Amos

Eternal torment is when you have been born again but can't seem to get rid of your sin nature. To know God in this kind of special way is good and then to remain divided between your old sin nature and this knowledge of God is to be in eternal torment.

I ate Pascal's Wafer

I am not a parent yet, but I can say what I would do as a parent. First of all, I would not give my children rules and then proceed to break them myself. I wouldn't stop my children from doing something that I am not willing to stop doing myself. If I were to ask my children to refrain from doing that which I continue to do, then I will give them a reasonable answer for it. I want my children to grow up knowing that there are reasons for doing things, and I want them to understand the reasons why they aren't being allowed to do something that I am allowed to do. I don't want my children to grow up with the idea that we should accept authority without question. I find the idea dangerous, and I wouldn't teach my children to do this.

As others have noted, this is the height of hypocrisy. If God is supposed to be morally perfect, then he should either follow his own rules, or admit that his rules, if followed properly, would lead humans to be morally imperfect. In other words, either by breaking his rules God is being moral and we are being immoral by following them, or God is admitting that he is immoral and that's alright because he is bigger than us.

We are all familiar with the quote, so there is no need to cite it in its entirety.

See the recent thread about sacrifices. This really wasn't much of a sacrifice if he spent a weekend away from eternal bliss, only to end up at the right hand of daddy.

-Nick

agnawstick

It is a crapshoot isn't it. If your tribe in the Amazon didn't get the word, or some crazy fundy was the one who finally delivered the word when you were 80 years old and you didn't toss your culture, your beliefs, and values out the window, you are screwed.

If you are a Jew who says that my reading of the Torah says that the parents of the messiah will name him Immanuel, and Mary named her son Yeshua, so he can't be the messiah, you are burning.

If you come from a Hindu village in India with thousands of years of practice of faith, and you do the best you can to lead a moral life, you are burning in hell forever.

If you believe in Christ your entire life, and actually follow the Sermon on the Mount, renounce all, give compassion to all, love all, but at the age of 85, you think to yourself that Gandhi is an ok guy, I don't think that Jesus is the only way, because I think Gandhi deserves Heaven too.... oh, you are burning in hell for that sinful thought, because you haven't repented it.

You aren't getting a timeout. If you lived 100 years and committed just one sinful thought, action, or word in that entire span, but you are not a fundy, you are going to burn for infinity.
But cheer up, God is doing this cause he loves you.

Magus55

What makes you think they are sins?

Magus55

Have you ever cussed? So if you punish your children for saying a bad word, you will NEVER go right around and cuss yourself, say if you stubbed your toe? And what reasonable answer would you give your children for you being allowed to swear, and not them? "I'm bigger and older then you, so its ok for me? "

What if your children question a law stated by the Government, but they don't like it? Is it ok for them to disobey that law even though they don't agree with it? So why would it be any different for God, who is infinitely more authoritative and sovereign then any human government, and who can't make any errors in judgement?



Or option 3, actions that are immoral by humans because they are done for the wrong reasons, are moral by God because he does them for the right reasons. Example - murdering someone because they irritate you would be immoral, killing someone because they broke the laws, and judgement is being executed on them is moral. Or, the Noah flood. The entire would was nothing but evil, covered in sin - constantly breaking God's laws - so He judged them, and executed punishment for it. Hitler on the other hand, killed millions of people because He didn't like them, and they got in His way. They don't compare.

And I don't know of any instances where God does break His own laws. "Thou shalt not murder", God doesn't murder - He executes out of righteous judgement - huge difference. He doesn't lie or steal or worship idols etc. Any rule that He does give to us for our protection, and then breaks is because He has a very good reason for it - and breaking it is done out of perfect morality and righteousness.




Here is an idea. Before you determine whats a noble sacrifice and what isn't-- Go out, get beaten, whipped till your spine and ribs show, spit on, kicked, insulted, abused, while carrying a couple hundred pound wooden cross down a street of angry people who hate you, and then get laid on that cross - have giant iron stakes pounded through your wrists and your feet, then have a crown of razor sharp thorns put on your head, slashing into your skull and face , followed by being hoisted up on the cross in front of hundreds of people, with your shredded back rubbing up and down the splintered cross, while you are trying to support yourself on your impaled feet so you don't suffocate in the blistering heat, and then finally have a giant spear stabbed through you side. Now do all this in order to save murderers, rapists, theives, and people that hate you - while gaining nothing in return that you didn't already have ( in other words - coming back to life and going to paradise doesn't apply since its nothing you didn't already have). Once you go through all that, then you can make the claim that you have a clue what you are talking about in relation to suffering and sacrifice.

I ate Pascal's Wafer

Why would I punish my children for saying bad words? I would explain to my children that certain words are inappropriate in certain contexts, and I would punish them if they used them in such contexts. The thing about this point is that I would not use inappropriate language in those contexts, so I can get away with not permitting my children to do so.

