Who is God ? or what are God's attributes ?

[waitasec]

This is the answer:

The problem of suffering has been haunting human consciousness from the moment man gained the power of thinking: The question is: If God is good and means well for humankind, why should He allow them to suffer?

who says god is good?

that one attribute is unsupportable.

 

[PolyHedral]

who says god is good?

that one attribute is unsupportable.

All of the attributes of an omnimax God are unsupportable. They usually devolve into logical paradoxes that have no answers.

 

[Rational_Mind]

All of the attributes of an omnimax God are unsupportable. They usually devolve into logical paradoxes that have no answers.

Can you expand on this. Like what have you come across. I guess forward me to some source that I can read, obviously that shares your views. Maybe it is a book.

 

[waitasec]

All of the attributes of an omnimax God are unsupportable. They usually devolve into logical paradoxes that have no answers.

i agree 100%.




i just stopped at the 1st unsupportable claim that was presented to me...which was the 1st one presented...

 

[loverOfTruth]

The reason why he is different is because he was the very first creation of God. He is the first angel God made. They existed together alone for perhaps eons of time before other angels were created. The book of proverbs describes his close relationship with Allah in Proverbs (written by King Solomon)
Proverbs 8:22 “Jehovah himself produced me as the beginning of his way, the earliest of his achievements of long ago. 23 From time indefinite I was installed, from the start, from times earlier than the earth. ...30 then I came to be beside him as a master worker, and I came to be the one he was specially fond of day by day, I being glad before him all the time,

God Said to Jeremiah: Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. (Jeremiah 1:5)
Is Prophet Jeremiah also Son of God because he preexisted ?

unlike other humans, Jesus lived as a heavenly angel BEFORE he came to earth as a man. You know that Mary became pregnant by holy spirit (Gods power)... this means Jesus did not have a human father....he was more then human. His purpose was to be born in the flesh and die in our behalf. He was to pay the price of sin for every man woman and child. When he did that, he had accomplished his task, and thereafter he was restored to heaven as a powerful angel where he had originally been.

So he was nothing like any other prophet or messenger. He was Gods heavenly angel....the one through whom all things came into existence including us.

'he was more than human' ? So then the figurative 'Son of God' is not true anymore. Either you say that he is human and very special to God or you say that 'Son of God' is not figure of speech. And Adam(pbuh) did not have either human father or mother - so he is more unhumanly.

In your Quran, you know that God speaks in plural.... "We sent our messenger..." why? Allah is with his firstborn....its the same in the bible
Genesis 1:26 And God went on to say: “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness
God speaks in the plural because he is not alone....his firstborn son is with him

You should research more on the Qur'an before commenting on it. The 'We' in the Qur'an is a Royal We (Majestic Plural) and not the regular plural. And we do not think of any first born with Allah - you can't just make that up.

Yes. And not only Jesus, but also the prophets mentioned this too:

Matthew 20:17 Being now about to go up to Jerusalem, Jesus took the twelve disciples off privately and said to them on the road: 18 “Look! We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man will be delivered up to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death...and the third day he will be raised up.”

Matthew 20:28 Just as the Son of man came, not to be ministered to, but to minister and to give his soul a ransom in exchange for many.”

Please note the 'Son of Man' in the verse above, not 'Son of God'.

Ezekiel 18:20 does not apply to God or Jesus...it applies to sinful mankind. We are not punished with death because of Adams sin...we die because we commit our own sins.

The entire purpose of the Mosaic Law was to teach us this vital truth. If we sin, we will die.
If you look around the earth, you surely know that every single person born will die...why do they die? Because we are all breakers of Gods moral laws.
....

its the same with Gods universal moral laws. If we break them, we will die as Ezekiel 18:20 clearly states. "the soul that is sinning, it itself will die"

So you are saying we die, because we sin (and not because God appointed a fixed term for every soul). What about the innocent child(who didn't even learn to move/talk etc.) who happens to die. You think he/she is a sinner too ?

the mosaic law was Gods way of showing mankind why we are dieing....it was only applicable to the Isrealites for a set time until the Messiah arrived, then it would be fulfilled because the Messiah would carry our sins so that we could be forgiven for sin and attain everlasting life through him. (this is side point but this is the reason why Christians do not adhere to the mosaic law)

God is not going to hold sin against us and demand the death penalty anymore....he wants mankind to live forever....he wants death to be done away with for good.

