Why does my God allow children to die? Is he evil?

[1robin]

Yes.

So any claim that has a single counter claim means there is no way to resolve the truth even if all the evidence is on one side. Great standards, you just destroyed about 90% of human knowledge. I think maybe you misunderstood my question.

I doubt that.

Why in the world would you say that? Every single witness is on my side, every single contemporary claimant is on my side, all the historical evidence is on my side. The only thing on the other is one tyrant word who existed 500 years and 500 miles from the events. In what way are we mired here?

So?

I am trying to show disagreement is not even fractionally as destructive as you hope here. If you don't get it I can't make it any clearer.

Should we also determine that similarities between say, Norse and Celtic mythologies is evidence for the truth of their claims?

I was not arguing for it says I was arguing against the level of difficulty you say any disagreement results in.

That’s nice. The disagreement between the various followers and sects of this religion is seemingly quite massive given the number of Christian denominations in existence.

Not when they agree on 95% of conclusions about 750,000 of the most divisive words in human history. It is downright miraculous.

Science and religion are two very different things.

No kidding. Science only need faith and faith requires proof. Very different indeed.

Scientific theories are based on consensus of evidence rather than consensus of opinion.

Is that where multiverses came from? Where exactly is the evidence for holographic theory and abiogenesis? Maybe they hid it in the same drawer as they did the 60 thousand fossils they did not like at the Smithsonian.

How’s that?

You just said above you did not want to have the same conversation again, now you claim that conversation is a mystery. Which is it? I have said and demonstrated that claim a dozen times but it is obvious anyway. Without God there are no moral facts for you to line up with. There is nothing left but opinion.

We resolve moral doctrines by debating the potential consequences and implications of taking certain actions over others, by opinion, by logic and reasoning, by human experience and interaction with others, by analyzing history, etc., etc., etc.

No, you resolve ethical preferences by guessing and invention without a single one of them ever even having the potential to be true.

We’ve already had this discussion, many, many times.

Now this again. Please just pick one. I prefer this one.

I would probably be a lot more inclined to “establish faith” if you there weren’t so many different Christian denominations in existence (not to mention the other thousands upon thousands of religions that have been created and discarded throughout history). I mean, if you guys can’t all agree on what the Bible is supposed to be saying, what are the unbelievers supposed to think?

I can not seriously take the number of denominations as an excuse to reject faith. It has never sounded sincere and is pathetically week in my opinion. Not even in my darkest atheistic days would I have stooped to use it. I had hard questions and having watched the only Christian I knew slowly die in pain to found my preferences on. I did not need unjustifiable excuses like demanding perfect agreement.

 

[1robin]

Like I said, my life came from my parents. As in, they created me.

You know about the birds and the bees, right?

They gave you life. Where did they get a life to give you? You said it not me, repeating it won't help. If you mean they had a roll in a process far larger than themselves then ok. If you mean they are solely responsible for you body and soul hen please explain. This is like an atheist demanding rights. What rights and where did you get them? No government has a single right stored anywhere to give anyone.

 

[1robin]

And as most of us have pointed out to you - that is totally illogical, and wrong!

No you nor anyone else has not, not even close.

1. You cannot never ever know the truth of whether babies sin or not. Claiming you do only makes it worse.
2. Even if you were right you would never ever know it.
3. What little evidence there is against you.
4. True or not, knowable or not, it is not relevant. It is a tactic called an appeal to emotion and the left feeds on it.

One has to understand what sin is, - and THEN do it anyway, - to be a sinner!

1. Sin is a theological term. It has a theological definition hat no secular influence has any effect on.
2. Sin is theologically the disobeying of divine moral truth whether intentional or not. Intentionality may influence the severity but not he quality of the act.
3. Even secular law will not take ignorance as an excuse all the time. Only special kinds of ignorance are used to excuse even though technically the law was broken regardless.

Obviously babies do not fall into that category for sin.

