Christians: Why would an all-good God base our salvation from Hell on whether or not we believe in a 2,000-year-old supernatural story?

[LogicalFallacy]

 

Usually voluminous material is given as a 'smokescreen' .  Makes one appear knowledgeable when they are not.   Is this all your writing?   Or is this a copy of something?    Do you even know what it says?  Google makes Einsteins of many.  

 

You are disgusting, you know that? Citsonga wrote that himself. Why don't you show some actual interest in what others are saying, and actually read the arguments presented instead thinking you are on twitter and going #bible #godditit

[ag_NO_stic]

On 6/28/2017 at 4:39 PM, Stranger said:

 

Just because God feels doesn't mean He didn't do it correctly.  God gave His Son as a sacrifice.   He felt it.   But it was the correct decision.  

 

Apparently you didn't read what I asked.  I will get back with you later and show you what you missed.

 

For the record, you asked.  I explained giving you Scripture.   Which you now say you don't want.   God gives a lying spirit to lying prophets to speak to those who want a lie.   

 

Again, you ignore the salvation that James and Paul are addressing.  The examples they give of that salvation show the salvation they speak of.  Do I have to show the examples also or are they not plain to see?   I gave you the verses.  Do you not see the difference.?

 

There is no contradiction in (Gal. 6:2-6).  Unless you just want to see one.  

 

God has not changed concerning rape or slavery.  Where do you see God has changed?

 

Stranger

 

 

 

As we've said multiple times, one cannot sacrifice to oneself. It's not a sacrifice to be temporarily dead so that your own blood pays for behavior in others that you don't like.

 

I did read what you said, as you didn't ask anything, and I responded in kind. You gave attributes of your god's character, I gave an example that refuted those claims. You said to read Exodus and Numbers, I said that reading these books seems to produce very different results. It must be the lie that god sends to us. So....do you think it's possible that "god" is deluding you? 

 

Yes, I read the verses. I then told you to put the verses in context! If you read both chapters, it is clear what it happening. Reread my response and then read the chapters/ You picked one verse, the one right before the verse you gave completely refutes your point. Do YOU not see the difference?

 

I will grant you that the galatians example is nitpicking. I'm not interested in pursuing that further, because you are successfully distracting me and others from the real problems here. The verse conflicts a bit, but if that was the only problem I had with the bible, we'd be having a different conversation. You are choosing to focus on a stupid verse in galatians and not address real conflicts like the crucifixion and the resurrection.

 

On 6/28/2017 at 4:39 PM, Stranger said:

God has not changed concerning rape or slavery.  Where do you see God has changed?

 

I swear you are trolling us all, are you serious? While there is no command to take slaves in the NT, only to treat them well if you have them, my original question (before the rephrasing) addresses your obedience to these commands. So, I guess the question regarding slavery would be do YOU obey God in keeping slaves? As for rape, I would put that at the top of the "sexuality immorality" list...of course if you don't and if you don't believe god does, then....like I said earlier, fuck you. Do you rape and own slaves? If you do....I hope you're arrested. If you don't, If this pleases god, why do you not do these things?

 

Someone needs to point out to you that you claim to "answer" our questions and that's not what you're doing. You are ignoring some of our questions, misinterpreting others, and half-ass answering the rest! If I say "This verse in your holy scripture says that 2+2 is 5. Another verse in your bible says that 2+2 is 6. So which is it?" It doesn't work for you to say, "See the book of Numbers, the answer is 7. Also leprechauns." And then when I call you on it, you say "But I answered it! It's not my fault you don't like it!".....It doesn't work like that. YOUR scripture is shooting itself in the foot, you are shooting yourself in the foot and peddling bullshit to us that we can see through, and I'm just calling you and your god on it. You say you are not interested in writing books, but we are spending a lot of time responding to you and trying our absolute best to take your bullshit answers seriously to get these one word,  half-ass answers with no thought into what we're saying.

[★ Citsonga ★]

 

 

Well, as I said, read it again.  Cause you must have missed it.  

 

Again, I am not interested in writing or reading a book.   If you have something you can produce in a brief form, then do so.  I will respond.    

 

Usually voluminous material is given as a 'smokescreen' .  Makes one appear knowledgeable when they are not.   Is this all your writing?   Or is this a copy of something?    Do you even know what it says?  Google makes Einsteins of many.  

 

Stranger

 

 

 

No, it's not a smokescreen, and yes I did write it. It was a painstaking process after spending a lot of time studying. 

 

Anyway, the one missing information here is YOU. 

