God is not more merciful than most humans.

[DanieltheDragon]

In order for humans to forgive we go through an emotional state and move past the slight.

In order for God to forgive he has to have a ritualistic blood sacrifice involving torture of a pure being to forgive even the slightest of offenses.


How can God be all powerful if he is restricted in his ability to forgive?

How can God be all merciful if there is a sacrifice restriction on his mercy?

Why does God have a lower capacity of forgiveness than humans?

[DanieltheDragon]

[Replying to post 60 by JehovahsWitness]

I disagree with those commentaries on the premise that if God let them give into their desires, then he need not do anything at all. Why then does the bible specify an action on the part of God? Moreover God declares what he will do and why he is doing it. We have both motive and action which the commentaries presented don't account for.

Perhaps the biggest issue I have with biblical scholarship is that it is performed from biased sources, who have an inherent motivation to protect faith rather than find truth. Apologetics at its core seems inherently flawed in this regard.

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 70 by JehovahsWitness]




[center]
Newton's Third Law of Motion and sin.
Part One[/center]

Explain why making sin inheritable is the "right" thing to do

It's not a matter of making "sin inheritable",

But that's what God did.
You make it sound as if God had nothing to do with it.

__________________

A heathen quotes the Bible:

Genesis 3:16-19 (King James Version)

• 16. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
  
  17. And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
  
  18. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
  
  19. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

__________________

Adam and Eve sinned.. and then all the babies "caught it" like a virus.
For ever.

Until God decides otherwise.

God in his infinite wisdom chose to create a physical universe of cause and effect. Or as Newton put it "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." Our phyiscal universe is governed by laws these render life both possible and pleasurable.

You are confounding laws of motion for God's moral laws for retribution. God was the one who decided that sin was going to be inherited. Not some law of physics.

____________

Questions:

• 
  1. Could you describe how Newton's Third Law of Motion is used to deduce that babies are born with their parent's "sins"?
  2. What ACTION did the baby do to get a reaction? What process transfers guilt from parent to child?

____________

[Justin108]

It's not a matter of making "sin inheritable", God in his infinite wisdom chose to create a physical universe of cause and effect.

Yes, and God chose to include inheritable sin as part of this cause-and-effect relationship. He did not have to but he chose to. It was perfectly in God's control. He chose to design a universe where children suffer for the sins of Adam and Eve. God chose to design an unjust universe

Our phyiscal universe is governed by laws

Yes, and God made these laws. He did not have to, but he did. Why?

these render life both possible and pleasurable.

Are you suggesting that without inheritable sin, life would be neither possible nor pleasurable?

Humans were designed to procreate. In this Mendels laws of genetics comes into play, this is the law that demonstrates that there are inherent species limitations imposed by the genetic makeup of all living things.

- So... sin is somehow a physical gene that can be found in our DNA...?
- Assuming this absurd pseudoscience for a minute... God could easily have excluded sin as an inheritable trait. Not everything is inheritable.
- If Medel's laws of genetics are to blame for the inheritable nature of sin... then you have no clue about how genetics work. Our behavior cannot somehow change our genes. If Adam was sinless, then sinned by eating the fruit, this would not suddenly change his genes. That's not how genetics works... at all.
- If I killed someone in my life and had a kid, will that kid be born a murderer? Of course not. So why are Adam's children born as sinners?
- Citing Mendel to support your notion that sin is somehow an inheritable genetic trait demonstrates your complete lack of understanding of how genetics works. And even if it worked as absurdly as you seem to suggest it does, God could still have mended our biological systems to not have this happen. God has full control

It is essentially that which ensures that humans give birth to other humans.

There is nothing "essential" to God. God can do what he wants with his designs. He can design a biological system that allows for humans to procreate without making sin inheritable.

How emotionally destabalizing distressing and ultimately horrirfic would it be if there was a 50% chance a woman give to a giraffe? Or a crocodile?

Are you seriously suggesting that if sin was not inheritable, people would start giving birth to giraffes...?

The principle of inheritance is simply a feature of the living world

- Again, not everything is inheritable. God could easily have excluded sin from the list of inheritable traits while leaving everything else as it is.
- Making sin inheritable implies that our actions (sinning) somehow alters our DNA. That is not how genetics works...

When Adam sinned they made a decision (as the family head) for himself and his children.

- Why would God give Adam this power? Why would God allow Adam to destroy the lives of the billions of people that would come after him? Even worse is the fact that God knew Adam would do this.
- If Obama gave nuclear weapons to ISIS, would Obama be to blame for what ISIS does with this power? Most certainly. That's essentially what God did: he gave Adam the power to destroy the lives of billions of people, knowing that Adam will do exactly that. God is either incompetent or unjust

It was a bad decision but He had the right to do so.

