What gives God the right to be "holy"?

How do you figure that? That it doesn't conform to the image of God any longer doesn't mean it ceases to exist.We're good (in so far as the image of God in which we are made, influences our actions). We're also evil (in so far as the image of God in which we are made, doesn't influence our actions). Remove the image of God bit and you're left with...?

It doesn't mean that it has to continue existing either. So any 'good' atheists are only doing so by will of God?
So any 'bad' Christians actually aren't such?Why can't God just allow us to cease existing? You have not answered this iano. Only a sadistic and cruel god would allow people to suffer when it is not necessary. The only way I can see out of this conclusion would be if God allowed those in your 'hell' to repent. (In that case, what would the point of being a Christian be, though? :confusedT&UEdited by Teapots&unicorns, : No reason given.

This seems to me to be the only thing the many christians on here agree on: that there are many christians who only claim to be as such, but aren't really christians. Great, isn't it? Dilemma: which ones are we suppose to believe?

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Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people
-Carl Sagan

You forget; we have to take it on 'faith.'T&U

Here is the crux of the matter.It is only just because your god makes a conscious decision to declare that x is just and y is unjust.By what right (other than he is bigger and harder than mere humans) does he have the right to declare what is just and what is not?That is the point of this thread.

I suppose not, but in this case it will - without the imprint of God upon it. A horrendous thought: a person left only with their ugliness, stripped of all redeeming features. If you've ever seen a lifeless face you'll appreciate why it's called the 'second' death.- The 'good' arises from following and not rejecting the call of conscience, ultimately. And since the voice of conscience is supplied by God... In one sense no. They are considered righteous by God. In the other sense, yes; they will be disciplined by God (unto death) and there is the sense of differing levels of heavenly reward attaching to our behaviour here.- 1) We sin and are responsible for our sin. And so it is 'necessary' that we suffer (if paying the price ourselves). Suffering is punishment and punishment is fitting. I'm done arguing the temporal sin vs. eternal punishment objection and merely note:a) we, the offenders, are eternal creatures
b) time is a subset of eternity
c) God, the offendee, is eternal
d) the 'currency' of the sin, in all aspects, is eternal. So too must the currency of the punishment be.2) Eternity without God is a choice made by the heart. It is made by loving that which is anti-God instead of loving the alternative: truth. Consequences follow choice and it would be unjust to refuse to give a person the consequences of the choice offered them simply because the person decides they now don't want them.The choice is existance with God/ existance without* God and that is all we get to choose from. There is no injustice in not offering us a myriad of other options.*I'm assuming the wrath of God to be applied exquisitely merely by his withdrawing his beneficial presence and influence (including the image of God in which we are made) He need not do a thing positively in order that our existance-in-sin be experienced as hell-ish.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

I wouldn't agree with that. Assuming God is good (my position) then no decision is involved.- I was listening to a Radio4 programme profiling Simon Cowell recently. They played a piece of an interview he gave with Sue Lawley where she asked the standard Desert Island question: What item would you bring to a desert island? Cowell replys: "that's easy. A mirror". Supposing Cowells self-absorption as motivating the answer, a flabbergasted Lawley stutters "do you really want us to broadcast that?!"Remembering that you're supposing God to exist for the sake of argument and supposing that you're facing him in your sin. Do you really suppose you would stand in front of your Creator, the one who "fearfully and wonderfully" made you, the eye, the Universe, et al .. and find that the above view would be the basis whereby he prounounces Judgment on you for your sin. That the basis for his Judgement of you would rise no higher than that of a banana-republic dictator.Do you really want to broadcast that?It's not difficult Larni: God creating freewill and providing options permits God being only good and us capable of evil. If you've a problem with evil being punished (for it's own sake and without recourse to might is right) then you might mention what that problem is.

If God is "goodness" personified then how can he justify vengeful punishment given those who don't line up with his ideals? There are plenty of "good" people who worship other deities, for example. Is it "good" to punish them? On the contrary, creating freewill and then punishing man for using it is a perfect demonstration of evil.The idea that God's authority derives from his personification of "goodness" is not particularly consistent with the doctrines you present.

