Why did God forgive our sins?

And the follower of Islam that has equal faith in something totally contradictory to that which you have faith in?Why is your faith more 'truthful' than his?While faith can be held in equally contradictory positions it is obvious that faith can be no indicator of veracity.

According to many theists scripture does provide us with a form of absolute morality. However I dispute that this is true in any practical sense.If scripture does actually provide us with knowledge of absolute morality then two individuals armed with the scriptures and a set of detailed context based moral dilemmas should come to identical conclusions regarding what is right and wrong and what is good and bad according to scripture in their answers to these moral dilemmas.What are the chances of this actually happening?Thus your assertions regarding absolute morality existing in scripture remain unfounded in any practical sense. I am well aware of scripture says about why God "forgave" our sins. The way I am interpreting the questions is as to whether the answers from scripture make any actual sense. I don't think that they do.A God who is the definition of love and forgiveness and yet who condemns the vast majority of humanity to eternal loveless damnation. A God who supposedly loves and forgives each individual but who punishes each individual for the crimes of a single ancestor. A God who setup the bewildering scenario of an apple not to be eaten and a talking snake to coerce so that he could punish, forgive and then punish again those who do not seek forgiveness from the original punishment.That my friend is a pile of inconsistent and contradictory baloney. Typically for a believer blinded by faith you do not seek to determine whether or not any of this contradictory nonsense makes sense. Instead you just assert that God knows best and it is not for us to question why. I didn't say they were consistent. I am pretty sure in fact that they are not. The point is that internal consistency is no indicator of actual external sense or truthfulness.As far as I am aware The Lord of The Rings is internally consistent. Actually the statement that "we WILL continue to perpetrate regardless of the sacrifice" doesn't in itself indicate freewill. It could be that we have no choice but to perpetrate, and that we will thus continue do so regardless of any sacrifice.But as it happens I do broadly believe in freewill so the point is moot. I am not sure what any of this means.However the question remains as to why God needs to sacrifice anything to forgive people of their sins.
The question also remains as to why he doesn't actually forgive us of any sins until we recognise this sacrifice.
The further question remains as to what exactly was sacrificed? Human form? Physical presence? Apparently Jesus lives on in Heaven and can presumably take human form again if he so wishes. So the "sacrifice" seems somehwat limited and hardly worth all the fuss you Christians make of it.Sacrifice normally involves loss. What was lost? What exactly was sacrificed? That is a big IF. And a very one sided perspective.
My perspective is to ask if the whole story regarding sin, punishment, sacrifice, forgiveness and then ultimately more punishment for not recognising this somewhat limited sacrifice actually makes any sense?Unless you satisfy yourself with the answer that 'God knows best' (as is your entire argument in essence) then the answer to this question is quite obviously - NO. No ASSUMPTION required. As I have stated before I rationalise any such judgement on a 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you basis'. In my opinion God would fare rather badly on this basis especially given that the vast majority of humanity will apparently burn in hell for a crime they personally did not commit.However your previously exposed inability to cite a single example of an absolute moral kind of kills your absolutist moral position stone dead regardless of any deficiencies in any alternative positions anyway.......... Well I think I do have a valid method of establishing such things. And that on this basis many of Gods actions are pretty dreadful.Especially when the alternative espoused by you and your fellow literalists consists of supposedly absolute writings that no two people will ever actually interpret or see in the same way. Theists discussing the "absolutes" of morality are no more absolute in their findings than are philosophers. And that is about as non-absolute as it is possible to be.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Boldening added by me.If that statement doesn't verify the very point Devilsadvocate was making I don't know what does.

