Ex Christians

[waitasec]

God gives everyone the opportunity to come to know him.

hmmm.
where did you get this piece of information from?

 

[Vadergirl123]

in order to determine for anyone, maybe not you, to know they are making a moral choice...and in this case knowing obedience was good...yes one does have to know what good and evil means...but again may not for you

Adam knew what God wanted him to do/not do. He made a choice to do what God didn't want him to.

no you didn't get it.
why did you use the word "bad"? you don't know what "bad" means because "bad" is contingent on knowing what glipper and glopper means.
if taken literally, that is why this story fails from the get go.

Adam&Eve realized something bad would happen(whether they knew what it was that would happen or not, they knew it was something that wouldn't be good)
In fact when the serpent tells Eve to eat from the tree she doesn't say "yeah it looks good." And then eats. Instead she says, "but God told us not to eat from it or touch it." If she hadn't realized there was something that would happen that wouldn't be good she wouldn't ahev even brought God's instructions up.

But did Adam know that that fruit came from that tree? Remember that Adam did not take the fruit from the tree, he took it from Eve. There is no indication that they had a conversation about it or that she told him where the fruit came from. It just says that she gave it to him and he ate. It makes Adam seem very childlike, almost infantile.Of course it does not say that Adam did not know where the fruit came from. It is just these kind of ambiguities that I think make this story interesting.

Very good ponit, and yes I'd say we can asusme he knew where it came from. If he didn't he would've been decieved. But in I Timothy the Bible says the women was decieved not Adam.

 

[Nakosis]

if you're a fallible "man"? yes
if you're a "god"? excellent question.

People use God to justify their actions. The Hebrew used God to justify their own actions.

You can't allow people to use the excuse that "God made me do it". Otherwise there is no real morality. Morality then exists at the whim of a supernatural entity that anyone can justify their actions by.

Just like science can't use the supernatural to justify their theories. You can't allow people to justify their morality according to the supernatural. There's no verification, there is no validation.

The supernatural cannot be accepted as the source of morality. It's arbitrary. It's unsubstantiated. It has no foundation in reason. Supernatural justification is blind acceptance.

 

[tumbleweed41]

As predicted, this thread seems to have turned from a question of why certain people left Christianity, to a defense of why they should not have left Christianity.

Is this defense an attempt to bring these people back?

 

[waitasec]

Adam knew what God wanted him to do/not do. He made a choice to do what God didn't want him to.

was it a moral choice?
if our souls are judged by god based on if we follow his morals or not...did adam make a moral choice not knowing what the difference between good and evil meant?

Adam&Eve realized something bad would happen(whether they knew what it was that would happen or not, they knew it was something that wouldn't be good)

that makes no sense. they didn't know what good and evil meant.

In fact when the serpent tells Eve to eat from the tree she doesn't say "yeah it looks good." And then eats. Instead she says, "but God told us not to eat from it or touch it." If she hadn't realized there was something that would happen that wouldn't be good she wouldn't ahev even brought God's instructions up.

which is why i said the story fails from the get go, if taken literally.

 

[Vadergirl123]

As predicted, this thread seems to have turned from a question of why certain people left Christianity, to a defense of why they should not have left Christianity. Is this defense an attempt to bring these people back?

No it's not, that would be like me saying the thread's turned into one that's trying to convince me to leave Christianity. And I'm more of trying to defend God, and explain why he did what he did and that he's just. One doesn't have to chose to believe he exists/follow what he says. But I personally hate it when people say things about him that aren't true. Also people are still posting about why they left and I'm not trying to convince them to come back to it.

 

[waitasec]

No it's not, that would be like me saying the thread's turned into one that's trying to convince me to leave Christianity. And I'm more of trying to defend God, and explain why he did what he did and that he's just. One doesn't have to chose to believe he exists/follow what he says. But I personally hate it when people say things about him that aren't true. Also people are still posting about why they left and I'm not trying to convince them to come back to it.

why does god need to be defended. can't he defend himself?

 

[Vadergirl123]

why does god need to be defended. can't he defend himself?

