Posted on 12/20/2010 10:32:51 AM PST by truthfinder9
These are two separate issues but for the fact they involve the death of children. Death is not a punishment so there is no justice or lack of justice to speak of. Death is a consequence of living in fallen world.
Do I understand why God called for the death of every Amalakite at the hands of Israel, rather than taking care of it himself, naturally or miraculously? No, I don’t. Maybe the Israelites really needed to have brought home to them the perils of Moloch worship before the last bastion of Monotheism disappeared from the earth. Maybe every baby Amalakite would have grown up to be Hitler? I’m not omniscient.
What I do know is that all the things that were decreed in the old testament have been fulfilled in Christ, and thus, all I need to be concerned with from the old testament is to love the Lord my God with all my heart, mind and soul, and to love my neighbour as myself (which precludes slaughtering any amalakites that might have survived to this day).
Before the birth of Jesus the world was a broken thing, like a mad dog with no understanding or response to anything but rough handling, eager to destroy itself at the first chance. We had cut our whole universe off from the mercy of God. So God took a small portion and babied them and harried them and shaped them into the society that could produce Mary who could bear Christ. And when Christ on the cross took upon himself the consequence of Adam’s fall he enveloped it and overwhelmed it.
Adam was the pattern for man and every man after him had NO engraved on his heart and God could not enter in. When Christ with this human heart met death, and God on the other side of that great infernal NO, it had no power for God was already within. It shattered and for the first time in millennia the floodgates were opened and God’s mercy could flow into our world, into all of our hearts changed in Christ.
Religions like Islam do not know Christ, and there is no mercy in them.
The concept of original sin has been around for thousands of years, much longer than Hollywood movies. Pretending you don’t understand this is dishonest.
The rope is a metaphor. Again—pretending you don’t realize this is dishonest.
Your claim about what “the Bible says” makes no sense—it’s neither connected to what it pretends to answer nor does it make sense in itself.
Your last comment is as irrational as the rest of them. What you’re doing is forming sentences which seem connected to my replies only generally, and then adding a bit chaos to your word order. Deceptiveness only brings you farther from the truth.
Like I mentioned earlier—if your ideology is too weak for you to come out and state it openly, and your only options are to bait and switch or to bring disorder to the conversation, you should just come to the realization that your argument has no life left in it. Reality has swallowed it whole.
I can’t comment on this enough—leftist thinking cannot stand on its own. You’ve proven this ultimate truth, again. So why hold on to leftist thinking?
The concept of the "original sin" is a purely Christian innovation. The Jews do no recognize any such entity. They see Adam and Eve misbehaving and being punished for what they have done, and deserving so.
Likewise, the Jews did not see a need for man to be "saved" spiritually. That is another Christian innovation. To the Jews, salvation has a literal meaning, as in saved from Egyptians, Babylonians, or Romans, etc.
I do not pretend. Implying my motives is MIND READING. You need to review the Forum rules, which is why I am pinging the Moderator to help you understand the limits.
It seemed you might have been pretending. I wasn’t sure.
But my statement is true—pretending is dishonest. Whether or not you were doing it in that comment, you have in others as shown by your words.
Whatever the case there, your tendency is to bait and switch (a form of pretending), and to answer with sentences that have been jumbled with the apparent purpose of introducing chaos.
What you should be doing is debating honestly.
Now back to the discussion, I think post #241 answers your questions very well.
Words such as "false" "error" "wrong" do not attribute motive.
Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.
Thank you for your wisdom as moderator. With this kind of guidance from you, I can improve my participation in these discussions.
I pray that truth be clearly seen. I am sorry to God for my errors and my sins, and to anyone harmed by them. I pray for the ability to glorify you God.
If vanity inspires my posts I apologize to God, and to anyone harmed by it. I pray that arrogance be turned to humility, and anger to love according to God’s will. And that strength from God carry us all. May God’s truth be revealed for all to see.
Well Fling, it’s not that atheists are scared of God as much as they are worried about what people do in his name.
I don’t find that it takes faith to be an atheist.
Well, the problem I run into into with the something from nothing argument is that inserting a God doesn’t solve that issue. Then you have to resolve where God came from, and that is an even bigger problem than whether physical matter is able to simply appear into existence, which quantum mechanics is starting to demonstrate might be possible.
I can’t speak for everyone, but I know it isn’t my goal to eliminate morality. That is not why I criticize religion at all.
Even the leading atheists admit in the debates with theists that it takes “faith” to believe that there is no God, because it can not be proven by science that one does not exist. (That is what faith is—to believe in something that can not be proven through scientific means).
Atheists “have faith” that “eventually” everything can be proven by science. BTW, it was the profound Catholics like Newton and Galileo, and Copernicus, St. Augustine, Mendel, and St. Thomas Aquinas, etc., etc., that have advanced science to a point where it may tell us more about the metaphysical world. In fact, the Christian paradigm is responsible even for Einstein. It was because we had faith in the Bible and belief that man was created in God’s image (with reason and logic) so that Christians created universities and hospitals and schools—an attempt to uncover God’s meaning for the universe.
Nietzsche recognized this belief in the Creator leading to imitators—creators on earth— like Milton, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Beethoven, Michelangelo, Raphael, Bach, etc., and he recoiled at the idiots like Marx whose atheism was going to create an abyss, a void—where NEVER, in the history of man were men arrogant enough to say there is no need for a god. (They make themselves gods which is so idiotic since they are immortal and it is easily proven. If there is no god, then man has to take control over the masses—I prefer my God to man any day. Men always screw everything up when they are prideful and arrogant—only moral people aren’t.)
