Are we prisoners of sin

Hi Cedre,Many people on here are making the morality argument on the side of subjectivity, but your ideas fail just as quickly on the side of religion.Let's assume that God does exist and the rules handed down in the Bible are really the way God wants you to act. I would then ask (you may not, for some reason) why does God want us to act in this way?We have two possibilites, God is good or God is arbitrary. If God is good, that means "goodness" exists outside of God, it's an attribute that can be bestowed upon him, and thus does not need God. We can be good without needing God.The other option is that God is arbitrary. If he creates "goodness" than he controls the definition. He likes action A, so he arbitrarily makes action A a moral action. He doesn't like action B, so he makes action B an immoral action. He could come down to Earth tomorrow and say, you know what, I've changed my mind, murder is now moral, and you couldn't argue with it, he controls the definition. But, those of us who do not follow God's version of morality, could still say that murder is wrong.{AbE} This makes God no better than the people you mention who are able to do what they want because they're stronger or more powerful, and you seemed to think this was a bad option...Edited by Perdition, : No reason given.

Person A steals things. Person A lives in a community with person B and person C. Person B is a normal person who does little things here and there that may be considered "wrong" but doesn't do major things, like steal, murder, or rape. Person C is perfectly honest, wouldn't hurt a fly, bends over backwards to help others and a lie has never touched their lips. Because B and C both know that A lives in their community, they buy a lock and leave their valuable property in their locked house. Does that mean person C is a prisoner of sin? No, it means person C and person B for that matter, have a sense of reality that there are SOME out there who have little to no sense of wrong. But I'm of the type that thinks one bad egg doesn't spoil the whole batch. I guess you'd be the type who thinks the opposite.So, out of person A, B, or C, who do you think is a prisoner of sin? You would have to say all three, or your philosophy loses all merit. (By the way, I've known people like all three. I consider myself like person B)

I believe you just agreed with what many of the people posting here have been telling you. If I don't believe that God exists, how can I miss a mark set by him. If he doesn't exist, he can't set a mark. Perhaps I could miss the mark set by the Jewish and early Christian writers, and while I admit, they got a few things correct about the mark I think is worth striving for, a number of things they say I disagree with.For example, I'm within a month of proposing to my girlfriend. I have the ring bought and the day and time set and all is in readiness, but when my girlfriend asks me about anything relating to marriage, I have to prevaricate (lie) or the whole surprise is gone, and she wants the surprise, trust me. So, if lying, in all cases, is a "sin" then I can definitely disagree with that sentiment.I have a degree in Philosophy, and most of my focus was on ethics and morality. I have thought long and hard, and bounced my ideas off others who have thought long and hard, about the nature of right and wrong, and have come to a conclusion that works for me and makes sense. There are some correlations with your book, but many points of disagreement. The Bible's requirement of "perfection" is much too stringent to be a workable theory of morality.

So in other words, his laws aren't absolute? He'll take into consideration mitigating circumstances? Perfection isn't what is required? That's very good to know. :-) You're right. In fact, most of them are so piercing, they were codified in almost every society before and after the 10 commandments were written. As for some of them (keeping the Sabbath holy, no graven images, and no gods above God) I don't find them necessary, and in fact, I see them broken by just about every self-professing Christian, especially evangelicals. The uproar over showing the 10 commandments at court houses would seem to counter the "No graven images" commandment. The Sabbath is Day 7, as far as I know, and that day would be Saturday, which is why the Jewish Sabbath is Saturday.As for the third one I mentioned, this one athiests do better than anyone, they keep no gods above God, they're all at exactly the same level...nowhere.

You think being able to point at something and make a noise makes someone a genius? That's quite a claim! I must be all but omnipotent, I can make noises without even needing to point.

So God set us up to fail? That doesn't sound very good. If I make rules for my family such that I know they cannot meet them, then punish them for not meeting them, who's wrong, me or them? I would have to say me, therefore God is being immoral and not someone I would want to follow.

