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The concept of free will popped up in a discussion I have with @Sanoy. I think it should have its own thread to keep things a little tidy. Is free will real? Can it be real, given what we know about natural laws? Is it truly possible, philosophically speaking? There are different conceptions...

then Jesus must be in hell right now and never get out. Or am I missing something?

I guess this belongs in the philosophy forum, but that's closed. But it's relevant to ethics because the idea of free will is a prerequisite for even talking about ethical and moral issues. Anyway, I'm wondering how a truly free will can even be possible? The reason I doubt it is because...

Cause it had a little boogie in it.

As far as I can tell, most Christians believe in free will. They also believe that one cannot sin in heaven. How would you reconcile those beliefs?

I've lost faith over a period of several years and I'm now an atheist in the proper sense of the word (I don't believe in God, but I don't pretend to know there's no God). There's just a handful of people who know about it. The reason I'm not open is because a lot of people, most importantly my...

[Not sure if this is the right forum, it goes out to believers of any congregation] I've been thinking about the placebo effect and such lately. A lot of alternative medicine work through placebo (which does produce actual physical responses in the body, it's not merely imagination). All of...

Yes, yes, I know I can google it and find a thousand essays and articles, but I have a thing for actual conversation with actual people. Bring it.

Lately I've been curious about, and challenged on, my views on hell, that is: what do I believe it is, and why do I believe that? I'm trying to figure out what the bible actually says about it, beneath the doctrines and traditions and translations of the church(es), and that's where you come in...

I often get the impression, especially from charismatic/pentecostal christians, that the world is steadily declining in pretty much every way. I wonder, if that's true, the world must've been a fantastic place a couple of thousand years ago... Anyway, it's not true. While there are...

"Teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence and are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do, according to a study released today."...

The two common christians answers to this are a) God is allowed to do whatever He wants because He is God, and b) we can never understand it anyway. Well, those aren't really good answers, are they? Ask any question, and if anyone had given you an answer as lousy and senseless as that...

So... I keep hearing about all these spirits of rebellion, the Jezebel spirit, the spirit of confusion and whatnot. It seems like any time we Spirit-filled people run into something we don't particularly like, we are in reality encountering a spirit of [insert bad thing]. Usually, we'll...

That doesn't say that the bible is the "word of God". The bible quotes God from time to time, some of the writers say they are delivering a message from God, etc etc. But for the most part, the bible is the word of Moses, of Paul, of a host of unknown writers, it's poetry, song, prayer, personal...

... is a happy seal.

A few unfinished thoughts; God is love. Not only does God have love, he IS love. Are there any other traits/qualities that God is? I mean, we can say that God can get angry, but we can't say that God is anger. Or, we can say that God has order, but not that he is order. As far as I know...

My girlfriend needs it. How does she get it?

There are probably several definitions of the word sex. I'm more interested in what average Joe and Jane mean by "sex". Is it intercourse? Must it involve sexual organs? Can kissing be sex? If so, how does that impact the believer's attitudes toward it? Personally, I find it wrong to limit...

I'm taking the liberty of qouting the entire original post of LittleLion from another forum here, because I think we all need to read it and think about how we meet and treat people. I figured GT is a popular forum, so I'll post it here.