Everyone has freewill to believe in God or not. Those who believe in God have faith, to various degrees. The strength of one's faith is somewhat porportionate to your will to believe in God. Every human has a certain amount of disbelief, some more than others. Children are very trusting, for instance. Faith can overcome disbelief, but it can be very difficult. Disbelief comes much more easily than faith, disbelief must be overwhelmed by a powerful will to know God.

What these three factors: Freewill, Faith and Disbelief give you is a tolerance to God's hand within your life.

Scenario 1
Soandso chooses to not believe in God, which means his mind is ruled by disbelief. For God to enter this man's life and prove to him that God exists, that would strip Soandso of his freewill. God does not do this, because we each must believe through faith or not at all.

Scenario 2
Soandso chooses to believe in God, but isn't very active in church and he doesn't read the Bible or pray. His will to believe in God exists, but it's very weak. For this reason Soandso's faith is weak and cannot often overcome his disbelief. God can work very small miracles in Soandso's life, but if they are too great of a miracle, then Soandso will have his freewill impinged upon, so God must limit his power in Soandso's life.

Scenario 3
Soandso chooses to fervently believe in God. Soandso doesn't just worship God on Sunday, but everyday. Soandso's faith easily overwhelms his disbelief, so God can work great miracles in Soandso's life without worry of damaging Soandso's faith. Soandso's prayers are often answered and maybe God has spoken to Soandso in dreams or even while he is awake.

Scenario 1: Your average atheist. Someone who's will is turned to disproving or denying God's existance rather than seeking God's faith.

Scenario 2: Your average American Christian. This person might even be "luke warm" as described in Revelation. This person isn't necessarily saved.

Scenario 3: A prophet, apostle or Biblical author. Those rare people who fit scenario 3 are the ones who served God by being prophets, travelling with his son or as conduits of the Holy Spirit. The Bible was written by such as these.

When someone asks "Why did God write the Bible through men?" the answer is simple. To protect your freewill. If God had written the Bible in words of fire in the sky, everybody would believe...even those who really didn't want to. Everyone would be striped of their free will and God wouldn't know who would have followed him out of love and who followed out of fear. The fact that the Bible is written by men allows God to get his message to the people without effecting their free will. (Those who are spirit filled get a different message(s), aside from the surface message, from the scriptures.) Men have a tendency to question and doubt other men. Jesus worked miracles everywhere he went, but not everyone believed. Many questioned Jesus' miracles and some even stated that Jesus used the power of Satan to work the miracles. By sending Jesus who was undeniably a man, God ensure that mankind's free will would not be impinged.

So believe or not. It's your choice and one of the gifts that God gave to all mankind.

Thanks for sharing!

This is utter nonsense.

Having to guess that there is a God has nothing to do with free will.

Moreover, just because someone chooses to guess that there is a God why would they choose one that is known to to nasty demonic things like asking people to stone other people to death, etc.?

If you have a free will to choose whichever picture you would like to believe is God, then why not choose the best picture you can find? To choose the biblical picture would be an insult to God when there are much better pictures to choose from.

I don't want to believe that God had asked people to stone other people to death in cluding children.

I don't want to believe that God can only forgive disobedience when there is a blood sacrifice.

I don't want to believe that God is at war with a fallen angel that he can't keep under control.

I don't want to believe that God created all men to be inherently sinful.

If I have free will to choose a picture of God you can rest assured I'll chose a better picture than the Mediterranean myths. Those myths are horrific and paint a terribly ugly picture of God.

If I have to use my free will to choose a picture of God I'm going to choose the best picture possible. To date, for me, that picture would undoubtedly be pantheism. It's the only picture of God that suggests that God is truly all-powerful and has genuinely unconditional love.

To choose anything less would be an insult to God.

Why would you want to use your free will to choose an ugly picture for God?

If you have free will to chose a picture of God you should seek out the best picture possible don't you think?

The only way a person has free will is to not to believe in a god or being of power because once you put any faith at all in a being outside of yourself your free will is now non existant.

You always fall back on the same old strawman fallacy. Did I say "You have to guess"? Did I ever imply that life is a giant carnival game, where you guess right and you get a prize?



