That’s what Jesus asked a group of unbelievers. He had been teaching and healing throughout the day when yet another paralytic was placed in front of him. Jesus looked at the man and said,
“Friend, your sins are forgiven.” Luke 5:20
The religious people in the crowd, often the first to put rules before love, chastised Jesus for saying such a blasphemous thing, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
To which Jesus replied, “Which is easier: to say, “Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . .” He said to the man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.”
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So, how would you answer Jesus’ question? Which is easier, to forgive someone’s sins, or to heal their infirmity?
Well, which caused Jesus less pain? Giving someone physical health or making it possible for them to enter heaven? In reality no human on earth can do either. Yet Jesus could and did both.
. One took the speaking of a word, while the other drained His blood.
. One took place in a house surrounded by friends. The other, alone and naked on a Roman cross.
. One took a moment of time. The other took His life.
. One caused the wrath of man. During the other He absorbed the wrath of God.
So which is easier, admitting that you’re physically sick or admitting that you’re spiritually dead?
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17 comments:
>During the other He absorbed the wrath of God.
Now, please, just this one time, I beg you, answer these two simple question:
1) Why would your god sacrifice himself to himself so he wouldn't destroy the creation he build knowing full well that it would anger him to the point of destroying it?
2) Why didn't he just make the fruit in the Garden of Eden inedible, inaccessible or otherwise impossible for Adam and Eve to eat?
salvage, we are on a perpetual loop here: http://www.atheistmissionary.com/2009/06/just-and-loving-god-toddler-in.html
“answer these two simple question:”
I don’t see anything simple about them. Beyond knowing would be a better description.
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“1) Why would your god sacrifice himself to himself”
I don’t think that’s what He was doing. The wages of sin, the consequences of sin, the outcome of sin, the fallout of sin is physical and spiritual death and eternal separation from Creator God. Sin is a crime against our Creator. Justice demands that the consequences of sin, the debt be paid. PROBLEM! We can’t pay it. Even if we spent an eternity in debtor’s prison (hell) it wouldn’t come close. That’s how far we are from understanding this reality. We think that sin is no big deal. From God's perspective, it's sin that has taken paradise and turned it into a place of destruction, violence, sickness, decay and the ultimate afront to our Creator - Death.
So, long story, shorter, because of His enormous love for us, God paid our debt for us. Your debt has been paid, Salvage. God did that for you. As it says in the Bible, "Even while we were still His enemies, Jesus died for us."
All you have to do, is pick up the receipt. He’s paid for the tickets to the concert. All you have to do is go pick them up at the box office. He bought the tickets for you because you can’t afford them. On the other hand, if you refuse to pick up the tickets, you don't get into the concert. It's called reality. Glen can't stand the fact that the choice is heaven or hell, but that's just the way it is. Like I sometimes say to my kids when they say they don't want to do their work, "I'm not asking you to like it. I'm asking you to do it."
“2) Why didn't he just make the fruit in the Garden of Eden inedible, inaccessible or otherwise impossible for Adam and Eve to eat?”
This is what Flute refused to answer. The only way to get real love is to have the free will choice to reject that love. The only way to have freewill is to allow people to choose. If you can think of another way to have real love AND free will (two of the most important things in the universe) I’d be happy to hear it.
How to get "real love":
-Demand love.
-Hide so there is a question to whether I exist or not.
-Build a dungeon to torture all those who don't love me.
>I don’t think that’s what He was doing.
No, that's exactly what he's doing.
And here is the onion of it, it doesn't make sense from the get-go so anything that follows is the fruit of the illogical tree and thus makes even less sense.
Jesus was your god come to Earth right? I'm not sure what Christian sect you're from, not Catholic I'm thinking (despite the 7 kids) but unless you're practicing Arianism you believe Jesus to be your god in some form right? That is Jesus is not a separate and unique entity?
So how is it not him sacrificing himself to himself? Who was sacrificed then and to whom were they sacrificed if I've got it wrong?
>only way to get real love is to have the free will choice to reject that love.
You ignored this before, perhaps you'll answer it now. You have seven kids, you have a bottle of poison, do you take the poison put in a chocolate bar, put it in the kitchen and then tell the kids "If you love me you won't eat that chocolate bar in the kitchen." and then assume that everything will be just fine? Free will and love will take care of it?
And let's say one of your kids did what kids do on occasion; whatever the hell they want because they're kids and then the police charge you, do you blame the dead kid when your in court?
Think the jury will go along? If you were on the jury would you?
Or are you going to tell me that Adam and Eve were not children and your god not their father?
