So according to verse 6, God admitted to being fallible????

[Edit: sorry, typo]

I didn't know how to just reply to your message, so I just quoted around it. XP Still kind of new to how some of these posts work.

Anyways, I see what you mean. I also thought about that even if God did make us perfect, in his image, he still gave us free will. So that would explain our imperfections in itself. ;P

But another question, why would there have to be a sacrifice to amend everyone else's sins? :\ Why is 'sacrifice' okay, in the eyes of God? Or in that one instant? Isn't that just opening it up to other religions being able to kill (or sacrifice, I guess. XP I can't really tell if there's a difference...) innocent creatures/people to wash away their own sins? I admit I haven't read the Bible from front to back, so it may all be explained in there, but then again, I'm not a scholar, or bright, for that matter XP, so I wouldn't have been able to find a solution there anyway.

I guess I just find it odd that a God would allow such a sacrifice (even though I suppose it wasn't all that sacrificial to begin with, since God can bring Him back anyway... :\), when I'm sure God Himself would have the power to forgive us of our sins if we asked for it, instead of sacrificing his only Son. :\

You've got a loaded question there, Lady Otterwynnd. Universalism - the paradigm that all are saved already and that our salvation is already decided is very popular now days.
As an autonomous theologian for several years, I realized that research alone will not grant a person the answer to this. You must realize who we are dealing with.

A being who is unconditional love.

Unconditional means that no matter what are the circumstances, this being will always respond
in the same way. We do not know if God is expecting us to change because he gave us a free ticket
to life everlasting.


However, it is this seemingly insane characteristic which makes one realize that we are all ignorant little children
roaming the earth, making good decisions and bad decisions alike and this whole thing is NOT about whether people
go to "hell" or "heaven" (if such places really existed) but rather about how much we end up learning throughout our lives.

So, why does it matter what we do? That can only be a personal opinion. See, I cannot tell you what you need to do and how you should
live your life better because I am not going to make myself out to be a hypocrite by preaching from the pulpit and not living up to
those standards. So, I think the question "does it matter what we do" depends on your own outlook on life and that depends on
how much you've learned. So, I think life is about learning rather than achieving a spiritual status.

Isaiah 45:7 states: I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil. I am Jehovah, that doeth all these things.


Roll your eyes to that.

Great point! God is universal not one sided.

Evil used here is the word ra' which means adveristy, affliction, bad, or calamity. Compare that to Proverbs 24:8 where evil is ra'a which means wicked. The Bible never portrays God as wicked and neither can the word ra' be seen as wicked. When God destroys wickedness it does not make Him wicked in the least. Clearly Isaiah 45:7 contrasts the word peace with ra' (translated as evil) but it is not evil as in 'sin'. The opposite of peace is not sin. The opposite of peace in this case is calamity and other versions of the Bible translate it as calamity.

But why would a being, who is unconditional love, or have unconditional love for us, send us to hell to begin with? :\ That doesn't sound like a very loving thing to do. It actually sounds like cruel and unusual punishment, to me. ;P But seriously. XP I mean, okay, in His eyes, this is the right thing to do. And who can question God, who created us in the first place? But... I mean, it just hurts to even believe in a God who would do that to anyone. If He had unconditional love for us, I don't see how there could be a way He would send any of us to hell. I would like to believe that life is everlasting, or an endless cycle, and you live so many lives to atone for your sins and learn from your lessons so that you won't go to hell. I do agree that there is a tremendous amount of evil in some people's hearts, and they deserve some kind of punishment, but it just seems like a being who has unconditional love for these people will punish them for however long, and then send them back to Earth to see how well they'll fare this time, or something, instead of pitting them in hell for all eternity. :\ ...But maybe this is something I can't understand, since God has been in being for all eternity, and maybe has already given the same people thousands of chances, but to no avail. ...That's actually really disheartening to think about... XP

My point exactly.

God is not as many people think. He is love. And if you believe in hell and that a loving God sends people there, you better look into the truth because
few people realize what Hell is and where people really go after they die.

Possibly.

Because God wants us to see that all of our decisions have serious (life or death) consequences, ALL of our decisions.

I think there's a difference between being "OK" and being necessary. Because of the purpose He has for us and this Creation, sacrifice is necessary.

I would assume that god's purpose is important enough that if some or even most choose to do their own thing instead of what He intends that's OK. A high level of collateral loss is part of the plan .

