The Prodigal Son for debate

[Divine Insight]

I just watched the video posted by Otseng in the Holy Huddle forum. It's a story I'm well familiar with.

However there appears to be a grave contradiction in this story. The obedient son who had become jealous at the end of the story was supposedly upset that his father had killed the fatted calf to celebrate the return of the prodigal son.

Buy then the father turns to is righteous son and says, "Everything I have is yours".

How is this not a contradiction? According to the story the righteous son was upset because his father wouldn't even give him a goat to share with his friends. (see video @ 3:15) But now the father is claiming that everything he has also belongs to his righteous son.

Is the son only just now being told that everything his father has is also his free for the taking? If that's true then what's up with him complaining that his father never gave him so much as a young goat?

These are the kinds of self-contradictions that tend to always plague the Biblical stories.

Sure, from a purely moral perspective, we can make some kind of moral justification for this tale as being nothing more than a moral parable. However, that doesn't change the fact that the parable contains serious contradictions.

The righteous Son in this story apparently felt that his father would not permit him to take a young goat and share it with his friends. In fact, the mere fact that the righteous son was so upset about this implies that the son had actually requested this in the past only to have his father deny him.

So the story appears to me to have some serious self-contradictions associated with it.

Question for debate: How is this parable not self-contradictory?

Note to Otseng: Great video production by the way. It's not your fault that the original story contains these contradictory inconsistencies. If what the father claimed was true (that he would deny nothing from the righteous son), then why would the righteous son have any reason to be jealous of the prodigal son?

The story shoots itself in its own foot with this extreme contradiction concerning the righteous Son. He was upset about something that supposedly didn't even exist. Supposedly he could have had a young goat to share with his friends anytime he wanted and apparently just didn't know. This seems a bit problematic to me.

[otseng]

I was born and raised as a Christian. Doesn't that make me a Christian for the rest of eternity?

I was born and raised an agnostic. But, that doesn’t make me remain agnostic for the rest of my life.

If you are referring to once saved and always saved, I don’t believe in that. It’s quite possible to reject God and no longer be a Christian. I’ve been listening to ex-Christians on Youtube that turned away from the faith (Clergy Project). None that I’ve listened to refer to themselves as Christians anymore.

The term Christian is more of a label that is used to let others have an idea of who we are. At a minimum, it means one who believes in God and the Bible. If one rejects God and rejects the Bible, I don’t see how one can still identify as being a Christian.

Or unless you mean you are a cultural Christian. But, usually these only apply to people who have not identified with any other religion. These people also have not thought much about religion at all and just call themselves that because all their friends are also Christians.

Religion is tribalism in it's most primal form.

This is why I prefer to be viewed as a human rather than one of these tribal labels.

Then why say you are a Christian if it’s tribalism?

This is what I have difficulty understanding. How can you continue to believe that it's true, especially after having seen and read all the obvious flaws this theology has via the posts in these forums over the years.

Actually, my faith has strengthened after all these years on the forum.

My theology certainly has changed over the years, but the basic belief in God and the Bible has remained. After numerous debates, I believe Christianity is more rational than any other worldview.

Yes, there are flaws in theology. And it’s interesting to look into those things. Some are obvious, some not so obvious. For example, it’s been interesting challenging the traditional view that John wrote the fourth gospel.

How can you not see that the constant apologies for the theology amount to nothing more than claiming that those who point out the flaws are simply "misunderstanding" what the theology is all about? That apology gets old real quick.

In fact, didn't you just use that on me in your post?

I’m not saying my viewpoint is what everyone needs to accept as truth. I post to simply show that there is a different way to interpret the passages.

Continually accusing non-believers of misunderstanding God simply doesn't work.

Yes, I understand and sympathize with that. We have posters here that continually claim they are God’s prophets and alone know the truth and everyone else misunderstands.

I do not claim to have the absolute truth. I’m learning all the time and there’s still many things for me to learn. But, likewise, you do not have the absolute truth either. So, by debating opposing positions, we can arrive closer to the truth.

And why should they have a false image of God in the first place. There can only be two possible reasons for that.

1. The person is to stupid to understand God.

2. God failed to convey his true nature with clarity.

Another factor is people have added man-made ideas to the truth of God. We are swimming in much of this and it’s hard to discern what is man-made and what is truth. What non-Christians do is just throw it all out, including the concept of God. But, the more difficult thing to do is go through the hard work of reasoning and evidence to arrive at truth.

We’re going to many side topics here. And it seems like there’s not much more to add to the story of the prodigal son. One topic that does seem to generate a lot of interest though is hell. Perhaps someone can create a thread on what is the Biblical view of hell?

[Peds nurse]

Well, because I know the character of God and I have a relationship with Him through the Holy Spirit He has given me.

In other words, this God had darn well better live up to your expectations of what you expect his character should be otherwise you'll be extremely disappointed in God.

Before I begin to address your response, I would like to say something. I really enjoy discussing our differences. I appreciate your patience, kindness, and tolerance of my not so good debating...thank you!

I don't have any relationships with anyone as you described, let alone God. I am pretty sure it wouldn't work out well. My expectations of God are based on faith, not my demands.

Thanks for the marriage tip. I disagree with you, because I never said I was the only one ever wrong....moving on.....

Yeah, but what do you do when you feel that you are right and hubby is wrong but refuses to agree with you that's he's wrong?

That's when you face a situation where you no longer have any control. Admitting that you're wrong when you're wrong is the easy part.

I love my husband more than being right about something. Respectfully, I tell him my thoughts and move on.

In your life, you always did what your parents and employment asked of you, 100% of the time?

Of course not. In fact, I hope you don't think that God would expect anyone to just do whatever their parents or bosses tell them to do. What if your parents are criminal and are asking you to do immoral things?

