Magus55

Only if you define free will as an imperfect flaw.


Free will.

Queen of Swords

If it made them fall, made humanity corrupt, etc. how could it not be a flaw?

So Jesus didn't have free will, then?

Magus55

Because they didn't have to disobey God using it. Being able to make a choice isn't a flaw. Do you believe your ability to choose between killing someone and not killing them is a flaw of your nature?


He did have free will, but He is also God so He was strong enough to resist temptation. Adam and Eve, not being divine, gave in.

And QoS, I thought you knew all these answers? Why do you keep bothering with the leading questions, when you already know the answer?

Queen of Swords

If they used it but never ever disobeyed god, wouldn't they be robots who never made a mistake?

Being punished for exercising this ability means that either the ability is flawed (because they made the wrong choice) or the punishment is unjust. I'm perfectly willing to conclude that the punishment is unjust.

Then god shouldn't have punished them for not being divine. He should have given them divinity in the first place, if he wanted people who never made a mistake.

Aww, what a nice thing to think about me. I'm so flattered.

But Magus, I thought you already knew the answer to that one. It's fun!

Magdlyn

Excuse me, Magus? Are you backing down on the idea that God killed an animal for couture and as an atonement sacrifice? Because you were rather shot down on trying to make the Hebrews quote fit in with the skin clothing/animal sacrifice idea (ie: no mention of killing or blood or sacrifice or atonment in the story).

When you were backed into a corner, you then said there was symbolism about the choice of skin over t-shirt. So, when you were cornered, it seemed to become suddenly vague "symbolism" and no longer a literal thing. Do you admit to reading more into the Genesis text than is warranted?

Did humans suddenly learn after the expulsion to weave fibres into cloth (not T-shirts, but of course, linen or wool robes), did they wear grass skirts, or did they wear animal skin clothing like cavepeople, before Noah? I mean, if God made E&A leather clothes, they would wear out eventually, then what? What do you think?


Originally Posted by QueenofSwords
Is the omnipotent creator of the universe unable to produce an animal skin without killing the animal?

Magus:
Of course He's not, but there is symbolism of why He chose an animal skin over weaving cotton into a T-shirt.

Yahzi

But they only fail because he made it impossible for them to succeed!

But the reason you can't reach perfection without God is because God made perfection impossible without him!

You are saying that you think it ought to be this way. You are saying that the most moral, just, righteous scheme you can think of is for God to rig the game so we have to lose and beg for help. God could have easily made it so we could win the game on our own, and chose not to. And you think that's a good thing.

Magus, this is self-denigration on an insane level. Regardless of whether or not we can achieve perfection on our own: surely you understand that it would be best if we could.

Only because God made that the rules. God could have made the rules different. God could have made the world so that the imperfect could become perfect on their own. God could have made the rules different.

The stunning part is that you think this is the way God should have mad e the rules. Given a choice between perfection being obtainable by your own efforts, and perfection being only obtainable by a gift, you choose to be a beggar.

This is what stuns me.

Oh my god. Magus, you've just completely given up. Magus, what you are feeling - that your efforts will never be good enough - is not a philosophy, it is a mental illness. I do not mean that in any negative way, but as a simple statement of fact. To feel that all effort is pointless because you cannot ever be good enough is a mental illness. I'd look it up in my DSM IV but I can't find it, I'm not qualified to offer diagnoses, and the name doesn't really matter. The point is that it is not normal or healthy thinking.

I don't know what to say. I want to say, "seek professional help," but I know that will just be taken as insulting or patronizing, when I mean it in the most honest, sincere, and caring way possible. You don't have to live like this. Lots of people, some of them extremely close to me, have beaten this thing. You can too.

Ion

Magus, your naive credulity is being attacked in this thread from inside your own cult with its inconsistency.

From outside your cult, show me non religious and non Biblical evidence that "...He...", "...God...", "...Adam and Eve..." have any historical existence that's scientifically established.

Without this scientific historicity -independent of the Bible-, you are preaching from inside a cult about mythical figures.

Go ahead:

prove they exist or existed, without invoking religion and the Bible.

Eikonoklast

Magus55 said:
Ditto...almost

1. I concluded religion was man made and was man's attempt at reaching Godhood.

Your god is your ideal self. You fall short of the glory of god because you set the bar too high. Your unrealistic expectations are what you need to be "saved" from. It's not that you shouldn't strive for excellence, whatever you may believe that to be. But you should also recognize and accept your limitations as a human being.

2. What do I need to be saved from?

You see Magus, we aren't born into this world thinking that we need to be saved from something. You only need to be saved because that's what you, or someone else, has convinced you of. They say that misery loves company, but if I don't feel as if I need to be saved, wouldn't it be best that you don't convince me that I need to be saved? The fall of man, so to speak, was within his consciousness. I have yet to take that plunge.

3. Why do people who grow up in India become Hindhu? People in Iran Islamic? People in Israel Jewish? People in the northeastern US Catholic? People in the southern US Baptist?

cjack

My first reaction to this is "so, where did the sin come from?"


Seriously.

God created everything, right? Time, space, "heavens," birds, beasts, etc.


Yet apparently, He didn't create sin. Sin came from somewhere else (where else is there?) and screwed everything up.

God is all-powerful, but apparently not powerful enough to keep "sin" out of the world.




Oh, I know...free will.

Adam & Eve gave in to "temptation" and so its all their fault, and God bears no responsibility for the arrival of sin into the world, right?

Why? Because they (as you asserted in an earlier post) lacked the "divine" quality necessary to resist the temptation.


So, let me see if I've got this right:


God creates a couple of people with an inability to resist "temptation," then sets a big 'ol temptation right down in front of them, then punishes the poor saps (and all their descendants for all time) because they gave in to the temptation!


And you still don't see why we won't buy into this shit?

:banghead:

Dean Anderson

Actually, given Yahweh's obsession with circumcision, it is far more likely that he got all those skins to make the coats from without having to kill the animals...

Snip Snip!