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On May 28 2011 11:28 JesusOurSaviour wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 11:10 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:05 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 10:58 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 10:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:
Christians should not force anyone to do anything. Right from creation, right from the very beginning, God gave his children (us), free will to choose to obey, or choose to disobey. By disobeying, we make up our own rules!! (see Devil's conversation with Eve, "Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil." Ha - this is partially true - you won't "know" good and evil, you will DEFINE it once you reject God) Load of crap. See the following: + Show Spoiler +God allowed evil to enter the world as part of the risk He took in giving humanity free will. i.e. He loved mankind so much that He wanted to give us the chance to grow and mature and choose Him and the good life for ourselves, rather than being set on auto-pilot. All of which I'm sure you're all familiar with. I think it's a nice idea - the end goal being that God gets a family of children who have developed hearts and wisdom like His, and turned away from evil.
Obviously there are questions as to whether it was fair of Him to allow us to stuff things up so badly when a little more guidance might have spared us a lot of pain, and might have made His 'family' rather bigger. But I guess I'm basically willing to give Him the benefit of the doubt on that one, and assume He knew what He was doing, and has some kind of plan to tie up the loose ends. We'll see.
My real conundrum, though, is about the actual story in Genesis 2-3 - and please note I don't wish to open the debate on the literal/metaphorical nature of this story, which I think I pretty much know all your various opinions about. Rather, I'm going to assume that, either way, the story has an emblematic status which somehow applies to theology.
My question is, if God wanted us to develop maturity and discernment, doesn't it seem slightly backward that the tree they were forbidden to touch was said to offer that very thing - the knowledge of good and evil? God says 'if you eat from it you will surely die'. Which is true of course - when they figure out they can try things their own way they pretty much immediately start stuffing things up and killing each other and things. The serpent says of it "You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." And perhaps that's true too - there's no certainty they'll die; there's a slim chance they'll get it right themselves and not ruin everything. In any case the serpent is just trying to incite them to rebellion - don't listen to everything Mr Big says; don't submit to being His slave. Do what you want.
Some possible solutions to the puzzle:
1) My argument is wrong: God didn't want us to develop maturity etc.; He wanted us to get everything right, and for the world to stay perfect, and therefore when He said He didn't want them to eat the fruit, He meant it.
>>Question: so why put it there? To give them the choice? But if they're better off without the choice, isn't that kinda stupid?
2) God knew all along that they'd take the fruit, and put it there intentionally, so that they'd take it and learn some important lessons - painful though it would be for all concerned - which would ultimately be to their/humanity's betterment.
>>Question: so why does He forbid them to touch it?
>>Question: is it even plausible to say we're somehow better off in a post-fall world? Is that kind of sick and sadistic? Or is that like saying it's sadistic of a parent to take the training wheels off their kid's bike, knowing they'll fall off the first time, but will eventually acquire a new skill?
3) Perhaps it wasn't so much that He was forbidding them, but just that He had to warn them, in all fairness, that it would be a path of suffering, even though it would ultimately be the best.
>>But in that case, why not just say 'kids, you have the following two options - you decide'? Instead, He says 'you must not take option 2'.
4) Perhaps in their auto-pilot state they're not able to make decisions like that anyway, so He has to trick them, and maybe overstate the case a little just to make it more interesting.
>>Hm, oh dear, interesting questions arise as to the nature of God. Though potentially it could be seen as a parallel to a parent who tells his kid not to cross the road on her own, not because he never wants her to cross the road, but because she's not ready yet, and in this stage of her development what she needs is set rules that will keep her safe. So, uh, we're currently in the state of having disobeyed, strayed onto the road, been hit by a bus, and are now very slowly recovering, and very slowly figuring out how to conduct ourselves better in future - possibly mixed with a good deal of angst directed towards our dad who should have protected us better. What happened Tony? Why did you lose faith? Did you not read the gospels and were you not amazed at God's truth when you first believed? "For not all have faith", indeed there will be apostates from Christianity, but why Tony? Firstly, way to avoid the points made. Rather than admit that you don't have all the answers just turn the question around to something completely irrelevant. Secondly, if you're interested, you can see my previous blogs on the issue: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=6http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=5http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=4http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=3 Not avoiding mate, just not throwing pearls before swine. You of all should know that God is light and in him is only truth. If you failed to remain in truth and continue to believe in it, then I guess Satan's gripped you pretty well. No point wasting my time in a fruitless theology lesson
And your attitude is the perfect reason why I no longer wish to be associated with Christians and the Church.
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On May 28 2011 11:30 Slow Motion wrote:
Funny that after reading everything that happened to this kid some of you focus on if HE was a jerk or not and choose to sidestep the main story. It seems very much like a way to excuse what was done to him. I read some of your posts as: "oh yeah I don't mean to excuse what happened to this kid but come on he was kind of a jerk, why couldn't he have kept his mouth shut." See what the problem with that kind of approach is?
That might be how you read it, but I certainly haven't see anybody exonerating the town, teachers, other students, or parents. Some of the posts more recently focused on it because there is disagreement over it, rather than another 60 pages of people just agreeing that people other than the 1 student were lame.
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United Arab Emirates1141 Posts
On May 28 2011 11:33 Tony Campolo wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 11:28 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:10 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:05 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 10:58 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 10:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:
Christians should not force anyone to do anything. Right from creation, right from the very beginning, God gave his children (us), free will to choose to obey, or choose to disobey. By disobeying, we make up our own rules!! (see Devil's conversation with Eve, "Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil." Ha - this is partially true - you won't "know" good and evil, you will DEFINE it once you reject God) Load of crap. See the following: + Show Spoiler +God allowed evil to enter the world as part of the risk He took in giving humanity free will. i.e. He loved mankind so much that He wanted to give us the chance to grow and mature and choose Him and the good life for ourselves, rather than being set on auto-pilot. All of which I'm sure you're all familiar with. I think it's a nice idea - the end goal being that God gets a family of children who have developed hearts and wisdom like His, and turned away from evil.
Obviously there are questions as to whether it was fair of Him to allow us to stuff things up so badly when a little more guidance might have spared us a lot of pain, and might have made His 'family' rather bigger. But I guess I'm basically willing to give Him the benefit of the doubt on that one, and assume He knew what He was doing, and has some kind of plan to tie up the loose ends. We'll see.
My real conundrum, though, is about the actual story in Genesis 2-3 - and please note I don't wish to open the debate on the literal/metaphorical nature of this story, which I think I pretty much know all your various opinions about. Rather, I'm going to assume that, either way, the story has an emblematic status which somehow applies to theology.
My question is, if God wanted us to develop maturity and discernment, doesn't it seem slightly backward that the tree they were forbidden to touch was said to offer that very thing - the knowledge of good and evil? God says 'if you eat from it you will surely die'. Which is true of course - when they figure out they can try things their own way they pretty much immediately start stuffing things up and killing each other and things. The serpent says of it "You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." And perhaps that's true too - there's no certainty they'll die; there's a slim chance they'll get it right themselves and not ruin everything. In any case the serpent is just trying to incite them to rebellion - don't listen to everything Mr Big says; don't submit to being His slave. Do what you want.
Some possible solutions to the puzzle:
1) My argument is wrong: God didn't want us to develop maturity etc.; He wanted us to get everything right, and for the world to stay perfect, and therefore when He said He didn't want them to eat the fruit, He meant it.
>>Question: so why put it there? To give them the choice? But if they're better off without the choice, isn't that kinda stupid?
2) God knew all along that they'd take the fruit, and put it there intentionally, so that they'd take it and learn some important lessons - painful though it would be for all concerned - which would ultimately be to their/humanity's betterment.
>>Question: so why does He forbid them to touch it?
>>Question: is it even plausible to say we're somehow better off in a post-fall world? Is that kind of sick and sadistic? Or is that like saying it's sadistic of a parent to take the training wheels off their kid's bike, knowing they'll fall off the first time, but will eventually acquire a new skill?
3) Perhaps it wasn't so much that He was forbidding them, but just that He had to warn them, in all fairness, that it would be a path of suffering, even though it would ultimately be the best.
>>But in that case, why not just say 'kids, you have the following two options - you decide'? Instead, He says 'you must not take option 2'.
4) Perhaps in their auto-pilot state they're not able to make decisions like that anyway, so He has to trick them, and maybe overstate the case a little just to make it more interesting.
>>Hm, oh dear, interesting questions arise as to the nature of God. Though potentially it could be seen as a parallel to a parent who tells his kid not to cross the road on her own, not because he never wants her to cross the road, but because she's not ready yet, and in this stage of her development what she needs is set rules that will keep her safe. So, uh, we're currently in the state of having disobeyed, strayed onto the road, been hit by a bus, and are now very slowly recovering, and very slowly figuring out how to conduct ourselves better in future - possibly mixed with a good deal of angst directed towards our dad who should have protected us better. What happened Tony? Why did you lose faith? Did you not read the gospels and were you not amazed at God's truth when you first believed? "For not all have faith", indeed there will be apostates from Christianity, but why Tony? Firstly, way to avoid the points made. Rather than admit that you don't have all the answers just turn the question around to something completely irrelevant. Secondly, if you're interested, you can see my previous blogs on the issue: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=6http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=5http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=4http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=3 Not avoiding mate, just not throwing pearls before swine. You of all should know that God is light and in him is only truth. If you failed to remain in truth and continue to believe in it, then I guess Satan's gripped you pretty well. No point wasting my time in a fruitless theology lesson And your attitude is the perfect reason why I no longer wish to be associated with Christians and the Church.
