I haven't done anything in my life that would warrant an eternity in a lake of fire.
Don't misunderstand me here, I'm not unaware of the wrongs I've committed in the past. I am aware of them and I regret them and endeavor to live as moral a life as possible. Now, if God consigns me to hell in spite of my regrets and my living a moral life, this tells me that he is less concerned with morality than he is with obeisance to him. This of course begs the question: What is God's purpose for morality? If God sends me to hell just because I don't believe in him and in spite of my moral living then ultimately, morality has no purpose.
The answer hinges upon what God's purpose for creating mankind was.
Simply put, God created mankind out of love and for a relationship. If God is holy and perfect and He created mankind holy and untainted by evil, then mankind became 'infected' with evil because of their choice, God can't be in relationship with evil, so He can't be in relationship with mankind, so He has to find a way to make mankind holy again (not by force but by the choice of mankind - that's CRUCIAL) - which is where Christ comes in. Morality (or the knowledge of good and evil) shows us how imperfect we can be (Hitler, me, everyone else ever) and yet how perfect we could be (through Christ obviously).
I am impressed with all these things, yes. I especially enjoy sunsets and I take pictures of them all the time. But, as I said, if God created these things then, being omnipotent, it took no effort on his part. While I can marvel at the creation, I'm not really inclined to marvel at the creating of them.
Let me use an analogy you might understand. Would you be impressed with Neil Peart's drumming if his virtuosic drum solos were achieved by his merely snapping his fingers and using magic? I think not.
Honestly I would be more impressed! No one else could do that (I assume). Others could learn to drum solos close to that level - heck, someone may eventually come along that could even surpass Neil. Not Keith Moon, not John Bonhman (sp?) nor any other drummer EVER could do such a thing as snap their fingers to create an awesome drum solo. I see what you are saying though. All this drum talk makes me think of Tourniquet, an old Christian metal band, they had a sick drummer. I don't remember his name.
I understand where you're coming from but it's just the way I am. I'm more impressed with achievements that come from years of hard work and dedication and where the possibility of failure was always there.
Well it did take God six days to make everything.
Would you be more impressed if God took thousands (or billions) of years to bring about the perfect time to send Christ, then waited however many thousands (or millions) of years longer after that to ensure that He collected every last one of His lost children that would accept Him AND then after that He will restore everything back to how it was before evil entered into it and corrupted it?
Therein lies the problem for me: I don't see myself as wicked. Someone who has occasionally sinned, yes, but not wicked. If committing the occasional sin makes me wicked then committing the occasional kind act must make me a saint. But for some reason, Christians have this obsession with viewing themselves and mankind as miserable wretches and I just cannot think that way.
I totally understand that I really do. But from the Christian perspective we are held to the standard of perfection, because we are called to be holy as God is holy. But we can't be. Yet through Christ we can be made holy.
I don't compare myself to others, I compare myself to God/Jesus and that makes me wicked by comparison. God doesn't use Mother Terresa or someone else that was 'good' by our standards to measure a person, He uses Christ, and compared to Christ we are all wicked.
I can't give a satisfactory answer. I don't know for sure, just like I don't really know how God made everything or how Jesus was raised from the dead. Or how the Red Sea was parted.
The flesh was 'corrupted' with sin/evil and this was passed down through the generations. I don't think it's a literal mutation or disease that's passed down like we think of things like breast cancer or a bad heart or whatever. Or maybe it is. I'm not sure. All I know is that mankind's natural tendency is towards evil.
Well, apparently sinning came naturally to Adam and Eve as well since, as I said, they were easily tempted to disobey God even before they ate the fruit.
I don't think it's fair to say 'easily tempted.' We don't know how long they existed prior to eating the fruit, they were immortal before they ate it, and sinning didn't come 'natural to them' because it took the goading of the serpent for Eve to eat and I cannot think of a greater temptation than being like God (being able to do anything, create anything, etc.).
If it were natural to them, I don't think someone would have had to whisper in her ear to convince her, something coming naturally means you don't need any goading or encouragement. My attraction to women is natural, the lions hunger for meat is natural, the love of a child is natural - those things don't need any convincing or coercion.
I never said they had to have an understanding of good and evil to disobey and eat the fruit, I merely pointed out that they already had a propensity to disobey God. Hence, they already had a sinful nature.
Again, I think it's unfair to say they had a propensity to disobey God, this is an outside assumption. If I smoked my first cigarette ever at age 80 after hearing for 60 years that it would kill me to start smoking, would you say that I've had a propensity to smoke?
Certainly. But, as I've already pointed out, they must have already had a sinful nature else why would becoming like God be a temptation in the first place?
Becoming like God would be a temptation (I think the ultimate temptation) because God is the ultimate being. A&E knew God was better and smarter and more powerful than they were and they wanted to be like that when the serpent implanted the thought - the same reasons Satan was tempted I suppose.
This brings up an important question: If I told you right now that I desired to be like God, you'd tell me that was sinful and a result of my sinful nature, correct? So then, logic dictates that if Adam and Eve desired to be like God then they must have had a sinful nature before they ate the fruit, yes?
Depends on the context or what you mean by saying that:
Jesus commands us to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect in Matthew 5:48. If you want to be holy when you say I want to be like God, I say go for it and I think God would agree, though He knows you would fail - which is why Christ came.
If when you say 'I want to be like God' you mean 'I deserve to be worshiped' or 'I want to be as powerful as God' or 'I want to raise my throne to be equal with God (signifying authority and rulership) then I would say you are being sinful (prideful) just as Satan was.
My point all along has been that they already had a sinful nature. That they lacked awareness is irrelevant.
I disagree because that means God would have created them imperfect and I don't have any reason to believe that God would make anything imperfect - don't misunderstand, God has made things perfect that later BECAME imperfect, but God has never made an imperfect thing - it just doesn't fit His character. Everything He has made like the Creation, humanity, even Satan himself, were once perfect.
