Katastrophikus

Not at all:

I arbitarily declare that I forgive sins. Worship me.

See? Any being can arbitrarily claim that he can forgive sins. Your point is not valid.

Amaleq13

That is your stated conclusion, not your "reasoning".

None of this is reasoning, either. It is simply a series of reassertions of your beliefs with no rational justification of the seemingly arbitrary differentiation between "logic" and "divine logic" offered.

In other words, the answer to my question ("Can you offer a rational explanation why this does not also apply to logic?") is "No". This fabrication of a "divine logic" is just another way of attempting to describe the inscrutability of your god. :wave:

Johnny Skeptic

But that is still God's arbitrary opinion. Arbitrary means subject to individual discretion, which is the same as might makes right. Might makes right is a detestable philosophy. You have still not reasonably proven that God is righteous, that he has the right to establish his version of absolute morality, and that he is worthy of being worshipped. There is not a necessary correlation between power and righteousness, or between the ability to predict the future and righteousness.

You claim that God forgives sins. So what? I forgive people too. In addition, I am much more merciful than God is. I would never endorse eternal punishment without parole.

God refuses to do everything that he can in order to help ensure that as many people as possible go to heaven, and as few people as possible go to hell. That is sufficient reason on its own for people to reject him.

Copies of ancient texts can never reasonably prove anything about God. What you need to do is to produce evidence that the existence and will of God can be discovered outside of the Bible. Do you have that kind of evidence?

Gullwind

But Satan did a lot more than tempt a girl in a garden to get kicked out of heaven. As I recall, he became so prideful that he thought he could take over. Pride is one of the seven deadlies, if I'm not mistaken. The first sinner in the world was not Eve.

Although I did have a YEC tell me that he didn't know what Satan did to get kicked out of heaven but it couldn't have been sin, because that would make Paul a liar.

spin

When you pretend to be able to talk about god without having any demonstrable knowledge of this god, you aren't saying anything.

You seem to be misusing the term "power". What exactly are you referring to when you talk about the "gospel"? Are you talking about the actual texts of the gospels, the information contained in them, or something else? When we talk about something having "power" it usually refers to some entity or analogous referent that can exert the power.

I understand that you don't consider yourself a salesperson. But drawing people the world over is not necessarily a good thing, is it? Look at terrorism or cults such as scientology.

Your communications are a little like peeling back an onion: under one layer of tearful mystification there is another and another. Or maybe an old-fashioned Russian doll, which eventually has nothing inside. I would like to think there was someone in there to communciate with.


spin

Jack the Bodiless

Where is it prophesied in the Old Testament that a future Messiah would "forgive sins"?

Helpmabob

You are human, like myself – God is divine. God’s promise has recognisable and verifiable authority and dependable truth and it is experientially sound for those that believe. Yours, as you have admitted, is arbitrary. It has no basis, is utterly ridiculous and consequently worthless.Any being or thing can become a man’s god. And mental institutions are full of people that think they are gods. But we know there is one God and it is He who forgives sin. Neither Allah, nor Buddha nor Brahma nor the Dalai Lama can or do make these assertions. These are gods for the man that has everything. On the other hand, God is for the man that admits he cannot redeem himself from error.

Honestly? Why?

Our forgiveness of others is good practice and recommended in the Bible, but I think it only extends as far as removing bitterness from our hearts, and makes it easier for God to forgive us. There is no power to save in our forgiveness. Thus, our forgiveness of others benefits ourselves probably more than it benefits those forgiven. God’s forgiveness of us does not provide essential benefit to Him, but is done by grace for esoteric reasons.

My persuasion will not convince people of their need of God. What I need to do is be open about the gospel and leave the rest to God. As for evidence, the universe itself speaks far more eloquently than I ever can about the grace and omnipotence of God. A picture is worth a thousand words. A walk in the country on a sunny day says even more.

Well Satan never was of this world; never human, like us. He is a spiritual being. So it is reasonable to say that sin entered the world (humanity) through the first man, Adam after tempting by Satan.

