Commentary: Discussion on Mormonism

[articulett]

Yes, rconk. If souls were proven to exist then scientists and everyone else would be doing everything possible to find out about them and how to communicate with people after death and so forth. If any kind of consciousness outside of a brain were proven to exist-- just imagine what we could do with the information! Darwin's theory has brought a wealth of information-- our whole genetic legacy in every cell of our body-- and we've decoded it! That is what true and useful information can do! And no scripture mentioned it, I might add. (And we did a much better job decoding DNA than Joseph did with those papyrus strips I might add.) That's the thing about objective useful truths-- everyone wants them... it's why we have technology that evolves and medicine that evolves and air travel that evolves. It's why we spend millions getting space dust and make forums and archive info.

It's just that what you think of as evidence, I KNOW is just a common old way people have been fooled through the eons. Faith and feelings are not evidence of facts... not facts that are true for everybody, anyhow.

To me, I always look at why people believe the crazy things they do-- whether it's Mormons, or Maatorc, or the truthers... and I try to see how they've pieced together such an unbelievable tale-- what they've ignored and where they've filled in the blanks and how they extrapolated and whether it's fixable and what does that mean when men can be so damn confident and so damn wrong? And I never do understand why people are so convinced of things that science would have or should have started accumulating evidence for by now if true. In science, the evidence accumulates and the understanding gets clearer. But it never does with faith based notions... you guys just take the truth you have and make it impenetrable to contrary facts while shoring it up with feelings and spin and anecdote and occasional facts coupled with leaps and extrapolations followed by getting more people to believe so that it "seems" more true in your head. And as long as no one disproves it (to you) it just gets truer in your head.

I love useful facts. What could be more useful than knowing the rubric the invisible guy who controls your eternity expects you to follow? I just don't believe eternal souls.. or invisible overlords... or cryptic rubrics.... or prophets of anything.... and I'd need evidence of all of those even to begin to take rain dances or the book of Mormon seriously. Otherwise-- it's just interesting for me to see how people fool themselves. And if we can unbrainwash people like you... we can learn how to unbrainwash those we fear-- our enemies... Muslim extremists, North Koreans, racists, etc. Faith is a bad way to know anything true.

 

[articulett]

P.S. I've also learned about bias and how that affects a person's findings. Positive bias can lead one to be sloppy and too trusting. Negative bias is good in increasing rigour and not assuming anything is true until proven. I think letting both biases converse helps balance each other out. Perhaps an agnostic view is the correct view to have instead. It would seem an agnostic would be less likely to assume true or false and be misled one way or the other. I've seen people be led the wrong way in positive bias by blind faith and I've seen people led the wrong way in negative bias by hate and fear. Thoughts?

You seem to be confused... you divide the world into pro-Mormon and anti-Mormon as though they are equally valid. But it's scientific fact versus religious conjecture. Do you think Science (including Science that disputes Scientology) is as valid as Scientology apologists? What about astronomers versus astrologists? The actual scientific facts don't support the book of Mormon. If god is given messages, it would have been cool if he gave out facts that latter proved to be useful-- germ theory, for example-- DNA.

Reality, facts, and truth aren't really debatable-- they just are what they are and we can learn about them and refine our understanding as we go-- or we can assume we know everything important there is to know and that new knowledge will mess with our confidence in our "faith". You have chosen the latter. That is fine. But, generally, skeptics don't want to believe something because it "feels" true-- they want the facts that are the same for everybody. In the objective world-- Joseph Smith was wrong-- whether purposely or deluded-- he just wasn't getting the prescient information that he told people he was getting. He couldn't have known that after he died, science would develop and prove that he was fraudulent. In the mean time, he managed to get multiple wives and allegiances and power proclaiming to have come upon cryptic messages from the creator of the universe in a mythical fashion and translate these (for some reason encrypted) messages with the help of "magic" and "supernatural" forces.

Just because there are 2 options... doesn't mean both are equally credible or equally likely.

 

[The_Animus]

I would like to present a flier that was put on my girlfriends windshield. This will not be the complete flyer because it it four pages filled with very small text and would take too long to type it all up. So I'm just going to share the basics of what it says.

Global Warming and Deterioration of the Ozone.