[★ Citsonga ★]

 

 

I doubt it.   I believe you start with 'God didn't do it'.   Then you proceed. No one starts with an unbias.   I don't.   And neither do you, or anyone else.  

 

The Bible is what I believe.   I have a name for your kind of reasoning also.  Do you want to hear it?

 

Stranger

 

The difference is that many of us (definitely myself) started with the same assumptions you have. We were believers, just like you. As I've told you before, I did NOT set out to find problems in the Bible. I firmly believed that it was the perfect, inerrant word of God, so it took insurmountable evidence to convince me that it's not.

 

The other difference is that we had the honesty to follow the evidence even when it went against our biases, unlike you.

 

 

[ag_NO_stic]

 

 

Well, as I said, read it again.  Cause you must have missed it.  

 

Again, I am not interested in writing or reading a book.   If you have something you can produce in a brief form, then do so.  I will respond.    

 

Usually voluminous material is given as a 'smokescreen' .  Makes one appear knowledgeable when they are not.   Is this all your writing?   Or is this a copy of something?    Do you even know what it says?  Google makes Einsteins of many.  

 

Stranger

 

 

 

Look this is the Lion's Den, so I'm not going to whine about how ridiculously insensitive and stupid that is to say. We'll all get over it. But if you read even a paragraph, before assuming you know what it contains, you'd see how personal it is. No, it's not "google" and yes, "he knows what it says." Can you the say the same of the your bible?

[Stranger]

 

 

Sure what is it?

 

You, my dear sir, can believe whatever you like. That is your right. However it doesn't mean your belief is true.

 

I started with the belief in god... for 32 years in fact. That was my bias... and it frustrates me to say you remind me very much of me when I was a Christian.

 

Everyone has biases, that is true, so once aware of what biases are one can take steps to eliminate, as far as possible, the effect biases has on ones beliefs. So I start from one major presupposition, something I consider true even though I can't prove it. I believe the reality we live in an experience is real. That is my one starting point for any belief. I don't believe we are in a matrix, I don't think we are brains in a vat. The reality you and I experience is real.

 

This is where we no differ. You say look, reality, ah ha god did it. And you need no evidence of such. I look, and say look, reality, here are claims in a book I used to believe, but they don't match up to reality - which therefore is true? And because my starting position is reality is real, I err on the side of reality is correct until it can be shown otherwise.

 

(1 Cor. 2:13)  You have opted for the wisdom of the world.  

 

It doesn't mean my faith is wrong either. 

 

Please, quit saying I remind you of me.    If that were true I would abandon the faith as you have said you did. 

 

You cannot eliminate bias.  All have it.  Yes the reality we live in is real.  

 

You err because you trust science to give you final conclusions, which it can't.   It is always still learning.

 

Stranger

[Stranger]

 

 

You are disgusting, you know that? Citsonga wrote that himself. Why don't you show some actual interest in what others are saying, and actually read the arguments presented instead thinking you are on twitter and going #bible #godditit

 

I will show interest when it's put in a realistic forum question.

 

Stranger

[Orbit]

 

 

I believe it is because God did not want just perfect individuals.   He created Adam and Eve and they were perfect and without sin.   But, they were not as God.  They were not literally born of Him.   They were created by Him.   And God wanted those to be born of Him.   And so when God creates, He creates with His righteousness in view.  He must create so that nothing goes against His righteous character.  

 

So God did not want just sinless individuals.  He wanted those born of Him.  And so death and rebirth was the process He chose.  He now gets, not just sinless ones, but He gets ones born of Him and redeemed from sin.  And they are as righteous as God.   They are truly 'sons of God'.  They are of Him.

 

Stranger

It's not that we haven't heard all of this nonsense before--we just reject it. You forget you're talking to ex-Christians.

[LogicalFallacy]

 

(1 Cor. 2:13)  You have opted for the wisdom of the world.

 

No, I have opted to stop ignoring reality in favour of a book that can be so easily shown to be wrong.

 

 

 

It doesn't mean my faith is wrong either.

 

If you can't show your faith to be reliable then its not!

 

 

Please, quit saying I remind you of me.    If that were true I would abandon the faith as you have said you did. 

 

I'll quit saying you remind me of me as soon as you start engaging in proper conversation, actually read and think about what people are saying, and stop engaging in pointless circular reasoning. Balls in your court.

 

But perhaps you may end up being like me? There is hope. Once proclaiming the bible is true and ignoring all reality, in the end the evidence against it was such that I could not honestly ignore it.

 

 

You cannot eliminate bias.  All have it.  Yes the reality we live in is real. 

