Broken

Actually, the more appropriate interpretation is "Jesus is saving us FROM God('s wrath)"

Xixax

How can that be? How can God's laws be neutral in respect to morality? Is God then morally imperfect? In that, when looking at what God does and how God behaves, he is somehow outside the realm of judgement on reality?

Sure, it works as a theological idea, but so does the idea of an evil and cruel God bent on the destruction of the universe. The reason I question this statement you made is because I was under the impression the Christian God is considered morally perfect and omnibenevolent.

Is that not the case? Is he free to do anything he pleases, including that which seems evil to us? Wouldn't that sort of ruin the scripture that says, "Be ye holy even as I am holy" ? Or "There is none good but God" ?

It would seem to render the idea of a Holy God meaningless if he is above good and evil.

Why would God, who's final commandment to his disciples while on earth was to go into the world and witness, put you in such an untenable position?

I'm not trying to make you doubt your faith, but I'm truly having a hard time understanding where you are coming from.

So God is saving us from his own wrath.......

again I have to ask, why not just get rid of the wrath in the first place?

[ November 06, 2002: Message edited by: Xixax ]</p>

Goliath

Broken,

Unproven assertion.

Sincerely,

Goliath

K

But your loving everyone is overshadowed by the fact that you worship a God that clearly hates an awful lot of people. Nobody could love someone and condemn them to an eternity of suffering. In fact, that is the most extreme form of hatred I can imagine.

Biff the unclean

When it comes down to it, it is all a matter of belief.
It is a matter of holding misanthropic beliefs

Eternal punishment of the worst kind (separation from God is really what that punishment is) for 70 years worth of time, and worse yet, just for not believeing?...
I'm sorry I didn't realize that you were a Moslem. Separation is what the Koran teaches. Some Christian sects adopted this view in the nineteenth century. But the Hell Jesus speaks of is one of burning without being consumed and never ending torment

But to say that the way I look at this situation as being hateful is incorrect. Quite the opposite actually. We are taught to love everyone, and through that love, have a concern for each individual's 'eternal fate'. Unfortunately, this is taken as bigotry and, well, hate.
You hold a philosophy that says that the entire human race are sinners. That every last one of us deserves to suffer forever. Not just Atheist everyone deserves to be damned. Babies in the cradle to old ladies on their death beds-damned. Then (in a Don Rickles voice perhaps) you say you love everyone.
This is pure hypocrisy. "If any man says he does not sin HE LIES," is a statement of pure hated of the entire human race.

I respect the opinions of others, and try to understand them, but responses like this exhibit a lack of understanding, or a willingness to be understanding, of the opposite point of view.
On the contrary I do understand your point of view. Much the way I understand the points of view of the Nazis and the KKK. My understanding of it is why I find it repulsive and immoral. It is impossible in this day and age to escape having this "point of view" hammered into you on a daily bases.

Actually, the more appropriate interpretation is "Jesus is saving us FROM God('s wrath)"
You haven't really changed the sentence. God is still the monster that we need JHC to save us from.

But, of course, there isn't and god and there isn't any Jesus. But there are a hell of a lot of Christians going around living their lives by these dreadful anti-human guide lines.

jasonpiao

Ok, so in my 70 years I manage to get myself thrown in hell cause I so stubbornly refuse to believe other humans that they know something about god that they have only been told by someone else.

Yet god can see into your heart, and knows if you are truly repentant.

Ok, after only two days in hell, I bet I would be completely sincere in my repentance and acceptance of god's good times. My only sin being that I didn't believe, wouldn't a truly good god realize that Gosh I sure am sorry, and I realize just how dang wrong I was. Would he forgive me then? Or is there really no forgiveness? Even after10,000years in hell?

Mageth

To the Christian, Gods law isn't bad or good. It just is. It is something that has been set up since the beginning, and it is not up for debate.

This seems to lead to either:

1) "god's law" is something external to and "higher than" god which even he cannot change; or
2) "god's law" is arbitrary (and why then should we not question it as being unjust?)

Or is there some other possibility I'm missing?

Jobar

Originally posted by Broken:
My personal opinion follows...:

We have all broken the law of God, and we are all headed in one direction.

Er, this is the perfect, all-powerful, and all-loving Yahweh who created us in his image, right? Just why do you think he made us this way? (And don't blame Satan, or free will, whatever that is. If God is really all powerful and all knowing, he knew the consequences of creating Satan, and of giving humans free will.)

He knew we wouldn't be able to live up to his standards. No one can. He knows this. That is why he sent Jesus to pay the price of sin.

So, since "I and the Father are one," this means he sacrificed himself, to himself, in order to save us from himself?

Death. That is the justice. Everyone who sins goes to hell. There HAS to be payment made. Jesus was perfect. Sinless. Just like the slaughter of flawless, innocent lambs were the method of appeasing God's wrath for the breaking of his law, Jesus acted as the perfect flawless lamb.

Er, wasn't Adam supposedly made perfect, too? How did it happen that he became imperfect?

"My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" God seperated himself from his son, because Jesus was then with sin. God poured his wrath upon his own son.

So- God punished Jesus for sins he never committed? And, ah, Jesus is also God, so He was punishing Himself?... I think your God is sorta masochistic, and sadistic too. Not the sort I would care to even know, much less worship.

[ November 06, 2002: Message edited by: Jobar ]</p>

Mageth

He knew we wouldn't be able to live up to his standards. No one can. He knows this.

His standards? Isn't that what he used to create us? So why should he be surprised, and why should we suffer because he's a crappy engineer?

Creates us and then gets all bitchy because we can't live up to his standards. Bad god!

sandlewood

Payment to who? God? He is omnipotent and can have whatever he wants. No one can hurt him. Why does he need payment?

Why would Jesus dying be a form of payment? If you believe the trinity, then Jesus is God. So he killed himself to pay himself back? I can’t think of anything that would make less sense. Is there anything so nonsensical that you won’t rationalize it?
Then you believe that people should be held responsible for crimes of their ancestors?
No, it would be a free way out if he let everyone into heaven whether they believed he existed or not. But instead he blackmailed us by making a law we can’t follow, hiding from us, and the saying the only way to avoid eternal torture is to believe he exists. Somehow he gets pleasure out us believing he exists while he’s hiding.
That’s like arguing that the Earth has two moons and then, at the end of the argument, saying that it’s all a matter belief. So it’s a stalemate between the one-moon believers and the two-moon believers.