So many responses, thank you all! I'm going to try and hit all your points, but if I miss any feel free to make me aware.

@Digory, Let's suppose for a moment that there's an apartment building in my city. Actually, there's one right down the road, all the better. Anyways, let's pretend that I set the building on fire, but I save the residents of one of the apartments within the building, say three, maybe four people. Everyone else, dies, but I did save that handful from what I caused? Am I still a hero, for saving those few? At this point we can drop the metaphor and your answer applies to the God of the Bible.

@Fencer, the Bible says that "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." As such, and considering we are told Adam and Eve sinned as well, we can make the assertion that man is naturally sinful. You can say we're not and did anyways, but if that's so then why did it happen? Man has always put the tangible before the intangible (because it's real, but I don't want to go there yet).

@Elwin, Great evasion of my actual argument! I suppose Christianity is false because you've after accepting Christ, then? Sure, your theology sounds good, but it isn't livable is it? If it is, we don't need God in the first place. I'm not going to get on your case for that white lie you told growing up because people aren't perfect. People get so obsessed with the fact that there are few self-referential inconsistencies with the bible and forget that it's inconsistent with everything outside of itself. By the way you talk I shouldn't even try to argue philosophy with you since you haven't perfectly followed your own beliefs since birth. Take the speck out of your own eye, brother! Let he who is without sin throw the first stone!

@Digory, Let's suppose for a moment that there's an apartment building in my city. Actually, there's one right down the road, all the better. Anyways, let's pretend that I set the building on fire, but I save the residents of one of the apartments within the building, say three, maybe four people. Everyone else, dies, but I did save that handful from what I caused? Am I still a hero, for saving those few? At this point we can drop the metaphor and your answer applies to the God of the Bible.

This is where my system of beliefs differs a bit from the regular frequenters of this thread. As a "free-willie" I don't believe that God started the fire (in your situation). I don't believe that it was ever God's will for sin to enter into the world (others will argue against me, and that's fine; I've been in that debate once, and I won't do it again). So my situation goes like this: Idiot in the appartment sets the building on fire, you break in and save people, including the idiot that started the fire in the first place. Yes, that sounds like a hero to me.

And whether it does or doesn't heroics has nothing to do with your original argument, and therefore, this entire post (as well as your response to me) was utterly superfluous to the main topics being discussed.

@Elwin, Great evasion of my actual argument!

*Takes off his mod hat for a moment and posts as a regular-old-member*

Can I just say that this seems a bit childish and a bit rude? I think that you're taking all of Dr. E's posts out of context, and only reading into the things that make him sound like a Christian Perfectionist. I find it interesting that both of you are claiming that the other has left certain claims unanswered. Perhaps the remedy for that would be best accomplished off the forum, because talking down to somebody just because they have overlooked an argument (on either side) seems fairly childish to me.

It also seems to me that Christ spoke, and lived, and loved us while we were yet sinners. He communed with those who were not fit to stand in his presence, let alone touch the dust that He spoke into existence. He is our example, and if He still communicated with such lowly maggots as human beings, I think we should be civil enough to talk to one another, even if one of us has an offence against the other.

Andrew, the single best book for you would be the Problem of Pain, by our dear C.S. Lewis.

1. If man is not naturally sinful, we do not need God.

I'm not quite sure about this. Adam & Eve were not naturally sinful, and yet they still needed God. Why? Because even when Man was NOT naturally sinful, we still managed to mess things up.

2. If man is naturally sinful, it is unjust to blame him for his sinful actions and to punish him for them.

Incorrect.

Man made a choice to fall into a state of sin. God is not "blaming", He is giving justice. If there was a world with absolutely no choice for suffering, this would be a world of no freewill. If everytime man was going to commit a sin God stepped in and made it an act of goodness, we would have no ability to choose for ourselves. C.S. Lewis discusses this in the Problem of Pain, which, again, I cannot emphasize enough for you to read.

@Digory, We're not talking about an idiot setting a fire, however, God's the one who made it all happen. You can say all you want that he didn't mean for it to happen, but then it's really God who needs our forgiveness, not vice versa.

Edit: I don't see myself as talking down to Elwin, and certainly don't mean to, but he really does take everything I say and throw it out the window before responding to it with totally unfounded ideas of what he interprets it to mean (postmodernism at work). For example, me wanting to be God. Not true at all.

@Food, I believe I have that book sitting on my bookshelf so I'll check it out. As for that being justice, I am here using the term as getting what you deserve. If man is naturally sinful, we are probably going to sin whether anyone tells us to or not, it's our natural tendencies.

@Elwin, I meant to post this on my last response to you but I forgot:

@Food, I believe I have that book sitting on my bookshelf so I'll check it out. As for that being justice, I am here using the term as getting what you deserve. If man is naturally sinful, we are probably going to sin whether anyone tells us to or not, it's our natural tendencies.

"Laws are made for people to adhere to them. Citizens cannot adhere to the laws. Therefore, we should have no laws." - This is your flow of thought, as I see it.

God creates laws for us to follow. His standard is perfectly good and perfectly just, and we cannot live up to it. Should we then try to tear down his standard of perfect good, because we cannot live up to it? Certainly not! We should recognize that we as Humans chose to be the way we are. We as Humans choose to commit sin each time we do, because we have the freewill to do so.

Luckily, our God is a merciful God. He lets us break the rules sometimes, because he knows we cannot possibly keep them. We are justified through our faith and our repentance.