You just contradicted yourself. If Adam had perfect reasoning ability (which I would disagree with, since not being able to distinguish between right and wrong would be a large damper on the reasoning ability indeed), then his perfect reasoning led him to conclude that what God asked them to do was not worth following. I, in my less than perfect reasoning ability, can do no less than follow his example. This doesn't make any sense. People became imperfect, so God decides to show them they're imperfect by making rules they can't obey. Ok, maybe I can see that, though it sort of makes God into a little Bastard rubbing our faces in his "perfection." But then he goes ahead and punishes people for not living up to the rules he made knowing we couldn't live up to them. It's like telling a person, if you can't run a mile in one minute flat, I'm going to cut off your leg in punishment, now get going. That sounds like what an evil deity would do, to me. I'm not a parent, though I hope to be one someday. I do, though, take care of family members' kids from time to time, and yes, you often have to let kids find things out the hard way, but I don't punish them for doing so, that's just cruel. Not to mention, if they're about to "find out the hard way" that something can lead to death (as the fruit supposedly did) then I don't sit back and let them learn, I physically stop them from whatever act they're about to perform. Anything less would make me the most negligent caretaker I could be. God, with his supposed omniscience, could have stopped people and taught them, rather than giving them an apprently arbitrary law, turning his back, and then punishing them and all their children for ever and ever for failing to live up to laws he knows we can't live up to.

Aside from the fact that it goes against your religion's idea of what's right and wrong, how do the three things listed equate with harm or unloving. Gay people are just as capable of love as heterosexual people. It would seem to me that denying them their right to love is the harmful, unloving act.

If you don't know the difference between good and evil, which is what the tree was supposed to impart, then how could you know the difference between right and wrong? So it was an arbitrary rule? God didn't think it was wrong for man to eat of the tree? Why would he tell Adam not to and give such a bad consequence for doing so. It sounds like a very poor choice on god's part. It's reminiscent of me buying toys for a kid, telling that kid, "You can play with all the toys I give you, except for this nice, shiny, red ball, which I'll place right in front of you. If you touch that ball, I will gouge out your eyes and rip your arms off."Does that sound like the type of authority figure you'd want to follow? If so, I'm sorry. I have no belief one way or the other, I don't think it matters one bit. Which of my desires are sinful, and please, be specific.

But Adam didn't lose the relationship with god until he had made the choice, so when he made the choice, he still had perfect reasoning ability. If, in his perfect reasoning, it seemed right to break with god, then why would we, as imperfect reasoners, assume he was wrong? I completely disagree with this. Barring the question of free will, which I'm happy to get into on a different thread, how would an attentive parent turn people into a robot? If my kid is about to stick a fork in a light socket and I grab the kid's arm to stop him/her from doing it, am I really taking away the free will? I may be counteracting the free will in that particular action, but that would seem to be the right choice of a parent, rather than holding the concept of free will higher than the well being of a child.I wouldn't preprogram my kid's to believe my every word, but until they are able to reason independantly, I will try to make sure they don't make thre wrong choice. Even once they are able to choice on their own, I won't turn my back on them and just let them make any choice, I will still try and help them make the right choices. Even assuming this is true, I think it's god who chose to punish the people who DIDN'T make that choice rather than just the people who did. We don't inflict punishment on the children of law breakers, even less so on people who were no where near the choice being made. Making everyone suffer for the choice of one (or two) is just a bit of an overreaction.

Wow, do you just come up with an answer to a specific argument without even thinking about whether your new claim contradicts one you made just a couple minutes before?If, as you claim, god has absolute power, and absolute means without restriction, but that god has restrictions, do you not see that is a contradiction?Since you like quoting definitions: Or even more useful here: Emphasis mine.
All of these can be found on dictionary.com

Yes, and they were speaking to a Jewish audience, not the Gentiles. It was Paul who started going to the Gentiles and trying to convert them to his brand of Christianity. The Apostles, especially Peter and James were against Paul and his teachings, leading to the showdown between them in Jerusalem shown in Galations 2 and Acts 15.Paul essentially bribed them with the money he had collected from the Gentiles, and they gave in to his demands to not make the Gentile converts follow the Jewish law in regards to circumcision, while the Apostles thought they should.

Hi Peg,In college, I took a philosophy of religion class. We looked at a number of different religions, but focused on Christianity and Buddhism. We read a number of books and looked at passages from the Bible, and it became quite clear to us there was a feud between Paul and Peter/James. Reading between the lines, and recognizing that whatever else these men may have been, they were human, we were able to piece together a pretty convincing case for what I wrote above. Unfortunately, I'll need to dig through my old college stuff to see if I can come up with what we wrote.

I believe we are now done with this thread. Cedre finally accepted what we've been saying. We can all return to our previously scheduled programming.