In His own image .....

using your same logic why should God allow us to do anything wrong at all? How many times a day do you make a decision that has negative consequences? If your version of what free will should be you would effectivily be not be free to make your decision. It could be likened to this. a twelve year old boy wants to get a tattoo. so he saves up money and asks his mother if she will take him to get one. She, shocked at her boys decision to get a tattoo says to him "No child of mine will get a tattoo". The boy is crushed at having his action denied. The question is, does this boy possess free will? I say no, because his decision is dependent upon someone else, and there is no way for that boy to get a tattoo. In order to have true free will, like we do, and what i think God gave us, our decisions, turning into action if you will, should not be dependent upon God. otherwise we are nothing more than God's puppets.

To some extent. But parents intercede in the free will of those they are responsible for; in fact we consider them negligent if they do not. If we are god's children, why isn't god looking out for us a little better? The obvious answer to me is, we're not god's children because there is no god. When you're replying, right beside the text box it says "*UBB code is ON". If you click those words (it's a link) you'll see a guide to using the UBB codes to quote and do other stuff.

Another question is, is the mother right in doing so? Probably. Therefore isn't it negligent of god to allow us to rape and kill each other at will without intercession?Parents intercede to protect their children from harm. Why shouldn't god do the same thing?

We are in his image. so in regard to God's "image" (Free will), we are equals. We are his grown up children if you will, so naturally we can "get a tattoo" whenever we'd like.

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In order to have true free will, like we do, and what i think God gave us, our decisions, turning into action if you will, should not be dependent upon God. otherwise we are nothing more than God's puppets.

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There's a clearly stated doctrine of predestination in the Bible that seems to say that such is exactly the case. There are many cases where God says he will alter people's perception and motivation, for example, and in the New Testament it's explicitly said that God chooses who will believe.The contradiction (and it is a contradiction) between predestination and free will can only be accepted by someone who has predetermined to believe in both, since the Bible says they are true. Even when I was a Christian I found it hard to swallow.

I thought it was who would be saved, not believe. if i am wrong I would like to be corrected. As for God picking who will be saved, I think that only God could do this and he does this in accordance of our actions.

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I thought it was who would be saved, not believe. if i am wrong I would like to be corrected. As for God picking who will be saved, I think that only God could do this and he does this in accordance of our actions.

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Tell me if I'm improperly equating the two, but I always heard "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved."Predestination implies that he makes the decision before we act.

of course God makes the decision before we act, as God by defination knows all things. So i guess Predestination could be argued.

So much for free will. So much for being made in His image, except as little mirrors with no responsibility.

We still have free will it is just that an all knowing God has simulated in his mind how things will happen and how we react

it's more than that, though. (I won't even ask how our will can be free if the outcome is preordained.) In some places in the bible god is actually changing the minds of people - preempting their free will and choice to ensure that they choose what god wants them to choose. For instance, god hardening Pharoh's heart against the plight of Moses's people.

"I won't even ask how our will can be free if the outcome is preordained" my thought is this, God is not ordaining what is happening he just knows what WE will ordain.
As to Pharoh your right. i won't take on that argument. however By doing this he freed the Isrealites.
I have always wondered though is there any evidence(Isrealites enslaved in Egypt than let go) for this besides the Bible. If anybody knows could you let me know.

If God knows what we will do before we do it and if he can't be wrong then we can't do anything else. Ergo no free will.As to my earlier argument. My point was that God (if he exists) has already restricked my free will in that I can't decide to snap my fingers and that action itself kills people. Assuming he created the universe he has made sure that this is physically impossible. Most people think that this is not actually a violation of our free will. Why didn't he just make sure that killing or raping someone is physically impossible? Since obviously things that we can't do because they are physically impossible are not violations of our free will, or do you think they are?Does this make sense?------------------
He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife.
- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Does a simulation of clouds ordain where the clouds will be? Or let's say we have perfected our means of perdicting the weather so we are never wrong. Does our perfect prediction of weather, tell the weather what it will do? No the weather happens of it's own accord we just know what it would do that is what i was getting at.
As to making things impossible well, if killing were impossible than we would not be able to have a hamburger or really any food. As to rape that uses the same system as reperduction, so to make rape impossible would also make repurduction impossible. as to making us unable to do stuff as a violation of our free will, maybe, maybe not i don't want to get into it.

If we are capable of making the clouds and controlling all the factors that affect them, and if we possess the ability to do such a simulation, then we are indeed responsible for everything they do. The very idea of runnning a simulation, too, implies that the model is mechanistic and in the case of human beings would imply no free will.