Christianity is Morally Bankrupt

Surely you can see beyond that. That would be like studying an automobile assembly line and claiming that as the only cause for a car coming out the other end. An automobile assembly line has all the hallmarks of existing because of a pre-existing intelligence as does evolution IMHO. There are many cases in Scripture where God is limited in power as He has to cajole people, including the whole Israelite nation to do as He requests. The idea of God having infinite power is simply a human way of saying that God has wisdom and power beyond what we can really put into words.However, with all that He can't make 2+2 make 5. If God had the capability as Tangle seems to think He should have, (even though he doesn't believe He exists), then yes, we have to question why there is suffering. However, suffering does exist therefore, either there is an overriding purpose for it or it is because of the limitation of what God could do. I'm inclined to think that it is both. It is my speculative contention that the overriding factor is that it is a necessary prelude to the time of the renewal of all things, when suffering is done away with. I think it is God's limitation that this step does involve suffering, and considerable joy as well I should add, and was necessary in order to get to the final goal. Yes and no. I suppose if this alien race is responsible our life as we know it and has a continuing invisible interest in our affairs then that would be God. However, I would contend that if God does interact with us through our consciousness then it is more likely from another dimension than from within our physical universe. All religion is conceived by humans. Some like Faith, build their religion around an inerrant Bible. My belief is built around the belief that God is a good God and that He resurrected Jesus into a renewed and eternal physicality. I start there in my understanding of the Bible which then flows into my religious beliefs. What I believe isn't static and it too has evolved. I'll pray for a quick recovery. Edited by Admin, : Fix opening quote.

Can I just suggest that the goal isn't to get into heaven. The goal is to be part of the renewed creation under Christ.I found it really interesting to read Lewis' metaphoric account of the renewed world in his book "The Last Battle". In it there is an account of the dwarfs whose mantra was the "dwarfs are for the dwarfs". They essentially eshewed the message of the love of others. In the end they wind up as part of the new world having gone through the stable. However, they are there with this incredible feast all laid out before them, but all they can see is a meal of the same old gruel that they had always eaten, whereas others are enjoying this beautiful new world around them.Make of it what you like.

I'm just playing back what most Christians are taught and believe about their god. All powerful, all knowing, everywhere. So your answer to the suffering question is to invent a lessor god that is incapable of preventing it. There are alternatives of course - no god, a disinterested god and an actively evil god. You've simply chosen the one you prefer while the evidence of suffering suggest any of the others are a better bet. See below. Your problems here are at least twofold.First, that despite not being able to prevent suffering he went ahead and caused suffering anyway. Is that the act of a loving god? He didn't say, well it would be cool to create some people that can eventually join me in everlasting joy but to do it I have to put trillions of life forms through unimaginable agony and ultimate death. Everything I create must suffer and die for billions of years and only a tiny number of them will make it. So, on balance, it's better not too.Second, he's already created this heaven place without suffering anyway. So he COULD do it and HAS done it. What's the problem?Of course we now learn from Faith that heaven isn't this wondrous place we thought it was either. Sounds just like here but without the possibility of escape by death.Still waiting on an answer for why god denies access to his still small voice in some of his creation.

I have yet to verify that this is true. Can you speak on behalf of one who has no conscience? You have a still small voice. You just call it yours. I still think that you and I dont understand each other on this topic.
You claim that there is no God. I claim that there is One. You then claim that if there were One, he would be evil, or disinterested, which is sorta the same thing.
I claim that God is good. So here we are, with the ball in my court and my answer being literally made up on the spot.Im going with Kreeft. Message 525Edited by Thugpreacha, : No reason given.Edited by Thugpreacha, : No reason given.Edited by Thugpreacha, : added Kreeft video, which I just now discovered.

Have you tried? Is there something about the definition of a psychopath that you disagree with? Science can, they know what it is and can show that it is absent in some people. I have a conscience, sure. It's an emotion called empathy. So how are you going to answer it? Mine is not a random claim, suffering and death exist.

quote:

---

I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create evil; I, the Lord, do all these things.

