What gives God the right to be "holy"?

On the contrary, I think it lies at the heart of the matter, especially if you are claiming that sin and the fall are part of this physical world. In Christian theology, people are going to hell because of the way that God set things up. That's all that matters.

you keep steering away from our own personal responsibility toward laws. We were made with intelligence so that we could be responsible for our actions...this is a necessary part of free will. If we are unwilling to take responsibility for ourselves and our actions, then we are making God a scapegoat.Now this hell business is nothing to do with God. Its not a place where conscious people exist...its the grave of mankind. Its the place of inactivity...its the place of the dead.We may both go there but i can assure you we wont be conscious of being there...and thats not Gods fault either.

Yep, because I'm trying to redress the balance. We're always told how we failed God's perfect standard, and how we must pay the price. Preached it myself a thousand times. What I am asking is why should God have a perfect standard? And why should we be judged against it? Eve exercised her freewill and the rest of humanity is paying the price for it. But it was God's afront to her choice that is the reason behind the fall and the suffering. Oh, I'm sorry Peg. I was talking about Christian beliefs. You're a JW - you're not Christian - you are a deceit sent by Satan. Didn't you know? Do you know how many times I have preached against you guys - how many conferences I have attended learning how to beat down the satanic influence of the major cults (JWs, Mormons, Christian Scientists, Scientologists, Christadelphians, Armstrongists) It's very very odd being on the outside now, looking back in. It took me to stop being a Christian to recognise you as a Christian. It's a strange world...Edited by cavediver, : No reason given.

for the same reason that universal laws cannot be tampered with...we need them to exist. the truth is, we are not judged against it. God has provided us a means of return thru the death of his son. Jesus has in effect, died in our place. He has presented his death to God and paid the price for our imperfection for us.This is why we are told that all those who excersize faith in Jesus will not have their sin held against them. We can ask for, and recieved, forgiveness rather then have to pay the price for sin, namely death. hey, now your're placing the blame directly on eve. Perhaps you dont realise it but the Apostle Paul put the blame on Adam because as he said "Eve was thoroughly decieved, but the man was not decieved"Really, the reason for our fall was because of inherited traits...sin is a genetic flaw which is why we all have it...but its a flaw that God has promised to remove. awww thats sweet. We are still accused of being a cult...but hey, if we were a cult we wouldnt be knocking on people doors and we wouldnt have all our meetings open to the public would we.it just goes to show how fragmented christianity has become...its amazing to think that it started off as one small group of 12 men in palestine. Edited by Peg, : No reason given.

So Yahweh takes out a divine tenner and gives it to himself as the price of purchase of man back to himself?I stand by my point: that was pointless. Because the 'curse' only came about through his own action. He charged himself for his own action and paid himself.A far better way would have been for him to say "tell you what, your not cursed".This would have saved billions of people eternal damnation and Jesus having to take a weekend off of work. I've got kittens who have to stay in the house till they are 6 months old. If I left the front door open and gave them the choice of going out into the street (which has a society of brawling kitties fighting over our front garden) and then leaving the door ajar so they can chose to come back in; is that love?That's not love that negligence! Sigh. If he really cared he would not have been negligent in his care. Jesus was inconvenienced for a weekend: Yahweh did not need to engineer for humanity to need redeeming in the first place.And another thing: all the people since A+E are punished for another persons actions and then redeemed by another persons actions? What good is that? Humanity seems to have no say in the matter; so much for free will, eh? By the omission of action of a negligent parent!Yahweh has engineered a situation where humanity must idolize him or suffer eternal damnation and the only rationale is because no could stop him.Why not just let us get on with it without his interference and narcissistic need to be idolised? Why can't he keep his interfering face and arse out of humanity's business?Narcissistic Personality Disorder: You only need 5 of the above. Fits Yahweh to a tee.http://www.echo.me.uk/npd1.htm#criterion

You may try to boast how your have been there and done that. But your boating rings hollow in the very next post where you speak of Adam and Eve falling from grace?Where did you get that concept of "falling from grace" if not directly from Galatians. But OH NO! you're steering far, far away from that New Testament "drivel". You're gloriously free from the New Testament, Right ?So you're an old pro at twisting ? Very impressive.
Probably no need for me to waste time with your thread.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

My Christian life spanning more than twenty years gave me many pleasurable times and gave me the best wife I could hope to have, but as a self-confessed acadmeic and intellectual I do not boast at being deluded for the larger part of my life Err, what?

