woodchuck

Of Adam and Eve Ab Nirmal said:

For the same reason your decision to take lots of drugs during pregnancy will have very bad effects on your child. For the same reason one who accuires aids will give birth to another with aids, who if able could do the same... Every one of us pays the price for what people before us have done. For some of us our parents did a horrible job raising us, for others we have been lied to.

Is it fair? No, and God recognized this. That is why Christ came. If you find it unfair that God let Adam and Eve determine man's fall, and think that you should have your own choose between the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life, YOU DO. Christ is the tree of life. We have that choice now, and if you choose to live in your own knowledge of good and evil then you have rejected the life, so quit complainin. I do not say this rudely to the skeptic, I say it rudely to the one who knowingly has rejected yet continues to complain.
-eef

K

woodchuck:

It's hardly fair to say that we have the same choice. Adam and Eve were supposedly able to talk to God personally and saw him tromping around the Garden of Eden. They only had one command to follow and there were no grey areas. We, on the other hand, are supposed to accept a God who gives absolutely no evidence of His existence and whose many, many commandments are not spelled out explicitly and are full of grey areas. I'd hardly call that the same choice.

Jamie_L

Okay, let's go back to Adam and Eve then.

They had free will. They could choose to obey God or disobey God. Why did they disobey God? When they looked at the two options, why did they say "I want to go with Option B, even though God has said it is wrong"?

There seem to me to only be three possible explanations:
1) The choice was completely random. They had no strong inclination to do one or the other, so they effectively flipped a coin. I don't know of any theologies that explicitly state this.
2) They were coerced. They did not desire to do the wrong thing, but were forced to against their will. Again, I know of no theological explanation that suggests this.
3) They wanted to do the wrong thing more than they wanted to do the right thing.

If I've missed a possibility, someone let me know.

Now, if #3 is what happened, think about what that means. The supposedly "perfect" creations of God had it in their nature to want to sin more than they wanted to obey God. They were made in such a way that when presented with the option to disobey God, it would seem like a better idea than obeying God. If they had not been made that way, they would have at least been left in situation #1.

If God created them with the nature to think Option B better than Option A, and that is considered Free Will, couldn't God have made them such that they thought Option A was better, and that would also still be considered Free Will?

If Adam and Eve were perfect, why did they sin?

Jamie

K

Jamie:

Just to try and make a complete list.

4) They were idiots and thought they chose A when they really chose B (not much of a perfect creation).

woodchuck

Jamie L,
Consider that Adam and Eve had no idea of wrong. They had no reason to not trust, no fear of being lied to, they knew only perfect good.

They were given a command that could only be based on authority, not by reason. They chose there own reasoning, and then they paid for it- and so have we.

Yes I think it is just as fair- they were ignrant of the cost of rejecting God. They could be told it, but they could not comprehend it. We on the other hand live in the mistake they made, and it is obvious that something has gone wrong. We do not have the same ability to talk to God because of them, not God.

Like I said, God has done everything possible for us to get back into this relationship with Him. We do not meet Him in a Garden now though, we meet Him by His Spirit.

I know your all on your knees gettin saved right now.
-eef

Bible Humper

Hello K,

Yes, the deity apparently loves the gullible and the brainwashed best "for some reason". Not only did he hide all evidence of his handiwork, he allowed religions to flourish around false deities which are indistinguishable from his own cult in all important respects.

Just for laughs, he also made sure that all of those false religions have equally convincing "evidence" as his own cult enjoys.

We can all thank the deity for crafting the human brain to be capable of such feats of self-deception as to allow all of the believers of the false gods to "experience" and "communicate with" them with the same conviction of an Xian regarding Yahweh.

I'm sure the world will find his sense of humor brilliant while we are all sizzling in hellfire among the gnashing of teeth for falling for his gag.

For a discussion of how this "free-will defense" implies that the Xian is conceding that the miracle claims, philosophy, etc. of the religion are not credible, come over <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=50&t=000641" target="_blank">here</a>.

Bible Humper

Hello Woodchuck, please follow the link in the prior post and contribute however you can to my related thread as well.

Not at all, apparently if you are born into Xianity you are going to "experience the deity" or "communicate with Jesus" at an early age. The deity also personally intervenes on your behalf when you pray.

