G71,
What's better for us? (A) The "freedom to choose" or (B) the best possible future? My answer is B). God (supposedly) could give us the B) but he did not. Why? I would give it to those I love. wouldn't you?
God is greater than we can imagine. God, being benevolent, will give humans the best possible future.
What this best possible future is, however, is up to God the Creator, not the created.
There is an infinite number of ways how things truly are.
Really? Then there is no truth, according to you, and whatever you have said so far is just a lot of hot air. Sorry.
Christian's God obviously has a taste for human suffering.
Do you know this God? Do you know Jehovah?
I don't think so. The best way how to get something done simply depends on agent's power. It would be pretty stupid for God to do things in a similar manner we do it. The fact that Christian's god often demonstrates that stupidity strongly suggests that the whole thing is nothing more than a man made story. The complexity of this world well corresponds to its messed-up-ness so I don't think Christian's God fits the model.
Are you looking for answers, or do you have ulterior motives with this communication that you are making?
>So it is all about FEELING a certain way?
I think so. What else is so important? What else triggers our actions?
What triggers our actions are our intentions, based on our values and preferences.
I don't think we have free will.
This, all in itself, answers your questions in this thread.
If you believe that we have no free wil, then you also believe that we are slaves to our conditions, whatever they are.
Blaming the God for this is just a convenient way to victimize yourself, in order to release yourself from your personal responsibility for striving to maintain mental and emotional states that are conducive to happiness.
But even if we do, we cannot always use it to stop pain.
How can you make assumptions about how it would be to have free will, if you don't believe we have free will?
And even if we could, I would still see a problem with it because it's just a concept which belongs to imperfect worlds = worlds created by imperfect creators.
If you don't believe you have free will, you can't make valid forecasts about how it would be if you would have free will. So your arguments here are pointless.
1) We could live an an environment where nothing could get wrong - that's what I would expect from Christian's God.
On what grounds are you expecting this?
2) If we live in an environment where something can get wrong, we could be getting some sort of neutral "pain" info (eg. location, type & intensity in a numeric representation) + the brain could be wired so that it would take it seriously enough without the actual feeling of pain..
But this is exactly what is happening.
Only that a person who
1. does not believe in God, and
2. believes "I am my body", and
3. believes he has no free will
is attached to the states he is in, he identifies with them, and he thinks they are essential to who he is.
It is the perfect way to set oneself up for suffering and disappointment.
OK, let's assume for the moment that you are right. Is keeping the title "human" worth keeping the pain (considering the possibility of living in a pleasure-only world as an "incomplete" human by your definition)?
What are your motivations for wanting to live in a pleasure-only world?