Let's talk about homosexuality (again!)

[Riven]

Based on what criteria? To what end? Do you think you actually understand God's purposes sufficiently to remark on them? I don't. I think you've got virtually no idea what God's plan and purposes are and certainly can't decide the proper course to follow from His all-knowing, timeless, omnipotent vantage point.

If this is all part of a divine plan, then I would say God must not be all powerful and all knowing. No divine being capable of creating a universe would screw up this badly and then blame his own creation, us, for his failures.

??? I think critically about them. So have many other Christians. Who says we aren't supposed to?

No, you don't. If you thought critically about them and followed the evidence, you wouldn't believe them.

It doesn't make any sense if God is only a God of love and that love is of our own human sort, fouled by ignorance, selfishness and sin. If God is just and holy, as well as loving, then His judgment of sin, of evil, is entirely sensible.

It doesn't make sense to torture people for eternity just because they didn't embrace Christianity. That's an insane and wicked thing to do when you can literally do anything else.

 

[Tenchi]

If this is all part of a divine plan, then I would say God must not be all powerful and all knowing.

Says one who is not all-knowing nor all-powerful and who cannot possibly understand the level on which God is operating as God.

Your statement above is rather like a three-year-old pointing at a plane arcing through the sky high overhead and saying, "That's stupid." He doesn't have any idea, really, what he's pointing at; he doesn't understand what the plane is for, or where it's going; and he cannot comprehend all the engineering that has gone into making it possible for the plane to fly above him. But, like any three-year-old, this doesn't stop him from offering an opinion.

No divine being capable of creating a universe would screw up this badly and then blame his own creation, us, for his failures.

"Screw up" according to what criteria? Your finite, comparatively-ignorant, human criteria? Why should your criteria be God's?

No, you don't. If you thought critically about them and followed the evidence, you wouldn't believe them.

??? Well, I'd say the very opposite is true. If you had been careful and critical in your analysis of the contents of the Bible, you'd be a Christian.

It doesn't make sense to torture people for eternity just because they didn't embrace Christianity

Strawman. And, again, nowhere does the Bible say God tortures people.

That's an insane and wicked thing to do when you can literally do anything else.

Oh? And where are you getting your moral standard by which to judge the God you deny?

And, again, criticizing God from your limited, ignorant vantage point is like a blind man offering a critique of a Rembrandt painting.

 

[Riven]

Says one who is not all-knowing nor all-powerful and who cannot possibly understand the level on which God is operating as God.

But that doesn't mean I cannot think for myself and have my own opinions based on what I can see with my own eyes.

Your statement above is rather like a three-year-old pointing at a plane arcing through the sky high overhead and saying, "That's stupid." He doesn't have any idea, really, what he's pointing at; he doesn't understand what the plane is for, or where it's going; and he cannot comprehend all the engineering that has gone into making it possible for the plane to fly above him. But, like any three-year-old, this doesn't stop him from offering an opinion.

If the three year old notices that the plane's design is flawed or broken in some way, than he should at least be listened to. Anything wrong with the plane could result in the deaths of everyone onboard.

"Screw up" according to what criteria? Your finite, comparatively-ignorant, human criteria? Why should your criteria be God's?

Yes.

??? Well, I'd say the very opposite is true. If you had been careful and critical in your analysis of the contents of the Bible, you'd be a Christian.

No, it's the opposite that is true. Anyone that reads that book and thinks that the stories within it are true, is either ignorant of science, or just wants to believe it instead of science for emotional reasons.

The bible doesn't offer any evidence for the claims that it makes. Science does. That's why Christianity is declining in America. People today want evidence for their beliefs.

Strawman. And, again, nowhere does the Bible say God tortures people.

Okay. He created the place in which they will be tortured.

Oh? And where are you getting your moral standard by which to judge the God you deny?

The moral standard I use is innate within us. We wouldn't have been able to survive this long without an understanding of the benefits of mutual cooperation and right versus wrong.

And, again, criticizing God from your limited, ignorant vantage point is like a blind man offering a critique of a Rembrandt painting.

Yes, yes. We all understand that it's frowned upon to criticize the dear leader.

 

[Tenchi]

But that doesn't mean I cannot think for myself and have my own opinions based on what I can see with my own eyes.

Of course.

If the three year old notices that the plane's design is flawed or broken in some way, than he should at least be listened to. Anything wrong with the plane could result in the deaths of everyone onboard.

But, you see, the point of my analogy was that no three-year-old has the ability to recognize a design flaw or breakage, as such. They're three years old and simply haven't the capacity to notice such things - or even to understand what a plane is. In the same way, you and I are so far inferior to God, so amoeba-like in comparison to Him, that we can't possibly offer a useful critique of His doings. We don't really understand Him in anything like a deep or comprehensive way and we certainly can't understand the level on which He's operating as the Creator and Sustainer of Everything, working all things according to the counsel of His own will.

