Question on Christianity (no not a rant, just a nice querry)Follow

let me quote my Bible Barretboy.
'It is the great tragic weakness of our tragic species that we all want so much to believe. And are willing to commit absolutely every kind of insanity in the name of our beliefs, no matter how inane they are. Through the ages, people have believed this, that, and the other thing. Unshakably. But did it save them from the inevitable end of their world, ever? None of them were saved, just as we will not be saved. And how many times does a wave have to dash itself against a rock before it learns that only the rock will remain and the wave itself will become a memory? Do you think that I, Harry, have not thought long and hard about these questions before urging you to stop thinking about them for your own good? Do you think that I have not peered into our sciences and other systems of rational thought for a way out of our dilemma? Do you think that if there were a valid reason for hope, I would not have brought it to you, and given you the peace of mind that this one promises, but never delivers?' Vinnie 61.4-62

i'd ramble further, but i'm tired of digging this particular hole

If God is willing to end Evil but not able, then He is not Omnipotent.

If God is able to end Evil but not willing, then He is not Benevolent.

If God is both able and willing, where does Evil begin?

If God is neither able nor willing, why call Him God?

Ponder please.

I agree with the response above, but there is one thing i have never been able to figure out....

Many Christians, from the devoutly faithful to the skeptic, believe in a being of incarnate evil, namely Satan or the Devil.

The very CONCEPT of a Devil shatters the notion of an all powerful, caring God. If the Devil exists, and he works to undo Gods good will on earth, then the Devil is essentailly OUTSIDE of God's Sphere of Influence. If something is outside the influence of a Supreame Being, then that being can no longer be considered supreame.

One might present the arguement that God allows the Devil to exist to punish evil doers for thier sins. If God does allow the devil to perpetuate evil, then God himself is NOT inheritly Good.

My point is this, if a God exists <and i wont say that he dosent> GOD cannot be Benevolent AND Omnipotent. Essentially each one cancels the other out. If you belive in God, at least think for yourself on the nature of God.

This thread's been going on for over 2000 years.

Very true... it's been patched and upgraded a few times. I think we're up to version 20.1.2005 now.

Leucifer was an angel, but like all angels, had free will. He chose to take his free will and go against God, or so my religion says.

I disagree. You assume an omnipotent God would end all evil thus ending Free Will thus proving his benevolence. At the same time, ending Free Will could be argued to be evil in of itself, like giving someone a lobotomy and tying them to a chair to prevent them from ever doing wrong.

So which is worse? Allowing people to make their own choices or forcefully preventing them from doing anything? Your arguments are as circular as the defenses.

I fail to see what one has to do with the other. Omnipotent means all powerful. But it doesn't mean nothing happens outside of you. Choosing not to do away with something doesn't mean you lack the capacity to do away with it.

Because if you lack the capacity to do go against God's wishes (which is what evil in a religious sense boils down to) then you don't have free will, now do you?



Again, that's flawed. Going back to my description of evil from a Biblical perspective, it's pretty much going against God's wishes. God says to stay faithful to your spouse, you cheat on your spouse, cheating is considered "evil". God says "don't steal", you steal and you sinned. God says "Go forth to the Amonites and kill them all and salt their fields" and doing so is, Biblically speaking, "good" because that's what God wants you to do and refusing to do it is "evil" because it goes against what God wants done regardless of your own feelings on killing Amonites. By that definition, God can't be evil because it's logically impossible for God to go against his own wishes unless you want to get into silly circular "Can God make a mountain he can't move?" arguments.

God created man with free will which is in of itself neither good nor evil. I'm not arguing that free will came from eating from the Tree; Eve already had every capacity to do good and stay away from the Tree. She chose to go against God's desires and thusly chose "evil". You can say that Eve "created evil" and so she somehow invalidates God's omnipotence but that's not true. Again, capacity to prevent something does not equal actually preventing it and failing to prevent it does not prove incapacity. The entire idea behind free will is that God refrains from exercising his capacity to prevent it.

question for sock #28 in this thread: is there really a book of "vinnie"? i assume that's only in roman catholic translations, anyway. that just piqued my interest, even more than the futile argument over why organized religion doesn't seem to make any sense unless you concede that all it's ever been is the most effective form of social control (capitalism's trying, but still 2nd place).

