>ask religious person why their all-powerful God allows evil and doesn't intervene>"It's free will bro">why do we need free will?>"Otherwise you couldn't have a real relationship with god and you'd be an automaton"But in most major religions babies who pass away go automatically to Heaven/Paradise and live with God. The baby never had to use its free will in any meaningful capacity, is now in a place that is only good and has a real relationship with God. How does that not completely debunk this idea that we somehow need free will (and the choice to commit great evil) or our bond/connection with God would be fake or forced?
>>42145158because mysterious reasons n shit
>>42145158The actual answer is being all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good still doesn't allow you to prevent the possibility of evil.And no I don't mean in a free will sense.Acausal Child cancer isnt a result of free will.Also this doesn't diminish God, it allows one to have a personal relationship with God, as God also mourns evil in an absolute fashion.
>>42145158Because OP, God is a living God who understands our struggles and judges us by what is in our hearts. He is not an automated system. I hope this helps.
Christianity would make marginally more sense if it allowed for reincarnation like the Gnostics did.>As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. (John 9:1-3)>Jesus conspicously doesn't correct the disciples' suggestion that it's possible to be born born blind as a result of *one's own sin* or one's parents' sin, only that it doesn't apply in this man's case.>Then they asked him, “Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” He said to them, “Elijah is indeed coming first to restore all things. How then is it written about the Son of Man, that he is to go through many sufferings and be treated with contempt? But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written about him.” (Mark 9:11-13)>Jesus implies that John the Baptist was Elijah reincarnated.
>>42145316> doesn't allow you to prevent the possibility of evil.But no one is raping kids in heaven so?
>>42145158God exists that much I know. As for karma, I think God might use how you work or did things for people or how you made them feel in order to layout punishment or rewards. I got "punished" for being "selfish" by not doing anything for anybody in a previous life so in this life I've been serving others.
>>42145158Non-christian theist:It's not free will, it's independence and separation.We have free will AND no evil or suffering in god's realm.But everything is centered on god.this place is an indulgence so we can experience what it is like if it seems like everything is centered on you, and you get to be the final judge on what is right or wrong, or what should be enjoyed or not.
>>42145158>God allows evil and doesn't interveneThink of good vs evil as a game God plays. He would let the other team score for the sake of it. Its kind of like that but more serious.>free willIt doesnt exist, spirits possess the living often.
>>42145158>How does that not completely debunk this idea that we somehow need free will (and the choice to commit great evil) or our bond/connection with God would be fake or forced?What is free will even? I mean, if my belly is screaming of hunger do I really have any choice? I either feed myself or die. While I do admire those who would die this won't stop you from feeling like worst than shit before dying. I mean, I don't understand where this trope of free will comes from. Free will? Our will is not free. If I had free will then I could no anything that I wish. I could fly through my own sheer willl force, but that's not the case. Free will is BS. Free will is just a cope used to fool us into accepting the dogmas. What kind of free will Jesus had? If he did not died all the rest would die as well. What kind of choice is that? The person who doesn't deserve to die, must die so all the rest who deserves to die may live. Does not this signal that free will is a lie? Because Jesus did not want to die, but somehow He felt that he had to sacrifice himself or God wanted to sacrifice him. Free will doesn't make sense. What about Judas? If Judas had not betrayed Jesus then what? So God was conting that Judas going to betray Jesus? But how? So God knew all along that Judas would betray Jesus? But how? I mean, it doesn't make sense to me. Free will doesn't make sense. Our will is not free. Our will is bound, captive. Not way we have free will. I can't even fly!
>>42145158To Romeo and Juliet, who is Shakespeare ? Do Romeo and Juliet get free will or not ?
>>42145597Is there even really a verse that denounces reincarnation directly?What death entails according to the Bible tends to flip-flop quite a bit. You either die and cease to exist (OT), or you accept Jesus and have everlasting life in Heaven. (NT)Or, everybody is sitting around in purgatory until return of Jesus, and the forever death referenced in the OT has now also become oblivion/hell.(I understand that there's a lot of contradictions in the Bible, but some if not most of those have been explained from what I can gather)
>>42145158>in most major religionsYou mean Judaism, of which Christianity and Islam are sects.Try thinking outside of the Jewish box.