'attain everlasting life', 'live forever' ? Last time I checked, humans are still mortal.

Adam and Jesus are equivalents in that they were both created/born perfect. Being perfect meant they were without defects at their creation. In Adams case, he misused his freewill and chose to become disobedient to God...he did not submit himself to Gods will. But Jesus chose to fully summit himself to God...even in the face of death and bitter persecution he chose martyrdom because he was a true muslim. Adam was not a true muslim though...he was rebellious and under your law, would have been stoned for apostasy.

Again you are making up stuff about islam/muslims. We do believe Adam was a true muslim who submitted to God. Adam/Eve made a mistake and they repented and had been forgiven. Any human being can commit sin and if repent, God can forgive them - that does not take them out of the fold of Islam.

In another post of yours, you mentioned that Adam(pbuh) will not be forgiven. So you really think He is going to Hell ? And he didn't know of Jesus(pbuh) either. So Jesus(pbuh) only paid for the people who came after him ?

 

[Pegg]

God Said to Jeremiah: Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. (Jeremiah 1:5)
Is Prophet Jeremiah also Son of God because he preexisted ?

this should not be taken to mean that Jeremiah pre-existed. If that were the case then all of us would have a pre-existence....yet no one seems to remember it.

this is a case of God using his power of foreknowledge in relation to his purposes. He is able to look into the future and see people before they are born if he chooses to do so.

'he was more than human' ? So then the figurative 'Son of God' is not true anymore. Either you say that he is human and very special to God or you say that 'Son of God' is not figure of speech. And Adam(pbuh) did not have either human father or mother - so he is more unhumanly.

Jesus did have a pre-human existence....thats why he was more then human. He was originally a spirit person who's life was transferred into the womb of Mary so that he could be born into the world as a true human even though he was originally a powerful angel.

Please note the 'Son of Man' in the verse above, not 'Son of God'....The 'We' in the Qur'an is a Royal We (Majestic Plural) and not the regular plural. And we do not think of any first born with Allah - you can't just make that up.

Jesus is both 'son of man' and 'son of God' ... some verses, depending on the context, use either title.

The scriptures also use the majesty plural...but not on words like 'we' or 'us'... the majesty plural is employed in the term 'Elohim which is 'God' (and the hebrew equivalent of Allah) to emphasis his greatness as you say... but how can you employ the majesty plural on 'we' or 'us'? Can you point out if there is a difference in the word/grammar of the arabic word for 'we/us' in places where it is reference to Allah, is it a different spelling to the general 'we/us' ?

So you are saying we die, because we sin (and not because God appointed a fixed term for every soul). What about the innocent child(who didn't even learn to move/talk etc.) who happens to die. You think he/she is a sinner too ?

of course, we all are sinners whether we like it or not. Small children are more innocent because they dont deliberately do so, but they have been born into imperfection and given a few short years will begin to deliberately sin too. Have you never seen a 2yr old kick and scream at and hit their parents when they wanted something but were not allowed to have it. Children are prone to error like the rest of us.
King Davids words highlight this truth
Psalm 51:5 Look! With error I was brought forth with birth pains,
And in sin my mother conceived me.

'attain everlasting life', 'live forever' ? Last time I checked, humans are still mortal.

we will remain so until the judgement day...from that point on, death will not rule over us and even those who are dead will be restored to life.
Even the Quran teaches this at surah 75...it is entirely devoted to “Qiyāmat, or the Resurrection” (AYA), or “The Rising of the Dead” (MMP). In part it says: “I do call to witness the Resurrection Day . . . Does man think that We cannot assemble his bones? . . . He questions: ‘When is the Day of Resurrection?’ . . . Has not He [Allāh] the power to give life to the dead?”—Surah 75:1, 3, 6, 40, AYA.

If you dont think its possible to live forever, why does the quran talk about the dead coming to life?

Again you are making up stuff about islam/muslims. We do believe Adam was a true muslim who submitted to God. Adam/Eve made a mistake and they repented and had been forgiven. Any human being can commit sin and if repent, God can forgive them - that does not take them out of the fold of Islam.

that is a clear difference between christianity and the Quran. Your scriptures paint Adam to be a good prophet....but what did he prophecy?