I'm pretty sure you don't want to be associated with Christians and the church because you rejected God first. Christians and the church are made up by humans and humans are pretty fleshly. That doesn't change your relationship with God - it's your choice to not draw near to him, just as it is for me to ignore God when he teaches me something. To each is given a choice, will you take the right one? Or will you be a fool. Btw I just read your long spiel about the inconsistencies of Genesis. Immature, whiny and arrogant are the three adjectives I would use to describe your questioning. You really think a real God will knowingly pass on such erroneous information full of mistake to his people? Well I guess you don't believe in God do you? So whatever you read from the bible is only to serve your purpose of debunking him. God did promise that if you seek you will find. If you seek to insult and blaspheme, then you will bear your fruits, just bad ones.
User was temp banned for this post.
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On May 28 2011 05:19 ChellaPopper wrote:
If he didn't want to pray, then he didn't have to pray. Trying to have it canceled for everyone else because he opposed it was a dick move.
It makes me sad for the state of humanity that so many people jump to that conclusion. People somehow assume the majority always gets to have their way regardless of whether it's offensive or illegal, and anyone who has a problem with it is just being a dick. It's pathetic.
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On May 28 2011 11:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 11:33 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:28 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:10 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:05 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 10:58 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 10:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:
Christians should not force anyone to do anything. Right from creation, right from the very beginning, God gave his children (us), free will to choose to obey, or choose to disobey. By disobeying, we make up our own rules!! (see Devil's conversation with Eve, "Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil." Ha - this is partially true - you won't "know" good and evil, you will DEFINE it once you reject God) Load of crap. See the following: + Show Spoiler +God allowed evil to enter the world as part of the risk He took in giving humanity free will. i.e. He loved mankind so much that He wanted to give us the chance to grow and mature and choose Him and the good life for ourselves, rather than being set on auto-pilot. All of which I'm sure you're all familiar with. I think it's a nice idea - the end goal being that God gets a family of children who have developed hearts and wisdom like His, and turned away from evil.
Obviously there are questions as to whether it was fair of Him to allow us to stuff things up so badly when a little more guidance might have spared us a lot of pain, and might have made His 'family' rather bigger. But I guess I'm basically willing to give Him the benefit of the doubt on that one, and assume He knew what He was doing, and has some kind of plan to tie up the loose ends. We'll see.
My real conundrum, though, is about the actual story in Genesis 2-3 - and please note I don't wish to open the debate on the literal/metaphorical nature of this story, which I think I pretty much know all your various opinions about. Rather, I'm going to assume that, either way, the story has an emblematic status which somehow applies to theology.
My question is, if God wanted us to develop maturity and discernment, doesn't it seem slightly backward that the tree they were forbidden to touch was said to offer that very thing - the knowledge of good and evil? God says 'if you eat from it you will surely die'. Which is true of course - when they figure out they can try things their own way they pretty much immediately start stuffing things up and killing each other and things. The serpent says of it "You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." And perhaps that's true too - there's no certainty they'll die; there's a slim chance they'll get it right themselves and not ruin everything. In any case the serpent is just trying to incite them to rebellion - don't listen to everything Mr Big says; don't submit to being His slave. Do what you want.
Some possible solutions to the puzzle:
1) My argument is wrong: God didn't want us to develop maturity etc.; He wanted us to get everything right, and for the world to stay perfect, and therefore when He said He didn't want them to eat the fruit, He meant it.
>>Question: so why put it there? To give them the choice? But if they're better off without the choice, isn't that kinda stupid?
2) God knew all along that they'd take the fruit, and put it there intentionally, so that they'd take it and learn some important lessons - painful though it would be for all concerned - which would ultimately be to their/humanity's betterment.
>>Question: so why does He forbid them to touch it?
>>Question: is it even plausible to say we're somehow better off in a post-fall world? Is that kind of sick and sadistic? Or is that like saying it's sadistic of a parent to take the training wheels off their kid's bike, knowing they'll fall off the first time, but will eventually acquire a new skill?
3) Perhaps it wasn't so much that He was forbidding them, but just that He had to warn them, in all fairness, that it would be a path of suffering, even though it would ultimately be the best.
>>But in that case, why not just say 'kids, you have the following two options - you decide'? Instead, He says 'you must not take option 2'.
4) Perhaps in their auto-pilot state they're not able to make decisions like that anyway, so He has to trick them, and maybe overstate the case a little just to make it more interesting.
>>Hm, oh dear, interesting questions arise as to the nature of God. Though potentially it could be seen as a parallel to a parent who tells his kid not to cross the road on her own, not because he never wants her to cross the road, but because she's not ready yet, and in this stage of her development what she needs is set rules that will keep her safe. So, uh, we're currently in the state of having disobeyed, strayed onto the road, been hit by a bus, and are now very slowly recovering, and very slowly figuring out how to conduct ourselves better in future - possibly mixed with a good deal of angst directed towards our dad who should have protected us better. What happened Tony? Why did you lose faith? Did you not read the gospels and were you not amazed at God's truth when you first believed? "For not all have faith", indeed there will be apostates from Christianity, but why Tony? Firstly, way to avoid the points made. Rather than admit that you don't have all the answers just turn the question around to something completely irrelevant. Secondly, if you're interested, you can see my previous blogs on the issue: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=6http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=5http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=4http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=3 Not avoiding mate, just not throwing pearls before swine. You of all should know that God is light and in him is only truth. If you failed to remain in truth and continue to believe in it, then I guess Satan's gripped you pretty well. No point wasting my time in a fruitless theology lesson And your attitude is the perfect reason why I no longer wish to be associated with Christians and the Church. I'm pretty sure you don't want to be associated with Christians and the church because you rejected God first. Christians and the church are made up by humans and humans are pretty fleshly. That doesn't change your relationship with God - it's your choice to not draw near to him, just as it is for me to ignore God when he teaches me something. To each is given a choice, will you take the right one? Or will you be a fool. Btw I just read your long spiel about the inconsistencies of Genesis. Immature, whiny and arrogant are the three adjectives I would use to describe your questioning. You really think a real God will knowingly pass on such erroneous information full of mistake to his people? Well I guess you don't believe in God do you? So whatever you read from the bible is only to serve your purpose of debunking him. God did promise that if you seek you will find. If you seek to insult and blaspheme, then you will bear your fruits, just bad ones.
The level of your delusion is incredulous. If you truly believed what you claim, then you should be a lot more considerate at how you address non-Christians, given that they are going to spend an eternity in Hell. Yet you treat it like some sort of "you fools should learn a lesson for not believing in God". Which really just goes to show you think you're being a Christian, where you're nothing more than just a judgmental Pharisee.
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On May 28 2011 11:44 Tony Campolo wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 11:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:33 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:28 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:10 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:05 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 10:58 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 10:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:
Christians should not force anyone to do anything. Right from creation, right from the very beginning, God gave his children (us), free will to choose to obey, or choose to disobey. By disobeying, we make up our own rules!! (see Devil's conversation with Eve, "Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil." Ha - this is partially true - you won't "know" good and evil, you will DEFINE it once you reject God) Load of crap. See the following: + Show Spoiler +God allowed evil to enter the world as part of the risk He took in giving humanity free will. i.e. He loved mankind so much that He wanted to give us the chance to grow and mature and choose Him and the good life for ourselves, rather than being set on auto-pilot. All of which I'm sure you're all familiar with. I think it's a nice idea - the end goal being that God gets a family of children who have developed hearts and wisdom like His, and turned away from evil.
Obviously there are questions as to whether it was fair of Him to allow us to stuff things up so badly when a little more guidance might have spared us a lot of pain, and might have made His 'family' rather bigger. But I guess I'm basically willing to give Him the benefit of the doubt on that one, and assume He knew what He was doing, and has some kind of plan to tie up the loose ends. We'll see.
My real conundrum, though, is about the actual story in Genesis 2-3 - and please note I don't wish to open the debate on the literal/metaphorical nature of this story, which I think I pretty much know all your various opinions about. Rather, I'm going to assume that, either way, the story has an emblematic status which somehow applies to theology.
My question is, if God wanted us to develop maturity and discernment, doesn't it seem slightly backward that the tree they were forbidden to touch was said to offer that very thing - the knowledge of good and evil? God says 'if you eat from it you will surely die'. Which is true of course - when they figure out they can try things their own way they pretty much immediately start stuffing things up and killing each other and things. The serpent says of it "You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." And perhaps that's true too - there's no certainty they'll die; there's a slim chance they'll get it right themselves and not ruin everything. In any case the serpent is just trying to incite them to rebellion - don't listen to everything Mr Big says; don't submit to being His slave. Do what you want.
Some possible solutions to the puzzle:
1) My argument is wrong: God didn't want us to develop maturity etc.; He wanted us to get everything right, and for the world to stay perfect, and therefore when He said He didn't want them to eat the fruit, He meant it.
>>Question: so why put it there? To give them the choice? But if they're better off without the choice, isn't that kinda stupid?
2) God knew all along that they'd take the fruit, and put it there intentionally, so that they'd take it and learn some important lessons - painful though it would be for all concerned - which would ultimately be to their/humanity's betterment.
>>Question: so why does He forbid them to touch it?
>>Question: is it even plausible to say we're somehow better off in a post-fall world? Is that kind of sick and sadistic? Or is that like saying it's sadistic of a parent to take the training wheels off their kid's bike, knowing they'll fall off the first time, but will eventually acquire a new skill?
3) Perhaps it wasn't so much that He was forbidding them, but just that He had to warn them, in all fairness, that it would be a path of suffering, even though it would ultimately be the best.
>>But in that case, why not just say 'kids, you have the following two options - you decide'? Instead, He says 'you must not take option 2'.