You not of what you type.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

They gave you life. Where did they get a life to give you? You said it not me, repeating it won't help. If you mean they had a roll in a process far larger than themselves then ok. If you mean they are solely responsible for you body and soul hen please explain. This is like an atheist demanding rights. What rights and where did you get them? No government has a single right stored anywhere to give anyone.

If rights are based on nothing more than the whim of some god, then you have no rights at all.

If something is truly a right, then you would be justified in demanding it from God if he denied it to you. What are you prepared to demand of God?

 

[SkepticThinker]

That is not the mainstream definition when it is used in debates about theology especially when they come from the hostile camp.

These are:

Myth: A misrepresentation of the truth:
Myth: fictitious or imaginary person or thing.
Myth: An exaggerated or idealized conception of a person or thing:
Myth: a widely held but false belief or idea.
myth: definition of myth in Oxford dictionary (American English) (US)

or

Myth: an idea or story that is believed by many people but that is not true.

or

Myth: : a person or thing having only an imaginary or unverifiable existence
Myth - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary

or

Myth: Myths are Narratives that are "Counter-Factual in featuring actors and actions that confound the conventions of routine experience"


Anyway you see there are many definitions of Myth. The question is which ones are most consistent with a person who does not believe a particular story. Mine are consistent with a non-believer. Yours is not.


BTW the Bible is not officially classified as myth. It is classified as historical biography.

Can we get off the semantic circus now?

It's the #1 definition in the Oxford dictionary. And the remaining definitions don't really detract from that. Many parts of the Bible certainly seem to "confound the conventions of routine experience," don'tcha think?

BTW, in my opinion, the Bible is classified as myth, according to the definition I provided. Who calls it "historical biography" besides yourself?

 

[SkepticThinker]

That is perfectly consistent with biblical doctrine.

How so?

I certainly hope not. I have spent years in study using established and scholastic biblical exegesis and hermeneutic methodology and prayer to arrive at my conclusions. Many of which I would rather have another way. It is the most securitized book in human history and very certain methods have been long established to arrive at the truth. At least for me there is not much winging it or preference involved.

I don’t see any way around it. I don’t think it’s possible for any human being to view anything without interpreting it through their own perspective – it’s how our brains work.

And again, though “very certain methods have been long established to arrive at the truth,” there are still thousands of differing views of said “truths” just among Christians alone. Thus reinforcing my point.

 

[JM2C]

Again, I'll use the good Samaritan parable as an example. He was in the wrong religion, but he did the right thing.
The people in the right religion did the wrong thing.
Who does Jesus say had the "truth"?

If I take James and say that a person that does good works is showing and proving he has faith... is that a true statement?
If I combine the good Samaritan story with James could I say that people doing good works, regardless of their religion, are living God's Truth?

That's taken from the Bible. Is that a good doctrine?

If one over allegorized this parable one might think the same way you are thinking, that all one needs is a good work, “regardless of their religion” and therefore, “are living God’s truth”

The question is “who is my neighbor –V29”

Do you think Atheist and Agnostics do not help their neighbors too?

Are they “living God’s truth”?

The lawyers knew what the truth is or are because they read this every day and that is, the Law of Moses. Lk 10:26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
They just don’t follow them all.

While the Samaritans do not have this truth. Jn 4:22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.

But they do good works too like the Atheist, Agnostic and all those people who don’t believe in God. IOW, people can do good works without knowing God at all but that doesn’t mean they “are living God’s truth” like you were suggesting here.

In James it says, Jas 2:17 “Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.”

IOW, Faith should produce good works, otherwise it’s dead.

Your statement says,” If I combine the good Samaritan story with James could I say that people doing good works, regardless of their religion, are living God's Truth?”

You see the difference here? Faith and work in James or faith should produce good works, but in your statement “people doing good works, regardless of their religion, are living God's Truth?”

Where is the faith that James was saying that should produce works, otherwise, it’s dead, in your statement?

Can Atheist and Agnostic produce works by faith?

This is how you misinterpret the word of God on which you accused Christians.

It's calling Christians who make up, manipulate, and interpret his Word to say what they want.... They're stupid... but well meaning I'm sure.

 

[JM2C]

To answer it, first I'd have to know what you're talking about.

