Is Christ cruel? (For member Schrafinator)

If you think trying to be moral is the best one can do, then you must agree that anything you do wrong means you're imperfect and renders your righteousness meaningless. What will atone for you wrongs?Do you agree that justice should be done? If justice should be done always, then you must pay for your wrongs always. What if you haven't paid for them all? Would God be just if he let you off on any wrongs? If he let you off, he would be a moral relativist like you, and his absolute righteousness would mean nothing.For you to hope God is as moral as you is the greatest delusion I've ever been witness to. What an utterly worldly thing to say, it's so bizarre a statement to anyone who has biblical knowledge. The bible says that only God is good.No one at any time is good enough to achieve heaven. Everybody has stolen, everybosy has lied, etc.Christ did not sin, ever. Have you ever done anything wrong?Listen, Jar says nice things to you, and says you'll go to heaven and me hell, but I strive to show you that Christ is the way, and he that believes in him will never die.Don't you think I would like to say, "a few more good works and you're in heaven Shraff"? I would like to, but unlike Jar, I don't think I'm God.So then, how many good works get me into heaven Jar? 3? 300? If it's more or less for anyone else then God's righteousness is not absolute.And what about those who do many evils and many goods? Does half of them go to heaven and the other half hell?

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To add to that, I'd just like to say that if there is a sighn saying "mind the hole" and you read the sign and don't mind the hole and fall down, who's fault is it?

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What if God made me blind from birth, so I am unable to read the sign?Sounds kind of cruel to me.

Crashfrog, you and Schraff have known me, don't you know who I am? Believe me - I know you. It is true.Well? To believe or not to believe, I leave it up to you.

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But Shraff, there are things you don't know nor can know but that you must simply believe.

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Like what?This message has been edited by schrafinator, 06-01-2005 10:04 PM

I don't know, like Christ.Eeerm, I know you. Do you believe me? Where's my evidence?Also, I feel you avoided message one. I feel you know that it can't be refuted. I think intellectually it must have satisfied you.

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If you think trying to be moral is the best one can do, then you must agree that anything you do wrong means you're imperfect and renders your righteousness meaningless. What will atone for you wrongs?

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Where did I ever say I was righteous?Why do you think humans have to be perfect?Why do my failures need anyone else but me to atone for them?

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Do you agree that justice should be done? If justice should be done always, then you must pay for your wrongs always.

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Well, I try to lead a life in which I am responsible for my actions and if I caus someone pain, I try to make things right.

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What if you haven't paid for them all?

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Then I haven't paid for them all.Life isn't fair.

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Would God be just if he let you off on any wrongs?

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Surely, God does not expect all of us flawed, frail humans to be perfect in action and deed at all times.After all, he makes mistakes in the Bible all the time.

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If he let you off, he would be a moral relativist like you, and his absolute righteousness would mean nothing.

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Well, it certainly seems that in choosing to not make himself known to me in such a way that I become a believer, God is deliberately sending me to hell.

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For you to hope God is as moral as you is the greatest delusion I've ever been witness to. What an utterly worldly thing to say, it's so bizarre a statement to anyone who has biblical knowledge. The bible says that only God is good.

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Um, have you ever read the Old Testament? It's a nearly constant bloodbath.God orders a great deal of genocide, rape, pillaging, incest, and general death and destruction.

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Listen, Jar says nice things to you, and says you'll go to heaven and me hell, but I strive to show you that Christ is the way, and he that believes in him will never die.

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Just for an hour, stop believing in Christ.Try really hard to truly be a hardcore, militant Athiest.It's just for an hour.Go on, it should be easy.

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Don't you think I would like to say, "a few more good works and you're in heaven Shraff"? I would like to, but unlike Jar, I don't think I'm God.

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If you are an example of the kind of fearful, joyless Christian Jesus likes, I'm not that interested.

For me - an agnostic who leans a bit towards atheism - the really frightening thing isn't that I'm wrong but that people like Faith and J. Davis are right.I'm not sure I can imagine anything worse than 'waking up' after death and finding out the supreme being in the Universe(s) is really the monstrous creature they seem to worship.The God jar believes in (sorry jar - GOD ) actually seems to line up pretty well with what I speculate might be out there if such an entity really exists - if I'm not invited to the barbequeue it will because of what I have or haven't done, not whether I believed in a particular religion or not.

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Oops! Wrong Planet

Actually, you don't even have to succeed at any of them. The message of Jesus is that GOD has forgiven almost everybody. Salvation is a gift, a gift freely given by GOD.You can refuse the gift, for example, by supporting bigotry as so many Christians are doing today, by encouraging ignorance such as promoting teaching children Creationism, by preaching a version of Christianity that's exclusionary as opposed to inclusionary.But the message GOD sent through Jesus life, teaching, death and resurrection is that ALL mankind is forgiven.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

His just watching them, hence they have free will? Robin doesn't this sound like a non sequitur to you?Let's see, I am just watching the moon rise, hence the moon has freewill?really?lfen

What would be more impressive to God?A person who does the "right thing"a) because he fears eternal punishment,and/orb) is trying to earn an eternal reward,orc) because "doing the right thing" is reward enough?