Suffering is to a huge extent imagination, or at least, dissociating trauma and acid make you think that. However imagination and reality aren't completely divided. I was thinking about the holocaust and how hilarious it was even, like all that suffering was for no reason, but also when you are suffering you can idk go to your happy place. Idk it sounds close to being psychopathic but it's like we are all the same I and shit like that. People when they disagree, they will destroy each other over ideas because they do matter down the line. Good and evil look the same sometimes but evil is cringe and stupid. You have to just be patient with them. The right answer will almost always come to you if you ask yourself what would cool you do. If someone comes up to you and chops off one of your hands, well, that's cringe. If a nazi thinks you are a thug when you aren't, they are also cringey. To be based is to be professional and level-headed, to acquire ultra-instinct defense of their attacks by not actually taking anything personally, but still being able to stand up for what's right
>>42145158the obvious answer is that babies don’t go to heaven
>>42147713I think the one that usually gets taken as a certain denial of reincarnation is Hebrews 9:27-28>And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.But then elsewhere it seems like there are at least two judgments, your first post-death judgment that decides whether you get to hang out on the nice side of Hades or the not-so-nice side of Hades, and while you're in there you can maybe get saved since there's apparently baptism on behalf of the dead, but if you don't there's a final judgment at the end of time, and anyone who fails it gets thrown into the lake of fire and dies a second time. So it's like death -> judgment -> judgment -> death. And in some spiritual sense, Christians die when they're baptized to be freed from the law and/or everyone who isn't a Christian is dead by default until they're resurrected by baptism.
>>42147932Oh and there are people like Lazarus of Bethany who totally died twice, since after he died the first time he got resurrected only to die again, presumably. So this "appointed unto men once to die" thing clearly isn't a hard and fast rule.
>>42147520Jesus knew Judas was going to betray him as well. He flat out knew his death was coming, but simply accepted his fate as a pawn in God's manufactured forgiveness plot. I'm really not sure how any of the Jesus stuff makes sense. The only way I can really understand it is that God was a lot more vengeful in the OT but Jesus' experiences of being a near-human down on the ground taught God to have at least a shred of compassion and let people go to Heaven instead of just ceasing to be?Maybe that's the problem with Earth. God still can't really comprehend how much it sucks down here and that's why we need another Jesus. It's like someone who was born into wealth trying to understand what it's like to need to wageslave. Maybe they can feel a little bad, but they legitimately don't know how bad the situation is unless they were to experience it for themselves.I know he's technically omnipotent but a lot of stuff in the Bible shows that God was learning human nature as he went along so he could legitimately be in the dark about this.Maybe next time instead of Jesus getting magic powers where everyone adores him as he builds up a following and having this weird sacrifice thing just as Jesus passes the peak age of being human, God should just see what it's like to be some miserable poor sickly woman from the 3rd world who manages to somehow live a long, grueling life. Bet he'd cut out all these "trials" real quick.
>>42147932>>42147957(cont.) One interesting point is that the Apocryphon of John, a Christian Gnostic text that does affirm reincarnation, seems to have an unusual understanding of Hades. It says of the archons' tree of life that "Those who eat from it are denizens of Hades" and it describes the "prison of the body" as being in the "deepest parts of the underworld."If we're already dead and in Hades, maybe "reincarnation" of a sort can happen here just fine without interfering with the rest of Biblical cosmology. Idk.
>>42148067Possibly this is related to 1 Peter 3:18-20a>For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah...
>>42147886That would make God even more evil than he already is and most people would never admit that.
>>42149167yea because they are dumb and can’t read. the bible clearly lays out exactly how evil he is. remember when he had a brother kill another brother as a bet with satan or killed 30 children by using bears to maul them
