One question for Christians and one for Muslims neither can answer

How does one get to heaven?

 

The first thing is to die.

 

Sex isn't a sin. Sex outside of wedlock is. That's like asking if God is against lying why would he give people the ability to think.

Free will is a gift from God, we are allowed to think, act, and choose how to live our life. He gives us every opportunity as long as we live to accept his grace, love, and mercy.

I'm honestly having a difficult time in understanding why you are confused by this.

 

*rolls eyes* read the rest of the thread.

 

Do you believe in free will or not? Without knowing that, I don't really known if I have any interest in reading anything else you've written.

 

Cliff note summary then: I believe in free will as I don't believe in Yahweh. I do not agree that the act of creation can be separated from the act of sin. Answer I walked away with earlier: the deist theory of the clockwork universe. But that raises the question: Is the Yahweh of the Hebrew Scriptures interventionist or not?

 

Well that is a start.

In what way? You believe sex itself is a sin? Do you believe Adam and Eve were pure since they were created by God's hands and not sexual intercourse?

God could intervene in ways we as humans could not comprehend, by the very nature of the way he designed us. Which is why I've always found this question as rather odd. If God exist, he created us so we would never be able to comprehend the exact nature of all things. Therefor he could be intervening in ways we could never label or grasp, or also could be intervening in ways that we are allowed to choose to believe in one way or another in our understanding of our nature. In other words when you are talking about something supernatural, you are going to be talking about something that is beyond nature itself as we understand it, and even if it is possible to see the elements of the supernatural effecting the natural world you can only accept that based on faith alone. The God of the unexplained as it were.

In such a world (which I do believe is the one we live on) only revelation could solve that question, and that would only be done on an individual basis. If God came to you tonight and proved to you he existed, but only choose to present himself to you and you alone you'd have a difficult time proving it to anyone else "naturally". You'd be in a "God, The Devil, and Bob" situation. Anyone who believed in you, and the revelation you lived through, would be doing so based on faith alone.

 

The rest of what you said is interesting philosophical stuff to chew on trust me, but in any case I do not believe what you believe. I want to focus on what I quoted.

I do not believe sex itself is a sin. But I'm not getting that impression when religious people judge me for masturbating or having sexual desires (aka thought crimes). But regardless, I do not believe it is a sin if two people decide to live together under the same roof without going through the motions of standing before a third party who is a religious authority and exchanging vows. Many Christians however disagree with me and say you must go through said motions or God will frown upon it. Some Christians have stated that a ceremony is not necessary as long as the two parties are genuinely committed to each other. But in the case of the former; if God frowns upon it, why does he bring forth the blessing of life through an act he disapproved of? Unless of course you believe in the clockwork universe where God is NOT directing the sperm to the egg. That's why we were talking about weather God is interventionist or not.

 

That's the point I don't understand with your conundrum. No one who thinks it is a sin to have sex outside of marriage, believes sex itself is a sin. They believe it's the choice of doing it outside of marriage that is.

If you are asking why does God allow someone to sin, it's because as I told you free will is a gift. Just because you abuse a process that doesn't mean God has any reason to stop the consequences of your actions from happening. In fact his allowing those consequences are the aspect of the gift of free will. Your hang up seems to be with the fact that God allows evil to exist from the excess of sin and free will itself.

We are responsible for our actions, and all the entails. The consequences of them included. That is the judgement the awaits us all.

 

You talk about personal responsibility and consequences. You speak of God allowing things to happen as a consequence. In that case then you must concede that God is not the designer. God did not direct the sperm to the egg and did not plan what features the baby will have. To put that in simpler terms, is God non-interventionist where the consequence is a baby being conceived, or is he interventionist with bringing forth a "blessing" of a new life? In the case of the latter, it would raise the secondary question weather the sin was not really a sin as it was His plan all along to create life (that life being a blessing).

At this point I'll raise my earlier point in the thread about God thanking Satan and the Sinners. Should God thank Satan and the sinners for providing Him with the opportunity to bring forth his blessing as it was not his original intent?

 

I'm sorry but that's a non starter. How did you jump to that conclusion? A computer designer who creates a program, creates it to act under certain conditions once a player enters data into the system, what comes out from that action is just a simple result of what was put in it in the first place. A designer may intervene at times to do certain things that the system may or may not do on it's own, but only the designer will know that when he does it, or when he reveals it to others. Otherwise the system itself will run largely on it's own, whether the person running the program follows the manual or not.

Direct? It's a process. A computer programmer does not force a program to work every time someone uses it, the process of the program itself works on it's own. That's how it is designed. Again it is possible for a programmer to alter aspects of a program directly, which is done all the time in the tech world, but is not known about unless stated otherwise.

God doesn't control human action. As I told you he gave us free will, and then the guide to how to properly act. You continue to take out human action in your thought process, and I have no idea why. Do you not understand what free will is? Our choices and actions have natural consequences designed in the system, those process happened whether they are sinful or sin free. It's the choice of action that ultimately decides the fate of an individual, but each choice has it's own real world consequences on how it works in the real world system.

For example, God has nothing against the act of killing itself. All of the animal kingdom is said to be under the control of mankind, and we are to be the stewards of the beasts. We are allowed to kill certain animals for food and sustenance though, that action is not an act of sin. On the other hand if you choose to kill your fellow man, that can be considered an act of sin. Simply because it is the context that is sinful, not the act itself. It is what we choose to do with the process, not the process.

You seem to be hung up on the fact that a process can run on it's own, and God could also intervene at times when he wants without being understood by naturalist labels. Which I truly don't understand why that is difficult to grasp. This is not a binary question, and you are getting hung up on it being one.

