Did I miss anything?

[Polaris]

I think you missed a few Damned "insert group" threads.

[Drich]

Drich, you are doing good, but I would like to 2 cents:

Because God is perfectly just, the scales of justice require a payment for injustice.
Only a perfect being can redeem an imperfect one.
The imperfect one, having his own debt cannot redeem himself.

If you owe a million dollars and you do not have it- your only shot is letting someone else pay it for you.
If you refuse the offer of payment- you have to pay the penalty.
It is an issue of justice.
And in this case, the Judge paid our pardon, but we are required to take it, or the pardon is left on the table and does not belong to us.

All good stuff but over the years I found that "they'/those people" (that for you stimster) like to argue justice or rather try and apply the pop culture version of it to God, which doesn't work (shifting goal posts and all.)

While I have not completely abandoned the justice angle I simply do not lead with it in certain circles.

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to absolutly everyone who asks, no matter what they have done, no matter who they are on a planetary scale, spanning the whole of human history?

Well, there's a threshold, but at the point at which it has passed one really needs to be asking why god ever would reward such a person. God seems to really lack discernment.

To forgive a heinous sin committed against you their is a great personal cost.

But this is the real problem here, because none of those crimes, no matter how great, affect god in the slightest. Even assuming he forgives everyone ever out of hand... there's no cost to that. Merely asserting one doesn't demonstrate it, especially when you're still just talking in abstracts.

if you ask me I can point to the bible where it tells us there was a great cost to God to forgive the sins of the whole world.

... And fails to mention what that cost is. But why would you point me to the same random, vague assertion in the bible, knowing ahead of time that I don't think the bible is infallible? The fact that your poorly constructed theology is a part of the biblical narrative doesn't make it better.

To the question now returns to you. How do you know what thinks or feels?

I don't believe he exists? But costs can be demonstrated, or at least stated, and at this point I also have no reason to believe any cost actually applies to divine forgiveness, because of the evasiveness of the people trying to explain it. Things need to be demonstrated; I don't care if the bible asserts there's a cost, I want to know what it is.

Not true. They knew disobedience resulted in death.

... From a position where they had no concept of what death was, and no concept of good and evil. You might as well say that they knew disobedience resulted in flornax: without any idea of what that is, it's not exactly a cogently presented consequence, now is it?

With out the tree their could be no choice. We all have always been given a choice whether or not to follow God or go our own way.

Seems a bit passive aggressive, really? Do you put a nuclear bomb in your kid's playpen, because he needs a choice whether or not to touch it?

I really don't think the scenario here is improved by noting that god specifically formulated the most danger ever and placed it in close proximity to his children in order to get them to hurt themselves so he can say "I told you so."

The greater point I was making was we from the beginning we were provided a sinless environment , and it is only in this sinless environment can we commune with God. If we wish to commune with God we owe a sin debt. One that we can not repay, but one Christ paided for us.

Fiat assertion of a debt for something I didn't do doesn't convince me. I'm an individual person, supposedly imbued with free will, why am I being packaged in along with everyone else with this nonsense?

Does 'my' theology still confuse you?

Yes. But then, I am actually thinking about it, so that's no surprise.

All good stuff just need a real key board to respond.. (Too much tapping on a glass key board for tonight.)

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I think you missed a few Damned "insert group" threads.

What is an insert group.

[Esquilax]

Because God is perfectly just, the scales of justice require a payment for injustice.

Justice is reflected in actions, not definitional fiat. The actions of god are not just, let alone perfectly just, and so simply asserting the perfection of god's justice isn't persuasive.

Unless you're trying to tell me that "perfect justice" is just some intrinsic part of god's nature no matter what he does, in which case you've denuded the word "justice" of all meaning.

Only a perfect being can redeem an imperfect one.
The imperfect one, having his own debt cannot redeem himself.

How did you determine that?

If you owe a million dollars and you do not have it- your only shot is letting someone else pay it for you.
If you refuse the offer of payment- you have to pay the penalty.
It is an issue of justice.
And in this case, the Judge paid our pardon, but we are required to take it, or the pardon is left on the table and does not belong to us.

And if I didn't borrow a million dollars, or incur a million dollars worth of damage or debt personally, but some random dude I don't know starts insisting that I pay some other person I don't know's debt because that's somehow mine for no reason, do I have to accept a pardon for that?

Do I have to pay every ridiculous, imaginary fantasy debt that makes no sense, basically? Or do debts conform to rules, with no magic allowed?

[Cato]

Drich,
You couldn't possibly have an appreciation for the simple joy of your absence unless during your hiatus you enjoyed a no-shit out of mind experience.

[Ryantology]

They made me a moderator specifically because they knew you'd be back.

[Drich]

They made me a moderator specifically because they knew you'd be back.

Putting a patient in charge of the asylum is not generally considered a preventive measure..

Anyways congrats.

[KichigaiNeko]

Did you miss anything DRich?

You are still missing so much, but hey mate.....

Keep trying and hanging in there

[Ryantology]

They made me a moderator specifically because they knew you'd be back.

Putting a patient in charge of the asylum is not generally considered a preventive measure..

Anyways congrats.

I agree. Welcome back.

[ShaMan]

Because God is perfectly just, the scales of justice require a payment for injustice.

Tell me how it is 'Perfectly just' for a god to condemn all of Humanity for the actions of another. That, to me, is the epitome of injustice.

[Mister Agenda]

Justice is getting the punishment you deserve. Forgiveness is withholding justice for a wrong done to you out of compassion or to relieve yourself of feelings of anger, resentment, or vengeance. Forgiveness may be difficult, but is its own reward. It is not, however, justice; and a being of perfect justice can neither forgive a wrong deserving of having justice applied or transfer that justice to an innocent soul, which is itself a monstrous act compounding the injustice of forgiving the person who wronged you in the first place.

Of course the reason God's 'so-called' perfect justice is in question is that he delivers infinite punishment for finite crimes, and infinite reward for trivial attestations. If the system was: you die, you suffer whatever it takes to balance the scales, and then you get to go to heaven or try again or whatever; no problem. But to justify infinite punishment for finite crime, they give God a new super power: the ability to be infinitely offended. Since your crime is infinitely offending him, he's justifed in infinitely torturing you, and not doing so would be unjust, which he can't be. Unless you cash in your get-out-jail free card and you get to escape punishment and reap infinite reward no matter what you did before that.

So God is perfectly just, unless you jump through a couple of hoops. Do that and he never singes a hair on your soul's hide. Then he's called forgiving, without having his supposed justice mitigated. Because.