I wanted to repost my response to the original post, as the o.p. was an interesting one.  Anyone care to respond to this rather than the fight that hijacked the original thread?

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You do have the option of free will on your own terms.  Its just that there are repercussions for actions.  Why shouldn't a RAPIST have consequences for his actions in the afterlife?  What it seems like you are asking for, is to be the God of your own experience, which in a sense is allowed but is not fun.  Free will on one's own terms is ultimately a hellish experience, where you are surrounded by like minded spirits who want to exercise their free will on you in selfish ways as well.  The heavenly option requires we do the will of God, which involves loving other people and ourselves.  Yes that involves a choice where your freedom to say, rape others, has been limited.

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God does suffer with victims, and people who feel suicidal because of circumstances or genetics.  In effect, God did become one of us to suffer some of the worst evil that humanity would throw at him at that time (crucifixion and death through torture, rejection, etc.).  Reincarnation in these cases would be another chance to live through difficult problems.  God doesn't expect the same from everyone - 'to those who have been given more, more will be expected - those who have been given less, less will be expected.  By the way, God doesn't expect people to be happy necessarily, and God's ultimate purpose isn't our temporary pleasure or pain (although he is concerned with this, its just virtue/character issues are more important).

Secondly there are passages in the bible that have to do with the afterlife as a type of rest for people who have worked hard on themselves to deal with issues of life.  People who have committed suicide or tempted to would need a much more peaceful sort of heavenly experience then others.  Jesus went on to promise that he was preparing a place just for us individually - meaning we will have a tailor made existence.  Someone who is troubled by depression and needs more peace will have it.

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God cares passionately about people, and loves them very much.  Its because of this love that he can be so angry at destructive and hurtful decisions that people make.  We do few actions  (or say few words) that are isolated and independent  - pretty much everything we do or say affects others for good or for bad.  This has ripple effects on others as well. 

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Again, you have free will - in fact you can be terribly evil in your interactions or terribly loving.  It doesn't mean there aren't consequences, however.  One cannot be a rapist and be "allowed to stay in heaven with everyone else if they wanted to" without going through a whole lot of repentance / experiencing of what the victim went through.

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It is possible that God will call people into account for being destructive to their own bodies over a long period of time.

People who commit suicide are throwing away an outrageous opportunity to do good and evil in this life, even if they don't realize it at the time.  Once that is thrown away, they have lost some of that freedom through choices they have made.  No doubt each experience of suicide is treated differently, and its my personal belief that some people who commit suicide end up in heaven.

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Again, people have free will, but not freedom from consequences of their actions.

Would the world be better if rapists and torturers were simply dead when they died and didn't know what harm they had done to their victims and the domino effect the evil had on other people?  Do we want to live in a universe where Hitler can live life fully and happily until his physical death and have no repercussions for the millions of his victims?  Thats absurd in the existentialist sense of things, and makes a mockery of the suffering of people.  God actually places a huge value on the suffering of people, and takes it far more seriously than your worldview does.

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Think of a child who gets caught eating cookies.   You are thinking of God in the sense of a mother who whacks the kid's hand afterwards.  God is really more like a mother who warns the kid they will spoil their appetite for dinner, which is what happens to the kid.  These are natural consequences of evil actions with the free will that God has given us.  Would God be loving if he didn't warn us of terrible experiences that are possible in the afterlife?

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I have no idea what happens to souls that don't incarnate on Earth.  However, along with free will comes good and evil.  We can be forgiven of our evil, but we need to be loving and forgiving towards the evil that others do toward us (assuming they ask for forgiveness), and we need to ask for forgiveness for ourselves.  So there is a mechanism to deal with the evil that we create during our lifetimes.  What you don't get, is life on your own terms.  Thank God for that - the people you have hurt in your lifetime would be living in a unjust paradigm where you would be able to exalt in pleasure at their pain.  There is justice in the universe; justice, and love.