As I said before you can not understand the mentality of a supernatural being in naturalist terms as you seem to want. Neither I nor you can possibly understand God. The only glimpses of him we do get are from revelation, granted to others in the past, in only in ways that those who had these revelations happen, being conveyed in terms they would understand.

You are still trying to label, classify, and categorizes a being that is beyond the natural world, in naturalist terms and ends. Which is an impossible task.

 

I have absolutely ZERO reason to believe in those "revelations" of the past as they do not provide the answers to my most pressing questions (which is what religion is SUPPOSED to do) and there is no proof that those were actually revelations. And even if I were to believe in some kind of revelation, which revelation am I to believe? The revelation from Yahweh that is the Bible or the revelation from Allah that is the Qur'an?

For everything else you said that I did not quote, I'm sorry but I am yet to be convinced of anything. One more question: If I were to walk away unconvinced, is that a loss to you or not? The reason I ask is because I want to know if you still believe in evangelism.

I understand processes, free will, personal responsibility consequences for actions. That does not answer the question weather the Yahweh of the Hebrew Scriptures is interventionist or not.

 

Religion is not about answering a specific question. In fact it could be argued correctly, that it is not a question or answers at all, but of God's will. Your belief or disbelief in any one religion is based often on an individuals personal feelings or thoughts, it's not something transferable it's deeply personal.

Now people advertise religion often as being an answer to people's questions or needs of meaning, and it's true in many ways religions do have answers, but I don't think it's correct to say that a religion exist solely to answer one question. It's a lifestyle, which moves it beyond only being simply a set of questions and answers. Religions are ultimately about confining to what the believer believes to be the will of God, and to live their life in accordance with that will.

Those are all questions only you can answer for yourself. You must use the gift of free will that the Lord gave you to make your decisions in this life.

That's not surprising, since I have no honest understanding in your quandary, beyond your unwillingness to understand specific ideas and their implications. Free will and it's implications answer the majority of your problems, except for your desire to place a supernatural being into a naturalist understanding, which is impossible by it's very nature. You can judge a creator, by measuring it with the tools of his creation. God is beyond the natural world. The laws of physics for example would have no affect on him, and once you grasp that you should know the rest of your wants are impossible to answer, because you don't have the tools needed to answer them.

I never said I was an evangelical.

It answers your problems with sex, and the sin of sex outside of marriage, which you still have a hard time grasping for reasons beyond me.

And your desire to place a supernatural being in naturalist terms are impossible. A supernatural being may have effects that can be viewed in natural phenomenon, and may also effect the natural order in ways we are designed not to understand. Until you can grasp that, you aren't going to be able to move on from your question.

The nature of your questions, aren't going to lead to simple binary choices, and in fact are not answerable in the way you want them to be. Again because you can not use natural labels and construct on something that is beyond nature itself.

 

And I hereby choose to live my life assuming but not knowing there is no God.

You don't know my other problems regarding sex other than the question I asked. As I said in my original post; it was the questions regarding sex that pushed me away from religion. I'd share them with you but if it all comes back to free will, no I do not believe the other questions would come down to free will. I have 4 other questions regarding sex other than the one I already asked.

 

Everything comes down to free will and choice in the end, so no I doubt our discussion would be any different then it already has been.

 

Dunno where you got that idea, but very often the questions pressing to the mind serve no greater purpose than to obscure those pressing to the soul.

 

That was not the question. The question was that if you knew the Truth - not debatable, but you were convinced you knew the actual Truth - would you keep it a secret?

Christians believe they know the Truth, so they do not keep it a secret. That's why they evangelize.

Think carefully about what you wrote. Essentially, you would push Christians into the closet because they 1) do not meet your subjective personal standard and 2) hold an opinion that you do not like. You would use the brutal power of the government to disenfranchise and ostracize a huge group of people because they hold a belief which you do not like.

No group - Christians, chemists, physicists, psychologists, biologists, etc. - can answer every question about their field. And when pushed with certain issues (evolution for biologists, for example) they tend to get emotional and defensive and attack the questioner in response to their core beliefs being threatened. Its human nature. Do you want to push physicists etc. into the closet as well?

 

Accept the Gospel. Its that simple.

 

I got 2 replies and they are different. So I am not wrong on any account.

 

If you mean the reply in post 302 from a atheist (first you must die), then you are not serious about your question.

The Bible is the source, read it. The answer is repeated many times in the New Testament, and its the same answer.

 

There's no such thing as free will in the Bible. Even if a person wants to do something he can be prevented by what his distant ancestors did or what race he is or by his physical condition.

 

lol What Bible are you reading? The entire story is about how God continues to give mankind a choice in how to live their own lives, even after we are kicked out of Paradise. He allows to Israels to constantly choose their own way of doing things, when they go to farther he flattens them, and they start again, but he never stops the choice from happening. We are free to choose, it is the gift God granted us.

Let me guess you're a Calvinist?

 

BS. Read the fairy tale.

Deuteronomy 23:2 (KJV) = "A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD."

http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/racial tolerance/dt23_03a.html 5 pictures

http://www.bricktestament.com/the_law/male_genital_injury/dt23_01a.html 3 pictures

BTW, if you're not a Hebrew why do you think their fairy tale deity is concerned about you?

 

Well, the entire RC religion disagrees with you.
The Muslims, disagree with you.
The Jews, disagree with you.
And as you point out, Atheists, who are former christians, disagree with you.
There will be a majority of religious folks who disagree with you.
And they all believe in the same god and heaven you do.

So, my point stands, very very few are qualified to spread the gospel.
You just proved that with your answer to my question. You are spreading false information.
Likely words of Saul the persecutor of christians.
The bible says something about false prophets. Don't be one.

 

Many who believe the bible, believe the god of the bible is omniscient.
So punishing Israels for doing what he knows they are going to do is pretty silly. And if they did choose their own way and stay true to god, god would be wrong and not omniscient.