You don't have to guess if God exists, all you have to do is want to believe. You have to ask yourself "If God exists, do I want to know him?". If your answer is yes, then persue God with a will to find him. Those who diligently seek God's face will be rewarded.

Sophistry.

You put faith in your employer to pay you every week. You put faith in your loved ones and friends to keep their promises and look out for your best interests. You put faith to many people and things without losing your free will. Trusting in God is a constant choice. Those who once made that choice can change their minds.

If what you say is true here then I'll most certainly be rewarded.

I've given myself over to God even before I knew what religion was. I feel that I've always known God as much as is humanly possible.

The only thing I can tell you with asbolute certainty is that I have never felt close to God by reading the Bible. On the contrary that is the most ungodly book I've ever read. And I've never felt close to God in a church either. In fact, save for perhaps some bars, churches are the most ungodly places I've ever been to. In fact, I've truly been to bars that were more godly that some churchs I've been to. I try to steer clear of both bars and churches nowadays.

I don't believe that people need to be "saved". I think that whole concept is ungodly. It make people feel like God is external to them and that they are already outside of his grace, which for most people, probably isn't true at all.

This entire post is founded on the wrong idea of what you call "free will."

Free will is a given. All will is free, all the time, always was and always will be. So no matter what "god" did or how he wrote his book would make no difference what so ever.

You stated: "Every human has a certain amount of disbelief, some more than others.

I would like to suggest that people don't have what you call "disbelief" in god. They either believe it or they don't believe it.

Since nobody, to this date, can prove or disprove the existence of the Biblical god, it is anyone's guess if this is truth or not. You either believe it on faith or you don't.

If you told me a lie and I did not believe it, would you call that "disbelief?" I doubt it. The word "disbelief" implies that a person has been told the truth and they chose, for some reason, not to believe it. You can only call it "disbelief" if the thing told is accepted and/or proven as truth. That is, if you want to use this word correctly.

In scenario 1. you state that a person's mind is "ruled by disbelief."

Your statement:
"Soandso chooses to not believe in God, which means his mind is ruled by disbelief. For God to enter this man's life and prove to him that God exists, that would strip Soandso of his freewill. God does not do this, because we each must believe through faith or not at all."

If god entered a man's life to prove that he exists, you claim that this would strip the man of his free will. This is not true. The will is part of the program and it is the power of self direction, and the power to decide to act. It has very little to do with believing in a god or not believing in a god, although it is the power to choose what one believes.

The only way you can strip a man of his will is to kill him or to totally brainwash him to the point where his will was so weak it would not be noticed. Brain wash him or kill him. Those are the two options.

Then you state that god does not do this because we each must believe through faith or not at all. Where on earth did you get that idea and why would you believe it? Why would god require that you believe in him only by faith alone?

The only reason we are forced to believe on faith is because there is no real proof of the existence of god. Even if there was proof, you would still have the option to believe the proof or not.

Also you stated in scenario #1
"Your average atheist. Someone who's will is turned to disproving or denying God's existence rather than seeking God's faith.

A true atheist does not deny the existence of something that to him, does not exist. That would be a ridiculous waste of time. A smart atheist does not waste time trying to disprove the existence of god either. Those would be moot points and pointless pursuits.

JB
to be continued.

Spider, I can tell you have done a lot of thinking about this, but it does not hold water.

Will is always free, it does not need protected.

I can't really discuss it in greater depth with you because we probably don't agree on the term you are using which you call "freewill" and you have boiled it down to meaning the choice to believe in god or not.

You did not even give that person a choice of what god to believe in, as you assume that the Biblical god is the only concept of god to choose from, hence the only choice available.

I recall a story of a man who was an atheist who died and was dead for three days. He experienced being out of his body during these three days. He came back alive on a slab in the morgue where they were about to autopsy him.

I would not call that a "small miracle" would you?

Who do you think was responsible for that miracle? Well regardless what you think, the man decided that there was life after death and that there was a god and he became a minister.

