Free Will

Then, who's going to judge god whether he goes to heaven or hell? ....although he did sacrifice his son.

Well..err..perhaps...
But the issue I am on is this: if god, as you define him, were to exist;ie not knowing what man would do post-eden...then he is not in fact all knowing.
This opens his knowledge of anything else to scrutiny.
I am trying to see exactly how you logically circumvent this.

I mean, as I have already been on about..the alternative is a god that can know/does know the outcome of mans destiny, and it seems to me that god would have a lot to answer for, or be outright 'evil'.

god = evil. Makes a whole lot of sense to me!

Yet absolutely biblical! The 'image of the beast' in Revelation is this man-made god...

And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
(Revelation 13:15 KJV)

The beast? Man. Reference:

I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.
(Ecclesiastes 3:18 KJV)

The image of the beast? The reflection of man's self-conception which is commonly known as 'god' these days.

Has the fat lady sang yet? Not quite. What is man's destiny? Can you say, at this point?

God created evil--he confessed this long ago...

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
(Isaiah 45:7 KJV)

Yeah, somewhere along the line, logic has all been lost to the bible's teachings.

If god knew everything beforehand, and he knew satan was coming up to bring sin to mankind, god could have easily said, 'no humans for planet earth, cause it'll bring too much suffering to the majority.' Instead, he went ahead with 'creating' this world knowing evil was coming.

Logic can be nasty sometimes.

What we need is a nice friendly religion, with a nice friendly god that works hard, but admits he oftentimes can't cut the mustard.

An avuncular god that relishes giving us extra cheese at the spiritual drive-thru!

Must God conform to your standards?

Does your god conform to "any" standard? Your god is incapable of living to his own standards; how can you expect lowly humans to?

'his own standards' are man's standards--not God's. Basically a whole batch of contradictory, unreasonable, stifling ordinances...

A nest of Freudian dysfunction.

I think humans did the 'sacrificing.' If anyone was directly sacrificial, wouldn't it technically be Jesus, personally?

If it was autonomous and for the greater good of all--then is it so bad?

I'm not talking about 'forgiveness of sins.' I believe the purpose was to show us that death is not the end. All of us. Period.

I'm not saying this to argue--this is my opinion and belief, only. I also believe we may all believe as we see fit and are able to do. But it's always good for us to look at things from a different perspective.

But religion clouds the truth considerably, rendering it unbelievable and esteemed as ludicrous. (my opinion, once again)

queen annie, With your last sentence, you made your point.

Here's another case of why "free will" is genetic and environmental.


By DINA KRAFT
Published: March 21, 2006
HURA, Israel ?- In a sky blue bedroom they share but rarely leave, a young sister and brother lie in twin beds that swallow up their small motionless bodies, victims of a genetic disease so rare it does not even
Moshira, 9, and Salame, 8, who began life as apparently healthy babies, fell into vegetative states after their first birthdays.

Now their dark eyes stare enormous and uncomprehending into the stillness of their room. The silence is broken only by the boy's sputtering breaths and the flopping noise his sister's atrophied legs make when they fall, like those of a rag doll, upon the mattress.

"I cannot bear it," said the children's father, Ismail, 37, turning to leave the room as his daughter coughs up strawberry yogurt his wife feeds her through a plastic syringe.

The sick children are Bedouin. Until recently their ancestors were nomads who roamed the deserts of the Middle East and, as tradition dictated, often married cousins. Marrying within the family helped strengthen bonds among extended families struggling to survive the desert. But after centuries this custom of intermarriage has had devastating genetic effects.

Bedouins do not carry more genetic mutations than the general population. But because so many marry relatives ?- some 65 percent of Bedouin in Israel's Negev marry first or second cousins ?- they have a significantly higher chance of marrying someone who carries the same mutations, increasing the odds they will have children with genetic diseases, researchers say. Hundreds have been born with such diseases among the Negev Bedouin in the last decade.

The plight of the community is being addressed by an unusual scientific team: Dr. Ohad Birk, a Jewish Israeli geneticist, and two physicians, Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, a Palestinian from the Gaza Strip, and Dr. Khalil Elbedour, himself a Bedouin from Israel.

They work together in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba at a genetics center with two neighboring branches, the Genetics Institute of Soroka Medical Center and the Morris Kahn Human Molecular Genetics Lab at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

Dr. Birk heads both institutions, which work to identify the mutant genes that cause these diseases. In the last two years, the center has identified eight mutant genes not previously associated with a disease, as well as dozens of new mutations in other genes that were already associated with diseases.

The findings are passed on to interested families who are given premarital genetic counseling and prenatal testing. More than 20 couples chose to end pregnancies over the past year, after doctors diagnosed in the fetuses terminal diseases that usually kill within the first few years of life.

But there are risks. In a small, closed society in which secrets are hard to keep, there is the danger of stigmatizing carriers and their families, subsequently lowering their chances for marriage should word get out that a genetic disease runs in the family.

The researchers try to minimize that risk by approaching families confidentially through their family doctors and offering them discreet testing, even in their own homes. Extensive genetic counseling is provided before and after testing. Results are given only in person by genetic counselors who walk individuals and families through the science and emotions of the process.

The researchers are also working closely with local Muslim leaders to spread a message about the benefits of genetic testing.

Many of the diseases among the Bedouins are not only rare but extremely severe. One such disease is aplasia cutis, in which babies are born with no skin on their skull. Some babies are born with neurological-spastic diseases and die within a few months. Other inherited conditions are blindness and severe mental retardation.

In a Bedouin tent camp south of Beersheba, Omar, 11, lives with an especially rare disorder known as "congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis." Children with this disorder become their own worst enemies, burning and maiming themselves without feeling a thing.

Omar's body is covered with scrapes and bruises, and his left leg was amputated below the knee ?- a result of a septic infection that set in after he hurt himself. His mother, who like several others interviewed asked not to be identified for fear of being stigmatized, fears he will hurt or even kill himself if left alone, so she carries him constantly around the steep, rock-strewn slopes. But it is exhausting, and she also has to care for her 11 other children.

"He is glued to me," she said. "I am very supportive of testing so people won't suffer the way I have suffered."

We may feel fortunate that we were not born into that environment, but most things in life are not chosen by us. That my grandfather came to the US in 1893 was lucky for his progeny.

Could the problem be that you are the one attempting to legislate standards for God?

Religious leaders have done much to cloud the truth. But the truth is still available to those willing to look.

And what would that truth be?

My guess would be the one offered by the watchtower society?

I'll repeat my position, if only to get us back on track. The subject of "freewill" (vs. determinism) is not the ego (an imagined agent of action within us); it is a system of usually conflicting (conditioned and unconditioned) drives clothed in cultural values, learned interests, ideas, etc.). This system is not the ego; it is a natural phenomenon, a facet of Nature, or the Cosmos (the Hindus called it Brahma or Brahmin; it may be what some Christians call God).
Ergo, our actions and thoughts are not the properties of a constrained agent (ego). They are the spontaneous operation of that system of drives which operate as an on-going expression of Nature/Cosmos/Brahmin/God. Everything is spontaneous and free, but may not seem so from the perspective of illusory Ego.

This is close:

Truth is in the eye of the beholder. That's evident from the various beliefs of humans even in the same family (like mine).