Let's not forget Peds, I see Christianity (and the whole Abrahamic shebang) as nothing more than a scam where authoritarians are trying to get you to bow down to authority using an invisible God as their excuse.

Authoritarians? The people in the Bible or Christians? Why would people need an excuse to have us bow to anything? To amuse themselves? What would be the purpose?

You+me= we. We do not believe the same thing. My accountability is different than yours.

With respect to what? Are you saying the Biblical God has different rules and criteria for different people? And if so, where did you get that idea?

I am accountable to God, it would be hard for you to be held accountable to a God that you don't believe in, right?

You cannot have your cake and eat it too. You deny the precepts of Christianity but then are offended because you are not a part of it? I find this rather odd. What do you want?

I'm not offended because I'm not part of it. In fact, we can take religion out of this entirely. Imagine that I'm a black man being constantly belittled and outcast by White Supremacists. Shouldn't I feel that the White Supremacists are treating me as though I am sub-human? It wouldn't be that I want to be like them, but rather I would simply want them to view and treat me as a valid human too.

Religious prejudice really isn't much different. Christians tend to speak of non-Christians as though they are inferior in some way (i.e. sub-human).

Well my sweet friend, prejudice happens in all arena's. I am so sorry if that has been your experience. It is NEVER my desire to use religion as a means to mistreat people. It is my cause to love them.

So I'm not looking to become part of Christianity. I just want to be recognized as being part of humanity. On equal footing with all other humans. This is one reason I'm passionately against the Abrahamic religions. They encourage tribalism and prejudice.

Generalizations are usually a pretty good indication that the statement is false.

I am admitting that I am not perfect. I am admitting that I don't want to go to Heaven to preserve my ego, but rather to be in the presence of God.

You must necessarily believe that being in the presence of God is going to somehow be good for you. Otherwise why would you want to be in the presence of God? You probably don't want to be in the presence of Satan, and that's no doubt for precisely the opposite reason. You probably figure that being in the presence of Satan would not be an enjoyable experience.

So wanting to have the better experience is still a motivation based on what you believe that you would prefer.

It isn't an experience, it is a relationship. I desire to be where God is because I love and value Him. Can you imagine taking that kind of thinking into any relationship. I guess I will be with my husband because that is way better than being with my high school sweetheart. The experience is better with my husband! Enter divorce court (haha).

I am a Christian who believes the Bible as the inherent word of God. You have made it very clear, that you do not believe the Bible as truth. Of course we are going to have different measuring sticks.

This is true. But if the Biblical God is true, then only one measuring stick would be correct.

For Christians, yes! For those who do not believe, they have thrown the measuring stick out!

What do you mean by tolerate? I am not following your logic at all, because I understand you saying that if it's ok for other people to believe in other Gods, then it can't be important to believe in Christ. I don't understand that rationalization at all. If I believe that a diet is healthy and it is backed by science, according to your logic, the healthy diet cannot be believed as beneficial because there are other people who believe in other diets.

That's not what I'm saying at all.

According to Christianity God arranged to have Jesus crucified to pay for the sin of man, and only those who acknowledge this and accept it on their behalf can be saved.

Therefore in your analogy above people who believe in other diets might actually die from poor health. So this means that all non-Christians, which would include Jews and Muslims as well as all other religions, are doomed.

I don't find a problem with this...sorry. People can eat healthy, the choice is theirs.

How is this problematic? We believe that God is the God of the universe. Period. There are no other God's. If other people want to believe in the spaghetti monster, alright, have at it! Other people's belief's don't discredit the Bible.

Sure they do. It's not that the Spaghetti monster has to have any reality. It's simply that the people who believe in the Spaghetti monster must actually believe in Yahweh and Jesus and have willfully chosen via informed free will choice to reject Yahweh and Jesus even though they know that Yahweh and Jesus are the true God.

How can someone actually believe something, but reject it? I don't follow your logic.

So what I'm saying is that every non-Christian on the planet must actually believe that Yahweh and Jesus are real and have simply chosen to reject them in favor of pretending to worship other false Gods.

Surely you can see how silly that is?

I see how silly that is, but that isn't what happens. People reject Christianity not because they believe Jesus is real, but that they don't believe He is real.

[Divine Insight]

Salvation is offered as a free gift, not as a result of anything we can accomplish.

If that's true then there is no such thing as justice in Christianity. Nor would morality matter.

I believe the concept of hell as believed by modern man is far different than what is described in the Bible. Jesus certainly didn’t threaten sinners to accept him or they’d be cast into hell.

That's an extremely controversial topic because John 3:18 is supposed to be Jesus speaking, this isn't supposed to just John's opinion.

John 3:18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

That's pretty much stating that if someone doesn't believe in the name of the only begotten Son of God they will be condemned. Not necessarily being put out as a threat, but rather just stated as a matter of fact.

Whether Christianity is true or false, I think we can safely agree that there are many man-made ideas in Christianity. But, just because there are man-made ideas, that does not then conclude that Christianity is false.

But all we can do here is compare personal opinions. I feel differently from the way you feel. I feel that if there was a God behind this religion he would have kept it clear and without ambiguity. Since it's not clear and without ambiguity then I conclude it must be man-made.

Does that mean there's no God? No of course not. But it does mean that Christianity is false, because Christianity includes the man-made ideas. Therefore it can't be true in whole. And if it's not true in whole then it's not true. Even if parts of it might be true, the religion as whole would still be false.

If you don't know which parts you can trust, then you can't trust any of it, unless you are willing to pick and chose what you feel is inviting to you. But then all you are doing is creating your own stripped down version of the religion. In other words, you are creating your own ideal God.

I think the claim that we are worthy of God is what would be extremely arrogant.