You've got that slightly skewed cavediver. His wrath was the actual contents of the box her choice opened so there isn't a way for her to have opened that box without releasing the contents. In other words, his wrath formed the consequences promised - which formed one of the very options open to her.There is no problem with giving someone the promised consequences attaching to their choice - surely?And whilst some of those consequences involve our suffering (which doesn't make them any less just - they are simply promised consequences), the overarching gig wrt us isn't our suffering - it's our response to something God installed in each one of us: a knowledge of good and evil.If we (not she) know we are doing evil then surely you'd have no problem with our being punished, eventually, for it. It's our knowledge, our choice .. to do evil. Eve hasn't anything directly to do with it.

Yep, but the point of this thread is - why is there any wrath to begin with?

i dont think there is wrathi think there is a lot of sadness and pity for us... do you think he would have given up his dearest son if he felt angry and wrathful?remember the words of John 3:16"for God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten son in order that everyone excersizing faith in him, might not be destroyed but have everlasting life"

After reading this thread, I think I can sum this question up in one sentence: because god said so and that's how he is, how dare you question it.

That is do to the fact that humans are in control of religion and human greed & prejudice reigns. Ie: The Great Schism which separated the Roman Church from the Greek Church in the 11th century solely based on a power struggle between the Bishop of Rome & the Patriarch of Constantinople which separated Christianity where each excommunicated the other. Then the Renaissance where various men decided to make changes and wound creating new faith or altering the conventinal mainly for no religious reasons ie Henry VIII vs the Pope over the Popes procrastination over the anulment of the marriage oHenry to Catherine of Aragon solely over politics (the Pope was a Hapsburg) and Catherine was related to to the Hapsburgs. The idea was that id Henry Had no sons the Hapsburgs could claim the throne through Henry's daughter Mary. Martin Luther Had good ideas to attempt to bring the church back to the church of the Apostles but again politics played a major role in the way he went about it. Also the fact that Luther, Henry & The Pope all condemned Calvin.

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

Hi Slevesque It sounds like God is not the one in control. If he doesn't have the choice about Hell, who does? Who made God in such a way that he doesn't have a choice. Who was God sacrificing himself/his son to? When Jesus was crucified, who suddenly said to God, "ah, ok, now you've gone through that I'll let you save some of those people"?For me this is the biggest flaw in Christianity. One minute God is unquestionable, the next he's got things in such a mess he's doing things as hair-brained as deliberately getting himself nailed to a tree. I've known many people get themselves in all kinds of difficulties, make all kinds of mistakes, but never have any of them contrived to have themselves or their children suffer an excrutiating death. But hey, maybe we should all try it - after all, I'm not supposed to be able to understand how these things work.

I was dealing with the objections raised in your post - not the OP.That response dealt with the why of wrath coming to Eve/us, ie: it was not primarily that her choice was 'an affront' to God, it was because the wrath of God visited upon her was one of the choices available to her. It wasn't looking at "why wrath..full stop".Why wrath at all? It seems reasonable enough to me that God is going to have a nature and that that nature is fixed-at-root. Even if it didn't seem reasonable to me, so what: God is just the way God is and there is little pointing turning ourselves inside out as to 'why' he is the way he is.Suffice to say that if he finds some things objectionable and worthy of exercising wrath against (in the just and fair fashion outlined above: Eve choose wrath) then I can't see much problem with it.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Hi iano, Well if you don't know "why" he is that way, why would you want to emulate him?T&U

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I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
- Stephen Roberts

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I'm a polyatheist - there are many gods I don't believe in
- Dan Foutes

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