(March 20, 2013 at 9:57 am)Texas Sailor Wrote: I am a father. My son means everything to me. There are times that his actions require punishment, but ultimately, the lesson he learns from the punishment is what is important. I want him to grow into a better person, a better man. My love for him is unconditional. Everything I do, I do to support him and his success.
What if he does not want your help in any way shape or form? What if from the time he could speak he made it clear he did not like you or your authority over him? Would you force him to accept you and what you offered? Would you force Him to stay in your house even if he was old enough to leave?
Quote:According to Christianity, God is the supposed Heavenly Father. His love, compassion and dedication for US is something that we could never truly comprehend, but the very reason I feel the way I do about my son, is because I was created in his image. According to Christianity, it is God to which all morality, and empathy can be attributed.With one condition, God respects his children enough to allow them to pick their own directions in this life and the next.
Quote:If my son disobeys me, he is punished. But, ultimately if he doesn't get a chance to display new learned behavior, I will never know whether I have succeeded as a parent in teaching my son what is important. There is no amount of chances before I will give up. There is no limit to my love for him. If he were ever in need of something and it was within my ability to provide it, I would. I would risk my own safety and lay my own life out for his.So long as he lives right? How does that differ from what God has done for us through the atonement Christ offers?
Quote:If ultimately, the life we choose differs from that which The Bible outlines as the standard, and obviously there are millions of different interpretations of what that standard is, then God (Heavenly Father ) invokes his punishment to his children...Actually no, that is not a biblical percept. I will agree most religions teach this but they do so outside of what Christ Himself taught. Do you know of the parable of the talents in Mat 25:14-30? Basically it says God will only hold us responsible to what he has given us. If we are faithful we will be given more if we are not the what we have will be taken from us and given to someone else. This means if we do not have to understand the bible like a Billy gram. All we must do is do the best we can with what God gave us. Not the best as in what you tell someone is your best, but your best as in all your heart, mind spirit and strength, and no matter what your finished product, God will judge you favorably according to this parable.
Quote:This punishment is described as unimaginable torture. It says "You will pray for death but death will not find you", this is an eternal and definite punishment from which there will not be a chance for salvation or rescue. God will cast you away land turn his back to you because to HIM you have already done so to him.I looked and I don't think that is an actual bible quote. Do you have book chapter and verse?
Quote:My questions are many with comprehending these concepts.What if your son chooses that fate over spending an eternity with you?
#1 If...
a.)God is all loving and his compassion for his children surpasses that of my own comprehension for compassion.
b.) I have compassion for my son that knows no bounds. It would be impossible for me to allow my son a fate of eternal suffering for any reason.
The problem I see is that you assume that all children love their fathers their whole lives. wait till you boys hit 16 and decide to do the opposite of what you would have them do for no other reason then because it would please you that they do what they were asked.
Now imagine this rebellion in the scope of eternity. I think given enough time this would make reasons for wars..
Quote:c.) God's compassion has limits to what he will accept before he turns his back to you and allows you; in fact sentences you to a fate of eternal suffering.I did a thread on this titled God does not love you.. (the way you think He does.) In Short I look at the Greek word that gets translated to the word love in the English. It is Agape. This Agape form of Love is indeed conditional. It is not a love based on emotion but Choice. In that we must choose to accept God's offer of love. Once we do then we will experience that Boundless love you are describing. Agape is not a generic all encompassing love that knows no bounds for everyone in general. Agape is indeed conditional and has a price tag on it. In order for God to offer it it cost Him His only Son. In order for us to receive it we must acknowledge and accept what it cost God to offer it. To me this does not sound unreasonable.
If A is true, C cannot nor B can be true.
B is true and C is contingent on accepting A, therefore A must be false.
http://atheistforums.org/thread-12703.html
Quote:#2Again, He is not the modern day English understanding of all loving. He is the Koine Greek understanding of Agape. To understand God is to seek Him on His terms and not to try and force God to fit our understandings. If we do what you have done we build a strawman fallicy and lable it god. when our strawman fails to live up to or is not consistent with the God of the bible our reaction is to say God does not exist, because there is a fatal flaw in our strawman version of God, rather than admit we never sought the God of the bible to begin with.
a.) God is all powerful, and all loving. There is nothing he cannot do or would not do for us.
Quote:b.) If you do not accept Jesus Christ into your heart as your lord and savior under your own free will, which God has granted you the opportunity to do, you will be eternally sentenced to pain and suffering beyond any earthly imaginable experience.Why?
Quote:c.) God will not save you from this outcome, as you have decided under previous circumstances that your opinion of him and level of devotion was different than the one God wanted you to have.Again have you asked yourself why? What fundamental principle is being violated when God forces someone to spend an eternity serving Him?
Quote:If a punishment is designed to teach a lesson, Hell is not such a thing. If I don't want my son to steal, killing him will not bring out better behavior. These concepts are self-contradicting and traits of a narcissistic and petty person that would not logically applied to a Devine superior being of unimaginable power. These aren't even acceptable traits of a person in a position of power on earth! It's astounding that this can be so widely and blindly accepted as truth.Which is what this life is all about. To see if you can eternally serve Not the God you have constructed for yourself, but the God of the bible for all of eternity. If yes then simply accept the redemption offered, if no then stay your course and know you will be eternally separated from the God you want nothing to do with..
Someone wrote it is better to burn in hell than to serve in heaven.
Quote:Lastly, and I would be surprised if anyone actually made it this far in my rant...If you write it, someone will read it.
Quote:1) If God designed my ability to reason.God also gave me the ability to reason, and I would conclude, that Your idea of God is not real. That's not to say a God does not exist beyond what your god should look like.
2) Then is is that ability to reason that has led me to a conclusion that God is not real.
Quote:3) My inconclusive results for God driven by my God-given ability to reason, have led me to an ideology that God issues sentences in Hell for.Yes (Rythm would read neener neener here.) Yes, in that God designed us to choose whether or not we want to spend an eternity serving Him or eternally separated from Him. and Yes God will hold us to our choices for eternity.
Therefore conclusively: God sentences people to hell for doing exactly what he designed them to do.
Quote:This makes no more sense than Ford destroying their mini-van products because at the test-drive,they could not fly or produce crisp $100 bills. If something you design produces different results than you expected, it is because your design was flawed, therefore the only person you can blame is you!
This would be an accurate analogy save for one minor detail. God offers atonement. If God did not offer atonement or some way for one to redeem himself then you would be 100% correct. But because atonement for sins was offered then the destruction of your 'mini van' is because you chose to have it destroyed, and God/ford is simply facilitating what you wanted to do.
Here is a thread I started explaining what I know of Hell.
http://atheistforums.org/thread-15622.html