The Christian God doesn't make sense....

[Pastek]

the bible says that the punishment for sin is death. So when they die, all their wrongdoing has been made right. They have paid for their sins.

What further punishment do they deserve??? Why is further punishment even warranted??

I don't know were in the Bible it says so, what i know is that Jesus said they will go to the fire.

 

[Urizen]

So, I'm sure this has been done, but I'm interested in getting a discussion going. I've been in multiple discussions with Christians about god. I'm pointing out that the god as they explain it doesn't make sense. Here's a point i've brought up and yet to have been given an adequate answer.

Why is it that the only truly unforgivable sin is not believing in god? I understand why religious groups need you to believe. I understand why a person wants you to believe in their god. I just don't get why a god finds this to be so important.

This matters even more to me, because if the christian god does exist as the bible says it does, I will go to hell, while murderers, rapists and such will go to heaven as long as they believe. How does that make sense?

rageoftyrael,

If the ideas of sin and punishment don't make sense to you, it may mean that you have the intelligence for a deeper understanding of these concepts than what has hitherto been given to you. The rejection of religion in its popular forms often means that one is prepared to embrace religion on a higher level. When one has a higher understanding, one gains a great respect for the simple believer, because he worships God exactly as he should, that is, according to his own nature. We should all be true to our natures. The simple believer is full of the same spiritual desire that animates the seeker of wisdom or the lover of beauty. He should never be mocked. As Blake says,

He who mocks the infant's faith
Shall be mock'd in age and death.
He who shall teach the child to doubt
The rotting grave shall ne'er get out.
He who respects the infant's faith
Triumphs over Hell and Death.
The child's Toys and the old man's Reasons
Are the fruits of the two seasons.

It must be said, not only atheists, but a lot of spiritualists of a pseudo-esoteric bent, exhibit their vanity to the world by mocking the simple believer with his mythological or moralistic understanding of religion. At least he is oriented towards the truth, acts in unison with it by practising it, and thus participates in the truth even without understanding it very deeply; which cannot be said of the cleverest of atheist, or the most experienced of astral projectors.

Now, to answer your question, a brief note on symbolism is necessary. Even the most advanced intellectual concepts possess only a symbolic relationship to transcendent Reality; myths are just as much symbolic of reality as philosophical theories. If the symbol is correctly 'oriented' to Reality, then we know it is true, whether it be a mythical image, a religious dogma, or a philosophical idea. When one symbol corresponds to the same truth as another symbol, it can be 'translated' into the other one. Myth-images can usually be converted into the conceptual symbolisms of morality, cosmology, metaphysics, and even ontology. Metaphysical and ontological symbols reach the highest; they are like the distilled essences of symbols, abstracted from accidentals.

Now the ideas of sin and punishment are part of the moral symbolism of Christianity. They represent the law of equilibrium and immanent justice. This equilibrium is the divine norm from which the universe as a whole, and man especially, has deviated; the Satanic rebellion against divine Order, archetypally speaking. Original sin on our level. Entropy and chaos on the physical and metacosmological. 'Punishment' is simply the equal and opposing reaction against any deviation from this equlibrium. It is a causal operation that is intrinsic to existence. To accuse God of cruelty for 'punishing' this or that sin, is like blaming nature for the law of gravity, or accusing a triangle of immorality for having four sides instead of three. It is to reduce something ultimately grounded on the metaphysical level to the moral and psychological, and thus to make man the measure of reality. We must accept equilibrium and justice as in the nature of things. The fact that Christians have a sense of the Divine Norm (which they understand in the terms of recompense and punishment), shows they still have equibrium within themselves; and it is in the nature of equilibrium to react against disequilibrium.

Why did god make a world in disequilibrium? That is like asking why existence is existence. A world without disequilibrium could not exist. There would only be the complete unity of the divime substace, nothing to depart frm it; amd this would only exist in the stasis of an abstraction, to our understanding at least. Without disiquilibrium, there is no existence; without equilibrium, there is no underlying harmomy and hence total chaos. The very fact of disequilibrium proves the reality of equilibrium, i.e. of some eternal norm from which existence departs, in the same wau that the constancy of change manifests the principle of changlessness.

Why is atheism the greatest of sins? Because it is that final fatal moment before spiritual death, when our real nature rears its ugly head, and we choose our own miserable SELF, and the illusion of the material world that gives the self its feeling of solidity, over the greater glory. It is, at heart, the ultimate surrender to disequilibrium, to chaos, to the "nothing" from which God "made" the world.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

So, I'm sure this has been done, but I'm interested in getting a discussion going. I've been in multiple discussions with Christians about god. I'm pointing out that the god as they explain it doesn't make sense. Here's a point i've brought up and yet to have been given an adequate answer.

Why is it that the only truly unforgivable sin is not believing in god? I understand why religious groups need you to believe. I understand why a person wants you to believe in their god. I just don't get why a god finds this to be so important.