Tarv, i assume the conclusions you have arrived at, have been deduced by your own reading and interpretation of the Bible. Please to tell, how did you come to this conclusion?

EDIT: heh, seems i'm being rated down for being a conservative Christian.

Edited, Fri Jan 21 09:49:53 2005 by Barretboy

God makes it abundantly clear throughout the Old and New Testaments that atonement for sin comes at a price and that price is belief, sacrifice and repentance. The rich man offers to pay the workers for working the vineyard, not for them to lie around saying "You have to give me free money for doing nothing 'cause otherwise I'll say you're not really being generous!"

Given that the basic tenet of Christianity is that Christ died to that people who believe in him will be given salvation, I doubt that day is soon coming.

This is always the problem when talking about religions. People tend to personify(sp?) God and Satan. People can't understand how Eve could give birth to that many different races and so on.

What you have to understand is that all these things are symbols created to make it easier for you to read and understand the messages of God. No one would understand or believe in Jesus if they said what God meant, so they had to turn the knowledge into something easier for us to understand.

I was raised as a Christian, but I have my doubts. After reading the nemesis to the Bible, the Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey, I suddenly began to see how it should not be understood as a direct description of what happened. Adam didn't sleep with Eve thus creating a couple of million babies. Adam is mankind and Eve is life. Of course, some of you will disagree with this, mainly the orthodox part of you, but check the website first, it's actually great reading.

I also suggest that everyone who has read the Bible should read the Satanic Bible. It's not what you think it is.

I'm neither a Christian nor Satanist, my doubt is too great, I am however not so sure that the Bible is full of nonsense like I thought in my earlier years. All you have to do is read what isn't written, understand how people mentioned in the Bible aren't actually people, how events are in fact messages, not actual events that took place.

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it's not like I just said, but I sure hope so. It would give the story of God and Jesus more believable.

The above mentioned website is found here.

A lot of people seem to be missing the distinction between "sin" and "a sin". It's really a bad name for it. Let's take the dead baby dilemna, for example. Some people say dead babies will go to heaven because they never sinned / never denied salvation. Some people say they will go to hell (or alternatively, stop existing) because they never had a chance to accept salvation. All Christians will agree that the baby was inherently sinful, even though said baby never lied, stole, or cheated on his wife.

So doing bad things is not what's keeping humanity out of heaven, but rather some intangible corruption that makes us do those bad things, even if we never act on it. That same corruption is the reason we die and get sick.

In the Jewish tradition, one would sacrifice small fuzzy animals for just about everything, from it being the Sabbath to a girl having her period to accidentally wearing your wool robe with your cotton tunic. The sacrifice would always need to be a healthy animal, as near-perfect a specimen of the species as could be found. This would not "forgive you of your sins", (menstruating isn't a sin) but "make you clean". These were a metaphor for Jesus' sacrifice making humanity clean of sin. Any ol' normal human wouldn't work for this, we're already corrupt. It'd be like sacrificing a dirty, injured old sheep on the altar instead of a pure white lamb. Jesus was a human who managed to resist the corruption of sin, whether because he was the literal son of God or just that damn good is up for interpretation.

So it's not a matter of God not being able to forgive non-belief, it's just that you can't enter heaven if you're not kosher. Try kissing a Jewish girl when your breath reeks of bacon and she'll tell you why. People who haven't been made clean will corrupt everything they touch, including heaven. It's the same concept completely, but due to the rather long period of time in which many Christians were anti-Semitic, the correlation was lost and now nobody will admit that it's really the same thing.