Aussiescribbler
Member
The bible describes our sinfulness more adequately and completely than we can do so without God. The bible says that our flesh and our undegenerated hearts desire things that God considers wicked, it states that only once our hearts and minds are spiritually renewed is the case where on average out spirits can overcome our flesh. A famous verse about this states that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Again let me point out we can not even begin to resolve this many issues. Only once you pick one or two and we concentrate on them can I sufficiently resolve anything. Right now the best I can do is briefly comment on some of the issues you mention. I prefer to debate less subjects, but much more in depth.
This one is easy, the alternative is Christ. The following points briefly summarize Christianity.
We've been skirting about a bunch of issues, but here I think is the crux. Your explanation of Christianity, as you see it, makes it clear that we have a major sticking point to finding agreement, and that is that your God is my Satan.
1. If God is to be God then he must demand perfection. Also, the only criteria that make sense are that a perfect God cannot settle for anything less than perfection and that for imperfect creatures to be redeemed depends entirely on grace.
Perfection has no existence outside the human mind. We can conceive of a perfect circle, for instance, but we cannot find one or make one in the real world. This prefect God is a figment of the human imagination with which we have historically tortured ourselves.
The creative principle of the universe (my God) operates by imperfection. The process of evolution which produced us was one of mutations (mistakes) which proved beneficial. We progress through making mistakes and so does nature.
Idealism (the love of perfection) is the root of all evil. To blame ourselves for falling below the imaginary standard of perfection robs us of self-acceptance. It robs us of the ability to love ourselves and if we can't love ourselves we can't truly love others.
To demand perfection of anyone is oppressive psychological bullying. Naturally such bullying makes us angry. Having our self-acceptance stolen by the unreasonable demand that we be perfect makes us egotistical, i.e. selfish.
This God of yours is not a source of love, because love requires acceptance and forgiveness. To demand perfection is an act of hatred.
The demand for perfection produces everything which is antagonistic to it. Evil behaviour is an act of rebellion against the oppressive demand for perfection. Belief in a perfect God breeds evil. The guilty conscience produced comes to resent the clean conscience of innocence. Thus this demand for perfection is what generates the desire to harm the innocent.
William Blake made it clear :
To the Accuser Who Is
The God of This World
Truly, My Satan, thou art but a Dunce,
And dost not know the Garment from the Man.
Every Harlot was a Virgin once,
Nor canst thou ever change Kate into Nan.
Tho' thou art Worship'd by the Names Divine
Of Jesus & Jehovah, thou art still
The Son of Morn in weary Night's decline,
The lost Traveller's Dream under the Hill.
I don't believe that Jesus represented this false God of yours. I believe his God was love. Love does not demand perfection. Love gives everything and demands nothing.
2. So no one other than Christ is perfect yet God requires perfection.
3. So creatures as imperfect as we are completely dependent of God to supply the remedy.
4. God paid the entire price to provide that redemption.
5. God allowed himself to die in our place by our killing his perfect and divine son.
It is Satan who slakes his blood lust with the death of the innocent. Those who killed Jesus did so because of what your God did to them, making them hate the life and love that he personified.
6. This is another issue that makes Christianity different from other faiths.
7. His allowing his perfect son to take the just punishment our imperfect records deserve is called substitutionary atonement.
8. Substitutionary atonement means Christ's perfect record is accredited to our own lives when we accept his sacrifice and we inherent the reward he received by being morally perfect before God, where as the punishment for our imperfection was placed on Christ which he willingly paid for on the cross.
This makes no rational sense. How can one person's death pay the price for anther's misdeeds?
9. That means that since Christ willingly suffered the full penalty for my sins I am declared perfect before God so that I may enjoy what Christ himself earned.
10. Also since the Holy Spirit comes to live inside every Christian believer the moment he accepts Christ's sacrifice and he is born again, that means that after that point we have divine help in overcoming out sinful flesh but the fact we all fall short of perfection will not matter since it is Christ's righteous that he provided when he died to all those that believe that I will be judged on. Those who do not accept Christ's sacrifice will be judged on their imperfect record but not Christians.
The flesh is not sinful. It is perfectionism's intolerance toward the natural processes of the flesh which turns us away from love towards violence and cruelty. And sexual lust is driven by the desire to find escape from the unjust torture inflicted upon us by this concept that we should be perfect.
Of course, I don't mean anything supernatural when I talk of Satan. I am talking about an idea. To me your God is just that, an idea that you feel has an actual supernatural existence.
I'm happy to be judged on my own deeds. I don't want a free pass if it is bought with the blood of another.