h2o4life_200

If the answer to your question "what is the will of God" was shot down by merely being told that you simply should not question it, then I am sorry that someone told you that. The reality is that sometimes God does reveal his will to us. This is how we got the Bible, he revealed himself to believers that put his words to paper and what you have a is book that even though it is written by many authors. As it stands the Bible is unsurpassed in its coherence over the entirity of its writings. The reality that the books of the Apocrypha were removed is something that many don't understand. At the gathering at Nacin (that could be the wrong spelling), certain books were elected to be left out because they did not serve the purpse of glorifying God and stopping the social chaos. Remeber that the Bible is "God's law" and it has a direct utility in working in society. As for your last comment that God did not want to outdone by Abraham. I would disagree with the implication that God is jealous of Abraham. Abraham does not hold a candle of accomplishment up to God and please remember that Abraham knew this and not only believed in God, but glorified him in bringing others to him.

Columbus

[QUOTE=h2o4life_200]Tom-

Hi h20. Sorry it's taken me so long to respond. It's been a busy week. The highlight was playing with my newest nephew and his sister. I just love playing with babies! They all live a few hours away and I only get to see them every couple of months. Ethan is only eight months old. Julianna and I built a gingerbread house that was totally cool. She's three and a half. What fun!
Justice is not ambiguous, although the word has been used differently over time. Ancient people mistook retribution for justice because they didn't know any better. Ancient kings just killed whomever they pleased, so it was understandable for the Israelites to assume that if God killed someone, or otherwise caused them harm, it was just. Over the course of centuries humans learned why this wasn't just at all. So we improved our beliefs about what constitutes justice. We have a far more sophisticated understanding of justice now, but the old stories told in Genesis did not change. They now describe immoral behaviour attributed to God. I personally don't think this reflects badly upon God so much as the primitive notions of the authors of Genesis. I only object to modern people using the outmoded ethical teachings of Genesis, Exodus,and Leviticus as guides in the 21st century. They are flat out immoral and everyone knows it. No-one is willing to even try to enforce all of them. They are ridiculous. Even Jesus contradicted some of them. But some people want to enforce the ones that that they find convenient or aesthetically pleasing.
I understand Biblical ideas of what justice means. I reject them.

Most of your post is a string of unsupported assertions.