As an omnipotent being I'm sure He does, but He has chosen to set things up this way because they fulfill His purpose for us and for His Creation.

Of course the bible would not but the verus still stands not matter which version you read.

Sin does not originate from God in my view and shall not be accepted by me as a valid view though I can understand that view but will remain disagreeing with it.

I guess it really depends what version of the bible you read.






7 I form the light and create darkness,
I bring prosperity and create disaster; New International Version
I, the LORD, do all these things



I form the light and create darkness, I make peace [national well-being] and I create [physical] [a]evil (calamity); I am the Lord, Who does all these things. Amplified Bible




7I create light and darkness,

happiness and sorrow. Contemporary English Version

I, the LORD, do all of this.







-7 God's Message to his anointed, to Cyrus, whom he took by the hand
To give the task of taming the nations,
of terrifying their kings—
He gave him free rein,
no restrictions:
"I'll go ahead of you,
clearing and paving the road.
I'll break down bronze city gates,
smash padlocks, kick down barred entrances.
I'll lead you to buried treasures,
secret caches of valuables—
Confirmations that it is, in fact, I, God,
the God of Israel, who calls you by your name.
It's because of my dear servant Jacob,
Israel my chosen,
That I've singled you out, called you by name,
and given you this privileged work. The Message
And you don't even know me!
I am God, the only God there is.
Besides me there are no real gods.
I'm the one who armed you for this work,
though you don't even know me,
So that everyone, from east to west, will know
that I have no god-rivals.
I am God, the only God there is.
I form light and create darkness,
I make harmonies and create discords.
I, God, do all these things.





Now some people will only read one version of the bible & will disgard another version. So I guess it depnds on how you see it.

Naturally but since you do not even believe in God you are hypothesizing and not really believing that God creates sin, correct? So you are not talking about God or sin outside of hypothetically speaking, right?

If I turn a light on, shadows form. Am I responsible for forming the shadows? Yes, I am because they would not have formed if I had not turned the light on, but was the creation of the shadows my intention? No, they were just a byproduct of my turning a light on. Did God create evil? Yes, He did. When He created good, the absence of good also occurred.

God is capable of all things. Is this correct or not?

Then you must agree that he is capable of making good decisions and bad decisions. No?

"All Things"

With this in mind, imagine a god who is one sided and he in his perfect world would make perfect
people with a perfect plan (since he knows the future) etc.

Lets assume that God does know the future, but he gave mankind a bit of his own nature - free will - the
ability to make good decisions and bad decisions - the freedom to do as you please.

This is one of the things God and mankind have in common - free will - the ability to make your
own decisions.

However, this paradigm is utterly destroyed from God's perspective if we assume that he does know the future.
If he knows the future why make people that will end up in hell anyway? Why?


To shorten my point, if God cannot see the future, he cannot see past our decisions and he cannot see past
his own either which makes him vulnerable to making mistakes. It potentially carries a risk. Like the flood. "And God was sorry he made man" etc.
BUT!!!!! if God is perfect, He must see the future and He himself can see his decisions and everything He creates must be
perfect unless, of course, he wanted us to have the illusion that we have free will - which I believe is the case.

The bible says that God created everything. Now if you believe that I think you would also have to believe everything good, then it would stand to reason he created everything bad as well Correct?

Just because you make a house does not make your responsible for all that goes on within it especially if you do not live in it yourself. Just because God made our bodies and we sin does not make Him responsible especially if God does not live in us. He gave us free will what we decide to do with it is and the consequences of it are on us not Him.

You can have a child but if that child grows up and becomes a serial murderer it was his choice and no one else's.

If you have a child & you raise them right you should not have to worry about them. This is my personal opinion of course but I do not think that applies to the Judeo-Christian God. I still believe that if you say you created everthing overall then you created all that comes along with it. Good & bad.

Your theory then takes away from free will and claims we do not have free will. It also says we are not responsible for evil even when we commit it because 'God made me do it'.

Where did Jesus say the Kingdom of God is? He said it was 'within'. Where is God? In his kingdom. Where is his Kingdom? 'Within'. Therefore God does live inside us.

The Kingdom of God is within only if we allow Him in IMHO

In my view God is there whether we like it or not because the substance of the soul and the substance of God is one and the same.

If you write an advanced computer program which could have a level of consciousness and impulsive human behavior, and you would execute it, "create" it to do a certain thing, then the program itself with the limited knowledge that it has, yet conscious, could not automatically comprehend the fact that the programmer has made the program to perform a specific task.