Yes he can defend himself, but you keep asking ME qestions about him, or making points that contradict who he is. And I'm answering them or stating why the points don't describe who he is. Also as a Christain it shoudl bother me when someone says something about God that's not true. How would you feel if someone was saying things that weren't true about someone you loved and was making them look like something evil when they're really good.

 

[waitasec]

Yes he can defend himself, but you keep asking ME qestions about him, or making points that contradict who he is. And I'm answering them or stating why the points don't describe who he is.

then if you go by faith and continue to defend your god you don't trust your god as you keep insisting god is something i cannot see.

yes i am asking you questions because i am stunned at the level of reckless abandonment you are will to go through...it's actually sort of intriguing.

flat out saying that genocide is something that is justified based on nothing more than belief.

flat out saying that there is no reason a girl wouldn't want to have sex with a man that murdered her family after a month of mourning

it's shocking to say the least.

 

[waitasec]

How would you feel if someone was saying things that weren't true about someone you loved and was making them look like something evil when they're really good.

i would feel bad...but if that person i loved was guilty of being evil. they are evil

edit:

then what you are really doing is defending your belief not god, right?

 

[Vadergirl123]

then if you go by faith and continue to defend your god you don't trust your god as you keep insisting god is something i cannot see.

I said I have no reason to not believe God's not true, or that the Bible isn't his words. However you don't have to believe him.(I'm not going to try to convinc you he's real, because I can't prove it to you)

yes i am asking you questions because i am stunned at the level of reckless abandonment you are will to go through...it's actually sort of intriguing.

Okay haha

flat out saying that genocide is something that is justified based on nothing more than belief.

I said God has every right to, yes.

flat out saying that there is no reason a girl wouldn't want to have sex with a man that murdered her family after a month of mourning

Hmm as to this one that's an excellent point. Technically most of the girls weren't even able to get married yet. and there's no way for them to know if the man they married actually was the one who killed their father, mother, and brother(assuming they had all three) they would've been servants to Israelite families.
First off I'm not trying to make their loss sound like no big deal(because it's a terrible thing to go through and I couldn't imagine what they felt like)
However in Ancient times it was pretty common for a woman to go through this, and in most cultures I'm pretty sure she didn't have a chance to mourn. She would've been raped instantly. Most of them, no doubt moved on with their lives, and were probably grateful considering what the alternative could've been(in fact some of them might've become angry at their own people for not chosing to ally with Israel in the first place). And yes no doubt others hated the Israelites and might also have hated their own husbands, but I don't know for sure.

it's shocking to say the least.

Indeed, the Bible is a shocking book.

i would feel bad...but if that person i loved was guilty of being evil. they are evil

Yes they are, but God's not evil.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

As predicted, this thread seems to have turned from a question of why certain people left Christianity, to a defense of why they should not have left Christianity.

Is this defense an attempt to bring these people back?

I think it's been an attempt by the OP to show why ex-Christians are somehow making the biggest mistake EVER.

 

[Vadergirl123]

then what you are really doing is defending your belief not god, right?

I'm defending a biblical belief in God. And If I was going to believe whatever I wanted about God, do you really think I'd include the genocide issue? I'd just say that it wasn't a literal story or come up with something else. If I was going to form a God from my mind it wouldn't be the God of the Bible? It'd be a God who let us do what we wanted and only intervened when things got, "too bad." It would be a God who wouldn't kill people groups( because they don't obey him). And he also always made life easy for those who followed him. That's the type of God, who(without a biblical knowledge) I'd create. The only problem is, is that god is a figment of my mind.

 

[Vadergirl123]

I think it's been an attempt by the OP to show why ex-Christians are somehow making the biggest mistake EVER.

Mystic are you serious! Why do you feel like I'm attacking you??? I've told you(I don't know how many times) that you can believe whatever you want and that it's your life. How after me saying that can you then say, "I'm trying to show that ex-christains are making the biggest mistake ever?" I don't get it?

 

[waitasec]

I said I have no reason to not believe God's not true, or that the Bible isn't his words. However you don't have to believe him.(I'm not going to try to convinc you he's real, because I can't prove it to you)

Okay haha

i don't think you're defending god..you're defending your belief in an evil god

I said God has every right to, yes.

says who?