This is why Jesus came along, this is the whole point of Christianity.

My flow of thought is more along the lines of, "A law that is unjust is no law at all."

Should we then try to tear down his standard of perfect good, because we cannot live up to it? Certainly not!

Pretty unrealisitic and unjust standard if we're naturally driven to break it, and the bible predicts that we all will.

I feel as though we aren't going to get anywhere, and this is why. We all pretty much agree on what the bible says. We completely disagree on what to do with it. You feel that you're disgusting little maggots who deserve to be tortured forever simply because you were unfortunate enough to exist; I don't see any reason for it to be this way, in fact why should being human make you so terrible? Granted, you actually believe, while I don't (the words of Christ, that is). If you all would like to continue to argue this, I am completely open to that, but if none of you do, I'm not an unreasonable person. I would be willing to step aside to allow for progress. I'm sounding like a martyr. What I'm trying to say is, I'm in this discussion if you are, but I don't want us to butt heads all day for no reason.

My flow of thought is more along the lines of, "A law that is unjust is no law at all."

Pretty unrealisitic and unjust standard if we're naturally driven to break it, and the bible predicts that we all will.

I'll ignore this for now then, to get to what you are saying below.

You feel that you're disgusting little maggots who deserve to be tortured forever simply because you were unfortunate enough to exist; I don't see any reason for it to be this way, in fact why should being human make you so terrible?

I would argue that a secular worldview leans more towards the idea that we are all disgusting maggots who are unfortunate to exist. There is so little we have come to know in our years of existence. We are a world of war and suffering, and it is all our fault. If I was someone without Christianity, I would see no point to existence, other than to perhaps better humanity, but even then, there is no reason to benefit humanity. To not be selfish?

Why is selfishness a bad thing? What is bad? What is good? What is existence? Most of all, Why do I care?

This is why so many atheists/agnostics are on the path to eventual nihilism. A life without God leads to a life without true happiness and without true knowledge of much of anything. We have seen science fail time and time again, as it seems to constantly go in circles of correcting itself.

Christianity states that every human soul is of value towards God, and believers of God are loved by him. Our existence is not pathetic or disgusting, because our existence should be devoted towards God and His purpose, which is powerful and pure. I would say that your worldview makes us all look like pathetic little creatures who try to find knowledge and wallow in our own sorrows and suffering, not mine.

Food, I'm going to post an essay I wrote recently for you to read if you would like. It's called "Subjective knowledge of objective reality, and the limits of nihilism." I post it mainly for your benefit because most of the people here have heard alot of my arguments. Here it is:

It has been pointed out before that the claims of nihilism are unjustifiable – after all, where is the proof? I would likely be tempted to answer, “Where is the proof for your claim?” though there is no need. After all, the idea that something is wrong just because it has not been proven is a logical fallacy. Indeed, virtually nothing can be proven, even the claim that nothing is provable. Who can say that gravity will exist tomorrow with absolute certainty? The question is, then, why would one believe anything over anything else? We look at evidence and choose the one which we believe to have the most support or reason for its truth.
I have stated before the impossibility of true relativism. After all, we have never found evidence to support that if A=B, and B≠C, then A=C. Speaking to the idea of moral relativism, and what one individual believes to be right makes it right for them, though it may be in complete opposition to what another believes to be right, they are both right to each other and neither of them is actually wrong. Reality is what you believe it to be. Sounds simple enough, though the same skeptics who refuse to accept nihilism based on lack of proof cannot accept relativism either, for lack of proof, but neither can they refute if based on abundance of proof. The same logical fallacy invoked earlier also states that something is not right just because it cannot be disproved. However, there is a lot of good evidence that points to the falseness of relativism. For example, if everything is relative, then either the idea of its relativity is also relative, or it is an objective fact that everything is relative, at which point everything is not relative, even if that objective fact is the only objective thing in existence. We must ask ourselves, how practical would it be to believe that there is only one objective fact, especially one that only exists to point to a subjective reality?
If we accept that there are objective facts, we must also accept that anything that contradicts them is objectively wrong. Not morally wrong, but factually. For example, I accept it to be an objective fact that morality does not even exist, it is an idea created by humans to increase their chances of surviving together and to decrease suffering, a great idea if you also accept that continuation of life is its own purpose, as nature would make it seem, though it fails to answer the question as to why we should accept this as purpose for ourselves. If anyone says that it is (morally) wrong to murder, they are stating something that is factually wrong, but they would be equally wrong to say that it is morally right to murder. Stated simply, everything merely is what it is.
The question will arise as to how we, as humans, can make such ultimatums based on evidence only from the human experience. Of course it would be impossible to retrieve direct evidence from any other source, but why should human experience reign supreme over all other facets of life, apart from the fact that it is humans who use it. We cannot, for example, say that goldfish have no purpose in life, without becoming a goldfish. In fact, goldfish serve a part in the food chain and the cycles of life on planet earth, as do humans. May Life itself have, or be its own, purpose? From the dogmatic lens of human experience we have no way of knowing at this time, though many have attempted to find the answer. As a nihilist then, how much credibility can be found in stating “Life has no intrinsic value or purpose.” We have no way of proving such a statement. The answer lies in motive. One cannot, at this point in history, prove that Life itself has no purpose. However, we can easily claim that human life has no purpose (for the human).
Any belief held on the immaterial or unknown requires faith on the part of the believer. Even believing that proof of an idea or material, quantifiable bit of matter requires faith that the proof is credible or valid. It is very possible that in the distant future man will have knowledge of all, at least all applicable to himself, but at this point of time faith is still important in avoiding absolute skepticism and denial of reality. Indeed, experience may give us evidence to support faith, even unconsciously. I just took a breath and had faith that my lungs would be filled with air providing oxygen, because experience has taught me that this will be so. Of course, this is not always absolute – it may not apply in an environment outside the earth’s atmosphere or even inside it in certain situations, but to deny myself breathing because those conditions might be so I would consider irrational skepticism, pseudo-rational at best. Even great ideas are essentially as useless as life itself if they are not practical or workable in application. A skeptic may even cite that my last statements were merely opinion, to which my answer would be – of course they are! It is also my opinion that the planet we live on is round, based on an abundance of evidence while certain groups of people are of the opinion that it is flat. I base my opinions on evidence, but we all must still have faith to make nearly all statements.
The question remains then, how can we know whether man has purpose or not? I have already explained much of my beliefs. Reality is objective, knowledge of the reality is relative to time and experience. However I have a theory, which I have even facetiously made into the mathematical equation hp=hl+i+x. An alternate version could be hp=hl-x. In these equations, hp stands for “human purpose,” hl stands for “human life,” i stands for “immortality,” and x stands for “free will.” With my faith, I accept free will to be a postulate, though I agree that causality does play a role in predicting what people will choose to do with their free will. Essentially, I theorize that human life has no purpose without immortality. Nothing we accomplish will last beyond the human lifespan. So then, the only way to give humanity a purpose would be to give them immortality. After all, there are generally only two reasons any animal will perform the actions they perform – to increase enjoyment or to increase lifespan. I am speaking here of individual purpose for the human being, nothing more and nothing less. The equation hp=hl-x takes an account of man having neither immortality or free will, basically tools such as the ones we create, which have their purpose of serving us. This would be the claim of many believers of a deity who created man, which as I have explained in earlier essays would be reason (in my opinion) to stand against such a being, even if it is futile. However the fact that I may stand against it only reaffirms my belief in my free will, especially since I do not accept that a deity (necessarily) exists.
Nihilism has been fought throughout history by those who choose to ignore the truth. After all, most only want to hear what they want to hear. I myself prefer truth over pleasure. Nothing may be absolutely proven, but reason and evidence can come to conclusions that may be believed based on faith, if one does not deny free will for causality. That is why nihilism is known as truth – it is belief in objective facts of an objective reality.

