@shashankfromindia said in #54:
> Well, if they knew with 100% certainty that they would go to Heaven....
No. devotion and repent is the ticket. Not the knowledge nor belief, these last 2 are only prerequisites for devotion and repent.
That is the example of free will I was talking about.
@shashankfromindia said in #55:
> Look, in this argument, if Philip really had the power to do so, why would the Spartans be skeptic? It is just another way to bend around the argument.
Philip had the power, The spartans were no threat by that point. He actually never bothered with them, but he was real and his army was real too.
But you missed the point. You are getting into hypotheticals.
"If god existed, he could have done x or y." To begin with, you have no knowledge of what a god can or cant do. We only have a definition of what we think is a god and probably no entity can fit that criteria.
And maybe the closest thing to a god that it can actually exist is not capable of what you think it can do.
And thats only if you are talking about the correct one. I think that there are over 1000 different ones that are documented to be worshiped. Many ifs involved.
>Why would I ever do wrong, if I have an eternity of Heaven in prize which I know to be true?
Right or wrong is subjective. For instance, God considered right/good to exterminate Amalek, to throw the children of the high places and keep the women as booty (probably literally too).
I wouldnt consider that good by any standard. And according to the god twisted definition of good, I would probably be wrong, or be doing wrong by not following such orders.
So, although you and me might understand the word good/bad, right/wrong, in the same way, it doesnt really apply to the verses, because the definitions we have, use and understand might be polar opposite of how the words are used in the bible. Its a trick question.
But to answer bluntly, if that entity is a monster and you get a reward for following it, you should do what the better man would do, not follow it, hence, do "wrong", where wrong may or may not be what you and I understand of that word. Thats free will.
>But then there also won't be any real right or wrong.
One of the characteristics that have been imbued into that entity is that it is immutable. It doesnt change.
Slavery is allowed in the old testament. It is never forbidden in the new one. Yet, despite the bible, we know slavery is wrong.
Is killing wrong? The lion would go extinct. Snakes, crocs, any animal that kills others to sustain would be on the wrong.
So things are not right nor wrong, they just are what they are.
We, as thinking beings, can subjectively and objectively declare what is right or wrong according to the goal that we want to achieve. If I subjectively think that the goal is to have a better society, I can objectively measure if allowing killing will get me closer or farther from that goal.
The right and wrong that we have is an extension of societal behavior of social animals, we just perfected and refined the rules over time. Thats why slavery is wrong and immoral, despite the fact that is correct, morally accepted, and even probably a status measurement in the bible. We dont need a god to tell us what is right and wrong. We can figure it out ourselves. If you would follow the morality from the bible, you would have been locked up in jail or shot and killed already.