This is not true. A child trying to regain a toy is no different from an adult feeling entitled to a priviledge denied to others. We all have a sense of self-preservation built into us. This isn't about justice.
Did God's definition of justice change? This is really human's perception of justice changing. This is the point to my earlier post. God's behaviour, as described in Genesis, was determined to be immoral. So a new story was written, the New Testament. This is not a new Covenant. It's a new moral code that doesn't jibe with the old one. The underlying assumption that christian theology avoids exploring is: "God changed His Mind about what justice means, so we humans just have to accept the contradictions and go with the flow." I can accept that human's changed their concept of justice and so changed their image of God. But what that tells me is also that God is a purely human creation. Maybe there is a God of some kind, but all we know about Him is what we have made up for reasons other than Truth. If there is an entity who has consistent views about justice I believe we'd know about it. What we actually have is an assortment of texts that contradict themselves, each other, and what we have learned since they were written.
We do not have a sinful nature. We are born ignorant, that's all. Sometimes we learn better, but not always. If there was a God who wanted us to know anything in particular we would be born with the knowledge. We are born with an understanding of food and sex and things like that. We could be born with a similar understanding of justice. But we aren't. If there is a God, we are born exactly as we are because He chose it. Human nature is almost identical to the great apes. That's why I believe that evolution shaped us, not any Designer. We could have been designed in a way that is so much better than we are.
But why would anyone believe this? It makes no sense. God could have eliminated sin by creating the Universe a little differently, thereby having no need of all this suffering. No suffering whatsoever! According to Scripture God was boxed in to all of this by His own creation. I can understand why ancient people believed this. I don't understand why anyone with more sophistication concerning justice or morality or free-will would believe it. The idea that God both created everything, but is not responsible for the results, is the basic dichotomy that forces me to believe that christian theology is an illusionary(or delusionary) belief system without any basis in Truth. The people who benefit materially, various ministers and religious authorities, have a personal interest in promulgating faith in this illusion. The results are still immoral and religions have a stake in keeping things this way.
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We have not had what is acceptable to God laid down in law. The laws have changed considerably. The problem with sin is that no-one knows what it is. No-one knows why it would exist. And according to "traditional Christian theology" sin has nothing to do with salvation. Belief in Jesus' Divinity is what Salvation hinges upon. Not good works. Some Christians try to argue that all believers do good works, but I know that they don't. Plenty of people believe that Jesus is God, and also have evil interpretations of His Message. They do terrible things because they believe that the Bible tells them to do so. God has not "revealed" any clearly understandable law.
By creating imperfect beings God created endless suffering. According to Scripture we do not have the option of simply being what we were created to be. I can understand why primitive goatherders would believe this image of God. Since I have the benefit of thousands of years worth of philosophical and ethical learning I don't. And it is immoral for anyone to ignore all that learning and believe that what the authors of Genesis wrote is true. Even if the story of Adam and Eve is just a metaphor, it is still evil. God created everything, and then inflicted infinite suffering with no reason, except for a dreadful form of "retributive" justice. I am unable to believe that this story, and the image of God it asserts to be true, is anything but an ancient delusion. I hope for a day when all humans dismiss this sort of thing, without losing the history of theocratic illusions, so as not to repeat the mistakes.
I don't know much about dog training. But I know this much. I don't know why dogs do anything, but food is a good motivator. If I want to teach a dog to do something I will use food. I don't expect a dog to do anything to please me, because I know it won't. I use food to train a dog to obey me because I know that food works and textual commands don't. No matter how smart your dog is, it will never learn to obey if you just talk to him. It doesn't matter how much I prefer that the dog obeys for some reason or another. It will obey if I use certain techniques, and it won't if I use certain other ones. Successful techniques do not ignore the instincts that a dog is born with. They recognize them and work with them. If your image of God were as good at training humans as a good dog trainer is with dogs there wouldn't be a problem with morality. Unfortunately He isn't. This is clear just by listening to the news.
An omnipotent God chooses what will glorify Him. According to Scripture His choice is infinite suffering. I cannot believe that there is a God so cruel. It may be true. But I sincerely doubt it. I sincerely believe that the christian image of God is just a terrible mistake. A mistake that will be recognized and corrected sometime in the next thousand years, along with Allah and Brahmin etc.
Sin is not important to an omnicsient God. Romans did not says this, Paul did. Jesus may have had something to say about theology, but we'll never know. All we have to go on is His followers followers version(translated a few times to boot) of what He said. The theology ascribed to Jesus wasn't especially revolutionary, but the ethics were. The theology was simply a return to polytheism. I don't believe He ever claimed any such thing. I believe that it was added later, to bolster the claims of His followers to an elevated position. If there is a "ticket to Heaven" it would be much more clearly offered to everyone. Belief in an incredible set of claims would not matter as much as how one lives their life.

I believe in the ethical teachings of Jesus. What I don't believe in is the extraordinary claims that are presented without any evidence at all. Quite the opposite. I believe that if the christian theology were true there would be plenty of evidence. But there isn't.

Tom

no_rain

In the Judeo-Christian world view we became lost when we sinned by breaking our very first covenant with God in Eden. The covenant was of course to not eat the forbidden fruit. Once we became unfaithful to that agreement God separated us from himself and we got our part of the agreement: our ancestors died and we too die. God defines our act as selling ourselves to sin. And the wage of sin is death.

Being sold to sin, our only salvation was to be bought back from it. This salvation is also described as being “washed from sin�. Before Christ the Jews were instructed with the animal sacrifices to buy themselves from sin. For every sin they made, there was an appropriate sacrifice to atone for that sin. The blood of these animals would wash them of their sin.

The Bible makes it clear though that, although a serious ceremonial requirement, animal sacrifices were merely an indication of what really was required to save us. The Bible clearly states that the blood of blameless animals could not save us from our own sins. The fact was that it would take the blood of a blameless human, not born of our lineage, to truly redeem us. He/she could not be from our lineage because everyone born from the lineage of Adam was under the curse of sin.