Yes.

Yes, what? Why should your criteria, derived necessarily from your own finite, comparatively-ignorant circumstance, be anything God takes into account in any significant way? In the context of the universe, you and I are like tiny particles - gluons or something - in God's eyes. How would the knowledge and perspective of a gluon - if it had one - offer anything constructive or insightful to the things God's doing? Being a gluon would prevent it entirely from doing so.

No, it's the opposite that is true. Anyone that reads that book and thinks that the stories within it are true, is either ignorant of science, or just wants to believe it instead of science for emotional reasons.

And I disagree. I think the ignoramus is the non-believer, who wants desperately to be in a world where they can be their own god. They are the ones with "emotional reasons" for denying their Maker, reasons of guilt, and pride, and naked rebellion to the will of their Creator.

The bible doesn't offer any evidence for the claims that it makes. Science does. That's why Christianity is declining in America. People today want evidence for their beliefs.

No, Christianity is on the wane because it has grown horribly diluted and weak, little more than a pale reflection of what it should be. But there is enormous and very robust ground philosophically, historically, and even scientifically on which the faith stands and many are working to make this known across North America.

www.reasonablefaith.org
www.crossexamined.org
www.coldcasechristianity.com
www.str.org
www.johnlennox.org

Okay. He created the place in which they will be tortured.

A place with a door locked from the inside. No one has to go to hell. And God has gone to great lengths, lengths we don't at all deserve, to keep us out of hell.

The moral standard I use is innate within us.

Derived from where or what?

We wouldn't have been able to survive this long without an understanding of the benefits of mutual cooperation and right versus wrong.

Not so. Insects do so without any moral sense whatever. And they are far more successful at survival than we are.

Yes, yes. We all understand that it's frowned upon to criticize the dear leader.

My point isn't that it's frowned upon, but that it's nonsensical.

 

[Riven]

But, you see, the point of my analogy was that no three-year-old has the ability to recognize a design flaw or breakage, as such. They're three years old and simply haven't the capacity to notice such things - or even to understand what a plane is. In the same way, you and I are so far inferior to God, so amoeba-like in comparison to Him, that we can't possibly offer a useful critique of His doings. We don't really understand Him in anything like a deep or comprehensive way and we certainly can't understand the level on which He's operating as the Creator and Sustainer of Everything, working all things according to the counsel of His own will.

I think a three year old could notice something broken on the plane. Like a wing or one of the engines. You know what? This is ridiculous. You can have this one for free. Lol.

Yes, what? Why should your criteria, derived necessarily from your own finite, comparatively-ignorant circumstance, be anything God takes into account in any significant way? In the context of the universe, you and I are like tiny particles - gluons or something - in God's eyes. How would the knowledge and perspective of a gluon - if it had one - offer anything constructive or insightful to the things God's doing? Being a gluon would prevent it entirely from doing so.

In the case, I guess we should never even bother thinking for ourselves since we're so inferior.

And I disagree. I think the ignoramus is the non-believer, who wants desperately to be in a world where they can be their own god. They are the ones with "emotional reasons" for denying their Maker, reasons of guilt, and pride, and naked rebellion to the will of their Creator.

All they want is evidence.

No, Christianity is on the wane because it has grown horribly diluted and weak, little more than a pale reflection of what it should be.

Diluted in what way?

A place with a door locked from the inside. No one has to go to hell. And God has gone to great lengths, lengths we don't at all deserve, to keep us out of hell.

That's right. No one has to go to hell. God sends them there. He could construct another place to send them. But he doesn't. Or he could just forgive people for not believing in things without evidence. As I said earlier, there's many options available to a divine being.

Derived from where or what?

From evolution. We learned the benefits of working together as opposed to killing each other. The benefits of having laws as opposed to lawlessness.

Not so. Insects do so without any moral sense whatever. And they are far more successful at survival than we are.

That's because insects aren't capable of expressing morality. They survive because their entire existence is about survival. In other words, we aren't insects.

 

[Tenchi]

I think a three year old could notice something broken on the plane. Like a wing or one of the engines. You know what? This is ridiculous. You can have this one for free. Lol.

It's amazing how far folks will go in denying God. As you say, ridiculous, even.

In the case, I guess we should never even bother thinking for ourselves since we're so inferior.

Now you're getting the picture! A mind under God's control is a mind being all it was created to be.

All they want is evidence.

I wish this were true. In fact, what most want is a reason to deny God and live as they please as free as possible from concern that one day they will give an account to their holy Creator for how they've lived. The testimony of Creation, of conscience, and of Christ raised from the dead are all sufficient to convince the honest seeker of the truth that there is a heaven to gain and a hell to shun.

Diluted in what way?

