How can a Christian reject part of the Bible and still call themselves a Christian?

[Tonus]

You don't impose freewill on anyone you allow them to have it.

I didn't say he imposed freewill. I said he forced a bad deal on us. He didn't allow humanity to have free will, he forced sin on it.

God has given you the freedom screw to yourself over.

No, he has not. By your own description, he has compelled me to screw myself over and then offered a cure for the disease that he infected me with. That's not grace, that's malice.

[Sword of Christ]

I didn't say he imposed freewill. I said he forced a bad deal on us.

Freewill/life/existence is a bad deal? This is the kind of ingratitude God has to deal with, he worked his fingers to the bone on this universe you know with the amount of fine tuning he had to do. And now you're moaning about it and saying it's a bad deal!

He didn't allow humanity to have free will, he forced sin on it.

The desired outcome had an unavoidable undesirable result but he cunningly found a way to get around that issue.

No, he has not. By your own description, he has compelled me to screw myself over and then offered a cure for the disease that he infected me with. That's not grace, that's malice.

You compel yourself if you have freedom of will. And as physically evolved finite you will necessarily have to fall short of 100% divine perfection, seeing as only God has that and people who are God themselves i.e Jesus.

[Tonus]

Freewill/life/existence is a bad deal? This is the kind of ingratitude God has to deal with, he worked his fingers to the bone on this universe you know with the amount of fine tuning he had to do. And now you're moaning about it and saying it's a bad deal!

Now I'm wondering if your reading comprehension is just that bad, or if you are misrepresenting my comments on purpose.

God imposed a bad deal on us, by forcing us to sin and then offering the cure for something he forced on us. Two humans turned against god, and the rest never got the option to make the choice that Adam and Eve made. Either god is terrible at planning, or he arranged this purposely. He wants us to be grateful to him for giving us a cure when he could have simply not infected us in the first place.

God makes it so that we cannot avoid sin, yet you call this "free will" and treat it as a gift. That is insane.

The desired outcome had an unavoidable undesirable result but he cunningly found a way to get around that issue.

If the result was unavoidable then god is not the creator, or he is such a poor designer that he locked himself out of his own sloppy design and is taking his own incompetence out on humanity. What a prick!

You compel yourself if you have freedom of will.

If you have to contradict yourself in order to make sense of your beliefs, you should probably scrap them and find something more coherent.

The concept of free will is not compatible with having a genetic propensity to "sin" deliberately coded into our DNA, all so that god can offer to remove the defect if we just kiss his ring (and the attendant eternal punishment if we simply go along with the compulsion he coded into our genes.). At the least, it is contrary to the notion of a just or loving deity who only wants what is best for us.

[Sword of Christ]

Now I'm wondering if your reading comprehension is just that bad, or if you are misrepresenting my comments on purpose.

The deal is God gives us life and freewill and everything you question is explained in this context. So you're basically saying life and freewill is a bad deal as that's how what I have explained to you.

God imposed a bad deal on us, by forcing us to sin and then offering the cure for something he forced on us.

No God gave you life in a physical body and he gave you freewill. The problem of sin is a consequence or byproduct of the existence God gave you in the first place. I don't know how many times I need to repeat this.

Two humans turned against god, and the rest never got the option to make the choice that Adam and Eve made.

Genesis is a metaphor for the human condition.

Either god is terrible at planning, or he arranged this purposely.

The plan is a very good one if you understand it. No-one would believe in this if it was something as awful as you believe it to be. You get your life/existence, you get your freewill and you get full salvation from sin and death direct from God himself as well. Feel free to point out the flaw in the plan.

He wants us to be grateful to him for giving us a cure when he could have simply not infected us in the first place.

We're not infected with anything. We are subject to certain unpleasant things given the nature of what we actually are, death is an example.

God makes it so that we cannot avoid sin, yet you call this "free will" and treat it as a gift. That is insane.

You can't avoid physical degeneration through the aging process and death or physical and emotional suffering either but life itself is still a gift. A gift that has a downside but you would rather not have been born at all?

If the result was unavoidable then god is not the creator, or he is such a poor designer that he locked himself out of his own sloppy design and is taking his own incompetence out on humanity.

The design is 100% perfect, intentional and essentially good. With some unavoidable consequences for living beings as previously noted. The consequences have been taken care of through the message of the gospels and the death and resurrection of Christ.

If you have to contradict yourself in order to make sense of your beliefs, you should probably scrap them and find something more coherent.

