Thanks for the props!

[Y@}{000]

Originally Posted by Hit-N-Run

Your choice is to believe or not to believe. Once you believe your freewill is taken.

Thats like saying whatever you live by, be it your own way or by a book, you have lost your free will to it. In that case none have free will.

[wildcard_seven]

I'll say it again, The Dissapearance of the Universe by Gary Renard. Read it, and never ask another question about "life" again.

[DridenGX]

Originally Posted by Fiction

Yahoo,

If god makes you sinless taking away your free will, what are you left with? We are who we are because of our free will to think and make choices.

This is what my older brother said.

Good question. You have to look back at the beginning. God was lonely etc and all he had was his angels which did nothing but his bidding. He wanted love and to be loved without being told to do so. he created man and ofcourse like in all things in life man failed and sinned. Sin cannot be around God or Heaven (his design). So after man sinned, they live their short life and die apart from God. God wanted a way to save his creation. The rules of sin is they can only be cleansed or erased with blood aka death. Which is why old christians would slay lambs to cover their sin with their innocent from sin blood.

But still, God was seperated from his people in a sense, so God created himself as a form of man named Jesus and came to earth to take everyone's sins and die, so that anyone who believes in Jesus could be cleansed from these sins. Now, in God's plan, your own life of sins led to death, believing in Jesus and living a life like Jesus its said that God now sees you as part of himself. When you become saved or believe the Holy Spirit of God enters you and you become apart of God.. God seeing himself accepts you into heaven or something like that.

So yes, you are no longer you.. you start dying the moment you believe or get baptised in Christ. A Pastor once told me the moment you get submerged in water its as if your old life goes in the water to die, and the new life of God rises from the water.. i.e you die, Christ within you lives on. So if you take that into consideration that you are dead but now only living for God and God's ideas, works, etc. being 'brain washed' in Heaven so you cannot commit sin makes sense.

But, if you have been living your life on earth for God being cleansed from these evil thoughts, deeds, etc is more a blessing than a curse. You right now think, what's the point, I wont be me! I'll be a robot! but its not true, you will be you, you will just be like a child again in a sense not knowing what sin is or the ability to do it. heaven isnt about being on a 24/7 vacation, Heaven is about worshipping God, sure theres things there to do but if you dedicated your life to God, you live for God, so regardless of free will or not its something you want to do, not losing your free will only creates curiousity and sin which is something a Christian does not want to do in the first place.
----


If all that is hard to swallow no worries. What gets me is if theres a seperation of Church and State why are people so determined to care what others believe? There was a time when peopel would whine about Christians preaching to them, now its the other way around, everywhere you go or every thread you see here its non believers preaching to Christians why they should not believe... irony?

Do i believe in Religion? No, but I studied a few and if they help people I'm all for it. What gets me is people who are against it just because of a few crazy loons out there who take it too seriously. There is millions of believers of this God in many forms of denominations all of whch help people fulfill their life or voids within them, just because a few cults form here or there does not mean we rid others of their hope.

[wildcard_seven]

and it vanished.

[Hit-N-Run]

Originally Posted by Y@}{000

Thats like saying whatever you live by, be it your own way or by a book, you have lost your free will to it. In that case none have free will.

What I'm saying is that you do have the choice to believe in religion or not. If you choose to be religious you give up your freewill. If you choose get out of religion and not believe you get it back.

Once you believe in religion your sense of reality changes because you now believe an invisible, all powerful, all knowing force that is watching you and recording your actions every second of the day. This all powerful being will either send you to heaven or hell depending on whether or not you followed it's rules. I don't think that if freewill. If you think the choice of either going to the most beautiful, happy, loving place in the universe for eternity or going to a place of eternal torture and suffering is a choice you're insane.

[InSummary]

Originally Posted by DridenGX

hell is described by many religions to be a place of pain and torture everlasting, there will be no time for anything but pain. Some say whatever you hate, fear, or hurts you the most is what you have eternity to look forward to.

how foolish. pain is physical. pain is a product of nerve endings. considering you leave your body, along with its nerves, behind when you die. there could be no "pain" afterwards.


not to mention, even if there were - what about masochists??? you know, the people that really get off on pain and torture etc. if hell actually existed, masochests would fuckin love it. so how could that be their punishment?



its amazing how brainwashing can severely damage the potential and intelligence of one's mind.

[Sniffkin]

Originally Posted by Hit-N-Run

What I'm saying is that you do have the choice to believe in religion or not. If you choose to be religious you give up your freewill. If you choose get out of religion and not believe you get it back.

Once you believe in religion your sense of reality changes because you now believe an invisible, all powerful, all knowing force that is watching you and recording your actions every second of the day. This all powerful being will either send you to heaven or hell depending on whether or not you followed it's rules. I don't think that if freewill. If you think the choice of either going to the most beautiful, happy, loving place in the universe for eternity or going to a place of eternal torture and suffering is a choice you're insane.

So if you join the army and live by army rules, are you also then giving up your free will?

Also, a lot of your argument to the ten commandments were either "I don't need God to tell me that!" or "I shouldn't go to hell just for doing that!" or "In my opinion I should be allowed to do that because I want to!".

As I said, the Bible does not say we have to follow them. It says we are incapable of following them.
And you say I have a reading problem?

[Sniffkin]

Originally Posted by InSummary

how foolish. pain is physical. pain is a product of nerve endings. considering you leave your body, along with its nerves, behind when you die. there could be no "pain" afterwards.


not to mention, even if there were - what about masochists??? you know, the people that really get off on pain and torture etc. if hell actually existed, masochests would fuckin love it. so how could that be their punishment?



its amazing how brainwashing can severely damage the potential and intelligence of one's mind.

How foolish.
What about the pain of losing a loved one?
And masochists might like a bit of pain. But to say that they could take and enjoy any pain is just ridiculous. No bloke could possibly enjoy having their bollocks crushed. Or their eyeball thumbed into the back of their head. What about a red hot poker up the ass?