Animals Doing What Animals Do...

[seer]

I'm not sure I said that anywhere, but I'll answer nevertheless: it would entirely depend upon the god we are talking about. I don't find the tribal god YHWH to be worthy even of respect, much less love and worship. But if there were a truly good and powerful supernatural god I imagine I could grow to love and worship such a being. I'm not ideologically opposed to the idea.

It's funny - from this back water tribal God rose the largest religion in human history, and the single most influential human being of human history. Christ Jesus.

[JohnnyP]

We are talking about culpability for the Fall. Let us concentrate on that for the moment. Do you think people in the world are morally culperable for the Fall? I am guessing not.

Do you think Adam and Eve were moral agents before they ate the fruit? A moral agent is someone capable of telling right from wrong, and according to Genesis, Adam and Eve were not able to do that at that point. In fact the only moral agent involved at all was God.

Sorry for jumping in but a couple of points:

A Jewish view is that they knew the difference between right and wrong -- obeying God was good, disobeying was wrong -- but they didn't actually know what it felt like to disobey until they disobeyed. That was the knowledge they got, God being omniscient knew what it felt like even though He didn't actually disobey Himself.

I am just going by what the Bible says, not how Christians have subsequently twisted it. Do Jews think it is Satan speaking through the snake? If not, it is doubtful Jesus did.

Another Jewish view is that the creatures made as helpers for Adam in Genesis 2 aren't regular animals like in Genesis 1, but cherubim, of which Satan was one. Thus the Serpent wasn't a walking talking snake cursed to be dumb with no legs, but an angelic being. Adam would return to dust, the Serpent would eat dust, and his belly would symbolize Hell, like Jonah as dust in the belly of Hell of the fish, a similar metaphor. Meaning, the Serpent was cursed to be the thing that swallowed men up into Hell.

[seer]

I was thinking of the words "burning" and "fire," used in the NT. I'm sure thosre are meant to be a metaphors, but the metaphors imply horrendous, cruel pain inflicted by God. I don't buy the euphemisic explanation that hell is "locked from the inside," in case that is your position.

God is a consuming fire. And yes, I believe that these are metaphors for His Holy and Pure nature - and torment is what happens when a sinful man is exposed to God in His unadulterated, unmasked state. The deep regret of conscience. And yes I do believe that the decision falls in our lap.

[Kelp(p)]

I'm not sure I said that anywhere, but I'll answer nevertheless: it would entirely depend upon the god we are talking about. I don't find the tribal god YHWH to be worthy even of respect, much less love and worship. But if there were a truly good and powerful supernatural god I imagine I could grow to love and worship such a being. I'm not ideologically opposed to the idea.

Sorry, I mean the God of Christianity.

That's my point. If you don't consider Him worthy of respect, then the gates of Hell really are locked from the inside.

[Enjolras]

So, you're saying that if you found out tomorrow that God really existed, you'd love and worship Him?

I'm not sure I said that anywhere, but I'll answer nevertheless: it would entirely depend upon the god we are talking about. I don't find the tribal god YHWH to be worthy even of respect, much less love and worship. But if there were a truly good and powerful supernatural god I imagine I could grow to love and worship such a being. I'm not ideologically opposed to the idea.

[The Pixie]

God caused the Fall in the sense that He is the primary cause of our existence, yes. That doesn't really make Him morally culpable for our actions, though.

We are talking about culpability for the Fall. Let us concentrate on that for the moment. Do you think people in the world are morally culperable for the Fall? I am guessing not.

Do you think Adam and Eve were moral agents before they ate the fruit? A moral agent is someone capable of telling right from wrong, and according to Genesis, Adam and Eve were not able to do that at that point. In fact the only moral agent involved at all was God.

Yes, I believe we'll have free will in Heaven. And part of the reason it will be so meaningful is we'll already have gone through a world in which we learned what sin, suffering, love, and the mercy of God actually mean. We would not have had this if God had just zapped us into perfection from the beginning. As Dorthy L. Sayers put it, we are more redeemed than we would be had we never fallen.

