Are sins equal?

[Princess Luna On The Moon]

I'm an Atheist, but I've always been curious about the idea of sin. The bible mentions things like murder, theft, hypocrisy, homosexuality, dishonesty, adultery, and coveting to name a few specifics. Would all of these be considered the same in the eyes of god, or are some worse? If so, why? Also, why are some of these considered 'sins' in the first place, like homosexuality?

[ttruscott]

[Replying to post 27 by ttruscott]

Are you saying that once you reject him you are slave to sin and therefore God can do whatever he wants?

A strange question...GOD can and does do whatever HE wants because HE only wants what is best for HIS family and perfect justice for HIS enemies.

Ever sinner is a slave to sin. Some can be reborn and their slavery ended, Some cannot. The only reason GOD would not help everyone to rebirth is that some people do not want HIM to do that. What could posses them to reject HIS offer of salvation? Only the believe that HE was a false god and his promises and warnings were false and mere manipulations to get his peers (not his creation) to bow to him.

Since we can only come under HIS promise of salvation by our free will choice to accept it, those who try to renter the promise after realizing the great mistake they have made cannot enter the promise because they are coerced by their new understanding of of reality and are trying to enter out of fear, nor from a free will desire to live as HIS Bride in heaven forever.

This rejection of both HIS deity and HIS offer of salvation is the sin that puts people in hell, not the evil they do on earth.

Peace, Ted

[Mesopatamia]

[Replying to post 5 by Princess Luna On The Moon]

I look at it this way. In the same way that someone can say, "an atheist is someone who hates G-d and who is immoral and just doesn't want to give up their sin" is in many if not most cases, a very unfair and inaccurate depiction, many people attribute the same kind of inaccurate depiction of G-d.

I believe that the reason most atheists or many don't believe in G-d is because they have an inherent knowledge of right and wrong and when they see "religious" people transgress those basic lines of morality, their credibility is completely lost. It's very angering when people speak for you, as if they know you, but yet have never even taken the time to get to know you or listen to you before judging you.

The same goes for G-d. I'm sure He hates to be misrepresented and for people to depict Him as something He is not.

However, what if that inherent knowledge of right from wrong that you have was actually the compass He gave you? What if that was the thing he put in you to make you search and find Him? What if the things that you just KNOW are wrong are actually wrong to Him too, even if they are happening in the very people who are supposed to be representing Him? The point here, is just like a Christian cannot learn about an atheists pov just by simply speaking to another Christian, while avoiding asking an atheist directly, G-d ultimately wants each person to come to Him directly and ask Him. Only then will you begin to get the accurate answer.

I can tell you that G-d is good, loving, accepting, kind, merciful. Anything that seems to contradict that falls on the part of our lack of understanding or misinterpreting. Our paradigm is off.

As far as Hell, Hell is simply the absence of G-d. As far as our choice in life, we choose to be with Him or we choose to be without Him. If we don't want to be with G-d, and we have free will to choose, we simply are making the choice of do we want to be with G-d or do we want nothing to do with him? We get exactly what we want and it is our choice. Here's the thing. Everything good in this world, comes from Him. If you were to remove everything that is G-d, what you would have is Hell. Those things you attribute to G-d? Injustice, cruelty, slavery, hypocrisy, Those are not G-d. Those are the things you are stuck with when you remove G-d. There is an enemy in this world and he is here to deceive you. And he is good at his job. One of his best tactics is to do bad things in G-d's name, in order to discredit Him. But again, G-d gave you an idea of good and bad that you were born with to give you enough to search those answers out. Animals were not given this; just man. We are the only life on this planet that wonders about the idea of divinity or spiritual things. Just the idea that we have any kind of spirituality when nothing in nature seems to have that raises a question, at least for me, anyhow.

I realize that you don't believe any of this, but i wanted to answer your question and explain my pov. Thanks for reading.

[Bust Nak]

[Replying to post 32 by Mesopatamia]

There is a huge difference between not wanting to be with God, and wanting to suffer in the absence of everything good associated with God. If I end up in the hell that is the mere absence of the good of God, it would not be a case of getting exactly what I want at all. It would actually be against my freewill. Here is an analogy: smoking and lung cancer. Lots of people want to smoke, none of them want lung cancer. Tell telling a smoker suffering with cancer that he got exactly what he wanted, and he choose cancer with his own free will.

[Mesopatamia]

[Replying to Bust Nak]

That's a great point Bust Nak. I like your analogy, and you are right. I should have used the word "consequence". You choose to smoke without focusing on the consequence, yet, there is a consequence. The free will part is choosing a relationship or not.

[ttruscott]

[Replying to Bust Nak]

That's a great point Bust Nak. I like your analogy, and you are right. I should have used the word "consequence". You choose to smoke without focusing on the consequence, yet, there is a consequence. The free will part is choosing a relationship or not.

And, if I may, part of the consequence is a natural part of the consequence though not the intended part....

If the sentence for a crime is to be put off the boat then a natural effect will be to become wet though this is not the intent of the sentence. The intent is to protect the other passengers from your criminal tendencies but many try to use the wetness to slander the Judge or to 'poor-me" the criminal to side track from the crimes that led to the banishment.

The judgement is banishment to the outer darkness and the natural effect of that is suffering which cannot be escaped though it is not the intent of the judgement.

Peace, Ted

[ttruscott]

[Replying to post 32 by Mesopatamia]

There is a huge difference between not wanting to be with God, and wanting to suffer in the absence of everything good associated with God.
...
Tell telling a smoker suffering with cancer that he got exactly what he wanted, and he choose cancer with his own free will.

