I'm back, BUT...

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yup yup sorry Johnny

God originally created us perfectly but also gave us free will. We disobeyed the Lord with our free will. What's so hard to understand?

Originally Posted By: cooldawg2God originally created us perfectly but also gave us free will. We disobeyed the Lord with our free will. What's so hard to understand? Oh oh, question!If he created us perfectly, then why DID we sin in the first place? Afterall, from your idea, God created free will. And if we sinned from free will, wouldn't that make sin an idea of God's? And if that's so, then why would we be punished for something he created?

peer presure. well i dk if u'd call it peer presure for eve since it was a serpant that talked her into it...but yea.

God needed us to sin so that He could have his son come to earth and die for our sins showing his love for us by sacrificing his only son. Free will means God has barely any control over us, which is why I don't believe everything happens for a reason, I believe everything happens because it happens. Is that good enough?

Originally Posted By: cooldawg2God originally created us perfectly but also gave us free will. We disobeyed the Lord with our free will. What's so hard to understand? I'm glad that the great mysteries of theology and science are so clear to you. If you can put that knowledge in a book, I assure you there there is a Nobel prize waiting for you. You'll have to indulge the rest of us with a bit of patience.When I talk about the "design" of people and animals, I mean their physical manifestation, as well as the way animals organize into societies.If God is an all-knowing designer, then why do people (and animals) suffer from so many degenerative diseases? Why do teeth rot and arteries clog, why do some people have birth defects that leads to the wasting of their body over time? Could God not have come up with a cellular design that would preclude cancer?Do you find it interesting that a lot of the degenerative diseases tend to occur at a time in life after a person has already reproduced and gotten their offspring raised? Doesn't that point toward natural selection, where having successful offspring is the goal, rather than a long life?As far as free will is concerned, I'll ask you again. Think about it a bit longer before you reply. If God knew ahead of time how everything would turn out, then what was the point of the exercise? He knew exactly who would succeed and who would fail, by his criteria. It was all predetermined (by God). If it was all predetermined, then where does free will come into play? He knew and knows everything you do and think. If that is the case, then what is the point of the exercise?And what does it mean that a deity "dies" for our sins? What does it mean for a deity to die? If Jesus is infinite, then his life and death require less effort than it takes you to blink your eyes. How does his drama wash away the sins that I didn't even commit? And why do I get credit for the sins of other people? If a someone mugged you, would you tar everyone from their race, all in need of salvation? Isn't the God that you worship better than that?

Originally Posted By: cooldawg2

God needed us to sin so that He could have his son come to earth and die for our sins showing his love for us by sacrificing his only son.

Free will means God has barely any control over us, which is why I don't believe everything happens for a reason, I believe everything happens because it happens.

Is that good enough?
No, that's not nearly good enough. God needed us to sin? What a strange game he played. His son was deity and was not sacrificed. What does it mean for an infinite deity to die? Very little.

"everything happens because it happens" means nothing. Things are red because they're red. Hot water is hot because it's hot. It's a tautology. It means that you choose not to think about it.

Please look at my previous post regarding free will. God does not need to interfere with our everyday lives (does he perform random miracles?) if he set existence rolling and he knew from the start exactly were every subatomic particle would be thousands of years later, and what every being would think at any given moment.

Quote:God needed us to sin so that He could have his son come to earth and die for our sins showing his love for us by sacrificing his only son. If he wanted to show us his love, then couldn't he created or done something much more positive than sacrifice his own son? And why would he do something like that if the original idea of sin came from him in the first place (i.e., free will)?  Quote:Free will means God has barely any control over us, which is why I don't believe everything happens for a reason, I believe everything happens because it happens. Why wouldn't he want to control us? I mean, if he didn't want us to commit sins, then why give us free will?  Quote:Is that good enough? I'm afraid not. I'm a hard person to please. Plus, now I'm interested.

Quote:God needed us to sin so that He could have his son come to earth and die for our sins showing his love for us by sacrificing his only son. Free will means God has barely any control over us, which is why I don't believe everything happens for a reason, I believe everything happens because it happens. ERRRRRR

People and animals suffer all these terrible things because of sin. It's really as simple as that and it's explained in the first couple pages of the bible, you just have to look deeper. Before man sinned there was none of that. After man sinned everything went bad from there. YOU HAVE TO REMEMBER! TO GOD THE FLESH IS IRRELEVANT. HIS CONCERN IS YOUR SOUL. WHAT DOES YOUR SOUL HAVE TO SAY ABOUT YOU? In heaven the lowest people on earth will be highest in heaven and the highest on earth will be the lowest in heaven. But be careful not to misunderstand what this means. Think about it for a while. If you still can't figure it out then ask me. Who's to say that any of this is pre-determined? Knowing and controlling are two completely different things.Yes God knows you're whole life story already but it doesn't mean he has to control what you do. If he could control what you were doing that would mean we wouldn't sin and there would be no evil. Because he gave us free will that allowed us to be able to sin. AND, you forget that Jesus came to us in human form not in spiritual form. He actually suffered even though he didn't have to. He did this for us and he did this for His Father. He had to do this because God needed to punish someone for our sins. He chose his son to do this because it expressed his love for us. Does that make it any clearer?

Originally Posted By: cooldawg2 Because he gave us free will that allowed us to be able to sin. That's what's baffling to me. Why would he allow us to sin, if he doesn't want us to? What's the point of the 10 Commandments?

