Is God To Blame? Who is to blame for the pain around us?

[kasm 0]

Ok, how can Jesus win a war when he's not even born? Because before the creation of what we call Earth, there was no Jesus. Because he was born in the year 0AD. There were maaaaany millions of years before that, before his birth.

.....

I as a young child was abused well into my adolescent life, I don't blame "satan", nor do I blame a deity, I blame the one who did it, my dad.

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I only want commet on the above points:

1. You were replying to

In the beginning, before creation, there was a war in heaven where satan took a third of th angels and fought Jesus. Jesus won.

In fact who mentioned that is a believer in the Bible and Jesus. Christians believe that Jesus incarnated as a man about 2000 years ago but He is one of the Trinty "the Son" or the "Word" who was from the beginning. See The Bible John [1:1]

The Bible :John 1

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

2. I agree with you that the abuser [if he did it ] who is to blame and be accountable in the judgement in the life after death as the relegions believes and my ancesstor the Ancient Egyptian too [Even though I am Australian but I am Copt i.e the abroginal of Egypt before the Arabs] .

[Brionne 0]

I think we're the ones who cause the pain to ourselves...

[wild20 0]

But Biscuit, you fail to realize that the subject we have now jumped to, is needed to clarify things. I think I have given good evidence that Jesus is in fact Michael. If there are any more objections, then fine, otherwise, let us carry on with the normal debate. You guys are bringing up good points that we are the cause of our evil nature. But it DID originate somewhere and that is what the debate is about. The debate here is to help people realize that God's name is cleared from the list and that He is fair. He always will be fair. And further more, He cannot be proven unfair. As a Christian, we know that God is a loving God. He gives us the freedom of choice. Again. If you look at the world, you wonder how there can even be a God that cares. But look at God, and you will wonder how there can't be a God that cares. Thanks guys for debating. We continue if you like.

[biscuitrat 0]

But Biscuit, you fail to realize that the subject we have now jumped to, is needed to clarify things.  I think I have given good evidence that

Jesus is in fact Michael.  If there are any more objections, then fine, otherwise, let us carry on with the normal debate.  You guys are bringing up good points that we are the cause of our evil nature.  But it DID originate somewhere and that is what the debate is about.  The debate here is to help people realize that God's name is cleared from the list and that He is fair.  He always will be fair.  And further more, He cannot be proven unfair.  As a Christian, we know that God is a loving God.  He gives us the freedom of choice.  Again.  If you look at the world, you wonder how there can even be a God that cares.  But look at God, and you will wonder how there can't be a God that cares.  Thanks guys for debating.  We continue if you like.

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Evil is not one of forces that was created with the beginning of the world. As a evolutionist, I can't believe that good and evil were there from the beginning. I believe it originates from your heredity and your environment. If you're exposed to violence from an early age, you can choose to reciprocate it or avoid it depending on your experiences with it. You act because of what you know, not because an evil force is guiding you. It's the same with several other "sins".

[SharpShooter22 0]

God is Great I love god i dont blame him for anything that has happened he lets us make our choices and our ways of life but when it is his time to help i think he will but he only helps we its the right time to help.But no one should blame god for anything.

[Joshua 0]

But see, the whole aspect of throwing your blame into a  figure that may or may not exist is lame to me. Why wouldn't you believe that it's your fault that you...say...lied, cheated, and stole from/to other people? Technically, regardless of who put you up to it, it was you that did the act. Therefore you should be held for punishment, not God or Satan, Babe Ruth, or a yeti. You always have some limited control over yourself in the form of common sense and morals - not only Christian morals.

 

And for all of you guys: This post isn't about where Jesus came from (and the whole "he is always here watching us" thing is kind of creepy) or what he did on earth. It isn't even about Jesus. It's about God, and not only a Christian God, although all our debates seem to lean that way. So ease up on that aspect of it. I'd like to hear more about it from other religions - I know that Hinduism preaches for you to do your dharma (duty) from birth to death, to be a good person to others, and to devote your life to good deeds. It'd be interesting for once to have more than an atheist/Christian P.O.V on this.

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And yet what you are implicitly denying is that there is an ultimate moral law. If such things as lying, cheating, stealing, etc... are wrong, then there must be an ultimate moral law that makes such things wrong.

 

I am saying that we are all utterly at fault for our actions, and not only that, we deserve to die an eternal death for them. The difference doesn't lie in being any less guilty, it lies in having your punishment paid for you.

 

There are some problems implicit in the very basics of Hinduism and Buddhism concerning payments for past lives. For one thing, what sins were you paying for in your first life to determine from whence you started? And if life is cyclical and the reincarnations have no beginning, why is there an end? The utter nirvana according to it is complete desirelessness, so then is there not even the desire to see evil ended?