That is quite a change of heart for an atheist. If god does not do these things for fear of impinging upon someone's free will, who then did it? Was is just a coincidence?

I think this atheist could have called it a coincidence, or he could have rationalized it all over the place, but he chose to change his atheist beliefs.

I can think of dozens of other miracles that made believers out of unbelievers in god. So I think you are barking up the wrong tree with this rationalization.


JB

If you narrow your view to one small facet of the diamond you will never see the beauty of the light that shines through it.

What is god to you the light or the diamond...

AB

My conclusion is opposite yours Spider.

I believe that the more faith you have, the more miracles will happen in your life.

I believe in miracles and that they happen all the time and go unnoticed by people.

Noticing and being grateful for miracles in your life will bring more miracles into your life.

My faith may not be in your idea of the Biblical God, but I have an enormous amount of faith in how the universal mind and the prime creative source work together in this, our reality, and I see small miracles every day, and I have seen some very large ones in my life.

JB

Jeaniebean,

I only believe in one God. I'm sorry that so many of you are offended by that belief, but it is what I believe. I will not bend my beliefs to please you or anyone else. So why would I write something I didn't beleive in? You are free to believe as you will, you can choose to ignore my posts.

Nothing you said disagrees with me. I think you misunderstood my post.

I am not expecting you to bend your belief. But don't think that because a person does not believe in the Biblical concept of god that they are "unbelievers" in god or atheists. Others simply have a different concept or idea about what god is and it would be nice if you would recognize that instead of separating people into two groups, Christians who believe in god or OTHER -who are heathen atheists or worse.

I simply am trying to bridge the gap between Christians and others who do believe in a power greater than themselves or some other concept of god. You just want to draw a line between you and them.

JB

Without knowing the story, I can't comment. I will say that I don't believe every "miracle" that I hear about. I have heard many great claims of heaing among Christians and they often turn out to be faked. I have practiced magick and seen nothing. I am very cynical when it comes to any claim of the supernatural, which I think is a very healthy attitude. If you could send me any information about that person, I would like reading about him.

To me, there is only one God. You either worship God or you don't. I don't think poorly of non-Christians and I don't push my faith on them. But I don't walk on egg shells and censor my beliefs so that I don't offend them either. This is a forum for discussing religious beliefs, nobody bends over backwards to avoid offending me. In fact, you and others actively attempt to offend Christians. ACTIVELY. I haven't called your beliefs false, have I? I haven't taken religious figures from other religions and speculated about their sexuality, doubted their existance, disputed what they taught, etc. NO, I respectfully present my beliefs as the truth, which is what EVERYONE who believes in a religion does.

There is a STARK line between believers in every organized religion. Every believer believes their religion to be the truth. Some people float around the lines never fully commiting to any religion, but most people choose a belief and settle there. I'm not unique in that way, there are billions of Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Parsis, Jews, Buddhists, etc that all believe that their truth is the only truth. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.



And I would really appreciate it if you wouldn't imply that I seek to descriminate against non-Christians or that I look down upon non-Christians. It's not true and it's not necessary. You don't need to think about me, who I am, what I believe, what I feel. You simply need to focus on what I post and address the posts, okay?

It was a few years back when I ran across the story on the Internet. It was well documented and proof was available. I don't believe every miracle that I hear about either, but I believed this one. I don't have the information on this person because I did not keep it. It is on the Internet somewhere or it was then. I think Feralcatlady said she had heard about him she might know.

JB

I only believe in one God. I'm sorry that so many of you are offended by that belief, but it is what I believe. I will not bend my beliefs to please you or anyone else. So why would I write something I didn't beleive in? You are free to believe as you will, you can choose to ignore my posts.


Aye and quite right. There is only one god.

However that which is god does not reside within a book. Neither does the path to god reside within ink and paper.
it is a path...

You start for the top of the mountain from your side of it...
I shall start from my side of it...

When we meet at the top of the mountain understanding might be granted us.

I was trying to tell someone (years ago) that my path to god was the true path and the most direct path to god. He made me think when he asked "If God is all there is, then what does it matter which path you take to get there? All paths to god will eventually get there.

He's right. Each to his own path.

JB