So God... a perfect entity... made a bad decision?

Before Jehovah could legitimately "override" that decision there were issues that had to be settled.

Your Jehovah seems very limited in his omnipotence...

If God had spared the human race the consequences of Adam's actions there would have been relief but it would only have been temporary because the issue was ultimately of rebellion against his (God's) rule and the bid for independence from God.

- At this point, only Adam and Eve rebelled against God... I'd hardly call two rebels a "rebellion".
- If other people would later join this "rebellion" then so be it. Judge them. Judge the guilty parties. But what God does instead is judge absolutely everyone for the actions of two people. How is this in any way sensible or just?

The human family had the right to make that bid

Why? Why did Adam have the right to bid on our lives? Anyone who gave him this right (God) is necessarily unjust.

And if they are born they would be born inheriting all the physical characteristics imposed on them by their father (Adam)

You have yet to demonstrate why it is necessary for the children to be born with the sin of their parents.

Yes we do. The comfort is that God can and will repair the damage or all those that chose the replacement "father" (Jesus).

Except that many of us won't because we have no reason to believe this "replacement father" even exists. However, if we were born in paradise as Adam was, no one would have doubted God's existence. I would have been in paradise, but because of Adam, I will never be. In your world view, I have been unjustly robbed of my place in paradise by the sins of Adam and God allowed this injustice to occur.

God could not mitigate his punishment of Adam

Again, implying God is not omnipotent

(that would have incurred more suffering that its worth thinking about)

You have yet to demonstrate why this would necessarily lead to more suffering.

He could not impose his rule on Adam's children (without denying their right to choose)

God is denying us our right to choose a life without sin. Adam had this choice in Eden. He had the choice to live without sin, but he ruined it when he ate the fruit. I never had this choice. Why?

but he could given them the chance to be born, and choose life under his (God's) rulership.

Why couldn't God give us the chance to be born in paradise as Adam was?

And then legitimately upon request, override the physical, emotional and spiritual consequences of inheritance.

Why does it have to be on request? It is obviously in our best interest. Does a parent wait for his child's request before he vaccinates him? Or does a responsible parent do what's best for the child regardless?

That's the plan, let each one make his choice.

Except for the fact that we never had the same choices Adam had. If I had, I am absolutely certain I would not have made the same mistake Adam did. As it stands, however, because of my natural skepticism, I will probably not end up in paradise in your world view. Adam is to blame for this, as is God for not allowing me the same chances as Adam

[Mike Boone]

[Replying to post 59 by JehovahsWitness]

JW, first let me express my thanks for you referring me to post #8 in which you mentioned, among other things, that sometimes God must even intervene to permit people to better understand his bible.

But now being 65 years old, I must say that a God has certainly not been intervening enough during the last 50 plus years, to make his book understandable enough and attractive enough, to win souls, because the % of the people in the world who accept Jesus Christ as their savior has not only failed to increase since I was young, but has actually declined somewhat. Here in the 21st century, the fastest growing faith in the world is now Islam.

If counting everyone in the world who even lists himself as a Christian, plus those who say they believe that the Christian religion is probably the truest one, just 1 in 3 people on earth can be classified as Christians. And with the literal bible believing folks in my wife's family, as well as the author's of the Left Behind series of books, all saying that most Catholics are not truly saved, if we would then revise the world count of Christians by excluding Roman Catholics from the total, then the number of Christians in the world represents only 1 in 6 of the people now living on earth.

It should be obvious to all of us that these poor results that reveal Christians to be such a relatively small minority of the world's people, are quite an indication that a God who supposedly has infinite wisdom, is nevertheless, a quite poor communicator when it comes to getting the message and meaning of his son's sacrifice across to billions of his children.

Anyway, as it stands now, depending on whether Catholics are saved or not, of the huge total of people who die on earth each day, at least 2 out of 3, and possibly as many as 5 out of 6, of these people, are dying without Christ as their savior and are going to Hell, according to the claims of my Christian brothers and sisters.

Now as a father, if 5 out of 6, or even just 2 out of 3, of my children ended up being condemned to life sentences in prison, I'd certainly know that I failed as a father.

Well, it looks like the Christian God, if he's real, even with his boundless wisdom, must be the greatest failure, as a Father, in the known universe. Because if the Christian religion is true, the percentage, and especially the staggeringly huge overall total of God's children, who end up coming to bad ends, sure points to a Dad who gets lousy results with his children, in the majority of cases.

