SIN

To me sin is this... knowing the right thing to do and not doing it.I am opening this thread because I am a sinner, I choose to do the wrong things everyday... but my going to heaven has nothing to do with sin, because I have faith in Christ Jesus my Lord and saviour, it is he who has dealt with sin once and for all on the cross...

So, according to you, god doesn't care what kind of person you are. You could be a murderer, rapist, or saint, as long as you accept his son and worship him you get to go to heaven? At the same time, some of the nicest people you could meet will go to hell, simply because they don't?And you want us to worship this being?------------------
He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife.
- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

No this is not what I am saying...
We are all sinners, you included. That in it self makes us unworthy to go to heaven..
There had to be someone to stand in the gap for us to get back with God...
Look at 1John, he talks about how any of us who live in darkness and say they know God is a liar and the truth is not in them, but also he says that a person that says they are without sin is a liar and the truth is not in them, but he goes on to say that if we do sin, not to worry but to confess it to Jesus who pleads on our behalf before God...
People who live in darkness are people who do not confess there sin, to Jesus and to those they need to be held accountable, they live secret lives of sin and only invite in those they sin with...
People whom confess before Christ will not continue in there sin for long... but let God be the judge of whom truelly does this and those whom do not.

I dunno, it takes some pretty funny moral calculus to lump every human being into one big "sin" pile. I mean, people of every culture hold up paragons of moral behavior, and vilify moral ... villains, I guess. That this is pan-cultural makes it hard to argue against the proposition that humans recognize that it is possible to be more morally good than others.Anyway, how do you know I'm a sinner? Well, I do know how you know - original sin. Which by definition I'm not responsible for, but somehow it's my fault anyway. Which seems, to a reasonable person, either the cruel and unusual punishment of a petty, vindictive god, or alternatively, a tenuous ad hoc hypothesis to make sure no one can cop out of the Christian monopoly on redemption.I mean, original sin makes Mother Theresa as bad as Adolf Hitler, a truly ludicrous proposal.------------------
Epimenedes Signature: This is not a signature.

This contradicts your first post where you said... Bold mine.If sin has nothing to do with going to heaven, why then does sin make us unworthy of going to heaven? One or the other, it can't be both. Assuming for the moment that sin prevents us from entering heaven, why would someone have to 'stand in the gap' for us? Why do we need Jesus to plead for us, can't we do that ourselves?
For that matter, why do we need to plead at all? Does it make someone a good parent if they require their children to beg and plead when they have done something wrong? What about the people that don't sin, or that have never heard of God or Jesus?Remember that according to you to sin is to do the wrong thing intentionally. From your first post: Therefore it is possable not to sin (e.g. if you don't know that it is wrong).------------------
He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife.
- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

bump------------------
He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife.
- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Pardon my ignorance, but I keep seeing this message 'Bump'. What does it mean?

