you said that if humans didnt sin, then that means God is controlling everything. do you comprehend? So how could adam and eve have naturally not sinned if its impossible without God controlling everything?
but god knew that they were going to sin.. he knows everything.. a mother would lock their child up if she knew they would get hurt by venturing near the road that day. why would god want to give us free will? so that we can suffer, and then so that he can see which of us will praise him? why would he relinquish teh control that he can exert without ANY effort (he is omnipotent), resulting in suffering, resulting in the majority of humans going to hell? god know everything. therefor god knows who is going to go to heaven or hell people go to hell if they displease him therefor god creates humans in the full knowlege that they will be suffering eternal pain, or eternal love. tehrefor god forsakes the majority of humans. therefor, god is benign????? is this the conclusion you come to? if god -doesnt- know whether a person is going to go to heaven or hell, then he is not omnipotent.
No, God does not control everything if humans don't sin. It also involves humans controlling themselves. They may have been sinless (for a short time) but they still had the capability to sin.
God doesn't want to force his love onto us, or demand our love to him. Because if he didn't let humans choose, then some would be in heaven without first choosing God. People go to hell when they reject God. Therefore God gives them a place that they wanted: a place without God. Remember though that you're still making the choice. Do you want God, or not? That's all this world is, the one question. God will not forsake any human. They reject God, and God says "Okay, if you don't want me, I'll leave" God is benign. That's why he -does- know.
but if we dont, we suffer eternally. so in the end, he really is demanding our love, or else we burn. you tactfully dodge and manipulate every point bill makes.
man i have to say, i feel insulted that you ignored what i actually said. it was a string of logic and you treated them as individual sentances and replied simply saying 'this is not the case' basically. but im not going to hold it against you because i have a feeling you may not quite understand, and so i am going to try and re-establish what i was saying. at any rate first ill reply to your replies just like the example i read before, its like a criminal holding a gun to your head and saying 'give me your money or i will kill you'. where is the choice there? god tells us 'you dont have to accept me, but if you dont, your gonna go to eternal suffering'. no one wants to go to hell. its not a matter of chosing god or not, its a matter of calling a bluff or not. god is onmiscient, he would understand this concept, and if benign, would not threaten people with hell if they did not believe in him. if they have not sinned, why dont they deserve to be in heaven? this is taking the logic that if you dont accept god, then you reject him. did you know that the magority of humans on the earth were not educated about god? over history, 95%+ people would not have been educated about god, and thus, have no option at accepting god. does that mean they reject him? god knows they havnt been educated about him. even though the tongues of fire were given to people to spread the word, these words did not touch the majority of people in history on the planet. for teh rest, i will simply repeat what i was saying. i am going to set out a string of logic sequences out of christian beliefs. do you know what this means? it means i am making NO assumptions other than those that christians believe. these will be in bold. what is not in bold is logical deduction. you simply cant argue this unless you show why the deduction is wrong. you cant say 'this is wrong' to a deduction without explaining how the interrpetation of the assumption is incorrect. thus in order to dissagree with this, you must show how the deduction has misinterpreted one of the bold texts, or how one of the bold texts is incorrect. God know everything that will happen. Therefor, God knows who is going to accept him and who is not going to accept him, for god knows everything. God knows this at any point in time, for he is beyond time and space, and thus knows this before he creates the said people who will either 'accept or reject' him. God creates people and gives them freewill, in the FULL KNOWLEGE that they will use their free will to reject him and thus go to hell. God does everything for a reason (nothing for enjoyment or entertainment, or in the spur of the moment) Therefor, god purposefully (with reason) creates people that will go to hell. he knows they will go to hell (as established above), and since he knows only the truth, they will go to hell.
I apologize then. It must be my way of thinking, like when doing a math problem where one step comes after another, if you do one step wrong then the whole house crumbles. I point out things as I go along, instead of holding it all to the end and forgetting what I was going to write Okay, about the gun thing. If you want to put it in such terms, know that God is not holding a gun to your head, you are. You can put the gun to your head and pull the trigger, or you can throw the gun away. God has nothing to do with it, when it is your choice. About eternal suffering: God did not make hell for eternal suffering, God made hell as a place for the people who don't want to be with Him. Take this analogy: It's like if there's someone who delivers food to you, but you reject that person and say bad things about him, the person will say "Ok, it's obvious you think I'm no good, so I'll leave" and when they leave, there is no one delivering food to you. You will die from starvation but only because of your actions. Hell is not a threat and God has never used it to blackmail mankind, it's just there. Who among us is without sin? About this, I have no idea what God would do. I have no say in this. However, today things are different! and the choice is present to all of us. Yep. We're always the ones making the decision though, whether heaven or hell.
'Ae akā aloha i ka 'Ōlelo Hawai'i God is not saying "I DEMAND YOUR LOVE OR YOU'LL GO TO HELL" he lets us give it freely. Just as someone at christmas is not DEMANDING presents but lets us choose to buy them a present or not.
