God's "Free Will" is Gross

If y’all know me, you know I love to argue. Blame it on being a Scorpio, or the fact that I’m an only child. Where it comes from isn’t important, but it’s pretty key to my personality.

Here’s the thing, though. I won’t argue with anyone unless I’m certain that I’m right. I won’t go to battle with someone if I don’t have my ducks in a row.

So recently on the good old TikTok, where most of my battles happen, I had a conversation with a Christian. She was defending God, specifically how God gives us a choice. You know…that beat to death argument about free will.

We went back and forth - she would comment, I would make a video, rinse and repeat. She was trying to make the point that God gave us free will because he loves us so much.

Gross.

I arugued that God’s free will was an invention of men who wanted to attribute a caring character to the creator of the universe. Never mind the fact that when sin entered the world, by the very Christian dogma this woman believes, that means God had to be the creator of sin.

All of it went over her head. Apparently philosophical discussions aren’t her thing.

Then she went farther than I’ve ever heard a Christian go in their defense of God’s mercy and love.

She said that if God removed all things to stop a person from murdering somebody else, then he removes freedom of choice FROM THE MURDERER.

So, according to this absolute paragon of intelligence and virtue, free will is so important to God that he will not protect a person from being murdered because that would take away the murderer’s free will.

Gross.

Free will in Christianity is so full of holes it makes swiss cheese look like a brick wall.

Let’s break it down, shall we?

First of all, God designed the universe, put humans on the planet, and all their little animal friends. He could have just left well enough alone, right? He could have allowed Adam and Eve to frolic through the garden of eden for eternity. The earth could have remained pure, unpolluted, perfect.

Instead, the supposed Creator of All Things decided that it was a good idea to bring temptation into the storyline. Why? Nobody really knows.

So he places a tree right in the middle of this perfect garden, tells Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit or they’ll fall dead then and there, then sends a serpent to tell them that God is lying.

Now, if there was a point to this madness, I’ve never been able to figure it out. I mean, it makes absolutely no sense. God, who supposedly can’t be around sin, literally creates it. He created the tree, he created the serpent, and he created the rules.

Gross.

Is it just me, or is this story just stupid? I mean, it’s painfully obvious that men wrote this story to try to explain the cosmos. It’s an admirable attempt, but the plot, boys, it needs work. A lot of work.

There is no way around the fact that the God of the Bible had to have created sin, right? Right? I mean, if he created everything, sin is an everything. We’ve all heard the story about Lucifer trying to cause a big rebellion in heaven, getting kicked out with bunch of his fellow insurrectionists, and set loose to wreak havoc on all of us until the end of time.

But God was literally in charge of the whole thing. He created the brains that went into the heads of the angels (do angels have brains…or heads? Who knows), which means he put the ability into those brains to have mean, nasty thoughts of overthrowing the heavenly government. Why? What was the point?

Christians like to skim past this. They will say that since nobody can understand the mind of God, it’s not up to us to try to figure out why he royally messed up creation. I think a better point is that there is no way to make sense of it because it’s nonsensical. Which basically means the entire Christian faith is nonsensical, because the events at creation directly lead to the story of Jesus. Without the sin (that God created) there would be no need to send Jesus to die to make up for it.

And on that topic, is death the only thing God had on his mind? I mean, couldn’t he have just told us to say sorry? Why did he decide that the only way for us to make up for his mess was to kill somebody? And why is it up to us to say sorry? We didn’t cause the mess, God did. He made the very thing that caused all the trouble to begin with.

Gross.

So we have an entire religion built upon the fact that the creator created the sin that would destroy the earth, then that same creator blames the creation for the trouble, makes us responsible for his mess by making us have to choose a plan of salvation that wouldn’t have been necessary if he had never created sin in the first place, and if we refuse his plan we are sent to an everlasting punishment in hell that the creator also created.

Got it.

So back to the subject of free will.

Do I believe we have free will? Yes. I freely chose to open my laptop and start typing, but the topic I’m writing about is based on a religious system I was raised in. I had no free will in that decision. My parents exercised their free will to raise me the way they did.

I had free will yesterday to go grocery shopping, but that free will was influenced by the fact that I have a job and could afford to buy food. I freely bought that food, but my choices were limited to gluten free options because the celiac in my body demands I follow a restricted diet. I did not choose that.

The concept of free will has been debated for millenia, and will continue to be. So many schools of thought surround this one seemingly simple concept, but there are some things we can all agree on, I think. We do make choices that come from our free will, but those choices are influenced by so many factors. Where we live, physical limitations, genetic determinations, and how we were raised all influence how we make our decisions. There is no decision making that takes place inside a vaccuum. We are products of a ton of variables that come together to knit us into who we are, and those variables determine how we decide things.

One last thought before I exercise my free will and turn off the computer so I can walk my dog. This world is a big ball of gas, rock and mystery. Some choices we can make, some are made for us, but one thing is for certain; your worth isn’t tied to some mistake a fictional character made thousands of years ago, and you don’t owe him an apology for his mess.