Ask CG

 

[SkepticThinker]

So any claim that has a single counter claim means there is no way to resolve the truth even if all the evidence is on one side. Great standards, you just destroyed about 90% of human knowledge. I think maybe you misunderstood my question.

No, not in all cases. I’m not saying that, calm down. But in some, yes. Such as this one.

How could we ever really verify that there was a guy that lived roughly 2000 years ago, was the son of god, that performed various miracles (which would also have to be verified somehow), that was crucified and rose from the dead three days later and now sits at the right hand of a god we also can’t verify the existence of?

Why in the world would you say that? Every single witness is on my side, every single contemporary claimant is on my side, all the historical evidence is on my side. The only thing on the other is one tyrant word who existed 500 years and 500 miles from the events. In what way are we mired here?

If that were the case, then it would all be accepted fact by everyone, like all other actual verifiable facts.

At most, I think you could say that a guy named Jesus was crucified.

I don’t know what you are referring to when you say “tyrant word.”

I am trying to show disagreement is not even fractionally as destructive as you hope here. If you don't get it I can't make it any clearer.
I was not arguing for it says I was arguing against the level of difficulty you say any disagreement results in.

I don’t think the “agreement” proves what you think it does, especially given that there are so many disagreements.

Not when they agree on 95% of conclusions about 750,000 of the most divisive words in human history. It is downright miraculous.

I don’t think the existence of thousands of difference sects of Christianity is miraculous at all.

No kidding. Science only need faith and faith requires proof. Very different indeed.

What??

Is that where multiverses came from? Where exactly is the evidence for holographic theory and abiogenesis?

You’re talking about hypotheses.
They are though, based on at least some of the available evidence and will be further tested to see if they pan out. Please don’t pretend like you don’t know how the scientific method works and please don’t pretend that it amounts to the same thing as religious faith.

Maybe they hid it in the same drawer as they did the 60 thousand fossils they did not like at the Smithsonian.

What??

You just said above you did not want to have the same conversation again, now you claim that conversation is a mystery. Which is it? I have said and demonstrated that claim a dozen times but it is obvious anyway. Without God there are no moral facts for you to line up with. There is nothing left but opinion.

I was referring to this part of your statement, which I supposed I should have bolded:
“ … whatever you wish it will always equal an opinion formed without regard for moral truth.”

What do you mean it equals an opinion formed without regard for moral truth? Are you saying that people who are drawing conclusions about morality are not interested in moral truth? What are you saying?

No, you resolve ethical preferences by guessing and invention without a single one of them ever even having the potential to be true.

There’s a hell of a lot more than mere guessing involved! As already discussed several times.

They certainly have the potential to be true if they are found to be verifiable and demonstrable.

Whether you can see it or not, Christians, Muslims, Jews, etc. are all in the same boat as atheists and everyone else on this one anyway, because we are all influenced by our own preferences and perspectives. There’s no way around. Hence why you get one Christian who supports capital punishment and another who doesn’t. One Muslim who supports murdering apostates and one who doesn’t. One Christian who finds nothing wrong with getting an abortion and another who is vehemently against it.

Now this again. Please just pick one. I prefer this one.

But you’re pretty much just repeating the exact same words over and over again, and I have countered them over and over again. And we get end up back at square one again, every time.

I can not seriously take the number of denominations as an excuse to reject faith. It has never sounded sincere and is pathetically week in my opinion. Not even in my darkest atheistic days would I have stooped to use it. I had hard questions and having watched the only Christian I knew slowly die in pain to found my preferences on. I did not need unjustifiable excuses like demanding perfect agreement.

This only skirts the point again.

 

[SkepticThinker]

They gave you life. Where did they get a life to give you? You said it not me, repeating it won't help. If you mean they had a roll in a process far larger than themselves then ok. If you mean they are solely responsible for you body and soul hen please explain.

My father contributed a sperm, my mother contributed an egg. The sperm entered the egg and created a zygote that developed into a fetus over the course of 9 months after which time my mother gave birth and I popped out. They are responsible for creating my body. They gave me life.