It's perfectly coherent, you have life, freewill, sin and death as a consequence and you also have grace and salvation through God himself.

The concept of free will is not compatible with having a genetic propensity to "sin" deliberately coded into our DNA

We're not genetically coded machines, we have full freedom of will. Yes we have physically evolved bodies which will have an influence on us certainly, we have an animal nature as well as a God nature. But this is life, the thing God wanted to create and we like to have and appreciate.

all so that god can offer to remove the defect if we just kiss his ring (and the attendant eternal punishment if we simply go along with the compulsion he coded into our genes.). At the least, it is contrary to the notion of a just or loving deity who only wants what is best for us.

We're influenced certain physical things but we're also influenced by God. How we go about defining ourselves and our life under these influences is how we have freedom of will. This is something we would want to have, we don't want to be pure instinct driven machines or pure angels at Gods command we like the opportunity to decide for ourselves. This is what being physically alive as human being will give you. Sin and death is the consequence of something we want to have.

[Tonus]

So you're basically saying life and freewill is a bad deal as that's how what I have explained to you.

In other words, you're misrepresenting me on purpose.

No God gave you life in a physical body and he gave you freewill. The problem of sin is a consequence or byproduct of the existence God gave you in the first place. I don't know how many times I need to repeat this.

So sin is "a by-product of life." Before it was a consequence of free will. Either is problematic, but it'd be good if you could keep your story together.

Genesis is a metaphor for the human condition.

What a lousy writer, then.

The plan is a very good one if you understand it.

It's an incoherent plan that cannot possibly be "understood," a problem you are demonstrating in your increasingly confused attempts to explain it.

We're not infected with anything. We are subject to certain unpleasant things given the nature of what we actually are, death is an example.

And what we actually are, per your claim, is the creation of god. Ergo, if we are sinful by nature, this was god's plan.

You can't avoid physical degeneration through the aging process and death or physical and emotional suffering either but life itself is still a gift. A gift that has a downside but you would rather not have been born at all?

It only has a downside because god programmed it in. Under the scenario you describe, I certainly would rather not have existed, since it means that behind the whole facade is a very nasty and very unpredictable being with the power --and the inclination-- to make my life a literal hell.

The design is 100% perfect, intentional and essentially good.

Only if your standards are set impossibly low.

It's perfectly coherent

No, it isn't, as shown by your inability to make it sound coherent in these last few exchanges.

Sin and death is the consequence of something we want to have.

Only because god made it that way, in order to give value to the sacrifice he could have avoided by not making us that way in the first place.

[YahwehIsTheWay]

If we override Gods Moral Law then that's a sin or potentially outright evil. You don't need a book to tell what right and wrong is that should be internal within you. The Bible just points out to people who believe otherwise that our morality is sourced from God and isn't just an opinion of our own minds. Moral values exist regardless of our own opinion either way, there is a right and a wrong and a good and a evil.

Sweet Jesus, you're almost a New Ager. If the will of Jesus exists in everyone then what do we need religion for? Atheists could simply follow their conscience and wind up doing God's will. Would they go to Heaven according to your New Age Jesus?

We would probably still have (legal) slavery today without our Christian values we were the ones to abolish it the rest of the world caught up somewhat later.

Who's this "we" Kemosabe?

The struggle to preserve slavery in America was fought by some of the most devout Christians in the country. They Confederacy wisely observed that what was regulated in the Old Testament and endorsed by the New Testament couldn't possibly be against the will of Jesus.

If you need pictures to underscore the Bible verses on slavery, here you go:
The Bible on Slavery

Jesus often used slaves in his parables and gave the nod to beating them:

Luke 12:47 And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.

But perhaps you know of some passages that call for the abolition of slavery. Do tell.

"From approximately 650 until around the 1960s, the Arab slave trade continued in one form or another."

...and this proves...?

It did actually happen so there you go. You can't argue with the results.

...and all this time I thought it was that heathen deist Lincoln backed by hundreds of thousands of Union soldiers but hey, obviously I was mistaken.

You just have to apply the principals of human equality and rights...

OK, I'm going to stop you right there and ask for chapter and verse where I can find these "rights" and "principals of human equality" because when I read the Bible, all I find is our obligations of obedience to our masters and kings.

Certainly women aren't equal to men in the eyes of Jesus. Neither are slaves equal to their masters. But again, I invite you to cite me chapter and verse.

It's likely they put that in there because it was something the pagans around them were heavily into and there was a desire to distinguish themselves and remain culturally separate as a distinct people.