Only an obedient servant of God would ever be chosen to be a prophet to speak on Gods behalf...yet Adam was the one who introduced death and sin to all people. He chose to obey his wife and Satan rather then Allah. So why would God choose him to be a prophet?

In another post of yours, you mentioned that Adam(pbuh) will not be forgiven. So you really think He is going to Hell ? And he didn't know of Jesus(pbuh) either. So Jesus(pbuh) only paid for the people who came after him ?

Adams case is different to all of us. We were born this way...we had no choice. But Adam had a choice to obey God and he chose not to. God will not forgive him and the evidence that he will not be forgiven is the fact that all his children were born into sin and death.

If God had already forgiven Adams sin, then why should he have died and why would any of us be dying? God told Adam that death would be the consequences of disobedience.... the fact that he died shows that he was disobedient.
Genesis 2:15 And Jehovah God proceeded to take the man and settle him in the garden of E′den to cultivate it and to take care of it. 16 And Jehovah God also laid this command upon the man: “From every tree of the garden you may eat to satisfaction. 17 But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die.”

 

[Mehr Licht]

Is this why God has human attributes, because that God is a reflection of our higher selves?

The Bible posits the reverse of that. That we are made in the image of God and are to grow into his likeness.

 

[Jainarayan]

The point is, the human mind needs either name or form to grasp something, though God Himself may be formless and nameless.

:yes:

"For those whose minds are attached to the unmanifested, impersonal feature of the Supreme, advancement is very troublesome. To make progress in that discipline is always difficult for those who are embodied." Bhagavad Gita 12.5

 

[jtartar]

Since this is a thread for Comparative Religion Learning - I thought it would be nice to see what everyone really thinks of God.

I am a muslim and I believe our Creator, who is the creator of the Heavens and the Earth and everything in it, and everything known and unknown to us is our God/Allah. "'Allah' is simply the Arabic word for God. Allah for Muslims is the greatest and most inclusive of the Names of God, it is an Arabic word of rich meaning, denoting the one and only God."[From jannah.org 'TOP TEN MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT ISLAM']. It is not any other special deity or anything like that. Even Arab Christians use 'Allah' for 'GOD'.

Who can be better than GOD to explain who He is ? As Allah(GOD) says in the Holy Qur'an:

"There is nothing whatever like unto Him, and He is the One that hears and sees all things." (Al-Qur'an 42:11)

"Allah! There is no god but He,-the Living, the Self-subsisting, Eternal. No slumber can seize Him nor sleep. His are all things in the heavens and on earth. Who is there can intercede in His presence except as He permitteth? He knoweth what (appeareth to His creatures as) before or after or behind them. Nor shall they compass aught of His knowledge except as He willeth. His Throne doth extend over the heavens and the earth, and He feeleth no fatigue in guarding and preserving them for He is the Most High, the Supreme (in glory)." (Al-Qur'an 2:255)

"Say: He is Allah, the One and Only; Allah, the Eternal, Absolute; He begetteth not, nor is He begotten; And there is none like unto Him."
(Al-Qur'an 112:1-4)

"Say (O Muhammad to mankind):If the sea were ink for (writing) the Words of my Lord, surely, the sea would be exhausted before the Words of my Lord would be finished, even if we brought (another sea) like it for its aid."
(Al-Qur'an 18:109)

Peace to all.

