Straightforward, hard-to-answer-questions about the Bible/Christianity

Posting on the original topic (if that is still relevant)...Here is a question that requires no research, as we will simply be assuming the core elements of the Christian faith. The elements listed are not supposed to be all-inclusive, but each should be critical to the faith; in other words, if you don't accept one of them then you are probably not a mainstream Christian of any denomination.1) God is omnipotent.
2) God is omniscient. (This ties in with omnipotence, but it bears separate mention.)
3) God is good.
4) God saved us from the consequences of sin, by sending his only son to Earth to be tortured and killed.
5) We should be grateful and worship God and Jesus for this great sacrifice.Examination:
From the start, if we assume God is omnipotent then God is capable of averting the consequences of "sin" in any way he feels like. This means that simple belief in God could be a perfectly acceptable criteria for God to snap his fingers and forgive our sin. Sending Jesus down to be tortured and killed, suffering the consequences of sin for no reason, does not seem to be a particularly "good" thing to do.Even if we ignore the questions about element 3 by assuming whatever God does is good no matter how messed up it seems to us, we are still left with the problem of element 5. Why should we be grateful for God being cruel to his own son for no reason? We might be grateful for being forgiven, but pointlessly torturing Jesus? Why?1) Lets assume God is not omnipotent. This actually makes things more reasonable; God can see that someone has to take a fall for sin, and Jesus is willing to take the hit and able to bounce back from it (3 days compared to eternal torment, much better deal). Since God really cannot make a better solution it make sense for him to be good, and for us to be grateful for his actions.2) What if God just isn't omniscient? This is a bit shakier, since being omnipotent would mean that he *could* know everything, but just didn't bother. The reason I bring this up is because one of the explanations used to justify why an omnipotent God would torture and kill Jesus when he could get around it is Romans 6:23 "For the wages of sin is death..."The idea is that because of this rule, someone had to die as punishment for sin. Even God wouldn't break his own rule, otherwise he would no longer be "good" by his own standards. The problem is that an omniscient God would have *known* that making such a rule would back him into a corner in the future, and yet made it that way anyway. It would have been trivial to only apply it to humans, or make a loophole that allows God to do whatever he wants.So if we go with this explanation then killing his son might be necessary, he still might qualify as "good-ish" and we would be grateful, but it is colored by God being negligent. An all-poweful and good God would presumably be responsible for making sure every decision he made was the best possible, so it makes the whole debacle look like an avoidable mistake.3) How about if God just isn't good? That throws pretty much everything into place (even lots of things not relevant to this discussion), but element 5 is still a problem. If God is just torturing and killing his own son "for the lulz," then why should we praise him for those actions? It seems more reasonable to praise him for forgiving our sins, and then stay as far away from such an unpredictable and dangerous being as possible.4) You guessed it; what if Jesus simply wasn't sacrificed for our sins? Element 5 does not quite fit in this instance, but an omnipotent, omniscient, good God that forgave us of our sins seems perfectly worthy of worship and praise. Unfortunately those worshipers wouldn't really be called Christians at that point.5) What if we just didn't worship a god that makes no sense?So, what does everyone think? Can any of the 5 elements above be dropped and still remain the Christian faith?Edited by Phage0070, : since -> sense (spelling correction)

I don't follow. Perhaps you could clarify which of the 5 elements listed you are talking about?

In the vein of this tangent...If God is omnipotent and omniscient, then why is being omnipresent or not relevant?When we think about people, not being present greatly limits their ability to know about and effect things. But if we are talking about a being with no limits to its ability or knowledge, who cares if it is present or not? The only functional difference would be if you could see it or not... and lets not forget we are talking about a god that is supposedly *hiding* anyway!Besides being something to argue theology over, who cares?

It isn't the intuitiveness of the concept, it is its durability you should consider. If you faithfully worship that platinum idol and expect it to protect you from harm, then you can objectively determine if you are fulfilling the works supposedly required for a specific result. If you are just supposed to have faith that it will save you from harm, when it fails the obvious defense is that your faith wasn't "true".Think about the origin of the religion itself, supposing it were not created by someone actually expecting salvation but rather by a con artist looking for an ironclad scam. He claims an immaterial god doing undetectable things, for motives that are impossible to understand, through magical methods, and requires devotion hopeless to verify.Such a position is guarded in every possible way against disproof, as the claimant can never be accused of not living up to their own standards. Assessing the plausibility of a religion based on the suitability of its tenants to an adherent presupposes that it is true. A more useful measure would be to assess the plausibility of a religion based on its suitability to a dishonest claimant.