Someone who would have grown up to be a real villain, if he wasn't afraid of hell and eager for heaven, now faithfully observes the taboos of Xianity and will sit alongside the Yahster in paradise.

Don't you see the problem?

Such a loving deity. He crafts a garden for his "beloved" creations who completely lack the knowledge of good and evil, knowingly puts an apple there which has the potential of causing a catastrophe of cosmic proportions, allows a talking snake with a proclivity for mischief into the garden with them, and is subsequently "shocked" at what happens and dooms them, and all their descendants, for all time.

Umm, Yahweh? Duh?

Well then, let us follow the example of the deity and imprison the children of convicted felons!

[quote]Free will is not freedom to believe, it is Freedom to accept authority. It is the freedom for the finger to allow the body control, instead of living under it's own rule. [quote]

How can we accept authority without belief in the authoritarian?

If you already believe in the deity, there is little question of obedience. Hellfire takes care of that!

No, when we ask why the deity is hiding, take it as a hypothetical question.

We know that the deity isn't hiding, he doesn't exist. The point of this is to point out all of the absurdities of trying to rationalise the happenings of the universe to somehow be part of a "master plan" of a magic onmimax deity.

So orwellian!

Yeah, Europe was a land of milk and honey during the dark ages when few dared to violate the taboos of the deity for fear of execution. Too bad we can't have the good old days back!

Haha, what problem is there for the omnipotent deity to reveal himself?

The deity supposedly reveals himself to those who are born into the cult, why not for the rest of us?

How lucky you are to have been born into the right sect, the poor brainwashed people in all the rest, not to mention atheists, really got fucked!

You cannot be free unless you submit wholly to the state. Surrender your rights to the leader, it is the only way to be free.

This sentiment seemed reasonable during the days when the religion was invented and monarchy was viewed as the ultimate political system. No longer.

Jamie_L

I.E., they were completely unprepared to face a devious coniver like Satan.

But why? Why didn't they choose to obey? If they were perfect, wouldn't they have obeyed God? If they didn't obey God, doesn't that show they weren't perfect to begin with?

Why on earth is it fair to punish someone for doing something they couldn't comprehend?

Jamie

woodchuck

Ok, I cant get all up on this right now but i want to respond to a few here...

I want to first make it clear that I'm not here to evangelize, I'm here for the same reason most of you guys are, discussion. I'm not afraid to piss anyone off, but i don't really want to hurt anyone, and I love talkin about this stuff. SO anyway....

Mr. Humper, nice to meet you.

Actually, I do see the problem, but probably not like you do. The next thing I say, you guys are probably all going to chalk down as some kind of victory for your point of view, I guess if it makes you feel better you can do that: Aren't Christian families the leading cause for Atheism? I guess it's our culture now too, but I know that it seems that a good sized handful of atheists came from Church backgrounds.

On the other hand, another thing Christian families produce so well is manufactured Christians who don't even know what they believe, don't even know why they believe, and are just plain afraid to believe in anything else. They do not have a relationship with God, they have an ingrained religious training that I would consider more of a cancer in the church than anything.

I guess only God really knows who believes and who doesn't believe, it's not for us to judge. But I am convinced that this kind of forced allegiance is not the path I think God would want people to take to him, and I think it's worst than disbelief or rejection, its imprisonment of a misconception of God, being told you are living the best life possible but your are bound by laws and stuck in this frame of beliefs you dont even understand. I think that Christian families often either only become christian because of social benifits, or even if they have a genuine belief, they are so scared of allowing their children their own choice as they had- or may not have had. In my opinion this takes away freedom, and I don't see it as a one way ticket to heaven.

A religious man will accept Christ and go to church to get to heaven- but the people I know who have come to kow God personally aren't even that worried about the afterlife- it's his presence at this moment that is so awesome- eternal life starts when you accept Christ, not after you die, and my heaven experience has already begun, though perhaps just a preview.

I will grant you that point of view- but let me share my less evolved, lower life form, brain washed Theist point of view...

That is that, like in the post you linked, you give a few options at the beginning, but I think that there is different options.

