If God Gave Us Free-will, Why do Religions try to take it away?

This baffles me. First of all, don't say "to stop people doing bad things" because that is completely moot since we have Man made laws for that. Don't get me wrong, I understand that evil is a bad thing, but it seems as though it is not wrong in the eyes of god. Without evil, good would not exist it would simply be called normal. I will concede that some holy books may very well be the word of god, but they were written by man and it's highly probable they were misinterpreted in quite a few ways. "God made us in his own image" could very well be explained as "the universe is one entity, constantly changing, and since we are all a part of that universe, we are indeed God itself." Anyway, I just don't get why religion seems to directly go against the will of god by negating free will. And lastly, Satan and hell were also a misinterpretation (www.godsplanforall.com...):

The doctrine of ‘everlasting punishment in hell’ is founded upon a combination of mistranslations and misinterpretations of the following Hebrew and Greek words: Mistranslations of the Hebrew word sheol, and the Greek words hades, tartarus and gehenna, to mean hell. Mistranslations of the Hebrew word owlam, and the Greek words aion and aionios, to mean forever or everlasting when relating to God’s judgement of unbelievers and fallen angels. In this chapter, we deal with the mistranslations of sheol, hades, tartarus and gehenna whilst in the next chapter, we deal with the mistranslations of owlam, aion and aionios. Hell is such an infinitely extreme and dreadfully fearful doctrine with respect to the fate of unbelievers, who are the vast majority of humanity, that surely God would have inspired clear, unambiguous statements about it in the Bible if it were true. Also, one would expect Bible translators, experts in the Hebrew and Greek languages, to be in complete agreement about how many times the word ‘hell’ occurs in the Bible. But the shocking fact is that the opposite is true.

The link shows a table showing how each version of the bible has ridiculously different translations, with many showing ZERO uses of the word hell and the 400 AD version showing 111...

On a side note, in the middle ages Catholic priests would often commit suicide because they believed the afterlife would be far better than their crappy Earth life, until the Pope decided to state that suicide would mean you go to hell!

This is the Christian God we're talking about. Free will is about sin and choice. I can choose to do good, or bad.

Not sure what Allah gave Muslims, but they seem pretty much stuck because of apostasy and the problems that entails with e.g. someone who chooses to be different. Women don't seem to have much free will either.

If God says it's so, why do his so called representatives go against his word? One word, 'Contol'.

Every decision made by a religious group has control embedded within it.

God gave you the choice, including the choice of which religion to follow or not as you see fit.

So why are you complaining?

originally posted by: ketsuko
God gave you the choice, including the choice of which religion to follow or not as you see fit.

So why are you complaining?

Were we given any choice to choose? or was it imposed on us?

a reply to: Sharted

Without evil, good would not exist it would simply be called normal.

One fisherman works 12 hours a day gathering fish...
At the end of a hard day he feeds his family of 4.

He's done a good thing.

Another fisher man works a 10 hour day gathering fish...
At the end of the day he splits his trawl between his family of 4 and the homeless shelter.

He has done a good thing also. But possibly better considering his charitable offering.



No evil involved in either case though.

So the idea that good couldn't exist without evil is what I like to call a Pulled Out of Thin Air Fallacy.

a reply to: Sharted

In Islam, it's pretty simple. We believe we live a temporary existence on Earth 1) to determine if we'll accept there is a God or not; 2) if we accept God, will we submit to Him or defy Him?; and 3) if we submit to Him, we must prove it with our words and actions. In short, life on Earth is just a long series of tests to allow souls to choose their destination in the next life.

A sci-fi interpretation would be this: There are creatures in a higher dimension that exists beyond the 4th dimension of time/duration. The dimension they exist in is the "true" dimension, while our 4-dimensional "universe" is a simulation. Our "souls" (a glorified AI) are temporarily given avatars in this 4 dimensional universe/simulation, with the express purpose of seeing what kind of entity each AI/"soul" really is when left unchecked.

