Has anyone thought about this? Would He create us, without the knowledge of how to convince us to do the right thing, and be safe?
Or were we created to be unquestioning, obedient, slaves, living in fear of our master(s)?
Jesus told us we would “know the truth, and the truth(God?) would set us free.” How are we slaves that we need to be set free?
Any thoughts?
Considering that you are able to pose this question without the fear of being hit out of the bloom by some sort of electrical discharge, then I reckon that we have been granted with at least the freedom of thought and questioning.
Doing the right thing is a process that presupposes, first of all, to be aware of the opposition between right and wrong, and second of all, the free act of chosing between the two. Yes, it implies free will (as far as our inner, metaphysical decisions are concerned).
How do we make the distinction between what is right and what is wrong, you ask ? Did God create us with an a prioric intuition of morality ? Could people be convinced into a universal set of moral laws ? Fairly hard to judge an act for its intrinsic value, really, when trying to exclude its finality/purposness. Interesting enough that history has so far been generous with models of moral pillars, hence it may be said that, finding that you can’t or don’t want to be able to generate your own ethics, then you can choose one figure from the rather rich pantheon of truly great ones and allign yourself with it. See the Bible, the Cathegoric Imperative, common sense.
To sum up, I’m not quite sure what the answer really is.
Excuse the way I butcher your sentence, but please detail a bit what you mean by being safe.
Shifting the talk towards Christianity is one step on the path of giving it a more precise direction. In Christianity Jesus Christ is Truth, and “knowing Him” is the crux of Christian aspirations. To know Him is a metaphor for:
1 aknowledging His existence on Earth;
2 eliminating the historic gap between you and Christ, in a way that you become His contemporary;
3 you stand before Christ, face to face;
4 you decide to make the giant leap from simple admirer to believer - you know now that Christ is Son of God, hence the thing to do is to ry and walk in His footsteps, to become a true follower;
You see, Christ is the truth in the way that the only true explanation of what is Truth is this one: that He is the Truth. This means to prove that truth in the manner of which Christ is Truth, is not a construct of phrases , nor a conceptual determination, or anything of the kind - but a life. The essence of Truth is not a reduplication of being in relation to thought, but the proof that our being expresses, through effort and travail, the Truth - just like the Truth was in Christ, existence, because He was the Truth.
What happens when an irresistable force meets an immovable object? I dunno, but it’d make a damn good movie.
What was your intention with this thread?
it would?
in this corner we have the gianormous chunk of metal…
sitting there not doing a thing…
mmmm…
in this corner we have the unmatched power of super magnetism…
sitting there not doing a thing…
round one. ding!
nothing…
round two. ding!
nothing.
…
round 15. ding!
nothing.
…makes for good cinema? not for me… at least in in rocky, he brutalized dead meat, this fight wasn’t even close…
-Imp
The post subject:
reminded me of a thread in Religion, “omnipotence paradox”, which asked the question “Could God create a rock so heavy even he couldn’t lift it?”. But your thread is somewhat more interesting, as it implies the interaction between God’s omnipotence and man’s very own freedom. Doesn’t the former exclude the latter?
It is obvious, as Mucius puts it, that we have an inner freedom of thought and questioning. However, we are slaves, to say it plainly, slaves to the human condition, which keeps us in a metaphysical cage/cave, out of which we cannot escape. The cagehinders us to do whatever we will, but we have the freedom to deny its reality and to bang our heads against the bars. It’s not much of a freedom, but it’s something. It doesn’t even derive from the supposed mockery of a demiurgos-like God, but from our very nature of created and helplessly limited beings. My point is that, in our form of existence, in our world ,that is, our condition as humans is quite miserable. Oh, and, last but not least, we have the freedom to believe in a God which promissed us He would set us free, provided we want that. Of course, it’s not a rational, nor reasonable belief, but I trust Christ. He is a gentleman.
And I myself get really close out of my abject human condition, my cage that is,by making an act of belief.
To sum up, we haven’t been created
.We just are, until our end or, until we make the trust-leap.
Omnipotens and “free will” are inherently contradictory…
and unless i’m mistaken that is what siatd meant with his “What happens when an irresistable force meets an immovable object?” question…
omnipotens inescapably implies the negation of “free will”…
How does it change the question, I am wondering, if we consider ourselves to be, collectively, God?
Perhaps, perhaps not. The Many Worlds Theory offers one way out regarding the difference between the apparently omniscient perspective of God, where everything seems predetermined and the human perspective which is individual and ‘contains’ some degree of free will. But that’s a long and not particularly relevant discussion.
You guys are going over my head with some of the words you are using. I want to learn what you are telling me, but remember I am a 35 year old mechanic, not a taught philosopher or scientist, can you translate down to me please? 
Hi there Judas 1
I don’t believe that man on earth to be a direct creation of the Father, but the result creation on a lower level of universal Creation. As he is, man on earth cannot serve the Father.
We are slaves because in the fallen state we lack both consciousness and will and so are slaves to the earth unconsciously in the same way as is all organic life. Jesus, as I understand it, is referring the acquisition of consciousness and will through the help of the Holy Spirit that leads to freedom from this slavery unnatural for Man.