Edited: quite a bit happened as I was typing up this post, but this is in response to Andrew's comments to DiG, myself, and Dr. Ransom.

Andrew, I really do wonder if you are really interested in our answers or not. In your comment to Digs, you are accusing God for not just allowing man to sin but actually causing it. There is an issue of free-will here. And this is an area where the free-willies and predestination crowds both agree, before Genesis 3 and the Fall, man had free will where they could choose to obey God or not. There was only one command: "Don't eat from the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil". It was simple and you will notice that Eve actually added to it in Genesis 3. She said "you must not eat of it and you must not touch it.". God didn't say that. Point here is that Adam and Eve chose to sin and that carried through all their children and we see the results of that.

There are two things that must be addressed in dealing with the WHY? issue. First off, Paul tells us in Romans 5 that while all sin came through one man in Adam, redemption has come to all man through one man in Jesus Christ. While everyone is responsible for his/her own actions and personal sins, the sin nature issue is passed on and God understands that. But what is the difference here? The difference between sins and a sin nature? The effects?

People always say 'What I do is my business and it doesn't affect anyone else.' This is a lie that few people are willing to admit. I'll just use smoking to illustrate my point. What I just said is a frequently used argument from people who want to smoke wherever they want. The bulk of the effects of smoking does just affect the person who does it, but there is a stench that comes with smoking that extends far beyond the cigarette. We've all heard about 2nd hand smoke and the location where someone smokes smells like smoke for quite some time. This is similar, while not exact, to personal sins. Anything we do affects someone else in some way or another. When a person looks at pictures or videos they shouldn't, not only are they exploiting the people who 'perform' for said shots, the viewing of said shots affects how that person looks at other and impacts the relationships involved. When a Christian talks about conviction, it is always a very specific personal sin that is identified. Condemnation on the other hand is from the Villain we identify as Satan. That is vague and comes in the form of 'You did something wrong. You don't need to know what, but you did something wrong." If you can't identify it, it's not one of these personal sins. God tells us what he identifies as sin in his Law. And an important thing to realize. The Law is not meant to be something that we must hold up to. It is more like something that is meant to show us that we cannot hold up to it. That is a result of our sin nature.

Now the sinful nature is something else. It is propensity of a person to do something that is contrary to what God describes as righteous behavior in the Bible. The sin nature is what puts a life-span on man and life on this planet for that matter. Sin nature is a tendency to do its own thing and think of only self. People who have this sin nature will sin, not by default, but due to a lack of other options. Sin nature is most easily seen in a young child as it comes out of infancy into a toddler. What is the first word a child usually learns? "No", "Mine", or something alike. Proverbs says "Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child...". People with a sin nature can still do good deeds, but it's often due to a selfish motive or is a rare-occurrence.