If I may jump in here, I believe you are confusing the issue. Atheism addresses a claim about the existence of a thing, a theism. This thing might be the origin of your morality, but an atheist not accepting the existence of this being does not imply they lack an origin of morality.For example, I could say that I get my driving directions from an invisible unicorn that whispers instructions in my ear. If you choose not to believe me it does not mean that you lack any method of getting directions while driving. It also does not mean that your lack of believe in my unicorn addresses driving directions in any way; it simply addresses the claim.

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Yes, I "see the need" for an "absolute standard"..

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How exactly do you equate a need for something with the existence of something? I see the need for a cure for all disease, but it does not mean one exists. I see the need for a convenient and endless source of energy, but it does not mean it exists.

There is no need to even repent. Since the sin of not repenting for your sins is not unforgivable, there is no moral requirement at all.

That response does not really address the issue, on two counts. First, it was the fruit of *knowledge* of good and evil. As the story goes Adam and Eve only gained the knowledge after having eaten the fruit; when they did it, they didn't know it was a bad thing to do. God would then be inflicting punishment for a "secret" rule, or rather on someone who didn't fully understand what rules were.Second, imperfections coming from the fruit just pushes the issue back a step. When God made humans presumably he knew that they would end up eating the fruit later (omniscience biting him in the arse), so he was making perfect beings that would "break" after a period of time. Furthermore he created the tree, the agent of their imperfection, something he might as well not have done. It isn't like the existence of the garden or anything else hinged on the tree existing there. Not quite like that; after all, God won't forgive you unless you ask. God would chop that baby up and feed him to the dogs for eternity if the baby was incapable or unlucky enough to not learn about the "get out of jail free" ritual.Thats the entire point behind evangelism and religious education. After all, if God wouldn't punish people who didn't know about "Jesus etc...", then logically the best way to ensure everyone is saved is to keep the entire thing a secret. If someone doesn't know about it, they can hardly reject it right? Jesus already took the hit, so the only loss would be mortal fame and gratitude (presumably they would learn about it in heaven, so the only loss is the finite time on Earth). Besides, it isn't like arrogance and pride were qualities of Jesus right?Hehe, thats a trick question of course. The Christian god is ridiculously arrogant, prideful, and jealous. Why else create sentient beings with eternal souls strictly for the purpose of eternal fellation of his ego? Why fly into a rage and eternally punish those beings when some of them don't feel like doing that, especially considering he can just make more?

Genesis clearly states that only by eating the fruit did Adam and Eve know of good and evil. They certainly knew of the rule, but they didn't understand that breaking it would be evil. Or apparently in your view, dying ignorant with Christian parents. If your parents were ignorant then you think the kid is screwed however, which really doesn't say much for God being fair to the kid.After all, you do know that there were thousands of years before Christianity developed, right? Before Christianity was invented *nobody* knew about it, so your theology says they were all damned for not being clairvoyant. He teaches *humans* to be humble; when had God ever turned the other cheek? Any slight against God, even by accident, is punished with extreme violence (often not directed toward the offender). Heck if I know, but he is really *super* jealous. And apparently God doesn't give a crap about our works, so why should we care about his? Eye for an eye and all that stuff, lets have a little reciprocity.

Sin and evil are defined in the Christian context as disobedience to God. Since Adam and Eve had no knowledge of evil, they had no knowledge of disobedience to God. Read *your* Bible.By the way, many atheists don't own Bibles. Adjust your world view accordingly. That does seem to be what you are saying; that the beliefs of the parents will save or damn their children that die before being able to make an informed choice. Then can you provide any explanation why the Native Americans had not heard of Christianity before missionaries arrived? That is the big question of course, but proof for the existence of gods is outside to scope of this thread I believe.Getting back to the topic, "With great power comes great responsibility." A corollary to this might be "With ultimate power comes ultimate responsibility." If God is all-powerful then he is also all-responsible. Sin is therefore God's responsibility.