My Dear Friends,
Pay close attention to what the news media is now reporting about the ozone. The ozone is actually shown in the Holy Scriptures but under a different name. Prophecy also shows the real cause of its deterioration. You need to study the complete Message to understand what would have prevented what we are now seeing in today's world news.

....

For the last fifty years sin has abounded, and so have the results of sin. What man does shows, but not instantly, but sooner or later the result of sin shows in everything around him, including the atmosphere.

Sexual sins such as fornication, adultery, sodomy, and bestiality create bugs in the body. These bugs are unnatural to a person's internal environment and in many ways are harmful to the person's organs and even his brain. These bugs come in all forms because they are mutations and are called by many different names, which science tries to classify into kingdoms each time a new one is discovered.

Each new bug (germ or virus) brings with it new diseases to mankind, the environment, and to animals, both domestic and wildlife.

The flier goes on to say that science had made things worse by creating drugs such as antibiotics because it only strengthens the germs and ultimately leading us to our own destruction. The entire flier basically says that breaking the laws of Yahweh creates sin, which in turn creates almost every other problem including global warming.

The person who made this flier takes small bits of truth we have learned from science, twists it, and uses it for his own purposes. He completely ignores all other scientific information which shows that his conclusions are blatently wrong. He also repeatedly takes a small scientific statement and then tries to apply it to scripture to prove parts of that scripture as well as his beliefs. All religions do this.

All of this is bad enough, but this next part is the kicker...

In this time period, most people desire to be deceived. If they did not desire deception, they would believe the Inspired Phophets and Apostles. There is no mistaking their words.

Notice, the Apostle John in every bible, says that every person, preacher, Pope, rabbi, priest or whatever you may call yourself, if you practice breaking Yahweh's Laws, any Law, you belong to Satan, not to Yahweh or the Savior. Unless you desire to be deceived, you would believe the Savior when He says to you the following:

He then quotes scripture about believing false prophets.

So if you don't believe what a choice few people tell you what is right and wrong you are deceiving yourself...

This man believes with every inch of his body that everything in that flier is the 100% true words of god and everyone who disagrees is wrong and is deceiving themselves.

 

[Elind]

articulett - If you somehow found out through objective evidence that the Mormon church were the true church of God, would you join? If not, why not? ETA: Let's assume that through objective evidence that it is also proved that God exists - this is just a rhetorical situation. I want to understand you better, that's all.

This is public, so addressed to me too I presume:

If my brain had a short circuit and I started hearing voices and got a compulsive disorder that made me find ways to validate what I see with what the voices said, probably I would, but it would no longer be me.

Your opinion of objective is not the same as many of us here. Surely you realize that by now?

If the voice said it would part the Atlantic ocean and let me walk to England, and I did it, I would think I was hallucinating, or I would acquiesce and conclude that the mind I had been born with had gone sick, and I might as well go where others like me are.

Why do you persist in asking questions like this? Can you not see that we think you are delusional. Not insane, but delusional, just like some obsessive compulsive disorder that many people have yet for the most part still lead relatively normal lives?

 

[articulett]

And that kind of woo with pseudoscience is the worse... I love that part in Kissing Hanks Ass and religious people use it all the time-- they take a wee bit of facts or good advice and they extrapolate it to mean that the whole shebang is "THE TRUTH"...

 

[articulett]

This is public, so addressed to me too I presume:

If my brain had a short circuit and I started hearing voices and got a compulsive disorder that made me find ways to validate what I see with what the voices said, probably I would, but it would no longer be me.

Your opinion of objective is not the same as many of us here. Surely you realize that by now?

If the voice said it would part the Atlantic ocean and let me walk to England, and I did it, I would think I was hallucinating, or I would acquiesce and conclude that the mind I had been born with had gone sick, and I might as well go where others like me are.

Why do you persist in asking questions like this? Can you not see that we think you are delusional. Not insane, but delusional, just like some obsessive compulsive disorder that many people have yet for the most part still lead relatively normal lives?

I know... it's so interesting... like he can't "hear" or register some arguments. Does he not see them? Or has he taught himself or been brainwashed to be impenetrable and be steadfast in his proselytizing...

And if he and his relatively harmless religion can be so blind and so sure-- then what does that mean for all those in charge who are equally sure of some much more scary (to my world) beliefs. None of their ideals sound particular good or moral to me. They just sound nutty and sexist and oppressive and ... like Scientology and rain dancing and virgin sacrifices and talking in tongues.

