@sonship saidI don't believe any supernatural being has communicated with humans about "forgiving" immoral acts. I don't believe "sin" is real, except in the minds of religionists.
Okay. But as sins were committed against you which someone will have to answer for, so have you done some against others.
@sonship said"Unable to carry out" what?
And you know and want to do good. You have not given an explanation why you are unable to carry it out.
The New Testament tells us why we cannot pull it off and what a salvation from this dilemma is.
I lack belief in the superstitious mythology underpinning what you claim the "New Testament tells us".
@sonship saidI don't think Paul met Jesus. I think Jesus was stone dead at the time. So I don't believe the story. I cannot pretend to believe what he wrote was divinely inspired.
I expect everything that goes against your unbelief you reckon as evil conspiracy theory to deceive. I'll suspect that you'll spin a theory on how Paul's letters were fabricated fiction and put into his mouth to advance one of history's greatest hoaxes.
I think the Book of Revelation is a hoax (as discussed in the past).
Okay. But its inner design ev ...[text shortened]... grumblings as eloquent as you think they are, with the lack of sensible alternative explanations.
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@FMF
So then, you finally explain.
Dr Strangelove satirizes your belief - at least in the limited context of what we have been talking about - and not my belief. If you were to watch it again, the particular scene and Peter Seller's words ought to leap out at you. If you don't know what I am talking about, it is not to the detriment of what I have been putting to you about coercion, deterrence, fear and lack of belief.
I reject your theory about coercion.
Essentially your objection to God is that consequences being divinely warned of - is COERCION.
I reject that caricature.
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From the very beginning of the creation of man, I believe (though you do NOT) that God warned man -
If you follow this other way you will surely DIE. [paraphrased]
You say "COERCION !!".
I say, "God's faithfulness to inform of CONSEQUENCES."
There is the way of the life of God.
And there is the OTHER way.
Free will has consequences.
They can be wonderful or they cannot but be tragic.
God did not tell Adam " I force and coerce you to love Me "
God said "Be careful for your own sake what you take into you."
I reject your view of God COERCING man into loving Him.
Let me say it again because you may soon forget. I reject your understanding of the plan of God as His COERCION to FORCE your love through threat.
My grasp of the plan of God is His faithfulness to tell man that his free will can have consequences that he will not like. It matters to be in God's will and not opposed to it.
Your caricature may furnish you with some comfort that you are resisting terrorizing bullying. I count God's warning us of consequences of free will to be His faithfulness and even love to warn us.
"JESUS the BULLY," I do not accept.
It may have served you well.
I don't see it in the teaching and life of Christ.
I am not the perfect explaner of the plan of salvation.
And if you want to say "Sonship does a lousy job of explaining it to me" maybe someone else could do much better.
Then again maybe you're turned off because you want to be turned off - by anyone telling you about Jesus Christ.
@sonship saidI don't think you have addressed it.
I reject your theory about coercion.
What is the moral purpose of threatening to torture non-believers for eternity if they are non-believers and they find the assertions of Christians not credible.?
What would then be the moral purpose of torturing non-believers for eternity in secret after they die if the still-living non-believers do not know about it?
The question is about the logic of projecting fear and non-credible threats, coercion and deterrence, belief and lack of belief.
@sonship
For your edification:
“Reincarnation.” - Derived from Latin and literally means “to take on the flesh again,” in other words, “to take on the fleshy (physical) body.” Discussion of the subject appears in the philosophical traditions of India and Greece from about the 6th century BC... It simply means that we leave one life and go into another; it is all for the sole purpose of soul development and spiritual growth. The soul may take the form of human, animal, or plant depending on the moral quality of the previous life's actions. This doctrine is a central tenet of the Indian and Greek religions. However, reincarnation implies that the person remains essentially the same, while occupying a new body.'
The Bhagavad Gita states: “Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be. As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from childhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change;” and “Worn-out garments are shed by the body; Worn-out bodies are shed by the dweller within the body. New bodies are donned by the dweller, like garments."
'According to the Hindu sage Adi Shankaracharya, the world-as we ordinarily understand it-is like a dream: Fleeting and illusory. To be trapped in samsara (the cycle of birth and death) is a result of ignorance of the true nature of our existence. It is ignorance (avidya) of one's true self that leads to ego-consciousness, grounding one in desire and a perpetual chain of reincarnation. The idea is intricately linked to action (karma), a concept first recorded in the Upanishads. Every action has a reaction and the force determines one's next incarnation. One is reborn through desire: A person desires to be born because he or she wants to enjoy a body, which can never bring deep, lasting happiness or peace (ānanda). After many births every person becomes dissatisfied and begins to seek higher forms of happiness through spiritual experience. When, after spiritual practice (sādhanā), a person realizes that the true “self” is the immortal soul rather than the body or the ego all desires for the pleasures of the world will vanish since they will seem insipid compared to spiritual ānanda. When all desire has vanished the person will not be born again. When the cycle of rebirth thus comes to an end, a person is said to have attained liberation (moksha).[8] All schools agree this implies the cessation of worldly desires and freedom from the cycle of birth and death, though the exact definition differs. Followers of the Advaita Vedanta school believe they will spend eternity absorbed in the perfect peace and happiness of the realization that all existence is one Brahman of which the soul is part. Dvaita schools perform worship with the goal of spending eternity in a spiritual world or heaven (loka) in the blessed company of the Supreme Being.'
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3705678/
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What is the moral purpose of threatening to torture non-believers for eternity if they are non-believers and they find the assertions of Christians not credible.?
I will rephrase your question. "Why is there judgment of any kind at all from God ?"