What if we are super advanced biological machines that have been designed to multiply and learn in order to flourish this planet with life?
Perhaps this strange, fiction-like, hypothesis is not so far from the truth. What if what we are going to do is already foreknown by a higher power?
What if we are all just doing what we're supposed to be doing and learning a valuable lesson from it?
What if the whole point all this time was just to learn and understand?

I understand your view but it is not biblical. Not that everyone has to agree with the Bible. For those who do agree with it though one always has a choice to choose to become one spirit with Him or not.

No, I am not saying that God make us do anything I am that he created something only to save us from it.

Again an extrabiblical view. I understand that as well just do not see any proof in the Bible for it. Isaiah 45:7 does not give any credence to that view. What your view is implying is known as dualism and was a view held by gnostics. There are several forms of dualism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism#Dualism_and_monism

That is a matter of opinion:

But Christ is all and in all. ----Colossians 3:11

Christ and God are One. Therefore Christ is God. Christ is in all and is all. Therefore whether evil or good God is in all.




One always has the choice in my view to recognize the spirit of God already there or not.

Clovis did you know that every living person has the spirit of God inside of him/her?

I did not get that from the Gnostic bible I got it from the bible that people read everyday.

Well that completely ignores everything else around it. There is an old self without God dwelling within and a new self where he does.





Again this is not biblical for many do not have the spirit within according to the Bible. Picking what suits a view and discarding the rest of the Bible is what many do but that does not make it biblical.







Not according to Romans 8:9 see above.

I still stand by what I have said. If it isnt biblical to you it isnt. It is biblical to me.

It is still a gnostic view and maybe you saw that in the Bible but it is easy to take what suits a view and discard the rest. That is why you have so many preachers telling others they are living in sin and going to hell for it because they discarded the part that says not to judge. The Bible in whole does not support that God made sin neither does it support us judging others.

Everything Belongs to God. Every living person made by God has His Spirit ever since He first breathed the breath(wind)spirit into Man. Mankind has the spirit of God.
But God with-held his spirit from mankind because of his wickedness:


Genesis 6:3
3 And the LORD said, "My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years."
(NKJ)


We have a spirit which keeps us alive. It leaves the body and flies back to God. You thought this was a myth in Christianity, but it is't.

Psalms 90:10
10 The days of our lives are seventy years; and if by reason of strength they are eighty years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
(NKJ)


"Your" Spirit is really God's Spirit.

Again this is just my personal view but for a perfect God to creat a perfect world then we & everything in it would be also perfect. I would think that a perfect God could only create perfect things. God wants perfection, but it is some peoples understanding that He wants us to be willfully perfect, & If God wanted perfect people, why didn't he make perfection possible to achieve? To be honest none these answers make no sense to me. Again these are my thoughts.

When you give a child the choice between mac-n-cheese or spaghetti for dinner, I don't smack them when the choose the one I didn't want them too. If you don't want someone to choose something, don't give them the option!



Another analogy would be We are like mice put into a maze. There are several different ways out of the maze, but most, if not all, except one end in a horrific death trap (hell).
There is guidance available (bible) in the form of directions to the proper way out. However, there is lots of misinformation too (other faiths). We are going to be exceedingly lucky to be able to decipher the proper information and get out safely.. This makes no sence.

Perhaps then being that is a Gnostic view that God was telling us something.... Sorry a bit off topic....

This doesn't make sense to me. If someone accepts Jesus' payment for their own sin, they simultaneously must live by God's Laws. Okay, good so far. But even after acceptance, EVERYONE willfully chooses to sin. So are you saying no one can ever truly be forgiven and saved by Jesus? That is what it looks like from what you wrote.

Only because you ignore everything else within the Bible that disagrees with your view. It is possible to come up with a view that takes into account all that is said only because that is the actual view given not one simply interpreted by men.

According to the Bible...



...one must repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus before receiving the Spirit



...some men clearly do not have the Spirit.



...that Spirit is one of truth as well



...God gives us the Spirit and only to those who accept God not to those who reject Him



...someone can get filled with the Spirit but getting drunk on wine as a habit is at odds with that



...the temple in which God dwells within is one that is built and does not come premade



...the Spirit is received

I could go on and on but keep in mind this is what the Bible says. Sure one can believe as Oprah that we can all have 'Christ consciousness' and have Christ within but do not have to believe in the Bible but that is a view not supported by the Bible no matter how hard one focuses on one verse and ignores all the others.