Now here is something that must be understood. God doesn't judge on a scale of good deeds vs bad deeds. If that was case, we'd all be in serious trouble. But the news doesn't get any better. Isaiah 64:6, we learn that our good deeds on our own are like filthy rags in the sight of God. The filthy rags are not described as dirty in the sense of dirt and mud that can be washed off. They are described as someone who has leprosy. Rags that are soaked in blood and puss and dirt and ash. And back then, there was was cure for it. All someone who had leprosy could do was join all the others that had it in exile and die slowly, painfully, and alone. To put it simply, there is no hope without some kind of outside intervention.

That is what Jesus did. Like in Narnia, the only one who could break the Deep Magic on the Stone Table was someone who had committed no treachery. Only Aslan was able to do that. With us, we needed someone who did not have that sin nature. That is why the Virgin Birth is so critical to the Christian Faith. Sin is passed through the male (part of why Adam was blamed, not Eve) and Jesus could not have a biological father without acquiring the sin nature.

I didn't even get to my second point I mentioned above. Why is the issue of sin even an issue? Why didn't God prevent Adam and Eve from sinning? The real questions isn't related to them, but why doesn't God appear to be doing anything about it now? Why didn't God stop the 9/11 terrorists from destroying the World Trade Center? Why did God allow the earthquake in Japan just now? Sin is just part of it, but why is it still an issue?

These questions have led to the accusation that God made the world but left it to its own. And from someone who only looks at the bad things that happen, that's understandable. The Bible says God works all things for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purposes in Romans 8:28. That means several things. It means that everything does have a purpose, even if we can't see it. It also means that there are some that are positive recipients of this working and some negative recipients. It's easy to get lost in the masses. Jesus was asked when a tower fell and killed 18 people if they were more sinful than those that survived. Jesus basically said that was God's business and told the people to repent or they too would perish. So we see that sometimes bad things happen as a wake-up call. Other times it's for something even better. Ever heard of Jodi Tada Erickson? The quadriplegic artist who is internationally known? She became that way in a diving accident as a teen. Why did God allow that to happen? It is clear that she could have done all sorts of things if her body was fully functional. But if that accident didn't occur, would she have the word-wide audience and following that she does now? I doubt it. What about the crippled beggar in Acts 3 that Peter and John healed? He was crippled for 40 years. Why? So God could show his power at the right time. There's more.

Another reason why things go wrong is that we have a Villain. Satan has been our enemy from day 1. Christian or not, Satan has three goals: to steal, to kill, and to destroy. There are a number of times where things go wrong and it straight from the enemy. Look at Job. Satan stole his family, his health, and his friends. It is also important to note that God did allow that to happen. In fact, God pointed Job out to Satan for the purpose of getting glory. So something things go wrong to good people because God is proud of us.

Often, the bad times are God's way of training. Especially here in America, we want things quickly, we want them now, and we want to work as little as possible to get them. But look at the pro athletes, or at a body builder. Some athletes can get by just on talent, but very few. Most have to work and practice. It takes hours and hours of drills, brutal and hard workouts to get them into the shape they are in to be able to perform when they need to perform. Now there are times where God will act like our 'coach' and 'Father' but that is in the context of being a Christian and being a 'Child of God'.

It may seem that I am rambling here with a Dr. Ransom length novel-post, so I'll wrap things up. I'll just say one more thing about your comment about how Dr. Ransom evaded your question. The truth is, he didn't evade it at all. He just put it where you were not expecting. As a fencer, we have two actions for defense that have been illustrated here: a lateral parry and a circular parry. A lateral parry is what we typically see in the movies. The attacking blade aims for a target and the defending blade meets it directly to prevent it from hitting. This is what you wanted from Dr. Ransom. You wanted him to answer your comment directly. But what he pulled off was a circular parry. The circular parry goes around the attacking blade, picks it up, and puts it on a different side and angle that the attacker would expect from a lateral parry. Jesus did this frequently in his discussions with the Pharisees. He wouldn't answer their questions directly because they wanted to get into a debate. Jesus went into the heart of the issue and this is what Dr. Ransom did to address the issue here. He didn't meet your 'blade' where you expected him to. He put it where you didn't expect it. Like in fencing, if you respond to a circle parry like you would if it was a lateral parry, all you will do is open your self even more to get hit. You have to do a lateral parry to the circle parry (directly meet the real issue) or attempt another circle parry (dig even deeper to the root of the issue). I know video would be better to illustrate this point, but hopefully you'll get what I am saying.

That should do for now and give you something to ponder. As well as all of us.

I've got a new question for you Christians to rip apart and search for contradictions within, if any of you would be willing! I'd like to bring it against a Christian in my philosophy class, but it's always good to have someone check your work, you know? Okay here goes:

1. If man is not naturally sinful, we do not need God.
2. If man is naturally sinful, it is unjust to blame him for his sinful actions and to punish him for them.
3. God is not just, the Bible falls apart, etcetera.

Well obviously some Christians have answered. Do you mind if someone comes along who might want to argue from a different point of view? EG a historical one?

Your first statement is that if man is not naturally sinful then we don't need God. However, I find that idea absurd, to tell you the truth. That is to say, that man is not naturally sinful, whether or not you say we don't need God.

From a Freudian standpoint, we tend to be governed by our IDs, our Egos and our Superegos with the last term representing much of our cultural and family conditioning. But our ID, the part that defines us since babyhood, is our basic animal nature. ID wants food, shelter, comfort, security and pleasure, not pain. And never mind anyone else in the environment. When we want Mumma, the rest of the family can forget it. By contrast, the Ego is our true selves defining who we are, and how well we adjusted ID to the demands of the society we live in.