In many ways, unfortunately. There has been a gradual dumbing-down of the average Christian lay-person, a making of them passive and dependent, unable to think well, trusting the "expert" rather than, by their own careful study and thought, making themselves well-informed concerning their own faith. The Church has become crowded with non-believers, too, who badly compromise and corrupt the spiritual life of it, creating a worldly, "fleshly" culture within the Church, pressing it to appeal more and more to the unsaved person with entertaining "sound and fury" rather than standing as an unchanging refuge of holiness, light, peace and rest amidst the boiling sea of secular, godless, darkness. Worst of all, the average believer in Church on Sunday has no concrete, daily experience of God and possesses no properly-biblical conception of what such an experience is. In consequence of all of these things, the Church has for a long time now not been a holy, Spirit-filled community of Christ followers in and through whom God powerfully moves. And it shows, the godless secular world looking at the Church and seeing its own face in it, but smeared grotesquely with the "lipstick" of empty, false religiosity.

That's right. No one has to go to hell. God sends them there.

No, they send themselves there. God desires that all people come to repentance, faith in Christ, and fellowship with Himself; but if they will not, if they insist on living as their own god until their physical body expires, He will give them their wish for all eternity.

And why shouldn't God have the freedom to set the standard for conduct that He'll accept in His own universe? He made everything and sustains it all moment-by-moment; why shouldn't He, then, be free to do as He pleases in the Reality that exists only because He does? And on what grounds should we feel free to dictate to our Creator and Sustainer the terms upon which we'll deal with Him in His universe? What pride we have to direct Him in how He ought to behave and how He ought to treat us in His own Creation!

He could construct another place to send them. But he doesn't.

I suppose. Why should He? Just because you don't like the way He's arranged things? Why should your preferences (or mine) have any bearing on those of the Creator and Sustainer of Everything?

Or he could just forgive people for not believing in things without evidence.

Strawman.

From evolution. We learned the benefits of working together as opposed to killing each other. The benefits of having laws as opposed to lawlessness.

The process of evolution (if there is actually any such thing) is devoid of morality, values, ethics, and truth. As I told you, it is an undirected, mechanical process for producing DNA-replicating "meat sacks." As such, it can't confer rationality, or morality, or Truth upon anything. Survival in order to replicate is the sole purpose of the ToE, not Truth, or rationality, or community. And so, if there is only this mechanical, natural process that has produced what you think is rationality and what you assume is Truth, you have no basis for asserting that you have a grasp on Truth, that you understand what is truly rational and irrational. The undirected, mechanical process of evolution being without these things, has no power to confer them upon you.

That's because insects aren't capable of expressing morality. They survive because their entire existence is about survival. In other words, we aren't insects.

My point was that you are relying upon the same mechanical process that brought about insects (who care not one whit about laws, or morality, or philosophy) a process able only to equip a species for survival and replication, to have - somehow - produced in us things not present in itself. This is, essentially, the same problem that plagues every step of the non-theist's worldview: Everything came from nothing; life came from non-life; an amoral, truth-vacant, mechanical process has produced morality and Truth. As far as I can see, you have to exert far more faith in your non-theistic worldview than I do in my theistic worldview.

 

[Riven]

Now you're getting the picture! A mind under God's control is a mind being all it was created to be.

It sounds more like you desire to be a slave.

I wish this were true. In fact, what most want is a reason to deny God and live as they please as free as possible from concern that one day they will give an account to their holy Creator for how they've lived. The testimony of Creation, of conscience, and of Christ raised from the dead are all sufficient to convince the honest seeker of the truth that there is a heaven to gain and a hell to shun.

Why be given life at all if we cannot live as we wish? We are given free will and then told not to use it, lest we end up in hell.

In many ways, unfortunately. There has been a gradual dumbing-down of the average Christian lay-person, a making of them passive and dependent, unable to think well, trusting the "expert" rather than, by their own careful study and thought, making themselves well-informed concerning their own faith. The Church has become crowded with non-believers, too, who badly compromise and corrupt the spiritual life of it, creating a worldly, "fleshly" culture within the Church, pressing it to appeal more and more to the unsaved person with entertaining "sound and fury" rather than standing as an unchanging refuge of holiness, light, peace and rest amidst the boiling sea of secular, godless, darkness. Worst of all, the average believer in Church on Sunday has no concrete, daily experience of God and possesses no properly-biblical conception of what such an experience is. In consequence of all of these things, the Church has for a long time now not been a holy, Spirit-filled community of Christ followers in and through whom God powerfully moves. And it shows, the godless secular world looking at the Church and seeing its own face in it, but smeared grotesquely with the "lipstick" of empty, false religiosity.

That's interesting. Thanks.

No, they send themselves there. God desires that all people come to repentance, faith in Christ, and fellowship with Himself; but if they will not, if they insist on living as their own god until their physical body expires, He will give them their wish for all eternity.

