Wow humbled, you are the real deal. Thinker and researcher.... How indeed did you fall for tigers in your garden and a free log cabin in a mountain range?
Most of the worlds population believes in one myth or another, don't feel bad. These religious organisation's have had centuries of experience in advertising, consumer research and indoctrination.,,,, they know exacly what they are doing. All that is required, is for the duped, to surrender their thinking ability and exchange it for loyalty to an earthly authority, they use slight of hand to distract you with shiny, sparkly rewards as they do it.
Simply be glad you figured it out with time left on the clock ;) xx
Other things I found helpful to consider...
1.
Is there even one verse of the bible that is or could be intepreted several ways? Was the bible really the best mechanism for a god when communicating? Passed on by oral story for at least a thousand years, then penned over the next 2,000 by nobody knows who! Why not in stone, into the earth, indelibly, with all context and perspective and without any doubts!!?
2.
Would you do exactly the same things, make the same choices if we sent you back in time an hour without you knowing and let you play out that hour again?
Think about it a moment...Of course you would, whatever reason you made those desicions the first time round, will make you take that exact same choice again and EVERY time. That being the case, your free will is illusionary. Choices are determined by previously exposed influences. You may chose Cornflakes because you saw the advert on tv the night before and when entering the kitchen felt like cornflakes. Replay that moment a million times, and you would make the same decision for the exact same reason every time.
If you got up and got dressed in a blue dress, the reason you chose blue that dress remains the same, even if we sent you back and we replayed it. Whatever influenced you to make these desicions the first time round, would still be present the second time, third time, fourth time, and so you would react the same way EVERY time. We already know you would because you did it the first time and nothing in the whole universe has changed between the first play through and the millionth.
So that being said, how could a god judge you for choices as if there is a crossroads at every juncture? The man walking in on his wife having an affair, that kills her in an emotional rage, and her lover.... was always goin to. The influences were in play before he opened the door. Maybe if the guy had visited his uncle in prison as a kid, he would have stopped just short of murdering them, because his influnces changed. Maybe the fact they had just been camping and there was a knife in the room atop a pile of camping gear, influenced him to kill them. The point is, how can a go judge and punish when there is no free will? If we will make the same desicions at a set point in time and space, because of previous influences and exposures, how can we be punished. It was always going to happen.
The concept of free will is man made, though we seem to have a human desire to believe in it, likely due to the consequences of surrendering control should we admit we have alot less than free will than we once believed. We have none.
i appreciate this concept is deep, you can read up on it under 'determinism' it has nothing to do with pre-destination by the way. Just that our choices are not really choices, but reactions to influences.