4) Perhaps in their auto-pilot state they're not able to make decisions like that anyway, so He has to trick them, and maybe overstate the case a little just to make it more interesting.
>>Hm, oh dear, interesting questions arise as to the nature of God. Though potentially it could be seen as a parallel to a parent who tells his kid not to cross the road on her own, not because he never wants her to cross the road, but because she's not ready yet, and in this stage of her development what she needs is set rules that will keep her safe. So, uh, we're currently in the state of having disobeyed, strayed onto the road, been hit by a bus, and are now very slowly recovering, and very slowly figuring out how to conduct ourselves better in future - possibly mixed with a good deal of angst directed towards our dad who should have protected us better. What happened Tony? Why did you lose faith? Did you not read the gospels and were you not amazed at God's truth when you first believed? "For not all have faith", indeed there will be apostates from Christianity, but why Tony? Firstly, way to avoid the points made. Rather than admit that you don't have all the answers just turn the question around to something completely irrelevant. Secondly, if you're interested, you can see my previous blogs on the issue: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=6http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=5http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=4http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=3 Not avoiding mate, just not throwing pearls before swine. You of all should know that God is light and in him is only truth. If you failed to remain in truth and continue to believe in it, then I guess Satan's gripped you pretty well. No point wasting my time in a fruitless theology lesson And your attitude is the perfect reason why I no longer wish to be associated with Christians and the Church. I'm pretty sure you don't want to be associated with Christians and the church because you rejected God first. Christians and the church are made up by humans and humans are pretty fleshly. That doesn't change your relationship with God - it's your choice to not draw near to him, just as it is for me to ignore God when he teaches me something. To each is given a choice, will you take the right one? Or will you be a fool. Btw I just read your long spiel about the inconsistencies of Genesis. Immature, whiny and arrogant are the three adjectives I would use to describe your questioning. You really think a real God will knowingly pass on such erroneous information full of mistake to his people? Well I guess you don't believe in God do you? So whatever you read from the bible is only to serve your purpose of debunking him. God did promise that if you seek you will find. If you seek to insult and blaspheme, then you will bear your fruits, just bad ones. The level of your delusion is incredulous. If you truly believed what you claim, then you should be a lot more considerate at how you address non-Christians, given that they are going to spend an eternity in Hell. Yet you treat it like some sort of "you fools should learn a lesson for not believing in God". Which really just goes to show you think you're being a Christian, where you're nothing more than just a judgmental Pharisee.
The funny thing is just a few pages ago he was saying that Christians should be compassionate to their enemies and so on.
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On May 28 2011 11:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 11:33 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:28 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:10 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:05 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 10:58 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 10:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:
Christians should not force anyone to do anything. Right from creation, right from the very beginning, God gave his children (us), free will to choose to obey, or choose to disobey. By disobeying, we make up our own rules!! (see Devil's conversation with Eve, "Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil." Ha - this is partially true - you won't "know" good and evil, you will DEFINE it once you reject God) Load of crap. See the following: + Show Spoiler +God allowed evil to enter the world as part of the risk He took in giving humanity free will. i.e. He loved mankind so much that He wanted to give us the chance to grow and mature and choose Him and the good life for ourselves, rather than being set on auto-pilot. All of which I'm sure you're all familiar with. I think it's a nice idea - the end goal being that God gets a family of children who have developed hearts and wisdom like His, and turned away from evil.
Obviously there are questions as to whether it was fair of Him to allow us to stuff things up so badly when a little more guidance might have spared us a lot of pain, and might have made His 'family' rather bigger. But I guess I'm basically willing to give Him the benefit of the doubt on that one, and assume He knew what He was doing, and has some kind of plan to tie up the loose ends. We'll see.
My real conundrum, though, is about the actual story in Genesis 2-3 - and please note I don't wish to open the debate on the literal/metaphorical nature of this story, which I think I pretty much know all your various opinions about. Rather, I'm going to assume that, either way, the story has an emblematic status which somehow applies to theology.
My question is, if God wanted us to develop maturity and discernment, doesn't it seem slightly backward that the tree they were forbidden to touch was said to offer that very thing - the knowledge of good and evil? God says 'if you eat from it you will surely die'. Which is true of course - when they figure out they can try things their own way they pretty much immediately start stuffing things up and killing each other and things. The serpent says of it "You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." And perhaps that's true too - there's no certainty they'll die; there's a slim chance they'll get it right themselves and not ruin everything. In any case the serpent is just trying to incite them to rebellion - don't listen to everything Mr Big says; don't submit to being His slave. Do what you want.
Some possible solutions to the puzzle:
1) My argument is wrong: God didn't want us to develop maturity etc.; He wanted us to get everything right, and for the world to stay perfect, and therefore when He said He didn't want them to eat the fruit, He meant it.
>>Question: so why put it there? To give them the choice? But if they're better off without the choice, isn't that kinda stupid?
2) God knew all along that they'd take the fruit, and put it there intentionally, so that they'd take it and learn some important lessons - painful though it would be for all concerned - which would ultimately be to their/humanity's betterment.
>>Question: so why does He forbid them to touch it?
>>Question: is it even plausible to say we're somehow better off in a post-fall world? Is that kind of sick and sadistic? Or is that like saying it's sadistic of a parent to take the training wheels off their kid's bike, knowing they'll fall off the first time, but will eventually acquire a new skill?
3) Perhaps it wasn't so much that He was forbidding them, but just that He had to warn them, in all fairness, that it would be a path of suffering, even though it would ultimately be the best.
>>But in that case, why not just say 'kids, you have the following two options - you decide'? Instead, He says 'you must not take option 2'.
4) Perhaps in their auto-pilot state they're not able to make decisions like that anyway, so He has to trick them, and maybe overstate the case a little just to make it more interesting.
>>Hm, oh dear, interesting questions arise as to the nature of God. Though potentially it could be seen as a parallel to a parent who tells his kid not to cross the road on her own, not because he never wants her to cross the road, but because she's not ready yet, and in this stage of her development what she needs is set rules that will keep her safe. So, uh, we're currently in the state of having disobeyed, strayed onto the road, been hit by a bus, and are now very slowly recovering, and very slowly figuring out how to conduct ourselves better in future - possibly mixed with a good deal of angst directed towards our dad who should have protected us better. What happened Tony? Why did you lose faith? Did you not read the gospels and were you not amazed at God's truth when you first believed? "For not all have faith", indeed there will be apostates from Christianity, but why Tony? Firstly, way to avoid the points made. Rather than admit that you don't have all the answers just turn the question around to something completely irrelevant. Secondly, if you're interested, you can see my previous blogs on the issue: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=6http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=5http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=4http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=3 Not avoiding mate, just not throwing pearls before swine. You of all should know that God is light and in him is only truth. If you failed to remain in truth and continue to believe in it, then I guess Satan's gripped you pretty well. No point wasting my time in a fruitless theology lesson And your attitude is the perfect reason why I no longer wish to be associated with Christians and the Church. I'm pretty sure you don't want to be associated with Christians and the church because you rejected God first. Christians and the church are made up by humans and humans are pretty fleshly. That doesn't change your relationship with God - it's your choice to not draw near to him, just as it is for me to ignore God when he teaches me something. To each is given a choice, will you take the right one? Or will you be a fool. Btw I just read your long spiel about the inconsistencies of Genesis. Immature, whiny and arrogant are the three adjectives I would use to describe your questioning. You really think a real God will knowingly pass on such erroneous information full of mistake to his people? Well I guess you don't believe in God do you? So whatever you read from the bible is only to serve your purpose of debunking him. God did promise that if you seek you will find. If you seek to insult and blaspheme, then you will bear your fruits, just bad ones.
Btw I just read your Bible, immature, egotistical, and homicidal are the words I would use to describe your God.
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Look how far this thread has come.
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United Arab Emirates1141 Posts
On May 28 2011 11:44 Tony Campolo wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 11:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:33 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:28 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:10 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:05 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 10:58 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 10:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:
Christians should not force anyone to do anything. Right from creation, right from the very beginning, God gave his children (us), free will to choose to obey, or choose to disobey. By disobeying, we make up our own rules!! (see Devil's conversation with Eve, "Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil." Ha - this is partially true - you won't "know" good and evil, you will DEFINE it once you reject God) Load of crap. See the following: + Show Spoiler +God allowed evil to enter the world as part of the risk He took in giving humanity free will. i.e. He loved mankind so much that He wanted to give us the chance to grow and mature and choose Him and the good life for ourselves, rather than being set on auto-pilot. All of which I'm sure you're all familiar with. I think it's a nice idea - the end goal being that God gets a family of children who have developed hearts and wisdom like His, and turned away from evil.
Obviously there are questions as to whether it was fair of Him to allow us to stuff things up so badly when a little more guidance might have spared us a lot of pain, and might have made His 'family' rather bigger. But I guess I'm basically willing to give Him the benefit of the doubt on that one, and assume He knew what He was doing, and has some kind of plan to tie up the loose ends. We'll see.
My real conundrum, though, is about the actual story in Genesis 2-3 - and please note I don't wish to open the debate on the literal/metaphorical nature of this story, which I think I pretty much know all your various opinions about. Rather, I'm going to assume that, either way, the story has an emblematic status which somehow applies to theology.
My question is, if God wanted us to develop maturity and discernment, doesn't it seem slightly backward that the tree they were forbidden to touch was said to offer that very thing - the knowledge of good and evil? God says 'if you eat from it you will surely die'. Which is true of course - when they figure out they can try things their own way they pretty much immediately start stuffing things up and killing each other and things. The serpent says of it "You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." And perhaps that's true too - there's no certainty they'll die; there's a slim chance they'll get it right themselves and not ruin everything. In any case the serpent is just trying to incite them to rebellion - don't listen to everything Mr Big says; don't submit to being His slave. Do what you want.