 

Ravi Zecharias mentions in his book Jesus Among Other Gods on page 122:

 

  The incredible aspect of this teaching is that the more painful one's existence, the more certain that the previous life is successfully paying its dues.  So that when one picks up the body of a little child, deformed from birth, kamma is in operation.  One might not wish to admit this, but that is the existential reality of this teaching.

  Some years ago, I was told of a group of missionaries and their families who had been killed in a bus accident near a village in a Buddhist country.  Within minutes, the bus was ransacked and the bodies pillaged for loot.  The reason-those who died were only receiving their kamma, and there is nothing wrong in taking what is left from one who is paying his or her dues.

  If every life is a payment for a previous life, one also wonders why Buddha was so reluctant to allow women into the sacred order and decreed that the rules for governing them be far greater.  In fact, even a woman who had been in the order for years owed greater reverence to a man who was just an initiate.  If kamma is in operation, why were these rules superimposed, assuming a virtue of higher order placed upon some?  Unless of course, a woman, by virtue of being a woman, inherited a greater kamma.

  What becomes evident is that the pantheistic ship comes apart on the reef of evil.  One cannot affirm the absence of a self while individualizing nirvana, and one cannot talk about the cessation of suffering without also giving the origin of the first wrong thought.  Buddhism has an intricate set of rules and regulations because it needs them.  As a nontheistic path, it is a road strewn with kamma.  It recognizes evil and then, fatalistically, shuts its eyes to it, seeking escape.

Here's some more on Hinduism specifically from page 119-120:

 

  As I have stated, pantheistic religions have attempted extensive answers, and sometimes those answers are terribly confusing.  The difficulty with Hinduism is that it has no monolithic answer to the problem of suffering.  By declaring everything in the physical world to be nonreal, illusory, changing, transitory, it ends up with philosophical problems beyond measure.  And, of course, one is compelled to ask, What has brought on this "illusion" of evil, if everything is part and parcel of the divine reality?  They do try to answer that.

  There is a classic passage in the Bhagavad-Gita in which Krishna counsels young Arijuna, who is on the battlefield, facing the possibility of killing his own half brothers.  He struggles and cannot bring himself to do this.  Krishna, comes as his chariot-driver, talks to him about his duty.  This was his duty, to fulfil his caste's responsibility as a warrior.  This is the way life moves on.  But he told Arijuna not to fear to do his duty, for all good and evil are fused in the ultimate reality, Brahman.  In Brahman, says Krishna, the distinction breaks down.  That which appears evil is only the lesser reality.  In the end, all life, all good, all evil, flow from God and back to Him or it.  "Go to war and do your job."  This convergence of everything into one absolute reality forms the hub of the answer to the question behind the question.  One can see how a sense of fatalism dominates when all reality is inexorably and inevitably unfolding.

  There is a humorous story told of India's leading philosopher, Shankara.  He had just finished lecturing the king on the deception of the mind and its delusion of material reality.  The next day, the king let loose an elephant that went on a rampage, and Shankara ran up a tree to find safety.  When the king asked him why he ran if the elephant was nonreal, Shankara, not to be outdone, said, "What if the king actually saw was a nonreal me, climbing up a nonreal tree!"  One might add, "That is a nonreal answer."

  While these are seen as fables, there is no way for classical Hinduism to deal with the problem of evil.  To deny that evil is real does not diminish wickedness, nor does it daunt the heart's desire to seek purity.  So much of Hindu worship is steeped in purification rites.  That is why the entire corpus of popular Hinduism is filled with the forms of worship, fear of punishment, means of obtaining God's favor, etc.

  But why are these hungers themselves seen as real?  In fact, one of Hinduism's strongest criticisms of Christianity and the reason given for refusing its validity is the Hindu's reference to the days of the British Raj and to the evil of the exploitation of the subjugated.  One cannot have it both ways; evil cannot be both illusory and concrete.

  Hinduism explains this perception of evil as induced by ignorance.  But that only pushes the question one step further.  If all is one, and plurality is an illusion born out of ignorance, then who is the source of the ignorance but the one?  And if the one is the source of the ignorance, then the impersonal absolute in the one is an absolute that lacks true knowledge.

Well, there's your opportunity to start talking about Hinduism

 

Now what are your thoughts on it?

[biscuitrat 0]

But there's no excuse for doing evil deeds or unlawful deeds. The laws I follow are my own morals, my common sense, and my country's laws. Well, most of them anyway. And Zacharias talks about "kamma". This is incorrect - it should be karma, probably.

