Omnipotent God + Eternal Damnation = Evil God

[Metatron]

I have never received an adequate justification for the doctrine of eternal damnation here at DC&R so I'm posting it as a topic.

Many Christians claim that their God is omnipotent/omniscient. They claim that their God is a god of compassion, love, and mercy. Yet, with all of this, they claim that God punishes all people who do not accept Jesus as their savior with eternal torment in Hell, i.e. the vast majority of mankind numbering into the billions.

What possible compassionate purpose can infinite torture have? The punishment doesn't even serve a remedial purpose because the tormented one is not allowed to repent. It's only conceivable purpose is sadism.

How is this not evil?

[samuelbb7]

Metatron Happy Saturnalia to you also.

But why would man's sinful nature change just because of a change in location? I grant you that the "born again" would presumably be striving to live a sinless life. But you grant that they are not likely to be 100% successful at this. If this is true of the "saved" for the remainder of their time on Earth, why does this change simply because they are now in Heaven? We already have the precedent of Satan's fall that establishes that sin in Heaven is possible. So unless God strips man of his free will in Heaven, I see no reason to assume that sin, however minor, will not exist in Heaven as it did on Earth.

When we are Born Again our sinful nature has already changed. We have a new nature. But we still have the old nature at the same time. We are to spend our lives learning to overcome our old nature and feed the new nature now. So that when we go to heaven the new earth we have already learned how to overcome sin it will just be easier there. If I have misunderstood the Bible and I find that there are minor little sins in heaven that people have to deal with still that will not upset me as long as I am there.

Well you'd still need to demonstrate your objections to evolution itself since your objection here points to abiogenesis not evolution. Abiogenesis gets into the whole life generated from the primordial soup of organic compounds bit and, as you state, is far from established at this point.

Thank you that is the word I was trying to remember. My first objection is to Abiogenesis. Without that basis as a beginning the theory of evolution cannot get a start.

Evolution, however, deals with the changes over time in life after it has been established and says nothing about how life started in the first place. It would be possible for a theist to believe in evolution, for example, by simply inserting God as the initiator of life in place of abiogenesis and assume that God works through the laws of biology to roll out his creation rather than a special creation of every existant species.

True. When I tended toward deism I did believe in evolution. Let me try to keep this short and maybe not so sweet. Evolution demands that animals can undergo major changes that are outside the normal range of DNA allowed changes in the original. Now only some of the originals change and others remain the same and continue. Sponges are the supposed ancestors of fish yet many varieties of sponges still exist. So I do not see how a animal can change outside a set of variations.

Gotta go. Bye.

[Metatron]

But why would man's sinful nature change just because of a change in location? I grant you that the "born again" would presumably be striving to live a sinless life. But you grant that they are not likely to be 100% successful at this. If this is true of the "saved" for the remainder of their time on Earth, why does this change simply because they are now in Heaven? We already have the precedent of Satan's fall that establishes that sin in Heaven is possible. So unless God strips man of his free will in Heaven, I see no reason to assume that sin, however minor, will not exist in Heaven as it did on Earth.

When we are Born Again our sinful nature has already changed. We have a new nature. But we still have the old nature at the same time. We are to spend our lives learning to overcome our old nature and feed the new nature now. So that when we go to heaven the new earth we have already learned how to overcome sin it will just be easier there. If I have misunderstood the Bible and I find that there are minor little sins in heaven that people have to deal with still that will not upset me as long as I am there.

1. Not really getting the two natures at the same time bit. Assuming that we're not talking about someone with multiple personality issues, this sounds a lot like someone who is very morally conflicted.

2. One problem is that if it turns out that sin is possible in Heaven, there is no particular reason to assume that it will be limited to minor sins. After all if God's right hand angel and a third of the host of heaven can rebel against God (hardly a minor sin), there is no particular reason to think that a mere human cannot be lured to "the dark side". A truly cannot fathom how sin is avoidable while free will exists.

Well you'd still need to demonstrate your objections to evolution itself since your objection here points to abiogenesis not evolution. Abiogenesis gets into the whole life generated from the primordial soup of organic compounds bit and, as you state, is far from established at this point.

Thank you that is the word I was trying to remember. My first objection is to Abiogenesis. Without that basis as a beginning the theory of evolution cannot get a start.

Evolution, however, deals with the changes over time in life after it has been established and says nothing about how life started in the first place. It would be possible for a theist to believe in evolution, for example, by simply inserting God as the initiator of life in place of abiogenesis and assume that God works through the laws of biology to roll out his creation rather than a special creation of every existant species.

True. When I tended toward deism I did believe in evolution. Let me try to keep this short and maybe not so sweet. Evolution demands that animals can undergo major changes that are outside the normal range of DNA allowed changes in the original. Now only some of the originals change and others remain the same and continue. Sponges are the supposed ancestors of fish yet many varieties of sponges still exist. So I do not see how a animal can change outside a set of variations.