Some possible solutions to the puzzle:
1) My argument is wrong: God didn't want us to develop maturity etc.; He wanted us to get everything right, and for the world to stay perfect, and therefore when He said He didn't want them to eat the fruit, He meant it.
>>Question: so why put it there? To give them the choice? But if they're better off without the choice, isn't that kinda stupid?
2) God knew all along that they'd take the fruit, and put it there intentionally, so that they'd take it and learn some important lessons - painful though it would be for all concerned - which would ultimately be to their/humanity's betterment.
>>Question: so why does He forbid them to touch it?
>>Question: is it even plausible to say we're somehow better off in a post-fall world? Is that kind of sick and sadistic? Or is that like saying it's sadistic of a parent to take the training wheels off their kid's bike, knowing they'll fall off the first time, but will eventually acquire a new skill?
3) Perhaps it wasn't so much that He was forbidding them, but just that He had to warn them, in all fairness, that it would be a path of suffering, even though it would ultimately be the best.
>>But in that case, why not just say 'kids, you have the following two options - you decide'? Instead, He says 'you must not take option 2'.
4) Perhaps in their auto-pilot state they're not able to make decisions like that anyway, so He has to trick them, and maybe overstate the case a little just to make it more interesting.
>>Hm, oh dear, interesting questions arise as to the nature of God. Though potentially it could be seen as a parallel to a parent who tells his kid not to cross the road on her own, not because he never wants her to cross the road, but because she's not ready yet, and in this stage of her development what she needs is set rules that will keep her safe. So, uh, we're currently in the state of having disobeyed, strayed onto the road, been hit by a bus, and are now very slowly recovering, and very slowly figuring out how to conduct ourselves better in future - possibly mixed with a good deal of angst directed towards our dad who should have protected us better. What happened Tony? Why did you lose faith? Did you not read the gospels and were you not amazed at God's truth when you first believed? "For not all have faith", indeed there will be apostates from Christianity, but why Tony? Firstly, way to avoid the points made. Rather than admit that you don't have all the answers just turn the question around to something completely irrelevant. Secondly, if you're interested, you can see my previous blogs on the issue: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=6http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=5http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=4http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=3 Not avoiding mate, just not throwing pearls before swine. You of all should know that God is light and in him is only truth. If you failed to remain in truth and continue to believe in it, then I guess Satan's gripped you pretty well. No point wasting my time in a fruitless theology lesson And your attitude is the perfect reason why I no longer wish to be associated with Christians and the Church. I'm pretty sure you don't want to be associated with Christians and the church because you rejected God first. Christians and the church are made up by humans and humans are pretty fleshly. That doesn't change your relationship with God - it's your choice to not draw near to him, just as it is for me to ignore God when he teaches me something. To each is given a choice, will you take the right one? Or will you be a fool. Btw I just read your long spiel about the inconsistencies of Genesis. Immature, whiny and arrogant are the three adjectives I would use to describe your questioning. You really think a real God will knowingly pass on such erroneous information full of mistake to his people? Well I guess you don't believe in God do you? So whatever you read from the bible is only to serve your purpose of debunking him. God did promise that if you seek you will find. If you seek to insult and blaspheme, then you will bear your fruits, just bad ones. The level of your delusion is incredulous. If you truly believed what you claim, then you should be a lot more considerate at how you address non-Christians, given that they are going to spend an eternity in Hell. Yet you treat it like some sort of "you fools should learn a lesson for not believing in God". Which really just goes to show you think you're being a Christian, where you're nothing more than just a judgmental Pharisee.
Tony the truth is you are an apostate - meaning you already know all you need to know. Yet you did not humble yourself to find out WHY God wrote what he wrote in the bible. I went through the same stage, and my faith wavered when no one at my old church was could explain anything of import. I guess you just have to go somewhere else to find answers right? Try and find a reformed evangelical church. I could not find answers with Hillsong type churches as they live off baby food. www.carm.org is not too bad to start off. Learning about systematic theology is also a good way to shore up your faith.
The problem is, too many Christians are just eating baby food and not maturing into their faith. If a long-time Christian doesn't even understand how the Old and New covenant relate and what "I came to fulfill the law" means, then I guess he really should spend more time thinking about how the bible fits together. 66 books, over a Huge time period with 22? authors? It all fits. Something which really shook me as a young Christian was the fact that so many Christians around me are just so ignorant and content with these 1-liner answers like "Oh it's the new covenant, so we don't do anything written in the OT". Sadly, this is the status quo for most Christians.
Well Tony, you already know that Jesus is the way the truth the life. Your choice to go to hell has no bearing on me, we have to make choices and some of us make the wrong choices. I will never convert you and I will never convert anyone. Each comes to faith because God wanted you to come to know Him. The ultimate decider on whether you have faith is God. I have already spent 4 posts and 1 PM trying to exhort you to humble yourself before God. Am I wasting my time? I don't know. God has his plans for everyone and the seeds that are sown here at TL in religious discussions may bear fruit, who knows.
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On May 28 2011 09:49 xHassassin wrote:
So I'm really confused.
If having organized prayer at a public event is against the constitution.
Then isn't it also illegal to take time out of the school day to have students recite the pledge of allegiance?
Isn't it also illegal to print In God We Trust on all our money?
Yes, it actually is illegal. But very few people care, and it will take a huge drawn out legal fight to change it. Damon Fowler's experience was a little more offensive because he's forced to be part of a prayer for a religion he's not a part of... hearing people say "under God" or seeing the word God on money isn't quite as bad.
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On May 28 2011 11:52 GGTeMpLaR wrote:
Look how far this thread has come.
i just checked in on this thread to see where it had gone...now it's like another crusade. oh the things people will do in the name of religion :p
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United Arab Emirates1141 Posts
On May 28 2011 11:46 Olinim wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 11:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:33 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:28 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:10 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:05 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 10:58 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 10:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:
Christians should not force anyone to do anything. Right from creation, right from the very beginning, God gave his children (us), free will to choose to obey, or choose to disobey. By disobeying, we make up our own rules!! (see Devil's conversation with Eve, "Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil." Ha - this is partially true - you won't "know" good and evil, you will DEFINE it once you reject God) Load of crap. See the following: + Show Spoiler +God allowed evil to enter the world as part of the risk He took in giving humanity free will. i.e. He loved mankind so much that He wanted to give us the chance to grow and mature and choose Him and the good life for ourselves, rather than being set on auto-pilot. All of which I'm sure you're all familiar with. I think it's a nice idea - the end goal being that God gets a family of children who have developed hearts and wisdom like His, and turned away from evil.
Obviously there are questions as to whether it was fair of Him to allow us to stuff things up so badly when a little more guidance might have spared us a lot of pain, and might have made His 'family' rather bigger. But I guess I'm basically willing to give Him the benefit of the doubt on that one, and assume He knew what He was doing, and has some kind of plan to tie up the loose ends. We'll see.
My real conundrum, though, is about the actual story in Genesis 2-3 - and please note I don't wish to open the debate on the literal/metaphorical nature of this story, which I think I pretty much know all your various opinions about. Rather, I'm going to assume that, either way, the story has an emblematic status which somehow applies to theology.
My question is, if God wanted us to develop maturity and discernment, doesn't it seem slightly backward that the tree they were forbidden to touch was said to offer that very thing - the knowledge of good and evil? God says 'if you eat from it you will surely die'. Which is true of course - when they figure out they can try things their own way they pretty much immediately start stuffing things up and killing each other and things. The serpent says of it "You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." And perhaps that's true too - there's no certainty they'll die; there's a slim chance they'll get it right themselves and not ruin everything. In any case the serpent is just trying to incite them to rebellion - don't listen to everything Mr Big says; don't submit to being His slave. Do what you want.
Some possible solutions to the puzzle:
1) My argument is wrong: God didn't want us to develop maturity etc.; He wanted us to get everything right, and for the world to stay perfect, and therefore when He said He didn't want them to eat the fruit, He meant it.
>>Question: so why put it there? To give them the choice? But if they're better off without the choice, isn't that kinda stupid?
2) God knew all along that they'd take the fruit, and put it there intentionally, so that they'd take it and learn some important lessons - painful though it would be for all concerned - which would ultimately be to their/humanity's betterment.
>>Question: so why does He forbid them to touch it?
>>Question: is it even plausible to say we're somehow better off in a post-fall world? Is that kind of sick and sadistic? Or is that like saying it's sadistic of a parent to take the training wheels off their kid's bike, knowing they'll fall off the first time, but will eventually acquire a new skill?
3) Perhaps it wasn't so much that He was forbidding them, but just that He had to warn them, in all fairness, that it would be a path of suffering, even though it would ultimately be the best.
>>But in that case, why not just say 'kids, you have the following two options - you decide'? Instead, He says 'you must not take option 2'.
4) Perhaps in their auto-pilot state they're not able to make decisions like that anyway, so He has to trick them, and maybe overstate the case a little just to make it more interesting.