Why? Didn't God supposedly create us? If that's the case then we most certainly should be worthy of our creator. Unless the creator himself was an inept creator.

Being worthy of our creator doesn't make us arrogant. It simply makes us worthy. Period. Why try to degrade humans in an effort to raise a God up on an impossible pedestal? There's just no point to it.

There’s nothing in the story suggesting that obedience and good works are required for the father to love them. Even before the younger son said a word when he returned, the father ran to him, embraced him, and kissed him. God even loved the older son. He had given him his inheritance also. He did not command him to attend the party for his younger brother, but had tried to reason with him. And he reminded the older son that he had the best reward already - himself.

There you go right there Otseng, the part in bold red. Why would God try to reason with a human? In fact, more to the point, why didn't God create humans who could reason?

If these sons are acting unreasonable who's fault is that. One problem with the Prodigal Son Parable is that it tries to make out like as if God could be the father in this story. But nothing could be further from the truth. The Father in the story is clearly an inept mortal human?

How can we know this? Well, if the Father had created his sons and designed them, then there's no reason why they shouldn't be reasonable. The Father in the story is as helpless as any human father. He didn't create his sons, nor did he create their level of intelligence. And apparently he didn't even raise them very well as they apparently didn't learn much from their father.

There's basically no excuse for a creator God to be as inept as the father in the Prodigal Son Parable.

To those that think they are worthy, they are unworthy before God, but to those who think they are unworthy, they are worthy before God.

1 Pet 5:5 “God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.�

But now you are quoting from the stories like as if they have merit.

Moreover what does being worthy have to do with being "proud". I see no reason why we can't be worthy before God while also being humble. Being worthy does not exclude being humble. And it's not necessary to degrade yourself or think lowly of yourself in order to be humble either.

This entire religion is based on oppression. The authors of this religion want you to believe that you are worthless in the eyes of their God. It's an extremely oppressive religion. You are not good enough for God. That's definitely the mentality they would love for you to have.

I wouldn’t say Christianity has “absolutely nothing� to do with morality.

But you just did at the beginning of the post when you said that salvation is offered as a free gift, not as a result of anything we can accomplish. You can hardly start tossing moral behavior in now as a requirement to obtain this supposed "Free Gift". It would no longer be free if you had to earn on your own merit by being a moral person.

In terms of a relationship with God, personal morality has nothing to do with it. There is nothing that we can do to gain God’s favor. What is required for a relationship with God would be accepting God’s free gift of salvation - whether it be for the vilest sinner or the godliest saint.

I totally agree with you that this is what the religion teaches. I won't argue with that one bit. The only difference between us is that you seem to think that there is an actual God behind this proposal, while I see it as nothing more than man-made dogma.

In terms of relationship with others, we certainly have to be moral. We are commanded to love others and to be a model of Christ and to serve others.

Well, there you go. Now we're back to "earning" our salvation again. It's a have-the-cake-and-eat-it-too dogma. They want you to believe both of these contradictory things simultaneously and you're accepting it without question. I reject it as being absurd.

Exactly. The older brother’s mindset was an immature mindset. I’m not saying Christians should have this immature mindset or that the Bible is condoning it.

But why is the son immature if God created him?

This is a failure that only a mortal father should see in his son. A mortal father has no control over creating the son or designing the son's intelligence, or anything like that. But a creator God on the other hand has full control over all of this.

So again, the analogy of a creator God as a helpless human father doesn't even make any sense. All you're doing there is allowing that God is as inept as a mortal father.

What do you mean that crimes require consequences if it’s not punishment? What kind of consequences are you referring to?

Punishment is useless. Especially as a teaching tool. In fact, humans resort to using punishment precisely because they are inept and unable solve their problems intelligently. But there's no excuse for an all-wise all-intelligent God to have to resort to such ignorant barbaric methods.

Anytime you find yourself justifying God's behavior simply because human parents or authoritarians tend to behave this way you should really stop yourself and say, "Hey wait a minute. Why should God behave like these inept humans?"

Why do you believe that everyone will be reincarnated?

I don't. I was just pointing out that in Eastern Cultures reincarnation is taken as a self-evident truth. They don't question it at all. They were brought up to believe that because we see things dying and being born as a natural process all around us that this is basically reincarnation taking place right before our very eyes. So they don't question the truth of reincarnation. They just accept it as a self-evident truth.

Or at least this used to be the case. Not sure if they still see things this way in the 21st century.

[Divine Insight]

If you are referring to once saved and always saved, I don’t believe in that.

Unless you are claiming to speak for God why should I care what you believe?

My mother was a very strong believer in once saved always saved. So she's probably right.

It’s quite possible to reject God and no longer be a Christian.

I have never rejected God. I simply came to the realization that Christianity is a false religion. In fact, when I first came to this realization I still continued to believe in "God". I just realized that Christianity and the Bible, and Jesus, have nothing to do with God.

In fact, after I realized that Christianity and all the Abrahamic religions were false, I looked around for other religion that perhaps saw God in the same way I saw God. And I found this in various Eastern Mystical religions. Keep in mind here that I wasn't searching for God. As far as I was concerned I was already in harmony with God. All I was interested in doing is seeing whether anyone else knew the same God that I felt I knew. And I did.

So there was never a time in my life when I rejected God.

And even later when I came the realization that there may not be any God at all that still wasn't a rejection of God. It was simply the recognition that the entire concept may very well be nothing more than wishful thinking on the part of humans. After all, we have absolutely no evidence for the existence of any God, and we actually have tons of evidence for why there most likely is no God.

In your previous post you were talking about the sons in the Prodigal Son Parable not being reasonable. Well, as far as I'm concerned it's actually unreasonable to believe that an omnipotent God exists when there is no evidence for the existence of one.