 

I never said we could eliminate bias. I said "Everyone has biases, that is true, so once aware of what biases are one can take steps to eliminate, as far as possible, the effect biases has on ones beliefs."

 

 

You err because you trust science to give you final conclusions, which it can't.   It is always still learning.

 

Several things wrong with this statement:

 

1) You assume you know what I expect out of science. You are wrong. I don't ever expect to get anything final out of science. This is because, as you state it is always learning.

2) You infer here that because science is always learning and updating it is therefore wrong. Instead you propose that the final conclusion is a 2,000 year old book shown to be wrong in so many ways.

3) You show a typical Christian fear of the unknown. Science updates and changes and people don't like change or uncertainty. So they cling to a book because it doesn't change and it gives them a rock to ground their life in. To them it matters not that the rock is imaginary because it gives them comfort.

 

For me I prefer reality even if it provides some discomfort of unknowing:

 

"Better to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable" Carl Sagan

 

 

[Stranger]

 

 

As we've said multiple times, one cannot sacrifice to oneself. It's not a sacrifice to be temporarily dead so that your own blood pays for behavior in others that you don't like.

 

I did read what you said, as you didn't ask anything, and I responded in kind. You gave attributes of your god's character, I gave an example that refuted those claims. You said to read Exodus and Numbers, I said that reading these books seems to produce very different results. It must be the lie that god sends to us. So....do you think it's possible that "god" is deluding you? 

 

Yes, I read the verses. I then told you to put the verses in context! If you read both chapters, it is clear what it happening. Reread my response and then read the chapters/ You picked one verse, the one right before the verse you gave completely refutes your point. Do YOU not see the difference?

 

I will grant you that the galatians example is nitpicking. I'm not interested in pursuing that further, because you are successfully distracting me and others from the real problems here. The verse conflicts a bit, but if that was the only problem I had with the bible, we'd be having a different conversation. You are choosing to focus on a stupid verse in galatians and not address real conflicts like the crucifixion and the resurrection.

 

 

I swear you are trolling us all, are you serious? While there is no command to take slaves in the NT, only to treat them well if you have them, my original question (before the rephrasing) address your obedience to these commands. So, I guess the question regarding slavery would do YOU obey God in keeping slaves? As for rape, I would put that at the top of the "sexuality immorality" list...of course if you don't and if you don't believe god does, then....like I said earlier, fuck you. Do you rape and own slaves? If you do....I hope you're arrested. If you don't, If this pleases god, why do you not do these things?

 

Someone needs to point out to you that you claim to "answer" our questions and that's not what you're doing. You are ignoring some of our questions, misinterpreting others, and half-ass answering the rest! If I say "This verse in your holy scripture says that 2+2 is 5. Another verse in your bible says that 2+2 is 6. So which is it?" It doesn't work for you to say, "See the book of Numbers, the answer is 7. Also leprechauns." And then when I call you on it, you say "But I answered it! It's not my fault you don't like it!".....It doesn't work like that. YOUR scripture is shooting itself in the foot, you are shooting yourself in the food and peddling bullshit to us that we can see through, and I'm just calling you and your god on it. You say you are not interested in writing books, but we are spending a lot of time responding to you and trying our absolute best to take your bullshit answers seriously to get these one word,  half-ass answers with no thought into what we're saying.

 

Christ's blood paid the price for those He loved, and those He didn't. 

 

Your example of Moses smiting the rock was at the end of the many frustrations of the Hebrew people.  They constantly rebelled and complained against God and Moses.  If you had read it as you said, you would have seen it.   Thus it wasn't a picture of God being impatient when He smote the rock.   Go back and read again.  

 

(2 Thess. 2:11)  God gives a lie to those who want a lie.  

 

You brought up the verses in Galatians.  Not me. 

 

I am under no requirement of God to keep slaves.   As to rape, where in the New Testament is that said to be right.  

 

I am answering to the best of my ability.  Explain your 2+2=5 or 6.   I believe I have spent a lot of time writing to you and others also.  

 

Stranger

 

 

[Stranger]

 

 

No, it's not a smokescreen, and yes I did write it. It was a painstaking process after spending a lot of time studying. 

 

Then present it in a brief forum fashion.   One question or point at a time.  

 

Stranger

[Stranger]

 

 

The difference is that many of us (definitely myself) started with the same assumptions you have. We were believers, just like you. As I've told you before, I did NOT set out to find problems in the Bible. I firmly believed that it was the perfect, inerrant word of God, so it took insurmountable evidence to convince me that it's not.