That’s where Christ comes in. Of course God could have created a new Adam, used one of his angels, etc. But he chose to send his own son as a living sacrifice because it was the greatest act of love he could do for us. And that is the meaning of “the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.� We have been fully paid back from sin through the blood of Christ, the son of God.

So why create the forbidden fruit, our very first covenant? Why the need for a blood sacrifice to pay for our sins? Why this? Why that? I don’t know. That’s how God operates. Yes he knew we would eat the fruit, but he also knew what would then happen to his son because of that. Why create us then if it would cause him so much trouble? I think he just wanted to.

To your ultimate question: how daddy can let such a thing happen to his son? Because he loved us that much.

Rational BAC

Of course that is all very canonical. But I don't think any of that has anything at all to do with Christ, the reasons for his existence on earth, the reasons for His crucifixion.

All we really got in the Bible is what Jesus actually said, (or was purported to have said) ---------

---and give or take some mistakes over the years as far as oral testimony changing a bit----I as a very excellent Christian posting on this forum---think that what we have as what He said is probably pretty damned close to what He did say.

I do not get the impression from what Jesus actually stated that he gave a crap about original sin. I do not get the impression that He was sacrificed to save us from a patently absurd and non-existent sin.

Jesus was a whole 'nother thing. What He came to earth to do has been BADLY misconstrued. And awfully BADLY misconstrued by fundamentalists.

So-----If Jesus did not live on earth as God turned into human for 30 years to save us from "original sin" (what a laugher that is) then what was His purpose?

Methinks the purpose was to show us how to better live our lives, to be a little bit nicer to other people, to show compassion for the weakies among us.

--And to demonstrate by His death and subsequent resurrection that there REALLY is an afterlife.

And that is all there is to Christianity. It is a very simple religion.

Truly it is.

no_rain

So what do you think Christ came to the world for? What does, “this is my body which has been given up for you� mean? And what does “this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins� mean? Why did Christ come to Earth?

If you think Christ came for any other reason than to save us from sin, show us where it says that in the Bible. The Old Testament constantly talks about a man that will be killed for our transgression. If you think Christians (except you) have misconstrued the message then show us how. But remember that we are working with the same book.

Rational BAC

I will give you personal sin===the sin that any individual has committed in their lifetime. Christ's sacrifice could be for that. But for the absurd notion of original sin? No way in hell. It flat out does not make sense. And Gods just aren't that stupid.

You may be working with the same book. But I am not. I consider Revelation to be insanity incorporated wrongly in the Bible. I consider all the writings of St Paul to be suspect.

I do pay great attention to what Jesus actually said. Not what somebody else said about Him. (I mean St Paul never even met the guy).

If you pay close attention to what Jesus actually said (give or take some--we are talking an oral tradition here, meaning scores of years went by before what He said was actually written down)---but I think what He said as written down 30 or 40 years after the fact, probably is pretty close to what He actually did say)

So what did Jesus say? Forget the garbage of St Paul. Forget Revelation. Forget the politically inspired canon of the 4th century. Just read what Jesus "said" -------and that really is Christianity.

no_rain

So what do you believe in? If you do not believe in the basic concepts of Judeo/Christian theology then you have real problems with your faith. Surely it should not be explained to you that if you cannot believe the crucial parts of a religion, then the parts you do believe in cannot be validated. You will have to invent your own religion.

The curse that befell Adam and Eve and their progeny is a central Biblical tenet. That the salvation from this (and all our other sins) is through Christ is a central Biblical tenet – not just a New Testament one.

If we are not working on the same book, I suppose we have come to a stalemate. You will have to write your own book, and we will have to battle it out from there: in the same way a Muslim and a Christian will battle out whose idea of the Christ is the right one.

Rational BAC

The most important thing to learn about Christianity is ---

--that you are your own personal canon. That is what you are supposed to do in this very personal religion===you dealing with God. Mano a mano.

You start from scratch. You do not automatically accept what anybody else has said about the meaning of Christ's existence on earth. You throw it all out and start again. (You will have the help of the Holy Spirit to help you).

