Spiritual Forum. Org

Hi everyone.. let me start by introducing myself.  I am new to this site and am very happy I found it.  I love to ponder philosophy and spirituality.  I consider myself open minded and meditate but also go to a Christian church here in the Philippines where I live.  I enjoy asking myself controversial and perspective changing questions as I think it helps me understand life, truth and reality as a whole.  I hope I can make some friends on here.  I'm going to read some of your posts and see if I can get to know you guys better.

Here are some of my thoughts:


What is free will?
Free will is the ability to make a choice fully and completely without anyone making the choice for you.

Do I have free will?
Who and what you are determines what you choose so how can you have any choice what so ever in anything you choose if you never had a choice in who and what you are?  In order to have free will you must have chosen your own existence and all the details therein, else your choices would never truly be yours but the choices of whatever if anything created you.

I choose who I am today?
In a sense that is true and it may or may not be valuable to live by that.  But who is the person that is choosing who he is today and who chose him?  The ultimate question regarding the ability to choose is: "Did I choose to exist?" 

Is God the only one with free will?
In order for God to have free will he must have created himself.  This brings about another paradox as he must have existed in the first place in order for him to create himself which would mean that he already existed before his existence.  That doesn't make much sense.  It instead gives rise to the notion that God either always existed or came from nothing without his own doing.  After all, how could it be his doing if he didn't exist yet?

If I choose to go to church and end up going it's considered an act of free will.  That is fine and it's very good but I don't want to mistake it for the literal term free will which in the reality of things, at least from what I can see doesn't exist.  It's my firm but relinquish-able opinion that free will is more of a concept we use for practical purposes then an absolute truth.

Reality is truth and it's the only thing that's real.  You wouldn't climb up an imaginary flight of stairs or sit in an imaginary boat on the water.  In the same way building a life and placing inspiration in fallacy would probably in the long run cause you and me to suffer. I can't say this with ultimate certainty as I may not always be doing what I'd like to, but with a glance, truth should always be cherished and accepted.  In my opinion it should also be readily discarded for a more complete truth should one present itself.  I have so much more reflecting, meditating and pondering to do. 

Thanks for reading some of what I wrote 

I believe that we have the free will and we choose to be what we are today. God will surely want us all to be living in good doings and happy life. We are the one who makes mistakes and choose to sometimes do against His wills. We should be choosing the right path and enjoys the free will that has given to us.

I believe free will is one of the greatest gifts we have been given.  We have such free will we can even choose to deny the one that created us, and that is allowed out of love for us.  The story of the garden of eden represents the choice we made to separate ourselves from God and it's perfection, exercising that free will despite it leading to less happiness. 

If we did not have free will and were just robots or puppets, how would that possibly be satisfying to the creator or showing us love? 

The core of the way of the Greatest Creator is the way of nature. There is no coercion attached to the way of the Greatest Creator.

Nature is the Greatest Creator. That is to say, the Tao that governs everything and every phenomenon in the universe is evolving according to the order of the Greatest Creator.

The Greatest Creator never records his will with words, never enters man’s mind to grant special edifications and instructions, never sounds out and reviews man, never worries that some deity or demon may usurp his throne, and never pass judgment on man.

The god in the Old Testament of the Bible is not the Greatest Creator. The Greatest Creator described in Lifechanyuan is not the well-known god in the bible, but the only spiritual entity with supernatural power and wisdom, which governs the operation and change of everything. In other words, the Greatest Creator is the headspring and primal momentum of everything. The consciousness of the Greatest Creator impartially acts on the whole universe and is not affected by the differences in the matter of races, religion, and states. Therefore there is only one Greatest Creator for the universe and mankind. Man’s conflicts in the areas of religion, race, and states are all caused by the failure to recognize the real Greatest Creator.

The Way of the Greatest Creator is the road of happiness, joyfulness,, freedom and blessing. You are to keep a peaceful and rejoicing inner mind no matter whether you are in the favorable circumstance or in the adversity, in the face of desperation or death. You must be convinced that the Greatest Creator is perceptive of the slightest errors and is definite about punishments and rewards. You should be brave to have the Greatest Creator take charge of your LIFE and have the Tao manage your life.

All things created by the Greatest Creator are arranged in clearly defined layers. As long as we obey the arrangement of the Greatest Creator, strictly adhere to our duty in behavior, and move forward following the track of human nature, we will have an unregretful life, no matter whether we are in favorable circumstance or adversity, and whether we are in bright or dark situations.

Everyone on here seems to have valid points about free will. However, I would like to address the issue do i choose to exist. Well, initially I don't think we choose to exist. I think we are all apart of God's plan and he chose for all of us to be here. Now, I do think the things you do in life can either prolong your existence here on earth or put it to an end. It even says in the Bible (and of course I am paraphrasing) that if you honor your mother and father your days will be long. Yeah, ultimately he makes the choice in the end but I think we have a lot to do with that equation.

We all have beliefs on why were were created. We do not know, however as to the real reason why. We can, to a degree, decide how long or short of a life we will have. There are circumstances that are out of our control that effect us.