Faith is scary-- it makes people so blindly confident and judgmental while imagining themselves knowledgeable AND humble.

 

[rcronk]

Elind - No, you misunderstood me. I really meant objective, like God appeared before everyone and did whatever it took to prove to all that He exists and is real, and pointed to the Mormon church and said, "yup, I really did speak to Joe Smith - that's my true church", etc. I was only asking articulett what she would do, that's all. I'm not a nutjob or delusional, I'm just trying to ask some questions to understand you a little better. I get that just basing truth off of feelings is a bad idea for exactly the reason shown above with the whole pamphlet thing. I get it. It is rude to speak of me as though I'm stupid and not present though.

 

[The_Animus]

I really meant objective, like God appeared before everyone and did whatever it took to prove to all that He exists and is real, and pointed to the Mormon church and said, "yup, I really did speak to Joe Smith - that's my true church", etc.

If there were a God, I think he would be more likely to show himself that way than the way he apparently does now. The current way makes no sense whatsoever and is the very cause of the lack of religious unity.

 

[Elind]

Elind - No, you misunderstood me. I really meant objective, like God appeared before everyone and did whatever it took to prove to all that He exists and is real, and pointed to the Mormon church and said, "yup, I really did speak to Joe Smith - that's my true church", etc. I was only asking articulett what she would do, that's all. I'm not a nutjob or delusional, I'm just trying to ask some questions to understand you a little better. I get that just basing truth off of feelings is a bad idea for exactly the reason shown above with the whole pamphlet thing. I get it. It is rude to speak of me as though I'm stupid and not present though.

I wasn't meaning to be rude, and I obviously considered you present, but you propose thoughts that you think others should be willing to accept under the right circumstances, even though we obviously consider any such circumstance ridiculous.

To some extent that could be considered rude on your part, but we understand that you think differently, so no real offense taken.

A god, as you define it, wouldn't need to "appear" before everyone to demonstrate it existed. It would have done that a million years ago when it started the final stages of human evolution and none of us would have any doubt today.

What is this game you think this god is playing with our little minds? Frankly it sounds psychopathic to me. Any human who behaved that way with his/her captive audience would be locked up.

Can't you understand how silly the whole thing sounds to people who think for themselves?

 

[The_Animus]

Also the attitude in here and in the way people are posting and replying is not conductive to a free exchange of ideas. It is also not conductive to your message getting through to those who have different beliefs and opinions.

Patience and Understanding.

You all have been here a very long time. Surely you must understand after posting here for so long that no one just instantly converts major beliefs. If it was as easy as talking to someone for an hour or presenting a piece of logical contrary evidence, every person with woo or CT or religious beliefs that came here would be won over relatively quickly.

It is easy to get frustrated and end up replying with sarcasm or down talk. I've done it many times. But I shouldn't. It really doesn't help with getting people to understand your point of view. After all, rcronk believes his point of view as much as we believe ours. I think that some posts might not be done with completely good intention. Perhaps I'll start to ask myself if my post is the most conductive, to the other person being able to understand my point of view, as possible.

And I'm really not putting the forums here or this thread or anyone posting in here down. This is actually the best forum I have ever been to. Always room for improvement though

 

[articulett]

Elind - No, you misunderstood me. I really meant objective, like God appeared before everyone and did whatever it took to prove to all that He exists and is real, and pointed to the Mormon church and said, "yup, I really did speak to Joe Smith - that's my true church", etc. I was only asking articulett what she would do, that's all. I'm not a nutjob or delusional, I'm just trying to ask some questions to understand you a little better. I get that just basing truth off of feelings is a bad idea for exactly the reason shown above with the whole pamphlet thing. I get it. It is rude to speak of me as though I'm stupid and not present though.

But you're not present all the way. You have a goal to preach and don't even have a clue as to what you might learn. You assume you have a truth that we need, and don't seem to consider that the reverse might be true. What would this objective god look like? How would we know it was god? Could we ask him about the DNA problems and the Book of Abraham snafu? And polygamy? And Kolob? And dark skinned people? And why he didn't tell us that humans evolved from apes as abundantly evidenced in the DNA? What about the whole original sin thing... how does that make sense? And you may not be a nut job, but you sure do sound deluded regarding your religious beliefs. They aren't based on facts and they are impervious to contrary evidence. If a Scientologist or one who speaks in tongues or a truther is delusional-- then the evidence indicates that you are equally delusional for the same reasons.