A thread bumped when a message containing no imformation is posted simply to move the thread to the top of the list.Many people tend not to look at threads that haven't had recent activity and are lower down on the list. Bumping moves the thread back near the top since it has had a message posted recently.------------------
He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife.
- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Your belief in "sin" and the damnation of the entire world is completely based on what the "Bible" says. It is actually somebody else's belief which has been taught to you, and you have accepted it as the Word of God, without question, which is typical of most Christians. You believe those are damned who do not believe it, and there is a need for a Savior to free you from this lost state. I believe Thomas Paine offered the most relevant arguments ever written concerning the Christian's unquestioning belief in the Bible:"As it is necessary to affix right ideas to words, I will, before I proceed further into the subject, offer some observations on the word 'revelation.' Revelation when applied to religion, means something communicated immediately from God to man.No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and, consequently, they are not obliged to believe it.It is a contradiction in terms and ideas to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication. After this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner, for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him.When Moses told the children of Israel that he received the two tables of the commandments from the hand of God, they were not obliged to believe him, because they had no other authority for it than his telling them so; and I have no other authority for it than some historian telling me so, the commandments carrying no internal evidence of divinity with them. They contain some good moral precepts such as any man qualified to be a lawgiver or a legislator could produce himself, without having recourse to supernatural intervention. [NOTE: It is, however, necessary to except the declamation which says that God 'visits the sins of the fathers upon the children'. This is contrary to every principle of moral justice.--Author.]When I am told that the Koran was written in Heaven, and brought to Mahomet by an angel, the account comes to near the same kind of hearsay evidence and second hand authority as the former. I did not see the angel myself, and therefore I have a right not to believe it.When also I am told that a woman, called the Virgin Mary, said, or gave out, that she was with child without any cohabitation with a man, and that her betrothed husband, Joseph, said that an angel told him so, I have a right to believe them or not: such a circumstance required a much stronger evidence than their bare word for it: but we have not even this; for neither Joseph nor Mary wrote any such matter themselves. It is only reported by others that they said so. It is hearsay upon hearsay, and I do not chose to rest my belief upon such evidence.It is, however, not difficult to account for the credit that was given to the story of Jesus Christ being the Son of God. He was born when the heathen mythology had still some fashion and repute in the world, and that mythology had prepared the people for the belief of such a story. Almost all the extraordinary men that lived under the heathen mythology were reputed to be the sons of some of their gods. It was not a new thing at that time to believe a man to have been celestially begotten; the intercourse of gods with women was then a matter of familiar opinion. Their Jupiter, according to their accounts, had cohabited with hundreds; the story therefore had nothing in it either new, wonderful, or obscene; it was conformable to the opinions that then prevailed among the people called Gentiles, or mythologists, and it was those people only that believed it. The Jews, who had kept strictly to the belief of one God, and no more, and who had always rejected the heathen mythology, never credited the story.End of Thomas Paine QuoteIf somebody told you that you were going to burn in hell if you did not accept a belief in Santa Claus, you would think that ridiculous. Why should you believe it. It's prepostuous that one man could fly all over the world and deliver presents to all children in one night. Plus--you have never personally seen it. Yet, you do not think it is preposturous for someone to deny belief in a "Virgin Birth" which nobody has ever seen, "Resurrection from the dead" which nobody has ever seen, "A Fiery pit called hell" which nobody has ever seen, etc. And you expect us to believe that God will send anybody to hell who does not believe it. Is belief a choice? Do you choose whether you will believe in Santa Claus or not? I don't believe that "beliefs" are "choices"--they simply are. There is no "sin" in that.

This is my first post. I just I thought I would say a few things not all of which are scientific but are relevant. I believe that God made this world and us for His joy (as stated in the Bible). He gave a us a free will so that we might be able to serve Him uniquely. We abused this privilage and ended up with sin and degeneration. In order to believe the Bible you must act using faith. In this sort of situation you understand after you believe what you're trying to understand. I believed in Jesus, and after I did that the Bible and why the world is the way it is came clear to me. If I came to the Almighty God through the Bible, then that must be the only book because God only allows one way. I know this is circular reasoning according to scientific reasoning but once you believe in God then it all becomes a strait logical path. If you analyze the Bible as a pagan religeon then you come up with a bunch of self-destroying hypothesis. In order to understand the Bible you must put your faith in it. The way of redemption becomes clear then. Faith is far more exact and commiting than a certain amount of good works. God is not a relative God, as seen in the structure of the universe, so why should he have redemption something so relative as good works. The only way that someone could be %100 redeemed is if they asked someone who can make then %100 redeemed to do it.
God wants us to believe something that is hard to believe according to what theories of reasoning men have come up with. Therefore believeing something that isnt scientifically proven shows true faith. God wants our faith.
Also if you dont believe in God I would like to ask why. If you answer:God wouldn't let bad things happen, then how do you know Him well enough to say that statement if He doesnt exsist.
I understand that this wasnt a very clear presentation of the message I was trying to display so feel free to ask what I mean.

