Posted on 08/21/2005 1:18:04 AM PDT by MRMEAN
"Were you born with a regenerated spirit? If so, you are only the third person in all humanity to have done so and have made God a liar. I suspect you might not have as righteous a spirit naturally within you as one might think."
I was born innocent, as were you, as were all who have lived. The concept of original sin is evil because it puts the sin of the parents on the children. Anybody who can look at a newborn baby and say, "This one is stained with sin* is either a monster or belongs in a mental ward. There can be no sin without choice. A newborn has made no choices. All newborns are without sin.
I'm not certain "granted" is the right word. Maybe "recognized?"
If you have no knowledge of right an wrong, how do you know it is wrong to disobey? What would "wrong" even mean?
And if you have never seen death, how do yo know it is bad?
Nonsense.
Why then is the avoidance of sin never offered as a path to heaven? If sin is avoidable then we should avoid it, not commit it and then repent it.
You don't end up in hell for committing finite sin. Rejecting the Holy Spirit is not a finite sin. It's a lifestyle choice. It indicates exactly where your heart is.
So you don't end up in hell for sin? You end up in hell for making a lifestyle choice? Infinite punishment for an incorrect choice that isn't even sinful! Wow.
LOL! ...one. They were adults made in the image and likeness of God. They knew the score.
"what was the big deal of eating a fruit off the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?
Says right there. Satan tempted them to be like God. To take a short cut to eternal life.
"God KNEW they were going to eat that fruit, yet he made Adam and Eve imperfect and unable to follow his commands."
He made them in His image and likeness. What more could they ask for.
"Punishing them for His mistake is evil. If it wasn't a mistake, that makes it worse. "
Right, He should have made folks better than Himself, because He should have known how hard it would be to work and make the right choices on their own like He did. After all, children are always entitled to more than their parents have, especially the miscreant children.
Your distinction evades me. A semantic difference that makes no difference.
Who is blaming us?
God, apparently, or does God punish those who are not blameworthy in His eyes?
How is giving someone what they expect a punishment
What has expectation got to do with it? If a bank-robber is caught he'll expect to be sent to the pen. By your logic that is not a punishment because he expected it. And what of those who make the mistake of worshipping the wrong deity? They may be expecting a different infinite reward and they get nothing, just the same as the atheist.
When you can create a universe, you can create it with the rules you think are more fair.
Ah, the "might is right" school of theology.
Why would anyone want an eternity with someone they don't want in their life now?
How smug can you get in your good fortune at having picked the right deity. Maybe they were misled into not wanting that person in their life. An eternity of punishment for making a mistake, and picking the same deity to worship as their friends and neighbours for most people in the world, rather than realising that the Christian God of which they are barely aware is the true one to recognise.
Uhm... not really. "Recognized" might be the first step but ultimately rights have to be granted in order to exist in any meaningful way.
And it doesn't always have to be some higher authority which grants rights but it can also be a group of peers who grant certain rights to each others. So while those within this group have certain rights wrt each other, those outside the group don't.
How hard is it to keep the commandments?
"Infinite punishment for an incorrect choice that isn't even sinful! Wow."
The only "Wow" that's justified is your blowing over and ignoring the words of Matt 12:32 I posted in bold in #454.
Non-answers and non-sequiturs noted.
You didn't answer the question. Were you born with a regenerated spirit when you came out of the womb?
(BTW, a person who drives 22 in a 20mph school zone is also guilty of a sin. That doesn't make that person the most heinous thing imaginable, but God the Father only has fellowship with things that are holy, righteous and just. Unless you inately possess something that is spiritually righteous in terms of divine righteousness, it will be counted as good for nothingness and placed with other things that are good for nothingness upon the Great White Throne Judgment.)
Where is Satan mentioned in Genesis? I must have missed that part in Hebrew school.
Apparently the talking snake? Created by God, presumably.
"You didn't answer the question. Were you born with a regenerated spirit when you came out of the womb? "
I don't believe in souls and other spirits. I was born innocent, as everybody is. The idea that we are guilty of sin at birth is a monstrosity made up by people who want to crush Man's spirit and make him think he is a born degenerate. A great way to keep the masses obedient and quiet.
How can a person commit a sin before they can make any choices? It's an impossibility.
Right here: "They could have asked for the knowledge of good and evil. Then they would have known that disobeying God was a sin, and they would have known what a sin was."Where'd God get His instructions and apples from? It's a story and they took what did not belong to them.
"God can be tempted to do wrong?
Yes.
" How is that reconciled with his alleged perfection?"
His perfection comes, because He made the right choices. He even forgives some of those that don't. The ones He doesn't forgive decided God's choices and moral code are undesireable.
"The search for knowledge became the original sin."
There's no such thing as original sin. Neither the Jews, or Jesus recognized it. It's a doctrine created by Augustine and the council of Orange.
Gen 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"
Unless of course you think animals talk and conspire to corrupt man.
Also, Gen 3:15
And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel."
The woman is Mary and her offspring is Jesus. The serpent's offspring is anyone that is wicked. I wouldn't expect that to be taught in Hebrew school though.
"" Where did I say that He should have made them BETTER then Himself?"
I, myself, am a theistic evolutionist; I am persuaded by the evidence supporting the theory of evolution, and have no problem reconciling that theory with my belief that God created us. The chief objectors to the TOE seem to be people who claim that it conflicts with a "literal" reading of Genesis, while simultaneously reading the text in a non-literal way.
Where'd God get His instructions and apples from?
"Who could have tempted Him?
Did you forget, God was a man.
" What could God do that would be considered a sin?"
He could be like Allah, or actually been the one to conjure up original sin.
" A sin against whom?"
Other folks.
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