I’ve been listening to ex-Christians on Youtube that turned away from the faith (Clergy Project). None that I’ve listened to refer to themselves as Christians anymore.

Of course not. But that doesn't mean that I can't claim to still be a Christian. Human language is abstract and we are free to use terms pretty much however we see fit. As you well know, on this site it's forbidden to even tell someone who claims to be a Christian that they aren't a Christian.

In fact, I'm guessing that you had a hand in writing that rule.

The term Christian is more of a label that is used to let others have an idea of who we are. At a minimum, it means one who believes in God and the Bible. If one rejects God and rejects the Bible, I don’t see how one can still identify as being a Christian.

There are members on this site who claim to be Christian while simultaneously arguing passionately against the bulk of Christian dogma. Including denying that Christ was the Son of God or even that he had been born of a virgin, or resurrected.

I would tell such people that they are not Christians because they don't accept Christian dogma (or doctrine if you prefer). But as you know, that's against the rules here.

So as far as I can see if someone can reject the virgin birth of Jesus, the resurrection, and the claim that he is the only begotten Son of God and still claim to be a Christian then I can't see why I can't claim to be a Christian too. At least I was born into the religion and officially accepted Christ as my savior. According to my mom that makes me a Christian.

Keep in mind that my mom trusted Jesus, and she believed that anyone who asks Jesus to come into their heart he would do it. In fact, isn't it written in Christian doctrine that Jesus himself said that anything we ask in his name he will do?

Well I asked him to be my savior. Therefore he has no choice but to do that lest he become a liar.

Or unless you mean you are a cultural Christian. But, usually these only apply to people who have not identified with any other religion. These people also have not thought much about religion at all and just call themselves that because all their friends are also Christians.

Well, it was your rule that we're not allowed to question someone who claims to be a Christian on these forums. Should I report you to yourself for questioning my claim to be a Christian?

Religion is tribalism in it's most primal form.

This is why I prefer to be viewed as a human rather than one of these tribal labels.

Then why say you are a Christian if it’s tribalism?

Because there is a difference between being a Christian and being Christianity.

I'm definitely not Christianity.

I can use a very simple definition for my claim to be a Christian.

Christian - Any person who has asked Jesus Christ to be their Savior.

I did that. That cannot be undone. It's water over the dam. Therefore, I will forever be a Christian for all of eternity. There is nothing I can do to take back the request I had made.

In fact, I don't even take it back at all. If there truly is a Jesus and his daddy is out to condemn me then by all means, I'll accept Jesus saving me from the wrath of his dad.

Why not?

I have no reason to take back the request. All that has changed is that I no longer believe that Jesus was the Son of Yahweh, or that Yahweh is God.

For me Jesus has no more validity than Peter Pan. But hey if Peter Pan is offering to take me to Never Never land I'll accept! The only thing is that this isn't likely to happen because Peter Pan isn't real.

So I'm both a Christian and a fan of Peter Pan. Even though I don't believe in either one.

This is what I have difficulty understanding. How can you continue to believe that it's true, especially after having seen and read all the obvious flaws this theology has via the posts in these forums over the years.

Actually, my faith has strengthened after all these years on the forum.

I can understand that from a purely secular psychological perspective. I believe that the human brain is a neural network that continually constructs it's neural connections. I also believe that some brains reach a point where they start to identify with certain beliefs and worldview. So they reinforce the things that support that worldview and tend to ignore (even on a sub-conscious level) things that threaten the preferred worldview.

So I'm not surprised that people who want to believe in various religions go through life finding support for what they would like to believe. I see this as a perfectly natural phenomenon in a purely secular world.

Note that I'm not stating this as any sort of fact, I'm simply saying that this is how I see things.

I also believe that I have escaped that trap. Why do I say this? Because I don't have a worldview that I prefer to be true. I don't even claim that materialism is true. In fact, I personally hold out hope that there is some sort of mystical magic to reality. That would indeed be very cool.

In fact, as strange as this may sound I don't even care if Christianity turns out to be true. Many Christians who believe in Christianity believe that the God of Christianity is a fair, just and righteous God. It that's true then I certainly have nothing to worry about. The only God who would condemn me is an immoral monster God and Christians keep assuring me that this is not what the Biblical God is actually like anyway.

So according to most Christians I haven't rejected their God. Instead all I have rejected is a totally false and grossly incorrect picture of what God is NOT. So if the God is real then he should be extremely pleased with me for having rejected a totally gross and false picture of him.

My theology certainly has changed over the years, but the basic belief in God and the Bible has remained. After numerous debates, I believe Christianity is more rational than any other worldview.

That's fine. And in some ways I can understand this. Just like in the parable of the prodigal son you allow that God can be as inept as a human parent. Once you allow for that, then you can imagine making sense of all the rest of it.

As far as I'm concerned the Bible dies in the story of the Garden of Eden. As far as I'm concerned the God in that story is already acting like an extremely inept and incompetent parent. There's really no need for me to read beyond Genesis Chapter 3 to know that the Bible cannot be describing any God.

But if you can get past the Garden of Eden believing that a God would behave as poorly as the God described there, then I can see why you can continue to view this God as being as inept as a human parent the whole rest of the way through the Bible.

You just continue to view God as a helpless parent who can't even understand why his children aren't behaving as well as he would like for them to behave.

I’m not saying my viewpoint is what everyone needs to accept as truth. I post to simply show that there is a different way to interpret the passages.

Of course there are. However if we need to imagine that God is as inept as a human parent in order to claim to have a meaningful interpretation I feel that we've gone too far.

Way back when I was studying the Bible and began to realize that it wasn't making sense and was full of contradictions I sat down and made two lists.

1. Things I believe an omnipotent omniscient God would do.

AND

2. Things that sound like incompetent men made up.

And I started going through the Biblical stories to see what I could put on these lists.