Why would an all-knowing god refuse to manifest himself to his flock in a way that would be sufficient to convince them?Think of it like dancing: There are three main ways that people learn to do a specific dance step.There are those that count, those that talk, and those that feel. That is, when you're doing, say, a time step, you'll have those, in their heads, are going "One-and-a-two-and-three-and-four, one-and-a-two-and-three-and-four...." You'll then have the people who are going "Step-hop-shuffle-step-flap-ball-change, hop-shuffle-step-flap-ball-change...."So if I come along and tell you that a time-step is a slow rock forward and back followed by a fast rock forward and back on the other side, why should it be held against you? And if I am capable of figuring out how it is that you learn, why wouldn't I do what I could to present the information to you in a way that you will be able to understand?It isn't like I'm re-writing your mind to physically make you know how to do a time step. I'm simply making it easier for you to learn.So if a person is someone who learns by counting, why is it a sin when he can't understand the message presented as talking?------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Of course, that's why it's circular. All circular reasoning becomes straight when you assume what you are trying to prove. Basically, what you're saying to us is "You'll understand how God and the bible are true as soon as you assume that God and the bible are true." Perhaps you can understand how some of us might not be so ready to jump into that proposition? Firstly, because there's no evidence for gods. Let me ask you: why don't you believe in anyone else's gods? When you understand why you don't believe in other gods you'll know why I don't believe in yours.Secondly, the only kind of god that is consistent with the evidence is one that is either immoral, powerless, or unconcerned. Why would I believe in such a god? What use could such a god have?

God does not expect us to know everything. I believe He made the universe so large and complex so we couldn't understand it. He made this world with infinite potential, even the potential for us to transgress.
There are some things He does want us to know. He wants us to know that He is God. For every person he reveals Himself in a different way. To a depressive person He might present Himself as a hope. To a literalist He might not have to do as much but rather let His creation do it. If you look deep enough into science and philosofy he will realize a Creator must have made it all. Where could matter come from?
Everyone has the urge for knowlegde, understanding, and peace. I believe God gave us these so we could find Him. The Bible says He manifests himself in His creation. Just look at all the perfect systems that we don't understand. They still work even after we transgressed and God cursed the land. I plead with you to think of origin, if you believe that a Being made it then God has manifested Himself to you. If you believe that you have a will for a reason then God has manifested Himself to you. If you don't believe you have a reason in life then what are you looking for when you live. I can't see how you're satisfied by thinking you've found the answer in a world that has no origin, designated systems, or absolutes.
I am done searching for the answers to life. I searched deeply into all I knew about the world and realized that Someone was showing Himself to me through what He made. i believe everyone can search and understand and I encourage you to try to think of deeper meanings to the things of this world.

Speaking under correction, matter was 'created' with the expantion of space-time. However, even if I am wrong, I still have evidence that matter exists. The same can not be said for any God. Then why do so many who truely seak not find him? What do you mean by 'perfect'? I know of no natural systems that I would consider perfect. Then again, you might just be fooling yourself. Satisfied or not, I am not willing to lie to myself in order to feel comfortable and safe. So if evidence comes along that shows that you are wrong you won't even look at it? You have afterall already decided.------------------
He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife.
- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

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Just look at all the perfect systems that we don't understand. They still work even after we transgressed and God cursed the land.

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When did anyone "curse the land"?You're working from an assumption that the bible is true to show that the bible is true.

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I can't see how you're satisfied by thinking you've found the answer in a world that has no origin, designated systems, or absolutes.

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I don't think I've found any answers. At the very least, none have been presented to me that satisfy me. That's probably why I'm an athiest. Theism of any brand is one of many possibilities that didn't fly with me.I'll go with Mencken on this one: "The fact that I have no remedy for all the sorrows of the world is no reason for my accepting yours. It simply supports the strong probability that yours is a fake."

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I am done searching for the answers to life.

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I don't see how you're satisfied by thinking you've found the answer in a world that has no origin, designated systems, or absolutes.------------------
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Dan Carroll