Religion II

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by Nutz and Boltz

...And ,since it is hard to believe that the world could ever be more"wicked" than it is today, why hasn't God stepped on us like a bunch of ants and started all over again?

Be patient; the end of the age is near. But no more do-overs.

[HalvOnHorseracing]

Originally Posted by boxcar

Everything God created was "very good". Adam and Eve were "unflawed" beings with free will. They chose to believe the Serpent rather than God, hence they disobeyed the one command they had from God, and they cast the entire human race into ruin.

Should God have created Adam and Eve without the capacity of free choice? Should he created robots, instead?

Very weak response.

Very Good? Gee at the Sprint store the person helping me said that when they call to get an evaluation of my experience here, if you don't give me all top marks in all categories they might fire me. Good thing God doesn't work at Sprint.

Ask yourself, what would it take to avoid ever having anything to do with horseracing again? No racing form. No kentucky Derby. No casual racing on TV. What characteristic would allow you to "obey" this one requirement? That is where God missed the boat. God knew what it would take to avoid eating the fruit, but he apparently didn't bestow enough of that special characteristic to A&E.

I used to say this about a particular government agency that shall remain unidentified. If I screw up it's my fault. If you screw up it's still my fault.

God programmed A&E to fail and then blamed them for his own deficiency in how he created them. Tough to win when those are the rules.

[Nutz and Boltz]

Originally Posted by HalvOnHorseracing

God programmed A&E to fail and then blamed them for his own deficiency in how he created them. Tough to win when those are the rules.

He never should have given A&E free will. He should have just kept them as pets !

[HalvOnHorseracing]

Originally Posted by Nutz and Boltz

He never should have given A&E free will. He should have just kept them as pets !

Free will wasn't the flaw. The flaw was not giving them the ability to understand the implications of their decision and the and the character to resist.

[thaskalos]

Originally Posted by HalvOnHorseracing

Very weak response.

Very Good? Gee at the Sprint store the person helping me said that when they call to get an evaluation of my experience here, if you don't give me all top marks in all categories they might fire me. Good thing God doesn't work at Sprint.

Ask yourself, what would it take to avoid ever having anything to do with horseracing again? No racing form. No kentucky Derby. No casual racing on TV. What characteristic would allow you to "obey" this one requirement? That is where God missed the boat. God knew what it would take to avoid eating the fruit, but he apparently didn't bestow enough of that special characteristic to A&E.

I used to say this about a particular government agency that shall remain unidentified. If I screw up it's my fault. If you screw up it's still my fault.

God programmed A&E to fail and then blamed them for his own deficiency in how he created them. Tough to win when those are the rules.

God created Adam and Eve, and made a request of them that he knew for certain that they wouldn't obey...the equivalent of placing a bet on a contest whose outcome is already known. In other words...an act of CHEATING. And...by attaching the destiny of all mankind to this known outcome, he knowingly placed mankind in a no-win situation...with eternal damnation being the inescapable finale.

It reads like a sorry script to an even sorrier movie...

[hcap]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

God created Adam and Eve, and made a request of them that he knew for certain that they wouldn't obey...the equivalent of placing a bet on a contest whose outcome is already known. In other words...an act of CHEATING. And...by attaching the destiny of all mankind to this known outcome, he knowingly placed mankind in a no-win situation...with eternal damnation being the inescapable finale.

It reads like a sorry script to an even sorrier movie...

I would think even if god was not as perfect as a god should be, he/she/it would have at least understood his children and himself better than biblical literalists babble.

So a basic "user manual" explaining his peculiar rules, maybe a 4 color, highly illustrated, eye-catching coloring book, could have been left next to the tree of knowledge of good and evil, say in close proximity to all them apples. Allowing A&E to brush up on what to do and not to do, in the garden.

So even if god was a kind of a jerk not realizing how tough his rules might be for mere mortals, even a lame god might have produced without too much effort, certainly less than a global flood or eternal sin for all of mankind for ever and ever, the following......

Page 1)-"See Adam and Eve not eat apple"

Page 2)-"See Adam and Eve not get banned"

Page 3)-"See Adam and Eve make daddy god happy"

[Actor]

Originally Posted by boxcar

More likely astronomers.

Astronomers do not make predictions about earthly events based on the motion of celestial bodies.

