What is “Choice” when it comes to faith?

It seems to me that a lot of religious people are confused as to what exactly is a choice and what it means to be able to choose freely.

A choice in it’s most basic form is when you are presented with two or more options on how to proceed and you must pic one.

There is a major difference, however, between a free choice and an unfree choice.

A free choice is a choice where no matter what the possibly outcomes, no option has drastically more consequences than another. A free choice does not just mean that you have the ability to make a choice, but that you are not overly pressured to choose one decision over another.

An unfree choice is just that: a choice that involved significant biases. A prime example of this is “God gave us “choice”. We can choose to love him and go to heaven, or we can choose not to, and spend the rest of eternity in unimaginable torment.” Yes you have the ability to “choose” one option or the other, but merely having the physical capacity to “choose” does not mean it is a “free choice”.

Heaven makes you a robot

The other day I was listening to the Godless Business podcast and they made a very interesting point:

Christians say god did not want robots, so he gave us free will. Yet despite this, we must put his will before ours. (Or at least what other humans say is his will)

They cited the story of god asking Abraham to sacrifice his son, something that’s horrible, but was the will of god, as a test (despite his all-knowingness).

Also, take the lord’s prayer:

Our father

which art in heaven,

hallowed by thy name;

thy kingdom come;

thy will be done,

in earth as it is in heaven

So we have free will, and the wonderful freedom to use that free will to follow what god tells us he wants….. or burn in hell forever, but that aside, what about heaven?

Well, heaven is a place where you get to sing god’s praises for eternity, like his own little cheer-leading squad. Take an excerpt from the song “I can only imagine” by Mercy Me:

I can only imagine
When all I will do
Is forever
Forever worship You
I can only imagine

So in heaven you become a robot for god, where you constantly worship him. What’s the point of having free will? What’s the point of any of this if you’re just going to end up as a mindless automaton in heaven?