Quote Originally Posted by Polymirize
Emphasis my own...

This is a horrible argument. You could drive a tractor through the holes in it. I wouldn't grant you either of the premises of the argument. It is not neccessary that if God is, than man is a slave. Rather it could be the case that God has been, I don't know, misinterpreted perhaps. Second, "man can and must be free", it's very poetic, but can it be supported? Do men in captivity cease to be men? I assume "free" implies freedom from control, but if this is the case, welcome to the social contract. You sold your freedom for a place in society, so obviously men must not be free. (ergo, God must exist?)

I'm with you in sympathy I think, but that's no excuse for shoddy logic. thoughts?
How can man ever be free with an omnipotent being of any sort in existence? How can freedom exist if any choice can be overriden at any moment by the whims of the totalitarian dictator of the universe? How can freedom exist if there is an entity that says "okay, you can do what you want, but if you don't do what I say I have a special place full of fire and smoke to torture you forever"? How can freedom exist within a Christian universe, where God clearly states in the Bible special rules for slave-owners, essentially condoning the practice and even saying it's okay to sell your daughter intno slavery? The whole idea of monotheism is submission. Unquestioning submission to a higher power. That is the exact opposite of freedom. You cannot contradict God's will. No matter what you decide is right or wrong, it doesn't matter because God already decided that for you, and you just have to agree or burn forever. And people have the nerve to call that free will. If God is, man is a slave, just as with any other totalitarian dictator. Does man have the power to democratically choose what morality is? No, God dictates that. Does man have the power to achieve freedom from this "shepherd"? No, the Lord is your shepherd and the Lord is all-powerful. The Lord is your master and you must do what the Lord says or suffer eternal damnation.

But when we look at the world today, we don't see people's choices being overriden. If there is an omnipotent deity that knows the difference between right and wrong, it certainly isn't doing anything about it. Why? Because man does indeed have free will, and in a universe where man has free will an omnipotent being is impossible. If I truly have free will that means there is nothing that can force me or threaten me to act in a way I don't choose to. It means, therefore, that there is no Hell, no Heaven, no God, no morality intrinsically woven into the fabric of the universe. We are free to choose for ourselves what we want to do with our lives. To embrace God is to reject freedom.