(July 14, 2015 at 11:25 am)Chad32 Wrote: We account for knowledge by seeing how the world works, doing tests, and making note of consistency. It's a process, and going back and revising when we get new information keeps things as accurate as possible. This is how we find out how planets actually form, what really causes illness, and such. The universe is full of stuff, and this stuff interacts with other stuff in a way that we can gain knowledge about how the stuff within the universe works. The more we know about this stuff, the fewer things we attribute to gods. For instance, we know lightning doesn't come down because there's a guy on a cloud hurling bolts at the ground. We also know that the reason a church might get struck by lightning is less because of heresy, and more because it was probably built on a hill with a tall steeple at the top.
Yes, I can. You're just ignoring our ability to gather consistent data over time with which to base our views. Since they're not absolute, you want to throw them out the window as useless, and consult a book with outdated views like slavery, discrimination, thought crime, and such. Yet you're accusing me of being dishonest because I believe even a flawed system has value. The more we work at it, the less flawed it becomes.
I suppose since you believe your god defines good and evil, you can safely say he doesn't have evil in him. Which isn't saying much, really. If I was all powerful I could say I'm perfectly good too, while killing and torturing anyone who disagrees.
I don't really see any sacrificing going on. Jesus came back, and either sits at god's right hand or is god himself. What has god lost in the long term? I've heard he carries the burden of sin, so does that mean he has PTSD? That's not exactly clear. I don't think he understands us at all, since he calls us fundamentally evil. I may have said this before, but he can't even get his followers to agree on what his message is, and if its just the christians who are going to heaven it's only a minority of the population that he's able to save. That shows a severe lack of understanding. He sets a bar for us that is impossibly high, and can't get the majority of the population to even believe in him. he can't even keep the people who want to worship him from killing each other over how to interpret the bible. That is a failure on his part if his goal is to gain as many followers as possible.
He's waiting for me to come to him, and I'm waiting for him to come to me. Except that I can live my life just fine without him, so if he wants to be worshiped he needs to show himself to me. He seems to want me, but I could take him or leave him. I cannot ask someone for forgiveness, or dedicate my life to him, if I haven't met him.
You have not accounted for knowledge, logic, or consciousness you have just stated that we are able to use them. I am asking with your world-view, which says we are just the byproducts of chaos, how do you account for uniformity or the ability for conscious and coherent thought? How can you reason at all? When have you ever observed consciousness coming from non-consciousness?
You are just judging God by arbitrary means because your system of morals, as you have already stated, are subjective to you. Your judgment on Him has no authority.
Evil is a corruption of good. A good action has to exist first for there to be a bad action. Lying can not exist before the truth because reality must exist before someone can speak a falsity about it. So God is good and has never changed and there is no mixture in Him. He is pure and good. Since the world has become corrupted by our sin he through the cross has sought a way to purify us so that we can have a relationship with Him. He must judge sin because as I stated before He is pure and good. Yet he is loving and wishes that we would all come into a relationship with Him.
So this is how Jesus sacrificed, because I used to have the same question. He being the one who made all thing and is above all things made himself the the lowest. He didn't come to the earth as a rich man but poor. He grew up in a limited and imperfect human body. He allowed His creation to attack Him, to betray Him, and murder Him all so that He could take your sin and my sin upon Himself. And this great mystery that I don't understand, He was separated form God the Father because He became a substitute for us. He was always in perfect relationship with the Father but he took the full force of the wrath of God so that we wouldn't have to. He didn't do this through His power but through the power of His the Holy Spirit.
You only assume that you can live your life without Him. He keeps the universe in uniformity so the fact that you can trust certain practices to work and keep you alive is all due to God.
