The Bible speaks of sins in words interpreted as sin (missing the mark), iniquity (willing evil), and rebellion (pre-meditated strategy and tactics agaist God). All are called sin. This includes any failure to:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'[ 12:30 Deut. 6:4,5]
(Whole Chapter: In context: )
The fact of the matter is that volitional belief in religious absurdities entails the intentional avoidance of reason.
Whether intentional or by mistake, one shouldn't believe absurdities of any kind.
thinktwice and Hank Kerchief (cc: Admin Moderator): I don't believe that FreeRepublic.com is a forum intended for railing against the tenets of belief in Jesus Christ. Please correct me if I'm wrong. It would be a shame (surely not for Christians) for this thread to be further abused by libelous (unfounded and malicious) attacks upon people's reasonable and faithful respect for such things as in the Trinity as related by the Bible, for sin and the universal need of salvation, etc. While you may believe what you may, I don't believe it is necessary to respond to further antiChrist calumny here, nor do I see any room for that in a forum that stands for upholding the intentions of the founders of the US Constitution, signed "in the year of our Lord," 1787 and which affectively reaffirms and is based upon the self-evident truth that we are endowed with our natural rights by our Creator.
betty boop: Thank you again for this thought provoking examination of Integrative Science. I do believe you are doing well to explore the overwhelming inferences of nature regarding its structure and design, including the subtle mathematics of intention, (though theorists will tend to zealously extend their theories).
Free Republic, as far as I have been informed, is a forum based on the same principles the Republic, which is the United States, is based, the free uncoerced exchange of ideas. So long as no one is intentionally abusive or abrasive, and the basic principle of individual responsibility, decency, and honesty are honored, however much we dislike what someone else says (or writes) they ought to be free to write it. If everyone only writes what everyone else already agrees with, there would be no discussion at all.
If you are offended by anything I have written, be assured, offense was not the purpose. We do not agree on some things. All that I have written is directed at ideas, not people. There is something essentially wrong with protecting one's views and God by attempting to prevent other's from saying what you disagree with.
If it is sarcasm you object to, "...forgive me this wrong." (2 Cor. 12:13) If we believe those who die expect to wake in another world will only, like the 180 thousand Assyrians who, "when they arose early in the morning ... they were all dead corpses," (2 Kings 19:35, Isaiah 37:36), wake up dead, it is only our ignorance. Can we help it if we believe what the writer of Kings, and Isaiah wrote?
But no doubt, "ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you." (Job 12:1)
You need to spend some time on the religion threads where Roman Catholics are regularly verbally flayed and mormons practically burned at the stake with vituperative. None of those threads are pulled, because they are only words, and some of us learned the truth of the children's poem, "sticks and stones will break my bones, but words (names) will never hurt me."
Is your faith so weak that it is in danger of being overthrown by a few words spoken by someone you disagree with? Can your belief and your religion only be protected by silencing those who believe differently? Is your God offended by the words and opinions of mere mortals? My God "that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh." (Psalms 2:4)
Good grief!
Hank