Do we got any real Christains here?

[E27 33]

This thread has gone from talking about divine stains to something called the Rupture, and I'm not sure I want to know what that is.

I really wanted to make a joke here, so I looked on Wikipedia to find an example of a rupture. You know, link a page, everyone laughs, we all say "look at what the lockout has done to us" and we move on. But I saw a page on something called a "testicular rupture" and now...a joke in this scenario seems considerably less funny.

[Emory889 353]

The idea of religion and the justice system being combined terrifies me and it should terrify any reasonable person. That's not to say that a devout Christian or Muslim couldn't perform admirably within that system.

[Optimist Prime 197]

From the Casey Anthony thread:

 

I will say, Optimist, that your willingness to discuss these topics in a civil manner and your clear dedication to knowledge of your religion is to be commended. There are too few people like you around, and I know it's not easy to maintain civility in the face of criticisms like this. I know we atheists can be hard to deal with. So kudos to you for that.

 

That being said, I have some trouble with what you're saying here. The slavery explanation seems like sugar-coating to me. I'll admit that I'm ignorant of some of the finer details involved here, but even indentured servitude seems like something that wouldn't be compatible with an all-knowing and all-lovng god. If he created everyone and has a plan for everyone, that means he purposely made some people slaves or indentured servants, and since we have to assume that God's influence didn't stop with the end of biblical times, we have to assume that he's responsible for the uglier slavery that has happened almost everywhere throughout human history as well. He's responsible for creating both the people who treated other human beings so harshly and also for creating those who were doomed to live a life of slavery. Why? What's the purpose of creating people who will have unbelievably miserable lives? Is it solely to teach the rest of us a lesson? I can't come up with an explanation for that which doesn't involve a gigantic moral problem.

 

This same reasoning applies to the Old Testament laws as well. Even if we are to accept that those laws were necessary to keep the Jews in line, we still have to accept that God created those conditions in the first place. He must have chosen to make all that stuff happen so that people would have to commit what would today be described as incredibly immoral acts in his name. Why?

 

I haven't heard an explanation yet that doesn't result in God being an absurdly immoral being, and that seems to preclude worshiping him.

 

Well first off, thank you for your comments. I really appreciate it, and I think all of the questions posed (from every side so far) have been valid and presented in a non-threatening manner. So, thanks to all of you for keeping with the civility of this discussion as well.

 

Now, I have no intention of sugar-coating the slavery of the Bible, and the passages I put have not been modified by myself or another source, nor hand picked for acceptability. So, I can't really tell you anything except that I encourage you to look into the topic more if you think I have committed any foul play here.

 

You and emory have both voiced similar grievances about the all-knowing/loving-ness of God and it's incompatibility with the law/wrongs in the world. I think these both may fall under the greater umbrella of the Problem of Evil, but I will try to respond to each of you in regard to your specific points.

 

I think to answer your question, I would first need to address another preceding question: If God is all loving and all knowing, why did he allow Adam and Eve to eat the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil?

 

And here is where we get the issue of free will. If the Tree of Good and Evil were not in the Garden, then would Adam and Eve really have made a choice to love God if he is all they ever knew?

 

Instead, God gave them a second option, the option to turn away from him and not do what he has commanded them. We do not know how long Adam and Eve were in the Garden before they ate the fruit, all we know is that it occurred. So, even if given infinitely many right choices, and only one wrong choice, God found it right to make a man that had the freedom to choose that one wrong, and in fact, made a man that he knew would choose that wrong.

 

Now the question becomes, what would drive an all knowing and all loving god to create beings that would willfully choose to do what he deems as being wrong. And the answer to that is that without the choice of doing wrong, the choice of doing right loses it's value.

 

What are the angels, but beings who are ever in the presence of God and know nothing else. They fly around his throne day and night screaming “Holy holy holy!” They shout this because at every new angle, they see yet another sign of the glory of God. Yet, why is God not satisfied with this worship, but creates another being from which to receive worship?

 

It is because he wants the worship of him to be done by choice. And to give that choice to worship him he must also give the choice to turn away from him. As an illustration of his relationship with Israel, he calls the prophet Hosea to marry a whore (yes, the Bible refers to her as a whore), and no matter how much she runs from him into the arms of other men, to keep bringing her back to his house.

