Board Thread:Bible Questions/@comment-29848406-20160903220806/@comment-29848406-20160905160609

Floatingaxehead wrote: Hello Debater!

We are told what is right, and have the free will to either choose right or wrong. What you may be implying (which here I may be wrong) is that "free will" involves doing all the wrongs possible, and that not doing "free will" is entirely binding oneself to morals. The fact is, we are all bound by our desires, and choosing against them can free us from such. It is made clear in the bible what is right and wrong, so we know what to choose. In fact, because of free will, we can choose our destination. It isn't binding, but freeing. We don't have to watch ourselves go where we don't want to, and we can even pretend that where we may go is meaningless.

This also demonstrates the question as to what relationship God wants people to have with him. If he were so narcissistic as some claim, he would have made everyone subservient "robots" guided solely by him (and not their own free wills) to worship and please him. However, since he does not doe this, he outlines the right way of living a life, and rather than forcing us into his discipleship, he tries to woo us with his perfection, love, and justice. We have the whole books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, the Ten Commandments, and even the New Testimate's termination of the old Covenant with the introduction of a New one to lead us to knowing what kinds of choices we should make, and which ones will damage us.

The point of having it is not only for God to have followers who actually decided to be willing to follow his commands and learn who he is but to also give ourselves to choose what we want. If we want to be a vegan, we can choose that. If we want cherry ice cream instead of rocky road, we can choose that, given that both options are available. If we have an opportunity to harm each other, we can choose to do so, and face the reprecussions either on Earth (where we may learn it is wrong, or choose to ignore such) or in Hell (where ignorance of it's existence is a choice in itself). Of course, abuses are a natural product of free will, since we can choose to attack each other's beliefs, ideals, and even their organism. It would be a slight injustice if people were to be able to harbor negative sentiments and not be able to act on them, since nearly everyone has at one point in time held anger towards either someone or something. God is not going to punish a person for something they did not yet carry out or even plan; he always punishes after the fact, so there is something to punish. To say "they are just acting on their own free will" will be to remove the fact that they may be informed either by society or someone else as to what is wrong. Let me make something clear:

To have desires and to have free will is different. Free will allows us to act on those desires, or use information that we have gathered from stimuli of any kind to go against them. It isn't the binding thing. It is liberating. To have desires merely to feel a need or lack of something, which could become torturous if, say, a person has an option they want, but cannot, choose. That's not really what I was asking. I was asking what the point of it is if we get punished for using it "the wrong way".