More bare assertions. I don't speculate why Jesus ordered what he ordered. I simply believe what I'm told to believe and do what I'm told to do. The Bible says it, I believe it and that settles it.

Stop thinking, you phony Christian! Or else be honest and call yourself an unsaved heathen like most of the members of this forum!

The whole Word of God isn't contained in any visible book it's Christ/the Logos of God and within yourself. The Bible is directs you towards this truth you already know on some level, see it as a guidebook.

The Word of God is a "guidebook". If we already have the Holy Spirit within all of us, that which we know as our conscience, what to we need religion for. The atheist could just as easily do the will of God as a Christian. And if that's true and the Holy Spirit resides in the atheist as well as the Christian, would you suggest that atheists go to Heaven?

You're a Universalist, aren't you?

"And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. And they marvelled at him." Mark 12:17

Read the context. Jesus is talking about paying taxes.

You'll notice democracy and secularism didn't really take off in the Islamic countries. So you can see the influence a religion can have on the values of a culture. I'd argue Christianity has founded a pretty damn good one.

That's only because Muslim clerics have the kind of power that we True Christians ™ can only dream about. True Christians, yes even the protestant ones, burned intellectuals at the stake. All the Reformation did was split the power of Christianity and offer heathen scientists room to maneuver. It was IN SPITE of Christianity, not because of it that all this heathen science has run amok.

So the society in which we now live is a more authentically Christian one.

America is the only developed nation where Christianity has any kind of a foothold. In all other developed countries, atheism is ascendant. The more these scientists run amok, the more it is at the cost of the power of Christ. In what alternate dimension do you live where the developed world is more authentically Christian?

[Sword of Christ]

In other words, you're misrepresenting me on purpose.

I'm trying to explain what the real interpretation of Christian salvation through Christ is meant to be. But you're trying to shoehorn in the atheists stereotypical and misinformed interpretation, the kind of thing Christopher Hitchens or whoever would go on about. Any objection you raise in relation to that interpretation I would agree with. It would make life some kind of punishment/ordeal and God something you serve out of fear and submission rather than love.

So sin is "a by-product of life." Before it was a consequence of free will.

One and the same thing, as living beings we have our own freewill. If we were created as purely spiritual beings we would be under Gods will.

Either is problematic, but it'd be good if you could keep your story together.

There isn't a problem with either and it all holds together.

What a lousy writer, then.

A human wrote it but it tells of certain spiritual truths relating to humanities relationship to God.

And what we actually are, per your claim, is the creation of god. Ergo, if we are sinful by nature, this was god's plan.

Well yes it is Gods plan. It's a very plan overall seeing as we get the opportunity to exist as living beings and to develop our relationship with God with our own freedom of will and serve others and some good. Naturally you will need to have the capacity to sin and be evil if this is to have any point or purpose.

It only has a downside because god programmed it in.

Without the downside you wouldn't have the upside. The upside makes the downside worth it.

Under the scenario you describe, I certainly would rather not have existed, since it means that behind the whole facade is a very nasty and very unpredictable being with the power

What God created here is a community of being capable of living in love with God and each other but only if we choose to do so there's no force or compulsion involved you see.

--and the inclination-- to make my life a literal hell.

Everyone has a life that is worth something and is valuable even if it will involve some degree of suffering and hardship.

Only if your standards are set impossibly low.

In the Christian context the universe was created for the purpose of developing a loving community of beings. The you do this is by creating a system that allows for full freewill in the context of having something worthwhile to strive toward and struggle against. Hence what you now have is an opportunity to do some good works for others and lessen the suffering of your fellow man, and animals and whatever as well. So the temporal hardship involved promotes the eternal spiritual development.

No, it isn't, as shown by your inability to make it sound coherent in these last few exchanges.

If we can put this into a list.

1) Physical mortal Life
2) Hardship/suffering
3) Sin/death
4) Salvation through Gods grace in Christ
4) Love/community in Christ
5) Spiritual/moral growth in Christ
6) Eternal immortal life in Christ

Only because god made it that way, in order to give value to the sacrifice he could have avoided by not making us that way in the first place.

It's better that he did make it this way given the opportunity of what it allows us to experience and do.

[Ryantology]

I'm trying to explain what the real interpretation of Christian salvation through Christ is meant to be.

Oh, how lucky, we have the two billionth Christian out of two billion Christians who knows what the real interpretation of the Bible is supposed to be.

