Well, God can open your heart for you, to say he can't would disprove God, as God is omnipotent, and if he can't do something then he is not God. He just chooses not to, free will and all. But that's just nitpicking.
You're correct. He *could* force you to believe in him, but just as you said: we wouldn't have free will; we wouldn't be human.
And that's one of the main reasons I don't believe in God or a Heaven. If heaven is so perfect, then I must have missed something because then how did Lucifer come about? Lucifer doesn't seem too close to perfection in my mind.
You're right. You don't understand how Lucifer came about.
1) Lucifer was perfect; a cherub, or powerful angel. In heaven.
2) Lucifer wanted to be like God and take power away from him.
3) Wanting to be like God, or overthrown him = Sin.
4) Lucifer sinned, and Sinful =/= Heaven.
5) Lucifer is kicked out of heaven for sinning.
6) Lucifer became a fallen angel/cherub. Hello Satan!
He was created because and out of sin. Not perfection.
If the deciding factor between going to heaven or hell (and it is) is believing in God, then until I get concrete proof, non of this faith stuff, that he even exists, I have no reason to. I'd rather live my life happy and believe what I want than to believe a something that is most likely wrong, even if it turns out to be right in the end, than to force myself to believe a certain thing or way. There are tons of religions on this world, and each of them claims they are the right religion.
<Deja Vu>
Believing, not knowing. Your choice.
</Deja Vu>
No offense, but that is a horrible analogy. If God was in my inbox, well then, that's sort of proof he exists and I can believe in him. Or something similar. God isn't trying to get in contact with me. Having man write a book and then thousands of years letter claiming it's God's word is like playing the Operator game. Where one person says a phrase into someone elses ear and then say that phrase to the next person over and over and over again until you get to the end. In the game, you get to find out what the original phrase was, but with the Bible, you can't go back and find out what it original was to see if everything said was correct or how far off from the original it was. That's like you telling a random stranger to come tell me that you want to give me $1000. Why would, or why should, I believe this random person, when You could have easily came over and told me yourself?
You misunderstood my analogy. Cliffnotes version:
1) Random dude in New York. Let's say his email is randomguy4231@random.com
2) You.
3) randomguy messages you and tells you he wants to give you a thousand dollars but he needs your address.
4) You refuse. Just think it's another scammer.
5) He keeps trying. Every day, every second, another email.
6) You keep refusing. You shut him out and put him on the "ignore" list.
7) He keeps trying to email you.
8) You never get the thousand dollars.
You see, you didn't know it was God. You were supposed to *believe*. Real version:
1) God sends you messages through people that he wants to give you eternal life but he needs you to open your heart to him.
2) You refuse the messages, denying them.
3) God never stops trying because he wants you to make it into heaven.
4) You never listen or realize he's sending you a message.
5) You don't believe and don't go to heaven.
God refuses to intervene directly in this world, for reasons only we can know. Maybe he wants to keep the current climate, wants to give us a chance to prove ourselves. We can speculate but there is no definite answer.
And if heaven and his angels are so perfect, what about Lucifer? Or when the Angels came down and began having sexy time with the humans? Doesn't sound to perfect to me.
/Misconceptions Devil isn't in heaven /Misconceptions
/Misconceptions Hell isn't perfect. Hell is sin. /Misconceptions
Angels having sexy time with the humans? Um, which stories are we talking about?
