How can a Christian reject part of the Bible and still call themselves a Christian?

[truthBtold]

What about the nut sac!!!

[KUSA]

The story of Genesis is just a symbolic/poetic way of describing the human condition in relationship to a perfect/flawless creator God.

Where does it say in the Bible that Genesis is not litteral?

[Ryantology]

All educated Christians know this you can read any book about it. Atheists have a stereotypical/distorted view of it and many of their arguments are against that version of Christianity.

'Educated' in this context actually means 'Christians who interpret things the same way I do'.

I interpret the words as they exist on the page. They say what they say. Most of it is not good.

No-one is getting punished eternally, what happens is sin separates you from God which can result in a state of spiritual torment which will continue after you die. I'm sure everyone will still be able to accept God love\grace even after they die seeing as life continues after the grave but you can do the same thing before that point which is more ideal.

So, it's going to be like it is now? I'm in 'spiritual torment' now? If this is 'spiritual torment', I'm cool with it.

Some expressions of it are good and some are evil/harmful.

Not doing exactly what God wants is 'evil', is it not? So, why even bother with free will? It's not really free at all.

No-one is literally burning anywhere, there is going to be some torment/damnation for those beings who have a attained full separation from God but they don't want anything to do with God.

Well, the idea sounded despicable until you told me that fire's not a part of the torment, because it was specifically the idea of fire being involved that made it sound nightmarish, not the idea that revenge torment is what Christ is supposedly saving you from.

He rewards everyone with the fullness of an eternal life in a relationship of love with him and with a community of beings. Or you can reject the offer and what you end up with is death, though your conscious existence will continue in some form. God can't force anyone to receive the reward but you don't have to do anything specifically to earn it you just have to either accept it and be transformed by it or you don't. Seeing as we have freewill the option is there to tell God to fuck off with his grace.

You know, I don't personally look at "not being punished" as a reward. I don't deserve to be punished. I didn't create me and I didn't design my personality and I don't choose not to believe in something that is obviously nonsense.

God doesn't desire anyone to suffer but he wants to give us the opportunity of life and advantages of that.

If God didn't desire suffering, suffering wouldn't be a thing. Suffering doesn't exist by accident.

The good thing you will like to know is God in the Christian sense isn't demanding anything of you instead he is offering you something. In Islam and what have you God does make demands and you have to put on a good performance to earn paradise yourself. In Christianity God says "You are forgiven here you go" and that's your grace there. This is by far the best deal on the table.

"Love me or I will punish you" is a demand.

You will suffer and die yourself but you also have the opportunity to do some genuine good and experience the incredible universe God has created here, and this can be a fully worthwhile part of your eternal life.

Part of the good that I do is that I don't spread the disease of your death cult.

You have been saved by Gods grace now stop worrying and enjoy your life. Make sure you work to enable others enjoy their life as well.

And that is Christianity, much better than your bog standard atheism.

Life, for me, has unquestionably been better in almost every way since I discarded your juvenile beliefs. It's a lot harder to enjoy your life when you know that a homicidal psychopathic god is watching everything you do so that he can blackmail you with it.

[Rampant.A.I.]

Except we don't have an extraordinary explanation for where this extraordinary god came from.

The extraordinary thing about God is that he is eternal and was never brought into existence. Therefore you won't need that explanation.



You're just pushing the question back a step and creating any even grander problem to explain.

She said, pouring another cup of tea for her dolly.

God is the grand explanation for a grand problem not a problem that needs to be explained.

She explained earnestly to the teddy bear, holding up a plastic tart and grinning as she imagine him taking a bite.

Listen: Are you going to provide a shred of evidence, real, empirical evidence, or at the very least some rational argument, or are you just going to keep telling us about how great Harvey is?

[Esquilax]

Listen: Are you going to provide a shred of evidence, real, empirical evidence, or at the very least some rational argument, or are you just going to keep telling us about how great Harvey is?

Listen, you fool! He's already told you! There can't be any evidence for god, and so somehow that means he's rationally justified in believing in him anyway!



Ugh, this is the horrible three card monte act that christians like Sword want to pull; they'll accept evidence as necessary for any other belief, thus allowing them to disregard any real world thing they want for (whether it's true or not) not having evidence for it, but when asked for evidence of their god, they'll just shake their heads condescendingly, for you see, science can never provide evidence for their god! And this is where they pocket the money card, because they never bother to explain quite why this is, just making handwaving reference to metaphysics or being "beyond space and time," before quickly moving on. And now that they've got two unjustified premises in the air they'll move in for the unjustified conclusion: it's all okay, because if you can't have evidence for god, then there's somehow no requirement for god to have evidence. You can justify it with rationality, literally convince yourself that he exists, and then he does.

[Rampant.A.I.]

Respectfully, it's not even that. It's acquired and ingrained intellectual dishonesty.

The debate-savvy theist demands disproof for their celestial god-wonder-deity of whatever flavor they've chosen, while demanding immunity from having to provide evidence, because they know evidence of the Heirophany, for or against, is definitionally impossible.

And yet, knowing this, they demand special reverence to their particular invocation of the divine.

Imagine that. A mere human who not only deigns to "defend" the immutability of their own God, define all the characteristics of said God, not only seeing this for the incredible blaspheme it is, but asserts they know more about a divine being than any other human to have ever lived, *including Jesus Christ,* and these people call themselves Christians.