Jerry
We would begin with the assumption that God is part idiot.
i think two different schemas can account for this and remain “Christian”. One is that of Open Theism in which the future is inherently unknown because it lacks actuality. Omniscience is restricted to only actual things. This is much like a common sense understanding of omnipotence because it would be rather odd to see the Divine doing something against its own nature (especially if it is immutable). Also, normally omniscience is limited to doing things logically possible. Making a rock so big God couldn’t lift is one such case.
The second theory (which i proposed here) looks at the problem slightly differently. Ability does not require continual use of that ability. In this case, the Divine can know future actions and future decision, yet chooses not to. There is nothing written saying that God must know everything…only that God can.
Well I won’t deny the presence of idiocy in the universe, Nick. But I was thinking really about this:
And I was thinking about how the dynamics of all of these kinds of questions regarding the relationship between man and God change the further we move away from our anthropomorphic ideas of God.
That’s what I was thinking.
I agree Jerry. It is just that there is a great difference between questioning anthropomorphic ideas of God and asserting the fallen state in which are lives are lived as collectively God.
I see what you guys are getting at I think…
It is like there is a little of God in everyone of us correct?
I think about that alot too, it is like sometimes when I talk to other people, it could be Him talking to me through them. But discernment is being able to tell when it is Him, and when it is them.
So I question everything until I am satisfied it is true or not. That is the only way I know to even try to discern between the two.
Do you have any other ideas I can try?
Well I’m not sure God is speaking to you through the words themselves. But maybe through the experience of the conversation…the relationship of the exchange, as it were. The relationship behind the exchange. I am thinking this is where you might find God.
Jerry, can you go a little futher into that for me?
Haven’t you heard the news? Dan IS God!
Seeing that God is all-powerful, all-loving and all-wise, here is what I will bless you with, first of all:
Hey buddy, relax, ‘fear’ is a default instinct within humans that causes them to want to destroy or avoid dangers. I am God, and I know exactly what you need because I created you, so all of my laws are just about you doing what is most healthy for self, society and planet. You won’t feel scared at all, you will feel peace and relief. I can program hereditary memories and also, as you can see from Pentacost, I can give real-time-eductation as complex as the ability to read and write in another language, all in mere moments! I will give you exact info on how to do whats right and when to do it. You wont have to feel lost, stupid or alone anymore.
Isn’t that great!? 
Not only will you have that relief, but I will also give you more natural control over your body so that you don’t naturally ever have to hurt yourself or anyone else.
Unlike evil and stupid kings of earth, I am all-loving, and don’t need to kill or scare people. I am so wise that I can educate people instead of killing them. I don’t command and judge, I guide and explain.
On a serious note:
What if “God” was actually an asexual supercreature that evolved and lived within a seporate dimension other then the physical universe? “He” can only effect physical reality very slightly, and has limited powers. Or not.
If you were Ford, and you were an engineer, and you created a car, wouldn’t you know how to drive it and fix it if it broke? Sure. If the car broke down would you yell “sinner” and kill it, or would you instead fix it? How much more so would you help guide and teach your children [if you were a father]?
Despite what Chrsitains think, “free will” is not powerful, it is slight, and “sin” is natural because of what we are as a species, and all creatures on earth “sin”, and we are no different.
If a computer program crashed would it be the programmer’s fault or the program’s fault?
The bible says that God created everything, but then it makes God look like a jack-assed-idiot because of the stupid methodology and lack of forsight that it adds to God.
The bible has lies and shit in it! It’s impure.
Does God kill me for saying any of this?
Absolutely not, I feel fine.
Does “God” “allow” “evil” as a “test”? In school, don’t you need to take the year’s education before you can pass the test? And why the hell do we take the test in school? So that the teachers can see if we know it all or not, and if we fail then we have to re-do the education process antil we finally learn it.
A test is meant to prove something.
When does a human need proof? When they don’t fully understand.
“God” is “all knowing”? Then he doesn’t need a test.
In the bible, God supposedly allowed Satan to kill off Jobs live-stock, slaves, sons and daughters [nice guy], all to “prove” a “point” that Satan called into question. Was God all-knowing? What does he have to prove? Is it ok to let someone kill the entire family and work force of someone else, then torture them, just to prove wither they will stay “faithful” or not? Since when was believing in God more important then being alive? Since when did belief change reality? Since when!?
Hssss!
Well, Judas, I don’t pretend to have all the answers. (Hell, I don’t pretend to have any of them). But I’m just thinking that maybe we find God in the relationships. Or maybe in the experiences of the relationships. Not so much the things that are said in any given conversation, but the thing that’s conceived during the exchange, whatever that thing might be. Maybe it’s a connection, maybe it’s an experience. We’re tapping into something when we reach beyond ourselves and connect with another human being, another manner of consciousness besides our own. It somehow elevates, or adds to in some way, our own level of consciousness. It seems to me a creative act, a conceiving act. Even in an exchange, for example, that’s argumentative or full of discord. There’s something in the experience of that exchange…something – if nothing else – that we can take away from it…a cultivation of spirit, let’s say. Something important.
This is a way, perhaps, that we can experience something of God. This is what I am thinking anyway.
two interpretations:
we are slaves to sin.
Sin is a state of giving into entropy, and we are slaves to the system of entropy.
That’s a rather bogus example because God is generally conceived to be wholly perfect. Any kind of “good parent” analogy breaks down because even “good parents” get ticked off or screw up.