What if I told you no one is going to hell?

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DaLincolnJones said:
hummm not so, Mar..Every religion is based upon belief in a Messiah figure..every religion, you must follow the path set before you to be accepted or rewarded in the next life..

I know you are an educated man, I believe you when you say you have read some on other religions..you know I speak the truth. Requirements of faith and belief are the foundation of religions.
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Perhaps we should or I should have a broader view. But I think we both will be ok.
 
Minstrel said:
It was god's choice to make us imperfect, in this belief system. If that idea is that our free will cannot exist if we were made perfect, that leads to the question: is god perfect? If so, does it have free will?

Most Christian conceptions of god speak to its perfection. I've never seen a Christian broach the subject of whether god has free will, but I've always assumed that they'd believe it does. If so, that illustrates that one can both be perfect and have free will. If not, well, that's interesting...what would constrain an omnipotent and omniscient god's choices?
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I have battled this same concept for the many years of being a Christian (since 1987). You can go even further and say "God made Satan and the angels weren't supposed to have free will, yet Satan rebelled against God"

I have a theory if you want to hear it. It's a little wacko though.
 
magnifier661 said:
I have a theory if you want to hear it. It's a little wacko though.
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I may not be an adherent to any organized religion, but I'm always interested and willing to discuss religious concepts (like god) as a philosophical endeavor.

So lay your crazy theory on me.
 
Minstrel said:
I may not be an adherent to any organized religion, but I'm always interested and willing to discuss religious concepts (like god) as a philosophical endeavor.

So lay your crazy theory on me.
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This is an adoption of some "Buddhist" philosophy, but is also an empirical "mainstream view". I call it my "push-pull theory!" :D

For every action, there is a reaction. For every yin, there is a yang.

A perfect God must have a balance of imperfection in this universe. When God created the universe, for all good, there must be just as much evil or the universe is in unbalance. So a perfect God "outside the realm of this universe" understood the reality of the universe and created just as much "evil" as "good". There needed to be Satan, demons, whatever you want to call it. And the "free will" we have as humans had this balance.

If you look into the Christian philosophy, it is a constant battle of flesh "SIN" over spirit "Perfection". If you feed the flesh, then your sin weakens your spirit. If you feed the spirit, you "SIN" becomes weaken. On the "end days" when Jesus takes back the world, the concept of this earth as we know it changes completely. The unbalance is not in the "closed system" of Earth, but balanced throughout the Universe.
 
magnifier661 said:
That is a one sided assumption.
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no it's a logical deduction that a morally consistent God would not command genocide (etc.)

As I have said many times... Free will is what has become the imperfection. It wasn't his mistake that we choose to sin, since it is our choice.
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this is a different subject, but worth contemplating how much free will choice can actually be involved if every one of the 100+ billion people that have ever lived "chose" to sin.
 
crowTrobot said:
no it's a logical deduction that a morally consistent God would not command genocide (etc.)
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If you believe that Earth if the "closed system". We live in a much larger scale. Earth is but a speck of the universe we know today.

EDIT: need to explain this a bit more.
When God created the universe, he had to balance it. And with that, the choice of "free will" to genocide is just as moral as the sun consuming earth. Is that moral? At what extent do you consider what is moral?

this is a different subject, but worth contemplating how much free will choice can actually be involved if every one of the 100+ billion people that have ever lived "chose" to sin.
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They have chosen Sin. I doubt there is a single person on this planet that hasn't sinned once in their life.
 
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magnifier661 said:
For every action, there is a reaction. For every yin, there is a yang.

A perfect God must have a balance of imperfection in this universe. When God created the universe, for all good, there must be just as much evil or the universe is in unbalance. So a perfect God "outside the realm of this universe" understood the reality of the universe and created just as much "evil" as "good". There needed to be Satan, demons, whatever you want to call it. And the "free will" we have as humans had this balance.
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Why do you feel their must be a "balance?" Who's enforcing this requirement and/or what would happen if the universe were entirely "good" or "benevolent" or "ordered?" The idea that balance is a requirement that binds even a god's hands would seem to undermine the idea of an omnipotent god.
 
