Burning Holy Books

[spook]

The punishment is for the sin of having learned about God and His wants from us and his offering to us but rejecting it. We are like gold being tested in the fire as described in Zachariah chapter 13 verse 9...

Will you be gold, or will you prove to be the base metal LDV? You have the choice.

 

Excuse me? What are you saying about choice?

 

Accept Christ and you WILL be saved. YOUR choice.

 

That is the nature of life. In the eyes of God we are all equal but on this earth we are not. Our inequality and what comes from it forms part of the testing of ourselves and others.

'Nature of life'? No, I don't get what you're saying and how that relates to the issue of his authority.

 

But it does!

I disagree. The very idea that people had no morality until God arrived on the scene with commandments and his teachings is just ridiculous.

 

Before people there were animals and people who acted as animals.

 

Where does that take place? If you mean the sacrifice made on YOUR behalf and on MY behalf by Jesus, that was not killing, that was Christ taking on the whole of all punishment for us all if we do but accept his gift.

 

Exactly, a blood sacrifice made on my behalf. You can't get more obscene than that. And it was no sacrifice, if presume you believe that Jesus was God in flesh.

 

Not a sacrifice, a taking on of all of the punishments for the ages on behalf of all men and women who will exchange their sin for his guidence.

 

I never agreed to it to have a human being slaughtered to stop some form of punishment for something I am supposedly guilty for.

 

He was not slaughtered, he willingly took on your punishment for your sins, all you have to do is accept him as your Lord and saviour.

 

split

[spook]

part 2

 

And tell me what sort of punishment there was for us? Why was it necessary?

 

Because of the original sin by man in the Garden of Eden. We all now have the choice to accept God and his authority through Jesus, or not and so perpetrate the individual sin we inherit as sons and daughters of Adam.

 

Slaves have no choice. Lovers do what they want to do out of love. Love Christ and return his love for you and you do not act as a slave, you act as a lover out of love.

 

So in order to not being a slave I HAVE to listen this character?

 

No, just accept him as your saviour, accept his love and love him in return.

 

Only if you do not understand reason. The feeling good is a byproduct, and the wishful thinking is faith.

 

Then what do you understand by reason?

 

Faith is the reason.

 

My friend, you say you understand Christianity and yet every word you write says that you do not.

 

I find this to be the usual argument from the religious. The non-religious just don't understand, do they?

 

No they dont. When they do learn they rapidly change their position/.

 

You wont be wasting time because you will come to see it isnt nonsense, nor will you loose self respect though you may loose false pride and decisions that you make wont be irrational but will be made with a moral basis that is sound, good, and proper.

 

False pride in what? If you're the Christian, you're the one with the solipsism of believing that world was created for you.

 

False pride in themselves. As a Christian I certainly don’t think the world was created for me, I know I was created form this world.

 

I have a better moral basis than any Christian who genuinely believes that the killing of Jesus was good and moral and finds God to be moral.

 

Because you don’t understand the crucifixion and what it means and why it took place you cant understand the morality.

 

But I would even think you are more moral than God and Jesus. I would find it highly improbable that you would accept their authority unquestioningly and that your morality is solely derived from the Bible.

 

Why?

 

Being a committed born again Christian isn’t about being a spoil sport or a bible basher or anything else like that. Its about having seen the light of Christ and all that is illuminated by it.

 

Oh dear.

 

But its true! We take the word joy as being special and not just how we feel from our life in Jesus. For us joy also reminds us of how we should maintain our priorities. J is Jesus, our top priority in what we do and how we act with the hope and intent of doing what he taught us. O is Others, the people we should always consider next in what we do, and finally Y for You, meaning we should come last in what we do and the decisions we make.

 

Try it. If its for you then you will know it as you learn, if you are only base metal to be used in the refining of the gold then at least you had your chance to be tested and not just left as unrefined ore that had its chance to be the most noble of metals but feared the furnace of faith and that is thrown away with the dross.

 

I am a base metal.

 

No, you are ore. That ore might be ore of base metal, or it may be gold. Have the courage to go into the furnace. You have nothing to loose and everything to gain.

[jimbms]

Ok spook please give up, you have got us all laughing, you have proved you can convincingly take the piss out of religion, now get back to the debate.

[spook]

 

Let me ask you, if God commanded you to kill your child or kill your whole family, would you do it? Would you consider your God moral to ask you to do this?

 

I know that God would not ask that of me but if I thought that he did then to be perfectly honest I would not.

 

Just as Jesus took on the sins of the world to be our salvation I would sadly resign myself to the burning pit in case what I was being told came not from God but from Satan.

 

That is the love that I have for my family. A tiny infentesimal example of the love that God has for those of the world who accept him and look for forgiveness for mans initial disobedience.

[spook]

Ok spook please give up, you have got us all laughing, you have proved you can convincingly take the piss out of religion, now get back to the debate.

 

 

What I have written here I honestly believe and stand by. In this I am not alone by any means.