Now you need to understand that at the time I wan't trying to disprove the Bible. To the contrary I was actually hoping to find a lot of things that I could confidently place on the first list. I was searching for the TRUTH of GOD.

But the truth turned out to be that I found next to nothing that would merit being placed on the first list and a ton of things that clearly belonged on the second list. And those were things that the Bible was attributing to God.

So that was real eye-opener for me at the time.

I do not claim to have the absolute truth. I’m learning all the time and there’s still many things for me to learn. But, likewise, you do not have the absolute truth either. So, by debating opposing positions, we can arrive closer to the truth.

I see the problem being far bigger than this. Why? Because it's not just a question of whether or not Christianity is true, or there is no God.

The question is far greater than this. In fact, when I came to the realization that Christianity was false I actually (and quiet naively) thought that maybe Judaism might be true, or perhaps Islam?

That was a very short-lived speculation because it turns out that both of those religions rely on the same self-contradictions in the OT. In short, they all die by Genesis Chapter 3 when the Biblical God starts acting like an inept human parent.

And then we move on to all the other religions of the world.

Can we arrive at something "Closer to Truth"? (love that show by the way)

I believe we can. And the truth is that no human on planet earth knows that any God exists. Nor can they produce any good reason to believe that one does.

So in the end I claim that the only truth we can know for certain is that we can't know. And we can't claim to have our hands on that truth if in our hands we are carrying a Bible from a particular religion that we are claiming is true.

So that's my position on that.

[otseng]

Salvation is offered as a free gift, not as a result of anything we can accomplish.

If that's true then there is no such thing as justice in Christianity. Nor would morality matter.

Justice does exist. Punishment is required of all sins in Christianity. It's a matter of who is punished for their sins. Morality matters in the sense that we are to be perfect. If someone is hypothically able to live their life completely sinless, then God would have no grounds to condemn that person. But, since nobody is able to live a perfect life, then all fall short and punishment is then required.

But it does mean that Christianity is false, because Christianity includes the man-made ideas. Therefore it can't be true in whole. And if it's not true in whole then it's not true. Even if parts of it might be true, the religion as whole would still be false.

I readily agree that Christianity is not true in whole. But, is there anything that is truth in whole? History, science, politics, law, medicine, economics, etc? I can't think of anything that is completely true. But, we don't completely reject something because it's not completely true. I don't completely agree with the Republican party, but I'm a registered Republican. I don't completely agree with the values of my place of employment, but I still love to work there. I don't completely agree with any of the books I've read, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't have read them. I don't completely agree with any of my friends, but I'm still their friend.

If you don't know which parts you can trust, then you can't trust any of it, unless you are willing to pick and chose what you feel is inviting to you. But then all you are doing is creating your own stripped down version of the religion. In other words, you are creating your own ideal God.

What I'm after is truth, not what I feel is pleasing to me. The way that I find what is truth and is trustworthy is to find the facts and reason my way to the truth. I might not reach the goal, but at least I'm closer to the truth.

I think the claim that we are worthy of God is what would be extremely arrogant.

Why? Didn't God supposedly create us? If that's the case then we most certainly should be worthy of our creator. Unless the creator himself was an inept creator.

God wants to have a relationship with us. The father was longing for the younger son to come back home. But, the younger son chose to rebel and live his own life. Likewise, we also have a free will and can choose which path to take.

How can we know this? Well, if the Father had created his sons and designed them, then there's no reason why they shouldn't be reasonable.

Because God does not operate the way we think he should act does not mean that God does not exist.

This entire religion is based on oppression. The authors of this religion want you to believe that you are worthless in the eyes of their God. It's an extremely oppressive religion. You are not good enough for God. That's definitely the mentality they would love for you to have.

From the story of the prodigal son, the father was a gracious, patient, loving father. So much so that he was on the opposite end of being an oppressive father and was recklessly gracious. He gave the inheritance when the son asked for it. He showered love on his son when he came back home. He gave him the best robe, ring, sandals, and threw a huge party.

In terms of relationship with others, we certainly have to be moral. We are commanded to love others and to be a model of Christ and to serve others.

Well, there you go. Now we're back to "earning" our salvation again. It's a have-the-cake-and-eat-it-too dogma. They want you to believe both of these contradictory things simultaneously and you're accepting it without question. I reject it as being absurd.

Our relationship with others has nothing to do with salvation, at least in evangelical Christianity it doesn't. Being moral should come out of a heart of love, not out of fulfilling some sense of duty. The older son was doing all the "righteous" things, but never out of a heart of love. It was not evident until God demonstrated grace. Then he showed what was really in his heart - his anger for his brother, his resentment of slaving for the father and not getting any recognition for all his work.

But why is the son immature if God created him?

It's the risk of having a free will. If we are free to decide what to do, we can choose immature things.

What would be the alternative? Yes, God could control all of us so that we never do anything wrong. But, that is what is oppresive. I could theoretically control everyone here on the forum to never obey the rules. I can edit and delete posts. I can rewrite what people say. I can edit your posts to say what I want it to say. But, nobody would frequent such a forum. Freedom is granted here for people to say what they want. But, the risk is we will have immature posts.

Likewise, God created people with a free will. Since God is not oppressive, he allows freedom. But this opens the possibility of people to be immature and rebellious.

Punishment is useless. Especially as a teaching tool.

Our entire justice system is based on punishment. So, to say punishment is useless doesn't apply to the real world.

I wouldn't say punishment is used as a "teaching tool". But, it's purpose is to be a deterrent.

Fining me for going past the speed limit doesn't teach me anything, but it does serve as a deterrent for me speeding.

I was just pointing out that in Eastern Cultures reincarnation is taken as a self-evident truth. They don't question it at all.

That would be then blind faith where there is nothing to rationalize it.

[shnarkle]

[Replying to post 1 by Divine Insight]

There is no contradiction in the story of the so-called Prodigal Son. The name applied is incorrect. If one were to look at the text itself, they should notice that the story doesn't begin with, "A man had a prodigal son...etc', but instead begins with, "A man had two sons...etc."

There is no contradiction because the son is not angry that he was denied a party, but that his father never just voluntarily decided to throw him a party. He was the obedient son which to the older son should have warranted a party instead of throwing a party to the ungrateful disobedient son who asked for his inheritance and then proceeded to blow it. This doesn't warrant a party to the older son, and most people would tend to agree with this objection by the older son.

What people are missing here is not only that the younger son has essentially told his father that he wishes he were dead so he could have his inheritance. That is was asking for one's inheritance means, but that all that remains will be inherited by the older son.

When the father points out that everything he has is the older son's, he is pointing out that the older son will inherit all of it. The reader should also note the fact that the father is now spending the older son's inheritance on the prodigal son.

This doesn't seem fair to most people, but then that's why most people have such a problem forgiving others.

There are a lot of messages contained within the parable, not the least of which is that the older son should have gone after the younger brother and brought him back home, instead of letting him rot away and die.

While the father is still alive, his wealth is his to spend as he wishes, but the older son doesn't see it that way, he's already thinking like his younger prodigal brother. He thinks he deserves it all because he's been so obedient, but Christ's message is that no one is justified by simply being obedient. He's showing what's going on within the older brother's heart is no different than what was going on in his younger brother's heart as well. The difference is that the younger brother has learned his lesson, and repented. The older brother has no intention of repenting from his damnable righteous works.

[Divine Insight]

Justice does exist. Punishment is required of all sins in Christianity. It's a matter of who is punished for their sins. Morality matters in the sense that we are to be perfect. If someone is hypothically able to live their life completely sinless, then God would have no grounds to condemn that person. But, since nobody is able to live a perfect life, then all fall short and punishment is then required.

I totally agree that this is the mentality a person must have in order to be a Christian. They must believe that punishments somehow amounts to justice. And they must believe that anything less than perfection deserves condemnation.

They also must believe that it somehow makes sense that a Perfect Creator God created a bunch of imperfect humans who could never achieve perfection on their own and then holds those humans accountable for being imperfect.

I reject this entire scenario as being utterly absurd. So while I agree with you that this is the position of Christianity theology, I totally disagree that it makes any sense at all in terms of any actual Perfect Creator God.

Not only this, but by the criteria you have put forth here the Perfect Creator God cannot be anything less than 100% Perfect lest he too would deserve to be condemned by his own rules. But if he has already created imperfect humans who cannot be perfect on their own then he falls should of perfection himself. So he must be condemned according to the very mentality of this theology.

I readily agree that Christianity is not true in whole. But, is there anything that is truth in whole? History, science, politics, law, medicine, economics, etc? I can't think of anything that is completely true. But, we don't completely reject something because it's not completely true. I don't completely agree with the Republican party, but I'm a registered Republican. I don't completely agree with the values of my place of employment, but I still love to work there. I don't completely agree with any of the books I've read, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't have read them. I don't completely agree with any of my friends, but I'm still their friend.

But your comparison here makes no sense. Historian, scientists, politicians, law, medicine, economics, your friends, etc, do not claim to be Perfect Creator Gods. So why should you expect any of those things to be flawless?

If Christianity is God's message to humans then there's no excuse for Christianity to be flawed in any way. We should indeed expect it to be absolutely 100% perfect. After all, just a moment ago you justified condemning anyone who isn't perfect. But now you're allowing your God to be as imperfect as the Republicans. How is that supposed to work?

And we really can't even restrict this to just Christianity, which is itself a highly self-divisive theology with all its disagreeing factions and demoninations, but instead we must look at the entire Abrahamic picture, including Judaism and Islam and all of their divisive disagreeing factions and dogma. If there's a Perfect God behind this original religion how could it be that he allowed his message to humanity to become so corrupt? In fact, reading the Bible I would say that the messaged had to have become corrupt a very long time ago starting with the fables of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

I just see no excuse for a Perfect Creator God allowing his message to humanity to become so corrupt that even all the religions that are based on it can't even agree on what this God's message even is. And yet we are to be condemned if we don't believe one of these extremely divisive and ambiguous religious dogmas?

How can there be any Perfect God associated with such utter nonsense?

What I'm after is truth, not what I feel is pleasing to me. The way that I find what is truth and is trustworthy is to find the facts and reason my way to the truth. I might not reach the goal, but at least I'm closer to the truth.

How can you be sure that the Christian Gospels represent truth in their claims? Even rational clergy openly confess that belief in these tales is a matter of faith. No sane person is pretending that there is any truly compelling evidence for any of this.

If you want truth then agnosticism is the closest to truth you could ever hope to be.

Isn't it ultimately true that you don't know whether a God exists at all? Much less a very specific God described by the religious fables of any specific society.

Also, what kind of a God would be upset with anyone who confessed that they don't know whether or not a God exists? If that's the truth, then why should any benevolent God who values truth be upset with a human who confesses to the truth that they honestly don't know?

I mean think about it. Let's suppose that the Christian story of Christ is true.

I look at this story and think to myself, "What an utterly absurd and ridiculous story this is. I see absolutely no reason to think that this is a product of anything more than overly-zealous superstitious and religious fanatics. I see absolutely no reason to think that there is a Creator God who would have ever designed such an idiotic scenario."

If I'm interested in truth, then this is my truth.

If there is a God (even a God that might behind this insane story) and he values truth, then he would still need to value my truth. He would have to recognize that my rejection of his ridiculous plan is based on truth.