May I suggest that the process is the same?

The smoker who wants the pleasure of smoking but not the consequence, IF he has heard all the warnings and proceeded to choose to smoke anyway, is quite analogous to the person who is tempted to reject faith in GOD in face of the very serious warnings against such a choice.

"I made my bed so I'm prepared to lie in it." reflects upon both scenarios...we do know that our actions today do in fact impinge upon our reality in the future and not wanting to reap that reality does not mean we did not in fact put ourselves in harms way by our own choice. They took the chance and lost. They put their faith in the belief that the warnings were lies or would not catch up to them and lost. But they did in fact choose from knowledge the warning had been given and what it would mean to them if they were choosing badly.

Peace, Ted

[Bust Nak]

May I suggest that the process is the same?

The smoker who wants the pleasure of smoking but not the consequence, IF he has heard all the warnings and proceeded to choose to smoke anyway, is quite analogous to the person who is tempted to reject faith in GOD in face of the very serious warnings against such a choice.

"I made my bed so I'm prepared to lie in it." reflects upon both scenarios...we do know that our actions today do in fact impinge upon our reality in the future and not wanting to reap that reality does not mean we did not in fact put ourselves in harms way by our own choice. They took the chance and lost. They put their faith in the belief that the warnings were lies or would not catch up to them and lost. But they did in fact choose from knowledge the warning had been given and what it would mean to them if they were choosing badly.

There is one huge difference. Lung cancer is purely a natural consequence. Hell is an artificial consequence - a punishment. For them to be the same progress, an authority must declare smoking illegal, and the penalty of this act is lung cancer. You get caught smoking? The judge can then sentence you to a dose of radiation or injection to induce cancer.

If it was as you say, the intention was merely to segregate them from the non-smoker, then inducing cancer would certainly not pass the cruel and unusual punishment test of law making.

[Mesopatamia]

[Replying to Bust Nak]

We are all already destined to spend eternity in the absence of G-d - Hell. That is our "natural" condition. That is why Jesus came and conquered death so that we could be saved from what was already our destination. He is not the judge who gives the lung cancer. He is like the doctor who removes the cancer.

[Bust Nak]

[Replying to Bust Nak]

We are all already destined to spend eternity in the absence of G-d - Hell. That is our "natural" condition. That is why Jesus came and conquered death so that we could be saved from what was already our destination. He is not the judge who gives the lung cancer. He is like the doctor who removes the cancer.

That is easier to digest, but is it really what the Bible say? The Bible says we deserve hell but it is not phrased as a mere consequence of sin but as a punishment, with verses such as:

The Lord preserves all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy.
For the wages of sin is death.
And these will go away into eternal punishment.
The wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.
For those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.
And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction.

And there are lots more that phrase hell as punishment. Which verse do you use the support the idea that hell is not inflicted?

[Mesopatamia]

[Replying to Bust Nak]

Challenging question. I often have many of the same type of questions myself, which, in my opinion, is a good thing. I was trying to figure out the best approach on how to reconcile this in some way. I think that it is both a punishment and a consequence. The concept, in some sense, is paradoxical.


Are you familiar with the story of Esther? In the story, there is a king who is deceived and manipulated into ordering a decree that in one year, on a certain date, all the Jews of the land would be destroyed. At the end of the story, when he finds out that he was tricked, and even worse, that it was revealed that his beautiful wife was, in fact, Jewish and she would also have to be destroyed, he was in a quandary.

The problem was that "no document written in the King's name and sealed with his ring can be revoked" (Esther 8:8) A king had to be just and once he gave a decree, he had to stand by it. He couldn't go back on his word and undo the original decree, yet he wanted to save his wife and her people. So, he wrote another decree. He didn't undo the first decree. Instead, he signed a new edict that the Jews had a right to assemble and to destroy, kill and annihilate any armed force that may attack them or their women and children"

G-d is fair and He is just. It is His nature to be fair and just but it is also his nature to be merciful and full of grace. Fair and just mean that we get what we deserve. Not one of us has the holiness of G-d, yet he created us without sin. The punishment for sin is death and G-d had already established this from the start. He cannot undo what Is, because that isn't in His nature. His nature is perfect and just, so it doesn't change. Yet, he loves everyone of us and doesn't want to lose any of us. If a parent tells her child, "if you choose to sneak out of this house to go to the concert, the consequences will result in my taking away your car". The parent is hoping the child makes the right choice, but when the child sneaks out anyway, does the parent go through with the punishment? A good parent should, because inconsistency only weakens a foundation for learning. A parent hates that they have to take away their child's car, but they know they must because that was the rule and the child chose to break it.

This is why it goes back to choice. We are already destined for Hell, because we all fall short of G-d's glory (anything less than G-d's holiness). Imperfection cannot exist in His presence, in the same way that light cannot exist in darkness. Try taking a flashlight and shining it into a dark corner and retaining a dark corner. It just isn't possible. It's His nature, not his desire to be separate from us. So, how did he fix this dilemma? He came in the flesh and conquered death and rose again. Jesus was like a bridge between the flesh and spiritual. It was his love that sent Him to come rescue us.

Through Him, we can have our sins removed so that we can be of the same nature as G-d and remain in his presence. Our sins will be completely removed prior to us standing in front of G-d, so that we may stand in front of G-d. His glory and holiness would naturally consume us the way a light shines brightly into darkness. We must become light to exist in light. It says in the bible that G-d never allowed his face to be seen by anyone He appeared to. Moses had to hide his face because he would have been killed. Not that G-d would kill him as a deliberation, but rather, the darkness in Moses as compared to the brightness of G-d's glory would be consumed.