 

The other difference is that we had the honesty to follow the evidence even when it went against our biases, unlike you.

 

 

 

Then you never came by faith.   

 

Stranger

[Stranger]

 

It's not that we haven't heard all of this nonsense before--we just reject it. You forget you're talking to ex-Christians.

 

Ok.  

 

Stranger

[TheRedneckProfessor]

 

 

Perhaps I have a daughter of 4 to 8 years old.    She is disobedient in public.  I spank her.  I don't beat her.  I spank her with a swat.   Guess what?  To many I am an abusive father to my daughter.  

 

Yes it matters.

 

Stranger

What matters is that you, like your god, consider disobedience to be morally wrong and justification for punishment unbefitting of the "crime".  There was nothing morally wrong with Adam and Eve's desire to know good from evil; there was nothing unethical about their eating the fruit.  It was "sin" only because god is that arrogant that he expects blind obedience, just as you do with your hypothetical daughter.  god's insatiable ego was the only thing wounded for their "transgression"; his self-important hubris bruised by their "iniquity".  

 

And you are just like god, aren't you?  That's the goal of every christian, isn't it?  To become like god.  Do you know who else wanted to be like god?

 

⁴ And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

⁵ For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

⁶ And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.  Genesis 3

 

Adam and Eve's "sin" was wanting to be like god.  Sure, it was pride, a desire to rise above their station; but, there it is in black and white--what gave them that pride was a desire to become as gods.  But god's ego couldn't bear the thought of competition, could it?  His pride wouldn't suffer the indignity of treating his creation as his equal.  So he cursed them for the "sin" of wanting to be like him.  The same arrogant pride you've shown all over this thread.  The same arrogant pride you would show your daughter because she chose to listen to herself rather than kowtow to your every whim and rule.  And your daughter will become your equal one day, too; just as humanity has become more than the equal of your petty-minded, autocratic, despotic, tyrannical, slave-driver of a god.

 

There is nothing morally wrong in the entire myth of genesis except for the attitude your god displays toward his children.  And, should you beat your kid in public for nothing more than simple disobedience, then I'd say crucifixion would be too good a death for you, too.  jesus got what he deserved on the cross, not what we deserved.

[Stranger]

 

 

No, I have opted to stop ignoring reality in favour of a book that can be so easily shown to be wrong.

 

 

 

If you can't show your faith to be reliable then its not!

 

 

I'll quit saying you remind me of me as soon as you start engaging in proper conversation, actually read and think about what people are saying, and stop engaging in pointless circular reasoning. Balls in your court.

 

But perhaps you may end up being like me? There is hope. Once proclaiming the bible is true and ignoring all reality, in the end the evidence against it was such that I could not honestly ignore it.

 

 

I never said we could eliminate bias. I said "Everyone has biases, that is true, so once aware of what biases are one can take steps to eliminate, as far as possible, the effect biases has on ones beliefs."

 

 

Several things wrong with this statement:

 

1) You assume you know what I expect out of science. You are wrong. I don't ever expect to get anything final out of science. This is because, as you state it is always learning.

2) You infer here that because science is always learning and updating it is therefore wrong. Instead you propose that the final conclusion is a 2,000 year old book shown to be wrong in so many ways.

3) You show a typical Christian fear of the unknown. Science updates and changes and people don't like change or uncertainty. So they cling to a book because it doesn't change and it gives them a rock to ground their life in. To them it matters not that the rock is imaginary because it gives them comfort.

 

For me I prefer reality even if it provides some discomfort of unknowing:

 

"Better to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable" Carl Sagan

 

 

 

That is what I said.  You opted for the wisdom of the world.

 

Again, that is an assumption.  

 

If I remind you of you, then I would abandon the faith also.  When I do, then you can say I remind you of you.   Until then...I don't.

 

If you couldn't ignore so called evidence against the Bible, then you never came by faith.  

 

I am aware of bias...yet I still believe.

 

What I said was you err because you trust what science says as final conclusions.  And they are not.  They are conclusions at this time only.   Open for change.  

 

You assume the Book is imaginary.  

 

Stranger

[Stranger]

 

What matters is that you, like your god, consider disobedience to be morally wrong and justification for punishment unbefitting of the "crime".  There was nothing morally wrong with Adam and Eve's desire to know good from evil; there was nothing unethical about their eating the fruit.  It was "sin" only because god is that arrogant that he expects blind obedience, just as you do with your hypothetical daughter.  god's insatiable ego was the only thing wounded for their "transgression"; his self-important hubris bruised by their "iniquity".  

