Are we prisoners of sin

If I misread or misrepresented your argument it would be a straw man fallacy, not begging the question. The former is a distortion of the actual position, the latter is related to circular reasoning. I don’t think I have done either. Furthermore the conclusion that I came to was that your thinking was flawed, which I backed up by telling you exactly where you were flawed. It is perfectly reasonable to observe a flawed argument and come to a completely different conclusion; while not necessarily required it is not an unexpected result. Who wrote the Bible? Men, of course, but the key is that it was divinely inspired. That means that while humans may have actually penned it the claim is that God himself composed the content. This means that when you quote the Bible for descriptions of God you are in effect quoting God describing himself. Furthermore the source of the claims is tainted; of course the Bible will claim God is just and good, after all the Bible derives its moral compass from the God it describes.To put it more succinctly: Someone who views God’s will as being the definition of good will necessarily describe God as being good. Using that position as justification for itself is flawed reasoning though, specifically circular reasoning or begging the question. Who can stand in his way — Does might make right? My views on morality say no, and evidently he didn’t make us in such a way as to prevent us from standing in his way. In fact your position states that everyone is somewhat off from the godly ideal, meaning that everyone stands in his way to some extent. See anyone get smote by God recently? The key is the distinction between God himself and the claimed universal moral code. So far as I understood your position you did not claim that there was a universal moral code which God perfectly adhered to, rather you imbued God himself with the ability to dictate universal moral code directly.Why is this relevant? The problem is that if God is not the source of the universal moral code (UMC) then we need some evidence to back up the assertion that God perfectly adheres to said UMC. Without such evidence we cannot assume that God’s actions are moral when a human’s moral sense is ambiguous, and even less so when it is in conflict with our moral leanings. If instead you are suggesting that God is the source of UMC directly then you *must* provide some evidence other than his adherence to his own moral code.

I find it interesting that it is better for God to make people conform to his will under threat of death, torture, etc. rather than have him change his mind. Can we then assume that such actions by humans are just, that is I can threaten people with death if they do not conform to my will? Or can I only do that to non-Christians? If not in either case, what gives God such special privileges? I guess I just skipped over this the first time I read it, but here is yet another logical fallacy. This is an appeal to consequences of a belief or a type of wishful thinking. Your argument as stated says that God must forgive people because if he did not he would be going against his word, and become a liar. You statement is constructed in such a way as to imply that the consequence of God being a liar, something which you personally disapprove of, acts somehow as evidence against the concept. Your argument there is not logically valid.Edited by Phage0070, : Rehashing

It is really hard to hold back snide comments about the possible orifices for pressure release.

How is this Biblical crap at all relevant to the topic? Whether or not the Bible says we are sinners is immaterial until the Bible is proved to have any bearing on reality. I can only assume that we are talking about reality here and not the fantasies of individuals, so first on the agenda is proving that "sin" actually exists apart from societal opinion. If it does not, then we are certainly not prisoners of sin if simply changing our minds can free us. Only after you have proved that it is a universal constant can you then determine if everyone is violating it.If you want to prattle on about the ways in which your fictional ancient storybook is different from someone else's fictional ancient storybook then go make a thread of your own to write Jesus fan-fics.

This is exactly my point. How likely is it that people who are already basing their philosophical viewpoint on arbitrary fiction rather than reality will suddenly become convinced by another arbitrary fiction? I will admit that it has happened before, but if the real world cannot convince someone I don't understand how make-believe becomes any more attractive.There isn't really anything to be gained here either; other than reality, one viewpoint is no more valid than the other. Even if one poster kicked theological butt and converted all religious believers to his/her way of thinking (which I highly doubt) then we still would not have actually produced anything meaningful or useful from the thread. We may as well be playing Pokmon: "I choose you, Yahweh! Use your Original Sin beam on opponent's Yahweh!"

Because new children, wives, etc are just as good as the old ones! Also, those people God allowed to be killed to make a point didn't matter. Also, torturing the ones you love is ok if it helps in an argument with a third party. Also, the years of agony God allowed are ok because Job's mortal life is inconsequential compared to eternity but the mortal rewards God offered are not inconsequential.

My point is that there is no reason to argue circles with dogma when the deity you are arguing about acts inconsistently. God might love you. God might kill you. God might punish you for something you didn't do, or over a bet, or to prove a point. God will act unethically by his own standards; how can you possibly be a prisoner of sin when it is such a nebulous concept? Killing innocents was allowed by God in that case, for crying out loud!

If your position is ridiculous you should expect to be ridiculed. I'm not going to call you names, but that does not mean that I have to hold your beliefs in high regard. Yes. Yes it does. Judge and jury are not your mother, that isn't their role. You should recall that it is specifically forbidden for your parents or spouse to serve on a jury because of an almost certain conflict of interest; do you think this is because your loved ones are feared to be too strict or too lenient? Again, this is circular reasoning. You argue that God's will is moral because he always does things which are moral but don't give anything to back up that assertion other than maintaining that God's actions define morality directly, despite such actions being apparently immoral on many occasions. It is like arguing that a yard stick is the perfect yard stick despite its length periodically changing; you conclude that obviously the length of a yard must be changing because the yard stick is perfect. Ohh, now I recognize your debate style: "Wooden Mallet" Simple, and reliant on persistence to put that square peg in the round hole.So your argument boils down to that God is supposed to be a nice guy but he never really seems to act like it, so you conclude that we must deserve it. Let me offer a counterpoint; it is possible that the original assertion that God is a nice guy is false. Additionally it may also be that God does not even exist.

I have to agree on this point, it would have been so much better if those years had been spent on something that actually applied to reality.

You keep using that argument; do you really think that God not being a liar is a logical proof? You have not established that God is not a liar, in fact you have not even established that he exists. Not for the reasons you imply. A parent spanking a child and a judge punishing a criminal have a similar goal, the modification of behavior. You will note that we don’t punish retarded people for doing retarded things, or infants for pooping, etc. In those cases our punishments don’t serve any purpose because they are incapable of stopping their undesirable behavior, and would be viewed as cruel.If we are actually incapable of not sinning then God’s punishments serve no purpose; especially death which makes improved behavior even more impossible. How is this behavior consistent with your concept of a loving god? That makes sense; “Ad lib” is short for “Ad libitum” which is Latin for “at one’s pleasure”. In essence you have said that I am fond of making statements at my pleasure. It does not take much to impress you does it? There is another point, how does God justify beating people into submission to his will? We have already established that doing exactly what God wants is inconsistent with our nature, and it isn’t like God has a legitimate need for anything we can provide. It seems like God would be helping us more if he simply stopped tormenting us and let us be.Also, if we are simply living through torturous conditions until we accept salvation then why do people who accept still get tortured rather than killed instantly or having a life free from torment? That is like being given a pardon but having to finish out the day in the torture room because that’s when they normally check out.

This line of reasoning implies that the Bible is internally consistent. If the Bible was written by one person with a single agenda, or proven to be based on one account of factual events then such an assumption might be warranted. Since the Bible is based on multiple allegorical accounts of events of dubious veracity there is cause for serious doubt of that premise.