Free 'gifts'

Originally posted by vishvahetu
So if a person rapes the girl next door, they just go to the church and offer a goat for slaughter to the head preist, and their sin is forgiven!

This is absurd and so corrupt, that the church at that time could convince you that this was what God wanted......it is a good way for the bogus church leaders to get their free meat and send you to hell at the same time.

Absolutely corrupt and false.

There are two scriptures which you may want to consider when casting your judgment on God's character:

1) It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God

2) Mercy triumphs over judgment

Originally posted by duecer
there is no such thing as a free gift

I don't disagree with that! nor is it central to my argument.

My argument, in brief, is that your supposed god's "price list" for misbehaving/doing things that tick it off (sin) is unreasonable, barbaric and primitive. It's supposed 'gift' is both redundant and gruesome; to this end I have no reason to be grateful for such a gift.

As a consequence, given that your god has not sallied forth to defend it's position, except for the spaghetti reasoning manifest in your and other believers arguments; I cannot be held to account for my disbelief when I eventually die.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I was responding to your comment that I will blame myself after discovering how priceless the gift was. This clearly implies I am currently ignorant of its true value. You also implied that I am currently choosing wrong because of said ignorance and I will blame myself when enlightened. As I said, I generally do not blame myself for choosing wrong when my b]
And how does that example prove your point? If anything it contradicts your claim.

Implication or not, I don't believe your problem is ignorance.

Ignorance is when you don't know what something is, or you've heard of something, but know practically no details about it. In this forum, the usual back and forth between Christians and atheists usually starts out with the Christian assuming the atheist is ignorant of God or of salvation, and the atheists usually responding, "I'm not ignorant of it, I just don't believe it." My question was, how could you possibly be ignorant of a concept that has been discussed countless times in this forum already? I don't see how any thinking person could choose to disbelieve something he has no knowledge of.

It's like someone offering you 500 dollars, and you say, "I don't believe you have 500 dollars." "Okay, suit yourself, then."
And how does that example prove your point? If anything it contradicts your claim.

In this example, you know what 500 dollars is. You are not rejecting the gift through ignorance of its worth. You simply do not believe I have 500 dollars to give you. If I then just walk away, then you can tell yourself you haven't lost anything because it didn't exist in the first place. Now if I show you the 500 dollars before walking off, then you can kick yourself all day for not just taking the gift. You lost the gift not through your ignorance of its worth, but through your disbelief of its existence. You know (through reading this forum) of the worth of salvation to Christians. You just choose not to accept it because you don't believe it exists. I wouldn't call that ignorance. Arrogance, maybe, but not ignorance.

Edit: I admit that the wording of my original statement could have been better.

I said, "If you choose not to accept the Gift of salvation, you can have no one to blame but yourself, when you finally discover just how priceless the Gift was."

Perhaps I should have said "how real the Gift was".

Originally posted by Agerg
As a consequence, given that your god has not sallied forth to defend it's position, except for the spaghetti reasoning manifest in your and other believers arguments; I cannot be held to account for my disbelief when I eventually die.

As a gift to the other Christians here, I will leave this for someone else to jump all over. 😀

Originally posted by Suzianne
As a gift to the other Christians here, I will leave this for someone else to jump all over. 😀

Your supposed god is omniscient, therefore I have no means of hiding my conclusion with respect to claims of it's existence. The information I have access to thus far reinforces this conclusion (and as I've said to others -believing X is not something a person wilfully chooses to do).

It is your god at fault for not addressing this.

Originally posted by Agerg
I don't disagree with that! nor is it central to my argument.

My argument, in brief, is that your supposed god's "price list" for misbehaving/doing things that tick it off (sin) is unreasonable, barbaric and primitive. It's supposed 'gift' is both redundant and gruesome; to this end I have no reason to be grateful for such a gift.

As a consequence, given ...[text shortened]... believers arguments; I cannot be held to account for my disbelief when I eventually die.

whether you like the price list or not is of no consequence to the creator. Where were you when the universe was made? What aprt did you play in its creation? none. loosely paraphrasing Epictetus: Nature promised you a god, just not the god you wanted

Originally posted by Agerg
Your supposed god is omniscient, therefore I have no means of hiding my conclusion with respect to claims of it's existence. The information I have access to thus far reinforces this conclusion (and as I've said to others -believing X is not something a person wilfully chooses to do).

It is your god at fault for not addressing this.

Well, if you insist.

God has addressed this. It's all covered in the operator's manual for Life.

AKA the Bible. (You've read threads in this forum about it. Claims of ignorance won't fly.)

RTFM, you know?






Atheists remind me of Han Solo. "It's not my fault!"

Rejecting God is a sin, and it IS your fault.