 

And you are just like god, aren't you?  That's the goal of every christian, isn't it?  To become like god.  Do you know who else wanted to be like god?

 

⁴ And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

⁵ For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

⁶ And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.  Genesis 3

 

Adam and Eve's "sin" was wanting to be like god.  Sure, it was pride, a desire to rise above their station; but, there it is in black and white--what gave them that pride was a desire to become as gods.  But god's ego couldn't bear the thought of competition, could it?  His pride wouldn't suffer the indignity of treating his creation as his equal.  So he cursed them for the "sin" of wanting to be like him.  The same arrogant pride you've shown all over this thread.  The same arrogant pride you would show your daughter because she chose to listen to herself rather than kowtow to your every whim and rule.  And your daughter will become your equal one day, too; just as humanity has become more than the equal of your petty-minded, autocratic, despotic, tyrannical, slave-driver of a god.

 

There is nothing morally wrong in the entire myth of genesis except for the attitude your god displays toward his children.  And, should you beat your kid in public for nothing more than simple disobedience, then I'd say crucifixion would be too good a death for you, too.  jesus got what he deserved on the cross, not what we deserved.

 

You're not paying attention.  I said I spanked her, not beat her.  I made that clear.  Yet you want to project me as beating her.    Deceptive words.  And with such deception, why does any thing else you say mean anything.

 

Stranger

 

 

[TheRedneckProfessor]

 

I believe in Adams unfallen state he knew it all.  

 

Stranger

That right there says it all.  You believe Adam knew it all.  You can't prove it.  You can't support it with a single scripture verse.  You can't even back it up with anything more substantial than mere assertion.  You don't know anything, son.  And you claim that the bible is the basis for what you believe; but here you are believing something that ain't anywhere in it from genesis to revelation.  You only pretend to believe that you know.

[Stranger]

 

That right there says it all.  You believe Adam knew it all.  You can't prove it.  You can't support it with a single scripture verse.  You can't even back it up with anything more substantial than mere assertion.  You don't know anything, son.  And you claim that the bible is the basis for what you believe; but here you are believing something that ain't anywhere in it from genesis to revelation.  You only pretend to believe that you know.

 

I have given you that Adam knew enough.   I have showed you.   I personally believe he knew more.   But irregardless, he knew enough.

 

Stranger

[TheRedneckProfessor]

 

 

You're not paying attention.  I said I spanked her, not beat her.  I made that clear.  Yet you want to project me as beating her.    Deceptive words.  And with such deception, why does any thing else you say mean anything.

 

Stranger

 

 

Beats me?!?

 

Seriously, that's what you took from that post?  You are completely hopeless, boy.  You are obviously not ready for the meat and potatoes of intellectual intercourse.  Best stick to mother's milk.

[Stranger]

 

Beats me?!?

 

Seriously, that's what you took from that post?  You are completely hopeless, boy.  You are obviously not ready for the meat and potatoes of intellectual intercourse.  Best stick to mother's milk.

 

Perhaps  you should pay attention to what was said and not try and change it. 

 

Stranger

[TheRedneckProfessor]

 

 

I have given you that Adam knew enough.   I have showed you.   I personally believe he knew more.   But irregardless, he knew enough.

 

Stranger

Demonstrate to me, from genesis, that Adam knew enough.  Demonstrate to me, from genesis, that god made Adam aware of what death was.  Convince me from the myth itself, that Adam, in his innocence and never having experienced death himself, or the death of a loved one, or the death of a housefly even, understood the full ramifications of god's "warning" concerning death.

 

Do that, and then you can start working on the "spiritual" death addendum.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

 

 

Perhaps  you should pay attention to what was said and not try and change it. 

 

Stranger

Says somebody who claims that god meant "spiritual" death when he said, "thou shalt surely die".  Guess we both fucked up, huh?

[Stranger]

 

Demonstrate to me, from genesis, that Adam knew enough.  Demonstrate to me, from genesis, that god made Adam aware of what death was.  Convince me from the myth itself, that Adam, in his innocence and never having experienced death himself, or the death of a loved one, or the death of a housefly even, understood the full ramifications of god's "warning" concerning death.

 

Do that, and then you can start working on the "spiritual" death addendum.

 

I have already given it to you.

 

Stranger

[Stranger]

 

Says somebody who claims that god meant "spiritual" death when he said, "thou shalt surely die".  Guess we both fucked up, huh?

 

No, just you.

 

Stranger

[TheRedneckProfessor]

 

 

I have already given it to you.

 

Stranger

From genesis?  I must have missed that.  Quote it again.