The AI/"souls" that prove themselves "good" will then be allowed to enter the "true dimension" and mingle with its inhabitants. They have proven that they won't cause trouble or won't be a threat to anything living in the true dimension. It will seem like "eternity" because it exists beyond the 4th dimension. And the defective AI that cause harm to other things will be discarded into a quarantined "trash bin/imprisonment dimension". Kind of like the pet owners who have a dog that keeps snapping at them; eventually, they'll send the dog off.

Looking at it this way, it would also make sense why the generally "kind" AI/souls that don't accept or believe in the higher dimensional beings wouldn't be allowed in, either. Would you allow a person in your house or around your family if they refused to accept the rules of your house? Would you let someone near your children if he/she was going to teach your child to disrespect & disobey you?

I think the question you ask, OP, is a great one.

The answer seems to be:

The "religions" trying to take away free will aren't religions.
Like the Federal reserve isn't federal.
Like the Democracy is controlled by a few.
Like the health care does not care about health.
Like the defence people are clearly attacking.
Like the education is about learning how to sit down and shut up.
& c.

It's a common technique used widely because it's effective.

Free will is a great gift and religious experiences are catalysed or shared by people who both understand religion and genuinely want others to gain understanding. Those people are rarer than those who see people as sources of money or domination and will not hesitate to use any means available, including lying, to try and quench their thirst for money and domination (aka hell).

a reply to: CharlieSpeirs

So the idea that good couldn't exist without evil is what I like to call a Pulled Out of Thin Air Fallacy.

Au contraire, me thinks. The only reason something is deemed "good" is because it isn't "bad", or worse "evil". It's all just different positions on the same line.

originally posted by: CharlieSpeirs
a reply to: Sharted

Without evil, good would not exist it would simply be called normal.

One fisherman works 12 hours a day gathering fish...
At the end of a hard day he feeds his family of 4.

He's done a good thing.

Another fisher man works a 10 hour day gathering fish...
At the end of the day he splits his trawl between his family of 4 and the homeless shelter.

He has done a good thing also. But possibly better considering his charitable offering.



No evil involved in either case though.

So the idea that good couldn't exist without evil is what I like to call a Pulled Out of Thin Air Fallacy.

You say that because you have a point of reference, namely to know what "good" is. However, if nobody ever did anything bad or evil, all actions would be considered normal because nobody would know what evil was, and thus good would not exist. All actions regardless of how much "better" some are would be what people expected and it would therefore be called normal.

I wonder that we HAVE free will. Do we really? Present day neuro-sciences are suggesting that even if we do, it is only to a small degree of what we have considered it to be in the past. These sciences indicate that as much as 98% of what we have considered individual decision making is really just a coin flip in the neruo-juices of our brains squirting in patterned response to stimuli and that the oversight of free will has little to do with it.

Now, me, I think that there may be, free will, just not like described. I don't think that God GAVE us free will, but rather that what we have is, maybe, the potential to develop it. But even then, these thoughts hold only for this level of reality. Who knows that free will might not be the normal state of existence in the higher plains of reality and that the lack of it here is part of the growth process to seek it out.

originally posted by: Prezbo369

originally posted by: ketsuko
God gave you the choice, including the choice of which religion to follow or not as you see fit.

So why are you complaining?

Were we given any choice to choose? or was it imposed on us?

I suppose it might depend on how you view the Apple story.

originally posted by: Prezbo369

originally posted by: ketsuko
God gave you the choice, including the choice of which religion to follow or not as you see fit.

So why are you complaining?

Were we given any choice to choose? or was it imposed on us?

Exactly, religion serves no purpose other than to control people and manipulate them. No god would do this because it directly goes against the point of existence. The Pope saying suicide gets you sent to hell is the perfect example of this. "Hey let's make this stuff up so the priests will stop committing suicide", such a complete farce. Islam is perhaps the worst religion with regard to control. Forcing people to pray at set times 5 times a day, lmao. Seriously? Do they honestly think Allah is that insecure? Protestants came about because Henry VIII wanted more than one wife, I mean ffs, wtf is wrong with people?

I'm struggling to resist calling religious people brain-dead morons.