Gave? In what sense? Are not God and Jesus hanging in heaven together as we write?What exactly was sacrificed? What did God lose that cannot be replaced? Then you should talk to ICANT and Bertot regarding their lake of fire thing. Not at all. No forcing is being proposed. Clear information and an informed decision on the part of humanity rather than a reliance on faith and the other irrational tricks that are the hallmark of deceit.If there is a choice make it clear and let freewill take it's true course. Don't make the whole nature of the choice look like a big con to anyone who insists on using the very "God given" rational faculties we are blessed with. No forcing. Just open and clear choices that are not shrouded in the fog of faith. And you chosse not to believe in the Hindu Gods. Based on what? reason? Faith? I choose not to believe in any Gods based on reason.there is no more reason to believe in your God or your Christ than there is any one of the other multitude of Gods. No. But the punishment should fit the crime. I am not even sure what crime I have committed but apparently I am born sinful!!!
Eternal damnation because my most distant ancestor ate some apple is hard to reconcile with a being that is supposedly the epitome of forgiveness and love.In Gods place I would not condemn anyone for this "crime".Does that make me more compassionate, forgiving and loving than your God?Or is my compassion evil because it opposes God's will? All of these criminals fail the test of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". Thus they are morally in the wrong, not to mention socially disruptive and dangerous, regardless of what they may think. Then the thief should expect to be consistently robbed by those more powerful than he. Some of the greatest advances in human society have taken place when the populace at large overthrow tyrants and despots. Democracy, freedom and the rule of law as applied to all.You assume your God is good despite many actions to the contrary. many actions which fail the 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you' test. Given evidence and a clear choice many more would take that path.If that is what he really wants then why hide behind the shroud of faith that results in the very opposite? If it really is his creation then I would suggest that he makes the choices and punishments absolutely clear with no silly reliance on things like faith which are very open to abuse by those who wish to deceive. I would also suggest that he decides whether or not he is a forgiving God or a retributional one. Because at the moment the whole thing is very contradictory and frankly unclear.

Who decides which are the most important?

And that exactly is the problem. You say he wants all humans to follow that path to salvation and redemption. And yet he relies on methods of achieving this that are inevitably going to fail.A reliance on faith has the following problems:1) Anybody who insists on using the ability for rational thought that God supposedly gave us is going to be sceptical and thus fail.2) The reliance on faith is completely open to abuse by those who equally advocate their own deity on the same faith basis. How are we to know which deity to put our faith in? All equally claim that faith in their particualr entity is the road to salvation and each has their own holy book to justify this claim?If God really wants us to seek salvation through Jesus Chris there is little doubt that his methods are failing. There are several billion non-Christians in the world who are about as culturally unlikely to seek Christ as you are to suddenly convert to Hinduism.Whether he accepts or wants my advice or not I think it is worth pointing out to God that his current methodology of getting people into heaven and avoiding the whole lake of fire for eternity scenario is failing quite badly.If he really wants most of us to get to heaven he should maybe rethink his recruitment strategy. That's all. Just a suggestion. Take it or leave it. Yes and apparently there are equally clear choices and punishments in the Koran. No doubt other religious books make it equally clear as to why they specifically should be followed, and the punishments for not doing so, too.How am I to decide which religion to follow given that they all, including yours, claim to be the only true path to salvation?Seriously one wrong choice and that lake of fire (or whatever punishment the other potentially correct religion describes) is waiting for me. It is a very big decision and I hope your God (if he does exist) can understand why this whole reliance on faith he has decided to use to test people makes the decision unnecessarily open to error for those of us not of an innately Christian background.If I become a Christian will I burn in the Islamic version of hell for all eternity? How can I find out? Oh what to do. What to do.Edited by Straggler, : Spelling

So did he tell you which three were the most important personally?Or does scripture give details of the relative importance of each commandment somewhere?I am genuinely interested to know on what basis you make the claim that the three you cite are the most important 3.

You might as well say that if you believe the prophet Mohammed was right then all bets are off.The resurrection of Jesus Christ or the words of Mohammed can only be taken on faith.So once again I am none the wiser and in severe danger of that whole lake of fire thing (or whatever equally horrific alternative any other potentially correct religion describes for non-believers).If only God would stop with this silly, and all too easily abused, faith game he might give the majority of humanity a fighting chance at achieving the destiny he apparently desires for us.Otherwise I fear he is doomed to disappointment.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

OK. But I am still unclear as to whether the bible explicitly tells us the relative importance of the commandments (I was not aware that this is so) or whether the three that you have cited are your own personal ordering.If I asked several biblically knowledgeable Christians which the three most important commandments were according to the bible would they give the same answer as you did?

The problem that you have is that you do not believe the teachings of Mohammed. To those that do you follow a false faith.From the Koran - 5.72. "They do blaspheme who say: "Allah is Christ the son of Mary." But said Christ: "O Children of Israel! worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord." Whoever joins other gods with Allah,- Allah will forbid him the garden, and the Fire will be his abode. There will for the wrong-doers be no one to help" Now I am no Muslim. But the point is that if I were we could both endlessly quote different holy books in order to demonstrate to each other that the other is following a false path and that faith in our own preferred religion is the only true path to salvation and the only way to avoid that pit of fire.So on what basis should an objective participant uncorrupted by cultural inclinations seek one path or the other so as to avoid the whole eternal lake of fire thing?Faith as an instrument of separation between those who should be saved and those who should face eternal damnation is just not a very good or efficient method. God really should reconsider his heaven recruitment strategy if he genuinely does want to get people through those pearly gates.