If you believe in God, you think you can have no secrets from him.  That has to affect your choices, actions, what you say and think.  It seems like a paranoid version of free will.  Maybe the only free will is one without consequence?
121781
In my opinion, true free will is choosing what to do with the influence of what you have learned in life. Whether it be from parents, friends, or God. Just because it is free will, it doesn't mean that decisions made will be right or wrong. The point is that you chose it, without a gun to your head or any other type of direct influence. For example if someone, who is familiar with religion, and God and knowing right from wrong decides to rob a bank, that decision is made with free will. God is not going to come down and slap the person to stop them. If the person decides not to rob the bank, a decision made with free will, it may have come from their conscience or a memory instilled from there parents about right and wrong. Or maybe from a sermon in church. Basically, we all have free will whether God is with us or not. It is those that use the free will to do bad things that makes it tainted. But free will alone is just that, free will, it is not good or bad until an action stems from it. Does that make sense. Sorry if I rambled.
53908
I think it would be a sin to pretend to worship a God without reasoning fist.  If you cannot ask, there´s no freedom of will, no choice.  In almost every religion there has to be choice in order to have real faith.
24105
There is such a thing as free will but it's our conscious that prevents us from doing all we want to do.  One’s own conscious is one’s free will.  You will only do what your inner being will allow you to do!
132878
Good questions!  I like good subjest matter.  God is not some bug eyed monster up in the sky.  Why would he be all hateful when he needs us as much as we need him?  We do have free will, and i can do whatever i want because of it, but heres the rub, i was created by something with a view of the bigger picture.  So by virture of where i was born and my personality there are huge sections of human reality that will never even occur to me to do because of who and what i was made to be. Example : kiss my boyfriend, you betcha!; eat chocolate covered ants, hell no!
628893
If God wanted to leave absolutely no room for anyone to doubt or try to disprove His existance and authority, He could have done. His thoughts and ways are better than ours - we'd love everyone to just have to believe - but God gives everyone the choice. People don't want it to be true that there is a God - the implications are too big. Like recognising that yes there is actually right and wrong - people don't want to go there - remember Pharohs magicians who tried to explain away the wonders that were shown them in Egypt - they didn't want to acknowlege God either - its nothing fresh!  The reality of our Eternal God who controls everything in life and death is just more than folks can take - they want to "live a good life and be happy" They don't want to know about a God who will hold us responsible what we do with our lives, it just doesn't fit with their "lifestyle choice". They will either try to logically reason a way that it could possibly have happened without needing a God or they will just instantly dismiss these realities without further thought as just "fairy tales". Don't fret. Yes some people will try to explain things in a way that ignores God, they refuse to believe - creation itself cries out! Its of no suprise in one sense ... there is going to be both the sheep and the goats. Stand firm. One day every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that He Is LORD.
641447
I'm sure free will exists , but for many people the responsibility of having to make their own choices is too much , that would mean accepting the results and consequences.  So many people use the " fate" clause for this , to have something to blame .\nWe all have free will , no one can make us do, say, think , feel anything unless we make a conscious decision to
524069
We are human and cannot possibly know what God knows.  Do I believe things he has done?  Yes.  Can I with certainty explain how it was done? No.  I don't necessarily think it's doubt, I just think it's being unaware.  The longer you have a relationship with God, the more you will come to understand.  He will make some things clearer so that His will can be done.  We are his servants.  So in some ways I agree with you but I don't like the use of the word doubt, that makes me think of being unfaithful.  I see it more as being in the dark, not able to understand.  He is God, our Creator.  We are merely human.