Not if it affects your actions and conclusions. If I can make you understand how the story of Adam and Eve is an account of an immoral god then perhaps you will examine your beliefs with a critical eye. I think what you will find will dramatically change your outlook.Besides, debate is a joy unto itself. I know about many things, and can reference many more sources, that I don't own books about. The Bible is easily available online, a format that is actually much more accessible given that it can be searched. Now that is the question isn't it, why *would* he do that? If Adam and Eve had no concept of right and wrong, then warning them in that case would either be the actions of an ignorant god, or an immoral one. Lets continue... Nope! This quote shows that you are wrong: "Become as one of us", as in they were not that way before eating the fruit. Since these are the grounds on which God is kicking Adam and Eve out of the garden, then it doesn't make any sense for them to have been created that way.You also cannot argue that they already conceptually knew about sin and it was talking about first-hand experience committing sin, because of that bit about "man is become as one of us". That would mean that God would have first-hand experience committing sin as well, making him unfit to pass judgment on us. Since death only came about as a consequence of sin, and until that point there had been no sin, then how would death have had any meaning at all for Adam? The threat would be meaningless, which is what I was getting at in the first place. Then in your view someone born from a saved father could, if living a sinless life, get to heaven without accepting Jesus. Of course you would argue that living a sinless life is impossible, but I do see how your position puts you in the minority as it weakens the religion's claim to necessity and thus its power base. Except if you are ignorant. A Native American born without knowledge of Christianity has no free will to choose if they will sin or not; they cannot make the choice without knowledge there is a choice to be made. If you claim that God confused the languages and caused the knowledge to be lost, then God is taking away people's free will.This also applies to God hiding from people. If God does not allow scientists to test for his existence then he is taking away their ability to make an informed choice about obeying his will or not.Again this applies to Adam and Eve lacking knowledge of good and evil; they cannot make an informed choice without knowledge of the choice being made.All of this is irrelevant in your interpretation of Original Sin though, which says that people born to a un-saved father are judged guilty even without making a decision at all! This illustrates how the concept of Original Sin is an inherently immoral concept, and how God behaves immorally and unjustly in the Genesis account.

Hah, this has to be one of the most naive and ridiculous claims I have encountered in a while. I am sure others will address this, but I need to list a few things as well:Christianity teaches racial inequality. ("Chosen people" and all that, remember?)Christianity teaches slavery. (Deuteronomy 21:10-11)Christianity teaches appalling cruelty and violence against one's own children. (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)Christianity teaches that God's laws don't apply to everyone equally; he plays favorites and punishes unequally. (Numbers 12:1,9-10)Christianity teaches human sacrifice. (Genesis 22:1-18, Exodus 13:2)Now come on; Christianity does not teach the highest moral standards from where I am seeing things.

ICANT, it seems that hooah212002 has beaten me to the point. However I would like to reiterate that claiming the Old Testament has nothing to do with Christianity and its teachings is absolute lunacy.In what context does Jesus fit at all without it? Would anything he said or did make any sense whatsoever?

The concept of who is God is established in the Old Testament; jumping in with "son of God" makes no sense without that concept already existing. This is obviously crucial to everything Jesus is about, because what exactly is he saving us from? Disobedience from God's rules, again established in the OT, which makes Jesus necessary or at all important.Heck, Jesus isn't even "Christ" without those OT prophecies so don't try to tell me it isn't important to "Christianity"! Without the OT Jesus's claims would be completely out of left field; "I represent some being you have never heard of, proven by prophecies you have never heard of, saving you from transgressions you have never heard of." Without the OT as context the account of Jesus would be completely disjointed raving lunacy.

And how is this a problem? Stoning women to death for not wearing a burka is both illegal and immoral in the US, but perfectly legal and moral in say Iraq. Subjective morality is not a problem if it is the truth. Laws do not define morality, it is the individual. If you don't like your wife doing that it is your prerogative to take offense and divorce her; you are not forcing your morality on her, you are reacting to her behavior based on your own morality. Now this is the trickier question. God is immoral because his actions don't conform to our ideas of morality. By making you realize that God's actions conflict with *your* ideas of morality I can show you that you don't actually get your morality from God. Sure, but even in that case you would still have your own ideas of morality. Even if a god existed you would still need to establish why its views of morality are any more valid than yours. Conceptually a god could exist that is evil, or at least less than perfectly moral. You are going to need to do that for yourself. Don't worry though, you already have for the most part. Can you provide objective proof that one interpretation of the Bible is better than another? A poorly built bridge will fall down, a poorly interpreted Bible will... be indistinguishable from any other. My point (which I thought I had already made) is that if they became like God in knowing good and evil because of the choice, they couldn't have known about it beforehand. How can God punish them for making a choice like that before they understood good and evil?They were morally incompetent to make the choice, so punishing them for it is immoral. It would be like beating the crap out of a retarded kid who didn't know he was doing anything wrong. Except for the first generation after the knowledge was lost from the population. Those people would be damned for no choice of their own, or any choice they had knowledge of their ancestors making. They would be completely ignorant of God and his vendetta against them, and if they showed up in hell it would be a complete surprise. There, *that* is what I am getting at. God is not, in your view, completely moral. Once you admit that you can judge for yourself if such a concept is worthy of worship, and assess the claim critically.