I do believe in god, but it's this belief that leads me to see religion as a complete farce and completely against god's will.

originally posted by: enlightenedservant
Looking at it this way, it would also make sense why the generally "kind" AI/souls that don't accept or believe in the higher dimensional beings wouldn't be allowed in, either. Would you allow a person in your house or around your family if they refused to accept the rules of your house? Would you let someone near your children if he/she was going to teach your child to disrespect & disobey you?

This is what religion can do to person......good people wouldn't necessarily 'teach your child to disrespect & disobey you' and while they might not engage in your ceremonies and practices or harbor the same superstitions, they wouldn't necessarily affect them either.

a reply to: CharlieSpeirs

So the idea that good couldn't exist without evil is what I like to call a Pulled Out of Thin Air Fallacy.

Yeppers. This fallacy seems to be a fundamental misconception that so many just take for granted and then go ahead and spend their whole lives building a Built On Thin Air Philosophy.

a reply to: Sharted

Not really.

As Charlie demonstrated, people would still make valuations of people's actions.

The first fisherman did a good thing, but the second fisherman might be judged to have done better.

So long as people are capable of making value judgments comparing one person's actions against another's, you will end up with someone coming up with a judgment of evil (or whatever they call it).

The scriptures do not say “God” gave man free will.It is a religious extrapolation just as the doctrine of the punishment of hell is.The facts are nothing is free of cause and effect(every effect has a cause effect) and none are the original cause of the multitude of effects that have gone on before.

Religion(mostly Christianity) has created both of these doctrines to support their religious agenda.Their logic is God gave man a free will to choose good or evil(hence the tree of the knowledge of good and evil).If man chooses to not believe in the salvation propagated by Christianity they will have “freely chosen” by their free will to reject it and thereby giving the Christian God no choice but to sentence them to the punishment of hell.

For Christianity it solves the mountain of illogic of the Christian God and Jesus.They believe Jesus saves a person from Hell by believing in him while out of the other side of their mouth saying Jesus and God are the judge and jury sentencing them to hell because of “their” laws.They cannot perceive the logical disconnect between these two diametrically opposed religious constructs.

The fact is Jesus “name” (which means nature and character) is Yahoshua which is Hebrew(and an English transliteration for brevity’s sake).It means Yahweh(the creator God) is deliverance/salvation.This is the point of the disconnect.Yahoshua was always proclaiming the Good news which was the deliverance of ALL of mankind from Hades(poorly translated as Hell) .

Hades is the translation of the Hebrew word Sheol which means the grave,the realm of death and imperception.This is what Yahoshua delivers from.The grave is the realm of death mans religion is imperception. Christianity has got it all wrong. They believe in Jesus Christ the idol of Christianity they do not believe in Yahoshua because it is mutually exclusive and it is impossible to believe in both.

In other words most Christians believe in “their free will” to choose to receive salvation they do not believe in the will of the creator God to give salvation to everyone freely.They will attempt to spin that fact to fit their religious agenda however it can’t because ironically that is a condition of a person in Hades(the realm of imperception)

originally posted by: TerryMcGuire
a reply to: CharlieSpeirs

So the idea that good couldn't exist without evil is what I like to call a Pulled Out of Thin Air Fallacy.

Yeppers. This fallacy seems to be a fundamental misconception that so many just take for granted and then go ahead and spend their whole lives building a Built On Thin Air Philosophy.

Really? So, in your opinion, is "good" something that can exist without comparison, like some kind of absolute objective reality, and not a personal perspective?

What is "evil", then?

originally posted by: windword
a reply to: CharlieSpeirs

So the idea that good couldn't exist without evil is what I like to call a Pulled Out of Thin Air Fallacy.

Au contraire, me thinks. The only reason something is deemed "good" is because it isn't "bad", or worse "evil". It's all just different positions on the same line.

If my football teams wins tomorrow night it will be a good thing...
If we lose it won't be evil.



Better yet there is no cure for Cancer...
That's "normal" as the OP put it...

A cure for cancer is a good thing...
If we never find a cure that's not really "evil", it's just not good.



Good exists without evil.

a reply to: CharlieSpeirs

It does, but if you can make comparative judgment, sooner or later, there will be evil just because someone will go there. And once the concept is brought to life, it exists.