Why did God forgive our sins?

Hi John, Did I deserve the condescension...? Maybe - lol Still taking a stab at it? Ok.Heres your argument:Me: I believe in God, now what?You: Not good enough, you must believe in the Christian God, Jesus.Me: Who is Jesus, where do I find him?You: In this book.Me: Did he write this?You: No.Me: Well, how do I know this is his true message?You: Do you believe in God?Me: yes.You: The Christian God, Jesus?Etc, etc, etc...Do you see the problem...? Or no worse... Either way, it is just that, a belief. We can end that sentence right there.Just make sure you obeyed the right people.

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"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

Awesome. I live in southeast Virginia near Hampton Roads. Would have to juggle this between family and work.I am getting ready to go back to sea duty so will be pretty busy here in the next couple of months. You will probably see a lot less of me on EvC here in a month or two and I will probably be doing more lurking than active participating for the next 3-4 years onboard ship.Sorry about the onfire/onifre mix up. It is one of those things where your eyes see one thing and your brain thinks another.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Dr. Carl Sagan

Is there anything you or others at the EvC forum can believe in and "know" that what you believe in is true? Probably not!Since you do not believe there is a God, and that you are in need of God's salvation, it is foolish for me or other Christians to try to explain to you how He manifests/proves Himself to those that are born into His family as Jesus declared in John 3:3-7.BlessingsPS - I've made sure that I've obeyed the right Person.

I think many have asked you just how you have made sure. It may be that you simply need the right drug like others who hear voices in their heads. In fact, that is the most likely explanation giving what we know about mental health.

Unfortunately believe to be true and objectively true are not the same thing.I agree that you believe it to be true, but you can't pass on feelings AS truth. Cool. Me too.

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"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

quote:

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Officer, thank god you're here. I've been searching my car for drugs for 3 hours

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I lol'd

Thats my favorite one. Im glad you enjoyed it dude.

That is your explanation, but not mine. My explanation is the one Jesus gives: PS - The only drug I take is the gift of the Holy Spirit which He gives to His children.Blessings

This makes sense. God wants humans to allow Him to perfect them rather than they attempting to perfect themselves without Him. The reason is not so much to get to the right place so much as to allow our inner characters to be transformed for further purpose.Religion can be a joke, but a personal inner relationship with the God who created all things seen and unseen is a mature and fruitful relationship.

Very much so... if God exists.
If God does not exist, then whatever "personal inner relationship" can be felt is as much a joke as any religion can be.Which is, really, the whole conundrum.

As I was rereading this old topic, (a pastime that is often quite enjoyable...seeing what all of EvC members past and present have to say about various topics) I saw an old argument spring to life. Our old onetime member Brian started it: This argument has arisen at EvC before. How do I see it?I believe that God created a free willed Lucifer, initially. Lucifer than chose...with Gods full awareness...to rebel and thus became satan by definition. Pure unadulterated evil. Thus God indirectly created evil...through the allowable rebellion of an angel. Having created the possibility of evil which became actualized evil after Lucifers decision, We can agree that God created evil. What is not agreed upon is the idea that Gods foreknowledge is itself evil. In fact, this sounds like an argument that a fallen spirit would make so as to gain the sympathies of humans. I would ask Brian what God could possibly do to save him when he himself admits that he wont ever accept Gods authority...much like Lucifer could have done.What do you all think...now...as you reread this topic with me?(by the way,Ian...I like your argument about God seeing it all as a before and after viewpoint. Humans cant claim that God foreknowingly sentenced them...so long as they are not yet in hell as Lucifer now is. God never created hell for humans. God created hell as a place for fallen angels. Edited by Phat, :

What is the argument that creating evil is not evil?I don't believe that to be the case, but I don't see an argument against it in your post. Just an attribution of the opposite argument as sounding like Satan. Well if the fallen spirit is wrong, what is your answer?My personal belief is that it is simply not possible to create a universe that includes both free will without having the possibility of evil. So the evil, if it is attributable to God, must then for the act of creating a universe at all.Well on balance I think existence is better than non existence, so given a choice between a universe with evil in it and a universe in which everyone is an automaton, I prefer this one even knowing the evil that mean do. I don't find the choice something I'd hesitate over for even a moment.Of course someone could question whether such a God is omnipotent. I have no problem with there being things you can imagine that God cannot do, so I don't think the question is all that important. God cannot make a rock so heavy that he cannot lift it. But so what?

You are assuming that the thing you call evil is a rational choice we can all make on even terms, but we now know that the deck being dealt us is rigged. If you happen to be born to a heroine addicted, black, single mother on a sink estate your chances of not seriously sinning are low. Find yourself with a defective brain such that right and wrong are never normalised and you have every chance of becoming a serial killer or a very effective CEO of a bank. Is this a false dichotomy? Is it really impossible to build a universe where kill or be killed isn't the rule of survival? It seems to me that this god of yours simply built a gladitorial pit to watch us all fight amongst ourselves for his own pleasure whilst loading the dice to make it more entertaining. Now THAT is evil.

I would agree in a preference for this world over automatons.
The thing is, however, that these are not the only two choices for an all-powerful God.Looking at the world we have now... our Free Will is restricted in certain ways that reduce the amount of evil we can perform.
For starters, I cannot simply decide to torture and snuff-out the existence of anyone I deem inferior with simply a thought. I am restricted to performing certain actions that would materialize torture and snuffing-outs.Therefore, my Free Will of performing the evil of instant torture and snuffing-out others at my own personal thought of it is simply not allowable in this world.So.. why are we capable of some evil and not other evil?
Why can't our level of evil be reduced just a bit more such that we still have Free Will but just a bit more evil is restricted and impossible?I can commit the evil of punching my sister in the arm because she ate my cookie.
Let's keep that evil in our world as it provides us some Free Will.
But why not disallow the evil that allows a man to force himself on another person and rape them?
Just that evil we will remove... remove the desire from any man to ever want to force themselves on another person and rape them.
All the rest of the evil can still remain.Free Will will be reduced by some small, tiny fraction (because we can no longer choose to do this rape-evil).
But our Free Will was already restricted from doing certain instant-thought-evils anyway... what's one more tiny restriction in order to get rid of an incredibly heinous evil?Therefore, we still have Free Will, we're not automatons, and the entire world is better for it.Why didn't God do that?Was God not powerful enough to do that?
Was God not beneficial enough to do that?
Why did God specifically decide to keep rape-evil in our world? What purpose is it serving other than hurting innocent people and allowing some small, insignificant fraction of Free Will to continue to be unrestricted?There is no "Free Will Defense."
There is no such thing as "this world of choice vs. a world of automatons."The facts are that we have a world in which evil exists.
If some all-powerful being actually willfully created this world in which such evil exists and it was also in their power to create a slightly-different world in which there was slightly-less evil... then this all-powerful being most certainly is not all-beneficial towards humans.It is simply a delusion to think that an all-powerful, all-beneficial-towards-humans God exists as the creator of this Universe.
Such an idea is fundamentally at fault with the facts of our existence.

If one believes that god is omniscient, then one has to acknowledge that god had to have foreknowledge of the eventual events that would transpire to create satan. Unless your definition of god is somewhat different. But clearly Christian doctrine dictates that humans can and do go to hell. And god created the conditions for this arrangement. So clearly, god is involved.