Great. So it is possible for God to create a place where everyone is happy and they have free will. Previously you seemed to be claiming that was not possible ("And what would you have God do? Make us all robots? Is that really what you want? No free will for no suffering? Where's the love in that? ").

The general interpretation is that it is really Satan speaking through the snake.

I am just going by what the Bible says, not how Christians have subsequently twisted it. Do Jews think it is Satan speaking through the snake? If not, it is doubtful Jesus did.

But, anyway, these are parts of the story that I don't take literally in any way, so it doesn't matter much to me. No, I don't believe that snakes are really cursed of God in some special sense.

That is much more reasonable.

They could always have shown a bit of intelligence and gone and asked God about the contradiction.

They were naive and ill-equipped to deal with subtle issues like this.

If I don't live and die by authorial intent when interpreting a secular novel, why would I do so with Scripture?

Do you think the novel is the inspired word of God?

Why expect atheists to accept what is in the Bible, if you compare it to a secular novel yourself.

To the extent I accept the story as literal at all, I don't really care that much what the author thought, it isn't much more than a historical curiosity to me. I care far more what Jesus and Paul seem to have thought about the story and even there I'm not sure I agree with everything they say about it.

Okay.

And before you ask, no I don't think that Jesus was omniscient during His life on earth. I think it was one of the things He set aside in coming here. It's one accepting interpretation of the Christian doctrine of Kenosis.

I think that is the most reasonable way to consider it.

God doesn't have an ego, He has the fact that He is the supreme being and the entire world and human race literally owes Him its existence. Having beings that can freely love Him is not just about God, it is about us. Because He loves us, God wants us to enjoy real love with Him and with each other, as much as possible like the Three Persons of the Trinity love one another. Love is meaningless for a robot.

How do you know he has no ego?

He freed the Hebrews from Egypt so they could honour him. he demands that we worship him, and condemns any who decide not to.

To say that this is more important to God than the collateral damage is not to say he "doesn't give a hoot about" it. Our suffering and the necessity for it grieves Him deeply. That is why He will "wipe every tear from their eyes," if only the people will let Him.

Okay, hyperbole on my part. Jesus said most would not get to heavem and if about 2 billion people around today are Christians, around 5 billion are collateral damage. But I guess you have to break eggs to make an omelette.

I'm sorry that human comfort seems to be more important to you than growing as a person. I honestly pity your children if you have them.

Sounds like you will have two great, well-rounded kids. Shame about the five who died in childhood, but you cannot make an omelette without breaking some eggs, right?

He chose not to make us robots, yes. Part of having Free Will is having the ability to misuse it.

And now we have established we can have free will and freedom of suffering too. It is not impossible for God to do that.

Yes I do. A world wherein sin does not cause death is a contradiction in terms. God is the source of life, rebellion against Him separates us from Him. The further away we get, the more dead we become inside.

You seem to be conflating physical death and spiritual death (or I am misunderstanding you). When you said "The wages of sin is death", did you mean spiritual death? I took it to mean physical death. When Jesus conquered death, was that spiritual death?

What exactly is spiritual death; is it necessarily a bad thing?

Call it a "spiritual law." It's based in the very core of who God is.

Why is it beyond God to forgive without something dying? And why should I believe that that is true? Does it even say that in the Bible?

As for the next part of your question- depends on what you mean by "has to die." I don't believe in what's called "Penal Substitution."

I believe that Christ would have incarnated even if Adam and Eve had never fallen because the Incarnation is the ultimate joining of God and humanity and God's ultimate act of love. Christ's death (whether on a cross or otherwise, though it probably had to at least be a murder) was part of our healing and reconciliation to God because death and cruelty has become an intrinsic part of who we are and so Christ had to subsume this with Himself as well. But there was no quid pro quo, "Christ as the ultimate Old Testament sacrifice to appease the wrath of God." I agree that that view has a lot of problems. I hold a modified version of the Eastern Orthodox view of redemption (though I'm not Orthodox myself, for other reasons).

Okay.

We would have to go into why God commanded a Sabbath rest. But besides that, yes. Sin causes death because it transgresses God's very nature.

You seem to be implying God has no free will. He had no choice but to demand the Sabbath a day of rest. Is that what you mean?