I have rephrased your question to speak of ANY kind of judgment - temporary or eternal - from God against transgressors - remedial or retributive - corrective for betterment of destruction in vengeance.
Why should there be this aspect of God's activity at all?
There is punishment because crime against God and man is an putting out of balance the moral scales by which the universe is governed by the Supreme Governor whose authority to CREATE it is also His authority to morally sustain it.
Webster's says that punishment is any kind of pain or suffering inflicted on a person for a crime or offence, by the authority to which t he offender is subject, either by the constitution of God or of civil society.
Crime can be committed against realities highest authority.
God's punishment is to afflict with loss or calamity because of committing crime, fault, offense against the moral norm of the final authority over existence.
Crime or fault is not overlooked by the Moral Governor of His creation. Justice is the putting back in balance the moral scales of the universe which have been made out of balance by the transgression against the law of God.
God can take away in whole of in part the well being He has given to inflict correction or retribution on the transgressor of His law. God can avenge by subtracting well being from the being who has subtracted the well being of another by his sins.
"Vengeance is Mine, says the Lord. I will repay."
Comfort can be caused by God to be interrupted against the transgressor who by his crime has injured another. Well being or even life may be withdrawn by our Maker as a means to make crime doing not a gain to the offender but a loss.
Punishment is the infliction of justice upon the one who has upset the moral scales of God's creation. Balance is maintained by subtracting well being where one has gone outside of the law of God to secure happiness for himself to the infliction of suffering upon the victim of his transgression.
God governs the proportion of the infliction of suffering.
He is not without mercy.
He is not without patience and longsuffering.
He is not without sympathy.
But He will not overlook as meaning nothing the setting of imbalance in His universe. The timing, the intensity, the regulation of the infliction is in His control and subject to His infinite wisdom.
Punishment informs of God's displeasure against the sinning one. It informs that one cannot get away with offending His law. Punishment may be delayed. But it is just that there be the negative reward to the transgressor. God is Just. Injustice will not go uncorrected forever.
God is longsuffering and delight to forgive. But He will not become UNJUST for us even though He loves us so. There is forgiveness which is unjust and encourages one to commit more crimes.
It doesn't occur to some very liberal types that abolishment of some punishment can be unrighteous. Both in civil society and in the government of the universe, some forms of overlooking moral offense can itself be morally unjust.
Divine warnings against sin have been published. Men should not conclude that they are idle warnings. LInes have been drawn over which we must not step. Men ought not to conclude these lines mean nothing. Men ought not to assume God is only bluffing and the infliction of justice will NOT occur eventually.
Though evil doing may seem to prevail with no speedy punishment, this will not always be the case. Eventually there will be a reckoning with the Judge. Forgiveness is available.
The man who assumes he does not NEED any forgiveness is hoping there will be no re-balancing of the moral scales of the universe.
The will of God is to be built up. The revolt against the will of God is to be destroyed and broken down. The well being of the enterprise of taking a way opposite to God's way is to be negatively inflicted, subtracted either for correction, deterrence, and repayment for the wrong done.
God may take many more things into account as we are aware of. He knows the proportion of your sin in relation to the knowledge of His law you possessed. The innocent are not subject to retributive justice. They guilty are.
What would then be the moral purpose of torturing non-believers for eternity in secret after they die if the still-living non-believers do not know about it?
Well being and crime are mutually exclusive in the ultimate.
The sinning one has caused the harm upon his victim.
Upon him then he should not wonder why harm COMES.
The sinning one has inflicted misfortune upon those subject to his sinning. He should not expect that in balancing the moral scales of the universe, misfortune will not return upon him by God.
"Vengeance is Mine. I will repay."
I have tortured the victim of my sinning either much or little.
I should not be bewildered that infliction of harm come back upon me as justice.
Now to the prospect of eternal punishment.
Eternal punishment must be because an infinite sin exists.
Eternal punishment must be because there is an ultimate crime which receives an ultimate recompense.
This is to the being beyond recovery for whom repentance, education, adjustment is impossible by their own choosing. The punishment is not corrective to improve. It is eternal reaction to an unchanged nature (not just acts) of perpetual crime.
The question is about the logic of projecting fear and non-credible threats, coercion and deterrence, belief and lack of belief.
Would you have it that I have no fear at all of meeting you in an alley to smash you in the head and rob a few dollars from you?
Would you have it that No One sees, No One knows, You suffer and it is just too bad? Or would you that I fear God that it is impossible that I treat you thus and it not be recorded by a Judge who will demand at some point a reckoning ?
If you cry "That's not fair" you reveal that a moral ought has been violated. To wonder why violation is not totally insignificant, totally insecuential and will not be rectified is to want to live in a licentious universe where might makes right and evil can run amok with no concern for justice.
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@Ghost-of-a-Duke
As I go I may have some questions.
. It simply means that we leave one life and go into another; it is all for the sole purpose of soul development and spiritual growth. The soul may take the form of human, animal, or plant depending on the moral quality of the previous life's actions.
Does this mean that the moral quality of a clump of crab grass will determine what it will come back as after it dies?
Does it mean that all human beings are the result of lower plants or animals leading a morally right life such that they graduated upon dying to a higher form - human ?
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@Ghost-of-a-Duke
I may have some questions as I digest this.
The Bhagavad Gita states: “Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be. As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from childhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death.
This seems an infinite regress with no beginning.
Did a well lived rock graduate into a higher plane of a living, say, bacteria?
Is there no simplest form of life then ? I mean for this soul of mine always was in the reincarnation loop from eternity?