The Most immoral Act in the History of the Earth

[Danmark]

I submit that the single greatest act of immorality is recorded in the sixth chapter of Genesis:
'So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.�'

In the 20th century, the most serious acts of genocide involved less than 1% of the human population. Examples are: the extermination of the Armenian minority in Turkey, the extermination of Jews, Roma (Gypsies) and others by the Nazis, the extermination of the ethnic Albanians by the Serbs in Kosovo in the former Yugoslavia. The perpetrators have become the most hated of people. But the genocide resulting from the great flood is far more serious. It is recorded as having destroyed over 99% of the human race, leaving only eight humans alive.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/imm_bibl3.htm#noah

[Divine Insight]

You probably see it as an adaptation. I see it as a correction.

Yes I see the entire Hebrew mythology as nothing more than adaptations and common superstitions from previous folklores.

After all, why would any God be having such problems with a supposedly fallen angel, or evil demon to begin with?

If the wages of sin is death, and sin is disobedience of God, then why weren't these sinful demons simply killed?

Obviously the wages of sin for Satan is to be made to crawl on his belly and eat dirt.

Moreover, that curse doesn't appear to have any adverse affect on Satan in any case. Even whilst he's crawling on his belly and eating dirt he seems to have managed to turn the entire world to evil so that every single thought of mankind was evil. And then God needs to flood out his entire creation because this evil Satan has turned all of humanity against God.

I mean, with all due respect, you can be serious that you expect me to take these fables seriously?

And I'm supposed to believe all of this as a matter of pure faith?

Not only that, but if this Satan serpent fellow is the one who is causing all the problems then why is mankind being held responsible for all this evil stuff?

This was another one of my greatest complaints with the "Fall from Grace" fable.

If the fable had Adam and Eve deciding on their own to plot against God and try to get away with disobeying God it might have been a bit more believable. But why should mankind be held responsible for Eve having been beguiled by an evil serpent?

Not only does this story of the fall from grace make Eve appear to be perfectly INNOCENT, but it also has Eve confessing everything to God after the fact, and turning in the guilty serpent. She even confesses to having been beguiled.

Here Eve is doing everything that can possibly be expected of a nice little Christian Girl. She's confessing here sins and turning in all guilty parties, and not even giving God a hard time about. She's not standing there yelling at God, "I hate you! And I'm not going to obey your stupid laws! I'm going with the serpent over here and you can keep your Garden of Eden. I'm not going to obey you!"

She doesn't even remotely behave that way in this fable.

The story isn't even convincing that Eve, or all of mankind even deserve to be held responsible for what some evil serpent might have done. He shouldn't have been there in the fist place. Couldn't Adam and Eve trust God to protect them from evil serpents?

This story does nothing but tell us that this God is totally untrustworthy.

It's not only a very poorly written fable, but it's certainly nothing that I would want to believe in as a matter of pure faith.

Are you kidding me? If it needs to be believed as a matter of faith, then I would have much more reason to place my faith in the ideal that these fables are totally false.

Why would anyone what Christianity to be true? Especially Christianity. Not only do we need to believe that we are somehow responsible for a "fall from grace" but this religion is also demanding that we be held hostage to this God's own corrupt priests calling for the crucifixion of his only begotten son.

Why in the world would anyone want to believe that they are totally responsible for all this horrible stuff, just a matter of pure faith.

You've got to be kidding me.

Surely any Christian who discovers that Christianity is totally false should jump for joy. Talk about Good News! That should be the best news any Christian could ever hope to hear. That would mean that they haven't fallen from grace from their creator, and the blood of Jesus' crucifixion is not on their hands.

What could be better news than that?

To believe in Christianity as a matter of pure faith, is truly insane. I just don't know how else to describe it.

You need to believe a lot of horrible things in order to believe in this religion. That's just the facts. It would seem to me that no one would believe this religion unless they felt that they had absolutely no other choice.

[ttruscott]

...

Imagine under any other context, somebody would say: "Human babies deserve a horrible death by drowning. That's justice"!

...

Then imagine that it is true and compare that to how many babies dies by drowning? Shows a lot of restraint on the part of the Judge, eh?

Let's widen the scope to include death by any means for babies...if it is so horrendous, how are we having a population explosion like never before. GOD must be treating these criminals in baby bodies pretty well to allow them to grow to adult hood and have their own young ones, eh?

And another thing, why is the death of babies worse that death five years later or 55? Death is death...

