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Forgiven for what, eactly?

Ah, from laca's post perhaps we're conflating sin with Old Testament uncleanliness? It's quite possible for a person to be unclean under the Law of Moses without sinning. "Unclean" is not the same as "sinful". You could sin and still personally be clean, or be sinless but still be unclean.
 
AvalonXQ said:
Ah, from laca's post perhaps we're conflating sin with Old Testament uncleanliness? It's quite possible for a person to be unclean under the Law of Moses without sinning. "Unclean" is not the same as "sinful". You could sin and still personally be clean, or be sinless but still be unclean.
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Yes, as soon as I posted I realized it was not about sin but uncleanliness.
 
AvalonXQ said:
The point is that we only suffer the consequences for what was within our control, not what was outside of it.
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So does God suffer the consequences for what was in his control?

And the point is that you are acting as if humans have much more control than reason would support.
 
AvalonXQ said:
Most importantly, the choices of souls aren't subject to physical laws or predictable with any sort of determinism. They are neither deterministic nor random.
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Right, they neither conduct nor insulate and look like square circles. That's fine.

But as I said before, this makes no difference at all. That's like me pointing out that you killed someone, and you saying "Aha! But it was a MAGIC sword!" Okay. Fine. They're still dead.

Unless you are saying that god has zero idea what souls will do, in which case he's not omnipotent or you are saying he didn't create souls, in which case I would say he only created MOST of the universe, not the whole thing.
 
AvalonXQ said:
You've hit the nail on the head -- that's a very reasonable interpretation of what Paul is saying in that part of Romans, and I don't immediately see anything in what you said that I disagree with.
We do suffer the material consequences for the sins of others. But our own eternal destination is based on our choices, and no one else's.
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But the choice is not the choice not to sin! The choice is to find salvation in faith to atone for a sin we were born with and never had the opportunity to choose not to commit. This is NOT THE SAME as what we usually consider a choice! A person who chooses to act throughout his life without sin but also without faith in Christ is less deserving of salvation (in theory and doctrine, not just because the possibility is vanishingly slight), according to Christian doctrine of almost any sect, than one who accepts Christ and occasionally sins. If you cannot at least acknowledge this difference, any semblance of mutual understanding is hopeless.
 
AvalonXQ said:
Sorry, but I don't agree with that at all.
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Would it be too much to ask why? I have tried to explain a position as clearly as I can: that original sin is a pretty fundamental Christian doctrine, as is the idea that one's inherently sinful condition can only be overcome through Christian faith. In what detail do you find this incompatible with your own Christianity? Setting aside the practical unlikelihood that a person might succeed in the effort, do you believe that it is even theoretically, doctrinally possible for a person of no faith who does not commit any sins at all in a lifetime to achieve the eternal life, etc., that Christian salvation implies? Or is this a double-bind, in which the absence of faith is seen as a sin in its own right?
 
AvalonXQ said:
What's contradictory about something that is neither deterministic nor random?
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Rather than getting off on a tangent, let me just say again that that in no way changes anything even if I were to agree that there is nothing contradictory about it.

bruto said:
Would it be too much to ask why?
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He already explained that he doesn't believe in Original Sin, and I already asked if someone could live through life without sinning and therefore not need salvation and he said yes.

154, not surprisingly, takes the more common fundamentalist view that you are referring to.
 
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AvalonXQ said:
... this line confused me. Do you believe there's something sinful about that?
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I personally don't believe there's anything "sinful" about anything I do, because I consider the concept to be a ridiculous one, made up by men to control others.

The bleeding that women do is considered unclean, and at some point your god decided that if men should touch any "unclean" women, or if they so much as sit on chairs they've sat on, are committing some sort of sin.

Why would any perfect, just, or all-knowing god put rules in place about menstruation? Is it just there to remind women that they're not as clean/good as men?
 
laca said:
Yes, of course we have accountability. The god that supposedly created you in full and certain knowledge of every little thing you'll ever do has at least as much responsibility.



What? Of course I believe human beings have free choice. The god thingie is the part I'm having trouble with...

ETA: Clarification: I think that free will and full responsibility are incompatible with an omniscient and omnipotent creator god.
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Add evil to that list. :)
 
SOdhner said:
Rather than getting off on a tangent, let me just say again that that in no way changes anything even if I were to agree that there is nothing contradictory about it.



He already explained that he doesn't believe in Original Sin, and I already asked if someone could live through life without sinning and therefore not need salvation and he said yes.

154, not surprisingly, takes the more common fundamentalist view that you are referring to.
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Original sin is not unique to fundamentalists, obviously. It's a cornerstone of Catholicism and other less fundie sects as well. It is, after all, in the Bible, unless you bend over backwards toward purposely anti-interpretive ambiguation. AvalonXQ purports to have found a loophole whereby he/she can technically deny original sin without actually doing anything different about it. It's an interesting idea, but one which I really think runs contrary to most Christian churches' policies, and that's why I am hitting at it. I think, to put it bluntly, that AvalonXQ is dabbling in heresy. This as far as I'm concerned is a fine thing to do, and a worthy beginning to independent thought, but one which she/he has so far been reluctant to own up to.
 
bruto said:
Original sin is not unique to fundamentalists, obviously.
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Yes, true. I mainly worded it that way because as you said there's a pretty clear case for it in the bible, and so generally the line is drawn between those who believe the bible is all literally true and those who don't. I think of Catholics as a (very big) exception. Though... honestly... it's not like I've taken any time to really compare all the Christian variants on that so I could be way off.
 
bruto said:
It is, after all, in the Bible, unless you bend over backwards toward purposely anti-interpretive ambiguation.
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Original sin predates the bible. It existed before there was a coherent Bible to reference. You can't erase hundreds of years of Christian philosophy and doctrine with the simple phrase "it's not in the bible."

Even if you assume that the bible is gods inerrant word, you can not claim that it is the only communication from god. There were witnesses to the life of Jesus and there were the direct students of Paul. Are they less Christian than axq because they base their belief on teachings that never made it into print?

It is absurdity upon absurdity.

I think, to put it bluntly, that AvalonXQ is dabbling in heresy. This as far as I'm concerned is a fine thing to do, and a worthy beginning to independent thought, but one which she/he has so far been reluctant to own up to.
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So God knows every bad decision that agents of free will be making and God will punish them for what he knows they will do. God is not allowed to keep us from making those bad decisions because this would violate free will. God values free will so much he chooses to allow us to be lost for all eternity rather than assist us in any other way than cryptically and clandestinely and it's our duty to notice these subtle examples.

Does God value free will because the idea of forcing something to do something it does not want to do is bad?

If free will is so important, is it not then violating free will for God to influence our choices in any way whatsoever? Isn't just allowing us to know that there exists a right and wrong choice a violation of free will?

By even allowing us to know of the choice to make, we are influenced in acting outside of our free will. We are acting differently than we would have if we had never known of the existence of this choice.

Why does God allow us to know there is a choice to make if we are not supposed to be influenced?
 
I think it's questions like this that really pushed me into being skeptical about the religion I was raised in.

When you get down to it, it seems as if God is only punishing people out of a formality.
 
It seems I am more forgiving than God, and the only reason I can continue to believe this God is real and deserves my respect is because of something I am not allowed to know, or I am not capable of knowing. The only way God is more forgiving than I am, is if God will not forgive errors I am unable of understanding why they are an error in the first place.
I don't understand where there exists true free will if I am not allowed to understand aspects like that of the choice I am making. It comes down to making a guess I am only aware of the need to make in the first place because of a direct influence that changes my natural and otherwise unmolested choice.
How is that free will?
 
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