a lot of the misunderstandings about Christianity come from a lack of wisdom about human nature

I would posit that in some ways it is, though we may not always be able to recognize it as such.

Certainly there are some things we could agree are a sin; killing a random person who was just minding their own business, the most primary and obvious example that comes to mind.

Then we move on to more grey zones, like cheating on your wife. It might not be as obvious to recognize the hurt and damage that could potentially cause.

How about swindeling an elderly person out of all their retirement money.

 

If you believe that then you believe in moral relativism.

 

Why would you not believe that? You don't believe there are people who deserve that?
You would be okay if there was no hell and they all got to go to heaven?

Excuse the graphic imagery, but suppose someone brutally rapes your young daughter, sadistically torturing her for no reason, keeping her alive for days with rape and torture before finally killing her. He did this to an endless number of women in the past too.
You would say that a just and righteous god would not put this person in Hell?

 

It actually doesn't, but you may be interrpretting certain parts of it that way due to your ignorance.

 

There is no way you can posit that Hell does not exist without denying the entirety of Christianity.

(not saying that some groups don't try though)

 

You are asking me what I would do. I would make them burn on earth first.

But the question really is not that but will GOD place them in hell.

We LDS have not spoken of Hell that I am aware of.

We see the future as us all occupying one of 3 locations.

Let me try to get something official for you.

https://www.lds.org/topics/hell?lang=eng

 

Nothing in this thread was intended to use the Bible as proof, that would obviously be circular logic and useless to try to appeal to an atheist [in a logical argument].

 

What if GOD defines hell different than you define it?

Darkness is our church teaching. Satan is in the Dark.

 

I am aware of that. Your religion essentially believes there are two different Hells, both of which probably still have their sufferings.
That doesn't really change the relevance to the discussion here, does it?

"Hell" is just a name, doesn't matter what you call it. The point is it won't be good.

 

FreedomSeeker, I noticed that your response to this thread has been to cloud the issue.
If you look that up, it's a logical fallacy in a debate.
You can't argue with the main discussion so you bring up other arguments not directly relevant to the original argument being made.

Even if you could prove Christianity was completely wrong, that would not mean that the argument in the OP is wrong.

 

Look, I gave you what I had. I am not here to pick a fight.

 

That's a good question. Christians do not believe it is possible to become absolutely perfect.
You complain about "trying to be perfect", but think about the law we have. How many times do you have to steal to go to prison? How many times do you have to murder? Is it fair for the law to require us to be "perfect"?

You complain about the concept of sin and "God's law" but the laws under our own government (voted in by the people) are fundamentally the same in how they operate.

 

What I find so remarkable is when we trace this country's laws far back enough we learn most of them came from Democrats. They want to punish us yet complain over things like that in the Bible.

I keep posting laws since 1950 which is only back 69 years but we have to go further back to 1933 when they came at making laws with a fury. They are relentless in making laws. Some are also mentioned in the Bible but if you look at hate crimes, those are not in the Bible.

 

I wouldn't be so sure about that. The majority of hardline atheists tend to be Humanists.
That school of thought doesn't really recognise inherent human flaws so much.

 

Because they believe they can solve all man's problems with human-made laws.

It's an error in thinking, of course.

 

So then prove that humans are "inherently sinful" without using the Bible.

This means that you also cannot use the Bible to define what "sinful" is. You need a non-Biblical, objective definition.

 

Misunderstanding is usually attributed to confusion and since Christians themselves create confusion by having hundreds if not thousands of versions the "misunderstanding" is expected.

 

Yes, obviously.

Unfortunately it can be very difficult to give an objective definition, but there are some things pretty much all of us can agree are sinful.

At its simplest, sin just means doing things wrong or error.

But that carries with it many implications.

 

Except "wrong" is subjective. If we are defining "sin" as "wrong", then there's going to be lots of things that are "sins" to one person/society, but not "sins" to another.

 

Using the word "Sin" instantly eliminates the possibility of consensus because of religious implications. I may agree that Murder is wrong and even unacceptable but, you call it a sin and it has less meaning to me.

 

Nothing "grey" about that. Like murder, you either do it or not.

Does the fact that his brothers' envious designs worked out great for Joseph mean they didn't sin? Or, does the fact that his actions led to the incineration of dozens of people mean Elijah sinned?

Not really. I gave one right here:

Spilling milk is a sin?

 

More misunderstanding is coming from that humans are too self centered. Their thinking and reasoning are too self centered to have a full understanding of what the Bible would like to say.

Sin, what is it before you come to the conclusion that humans are inherently sinful?

Sin is a breaking of God's Law. Sin is all about what God hates as defined through His Law. Sin without repentance means one is not compatible with God and cannot live in an eternity with Him. Christianity is misunderstood simply because humans don't even understand such a simple point for the subsequent reasoning to take place.

 

Does that mean that people who do not believe in your God cannot Sin?

 

?? I don't see how you could possibly get to that.

I said sin is defined by religious law.

That's just a matter of definition.

 

We can use it in a generalized sense, without getting too boggled down in specifics, to be able to see the point in the OP.
The point being made in the OP does not need to be sectarian.