St Giordano Bruno
Well-Known Member
Sounds a bit like suicide by cop. That's all
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Why did Jesus Die for us?
- Thread starter Dan4reason
- Start date
waitasec
Veteran Member
in essence, free will is a sin
strikeviperMKII
Well-Known Member
That is simply natural selection. If a nation had laws that made it okay to kill people for absolutely no reason, that nation wouldn't last very long, would it?
(The answer to this question is that there are no nations with such laws. Hence said laws are a detriment for a nation's survival, so those that had them, didn't survive.)
Same goes for all universally common laws. They are human constructs in order for national governments to survive. Basically, these laws are a governments environmental 'camouflage' against anarchist 'predators'.
If that was so, why did God not instantly take Adam and Eve away from the Garden at the exact second they ate the fruit? God, being all-powerful and all-knowing, would have known exactly what was happening. Yet he did not send them away until after they had disobeyed. So why was it the disobedience that is the mistake, not something they did after they disobeyed? (Such as hiding from God, or blaming someone else for eating the fruit).
Oh, so now we have to get into what those standards are. And I don't want to even go there, because there are over 40000 different views on that subject, all thinking they are equally right, but all equally wrong. (That includes my own church).
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Faithfreedom
i gotta change my avatar
free will is not a sin. You have the free will to put your hand in the fire. You have chosen to get burnt. Its not the fire's fault. Its not Your immediate creators' fault (ie your parents when they gave birth to you with your inherent free will). Its your own fault that you got burnt.
PolyHedral
Superabacus Mystic
It is the immediate creator's fault if he doesn't give any indication that the fire is harmful, knowing full well that you'll put your hand in it.
strikeviperMKII
Well-Known Member
What would be the point if we knew all the things (or even some of the things) that were harmful to us? We can figure that out on our own, and it through that experience that we live. Anything else is death.
waitasec
Veteran Member
i was responding to pegg...
in any case, if we are talking about original sin, the sin was making the choice to act out on free will.
how can one become responsible without knowing/understanding the consequence. the tree of knowledge of good and evil might as well have been called the tree of glipity and goop...because in essence good/evil had no meaning unless they acted in free will to KNOW what good and evil meant.
put poison in the crib of a 2 yr old, they have a concept of what NO means, but do not have a concept of the consequence of what the poison will do....
that is essentially what happened in the genesis story.
the god of the bible doesn't want us to live in free will because once we step out side of his control and use our free will, we are beyond god's reach making god powerless.
so yes in essence, free will is a sin
because it make god powerless.
Dan4reason
Facts not Faith
Some morals do have an instinctive component without any connection to cultural norms, however, they mostly work for people who are emotionally close. For example, people will always have horror for killing or harming someone emotionally close like a mother or brother. This emotion can be greatly reduced when the person kills a stranger. In many cultures, murder was only wrong when you killed a person in your tribe.
Many ethical norms have to be taught. For example we will often see children lie, steal, and be selfish. They have to be trained to be civil.
All this proves that the knowledge of good and evil is only a general set of emotions and instincts. These instincts are a vital part of us, but remember that they are not everything and much of our modern morality is taught. Adam and Eve did not have these emotions, so they did not have this moral compass. It is not fair to make them make moral decisions without these emotions and I can see how they could have rebelled against God.
Actually, nearly all of mankind today sin, and this proves that we are destined to sin at least once.
You are ignoring the point I am making. It is wrong for God to allow mankind to recieve the punishment Adam and Eve did through God's created process, the transfer of genes from parent to child. It also makes no sense for a Holy God to allow imperfect beings to be created. Why not just make the descendents of Adam sinless?
There was actually never a need for Jesus to come to this earth. Again, if a murderer was about to be sentenced to death, a judge would never allow his mother to volunteer to die for him. If we have hurt other, someone else cannot pay for us.
What is the difference between justice and revenge? One difference is that justice tried to solve the problems that an action has created and revenge is just the desire to "get back" for the offense. According to justice, there must be a logical need for punishment.
Having a person tortured and killed does not pay restitution to those we sinned against, it does not stop us from sinning, and does not protect those who could be violated by sinners. Punishment for any other reason is simply revenge.
I hope that you know that aging is not caused by sin. If you ask any doctor you will get a better explanation.
waitasec
Veteran Member
Faithfreedom
i gotta change my avatar
I know. But does that mean that i cannot comment on your post?
waitasec
Veteran Member
of course you can
i just wanted to make sure you understood the context, that's all.
sorry if i offended you, that was not my intention.
Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
if we misuse it, yes.
Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
they have been in place long before government and they are among people who have traditionally lived without formal governments such as the Australian Aboriginals....no governments among them, yet they had laws against murder, incest & stealing for instance.
yes he would have known what was happening, but he never acts in haste...and he also doesnt sit watching our every move waiting for an opportunity to jump.
what they did after they disobeyed showed how they felt about what they'd done. But it was the act of taking something that didnt belong to them that was bad...they effectively stole something from God.