In my opinion, if a child is old enough to hear these words and understand their meaning such that they are able to use it in ordinary language, then they are old enough to use such words themselves so long as they can understand the context with which to use these words. I don't want to teach my children that these words are objectively bad because I say so. I want to teach my children that such words are fine so long as you are careful in determing the contexts in which you use this language.

In other words, don't assume that I would punish my children for cursing and then be a hypocrite enough to use the lame excuse you mentioned.

If my children questioned a law that they did not like, then I would teach my child to work within the framework of our legal system in order to perhaps change the law.

What I was getting at what that I don't want them accepting rules of authoritative powers simply because people in positions of authority say so. I want them to understand the reasons why those rules are in effect, and then work on changing what they consider injust rules by civil means.

In other words, murder by humans is alright if done for the right reasons. Or, lying by humans is alright if done for the right reasons. Why, then, did God forbid all murder (unless endorsed by him)? Why didn't God mention the caveat that it's ok so long as you are doing it for the right reason?

What evil actions did the unborn fetuses and young children do to deserve a horrible death by drowning? Were they wicked too?

Ah yes, doublethink.

God's law is that you shall not kill. Killing, last time I checked, was the forceful taking of a life. It doesn't matter if the person is needlessly murdered or killed for a just reason--it is still killing. God told us not to kill, yet he turns right around and kills more people than any war. What justification is there for the hypocrisy of God to tell us not to kill, and then turn around and kill so many people (some of whom were innocent)?

The problem with your analogy is that I am a finite entity. Jesus was, for all pratical purposes, an infinite entity. His "sacrifice" would be analogous to me getting pricked by a needle.

Besides, as I have said, all this pain and torture was irrelevant. The sacrifice was useless. An omniscient and omnibenevolent deity should be able to forgive people without requiring the innocent to suffer. I certainly don't require punishment before I can forgive people. Are you suggesting that I am more moral than God?

Additionally, that he lost nothing to do all this is precisely the point! It's not a sacrifice if nothing is lost. So an infinite being spends the equivalent of a second here and is punished by what would be the equivalent of a pinprick. Big deal. He didn't lose anything at all, so it wasn't a sacrifice. It would have been a sacrifice if he stayed dead or stayed in hell.

-Nick

winstonjen

Because they break the 'love your neighbour' commandment.

Nick:

They were being punished for the sins they WOULD have commited in the future!

Magus55

Nevermind, apparently you think swear words are perfectly ok to use.



And what if they can't change them - do they just accept that those are laws and its how things are set up, and do their best to follow them? And what if they break them - do they not deserve punishment for doing so? Or are they excused because they didn't agree with them?



Perhaps we should discuss the difference between murder and homicide. Murder is done with malice, Homicide isn't necessarily. God forbid murder, as in killing another human being with malice. I don't think its a sin to kill an enemy in combat during a war if you have no other choice. Government Execution of a criminal probably isn't a sin either.



They were born under sin, and in a world like that - would have never amounted to anything good. Children are very easily influenced. In a world of pure evil and chaos - they were sure to follow societies poor examples.





The original hebrew is thou shalt not murder - translations expanded it to kill. And NO ONE is innocent save Jesus. Not a single human on Earth has ever been or ever will be innocent except Jesus. Some people aren't held accountable for their sins though ( children for example).



Did you create people with the choice to decide if they want to be forgiven or not? Why should God forgive someone who doesn't want it? Many people on this board have said Heaven would be Hell to them with all the Christians there - so why would God force someone to be in a place they don't want to be? You have to want forgiveness to obtain it - God isn't gonna forgive you if you have no desire for His forgiveness and you don't even think you need forgiveness.

And Jesus' sacrifice would not be analogous to you getting pricked by a needle, it would analagous to you being crucified in the exact same way He was. Do you not understand that Jesus was completely human, with human pain receptors, emotions, feelings etc? Jesus felt the physical crucifixtion like any other human would - and he actually endured infinitely more if you factor in the emotional suffering of bearing the worlds sins.

He gave his mortal life for all of humanity ( and Jesus can't become mortal again - He can never die again for all eternity - He conquered death). If Jesus stayed dead or in Hell, obviously He wasn't God - hence why He had to come back - to conquer the wages of sin, and prove His divinity.

winstonjen

So do the authors of the bible - http://www.geocities.com/missus_gumby/tract.htm



So the government has the same authority as god? My, that means Hitler, commanding the Nazi government, is A-OK!


So god was too lazy to ask Noah to influence the children?

What crime could newborns have commited? Being born human is a non-answer, because you can't be guilty of something you did not CHOOSE to do.



Because otherwise he's not all-loving.

Yes it would

No it wouldn't. Argument by assertion. We can do it just as well as you can.

How does 'bearing sin' cause pain? Fill me in on this.

And to prove the absurdities of the biblical god and doctrine.

Bree

As someone who spent a considerable amount of time (read: an entire childhood) attending a Baptist church, I feel it is my obligation to remind you that all Baptists do not hold the same opinions on the subject.