10 questions for your pastor

[Darkstar]

You have in this statement shown that you agree with the small child analogy, and no I've already stated they got off light in their personal punishment. I'll explain when I get to your reply about this.

If they were comparable to small children, then why punish the human race so dearly for something they did wrong? If parents exacted horrible vengence on small children every time they did something bad, the world would be really messed up. God is a ridiculously demanding parent.

Does a small child have a conscience, yes they do, do they obey mom and dad to avoid punishment, yes they do. So what point were you trying to make, you surely did not in your above statement.

Why, then, do people say that they didn't 'know better' when a small child does some small act of dosobedience?

---

I believe that I made it clear that Lucifer said they would not surely die, not that they surely wouldn't. Please explain the bold sentence above, it makes no sense to me.
They died the moment they ate of the fruit, they were separated from God by sin, no more walks with Him, no more anything, banished from the Garden. They are the cause no living man could look upon God until after the judgement, they separated all of mankind from God, and you do not think they died, they are responsible for Christ's death (as we all are), this is the spiritual death, separation from our heavenly Father.

---

(bolding added)
I mean to say that Lucifer never said that they definitely wouldn't die, just that they wouldn't necessarily. The 'death' you speak of is purely metaphorical. Also, about the bolded statement:
Genesis 32:30: So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”

---

God arbitrarily told them, just something He threw from the cuff I suppose, God is deliberate in all that He says and does.
They died actually twice, so how do you see the deterrent removed. If your dad told you not to jump from a high place because you will die, then a teacher comes along and says you will not surely die are you going to jump.

---

The jumping anaolgy is not the same because there is no benefit to jumping off of a roof. Why god wanted to prevent humans from knowing the difference between good and evil is questionable.

Now to answer your overreaction question, God could have put them, and each of us to follow at the mercy of the Roman whip and cross, that is what they deserve (it's what we all deserve).

Because of the disobedience of two people millenia ago, we all deserve terrible punishment? Maybe god thinks so, but that's just his ego talking.

---

This is what Christ saved us from, He took it instead of us.
Yes, He did open the gates of hell to all who will not believe in His Christ, you are wrong about people being there, the judgement has not yet come, it will though.
Yes Eden is the same, God removed it from the earth, the Garden will be returned, if you think I'm making this up you can find it in scripture.

---

You're not making it up...scripture is making it up, and you have no evidence to suggest otherwise.

When Adam and Eve disobeyed God all innocence was lost upon the earth, that's why we now have a sin nature, it is the loss of innocence.

That is what it all really boils down to. If Adam and Eve were innocent, they wouldn't have eaten the fruit unless influenced by another force, which would capitalize on their naiveity. God knew that letting the devil tempt them would end badly, but he evidently didn't care.

You look at this situation from a child's view

Adam and Eve looked at it from a child's view.

---

I do not mean this as an insult, so please do not take it that way. What I mean is that you see this as a good guy, bad guy point of view, when this in reality is a part of a great spiritual war, we are not the prize to be won either. The war is to let evil run it's coarse and then God put an end to it by allowing, through love, His Son to be killed on a cross and then resurrecting Him from the grave. So yes, because of love God allowed Lucifer to tempt Adam and Eve. I would not expect you as a nonbeliever to understand this, but this is what we have because of two people deliberately disobeying God. As I just said, deliberately they disobeyed God, they understood there were consequences to their action.

---

So...god is not necessarily the good guy, or he allowed evil to exist out of love for his creations? Presuming the latter (which is what I think you meant) then why was he so disappointed when he already knew what would happen? If he loved us so much he would have let them suffer the primary punishment of what they had done. If you tell a child not to watch a violent movie, but they do anyway, they may end up horrified, regretting their mistake. To punish them additionally on top of this in an extremely severe way seems cruel.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

Like I have said, Jesus is God as a man, when He left heaven, He left behind His royalty ie. glory, power and ect. This is why He was able to be in the presence of sinners, every day He was here.