But how are they their own god in hell?

And why shouldn't God have the freedom to set the standard for conduct that He'll accept in His own universe? He made everything and sustains it all moment-by-moment; why shouldn't He, then, be free to do as He pleases in the Reality that exists only because He does? And on what grounds should we feel free to dictate to our Creator and Sustainer the terms upon which we'll deal with Him in His universe? What pride we have to direct Him in how He ought to behave and how He ought to treat us in His own Creation!

Because we can. Surely God is not swayed by my opinions. It doesn't stop me from having them.

I suppose. Why should He? Just because you don't like the way He's arranged things? Why should your preferences (or mine) have any bearing on those of the Creator and Sustainer of Everything?

Because I think my ideas are better. Eternal punishment for finite sins is evil. Torturing people is wrong. Especially when God can do anything else.

The process of evolution (if there is actually any such thing) is devoid of morality, values, ethics, and truth. As I told you, it is an undirected, mechanical process for producing DNA-replicating "meat sacks."

Those things are the result of the human brain evolving enough for us to rise above our base instincts. Morality and truth, among other things, are the result of our ability to reason. It isn't the result of God saying to humanity, okay, you have mortality now because I've given it to you.

My point was that you are relying upon the same mechanical process that brought about insects (who care not one whit about laws, or morality, or philosophy) a process able only to equip a species for survival and replication, to have - somehow - produced in us things not present in itself. This is, essentially, the same problem that plagues every step of the non-theist's worldview: Everything came from nothing; life came from non-life; an amoral, truth-vacant, mechanical process has produced morality and Truth. As far as I can see, you have to exert far more faith in your non-theistic worldview than I do in my theistic worldview.

But I never said everything came from nothing. Something caused the big bang. Was it the Christian God? Possibly. But it may not have been. I just go with, "I don't know".

 

[Carry_Your_Name]

If I may interject, I think there's a difference between calling a spade a spade and making general accusations that may or may not be true or accurate.

For example, defining what is sin according to Godly proclamation is one thing but making statements like what follows from a previous post is something entirely different.




While the above sentiment may be true for some homosexuals, it does not necessarily make it true for all homosexuals. I don't know what the statistics are but there are some who have been involved in same sex monogamous relationships for decades. For this reason, the above sentiment could in fact be a false accusation, which violates one of the Ten Commandments instituted by God.

Please understand that I am not defending homosexuality in any way, shape, or form for I truly believe what Scripture says that is is a sin abhorred by God. Be that as it may, we Christians are not in a position to spread false information either.

Those of us who are heterosexual certainly don't have anything to boast about either. There are many Christians that are guilty of premarital sexual relations, sexual promiscuity, sexual immorality, adultery, and more so in the same context would it be appropriate to say that heterosexuals are polyamorous changing partners frequently for the satisfaction of sinful flesh, it's all about themselves, their own desires, their own needs, there's no love, only lust?

This is a clear example of removing the plank from our own eyes before attempting to remove the speck in others' eyes. (Matthew 7:3-5)

Just my .

Homosexuality is a symptom of SEXUAL BROKENNESS, the lack of sexual integrity and discipleship in this essential aspect of human development. Sexuality was originally a gift of God, it was sacred and spiritual, a consummation of your relationship with your partner, and a foretaste of our union with God. This wisdom was lost in the so called "sexual revolution", sex - intercourse, specifically, was cheapened and devaluated into a mere physical act for pleasure. And with this perverted understanding of sexuality, we've got all kinds of sexual brokenness, including but not limited to promiscuity, Ménage à trois, adultery, porn addiction, kinks, fetishes - and homosexualiy.

What's exceptionally nefarious about homosexualiy, though, is the identity politics and demonic agenda to undermine the social institution of nuclear family. Those other symptoms of sexual brokenness are recognized and acknowledged as sexual behaviors, no one would identify themselves as a loose girl, a swinger, a porn addict, an adualterer, a pervert; most people still know that these are inheritantly wrong and harmful, unnatrual, against God's design and purpose of sexuality, not just social stigma. Only homosexuality becomes an identity, homosexuals take pride in it, and they reach out to the kids to corrupt them. This is cultural Marxism in full swing, they wanna replicate the success of the civil right movement in the 60s and 70s, their strategy is play the victim and cry wolf, brand themselves as a marginalized, oppressed group of social outcasts, spread their propaganda loud and wide to deceive the simpletons and buy sympathy votes. When they are in power, they force you to accept their ideology and by doing so you compromise your value, anything you speak out against them is flagged as "hate speech", I'm sure we've had firsthand experience of that right here. This is an open rebellion, a major spiritual assault against God, against marriage and against the foundation of any civilzation. Call me any names you want, I'll take that as a badge of honor.

 

[Tenchi]

It sounds more like you desire to be a slave.

