I wouldn't normally be this blunt, but this is a "no bullshit zone."

God is merciful in that he allows you to continue to post ancient "conundrums" without fear of divine reprisal.

On second thought, watch out for lightning.

It's called the Principle of Uncertain Incoherence.

The more precisely you define omniscient, the less you can know about free will. The more precisely you define free will, the less you can know about omniscient. 

You're better at making up shit than any of the fundies that come to this site.   

You said this would "stir the pot"...how long do I keep it on the burner? 

 The greatest gift God gave man was free will. God does not desire to force belief by appearing to everyone, because that would violate our free will to chose Him. Hell is the consequence of man abusing his free will by rejecting God. Men create Hell.

Till it boils over and contaminates the kitchen.

Bwahahahaha! 

the reason people reject god is because we see no proof for his existence. i fully believe if legitimate proof was given, many of these people that reject god would choose believe in him. appearing to everyone would not violate the free will to choose him. you can still chose not to follow him if he appeared.

 Pascals wager - see lengthy discussion of this elsewhere.

 Such as?

All the 'evidence' we have is a collection of ancient myths that contradict eachother and the rantings of people (who would be deemed insane in a culture without religion) telling us how to interpret those myths.

If the bible is evidence of god then Lord of the rings is evidence of elves.

how convenient. IT lets him exist while giving the impression of exactly the opposite.

Why does god like gullible people? Wouldn't he like it more is we came to believe though research and logic, rather than just fluke being conned by the right preacher.

once again, what evidence? what knowledge?

Atheists are responding to the evidence and knowledge we have, unfortunately for you and your god, that evidence and logic points to the absence of god. 

Proove it. You know only that you yourself 'know' within your 'heart of hearts' that god exists. how can you claim that anyone else has this in born 'knowledge'? You cannot generalise based on a sample of 1. 

You have a rather lax definition of 'knowledge', blind acceptance of something you want to be true is not knowledge.

I Know that any action has an equal and opposite reaction. You believe that god exists. there's a difference.

Knowledge is based on proof. It is attained through effort. Belief exists within the absence of proof, or even in spite of contradictory proof, and requires no effort.

Knowledge:

1) I'm interested in the way matter behaves

2) I'll run a lot of tests, collect data and interpret the result, or study the results of others' research

3) Hmm, All the data shows that every action has an equal and opposite reaction

Belief:

1) I really like the Idea that there's life after death and that I'll be rewarded and everyone I dislike punished so god exists.

If you're hearing voices please see a psychiatrist before they tell you to hurt yourself or someone else.  

Who says we want a world without god? Our lack of belief is not based on desire, it's based on the lack of evidence. I personally would like there to be a benevolent all powerful being who would let me live forever and enforce true justice, rewarding the good and punishing the bad. I just dont see any evidence for it. 

 lol Funny responses. I don't hear voices (plural). I hear my conscience. We all (I hope) have a conscience. God speaks through the conscience--the small still voice. The evidence is everywhere, but we have been brainwashed into believing there isn't. Also, God is everywhere, but we are too impure to perceive Him. The more we become pure of heart, the more our thoughts will change. All thoughts proceed from the heart. Jesus said the pure in heart shall see God.  Atoms are everwhere, but we do not have the vision to perceive them. The blind man cannot see the Sun, but it exists nevertheless no matter how much he denies it.

 Women who have abortions know they are doing wrong. No one needs to tell them that. Therefore, they are ignoring the voice (conscience) within. God does not tell people to kill babies. The Muslim terrorists are so sick and spiritually depraved that they are possibly not even capable of recognizing their conscience. But if they can, they probably know what they are doing is wrong, but they are taught/brainwashed through their religion that these actions please Allah. Some people can be so evil that God simply turns them over to the devil. They have no hope of salvation. The more one supresses the conscience and light within, the more God removes His presents from their lives. This can eventually result in demonic posession. Where the demons actually do the thinking for them.

 The ancient Fathers of Orthodoxy, the Church I belong, taught that man is born with a demon in the heart. This is known as the sin nature. We inherited this problem from our ancesters, Adam and Eve. This demon entices us to sin and to turn from God. The more we listen to him, the more power he is given. He darkens the mind. The purpose of the Christian life is to engage in virtuous living. Jesus came and taught us how to live so we can be delivered from the demon and the power of Satan. Baptism in the Church drives the demon out of the inner reccesses of the heart to the outside of the heart, so he is given less power and control over the person. The more we serve God through the exercise of virtue, prayer, good deeds, the sacramental life in general, the more Grace from God is given, and the weaker the demon becomes untill he is eventually expelled. The mind returns to the heart and the heart becomes purified. This is called passionlessess, where a person is freed from the passions (sins and carnal appetites of the flesh) of the fallen human nature. When a man achieves this state, he is deified and has attained the state of "theosis". He has overcome himself and the inclinations of the lower nature. In this state, he can see God and receive revelations. He is clairvoyant and can know the future. He becomes one with God and participates in His divine "energies," not the "essence" of God. We actually become a god within God, a christ within Christ. St. Athanasius said: "God became man so that man might become God." This is what God calls us to, but in order to achieve "theosis" (few achieve it), a great struggle over oneself is required. The human ego must be crushed. We must become empty of our selves, so God can fill us with Himself. Not all achieve this level of sanctity, and God does not require it of all, but we all are called to salvation. So when the atheist gets angry that he can't see God, the answer is that God is everywhere, but He is so pure and holy that only the pure of heart can perceive Him. In our current state, we are sick and not capable of seeing the divine energy of God. The saints saw Him and conversed with Him. God does, however, on some occassions reveal Himself to certain people for special purposes. By the way, we are not alone with a demon. God also granted us our own personal guradian angel to help us along and to encourage us in our pursuit of God. There is a war for every soul. The demons pull on one side and the angels on the other. God is also with us in addition to our angels. Satan wants to take as many souls with him to hell before the end of time. He hates God and he hates us, because he knows and is jealous of what we can become in God. And He wants to destroy God's creation. He's doing a good job to because many people today are cooperating with him. Satan makes sin enticing and attractive. He wants to keep our mind and will in slavery and bondage. We have a great struggle ahead of us, but God is with us and infinately stronger then any demon.

