Free Will in Heaven?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the bible says anything about this concept at all. Nevertheless, many Christians will tell you that there is free will in heaven. In my mind this is a self defeating belief because in the same sentence they will tell you that there is also no sin and no suffering or disease etc. in heaven. Christians typically define sin as that which goes against the wishes of god. Already, we've encountered our first paradoxical statement, if there is no sin in heaven, that means everyone will only be doing that which is in accordance to gods wishes, if you had free will on the other hand you would be free to do whatever was in accordance with your wishes. The reason they want to believe that they have free will in heaven is because of their belief that god wanted people to love him freely and not be "robots".
Let's give them the benefit of the doubt for the time being and say that it was possible to have free will and be sinless in heaven. We encounter another semi-paradox here, if heaven was the perfect world, where people had free will, never committed sins and where there was no suffering, then why didn't god create that kind of world in the first place?
One objection to my arguments could be that people have free will, but in the presence of god it is impossible to commit sins. This objection falls flat on it's face almost immediately, because according to christian lore, the devil was an angel that rebelled against god, and was cast out of heaven as a result.

Pat Robertson is a Vile Creature

Pat Robertson, the same person who brought us the Demon-Possessed candy and hatred against pagans, has now made a comment on the recent Haiti earthquake. Pat Robertson claims that the reason hundreds of thousands of people have died is because the Haitians had made a pact with the devil. He also says that this pact is responsible for the decades of poverty in Haiti.

Pat Robertson is a despicable, callous, vile creature.

Refuted 100 years ago but still the myth perpetuates

Occasionally I hear someone rabbiting on about how Charles Darwin renounced evolution and accepted Jesus on his death bed. Every time I hear someone repeat this I face-palm. It wouldn't even matter if it were true, as the theory of evolution by natural selection sits on a solid mound of evidence, not on the laurels of it's originator. The fact of the matter is though that the story originated 33 years after Darwins death, a woman named Elizabeth Reid (aka. Lady Hope) claimed that she had met with him before he died, when no such meeting ever occured. The children of Charles Darwin protested against this story and Lady Hope was exposed as a liar.

Not only was this pathetic excuse for an argument against evolution refuted nearly 100 years ago, but most leading creationists don't even support the use of it.

Vestigiality

Some of the most compelling evidence for evolution comes in the form of organs and limbs that have lost their original fuction to some degree. These are known as vestiges, or vestigial organs. A common misconception is that a vestigial organs is required to have no function at all. This is not the case. The requirement for something to be considered a vestige is merely that it does not function as it was once intended to. A good example would be the wings of flightless birds, which are obviously not used for flight but still serve some purpose. The wings of an ostrich are used to balance while running, and are an important part of courtship displays. The human coccyx (aka. tailbone) no longer serves as the base of a tail, but is an anchor point for many muscles used for shitting in the groinal area.
The Talk Origins database has a fairly comprehensive section on vestigiality if you're interested to learn more.

Set Yourself Free

Kent Hovind and the Dinosaur/Lizard Confusion

There is one particular Creationist by the name of Kent Hovind, I've mentioned him before but this is about one of his key arguments. Before he was imprisoned for tax fraud he used to go all around the U.S. lying to children about science and making videos. One of his lies that he used to spread quite maliciously was his idea that dinosaurs were simply giant lizards that lived in the garden of Eden with Adam and Steve. There are so many things wrong with this idea that it's hard to know where to start.....

Dinosaurs are NOT lizards at all, let alone giant lizards. Yes, They both lay eggs. Yes they are both types of reptile. However, they are not synonymous. Here is an image showing the key difference between the two. Lizards have legs that are 'Sprawling' whereas dinosaurs stand erect. If you're interested in reading more about what actually makes a dinosaur a dinosaur you can read the well-sourced wikipedia article here.

The other idea of his that ties into this whole shenanigan is that they lived in the garden of Eden 6000 years ago. I've already written about this before so if you've read that post you should know how absolutely ridiculous this notion is. Something that I haven't mentioned before is the reason he gives for why the "lizards" grew so large and why people lived for so long. He believes that there was a water canopy in the sky that filtered harmful radiation from the sun out, allowing people to live for 900 years and causing lizards to grow excessively large. Not only is this idea completely unscientific but his reason for having this belief is laughable. The genesis account mentions a firmament in the sky. From this one mention of a firmament he derives this belief that he goes around deceiving children with.

A bit of a disorganised post but hopefully there was something worth reading in there.

I Encourage You To Keep Trying

Since my de-conversion, many Christians have said to me "I'm praying for you" or similar things. If you sincerely believe that prayer works and that your deity listens and cares about your requests then keep praying for me and see if it works.

There Is No Debate

There is no debate. In fact there hasn't been a debate for nearly 100 years. The debate I'm talking about is the creation/evolution debate. I heard the phrase so many times when I was a christian, people would refer to the creation/evolution debate as if it was something real and continual. This is not the case, the debate has been over for a long time, and if you don't 'believe' in evolution you're either naive or in denial.