religious discrimination

[Dan56]

5 hours ago, Gnostic Bishop said:

Satan was alive before man did his first sin. Right?

If so, how can you say that evil did not exist before sin?

 

As to your free will card.

Christians are always trying to absolve God of moral culpability in the fall by whipping out their favorite "free will!", or “ it’s all man’s fault”.

 

That is "God gave us free will and it was our free willed choices that caused our fall. Hence God is not blameworthy."

 

But this simply avoids God's culpability as the author of Human Nature. Free will is only the ability to choose. It is not an explanation why anyone would want to choose "A" or "B" (bad or good action). An explanation for why Eve would even have the nature of "being vulnerable to being easily swayed by a serpent" and "desiring to eat a forbidden fruit" must lie in the nature God gave Eve in the first place. Hence God is culpable for deliberately making humans with a nature-inclined-to-fall, and "free will" means nothing as a response to this problem.

 

 

Yes, Satan's fall preceded mans.The 'sin nature' is what makes man rebellious against God. Sin nature refers to the fact that we have a natural inclination to sin; given the choice to do God s will or our own, we will naturally choose to do our own thing. God is only culpable to the extent that He gave us a choice, but imo, He's not culpable for our choices. While we may have a natural inclination to take our own way, there's no arm twisting on God's part, quite the opposite.  

4 hours ago, Gnostic Bishop said:

"God just sends delusion which blinds them to the truth."

Is it good to blind someone to the truth, or is it evil?

 

If someone holds the truth in disregard, if someone clings to their own ideology and rejects the truth, if someone hypocritically spurns what's been revealed and shown to them, then yes, I believe the revelation of what's true is wasted on them. I believe its why God turns them over to their own ways and allows them to believe a lie; "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs" (Matthew 7:6)    

[cuchulain]

On 9/12/2016 at 2:43 PM, Dan56 said:

 

Well, we won't agree on where sin emanated from. God created us and we sin, so despite the virtue of "free will", your intent on holding God responsible for what we choose to do. I obviously don't see it that way. If your child became a bank robber, did you create a thief, or did you create a child who freely chose to be disobedient to you and violate the law?

Evil is the direct result of sin, it didn't exist prior to sin because sin is its cause. God simply allowed choice, from which sin came and evil resulted.

The difference between my child, and God's children:  They don't have an omnipotent father.  If God is all powerful, then he is all responsible as well.  But as you said, we simply disagree on this issue

[Jonathan H. B. Lobl]

On 9/11/2016 at 10:55 AM, Gnostic Bishop said:

I call it more like bearing false witness as they are taking second and third hand ideas/hear say and passing them off as real and true.

If they cleaned up their sloppy language and confused thinking, then I would recant my saying they are lying outright, but most do not.

Regards

DL

The problem with confused thinking is that it's confused.  It takes reasoning skill to correct faulty thinking.  When someone lacks the ability to think clearly -- telling them that they are lying is not a useful strategy for change.  It might make you feel good, but it won't change them.

[Jonathan H. B. Lobl]

On 9/7/2016 at 0:30 AM, Dan56 said:

I think your confusing the RCC with Christianity. The origin of Christianity (Christ & apostles) did not murder anyone or promote any inquisition. To the contrary, most were brutally murdered themselves.. I'm no fan of organized religion, I simply espouse the life and teachings of Christ.

It was.

[Jonathan H. B. Lobl]

On 9/12/2016 at 3:20 AM, Dan56 said:

I believe we're all born of sin and in sin, but we aren't born with sin. We inherit a sin nature, but we aren't sinners until we sin. How could you enter the world being guilty of doing something you haven't done? You logic is without meaning. 

I disagree, a righteous God cannot create something contrary to himself. God not only separated himself from sin, He won't allow it in his Kingdom. Everyone has a choice, its why I haven't murdered anyone, but no one is perfect, and no one can resist all temptation (save one). That was the lie Satan sold to Eve; "Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods" (Genesis 3: 4&5).

For me, Christians are followers of what Christ lived and taught. I don't deny the Crusades or the Roman Catholic Inquisition, but that's historically relevant to a church, not a Christian. Many religions operate by they're own standards while professing another. 

What language are you speaking?  It looks like English.  The meaning is twisted out of it.

Thank you for demonstrating that God is not righteous.  

External reality still means something to me.  History?  The past lives.

 

[scottedward]

It's official. 
You (you know who you are) are responsible for creating the headache I have in my eye.
I think I will call it George...

