Is Dispensationalism a cult?

The point is: are you encouraged to think for yourself? If dispensationalism as a whole or your congregation in particular is discouraging you from questioning them, telling you to "just have faith", then that might be a symptom of a cult.

The question was: Are you encouraged to think for yourself. If Dispensationalism - or your particular congregation - is a cult, it would probably discourage you from thinking about anything but its own prescribed doctines. How wise do you have to be to recognize wisdom?The "context of your belief" seems to be that Father Knows Best. You seem to be looking for a cult, whether you've found one or not.

And I have answered to the effect that you can't be a sincere believer until after you have examined the available evidence critically. Although the Father metaphor has its limitations, I think it's clear that a child is expected to grow up and take upon himself the resonsibilities that his father once upheld for him.

Yes, let's. Remember the Trinity, where Father, Son and Holy Spirit are "different but equal"? If God is our Father and Jesus is the Son of Man (our Brother) then where's our excuse for not growing up to be like our Father? You can trust your father forever. It's not the same as relying on him. Seek and ye shall find. We have a responsibility to look everywhere we can think of for evidence. We can say we haven't found any evidence yet but that's not an excuse to give up the search. Conclusions based on the evidence are tentative, so faith based on lack of evidence must be tentative too.

Why not?

So maybe his conclusion was correct?

Yes, I do have a problem with the "or else" part. I'm guessing that you have a problem with "or else" in any other context.Give me your wallet, or else. Do what I say for the rest of your life, or else. What's the difference?

I can see why we'd have to take a leap of faith for a non-existent god. I can also see why a false god would want us to take a leap of faith - because that faith would be misplaced and could not be earned. However, I have trouble understanding why a true god would want us to take a leap of faith. I don't think that's it at all.We start out trusting our parents completely. They are omnpotent. They can do no wrong. But the more we learn about them, the more we know that that isn't true. Maybe you can't trust your father to come home sober on payday. As we grow up and become more like them, we learn that they are just like us.So I think trust starts out as a big pile which gets smaller as we learn, not bigger. Of course, our ability to tust does become more reliable as a result.

No, I'm suggesting that a false god would fail to earn our trust/faith.

As I've said before, I think "free will" is pretty much a nonsensical concept. It's mostly a loophole that religionists use to absolve God of any responsibility for His actions.I don't know what "providing us with the power to believe" means. I'd put the power to believe in a similar category with the power to catch a cold.

"Explore" is the word for it. I don't really have a fixed position. It just seems to me that what other people say about free will doesn't make much sense.