 

This shows that Israel, his chosen people, habitually run after false idols and things against his will. Yet, he still reaches out to them, even at times forces them back into his house, where he knows they are better off, and comforts them. He does this because of his love.

 

At this point, your probably wondering why on earth I would bother to write all of this as a response to your question about slavery. Well, when God gave the Law to Moses, he did so because the evil of man became too great and he knew that they needed a law or else they would stand no chance of salvation. So once all but one man turned entirely to evil ways, he issued forth the flood, and saved the one man, Noah.

 

Preemptively, I will say that God did not need man to turn to evil in order to realize that they would, but had he given the law before the evil of man, than we would need to rely on his presumption that we would turn to evil without actually having been given the choice and it's the Garden of Eden scenario all over again.

 

So, now we have a reason that God has given the Law. But why is the Law still full of things that are not all loving?

 

Because it is a law written for a people with evil inclinations in their hearts. It is written to limit that evil, and therefore halt man from returning to their ways before the flood. But still, man is unable to fulfill this Law on his own.

 

And of course, when he wrote this Law, he already knew that the New Covenant through Jesus Christ would fulfill it, and so allow access to righteousness through the faith of Abraham.

 

And, no. It was not God's mischievous plan to have many people suffer in slavery and war so that we can all learn a valuable lesson some day. God's desire is for us all to treat each other with the same loving-kindness that he has for us all. But, he also does not want us to view this as a duty, rather he wants it to be free-flowing from the heart, done out of love for him.

 

In terms of the Law being considered horribly immoral in today's society, that is why it is not in place right now. Whereas in the society of the time, had those laws not been in place the Israelite nation and religion would probably not have been preserved to this day. And, again, in the context of the practices of the nations around them, Israel had a very humane law structure.

[TheREALBrooksThompson 157]

Yeah, we somehow switched the topics of these threads. I blame Hardnocks.

 

The sugar-coating comment wasn't directed at you personally, I was saying that the explanation given by the religion as a whole seems to be sugar-coating. I should have made that more clear.

 

Instead, God gave them a second option, the option to turn away from him and not do what he has commanded them. We do not know how long Adam and Eve were in the Garden before they ate the fruit, all we know is that it occurred. So, even if given infinitely many right choices, and only one wrong choice, God found it right to make a man that had the freedom to choose that one wrong, and in fact, made a man that he knew would choose that wrong.

 

Now the question becomes, what would drive an all knowing and all loving god to create beings that would willfully choose to do what he deems as being wrong. And the answer to that is that without the choice of doing wrong, the choice of doing right loses it's value.

 

So we've established that from the very beginning God made man and gave him the option to be evil, knowing that he would in fact choose to be evil, for the purpose of establishing that worshiping God is the right choice. He creates this world and immediately dooms its first inhabitants to failure on purpose as a lesson to all the other humans who come after them. Given this, we must conclude that Adam and Eve were if fact not given the choice to be good. Their lives were used to establish what humanity is not supposed to do. Not off to a good start here.

 

At this point, your probably wondering why on earth I would bother to write all of this as a response to your question about slavery. Well, when God gave the Law to Moses, he did so because the evil of man became too great and he knew that they needed a law or else they would stand no chance of salvation. So once all but one man turned entirely to evil ways, he issued forth the flood, and saved the one man, Noah.

 

Preemptively, I will say that God did not need man to turn to evil in order to realize that they would, but had he given the law before the evil of man, than we would need to rely on his presumption that we would turn to evil without actually having been given the choice and it's the Garden of Eden scenario all over again.

 

Now we've expanded the problems encountered in the Adam and Eve scenario to include all of human history from the beginning up until the flood. By your own admission, God knew that humanity would take this course. He created the choice to be evil and created beings that he knew would choose to be evil enough to require the Old Testament laws to be necessary.

 

This is what I meant when I said God created the conditions that made the laws necessary in the first place. You can argue that they're necessary to save humanity from evil, but the evil they're supposed to save people from was explicitly created by God in order to establish the necessity of his worship. Therefore, the laws are not a response to the evils of man, but were in fact planned from the beginning. Either that, or we have to accept that God didn't realize what the result of his creation was going to be, and for that we must admit that God is fallible, which clearly cannot be the case.