Also you seem to be forgetting the sneaky Satan dressed up like a snake, if he hasn't come along would they have noshed? How did Satan get in there anyway? I thought your god was all knowing? So he must have been there with permission.
So how could Adam and Eve, two ignorant children seduced by the prime evil! be expected to do anything but eat the fruit?
Furthermore your god DEMANDS love. I don't love him and as a result I'm going to be thrown into Hell right?
That's like someone holding a gun to your head demanding that you love them or they'll shoot and when you don't because it's hard to love someone holding you hostage they shoot and blame you.
The truly strange and mysterious thing is how you (and many others) can believe all this self-contradicting twaddle and not be insane.
salvage wrote: So how could Adam and Eve, two ignorant children seduced by the prime evil be expected to do anything but eat the fruit?
A logical demolition of the first cause of Christianity. Lights out ... unless you live in a bubble.
It's more like someone offering you everything you'll ever need, or want - paradise in fact - and hoping that you won't refuse the offer.
>It's more like someone offering you everything you'll ever need, or want - paradise in fact - and hoping that you won't refuse the offer.
Okay, let's set aside the fact how absurd it is that two people decided the fate of every other human being by their actions and focus on this "offer".
It wasn't an offer, it was a trap. Your god did not stroll up to A&E (heh, I just noticed that) and say "Here's the deal; you two can either frolic about Paradise, naming animals and generally have a good time of it or I can change my entire creation to the point that you're going to have to struggle and suffer to gain even a modicum of the joy your experiencing now. What'll it be kids? My easy way or the really hard way?"
But they were not given a choice, they were not informed of the pros and cons of eating the fruit. They were told not to do something and then tricked into doing it by a evil being whose power (if the myths are to be believed) was second only to the god that made him.
The god that turned his omnipotence off just long enough to let A&E fall into this trap.
The way you twist logic to protect your delusions! C'mon man, think!
“Okay, let's set aside the fact how absurd it is that two people decided the fate of every other human”
Let’s not. We all evolved from a single organism. Correct? We all inherited DNA. Correct? While it’s true that there are now separate species, everything’s fate today is dependent on that first organism. Just so, all human offspring have been imbued with, have inherited a sinful inner self that our parents produced in us and which we will pass on to our children.
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Your god did not stroll up to A&E (heh, I just noticed that)”
That is good. First of all, they WERE informed of the pros and cons. "Don’t eat it or you will know the difference between good and evil," is the gist of he message but that won't be all that was said. Because God is fair, we can know that more was said than what’s recorded.
Jesus taught day in day out as a Rabbi for THREE years - yet everything He taught that has been recorded can be read in under an hour.
God will have laid it out for A&E as plain as you’re hearing it.
Disobedience is an act of the will. All disorbedience requires that we think lowely of God and highly of ourselves. All disobedience requires that we think God is trying to withhold something good from us. That is what happened with A&E.
Just as you won’t be able to blame ignorance for your destiny, neither were they operating from a platform of ignorance.
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Salvages very valid point still stand makarios.
They were manipulated by the serpent (which god really should've known was a) going to happen, and b) was happening when it did).
All of a sudden he lost his omniscience. He couldn't tell what was going on. Does that not strike you as rather idiotic?
It's almost like, if he exists, he isn't really omniscient at all!
In fact, it's almost like he was behaving like a human would to their child. Incapable of keeping an eye on them constantly, tell them not to do something (which with children presupposes failure) and then they do it when your back is turned when that nasty boy from across the road convinces them to do so.
Wait! Maybe it was a mere man who wrote this story and made it up seeing as the god seems to be so inconsistent with his supposed powers?
Has that ever crossed your mind?
Again, as salvage points out, the beginning defies logic, so the rest that follows is inherently illogical.
Mmm, I see that part of your problem is that the God that you don't believe in is not the God that exists. Everything that has taken place, from the fall of Lucifer and the entrance of evil into the cosmos to your denial of God's existence on this date in this year is part of His plan. He knew what would take place and has arranged His plan around those facts of what will take place.
The fact that you and I and every person from A&E onward would rebel against God was known by Him and allowed by Him. The need for and the plan for Jesus to take upon Himself the wrath of God was in place before the universe was even created. THAT is the Creator God that you need to be reconciled with.
His great plan was to choose some people to save from something he created? And send the other people to Hell? Great plan YHWH!
So he also knew, long before i was born, that i would be one of these so called rebels.