Originally Posted By: A.W.Jesus did die for our sins. And what's so funny is that, why is it everytime when there is a disaster, people always cry out for God by screaming "Oh God"? I can bet that most of them aren't believers. You are repeating what the scripture says. Jesus died for our sins. Jesus died for our sins. Jesus died for our sins. If you say it a few hundred times it starts to lose it's meaning.I'm asking you what it means for a deity to "suffer" and "die". It can't possibly mean the same thing that it means to us. Pain and death have no meaning to infinite beings. Was Jesus in fact ever really dead?There may be some non-believers who in desperation cry out for God's help. It doesn't in any way lend credence to God's existence. Likewise, there are people who lose their faith during times of sustained suffering. The point is, people's belief (alone) in the existence or non-existence of God has nothing to do with whether God exists, any more than people's belief in the flatness or roundness of the Earth has any effect on the Earth's geometric form.

His intention is for us is to be good people, but he also acknowledges that humans will sin because they aren't perfect. He gave us the 10 commandments so we would the basis to follow in our lives that would lead to salvation. We will eventually face the creator as A.W. says time and time again. WE WERE NOT SUPPOSE TO BE PERFECT. IF WE WERE PERFECT THEN THERE WOULD BE NO REASON FOR GOD TO CREATE US. why would he want robots following him? he says he doesn't want sin in heaven which is why you face him when you die. if you truly are sorry then you are forgiven and granted access to heaven permanently.

HE WASN'T A DEITY ON EARTH! He was a human! but God gave him the powers and the wisdom. He suffered the same way you would if you were beaten and nailed to a cross. Then he died, was resurrected, and then went to heaven in front of all the witnesses i.e Mary Magdalene. That's when he went back to being with God and being a deity.

Cooldawg2, have you ever made a good-faith effort to find scientific information on evolution, or have you only read things on religious sites where adherents were trying to explain away scientific findings? A big problem with that is that you won't get a fair understanding of the ideas they're trying to knock down. It's not hard to knock over a straw man, and you need some objective understanding of the subject to know if the anti-creationist folks are being fair.

Are you saying that animals sin?

The flesh is not irrelevant to me. If it was I arrange to die as soon as possible. I see so much suffering in the world, so much torment, it does matter. If you live a very comfortable life in the United States you may be oblivious to it, but trust me (or better yet, read the newspaper), there is a lot of suffering going on. Genocide. Cancer. Heart disease. Earthquakes. Tidal waves.

A lot of very nice and wonderful people get terminal cancer. I don't know if you've every been with someone suffering from terminal cancer, but it's a terrible, terrible thing. Are the afflicted paying for their sins, or for someone else's? Doesn't this seem at least a little bit cruel? At the moment of creation, God was aware of all the suffering that would follow, each and every person's pain. Yet He chose to do it that way. Doesn't it seem a little cruel?

Your thoughts on the afterlife are philosophically interesting, but no one can deny the here and now. Look around. There's probably someone in a hospital near you dying from terminal cancer. There are women on another continent being raped by soldiers as I type this. Not only does God know about it, he knew it was happen exactly as it has from the moment of creation.

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Because he gave us free will that allowed us to be able to sin.
The question I keep asking is, what does free will mean if God knew exactly how everything turns out, at every moment? He set up creation so that you would do and think what He knew you would think at every instant. In other words, it's as if he created a machine, and he knew what the position of every gear would be at every instant of time.

If He didn't like the way any little thing would turn out, He could have done creation a bit differently. So we are in effect all cogs in God's machine, and free will is just an illusion. God knew what every result would be from the moment he started.

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AND, you forget that Jesus came to us in human form not in spiritual form. He actually suffered even though he didn't have to. He did this for us and he did this for His Father.
Jesus could do things like heal the sick, raise the dead, and walk on water. He was definitely not like you and me. He may have been in human form, but He was still a deity. Do you really think you could know how He felt?

I've heard a million times that "He died for our sins". Could you explain what that means? Is it like the animal sacrifices that some groups of people do? How does the drama of Jesus' life and death do anything for my sins? Or are you talking about Adam and Eve's sins? Why would I get smeared with their sins? Isn't that like smearing every black person because a black person mugs you? Doesn't that make God seem primitive and childish?

Then why did Jesus die? To pay for our sins, right? If that is so, then why would he judge us when we die if all is forgiven?But if that's wrong, then why sacrifice Jesus in the first place?

Originally Posted By: cooldawg2WE WERE NOT SUPPOSE TO BE PERFECT. IF WE WERE PERFECT THEN THERE WOULD BE NO REASON FOR GOD TO CREATE US. why would he want robots following him?But we are robots, in the sense that God made creation with the knowledge of what every person would think or do at every instant of time. If there was anything He didn't like, he could have done it differently.Christians seem to have a fascination with this game that God seemingly plays. It appears that people and their welfare are not God's chief concern, given that he designed a machine that would lead to a lot of suffering and terrible things, as well as sin.Why would it be so bad if He made us perfectly? Because then there would be no need to play that game? It seems to be all about the game.

be faithful to your god, that's fine, but stop citing science, you have no idea of what you speak.

Al Gore is a scientist? Last I saw he was a politician... you know, like the pope

funnyand George W Bush, who is the back pocket of the Big Oil Lobby, keeps telling his non-climate-change fairy tail.hmmm, which talking head should we believe?