You do not need the assistence of St Paul to figure it out. You do not really need the "assistence" of all of the knowledgable Biblical scholars through all of history to aid you.

You certainly do not need to rely on a committee influenced and politically influenced bunch of ding a lings from the 4th century to aid you.

You, with your quite acceptable mind---

just as good or better than St Paul, just as good or better as all the theological talent throughout history, --You and Jesus, ---

--can figure it all out all by your lonesome. (or more accurately your twosome, or threesome if you count the Holy Ghost).

I repeat --Christianity is a very simple religion, or at least should be.

Rational BAC

I have no problems at all with my faith. Been posting here for 2 years and my faith has not budged a bit. Been lambasted from all sides.

I have a strong cookie of a faith.

h2o4life_200

Tom
Yeah, sorry about the delay. Lots of school and work to deal with. Gingerbread houses are definitly cool, I think that it is good that you brought that stuff up because soo many times people just think of blocks of text representing that particular person. None of us I think are 'bad' people and we all value human life and all the wonders that it offers. Anyways, to reply to your quite lengthy post>

I would agree, although I still think that many of them are worth adhering to. I don't think that we should stone adulturous women outside the city gates but I think that we all would agree that stealing and killing are 'a-list' bad things to do.

I am not sure what you are implying here. I gave both Philosophical and Biblical supporting statements to evidence my assertions. Unless you can give specific examples of such occurances I am afraid that it is an unsuppoted assersion itself.

I think that it is going to be a hard sell for you to try to compare self-preservation to justice as opposing views. Self-preservation is an individual sense of justice just like the child's retributive justice in taking back what he/she believes is thiers, just as you believe your life to be your own.

Determined by whom to be immoral? The New Covenant is not a new story at all and you have yet to support that assertion with any evidence at all. The New Testament continues to support the laws of Moses as being legitimate. The only thing that changed was how we were to go about the consequences of breaking those laws. At no time did Jesus or the New Testament indicate that it was all of a sudden ok to worship false gods, use the name of the Lord in vain, not observe the sabbath, dishonor thy father and mother, murder, adulturate, steal, lie, or covet. (Exodus 20:2-17) The thing that makes the New Testament important is the establishment of the New Covenant (promise) that God made. As I outlined in previous posts, the laws of Moses were created to show us that we could not live sin free lives even when we knew what those laws are which we are to adhere to.

Firstly, I don't have to accept anything simply because the words 'that's all' end a sentence. You have brought up some intersting points here but made no attempt to support them or even give cogent examples. I cannot be expected to know exactly what you are trying to say when you say things like 'human nature is almost identical to the great apes.' Unless you have given me any evidence to support these such claims, then you have merely given me your opinion. I think that we all know that we never should take someone's mere opinion as fact. Simply put, just because you say so doesn't make it so.

Well the first thing that I would like to address is the fact that there is some mystery form of mass suffering going on because of sin right this moment. (1)You are indicating that by taking sin to be true we are all somehow afflicted by suffering in mass quantities. I think that there is a major misconception going on in your statement. When the Bible refers to sufferings as a result of sin, it usually deals with direct earthly results and post earthly results. For example: If you kill someone, then you will be punished on earth as a result of your actions. Then after you die, you will be held accountable for those sins unless you have accepted Christ as your savior.
(2) The idea that since we have a more sophisticated or refined view of the concept of justice in no way hinders the idea of the need for a Savior. In fact it could be argued that we need one now more than we ever have. We have the means to sin much more readily as a result of modern technology. Television regularly sends out sinful messages that bare mournful consequences like the cultural acceptance of sex out of wedlock which is a sin. This is one example out of perhaps thousands that could be provided on television alone.
(3) Your third point about the (false) dichotomy that exists concerning God's responsibility for sin and that he created everything is fallacious. The immediate question that must be asked, is wether God has compelled us to sin or perhaps even worse. Has God sinned himself? Well the answer to both is no. The Bible indicates (and I am using the Bible because that is what is used to judge sin) that the only way to know sin is by having a law which outlines these things. Romans 7:7 "Well then, am I suggesting that the law of God is evil? Of course not! The law is not sinful, but it was the law that showed me my sin. I would never have known that coveting is wrong if the law had not said 'do not covet.'"
(4) Your last assertion was that you have come to the conclusion that Christian theology is an "illuionary(or delusionary belief system without any basis in the truth" was highly unqualified. You have not provided any evidence for what are weak arguments at best. You have engaged in logical fallacy, misconception, and even name calling by calling what my beliefs are 'delusion'. Well, the truth is that I am delerious... deleriously happy to know that there is yet to be some form of a cogent argument for the non-existence of God. If you wish to continue to address my beliefs then I would ask you to please do so respectfully and keep statements like illusision, delusion, myth, and other groundless and degrading labels out of your posts.

