You all convinced me, I'm now an Atheist!!!

[Drich]

So your actions on earth, however moral or otherwise, are meaningless unless you give God your heart?

I've said this many times. The acts themselves hold no 'moral value.' It is what God says about then that gives them a 'moral or immoral' meaning.

Therefore it is only with the heart that we can serve God.

Again Look at the parable of the Rich young ruler:
The Rich Young Ruler

17 As He was setting out on a journey, a man ran up to Him and knelt before Him, and asked Him, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone. 19 You know the commandments, ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” 20 And he said to Him, “Teacher, I have kept all these things from my youth up.” 21 Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, “One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” 22 But at these words [a]he was saddened, and he went away grieving, for he was one who owned much property.

23 And Jesus, looking around, *said to His disciples, “How hard it will be for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!” 24 The disciples were amazed at His words. But Jesus *answered again and *said to them, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” 26 They were even more astonished and said to Him, “[b]Then who can be saved?” 27 Looking at them, Jesus *said, “With people it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God.”

Look at all the 'Moral' things this young man has done... They amounted to nothing because his heart was with his money/possessions.

[FatAndFaithless]

So your actions on earth, however moral or otherwise, are meaningless unless you give God your heart?

I've said this many times. The acts themselves hold no 'moral value.' It is what God says about then that gives them a 'moral or immoral' meaning.

Therefore it is only with the heart that we can serve God.

Again Look at the parable of the Rich young ruler:
The Rich Young Ruler

17 As He was setting out on a journey, a man ran up to Him and knelt before Him, and asked Him, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone. 19 You know the commandments, ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” 20 And he said to Him, “Teacher, I have kept all these things from my youth up.” 21 Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, “One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” 22 But at these words [a]he was saddened, and he went away grieving, for he was one who owned much property.

23 And Jesus, looking around, *said to His disciples, “How hard it will be for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!” 24 The disciples were amazed at His words. But Jesus *answered again and *said to them, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” 26 They were even more astonished and said to Him, “[b]Then who can be saved?” 27 Looking at them, Jesus *said, “With people it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God.”

Look at all the 'Moral' things this young man has done... They amounted to nothing because his heart was with his money/possessions.

A simple "yes" would've sufficed.

[Davka]

So those who claim to "follow the canonical teachings of Jesus", would reject the idea that the Old Testament is no longer required. And conversely, those who follow Paul's idea that Jesus fulfilled the law and now we don't have to pay attention to it would say... what? That they just find Paul's ideas more appealing? I would've thought that Jesus would have the final say on this kind of thing seeing as he is God.

what is so hard to understand here? I will break it all down in easy one or two sentence explainations. ask a question on the parts that confuse you.

The OT IS REQUIRED!!!

The OT didn't contain just the rules/a list of thou shalts and thou shalt nots...

The OT Also contained the Requirements for attoning of sin, as well as the consenquence for sin.

The OT shows us that the price of all Sin is Death.

In the OT for small sin the death of an animal would be good enough to keep the sinner for being stoned to death.

Meaning once the animal died the sinner was not longer responsible for that sin. The animal took the punishment for the sinner.

For large sin the blood of an animal was not enough to attone for those sins. This meant the sinner was to be put to death.

Again if one sins, someone/Something had to die as the penality for all sin is Death.

That's what the church tells you, but it's not what the OT says.

I once wrote an in-depth Bible Study on the 5 types of offerings outlined in Leviticus 1-6. These are (in order of appearance) the Burnt Offering; the Grain Offering; the Peace Offering; the Sin Offering; and the Guilt Offering. And yes, I got paid for writing the study (it was for a major Evangelical organization) and yes, it's copy-written, and no, I cannot legally reproduce it here. But I can give a synopsis.

The first 3 offerings have nothing to do with sin. They are required simply because God says so. This leaves the Sin Offering and the Guilt Offering as the only 2 which have any bearing on this discussion.

The Sin Offering covers the breaking of the 613 Laws (tor'ot) in the Pentateuch (torah). However - and this is important - you could only offer an animal in sacrifice for accidentally breaking the Law. Anyone who purposely sinned against God was stoned to death. Touch the unclean thing on purpose? Death. Gather firewood on Shabbat? Death. There was no difference between "big" and "small" sins against God.

Kinda makes you wonder about the character of YHWH - but I digress.

The Guilt Offering could get you off the hook only for sinning against your fellow Jew. If you ripped someone off, or damaged their property, you could make restitution and kill an animal, and you were off the hook.

Human sacrifice is the biggest no-no in the Tanach. It's what Ba'al (lit. "Lord") required, and YHWH didn't like Ba'al back in those polytheistic days. So the idea that a human could be sacrificed for our sins against YHWH simply does not compute.

What's more, Christianity claims that Jesus takes the place of all the required sacrifices. No more burnt offering, no more grain offering, no more peace offering. Even though Jesus said that he had NOT, repeat NOT, come to abolish the Torah, that's precisely what Christianity has done. You can knowingly break every single one of the 613 commandments as a Christian, and be totally OK with YHWH, even though YHWH specifically said (and repeated many times) that His commandments were forever.

Most Christians never bother to study the OT. And no wonder - YHWH is a real prick.

Good thing he's fictional.

[robvalue]

OT = Optional Testament

[The Grand Nudger]

So, have you started sinning relentlessly and uncontrollably, since becoming an atheist Drich? Murdered any redheads, of late? Do you sit under the light of the full moon greasing yourself with baby fat, invoking the great grey ghost to dwell within? Has god stopped speaking to you? Have you been CC'd on the atheist NWO emails? Did you lose your ability to give others cancer and find lost wallets with the power of prayer?

