Deconversion and The Bible

Faith & Science Conversation
126

Of Course. But, unlike you, I do not take everything literally or at face value. It is what separates us and our faiths. You know it. I know it. And neither is going to persuade the other to change so, state your case and keep the personal stuff to yourself.

There is a difference between having a sinful nature and being born with it. A person who sins has a sinful nature until or unless cleansed of it. But there are some, maybe not many, who are not capable of sinning. One lady I know, is in her forties but has a mental age of 7 or so. She is incapable of sinning because she has no idea what is good or evil. She is selfish and amoral. She would not know the meaning of salvation either. But I refuse to accept that she is anything but safe in God’s hands.
The problem with Biblical certainty is that it looses its humanity and also its understanding of God. Instead it reverts to the legalism that Christ spent most of His ministry disputing. (IMHO)
So there we have it. We disagree.

Richard

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127

So you believe that all religions lead to God? Which i believe is completely false

128

Not exactly. Things are rarely that black & white.
I believe that it is not our place to declare who does or does not follow God. There are many who claim to be Christian who are probably not and many who are not Christian who behave better than many of those who profess to be.
IME it is not what you believe, but how you express your belief that really counts. And God would not be God if He showed favouritism to one approach, no matter how genuine, while ignoring a genuine believer who has a different approach.

Richard

129

Well so lets say Muslim can be saved by belief in to him would be “alah” and professing a Godlike character?

130

@RichardG
My path through the faith has been a bit different than most. I was brought up in a Fundamentalist home, but in college, I read a book called “The Historical David” by Joel S Baden. It shook my faith up very hard, but because of an unexplainable occurrence earlier in my life, I held onto it and concluded that the Bible couldn’t all be literally interpreted. It became much easier to digest that YEC is a fallacy, and I don’t even believe in the Doctrine of Total Depravity anymore. That there are other societies out there, such as the Chinese, that were prosperous early on suggests to me that whilst humanity has a capacity to sin, discipline can keep the effects of it at bay.

As for the Perseverance of the Saints, I agree that it is not really our call who is or is not saved. We can only observe the outside actions of a person, but God knows the heart. The way I think of reality is as an interactive movie. God knows all of the characters, their motives and beliefs, throughout the whole movie. He even takes the time to interact with the characters, giving them instructions and clues to follow. The movie is what we are living. He knows which ones will stick it out and not give up faith, and who will eventually capitulate. That is not for us of the faith to know. We keep on, in love and good faith, ministering to all those in our circle of influence, trusting that God has the rest in control.

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131

That is true, and the majority of the church since Augustine v. Pelagius has been aligned with Augustine, the theological champion of original sin or as it is also known, moral inability (to please God in our natural condition.) Pelagius, and pelagianism were declared heretic and heresy.

The “sour grapes” passages you referenced do not, in my opinion, come anywhere close to refuting the doctrine of original sin. In a proof-text battle (which I detest) the original-sin [1] side wins hands-donw, in my opinion.

[1] I speak of original sin in the sense that we each inherited a fatally defective morality from Adam, not that we are charged with Adam’s sin as if we committed it.

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132

If there was no Adam in the garden there was no Original Sinner, so there was no Original Sin.

Genesis 2-4 is not real history. It is clearly a traditional folk tale. It cannot be real. The location does not exist and never has. Trees do not carry miraculous fruits, serpents do no speak and God does not wander around like the BFG. God would not condemn Man for His first sin, especially as it was easily preventable. God would not withhold sentience from His prize creation if He wanted us to “have dominium”. You cannot do that without the knowledge of good and evil. And as for the so called “punishments”! Pain in child birth? Give me a break!. Weeds! For crying out loud! The whole thing is a human fabrication to explain why life is Sh…

Original Sin is the biggest hoax in all of Christendom. And that fact is now being recognised.

If The garden story is true then God would be culpable for gross dereliction and incompetence. Is that the God you worship?

Richard

133

You have to remember that “original sin” has a range of meanings in a wide range of theological systems/traditions. So it’s not fair to project a single caricature of what the Garden story being “true” and a single version of what you think original sin entails on everyone else’s view of God and Genesis. Christians have historically affirmed the fallen nature of humanity. Yes, there are more than minor quibbles about how it came about and the degree of historicity that one should ascribe to the Eden narrative. But, plenty of people who see the Garden as a theological narrative not meant to be a historical account view it as teaching truth about a real event in human history where humanity’s relationship with God was altered. Believing in a historical Fall and acknowledging the fallen nature of humanity are well within the bounds of Christian belief, and so it’s kind of inappropriate to imply that all the participants here who do have a gross misconception of God.

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134

Really?

Have you actually ever thought it through?

Tell me. Does the God you worship strike you as incompetent? or Callous? Or manipulative?

If God is omnipotent then He knew for the word Go that man was… Fallen? Incapable of Good? In need of Salvation?

Makes the Death of Christ not only a forgone conclusion but a mockery. It’s called setting up a situation to provide the solution. It is the equivalent of creating a computer virus so that you can provide the cleaner.