A slave? Not, I think, in the sense in which you're thinking of one. Instead, I'm a child of God, a loving bond-servant of righteousness in His kingdom, a fruit-bearing branch in the Vine who is Christ, a sheep belonging to the Good Shepherd, etc. All of these metaphors describe a Superior to inferior relationship, which is unavoidable when one is describing a relationship with God Almighty, Creator and Sustainer of Everything. Wanting to be what God created me to be, though, is not, as far as I can see, a bad thing. In fact, the more I live according to what God says to me in His word is my created purpose, the fuller, deeper and richer my life becomes.

Why be given life at all if we cannot live as we wish? We are given free will and then told not to use it, lest we end up in hell.

Why should you be free to do as you like with impunity in God's universe?

God gave you life and the capacity to freely choose Him so that you might be able to enter into a genuine love-relationship with Him. Not the sappy, sentimental, semi-romantic nonsense that is often described by Christians today as a "love-relationship with God," but simply strongly desiring to know and live in communion with Him all the time. This is what you (and I) were made for; and when we live according to our God-centered design, desiring God above all else, we find in the pursuit of that desire eternal fulfillment, purpose and stability (that we can't find by any other means).

Anyway, our free will is given so that we might, in love, enjoy and commune with God as children, not puppets. It is unavoidable, though, that we should be able to not choose God when we are made capable of choosing Him; this is what making us capable of real love requires. You can't make a knife capable of carving wood into something beautiful that can't also penetrate and carve human flesh. So, too, our free agency. God intends it should bring about something beautiful - communion with Him - but in being able to do so, our free agency also possesses the capacity to produce great evil and ugliness.

But how are they their own god in hell?

There is this cartoonish idea folks have of hell being a fiery place where they're in the company of others, ruled over by demons who stick them with pitchforks and assign to them endless, onerous tasks. Not so. In God's word, eternal hell is described as the "darkness of blackness forever" (Jude 1:13), and "outer darkness" (Matthew 8:12), and the "mist of darkness" (2 Peter 2:17), and a "lake of fire" (Revelation 20:1), a place of "wailing and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 13:42). None of these descriptions suggest that humans and demons are associating with each other in hell in the manner of some "Far Side" cartoon.

No, the eternal punishment of the unrepentant wicked is being alone with oneself for all of eternity, being one's sole occupation forever. In this, God gives those who have loved themselves rather than Him and have made themselves their chief concern, not Him, what they want for all of eternity: An existence from which God is permanently removed. But when they get such an existence, it is necessarily empty of all the Life and Light, all the beauty, and goodness, and Truth that God is. In such a state, there is the loss of all well-being, the sinner left to derive from him/herself what can only come from God: Meaning, purpose, love, fellowship, joy, peace, etc. Too late, the proud rebel will realize that they can't be God, however much in their earthly life they behaved as though they were. They are too small, too finite, too weak and ignorant, to satisfy and fulfill themselves even for a short time, let alone for all of eternity. At their core is only naked, raw selfishness, which cannot produce anything but the rebellion, pride, darkness, delusion, despair and sin that marked their earthly existence and made them the enemy of God.

Because we can. Surely God is not swayed by my opinions. It doesn't stop me from having them.

Of course. You're free to have whatever rebellious notions you wish to have. And, no, God is not swayed by such notions, though He will demand from you an accounting for them one day.

Because I think my ideas are better. Eternal punishment for finite sins is evil. Torturing people is wrong. Especially when God can do anything else.

Thinking you're ideas are better than God's simply demonstrates how faulty a conception of God you possess.

All sin is ultimately against an infinite God and, as such, warrants the eternal punishment He levies upon it. And being lovers of sin, steeped in sin from birth, surrounded by, and applauded in, our sin, we don't see our sin for what it truly is. The pig wallowing in the disgusting mire that it loves cannot understand why others find its wallowing abhorrent. But we get some idea of the truth about our wallowing in sin from the terrible judgment God renders upon it. We think God is over-reacting, but the truth is that we are hugely under-reacting to our sin - as one would expect from those entirely used to, and even loving, sin.

In any case, that God can "do anything else" in no way obliges Him to do so. It's His show; He can do whatever He wants, however He wants in the universe He made and sustains at every moment. And, of course, what we imagine He should do is no more what He should actually do than the ignorant, foolish imagining of a three-year-old ought to shape the conduct of their parent.

 

[Tenchi]

Those things are the result of the human brain evolving enough for us to rise above our base instincts.

The evolution of the human brain arises from a natural and mechanical process devoid of the things you're saying it confers upon the human brain. How, then, does it do so? How does a process that has nothing to do with Truth, or Reason, or morality produce these things in the human creature? And on what basis can you trust that this mechanical, non-moral, truth disinterested process has equipped you to discern what is actually true, what is actually reasonable, what is actually moral?