(1) Yes it has and to deny this fact is to engage in ignorance of what the Bible says. The Ten Commandments seem to be pretty clear on what is and is not acceptable and I have already addressed this twice. Once in my previous post and again earlier in this one.
(2) Divinity is not what salvation hinges upon. There would be no need for salvation if there was no sin. So by saying that divinity is in question, you are presupposing that there is a problem of sin. I suggest that by doing so, you are borrowing my view the Christian worldview. Because, if there was no God then there would be no sin and no need for salvation. Also, there is only one inexcusable sin. That is the sin of non-belief. All others can be forgiven by God. You cannot expect redemption though if you do not believe in the redeemer.
(3) I would like to point out that I have never once argued that only Christians do good works or that atheists are evil people. Please don’t attribute that argument to me because both atheists and believers can be found to be ignorant, unlearned, and emotional in their own lives. This discussion is, to me one only on the basis for the belief in God and therein the belief in salvation through Jesus. Not the people that adhere to atheism or theism.

No, that is not true. God didn't create imperfect beings in the beginning. You will have to get your facts straight if you are going to tell me what the Bible says. Genesis says that God made man and he made him good. That is to say good=free of sin. The world did not experience imperfection until Adam and Eve partook of the fruit that was deemed forbidden by God. This was not an unreasonable demand for God to make. There was an entire garden that was full of food. The placement of the tree was to represent the choice that God gave to man so that he might be glorified by man choosing God even in the face of sinful temptation.

If you don't know anything about dog training then don't try to speak informatively. You seemed to have missed the entire point that I attempted to make. I was not giving lessons on dog training. I was trying to illustrate a point. God is omnipotent, and he chose for us to have to choose between those things which he prohibited and him. The garden was a test. We failed. But he knew that we would and he made provisions that would allow us to still have the ability to live in eternity with him. The best way to relate this to you could be like this: Let's say that you want to befriend someone. Would you rather have a friend that likes you for who you are and honors your beliefs and wishes, or a friend who is just acting like it so they can get your money, or you threatened them or for whatever reason other than that of the first. Of course most everyone would choose the first kind of friend. That is why the tree was in the garden and that is why he still gives us the choice to accept his love and redemption or not. The consequences of not believing are given. There is no use complaining about it. Those are the terms that he outlined. I accept them and live the best possible life that I can.

Sin is important to God and He says it not just in Romans to Paul, but in every account of everyone who wrote the Bible over a large span of time. The accounts of all who wrote the Bible are unsurpassed in their coherency with dozens of authors who all remained consistent in their message over a period of thousands of years. If you want to believe in a centuries long Biblical conspiracy to mislead people for all time by the authors of the Bible, then you do so in your own ignorance. If you want to have answers to the big questions then you need to be more receptive to what is being said. I gave my interpretation and the only thing that people appear to be interested in doing is discounting what is said by the believers at the outset and never even trying to consider what is being said. You have once again provided me with an opinion of what you think and yet you do not support such claims. You have attacked the Bible and you have attacked me. I will continue to answer your questions as long as you ask them. I want to conclude with the acknowledgement that I think that you are not a bad person because of the things that you have brought up or how, or even that you do not believe the same things that I do. I would hope that if we were to meet on the street, we would have an enjoyable discussion on these topics. Anyway, I hope to hear back from you and am glad to hear that you had a good time with your new nephew.
:wave: