[quote]mse2us wrote:
[quote]mse2us wrote:
[quote]dmaddox wrote:
[quote]mse2us wrote:
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
[quote]BackInAction wrote:
Why did God create the serpent in the first place (especially with the capabilities it had)?
Here’s an analogy: Say I have a kid and he turns 13 years old. At the house, we are all sitting around when I show him a playboy. I tell him “you cannot look at this or touch this, it is mine and mine alone”. I leave the room, but send in my brother in law who I know likes to tell my kids to do things they shouldn’t. He tells him “it’s okay to read, why would he have put it there in the first place”. When I come back and find out my kid has read it, I blame him INSTEAD of playing my brother in law. I kick my son out of my house.
See why the Adam and Eve story doesn’t make much sense? I know my 13 year old boy would die to see the playboy. So what do I do? I send in the brother in law to just make sure he fails. God did the same thing with the creation of the snake.
[/quote]
Exactly.
Or you could have just put the playboy in your room and locked the door. Or not shown it to him at all. Or any of a number of things which would have saved your son from punishment.
Fact is, what it really boils down to, is that the god of the Christian bible is evil. He wants to send people to hell.
He creates a forbidden tree to “test” his new creations (because its not enough to give them free will, now you have to play games with it), and sends his “enemy” to tempt them (of course, knowing exactly what was going to happen) to eat it. And when they do, he punishes not only them but the rest of humanity forever.
Evil.
He creates the world in a way that is totally impossble according to the way the world works now. He creates plants first, then then sun, then makes plants dependant on the sun for survival – leading any rational, thinking person to believe that the sun had to come first.
He “pre-dates” the earth, so that things on it will show themselves to be much older than his holy book says they are. This totally unnecessarily causes the observable data about the world around us to conflict with the Bible (why couldn’t god just make things that are 6000 years old LOOK like they’re 6000 years old? why the games?). This causes humans to choose between an ancient book and the reliable data in front of them - and if they choose the data (which God has chosen to make confusing)? They go to hell.
The christian god is apparently full of setting his “most loved” creations up for excuses to send them to eternal pain and torment. [/quote]
God is evil? Not even close. Notice what God inspired Peter to write at 2 Peter 3:5-8:
"5 For, according to their wish, this fact escapes their notice, that there were heavens from of old and an earth standing compactly out of water and in the midst of water by the word of God; 6 and by those [means] the world of that time suffered destruction when it was deluged with water. 7 But by the same word the heavens and the earth that are now are stored up for fire and are being reserved to the day of judgment and of destruction of the ungodly men.
8 However, let this one fact not be escaping YOUR notice, beloved ones, that one day is with Jehovah as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. 9 Jehovah is not slow respecting his promise, as some people consider slowness, but he is patient with YOU because he does not desire any to be destroyed but desires all to attain to repentance.
God does not desire any to be destroyed but desires people to repent and live.
I thought I explained it pretty well in one of my post that that test was not unfair, tempting or burdensome. The test did not become a temptation until Satan tempted Eve. The Playboy analogy was not even close to the test God set up in the garden.
Yes the penalty of death given to Adam did pass to all of his descendants but God has provided a way to undo the effects of sin and death by given his only begotten son. Exercising faith in Jesus and following whats outlined in the Bible allows our sins to be continually forgiven.
Act 3:19 states:
“19 Repent, therefore, and turn around so as to get your sins blotted out.”
Ezekiel 33:16 states:
“16 None of his sins with which he has sinned will be remembered against him. Justice and righteousness are what he has carried on. He will positively keep living.”
1 John 1:7 states:
“However, if we are walking in the light as he himself is in the light, we do have a sharing with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”
Those are just a few scriptures that shows that once God forgives us of a sin they are blotted out just like you would use Wite-Out to remove text on a piece of paper. They are wiped away and not called to God’s mind. And if you’re walking in the light meaning if you’re in an approved state by God, Jesus’ sacrifice continually cleanses us of sin. Now that is a loving God.
God would never burn and torment even the worst sinner forever in a place called Hell. Capped, there is no place called Hell mentioned anywhere in the Bible. When one dies and pays the penalty that they inherited from Adam they are given a clean slate. There sins are blotted out, wiped away. Acts 24:15 states “that there is going to be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous.” So people who were bad before they died are going to get a second chance. How can that be? Roman 6:23 states that the “wages sin pays is death” so once one has died they have payed the price for sinning by dying. That’s why Romans 6:7(NIV) states “anyone who has died has been freed from sin.”
Capped, can you see how loving that is? The penalty that was given to Adam was dying and returning to dust not burning forever in a place of torment. Romans 5:12 states that through one man sin entered into the world and death(returning back to dust)through sin, thus death spread to all men. This death that spread to all Adam’s descendant passed to us due to no fault of our own. So that is why when one dies God is going to give that person a second chance and if one is in an approved state with God, when he removes the wicked that are still alive(ones who have not paid the Adamic penalty) at armegeddon those in an approved state will survive. That is love.
I can understand you thinking a God that would burn sinners forever in Hell is evil. But this is not what the Bible teaches. That teaching slanders and maligns God because it is false. The teaching that God takes a mother or father from a child to be with him in heaven is another teaching that slanders and maligns God because it is not what the Bible teaches and it is false.
The God I’ve come to know and love from what’s in the Bible is a loving God that is patient and quick to forgive. He would never burn someone for all eternity for being bad 30 or 40 years and he would never cause the death of someone to be with him in heaven.
Capped, God created the universe along with the sun and earth before he created anything on earth. So yes the sun was necessary for plants to grow. And just because we don’t understand something doesn’t mean that it’s not true. Scientist do not understand the whole birth process. They don’t understand what makes sperm travel to the egg and what causes the egg to divide and start to form a fetus. They can observe the process but they don’t understand and can’t explain exactly what starts it and why. You still believe that humans are born everyday don’t you? So just because we can’t fully explain or understand something does not mean that it is not true.[/quote]
I was reading your post, and was trying to think what happens to a person who dies and does not follow Jesus. I remembered what you said. They just turn to dust. Nothing else happens to them. Have I interpreted you right this time?[/quote]
That is exactly what the Bible says happens. That is the Adamic penalty which was clearly stated to Adam by God at Genesis 3:19 which states that out of the ground Adam was taken “For dust you are and to dust you will return.” He did not state “your body will return to dust but your soul or spirit will be tormented forever in fire.” As a matter of fact Genesis 2:7 clearly states how man was made. The verse states that God proceded to form the man from dust of the ground. It does not state that man is formed from dust, spirit and a soul.
Once a human dies the Bible states there thoughts and emotions cease so they could not burn in a place of torment.
Ecclesiastes 9:5,6,10(NIV) states:
5 For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even the memory of them is forgotten. 6 Their love, their hate and their jealousy have long since vanished; never again will they have a part in anything that happens under the sun
verse 10 states:
10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom."
Those verses show that the dead have no emotion or thinking capabilities once they die.
Psalms 146:3(NIV) states:
“3 Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save. 4 When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing.”
Those verses show that once they die their spirit or life-force leaves their body they return to the ground or dust and their plans or thoughts cease.
Ezekiel 18:3(NIV) states:
“3 For every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the sonÃ?¢??both alike belong to me. The soul who sins is the one who will die.”
This verses shows that a living soul or person dies.
Ecclesiastes 3:20,21(NIV)
“Man’s fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath (the footnote for breath at Bible.com states: Or spirit, my Bible translates breath as spirit) ;man has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless. 20 All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.”
Those verses show that at death man is not superior to the animals because they both have the same spirit and the same elements from dust that God used to make man he used to make animals and once both die they go to the same place which is dust.
Those are just a few scriptures that show once a human dies they return to dust and their thoughts cease so they could not be tormented in Hell or haunt anyone. So yes D the ghost that people see are wicked spirit beings and not dead people.[/quote]
Wow, no one wants to discuss.
I thought I’d hear things like: what about the lake of fire and sulpher?, what about the poor man and the Lazarus parable?, what about the firey furnace and the gnawing and gnashing of teeth?, If bad people get a second chance after death then what’s the point of being good?
Shocking![/quote]
I think we will get to this.