The Results are in...There is a God! - What now?

Ah, Ringo, your point is too relative, and too relevent.Toys come from parents (or whomever).If little Ringo shares his toy and it cost his parents dearly to provide it, it is not as correct as it could have been.If little Ringo shares his toy and his parents asked him not to, it is not as correct as it could have been.The same applies to Baby Phat.Sure they can do whatever they want with their toy, but in the end they may regret it because it was valuable, or simply because it hurt their parents.

Yes it sounds like the parable of the Talents. It is a bad analogy. The parable of the talents is in the Bible 1 time, and the parables, stories, and warnings about how to use our free-will are an unending topic.

If Ringo used the Parable for the basis of his story, only he can confirm that.If he did use it, he has forgotten one element. The master in the story did indeed call for an account of the use of his gifts, and he did indeed punish the person who had buried his talents. Not with hell fire, but by throwing him out into the darkness. I am sorry if this is what you understood from my post. It is obvious that you have that disease of reading into a post things that are simply not there. There is nothing inconvenient about the Parable, and why should I make a credible case for ignoring something I don't wish to ignore?

In your analogy you did not mention the degree of accountability each child had to his parents. You also did not give an example of good or bad, you gave two acceptable good uses of a toy which can only be termed 'correct' or 'incorrect' relative to the desires of the givers. Gift, loan, whatever, I don't know a parent alive who doesn't get angry when a child breaks a new toy, and in many cases they certainly do punish them for their use of the gift.Say baby Eve has a new toy and she shares it with her sister.Say baby Lala has a new toy and she bangs it on her sister's head.What happens to baby Lala and her gift?

I am having trouble drawing the line between 'the consequences of our actions' and the 'additional penalties'. They are one and the same. You may feel free to tell me some consequences that are a sure fire result of our choices, if you can think of some. But please try to make it a little challenging.BTW...if you don't want your free-will, there are a lot of prayers out there that will help you surrender it back to God.

Did the servants in the parable share and squander their money? No, they increased it. Tell me Ringo's story where it is a paraphrase of the Parable, tell me how the first child bartered his toy for something even better, and then ask who is more 'correct'.

In the context of all 3 of the current examples, the recipient does have accountability.The receiver of the talents had accountability.
Children have accountability.
We have accountability, if not to God, at least to the state.If you would like to bring in an example of non-accountability gifting, you may. I must have read an abreviated version of that story. I never heard about the child's lack of appreciation et al. But actually I detect a little flip-flopping here. Isn't using the gift in the way the donor wants it to be used 'accountability'? And in your story, you never said the parents wanted to watch the child use the toy. I was the one who brought up the desires of the parents in the first place. Hey, this is your analogy here. In it toy=free will. I think baby Lala didn't use her toy appropriately.

Ringo, I will return to a step-by-step debate if need be, but I will make an attempt to sum up your position which you may affirm or deny.Would you say that receiving a gift gives us the right to use it in which ever way we chose?Would you say that if we are allowed to chose between good and evil, there should be no consequences for whichever choice we make?

This is what it comes down to. In my opinion the natural consequence is damnation, in whatever way you define it.It may be a lake of fire, it may be a permanent dissipation of your spirit, it may be, as I see it, the eternal pain of seperation from God.In your opinion the natural consequences have nothing to do with the spirit, but maybe more with the old 'an eye for an eye' rule. Before I sound rude, I will explain. There is a certain amount of authority which we are able to exercise to bring a criminal to justice. If a man who commits crime is imprisoned it can be said that he got what he deserved. The problem is, did he repent? Did the natural consequence of his action change him?Or let's look at you alimony example. It is not a great one I must say. If a man cheats on his wife, there may be NO consequence. He may never get caught. If he is caught and divorce is the consequence, he may be happy. If he gets divorced and pays alimony, he may be so wealthy it doesn't matter, and alimony is never guaranteed. Even with all of the above, he is likely to get married again and repeat the 'punishment'. Besides, does alimony repair emotional damage done to wife or children?Since divorce is not a crime, apply the same thoughts to a serial killer.I would only like you to determine what the natural consequences are for a serial killer who is never caught? You may say 'guilt' but he may not feel guilty.The natural consequence of any evil action may be quite pleasant to the evil-doer. Lying, stealing, cheating or killing may be extremely convenient if you don't get caught. Unless you are on the receiving end, that is.The gift of choice between good and evil is just that. It does not render the evil 'good'. It does not grant immunity to those persistant in evil. That is unnatural and not even granted by law. But, on the bright side, it does, and God does, give us some room to make mistakes.Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.

But what is the gift, Ringo? The gift is eternal life, and this passage does not deal with the aqcuisition of that gift. It does not say that the gift is given equally to sinners and righteous men. Free will is a gift that is given equally, but all subsequent gifts are given as a result of our actions.It is no use to quote mine one passage when there are so many others which are explicit on the natural consequence of sin.It doesn't matter how many times you rephrase your argument. If there is no punishment for the wicked, then you are accepting the gospel of inclusion where ALL men reach heaven in spite of how they live their lives, or you must incorporate a philosphy of reincarnation where we will have many opportunities to become perfect.

That's possible. I am only using 'gift' to describe free-will since Ringo has been doing so, but it is not the same 'gift' which Paul had in mind.Regardless, we are making the same point; we will be judged based upon our use of free will.

Fine, but even if eternal life is a gift, the question is; where will we spend it? There are plenty of gifts which must be earned. Unless you prefer to call them 'rewards'. Maybe Paul means that no one is righteous enough to earn eternal life, so it must be a freely given gift. I just dont understand the objection. We are constantly being judged and punished for using our free will. If even men dont think 'free will' = 'do whatever I want and get away with it' why do you think God would? Maybe you think that God doesn't care what we do and all our morals are our own inventions?You are repeating the same thing over and over, but I don't see how it is being applied in reality. All I want to know is; Why do I need to be good? Why did anyone waste their time on this big old Bible full of laws and morals? Why did Jesus spend so much time telling us how to live and how to reach the Kingdom of Heaven?I know you will say 'the natural result of the action is the punishment'. But you know as well as I do that this is far from absolute. What payment could we ask of Hitler that would make amends for one one-hundredth of his crime? He died , as we all will die, and never even saw the judgement of humanity. Shall he just pop back into existance at the end? If that is all there is to life, why even bother with free will, why not just let us be as animals, or better yet put us in heaven to begin with?It is not fun to believe in punishment, especially not eternal punishment. It is hard enough to imagine eternal existence anywhere. Maybe this whole concept of original sin and punishment is made up, but punishment is a necessary element to the 'plot' of the Bible.

I said; If you want to get nit-picky we are not judged FOR using free will, but for HOW we use it. I don't think you need an answer to your question, 'by whom'? Yeah right. Being good usually gets you home alone Friday night. What about child molesters who don't get caught? If they are being bad but still 'getting along' in public, so what? You can be bad and still reap the benefits of being good. Cash flow makes this real easy Ok, but you are avoiding the issue of what happens if we don't. No, but some how the OP progressed to a discussion of your patented idea of free will.

No problem I will save it for the next go 'round.