[Dan56]

12 hours ago, Jonathan H. B. Lobl said:

What language are you speaking?  It looks like English.  The meaning is twisted out of it.

Thank you for demonstrating that God is not righteous.

Let me try to simplify it for you.. We are all born of sin, your parents were sinful. We were all born in sin, the world is sinful because its full of sinners. But we weren't born with sin, a baby is innocent because it has not sinned.

I wrote; "A righteous God cannot create something contrary to himself".. How you misconstrued that to me having demonstrated that God is not righteous is beyond me? In plain English, God is righteous. 

[cuchulain]

9 hours ago, Dan56 said:

Let me try to simplify it for you.. We are all born of sin, your parents were sinful. We were all born in sin, the world is sinful because its full of sinners. But we weren't born with sin, a baby is innocent because it has not sinned.

I wrote; "A righteous God cannot create something contrary to himself".. How you misconstrued that to me having demonstrated that God is not righteous is beyond me? In plain English, God is righteous. 

A righteous God cannot create something contrary to himself.  That sums it up.  Look at the world.  He created everything, and the world is not righteous.  Therefore, using your own logic, God is not righteous.

[mererdog]

Nbbh

Edited September 17, 2016 by mererdog

[mererdog]

9 hours ago, cuchulain said:

and the world is not righteous.

There is a belief that the world is righteous. That everything that exists is good and things that appear bad are not, really. That God has a plan, things happen for a reason, and good and evil are delusions (result of eating the forbidden fruit). This belief holds that to judge any part of creation is to judge God, and that this judgement of God is what we mistake as being judged by God. This belief holds that only by forgiving each other can we forgive God, and that this removes the separation between Us, allowing Us to live in Heaven.

In terms of logic, it holds together fairly well. Which is fairly easy to do when a central plank of your argument is that any evidence suggesting you are wrong is the result of a delusion....

[Dan56]

10 hours ago, cuchulain said:

A righteous God cannot create something contrary to himself.  That sums it up.  Look at the world.  He created everything, and the world is not righteous.  Therefore, using your own logic, God is not righteous.

Why isn't the world righteous? Free will.  "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good" (Genesis 1:31). What transpired afterwards is that sin entered the world, and God told Adam; " Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake" (Genesis 3:17) So using my own logic, the world that was originally created good, was corrupted by man's choice to be disobedient to God. Since God did not create sin, the fallen state of the world is a direct result of those who freely chose unrighteousness. We wanted the knowledge of evil, so God complied and allowed us the satisfaction of choosing our own way.  

[cuchulain]

11 hours ago, Dan56 said:

Why isn't the world righteous? Free will.  "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good" (Genesis 1:31). What transpired afterwards is that sin entered the world, and God told Adam; " Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake" (Genesis 3:17) So using my own logic, the world that was originally created good, was corrupted by man's choice to be disobedient to God. Since God did not create sin, the fallen state of the world is a direct result of those who freely chose unrighteousness. We wanted the knowledge of evil, so God complied and allowed us the satisfaction of choosing our own way.  

If God created everything, then Sin could not have entered into the world without God's go ahead.  You claim that man created sin.  But God created man, and so indirectly created sin.  I mean, I could create a gun, and then claim that any death it caused was the guns fault and not mine.  It would amount to the same premise.

[mererdog]

3 hours ago, cuchulain said:

  I mean, I could create a gun, and then claim that any death it caused was the guns fault and not mine.  It would amount to the same premise.

A better analogy: Imagine someone Dan loves is killed by a robot that has been programmed to make its own decisions. Even if it is accepted as fact that the robot's "free will" prevents the maker from being responsible for the robots actions, the maker would still be liable, at a minimum, for negligence, since they created the potential for the killing. Now, is creating the potential for a thing the same as creating the thing, itself? I think it is, at least in moral terms. After all, if I tell someone I know to be short-tempered and violent that someone else called him a wimp, I would feel every bit as guilty as if I had beat someone up myself...

[Dan56]

13 hours ago, cuchulain said:

If God created everything, then Sin could not have entered into the world without God's go ahead.  You claim that man created sin.  But God created man, and so indirectly created sin.  I mean, I could create a gun, and then claim that any death it caused was the guns fault and not mine.  It would amount to the same premise.

I agree that God allowed sin by allowing choice, but not that God created sin.
Your analogy would be correct if a gun could think for itself, but its an inanimate object. That's why we never arrest the manufacturer of a gun, but blame the free thinking individual who decided to misuse the gun.. God does likewise.