[Chinahand]

Thanks for that Spook - my goodness, sorry to be blunt, but I find your beliefs very credulous and more than a little terrifying. Demon haunted world and all that. Saying that the massacre of thousands of people is God's choice rapidly puts people at risk of Volataire's warning: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. And of course the History of Christianity is full of confirmations of this warning - do you think it is now immune?

 

I'm not going to try and cut and paste replies to what you've written - too much bloat, but it seems you don't think God is omniscient, I think that's interesting.

 

Concerning your reply about 3rd and 4th generations I was slightly alluding to that, but far more obviously there's original sin - do you believe childbirth is painful because of Eve's sin? Or far more importantly was there a utopia which was overthrown due to Adam and Eve's rebellion.

 

Do you feel that original sin is important? If Eve hadn't wanted to gain knowledge of Good and Evil(what's wrong with gaining such knowledge by the way?) would the world have been perfect with no suffering, no sin etc?

 

Assuming God was omniscient, which I admit it looks like you don't - why did he put the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden - was it his choice, or was he compelled to do - and hence produce such a sad world full of suffering etc.

 

I am sure you'll admit - God works in mysterious ways isn't helpful - and sorry but unless you are able to understand such mysteries I really don't think you can say God isn't a tyrant - eternal punishments for not worshipping a particular manefestation seems pretty tyrannical to me - you think its reasonable? Really? I'm often accused of being goading by VinnieK at times like this, but I am honestly attempting to be open and understand another person's beliefs. Alot of the basis of your core beliefs is honestly terrifying to me - yes God sent his only beggotten son to tell us we'll be punished eternally unless we worship him - you see that as showing God is nice, I see it as being an example of just how evil he is. You assume the punishment has to be - why? Ok, mysterious ways!

 

Finally do you think there is anything which makes it obvious to an outsider that your religion is the right one as opposed to anyother - say Islam or Hinduism?

 

Oh and when you go on about "the importance of faith in our relationship with the creator" I have to ask if you know of the Prophets of Baal - that was a pretty explicit demonstration - as is having a 3 dead old zomby ask you to stick your hands inside him. Why are those people allowed such an explicit demonstration of God's power and reality while we are left with empty murmurings and extollations to faith? Goodness God is capricious if you ask me!

[jimbms]

[When Skies Are Grey]

Faith is the reason.

 

Grease is the word.

[Terse]

"When did I realize I was God? Well, I was praying and I suddenly realized I was talking to myself."

Peter O'Toole.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

Accept Christ and you WILL be saved. YOUR choice.

Accept or eternal damnation (torture). Hmm, that's a toughie. Thank goodness none of it is true.

 

Before people there were animals and people who acted as animals.

You really think the people of the Levant had absolutely no idea that murder and stealing was wrong before God popped out of nowhere? I'd like to know civilisations in Sumeria and, more interestingly, China advanced so far without morality.

 

Not a sacrifice, a taking on of all of the punishments for the ages on behalf of all men and women who will exchange their sin for his guidence.

It is termed a sacrifice by so many Christians. Pardon my misuse of the term in that case. But there was no agreement to exchange sin. Not then and not today. And to do it in that manner was disgusting.

 

Because of the original sin by man in the Garden of Eden. We all now have the choice to accept God and his authority through Jesus, or not and so perpetrate the individual sin we inherit as sons and daughters of Adam.

And here's the hilarity. The absurdity of it all. God creates man, creates this matter of original sin, and then makes up some loophole to deal with it by allowing his mortal self to die horrifically.

 

Regarding atheists

No they dont. When they do learn they rapidly change their position/.

Many do turn and rapidly change their position. The human race is very susceptible to this sort of stuff.

 

Regarding slavery

No, just accept him as your saviour, accept his love and love him in return.

Or what? What if I don't?

 

Faith is the reason.

Maybe you misunderstand me. Faith is nothing. Believing on the basis of no evidence. Not a good way to form your opinions and perspectives on the world.

 

False pride in themselves. As a Christian I certainly don’t think the world was created for me, I know I was created form this world.

Yes, to a degree I have pride in my achievements, rather than partly or wholly attributing them to a God with thanks.

 

Because you don’t understand the crucifixion and what it means and why it took place you cant understand the morality.

What is there to understand that you haven't already mentioned. I know what it's purpose was. I find that purpose immoral and people who think it is are immoral.

[Chinahand]

 

[is] the possibility that YOU might be wrong and your rejection of Christ the result of the work of satan in your life … really so outlandish?

 

My goodness Spook – do you really think non-believers are satanically influenced? What a way to characterize people who have different religious beliefs than you - surely you can see the moral danger of such a characterization – and its arrogance.

 

God hates the sin he loves the sinner

- but still allows the sinner to be tortured in Hell for eternity.

 

… once dead then your opportunity has gone.

- Why do you think the world is like this?

Why are you unable to make moral and religious decisions in the afterlife? Will you always behave perfectly in Heaven – will you have free will? If so why isn’t such a thing possible on earth?

 

Christianity is so focused on the after life – to the extent certain Christians reject medicine and others in an end-of-times hysteria turn inwards in a manner most destructive to community – The reaction of certain African sects to AIDS etc has a twisted apocalyptical outlook to it.