German Postmodernists were killing off the concept of God for Europe and this morality void was predicted by Nietzsche—he predicted Hitler’s Germany, Lenin’s Russia, Mao’s China, Pot’s Cambodia, etc. He is the most profound thinker of the 19th century because he saw the nihilism and the culture of death which the German philosophers were designing. (Pope refers to this obvious fact everyday with the deChristianization of Europe. They are in a state of nihilism and suicide—because when there is no God—there is no hope and no reason to have children. In fact, since we are all just animals and life sucks for most of us, we should never reproduce.) Nihilism—it was predicted in the 1880’s.
If there is no God, all we are are animals. There is no profound meaning to life and no reason to act moral (especially if in private). Founders knew that immoral people would act like Benedict Arnold in private. Why not if they could benefit and not get caught.
Atheist have also admitted that if there ceases to be the Christian paradigm in a country—as the Founders were adamant that for a free country, man has to be moral, so religion is a necessity. (To them it was Christianity—no other religions were universal, nor aligned with Natural Law Theory like Aquinas did to Christian Thought. They wanted a religion based in logic and reason, not some mystical, wicca non-sense. (All religions are NOT the same and they do not deliver the same results—what would our nation be like if Voodoo was the prevalent religion? Well, it wouldn’t have lasted 10 years before a greater power would have decimated it.
The idea that men are just animals is the Marxist (atheist) one. Nietzsche hated the ugly world Marx’s ideology would create. Everyone equal—no Newtons, no Wilberforces....ya, right. Only in an atheist paradigm where man would be at the whims of a master on earth. The survival of the fittest will be the morality that always HAS to be the one to rule animals.....What Hitler resorted to, Stalin, Hitler, Lenin, Mao, Pot....all have to resort to the Darwinian model, etc. What other one is there if they throw out the moral absolutes that has directed the US for 250 years—the only paradigm that has worked in the history of mankind for a free and prosperous nation that gives dignity to all. Atheists will give dignity to no one but themselves and those who are advantageous to themself. Very, sick, selfish world. The Nature of Man is selfish—Marx is flawed because he lies about the nature of man.
As of yet, there is no proof of no God. To not have faith would make you an agnostic—not an atheist, because atheism still takes faith.
I want my children to grow up within a Christian paradigm. No better society in the history of earth, and one which gives hope and meaning and dignity to everyone. No other belief system can be even close to delivering such a positive, fun, creative, productive, safe society.
You’re quite right that many awesome scientists in the past and many leading scientists today are men and women of faith. I don’t think that your religious beliefs affect your abilities.
Also, it seems to me that a lot of your arguments focus on what you’d like to be true, and not what is true. It isn’t that there is no “need” for a God. In fact, it would be wonderful if there was. Unfortunately, in my view, there just isn’t. Quite frankly, we are animals. To think that we deserve to be otherwise is just human arrogance.
Evidence of no God? There’s also no evidence of no Allah. How do you reconcile that?
Because of the evidence of design in all of nature, there is more proof of a designer than accident. Way more.
The belief in “allah” offers no Free Will. I am just going with the religion that doesn’t exclude any human being on earth. One where you can practice or not practice and get your head cut off.
Christianity (Dinesh D’Souza) said it best in his book, “What’s so Great about Christianity”. It is no accident that the Christian cultures were the most innovative and creative. Why?
Because Christianity offered the most freedom within itself to debate and learn. That freedom led to a vast expansion of knowledge from the printing press to the Enlightenment.
The reason why other cultures did not flourish....no freedom, tyranny, oppression, chaos because no underlying ruling paradigm of belief—the tower of Babel. Christianity preached decency to ALL people, even unbelievers. It is far superior in creating happiness and freedom, particularly compared to islam or other non-free societies.
It is a quite brilliant set of behavior for all people to prosper and be free.
My Nigerian professor said it best....they didn’t believe in moral absolutes, so you could not build trust and loyalty and devotion, bribes and chaos—no economic powerhouse could exist in a country w/o moral absolutes.
(his non-Christian words, not mine). He knew, he lived in a country that was a hell-hole because of moral relativism.
Belief systems are the most important aspect of a society. Cultural Marxists know that—that is why they are working 24/7 to destroy that structure of family and Christianity. Without it we will be like every other festering place on earth and need a master. If not God, it will be man.
There is no evidence of design in nature. In fact, many aspects of nature demonstrate that there is no design involved. The human body is an excellent example. The spleen, appendix, wisdom teeth, and innumerable other body parts are useless and, in most cases, a hindrance. This is solid evidence of an evolutionary basis for our existence, and not a designed one.
Christianity doesn’t offer a choice, either. In Islam you get your head cut off, in Christianity you are tortured for all of eternity. Neither one of those offer a choice to reject that religion. Furthermore, just because one prefers Christianity doesn’t make it true.
Also, your assertion that Christian cultures flourish more is simply unfounded. Islamic countries made huge advances in science and mathematics. Then the Crusades wrecked a significant chunk of that. Even in Christian countries that did make significant advances, Christianity played either no role, or actually worked against the advances. In the Middle Ages, virtually every scientific discovery was squashed by the church. Remember when Galileo and Copernicus proved that the Earth revolved around the Sun and not the other way around? The Church silenced them. Historically speaking, the Church has been a source of oppression. Linking Christianity with freedom is like linking Islam with women’s rights.
Like every other festering place on earth? To the contrary, most countries in Europe that are predominantly atheist (Denmark, Sweden, etc.) are consistently ranked highest in all measures of quality. Better education, better healthcare, less crime and violence, better economy, and overall more happiness and satisfaction. The United States consistently ranks in the bottom 25 for most of those, and it competes with some third world countries when it comes to violent crime.
The United States is one of the heaviest Christian nations in the world, and ranks low across the board. If the “moral foundation” of our country is based in Christianity, then something needs to change.
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