Minstrel said:
Why do you feel their must be a "balance?" Who's enforcing this requirement and/or what would happen if the universe were entirely "good" or "benevolent" or "ordered?" The idea that balance is a requirement that binds even a god's hands would seem to undermine the idea of an omnipotent god.
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God's "Omnipotence" has nothing to do with this universe when he is outside this "closed system" called the universe. And as most Physicists believe, the entire map of time from beginning to infinity has been laid our like a map. As the saying goes, for what has happened, happened and what will happen has already happened. The omnipotent can view the entire map, being outside the universe.

As for God being bound... I disagree. The universe as a whole is in perfect balance. The entire value of the universe is zero. For every negative energy, there is positive energy. Even the slightest unbalance could completely destroy the fabric of this universe as we see it.
 
magnifier661 said:
I doubt there is a single person on this planet that hasn't sinned once in their life.
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Yes, but you missed the point. If it's effectively impossible for a human to choose not to sin, humans do not actually have free will in the matter.
 
crowTrobot said:
Yes, but you missed the point. If it's effectively impossible for a human to choose not to sin, humans do not actually have free will in the matter.
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I believe they do. As one chooses to kill their neighbor, the other chooses not to. But their actions create a universal reaction to the entire universe. And you believing in mass murder as some "morality issue" is of mankind's perception. Would the sun be unmoral if at one point of time it sent a solar flare to Earth that completely wiped out all of civilization?
 
magnifier661 said:
God's "Omnipotence" has nothing to do with this universe when he is outside this "closed system" called the universe. And as most Physicists believe, the entire map of time from beginning to infinity has been laid our like a map. As the saying goes, for what has happened, happened and what will happen has already happened. The omnipotent can view the entire map, being outside the universe.

As for God being bound... I disagree. The universe as a whole is in perfect balance. The entire value of the universe is zero. For every negative energy, there is positive energy. Even the slightest unbalance could completely destroy the fabric of this universe as we see it.
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In the universe that is this forum I am a GOD!

Worship me or be banished forever!

And if you don't want to worship me you can rep me instead.
 
magnifier661 said:
I believe they do. As one chooses to kill their neighbor, the other chooses not to.
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You're still missing the point, which is just a statistical argument - not really concerned with theology at the moment. If humans have any significant amount of free will with which to choose not to sin, wouldn't you expect at least a few out of 100 billion to choose not to?


And you believing in mass murder as some "morality issue" is of mankind's perception. Would the sun be unmoral if at one point of time it sent a solar flare to Earth that completely wiped out all of civilization?
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As Minstrel pointed out, you're (again) making the implication that God does not have free will.
 
magnifier661 said:
God's "Omnipotence" has nothing to do with this universe when he is outside this "closed system" called the universe. And as most Physicists believe, the entire map of time from beginning to infinity has been laid our like a map. As the saying goes, for what has happened, happened and what will happen has already happened. The omnipotent can view the entire map, being outside the universe.
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Everything that can happen, will happen. That's the idea behind quantum branching...there's a universe for every possibility.

However, being able to "view" everything would be omniscience (all-knowing), not omnipotence (all-powerful). An omnipotent god would have been able to craft that "map" as you call it exactly to its specifications. There's no reason why "balance" would be required, unless it desired balance. Which would then lead to asking why it desires balance. What's the benefit?
 
crowTrobot said:
I don't know. I don't know if that's a meaningful question.
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Well then you not knowing could why you are so agnostic.

The common or popular belief for a naturalist is that something eternal exists. Singularity must have already had all expansion, creation, etc that makes the universe go round pre-deposition within itself. So time and space was already there for an eternal object
 
crowTrobot said:
You're still missing the point, which is just a statistical argument - not really concerned with theology at the moment. If humans have any significant amount of free will with which to choose not to sin, wouldn't you expect at least a few out of 100 billion to choose not to?
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No. It is in our nature to sin.