But going even deeper then the act of stealing, they actually showed disrespect for Gods Sovereignty...his right to rule his creation. The law placed on the tree was really a way for God to state his ownership of the earth and all that is in it. He was the rightful owner and as such was the rightful ruler...but by their disobedience to Gods law, they showed disrespect for his position as sovereign. Thats why he couldnt just forgive them and let them get on with it. He is willing to do that for us because we are born into a world where his sovereignty is not respected...but for them there was no excuse.
you are right on that, yes
Jesus form of Christianity is very simple in that regard though. He showed us that all the laws of God hang on two basic principles
1. Love God with your whole heart
2. Love your neighbor as yourself.
If we treat God and our fellow man with love, then we will have fulfilled all of Gods requirements.
PolyHedral
Superabacus Mystic
Then he is a rubbish ruler. There is such a thing as "mitigating circumstances."
Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
not really because they could have very well used their free will to do the opposite of what they chose
So it wasnt the fact that they 'used' their free will...it was the fact that they 'misused'
If I gave you a gun to shoot targets with, but you chose to shoot people instead, you have 'misused' that gun. That is exactly what they did.
They knew that eating would mean death for them. They would have understood what death meant because God told them it would mean 'returning to dust from where you have come'
And they would have seen how the animals lived and died also, so they would have know what it meant to die.
Really, 'knowing' good and evil actually had more to do with 'self determination' and ill explain why.
The law given to them was a knowledge of good and evil that God gave them. They knew it was good to refrain and evil to eat from the tree because God told them so.
For as long as they obeyed, he was their source of knowledge of good and evil. They remained dependent on him for knowledge.
But when they made their own decision about eating from the tree, they in effect chose their own 'knowledge' over Gods knowledge. Eve was convinced that it would be 'good' to eat and 'bad' not to eat (due to the serpents deception)
So they did not remain dependent upon God for his knowledge, but rather independently relied on their own knowledge.
The evidence that this is the case is in how mankind thinks today. We all depend on our own knowledge and choose our own way... that is what Adam and Eve did. and just as they learnt the truth by experience, so do we. We only know we've made a mistake when we've experienced it but it doesnt have to be like that because God is a source of superior knowledge and he has told us what is good and what is bad.
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Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
im not sure i agree with that. We know that many soldiers who return from war are severely affected by being in the situation where they have had to kill complete strangers. There are even accounts of how some soldiers refuse to fire their weapons and have to be psychologically adjusted to do this.
yes this is very true... .You just reminded me of the time my 4 yr old son stole something from a shop and i had to take him back return it
However, he actually knew he had done the wrong thing even before i told him because he was hiding what he stole....he didnt want me to see it and was quite fearful when I made him take it back. This shows that even at that age, the conscience is working and its that conscience which is built into us to know good from bad....that is where we get the knowledge of God from...but yes you are right, it has to be trained.
I dont agree that Adam and Eve didnt have these instincts though for the reason that after they had done the deed, they hid from God, they covered their nakedness, they blamed the other when questioned about it....all this is evidence that they knew they had done the wrong thing.
Sin is the way we think and decide on our actions... God cannot simply make us think and act the way he wants us to. To do that is to make us into mindless animals. He made us to be able to think and have the ability to decide. While he does hold us to account for our decisions, the ability to decide will never be taken away from us and for that reason, he cant simply remove sin and give us everlasting life.
God had more then one reason to send Jesus. We benefit from it yes, but it wasnt only for our benefit. The issue raised in Eden with regard to mankind was an attack on Gods sovereignty. It was witnessed by all the angels in heaven and the issue needed resolving.
Can any of mankind really be faithful & obedient to God? Does God have the right to rule mankind and is his rulership necessary? Can mankind be successful without Gods interference?
These are the issues Satan raised and the only way to answer that was to have another perfect person live a faithful and obedient life. Jesus was the one chosen to provide that answer and the end results for us is that by his death we might all have life.
No it doesnt. Which is why, even though Adam was put to death, we still feel the effects of his sin. The effects of one persons sin can be far reaching which is precisely why God could not simply prevent Adams children from feeling the effects of Adams sin.
We have been violated by Adams sin and God has paid compensation to us by providing a way out of the effects we are feeling.
Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
hence why he accepted Jesus death in exchange for ours.
Pegg
Jehovah our God is One
Jesus certainly believed this to be possible
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.
And this is what the Apostles of Christ taught.
1 Timothy 2:3 This is fine and acceptable in the sight of our Savior, God, 4 whose will is that all sorts of men should be saved and come to an accurate knowledge of truth. 5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, a man, Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself a corresponding ransom for all[this is] what is to be witnessed to at its own particular times.
Galatians 1:4
He gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from the present wicked system of things according to the will of our God and Father