lover of Truth,
The three major religions of the world are; Judaism, Islam and Christianity. All three had their beginning in the Bible. The God of the Bible is not Allah, but Jehovah. This personal name, Proper name is the name of the only true God as written in the Holy Bible. God caused His name to be recorded in His Book over 7,000 times, but some who CALL themselves have taken His name out of His own Book. Every place in the KJV of the Holy Scriptures, where all the letters in, either LORD or GOD are recorded, the original scriptures had YHWH or JHVH, the Hebrew word for JEHOVAH. He says that He is the one who created the heavens, the earth and all that is in them, Isa 45:18. The Bible tells us that everyone walks in the name of his god, but the people who followed the God of the Bible will walk in the name of JEHOVAH, Micah 4:5. Also Jeremiah says that God's RAGE shall be poured out on all not calling upon Jehovah,s NAME, Jere 10:25.
He is the only one who tells us about how mankind began, how he fell away from God and the purpose God has for bringing mankind back to Him. He sent his son as a Corresponding Ransom for mankind, Jesus corresponds to Adam, who was the only other perfect man. Adam rebelled against God, Jesus came to bring mankind back to God. Which other god tells that they will bring back to life all people who have never had the chance to learn about HIm, except the very wicked, Isa 26:19-21.
We must make very sure about who we worship, because The Almighty God Jehovah says that He is going to annihilate all other Gods and all who worship them, Ps 115:1-8, Jere 10:10-12,14,15.
It behooves every person living to make sure they are worshipping the only true God. The Bible is about one third prophecy. All the prophecies have come true exactly on time, we are NOW eyewitnesses of Bible prophesies written by followers of Jehovah God. There is no other person or anyone called a god who can tell the future accurrately, so it seem that Jehovah, the God of the Bible is really the ONLY TRUE GOD!!!

 

[Rational_Mind]

Now how did I know that this would be your response, I actually left it open for that. Sorry mods.
Well lets say Allah gave me a vision of one of the alien creations he created on another world 10million light years away and I drew a representation of that vision and then tore that picture up. Would I have destroyed any part of that alien? That alien is not as far as any of us is concerned a thing, well except Allah and me. So you see that if you envisage a picture of Allah, it is only between you and Allah whether or not that picture is real. How can destroying said picture have any influence on Allah at all?

if that alien is able to be physically seen hence put into a picture then surely it is possible to destroy it. not by tearing the picture. Maybe this concept is to hard for you. The fact that we can so easily comprehend that beings form and draw it simply means it is neither so great to worship or indestructible. If anyone could understand this easily without bias should be more likely non-believers.

 

[fishy]

if that alien is able to be physically seen hence put into a picture then surely it is possible to destroy it. not by tearing the picture. Maybe this concept is to hard for you. The fact that we can so easily comprehend that beings form and draw it simply means it is neither so great to worship or indestructible. If anyone could understand this easily without bias should be more likely non-believers.

Where did you see that I wrote this creature able was to be physically seen, I help you...............nowhere. Would you like to try to answer my questions, because IMO you only ever answer your own questions. Perhaps English isn't your first language and that "might" explain it, otherwise some might see it as gross dishonesty. The premise I put was simple enough for even you to understand I would have thought.

 

[loverOfTruth]

lover of Truth,
The three major religions of the world are; Judaism, Islam and Christianity. All three had their beginning in the Bible. The God of the Bible is not Allah, but Jehovah. This personal name, Proper name is the name of the only true God as written in the Holy Bible. God caused His name to be recorded in His Book over 7,000 times, but some who CALL themselves have taken His name out of His own Book. Every place in the KJV of the Holy Scriptures, where all the letters in, either LORD or GOD are recorded, the original scriptures had YHWH or JHVH, the Hebrew word for JEHOVAH. He says that He is the one who created the heavens, the earth and all that is in them, Isa 45:18. The Bible tells us that everyone walks in the name of his god, but the people who followed the God of the Bible will walk in the name of JEHOVAH, Micah 4:5. Also Jeremiah says that God's RAGE shall be poured out on all not calling upon Jehovah,s NAME, Jere 10:25.
He is the only one who tells us about how mankind began, how he fell away from God and the purpose God has for bringing mankind back to Him. He sent his son as a Corresponding Ransom for mankind, Jesus corresponds to Adam, who was the only other perfect man. Adam rebelled against God, Jesus came to bring mankind back to God. Which other god tells that they will bring back to life all people who have never had the chance to learn about HIm, except the very wicked, Isa 26:19-21.
We must make very sure about who we worship, because The Almighty God Jehovah says that He is going to annihilate all other Gods and all who worship them, Ps 115:1-8, Jere 10:10-12,14,15.
It behooves every person living to make sure they are worshipping the only true God. The Bible is about one third prophecy. All the prophecies have come true exactly on time, we are NOW eyewitnesses of Bible prophesies written by followers of Jehovah God. There is no other person or anyone called a god who can tell the future accurrately, so it seem that Jehovah, the God of the Bible is really the ONLY TRUE GOD!!!

