I would never claim that I am not a coerced human. I dont claim that my life is all my own free will. Its not just laws of the land that coerce me...I am also coerced due to my own "wants", my own set of "morals", people that I love and how my actions will affect them...but then again I never claimed to have free will, I mostly hear that argument coming from believers who dont like to acknowledge that religion and god are also coercive...its just ONE MORE thing to add to your life that is coercive.

Not all coercion is bad of course, feeling coerced to eat healthy because it improves my quality of life I consider a good coercion and wouldnt reject it. If however, it became possible to eat whatever I want and be just as healthy, then I would choose food based on taste as my only criteria instead of basing it on nurtrition.

Sure it does, god may have rules that you normally might find no real basis to follow....but now you will follow them because god has coerced you with the reward/punishment scenario. There are numerous of those rules found in religion...such as eating certain things, or circumcising, going to church, sexual issues such as sex without marriage, your stance on abortion or gay folks.

Every coercive element you add on does equal out to MORE coercion in your life. Believers have one more coercive element to their lives than I do..but we still share plenty of other coercive elements in our lives.

I just dont understand why the denial of the coercive aspect of it all and why pretend its all about free-will. As someone else pointed out...choosing to believe doesnt really seem like real belief to me either. I cant make myself believe in god...I dont and and I cant convince myself otherwise.

I do think there are people who REALLY do believe in god and dont make a choice at all and couldnt convince themselves that god DOESNT exist.

Free will and free choice appear to be more of an illusion than a reality in religion. I dont have that illusion about life or the laws or even the fact that I need to work cause I need money cause I need food and I need shelter....I am coerced by my desire to eat, to stay alive, to feed my kid etc. I feel no shame about that nor need to deny it

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"You can't go around building a better world for people. Only people
can build a better world for people. Otherwise it's just a cage."
-- (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad)

Magic beans.

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That information is classified and to be given only on a need-to-know basis...

And I do not need to know.

You can't have a perfect all knowing God, and free will. For God to be perfect, he'd have to have perfect knowledge. He would have to know everything about you, and all your choices throughout life even before you made them. If he doesn't know, then God's knowledge would be incomplete and imperfect.

Say you are at McDonalds. You walk in, undecided if you are getting the Big Mac, or the McChicken, but for God to have perfect knowledge, he'd have to know which sandwich you were going to choose before you even walked through the door.

God knows you are going to get the McChicken. If you chose the Big Mac, that would have made God wrong, and thus imperfect. Did you really have any other choice other than the McChicken?

Do you believe in leprechauns?

Can you prove they don't exist?

Do you believe in Santa Claus?

Can you prove he doesn't exist?

Do you even seriously entertain the idea of the existence of the above named mythical beings?

Does not being able to prove that leprechauns and Santa are non-existent mean you must believe in them

Bono he's an Irish leprechaun...

and Saint Nick...the Real santa...he gave gold to women

Just can't get into that whole god thing. I don't care if someone wants to believe that. That is great for them. But for me it is a stretch to think of this omnipotent being. Just doesn't fit into my reality. I am told that this god loves us. But when I see the things I see it doesn't look much like love. If that is love who want's to see hate.

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ACCEPTANCE IS THE ANSWER!

We will knock on the door, if it does not open, we will revolt for our rights.

Im a Tarte, what! you want some of this?

My inability to disprove something doesn't mean that it is real. It's just on hold until new information arises.

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Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
-Dr. Carl Sagan

The thinking mind does, in a sense, create the universe. We perceive experience through our senses and then we label what we perceive with words and concepts and attach more solidity to ourselves, the universe and its contents and all beings therein, then truly exists.

This world we live in is dreamlike.

I don't need to disprove god. All someone has to do is bring him to my place and let her/him show me a few tricks.

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ACCEPTANCE IS THE ANSWER!

We will knock on the door, if it does not open, we will revolt for our rights.

Im a Tarte, what! you want some of this?

Can't bring God to your house, but I know some Tibetan Buddhist Lamas that defy the laws of science as we conceive of them.

God has no place in our minds if we cannot experience Him on some, any, level.

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Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
-Dr. Carl Sagan