If you feel like people are talking about you instead of to you, it's because of the huge amount of information that just doesn't penetrate. Randfan has been patient and eloquent and gone through a great deal of trouble to get you to understand how he came to see that he was mistaken-- but you respond to him as though he's the stupid one. From an objective perspective, he's the one that is being much more candid-- truthful-- explanatory of the facts that are the same for everyone. You are being like Scott Ferrare and other apologists on this forum. If you can't see the difference, then it might be due to the paradigm where you believe that your faith has lead you to some magical "truth".

What useful truth has the BoM given you? Can it be verified in any way?

 

[rcronk]

Nobody's trying to change anyone - I think, rather, that we're trying to understand each other a little better. If we can acomplish that, we've made progress and our time has not been wasted. Ok - now someone said that God sounds crazy behaving like He does - just lurking out of sight all of the time - what kind of insanity is that? From my perspective, a large part of the reason we're here is to get a chance to choose what we want to choose without any influence from God. I believe we were with God before we came here and we learned and progressed as far as we could and then, like children who must move out of their parents' house and go live life and make their own choices without mom and dad looking over their shoulder, we needed to get away from God and His influence and figure things out for ourselves and figure out what we want. I've said before it's like the difference between having your manager hovering over you while you carefully and efficiently execute your job duties as opposed to slacking a little when he's gone. So God not being here is a large part of the plan right now. So then it moves from "psycho" to "essential" that God is not around proving to all that He exists. Does that make sense? Please let's try to understand each other a little better. I'm doing my best and I hope all of you will too. Thanks.

 

[articulett]

I understand the concept... but it's still silly... you don't expect people to have faith in some story or entity that has no more evidence in it's favor than any other such entity. We don't have invisible managers or parents who tell us to not question them but to trust all that they say on faith... we don't teach our children morality with promises of planets and goodies and threats for perdition. What sort of morality is that? We wouldn't create a child only to test them via some weird rubric where the results affect their eternity and they can only judge if they are "getting it right" by their feelings. Anyhow, wasn't god around proving he exists to Satan... and that didn't stop his "free will". Why would god care so much about faith and belief rather than facts and evidence and useful knowledge and human suffering and learning? Why would anybody with a desire to be "worshiped" be worth worshiping? I understand the story you are telling. Reincarnation resonated with me for similar reasons... it made sense to choose your incarnations based on what you wanted to learn... none of the god good vs. evil stuff ever made sense to me. But making sense doesn't make something true. Neither does convincing yourself. Every religion has a belief that justifies the giant leaps of faith required.

An all knowing god would already know the result... if he knows the eternal outcome... why go through the motions? It's the questions like this that you avoid that makes your conjecture similar to "truther" conjecture. They have facts and emotions and stories that make it all sound true to them-- but not to anyone being objective... just searching for the single truth-- the facts that are the same for everybody.

I don't believe in "divine knowledge", so all claims about divine knowledge are delusional until or unless divine knowledge is proven to exist. And I don't believe in the truther conspiracy theories either for very similar reasons. The world would be very different I imagine if there was "divine" knowledge-- the best divine knowledge would be something science would verify later... something very specific... not cryptic-- like the knowledge that the earth is spherical... that we carry a code of our ancestry in our genes that extends all the way back in time to the simplest of life forms... that all life is related to each other--has a common ancestor somewhere back in time. That is a fact-- you and roaches and mushrooms and whatever you ate for dinner have a common ancestor... and we can prove that scientifically-- no god mentioned it.

Don't ignore that. That is really useful and amazing information that is verifiable and understood by anyone who understands genetics and evolution.

That is better than your god stories--so male centered and egotistical and provincial--with such a petty god... That is information that is useful and true and amazing and verifiable. That is more humbling and a better basis for morality then anything any church is teaching people. All of life on this minuscule dot of a planet in space is connected. The truths are better than the myths humans created. The truths have been accumulated by mere mortals through trial and error and time and sharing of info.