Like i have said in another thread makarios, i do not disbelieve by choice. I have made my decison with the evidence presented to me, and there is no solid evidence for the christian god, father of jesus christ, who is in fact his own son because god himself is jesus.
(Wtf?)
In any case, if my goal is to reconcile with god for the sins he knows i'm going to commit, and knows im not going to try and reconcile because i don't believe in him, then whats the fucking point?
Basically, i'm going to hell by default, and you are going to heaven. It has always ben that way, always will be.
He has made me the way he wanted, and i have no choice due to the way i have been hardwired but to disbelieve, so fuck your idea of free will.
It's all bullshit makarios.
“In any case, if my goal is to reconcile with god for the sins he knows i'm going to commit, and knows im not going to try and reconcile because i don't believe in him, then whats the fucking point?”
First of all, we don’t know if that is how you’ll be for the rest of your life. Like I said, at 25 years old, I had not an inkling that a decade later I’d be a Christian. In fact, at 25 I was heading the other direction at a pretty good pace. I don’t know your history Rab. This I do know, you Creator and mine has said that if we search for Him with all our heart, He will allow Himself to be found by us.
Because you understand the scientific method of inquiry, you know that you cannot say beyond any and all doubt that the supernatural does not exist. You say you couldn’t make yourself believe and that’s correct. No one comes to Jesus without God drawing him. Just so, now that I’ve experienced Jesus and now that He’s opened my eyes to another dimension, I couldn’t make myself not believe. I’ve got a challenge for you, if you’re up for it. But I won’t try to force it on you. Let me know if you're interested.
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“Basically, i'm going to hell by default, and you are going to heaven. It has always ben that way, always will be.”
Mmm, no, you’re going to hell, at least as things stand now, because you are dismissing God’s offer of forgiveness. You could, if you had the courage, tell God that you don’t get it. That you don’t understand. That you don’t believe but would be willing to if He revealed Himself to you. You’d feel like a fool for doing that but if you were sincere, you wouldn’t be disappointed.
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“He has made me the way he wanted, and i have no choice due to the way i have been hardwired but to disbelieve, so fuck your idea of free will.”
We don’t know that. A lot can change between now and the day you die. As my dad used to say, Never say never.
You're god supposedly made me, and i can tell you that he has made me in such a way that i can never believe in him.
Makarios, if it weren't religious, you'd be banged up in a mental asylum for believeing and preaching what you do.
What's the challenge? Believe me makarios, i have sincerely challenged god on many occasions to make himself known to me but he never does it.
Being the way i am, i would always be open to him revealing himself. The thing is, he won't, and he won't because he doesn't exist.
“He has made me the way he wanted, and i have no choice due to the way i have been hardwired but to disbelieve, so fuck your idea of free will.”
We don’t know that. A lot can change between now and the day you die. As my dad used to say, Never say never.
Never say never is nothing more than an old wifey's saying. You will never find a donkey in the middle of the earth. Is that wrong?
On another note, you are wrong, he has without a doubt hardwired me to not accept things without sufficient evidence, including him, and he knows that. He knew this would happen before he even made me, before i was even born. He knew i would disbelieve (which is no fault of my own, this is how he made me), but i'm going to hell anyway.
Makarios, i can tell you with 100% certainty that unless he reveals himself to me, unambiguously and irrefutably, then i will NEVER believe in him, or any other god ever conceptualised.
As it stands, i have just as much chance of becoming christian as i do becoming an aztec.
It doesn't matter what we know and don't know Mak, it still stands that he knows everything. So how can i possibly be blamed for going to hell?
It's still bullshit.
Btw makarios, i speak all of the above in a hypothetical manner.
I don't believe he has done any of that, as he isn't there.
I'm describing things in your world-view.
E.g. equally, he knew the Pope would be the Pope before he was ever made. Do you understand?
It does not matter if i reject him forever, as he knew anyway, so he knows im going to hell and always has done.
Basically, contrary to your idea of free will, he still knows what is going to happen, so efectively he is creating who will, and who will not get into heaven, all the while knowing so.
"What's the challenge? Believe me makarios, i have sincerely challenged god on many occasions to make himself known to me but he never does it."
Listen to what you're saying - to the Creator of the Universe!
He says, "If you seek Me with all your heart, I will allow Myself to be found by you." Now, I don't know what dictionary you use but I'm pretty sure that Seek is not synonymous with Challenge. Think about.
The challenge that I was talking about won’t work because you’ve already decided the outcome by limiting yourself to only one means of discovery,
“unless he reveals himself to me, unambiguously and irrefutably, then i will NEVER believe in him,”
That’s not very logical nor scientific.
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