This is like an atheist demanding rights. What rights and where did you get them? No government has a single right stored anywhere to give anyone.

I'm sorry that you need a deity to recognize the intrinsic value of life.

 

[SkepticThinker]

No you nor anyone else has not, not even close.

1. You cannot never ever know the truth of whether babies sin or not. Claiming you do only makes it worse.
2. Even if you were right you would never ever know it.
3. What little evidence there is against you.
4. True or not, knowable or not, it is not relevant. It is a tactic called an appeal to emotion and the left feeds on it.




.

What evidence is that?

 

[CG Didymus]

What is your understanding of “our lower natures”?

This is just what I think is happening. There is a mystical spiritual reality. People can feel it and sense its presence. When they do good. When they do a selfless act. When they believe in something greater than themselves, they feel this spiritual power. It feels like pure love. It transcends this material world.

The lower self is like an animal, reacting by basic instincts. It will hurt, fight, lie, cheat and steal to satisfy its needs.
People can rise above those base feelings. They can choose to be better than a lower physical being and, instead, act like a spiritual being. Most any religion has explanations of why we are in the state we are in and that we have to choose to follow a more spiritual path to break free from the pain and suffering that living in this world brings.

Our any of them right? To a point. Any belief gives the believer something that gives them a way to grow into a more spiritual person. Even with the Christian view that one must believe in Jesus, it still requires the believer to do something. Sure, it's a free gift, they say, but still, the believer must follow the commandments and do the things that Jesus told them to do. So in a very real way, they have to do good works to prove their faith is real. They have to move away from being selfish, lying, cheating people and become loving, kind and humble people. If they can't, and stop trying to make changes for the better, then what are they? They are not truly following Jesus are they?

And, like I said, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, it was the doer of the good deeds that had it right, not the ones that had the supposed right belief.

I know you will tear all this apart and tell me how wrong I am, but that's okay. I do the same to you. You have one book that is translated from ancient languages, and is interpreted many different ways, yet, you say your way of believing it is the only right way.

It's getting old for all of us. We know what you believe and we disagree. If your view of the Bible and Jesus makes you a more spiritual person, great. But, because of its exclusitivity, it makes too many Christians focus more on the right belief rather than the right spiritual action and living. In other words, it kind of makes them like the Pharisees that Jesus was complaining about. They had the right spiritual "look". They had the right beliefs, but on the inside, they weren't all that spiritual. They missed the whole point of believing. Because of that, I believe a person from any religion that is doing good and living a good life, is better than a person that thinks they have the right beliefs and is doing little or nothing to be a good spiriitual person.

 

[CG Didymus]

That is not the mainstream definition when it is used in debates about theology especially when they come from the hostile camp.

These are:

Myth: A misrepresentation of the truth:
Myth: fictitious or imaginary person or thing.
Myth: An exaggerated or idealized conception of a person or thing:
Myth: a widely held but false belief or idea.
myth: definition of myth in Oxford dictionary (American English) (US)

or

Myth: an idea or story that is believed by many people but that is not true.

or

Myth: : a person or thing having only an imaginary or unverifiable existence
Myth - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary

or

Myth: Myths are Narratives that are "Counter-Factual in featuring actors and actions that confound the conventions of routine experience"


Anyway you see there are many definitions of Myth. The question is which ones are most consistent with a person who does not believe a particular story. Mine are consistent with a non-believer. Yours is not.


BTW the Bible is not officially classified as myth. It is classified as historical biography.

Can we get off the semantic circus now?

No. Does the Bible have things that fit these definitions? When Pharaoh's guys threw down a snake and then Moses' walking stick transformed into a snake... Did that really happen? Or, was it an exaggeration? Or, myth? Still, the boys in the furnace in Daniel, the dead people walking out of their graves, Jesus and Peter walking on water, exaggerations? Or, exact, historical truth?

