Knowing and believing are two different things. If you are familiar with the Christian story, the whole over-arching thing, then you are aware of Hell and the consequences of sin and not accepting Christ.
Wrong. I am not aware of heaven and hell, I am aware that some people believe in them.
You may not believe any of that stuff is true, but if you are aware of it, you know it. So you are responsible for what you do with what you know.
Sorry, it doesnt work that way. I can't make informed choices based on what others believe. I can only make them based on what I know. And knowing about others beliefs in heaven and hell is not the same as knowing there is a heaven and hell. I have no idea whether there is or not and I see no reason to give the beliefs any credence.
By your reasoning here, since you know about the Muslim belief that the infidel will be damned and in spite of the fact that you see no evidence or reason to share that belief (just as I see no evidence or reason to share the Christian belief), if you are damned as an infidel, you are responsible because you know about the Muslim belief, correct? If a Muslim told you the same thing youre telling me here, would you see it as a valid argument? I'll bet you wouldn't.
There is evidence - according to you it may not be good evidence, but it is there.
Like what?
God does not love evil. God hates evil. God hates sin.
God loves people. God created people. God wants people to love Him.
God made the choice of sin available to people so people could have a choice, have free will. They made the wrong choice. Now people are evil and sinful.
God cannot simultaneously love and hate evil. We are all evil. I don't understand the difference between how God sees unbelievers now (alive) as opposed to when they stand
before Him in judgement (dead) - I don't know if there is a difference.
All I know is that in this life, as the Bible teaches, Jesus and forgiveness are available freely to all. After death, judgement comes, and that forgiveness is no longer available.
After this life the body passes away. The flesh is evil and infected with sin. The soul, through Christ, can be purified. But the soul without Christ is still dirty with sin and evil.
I don't see any inconsistency with God separating evil and sin from Himself and His presence - in this life, without Christ, we are guilty of choosing our own sin and evilness over God. I see a consistency, but then again I am looking at it from a different side of the fence.
There is definitely an inherent inconsistency in saying that God loves us unconditionally on the condition that we love him. Dont you see that?
Im not saying here that God, if he exists, should not punish the wicked. All Im saying is that if he requires our faith and devotion before he will grant salvation then his love is in fact, not unconditional.
I only brought up that point to present a possibility. I think it's plausible and probable that the serpent either was Satan or was directly under Satan's control/possession.
The devil is identified as the old serpent in Revelation 12. Also Satan, the subject of most of Ezekiel 28, is mentioned as being in the Garden of God, which is Eden.
Well, in Job, Satan tells us where he came from. He came from the Earth, after roaming back and forth on it. I don't see the word 'retinue' used at all. It states clearly that the angels came before God and that Satan came with them, as if he tagged along, as if he wasn't supposed to be there. Which is clear when God asks him 'Where have you come from?'
It is a well known historical fact that in ancient Hebrew beliefs, Satan was Gods appointed accuser. The beliefs in and about Satan evolved over time from an angel who did Gods dirty work to a direct antithesis to God.
Besides that, if the Satan in Job was the fallen angel we are most familiar with, how is it that he was in Gods throne room talking to him face to face if God cannot abide sin or evil in his presence? Do Christians even acknowledge this contradiction?
I see your point, I really do (I think), but the way I see it, we are all responsible for our own choices. You are making the choice to either believe or not believe. Even if the situation you are in sets you up to choose A and points towards A and really pushes for A, you are still free to choose B or C or anything else.
If you could ONLY choose A, I would agree. But we are free to choose A, B or any other number of options.
It goes without saying that we are all faced with the two choices and have the freewill to choose one or the other. My point is that, if God created me then he created me with the nature I have. Given the nature I was born with, to embrace Christianity on faith would go against everything about my nature. How do I know this? Because I used to be a Christian. And Im no longer a Christian because my nature and my way of viewing things kept pointing out inconsistencies, contradictions and that faith made absolutely no difference to anything except to enable me to believe I was accepted and loved at an uncertain time in my life.
More or less, yeah.
God knows exactly how many people are going to Hell and I'm sure He knows their names, how many hairs are on their heads and what He could have blessed them with if they had only submitted to His will.
I have no idea what God sees or knows, my thoughts are not His thoughts. I trust that He's got this thing figured out and that He's got it right. I wouldn't want anyone else to sort it all out.
Theres no question that if God exists he has everything figured out. But if he does, the point is, he figured out before he created us that if he did, he would have to send billions to hell. As I said before, I for one could not do it.
Could I send people to Hell? Well, I'm not perfect, so I'm not in the position to decide. There are a lot of things that I couldn't do - so it's a good thing I'm not God.
Im not perfect either but I know enough to know I couldnt do it.
I disagree with what I underlined in your quote. The serpent's tempting clearly initiated something or played a role.
Temptation initiates nothing and it only plays a role insofar as the desire is already there. The fruit was already pleasing to Eves eye and she already thought it was good for food and (as the text clearly states) it was already desirable to her for gaining wisdom. The serpents temptation was merely the trigger that compelled them to act on their desires. This is common sense that any first year psychology student will tell you.
But it seems, from the reasons you gave, that you don't like drinking because you have tried it and it didn't suit you. You said you don't like not having control (I'm assuming you've felt out of control at least once from the result of alcohol) and you don't like the way it makes you feel in the morning (so I assume you've had a few too many at least once before).
Of course I had prior knowledge but thats irrelevant. The point is,
I did not give in to the temptation to drink because I had no desire to, understand?
Now I concur that you could come to both of these conclusions without ever touching alcohol, but you would have observed others being out of control or hungover.
So either way, you have prior knowledge/prior observation/prior experience to base your decision upon. A&E had zero experience or observation - all they knew was that God told them not to - it's arguable that that is prior knowledge.
And yet, as I pointed out above, the text makes it clear that Eve thought that the fruit was desirable for gaining wisdom. Also, remember, the serpent was not the one who told them they would gain knowledge by eating the fruit, God did. The only thing the serpent said was that she wouldnt die and that God feared them having the knowledge the same as the gods. So, who really tempted them here?
They had to have a legitimate choice - it's the key to perfect love. Perfect love means being vulnerable and allowing the other to leave/reject the love. If they didn't have the choice, I would see them as just robots doing what they were programed to do - there's no relationship and no love in that - and relationship and love are what God wants, what God is.
Nevertheless, he chose to put the tree in the garden within their reach so he got what he chose.
I only pulled out specific sins to make a point. Clearly they understood 0 sin.
But you don't have to know what murder is to know that if you stab someone in the heart
with a long knife, they will die. So even though you don't know that it's bad, you know not to do it, because someone will die.
No, you dont have to know what murder is to know that if you stab someone in the heart with a long knife, they will die.
But if you dont understand the concept of sin, you will not know that stabbing someone to death is a sin. Get it?
This is the fundamental flaw in the Genesis story: because Adam and Eve had no concept of sin or even of life and death, Gods admonition not to eat the fruit or they would die would have meant nothing to them. It makes for good allegory but in reality it just doesnt work.