Just heard a great counter to the argument that God giving actually evidence would violate free will - According to the BuyBull, Satan was absolutely sure God existed, but still chose to rebel. So even if there was proof, that wouldn't force people to worship.

Your logic is flawed. Satan is a fallen angel, not a human. So his certainty of god's existence and subsequent actions are not relevant to humans.

Before everybody jumps on me for "defending" christianity, maybe you should recognize what I just did. A sharp christian can easily counter his statement and end up looking good for it, at least to his friends. By me pointing out the flaw, it saves Matt the trouble of using it and having it thrown back at him.

That's kind of where I was going.  Of course, if you go where you did, you have to explain the next contradiction, namely, do angels have free will?

If they do, then how exactly are humans better than angels?  Because we get to choose to believe in him or not?  How is that better?  Angels know that he exists for certain, so they have a perfect shot at making an informed decision.  Us?  Not so great.  Hard to see the mercy in that.

If they don't, then, um... god forced satan to rebel, and we're right back where we started with god being responsible for the original sin.

It's an escape hatch, but the tunnel leads right back into the depths of contradiction.

(Unless you see a way out of that... I'd like to know it if you see it.)

I don't know what religion you practice, but I will bet that there are fundamentalists in your church. Those who believe that god tells them to kill abortion doctors, those who believe that it is all right to kill in the name of god and kill those who are non-believers (Let's not forget the Crusaders), those who believe that it is Ok to put non-believers to the sword (Let's not forget the Inca's), those who believe that god is on their side in a time of war (Boy, he must have been really confused during WWII. Who side should I be on? The Germans 99% Christian or the allies... maybe 75% christian?). I just want to know how is it possible that if protestants and catholics accept jesus which side is he on when they kill each other? You are firm in your belief, but so are people of other faiths... So, how do you know, for sure, you are in the right religion? Because the bible tells you so? Which bible is the right one? You know for sure…because you have been told by someone?! Another thing. There have been people who have never been exposed to the teaching of jesus, lived a saintly life and worshiped whatever. When they died, did they go to hell? My neighbor thinks so. Do you (Keep in mind you have to be “born again” to go to paradise? Don’t want any of “those” people praising god! If so, how is god merciful to let the innocent burn forever in the mythical place called hell?

how do i delete this. admin plz delete this for me, sry am new to the forum.

I doubt it is the Muslims' "God" that tells them to do those things, more like the terrorists leaders and their political regime along with all the propaganda that influence them to "fly airliners into a couple skyscrapers" or blow themselves up for "Allah". Believe it or not they have television shows teaching little kids as young as 5 or 6 to hate the Americans and the Jews.

Dammit... that's what I get for doing things out of my head. It's been way too long since I read the bible, I guess. I kind of pulled this off the top of my head. I'll shove it back where it came from.

You're correct about that. I'm just quoting a bunch of pastors I've heard in my life. A lot of people really get hung up on the free will thing, and some people feel the need to take it away from angels for one theological reason or another. Not really my business, but thanks for setting the record straight.

Just for shits and giggles, go to a bible search site and type in "free will" in a search engine. You might be surprised at the results.

(You gotta do it in quotes, or it will return all the verses with both words, regardless of whether they're used together.) Point is, it's never even mentioned in the bible, at least according to biblegateway.com. Lots of "freewill offerings" but that's about it.

Sorry if I got you in a tizzy about this. I was basically just picking fun at matt and wavefreak. I don't do arguments about angels because they're made up characters from a fictional book. I'd rather argue about something with real life consequences, like whether or not elves should have their constitution scores lowered if dungeons and dragons releases a fourth edition.

Actually, in all seriousness, Joseph, if you know of a verse that specifically mentions god's "gift of free will," even if it doesn't use the exact words, I'd like to know it. Don't bust your gut over it, but if you know off the top of your head, it would be helpful.

You're right, no where in the bible can you find anything that specifically mention "free will" as a gift from God or anything, similar to that of the doctrine of Trinity. Both are just beliefs that Christians and others concluded based on their interpretation of the bible.

On the free will thing, it can be said that that these verses show that man does have free will according to God, wether it is a gift or not is for interpretation. For instance, some atheists believe that man's "free will" is an evolutionary product, while theists like Christians would argue that it was given by God.

Genesis 2:16. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat.

2 Nephi 2:27. Wherefore, men are ^afree according to the ^bflesh; and ^call things are ^dgiven them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to ^echoose ^fliberty and eternal ^glife, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be ^hmiserable like unto himself.

Deuteronomy 30:19. I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and acursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.

I didnt remember this the top of my head btw, just took 2 minutes of googling.

All I have to say is........RIGHT ON!!