>>Hm, oh dear, interesting questions arise as to the nature of God. Though potentially it could be seen as a parallel to a parent who tells his kid not to cross the road on her own, not because he never wants her to cross the road, but because she's not ready yet, and in this stage of her development what she needs is set rules that will keep her safe. So, uh, we're currently in the state of having disobeyed, strayed onto the road, been hit by a bus, and are now very slowly recovering, and very slowly figuring out how to conduct ourselves better in future - possibly mixed with a good deal of angst directed towards our dad who should have protected us better. What happened Tony? Why did you lose faith? Did you not read the gospels and were you not amazed at God's truth when you first believed? "For not all have faith", indeed there will be apostates from Christianity, but why Tony? Firstly, way to avoid the points made. Rather than admit that you don't have all the answers just turn the question around to something completely irrelevant. Secondly, if you're interested, you can see my previous blogs on the issue: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=6http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=5http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=4http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=3 Not avoiding mate, just not throwing pearls before swine. You of all should know that God is light and in him is only truth. If you failed to remain in truth and continue to believe in it, then I guess Satan's gripped you pretty well. No point wasting my time in a fruitless theology lesson And your attitude is the perfect reason why I no longer wish to be associated with Christians and the Church. I'm pretty sure you don't want to be associated with Christians and the church because you rejected God first. Christians and the church are made up by humans and humans are pretty fleshly. That doesn't change your relationship with God - it's your choice to not draw near to him, just as it is for me to ignore God when he teaches me something. To each is given a choice, will you take the right one? Or will you be a fool. Btw I just read your long spiel about the inconsistencies of Genesis. Immature, whiny and arrogant are the three adjectives I would use to describe your questioning. You really think a real God will knowingly pass on such erroneous information full of mistake to his people? Well I guess you don't believe in God do you? So whatever you read from the bible is only to serve your purpose of debunking him. God did promise that if you seek you will find. If you seek to insult and blaspheme, then you will bear your fruits, just bad ones. Btw I just read your Bible, immature, egotistical, and homicidal are the words I would use to describe your God.
I would use: All powerful, All knowing, All Light, Perfectly Just and Perfectly Loving.
Interesting how different each responds huh 
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On May 28 2011 11:54 JesusOurSaviour wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 11:44 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:33 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:28 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:10 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:05 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 10:58 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 10:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:
Christians should not force anyone to do anything. Right from creation, right from the very beginning, God gave his children (us), free will to choose to obey, or choose to disobey. By disobeying, we make up our own rules!! (see Devil's conversation with Eve, "Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil." Ha - this is partially true - you won't "know" good and evil, you will DEFINE it once you reject God) Load of crap. See the following: + Show Spoiler +God allowed evil to enter the world as part of the risk He took in giving humanity free will. i.e. He loved mankind so much that He wanted to give us the chance to grow and mature and choose Him and the good life for ourselves, rather than being set on auto-pilot. All of which I'm sure you're all familiar with. I think it's a nice idea - the end goal being that God gets a family of children who have developed hearts and wisdom like His, and turned away from evil.
Obviously there are questions as to whether it was fair of Him to allow us to stuff things up so badly when a little more guidance might have spared us a lot of pain, and might have made His 'family' rather bigger. But I guess I'm basically willing to give Him the benefit of the doubt on that one, and assume He knew what He was doing, and has some kind of plan to tie up the loose ends. We'll see.
My real conundrum, though, is about the actual story in Genesis 2-3 - and please note I don't wish to open the debate on the literal/metaphorical nature of this story, which I think I pretty much know all your various opinions about. Rather, I'm going to assume that, either way, the story has an emblematic status which somehow applies to theology.
My question is, if God wanted us to develop maturity and discernment, doesn't it seem slightly backward that the tree they were forbidden to touch was said to offer that very thing - the knowledge of good and evil? God says 'if you eat from it you will surely die'. Which is true of course - when they figure out they can try things their own way they pretty much immediately start stuffing things up and killing each other and things. The serpent says of it "You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." And perhaps that's true too - there's no certainty they'll die; there's a slim chance they'll get it right themselves and not ruin everything. In any case the serpent is just trying to incite them to rebellion - don't listen to everything Mr Big says; don't submit to being His slave. Do what you want.
Some possible solutions to the puzzle:
1) My argument is wrong: God didn't want us to develop maturity etc.; He wanted us to get everything right, and for the world to stay perfect, and therefore when He said He didn't want them to eat the fruit, He meant it.
>>Question: so why put it there? To give them the choice? But if they're better off without the choice, isn't that kinda stupid?
2) God knew all along that they'd take the fruit, and put it there intentionally, so that they'd take it and learn some important lessons - painful though it would be for all concerned - which would ultimately be to their/humanity's betterment.
>>Question: so why does He forbid them to touch it?
>>Question: is it even plausible to say we're somehow better off in a post-fall world? Is that kind of sick and sadistic? Or is that like saying it's sadistic of a parent to take the training wheels off their kid's bike, knowing they'll fall off the first time, but will eventually acquire a new skill?
3) Perhaps it wasn't so much that He was forbidding them, but just that He had to warn them, in all fairness, that it would be a path of suffering, even though it would ultimately be the best.
>>But in that case, why not just say 'kids, you have the following two options - you decide'? Instead, He says 'you must not take option 2'.
4) Perhaps in their auto-pilot state they're not able to make decisions like that anyway, so He has to trick them, and maybe overstate the case a little just to make it more interesting.
>>Hm, oh dear, interesting questions arise as to the nature of God. Though potentially it could be seen as a parallel to a parent who tells his kid not to cross the road on her own, not because he never wants her to cross the road, but because she's not ready yet, and in this stage of her development what she needs is set rules that will keep her safe. So, uh, we're currently in the state of having disobeyed, strayed onto the road, been hit by a bus, and are now very slowly recovering, and very slowly figuring out how to conduct ourselves better in future - possibly mixed with a good deal of angst directed towards our dad who should have protected us better. What happened Tony? Why did you lose faith? Did you not read the gospels and were you not amazed at God's truth when you first believed? "For not all have faith", indeed there will be apostates from Christianity, but why Tony? Firstly, way to avoid the points made. Rather than admit that you don't have all the answers just turn the question around to something completely irrelevant. Secondly, if you're interested, you can see my previous blogs on the issue: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=6http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=5http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=4http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=3 Not avoiding mate, just not throwing pearls before swine. You of all should know that God is light and in him is only truth. If you failed to remain in truth and continue to believe in it, then I guess Satan's gripped you pretty well. No point wasting my time in a fruitless theology lesson And your attitude is the perfect reason why I no longer wish to be associated with Christians and the Church. I'm pretty sure you don't want to be associated with Christians and the church because you rejected God first. Christians and the church are made up by humans and humans are pretty fleshly. That doesn't change your relationship with God - it's your choice to not draw near to him, just as it is for me to ignore God when he teaches me something. To each is given a choice, will you take the right one? Or will you be a fool. Btw I just read your long spiel about the inconsistencies of Genesis. Immature, whiny and arrogant are the three adjectives I would use to describe your questioning. You really think a real God will knowingly pass on such erroneous information full of mistake to his people? Well I guess you don't believe in God do you? So whatever you read from the bible is only to serve your purpose of debunking him. God did promise that if you seek you will find. If you seek to insult and blaspheme, then you will bear your fruits, just bad ones. The level of your delusion is incredulous. If you truly believed what you claim, then you should be a lot more considerate at how you address non-Christians, given that they are going to spend an eternity in Hell. Yet you treat it like some sort of "you fools should learn a lesson for not believing in God". Which really just goes to show you think you're being a Christian, where you're nothing more than just a judgmental Pharisee. Tony the truth is you are an apostate - meaning you already know all you need to know. Yet you did not humble yourself to find out WHY God wrote what he wrote in the bible. I went through the same stage, and my faith wavered when no one at my old church was could explain anything of import. I guess you just have to go somewhere else to find answers right? Try and find a reformed evangelical church. I could not find answers with Hillsong type churches as they live off baby food. www.carm.org is not too bad to start off. Learning about systematic theology is also a good way to shore up your faith. The problem is, too many Christians are just eating baby food and not maturing into their faith. If a long-time Christian doesn't even understand how the Old and New covenant relate and what "I came to fulfill the law" means, then I guess he really should spend more time thinking about how the bible fits together. 66 books, over a Huge time period with 22? authors? It all fits. Something which really shook me as a young Christian was the fact that so many Christians around me are just so ignorant and content with these 1-liner answers like "Oh it's the new covenant, so we don't do anything written in the OT". Sadly, this is the status quo for most Christians. Well Tony, you already know that Jesus is the way the truth the life. Your choice to go to hell has no bearing on me, we have to make choices and some of us make the wrong choices. I will never convert you and I will never convert anyone. Each comes to faith because God wanted you to come to know Him. The ultimate decider on whether you have faith is God. I have already spent 4 posts and 1 PM trying to exhort you to humble yourself before God. Am I wasting my time? I don't know. God has his plans for everyone and the seeds that are sown here at TL in religious discussions may bear fruit, who knows.
So God planned for me to go hell? That's basically what you're saying.
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On May 28 2011 11:56 GrimReefer wrote:i just checked in on this thread to see where it had gone...now it's like another crusade. oh the things people will do in the name of religion :p
More like "oh the things people will do"
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On May 28 2011 11:56 JesusOurSaviour wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 11:46 Olinim wrote:On May 28 2011 11:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:33 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:28 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:10 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:05 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 10:58 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 10:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:
Christians should not force anyone to do anything. Right from creation, right from the very beginning, God gave his children (us), free will to choose to obey, or choose to disobey. By disobeying, we make up our own rules!! (see Devil's conversation with Eve, "Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil." Ha - this is partially true - you won't "know" good and evil, you will DEFINE it once you reject God) Load of crap. See the following: + Show Spoiler +God allowed evil to enter the world as part of the risk He took in giving humanity free will. i.e. He loved mankind so much that He wanted to give us the chance to grow and mature and choose Him and the good life for ourselves, rather than being set on auto-pilot. All of which I'm sure you're all familiar with. I think it's a nice idea - the end goal being that God gets a family of children who have developed hearts and wisdom like His, and turned away from evil.
