Two babies discussion.

[Bad Wolf]

When you say "secular thinking" people advanced science are you speaking about all those great christian scientists throughout the history of the western world after the time of Christ?

Do you mean 'christian scientists' like the ones that refuse jabs or any other kind of medicine and pray instead? Or do you mean scientists that happened to be christians, who set out trying to prove their god was right but came to a completely different conclusion and essentially invented modern atheism?

Do you believe "no fault" divorce is okay?

Don't know what that is

Do you think it's okay to hate someone?

Yes

Is sex outside of the married state a good thing?

Yes

Is desiring your neighbor's spouse without actually having an actual affair okay?

Yes

Do you love your neighbor the same amount as you love yourself?

No, they play music way to loud and during ridiculous times of the day.

[Tonus]

That was me. You see babies do have some indication of a mother, which is not surprising since there is one. But we have no indication of god, probably because there isn't one.

How can you even say this? People have been worshiping gods since our beginnings, since it is evident in the creation. People have always sensed that there must be a god.

And it seems as if humanity has never worshiped the same god at any time, ever. Always different gods, or different pantheons of gods, or different versions of a particular god. Even today, with all of the progress humanity has made in so many ways, we still worship at least a handful of different gods in thousands of different ways.

Why would such a confused and utterly random approach lead one to believe that there is even a single god?

---

Jesus did say that not one iota of the law was changed, but he fulfilled the requirements of the law and relieved us of living under it.

Did he? When an adulterous woman was brought to him, he refused to follow the law and even shamed the men who brought her to him. If he was there to fulfill the law, he should have demanded that they find her lover and stone them both. Instead he didn't even determine her guilt, he just told her not to do it again.

[Jenny A]

Secular thinking people advanced science.

When you say "secular thinking" people advanced science are you speaking about all those great christian scientists throughout the history of the western world after the time of Christ?

Yes, they would be included. You see it is not their religious thought that advanced knowledge. It was their secular activities that did, often despite church prohibitions. The big sea change in the Renaissance, was secular thinking after an extended period of primarily religious thinking which we now refer to as the Middle Ages. It's a bit much to both discourage and/or prohibit science and then take credit for it, don't you think? Especially since technological advancement slowed to a crawl with the beginning of Christianity and Islam.

But we're way off track from the original post now. This little side discussion began because you argued that there was evidence of god in the world. Arguing that religion doesn't do bad things, won't get you there. What positive thing does belief in god produce?

I gave you a bunch a few posts ago.

Really. Still waiting for that positive stuff.

Hint: Up until Christianity and late Judaism, morality and the after life were not the concerns of Western religions--crop fruition, child birth, and war winning were. The morality promoted in the New Testament is not original, and generally speaking it did not originate in religion.

Do you believe "no fault" divorce is okay? Do you think it's okay to hate someone? Is sex outside of the married state a good thing? Is desiring your neighbor's spouse without actually having an actual affair okay? Do you love your neighbor the same amount as you love yourself? And so on and so forth. Much new testament morality was original.

Marriage for life, love your neighbor as yourself, and don't envy your neighbor is not original to the New Testament. You need to read some Greeks. The Babylonians managed love your neighbor as yourself.

[Lek]

Is this a fair analogy:

speeding remains illegal, so you still shouldn't do it, for example, but if you do, Jesus pays the ticket ?

As followers of Christ we strive not to break the law and get the speeding ticket, but to live as law-abiding citizens. But if we do get the ticket, realize we did wrong, and come to Christ for forgiveness, he has paid the price for us. Before Jesus paid the price on the cross, we had no forgiveness for what we did. We may have strove to live good lives, but inevitably sinned and remained apart from a right relationship with God. Jesus intercedes for us with the Father and we are made perfectly acceptable to God, by "putting on the righteousness of Christ."

[h4ym4n]

What a great *get out of jail* free card.

[robvalue]

Cool. So, go around killing and fucking whoever you want, then say sorry.

What a system!

If "not trying very hard not to sin" is a forgiveable sin, like Robbie said, then the system is broken. That you'd even want such a ludicrous system is beyond me. Forgiveness cannot come from some uninvolved third party, it's absurd. The whole thing discourages personal responsibility, which is one of the main points of morality. But then, religious "morality" is not morality at all, it's ass kissing.

[Lek]

Marriage for life, love your neighbor as yourself, and don't envy your neighbor is not original to the New Testament. You need to read some Greeks. The Babylonians managed love your neighbor as yourself.

They were also theists. But it's okay if christian morality wasn't original. As Paul stated in Romans, Chapter 1 - no one is without excuse, because God is evident in nature.

---

Cool. So, go around killing and fucking whoever you want, then say sorry.

What a system!

If "not trying very hard not to sin" is a forgiveable sin, like Robbie said, then the system is broken. That you'd even want such a ludicrous system is beyond me. Forgiveness cannot come from some uninvolved third party, it's absurd. The whole thing discourages personal responsibility, which is one of the main points of morality. But then, religious "morality" is not morality at all, it's ass kissing.

It's all in the heart. It we plan to sin with the intention to just ask for forgiveness, then we won't be forgiven. If we strive to live a good life, but sin in a weak moment, and are truly repentant, then we receive forgiveness. God knows our intentions and if we are acting out of love. When we choose to follow Christ, we make a decision to love him and to live moral lives, and if we say we follow him, but intentionally continue to sin, then we are frauds and not his followers.

Jesus is not an uninvolved third party, but is intimately involved with us. He is God, the Son. When we sin, we sin against God. Jesus is our mediator with the Father.

[h4ym4n]

Jesus is not an uninvolved third party, but is intimately involved with us. He is God, the Son. When we sin, we sin against God. Jesus is our mediator with the Father.

So I need the beg *jesus/god* to mediate between me and *god/jesus* to unharden my heart?

---

I want it like GC.

[Esquilax]

I don't think sin is even the issue, but rather what is and is not a sin, if you're using that concept as a moral yardstick. Slavery isn't a sin, but it is immoral; you can commit at least that blatantly immoral act, and not even have to repent.

Same with genocide and the other things I've been talking about, if you interpret the words in the bible to mean the thing that they mean, rather than the opposite of what they mean.

[rexbeccarox]

I'm afraid you're right Vorion.

So does that small minority contain the only possible True Christians?

This wasn't a rhetorical question.