 

I have no faith and see Christianity’s claims about an afterlife as so much superstition. Of course in the end all we have are assertions, but your assertions make claims about the existence of hell and angels and heaven and a mind reading God and eternal life etc. While I just assert there is no evidence for any of these things, but my questioning is in the end met with an assertion that I have to accept it, and believe it or I will be cast into Hell for eternity.

 

Do you see the asymmetry in the quality of our different assertions? I see no evidence for anything you say, but the faithful have successfully twisted the debate to say it is the atheists who are being dogmatic!

 

I have to say I find your justifications for God intervening to over-rule people’s free will to ensure they are damned, and for the massacres and murder God has either directly demanded or intervened in such a way to ensure the deaths fitted his purpose extremely distasteful.

 

Over Herod’s murder of the innocents you seem to believe “God uses us as he sees fit” – and so can have us murdered so he can make a point how special his son is. That is sickening. Even more sickenning is his deliberate intervention to ensure people are damned which nullifies everything that Christ's message is meant to contain.

 

I sincerely hope that I was not born into a universe where I was damned to suffer because of what some apocryphal ancestor did, and where my free will can be taken from me to damn me as God pleases and where I am destined to be eternally tortured unless I blindly worship a God who deliberately refuses to reveal himself because it will “remove the importance of faith in our relationship with our creator.”

 

That is the essence of Christianity as you are portraying it – shivers – what a religion. I cannot comprehend how it is portrayed as being moral.

[Terse]

All things dull and ugly,

All creatures short and squat,

All things rude and nasty,

The Lord God made the lot.

 

Each little snake that poisons,

Each little wasp that stings,

He made their brutish venom.

He made their horrid wings.

 

All things sick and cancerous,

All evil great and small,

All things foul and dangerous,

The Lord God made them all.

 

Each nasty little hornet,

Each beastly little squid--

Who made the spikey urchin?

Who made the sharks? He did!

 

All things scabbed and ulcerous,

All pox both great and small,

Putrid, foul and gangrenous,

The Lord God made them all.

[Evil Goblin]

The lack of knowledge about religion (especially Christian/Judaic) is truly abysmal. If I get the time later this week I'll have a go at enlightening you all (its a pet subject of mine!).

[La_Dolce_Vita]

By all means start by providing some evidence for the claims just so we can cut to the chase. But I would find it very interesting to read how you see such misunderstandings in this topic.

[spook]

Concerning your reply about 3rd and 4th generations I was slightly alluding to that, but far more obviously there's original sin - do you believe childbirth is painful because of Eve's sin? Or far more importantly was there a utopia which was overthrown due to Adam and Eve's rebellion.

 

I believe every word in the bible is true but translation will have caused some distortion and so simply reading the KJV alone is not enough. What I believe is that much of Genesis is an explanation that has to be read outside of how we understand time now, and that the expulsion from Eden is more about people rejecting the authority of God and facing the uncertainties and doubt that loosing the comfort in keeping the faith brings. The bible tells me that the pain of childbirth the price women must pay for Eves sin. It is as good an explanation as any and consistent with what she did in the Garden so yes.

 

Original sin is important and it is the knowledge of good and evil that makes an evil act evil because without that knowledge it would be an innocent act. Ignorance of the law is a defence and the world would have been perfect if Adam had obeyed Gods wishes.

 

I don’t understand how you get the idea that I reject the omniscience of God because I certainly dont, and the Tree of Knowledge was part of the testing of the fidelity of Adam and Eve. How an you tell a blade unless it is put to the stone?

 

God did send his son as the path for the righteous. They were offered the way to salvation by showing their faith and trust in Him as God and in the form of Jesus, one part of The Trinity. For those who heard but did not heed then they have demonstrated they are not fit for Heaven. They are the tares of the field. Look at Matthew 13 : 24 – 30.

 

Christianity is one of several religions that are right. Jesus himself when on The Cross said so as reported in John 14 : 2 but that is not the same as saying that all religions are right.

 

Islam for example is a cause of concern for many Christians who have studied what it teaches and compared it with the teaching of the Son of God. We find it a case of being “mene mene tekel upharsin”, that is it has been tested and found wanting because so much of what it proposes differs so much from the teaching and revelation of Jesus of whom God himself said when Jesus was on The Cross what is reported in Matthew 3 : 17 so underlining that what Jesus had said and taught was consistent with the will and intent of The Lord and that is the opposite to what Mohammed wrote.

 

In addition Jesus also warned of false prophets as reported in Matthew 7 : 15 and that along with the concentration on killing instead of love really is worrying.

 

I had to think about what you were meaning about a “zombie ask you to stick his hands inside you” and it was only when I realised that it was about Thomas meeting Jesus that it sank home. Jesus invited Thomas to see for himself the injuries of the crucifixion not to prove anything beyond that the man that Thomas faced was indeed Jesus.

 

I also wonder what you mean about the prophets of baal. I think you mean where Elijah confronted them but this was not a thing done to prove the power of God, it was a thing done to disprove the supposed power of the priests of baal, not the power of God.