Obviously there are questions as to whether it was fair of Him to allow us to stuff things up so badly when a little more guidance might have spared us a lot of pain, and might have made His 'family' rather bigger. But I guess I'm basically willing to give Him the benefit of the doubt on that one, and assume He knew what He was doing, and has some kind of plan to tie up the loose ends. We'll see.
My real conundrum, though, is about the actual story in Genesis 2-3 - and please note I don't wish to open the debate on the literal/metaphorical nature of this story, which I think I pretty much know all your various opinions about. Rather, I'm going to assume that, either way, the story has an emblematic status which somehow applies to theology.
My question is, if God wanted us to develop maturity and discernment, doesn't it seem slightly backward that the tree they were forbidden to touch was said to offer that very thing - the knowledge of good and evil? God says 'if you eat from it you will surely die'. Which is true of course - when they figure out they can try things their own way they pretty much immediately start stuffing things up and killing each other and things. The serpent says of it "You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." And perhaps that's true too - there's no certainty they'll die; there's a slim chance they'll get it right themselves and not ruin everything. In any case the serpent is just trying to incite them to rebellion - don't listen to everything Mr Big says; don't submit to being His slave. Do what you want.
Some possible solutions to the puzzle:
1) My argument is wrong: God didn't want us to develop maturity etc.; He wanted us to get everything right, and for the world to stay perfect, and therefore when He said He didn't want them to eat the fruit, He meant it.
>>Question: so why put it there? To give them the choice? But if they're better off without the choice, isn't that kinda stupid?
2) God knew all along that they'd take the fruit, and put it there intentionally, so that they'd take it and learn some important lessons - painful though it would be for all concerned - which would ultimately be to their/humanity's betterment.
>>Question: so why does He forbid them to touch it?
>>Question: is it even plausible to say we're somehow better off in a post-fall world? Is that kind of sick and sadistic? Or is that like saying it's sadistic of a parent to take the training wheels off their kid's bike, knowing they'll fall off the first time, but will eventually acquire a new skill?
3) Perhaps it wasn't so much that He was forbidding them, but just that He had to warn them, in all fairness, that it would be a path of suffering, even though it would ultimately be the best.
>>But in that case, why not just say 'kids, you have the following two options - you decide'? Instead, He says 'you must not take option 2'.
4) Perhaps in their auto-pilot state they're not able to make decisions like that anyway, so He has to trick them, and maybe overstate the case a little just to make it more interesting.
>>Hm, oh dear, interesting questions arise as to the nature of God. Though potentially it could be seen as a parallel to a parent who tells his kid not to cross the road on her own, not because he never wants her to cross the road, but because she's not ready yet, and in this stage of her development what she needs is set rules that will keep her safe. So, uh, we're currently in the state of having disobeyed, strayed onto the road, been hit by a bus, and are now very slowly recovering, and very slowly figuring out how to conduct ourselves better in future - possibly mixed with a good deal of angst directed towards our dad who should have protected us better. What happened Tony? Why did you lose faith? Did you not read the gospels and were you not amazed at God's truth when you first believed? "For not all have faith", indeed there will be apostates from Christianity, but why Tony? Firstly, way to avoid the points made. Rather than admit that you don't have all the answers just turn the question around to something completely irrelevant. Secondly, if you're interested, you can see my previous blogs on the issue: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=6http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=5http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=4http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=3 Not avoiding mate, just not throwing pearls before swine. You of all should know that God is light and in him is only truth. If you failed to remain in truth and continue to believe in it, then I guess Satan's gripped you pretty well. No point wasting my time in a fruitless theology lesson And your attitude is the perfect reason why I no longer wish to be associated with Christians and the Church. I'm pretty sure you don't want to be associated with Christians and the church because you rejected God first. Christians and the church are made up by humans and humans are pretty fleshly. That doesn't change your relationship with God - it's your choice to not draw near to him, just as it is for me to ignore God when he teaches me something. To each is given a choice, will you take the right one? Or will you be a fool. Btw I just read your long spiel about the inconsistencies of Genesis. Immature, whiny and arrogant are the three adjectives I would use to describe your questioning. You really think a real God will knowingly pass on such erroneous information full of mistake to his people? Well I guess you don't believe in God do you? So whatever you read from the bible is only to serve your purpose of debunking him. God did promise that if you seek you will find. If you seek to insult and blaspheme, then you will bear your fruits, just bad ones. Btw I just read your Bible, immature, egotistical, and homicidal are the words I would use to describe your God. I would use: All powerful, All knowing, All Light, Perfectly Just and Perfectly Loving. Interesting how different each responds huh
Oh sorry I forgot to specify it isn't opposite day, lol my bad.
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Meh, this is such a BS, whats worse, these religious institutions make decent reasonable people who have faith seem like a bunch of nuts!
Religion = Cultural BS
Faith = Universal
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On May 28 2011 10:27 domovoi wrote:Show nested quote +Why must religion be (i hate this cliché, but its fitting) shoved down everyone's throats? Was he forced to convert? Sitting through a boring-ass one minute prayer is not shoving religion down your throat, feel free to ignore it if you're an atheist.
Most people would take that option of simply ignoring it. But he's also free to attempt to have his rights enforced and fight against illegal violations of the United States Constitution.
It is no different than if the local tradition were to snort a line of cocaine. I'd probably just sigh and ignore it and wonder why the people around me are so screwed up. But there sure as hell is nothing wrong with contacting authorities and saying "there's some illegal stuff going on here that ought to be stopped".
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On May 28 2011 11:54 JesusOurSaviour wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 11:44 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:33 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:28 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:10 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:05 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 10:58 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 10:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:
Christians should not force anyone to do anything. Right from creation, right from the very beginning, God gave his children (us), free will to choose to obey, or choose to disobey. By disobeying, we make up our own rules!! (see Devil's conversation with Eve, "Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil." Ha - this is partially true - you won't "know" good and evil, you will DEFINE it once you reject God) Load of crap. See the following: + Show Spoiler +God allowed evil to enter the world as part of the risk He took in giving humanity free will. i.e. He loved mankind so much that He wanted to give us the chance to grow and mature and choose Him and the good life for ourselves, rather than being set on auto-pilot. All of which I'm sure you're all familiar with. I think it's a nice idea - the end goal being that God gets a family of children who have developed hearts and wisdom like His, and turned away from evil.
Obviously there are questions as to whether it was fair of Him to allow us to stuff things up so badly when a little more guidance might have spared us a lot of pain, and might have made His 'family' rather bigger. But I guess I'm basically willing to give Him the benefit of the doubt on that one, and assume He knew what He was doing, and has some kind of plan to tie up the loose ends. We'll see.
My real conundrum, though, is about the actual story in Genesis 2-3 - and please note I don't wish to open the debate on the literal/metaphorical nature of this story, which I think I pretty much know all your various opinions about. Rather, I'm going to assume that, either way, the story has an emblematic status which somehow applies to theology.
My question is, if God wanted us to develop maturity and discernment, doesn't it seem slightly backward that the tree they were forbidden to touch was said to offer that very thing - the knowledge of good and evil? God says 'if you eat from it you will surely die'. Which is true of course - when they figure out they can try things their own way they pretty much immediately start stuffing things up and killing each other and things. The serpent says of it "You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." And perhaps that's true too - there's no certainty they'll die; there's a slim chance they'll get it right themselves and not ruin everything. In any case the serpent is just trying to incite them to rebellion - don't listen to everything Mr Big says; don't submit to being His slave. Do what you want.
Some possible solutions to the puzzle:
1) My argument is wrong: God didn't want us to develop maturity etc.; He wanted us to get everything right, and for the world to stay perfect, and therefore when He said He didn't want them to eat the fruit, He meant it.
>>Question: so why put it there? To give them the choice? But if they're better off without the choice, isn't that kinda stupid?
2) God knew all along that they'd take the fruit, and put it there intentionally, so that they'd take it and learn some important lessons - painful though it would be for all concerned - which would ultimately be to their/humanity's betterment.
>>Question: so why does He forbid them to touch it?
>>Question: is it even plausible to say we're somehow better off in a post-fall world? Is that kind of sick and sadistic? Or is that like saying it's sadistic of a parent to take the training wheels off their kid's bike, knowing they'll fall off the first time, but will eventually acquire a new skill?
3) Perhaps it wasn't so much that He was forbidding them, but just that He had to warn them, in all fairness, that it would be a path of suffering, even though it would ultimately be the best.
>>But in that case, why not just say 'kids, you have the following two options - you decide'? Instead, He says 'you must not take option 2'.
4) Perhaps in their auto-pilot state they're not able to make decisions like that anyway, so He has to trick them, and maybe overstate the case a little just to make it more interesting.
