Wyz_sub10

Yes, it absolutely is.

It's not the consequences that's the issue, Magus, it's the act of disobedience.

If they did not know right from wrong, they would not have understood that disobedience was wrong.

But just to address your point on consequences...

My cat understands that he is not supposed to be on the kitchen table. He does not understand why, he just knows he should not be there. But more than this, he does not understand why he should obey me beyond the fact that I am bigger and can discipline him if he disobeys.

He needs the rudimentary understanding of cause and effect to deal with this.

Adam and Eve would not have understood this cause and effect if they did not, as you note, understand the consequences.

So there is a problem on two counts:

1) they could not have understood the concept of disobedience

2) they could not have understood the effects of their actions

Mageth

No, your soul didn't exist before you were born. God creates your soul at conception. Once the soul is created however, it exists for eternity.

Sounds like more extrabiblical mumbo-jumbo to me. Do you have scriptures to back this up?

Is our "sinful nature" handed down in/part of our body, soul, both, or neither?

Note the sticky problem you will face if you claim that our "sinful nature" is inherent in our soul if God creates a new soul ex nihilo for every fertilized egg.

Mageth

God doesn't send children to Hell. God doesn't condemn people who can't make the concious decision to reject Him or accept Him. This is commonly reffered to as the age of accountability.

So what exact age is that? Note that this leads to the absurdity that one nanoosecond, a child is not accountable and heavenbound, and the very next nanosecond the child is entirely accountable and hellbound.

And that's not to be found in the Bible anywhere, as I believe has been pointed out.

They only people in Hell deserved it, and chose to be there ( by rejecting God).

I've already said this to you, and to God, if he exists: I hereby declare that I do not choose to go to hell. If there's a heaven, I choose to go there.

And I mean it. God's gonna have to do a bit of free-will-violating to send me to hell, dammit!

Duck!

Isn't the whole notion that atheists "choose" to go to Hell a bit ridiciluous? I don't believe the place exists. I don't believe heaven exists. How could I possibly "choose" one over the other. I could make an honest mistake by misreading the evidence or misinterpretting the Bible or agreeing with an article on the Secular Web or whatever, but if I do end up in a lake of fire or wherever after I die, I sure as hell didn't choose to go there.

That's kinda like saying that someone who unknowingly drinks a poisoned glass of wine somehow "chose" to die because they died of their own free will to drink the wine.

The whole idea of heaven and hell is ludicruous beyond description. The vast majority of Christians/Muslims/Buddhists/etc. on this planet believe what they do by accident of birth. It's no coincidence that religions are largely grouped geographically. Most people obviously inherit their beliefs from their parents and the culture they are surrounded by.

It's an unjust, unfair notion too. People with Christians parents in a largely Christian country are far more likely to believe that Christ is their saviour than someone born to Hindu in a largely Hindu country, aren't they? So one person is born with a high probability of eternal salvation, and the other is born with a high probability of eternal damnation... Jeez, I really shouldn't think about it. The more I do, the siller the whole notion of Christianity becomes.

To think that someone is going to be tortured forever merely because they believed what their parents taught them, and that other people who believe a different thing that their parents taught them.... well it's daft, isn't it? It really bothers me that their are millions of people who do think it though...


Duck!

diana

Hi, Magus. Me again.

Two things:

1. Please produce scripture to support this stance.

2. Since when did "eternity" stretch forward but not backward?

d

Mageth

I really want to hear Magus' answer to, is our "sinful nature" inherent in our soul if God creates a new soul ex nihilo for every fertilized egg? Just how is that supposed to work?

Writer@Large

I really want to hear Magus' answer to the whole "age of accountability" and "God doesn't condem babies" question.

--W@L

Lobstrosity

I really want to hear how anyone can deserve Hell. I can understand not deserving Heaven because you failed to believe in God, but how does not deserving Heaven translate into deserving an eternity of TORTURE. You have to be a pretty sick individual (e.g. Adolph, Saddam, Ivan, Vlad, etc) to think that the average Joe atheist/Muslem/Jew/Buddhist/Shintoist deserves eternal torture as opposed to, say, simple nothingness? Let me ask you this, Magus: if it turns out that you're worshipping the wrong deity and are destined to some form of non-Biblical hell, is this because you've "chosen" to go to hell? Or upon your death will you pitifully plead that you were honestly mistaken and did not willingly choose to reject the real God?

keyser_soze

I want to hear Magus's response to his remark that god doesn't change his mind, when we provided a minimum of 2 examples where he did...in the thread OT > NT.

He sure seems to be skipping over the tough topics lately doesn't he?

nemesis855

Just to play "devil's advocate" and because I have an interest in this question, I lifted a portion of an answer to the question of infant salvation from Come let Us Reason Together,(http://www.comereason.org/theo_issues/theo060.asp) a Christian apologetics website:

Essentially, I think the Christian argument boils down to God saves who He wills when He wills.

- Nemesis855