Morality and truth, among other things, are the result of our ability to reason.

Which ability is produced, you believe, by a natural, undirected, mechanical process that is amoral, oblivious to truth, and unable to reason? How, exactly?

It isn't the result of God saying to humanity, okay, you have mortality now because I've given it to you.

I understand you think this, but I don't. As far as I'm concerned, the record of the Bible offers to me a better explanation for the way things are than any non-theistic worldview does. Certainly, it makes far more sense to me that my human faculty of reason, my ability to appreciate art, humor and justice, my capacity to love and imagine, are bestowed on me by a Creator who possesses these capacities Himself than by a mindless, mechanical process that possesses none of these traits and is not occupied with such things, only biological survival and reproduction.

But I never said everything came from nothing. Something caused the big bang. Was it the Christian God? Possibly. But it may not have been. I just go with, "I don't know".

I'm glad you don't subscribe to a causeless universe.

I think it's relatively simple to deduce from the facts of the universe's beginning the existence and action of an uncaused First Cause that must be timeless, spaceless, immaterial, personal and incredibly powerful - just like the God described in the Bible. See: the Kalam Cosmological Argument or Liebniz's Argument from Contingency. (www.reasonablefaith.org or www.crossexamined.org)

 

[Uncle J]

Homosexuality is a symptom of SEXUAL BROKENNESS, the lack of sexual integrity and discipleship in this essential aspect of human development. Sexuality was originally a gift of God, it was sacred and spiritual, a consummation of your relationship with your partner, and a foretaste of our union with God. This wisdom was lost in the so called "sexual revolution", sex - intercourse, specifically, was cheapened and devaluated into a mere physical act for pleasure. And with this perverted understanding of sexuality, we've got all kinds of sexual brokenness, including but not limited to promiscuity, Ménage à trois, adultery, porn addiction, kinks, fetishes - and homosexualiy.

What's exceptionally nefarious about homosexualiy, though, is the identity politics and demonic agenda to undermine the social institution of nuclear family. Those other symptoms of sexual brokenness are recognized and acknowledged as sexual behaviors, no one would identify themselves as a loose girl, a swinger, a porn addict, an adualterer, a pervert; most people still know that these are inheritantly wrong and harmful, unnatrual, against God's design and purpose of sexuality, not just social stigma. Only homosexuality becomes an identity, homosexuals take pride in it, and they reach out to the kids to corrupt them. This is cultural Marxism in full swing, they wanna replicate the success of the civil right movement in the 60s and 70s, their strategy is play the victim and cry wolf, brand themselves as a marginalized, oppressed group of social outcasts, spread their propaganda loud and wide to deceive the simpletons and buy sympathy votes. When they are in power, they force you to accept their ideology and by doing so you compromise your value, anything you speak out against them is flagged as "hate speech", I'm sure we've had firsthand experience of that right here. This is an open rebellion, a major spiritual assault against God, against marriage and against the foundation of any civilzation. Call me any names you want, I'll take that as a badge of honor.

So this again makes me wonder....what specifically is your desired outcome?

Do you want it to be illegal to be gay? Do you want LGBTQs to be imprisoned?

 

[Riven]

A slave? Not, I think, in the sense in which you're thinking of one. Instead, I'm a child of God, a loving bond-servant of righteousness in His kingdom, a fruit-bearing branch in the Vine who is Christ, a sheep belonging to the Good Shepherd, etc. All of these metaphors describe a Superior to inferior relationship, which is unavoidable when one is describing a relationship with God Almighty, Creator and Sustainer of Everything.

What you are describing is a slave-master dynamic.

Why should you be free to do as you like with impunity in God's universe?

Because that's what free will is all about. However, if you put a gun to someone's had and give them two choices, one of those ending with you letting them go and the other ends with you shooting them, it shouldn't be a surprise when they choose the former.

God intends it should bring about something beautiful - communion with Him - but in being able to do so, our free agency also possesses the capacity to produce great evil and ugliness.

It's always spoken of in this way. But where is the great evil and ugliness in someone choosing to live a life that doesn't include Christianity?

There is this cartoonish idea folks have of hell being a fiery place where they're in the company of others, ruled over by demons who stick them with pitchforks and assign to them endless, onerous tasks. Not so. In God's word, eternal hell is described as the "darkness of blackness forever" (Jude 1:13), and "outer darkness" (Matthew 8:12), and the "mist of darkness" (2 Peter 2:17), and a "lake of fire" (Revelation 20:1), a place of "wailing and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 13:42). None of these descriptions suggest that humans and demons are associating with each other in hell in the manner of some "Far Side" cartoon.

I then have to wonder why Peter referred to it as a lake of fire if there is no fire? Why do Christians continue to use Dante's depiction of hell if it's inaccurate?

No, the eternal punishment of the unrepentant wicked is being alone with oneself for all of eternity, being one's sole occupation forever.