Now man is a thinking creature, so before you argue, you really have to define what you mean by sinfulness. For my own argument I am defining it as a tendency to do, say or think the wrong thing. Now if man is not naturally sinful then why do we all stuff up on a regular basis? And whilst we like to think that we are good people, how do you account for the times people out of laziness, anger, wilfulness, envy, pride, greed or gluttony, stuff up anyway? And how do you account for people, who not being naturally sinful, choose to do the wrong thing anyway? Do I really need to get you to read your Daily Fishwrap, our modern-day equivalent to the stocks, to find out about such unfortunates?

I agree there are genial sorts of people who do not deliberately intend to do the wrong thing. But even those sorts of people regularly stuff up, for one reason or another. Often because they didn't think or notice in the first place. Including one of my last posts, where I misspelled Shaphan's name as Shaphat, among other defects in the post. In other words nobody is perfect.

And whilst I agree it is the outward things which define our appearances, nobody really stops us from thinking whatever we want. If we thought someone was capable of reading our thoughts, we'd probably sue them for invading our privacy, even though by our body language, tone of voice and much else, we still manage to betray what and how we think. And that is to each other, not an all-knowing Supreme Being.

So on the whole, I prefer your second argument which is: 2. If man is naturally sinful, it is unjust to blame him for his sinful actions and to punish him for them. That argument at least acknowledges that nobody is perfect and that we all stuff up. That is to say, we are all naturally sinful, by thought, word and deed. But I disagree that it is unjust to blame anyone for his/her sinful actions and to punish him/her for them. Most of us have sinful thoughts from time to time. But we often choose not to act on them. Sometimes we even bite our tongues so as not to offend people. Why do we do this if we cannot help our sinful natures?

If you insist that man cannot be blamed for his sinful nature, are you also saying that man cannot be praised for resisting his sinful nature? We have bravery awards etc for those who chose, often at great personal risk, to do the right thing in dangerous circumstances. Isn't it demeaning their efforts if those who choose their own selfish interests above all, are not to be blamed for their choice to do the wrong thing?

And now this is the tricky part. How do we distinguish between what is right and what is wrong? That is where your last question comes in: 3. God is not just, the Bible falls apart, etcetera.

I sincerely doubt that God, the Great Architect of the Universe, is Out There with a big cane to discipline us. I think we do all that for ourselves, stewing in our own juice, you might say. Or that we were hoist by our own petard. You might call it truth and consequence. You speed so many times and eventually you get caught and fined. Of course if you stop speeding, your previous offences may never be noted, but was it really a fluke that so far you weren't noticed at all?

Today, we talk about the Darwin Awards, Occupational Health and Safety, and the stupidity of people who do the wrong thing even when they know what the right thing to do is. The Bible, about whose historicity I just might know a thing or two, illustrates in Kings and Chronicles, exactly the same principles. This is a unique Ancient History record, acting something like the modern day BBC and ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission). That is to say, that these Biblical episodes acted exactly like those necessary government agencies. But unlike how Egyptian or Assyrian scribes treated their kings, far from lionising ancient Israelite kings, it dumped on each and everyone of them, talking of their misdeeds as well as their triumphs. And in sharp contrast to other Ancient History documents of that time, it sweeps nothing whatever under the carpet.

Take the Ancient Kings of Israel. We've all heard of Ahab, but what of his successors? Well his son Jehoram died and his widow Jezebel also met her doom. But Jehu, now a synonym for a recklessly speeding driver, slew all Ahab's 700 sons (and probably grandsons) at a place called Jezreel. A prophet called Hosea, who lived in the time of Hezekiah, and the last days of Israel, called his eldest child Jezreel, on account of this unnecessary bloodshed. Read all about it, including Hosea's marital problems and what they symbolised about Ancient Israel, in the Biblical book of the same name.

Jehu's successors fought among themselves, so that by the time the last king of Israel, Hoshea, came to power, there had been a whole string of monarchs in quite a short time. This is political suicide, isn't it? Hoshea, the last king, is described as being less sinful than most, but then he, too, shot himself in the foot.

If you ever visit the British Museum, you can examine their exhibits for nothing, including a strange black stela, which on one line depicts Jehu paying tribute to the Assyrian kings. Well, it seems that Israelite kings like Pekah or Jehu had dutifully paid up on cue for the Assyrians to let them alone whilst they went on assassinating each other etc. But Hoshea reached the point where he refused to pay up. Giving Shalmaneser V the then Assyrian king just the excuse to descend upon Samaria, besieging and finally conquering it, even though the effort killed him in 722 BC . The result was the end of Israel as a political identity.

That is not to say the kings of Judah were so much better. Asa was a particularly well-behaved king. But he hurt his foot. And chose not to pray about this injury but to entrust himself to the doctors. Now medical science has improved somewhat, but I would still pray if a loved one was to have a triple bypass or some other difficult surgery. Back in those times when medical science was not nearly as knowledgeable as today, it would be definitely stupid not to pray. You would be taking your life in your hands merely to go near a doctor. Asa merely took a 'she'll be right' attitude, and found that 'she' would definitely not be right, when he died of his injured foot. Those days they couldn't sue for medical negligence.

Now tell me. Is this Darwin Awards? Or is it a demonstration that yes, we might need a God after all? If only to protect us from ourselves?

Should we then try to tear down his standard of perfect good, because we cannot live up to it? Certainly not!