If we were God, wouldn't you want to create as beautiful a world as you could?

Not at the expense of five billion people, no. I find that view abhorrent, actually.

Besides, if this is all about love then us seeing God's glory is an important component. If you love somebody, then you want to look nice for them and they for you.

Sure. And then I see the corpses of the people who died to make him look good, and I turn away.

So you want a world in which only two to a handful of people that have ever loved God for any more nuanced reason than that they've never known anything else? What kind of a world is that? At the very least it wouldn't be fair to their offspring.

Not sure I follow you here. I do not really care who loves God or why. I think I am missing something.

I was speaking hypothetically because your charge of inconsistency doesn't make any sense. If my belief is correct, then of course the world isn't perfect right now. There are still people who are not reconciled to God.

It is inconsistent because you claim God is all loving, and yet, when he had a chance to create two paradise, he instead chose to create one and one earth.

No you won't. Your posts betray you. At most, you'll just want to save your hide. You'll still think He's an immoral monster.

Then let us talk hypothetically about a serial killer in India, raised in a Hindu culture and so with no opinion of the Christian God. He arrives in heaven, and suddenly sees God in all his glory. Suddenly he is a believer, and suddenly he regrets all the bad he has done. Does he get into heaven?

I don't believe in a literal tree. Whatever the first sin was, the point is that it was an act of disobedience, of essentially deciding that we know better than God.

Here again inconsistency. God wants us to think for ourselves, and as soon as we do, the whole race is damned.

Because they are born into a human system. We ruin everything we touch with our sinfulness, including our families. Being justified before God and being indwelt by the Spirit begins to make things better, but the redemption of humanity is not yet complete.

Speak for yourself. I do have kids, and I think I raise them pretty well. Not perfectly, I will admit, but pretty well.

I have to feel sorry for your kids, if you have any, given your own assessment of your parenting abilities.

What are you talking about? He doesn't "force" scientists to make discoveries. He speaks to them in the same way He speaks to all of us- conscience, subtle things we notice or don't, reason, etc. The scientist is still the human agent doing the work and choosing to be curious rather than, say, lazy, and follow the evidence as it appears to him.

But scientists are humans, therefore they must ruin everything they touch with their sinfulness, right? That is what you said, about a dozen words ago. Add that to "I believe that this is also part of God's redemptive work, through guiding and blessing the minds of the scientists" and I have to wonder what scientists actually achieve.

[Kelp(p)]

I don't buy the euphemisic explanation that hell is "locked from the inside," in case that is your position.

So, you're saying that if you found out tomorrow that God really existed, you'd love and worship Him?

[Enjolras]

Not torture, truth. Man in the face of absolute goodness and holiness. The truth of what we are and what He is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FqvPw9CL0M

I was thinking of the words "burning" and "fire," used in the NT. I'm sure thosre are meant to be a metaphors, but the metaphors imply horrendous, cruel pain inflicted by God. I don't buy the euphemisic explanation that hell is "locked from the inside," in case that is your position.

[seer]

Hmmm… When you think about it, that does seem rather pointless and cruel. Like a cat who plays with a mouse before killing it. A closer analogy might be the killer who tortures his victims first.

Not torture, truth. Man in the face of absolute goodness and holiness. The unvarnished truth of what we are and what He is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FqvPw9CL0M

[Enjolras]

Well I don't believe that annihilation happens immediately. We will be raised and judged, and have plenty of time to suffer the regret of what we lost, what we did. There will be weeping an gnashing of teeth. And the deeper the sin and rebellion, the greater and more profound the fires of regret. The more small, dirty, selfish and petty we will see ourselves. It will not be pleasant.

Hmmm… When you think about it, that does seem rather pointless and cruel. Like a cat who plays with a mouse before killing it. A closer analogy might be the killer who tortures his victims first.

[seer]

Annihilation is no different practically than what I believe most likely happens to all people in the end, so our views aren't that far apart in this regard. If I'm not around, I won't regret the fact that I don't exist. No more than I regret the fact that I didn't exist 100 years ago.

