Quote:
Originally Posted by arloiginla
We as humans didn't inherit a particular "sin" after Adam and Eve, we instead inherited a sinful nature. That is, the natural inclination to do evil. Your comparison to kids going to jail for their parents crimes is an improper parallel.
|
How is it improper? The kid is subject to something he didn't choose because of the actions of someone else. We have a sinful nature that we didn't choose because of the actions of someone else.
Quote:
Originally Posted by arloiginla
To be honest I have no idea. In Adam's state I would have been naturally good instead of evil so it's impossible to even hypothetically know that. I hope I wouldn't have chosen what Adam and Eve did...but who knows.
|
Could you have chosen differently though? Is it possible that you would have chosen to stay in the garden as intended?
Quote:
Originally Posted by arloiginla
But He isn't tormenting and destroying people
|
The Bible is filled with it though. How many children died in the flood?
But that's ok because God created them and he can do whatever he wants?
Quote:
Originally Posted by arloiginla
, nor could He for it is against His very nature. The place we refer to as hell is not God tormenting us, it's the devil tormenting us after we chose him over God. God simply separates us from Him for eternity, which was actually our choice not His. The pain and the suffering in hell is thanks to the devil.
|
I didn't choose hell, I chose nothing because there was no indication that a choice needed to be made.
You cannot morally be held responsible for not making a choice you honestly did not think was there.
Quote:
Originally Posted by arloiginla
As I previously mentioned, a fully revealed God wouldn't remove our free will per se, but it would make it a lot ballsier to fly in the face of something that is right in front of our faces visually, in an absolute sense. That would be like me standing in front of you and you still believing I didn't exist. On the other hand, even though I am communicating with you online, you still believe I exist even though you haven't seen me. You can't see the wind either - but you know it is there.
|
So now it wouldn't remove free will, but it's about how much evidence is appropriate? Paul got knocked off his horse and blinded, if God's no respecter of persons why isn't that granted to everyone?
God knows exactly what it takes to convince me, yet withholds that.
Do you think there's free will in heaven?
Quote:
Originally Posted by arloiginla
In your opinion. There's nothing unjust about being perfect in every sense, and desiring the same from your people, and offering them that opportunity through Jesus Christ. If those people choose to reject that offer, they spend eternity apart from Him. What's petty and hurtful about that? That's YOUR choice to make. Don't blame God.
|
What's unjust is that the offer is necessary in the first place. That all must be subjugated even if they don't will it just because they were created by God. That the offer is obscure, given in such a way that it's impossible to determine if it's even accurate or legitimate, or that a choice is even necessary at all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by arloiginla
Why is the Bible incapable of being an accurate portrayal of God?
|
Because the God it describes changes depending on who's doing the writing, proposing self-contradictory views on the nature of God, life, evil, suffering, and all the rest of the human condition.
Not to mention that we don't even know what the Bible originally said, we don't have the originals.
Quote:
Originally Posted by arloiginla
Incorrect parallel. You are confusing belief with reality, or truth. You believe the earth is round because it is so. Experience is a fact - they are things that happen. What we choose to do with that experience is our choice.
|
"Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true."
So no, not incorrect parallel. I cannot choose what premises I hold to be true, at least not while being intellectually honest with myself.
I didn't choose to disbelieve in the God of the Bible, I was FORCED to disbelieve because of other information.
Yes we can choose what to do with our experience, we can ignore what we learn, but that's not honest.
Quote:
Originally Posted by arloiginla
God has given us His written word, as well as His creation and hopefully we see glimpses of Him in some of His people as well -
|
All the other gods have given their written world and creation and we glimpses of them in their people too.
And we don't have God's written words, we have copies, some of which aren't even legitimate. Paul didn't write all of the letters attributed to him in the NT for example.
Quote:
Originally Posted by arloiginla
You haven't been given zero reason to believe.
|
Yes, I have. How can you know what I have and haven't been given?
Quote:
Originally Posted by arloiginla
You have just decided that there isn't enough reason to suit you, and are unwilling to step out in a bit of faith and allow God to reveal other things to you.
|
How do you know that? How do you know how much stepping out I've done, how much allowing of revealing I've given?
Quote:
Originally Posted by arloiginla
He reveals enough that "men will be without excuse."
|
And yet here we are, with nothing I can unambiguously say that is revelation in any fashion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by arloiginla
Again, evidence is around us. It's in the order of the universe, in the DNA that comprises us. Because science has shown us how these things work, we then feel that gives us license to discredit where it came from.
|
How do you tell the difference between evidence of God's hand and natural events? Does God cause lightning? Does God make it flood, cause earthquakes, make the planets orbit? Historically that line has always fallen right where the line of understanding lies. Things get attributed to God right up until we figure out how it really works.
Order and DNA aren't evidence for God. Even if you could demonstrate that there was design, that still doesn't mean god, anymore than it means the universe-designing lizard aliens that created our universe.
Quote:
Originally Posted by arloiginla
I've seen lots of evidence being given, but if it doesn't align with atheists worldviews they just say its not "real evidence." I've seen that argument before and it just goes in circles. That's why I'm not even going there.
|
Don't project your own methods on others. So much of what you are saying could just as easily be coming from a Muslim or other religion, and you would discount it as "not real evidence", saying I should reject it from their mouths and accept it from yours.
And you are also wrong because the majority of Christians who's opinion on such matters is relevant in their respective fields (biologists, geologists, cosmologists, astronomers, etc) agree with me, and they're clearly not atheists. Most of the "evidence" for design put forward is put forward by people not experienced in the relevant field, or put forward in a non-scientific venue where their claims do not have to stand up to the scrutiny of their (often Christian) peers.
[QUOTE=arloiginla;3021100
I found reason to accept and I find that those reasons multiply and solidify themselves all the time as I search God and strive to learn more about Him. At the end of the day I'll always have my personal testimony as to my search for the Truth and that I've found it, but I'm 100% positive you don't want to hear stuff like that.[/quote]
I can say the exact same thing. I spent almost 30 years in the Church, at many levels of serving and leadership.
Now why is your testimony valid but mine isn't?
Or why is your testimony but the exact same testimony from another religion isn't valid?
Quote:
Originally Posted by arloiginla
You're still a human as she is. God didn't have to purchase us, He made us.
|
So I'm her dad then, I made her.
Quote:
Originally Posted by arloiginla
Big difference and one on a level you can't really comprehend if you believe there is no higher power.
|
Condescension is not becoming, and that's the weakest argument of all. "You can't understand if you don't believe". I used to believe in a higher power, so yes I can comprehend.
Quote:
Originally Posted by arloiginla
No human being can be a master over anything in the same way God is sovereign over all. His sovereignty has no limits. That's tough to wrap a brain around admittedly.
|
This is one of the ultimate reasons I actually left Church rather than just staying and being a cultural Christian. I can ignore the moral issues for myself because I've already grown up with it all and overcome the indoctrination, but I couldn't raise my son in it. Because I think the basic moral foundation you're putting forward is destructive, and I've seen it from both the inside and the outside.