[JehovahsWitness]

But now being 65 years old, I must say that a God has certainly not been intervening enough during the last half century plus...

Oh but he has, he has done wonderful things regarding the shedding of light on his word, fabulous, earth moving things, notably from the end of the 19th century and progressively through the 20th century to today. For His people.


[youtube][/youtube]

[JehovahsWitness]

If counting everyone in the world who even lists himself as a Christian, plus those who say they believe that the Christian religion is probably the truest one, just 1 in 3 people on earth can be classified as Christians.

# QUESTION: Did Jesus indicate that the many billions of people professing to be Christians will be counted as such by him?

Well that might be where you're going wrong in your reasoning. Jesus Christ (arguably the best placed to say how to classify someone as a Christian" reportedly said the following on the subject:



Evidently confessing Jesus as one's LORD and savior and performing good works in his (Jesus) name is not enough to be "classified" as a Christian by the one that counts. Thus its possible that the actual number of Christians is much smaller than you seem to believe. Indeed Jesus said that the number of people on the road to life is "small" and very "few" find it. So it seems reasonable in the light of Jesus' words to conclude that those counted as "Christian" by God are a minority on the world scene.


# Doesn't that make God and Jesus failures and/or bad communicators?

One man's failure is another man's success. God has chosen not to force people to listen to him, he is searching for men and women of faith. Jesus assured us that not one of these "sheep" (one's that have the heart condition that he is looking for) will be lost. For him that then (not losing any of his own) would be success.




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JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES , THE TRUE RELIGION and ...CHARLES TAZE RUSSELL

[marco]

Oh but he has, he has done wonderful things regarding the shedding of light on his word, fabulous, earth moving things, notably from the end of the 19th century and progressively through the 20th century to today. For His people.

This is a very nice thing to observe and I'm sure Pope Francis would be thrilled to hear it. But I'm also sure that he would not express his supposed special status in a way that suggested those outside of his flock are losers.

But yes, some people thought that the election of a Polish Pope was earth-moving, and that a modest soul like Francis, with his obvious concern for the poor, was an unlikely candidate to be Bishop of Rome. God does move in mysterious ways.

[marco]

Evidently confessing Jesus as one's LORD and savior and performing good works in his (Jesus) name is not enough to be "classified" as a Christian by the one that counts.

A slight error, JW. Jesus did not say anything about those who perform good works - you have substituted that for one of the maligned categories. It is interesting to note that Jesus was against those who come out with prophecies. This might well refer to people who say the end is close at hand. He doesn't like people who claim to perform miracles in his name - the charlatans perhaps who get people to stand up and be counted in return for "curing" them. And of course he doesn't like people involving themselves with devils .... naturally.

But people who give a cup of water in his name, remember, are very much favoured. We must be very careful, when using Scripture, to use it carefully else we might be accused to distorting it. Perish the thought!

[Mike Boone]

But now being 65 years old, I must say that a God has certainly not been intervening enough during the last half century plus...

Oh but he has, he has done wonderful things regarding the shedding of light on his word, fabulous, earth moving things, notably from the end of the 19th century and progressively through the 20th century to today. For His people.


[youtube][/youtube]

Let me respectfully say, JehovahsWitness, that if the Christian religion, and Christ as our savior, were true, then Christianity would be such a powerfully bright beacon of truth, naturally attracting so many people to its light, that all other religions would shrink in its wake. But instead of that, we are now seeing Islam attracting new believers at a considerably greater rate than the Christian religion is managing to do. That's not to say that I think much of Islam, because to me, it is obviously just one more collection of human created BS. But it certainly doesn't help the credibility of Christianity to see Islam attracting new people at a faster clip. I guess those folks who are now going Muslim just must not find Christianity to be very believable. Well, it looks like I agree with Muslims on at least 1 matter.

[JehovahsWitness]

Let me respectfully say, JehovahsWitness, that if the Christian religion, and Christ as our savior, were true, then Christianity would be such a powerfully bright beacon of truth, naturally attracting so many people to its light, that all other religions would shrink in its wake.

It may seem to you, but is that what Jesus said?



Which word did Jesus associate with life? "few" or "many"?

True Christianity is indeed a bright shining light attracting millions and shining with its message and example in a dark world but Jesus already said that there would be "few" a minority that would find the road to life, not because it wasn't bright enough but because the majority would, like Satan "love darkness".

True Christianity rises above other religions not because its bigger but because it's better.