I think bjs got it right in his post:

So what specifically is the issue you are upset with? Is it:

1. There is death at all?
2. Death is caused by drowning?
3. A large group of people died at the same time?
4. Some people die at a younger age than other people?
5. God sometimes explicitly states that He had a hand in certain deaths instead of sitting back and assuming that we will remember that He has a hand in all deaths?
6. This specific set of deaths as opposed to all others, and if so what makes this different in your mind?
7. Something else entirely, and if so what?

Without knowing what specifically you upset with it is hard to give a complete response.

One must know the theology they want to argue against, not just their emotional objections...

Peace, Ted

[OnceConvinced]

Let's widen the scope to include death by any means for babies...if it is so horrendous, how are we having a population explosion like never before. GOD must be treating these criminals in baby bodies pretty well to allow them to grow to adult hood and have their own young ones, eh?

If we a going by your theology, Ted, it would mean that more and more spiritual beings are rebelling against God in Sheol. God must be having some trouble keeping things under control there. (actually I dedicated a thread to you on this subject in the "Questions to individual users" sub forum. )

[ttruscott]

...

For me Ted, this is just more evidence against your preexistence 'soul' theory.

If God had made these bodiless souls, and then he allowed them to inhabit bodies, He knew ahead of time that he would regret making them in the first place, as souls.

Yes, I agree except I do not accept the connotations of regret so much as HE "consoled HIMself" which is also just as reputable...in other words, when HE let the situation grow as it did until it reached HIS limits of bearability and fulfilled HIS purpose, He consoled Himself that the time had come to end it and start again.

This interpretation is the only one that does not go against everything else we know about HIM. Orthodoxy is just too complacent with blasphemy as far as I'm concerned.

And the fact that HE used a flood is no more unbelievable than a fire or the sudden loss of all oxygen so it is neither here not there... world wide destruction of all living things is what it is...

Peace, Ted

[ThePainefulTruth]

[Replying to post 40 by ttruscott]

Even if it were true that it is written that we are born evil, and I know of no biblical verse where God declares that to be so, I wouldn't believe it because it goes against our free will and would make our self-awareness superfluous.

Psalm 51:5 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

This is enough for me to agree that we have no free will here on earth and because I believe in the necessity of free will, I contend we must have had our time of free will, before earth, before birth, in sheol.

Then what is the purpose of the universe? Why not just go straight from your pre-sheol to heaven or hell and bypass our trials and tribulations here? I can think of no better argument against the supposed divine authority of the Bible. What could God not do immediately without the 13 billion year separation between us and our genesis?

[ttruscott]

...

Satan is not an animal, he is a spiritual being, so comparing him to other beasts created by God in the creation story just doesn't work. UNLESS Satan is a retrofit made by Christians and it really was a talking snake in the story and not Satan.

But ok, Animals are sinners. Were they also spiritual beings who were sent to earth to be born as animals as a punishment (not penance) from God? Are lambs, cockroaches, ants, kittens, and all the rest also repressing memories of sins they committed in spirit form?

I have wrestled with these ideas for many years and to be fair to you, I have come to no conclusions...there is just not enough info to know for sure.

BUT I am willing to share another bit of speculation that might fit this situation, (vague enough yet?) and that is the report of many people that they know they have lived past lives. What if that were true and they really have lived multiple lives? Past lives means reincarnation or multiple lives on earth which is quite distinct from pre-existence which is one life, first pre-earth then moved to earth, which I am sure you appreciate. The point is that most of those who believe in reincarnation claim to know that the people reincarnated into new life on earth can be reincarnated as animals...see where this takes us?

Christians accept the verse that says die once and then the judgment as refuting reincarnation but it does not, it only refutes the idea that more lives has an evolutionary effect upon the moral quality of the spirit being reincarnated...and claims there is no moral growth over many lives; they all end like the first one with judgment.

Also since we are told that the lives of HIS sinful elect are predestined to heaven we can assume that one life is sufficient for HIM to bring HIS sinful elect to redemption and so no extra life is necessary. This would indicate that those experiencing multiple lives in truth are not elect at all.

This sets up the possibility that pagans who will never believe in Christ are counted more than once in the numbers of humans who ever lived, even many times more, increasing the count but not the number who ever lived without believing greatly but who are reborn over and over to keep HIS world filled with them. Those HE wants in abeyance could be reborn as the sinful animals, over and over. This satisfies both religions as to what happens if not as to the final outcome.