C'mon man, keep us up to date.

[Anomalocaris]

He sinned by existing.

[Spooky]

http://www.shockingtimes.co.uk/man-has-s...rns-penis/

[Esquilax]

No we do not discard anything.

It's a law that's supposed to apply to humans, being that they're under god's dominion, and you're asserting that it doesn't apply to you, only some other group. That's discarding.

I think the problem you guys are having is that you see the law as a list of requirements to get to heaven. The old catholic idea of a good old fashion Check list theology. where one has to follow the list to obtain the goal.

I think the problem is that you'd rather assume what we think rather than listening to us explain it. I'm well aware that the biblical criteria for salvation is, generally speaking, belief; the bible characterizes us all at sinners, for whom the grace of Jesus allows one into heaven despite this. The issue is that the word of god encompasses more than just what'll get you into heaven. In fact, taken within the context of Jesus' salvation all of the bible is merely optional, stuff to be strived for with the understanding that failure is inevitable due to sin.

But optional or not, it's still all there, and it's characterized as the word of god, dictating what's moral and what's not. As a christian, I would presume that doing what is moral, in that it aligns with the word of god, would be high on your list of priorities regardless of whether you're saved or not, but you make excuses for why you don't have to deal with it, showing in the process your lack of care for the actual content of the bible's righteous morality, over making sure you have the reward at the end.

This is not what is in the bible. Paul shows us how to keep/fullfill the whole law and still have attonement be the means to our salvation and not the check list theology be the means in which we are saved. But for this we you must be willing to read through the book of romans from beginning to end.

Sure, but if god provides some optional extras for living a good life, things that he considers to be good, then observing those things should be a no brainer if you're a christian, right? But what's actually happening here is that you're a christian who has appointed yourself the arbiter of who is and isn't a christian on the basis of whether or not they follow the bible, while yourself ignoring large swathes of it because it's not the bare minimum you need to do to get into heaven. It's fascinating, really; who's less of a christian, the guy who sincerely follows his religious beliefs even where they stray from the bible, or the one who invents reasons not to follow the bible beyond what he absolutely has to to get the reward at the end of his life?

The short answer lies in the understanding that the 'law' was more than just a list of do's and dont's. The law also made room for attonement. You guys only see the do's and dont's. If you live by the whole law then attonement is apart of said living. If one has the perfect attonement, then the law ceases to be the measure of righteousness, because ALL SINS Are Forgiven. So what then is judged? The Heart.

"God holds these things to be morally good, but I don't have to do them because I'll get the reward he gives me either way."

And you question other people's commitment to christianity?

[Ryantology]

The whole of the book of Romans, More over Romans 7, More specifically:

7 You might think I am saying that sin and the law are the same. That is not true. But the law was the only way I could learn what sin means. I would never have known it is wrong to want something that is not mine. But the law said, “You must not want what belongs to someone else.”[a] 8 And sin found a way to use that command and make me want all kinds of things that weren’t mine. So sin came to me because of the command. But without the law, sin has no power. 9 Before I knew the law, I was alive. But when I heard the law’s command, sin began to live, 10 and I died spiritually. The command was meant to bring life, but for me it brought death. 11 Sin found a way to fool me by using the command to make me die.

12 Now the law is holy, and the command is holy and right and good. 13 Does this mean that something that is good brought death to me? No, it was sin that used the good command to bring me death. This shows how terrible sin really is. It can use a good command to produce a result that shows sin at its very worst.
14 We know that the law is spiritual, but I am not. I am so human. Sin rules me as if I were its slave. 15 I don’t understand why I act the way I do. I don’t do the good I want to do, and I do the evil I hate. 16 And if I don’t want to do what I do, that means I agree that the law is good. 17 But I am not really the one doing the evil. It is sin living in me that does it. 18 Yes, I know that nothing good lives in me—I mean nothing good lives in the part of me that is not spiritual. I want to do what is good, but I don’t do it. 19 I don’t do the good that I want to do. I do the evil that I don’t want to do. 20 So if I do what I don’t want to do, then I am not really the one doing it. It is the sin living in me that does it.

21 So I have learned this rule: When I want to do good, evil is there with me. 22 In my mind I am happy with God’s law. 23 But I see another law working in my body. That law makes war against the law that my mind accepts. That other law working in my body is the law of sin, and that law makes me its prisoner. 24 What a miserable person I am! Who will save me from this body that brings me death? 25 I thank God for his salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So in my mind I am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful self I am a slave to the law of sin.

General Forum Rules

The following rules will be enforced to maintain a civilised and congenial atmosphere within the forums, insofar as possible. Disagreements do occur.
This is a discussion forum.
This means that members should interact with each other in a proper discussion, and not purposely / repeatedly evade rebuttals made to them. Whilst members are not forced or required to answer every post addressed to them, ignoring them all and continuing to post similar content will fall in line with our "No Spam" rule. This includes posting links / copy-pasted content / scripture verses repeatedly, without adding your own comments or being relevant to the thread.

This is our primary rule and all other rules fall in line with this concept. The staff reserves the right to analyze each case in the spirit of this rule if said case doesn't violate the exact wording of other rules.

Really. If you're here to "answer questions", answer a question for a change.

[Whateverist]

So from now on I wish to be identified as a God loving Atheist!

I don't think there is any trademark on the word atheist but I don't think you're using it right.

Um, welcome aboard our non-boat?