10 hours ago, mererdog said:

A better analogy: Imagine someone Dan loves is killed by a robot that has been programmed to make its own decisions. Even if it is accepted as fact that the robot's "free will" prevents the maker from being responsible for the robots actions, the maker would still be liable, at a minimum, for negligence, since they created the potential for the killing. Now, is creating the potential for a thing the same as creating the thing, itself? I think it is, at least in moral terms. After all, if I tell someone I know to be short-tempered and violent that someone else called him a wimp, I would feel every bit as guilty as if I had beat someone up myself...

If I created a being capable of making its own independent decisions, then I'd be absolved of the decisions that being made? Just as good parents aren't held liable for creating a kid who grew-up to be evil.
The bottom line is that when we freely choose to be bad, we can't blame the cause of our existence as an excuse.

[Key]

Okay. Here is a thought that came to mind after reading all this. God may have created a righteous world, but sin entered into it when He forbade His children to eat of the fruit from the tree of life. Making a commandment creates the possibility of an undesirable outcome. Thus, sin was created from possibility. Who made it possible? If He didn't want the undesired outcome, why highlight a temptation?

An argument will undoubtedly be made regarding free will, but God made temptation by making His commandment. How often have children, which essentially Adam and Eve were, given in to temptation? So they deserve death due to this? All knowing God presents paradox or entrapment?

Didn't an Apostle say something to the effect that they never knew what sin was until they discovered God?

Now another thought: maybe evil was born in order for us to know and appreciate what is good.

[mererdog]

9 hours ago, Dan56 said:

The bottom line is that when we freely choose to be bad, we can't blame the cause of our existence as an excuse.

There is a difference between an excuse and an explanation. Poor parenting is not an excuse for a child acting poorly, but it is an explanation. To be a good parent requires acknowledging both that children are responsible for their own choices and that parents are responsible for the effect their own choices have on how their children make choices. Choices are not made in a vacuum and the importance of environmental influences is hard to overstate.

[Jonathan H. B. Lobl]

On 9/16/2016 at 0:49 PM, cuchulain said:

A righteous God cannot create something contrary to himself.  That sums it up.  Look at the world.  He created everything, and the world is not righteous.  Therefore, using your own logic, God is not righteous.

Yes.  That is what I meant.

[cuchulain]

I celebrate that Dan can use the above argument as evidence for his deity while I can view the same exact argument as evidence against it.

[Dan56]

15 hours ago, Key said:

Okay. Here is a thought that came to mind after reading all this. God may have created a righteous world, but sin entered into it when He forbade His children to eat of the fruit from the tree of life. Making a commandment creates the possibility of an undesirable outcome. Thus, sin was created from possibility. Who made it possible? If He didn't want the undesired outcome, why highlight a temptation?

An argument will undoubtedly be made regarding free will, but God made temptation by making His commandment. How often have children, which essentially Adam and Eve were, given in to temptation? So they deserve death due to this? All knowing God presents paradox or entrapment?

Didn't an Apostle say something to the effect that they never knew what sin was until they discovered God?

Now another thought: maybe evil was born in order for us to know and appreciate what is good.

Yes, sin is the result of possibility, the possibility of free thinking individuals to independently choose to defy God, or be obedient. Without possibilities, choice is moot, free will can't exist. If you can only go one way, you can't choose another direction. Sin was not created, but the result of choosing to go the wrong direction. I do agree that we can't distinguish good without the knowledge of evil.

"What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law" (Romans 7:7)

14 hours ago, mererdog said:

There is a difference between an excuse and an explanation. Poor parenting is not an excuse for a child acting poorly, but it is an explanation. To be a good parent requires acknowledging both that children are responsible for their own choices and that parents are responsible for the effect their own choices have on how their children make choices. Choices are not made in a vacuum and the importance of environmental influences is hard to overstate.

True

3 hours ago, cuchulain said:

I celebrate that Dan can use the above argument as evidence for his deity while I can view the same exact argument as evidence against it.

Its not really evidence of a deity, just different explanations of who's accountable for sin. You say God is, and I think we are.. If its any consolation, I believe sin will be wiped-out one day... Problem solved. .

[mererdog]

5 hours ago, Dan56 said:

Sin was not created, but the result of choosing to go the wrong direction.

So God did not technically create sin, but He created all the circumstances that led to its creation and allowed it to happen. That seems to only be a semantic difference. In terms of responsibility, whether you are talking blame or glory, it still looks like it would fall into His lap.