Pretty unrealisitic and unjust standard if we're naturally driven to break it, and the bible predicts that we all will.

Let's break this down into an analogy. I'm a big college basketball fan (probably the only one on NWeb...don't get Digs started )...I love the game, the finesse, the...pageantry of a team's journey through the season. Our lives as Christians aren't really much different.

In a perfect world Christianity would go on the court and have a perfect season. Every time a ball was thrown it would go into the basket. Evil, our opponent, wouldn't be able to put up any defense and would miss everything they tossed up. Now as much as I'd love to see a trouncing like that (Biblically speaking one day it will happen in the Championship Game), there's not a whole lot of Glory to be found playing that way. God, it turns out, recruited what most scouts would think of as a mixed basket of talent. Some folks are really quite good at the game while others most coaches wouldn't think of so much as letting grace their benches. God, however, isn't a Scout like the others are and sees things the others aren't able to see. He actually plays His benchwarmers and as a result they grow and get better. There will be some losses along the way, which any good coach will tell you is necessary to guide a player into growth and learning a better understanding of the game, as well as giving them valuable experience on how better to approach certain situations. Sometimes players will experience injuries and become frustrated and dejected about their time on the team. Sometimes there will be close calls, but it's been predicted long before that we'll all be on the winning team. And when the season is done I'm rather looking forward to putting on that Championship ring myself.

By your logic (if I'm following you properly), however, you're saying that because the players are going to make mistakes and the rules are unfair and the Coach is really to blame for all this, there's no point in playing the game in the first place. That we should just throw the towel in now because the whole season is doomed from the start. But the truth is that everything God allows to happen to the members of the team (mistakes, injuries, imperfection, disobedience, discouragement, etc.) is done by His knowing it will improve His team and mold them into the players He knows they will be...not for their glory, but for His.

Ok, probably a lousy analogy, but Paul used running and marathons as analogy and metaphor for what he was talking about...I can't throw in a little b-ball?

Andrew, what's happened mate? You used to be all inquistive and everything and ask thought-provoking questions but you were agreeable. We often didn't agree on things but discussion was still civilised. I preferred your attitude when there wasn't any snarkiness. Really, there's a way of disagreeing with people without insulting them. You've done it before. I'm sure you're able to do it again.

ry, We're not talking about an idiot setting a fire, however, God's the one who made it all happen. You can say all you want that he didn't mean for it to happen, but then it's really God who needs our forgiveness, not vice versa.

Hey, don't get mad at me as you're the one who picked the analogy . I don't really get how God needs our forgiveness, particularly as God doesn't need anything. Perhaps you could clarify? By our choosing to sin (and hence fall), how does that merit God requiring our forgiveness?

I don't see myself as talking down to Elwin, and certainly don't mean to, but he really does take everything I say and throw it out the window before responding to it with totally unfounded ideas of what he interprets it to mean (postmodernism at work).

It is very hard to interpret one's tone over the internet, and forgive me if I misjudged you. That being said, the fact remains that he thinks you have left his questions unanswered, so you are in no position to claim that he has left your questions unanswered. That argument is not going to go anywhere, will only result in a stalemate between the parties involved.

If man is naturally sinful, we are probably going to sin whether anyone tells us to or not, it's our natural tendencies.

And (correct me if I'm wrong) but you see this as "illogical" or "unfair" so to speak? Because if you do, then you're buying into the dangerous fallacy that life is supposed to be fair, and that God is supposed to be fair. God isn't fair, and neither is life. Assuming thus has caused many a soul to go to a Christless eternity in Hell.

I'm going to bring up another Dumbledore quote : "Soon the time will come for all of us to choose between what is right, and what is easy." Just because something is difficult, doesn't mean that it isn't impossible (Phillipians 4:13).

And as far as your picture goes, did you know that some scientists have actually discovered a use for all of those billions of galaxy? A use that benefits earth? I'm certainly no expert on astronomy (perhaps this question would be better suited for stargazer as that is his field of expertise), but from what I understand, these distant galaxies have absorbed a ton of the universe's mass and radiation, which, if earth/milky way was alone in space, would have made our planet so dense and toxic that life couldn't exist.

God creates laws for us to follow. His standard is perfectly good and perfectly just, and we cannot live up to it. Should we then try to tear down his standard of perfect good, because we cannot live up to it? Certainly not! We should recognize that we as Humans chose to be the way we are. We as Humans choose to commit sin each time we do, because we have the freewill to do so.

Another thing that must be mentioned is that God's Law (the entire book of Leviticus and most of Numbers), was put in place to show to mankind that humans could NEVER live up to it, and hence were in need of a Saviour.

My flow of thought is more along the lines of, "A law that is unjust is no law at all."

That's not very good logic, my friend. I hate to bog down this conversation with semantics, but the definition of a law has nothing to do with justice. A law is merely a standard of conduct to which citizens need to adhere. Just because you might think that God's laws are unjust (even though they aren't) doesn't let you off from following them.

Pretty unrealisitic and unjust standard if we're naturally driven to break it, and the bible predicts that we all will.

Your point? Of course the standard is unrealistic! That's the whole point. The whole point of the law was to show us that we couldn't do this on our own, and needed a Saviour!

You feel that you're disgusting little maggots who deserve to be tortured forever simply because you were unfortunate enough to exist; I don't see any reason for it to be this way, in fact why should being human make you so terrible?