Sounds like an introvert's dream come true.

Of course. You're free to have whatever rebellious notions you wish to have. And, no, God is not swayed by such notions, though He will demand from you an accounting for them one day.

In the unlikely event that this day of reckoning actually occurs, I will have no trouble explaining my position to God. I will tel him that I could not force myself to believe in something that I don't believe is true. If he believes this is a crime worthy of eternal punishment, then he is the personification of evil, and I would rather go to hell than worship such a being.

Thinking you're ideas are better than God's simply demonstrates how faulty a conception of God you possess.

It is not faulty. Read the Old Testament. Yahweh makes Mao Zedong look like a pushover.

In any case, that God can "do anything else" in no way obliges Him to do so.

It still doesn't change the fact that he constructed hell while knowing in advance that humans will be placed there for something as silly as not being a Christian in life.

 

[Riven]

The evolution of the human brain arises from a natural and mechanical process devoid of the things you're saying it confers upon the human brain. How, then, does it do so?

By the natural processes of evolution. A certain level of complexity is required in order for a person to be able to ponder things like morality and truth. But it is largely a human invention. The lion does not worry about it's own morality while eating the wildebeest.

I understand you think this, but I don't. As far as I'm concerned, the record of the Bible offers to me a better explanation for the way things are than any non-theistic worldview does.

I understand your reasons for believing this, but you are ignoring the evidence in favor of mythological stories that can't be proven. At the very least, I think you should examine the fossil record.

I linked a video for you about that and you refused to watch it. That lets me know that aren't interested in learning. You've already made up your mind.

I'm glad you don't subscribe to a causeless universe.

I think it's relatively simple to deduce from the facts of the universe's beginning the existence and action of an uncaused First Cause that must be timeless, spaceless, immaterial, personal and incredibly powerful - just like the God described in the Bible. See: the Kalam Cosmological Argument or Liebniz's Argument from Contingency. (www.reasonablefaith.org or www.crossexamined.org)

No. It's not simple. It's easy to say God did it and leave it at that. But that world effectively be the end of science and discovery. It could also be wrong.

 

[Carry_Your_Name]

So this again makes me wonder....what specifically is your desired outcome?

Do you want it to be illegal to be gay? Do you want LGBTQs to be imprisoned?

See, this precisely proves what I said about their strategy- play the victim, accuse you of what they’re guilty of, while in fact it is our brothers and sisters in Christ who are persecuted worldwide for their faith.

 

[Carry_Your_Name]

What you are describing is a slave-master dynamic.

There's always such a dynamic, the only difference is what your master is. Could be spouse, money, drug, sex, career, ideology, food, technology, you name it. Only God could set you free from the bondage and make you master over those things.

Because that's what free will is all about. However, if you put a gun to someone's had and give them two choices, one of those ending with you letting them go and the other ends with you shooting them, it shouldn't be a surprise when they choose the former.

You'd be surprised how many real men would choose the latter when the condition for the former is ratting out their buddies or leaking out classified information. They'd rather die a hero than live a traitor.

It's always spoken of in this way. But where is the great evil and ugliness in someone choosing to live a life that doesn't include Christianity?

Not necessarily evil and ugliness, but emptiness and regret. Eventually you'll find out that everything comes and goes in the vacissitude of life, there's no meaning and purpose in anything without God.

 

[Uncle J]

See, this precisely proves what I said about their strategy- play the victim, accuse you of what they’re guilty of, while in fact it is our brothers and sisters in Christ who are persecuted worldwide for their faith.

So you won't even own up to your hate. That's pathetic.

 

[Uncle J]

It is interesting to see what the conservative Christians are trying to sell Riven in this thread. They're actually telling him that in order to be a Christian, he has to turn off his brain, see himself as a fundamentally flawed entity that can't be trusted or relied on for anything, spend his one and only life doing nothing but what a god demands lest he be tortured for all eternity, and all so that he can earn the reward of......spending eternity doing nothing but mindlessly worshipping a god.

Oh, and you should also really, really hate gay people.

Yeah, it's a real mystery why people are abandoning the faith in droves.

Of course I realize how that's just the conservative, fundamentalist version of Christianity and other denominations aren't like that (thankfully). But I also have to wonder where those folks are and why they aren't here countering the fundamentalists' depiction of their faith. Are they content to just allow the far right to represent Christianity and present it in ways that turn away all but the most extreme?

 

[Tenchi]

What you are describing is a slave-master dynamic.

No, a Creator-creature dynamic. There cannot be parity between the two.

Because that's what free will is all about.

