On Hell and Forgiveness

[Abaddon_ire]

While I appreciate your humility in this answer, it seems to pose further problems. If humans can’t or don’t know what perfect justic, e is, then we have no rationale to support the notion that god’s actions are perfectly just.

No, that leaves your god with huge issues. Perfect justice and mercy are incompatible.

We must simply accept the bible’s claim of it at face value.

Like fuck we do.

But more importantly, if god is incapable of making cogent determinations about what is or isn’t perfectly just, then there exists no rationale for his actions. Without any rational his actions are essentially arbitrary, and the claim, ‘god is perfectly just’ simply hangs there as a bare, and meaningless assertion.

Correct. Your god is capricious, vengeful, immoral....basically evil.

Human's ability to know what perfect justice is in no way affects, at all, that God would have perfect justice.

Would he? The bible says he is immoral. The Koran agrees.

The God we are talking about is conceived as the greatest possible being: the objective standard of things like Justice, Love, and Morality.

Then your god also possesses the quality of greatest evil. Or if not, then your god is limited.

God's rationale for his actions are founded in that concept (along with omniscience) and therefore cannot be judged by those that are no so equipped. 

Wrong. Omniscience necessarily precludes free will, further limiting your god.

If God exists, his nature is the objective standard of all those qualities.

Pretty big "If". But in any event, ALL of the claimed gods carry out immoral actions. It's a theme with them.

If God exists, it is incoherent to say that God may or may not be just--because you cannot ground such a determination in anything objective. 

The hell we can't.


[quote='SteveII' pid='1816629' dateline='1537461968']Or...that as time passes, people’s credulity becomes more reserved, which is perfectly rational. In any case, I’m not talking about Jesus performing miracles as a man who lived thousands of years ago, and the fallout of that. I’m talking about god revealing himself without any intermediaries, indisputably, to every person on the planet who ever lived and ever will live.  This is the only action that can logically follow from his expressed goal. 

And your god keeps on failing to do exactly that over and over and over. And anyway, what is your god's "expressed goal" and how do you know that?

[quote='SteveII' pid='1816629' dateline='1537461968']You are talking about the concept of what should we expect God to be like or to do. To answer that, we can't start with, "well, if I were God, I would...". We have to infer our list from revealed information, the concept of God, and the natural world. 

And the evidence is that IF he/she/it/housecat actually exists, he is a total jerk.

1. From the concept of God, we get he is worthy of worship. This is a foundational concept. If a very powerful being exists and he is not worthy of worship, he is not God.

I have yet to see any god presented that is worthy of worship. Do you have one? 

2. Is it not the case that God is hidden from everyone. There are countless testimonies of people's experience of God. There are no defeaters for these billions of experiences so the claim really is: God is hidden from me when atheist demand or surmise that God would show himself if he were real.

God is apparently the universal winner of the longest hide-and-seek game ever. And the defeater? Those people simply made up crap.

3. God provided substantial evidence of himself in the person of Jesus and the events of the early first century.

Wrong. You can't even demonstrate that there was a jebus in the first place.

This is exactly what you seem to be asking for.

I am asking for EVIDENCE, not the iron age equivalent of Harry Potter

God himself lived among us for 33 years and did many miraculous things culminating in the death and resurrection--with has huge existential meaning in both salvation and the possibility of a personal relationship through the Holy Spirit. 

Prove it. You can't.

4. God provides substantial evidence of himself in nature that is easily reflected on and has been for millennium. Why is there something rather than nothing? 

Do not attempt to play that puerile game.

5. God gives everyone a sense of himself: Sensus divinitatis 

Ahh Calvinism, one of the more amusing branches of christian wingnuttery.

So tell me, why was I apparently left out?

6. Every bit of evidence suggests that God's purposes are personal in nature. God desires a personal relationship with each person--NOT recognition that he exists.

So in order to achieve a personal relationship with everyone, god runs and hides. Well that is just a stupid claim.

To treat the question does God exist as a science question to be analyzed is to miss the point. Experiencing God is not a proposition that can be examined outside each person.

The it is a functionally useless proposition.

The end purpose of God is to bring your mind to a place where it desires a relationship with God.

Yet another baseless assertion that you pulled out of your butt. Your god is an immoral thug.

This necessarily takes time and a different path for each person. To say it another way, knowing God exists is not the goal. Satan, demons, angels, etc. know God exists. 

Yeah, none of those exist either.

[quote='SteveII' pid='1816629' dateline='1537461968']Are you really arguing that Gods existence would be dependent on the physical world like ours is? Really? 

It must necessarily be so. Or your god cannot affect the real world. It's a fairly straightforward idea. If your god can interact with the real world, then that can be measured and tested. If your god either cannot or will not, then it's a useless god.

[quote='SteveII' pid='1816629' dateline='1537461968']You are saying that because you do not choose God before you die, there are consequence and that somehow shows God does not value from will. Those two things are not logically connected. At most you have is an objection to the requirement to accept God while you are still alive. Objection noted. 

Now, you are simply recycling Pascal's wager.

You would have to show that God could have logically created a universe where everyone would freely choose him. It is clear that is almost certainly not actually possible. So, he settled for a universe where the greatest number of people would freely accept him. 

Does Satan know god exists for a fact? And did not Satan STILL reject god? And does that not demonstrate that god proving his existence is no barrier to the exercise of free will?

God is holy.

What does that even mean?

He cannot be in the presence of anything less than holy.

Scripture says your nose is growing, Pinnochio.

Holiness is a standard of perfection without any fault.

And your god fails to meet that standard

In no definition of 'forgiveness' does it remove the fact that you have done something. Only God atoning for your removes the imperfection (wipes the slate clean). Only then can you be holy and in the presence of a holy God.

If your god is so perfect, why did he engage in ritual human sacrifice? Genocide? Rape? Slavery? Incest? Illegal import of kangaroos and koala bears? And their subsequent export?

Why did not the chinese notice his big flood, or the aboriginal Aussies?

Why did nobody notice the Zombie Apocalypse of Jerusalem?

Why was jebus an also ran in the resurrection game?

Who was at the tomb and what exactly happened?