>>Hm, oh dear, interesting questions arise as to the nature of God. Though potentially it could be seen as a parallel to a parent who tells his kid not to cross the road on her own, not because he never wants her to cross the road, but because she's not ready yet, and in this stage of her development what she needs is set rules that will keep her safe. So, uh, we're currently in the state of having disobeyed, strayed onto the road, been hit by a bus, and are now very slowly recovering, and very slowly figuring out how to conduct ourselves better in future - possibly mixed with a good deal of angst directed towards our dad who should have protected us better. What happened Tony? Why did you lose faith? Did you not read the gospels and were you not amazed at God's truth when you first believed? "For not all have faith", indeed there will be apostates from Christianity, but why Tony? Firstly, way to avoid the points made. Rather than admit that you don't have all the answers just turn the question around to something completely irrelevant. Secondly, if you're interested, you can see my previous blogs on the issue: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=6http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=5http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=4http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=3 Not avoiding mate, just not throwing pearls before swine. You of all should know that God is light and in him is only truth. If you failed to remain in truth and continue to believe in it, then I guess Satan's gripped you pretty well. No point wasting my time in a fruitless theology lesson And your attitude is the perfect reason why I no longer wish to be associated with Christians and the Church. I'm pretty sure you don't want to be associated with Christians and the church because you rejected God first. Christians and the church are made up by humans and humans are pretty fleshly. That doesn't change your relationship with God - it's your choice to not draw near to him, just as it is for me to ignore God when he teaches me something. To each is given a choice, will you take the right one? Or will you be a fool. Btw I just read your long spiel about the inconsistencies of Genesis. Immature, whiny and arrogant are the three adjectives I would use to describe your questioning. You really think a real God will knowingly pass on such erroneous information full of mistake to his people? Well I guess you don't believe in God do you? So whatever you read from the bible is only to serve your purpose of debunking him. God did promise that if you seek you will find. If you seek to insult and blaspheme, then you will bear your fruits, just bad ones. The level of your delusion is incredulous. If you truly believed what you claim, then you should be a lot more considerate at how you address non-Christians, given that they are going to spend an eternity in Hell. Yet you treat it like some sort of "you fools should learn a lesson for not believing in God". Which really just goes to show you think you're being a Christian, where you're nothing more than just a judgmental Pharisee. Tony the truth is you are an apostate - meaning you already know all you need to know. Yet you did not humble yourself to find out WHY God wrote what he wrote in the bible. I went through the same stage, and my faith wavered when no one at my old church was could explain anything of import. I guess you just have to go somewhere else to find answers right? Try and find a reformed evangelical church. I could not find answers with Hillsong type churches as they live off baby food. www.carm.org is not too bad to start off. Learning about systematic theology is also a good way to shore up your faith. The problem is, too many Christians are just eating baby food and not maturing into their faith. If a long-time Christian doesn't even understand how the Old and New covenant relate and what "I came to fulfill the law" means, then I guess he really should spend more time thinking about how the bible fits together. 66 books, over a Huge time period with 22? authors? It all fits. Something which really shook me as a young Christian was the fact that so many Christians around me are just so ignorant and content with these 1-liner answers like "Oh it's the new covenant, so we don't do anything written in the OT". Sadly, this is the status quo for most Christians. Well Tony, you already know that Jesus is the way the truth the life. Your choice to go to hell has no bearing on me, we have to make choices and some of us make the wrong choices. I will never convert you and I will never convert anyone. Each comes to faith because God wanted you to come to know Him. The ultimate decider on whether you have faith is God. I have already spent 4 posts and 1 PM trying to exhort you to humble yourself before God. Am I wasting my time? I don't know. God has his plans for everyone and the seeds that are sown here at TL in religious discussions may bear fruit, who knows.
I'm sorry, but YOU are what's wrong with the world today. The fact that it's even possible for a person to "think" (and I put that in quotations because I'm not sure if thinking actually IS what you do) the way you do is just a good example of how far gone society is. It's just sad to think that despite our intellectual advancements, there are still people who are incapable of critical thought, like yourself. It doesn't bode well for the future of the human species.
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United Arab Emirates1141 Posts
+ Show Spoiler +On May 28 2011 11:54 JesusOurSaviour wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 11:44 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:33 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:28 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:10 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:05 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 10:58 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 10:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:
Christians should not force anyone to do anything. Right from creation, right from the very beginning, God gave his children (us), free will to choose to obey, or choose to disobey. By disobeying, we make up our own rules!! (see Devil's conversation with Eve, "Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil." Ha - this is partially true - you won't "know" good and evil, you will DEFINE it once you reject God) Load of crap. See the following: + Show Spoiler +God allowed evil to enter the world as part of the risk He took in giving humanity free will. i.e. He loved mankind so much that He wanted to give us the chance to grow and mature and choose Him and the good life for ourselves, rather than being set on auto-pilot. All of which I'm sure you're all familiar with. I think it's a nice idea - the end goal being that God gets a family of children who have developed hearts and wisdom like His, and turned away from evil.
Obviously there are questions as to whether it was fair of Him to allow us to stuff things up so badly when a little more guidance might have spared us a lot of pain, and might have made His 'family' rather bigger. But I guess I'm basically willing to give Him the benefit of the doubt on that one, and assume He knew what He was doing, and has some kind of plan to tie up the loose ends. We'll see.
My real conundrum, though, is about the actual story in Genesis 2-3 - and please note I don't wish to open the debate on the literal/metaphorical nature of this story, which I think I pretty much know all your various opinions about. Rather, I'm going to assume that, either way, the story has an emblematic status which somehow applies to theology.
My question is, if God wanted us to develop maturity and discernment, doesn't it seem slightly backward that the tree they were forbidden to touch was said to offer that very thing - the knowledge of good and evil? God says 'if you eat from it you will surely die'. Which is true of course - when they figure out they can try things their own way they pretty much immediately start stuffing things up and killing each other and things. The serpent says of it "You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." And perhaps that's true too - there's no certainty they'll die; there's a slim chance they'll get it right themselves and not ruin everything. In any case the serpent is just trying to incite them to rebellion - don't listen to everything Mr Big says; don't submit to being His slave. Do what you want.
Some possible solutions to the puzzle:
1) My argument is wrong: God didn't want us to develop maturity etc.; He wanted us to get everything right, and for the world to stay perfect, and therefore when He said He didn't want them to eat the fruit, He meant it.
>>Question: so why put it there? To give them the choice? But if they're better off without the choice, isn't that kinda stupid?
2) God knew all along that they'd take the fruit, and put it there intentionally, so that they'd take it and learn some important lessons - painful though it would be for all concerned - which would ultimately be to their/humanity's betterment.
>>Question: so why does He forbid them to touch it?
>>Question: is it even plausible to say we're somehow better off in a post-fall world? Is that kind of sick and sadistic? Or is that like saying it's sadistic of a parent to take the training wheels off their kid's bike, knowing they'll fall off the first time, but will eventually acquire a new skill?
3) Perhaps it wasn't so much that He was forbidding them, but just that He had to warn them, in all fairness, that it would be a path of suffering, even though it would ultimately be the best.
>>But in that case, why not just say 'kids, you have the following two options - you decide'? Instead, He says 'you must not take option 2'.
4) Perhaps in their auto-pilot state they're not able to make decisions like that anyway, so He has to trick them, and maybe overstate the case a little just to make it more interesting.
>>Hm, oh dear, interesting questions arise as to the nature of God. Though potentially it could be seen as a parallel to a parent who tells his kid not to cross the road on her own, not because he never wants her to cross the road, but because she's not ready yet, and in this stage of her development what she needs is set rules that will keep her safe. So, uh, we're currently in the state of having disobeyed, strayed onto the road, been hit by a bus, and are now very slowly recovering, and very slowly figuring out how to conduct ourselves better in future - possibly mixed with a good deal of angst directed towards our dad who should have protected us better. What happened Tony? Why did you lose faith? Did you not read the gospels and were you not amazed at God's truth when you first believed? "For not all have faith", indeed there will be apostates from Christianity, but why Tony? Firstly, way to avoid the points made. Rather than admit that you don't have all the answers just turn the question around to something completely irrelevant. Secondly, if you're interested, you can see my previous blogs on the issue: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=6http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=5http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=4http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=3 Not avoiding mate, just not throwing pearls before swine. You of all should know that God is light and in him is only truth. If you failed to remain in truth and continue to believe in it, then I guess Satan's gripped you pretty well. No point wasting my time in a fruitless theology lesson And your attitude is the perfect reason why I no longer wish to be associated with Christians and the Church. I'm pretty sure you don't want to be associated with Christians and the church because you rejected God first. Christians and the church are made up by humans and humans are pretty fleshly. That doesn't change your relationship with God - it's your choice to not draw near to him, just as it is for me to ignore God when he teaches me something. To each is given a choice, will you take the right one? Or will you be a fool. Btw I just read your long spiel about the inconsistencies of Genesis. Immature, whiny and arrogant are the three adjectives I would use to describe your questioning. You really think a real God will knowingly pass on such erroneous information full of mistake to his people? Well I guess you don't believe in God do you? So whatever you read from the bible is only to serve your purpose of debunking him. God did promise that if you seek you will find. If you seek to insult and blaspheme, then you will bear your fruits, just bad ones. The level of your delusion is incredulous. If you truly believed what you claim, then you should be a lot more considerate at how you address non-Christians, given that they are going to spend an eternity in Hell. Yet you treat it like some sort of "you fools should learn a lesson for not believing in God". Which really just goes to show you think you're being a Christian, where you're nothing more than just a judgmental Pharisee. Tony the truth is you are an apostate - meaning you already know all you need to know. Yet you did not humble yourself to find out WHY God wrote what he wrote in the bible. I went through the same stage, and my faith wavered when no one at my old church was could explain anything of import. I guess you just have to go somewhere else to find answers right? Try and find a reformed evangelical church. I could not find answers with Hillsong type churches as they live off baby food. www.carm.org is not too bad to start off. Learning about systematic theology is also a good way to shore up your faith. The problem is, too many Christians are just eating baby food and not maturing into their faith. If a long-time Christian doesn't even understand how the Old and New covenant relate and what "I came to fulfill the law" means, then I guess he really should spend more time thinking about how the bible fits together. 66 books, over a Huge time period with 22? authors? It all fits. Something which really shook me as a young Christian was the fact that so many Christians around me are just so ignorant and content with these 1-liner answers like "Oh it's the new covenant, so we don't do anything written in the OT". Sadly, this is the status quo for most Christians. Well Tony, you already know that Jesus is the way the truth the life. Your choice to go to hell has no bearing on me, we have to make choices and some of us make the wrong choices. I will never convert you and I will never convert anyone. Each comes to faith because God wanted you to come to know Him. The ultimate decider on whether you have faith is God. I have already spent 4 posts and 1 PM trying to exhort you to humble yourself before God. Am I wasting my time? I don't know. God has his plans for everyone and the seeds that are sown here at TL in religious discussions may bear fruit, who knows.