41023
Your reasoning does not necessarily follow. \n\nConsider one of the suppositions that some scientists have posited as a possible conclusion to the unknowable state of subatomic particles posited by Quantum theory: every choice may spin off a new universe. \n\nNow - mind you - I am not positing that this is what happens, but some serious people have proposed this - every choice you can make, some iteration of you does make, since thought itself is quite possibly quantum mechanical (it is passed via electrons, so the possibility cannot be precluded.) And each of these choices spins a new thread off the universe into a multiverse of possible outcomes. \n\nAs you can see, this is just one possible means by which you actually can have complete control of your destiny, and for God to still know the outcome. An infinite God would still be God of a multiverse of infinite possibility.\n\nYour choices are yours. You know you make them. You can feel yourself make them, as you make them - I don't need to prove this, anyone reading can intuit for themselves that I am telling a basic truth.\n\nThe fact that God does have some inkling of how all this will turn out does not represent any sort of interference with your free will. Nor is it a disproof of God. It is merely a reflection that an infinite wisdom can consider infinite possibilities, and find any of them to be quite unsurprising.\n\nSo no - while God is self-limiting in the sense that he does not appear to want to interfere in our doings (and the universe appears to have been explicitly designed to permit free will) - this is not an argument for God's powerlessness or non-existence. It is proof only that, if there is a God, infinite choices and possibilities are not out of reach of his infinite power.
287465
I spent five years of my life trying to understand this andother parts of ideas like this.  And for all that searching, you come to realize that these is no absolute answers on a question like this.  However, you said you assume a God, one that created us.  From here on out is my thought process, no extra websites to look up, no extra references to any books.  \n\nWhy does one create,  and in God's case why did He create us?  Could it have been that it was a selfish act?  I don't believe it would be, since if it had been a selfish act why would we be given free will?  Free will gives us the right to do as we wish, if God had been looking for something solely for Him, He would have definately skipped the whole free will thing.  \n\nCould it have been that we were created for, and out of, love?  Our being so small, we couldn't hope to understand what God's condition was before the time of our creation, but we can assume that if He hadn't created anything yet that there was nothing there.  I don't know about you, but I would be darn lonely out there in a void of nothingness with not even a single thing to talk to.  In his wisdom, I am sure he wanted to have comapny, but company that would be itself and not something that would be a puppet.  He needed something that could experience things for itself, think for itself, love on its own terms and not on His.  I would be certain He could see that in creating something like this, there might have been the chance that it wouldn't choose to love Him.  The next obvious thought is make a lot of it, and I dare say He did, look at how many of us there are!  \n\nAnyway,  cutting a whole lot of details out,  God made us out of love so that we may love Him back.  Thats all He truely wants I believe, not that you go out and do these things this way and think that those guys over there are bad because they don't do it this way.  I think that He just wants our love, but He is a good enough person to give us the choice; to love Him or not.  If we have the choice of love or not,  then He couldn't be omniscient it would ruin the whole effect.  Even if he is omniscient, He could only see all our possible outcomes, not what we are going to choose, He'll have to wait with baited breath just like the rest of us.  \n\nI firmly believe that He is a lot more like a person you and I would be like than we give Him credit for.  He has feelings, He gets angry, sad, worried, feels love and pain as well.  Not in the same ways of course, He is a universial being and we're only little flesh and blood thingies right now.  But I say that He is waiting to see what all of us are going to decide about Him.  I say He's been one of the nicest people I've ever met, and I only met Him through a couple of books, a few other people, and just thinking about Him.  My mind bursts at the thought of a personal meeting one day.  \n\nAll in all, I think its up to you.  It sounds like you already have an answer.  I hope that maybe one day we can all know that God is a being of Love, and not debate the silly specifics about it. But I guess we'll see.  ^^\n\n(summary and disclaimers :P )\nGod is not omniscient.\nGod is a being of love.\nHe is waiting for us to decide if we like Him or not.\nI used He and Him just to keep it all simple and clean, I think that God is beyond gender or any qualifier that we have.  \nI also don't mean to attack any religion what-so-ever, because I think you are entitled to your beliefes, and I thank you for it because without it think how boreing all of us would be.  (gives me the chills thinking about a world where we're all the same.)\n\nSorry to ramble, and thanks for your time.  ^^
5532
I think everyone worships something whether they believe in God or not.  Some people even worship the idea of not having a God because they have to tell everyone about it.  I do agree with your idea about weakness.  I think that people who are insecure about their beliefs tend to try to recruit people to believe the same thing so they don't feel alone.  Those who are secure about their own beliefs tend to keep quiet and go on with their lives.  They don't need to feel justified that their beliefs are okay since they have their own truth.