 

So, now we have a reason that God has given the Law. But why is the Law still full of things that are not all loving?

 

Because it is a law written for a people with evil inclinations in their hearts. It is written to limit that evil, and therefore halt man from returning to their ways before the flood. But still, man is unable to fulfill this Law on his own.

 

And of course, when he wrote this Law, he already knew that the New Covenant through Jesus Christ would fulfill it, and so allow access to righteousness through the faith of Abraham.

 

And now the problem expands yet again. Everything from creation through the flood, all the way up to Jesus was done solely to create the conditions necessary for Jesus to come to Earth. If we come to any other conclusion, we necessarily show that God is fallible and made a mistake at some point.

 

That means every evil that was visited upon Earth during that time, or for that matter any and all times, was done on purpose by God, whether he gives the illusion of free will or not. There was never a choice. Not by the people doing the evil, nor by the people having evil done to them. They were all used to establish the necessity of Jesus. Their lives had no other purpose.

 

This presents us with a huge moral problem. A god with the power to make his creations understand the difference between good and evil instead chooses to make vast quantities of them necessarily evil in order to provide a reference point to a relatively small number of others. He sentences countless human beings to lives of incredible misery and pain for no other reason than to establish a reason for others to choose to worship him. These do not sound like the actions of a loving god.

 

In order to get around this problem, we would have to show that all humans begin their lives with an equal chance of being able to make the choices God wants them to make. We know this not to be the case. There are countless humans who will live out their entire lives never even knowing that Christianity exists, and never having the opportunity to accept Christ and be saved. In those cases, we have to believe either that God chooses to punish those people based on something their distant ancestors did (and again, we've shown that those people never had a choice), or we have to believe that he willfully creates people who have no chance of making the correct choices. Either way, an objective observer would be hard pressed to conclude that this God even comes close to being moral or just.

[Optimist Prime 197]

 

 

Thanks for the quick response. I have a lot going on today and this weekend, but I will try to get back to you after I get to emory and AcuWill's comments from the other thread. It may take a while...

[Butterfly 3]

1 Thessalonians 4 14-18:

 

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds: to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

 

 

This is one of my favortie verses. This is what christians are looking for.

 

 

OP I wish you all the best in career in the ministry. God Bless.

[Butterfly 3]

The idea of religion and the justice system being combined terrifies me and it should terrify any reasonable person. That's not to say that a devout Christian or Muslim couldn't perform admirably within that system.

 

 

As a Christian, Jesus is part of evey aspect of my life.

[E27 33]

The idea of religion and the justice system being combined terrifies me and it should terrify any reasonable person. That's not to say that a devout Christian or Muslim couldn't perform admirably within that system.

Exactly. Facts can't be blinded by religion. Also, guilty people can't go free on the reasoning that "God will judge them later." That's a bit extreme, I know. And Like you said, super religious people could possibly perform well in that system as long as they keep their reason at the front of their minds.

[Optimist Prime 197]

From the Casey Anthony thread:

 

I am having a hard time with the concept that God needed stricter laws to keep the ancient Jewish people in line. These were the same people that had, within their generation, seen countless miracles including the plagues in Egypt and the Red Sea get parted. They had experienced countless signs that God existed. Modern civilization, on the other hand, has just as many different gods, and even more people that doubt the existance of a god all together. It seems to me that if God was sincere about stricter laws to keep people righteous, he would be more interested in those laws today as opposed to an age when people had experienced these wonders first hand. I also have a problem with God using death as a punishment for following other deities when free will is supposed to be the greatest gift that God ever gave us. That doesn't jive with me.

 

I echo the response from Gene, Optimist. I have a lot of friends that are Christian and I appreciate the input from people that can have a conversation about religion in civil manner even if we don't all believe in the same things.

 

“These were the same people that had, within their generation, seen countless miracles including the plagues in Egypt and the Red Sea get parted.”

 

And that very generation constructed and worshiped a golden calf because Moses spent too long on Mount Sinai. They also spoke ill against God and Moses in the midst of travel.

 

The Psalmist recounts the great signs and wonders that God did before the people, and yet how they turned away from him.

 

Jesus also had many who would not believe him after he performed miracles.