Skeptics don't have gods. But we do have heroes. Take a look at this and tell me Joe Smith begins to compare...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?d...=65&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=2
http://video.google.com/videoplay?d...125&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

That's verifiable truth. That beats false papyrus and disappearing gold plates by a longshot. And nobody needs to be worshiped. The messages are profound. And you waste your time and others convincing yourself and others of useless myths. There's no punishment for not accepting this info. Just ignorance in a time when we are the first humans to be able to understand such amazing things. You worship unprovable magic men and fail to gain the gifts on those so eager to share the truth-- the one eager to be probed and prodded and disproven if possible-- the one that we can add to and hone for future generations.

I have lost patience in this deference towards faith. I think it leads to a kind of ignorance that eventually becomes unfixable --and so overconfident.

 

[Elind]

Also the attitude in here and in the way people are posting and replying is not conductive to a free exchange of ideas. It is also not conductive to your message getting through to those who have different beliefs and opinions.

Patience and Understanding.

You all have been here a very long time. Surely you must understand after posting here for so long that no one just instantly converts major beliefs. If it was as easy as talking to someone for an hour or presenting a piece of logical contrary evidence, every person with woo or CT or religious beliefs that came here would be won over relatively quickly.

It is easy to get frustrated and end up replying with sarcasm or down talk. I've done it many times. But I shouldn't. It really doesn't help with getting people to understand your point of view. After all, rcronk believes his point of view as much as we believe ours. I think that some posts might not be done with completely good intention. Perhaps I'll start to ask myself if my post is the most conductive, to the other person being able to understand my point of view, as possible.

And I'm really not putting the forums here or this thread or anyone posting in here down. This is actually the best forum I have ever been to. Always room for improvement though

Ahh, the peacemaker. That's fine, and we all struggle to maintain decorum, with various degrees of success, and we have our hovering monitors to make sure we do.

However, this is still a place to come of one's own free will. Nobody is forced, and it is well recognized as a largely atheist forum.

That means we, I, think religion is fantasy. There is no simple, polite, way to tell a devote believer that, without saying it plainly and simply.

rcronk has amazing persistence, and good manners, but I still think he's delusional, and he knows it. I'm not really sure why he is here, but as long as he's willing, we are.

 

[The_Animus]

I know I have thought about this before.

God doesn't interfear so that we can have free choice. We are on earth and living our lives to "grow up" in a sense and learn what is right and wrong, what is good and bad.

If there is a baby who is trapped inside a building that is on fire he will die by slowly burning to death. There is a man outside the house and he knows there is a baby inside and that the fire is small enough still that he could save the child. Now this is where that choice comes in right? Of course God could interfere and save the baby, but then if god did everything for us we would never grow up. We would always depend upon god for everything. With free choice, the man could choose to do a morally good thing by saving the baby, or he could choose not to and the baby would burn to death. Such situations present an opportunity for people to do a good thing, maybe risk themselves for someone else. But you couldn't fault the man if he didn't go in. After all the building was on fire and it was possible he could have gotten injured or died.

But what if we change the scenerio a little.

What if the baby is outside, the man has a fire exstinguisher, and the baby's clothes start on fire suddenly. The man can easily save the baby without any risk to himself and it would require very little effort. But what if the man didn't. What if he sat there and watched the baby burn up and die.

To me that would be evil. The man didn't save it and instead stood there with the power to stop it in his hands and watched it die instead.

You might say that God does this every day. Watches people die by the viruses and bacteria that he created. Killed by the earthquakes, volcanos, hurricanes, tornadoes in the environment he created for us.

The justification that it is for us to grow and learn and make our own choices doesn't make sense to me. Can I then cause death and destruction in order for people to grow and learn? Can I start a fire in a building so that others will have a chance to try to save someone, to learn good quality virtues and caring for one another?

Of course not. That would be evil and wrong. But why is it not the same for God?

To me his actions in having us learn and grow by this way are no better than if I had done it.

I believe that if there were a God. He would be able to think of a better way for us to learn and grow and love one another this. This is really the best way for us to grow? How does sickness, pain, hunger, thirst, weather disasters and so forth help us grow? We can't grow without these things?

This is just how I thought about it. I know you don't think of it like that and you believe differently.

But nonetheless what do you think?