145227
It is very easy to believe in something you witness for yourself. However, I do believe there are some real basis for believing some individuals have this type of ability. I believe it is rare, but definitely could be a possibility. I do not like to just dismiss something out of hand, because I have yet to be around somebody who demonstrated this ability to me. However, I have heard from others that they have seen people who can do this. I do think it is a very rare gift, but look at all God can do, if you believe in God. I do. I find anything is possible if you open your mind to the possibilities in this world, the solor system around us, and the one even further out we can't see yet.
127288
I was always told that God allows evil because He is all about free will and doesn't want to impose himself on us. God allows us to see Him if we chose to see him and he will leave us alone if we don't. As for the evil thing, i beleive that evil comes from your inability to resist temptation. Satan doesn't make you do anything, he just suggests it.  You do the rest.
453946
The main factor I am not seeing in your analysis is that God gave us all free will. God wants us to choose to love him. If we were forced to love God, would that be love at all? Free will factors in all aspects of life. Your positive and negative experiences that you attribute to god favoring you with blessing, or punishing you, could be the results of someone else imposing their free will upon you. This is why in the Bible we are told to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. As not to impose our free will upon them and effect them in a negative manner. It sounds like you are struggling with some very important spiritual dilemmas, I will pray for you and I wish you the best.
505104
Yes, God has the power to predestine or not predestine our lives as He so chooses.  I agree with you in that I believe we have free choice.  I don't understand so easily how you come to know the mind of God.  Everyone is selected for His service, and everyone is blessed.  We need not seek Him, since He is already knocking on the door of our hearts.  All we must do is let Him in.  Yes, because of our freedom of choice, if we choose to follow God, we will be with Him forever in heaven.
488333
I asked this question a little earlier, actually. What I believe is, if God exists, he doesn't know the future. Nobody does, because that knowledge is impossible to have. The future doesn't exist yet, and neither do any "future" actions. Any attempt to predict the future is simply speculation.
616000
You've forgotten that God exists outside of Time.  He never sees the "past" or the "future". . . all times are the present for Him.  In a sense, He doesn't know what you're going to do until you actually do it, but He isn't looking into the future. . . He knows what you'll be doing next week because He's watching you do it right now.  Satan is the same way.  God created him with free will, but God didn't know what he would choose to do with that free will until he actually did it.  There was no intrinsic necessity that Satan become evil- he could have chosen to remain in heaven as an angel, if he'd wanted to.  Apparently God thought it was worth the risk, and He still seems to think so.  Perfect love can never be wrong about the end to be attained, and perfect wisdom can never be wrong about the methods best suited to reach that end.  God can do anything which is not intrinsically self-contradictory. . . . but it may well be that allowing some creatures to choose evil is a completely unavoidable price to pay if you're going to have creatures with the free will to choose good.
579839
According to Christians, God is all-knowing - he knows all the past, all the present and all the future. If this is so, then God must know everything we do long before we do it. This means that our whole life must be predetermined and that we act not according to the free exercise of our wills but according to our predetermined natures. If we are predetermined to be good we will be good and if we are predetermined to be evil we will be evil. We will act not according to our will or choice but according to the way God has already foreseen we will act. Although Christians will insist that we do have free will, God's omniscience simply makes this logically impossible. And that people will act only as God determines is verified in the Bible \n\nIf people are evil it is because God has chosen to make them evil (Rom 1:24-28) and caused them to disobey him (Rom 11:32). If they do not understand God's message it is because he has made their minds dull (Rom 11:8) and caused them to be stubborn (Rom 9:18). God prevents the Gospel from being preached in certain areas (Act 16:6-7) and he fixes long before it will happen when a person will be born and when he or she will die (Act 17:26). Those who were going to be saved were chosen by God before the beginning of time (ii Tim 1:9 Eph 1:11). If a person has faith and is thereby saved, their faith comes from God, not from any effort on their part (Eph 2:9-10). One may ask "If a person can only do what God predetermines them to do, how can God hold them responsible for their actions?"