 

A brahmin is the ultimate caste because they are humble, they do good deeds, and they're content with themselves. My family has been brahmin for as long as I can remember - however, this doesn't influence me in any way. It's part of who I am, and I can't change that. What I can change is what I'll do tomorrow. There's this really annoying person in my Latin class. Should I truly tell him he doesn't have any real friends and that most of the people that know him talk to him out of sympathy? Who would say such a thing? It's merely common sense acting and telling you what is good and what is bad. For example, if you're taking a test and you don't know the answer, but the person next to you has left their paper uncovered, would you look if you knew you weren't going to get caught? Most people would say "no" because they feel they have the dignity and the self-control to be able to take care of themselves without anyone telling them that their sins "are someone else's".

 

Those are my primary reasons for not believing evil is something that's created. It's merely a state of being, not an aura. Being psychotic, being hellbent on something, or being told to do something by a higher power (could also be a government thing) are things we exclude from our definition of evil because they can't help themselves. Or can they?

 

In the state of mental patients, doing simple chores is hard enough. But what about thinking (easily one of the harder functions of the nervous system)? There's so much gray matter and areas we don't even know about. And yet they affect our senses in so many ways. Take Andrea Yates for example - she believed her children were heathens, and the "Devil" told her to drown them. She lived close to where I live now, so I heard more than my share about it. Yet, she was in trauma mentally. Regardless of the fact that she was a Christian, that was a violent sin and a brutal story. Yet she couldn't help it - her mind clouded her judgement and because of the stress on it, she committed the crime. And she was no stranger to death.

 

I'll conclude it here. It's your mind, not anyone else's. Be strong and stand up for yourself - if you did a crime, let people know that it was you and no one else. Not God, not the Devil, not any form of creature can enter your brain and tell you how to live your life. What happens to you happens to you alone because of your actions. 'nuff said, it's your fault so confess it.

[Joshua 0]

But there's no excuse for doing evil deeds or unlawful deeds. The laws I follow are my own morals, my common sense, and my country's laws. Well, most of them anyway. And Zacharias talks about "kamma". This is incorrect - it should be karma, probably.

That's right, it's never right to do evil, no matter what good may come of it, Romans 3:8 makes that quite clear. We all deserve eternal punishment in the Lake of Fire. God cannot condone evil. Someone has to pay the penalty for it. God does NOT waffle on sin. However, out of love for us He has given us a chance to have Him pay that penalty on our behalf. This is the Gospel message. Furthermore, we are NOT the same people we were before accepting that payment, for He makes us new people, as Christ says in John 3:7, we are born again. We are changed that so we live to obey God rather then ourselves. Maybe this is where the misunderstanding is occurring? The problem with following the rules of men is what if you're a person like Jeffrey Dahmer who thinks evil persions are perfectly right, moral, and follow common sense? Who are you then to tell him he's not living right? A country's laws may involve you getting sent to prison for 20 years like some have in our court systems. There have been men on the death penalty who've lost years of their lives for no reason, is that ok? What I'm saying is there has to be a higher standard by which to judge what is right and what is wrong.

 

In Hinduism it's called, Karma, in Buddhism it's Kamma, and Zecharias addresses that:

 

  Buddhism also invokes the doctrine of karma and reincarnation.  The opening lines of the Buddhist scriptures say that every individual is the sum total of what he or she thought in his or her past life.  One of the collections of Buddha's discourses is called the Anguttara Nikaya.  Here are some thoughts:

 

My thoughts [past and present actions] is my only property, kamma is my only heritage, kamma is the only cause of my being, kamma is my only kin, my only protection.  Whatever actions I do, good or bad, I shall become the heir.9

(Take note that the Pali language of the Buddhist scriptures has a different sound to some words that have become common in English from Hinduism. Kamma, for example, carries the meaning of karma.)

A brahmin is the ultimate caste because they are humble, they do good deeds, and they're content with themselves. My family has been brahmin for as long as I can remember - however, this doesn't influence me in any way. It's part of who I am, and I can't change that. What I can change is what I'll do tomorrow. There's this really annoying person in my Latin class. Should I truly tell him he doesn't have any real friends and that most of the people that know him talk to him out of sympathy? Who would say such a thing? It's merely common sense acting and telling you what is good and what is bad. For example, if you're taking a test and you don't know the answer, but the person next to you has left their paper uncovered, would you look if you knew you weren't going to get caught? Most people would say "no" because they feel they have the dignity and the self-control to be able to take care of themselves without anyone telling them that their sins "are someone else's".

 

And it doesn't bother you that people are considered to have less rights and be of a lower caste with less worth then you simply because they were born poor? That's the way they teach it over in India. The poor are expected to carry the weight of society simply because of the circumstances of their birth. This then is explained as them being born poor in this life because of sins in the past life.