 

Of course, the greatest sign God gave us was the Incarnation and Resurrection of Jesus.

 

And as a side note, there were people around in ancient times who denied the existence of God, as well.

 

I don't agree that God should have instituted the Law today instead of before. The laws were not in place just to make people righteous, but to make them aware of how unrighteous they really were. And it isn't like we aren't aware of the Law. We still have it, we just aren't tied to it.

 

Remember, even Abraham, before Jesus fully establishes the new covenant, was counted as righteous through faith, not his work of following the law (which hadn't even been passed down yet). Only through faith can we recieve God's promise because we cannot receive it through the law.

 

About the punishment of death, I don't think you are supposed to feel good about any of the laws which call for it. And let's remember that God is not only all-just, but all-merciful. Whenever someone repents and turns from their ways, he withholds his wrath from them. And remember, the death of Jesus stands to take place of the requirements of the law, so that his would be one death for all.

 

Again, I appreciate your comments. And thanks for your patience.

[Emory889 353]

As a Christian, Jesus is part of evey aspect of my life.

 

I have no issue with him being an important part of your life. My major concern would be you ignoring evidence, or the lack thereof, because you believe God is telling you to deliver a certain verdict. Or even worse, passing laws that outlaw certain things that religious leaders consider sinful. That is a very legitimate concern for me.

[Emory889 353]

From the Casey Anthony thread:

 

 

 

“These were the same people that had, within their generation, seen countless miracles including the plagues in Egypt and the Red Sea get parted.”

 

And that very generation constructed and worshiped a golden calf because Moses spent too long on Mount Sinai. They also spoke ill against God and Moses in the midst of travel.

 

The Psalmist recounts the great signs and wonders that God did before the people, and yet how they turned away from him.

 

Jesus also had many who would not believe him after he performed miracles.

 

Of course, the greatest sign God gave us was the Incarnation and Resurrection of Jesus.

 

And as a side note, there were people around in ancient times who denied the existence of God, as well.

 

I don't agree that God should have instituted the Law today instead of before. The laws were not in place just to make people righteous, but to make them aware of how unrighteous they really were. And it isn't like we aren't aware of the Law. We still have it, we just aren't tied to it.

 

Remember, even Abraham, before Jesus fully establishes the new covenant, was counted as righteous through faith, not his work of following the law (which hadn't even been passed down yet). Only through faith can we recieve God's promise because we cannot receive it through the law.

 

About the punishment of death, I don't think you are supposed to feel good about any of the laws which call for it. And let's remember that God is not only all-just, but all-merciful. Whenever someone repents and turns from their ways, he withholds his wrath from them. And remember, the death of Jesus stands to take place of the requirements of the law, so that his would be one death for all.

 

Again, I appreciate your comments. And thanks for your patience.

 

I probably should have clarified that I am very familiar with the examples you listed of the Israelites following other gods. I probably cost you some time on unnecessary research. Sorry about that.

 

For me, the fact that the Israelites so easily abandoned the accepted religion for the tribe in favor of some melted down jewelry shaped like a farm animal cast some doubt on the authenticy of the miracles that they reportedly saw in the first place. I mean, if I saw a body of water part right down the middle, let me walk through it, and then immediately destroy the Egyptian garrison that was trying to kill me; I would become an immediate believer for life. That would definitely qualify as hard evidence in my book but I digress.

 

Isn't the fact that the Israelites were subsequently punished for following a different god proof that they, in fact, were not given free will to worship the god of their choosing? I know there are plenty of examples in the old testament of God punishing his people for that very offense.

[Butterfly 3]

I have no issue with him being an important part of your life. My major concern would be you ignoring evidence, or the lack thereof, because you believe God is telling you to deliver a certain verdict. Or even worse, passing laws that outlaw certain things that religious leaders consider sinful. That is a very legitimate concern for me.

 

 

I understand your concern and it is a valid one. Several years ago, I worked in Social Services- child abuse and domestic violence. So, it would be highly unlikely that I would serve on a jury in a murder case. My Christian belief is to be honest and kind at all times, and while I pray to Jesus for guidance and strength, I make decision. Ignoring evidence would be against my christain beliefs and would not do it. I would not adovate so called morality laws based on my religion. You can not legislate morality.