Hmm...well again we're talking very small changes over very long periods of time. There is also the mutation factor which makes the "normal range of DNA" a changeable thing. However, this is really a topic for the Science and Religion forum where there are people who can explain all of this far better than I, so I'll leave this be.

Talk to you later.

[McCulloch]

When we are Born Again our sinful nature has already changed. We have a new nature. But we still have the old nature at the same time. We are to spend our lives learning to overcome our old nature and feed the new nature now.

Please make up your mind. When you are born again, do you have a new nature or the old nature? Or perhaps a dual nature. What does that mean?

So that when we go to heaven the new earth we have already learned how to overcome sin it will just be easier there. If I have misunderstood the Bible and I find that there are minor little sins in heaven that people have to deal with still that will not upset me as long as I am there.

I thought that the whole reason for the substitutionary sacrifice of the Perfect Son of God was that God was so holy that he could not be in the presence of sin. Lied to again by confused Christians.

My first objection is to Abiogenesis. Without that basis as a beginning the theory of evolution cannot get a start.

That's like rejecting modern medicine because it cannot cure cancer. Or rejecting chemistry because we have not discovered how all of the subatomic particles interact. We know that abiogenesis happened. We have a good idea about when it happened. We're still looking for how.

True. When I tended toward deism I did believe in evolution. Let me try to keep this short and maybe not so sweet. Evolution demands that animals can undergo major changes that are outside the normal range of DNA allowed changes in the original. Now only some of the originals change and others remain the same and continue. Sponges are the supposed ancestors of fish yet many varieties of sponges still exist. So I do not see how a animal can change outside a set of variations.

An isolated population of sponges was put under selective pressure and evolved very slowly to adapt to their environment. Other populations of sponges, not so isolated and not facing the same pressures, did not. It is no mystery to those who study evolution.

[samuelbb7]

Howdy McCulloch

Been away for awhile.

Please make up your mind. When you are born again, do you have a new nature or the old nature? Or perhaps a dual nature. What does that mean?

You could say we have a dual nature. But I prefer to say we have two natures fighting each other. We have a nature that tends to selfishness the inner child who wants what they want no matter what. Then the Mature caring nature that wants to help others and cares for others.

I thought that the whole reason for the substitutionary sacrifice of the Perfect Son of God was that God was so holy that he could not be in the presence of sin. Lied to again by confused Christians.

Sigh I say to you I do not know something and that I can be mistaken and you say that you are being lied to? True GOD is so HOLY that sin cannot exist in His presence. Also JESUS died to save us so we could live with GOD. I will not ever say that I am perfect and can never make mistakes. So if you will only listen to me if I am perfect and never make mistakes then you must look for some one else to speak. By the way Scientist make mistakes too.

That's like rejecting modern medicine because it cannot cure cancer. Or rejecting chemistry because we have not discovered how all of the subatomic particles interact. We know that abiogenesis happened. We have a good idea about when it happened. We're still looking for how.

No there is no similarity to your analogy. It would be more like saying I found a watch that came to together from an explosion. Many events in abiogenesis are next to impossible to happen if not impossible. A law of Science states all life comes from life yet this theory says no. By the way chemistry was accepted and utilized long before we understood atomic theory. This can be demonstrated in a lab. But worms turning into animals with back bones cannot.

An isolated population of sponges was put under selective pressure and evolved very slowly to adapt to their environment. Other populations of sponges, not so isolated and not facing the same pressures, did not. It is no mystery to those who study evolution.

I do study evolution. I also do not see a real answer in your statement. How did the one set of sponges become fish. There are too many dissimilarities for one to be the ancestor of the other.

[Negachrist]

An isolated population of sponges was put under selective pressure and evolved very slowly to adapt to their environment. Other populations of sponges, not so isolated and not facing the same pressures, did not. It is no mystery to those who study evolution.

I do study evolution. I also do not see a real answer in your statement. How did the one set of sponges become fish. There are too many dissimilarities for one to be the ancestor of the other.

Become fish?

What are you talking about?

[samuelbb7]

One of the current theories in Science today as stated by a PBS show is that after single celled animals developed they grew and adapted into multicell animals such as sponges which then evolved into fish. Others put flat worms between sponges and fish. This is part of the teaching of Evolution.

[Goat]

One of the current theories in Science today as stated by a PBS show is that after single celled animals developed they grew and adapted into multicell animals such as sponges which then evolved into fish. Others put flat worms between sponges and fish. This is part of the teaching of Evolution.

I don't believe that is the path that is proposed. DO you have a link, or are you just going off of memory.

[samuelbb7]

I was going off memory. So I looked it up. I did leave out some steps. It is sponges, Jelly fish then fish.

http://www.allsands.com/science/animals ... tne_gn.htm

So you are correct I did forget some intermediate steps.

[Negachrist]

Ah, that does seem more plausible.

[samuelbb7]

Plausible that it happened or plausible that people think it happened?

I do not see how jelly fish could become true fish. To me that is not plausible.