One and the same thing, as living beings we have our own freewill. If we were created as purely spiritual beings we would be under Gods will.

How can it be free will if any exercise of that will results in eternal punishment?

Well yes it is Gods plan. It's a very plan overall seeing as we get the opportunity to exist as living beings and to develop our relationship with God with our own freedom of will and serve others and some good. Naturally you will need to have the capacity to sin and be evil if this is to have any point or purpose.

Why did God design our free will so that virtually any expression of it is evil? Doesn't that sound like a rigged game to you?

Without the downside you wouldn't have the upside. The upside makes the downside worth it.

To put it another way, Christians wouldn't be able to enjoy salvation if there weren't a bunch of people burning in hell.

What God created here is a community of being capable of living in love with God and each other but only if we choose to do so there's no force or compulsion involved you see.

How can you say there's no compulsion involved when God offers rewards for getting on the bandwagon and punishes anyone who doesn't?

Everyone has a life that is worth something and is valuable even if it will involve some degree of suffering and hardship.

Suffering seems so much more pointless when it exists only to satisfy God's desire to see people suffer.

In the Christian context the universe was created for the purpose of developing a loving community of beings. The you do this is by creating a system that allows for full freewill in the context of having something worthwhile to strive toward and struggle against. Hence what you now have is an opportunity to do some good works for others and lessen the suffering of your fellow man, and animals and whatever as well. So the temporal hardship involved promotes the eternal spiritual development.

How fucking selfish, not just of Christians for actually believing they are the center of the universe, but of God demanding more out of us than he is willing to give to us.

It's better that he did make it this way given the opportunity of what it allows us to experience and do.

I would prefer that nobody suffered. I don't need people dying in agony just so I can appreciate not dying in agony myself.

[Sword of Christ]

Oh, how lucky, we have the two billionth Christian out of two billion Christians who knows what the real interpretation of the Bible is supposed to be.

All educated Christians know this you can read any book about it. Atheists have a stereotypical/distorted view of it and many of their arguments are against that version of Christianity.

How can it be free will if any exercise of that will results in eternal punishment?

No-one is getting punished eternally, what happens is sin separates you from God which can result in a state of spiritual torment which will continue after you die. I'm sure everyone will still be able to accept God love\grace even after they die seeing as life continues after the grave but you can do the same thing before that point which is more ideal.

Why did God design our free will so that virtually any expression of it is evil? Doesn't that sound like a rigged game to you?

Some expressions of it are good and some are evil/harmful.

To put it another way, Christians wouldn't be able to enjoy salvation if there weren't a bunch of people burning in hell.

No-one is literally burning anywhere, there is going to be some torment/damnation for those beings who have a attained full separation from God but they don't want anything to do with God.

How can you say there's no compulsion involved when God offers rewards for getting on the bandwagon and punishes anyone who doesn't?

He rewards everyone with the fullness of an eternal life in a relationship of love with him and with a community of beings. Or you can reject the offer and what you end up with is death, though your conscious existence will continue in some form. God can't force anyone to receive the reward but you don't have to do anything specifically to earn it you just have to either accept it and be transformed by it or you don't. Seeing as we have freewill the option is there to tell God to fuck off with his grace.

Suffering seems so much more pointless when it exists only to satisfy God's desire to see people suffer.

God doesn't desire anyone to suffer but he wants to give us the opportunity of life and advantages of that.

How fucking selfish, not just of Christians for actually believing they are the center of the universe, but of God demanding more out of us than he is willing to give to us.

The good thing you will like to know is God in the Christian sense isn't demanding anything of you instead he is offering you something. In Islam and what have you God does make demands and you have to put on a good performance to earn paradise yourself. In Christianity God says "You are forgiven here you go" and that's your grace there. This is by far the best deal on the table.

I would prefer that nobody suffered. I don't need people dying in agony just so I can appreciate not dying in agony myself.

You will suffer and die yourself but you also have the opportunity to do some genuine good and experience the incredible universe God has created here, and this can be a fully worthwhile part of your eternal life.



Change this to.

You have been saved by Gods grace now stop worrying and enjoy your life. Make sure you work to enable others enjoy their life as well.

And that is Christianity, much better than your bog standard atheism.

[Cato]

If we can put this into a list.

1) Physical mortal Life
2) Hardship/suffering
3) Sin/death
4) Salvation through Gods grace in Christ
4) Love/community in Christ
5) Spiritual/moral growth in Christ
6) Eternal immortal life in Christ

7) My dick in Christ