Why did God forgive our sins?

I see you wrote this almost a decade ago ICANT, but I wanted to double check your thought process here if you don't mind.
The ethics of animal cruelty aside, are you really comparing demolition of a house "because you can" as the builder, to the destruction of a sentient being "because you can" as the parent?Please tell me I misunderstood you. I mean, as the father of a seven year old daughter I in no way consider her to be my personal property to do with as I will. I am certainly not her owner; I consider myself to be her caretaker for a short time, looking out for her best interests, until she is ready to be her own independent member of society. Even then, I want to be available to help or advise her in anyway she might need. Normal human morality recoils at the concept of Biblical "Vessels of Wrath" mindset, where because HE MADE US, God can do, literally in this mindset, whatever "the Hell" He wants to with us.You are trying to convince modern moral beings to adopt an archaic and brutal way of thinking that hasn't existed in the Western mind for a long, long time. You won't be successful in this endeavor in the real world. You have to go back to preaching to the choir, who already have their moral compasses a bit skewed by this wrongheadedness.If I have not understood you correctly I apologize and would love to hear you correct me.

Double post...Edited by Aussie, : Double postEdited by Aussie, : No reason given.

So ICANT... pretending for a moment all this is true, are you saying God is going to remove your memories? Can you elaborate on this a little more please?Correct me if I am wrong but I believe you are saying that you are going to be so heartbroken over the entirety of world history, especially the parts of it that you have come into contact with personally, that God will only be able to console you by literally wiping your memory. What does that tell you about God? He is going to effectively just wipe your collective hard drives anyway... what the hell are we going through all this crap for then?That hardly sounds like a victorious end of the age to me. The only way you could be happy about the outcome is by reverting to spending Eternity as a willing amnesiac who can no longer recall the experiences of "the Refiner's Fire" that made you who you were to begin with. Sounds a lot like the original Adam in Eden before he ate of the "Tree of Knowledge of good and evil."

I just have to point out that there is also no Scripture to validate any of your claims either. I don't care what your understanding is; I care what Scripture says. It is not called prison, much less "The hole" in prison. It is referred to as "The lake which burns with Fire and Brimstone, which is the Second Death." (Rev. 21:8) And God is willing to cast a wide variety of humans into it so they can suffer eternally.Could you please respect Scripture enough to let it speak for itself? If you think that Scripture needs ICANT to speak for it, you should let me know, that would also help me understand where you are coming from.

Have you actually even done anything to require a jail sentence at the level of human justice? Why do you deserve to be tortured so cruelly? How have you come to defending the use, not only of torture, but of an ETERNAL, UNENDING torture chamber to make the entirety of the Inquisition hide its face in shame? Think of the dark morality of your position here.Can you be honest with me here? Do you defend the use of torture in any justice system? Would you stand by and nod silently while a prisoner is being lead off to the torture chamber for being born into a different religion? Or for telling a lie?If it is immoral for a human to do it to another sentient being, why does it suddenly become morally good if your God inflicts exquisite torture on other sentient beings simply for not liking Him very much?DA is a moral agency, like all of us here. And listening to you defend eternity in the Lake of Fire is causing him to morally recoil from your words and thoughts. Can you really not understand why?

Hey Phat,I'm a big fan of the archives here. I can't really blame you for getting depressed by it all. The truth is you are somewhat more honest about it than many of the other believing members, and I think that kind of honesty, together with true belief, or at least the yearning for true belief can result in all kinds conflicting thoughts and emotions.I get where you are coming from...I'm saying this with no condescension. I was the truest kind of true believer until my late twenties/early thirties. My goal was to be a Bible translator in Brazil until my early 20's when I started being groomed to be a travelling evangelist by the leaders of my church group.My deconversion was slow and very painful on a personal level, and took almost a decade. It was the weirdest thing to me, like having been raised in a carnival room of crazy warping mirrors, but suddenly getting flashes of insight from a true reflection. My brain just couldn't process the information at first, it couldn't accept the flat, polished mirror as a true representation of reality.I get this image in my mind when I hear believers saying things like have been said in this thread. That it is good and moral for an all-good God to inflict exquisite and eternal torture on people for finite crimes. Like being born in the wrong culture in the wrong century. To the non-believer's brain this is simply reprehensible; a crime against humanity. No Christian has yet given me an honest and sensible reply to this that describes also a God of infinite love. I just can't see this dichotomy of moral character as anything other than a profound and vicious absurdity. Thank God.To me, Calvinism is one of the more evil ideas ever to occur to man. I am working my way through the conversation, but to my brain it's like listening to people discuss the texture of the bark, and the root structure of the beanstalk Jack climbed to get to the giant. I can only take it in small doses.

I was not at all implying that you were deconverting, I was just giving my perspective on the issue. It's not an issue to be forced on someone, in my opinion.Do you have an opinion on morality and torture? And assuming your version of God exists, and assuming he mandates torture of people like me and other non-believers, would it affect your relationship with Him as a follower and Son? What I mean is, if you will be "Ruling and reigning" with God like Scripture says, you also will be sharing the moral responsibility of the eternal torture of the countless lost along with God. It's a big job title with big moral responsibility. Are you up to it? Do you think about it?