First of all, Islam didn't start with the Bible. The word 'Islam' literally means 'Submission to God'. In its simplest form Islam is neither a new religion nor is it exclusively for the Muslims. The essence of Islam is pure, pure, pure monotheism - that is "There is no god but GOD", meaning there is only ONE GOD with no partners. According to Islam, that same message has been conveyed to humanity throughout the history of mankind via God's messengers - all the prophets starting from Prophet Adam(PBUH) and then continuing with many other including Noah(PBUH), Abraham(PBUH), Moses(PBUH), Jesus(PBUH) and finally ending with Prophet Muhammad(PBUH).

Secondly, the word Jehovah never appears in the Hebrew bible and even if you say YHWH means Jehova, still it is not the name of God. Please see here :
Is Jehovah God? - Examining Yahweh in Arabic!

On the contrary, word Allah is the same God that Jesus worshiped. See it for yourself : [youtube]yBTnwFq0Lf4[/youtube]
,in aramaic JESUS CALLED GOD: ALLAH - YouTube
(even wikipedia definition of Allah would confirm that)

And if prophesy was the only thing that would make a book Godly, what about Nostradamus and all the other fortune tellers ? Don't get me wrong, even the Qur'an talks about prophecies but we just don't focus on it as much. That's just one part of the divine sign. And every single one is true unlike other books. See Jehovahs Witnesses - False Prophecies

For more on the miracle of the Qur'an please visit the following :
http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/2854170-post286.html
which was part of the thread http://www.religiousforums.com/foru...es/129347-there-any-evidence-truth-islam.html

Peace.

 

[CynthiaCypher]

God has no attributes! You cannot define God either as a subject or object

 

[Rational_Mind]

Where did you see that I wrote this creature able was to be physically seen, I help you...............nowhere. Would you like to try to answer my questions, because IMO you only ever answer your own questions. Perhaps English isn't your first language and that "might" explain it, otherwise some might see it as gross dishonesty. The premise I put was simple enough for even you to understand I would have thought.

My apologies, I made two mistakes. 1. I assumed something you envisioned was not imagery but a alien being in its physical form. 2. Let the discussion of off topic. 3. Caused confusion due to picture example that got misconstrued into having any real relationship with the physical medium it was illustrated on.

I apologize.

Let us establish a couple of things:
1. The apparent Gods that I reference, as the topic of discussion, are the beings illustrated as physical beings in pictures.
2. Physical objects/things can be destroyed. We may not be capable yet of destroying it but theoretically all can be destroyed.
3. Matter is limited in the fact that it cannot go faster than the speed of light.

I am not just making this up on limit of speed of light: (Probing Question: Can anything travel faster than the speed of light?) Also note the CERN experiment where neutrinos travelled faster than light turned out to be an error.

 

[loverOfTruth]

Jesus did have a pre-human existence....thats why he was more then human. He was originally a spirit person who's life was transferred into the womb of Mary so that he could be born into the world as a true human even though he was originally a powerful angel.

By the way, the verse you quoted from Proverbs 8, is not talking about Jesus. It is written by King Solomon and the commentary says it is talking about Wisdom not Jesus.
Please see @ A free EasyEnglish Bible Version and Commentary (2800 word vocabulary) on the Book of Proverbs in simple English

Now if you say Wisdom means Jesus just like YHWY means Jehovah (see my comment at the end regarding this), I have to say that you are relying on quite a bit of assumptions/made up stuff and not concrete evidence even from your own scripture.

This angel of God is called the 'firstborn' by the Apostle Paul, and all other angles were created 'through' him and its for that reason that he is the 'chief' or Archangel in heaven.
Colossians 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16 because by means of him all [other] things were created in the heavens and upon the earth, the things visible and the things invisible,

Again this is Paul speaking not Jesus. So you haven't shown me a single explicit saying of Jesus(pbuh) that claims that he pre-existed as an angel or that Jesus(pbuh) the Son of God (even figurative as you claim to believe) is any different than all the other 'Son of God' used in the Bible (a lot of them actually). Additionally, according to Job 38:4 and 21, God addresses Prophet Job as follows: “4 Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding... 21 You Know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great!”