---

The Genesis fable relies on the belief that humans were responsible for creating evil... how anything can exist apart from the Maker is anyone's guess. Here's what we know... God acknowledges that He created evil.... this blaming Adam and Eve thing is a much newer invention. If God deliberately denies someone the ability of choice then they no longer have freewill. Without freewill, we are robots who meaninglessly obey a command. "Then Satan entered Judas Iscariot" -- Luke 22:3Jesus also specifically chose his Apostles, so if he foreknew Judas' guilt, then he was specifically chosen with the intention of fulfilling scripture. But what you don't seem to acknowledge is that's not actually a choice. Is it not God that imparted every sense man has? He creates in man a strong sexual desire for women but says, you can only have one, you have to first go through some arbitrary ceremony before you can consummate. But that strong desire does not diminish, does it? Is it designed for one specific couple that is only compatible for each other? No, and the temptation remains. So how is Satan the tempter but God is not? When you are the Creator of the universe and everything in it, how can anything truly have a will outside of God? It implicates the creator itself. God already admits he's created evil. He admits that he has the ability to choose people already condemned. He admits that he can change the will of people to alter an outcome. How meaningful are our choices? Right. Because if you don't do what God says anyway, you're condemned to spend eternity weeping and gnashing your teeth. Again, is it meaningful to hold a knife to someone's throat and say, I will give you the opportunity to choose whatever you want. But if you choose the way I don't want you to, then I'm going to slash your throat. How meaningful is a choice made under duress? I'm not sure how anyone can refer to that as 'choice.'

That doesn't answer the question. Your quote said, "God created the possibility of evil; people actualized that potentiality." So what's the difference between God creating evil and God creating the possibility of evil? If there was no possibility of evil, there would be no evil. Again, we weren't "given" knowledge. God didn't want us to have it, at least according to your twisted theology. We stole it. There was no choice offered. Well, the one who gave a loaded gun to a four-year-old was neither mature nor responsible, was he? But we don't have a full choice. Even if we accept the natural consequences of our actions, we're still judged by God. If we had a full choice, He'd mind His own damn business. You should stop saying, "the jury is out." It isn't. There is no "other guy" - and there is no Jesus. It's just us.

You mean you can get kicked out of heaven? Is that what you call "mainstream" theology?

Isn't it clear to you that whoever wrote that story had a very low opinion of God? Even earthly politicians sometimes get a better than 2/3 approval rating. Heaven must not be a very desirable place with that many dissenters.

I have to ask again, why is it that professing Christians are often less "changed" than the average person? You make it sound worse and worse.

You might want to look up what the Bible actually says about a "still small voice." Hint: it isn't about conscience.

So we can only know things about the bible from the bible, save the occasional extra-biblical account that survived the ravages of time. Everything we know about Jesus and Judas directly comes from the four gospels and you could argue some prophetic things regarding the Moshiac from the OT.We know that Jesus hand-picked his apostles. If he, as you concede, had the foreknowledge that Judas would betray him, then he purposefully chose someone as the fall guy so as to fulfill the prophetic scriptures (Books of Isaiah, Daniel, etc). That smacks of predestination and I really don't see any logical way around that. If someone is predetermined to fit a role, then how did they ever really have the choice to begin with?We also know that Judas was stricken with grief by his act of betrayal and immediately returned the money and admitted his sin. Jesus forgives the thief on the cross saying that "Today, you will see paradise." What was Judas' fate? Well, it would have been better for him to have millstone hung around his neck and be cast into the sea. Judas hanged himself because he couldn't live with the guilt and shame of his betrayal. After his penitence, he hanged himself, fell from the branch over a ledge and his guts burst open. Based on the forlorn description Jesus explained to his remaining apostles, we can conclude with a high degree of certainty that Judas is in hell... for all eternity... even though the choice was practically made for him AND even after he repented of his sin.It also said before any of this happened that "Satan entered Iscariot." So on top of all of that, he has to contend with the most cunning evil of God's creation.But you and Phat tell me that Judas had the choice... I'm sorry, but that boy never stood a chance.

