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That's exactly my point. I was talking about the illogic and unfairness of exactly this and you replied with a comment about the original sin. I don't understand why WE should receive the same punishment for something we didn't do! It was Adam, right? Well, why did God punish Eve too? Why did he punish us by making us mortal? It's not fair and it's based on illogic. That was my point.



I haven't studied the OS issue in depth, but your argument here is illogical. If you don't want to pay the price for sin, then just don't sin....

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I did not say it is right , did I ?
I said that the original sin is a milestone of the Christian teology both Catholic and Protestant
I dont know wether other religions have something similar
Obviusly you can accept or refuse it but nobody can declare himself a Christian if he does not beleive in it



There is a spectrum on OS, wherein the issue isn't so rigid as any disagreement makes one a heretic. Some people believe the OS only refers to the very first sin, others think that the very first sin extends to all of humanity. The problem is, what does it mean for that sin to extend to all of humanity? If it just meant that the knowledge of right and wrong entered the world, and thus made its way to all of humanity, then that can't really offend you even if you're a non-theist. In that case, if you don't think you should be punished for sin, then just don't sin.

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... and the question is :
Why did the Lord leave vassal alone ?



The better question is, "Why do you think this?" If you read the bible, God hasn't abandoned us.

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I suppose bcause the vassal offended the Lord
Not for eating an apple , of course th eapple must not be understood literally




Literal or figurative, it doesn't really affect the principle of the matter.

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" and your desire shall be toward your husband; and he shall rule over you."



Oh no! http://christian-thinktank.com/wgencurz.html

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Blame the parents when a child is behaving bad, they should have taught them better.



Parents, in society, need to take responsibility for their kids, but the fact is is that child is still responsible for his/herself. Well....it depends on the circumstances, but there is no reason that someone with a working brain should not be responsible for their decisions.

Also, you can't really say God doesn't take responsibility for our actions. At least not in light of the bible. But that depends on how you look at a responsibility. Certainly He doesn't fix all of our problems for us, but He will make sure we're all accountable.

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This led me to write a logical list of why god must exist, on the back of the list was a list of why god doesn't exist. It started as an assignment for one of my courses, but I took it way beyond that point.



Sorry to hear about the stuff going on. I've heard similar stories from others, caught between belief and unbelief.

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Science is sometimes though of as the anti god.



You kidding? I'm a pretty staunch fundy, but I like science. The only thing anti-god are anti-god philosophies. Of course, their nature should reveal why such a thing is so obvious. One can use science to support theism, one can use science to support atheism, but that doesn't change the fact that science is really neutral on the issue. What isn't neutral is philosophy.

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I am aware that many fundamentalists believe in moral relativity and consider everything that God does justified just because he's God.



Not me actually. I believe absolute morality comes from God, and that in THEORY He could violate it. Of course, to do so would contradict His nature, which He cannot do. That might sound like a complicated way of saying, "God can't do anything wrong." But it comes full circle in this: I would try and find out if anything God does is justified or not. If I read something in the bible that seems unjustified, I don't go, "It must be okay because God did it." If I don't know why its justified, I come back to it later when I know more (because we're dealing with a complex, ancient text and I don't want to be too quick to project modern circumstances onto it). Think about it this way, I've devoted a large part of my life to belief. If there's obvious proof that my belief is wrong, then I don't want to miss out on it; I don't want to be left in the dark, so to speak.

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This is why God is still standing before the court and his lawyer knows that claiming total relativity of fairness and morale would not be a good defense.



Well since your notion of a god is one who simply acts on a whim, with no sense of justice, then his best defense is simply to kill everyone in the courtroom. Its hard to convict someone when you're dead.

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Atheists (and also most Christians in Europe) believe that fairness and ethics are not relative and replaceable. Sure, it might depend on the society you live in whether for instance homosexuality is a crime or not. But every society - religious or not - has the same fundamental understanding of fairness. In every society, it is normally considered wrong to kill people for something they haven't done, or to kill innocent women and children. This "frame of reference" does not depend on the society you live in. It's in your genes. It developed during evolution. People who did not share that fundamental fairness concept could not well get along and live together with others. This was a survival disadvantage and eventually led to their extinction - except if they were gods.



This might seem ok (absolute morality based on a relative philosophy) from a modern pov. But from my, admittedly shallow, study of the ANE (ancient near east...), it seems this position almost always leads people down a path of destruction. Not necessarily complete destruction, but then according to your beliefs the genes of humanity led to the acceptance of child (or generally human) sacrifice, widespread and unchecked violence, etc. You can say, "But those people did it because of their gods", which is true, but when you take a god out of the picture then people just find another excuse.

What this comes down to is the debate between us using God's Word to decide what's right, and man deciding what's right. Some people like to claim relativity, but they aren't actual relative. Because the second you mention that abortion is wrong, then they don't want to hear any of it. The fact of the matter is, no one is really open to all viewpoints and opinions. No one is an absolute relativist (I know...that's contradictory, but that's the point). Eventually, everyone has to rest on the knowledge that there is an absolute rule to everything, otherwise no one would believe anything.

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t is one of the ugly sides of fundamentalism - and one of the reasons why fundamentalism, in my opinion, is not a harmless folly - that it tends to distort the moral frame of reference that is natural and common to all humans.



I wish I could disagree with you, but so many Christians (and others including fundy atheists) are so woefully uneducated, and so [seemingly] allergic to critical thinking that there seems to be little hope sometimes.

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Don't know about you, but a.) I've never heard God explain this 'gift' to anyone and b.) he didn't ask me if I wanted it in the first place. So we didn't really have a choice when it comes to receiving free will.



Yes you do. (Please don't take this literally) Step out in front of a truck on the freeway. You'll lose your freewill pretty fast, and it'll be by your choosing. I don't know if I should put a smiley or frownie face after that. :| I'll just combine the two I guess.

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Religious people tend to be a lot more worried and anxious about death than Atheists - otherwise they probably weren't so religious, won't you agree? Fear of death is a huge motivation, if not the main reason, for religion.



According to the theory of evolution. Personally I pondered death for a short time, and I realized something. It really isn't that big of a deal. I don't want to experience the dying process, but being dead (especially if there is no afterlife) means absolutely zip. Every thing you've experienced, all the happiness, joy, sorrow, etc will simply disappear. What's to be worried about? You won't even know you were alive at any time.

Until next time...

Last edited by Irish_Farmer; 01/22/07 19:26.
"The task force finds that...the unborn child is a whole human being from the moment of fertilization, that all abortions terminate the life of a human being, and that the unborn child is a separate human patient under the care of modern medicine."