 

[Elind]

Ok - now someone said that God sounds crazy behaving like He does - just lurking out of sight all of the time - what kind of insanity is that? From my perspective, a large part of the reason we're here is to get a chance to choose what we want to choose without any influence from God. I believe we were with God before we came here and we learned and progressed as far as we could and then, like children who must move out of their parents' house and go live life and make their own choices without mom and dad looking over their shoulder, we needed to get away from God and His influence and figure things out for ourselves and figure out what we want

...sounds like what an atheist does, except you say there is a god lurking out there anyway.

It really begins to sound to me that you are afraid of death, or look forward to it. You think you were with god before you existed, and you expect to be with god after you die here, but really you have always been alive, you think, but you don't know how or as what, except for a feeling.

I didn't exist before I was born and I won't exist, in exactly the same way, after I'm dead. Other than that little distinction, what you say we should do in life, is exactly what I say we should do.

 

[Tanstaafl]

AIU, the papyri found, it turns out, is a common text known as the Book of the Dead. Quite a few copies have been found. To date not a single papyri has been found that contains anything remotely similar to the Book of Abraham.

...

On the contrary there is much evidence that the apologetics are simply wrong.

The following is a great video of the controversy that is very in depth.

Wow! That's powerful stuff!

Thanks, RandFan.

 

[RandFan]

From my perspective, a large part of the reason we're here is to get a chance to choose what we want to choose without any influence from God. I believe we were with God before we came here and we learned and progressed as far as we could and then, like children who must move out of their parents' house and go live life and make their own choices without mom and dad looking over their shoulder, we needed to get away from God and His influence and figure things out for ourselves and figure out what we want.

Which would be fine with one exception. Why do we have to find him? This bothered me for awhile. What does it say about us as individuals that we would reject his message?

Let me offer a hypothetical. 4 individuals. Assume the Mormon Church is true.

Jason: Moral and decent Mormon who doesn't know that the Church is true but follows the church on faith that the Church is true. He remains faithful to the teachings of his Church until he dies.

Richard: Moral and decent Catholic who doesn't know that the Catholic Church isn't true but follows the teachings of the Catholic Church on faith that the Catholic Church is true. He remains faithful to the teachings of his Church until he dies. Richard has friends that are Mormon and has taken the lessons but has never had a desire to join.

Mark: Knows that the Mormon Church is true. He remains faithful to the teachings of his Church until he dies.

Mary: Atheist. Mary is a licensed therapist who has donated her time to provide counseling to prisoners. She serves, pro bono, as a board member for a philanthropic organization that raises money for community outreach programs including caring for the homeless.

What is the difference between these individuals?

Finding god doesn't reveal much of anything about a person. How a person lives his or her life is what reveals the character of a person.

I can't think of anything more beside the point than a religious institution.

ETA: One of these individuals is real. I know them and they were a big part of my becoming an atheist.

 

[Scot Ferre]

What useful truth has the BoM given you? Can it be verified in any way?

New baby in my life - typing with one hand. Just passing through - copying and pasting my words from elsewhere:

Now just listen for a minute, please - I don't believe in a God that "kills people at a whim" - there are always reasons for his actions but he does not always explain those reasons nor is he obligated to. I *do* wish I knew the reasoning behind many of his actions, but at the same time, there is great value in trusting God *because* of the many blessings I've had in my life and how positive and more happy my life is because of the guidelines and rules that God has set forth. His primary interest for all of us is to guide us to be more happy. And so far, by following those guidelines and rules, I have been more happy and much more willing to serve and help my fellow human beings. Love is my goal for everyone.

God is love - and I want to attain that goal myself. Whatever he sets forth as his commandments and rules, I trust him because he has done me no wrong whatsoever. As Abraham trusted in God when he was asked to sacrifice his son, and later was greatly rewarded for his obedience, obedience to God's laws brings happiness and rewards in life, and that's what I'm doing.

BoM has such truths - improves lives. Verification obtained by living the principles found in BoM and by Holy Spirit.

 

[FSM]

One of the million conflicting messages that I have trouble understanding:

God is love.
God lets babies suffer horribly and die in a fiery death to give us free will.

What?

Well, FSM, of course you don't get it. It's a mystery. It's a plan. It's part of faith, to watch the suffering of children and to be able to still say with a straight face, "God is love..."

I have no proof to believe that there is a god. But if I did have the proof, I'd think he was a pretty sick, abusive MF and my free will choice would be to burn in hellfire for all eternity rather than to try to make sense of some demented santa-esque figure in the sky burning kids alive...