Originally posted by duecer
whether you like the price list or not is of no consequence to the creator. Where were you when the universe was made? What aprt did you play in its creation? none. loosely paraphrasing Epictetus: Nature promised you a god, just not the god you wanted

Whether Jews enjoyed the gas chambers or not was of no consequence to Hitler. You'll note this defence has no bearing on whether his actions were justified. You make the same defence for your god.

As for it's role in the creation of the universe, well...it has yet to be determined such an entity existed!

Originally posted by Suzianne
Well, if you insist.

God [b]has addressed this. It's all covered in the operator's manual for Life.

AKA the Bible. (You've read threads in this forum about it. Claims of ignorance won't fly.)

RTFM, you know?






Atheists remind me of Han Solo. "It's not my fault!"

Rejecting God is a sin, and it IS your fault.[/b]

But I have no reason to conclude it plausible your Bible is divinely inspired or even representative of a god that *could* exist (ie: perhaps it is a different god that created the universe).

Originally posted by Agerg
Whether Jews enjoyed the gas chambers or not was of no consequence to Hitler. You'll note this defence has no bearing on whether his actions were justified. You make the same defence for your god.

As for it's role in the creation of the universe, well...it has yet to be determined such an entity existed!

contrary to Hitlers opinion of himself, he was not God

Originally posted by Agerg
But I have no reason to conclude it plausible your Bible is divinely inspired or even representative of a god that *could* exist (ie: perhaps it is a different god that created the universe).

You remind me of a joke I heard a couple years ago.

There was a preacher somewhere in the South whose home was in danger of being washed away in a flood. He had no worries as the water rose, saying "God will save me." The water got higher, forcing the preacher to the roof of his home. One guy in a rowboat came by, saying, "Come aboard, preacher." The preacher said, "No, I am not worried, God will save me." A little later a large pontoon boat came by with some other local residents in it. They cried, "Swim out, preacher, there's room for you!" The preacher yelled back, "No, I am not afraid, God will save me." Ten minutes later, a helicopter flew overheard, and it lowered a man down to the roof to whisk the preacher away. The preached said, "No, I'm alright, go save someone else in need, God will save me." Eventually, the water rose high enough to cover the preacher's house and he drowned. At the Pearly Gates, the preacher asked St. Peter, "What happened? I am a man of God, I thought God would save me!"

St. Peter replied, "He sent two boats and a helicopter, what more did you want?"

Originally posted by duecer
contrary to Hitlers opinion of himself, he was not God

But if that's the thing that justifies your god's actions as being 'ok' then you would be forced to believe burning babies alive was a good thing should your god so desire it.

Originally posted by Suzianne
You remind me of a joke I heard a couple years ago.

There was a preacher somewhere in the South whose home was in danger of being washed away in a flood. He had no worries as the water rose, saying "God will save me." The water got higher, forcing the preacher to the roof of his home. One guy in a rowboat came by, saying, "Come aboard, preacher." The Peter replied, "He sent two boats and a helicopter, what more did you want?"

...St. Peter replied, "He sent two boats and a helicopter, what more did you want?"
Perhaps Jesus piloting the helicopter would have done the trick.

Anyway, as I said, I've no reason to assume your holy book is anymore divinely inspired than the Koran or the Vedas..indeed perhaps vishvahetu really is correct and his god sent a blundering fool to spread it's message (mysterious ways and all).

Originally posted by Agerg
But if that's the thing that justifies your god's actions as being 'ok' then you would be forced to believe burning babies alive was a good thing should your god so desire it.

you should read the story of Abraham

Originally posted by Suzianne
Interesting you should mention Atonement. This has been a real can of worms throughout history as Man tries to understand just how atonement through the crucifixion of Jesus actually works. Basically, men have been arguing over this for centuries.

The three main theories about atonement are the Ransom Theory, the Satisfaction Theory (also known as pena writeup and explanation of these theories in Wikipedia under "Atonement in Christianity".

Attractive as your chain assuredly is, I shall resist the temptation to yank it.

As far as I can see, none of the theories you mention addresses my objection.

Rather, they all evade it.

Vicarious atonement is conceptually impossible. One could raise about 17 additional objections to each of the various theories of it put forward. But such objections are beside the main point.

The conceptually impossibility of atoning for another person's sins is equivalent to the conceptual impossibility of possessing another person's pains.

Unless I atone for my sins, no one else will, because no one else can. I may have my sins forgiven, whether I atone or not; but that forgiveness does not produce atonement. Moreover, nothing anyone else independently of me makes the atonement occur, because it requires penitence and reparation on my part, not on the part of anyone else.

The mystery of vicarious atonement is a self-inflicted can of worms. One accepts an absurd premise on the basis of faith. Then one proceeds to elaborate attempted explications of it. All such explications must fail because the premise is absurd.