We didnt chose to come into existence, why should be be cast into eternal suffering if we dont believe in God? Wouldnt it be better to have never lived then to live and be cast into hell?
so are you saying that hell is simply a place without god, or is it really a feiry torture chamber with pain and satan and all that stuff? caus i mean hell is never tought as simply a place without god.. heaps of people wouldnt care much if it was just that. without god there would be nothing. it would be limbo. but pain and suffering? i dont think so. well, the people who didnt have free will, would be without sin? otherwise all animals would go to hell? babies who die would go to hell? the whole point is that sin comes from free will, you said it yourself, so what are you talking about? maybe if you read my responses properly you would make sense. so, your just saying that the majority of humans who have lived, the over a trillion people in history who did not have the choice, that you just think they just dont fit into your belief system, as if your belief, which is based on events 2000 years ago, is only worth considering in this current day and age? look im sick and tired of this bs, if youre not gonna be serious and read what the FUCK im saying, im just gonna have a hissey fit an leave you cant agree with what i just said, and then reply with that sentance, it clearly isnt even a reply, just a stock statement you use to reply to like everything. the logic statement you agreed to shows that we dont have free will. and you basically replied 'yep, but we do have free will'. you clearly cant speak english properly, or are two dumb to understand a paragraph of words put together, or are just trying to play the fool. you were MEANT to dissagree, and show where the statement is wrong, thats why i wrote it. it was a chance for you to explain yourself seriously, and you mock me? you know i have patience but not when someone takes the piss that bad even after i try and get involved with discussion. however im sorry if you do have problems with english, or learning difficulties, dont take my comments too harshely if that is the case
This is a straw man. Adam and Eve were not children. They were not somehow unaware of the consequences of their choice. Nor has any adult been completely unaware of the consequences in the same way a child would be. If I steal, then I should be aware that there will be consequences if I am caught (and maybe even if I don't get caught). A more accurate analogy would be "could a loving husband lock his wife up if he knew she was going to cheat on him"? Would that be fair? I don't think so. Her behavior might be morally reprehensible, but it is still her choice and such behavior would be against the nature of the husband. Nah. He already knows that. This is so that we have the opportunity to choose. Two things: 1. Omnipotence is not the same as being able to do whatever you want. God cannot alter his own nature. Justice is part of God's nature. To rob a sentient creature of free will, to institute involuntary servitude, is not just. I would then argue that God cannot exert control over what choices we make, he can, however, dictate what those choices are and when they occur. God cannot force us to love Him, but He can, and does, provide us with the opportunity. 2. Christians believe that those who die before the age of accountability (which is different for ever person) go to Heaven (or at least, not to Hell... some believe in a sort of Limbo). If this belief is true, then the VAST majority of humanity will not be going to Hell. Ancient infant mortality rates were astronomical (in some countries, they are still very high). I am going to respond to the next line by line and then address the argument as a whole. Partially correct. God knows who will be in Heaven and who will be in Hell. God does not send people to Hell because they displease Him or He is angry. Hell is not a place so much as it is a relationship. The language used in the gospels, given an understanding of ancient near-east culture of the first century, gives us a picture of torment, anguish, and a weeping and gnashing of teeth. This is the imagery not of "torture" as understood by the 1st century people, but of complete and total shame. By sinning, we strip God of the honor that is rightfully His. When we repent and ask forgiveness, we are humbling ourselves, in effect, "giving up" our honor. Those who do not, will be dishonored and shamed for all eternity. God will treat them with utter indifference and they will be unable to escape their shame. Not quite. Eternal shame, not eternal pain. This is a huge logical leap. It has not been shown that the vast majority of humans will go to Hell. I am not willing to judge the status of the hearts of all humanity. Are you? The key to salvation is this: We must recognize that we have offended God with our actions. That we have done wrong. We must recognize that we are wholly and completely incapable of making up for the offense. We must then trust that God will make a way for the debt to be satisfied and we must humble ourselves and ask for forgiveness, recognizing that we do not deserve it and cannot earn it. This last point is where many religions have problems; they teach that by action, we CAN earn it. This presumes that we have something worth offering. It is rooted in pride. Accepting Christ satifies the above. It is also the means by which people were saved before Christ came. There is no reason that it is no longer efficacious for those who "have never heard the Gospel." This is consistent with passages that describe the denizens of Heaven as being "from every tribe and nation." The above does not exclude anyone. One of the consistent messages throughout the scripture is that God will sufficiently reveal Himself to those who honestly seek Him. Given that understanding, it becomes impossible to say with any degree of certainty that the majority of humanity is going to Hell anymore that we can say the minority is going to Heaven. We simply do not know. Yes, but not through the argument above. You pull this conclusion out of nowhere but it logically doesn't follow. Nowhere is "God being benign" mentioned in your argument until the conclusion. This is non-sequitur. I think that would be omniscience, not omnipotence. The whole of your argument seems built around common misconceptions of Hell and the assumption that the majority of humanity will be going there. Given a 1st century understanding of Hell your argument of God sending people to eternal torture seems misplaced. Furthermore, I don't think that you will be able to justify saying that the majority of humanity will be going there. Your conclusion seems to be that either God is cruel or not omniscient. By undermining your two primary propositions, your conclusion is weakened at worst, and completely destroyed at best.
That's right! Most children have knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve DID NOT. Thus, they were even MORE ignorant than most children about it. They had no knowledge of anything bad happening, thus they were very unaware of even what "consequences" were. I'll bet when "God" said, "You will surely die!" It sounded more like "You will surely ssakldfhsdfl!" Because there was no "death", so they sure couldn't know what the fuck it was. That's because YOU are an adult who has the KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD & EVIL based on prior experience and your upbringing. They did not have that luxury. Fortunately, it is just a myth.
Precious Jesus... Hold my hand Yes, I need thee every hour Through this land (this pilgrim land) Protect me by thy pow'r Hear me plea (my feeble plea) Lord, dear lord Look down on me When I kneel in pray'r Precious Jesus hold my hand...