All Holy Books from all religions have some weird, unbelievable events described. Do we believe that those things actually happened? No. But, do we still find spiritual truth in the stories? Yes. Do some people discount the stories from other religions as myth and fantasy, and, therefore, discount the spiritual truths also? Yes. Should they? I don't, but some do, because they think those Scriptures from other religions are false. Yet, they believe their own Holy Books, even if it says crazy and weird things.

What is their explanation? Some say that it's all to be taken as literal truth. Some say that parts are symbolic or something that makes them less than truly a literal, historical event. But then what are they? If not true historical and accurately told events, then what are they? Again, things like the flood, like Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt, like a virgin giving birth, like voices from the sky, did these things happen? They definitely add to the story, as in embellish it, as in making it more powerful, as in making it difficult for some to believe, as in making it sound like the writers were building legends and myths to get people to believe that God and Jesus are real, as if the bare facts wouldn't have been enough, But, of course, if there are exaggerations, what are the bare facts?

 

[1robin]

Isn't it more like it condemns the ones that don't follow God's Law? Doesn't it praise the faithful and the righteous?

Yes and it has no effect on what I said. It praises greatness then records their own failure to be great. I praises lawfulness then records their law breaking, it defends righteousness then records heir own unrighteousness.
It violates every single expectation of self justified wish fulfillment.

And about "myth" sounding. Men wrote the stories. There are many "mythological" flood stories, but only one, the one in the Bible is accurate and not a myth? Tradition says that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible. Who's tradition? How much faith can we put in "traditions"? If he wrote it, then God told him all about the history that lead up to the point where he was part of the story?

Back up a second. I never said any literal flood occurred. Many things in the first five prehistorically books are impossible for me to interpret so far. I do not know whether it was a truly world wide flood, a local flood, or allegory. My faith has nothing to do with it so I have not spent enough time to arrive at conclusion. I could have no faith in the Pentateuch at all, rip out even every NT verse which is reasonably suspicious, get rid of revelations all together and still have an embarrassment of reliable historical claims by witnesses to all I need to justify complete faith in Christ. None of that is justifiable but even if you did so my faith would lack nothing necessary to make it properly basic and evidenced based.

I'm sorry, but that early history "sounds" like myth. Like I said, parting of the seas, a world-wide flood. Then in Daniel, the three guys getting tossed into a furnace and not getting burned. Then in the NT, one gospel writer, who was it Matthew, that says people came out of their graves and walked around? Did that really happen, or was it an embellishment to the story?

Actually I can agree here a little. Much of the Pentateuch does sound mythical. That has nothing to do with it being true or not. The few parts I can at least attempt to verify like creation ex-nihilo or whether Eve's child bruised Satan's head metaphorically, all turn out to be reliable but even if they were not I would still have more than enough reliable information for faith. This is the same old false multiplication of uncertainty until it reaches an arbitrary level by which to justify plausible denial. It just is not true. The bible even given whatever problems you wish to amplify still has such an embarrassment of reliable information that even though it makes such extraordinary claims it convince the most skeptical and hostile people in history in droves. It does so with such certainty that even the Roman empire could not stop it but was consumed by it. I am happy to sympathize with any actual uncertainties that exist but your conclusion just does not follow. Plenty of certainty about the most essential doctrine does exist.

And then there's things like the gospel writers telling different stories about the scene at the empty tomb. Where did the different versions come from? Were they legends? It doesn't work to say it was different eyewitnesses telling it from their point of view. Sorry, but it sounds more like people had different "traditions" about what happened, like in legends.

Now this is juts wrong. You can find hundreds of perfect harmonization of the Gospels if you wanted harmony on the net. I have seen them harmonize every single claim in context without flaw so many times I no longer even recognize it as a real issue. Every issue is the result of reading with either ignorance or a lens designed to find and amplify fault. I used to go through them step by step until I saw that some just would not allow any harmonization to exist or when harmony was proven it made no difference at all. I have to try and separate well founded objections from preference based objections that just are not true. Even Ehrman said you could get rid of every verse that even potentially had a conflict and be left with more than enough for faith.