This matters even more to me, because if the christian god does exist as the bible says it does, I will go to hell, while murderers, rapists and such will go to heaven as long as they believe. How does that make sense?

I think this whole discussion is missing the point. It's not if the sin of lying to your dad is more insignificant than murdering 20 million people. The point is that no sinner can be allowed into heaven until the sin nature of the individual is taken care of.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

the bible says that the punishment for sin is death. So when they die, all their wrongdoing has been made right. They have paid for their sins.

What further punishment do they deserve??? Why is further punishment even warranted??

The Bible says that the "wages" of sin is death. Punishment is different.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

The bad people will go to hell for a time, even if they believe in God because they transgressed.

I'm not aware of that being a Biblical position.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

...When one has a higher understanding, one gains a great respect for the simple believer, because he worships God exactly as he should, that is, according to his own nature.

That is definitely not a Biblical position.

 

[Urizen]

That is definitely not a Biblical position.

This kind of Biblicism is also of divine institution; despite its opposition, it has a right to exist. It is concerned more directly with the salvation of souls, than the knowledge which coincides with salvation. It is a way congenial to the average mentality, and leads to the same end though by a different path. For this reason, it should not be opposed, regardless of its inevitable antagonism to less dogmatic approaches.

 

[BruceDLimber]

So if illogical doctrines could be found in other religions, would that be evidence that the deities of those religions exist too?

Save that some religions assert that there is only one God and that ALL the great religions were revealed by this same God!

Peace,

Bruce

 

[BruceDLimber]

the bible says that the punishment for sin is death.

Whereas the Baha'i scriptures state something quite different:

"O SON OF THE SUPREME!

"I have made death a messenger of joy to thee; wherefore dost thou grieve?
"I have made the light to shine upon thee; why dost thou veil thyself therefrom?"
--The HIdden Words, Part One, #32

 

[sandy whitelinger]

This kind of Biblicism is also of divine institution; despite its opposition, it has a right to exist. It is concerned more directly with the salvation of souls, than the knowledge which coincides with salvation. It is a way congenial to the average mentality, and leads to the same end though by a different path. For this reason, it should not be opposed, regardless of its inevitable antagonism to less dogmatic approaches.

It directly contradicts the Bible.

 

[Urizen]

Keep at it. Fight the enemy and defend the Bible. There will be no opposition from this side.

 

[Skwim]

The Bible says that the "wages" of sin is death. Punishment is different.

Sin is universal in its embrace so far as mankind is concerned, and its end is death. Death and destruction are the words that summarize its punishment, and eternal conscious suffering finds no warrant from Scripture.
source

This verse (Romans 6:23) reminds us that the punishment (wages) of sin is death.
source

 

[idav]

He who mocks the infant's faith
Shall be mock'd in age and death.
He who shall teach the child to doubt
The rotting grave shall ne'er get out.
He who respects the infant's faith
Triumphs over Hell and Death.
The child's Toys and the old man's Reasons
Are the fruits of the two seasons.

Gotta love Pascal's Wager but I'm not a betting person and I think it is a bit fallacious. It is an appeal to fear.

 

[Pegg]

I don't know were in the Bible it says so, what i know is that Jesus said they will go to the fire.

to a place of utter destruction, yes.

The fire was a way of saying to destruction. Death is destruction.

 

[Pegg]

The Bible says that the "wages" of sin is death. Punishment is different.

what was Adams punishment?

Gen 3:19 In the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return.”

The first man sinned and was sentenced to death. Death is the punishment for sin... nothing else.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

Sin is universal in its embrace so far as mankind is concerned, and its end is death. Death and destruction are the words that summarize its punishment, and eternal conscious suffering finds no warrant from Scripture.
source

This verse (Romans 6:23) reminds us that the punishment (wages) of sin is death.
source

That's nice but the punishment is the lake of fire.

 

[Pegg]

That's nice but the punishment is the lake of fire.

the lake of fire is a symbolic place of destruction. 'death' is hurled into it:

Revelation 20:14*And death and Ha′des were hurled into the lake of fire. This means the second death, the lake of fire


the scripture says that 'lake of fire' MEANS 'second death'

 

[sandy whitelinger]

what was Adams punishment?

Gen 3:19 In the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return.”

The first man sinned and was sentenced to death. Death is the punishment for sin... nothing else.

Adam wasn't punished. He was saved which is salvation from punishment.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

what was Adams punishment?

Gen 3:19 In the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return.”

The first man sinned and was sentenced to death. Death is the punishment for sin... nothing else.

Adam wasn't punished. He was saved which is salvation from punishment. Being expelled from the Garden and the cursing of the earth was a consequence of sin.

 

[Pegg]

Adam wasn't punished. He was saved which is salvation from punishment.

how was he saved?