Similarly in the Qur‘an, Chapter al-A‘raaf(7:172), God informed that man existed in the spiritual form before the creation of the physical world.“When your Lord gathered all of Aadam’s descendants [before creation] and made them bear witness for themselves, saying: ‘Am I not your Lord?’ They all replied: Yes indeed, we bear witness. [That was] so you could not say on the Day of Judgement: ‘We were unaware of this.’ ” So that doesn't make everyone of us that Special Son of God .

The scriptures also use the majesty plural...but not on words like 'we' or 'us'... the majesty plural is employed in the term 'Elohim which is 'God' (and the hebrew equivalent of Allah) to emphasis his greatness as you say... but how can you employ the majesty plural on 'we' or 'us'? Can you point out if there is a difference in the word/grammar of the arabic word for 'we/us' in places where it is reference to Allah, is it a different spelling to the general 'we/us' ?

Please see The meaning of the pronoun “We” as used in the Qur’an - TTI - Turn To Islam - for more details on the majestic We in the Qur'an.

of course, we all are sinners whether we like it or not. Small children are more innocent because they dont deliberately do so, but they have been born into
imperfection and given a few short years will begin to deliberately sin too. Have you never seen a 2yr old kick and scream at and hit their parents when they wanted something but were not allowed to have it. Children are prone to error like the rest of us.

If you really think that the kicking of a child in the mother's womb or a toddler's tantrum is a Sin, you either don't know what a Child is or you don't know what Sin is. I have hard time believing that you actually said that.

we will remain so until the judgement day...from that point on, death will not rule over us and even those who are dead will be restored to life.
Even the Quran teaches this at surah 75...it is entirely devoted to “Qiyāmat, or the Resurrection” (AYA), or “The Rising of the Dead” (MMP). In part it says: “I do call to witness the Resurrection Day . . . Does man think that We cannot assemble his bones? . . . He questions: ‘When is the Day of Resurrection?’ . . . Has not He [Allāh] the power to give life to the dead?”—Surah 75:1, 3, 6, 40, AYA.

If you dont think its possible to live forever, why does the quran talk about the dead coming to life?

We believe in 'living forever' after the 'day of judgement' not before. Everyone shall die and then get resurrected on the Day of Judgement and live forever in
Paradise/Hell. However, what you are saying is 'God is not going to hold sin against us and demand the death penalty anymore ... since Jesus's(pbuh) purpose was to be born in the flesh and die in our behalf'. So if Jesus(pbuh) already died on our behalf and 'death occurs because of sin', we should be already in the clear. He already paid the Ransom, why should we still be hostage anymore ? We should be free and 'living forever' from right after Jesus(pbuh) made the payment. We should not have to go through another 'sin compensating death'. That is cheating. God received the money already, why is He still holding us hostage ? You see the contradiction ?

King Davids words highlight this truth
Psalm 51:5 Look! With error I was brought forth with birth pains,And in sin my mother conceived me.

that is a clear difference between christianity and the Quran. Your scriptures paint Adam to be a good prophet....but what did he prophecy?

Only an obedient servant of God would ever be chosen to be a prophet to speak on Gods behalf...yet Adam was the one who introduced death and sin to all people. He chose to obey his wife and Satan rather then Allah. So why would God choose him to be a prophet?
Adams case is different to all of us. We were born this way...we had no choice. But Adam had a choice to obey God and he chose not to. God will not forgive him and the evidence that he will not be forgiven is the fact that all his children were born into sin and death.

If God had already forgiven Adams sin, then why should he have died and why would any of us be dying? God told Adam that death would be the consequences of disobedience.... the fact that he died shows that he was disobedient.

Genesis 2:15 And Jehovah God proceeded to take the man and settle him in the garden of E′den to cultivate it and to take care of it. 16 And Jehovah God also laid this command upon the man: “From every tree of the garden you may eat to satisfaction. 17 But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die.”

Did Adam die 'the day he ate' the fruit ? No. So now I'll give you a simple and clear version of what might have happened and may be you'll reflect. Please read below ...