The big question of course is, did they embellish the story about Jesus rising from the dead? Unfortunately, when a couple of gospel writers start with a virgin birth and can't get those facts straight, it makes it hard to keep believing the rest of the story is all accurate and factual information. And, just because men voted on and decided which books were to be in the canon, it was still fallible men making that decision.

All the evidence suggests the opposite. Consider this fact. They had no need to adopt any empirical burdens. They should have but did not expect a bodily resurrection nor did any Jew think it would ever be such. No one even considered a bodily resurrection and they had no need to claim it. They could have (if lying) came up with a spiritual resurrection which not only was what was expected eventually but would not have had any burden when the body was found. No one could ever prove it wrong. But no they adopted the heavy weight of having a body that must go away. A body under Roman guard and a body that still disappeared forever. Add in the fact all the apostles even one that was originally killing Christ's followers suffered life long misery and some death in defense of the message. That is good reason to think them sincere. This plus a thousand other things does not add up to them lying. Even his enemies claimed to have spoken with a risen Christ after death.

And why did they reject some of the books? Were they too far fetched? Did they stretch the facts too much? Maybe added a few miracles that were a little over the top? Like the story about Thecla? Or the one where some guy flies in the air then I think Peter prays and the guy falls and dies, but then Peter brings him back to life.

Mainly it was because they were not apostolic. The canonization process was designed to make sure the information was from a person commissioned by God and not man's theories. After 2000 years of hind sight they did pretty good. I have never seen a book they excluded that had a reliable pedigree. It took 300 years for even revelations to make it. The Catholics did add a second tier of work they considered correct but not inspired. So whatever you got is at least a third tier source and not reliable. The idea was that even if you might possibly lose a few details along the way never include anything suspicious and I think it the right methodology.

Simply stating other claims is not meaningful. You must give me reasons to accept them. So far no work has met the standard. Not the GOT, not the POT, not he secrets of James, not the Apocrypha of John, not the infancy Gospel of Mary, not the apocalypse of Peter, not the apocryphal texts, not a single gnostic work. They all have fatal flaws hat are well known.

Here is a link that gives way more detail than I can. https://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=13&article=968

What's so wrong with those stories? Didn't they accurately relate actual events in the life of Peter and Paul? Or, did some guy make it all up? And then, added fantastic miraculous events to spice up his story? Yet, the NT has Jesus walking on water and turning water into wine, and... rising from the dead? And we have to have "faith" that all those stories are true? Maybe, but it ain't all that easy to swallow.

It is mainly their source and their origin that rules them out. If they could not be show to originate from someone Christ commissioned it was resisted. In most cases it is easy to see that the non inspired sources have little consistency with each other and conflict with the inspired sources and the inspired sources are all consistent with each other given a little study. So we see exactly what we would expect to see if the Canonization process worked. If you want to pick a single source we can check into it. I can't condemn them all in a single post. Each has unique problems.

 

[CG Didymus]

IN THE CONTEXT OF ROBIN’S AND JM2C’S THEORY THAT BABIES/INFANTS “SIN CONSTANTLY” AND ARE MORALLY “DEPRAVED”


CG DIDYMUS said : “I was just thinking. A sixteen year old gets their driver's license. Are they already guilty of breaking any traffic codes? No. Will they? Sure, everybody does. Nobody can, or wants to, follow the laws perfectly” # 4427

I agree with your analogy. We do not enter into any completely new moral situation, having prior moral guilt.

The license bureau does not give us speeding tickets in advance of breaking this law. If we obtain a license and then die before we break the speed limit, the police department does not issue us a ticket for being guilty of speeding, then “suspend” judgment of us, nor do they “suspend” punishment since no breaking of this specific law occurred. We simply were not guilty of having broken the speed limit. It is a complete bizarre theory that we, as infants, are guilty of sin BEFORE we actually sin.



CG DIDYMUS said : “ I could carry this analogy out farther. Should someone sacrifice their son to rid us of this guilt? Or, should we pay our own traffic fines and repent, and drive safer and obey the laws?“ # 4427

I also agree that we do not punish one person instead of another and then call this justice.