Predestination is often treated as you treat it, but I think it's missing the point. Everything, absolutely everything, and everyone, every action we make, must be similarly predestined because that is the nature of God and the universe. In knowing anything at all about predestination which we only know through the Bible, we are simply being allowed to look behind the scenes as it were, look into the things of God that on our own we would never be able to see.The Bible reveals predestination to us, quite subtly really, it certainly doesn't hit us over the head with it. It states it here and there and that's about it. Calvin spelled it out in his theological treatises, but Luther also wrote about it and all serious exegetes of the Bible take note of it whether they spell it our or not. Calvin spelled it out in more detail than mnost so he's always getting bashed for it by us fleshly fallen people who haven't the humility to leave the mysterious things of God to Him.Every movew I make is predestined, so what? That's a philosophical nicety I'll never be able to fathom and if I try too hard I'll only tie myself up in knots and think how unfair it is as so many do. But it's just a fact, it's just the way things are from the point of view of God. We are limited to our own earthly perceptions and at this level it is utterly irrelevant. \We are responsible for our actions. If we violate the moral law that's our violation of the moral law. The fact that we can't help doing it because of the way the spiritual universe is constructed is absolutely irrelevant. We act freely and feel that we act freely, and that's all we need to know. Judas did what he did because he did what he did, he was responsible for it. And the Moral law that judges him did so according to its own inexorable standards TO WHICH WE ARE NOT PRIVY.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I'm not at all sure about how you have determined what most Christians believe but I was expressing what I currently believe to be the case. Firstly I have chosen to believe in a creative intelligence because the idea that life exists simply as a mindless particles, chemicals or whatever you like came together by chance to even form a single cell, let alone sentient moral beings, requires far too much faith for me.Yes I have chosen the option I prefer. The question is why is that my preferred option. It is my contention that we all have that still small voice of God in us and that it what causes us to believe in a loving god as the preferred option. Well, you have your views on Christian doctrine that aren't the same as mine. Firstly I know that my life hasn't, and I doubt that your life has, been a life of unimaginable agony. Yes, life as we know it ends in death but the Christian message is that it isn't death but a transforming of life to the next stage. A good metaphor is a caterpillar becoming a beautiful butterfly. Well, the mythology that we read in Genesis says that God created the heavens and the earth. By this I assume heavens meant what we see when we look up. I frankly don't have an firm opinion on whether God created Heaven or not. It is my view that heaven represents a dimension or universe integrated with our own, that we with our 5 senses are unable to perceive directly. I suggest that we do perceive it indirectly though through that still small voice of God. Well, there is another flaw of understanding the bible the way that Faith does. The stories about the battles in heaven are an import from the various pagan faiths of the neighbouring nations of the Jews. Why on earth would Jesus call us to pray that "thy will be done on earth as in heaven" if those stories were accounts to be taken literally.Also, as I said numerous times, heaven is not our final destination. The Biblical message is that our final destination is a renewed heaven and earth whatever that will look like. That message of course means that how we care for this planet, as well as its inhabitants, does have eternal ramifications. I had never considered this question before so upon further thought I have revised my answer somewhat.I don't accept the idea that anyone , even a psychopath, is denied God's meme, or His still small voice. Yes, mental illness or an abusive upbringing can make it more difficult to respond to but it is there. I have read stories of psychopaths that have done terrible things but have absolutely adored a pet.Jesus says something to the effect that much will be required from someone who has been given much. Clearly the opposite is true. If life has given someone a handicap of one form or another it does not mean that there isn't a part of that individual that hates some of what they do and actually desires goodness.

Its not the issue that God would know what we are going to do. It becomes an issue with what he is going to do even while knowing what we will do. Its entrapment. Jesus knew Judas would betray him and purposefully sought him out. That effectively removes the choice and creates the entire landscape for it to come to fruition. And he repented of his sin which, ironically, was the whole purpose of that event to set up salvation through grace. So why didn't he receive the very grace that was promised through that act?