God created Adam and then Eve and everyone else from them.
“And God said: ‘O Mankind! Be dutiful to your Lord, Who created you from a single person (Adam) and from Him (Adam) He created his wife (Eve), and from them both He created many men and women.’” (Quran 4:1)

God placed Adam and Eve in paradise and warned them not to eat from the Tree : "And We said: "O Adam! Dwell you and your wife in the Paradise and eat both of you freely with pleasure and delight of things therein as wherever you will, but come not near this tree or you both will be of the wrongdoers." (Quran 2:35)

Being human they both made mistake and fell into Satan's ploy and they repented and asked for God's forgiveness.
“Then they both ate of that tree, and so their private parts appeared to them, and they began to stick on themselves the leaves from Paradise for their covering. Thus did Adam disobey his Lord, so he went astray. Then his Lord chose him, and turned to him with forgiveness and gave him guidance.” (Quran 20:121-122)

God said:“So he (Satan) misled them with deception.” (Quran 7:22) and Adam prayed : “Our Lord! We have wronged ourselves. If you forgive us not and bestow not upon us Your Mercy, we shall certainly be of the losers.” (Quran 7:23)

From this experience, Adam learned the great lesson that Satan is cunning, ungrateful and the avowed enemy of mankind. Then God sent Adam and Eve to earth.
“‘On earth will be a dwelling place for you and an enjoyment, for a time.’ He said: ‘Therein you shall live and therein you shall die, and from it you shall be
brought out (resurrected).’” (Quran 7:24–25)
So clearly God forgave them and then sent to Earth.

Also, as you can see from above, the blame is on both Adam and Eve(if not more on Adam) unlike the Bible. Moreover, in Islam, the pain during childbirth has nothing to do with Eve's sin, rather a physiological event, which is needed for giving birth.

[Taken from : ]The Story of Adam (part 1 of 5): The First Man - The Religion of Islam

See, how simple ? It doesn't require you to believe that an innocent child is a sinner or that God's innocent Son need's to be ransomed for a crazy murderer. It just makes sense.

Note : By the way, as I have mentioned in an earlier post, the word Jehovah never appears in the Hebrew bible and even if you say YHWH means Jehova, still it is not the name of God. Please see here :
Is Jehovah God? - Examining Yahweh in Arabic!

On the contrary, word Allah is the same God that Jesus worshiped. See it for yourself : [youtube]yBTnwFq0Lf4[/youtube]
,in aramaic JESUS CALLED GOD: ALLAH - YouTube
(even wikipedia definition of Allah would confirm that)

 

[Prophet]

The attributes of God and love are identical.

I have rephrased 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 to clarify what I mean.

God is patient. God is kind. God does not envy. God does not boast. God is not proud. God is not self-seeking. God is not easily angered. God keeps no record of wrongs. God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. God always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 

[Pegg]

By the way, the verse you quoted from Proverbs 8, is not talking about Jesus. It is written by King Solomon and the commentary says it is talking about Wisdom not Jesus.
Please see @ A free EasyEnglish Bible Version and Commentary (2800 word vocabulary) on the Book of Proverbs in simple English

Now if you say Wisdom means Jesus just like YHWY means Jehovah (see my comment at the end regarding this), I have to say that you are relying on quite a bit of assumptions/made up stuff and not concrete evidence even from your own scripture.

You know that the same christians believe that Jesus is God and that God is a trinity....i know you dont believe what they teach about Gods identity, so if they are wrong about Gods identity, then surely they can be wrong about the one being spoken of in proverbs, yes?

Again this is Paul speaking not Jesus. So you haven't shown me a single explicit saying of Jesus(pbuh) that claims that he pre-existed as an angel

John 8:23 So he (Jesus) went on to say to them: “YOU are from the realms below; I am from the realms above. YOU are from this world; I am not from this world. 24 Therefore I said to YOU, YOU will die in YOUR sins. For if YOU do not believe that I am [he], YOU will die in YOUR sins.” 25 Therefore they began to say to him: “Who are you?”

John 18;36 Jesus answered: “My kingdom is no part of this world. If my kingdom were part of this world, my attendants would have fought that I should not be delivered up to the Jews
Who were Jesus 'attendants'?
Matthew 26:53 Or do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father to supply me at this moment more than twelve legions of angels?

Speaking of himself and his position, he said at John 3:31 "He that comes from above is over all others. He that is from the earth is from the earth and speaks of things of the earth. He that comes from heaven is over all others.