Do you really think God is that manipulative? That He would allow millions to think that they were worshipping Him when only a handful actually are? Hinduism? As old as Judaism and older than Christianity.

From what the bible teaches us about God, not man, God. Do you really think that Original Sin rings true to Him? Why would He give instructions for living and righteousness if we are incapable of following them? Why wait 4000 years or more to provide the antidote? Why did Jesus not claim to come to save everyone?

I am sorry, but Original Sin is a curse that has been laid upon humanity by Religion, not God.

Richard

135

Is this a serious question, or just a way of being condescending? Do you honestly think that everyone who has a different perspective than yours arrived there via lack of thought?

Or course not. But you arrived at those adjectives not from my views of God but from assumptions you made about what a certain doctrine necessarily entails. You didn’t actually present an argument to arrive at a conclusion, and if you had, I’m sure you would find people had legitimate complaints with your premises.

I think you are confusing omnipotence and omniscience here, and contrary to your insinuations, actually way too much thought has gone into the question of God’s foreknowledge of sin. I kind of doubt you have stumbled upon the magic bullet that resolves all questions there.

Philosophically, this caricature of the situation sidesteps the issue of freedom and free will and relationship and how they apply in a way that is worlds away from an engineer or inventor creating flawed products and more products to fix the flawed ones.

Well, the alternative to allowing people to be mistaken is forcing them to be correct. Is that a less manipulative view of God?

To reiterate, you don’t know what I mean when I say “original sin.” I do not think that two people in a garden ate magical fruit God put there to tempt them knowing they would eat it, and on the advice of a talking snake, they destroyed Creation and passed on sin genes to all their offspring.

But I do believe there is something essentially damaged and broken about humanity that we cannot escape on our own. I believe we are born into a sinful identity, our enculturation and personal choices further actualize and entrench our identity as sinners, only a new identity in Christ can reconcile our relationship with God, self, and others.

Because he loves us and wants to relate. Like Romans said, the law was a babysitter.

Why wait 2000+ years to return and reign? I don’t pretend to understand God’s timing. I don’t pretend to understand the whole idea of “chosenness” either. I find aspects of it disturbing and hard to reconcile with other ideas I have. But you do realize that our ideas about fairness and justice are culturally dictated, not absolute? I do not have good answers for a lot of my questions about what God does with people who don’t know Christ. But I do not find some general universalism where all sincere roads lead to salvation to be intellectually satisfying or compatible with my other beliefs.

And you are perfectly free to have that view. But stick to discussing the merits of ideas, not disparaging the character or thinking skills of the people who hold different ones.

136

I guess that it is hard not to be disparaging about a concept you feel strongly against. I have given some, if not most of the arguments against original Sin. No matter how I look I cannot believe that God could make anything so innately flawed as what you seem to want me to accept. Nor that God would limit Himself in the way that Christian exclusivity demands.

Having said this I am reluctant to quote Scripture because I do not like arguing Scripture against Scripture. Suffice it to say that I do not accept the traditional “proofs” of original Sin and, apart from the Jeremiah and Ezekiel quotes that I allured to there are other passages that, at least for me, deny Original Sin.

Richard

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137

Just curious, how this fits into your view of “the creation” of people. To what extent do you view each individual as a special creation and to what extent are they brought about by something other than God’s intention and will? God “creates” innocent babies with devastating genetic diseases. I don’t see how “creating” people with the tendency to sin is worse. At least he provides the cure for sin.

I don’t think God intentionally “creates” people sinful any more than he intentionally creates babies with Tay Sachs syndrome. I think sin is a condition resulting from free will and human choice that only makes sense in the context of divine authority and relationship. (In other words, sin is not just a violation of some abstract, absolute moral law, it is a violation of the boundaries of a relationship that God instituted corporately with humanity.) It is a condition of human culture, not just the sum total of so many individual acts of disobedience. I also think the way God (and biblical truth) relates to humanity is much more corporate than we have been led to believe, shaped as we are by our individualistic cultural outlook. The mere fact that we automatically think the message of the Genesis narrative that is pretty clearly about humanity (corporate) is about the single choice of one (or two) individual humans is just a case in point. It follows then that we make salvation mostly about individual destinies. Not to say sin and salvation don’t apply at the level of the individual, but I think focus in on that too much, to the point that we ignore when a truth was directed at the group not the individual.

138

I never understood this argument. Regardless of whether or not you think the story of the Garden is true (I do, by the way), this particular argument (from a theist, I’m assuming) has always been ludicrous in my estimation. Any theist (or at least the overwhelming majority) believes that God created the universe ex nihilo. Compared to that, “miraculous fruits” and the like would be in the noise. Cheap party tricks. I really don’t understand how one can accept that God created the universe but the much smaller miracles of scripture are dismissed as ridiculous. I mean, walking on water has got to be a whole lot easier than creating a habitable universe.