If Christ came back and saw what has been done in his name with his word, if it wasn't already: His hair would curl.

[Tonus]

I'm trying to explain what the real interpretation of Christian salvation through Christ is meant to be. But you're trying to shoehorn in the atheists stereotypical and misinformed interpretation, the kind of thing Christopher Hitchens or whoever would go on about.

I am pointing out that crippling our freedom with "sin" is a bad deal. You keep pretending that I am saying that freedom is bad. I am pointing out that crippling freedom with "sin" and with a plan that punishes the full use of freedom is bad. You keep pretending that I am saying that freedom is bad.

Well yes it is Gods plan. It's a very plan overall seeing as we get the opportunity to exist as living beings and to develop our relationship with God with our own freedom of will and serve others and some good.

We could have done this without being made sinful by nature, if god wasn't so bad at his job and too proud to recognize it.

Without the downside you wouldn't have the upside. The upside makes the downside worth it.

This can only be true if god is incompetent. If he cannot envision a scenario where freedom to choose does not require us to be forced to commit sin, he is inept. The fact that "his creation" can see the alternatives that he could not is strong evidence that he is made up.

What God created here is a community of being capable of living in love with God and each other but only if we choose to do so there's no force or compulsion involved you see.

You said that without sin, god's plan would be irrelevant, and that we cannot help but to sin. That is not freedom. The choice is forced, by design.

In the Christian context the universe was created for the purpose of developing a loving community of beings.

It sounds as if it was created by a petty little creature who wants to bully his minions and have them love him for it.

It's better that he did make it this way given the opportunity of what it allows us to experience and do.

That is a truly horrifying "plan," and I think that the only reason you accept it as "good" is because you have to, otherwise you are forced to undermine what you believe in. Your god is painfully limited. He cannot seem to create a world where people can live freely without constantly offending his sensibilities, a flaw that he blames on us and then offers to remove for a price (or make even worse if we refuse to pay!). The concept is just bizarre, and if you didn't have to try to make sense of the ignorant ramblings of an ancient tribe of simple people, you might just realize that.

[Sword of Christ]

I am pointing out that crippling our freedom with "sin" is a bad deal.

The only way to remove it would be to remove freedom of will.

You keep pretending that I am saying that freedom is bad. I am pointing out that crippling freedom with "sin" and with a plan that punishes the full use of freedom is bad. You keep pretending that I am saying that freedom is bad.

The whole entire idea is that God doesn't punish you for your sin, it doesn't matter how big a sin we're talking about. The offer is 100% forgiveness guaranteed.

We could have done this without being made sinful by nature, if god wasn't so bad at his job and too proud to recognize it.

The only way to do that is to remove our freewill.

This can only be true if god is incompetent. If he cannot envision a scenario where freedom to choose does not require us to be forced to commit sin, he is inept. The fact that "his creation" can see the alternatives that he could not is strong evidence that he is made up.

You have freewill, you have sin as a consequence and you have forgiveness from sin.

You said that without sin, god's plan would be irrelevant, and that we cannot help but to sin. That is not freedom. The choice is forced, by design.

If we had no freewill to decide between good and evil and nothing particularly good or worthwhile to do then it would be an irrelevance.

That is a truly horrifying "plan," and I think that the only reason you accept it as "good" is because you have to, otherwise you are forced to undermine what you believe in. Your god is painfully limited. He cannot seem to create a world where people can live freely without constantly offending his sensibilities, a flaw that he blames on us and then offers to remove for a price (or make even worse if we refuse to pay!). The concept is just bizarre, and if you didn't have to try to make sense of the ignorant ramblings of an ancient tribe of simple people, you might just realize that.

Ok so you're not really listening to a single word of any of it fair enough.

[FreeTony]

If maintaining free will is so important, why do so many Christian parents indocrinate their children from a young age and protect* them from any other alternative viewpoint so they won't go to hell?

God obviously thinks free will is more important than anything else, yet they seem to disagree with this.

*protect meaning threaten/outcast if they so much as investigate anything else, or even ask questions about their parents beliefs.

[Tonus]

The only way to remove it would be to remove freedom of will.

Not true. You are conflating two different concepts. There is the idea that having free will would give us the option to do things that god disapproves of. Then there is the idea that we are forced to sin in order to have free will. The second requires a deliberate act on the part of god to force us to commit sin.

Paul admitted this, as most Christians do; they want only to do what god approves of and to avoid sin, but they cannot help it. That is not freedom, because you are forced to commit acts that you do not want, and that in many cases cause the Christian to feel anguish. That is freedom with strings attached, which is no freedom at all.

The whole entire idea is that God doesn't punish you for your sin, it doesn't matter how big a sin we're talking about. The offer is 100% forgiveness guaranteed.

Only if you accept the antidote for the virus god infected you with, and if you pretend that it isn't his fault that you needed the antidote in the first place. God wants to abuse you and have you thank him for it.

The only way to do that is to remove our freewill.

Untrue, see above. The Bible even shows how god mocks the condition that he inflicted on humanity, by putting on a human costume and walking about the Earth, never committing a single sin and even letting the humans "kill" the costume before he returned to heaven. The message: this could be you... if I wasn't such a sadistic prick!

Ok so you're not really listening to a single word of any of it fair enough.

Listening? Yes. Able to accept that nonsense as real? No.