Well I don't believe that annihilation happens immediately. We will be raised and judged, and have plenty of time to suffer the regret of what we lost, what we did. There will be weeping an gnashing of teeth. And the deeper the sin and rebellion, the greater and more profound the fires of regret. The more small, dirty, selfish and petty we will see ourselves. It will not be pleasant.

[Enjolras]

I regret the fact that I didn't exist one hundred years ago, I'd love to meet Nikola Tesla

;)

[Kelp(p)]

Annihilation is no different practically than what I believe most likely happens to all people in the end, so our views aren't that far apart in this regard. If I'm not around, I won't regret the fact that I don't exist. No more than I regret the fact that I didn't exist 100 years ago.

I regret the fact that I didn't exist one hundred years ago, I'd love to meet Nikola Tesla

[Enjolras]

Well I'm annihilationist, so I'm not sure about the eternal thing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_conditionalism

Annihilation is no different practically than what I believe most likely happens to all people in the end, so our views aren't that far apart in this regard. If I'm not around, I won't regret the fact that I don't exist. No more than I regret the fact that I didn't exist 100 years ago.

[Kelp(p)]

Why? This looks again like you have divided everything into two parts. If it is good, then God necessaily did it, if it is bad, mankind necessarily did it.

God caused the Fall in the sense that He is the primary cause of our existence, yes. That doesn't really make Him morally culpable for our actions, though.

Is there free will in heaven?

If there is, then clearly God could contrive this world to be a paradise and still people have free will.

If not, then are you happy to spend en eternity as a robot? Is that really what you want?

Yes, I believe we'll have free will in Heaven. And part of the reason it will be so meaningful is we'll already have gone through a world in which we learned what sin, suffering, love, and the mercy of God actually mean. We would not have had this if God had just zapped us into perfection from the beginning. As Dorthy L. Sayers put it, we are more redeemed than we would be had we never fallen.

What has satan got to do with it? The bible account says a snake. All snakes were cursed to crawl on their bellies because of what one snake did. Do you think all snakes are cursed because of what a fallen angel did?

Wait, I bet it was mankind's fault that God cursed snakes for the actions of a fallen angel. Yes, I am mocking you.

The general interpretation is that it is really Satan speaking through the snake. But, anyway, these are parts of the story that I don't take literally in any way, so it doesn't matter much to me. No, I don't believe that snakes are really cursed of God in some special sense.

Also, why would he distrust the snake? The snake seemingly told the truth, at least from its perspective. Further, Adam and Eve had probably never encountered a lie before, and certainly could not tell right from wrong, so even if the snake was lying, why would they even suspect that?

They could always have shown a bit of intelligence and gone and asked God about the contradiction.

All you have to do now is prove that that is what the original author of Genesis meant. I see no reason to suppose that that is the case, besides a desire to make it appear that God was telling the truth.

If I don't live and die by authorial intent when interpreting a secular novel, why would I do so with Scripture? To the extent I accept the story as literal at all, I don't really care that much what the author thought, it isn't much more than a historical curiosity to me. I care far more what Jesus and Paul seem to have thought about the story and even there I'm not sure I agree with everything they say about it.

And before you ask, no I don't think that Jesus was omniscient during His life on earth. I think it was one of the things He set aside in coming here. It's one accepting interpretation of the Christian doctrine of Kenosis.

Yes, let us be quite clear here. God gave us free will to inflate his ego. He wants us to freely love him, and why should he give a hoot about the collateral damage?

God doesn't have an ego, He has the fact that He is the supreme being and the entire world and human race literally owes Him its existence. Having beings that can freely love Him is not just about God, it is about us. Because He loves us, God wants us to enjoy real love with Him and with each other, as much as possible like the Three Persons of the Trinity love one another. Love is meaningless for a robot.

To say that this is more important to God than the collateral damage is not to say he "doesn't give a hoot about" it. Our suffering and the necessity for it grieves Him deeply. That is why He will "wipe every tear from their eyes," if only the people will let Him.

I'm sorry that human comfort seems to be more important to you than growing as a person. I honestly pity your children if you have them.

But God chose otherwise.

He chose not to make us robots, yes. Part of having Free Will is having the ability to misuse it.

So you believe it was beyond God's power to create a world where people are just forgiven for their sins without anyone dying?

