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The Consequence of Sin - The Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah
- Thread starter ByLoSellHi
- Start date
well we know one thing for sure. the stories in the bible attributed to the christian god are nothing more than primitive myths.Quote from achilles28:
The human mind has yet to fathom 1% of the universe and physical world.
To presume the entirety of whats knowable from <1% of whats actually known via "modern education", is the height of arrogance.
Please don't quote me Richard Dawkins. He's grasping at straws.
nothing supernatural has ever been documented. if you are comfortable claiming lack of observable evidence = evidence for every notion the human mind can come up with you open the door for every crackpot claiming devine revelation. that is the definition of superstition.
Myths which are believed in tend to become true.
George Orwell
"The facts are - if the Judeo-Christian account is true (and I know it is) -"Quote from achilles28:
Sin is a thorny subject.
God created Satan and Man knowing each would fall and their eternal afterlife spent tortured in Hell - a place He created before Mankind knowing most humanity would end up there.
Christians devise all sorts of creative rationalizations to justify Hell, and even that most humans willingly "choose" it.
The facts are - if the Judeo-Christian account is true (and I know it is) - God created spirits He knew beforehand were destined for Hell, but did it anyway. But still loves them. But will burn them, regardless.
Thats brass tax. A contradiction of such profound implication, to humans and to God. But perhaps God is above it all. He seems to think so. Which again, has terrifying implications for us.
the problem with that is..
The facts are - if the Judeo-Christian account is not true (and I know it is not)-
.... your apologist description of God is one of a most depraved and perverse, ironically even sinful entity.
Surely that is something to be resisted and overcome, refused not appeased as wholly unacceptable above all.
Supporting such despicable standards for any reason real or conceptual, especially dubious ones to do with highly suspect imaginary secret hidden bigger plans or an idea that a murderous pathological megalomaniac loves you but it's ok because it's called God, I suggest really does more to diminish the sum of human dignity than improve it, and furthermore insults intelligence generally.
By any decent standard of morality and principles normally recognized as right and wrong, acceptance of your God or itâs concept in any form is utterly contemptuous.
Most of us are probably in trouble since fornication is also a very bad sin as described in the first post on this thread. How many of you waited until being married to have sex? So based on that quote we are thrown in with the homosexuals??
As one who has spent the greater portion of his life reading the words and thoughts of our "antiquarian" brothers, I would argue the point that the "ancient" minds were less "educated" than we in this present age ! Indeed, a rather compelling argument could be made that the opposite is true.That you state " ...a primitive mind could concieve of gods...." is actually a statement I whole heartedly agree with ! Any ability by man to "concieve" of god, by default would mean that this "god" is from the world, from the mind of man. Therefore, your antipathy would be well founded, and indeed I would join in such derision.The faith of a christian lies exclusively in and around Christ, specifically the risen Christ. The risen Christ is the exclusive fulfillment of the faith of Abraham. This faith in Christ, and the promises associated with this faith in Christ are above and beyond the "rational" observable "knowledge" of the day to day, minute by minute breathing in and exhalling of our earthly time. If our mind concieves that "god" is in the clouds, or in the roar of the ocean, or in the sound of the thunder, then, yes this "god" can and should [and will ] be disected by "rational" thought as a surely as the world will analyze and catagorize the differences between ants and apples.The G-d who reveals Himself , from outside of "our" time, in the promise of, and then in the fulfillment of, Christ , "God with us", is beyond the comprehension, beyond the rational observation of the dirt and clay of our earthly sojourn. If it were any other way than this, the ability to "know" G-d ONLY as He reveals Himself from His hiddeness, then I would respectfully state that we have indeed "made" this god from the wood and metal from this world.Therefore, faith is as Paul states "..the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen....", and by its very essence, this faith in Christ takes the christian outside of this quantifiable region, this world/time and into the non-quantifiable where G-d's revelations beckon us.As Overbeck, rightly argues in his 1873 tractate........." But if the religion in question has not in fact taken its adherents beyond the boundaries of this world, then it is an idle claim.....So long as this does not happen, then the sphere of religion - whatever its origins may be - is the world....For as far as scholarship is concerned, what is at stake here, is not necessarily that the existence of a certain number of facts, summarised under the name "Christianity", might be put in doubt. Not at all. Rather what is at stake, is how these facts are to be explained. And if it is conceded that scholarship has the ability even to call into question whether the expression of this new redemptive life originated historically in the way hitherto assumed, then it [scholarship] has been granted all it needs to annihilate Christianity as a religion over and over againQuote from vhehn:that might explain how a primitive mind could concieve of gods but it does not explain why educated people still believe in those same gods today.
