In my studies (search for answers) I have come to some startling conclusions:
Don't worry, it happens to us all.
Free Will
If God gave us free will, and He can't interfere with our choices no matter what (otherwise it is not free will) then what good is prayer?
I'm not sure why you think interference by god negates free will, nor do I understand how any of this negates the 'good' of prayer. In many cases people simply use prayer to offer thanks. Do you insist that this is a useless operation? If so, why?
Example: a soldier prays for protection to make it home safely after his tour of duty. He gets killed anyway. Why? Someone else made the free will choice to shoot him, and God can't interfere with that. Free will works for both sides of the coin.
That's very interesting that free will is not negated by the interference of another person, but only by the interference of god. I'm not sure how you arrived at this conclusion. Your ability to determine what does or does not happen is removed in either case. I don't see a difference.
The same could be said of anyone who has a hereditary condition. Someone in your family tree made a free will choice to do something (incest, drugs, alcohol, etc.), and that choice echoes for eternity, potentially affecting everyone in the bloodline. Prayer won't help because that would be interfering with the consequences of a free will choice that was previously made.
Again, if a human makes a choice that negates your choice, why is that any different than god interfering?
Bad things happen to good people, not because it is God's will, part of a bigger plan (or any other cop out answer people like to give) but because someone made a choice to do something bad to that person, plain and simple.
Are you familiar with the concept of omnipotence?
The god in the Bible is omnipotent which means that ultimately, every single thing that ever happens for any reason is actually happening because the omnipotent being decided that it should.
Further, since omnipotence implies omniscience and the Bible god is most definitely omniscient as well, it would mean that before god ever did anything at all with his boundless might, he knew in exact detail every single thing that would follow because of his actions. Therefore, every choice you made was made by god before the universe was even created.
Additionally, omnipotence also implies omnipresence and the Bible god is also this. Which typically means that god is not subject to time in any way. Past, present and future all exist simultaneously to god. That means, that when he created the universe he created the start and the end and everything in the middle all at once. The choices you make today where designed in the same instant that the choices you made yesterday and the choices you will make tomorrow were designed.
In other words, god's will is the only will if there is such a thing as omnipotence (Bible god).
The Bible Is Not Literal
I do not take the Bible literally on many accounts. No where does it state that it is a history textbook, have all the answers, or the need to explain miracles/supernatural events. If anything, it causes more confusion than it does anything else.
Which accounts do you continue to take literally, and why?
I do find that it contradicts itself in numerous places, errors are made in translations, and what humankind could not explain back then, science can now explain on most accounts. Our knowledge of physics, chemistry, biology, geology, astronomy etc. separates our interpretations of various events versus what the ancients guessed at.
What contradictions have you discovered, and how do you choose which side of the contradiction you agree with?
Lucifer Is Not Satan
I grew up learning from the KJV Bible. Isaiah 14:12 is the only passage in the KJV that uses the word "Lucifer." Unfortunately that passage was a bad translation, done by the 4th century monk Jerome, who was translating from the Greek into Latin for The Latin Vulgate. Modern scholars recognize this error (thanks to the Dead Sea Scrolls) and have removed the word Lucifer from the passage entirely (NIV, NASB, ESV, etc.). Besides, the entire chapter is talking about a king of Babylon, not Satan. This leads to my next find...
I remember being very upset when King Theoden of the Rohan referred to Gandalf as 'Stormcrow'. Clearly that isn't even a real compound word and should have a hyphen, and the capitalization is just ridiculous since that's obviously not Gandalf's real name. It's an outrage.
Christians Take Verses Out Of Context
I can't tell you the number of times I have heard smoeone quote a verse, completely out of context, in order to try and support or illustrate a point they are trying to make. You can't cherry pick a verse and apply it in a "literal" sense. Far too often the Bible speaks in metaphors, or the verse has to be used in the context of the chapter surrounding it.
This behavior is not limited to Christianity nor is it limited to the Bible. Look what they do on the news to the things that politicians say.
Souls Can't Burn In Hell
The skin is an organ, complete with nerve endings that send a signal to the brain that something hurts. Your body stays behind when you die (which means your nerve endings and your brain that registers pain, stay behind) so there is no physical possibility for "burning in hell."
That's an interesting viewpoint. Can you explain how you would see, hear, smell, touch or taste anything in Heaven? Or are those senses similarly removed due to the body's involvement with those particular senses?
The hell, fire and brimstone sermons started long ago to scare the wits out of the congregation, so they would follow the church's lead. People know that being burned alive is a horrific, painful way to die. What better way to control the masses than to appeal to their sense of eternal preservation.
While this may very well be true, it has no bearing on the previous point. You can offer this as a motivation to skew the facts relating to Hell, but you can't offer it as direct evidence for the actual skewing. It is equally as easy to say that you are right now currently engaged in human-controlling behavior by attempting to debunk the idea of a fiery, torturous hell. What better way to control the masses than to appeal to their sense of eternal preservation, after all (there are lots of better ways, btw).
The Church Likes Money And Power
There was a very big reason why the Roman Catholic Church did not want its Latin Vulgate translated into English: the clergy wanted to tell people what to worship, how to worship, how much to "donate" to the church, and have no system of checks and balances in doing so. After several people were burned for standing up to the RCC, the translations happened anyway (go Henry VIII!), and people woke up to the fact that they had been duped for centuries.
Everyone likes money and power as far as I can tell. Also, 'the people' didn't wake up to being duped until we began overthrowing dictatorships and installing popular governments. The church was competing with amoral, self-serving dictators for control of humanity when it rose to power. Seems like a wash to me.
There's many, many more points like these that I could make, but I'll stop there for now.
I'm game if you are...
Me too! Probably not the same guy, though.