Though I am Christian and have complete faith in the death of Jesus as a redemption, I think the modern models and theories as why and how his death in an ex-nihilo creation by a "3 is really 1" trinity model accomplishes a redemption are NOT as logical nor as rational as the earliest Christian worldview.

If, Christians discount the value of viewing scriptures through the context of history and language, they will continue to make mistakes such as creating theories that assume infants are morally “depraved” or that they are “sinful” beings who “sin constantly” yet remain unable to give a logical and rational explanation as to what those “sins” might be.



I will be interested if either 1ROBIN OR JM2C will be able to enumerate and describe the sins of a newborn or what it means that they cannot even think of a single sin that a newborn infant commits.

Am out the door to a different city.


Clear
σεσιτωεινεω

Thanks for getting my analogy. I like your type of Christianity. I'm out of town also. We're in southwest of Seattle visiting my wife' son and daughter in-law and their one year old daughter. I'm not going to be fooled by her cute little smile. I know what she's up to. I'm going to keep an eye on her and make a record of all her sins. Take care.

 

[1robin]

What evidence is that?

That what actions can be observed do not seem to abide any moral code at all. The only issue motivating them seems to be what they want. I could hardly expect anything different but you are not getting a faultless record that way. Sin is a God disuse not a secular one. Sin is to not perfectly obey an absolute moral standard of truth. I can easily conclude that babies do not know, care, or try to abide any moral code so there is no reason whatever to think they do.

Also keep in mind there is no certainty possible here. I only need a better case than you. You need to show that there is better evidence they do perfectly meet moral facts as a baby. It is irrelevant whether they have any knowledge of them because God holds them unaccountable for that reason. Technically they are imperfect but are not condemned but approved of in spite of that. Now I need a good reason to think they are technically morally perfect instead of simply being ignorant and cute. Got one or not?

I can't believe it has been over a weak and the unknowable irrelevant baby issue is still going.

 

[idav]

I can't believe it has been over a weak and the unknowable irrelevant baby issue is still going.

It's relevant that god lets babies die.

 

[Clear]

IN THE CONTEXT OF 1ROBINS CLAIM THAT BABIES SIN CONSTANTLY


ROBIN remarked : “ That what actions can be observed do not seem to abide any moral code at all. The only issue motivating them seems to be what they want. I could hardly expect anything different but you are not getting a faultless record that way. Sin is a God disuse not a secular one. Sin is to not perfectly obey an absolute moral standard of truth. I can easily conclude that babies do not know, care, or try to abide any moral code so there is no reason whatever to think they do.“# 4456


Hi 1Robin :

1) 1ROBIN Said : That what actions can be observed do not seem to abide any abide any moral code at all.

1Robin : You have stated that “babies sin constantly” but that “judgment” for their sins is “suspended”. What sort of “actions” does a newborn commit that makes you assume it is not abiding by “any moral code at all”?


2) 1ROBIN said : “The only issue motivating them seems to be what they want. I could hardly expect anything different but you are not getting a faultless record that way.

1ROBIN : What sort of things to newborn infants want that cause them to have “faults” in a “faultless moral record”? What keeps a newborn from having a "faultless", "sinless" moral record?

Is there something about an newborns desire to be fed when hungry that, in your theory is related to their “sinning constantly?

Is a newborns innate desire to have a clean, comfortable diaper that is related to their “sinning constantly”?

What sort of motives are you presuming newborns have that are evidence of “not abiding by any moral code" and thus contribute to their “sinning constantly” inside your theory that “babies sin constantly”?

You refer to a ”faultless record” that infants’ actions do not contribute to.

What sort of moral faults would a newborn baby have on their moral “record’ that can be attributed to the thoughts and actions of a newborn infant?



3) 1ROBIN said : “Sin is a God disuse not a secular one.”
What sort of “God Disuse” are you referring to in this context of a new born infant?
What “disuse” against God would a newborn be guilty of committing?



4) 1ROBIN said : “Sin is to not perfectly obey an absolute moral standard of truth.”
In your theory that “babies sin constantly”, what sort of “standard of truth” would a newborn infant be able and expected to obey (since the infant is created by God to enter this world with his present, innate, capabilities)?