On May 28 2011 11:57 Olinim wrote:So God planned for me to go hell? That's basically what you're saying.
How old are you Olinim? Lemme guess, somewhere between 14-22 (90% of TL-ers are anyway)
I am 20 years old. Will I continue to believe in God till I die? I hope so. But life has many distractions and Satan is powerful. Do I know who God has chosen to be his Elect? No. Why did Jesus tell us to spread the good news then? If God is the one who chooses, then whats the point of us telling everyone the good news if people are going to just reject him and God has already "chosen" those who will accept him?
We evangelise because we don't know who God has chosen to be saved. We evangelise because we know that you will go to hell otherwise. So we reach out and tell you the good news which saved us. I guess you could argue that any Christian who does not evangelise through action or word, is a selfish prick.
Back to your point Olinim - your life is still ahead of you and who knows what kind of suffering you are going to go through in your life. You may find God in a time when all is lost. On the contrary you may never find God but live your life out in peace as a rich businessman. Whatever the case may be, life hasn't ended so don't speculate too quickly whether or not God has chosen you to be in his Kingdom yet. 
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On May 28 2011 12:10 JesusOurSaviour wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On May 28 2011 11:57 Olinim wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 11:54 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:44 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:33 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:28 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:10 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:05 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 10:58 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 10:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:
Christians should not force anyone to do anything. Right from creation, right from the very beginning, God gave his children (us), free will to choose to obey, or choose to disobey. By disobeying, we make up our own rules!! (see Devil's conversation with Eve, "Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil." Ha - this is partially true - you won't "know" good and evil, you will DEFINE it once you reject God) Load of crap. See the following: + Show Spoiler +God allowed evil to enter the world as part of the risk He took in giving humanity free will. i.e. He loved mankind so much that He wanted to give us the chance to grow and mature and choose Him and the good life for ourselves, rather than being set on auto-pilot. All of which I'm sure you're all familiar with. I think it's a nice idea - the end goal being that God gets a family of children who have developed hearts and wisdom like His, and turned away from evil.
Obviously there are questions as to whether it was fair of Him to allow us to stuff things up so badly when a little more guidance might have spared us a lot of pain, and might have made His 'family' rather bigger. But I guess I'm basically willing to give Him the benefit of the doubt on that one, and assume He knew what He was doing, and has some kind of plan to tie up the loose ends. We'll see.
My real conundrum, though, is about the actual story in Genesis 2-3 - and please note I don't wish to open the debate on the literal/metaphorical nature of this story, which I think I pretty much know all your various opinions about. Rather, I'm going to assume that, either way, the story has an emblematic status which somehow applies to theology.
My question is, if God wanted us to develop maturity and discernment, doesn't it seem slightly backward that the tree they were forbidden to touch was said to offer that very thing - the knowledge of good and evil? God says 'if you eat from it you will surely die'. Which is true of course - when they figure out they can try things their own way they pretty much immediately start stuffing things up and killing each other and things. The serpent says of it "You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." And perhaps that's true too - there's no certainty they'll die; there's a slim chance they'll get it right themselves and not ruin everything. In any case the serpent is just trying to incite them to rebellion - don't listen to everything Mr Big says; don't submit to being His slave. Do what you want.
Some possible solutions to the puzzle:
1) My argument is wrong: God didn't want us to develop maturity etc.; He wanted us to get everything right, and for the world to stay perfect, and therefore when He said He didn't want them to eat the fruit, He meant it.
>>Question: so why put it there? To give them the choice? But if they're better off without the choice, isn't that kinda stupid?
2) God knew all along that they'd take the fruit, and put it there intentionally, so that they'd take it and learn some important lessons - painful though it would be for all concerned - which would ultimately be to their/humanity's betterment.
>>Question: so why does He forbid them to touch it?
>>Question: is it even plausible to say we're somehow better off in a post-fall world? Is that kind of sick and sadistic? Or is that like saying it's sadistic of a parent to take the training wheels off their kid's bike, knowing they'll fall off the first time, but will eventually acquire a new skill?
3) Perhaps it wasn't so much that He was forbidding them, but just that He had to warn them, in all fairness, that it would be a path of suffering, even though it would ultimately be the best.
>>But in that case, why not just say 'kids, you have the following two options - you decide'? Instead, He says 'you must not take option 2'.
4) Perhaps in their auto-pilot state they're not able to make decisions like that anyway, so He has to trick them, and maybe overstate the case a little just to make it more interesting.
>>Hm, oh dear, interesting questions arise as to the nature of God. Though potentially it could be seen as a parallel to a parent who tells his kid not to cross the road on her own, not because he never wants her to cross the road, but because she's not ready yet, and in this stage of her development what she needs is set rules that will keep her safe. So, uh, we're currently in the state of having disobeyed, strayed onto the road, been hit by a bus, and are now very slowly recovering, and very slowly figuring out how to conduct ourselves better in future - possibly mixed with a good deal of angst directed towards our dad who should have protected us better. What happened Tony? Why did you lose faith? Did you not read the gospels and were you not amazed at God's truth when you first believed? "For not all have faith", indeed there will be apostates from Christianity, but why Tony? Firstly, way to avoid the points made. Rather than admit that you don't have all the answers just turn the question around to something completely irrelevant. Secondly, if you're interested, you can see my previous blogs on the issue: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=6http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=5http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=4http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=3 Not avoiding mate, just not throwing pearls before swine. You of all should know that God is light and in him is only truth. If you failed to remain in truth and continue to believe in it, then I guess Satan's gripped you pretty well. No point wasting my time in a fruitless theology lesson And your attitude is the perfect reason why I no longer wish to be associated with Christians and the Church. I'm pretty sure you don't want to be associated with Christians and the church because you rejected God first. Christians and the church are made up by humans and humans are pretty fleshly. That doesn't change your relationship with God - it's your choice to not draw near to him, just as it is for me to ignore God when he teaches me something. To each is given a choice, will you take the right one? Or will you be a fool. Btw I just read your long spiel about the inconsistencies of Genesis. Immature, whiny and arrogant are the three adjectives I would use to describe your questioning. You really think a real God will knowingly pass on such erroneous information full of mistake to his people? Well I guess you don't believe in God do you? So whatever you read from the bible is only to serve your purpose of debunking him. God did promise that if you seek you will find. If you seek to insult and blaspheme, then you will bear your fruits, just bad ones. The level of your delusion is incredulous. If you truly believed what you claim, then you should be a lot more considerate at how you address non-Christians, given that they are going to spend an eternity in Hell. Yet you treat it like some sort of "you fools should learn a lesson for not believing in God". Which really just goes to show you think you're being a Christian, where you're nothing more than just a judgmental Pharisee. Tony the truth is you are an apostate - meaning you already know all you need to know. Yet you did not humble yourself to find out WHY God wrote what he wrote in the bible. I went through the same stage, and my faith wavered when no one at my old church was could explain anything of import. I guess you just have to go somewhere else to find answers right? Try and find a reformed evangelical church. I could not find answers with Hillsong type churches as they live off baby food. www.carm.org is not too bad to start off. Learning about systematic theology is also a good way to shore up your faith. The problem is, too many Christians are just eating baby food and not maturing into their faith. If a long-time Christian doesn't even understand how the Old and New covenant relate and what "I came to fulfill the law" means, then I guess he really should spend more time thinking about how the bible fits together. 66 books, over a Huge time period with 22? authors? It all fits. Something which really shook me as a young Christian was the fact that so many Christians around me are just so ignorant and content with these 1-liner answers like "Oh it's the new covenant, so we don't do anything written in the OT". Sadly, this is the status quo for most Christians. Well Tony, you already know that Jesus is the way the truth the life. Your choice to go to hell has no bearing on me, we have to make choices and some of us make the wrong choices. I will never convert you and I will never convert anyone. Each comes to faith because God wanted you to come to know Him. The ultimate decider on whether you have faith is God. I have already spent 4 posts and 1 PM trying to exhort you to humble yourself before God. Am I wasting my time? I don't know. God has his plans for everyone and the seeds that are sown here at TL in religious discussions may bear fruit, who knows. So God planned for me to go hell? That's basically what you're saying. How old are you Olinim? Lemme guess, somewhere between 14-22 (90% of TL-ers are anyway) I am 20 years old. Will I continue to believe in God till I die? I hope so. But life has many distractions and Satan is powerful. Do I know who God has chosen to be his Elect? No. Why did Jesus tell us to spread the good news then? If God is the one who chooses, then whats the point of us telling everyone the good news if people are going to just reject him and God has already "chosen" those who will accept him? We evangelise because we don't know who God has chosen to be saved. We evangelise because we know that you will go to hell otherwise. So we reach out and tell you the good news which saved us. I guess you could argue that any Christian who does not evangelise through action or word, is a selfish prick. Back to your point Olinim - your life is still ahead of you and who knows what kind of suffering you are going to go through in your life. You may find God in a time when all is lost. On the contrary you may never find God but live your life out in peace as a rich businessman. Whatever the case may be, life hasn't ended so don't speculate too quickly whether or not God has chosen you to be in his Kingdom yet.
Just out of curiosity, how do you know that you are "saved"? How could anyone possibly know that they are "saved"? Has God spoken to you, first hand?
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