[Actor]

Originally Posted by hcap

Page 1)-"See Adam and Eve not eat apple"

Page 2)-"See Adam and Eve not get banned"

Page 3)-"See Adam and Eve make daddy god happy"

They were forbidden to eat the fruit because then they would know good from evil. But if they did not know good from evil they would not know that disobeying God was evil. Circular reasoning.

Not to worry. It's a fairy tale.

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by HalvOnHorseracing

Free will wasn't the flaw. The flaw was not giving them the ability to understand the implications of their decision and the and the character to resist.

What makes you think they didn't understand? Adam was no intellectual slouch. He's the first scientist on record in human history, being all at once and simultaneously a botanist and taxonomist.

And their character, being a part of the creation, was also very good.

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by Actor

They were forbidden to eat the fruit because then they would know good from evil. But if they did not know good from evil they would not know that disobeying God was evil. Circular reasoning.

Not to worry. It's a fairy tale.

Ignorance is not circular reasoning. They did know that they would die as a result of disobeying.

According to you, if a child doesn't listen to his parent to not touch the hot stove and the kid touches it anyway, the parent engaged in circular reasoning because the kid really didn't know what "hot" felt like? What should the parent have done: branded the kid's hand with the hot burner?

[hcap]

Originally Posted by boxcar

...According to you, if a child doesn't listen to his parent to not touch the hot stove and the kid touches it anyway, the parent engaged in circular reasoning because the kid really didn't know what "hot" felt like? What should the parent have done: branded the kid's hand with the hot burner?

According to you that child, his friends and all of his descendants should all die.

Worse your all-loving, and all knowing god would murder them all for touching that "hot" stone.

Did I hear you say your god was a just god?
As I pointed out a number of times, thankfully you have no kids.

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

God created Adam and Eve, and made a request of them that he knew for certain that they wouldn't obey...the equivalent of placing a bet on a contest whose outcome is already known. In other words...an act of CHEATING. And...by attaching the destiny of all mankind to this known outcome, he knowingly placed mankind in a no-win situation...with eternal damnation being the inescapable finale.

It reads like a sorry script to an even sorrier movie...

You liberals and analogies! Such torturous logic! There was not bet in the garden.

Also, the destiny of all mankind, thankfully, does not lie with Adam's sin. If it did , we'd all be consigned to hell! Everyone's destiny is in God's hands. But no one wants to seek his forgiveness -- even for his own personal sins. Again...if everyone's destiny resided in his own life choices, no man would or could be saved, since the natural disposition of the human heart is identical to that of Satan's. (More on this later.)

But thankfully God, out of his infinite love and mercy for many men, has taken the initiative to save them, placing their destiny is His own hands. So no, not all mankind is "in a no-win situation". The only ones in this kind of situation are those who don't understand what I just wrote and/or do understand but refuse to act on it.

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by Nutz and Boltz

He never should have given A&E free will. He should have just kept them as pets !

And what kind of pet would you have liked to have been: A turtle, A gerbil, a goldfish, a bird, what? How long have you been lamenting your humanity?

[hcap]

Originally Posted by bollixed_up_car

But thankfully God, out of his infinite love and mercy for many men, has taken the initiative to save them, placing their destiny is His own hands. So no, not all mankind is "in a no-win situation". The only ones in this kind of situation are those who don't understand what I just wrote and/or do understand but refuse to act on it.

So Jesus is the 2nd "do-over"? Noah the first?

If you don't succeed the first time, try, try , try, try, try , try, try, try, try,again ? I guess the road to perfection takes a lot of practice, even for a god.

But hey, so what if billions of people are murdered horribly

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by hcap

According to you that child, his friends and all of his descendants should all die.

Worse your all-loving, and all knowing god would murder them all for touching that "hot" stone.

Did I hear you say your god was a just god?
As I pointed out a number of times, thankfully you have no kids.

Why would you say that? The parent is analogous to God! (Have you ever had a coherent thought in your life!?)

So...tell us, should the parent have frightened the child by placing the kid's hand on the hot burner as a life lesson? In other words, for those who are slow-witted -- should the parent have coerced the kid to obey? Is that what God should have done with Adam and Eve? That wouldn't have been a very fair test, would it?