Hmm as to this one that's an excellent point. Technically most of the girls weren't even able to get married yet. and there's no way for them to know if the man they married actually was the one who killed their father, mother, and brother(assuming they had all three) they would've been servants to Israelite families.

so a 10 yr old isn't aware of the fact her family was killed by another tribe and somehow she is now living with that other tribe who was responsible for the murdering of her family
i'm going to stop this right now, because this entire discourse is contingent on the understanding that god wants a personal relationship with me...
i cannot see how this is consistent with the murdering of infant boys because they are of a different race, not of unbelief, but because they just so happened to be boys in a tribe that refused to follow the israelites...there is no personal interaction...they were only guilty by association.

and the fact there is a new covenant proves god is either shortsighted or not consistent.


it's been....i wish i could say a pleasure...but that would be lying

 

[Father Heathen]

So, if my personal morals say it's ok to murder someone, then you can't tell me it's not ok, right? Because, should I listen to you, I'd be going against my personal morals.

You're pulling the old relativism card, and, sorry, it doesn't work. At all. Vadergirl makes an excellent point. There has to be an absolute set of morals out there, independent of us, and what we think or feel has nothing to do with it. If we all simply go by what we think or feel, and do each of us, as the Bible says, "what is right in our own eyes," then we are all drifting aimlessly about, with no fixed point to guide us. Without an absolute set of morals, society disintegrates. When "relativistic" morality takes over, chaos reigns supreme.

Morals established through the use of reason and compassion are vastly superior to those derived from superstition. While some might be complacent sucking on the distal bones of dead goat herders, the rest of us are digging this whole thinking thing.

 

[Alceste]

I think it's been an attempt by the OP to show why ex-Christians are somehow making the biggest mistake EVER.

I think it's an attempt to demonstrate the twisted, self-contradictory ideology that squeezes reasonable people out of certain brands of Christianity.

 

[Heathen Hammer]

Because most of the objections are making God look unfair and evil, which isn't the case. However just because something's not nice and pretty doesn't mean it's not good. For example y'all know who Alsan is right? He's not really a nice and pretty(or tame)lion but he's good. It's like the same thing with God.

if the overall circumstances and a rational examination say that is the case, it is the case.

 

[Heathen Hammer]

A slave huh? I guess I am to some degree.

No he's not, blackmailing is when you present something to someone and threaten to use it against the if they don't do what you say. God didn't present hell to us and say, "if you don't worship me, I'll send you there."
Originally he created humans "Very good" and designed to be in a relationship with him. Adam's choice ruined that relationship brought sin into the world. So as you can see God didn't present us with hell, we brought it upon ourselves. However God did provide us a way out of hell by sending Jesus.

And you want to blame God instead of people, so what? I believe we should be punished for sinning against God, and you don't.

It's not blackmail because we brought it upon ourselves. And also God didn't even have to give us the option of heaven.

Yes I understand and God is good. I'm sorry you can't accept that human beings don't deserve to be blamed for our sins.

Adam brought sin, but we each make choices to sin(go against God) every day, we're going to hell because of our sins.

Okay but when you sin against an infinite God(and all sin is primarily oriented toward God)you accrue an infinite debt.

Actually justice is, "the quality of being fair and reasonable.

If you were in hell and then God decided to take youout and bring you back to earth you really don't think the peopel wuld sin again just because they'd already died once?

Yes, please humor me? Why is torture immoral?

And God couldn't have raised Jesus form the dead? God can do things that are scientifically impossible.

Oh well Jesus did have the sin of the world on him and he was forsaken of his father(for the first time ever) so in that sense you could say he lost something. However the actual definition doesn't say you have to lose something forever.

He was both 100% man AND God. and it's not a direct observation because you weren't there. You didn't check his vital signs or do any other tests to see if he was really dead.

Witnessing the event has everything to do with it. The gospels were written by people who actually witnessed his death and fellowshipped with him after he rose.

God can do things that are scientifically impossible for us to do.

Your first response basically renders answering any of the other absurd statements you make, pointless to respond to.

Good luck folks. Done with this mess.

 

[Vadergirl123]

Your first response basically renders answering any of the other absurd statements you make, pointless to respond to.
Good luck folks. Done with this mess.

Well everyone's a salve to some degree, and my statements aren't "absurd" you just disagree with them.