You might claim that I just called this God an idiot and just claimed that h is plan is ridiculous, this gives God the right to be ticked with me or even condemn me. But no it doesn't. Not if this God is supposed to be 100% Perfect and values truth. If this God values truth then he would be able to see that my rejection of his plan, as well as my evaluation that it is idiotic represents what I see as truth.

He would have no choice but to accept my truth for what it is. I see the whole scenario as being utterly absurd. That's the truth. Even a God cannot argue with that.

God wants to have a relationship with us. The father was longing for the younger son to come back home. But, the younger son chose to rebel and live his own life. Likewise, we also have a free will and can choose which path to take.

But in that story look at how worthless a relationship with the father is. The son who didn't rebel and chose to stay home and have a relationship with the father was not happy. Therefore having a relationship with the father apparently isn't so great.

In fact, in the story of The Prodigal Son the father wasn't even communicating very clearly with the son who didn't rebel and chose to stay home. So once again, we end up with a father who is far from perfect. He can't even communicate clearly with his own son. He may want to have a relationship with his sons but apparently this God doesn't even know how to have a decent relationship with anyone.

Because God does not operate the way we think he should act does not mean that God does not exist.

Perhaps not. But it certainly justifies us in rejecting stories of such a God. How could a God blame us for rejecting stories that we see as being utterly absurd?

Again it comes back to truth and honesty. If I honestly don't see why any decent God would behave in the way stories of a God claim that their God behaves then why shouldn't I reject those stories?

Even if the God described in the Bible exists he couldn't blame me for not believing in him based on those stories. Unless he truly is an untrustworthy jerk. But if that's the case then he will have justified my rejection of him anyway. And that leads to a contradiction: A God who justifies my rejection of him while condemning me for having rejected him. We can't have that.

From the story of the prodigal son, the father was a gracious, patient, loving father. So much so that he was on the opposite end of being an oppressive father and was recklessly gracious. He gave the inheritance when the son asked for it. He showered love on his son when he came back home. He gave him the best robe, ring, sandals, and threw a huge party.

And all the while he was having communications problems with the son who stayed home and didn't rebel. Again, a father who was incapable of having a meaningful relationship with either of his sons. It's not the kind of father I would want to spend eternity with.

Our relationship with others has nothing to do with salvation, at least in evangelical Christianity it doesn't. Being moral should come out of a heart of love, not out of fulfilling some sense of duty. The older son was doing all the "righteous" things, but never out of a heart of love. It was not evident until God demonstrated grace. Then he showed what was really in his heart - his anger for his brother, his resentment of slaving for the father and not getting any recognition for all his work.

Again, you and I may have extremely different ideas of what a father/son relationship should even be. Why was the son feeling like he was slaving for the father? What's up with that? Are you suggesting that sons should be nothing more than slave employees of the father?

If the father wants to have a relationship with the son he needs to become the son's best friend and treat him as an equal partner, not as a slave.

In the story of the Prodigal Son I question the father's ability to even have a meaningful relationship with his sons. The story sounds more like how a rich human father might treat his sons, not how a supposedly Perfect Creator God should treat the objects of his creation.

Besides, as an analogy with a God, the story breaks down anyway. Anytime we make an analogy of how God might behave by using a human father as an example we're already lost. Human fathers are not good examples of how a Creator God should treat the objects of their creation. The human father didn't "Create" his sons and therefore he has no responsibility for their failings. A Creator God, on the other hand, is 100% responsible for the failings of anything he has created.

So the analogy doesn't even make any sense to begin with.

But why is the son immature if God created him?

It's the risk of having a free will. If we are free to decide what to do, we can choose immature things.

What would be the alternative? Yes, God could control all of us so that we never do anything wrong. But, that is what is oppresive. I could theoretically control everyone here on the forum to never obey the rules. I can edit and delete posts. I can rewrite what people say. I can edit your posts to say what I want it to say. But, nobody would frequent such a forum. Freedom is granted here for people to say what they want. But, the risk is we will have immature posts.

Likewise, God created people with a free will. Since God is not oppressive, he allows freedom. But this opens the possibility of people to be immature and rebellious.

I flat-out reject this old worn-out apology. Creating humans who are mature and have a high intelligence does not require that they cannot also be given free will.

In fact, creating immature and stupid humans and giving them free will would be an utterly stupid thing for a Creator God to do in the first place.

So, IMHO, if a Creator God exists then there is no reason why any human should be less than mature and intelligent. The fact that there are so many immature and stupid humans on planet earth is extremely powerful evidence that there is no purposeful Creator God.

So I reject this theological apology as basically being an insult to my own intelligence and maturity.

Moreover, if God is not responsible for having created my intelligence and maturity that would then mean that I must be responsible for having create it. And that alone opens up a whole other can of theological worms.

Who is responsible for our level of intelligence and maturity? God or us?

Can't have both, that would lead to a contradiction especially associated with this particular theological apology. So this apology is not compelling. The Free Will argument simply doesn't hold water.

Our entire justice system is based on punishment. So, to say punishment is useless doesn't apply to the real world.

Ever hear of repeat offenders? People who have been released from having been punished only to turn around and repeat the same crimes?

Sorry, but punishment is indeed useless, based on real world evidence.

I wouldn't say punishment is used as a "teaching tool". But, it's purpose is to be a deterrent.

And it clearly doesn't work as a deterrent. So, so much for that.

Fining me for going past the speed limit doesn't teach me anything, but it does serve as a deterrent for me speeding.

It may work for you, but it obviously doesn't work for everyone as there are many people who get speeding tickets repeatedly.