As Minstrel pointed out, you're (again) making the implication that God does not have free will.
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Absolutely not. God's free will has nothing to do with the free will in this universe.
 
Minstrel said:
Everything that can happen, will happen. That's the idea behind quantum branching...there's a universe for every possibility.

However, being able to "view" everything would be omniscience (all-knowing), not omnipotence (all-powerful). An omnipotent god would have been able to craft that "map" as you call it exactly to its specifications. There's no reason why "balance" would be required, unless it desired balance. Which would then lead to asking why it desires balance. What's the benefit?
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The balance is required to obtain "free will". Our actions have more implication to the state of this universe than you think, IMO.
 
magnifier661 said:
The balance is required to obtain "free will". Our actions have more implication to the state of this universe than you think, IMO.
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Here's another way to look at this: there is a possible universe in which every human always makes the "right" (moral) choice. It might be almost infinitely unlikely, but whatever probability you place on a human making the moral choice given an opportunity, there's some (almost) infinitesimally small likelihood that each time an opportunity comes along for every human across all time, they just happen, of their own free will, to choose the "right" thing.

God, being omnipotent and omniscient, could see all the possible universes ahead of time and choose to make, as reality, the one in which every human made every correct choice. This is another way to understand that free will and "always good" or "perfect" aren't mutually exclusive.
 
barfo said:
Well, let's just set it out on the curb, then, and hope someone takes it.
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Even if it's worth zero, if you put our universe on ebay under "collectibles," someone would bid it up just for all the Star Wars content in it.
 
Minstrel said:
Here's another way to look at this: there is a possible universe in which every human always makes the "right" (moral) choice. It might be almost infinitely unlikely, but whatever probability you place on a human making the moral choice given an opportunity, there's some (almost) infinitesimally small likelihood that each time an opportunity comes along for every human across all time, they just happen, of their own free will, to choose the "right" thing.

God, being omnipotent and omniscient, could see all the possible universes ahead of time and choose to make, as reality, the one in which every human made every correct choice. This is another way to understand that free will and "always good" or "perfect" aren't mutually exclusive.
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I disagree. With how we see this universe doesn't have anyone that is always good or evil. And this "shape" could take place the moment the new "heaven and earth" is created. As it is written in the Bible. And it could be quite possible when that time comes, our choice of "free will" is over.
 
magnifier661 said:
I disagree. With how we see this universe doesn't have anyone that is always good or evil. And this "shape" could take place the moment the new "heaven and earth" is created.
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Again, you speak as if there's no omnipotent god and things just "happen." An omnipotent god can choose the "shape," and it could choose the universe in which every human happened to make the correct moral decision. While we see no purely good or evil people, every opportunity to make a choice carries a probability that someone will make one choice or another. That probabilistic nature means that there's a chance (an exceedingly tiny one, but still a chance) that all humans could make the right choices. In our universe, obviously, they haven't...but since the chance is there, there is a possible universe where they did. And an omnipotent god could have chosen that universe in which free-willed humans just happened to make only wise choices.
 
Minstrel said:
Again, you speak as if there's no omnipotent god and things just "happen." An omnipotent god can choose the "shape," and it could choose the universe in which every human happened to make the correct moral decision. While we see no purely good or evil people, every opportunity to make a choice carries a probability that someone will make one choice or another. That probabilistic nature means that there's a chance (an exceedingly tiny one, but still a chance) that all humans could make the right choices. In our universe, obviously, they haven't...but since the chance is there, there is a possible universe where they did. And an omnipotent god could have chosen that universe in which free-willed humans just happened to make only wise choices.
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But as you said "that is not truly free will" and even a perfect God or "omnipotent" one would understand that choice must have potential evil.
 
magnifier661 said:
But as you said "that is not truly free will" and even a perfect God or "omnipotent" one would understand that choice must have potential evil.
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I don't think you're quite understanding. The choice can have potential evil, but there still exists a possible universe were each human never makes the evil choice even though they could have.

Thus, humans still have free will but, due to the possible universe that god selected to make real, no evil choices are actually made.
 
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