I don't often mention this aspect of things because of the emotional knee jerk bleating it caused elsewhere but for some reason I trust you to treat these ideas logically and give the kind of feed back I look for.

I've always contended that sin proves free will because GOD could not condemn someone for something they were created to do and did not choose. So if animals are sinful (and why write it that way except to express just that) they must have had free will and that presumable is one of the attributes of the spirits created in HIS image, <big sigh>.

My main pov in this kind of querying is that rather than use such conundrums to disparage the whole of Christian reality as I used to do, now that I have a new perspective on that reality, I query and puzzle and seek answers to how can these things fit into the reality of Christ and YHWH that I now believe. Some things come fast, some not so much...

Peace, Ted

[ttruscott]

Psalm 51:5 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

This is enough for me to agree that we have no free will here on earth and because I believe in the necessity of free will, I contend we must have had our time of free will, before earth, before birth, in sheol.

Peace, Ted

To support your beliefs it would have to read:

"Surely I was sinful BEFORE birth, sinful EVEN BEFORE the time my mother conceived me."

The fact this verse says we are sinful from the point of conception, contradicts the notion that we were spiritual beings before that point and that we first sinned then.

How you hunt the details - it is so invigorating after empty emotional outbursts!

So outside of the fact that IF we were not sinners before conception and if our conception was our creation then GOD had to create us sinners (by some means or another, it matters not) which is a most horrendous blasphemy...

I will now proceed to the story of the man born blind:
John 9:1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?�

Now the Hebrews had no tradition of an infant bearing the sins of his parents (either alive or dead) nor any tradition of a pre-existence life wherein a man might become a sinner before his birth, but after less than 3 years with the Christ they are asking if he was born blind for his own (pre-existent) sin or HIS parent's sin applied to him at conception perhaps.

Jesus does not correct them for a faulty view of a person being born with a pre-existent sin though HE often delighted in scolding them for being foolish and wayward... No, He merely said the blindness was not a chastisement for sin, pre-existent or other wise, but so He would be glorified by healing the man, a miracle that the rabbis taught only the messiah could preform.

This is definitely not suggesting any inherited sin blasphemy but implied they believed he might have sinned before his birth. I wonder where they got the idea this was possible???

Peace, Ted

[ttruscott]

Let's widen the scope to include death by any means for babies...if it is so horrendous, how are we having a population explosion like never before. GOD must be treating these criminals in baby bodies pretty well to allow them to grow to adult hood and have their own young ones, eh?

If we a going by your theology, Ted, it would mean that more and more spiritual beings are rebelling against God in Sheol. God must be having some trouble keeping things under control there. (actually I dedicated a thread to you on this subject in the "Questions to individual users" sub forum. )

No, sorry but you miss my meaning - all of the self creation of people as rebellious was over before the creation of the physical world. There is no new rebellion at all but only that those sinners waiting in sheol are coming to earth in greater numbers. Gee, that fortuitously coincides with the lessening of the animal species due to extinctions from loss of habitat too, eh?

I consider these numbers of non-elect no matter how measured to refer to a minor few of all of creation and that the number of the sinful elect are even less. I don't think the end times is for more sinful elect to become humans but it is a time for the most stubborn sinful elect to become human, those who are the strongest in their idolatry of the non-elect as just misunderstood.

Peace, Ted

[ttruscott]

[Replying to post 40 by ttruscott]

Even if it were true that it is written that we are born evil, and I know of no biblical verse where God declares that to be so, I wouldn't believe it because it goes against our free will and would make our self-awareness superfluous.

Psalm 51:5 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

This is enough for me to agree that we have no free will here on earth and because I believe in the necessity of free will, I contend we must have had our time of free will, before earth, before birth, in sheol.

Then what is the purpose of the universe? Why not just go straight from your pre-sheol to heaven or hell and bypass our trials and tribulations here? I can think of no better argument against the supposed divine authority of the Bible. What could God not do immediately without the 13 billion year separation between us and our genesis?

To a Christian, the holiness of GOD means that He cannot abide by sin but must eradicate it. When some of HIS creation rebelled against HIS deity and promise of salvation, self creating themselves as eternally evil demons, HE immediately called all of those who had accepted HIS deity and got HIS promise of election to heaven by the salvation found in HIS Son if they should ever sin, to come out from among the reprobate before they could be contaminated by their evil, so these non-elect could be judged.