Not only this, but keep in mind that we're ultimately talking about Christianity theology here, not what secular humans have chosen to do. In a theology were moral character is important having deterrents to doing bad things doesn't even make any sense. We aren't supposed to not do bad things because we fear the consequences, we are supposed to not to bad things because we have moral values above that and simply have no desire to do bad things.

So punishment as a deterrent would be antithetical to the theme of Christian theology anyway.

I was just pointing out that in Eastern Cultures reincarnation is taken as a self-evident truth. They don't question it at all.

That would be then blind faith where there is nothing to rationalize it.

I agree. I wasn't trying to justify Eastern religious beliefs. I was simply stating what they are based upon.

[JJ50]

I don't think god is responsible for anything as it more than likely doesn't exist.

[Divine Insight]

I don't think god is responsible for anything as it more than likely doesn't exist.

This is true. A God that doesn't exist wouldn't be responsible for anything.

But just as true. A Creator God that does exist would be responsible for everything.

[otseng]

I have never rejected God. I simply came to the realization that Christianity is a false religion. In fact, when I first came to this realization I still continued to believe in "God". I just realized that Christianity and the Bible, and Jesus, have nothing to do with God.

OK, just trying to understand your position, since it's quite unique.

After all, we have absolutely no evidence for the existence of any God, and we actually have tons of evidence for why there most likely is no God.

I'd like to debate with you on that sometime in a separate thread.

But that doesn't mean that I can't claim to still be a Christian. Human language is abstract and we are free to use terms pretty much however we see fit. As you well know, on this site it's forbidden to even tell someone who claims to be a Christian that they aren't a Christian.

Of course I'm well aware of that rule. I'm not saying you aren't a Christian, but I just want to find out what you mean by being a Christian.

So I'm not surprised that people who want to believe in various religions go through life finding support for what they would like to believe.

Actually, I believe not because I'd like to believe it, but because there is rational support to believe in it and it makes more sense than any other worldview.

Instead all I have rejected is a totally false and grossly incorrect picture of what God is NOT.

Me too. I reject the God that you've portrayed as well.

Way back when I was studying the Bible and began to realize that it wasn't making sense and was full of contradictions I sat down and made two lists.

1. Things I believe an omnipotent omniscient God would do.

AND

2. Things that sound like incompetent men made up.

I believe the fundamental flaw in logic is the assumption that God is omnipotent. Note this is an assumption because the God of the Bible is not described this way. This would be another good topic to debate.

Historian, scientists, politicians, law, medicine, economics, your friends, etc, do not claim to be Perfect Creator Gods. So why should you expect any of those things to be flawless?

I do not claim God is a "perfect creator god" either.

If Christianity is God's message to humans then there's no excuse for Christianity to be flawed in any way. We should indeed expect it to be absolutely 100% perfect. After all, just a moment ago you justified condemning anyone who isn't perfect. But now you're allowing your God to be as imperfect as the Republicans. How is that supposed to work?

Depends on what you mean by "perfect". In terms of a relationship with God, we're to be morally perfect and without sin. In terms of perfect in that God is omnipotent, I don't believe that.

And we really can't even restrict this to just Christianity, which is itself a highly self-divisive theology with all its disagreeing factions and demoninations, but instead we must look at the entire Abrahamic picture, including Judaism and Islam and all of their divisive disagreeing factions and dogma.

I don't disagree that there are divisions in Christianity. But, divisive beliefs are not isolated to Christianity or to religions. Just being a football fan can make people divisive.

If there's a Perfect God behind this original religion how could it be that he allowed his message to humanity to become so corrupt? In fact, reading the Bible I would say that the messaged had to have become corrupt a very long time ago starting with the fables of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Because humans are involved, things will get corrupted. But, just because there is falsehood, it doesn't mean everything is falsehood.

And all the while he was having communications problems with the son who stayed home and didn't rebel. Again, a father who was incapable of having a meaningful relationship with either of his sons. It's not the kind of father I would want to spend eternity with.

I don't see how it was some miscommunication by the father. The problem was the heart of the older son that believed good works would entitle him to rewards. Jesus presented this as a story to reveal the heart of the religious leaders. He was communicating with them. But, should we blame Jesus for the Pharisees to remain obstinate? OK, if you claim that Jesus was omnipotent then he should've been able to convince the Pharisees. But, laying that aside, the Pharisees had a free will and to decide how they'd react.

If the father wants to have a relationship with the son he needs to become the son's best friend and treat him as an equal partner, not as a slave.

The story never says the father treated his sons as slaves. It was either the son that wanted to come back home and was willing to be a slave or the son that acted like he was a slave.

The story sounds more like how a rich human father might treat his sons, not how a supposedly Perfect Creator God should treat the objects of his creation.

Since there is no Perfect Creator God, then we can dismiss that option.

In fact, creating immature and stupid humans and giving them free will would be an utterly stupid thing for a Creator God to do in the first place.

So, IMHO, if a Creator God exists then there is no reason why any human should be less than mature and intelligent. The fact that there are so many immature and stupid humans on planet earth is extremely powerful evidence that there is no purposeful Creator God.

Stupid and immature decisions are the result of a free will. So, it was not God specifically creating stupid people, but creating people with a free will. If nobody ever made any stupid choices, then it's evidence that we have no free will.

Ever hear of repeat offenders? People who have been released from having been punished only to turn around and repeat the same crimes?

Yeah, but not everyone is a repeat offender. So, it cannot be argued that punishment is useless since some people are repeat offenders.

So punishment as a deterrent would be antithetical to the theme of Christian theology anyway.

Ideally, the reason people should do good is simply because it is the right thing to do. People should not do good with the expectation that there would be some sort of recognition or reward (like the older son in the story).

There have been several interesting topics raised in this thread. Seems like one huge stumbling block for people believing and accepting Christianity is the concept of hell. So, I'll be moving on to this thread:

What is the Biblical view of hell?