Those who 'don't line up with his ideals' are, we can also say "wilfully doing evil". If you insert that rendition into your query, the objection dissolves quite naturally. Assuming you believe that it is a good thing to punish those who wilfully do evil, that is.There are no good people Rick. All people sin. All people wilfully do what they know to be wrong. All people deserve punishment for their evil doing.Punishing evil is, in my reckoning (and the reckoning of nigh on all the world - bar sociopaths and the like) a good thing.- Again, a more rigorous setting up of the supposed dilemma would resolve the supposed dilemma. Try it this way:"Negative consequences" formed the contents of the package chosen. In other words, exercising free choice opened the relevant box and released the (promised) consequences it contained. Those consequences were curses.It is good that God keeps his promises. It means we can rely on him.- Why not?Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Can we? Does God punish a hypothetically "perfect" individual, whom though sheer accident, has never encountered God's "love" but is "good" in all other ways? If free will yields no positive consequences then why should we be punished for sin? If we can only make sinful decisions then this is surely God's fault, not ours? Like a captive can rely on a regular beating, you mean?God seems to take very little responsibility for his own creation, handing out punishments for faults that he created within us. Such a lack of responsibility is hardly a hallmark of authority.Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.

Everyone has encountered God for everyone has a God-given conscience. Everyone suppresses what their conscience says they ought to do at some time or other in order to do the opposite (evil).And so, there is no hypothesis to deal with. Only Christ never sinned. And he was punished in our place.- We haven't got free will. I was referring to the choice of Adam and Eve - who had. The positive consequence, for them had they chosen otherwise, was to remain under Gods blessing. They had no absolute right to it apart from his giving them a choice regarding it: "blessing/curses - you decide".Our will (yours and mine and A&E's post-fall), if left to own devices would yield only sin. Our will is, the Bible says, captive (or addicted) to sin. If that was the end of the story you'd be right in objecting to our being punished - we cannot do any differently than do what God hates. But our will isn't left to own devices. Opposing our sinful tendency is the restraining force of God - delivered to us via conscience. So, when we do 'good' in a particular instance it's because our own will is passive and God's will (or force) drives the action. Note my putting our good in parentheses - for it is not good derived from us but from God. When we do evil, our will suppresses the restraining force of God in order to have it's own way. It, our will, drives the action. And so I need not put our evil in parenthesis - for it truly is ours.And so it can be rightly punished.- No. But if you can make a case for same ..or dismantle mine then perhaps.- It's not a flaw in any system that sees a free will chose. Nor is giving the widest range of options a flaw - the wider the reach of the options the freer the will. So far so good wrt Adam and Eve.In our own case God has responded to the skewing introduced by Adam and Eve so that we all get an effectively free choice. It's a slightly different free choice from the A&E one but no matter. So long as things our balanced equally one way or the other.In this world we are exposed to truth and we are exposed to lie and we know the difference between them (even if we cannot prove it to everyones satifaction - as if that altered anything). And we enjoy the fruits of both. But which one will we set our heart on at root.That's our choice. Our God-given choice. And the consequences are precisely the same as ever: blessing or curses.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

You really are a pompous arrogant prick. So you mean to tell me, Buddhists, Hindu's, Muslim's, Native American's, Aboriginal's etc; are all willingly evil?I am extremely fed up with this line of reasoning from people like you. It's extremely ignorant. Ahh. So, in god's eyes, mankind is only A&E? For since they were the only two to have been granted actual free will, the rest of us are just hellspawns? Makes my point of god being a half rate creator even more solid since he screwed up his FIRST experiment, and hasn't gotten it the way he wants since, instead opting to murder innocent people TRYING to do so (failing miserably, since we ALL still sin).

So basically God takes all the credit for the good and we take all the blame for the bad!A truly inspiring model of leadership and authority.

But the good is all down to him?What's on offer is that you become a partaker of him and that your will and his will harmonise in partnership. The player and the instrument combine. Or not.You chose.

But that's just it, isn't it? You assume. You have no real reason to suppose he is good apart from blind faith. Free will again?So you god is incapable of evil? Then why input evil into the universe in the first place.I't like me making a perfectly happy world and then inputting evil into the world: what's the point in that?Why input evil into the world if I'm not evil? What would I gain?Apart from the smug satisfaction that Job really does love me regardless of the level of bastardry I inflict on him.You tell us that your god is great and yet I see no evidence of his greatness other than the existential dread of going to hell for not resisiting the very thing he choose to input into the universe.