Recoverer -
I read what you wrote and actually appreciated what you wrote - I wasn't referring to your writing when I said that.  People should be warned about unscrupulous characters - that in of itself is a helpful service.
  But I'd rather not talk about what's on the other thread and talk about what's on this thread - any thoughts anyone?
Pratekya

Blink -
  There is good food for thought in what you have written.
  As for the first point, yes people are afraid of the afterlife and the unknowns involved.  And the teachings of Jesus aren't that comforting at times.  I think some moderate concern/fear about how one's own actions will be evaluated in the afterlife is a generally good thing.  However if this is taken to an extreme it can be very bad.  Someone living in constant fear & guilt is not healthy, and neither is someone who gives no thought to how they treat others / the afterlife at all.  I said that God values character more than temporary suffering or pleasure because of the problem of evil.  Many philosophy students will question how a God of this universe could be all powerful, all loving, and allow so much suffering to happen in the earth.  First of all the question assumes that God's goals are simply maximizing pleasure.  I don't believe that that's true.  God seems to value virtue and the freedom of will to develop virtue or vice more than temporary pleasure or pain.  Given this free will on earth, there comes a time when there needs to be a judgement, or life review or something similar so that people will have to give an account for evil actions and finally realize (possibly for the first time) what they have done to others.  Justice demands this.  In fact the suffering of the world demands this.  If there is no judgement, no justice in the afterlife, then the suffering of millions if not billions is worse than a sick joke, worse than absurdity.  It would be better if life never happened if that were the case.
  As for your second point - I do believe that its true that the only thing we are in control of is our actions & reactions to others, and we can learn to react in loving ways even in the face of evil actions towards ourselves.  However I still think that there really are other people out there besides ourselves and their actions are significant.  In other words, I would disagree that all there is is our reflection, "What we see is our OWN reflection, every time, wherever we are, whatever we do, whatever life we live, whatever death we choose."   But I think I agree with the spirit of what you are writing (if I understand it correctly), that the most important thing, and the thing we are ultimately responsible for, is how we treat others and hopefully show love, and that will most likely get reflected back to us eventually.
Pratekya

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why not?  why should we have to suffer the repercussions of our actions?  why couldn't that rapist or murderer simply be made not to reincarnate again to hurt people again?  yet God lets that person reincarnate and keep hurting people - why doesn't God stop suffering???     perhaps our free will is not a good thing to have at all, if it only leads to trouble and suffering.  why would God create us only to suffer? 

i certainly hope reincarnation is a CHOICE and not something forced upon us, because i don't want to come back to earth again.

the_seeker wrote on Oct 26^th, 2007 at 8:39pm:


I'm operating under a worldview where reincarnation is somewhat rare, or at least more rare than eastern traditions would suggest.  The bible seems to suggest that it is appointed unto people to die and be judged, not necessarily die and go through it over and over again.  In addition, it seems a bit strange to me if reincarnation is common simply because we do not remember our past lives.  How are we supposed to learn a lesson if we don't remember previous actions and consequences?  I suppose one could argue that this is a lesson learned through the expression of free will, and that remembering past lives would be in a sense a limitation of that free will, and I would concede the point is made.  However Jesus never mentions reincarnation, aside from some strange things he says about John the Baptist that could be interpreted as him being a reincarnation of Elijah.

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Great questions.  Again I think its because there is the possibility for virtue to develop.  You can't have that opportunity without the possibility of suffering.  In other words, you can't have virtue / vice develop without free will, and if there is free will then there will be a great many people who freely choose to do evil.  God must have forseen this, if not in actuality then in probability.  So God still considers it to be worth it - the free will and choosing of developing virtue / vice that carries huge reprocussions for eternity outweighs the temporary suffering while on earth.

Lastly, God wants us to alleviate that suffering - wants people to act in loving ways that would limit suffering and so develop our own virtue as well.

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supposedly because our SOUL remembers the past lives, and our conscious human brains are just not fully aware of what our soul knows.  they say we choose to forget, to live from a clean slate.  this certainly could make live more challenging, as for example you may not know who your true soulmate is, or who your friends or enemies are.  but of course enemies can turn into friends if you aren't aware of your bad past lives with that person.  i don't know why some people are allowed to remember past lives and others aren't, though. 

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I would agree with you if there weren't a chance of becoming forgiven of these terrible things we have done in our lives.  For forgiveness to work we need to ask for forgiveness and honestly try our best to move along from these things; to try 'with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength' to move forward and to stop doing these things.

I like the parable a lot.