I am full of sin. God is without sin. There will remain a barrier between us while I live. I see a pale reflection as if through a shaded glass.It covers the whole package of things revealed in the Bible primarily the purpose of God and especially the ‘good news of salvation by grace through faith’.Normally. In this case, the gospel carries supernatural power, instituted by God.I think you want to physically see God with your own eyes before believing in Him. It is frustrating for us both I guess. But God’s way – to see Him through faith - is better. Better to have a God from above that is divine (even though we cannot fully understand). If there are gods on earth that are fully understood by man it is for the simple reason that they contain at least a partial input of human construction.

I didn’t claim that there was a single verse covering this. The Bible is not a textbook and all of it needs to be read. However:

Read Isaiah 53 particularly – but he endured the suffering that should have been ours[Isaiah 53:4]. If you kept a record of sins, who could escape from being condemned? But you forgive us, so that we should stand in awe of you.[Psalm 130:3,4]; You will be merciful to us once again. You will trample our sins underfoot and send them to the bottom of the sea.[Micah 7:19] Compare with the New Testament picture of sins that they are to be forgiven even if our brother sins against us seventy seven times. as far as the east is apart from the west, so the christian’s sins are removed from him.

spin

If sin is going against the will of god, it is meaningless to say that god is without sin. Can you give me a functional meaning of "sin" please?

(Can you try to explain yourself in your own words? I can't see much else other than the cliche-ing of the original reference.)

"Gospel" means "good news", so you are defining the term by saying it again, which isn't very helpful.

Also, as the attempted definition doesn't include something that can be considered to have "potency", how then can your gospel itself have "power", as you put it, when I asked for a definition of that term you used in conjunction with "power"?... Perhaps you might like to reword the original idea to convey what you actually want to say rather than use terms that have you more mystified than communicative.

You haven't answered my question with this. All you are doing is avoiding it, by saying it has power, not how it can have power -- if it is not "some entity or analogous referent that can exert the power".

Why on earth would you consider it frustrating for me? I don't assume that there is such a thing as a god. I'm interested in your methodology or more correctly lack of one.

The schizophrenic believes in those machinations of his/her mind. I can't see that your machinations can be shown to be any different. A schizophrenic holds beliefs that cannot be shown to have any basis in the real world. Are you schizophrenic, Helpmabob? How can you objectively test your machinations about this god being? It's not of course useful to point out that other people have similar machinations because we are aware of such sociopathic phenomena -- you too can blow yourself up and meet your maker.

How about that you can't really understand at all?

You don't know this god exists. You merely accept a common set of beliefs. Had you been born in a muslim country you probably would have accepted the common set of beliefs there. That's called the luck of the draw. Born in America, probably christian; born in Egypt, probably muslim.


spin

Johnny Skeptic

But many people never get to enjoy life, such as babies who are born with serious birth defects and die a few days later.

In a thread at the GRD Forum, angela 2 said:

ScMay replied:

That is one of the best replies from a skeptic that I have ever read, and ScMay is "only" a young medical student. Such wisdom is quite unusual for such a young person. You will of course be unable to adequately refute what he said.

How can any fallible, imperfect human possibly judge who is or is not infallible and perfect? Humans are not really all that smart. We have not even discovered a cure for the common cold. No thanks to God, many early American Christians were not aware that slavery is wrong. God could easily have told them that slavery is wrong, tangible, in person, but he would have none of that. Instead, he preferred to cause, or allow if you wish, an unnecessary war where brother killed brother, and Christian killed Christian. It is interesting to note that the largest colonial empire in history by far under a single religion was conquered by Christian nations by means of persecution, murder, and theft of property.

Are you a fundamentalist Christian? Do you oppose homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and physician assisted suicide?

Do you by any chance know of any Bible prophecy that came true?

Gullwind

I'm sure its sounds reasonable, in order to avoid the obvious problem. But Genesis doesn't say he was in the world as a spirit, it says he was in the world as a serpent. Do you have any reason other than dogma to say why that doesn't qualify as "of the world."