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I am religious and believe in free will

71 (27.7%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

114 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (23.8%)

Total Members Voted: 251

[Bohandas]

It is more than current comfort that most religions care about. Most care about getting to the afterlife.

Give us a couple decades and we'll cover that too

[TD1]

Hm, that is interesting. Assuming Christianity is correct, and there's a benevolent God up there waiting to greet us all at his heavenly gates, what would he feel if we made our own heaven? Perhaps downloaded our consciences onto a machine which had certain simulations, or built in rules, to keep the peace? Perhaps even just simply the eternal life thing, without the rules.

Wonder if he'd be peeved

[Adragis]

Probably not, he'd just say 'nope' and do some God-level stuff so we get judgement day in the simulation

[Helgoland]

Dwarfy: The Tower of Babel was exactly that.

[TD1]

I figured that story was about the hubris of trying to reach God.

Making a simulation in which we are happy isn't quite the same thing.

[Frumple]

No, that one was pretty specifically a story about god seeing mankind starting to do really decently for themselves -- the tower was built primarily to make sure mankind didn't scatter apart, not really in order to reach heaven -- and then fucking them up, because humans can't have good things that don't come from god.

It's spun as a hubris thing, but you can read the passage itself as you please and it really doesn't come off as a hubris thing. God's stated reason for screwing with the whole babel thing was because mankind speaking one language and working together would have nothing they could not achieve. And apparently that's bad, so shatter the nation, scatter the people, and more or less give everyone involved brain damage. One of those moments thoroughly on the jackass list

[TD1]

Surely that's against the whole free will thing?

"You can do whatever you want. Except for that. Here, I'm going to have to make some alterations to your brain to fix that...."

[Adragis]

-- the tower was built primarily to make sure mankind didn't scatter apart, not really in order to reach heaven --

Please quote. I agree with what you're saying, but I've never heard this one before.

[TD1]

4 And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”

5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.

6 And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.

7 Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”

8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city.

9 Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

[Frumple]

Not really all that much biblical support for free will, td1

In any case, I'd probably say not to read too much into the story. All it really was was a mythological explanation of why there's multiple languages, conceived by a people that didn't believe it could happen naturally and did believe that god was a complete dick (but should be followed lest you get dicked by it).

As to the quote:

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As people moved eastward,[a] they found a plain in Shinar[b and settled there.

3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 6 The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

8 So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel[c]—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

Ninja'd a bit, but whatev'.

The specific line you're looking for is

Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

It says it right there -- the reason they were doing it and making a name for themselves was to prevent their people from being scattered across the whole of the earth. It wasn't pride, it wasn't trying to reach the heavens for poke the eye of god or anything like that, it was just so that mankind would maintain solidarity and not become less than they could be.

[scrdest]

4 And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”

5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.

6 And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.

7 Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”

8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city.

9 Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

TIL God's an antiglobalist.

[Teneb]

And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”

For some reason, I can't help but interpret this tower as a space elevator.

[Adragis]

If we're going for 'mythological explanations', it is obvious these were the Mayans building a spaceship.

[Descan]

Also free will goes out the window when you consider he hardened Pharoahs heart like 10 times, presumably so God could get some firstborn killing in.

And on a slightly more rocky note, the whole "believe or burn for eternity" thing goes against free will. Eternal burnination, if real, would certainly fall under "under duress" and not really count as freely choosing to follow Christ. I know of a few people who are Christian purely out of fear of Hell.

Makes the whole "follow me out of your own choice" thing modern Christ has going on ring a little hollow.

[TD1]

The old Pascal's Wager has always been a tad abhorrent to me.