Um. . . I would ask you to find one person in this thread who has said this. You won't find any. We do not deserve to be tortured for eternity due to our existence, but due to our sin. Sin is inevitable in life, and hence I can see your line of reasoning, but there's a flaw in it. The main purpose of this life is to bring glory and honour to Christ with our lives. Those who fail in this purpose, are punished. Andrew, what would you say is the purpose to life?

If you all would like to continue to argue this, I am completely open to that, but if none of you do, I'm not an unreasonable person. I would be willing to step aside to allow for progress.

Food, I'm going to post an essay I wrote recently for you to read if you would like. It's called "Subjective knowledge of objective reality, and the limits of nihilism." I post it mainly for your benefit because most of the people here have heard alot of my arguments. Here it is:

I literally can't go on with this any more, because I have an organic chemistry final to flunk. I'll try to pop back in later to continue addressing everybody's points, but this thread is moving so quickly that I'll probably miss something

It is things like this that cause some members to become slightly irked with the manner in which you're treating this thread, Andrew. Posts like this make you seem like you're the one who is running this thread; you're not - none of us are.

Andrew, thou doth protest too much, methinks. This is supposed to be a fun discussion. Relax a little! I brought that up because we had unfinished business from before. For you to respond so out of proportion seems odd. In essence, here's what I said and you said:

1. Me from last summer: Point A.
2. The Black Glove from last summer: Point B.
3. You from last summer (ignoring Points A and B): Point Blah.
4. You from the other day: Point Et Cetera.
5. Me yesterday: I'll answer Point Et Cetera after you answer Points A and B.
6. You yesterday (repeating a lack of actual interaction, and ignoring your bypassing Points A and B): Ha ha, fool! You haven't answered Point Et Cetera!

That argument is not going to go anywhere, will only result in a stalemate between the parties involved.

Actually my offer was only: answer the stuff you ignored before, proving you do want to have a conversation, then I'd be glad to engage your more-recent stuff.

So Andrew, I will say this again: first, please respond to the earlier points, and help me see you really do want to have an actual conversation, and then I'd love to get into your more-recent question. But if it's only so you can try to have the (real or imagined) upper hand against some other Christian, or if you continue ignoring simple attempts to understand someone's point of view — going off on some wild straw-man idea that I or other Christians think we're perfect — no Christian here has motive to engage you.

Take the speck out of your own eye, brother! Let he who is without sin throw the first stone!

Billions and billions in the cosmos! Memes! The God of the Bible is a doddering fool! How Could a Loving God Do XYZ?

... There. Now it's your turn to recite bits and pieces of the other guy's supposed talking points, out of context and randomly, as if they relate at all to the discussion, or even as if consistency with one's own beliefs is somehow required (don't impose your "morality" on me! ).

Again, I challenge you to respond to this:

Without God, morality not only doesn't exist, it has no meaning whatsoever. "Good" and "bad" have no more meaning than "benfaby" and "gwird."

Here is what you can do, Andrew. Whenever you make a statement that has moral connotations to it, try substituting a nonsense word instead, since it will have the same meaning, according to you. Or you might try simple emoting. Thus, if you were going to say that following God is bad, you should just say, "Boo following God."

That's where you end up.

Other than that, the only thing I have to say thus far is that the atheist "motivational poster" was silly. It only scores rhetorically if one assumes Biblical Christianity is self-centered. Where did they get that myth?

I've got about ten minutes before my next class so I'm only going to respond to Elwin for the moment, I'll come back later when I have more time to answer some of these huges posts.

So Andrew, I will say this again: first, please respond to the earlier points, and help me see you really do want to have an actual conversation, and then I'd love to get into your more-recent question. But if it's only so you can try to have the (real or imagined) upper hand against some other Christian, or if you continue ignoring simple attempts to understand someone's point of view — going off on some wild straw-man idea that I or other Christians think we're perfect — no Christian here has motive to engage you.

Please, refresh me on your earlier points. All I recall you saying is something to the tune of: you're not god, you want to be but you're not, so why should I follow you?

Well, I don't think I'm god. You could say the truth is my god, because that's what I'm after, but wsince we both place entirely different connotations on the word I wouldn't use it. Anyways, you haven't gotten around to answering what I actually say because of your pressupposition that I have the same stance of some other agnostic or atheist of whatever other believer that you may have encountered before, or read about in Mere Christianity. And since I disagree with you, it automatically means I'm not interested in learning from you, or having a discussion, and on top of that I'm an arrogant jerk for not speaking in schoolworthy jargon.

Would you mind giving me your points again, since I don't recall everything we said back in June, and I have since accepted that I have an emotional side (that's why I've accepted atheism over agnosticism).

Edit: Turns out I didn't need to be in class today, so I'll do my best to hit everyone else's replies. As always, thanks for all of them!

@Fencer, your argument that actions have consequences is an obvious fact of life, action=reaction, all that stuff. However, if someone develops lung problems from secondhand smoke, how is that fair? If a person chooses to be a smoker, they take the consequences along with that. That's why we have laws designating where somebody may smoke, so that non-smokers are saved from most of the adverse effects (except for smell, though these fancy new electronic cigarettes have solved that problem ).

That is vague and comes in the form of 'You did something wrong. You don't need to know what, but you did something wrong." If you can't identify it, it's not one of these personal sins. God tells us what he identifies as sin in his Law. And an important thing to realize. The Law is not meant to be something that we must hold up to. It is more like something that is meant to show us that we cannot hold up to it. That is a result of our sin nature.