Quote from stu:
.....which boils down to a pleading for the desire (hope) of something unquantifiable and illogical (called God).
You're hoping for something you can't understand !
Well, that is strange, I was not finished with my post and it has appeared in its unfinished form !
If faith desires to submit its self to scholarship for some sort of ratification, to rational/worldly examination, then it has become something other than faith, and will remain, always, something other than faith.
Quote from Barth Vader:
As one who has spent the greater portion of his life reading the words and thoughts of our "antiquarian" brothers, I would argue the point that the "ancient" minds were less "educated" than we in this present age ! Indeed, a rather compelling argument could be made that the opposite is true.That you state " ...a primitive mind could concieve of gods...." is actually a statement I whole heartedly agree with ! Any ability by man to "concieve" of god, by default would mean that this "god" is from the world, from the mind of man. Therefore, your antipathy would be well founded, and indeed I would join in such derision.The faith of a christian lies exclusively in and around Christ, specifically the risen Christ. The risen Christ is the exclusive fulfillment of the faith of Abraham. This faith in Christ, and the promises associated with this faith in Christ are above and beyond the "rational" observable "knowledge" of the day to day, minute by minute breathing in and exhalling of our earthly time. If our mind concieves that "god" is in the clouds, or in the roar of the ocean, or in the sound of the thunder, then, yes this "god" can and should [and will ] be disected by "rational" thought as a surely as the world will analyze and catagorize the differences between ants and apples.The G-d who reveals Himself , from outside of "our" time, in the promise of, and then in the fulfillment of, Christ , "God with us", is beyond the comprehension, beyond the rational observation of the dirt and clay of our earthly sojourn. If it were any other way than this, the ability to "know" G-d ONLY as He reveals Himself from His hiddeness, then I would respectfully state that we have indeed "made" this god from the wood and metal from this world.Therefore, faith is as Paul states "..the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen....", and by its very essence, this faith in Christ takes the christian outside of this quantifiable region, this world/time and into the non-quantifiable where G-d's revelations beckon us.As Overbeck, rightly argues in his 1873 tractate........." But if the religion in question has not in fact taken its adherents beyond the boundaries of this world, then it is an idle claim.....So long as this does not happen, then the sphere of religion - whatever its origins may be - is the world....For as far as scholarship is concerned, what is at stake here, is not necessarily that the existence of a certain number of facts, summarised under the name "Christianity", might be put in doubt. Not at all. Rather what is at stake, is how these facts are to be explained. And if it is conceded that scholarship has the ability even to call into question whether the expression of this new redemptive life originated historically in the way hitherto assumed, then it [scholarship] has been granted all it needs to annihilate Christianity as a religion over and over again
the minds of primitive men concieved of thousands of gods over the years. eventually many attributes of these many gods were combined into one myth. christianity:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH66MsrmE50
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/kersey_graves/16/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJluEnIqTVk
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/james_still/virgin_birth.html
Faith that does not submit itsself to reasoning for any ratification is blind faith. The self perpetuation of an idea made possible by excluding any rational questioning of it.Quote from Barth Vader:
Well, that is strange, I was not finished with my post and it has appeared in its unfinished form !
If faith desires to submit its self to scholarship for some sort of ratification, to rational/worldly examination, then it has become something other than faith, and will remain, always, something other than faith.
....and so it seems worse than I thought.
What you appear to be suggesting is you're blindly hoping, along with a tenacious unwillingness to consider anything reliable to the contrary,- that there might be an illogical incomprehensible Goblin which is capable of letting you understand something or other.
Quote from stu:
Faith that does not submit itsself to reasoning for any ratification is blind faith. The self perpetuation of an idea made possible by excluding any rational questioning of it.
....and so it seems worse than I thought.
What you appear to be suggesting is you're blindly hoping, along with a tenacious unwillingness to consider anything reliable to the contrary,- that there might be an illogical incomprehensible Goblin which is capable of letting you understand something or other.
Far from it !
But I will grant you that from a "faithless" perspective, a perspective which has as its only guiding light, the elements and wood and metal and chaff of what our senses confirm in our daily human "time", that your statement is quite logical.
My faith is in Christ, the Risen Christ. How shall I disect this and place it before the rational critical mind? Christ is a revelation, a lightning bolt that has struck the ground of our existence, and left its mark. He is the originator and the sustainer of this faith.
This faith of Abraham, this Christ, "God with us", is from outside, not inside. How can earthly examination find and make rational an irrational act? It cannot.
G-d waters this faith, for those who hold it will testify to that "fact"....otherwise, we would be the same, no, worse than our brothers who walk only on the parched ground of rational thought and the blindness of what we see and hear and smell and taste.