Percy,You hit the nail on the head. This is the crux. The beautiful gimmick that the Jewish priests came up with and that was imported into Christianity. The representives of God are always right, the followers are guilty. If anything goes bad it's the followers fault so they can't blame Yahweh and seek another religion. This is the perfect scam to stay in power. And many people flock to such authorities because of the strength and security they offer. It's a good franchise as Falwell and Robertson, the Pope, even Mohammed and Joseph Smith discovered. One can go very far in the religion scam with nothing more than confidence and artistry of a melodramatic style!lfen

It doesn't really matter whether or not any person knows this before hand. What is being discussed is if god knows it.You agreed that certain people are created solely to be damned.

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Asgara
"Embrace the pain, spank your inner moppet, whatever....but get over it"select * from USERS where CLUE > 0http://asgarasworld.bravepages.com
http://perditionsgate.bravepages.com

How is that? That God is cruel for giving us the choice to damn ourselves? Would it not be better put that God is merciful to give us the choice to save ourselves? Having the free choice to accept the Word and deeds of Christ or listen to the serpent isn't free will? You'll have to show me how this isn't consistent. The Lord says "Come back to the flock, you will be forgiven, guaranteed", man says "No, you are a figment of the imagination you apparantly provided me". Man is given a choice, this man chooses to stay in sin.

I certainly must not agree, in fact. I agree that no human can achieve perfection (the view of what perfection really is being limited by each individual's opinion and imagination anyway), but I certainly don't think that a single sin - or even many - can render one's acts of good meaningless. What you seem to be saying (and correct me if I'm wrong) is that each deed should be judged on the basis of other deeds committed by the same person, rather than on its own merits, and that all good deeds are immediately nullified by a single bad one. Why should this be so? But is it really justice for a man striving to do good - often at his own expense, perhaps - to burn for eternity, to be damned without hope for redemption because he was proud, or because he had sex outside of marriage, or because he lied on occasion, or because he simply didn't see any reason or enough evidence to believe in the "correct" religion when all of them claimed to be correct? Okay. No one at any time is evil enough to deserve hell. Perhaps, but why would He, having come here to save us, only save the few who believed He was divine and/or that the Bible is the true God-inspired holy book? Did He only die for those who would believe in Him, or all humans? Wouldn't a reasonable, benevolent God recognize that some would find much room for doubt in His existence, and rather than require them to believe against their own capabilities, reach out to them and accept them anyway? I think you're taking an overly simplistic view. Why must there be a numerical value attached to one's goodness/evil? I wasn't aware that God was a D&D fan.Why would God limit Himself to counting deeds when forming His judgment? Can't God can see into our hearts? Can't He tell whether we try to do what we feel is the right thing, whether we regret our mistakes, how deeply opposed or supportive we are of specific morals (IE: most would consider killing to be a much more horrible sin than lying, and feel much more dissonance about it), the motives behind what we do, the strength of our convictions?{Edited for minor typing errors.}This message has been edited by Morte, 06-02-2005 02:50 AM

But the point (or mine, at least) is that, if belief is what is required to be saved, many do not even have this choice. It might be difficult for you to imagine not having complete control over your own beliefs, but I invite you to take the challenge posed earlier. Try to believe for a little while that God doesn't exist.You see, it's not that we're denying God because we don't want to believe in Him. It's that we don't believe in him, plain and simple. I can't speak for others, but I know that I, personally, can't just simply make myself believe whatever I want to believe. Between what I see as inconsistencies in the Bible, inconsistencies between the God described by the religious and the God of the Old Testament, and worldly evidence that I try to view as objectively as possible, I simply cannot believe that the God of the Bible exists. There is no choice involved.It's very similar to trying to control whatever you're thinking about at a given moment, if that comparison helps; can you willfully make yourself stop thinking about a topic when you try? Me, I just think about it more if I try to do so. Message 26 put it better than I ever could (I would consider it for POTM if there was a thread for it yet):

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The problem with the "mainstream" evangelical ideology is that it cannot accept the idea that people may be damned to eternal torment for something beyond their control -- that is why there is this idea that somehow non-believers must "know", deep in their hearts, that God and Jesus are real, and that they must willingly choose to deny God.

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*** You paint an unrealistic scenario, however. Other men tell me that the Lord says that, not God Himself. Other men also tell me that Allah is the true god, that nature is to be worshipped, of Vishnu and Shiva. What is supposed to distinguish your claim from theirs in my mind?{Added in edit: Bah, there is a POTM thread open. Somehow I missed it when I searched for it earlier.}This message has been edited by Morte, 06-02-2005 03:05 AM