One question for Christians and one for Muslims neither can answer

Without God, not only would that not be obvious, it would be utterly incomprehensible, and Terra Firma would be nothing but gulags from sea to shining sea.

 

It's an example of synonymous parallelism, a form of Hebrew poetry.

“I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb.
Before you were born I set you apart
and appointed you as my prophet to the nations.”

One verse amplifies and reinforces the other, separating them distorts the meaning, which most people don't mind if it will help them to make the Bible say what they want it to say.

Tell me, do you think God knits animals together in their mother's wombs, or is it just the mechanics of nature?

Read Thomas Aquinas.

God is perfect.
God makes perfect creations.
Human beings are perfect creations.
One of the features of a perfect creation is having a free will.
Humans used their free will to create evil.
Therefore, God did not create evil.

And:

God is the master of all things
Evil is not a thing, it's the absence of a thing
Therefore God did not create evil

This is all explained in the scriptures Greenleft claims to be reading, but he leaves the parts he doesn't like out. His mumbo jumbo about God being or not being interventionist is made up and irrelevant.

No, that's not implied, it's your opinion.

 

Since I'm atheist now, no.

False. One of the ways we're imperfect by design is that we do not have omniscience. Without omniscience, there's no way to make accurate decisions 100% of the time. We're bound to make mistakes, no matter how well intentioned we are. Perfect creations do not make mistakes. We do.

This is where your/Aquinas' logic breaks down. A perfect creation, even with free will, would go on being perfect. If a creation with free will commits an evil act, that is proof positive that that creation is not perfect.

This runs into a source problem, i.e., if God didn't create evil, what did? And is that something equal in power to God? If not, then why did God allow evil to be created? If so, then why worship God instead of the evil being?

Evil is not the absence of good like dark is the absence of light, evil is a palpable thing, a breaking of the laws of humanity. A big cat killing a deer is not evil, just neutral, and a child dying of cancer is not evil, just tragic, but a person killing a child is evil. We've crossed over from neutrality or the absence of good to actual evil.

He liked the Deist concept of a clockwork universe. So I'll throw the question to you: Is God an interventionist God? Is there any point to prayer? Does God intervene on the behalf of Christians? If so, why doesn't he intervene on behalf of ALL Christians? If not, why not? Or in the classic example, why are there martyrs? What's the point of being a saint if God's not going to save you in your hour of need anyway?

Seems to me that without God, there can't be any sin as such. Sin is the transgression of the laws of God. Without God, there can be no laws of God. I now appeal to natural law for right and wrong rather than God, but 99% of the populace rejects natural law. And violating positive law makes one guilty of a crime but not a sinner.

You understand, of course, I'm only arguing out of a sense of intellectual curiosity. I have no desire to alter your faith nor any hostility to Christianity or Christians. I think Christianity is a force for good in society and we are heading for disaster by abandoning it.

 

Isn't there a certain amount of inefficiency in asking questions you already think you have the answers for?

 

http://www.politicalforum.com/index...ther-can-answer.535289/page-4#post-1069232903

 

No, because argument sharpens the brain and reveals hidden flaws in one's logic. And I have changed my mind on a few topics over the years, including God's existence, the right to keep & bear arms, whether judgement should have an "e" in it.

 

Well, you couldn't prove it by asking me, I have been hanging out on sites like this for the better part of two decades, I have seen people live and die on forums like this, I have heard these same arguments a hundred times and I have yet to see anybody change their mind about anything.

 

BINGO

 

So, BUMP.

 

I changed my mind once, But the new one didn't work any better.

 

Steel can just as easily dull steel as sharpen it.

 

Are you saying that man should not have the right to procreate unless God is directly involved? As in 'stop' the male reproductive abilities until he receives approval from God to reproduce?

 

And is the 'Immaculate Conception' dealing with the virgin birth or the Immaculate state of Mary's perfect, sinless, life of why she was chosen to be the Mother of Christ?

Is the word 'conception' here used as in conceiving a child or as in a conceptual thought?

 

Your questions are pretty ridiculous. God doesn't cause stampedes.

 

Your information is dead wrong.

 

We've already talked about the deist god not being interventionist. And calling my questions ridiculous means that, whatever mental gymnastics you might provide, you have already surrendered trying to convince me to have any belief in either religion.

If that is not your intent, fine. And if you want to call your answer a defense for believers, you may think it is, but you will forgive me if I am not impressed.

 

Even after living in the ME for nearly 2 decades I have never known a Christian to convert to Islam.

 

No. Simply do not call the baby as a blessing brought forth from the creator. If it is a blessing, as I stated twice already and now will be my third; God must be thanking the sinners or Satan himself because it was not His intent but has been given the opportunity to send forth His blessing.

 

Just a couple thoughts.
1. God created mankind a gave them free will. We are all sinners and outside of grace until we make the choice to seek Him. Many live their entire lives and never turn to God.
If life could not come from those living in sin, the human race would have died out a long time ago, because all of us are sinners.

2. The act of God and the acts of the sinners are separate.

Ultimately though we can not question a being that is all knowing. The answers would probably be outside of our comprehension anyway. There are just some things we can never know or understand.

Your questioning of sexuality pushed you away from religion while my questioning of human kinds existence brought me to religion.

 

The same could be said for forgiveness. Until our dying breath we enjoy blessings or gifts from God. One might ask, why are sinners allowed to breath?

There is really only one sin and one punishment. Sin is to deny God, this can be done in almost any way imaginable. The punishment is death or exile. Of course God's true blessing is forgiveness.

 

I like your answers though I still disagree with the separation of the acts of sin and the acts of God. Could you please give your response my comment on God thanking the devil? I've said it 3 times already, but for your pleasure I'll say it a 4th time.

Since it was God's intention for us to marry before having a family and it was not His intention for us to fornicate and yet he gives the blessing of bringing forth His creation, should He not thank Satan or the sinners for offering Him the opportunity to bring forth His blessing even though it was not his original intent?

 

Prolly will, before He sends them all to Hell.

 

I don't really see the logic behind thanking Satan because I don't think he had any role in the actual sin. The sin is committed the moment the choice is made to deny God. Satan influences us, but we make the choice. The child's soul or life is just a new creation from God created to serve his purposes. Yes the parents can benefit from that, but i does not necessarily mean if was for them. God knew they were going to procreate before the first man was created, we can't possibly know why or when new life will be created.

I think you are letting the small things interfere with the big picture. Like I said earlier, some things we just can't answer. Also, none of this is for us. We are all participants of something larger than ourselves, either willing or unwilling it does not matter. I think God's intention was to create beings with free will that could choose to follow him. If you don't have a choice, it really isn't love and obedience.

 

People don't trip over mountains, they trip over cracks in the sidewalk.

 

You make a unwarranted assumption - that it was Gods original intention for people to marry before having children. It is not known how Adam and Eve lived before sin, the details of the relationship are not known.

Marriage is a social construct and appears after the fall. Many of Gods teachings are social constructs designed to provide a plan for humanity to live in the Fallen world. All of it falls short of Gods original intent because humanity lives in a les than ideal world, and humanity itself is now less than ideal.

Satan did not provide an opportunity for God to bring forth His blessings, His blessings had already been brought forth and were rejected by Adam and Eve.