John 16:28 I came out from the Father and have come into the world. Further, I am leaving the world and am going my way to the Father.”

Jesus stated it many times that he came from heaven....only spirits live in heaven and spirits are angels of God. The only way that Jesus could have come from heaven is if he himself was one of these angels. And his apostles certainly believed him to be so for Paul says that he is the Arch Angel....Michael.
1Thessalonians 4:16 because the Lord himself (Jesus) will descend from heaven with a commanding call, with an archangel’s voice and with God’s trumpet
There is only one arch angel mentioned in the hebrew scriptures...he is Michael.

Additionally, according to Job 38:4 and 21, God addresses Prophet Job as follows: “4 Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding... 21 You Know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great!”

God is pointing out to Job that he did not exist when God created the earth...he is asking a 'rhetorical question' which is a question that one asking already knows the answer to. He certainly isnt saying that Job existed then....he is saying that he 'didnt' exist. This is a similar teaching to that of mormonism which claims that humans are immortal spirits who existed in heaven before they were born as humans.

Is it not reasonable to ask that if we did exist as spirits prior to our birth as humans, we would remember it?

And the account in the bible about Adams creation says that he was created 'from the earth' and when he dies he returns to 'dust'

We believe in 'living forever' after the 'day of judgement' not before. Everyone shall die and then get resurrected on the Day of Judgement and live forever in
Paradise/Hell. ...So if Jesus(pbuh) already died on our behalf and 'death occurs because of sin', we should be already in the clear. He already paid the Ransom, why should we still be hostage anymore ? We should be free and 'living forever' from right after Jesus(pbuh) made the payment. We should not have to go through another 'sin compensating death'. That is cheating. God received the money already, why is He still holding us hostage ? You see the contradiction ?

there is no contradiction. living forever will not commence until AFTER judgement day as you also state. The bible also states that living forever will only occur after judgement day,....and judgement day will not come before Gods Great Day of Armageddon. Neither of which have occurred yet which is why we are still dieing.

Did Adam die 'the day he ate' the fruit ? No.

What is a single earthly day from our viewpoint is not a single day from Gods viewpoint. Do you really believe that God is bound by time the way that we are bound by the rotation of the earth around the sun? Of course he cannot be confined to time the same way we are.

The apostle Peter states:
2Peter 3:8 However, let this one fact not be escaping YOUR notice, beloved ones, that one day is with Jehovah as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day

Moses psalm states:
Psalms 90:4 For a thousand years are in your eyes but as yesterday when it is past, And as a watch during the night.

Now if one day in Gods sight is 1,000 years...then Adam did indeed die in the same 'day' that he sinned, for Genesis says:
Genesis 5:5 So all the days of Adam that he lived amounted to nine hundred and thirty years and he died'

Note : By the way, as I have mentioned in an earlier post, the word Jehovah never appears in the Hebrew bible and even if you say YHWH means Jehova, still it is not the name of God. Please see here :
Is Jehovah God? - Examining Yahweh in Arabic!

In the hebrew scriptures, the name YHWH is most certainly in there. When that name is translated to English, it becomes Jehovah. But in other languages it becomes something else such as in Indonesian Jehovah is Yehuwa, in Turkish its Yehova', in Romanian its Iehova, in Czechoslovakian its Jehovovych,
"Jehovah" in Arabic is يهوه - pronounced "yahwa"

 

[Katzpur]

Is it not reasonable to ask that if we did exist as spirits prior to our birth as humans, we would remember it?

We don't even remember of birth or the first almost two years of our lives. Why would we be expected to remember something that happened before our birth?

 

[Falvlun]

The attributes of God and love are identical.

I have rephrased 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 to clarify what I mean.

God is patient. God is kind. God does not envy. God does not boast. God is not proud. God is not self-seeking. God is not easily angered. God keeps no record of wrongs. God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. God always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Two problems: Neither the God of the Bible nor Love always project those attributes.

 

[loverOfTruth]

God keeps no record of wrongs.

That would be the E-ZPass to mischief in the world. It's like God saying 'Do only good things, and stay away from evil. However, if you still do evil, that's fine - just don't worry about it dude - it's all cool' ;-).

If you don't believe in God, I can understand that. However, I cannot fathom how someone who believes in God could believe that.