You're almost making my argument for me here. I disagree with your whole idea of a concience, after all it's just made up guilt people feel for their made up morality in their artificial culture's standards for right and wrong. However I like your last couple lines. God's law isn't just because it isn't livable, so either there is no god, or theres a sado-masochist "God" who makes problems just so people need him to solve them.

That is what Jesus did. Like in Narnia, the only one who could break the Deep Magic on the Stone Table was someone who had committed no treachery. Only Aslan was able to do that. With us, we needed someone who did not have that sin nature. That is why the Virgin Birth is so critical to the Christian Faith. Sin is passed through the male (part of why Adam was blamed, not Eve) and Jesus could not have a biological father without acquiring the sin nature.

Sin is passed through the male? I'm curious as to where you have any biological evidence of this. I mean, we could isolate that gene and solve the whole problem right now!

Other times it's for something even better. Ever heard of Jodi Tada Erickson? The quadriplegic artist who is internationally known? She became that way in a diving accident as a teen. Why did God allow that to happen? It is clear that she could have done all sorts of things if her body was fully functional. But if that accident didn't occur, would she have the word-wide audience and following that she does now? I doubt it. What about the crippled beggar in Acts 3 that Peter and John healed? He was crippled for 40 years. Why? So God could show his power at the right time.

You utilitarian divine command theory might hold water if there was actually a pot of gold waiting at the end of the rainbow. The greatest good is what's done, eh? Well if that were so, God would never have revealed himself to us through the Bible. The wars caused over holy texts have almost certainly sent more people to hell than will be in heaven. I am making this assumption based on Matthew 7:14, "For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it."

But look at the pro athletes, or at a body builder. Some athletes can get by just on talent, but very few. Most have to work and practice. It takes hours and hours of drills, brutal and hard workouts to get them into the shape they are in to be able to perform when they need to perform.

That's alot of the reason why I don't buy into hedonism.

I'll just say one more thing about your comment about how Dr. Ransom evaded your question. The truth is, he didn't evade it at all. He just put it where you were not expecting.

I disagree, but early on in this post I have asked him to explain his "parry," so that it applies to my actual arguments, at least in a way that I understand.

If you insist that man cannot be blamed for his sinful nature, are you also saying that man cannot be praised for resisting his sinful nature? ...And now this is the tricky part. How do we distinguish between what is right and what is wrong?

Absolutely not, what's sin nature? It's not sin, it's natural law that drives man. Survival instincts manifest in interesting ways in the artificial cultures of today. Also, read my essay I posted to Food for my answer on distinguishing between right and wrong.

By your logic (if I'm following you properly), however, you're saying that because the players are going to make mistakes and the rules are unfair and the Coach is really to blame for all this, there's no point in playing the game in the first place.

Basketball players have a choice to play or not, we don't. May I ask who your picks for March Madness are?

I preferred your attitude when there wasn't any snarkiness. Really, there's a way of disagreeing with people without insulting them. You've done it before. I'm sure you're able to do it again.

I'm sorry you don't appreciate my style, but I don't think it's rude. Maybe I'm crazy, but it seems everyone's getting mad that I disagree and debate them on what they believe. Sorry, I thought that was the point of the thread. But if you really feel like I'm that snarky, I'm glad you let me know, I'll try to "check myself before I wreck myself," as it were.

Hey, don't get mad at me as you're the one who picked the analogy . I don't really get how God needs our forgiveness, particularly as God doesn't need anything. Perhaps you could clarify? By our choosing to sin (and hence fall), how does that merit God requiring our forgiveness?

The Bible says all have sinned, we don't choose to exist, so we don't choose sin.

And (correct me if I'm wrong) but you see this as "illogical" or "unfair" so to speak? Because if you do, then you're buying into the dangerous fallacy that life is supposed to be fair, and that God is supposed to be fair. God isn't fair, and neither is life. Assuming thus has caused many a soul to go to a Christless eternity in Hell.

I agree that life isn't fair, not even close, but that's because of natural selection. And of course the Christian God isn't fair or just, that's my whole point.

That's not very good logic, my friend. I hate to bog down this conversation with semantics, but the definition of a law has nothing to do with justice. A law is merely a standard of conduct to which citizens need to adhere. Just because you might think that God's laws are unjust (even though they aren't) doesn't let you off from following them.

Who's definition? That's why I stated my context, because I didn't want to go around reading every dictionary out there to see if I'm in agreeance.

Um. . . I would ask you to find one person in this thread who has said this. You won't find any. We do not deserve to be tortured for eternity due to our existence, but due to our sin. Sin is inevitable in life, and hence I can see your line of reasoning, but there's a flaw in it. The main purpose of this life is to bring glory and honour to Christ with our lives. Those who fail in this purpose, are punished. Andrew, what would you say is the purpose to life?

Actually, I believe you said it last night, Dig. I may have expounded on what you said for effect, of course. As you know, I do not believe life can have a purpose, and I posted an essay on this thread yesterday to explain why, if you would like to read it.

It is things like this that cause some members to become slightly irked with the manner in which you're treating this thread, Andrew. Posts like this make you seem like you're the one who is running this thread; you're not - none of us are

I'm not following you, mainly because I posted what you're referencing to be nice to anyone who didn't want to sit around not getting anywhere for the next couple weeks, as happened last time. I've pretty much gotten what I came for anyways, which was for you all to help me find flaws in the argument I first posted. Sorry if that sounds so arrogant to you.