Free will. Your choice.
. If a criminal with a gun to your kids head tell you to give him you wallet or he will kill him/her, and you comply, do you really believe you exhibited Free Will? A threat of eternal torture for the crime of not believing, or being made by God in such a way that you cannot believe constitutes Free Will in your mind???
If God truly intended to give us Free Will he wouldn't need the coercion, threats, and a infinite punishment for a finite crime.
A.S.
Even many who profess to be Christians really don't have a correct concept of God. They see God as a punisher and one to be appeased.Even well meaning Christians try to earn salvation by good deeds and regular church attendance.That's not the nature of God or salvation at all.
The correct way to see the situation is that by your own deeds and free will you are already Hell bound.No one is good enough on their own for Heaven. One small lie or even lack of doing the right thing disqualifies you. God's standard is so high that none can earn it. It is so high in fact that only God himself qualifies. Because of that God became a man and suffered the punishment of Hell that men deserve. Because he didn't suffer for his wrong he can grant substitution for anyone who asks. Jesus grants the gift of having suffered in place of any person who seeks salvation from him.
It's even more than just a price paid in the stead of the sinner. Being born again means a union with Christ to the point that the man or woman shares not only in the price paid but in the heart of the redeemer.That born again person has their very nature changed to desire good rather than evil.
It's not about a God who seeks to punish anyone who won't cow down. It's about a God who seeks to rescue those already lost and headed for destruction.
RH, thanks for joining the conversation. There are just a few things you left out.
From the general Christian perspective (you enlightened version may very slightly),
God made the rules.
As the all knowing, all powerful creator of the universe he could make the rules any way he chose, yet, through the doctrine of Original Sin, he choose a set of rules that would dictate their destination as hell, before they are even born.
Now because God chose to set the bar at this spot, he has to create a "loophole" where he held of human sacrifice of himself, to himself, because the rules he created where unfair to begin with.
This is just a update version of the older symmetric practice of seeking vicarious redemption through scapegoating. This is where a tribe would load their sin upon a goat and drive it into the desert to die of thirst and pretend this some how absolved the tribes of their transgression. Now this in now way actually takes away the sins of the individual or tribe. Performing a humans sacrifice, or killing a goat in now way takes away your responsibility. It in no way returns the property you stole, nor returns life to the person you murdered. This not a path to moral. This is a way to escape your morality and responsibilities by accepting another immoral act. Keep in mind, regardless of how good you are, unless you accept your pieces of this human sacrifice, you will be tormented forever, just because God says so...but he loves you.
As for a desire to do good, I have a desire to do good and not evil, no Jesus required. Same with you. Previously you've claimed you were less good in the past then you are today and you credit Jesus with your transformation. Personally I believe the transformation occurred within you, and Christianity just happened to be the philosophy you choose to follow on the path to the new, better, more moral self. You could of chosen most any new guiding philosophy, and so long as you didn't fall in with zealot nutcases, the result would of been pretty much the same.
