(July 30, 2014 at 3:27 pm)alpha male Wrote:(July 30, 2014 at 3:24 pm)ShaMan Wrote: I'm not guilty. You may keep your childish 'payment' for a crime that never occurred.BINGO! That's what it really comes down to. Even when being offered free forgiveness, and blessing on top of it, people don't want to admit that they're guilty.
I'm guilty of many things but I doubt that offending the dignity of Yahweh with "sin" is one of them -- unless, of course, I am presented with something more compelling than an old collection of stories to cause me to believe in this god.
You make it sound like accepting Christian salvation is like finding a twenty-dollar bill on the ground. "Who wouldn't pick it up? It would be crazy not to!" But there's more to it than that. It's not enough that Christ allegedly paid the price for these crimes and everyone's square; that would be free forgiveness. But to reap the benefit of this gift one must accept as true stories that should embarrass a half-bright ten year old, starting with belief in Yahweh himself. And failure to believe the unbelievable results in punishment. Strings don't equal free.
Besides, how am I to know that the Christian salvation story isn't really a divine test of my credulity and stupidity? Maybe every prayer and petition, every ritual of Communion, etc. earns the believer ever more divine contempt. Perhaps the sheep and goats have been mischaracterized. That doesn't strike me as being more unlikely than most of the New Testament.