1. God is perfectly good
2. God created the world
3. The world has evil in it
4. God had a perfectly good reason to create a world with evil in it.

I can't remeber who said this: Our world is not the best possible world, but the world with the best possibilities.

You also seem to disregard the fact that free will means that God has handed over a small bit of his power to us. If we have free will, that means we have choices apart from him. That means that, yes he could have created a world were he decided for all of us what we would do, but he preffered to create a world in which we would choose the things we would do.

This does not mean that God has given all power- and does not mean He is no longer all powerful. The bible is full of items where God proclaims what he will do, many take this as if it's because he has one big perfect plan set in stone and every movement is written in his script like when Jamie sticks her finger in the stray dog butt. (sorry Jamie) But in all the times he tells what he will do, most often it includes an if- like I will do this if you do this. And many times God did not do what he said he would do, because the peoiple did whatever it took for him to change his mind.

I think God knows all the possible out comes of this world and has deemed it worth the risks. If any one should be able to make this judgment, I think it should be the all-knowing.

This is like a really long long subject... but hey, thats what were all about here anyway huh.

Why is it that every time one of you guys wants to follow the example of the deity you leave the good stuff out? Ok- let's follow his example and create a way out for those children by taking the felon's conviction upon ourselves.

Oh ok, gees, I'm an idiot- I see, it's only the truly rational who believe that NOTHING caused EVERYTHING and it is evolutions master plan of survival or what ever you cling to... Just because you have changed your definition of absurd so that it makes only YOU sound rational does not make the rest of the world irrational- it's called closed mindedness, and it's a big no no in the atheist religion, yet at the same time, it's a requirment for joining. Figure that one out.


um, I guess I should have mentioned that I was a passionate atheist when I met Christ... that way you could have avoided making that whole generalizing assumption about me and come up with something a little more creative and not so stereotypical.

Jamie said this:
First of all, I don't find anything that says they were perect in the scripture- nor imperfect. Perfect only makes sense because we have imperfection to look at at- and how could they ever even appreciate God's desire to keep them perfect if they hadn't experienced the imperfect? This is like a peanut shell version of this argument, but it makes sense to me.

Don't we punish children for things they can't comprehend? Of course we do- because we want them to comprehend it! So we spank little baby Marvin for finger painting with his open diaper all over the new wall paper and the family photos. For him he's screamin and crying like its the end of the world, but we know that its best to punish him right off the bat so that he wont go around painting crap all over walls when he is in public places and trying to attract women. (of course in todays art culture he'd probably become very succesful).

My point: For us, God's big punishment seems like the worst thing in the world but He's looking into the future. yet another big long debate, but I dont see what God did as unfair, especially in view of the cross. It is common in these discussions to talk about the unfairness of the garden of Eden without a mention of the cross.

Anyway, as a side note, I enjoy your posts Jamie L- you dont seem as harsh as others, you seem honest, you seem to be a thinker, and you seem to actually be considering things with an openess (to an extent) anyway, I like the questions you ask. You dont seem to be on here just so you can try to overwhelm us idiot theists with your massive debating skills. Thanks.

Ok well, until the next long thread of aimless banytering...
I'm eef the woodchuck, bowin down in my cult of Christ <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

woodchuck

I missed one from Hump-daddy...
Since when did fear really get anyone to do anything? especially fear of something that isn't right in front of you?

Smokers still smoke, even if they believe in lung cancer, even if poeple die nasty deaths with tar filled lungs and suffer emphyzema- People spend credit cards like mad, even as they are warned that they will end up being bankrupt and in a hole lot of crap... people do drugs even when it can be fatal- People don't give a damn about warnings or threats.

The ONLY reason I have EVER chosen to obey God is love, and faith that He knows better than me or you or any other person who thinks they have everything figured out and wants to tell me how to live. Yeah I screw up and disobey at times, but I dont freak out thinkin I'm going to go to hell, rather I'm more bummed out that I missed out on what that decision could have become if I had given God the authority in it.

Anyway, one other thing- I'm going to quote myself here: kow god... he's like a big fat kow guy that squirts holy milk on the wounds of his bowing minions... I really suck at typing. (still usin the two finger method).
-eef the jolly ol' woodchuck