Some people clearly do not belong to God.





The breath he breathed into us is the spirit of man not the Spirit of God. It is called nĕshamah and can be found in Genesis 2:7. There are still some alive today without the Spirit of God.





Mankind does not automatically have the Spirit of God according to the Bible which is what I base my belief in God on. In your view though without the 'spirit of god' mankind would die, or fly away as you later illustrate, so if 'God with-held his spirit from mankind because of his wickedness' as you said then many would just die?



The Spirit above does not mean without that Spirit it we would die. You yourself already stated 'God with-held his spirit from mankind because of his wickedness.' Why is that part of mankind alive or was ever alive if God withheld his Spirit from them? This is where your view breaks down and is not supported by Scripture.





Israel was promised that the Spirit would be poured out on all their flesh. The New Testament tells us we are spiritual Jews. Not everyone is though but for those who are the Spirit will be poured out on their flesh. See Acts 2:38



This does not prove every man has the Spirit of God.

Why would a perfect God HAVE to create only perfect things? And what would perfection be? Would it be defined by human standards or would it be perfect ig it fulfilled the purpose of its Creator?

Actually, the choice is more like you putting a dinner in front of a child and the child having the choice between eating it and not eating it. Would you not be upset and disappointed if your child chose not to eat?

Why is God perfect, yet he has all these imperfect emotions?

You tell me what you think being perfect is. I personally do not see a perfect being creating a imperfect world. You can't punish someone for making a choice if you give then the option. If I was a dictator of a small despotic country and I started making abstract rules that people must follow.. except I wouldnt tell them the rules clearly.. and just insist that they beg for forgiveness of they cross these highly abstract and rather vague rules.. Id be a bit of a butt . Especially if I then expected these people to love me too.



...."If we are only good because we fear punishment and expect reward, then a sorry lot we truly are" - Einstein

I think that sums up nicely the contradictory nature and experience of the Christian God.

I mean no harm when I said it but that is the way I see what the Christian God seems do be doing If a human did it people would demand he/she be brought to justice.

It can always be said that we will not truly understand his nature and why he does things and we put too much of a human context on what he does. But from what other perspective can we do it I ask?

And following that logic believers should not try and contextualise his behaviour in human terms either as Iams has done above. (no offence Iams lol)

Which imperfect emotions?


You definitely can punish someone for making a choice you gave them an option to make. You have the option to take a gun and murder anyone who makes you mad, or you just don't like. But if you do, then you will be punished for it.

Interesting conversation IAMS, Belle, and norwood.

As far as the kid refusing mac n cheese I could imagine a child getting his faced rubbed in it and having mac n cheese all over it lol Not to be cruel though that is not something I advocate but was thinking in more comedic terms. Anyways I want to chime in but you guys seem to be making all excellent points.

[quote name='IamsSon' date='May 13 2008, 12:32 AM' post='2295661']
Which imperfect emotions?


You definitely can punish someone for making a choice you gave them an option to make.



Really? Ok here what I want you to do. I'm going to assume that your married if not just play along with me please.


Next time you cook ask her what she wants to eat, if she gives you a choice that you do not like beat the crap out of her. I don't mean just hit her once or twice I mean beat her untill she can't breath. Make sure you break some bones so you can get your point across. Then look at her & telll her 'Sorry hun thats not what I wanted'.

Now when you get in front of a judge tell him/her that you asked your wife what she wanted for dinner, tell him/her that's not what you wanted. I'm not sure if you'll ever reach the prison alive.



Now some of you might say I'm going way too far but isn't this what the Christian God is more or less doing? Yes, he gave you freewill BUT because you wasn't able to read his mind your going to hell.

good point ! ah clarity.

Well, in the Bible it basically says that you should not envy what another man has. Which is jealousy, I'd imagine. But God Himself is jealous, right? :\ He doesn't want anyone else to worship any other than him (I guess that makes sense, since He created us, but then again, He did give us free will, so it should have been expected that some might oppose his existence anyway, right? :\), so that seems to be an imperfect emotion. If God was perfect, would he really need to have the admiration and fear/love of his own creation to make himself feel superior? I mean, not necessarily feel superior, but I mean would he really need to have validation from imperfect creatures that he's the one and only God?

That's just one of the emotions I thought of though, so I don't know if that was what Belle was implying. XP