What sort of sin against this “standard of truth” would a newborn commit so as to be guilty of not obeying this “standard of truth” “perfectly”? Does the newborn tell lies and thus disobey a “standard of truth”?




5) 1ROBIN said : I can easily conclude that babies do not know, care, or try to abide any moral code so there is no reason whatever to think they do.

Inside of your multiple “easy conclusions”, What sort of moral standard of truth do you think God expects a Newborn infant to be able to obey?

IF God creates a newborn infant without “knowledge” of “care” of a moral code, who’s fault is it that the infant was created without this knowledge or care in your theory?

In your theory of ex-nihilo creation, who is responsible for the creation of infants who are formed with certain moral incompetence?

I just examined an infant who was born without an important part of the brain that allows moral messages to be accurately transferred from one part of the brain to another. Is the infant to be punished then for actions that are separated from the moral and creative centers of his brain? Other brand new infants have not yet formed this moral context.



5) 1ROBIN : What sort of sins do newborn infants commit in your theory that “babies sin constantly”.


Clear

σεσιφισινεω

 

[1robin]

1Robin[/U][/B] : From the moment you claimed (post # 4045) that “….babies are the most self centered beings in the universe. They sin constantly….” BOTH You AND JM2C have been asked MULTIPLE times by multiple posters to answer this simple question regarding how infants could possibly sin.

I am burned out on this irrelevant issue. I will make this one last response and no longer feel obligated to ever mention the word baby again.

1. I believe that I and JM2C have not only answered you many times but have told we have done so many times. We have had to repeat things, quote scripture, explain doctrine. This just can't go on forever.

2. It is a technical fact a baby either obeys moral law or does not. It has nothing to do with judgment, condemnation, or guilt. It has to do with the factual nature of reality.

3. Sin is a biblical issue not a secular one. Sin is the failure to perfectly obey moral truth. If I only fail once, concerning only a minor command, I have sinned and am a sinner. There is no relevance but the only issue is whether a baby perfectly upholds moral truth.

4. This ignorance add on is irrelevant because God does not judge them because of ignorance. They are technically guilty but not condemned because of ignorance. So the facts and what is done based on those facts are two issues.

5. In the case of children (which was the actual issue) it is apparent they sin and do so horribly and often. The issue here is whether babies do so. So do babies perfectly obey moral law. How can anyone know but what is the best conclusion from the evidence.

a. Starting arbitrarily at age 13 where technical failure is so obvious no one can deny and backing up I see no reason that some unknowable boundary gets crossed where a baby is morally perfect.
b. Nothing in a babies actions suggest they are struggling to obey moral law. They are self centered and only concerned with their desires at the expense of everything else but being cute and smelling good at times.
c. They have no knowledge of a moral code to obey. How do you not transgress a standard you are in ignorance about if it is comprehensive.
d. Without defining it some type of inherited flawed moral nature seems to result from the fall. I have no idea how to quantify this accurately but there is some inherent problem with human nature as a whole. Unless babies lack a human nature they have this problem.
e. Now some have asked how a baby who's motor skills are not even developed can sin. I am not really qualified to be specific but Christ himself named thoughts alone as sinful.
f. All babies that are mortals have been born separated from God. Now if separation from the moral locus of the universe will not result in moral failure then nothing could and we al all perfect I guess.


I defend God and scripture and at times Christian history. Unless someone makes this relevant to one of them I am done with babies. If (you non-theist folks) continue on without any relevance then that reinforces my idea that this is a tactic not an argument.

 

[1robin]

It's relevant that god lets babies die.

Babies dying was not the issue. Since God does not judge babies if he exists then their sinfulness at death either way is irrelevant. Only if God condemned them as guilty is there anything worth spending this much time on. He does not condemn them and so it is irrelevant.


Babies died whether God exists or not. God's existence only means they spend eternity in heaven instead of the dirt. So again it is al gain given God and all loss without him. So what is it you find contentious with either of these topics?