So Jesus isn't god, then? I mean if he were he would have been talking to himself while on the cross.

---

So all of the terrible things that happen were meant to? God is responsible for the holocaust? Saying 'well his plan is so complex that is makes no sense...to a mortal' is kind of a cop out. If god's plan requires so much suffering, then he isn't very efficient, now is he?

The bold above is a big debate even among Christians, and I'm not going to debate it one way or the other. What I will say is God foreknew all things, that's why I said God is never surprised. God is not responsible for the holocaust, sinful man is, when I speak of God 's plan I do not mean He planned the entire future in every detail. I'm saying He looked down through history and saw what would be and made His redemptive plan accordingly. God allowed all of history to run as it would be and He was able to work out redemption within it.
You say He is not effective, yet He was able to work out His plan without altering history, the worlds past and future is determined by man's actions, and it all began with one wrong decision in a beautiful garden several thousand years ago. Sad but then we can't change it, all we are able to change is our eternal destination.

(bolding added)

"The lord doesn't work in mysterious ways, but in ways that are indistinguishable from his nonexistence."

Thanks to teaearlgreyhot's sig for this quote

[hide]

You are the one who said God is inefficient, not me. God takes the path that will lead to the redemption of man, if the path gets hard it is man's fault, not God's. He through Christ has given us a way out of this mess, and you know I personally have experienced this. You talk about God doing things because He feels like it, now that would make Him irresponsible, which is outside the possibility of an omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent being, so you see God does things with purpose. This makes your above statement contradictory.

---

God seems to forget that he is omnipotent sometimes. Nevertheless, where in the bible does it explicitly say 'god is omnipotent'? Maybe if you examined his actions objectively without assuming that 'oh, he's perfect, he must know what he's doing' you would realize that he is rather inefficent, or it is on his whim to make things harder. For example, why does god order his followers to kill non-believers?

---

Quit being childish, you are better than that, at least I hope so. Christ was the one who created all, man is the one who ruined His perfect work. We deserve all that happens in this world, Christ did not, and He most certainly did not have to redeem mankind. Like I said before, God could have allowed us all to go under the Roman punishment Christ suffered and suffer the guilt of our sin, no one can even imagine the horror of that guilt.

---

Okay, but I could have been more childish...nah, I'll avoid it. The problem is that you say 'man ruined god's perfect creation'. Man was god's perfect creation. Either god made man flawed, or something perfect made a mistake.He didn't have to redeem mankind any more than he had to create hell, the very cause for the need for redemption. He's simply fixing a problem he created, and being made a hero. Also, my above response suggests that Jesus wasn't really god. Supernatural, yes. Yahweh, no.

---

I did not come close to saying that, I said they understood the horror they brought upon themselves, stop trying to put a wrong slant on what was clearly stated. We, does that mean you were there, they screwed up and we continue the same even today, man will never learn unless God is in his life.

---

Religion is not the best source of morality. DO you hope to reconcile the barbaric practices in the OT with actual morals?

---

I have not contradicted myself, again you are trying to put a false slant on what I said. I would never say a mere foreshadowing, that would be to degrade what had happened, please read closely what I state. I said the reason there was shedding of blood through innocence was because the innocent died to cloth the sinful and this was the foreshadowing of Christ's redemptive death.

---

So, basically, original sin is merely the loss of absolute innocence.

---

I doubt others have brought to you what I've brought forward in our conversation, yes I'm sure that a similar conversation has taken place, just not with you, and I know we have not discussed this before. I state things from what I have learn through others and personal Bible study, if I believe someone has a wrong teaching I will search it out, even if it's my pastor or anyone of Biblical authority. When it comes down to it the Holy Spirit is the One who will reveal the truth of scripture.

---

So...who talked to the holy spirit and got the truth, and who lied about it? There are so many interpretaions of the bible, but, clearly only one can be gifted by the holy spirit. How can you know you have gotten yours from the holy spirit? Is everyone who interprets in differently lying, or did they only think they met the holy spirit? How would one know if it was real, or just in their head?