How can we be possibly be happy in Heaven?

For that matter, how can you possibly love God in heaven if you don't have free will anymore?

It's a legitimate question - humans are by nature concerned about the well-being of their friends and family. If the Bible is true then it's safe to say that God made us that way. Therefore how can a just God sentence his faithful to an eternal existence of luxury in the face of the torture of their friends?That would be hell for me - sitting in the lap of luxury while loved ones burn, and unable to aid them or change places.(Edit - changed my mind about it being a "tease the Christians thread", which was the original content of my post.)[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 09-04-2003]

Purpose is in your mind. There's no purpose outside of it. Unless you believe that the purpose of sticks and stones is to be used as levers?If I use a screwdriver in the function of a hammer, does that become its purpose? What if the guy who made it never intended it to be used that way? And if an object can have functions that aren't its "purpose", then how can function be used to determine "purpose"?There's only one way to determine purpose. Ask the guy who made it. If nobody made it, though, it has no purpose.

Nope. It's only recognizable through communications with said mind. Not every action is a communication. In fact most of them aren't.Given a totally alien tool, absent of its context, how would you determine it's purpose? You haven't even begun to answer this question, and it's really at the crux of the matter. What's the purpose of a screwdriver to a man who's never seen a screw?

I don't believe that evolution has ever been characterized as a ladder, except by people who don't know anything about evolution. It's always been thought of as more of a tree.After all, is your family tree a ladder? Of course not. Then why would the family tree of anything else that's alive be a ladder?

No guilt here. I love meat. If we weren't supposed to eat it (and enjoy it) then animals wouldn't be made of it. And it wouldn't contain chemicals that make my brain feel good.Death is natural. I don't fear my own and I'm not shy about inflicting it on animals when it serves my purpose. If it were practical to do so I'd slaughter the thing myself.If we were supposed to be vegitarians, we'd have the capability to digest cellulose. But it's clear to me we have a digestive tract for succulent vegetables plus meat when we can get it. (Too much of it is bad, of course. But none of it can be bad, too.)Now I'm hungry.