Says who? Making choices without negative consequence is not how anyone I know of thinks of free will. You can freely choose to jump off a cliff without a safe means of descent to the ground, but you will surely smash to bits when you suddenly meet the ground. You can freely choose to swim in a pool with a hungry great white shark when you have a nose-bleed, but you cannot do so without dire consequence. You can freely and willfully drive your truck into a police car full of irritable officers, but there will definitely be unhappy consequences. And so on. Again, no one I've ever come across thinks having free will entails exercising it with impunity.

However, if you put a gun to someone's had and give them two choices, one of those ending with you letting them go and the other ends with you shooting them, it shouldn't be a surprise when they choose the former.

Yes, and? We face choices of this sort nearly every day: If I run the red light, I will be in a car accident; if I respect the red light signal and wait, I won't. I'm sure you can think of a myriad such choices you've encountered. I don't think myself restricted in my ability to choose freely, though, by these sorts of choices. The options I might have from which to choose can be very restricted and very positive-negative, but this doesn't negate my capacity to choose freely between them.

It's always spoken of in this way. But where is the great evil and ugliness in someone choosing to live a life that doesn't include Christianity?

It's not a choice to reject Christianity but to reject God. Such a choice carries consequences, as all choices do. But given who God is, the consequences are correspondingly serious.

I then have to wonder why Peter referred to it as a lake of fire if there is no fire?

There is fire. And darkness. A bonfire at night does not entirely dispel the night; no matter how big my bonfire, the darkness of the night remains.

Why do Christians continue to use Dante's depiction of hell if it's inaccurate?

They are greatly helped by secular culture in adopting the silly version of hell Dante (and others) have imagined. The Bible, though, describes a very desolate, lonely and unrelieved ruin, not dancing demons with pitchforks.

Sounds like an introvert's dream come true.

Not for the one who takes any time to ponder what the biblical description of hell really means.

In the unlikely event that this day of reckoning actually occurs, I will have no trouble explaining my position to God.

And you believe this because you don't really have a biblical conception of God. The real God, the God revealed in Scripture, will stop the mouth of every one who stands before Him. There will be no flip retorts at the Final Judgment, only gaping horror, or joyous delight. You're deciding right now which reaction you'll be having at that time.

If he believes this is a crime worthy of eternal punishment, then he is the personification of evil, and I would rather go to hell than worship such a being.

Well, of course, you'd feel this way. You're a sinner who loves his sin, who lives among other sinners who love their sin, and who lives in a nation that is mad with the pursuit of sin. How else would you feel about your Creator telling you that the sin you love is so awful, so wicked, that the just response to it is eternal hell?

But no matter what you think about God's holy justice (and your sin), it's coming your way, irresistibly and unavoidably.

Hebrews 9:27
27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:

Matthew 16:27
27 For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.

Romans 2:3-8
3 Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God?
4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?
5 But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
6 He will render to each one according to his works:
7 to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life;
8 but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.

Also, it is only one who is not in yet hell who thinks it preferable to being with God. Such a preference is full of bravado and self-righteousness, but it is empty of an understanding of what hell truly is.

It still doesn't change the fact that he constructed hell while knowing in advance that humans will be placed there for something as silly as not being a Christian in life.

It is not the Christian life you're rejecting, but the One who made you and instituted that life. And it doesn't matter that you think his objection to your sin is silly; He's God and in His universe what He says, goes. This isn't God being anything but who and what He is: Lord God Almighty, Creator and Sustainer of All Things.

 

[WIP]

It is interesting to see what the conservative Christians are trying to sell Riven in this thread. They're actually telling him that in order to be a Christian, he has to turn off his brain, see himself as a fundamentally flawed entity that can't be trusted or relied on for anything, spend his one and only life doing nothing but what a god demands lest he be tortured for all eternity, and all so that he can earn the reward of......spending eternity doing nothing but mindlessly worshipping a god.

Oh, and you should also really, really hate gay people.

Yeah, it's a real mystery why people are abandoning the faith in droves.

Of course I realize how that's just the conservative, fundamentalist version of Christianity and other denominations aren't like that (thankfully). But I also have to wonder where those folks are and why they aren't here countering the fundamentalists' depiction of their faith. Are they content to just allow the far right to represent Christianity and present it in ways that turn away all but the most extreme?

I have a question. Why are you here? What is it you hope to gain by being here? Seems you're not really interested in understanding Christianity but are more interested in mocking Christianity. Please explain.

 

[Uncle J]

I have a question. Why are you here? What is it you hope to gain by being here? Seems you're not really interested in understanding Christianity but are more interested in mocking Christianity. Please explain.

I joined primarily for the Current Events sub-forum, hoping to engage in some discussions and debates about...well....current events.

As far as "understanding Christianity", as I've described here before, I grew up immersed in Christianity so I'm quite familiar with the faith.

And no, I am not "mocking Christianity". Rather, I'm posting my thoughts and feelings on the specific conservative version of Christianity that some have been presenting here. As I noted, I'm fully aware that there are many, many Christians who hold to very different versions of the faith.