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139

I do not consider te existence of death and or suffering to have any relationship to sin. In fact the bible says as much in Job. And the idea that disease is caused by the fall is, IMHO giving man far too much influence on God’s perfect creation. That man could permanently corrupt perfection by one, or more actions seems to show a low opinion of God. In f\act to “Blame” God for disease or suffering would seem to be disrespectful at best. And to suggest that such things are caused by man and instituted as some sort of punishment? We are getting into some seriously dubious theology here.
Freedom to live must mean freedom to die. Disease and accidents, even human cruelty, are just part of life. To single out any aspect and use it as proof of sin would seen to me to be missing the big picture. And to try and impose some sort of ethic or morality onto such things seems to be judging God at best, when we do not have all the information to make that judgement.
In answer to your question, I do not think that God individually “chooses” who lives, dies, suffers or prospers. That would seem to me to be “tinkering” with free will. Just as to claim that we cannot help but sin would also remove the possibility of freedom to be righteous. If the action is impossible then we do not have complete freedom.
(That God does “Interfere” as answer to prayer is another topic)

Richard

140

Dont we have an article here explaining the Genesis symbolism? No need to further discuss for that topic imo.

141

It is not about miracles or even whether God could have…
It is the whole scenario. God behaves like a human. And He is incompetent. Why create the tree inthe first place? And, if you don’t want it eaten… don’t put it in full view without protection! It is just a matter of time… it was always going to happen. God is as much to blame if not more so. And then there is the response… 1st offence? It just does not read as God. Let alone the predilection with nakedness.
It is children’s story. A traditional folk tale.

Richard

142

I wasn’t trying to make a connection between sin and disease. I was making the point that God creates “imperfect” creations all the time. The problem of evil does not go away if you simply declare God could not create sinful people. You still have God creating people with all kinds of other imperfections. I think “blaming” God for disease is in the same ballpark as blaming God for human’s sin nature.

What I don’t understand then, it seems to me you are saying that if I say people are born sinful, it has to be because God chose for them to be born that way. If I agree that God doesn’t choose people to be born with diseases, why would I have to agree that saying a sinful nature exists since birth entails God created people sinful?

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143

This is the classic “God doesn’t do what I would do if I were God, therefore it’s nonsense” apologetic. It just leads to inventing a god in your image. It’s easy to do: “If I were god, I’d save everyone, no exceptions, all is forgiven, with no need for a blood sacrifice, no need for a substitutionary atonement, no need for suffering or pain, an no supernatural interventions that unnecessarily upset the science applecart.”

Now since the god of scripture doesn’t do that, he must be incompetent.

It’s a tautology, not an argument.

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144

I never said that, in fct that is the complete antithesis of my position. I said that God does not specifically create anyone, not in health , salvation or ability to do right or wrong specifically. You seem to think that God creates us sinful automatically. I am saying that if we are born sinful without the ability to be righteous (without God) then we are not free at all. We are the “slaves” that Paul claims (if read literally).
I am saying that we are all born amoral, that is without sin or righteousness and can choose our own path from the information we are given. If God has written His laws on our hearts (Or we have the knowledge o good and evil automatically) then we can choose whether to be evil or righteous. And, In theory can live without sin, although in practice that is probably impossible. Having said that I am sure that God knows our intentions and does not condemn circumstance or “Hobson.s choices”. Plus of course the existence of true innocents who are incapable of sin for what ever reasons.
I refuse to accept that someone born into a Hindu family with generations of loyal and religious ancestors is automatically condemned for not being a Christian. Furthermore, promoting this idea would automatically prevent any person brought up in another faith from becoming Christian because they would not only be turning their back on their heritage they would be being asked to condemn and dismiss them all.
I am sorry but Original Sin, in any form, is wrong.

Richard

145

If understand tautology correctly it does not seem to match what I said. There was no repetition, nor were the arguments circular or self fulfilling. And I ma not imposing anything upon God other than the notion that he must be both supreme and incapable of manipulation or “Unfairness”. Or that He could be in anyway incompetant or unaware of the situation and ramifications of the situations He creates. God must know that you cannot leave temptation in the way of a person with free will. Even if Adam has not eaten someone would have, eventually. It was just waiting for it.

No human would do such at thing so why would God? I mean you are going to leave your front door wide open for anyone to come and go as they please and rely on the fact that none will steal anything?
If Adam did not have the knowledge of good and evil, then his action cannot be caused by any notion of evil. He disobeyed a command. The only actual command that he had been given. Yes. But in any court of law there would be mitigating circumstances, not the least being… it was there! Any Judge would rule that the temptation should not have been there and, even if guilty would not pronounce such a devastating sentence on not only the perpetrator but the whole of his descendants in perpetuity! It is just not real.

Let alone the so called punishments that are not punishments at all but part of life!

I am sorry, but I do not see how anyone can take the Garden story as anything other than Doctrinal. To sin is to choose to disobey God. So if we have no choice then we are not culpable for our sins… which makes Christ’s death pointless.

Richard