Some of the elect thought this call to judgement was too rushed and did not believe YHWH when HE claimed the reprobate were beyond redemption and that if He was truly a GOD of love He should be able to convert them and by this rebellion they too became evil.

Then He called all of the remaining elect to break their emotional ties with these sinful elect and some elect did not like to trust their newly sinful friends with GOD's mercy and so sided with the sinful elect and thereby also became sinful too. So each call to come out weeded out another level of those who could not trust HIM to be doing the right thing until finally this decision making was all over and everyone had self created their eternal relationship with HIM.

It seems to be that the judgment is a blanket judgment against all evil, not just one or two evil people at time, so if any elect were sinful when the judgment was called, they too would be banished to hell. Since election meant HE had promised that they would never go to hell but that HE would do everything and anything to save them from sins, the judgment had to be postponed until the last most stubborn sinful elect was finally brought to holiness and the judgment could finally commence.

[Aside: The scripture notice that the judgment had to be postponed is in the parable of the good but sinful seed, in Matt 13:28 ... “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ 29 “ ‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. Pull up the tares is the judgement...no is the postponement. Let them grow together is the method of bringing the sinful elect to repentance by suffering.]

Now I operate from the pov that GOD does what is perfect for HIS sinful elect so, without knowing how fragile or stubborn HIS sinful elect truly are, I can only suggest that the immense number of years spent between the initial postponement of the judgment and the final sanctification of the last sinful elect by living with the reprobate here on the earth as humans reflects either our fragility or indeed, our intense addiction to evil.

<shrug>

Peace, Ted

[Divine Insight]

Psalm 51:5 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

This is enough for me to agree that we have no free will here on earth and because I believe in the necessity of free will, I contend we must have had our time of free will, before earth, before birth, in sheol.

Peace, Ted

To support your beliefs it would have to read:

"Surely I was sinful BEFORE birth, sinful EVEN BEFORE the time my mother conceived me."

The fact this verse says we are sinful from the point of conception, contradicts the notion that we were spiritual beings before that point and that we first sinned then.

How you hunt the details - it is so invigorating after empty emotional outbursts!

So outside of the fact that IF we were not sinners before conception and if our conception was our creation then GOD had to create us sinners (by some means or another, it matters not) which is a most horrendous blasphemy...

I will now proceed to the story of the man born blind:
John 9:1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?�

Now the Hebrews had no tradition of an infant bearing the sins of his parents (either alive or dead) nor any tradition of a pre-existence life wherein a man might become a sinner before his birth, but after less than 3 years with the Christ they are asking if he was born blind for his own (pre-existent) sin or HIS parent's sin applied to him at conception perhaps.

Jesus does not correct them for a faulty view of a person being born with a pre-existent sin though HE often delighted in scolding them for being foolish and wayward... No, He merely said the blindness was not a chastisement for sin, pre-existent or other wise, but so He would be glorified by healing the man, a miracle that the rabbis taught only the messiah could preform.

This is definitely not suggesting any inherited sin blasphemy but implied they believed he might have sinned before his birth. I wonder where they got the idea this was possible???

Peace, Ted

But that's not what the scriptures are saying Ted.

John 9:1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?�

They ask if this man had sinned, or his parents. The Bible does teach in places that sin will be passed down through generations. So since this man was born blind his blindness must have been a result of his parents sins. That's what they were basically asking.

And ironically Jesus' answer has absolutely nothing to do with sin at all. Jesus proclaims that this particular man was born blind solely so that Jesus could heal him and prove that he has powers of God.

I personally think this is one of the worst stories in the New Testament. Why would a God purposefully blind someone from birth just so Jesus could heal them? Aren't there enough people who naturally need to be healed around? Also would this be true of everyone that Jesus healed?

Where they all inflicted with their ailments by God just so Jesus could heal them?

Jesus taught his disciples to go around healing people. What about those people? Where they also cursed by God just so the disciples could heal them?

This also points to another contradiction.

You say, "No, He merely said the blindness was not a chastisement for sin, pre-existent or other wise, but so He would be glorified by healing the man, a miracle that the rabbis taught only the messiah could preform."

If only the messiah could perform this magic then how do you explain that Jesus taught his disciples that they would be able to do even greater works then he?

We have Jesus teaching a few chapters later in John:

John 14:12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.

Where in Christian history do we see tales of anyone doing "greater works" than Jesus?

And if we don't, what can this mean? It seems to me that it can only mean one thing. No Christian has ever truly believed on Jesus.

Either that or the whole religion is a sham.

Take your choice.