Yes I do. A world wherein sin does not cause death is a contradiction in terms. God is the source of life, rebellion against Him separates us from Him. The further away we get, the more dead we become inside.

Call it a "spiritual law." It's based in the very core of who God is.

As for the next part of your question- depends on what you mean by "has to die." I don't believe in what's called "Penal Substitution."

I believe that Christ would have incarnated even if Adam and Eve had never fallen because the Incarnation is the ultimate joining of God and humanity and God's ultimate act of love. Christ's death (whether on a cross or otherwise, though it probably had to at least be a murder) was part of our healing and reconciliation to God because death and cruelty has become an intrinsic part of who we are and so Christ had to subsume this with Himself as well. But there was no quid pro quo, "Christ as the ultimate Old Testament sacrifice to appease the wrath of God." I agree that that view has a lot of problems. I hold a modified version of the Eastern Orthodox view of redemption (though I'm not Orthodox myself, for other reasons).

A sin, as I understand it, is a transgression against God. If God says that working on the sabbath is a sin, and you then work on the sabbath, then someone or something has to die - God is powerless to prevent that. Is that your position?

We would have to go into why God commanded a Sabbath rest. But besides that, yes. Sin causes death because it transgresses God's very nature.

God wants us to see his glory, and why would he give a hoot about the collateral damage. Seeing a pattern here.

If we were God, wouldn't you want to create as beautiful a world as you could? Besides, if this is all about love then us seeing God's glory is an important component. If you love somebody, then you want to look nice for them and they for you.

God should have done it on day one. That is my point. He chose to set up heaven as a paradise and earth as what we see around us. He could have made both a paradise, he chose not.

So you want a world in which only two to a handful of people that have ever loved God for any more nuanced reason than that they've never known anything else? What kind of a world is that? At the very least it wouldn't be fair to their offspring.

Why am I not trying to convert people? Because inconsistencies like this convince me that it is not true.

I was speaking hypothetically because your charge of inconsistency doesn't make any sense. If my belief is correct, then of course the world isn't perfect right now. There are still people who are not reconciled to God.

I reject God because I do not think he exists. If when I die, it turns out he does, can I just accept him?

The standard answer is no, but what you say here suggests I can. All I have to do is repent - which I will want to do at that point <snip>

No you won't. Your posts betray you. At most, you'll just want to save your hide. You'll still think He's an immoral monster.

Again, Hell is not a place, it's the state of suffering that obtains when one rejects God. The main difference between me and most of Christianity is that I don't accept that God gives up on the damned- ever. He'll still be knocking on your heart and, if I'm right, eventually you will come to see He is right and good and you will accept Him- even if it takes eons.

The shame is in Christianity's message to mankind. We are all born in shame. You just said "the fallen state we all born into".

If you want to call that shame, fine. For the redeemed, though, there is no shame (other than shame over disobeying God).

He could have planted the Tree of Knowledge on Mars. Then Adam and Eve would not have eaten it, and we would not all be born into a fallen state.

I don't believe in a literal tree. Whatever the first sin was, the point is that it was an act of disobedience, of essentially deciding that we know better than God.

Go on. Exactly how did we screw up the race so that babies are born into a fallen state?

Because they are born into a human system. We ruin everything we touch with our sinfulness, including our families. Being justified before God and being indwelt by the Spirit begins to make things better, but the redemption of humanity is not yet complete.

So he can do that, but he cannot stop us sinning. It is free will applied when useful, and ignored otherwise.

What are you talking about? He doesn't "force" scientists to make discoveries. He speaks to them in the same way He speaks to all of us- conscience, subtle things we notice or don't, reason, etc. The scientist is still the human agent doing the work and choosing to be curious rather than, say, lazy, and follow the evidence as it appears to him.

God can try to dissuade us from sinning, but we don't have to listen- because we have free will.

Except no one is sayng the doctor should get the Nobel proze, rather than the scientist.

Probably because the doctor didn't create the scientist nor walk beside him every step of the way (not to mention the fact that who gets the credit is not an either/or situation). All analogies are incomplete, I was just trying to translate what I meant.