 

Hinduism teaches that ultimately there is no good or evil but that the two meet in Brahmin, I already posted what Zecharias had to say on the issue earlier. The views of Buddhism and Hinduism involve what to me seems a very depressing root of their beliefs. You just keep trying to live better and live better through each life until ultimately you get good enough to just disappear Pretty fatalistic... and depressing.

 

I don't recall ever saying that Christianity involved saying the sins are someone else's, we're responsible for them, and unless we accept Christ's payment on the cross for them, we will be justly punished by God for those sins.

 

Those are my primary reasons for not believing evil is something that's created. It's merely a state of being, not an aura. Being psychotic, being hellbent on something, or being told to do something by a higher power (could also be a government thing) are things we exclude from our definition of evil because they can't help themselves. Or can they?

You know what that is effectively relating to? Atheism You'll notice the mention of "dancing to one's DNA" where atheism says everyone is just following their own special path and there is no ultimate good or evil. Here Zecharias quotes Richard Dawkins of Oxford, one of atheism's champions, on page 113:

 

In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice.  The universe we observe has precisely no design, no purpose, no evil, and no other good.  Nothing but blind, pitiliess indifference.  DNA neither knows nor cares.  DNA just is.  And we dance to its music.5

  Do you see what happened?  The skeptic started by presenting a long list of horrific things, saying, "These are immoral, therefore there is no God."  But to raise these issues as moral issues is to assume a state of affairs that evolution cannot afford.  There is just one way to arrive at a morally compelling ought, given the assumptions of naturalism.  What then does the skeptic do?  He denies objective moral values because to accept such a reality would be to allow for the possibility of God's existence.  He concludes that there really isn't such a thing as evil after all. 

  This is supposed to be an answer?  If DNA neither knows nor cares, what is it that prompts our knowing and our caring?  Are we just embodied computers, overvaluing our senses?  If our feeling have no bearing at all on the reality of this question then maybe ours is the artificial intelligence and the computer's is the intelligent one, for it has no feeling; it has only information.  Computers do not "care" and do not "grieve over evil," and are, therefore, closer to reality.

  Is this what we have come to?  We must be warned that there are no brakes on this slippery slope once we step onto it.  The denial of an objective moral law, based on the compulsion to deny the existence of God, results ultimately in the denial of evil itself.  Can you imagine telling a raped woman that the rapist merely danced to his DNA?  Tell the father of young Adam Triplett that he is merely dancing to his DNA.  Tell the victims of Auschwitz that their tormentors merely danced to their DNA, and tell the loved ones of those cannibalized by Jeffrey Dahmer that he merely danced to his DNA.  So dance along!

  How repugnant!  This is not a dance!  This is the escapist's foot on the throat of reason, grasping for rationality while denying the logical points of reference exist.  In effect, while seeking an answer to the question of evil, he ends up denying the question.  In fact, I put this theory to the test with some students at Oxford University.  I asked a group of skeptics if I took a baby and sliced it to pieces before them, would I have done anything wrong?  They had just denied that objective morals exist.  At my question, there was silence, and then the lead voice in the group said, "I would not like it, but no, I could not say that you have done anything wrong."  My!  What an aesthete.  He would not like it.  My!  What rationality-he could not brand it wrong.  I only had to ask him what then remains of the original question, if evil is denied? 

In the state of mental patients, doing simple chores is hard enough. But what about thinking (easily one of the harder functions of the nervous system)? There's so much gray matter and areas we don't even know about. And yet they affect our senses in so many ways. Take Andrea Yates for example - she believed her children were heathens, and the "Devil" told her to drown them. She lived close to where I live now, so I heard more than my share about it. Yet, she was in trauma mentally. Regardless of the fact that she was a Christian, that was a violent sin and a brutal story. Yet she couldn't help it - her mind clouded her judgement and because of the stress on it, she committed the crime. And she was no stranger to death.

But what I think you're missing is that simply claiming to be a Christian doesn't make you one nor put you under God's protection as one of His children. Christ said we'll know His disciples by their love for others, and I have often proved, love does not harm others. Therefore those who harm others are not logically Christians.

 

 

I'll conclude it here. It's your mind, not anyone else's. Be strong and stand up for yourself - if you did a crime, let people know that it was you and no one else. Not God, not the Devil, not any form of creature can enter your brain and tell you how to live your life. What happens to you happens to you alone because of your actions. 'nuff said, it's your fault so confess it.

So first you say there's no such thing as evil and then you say to take responsibility for what evil you do? You can't have it both ways, evil can't be both illusory and concrete, which is it?

 

The Bible says that the only way to Christ and eternal life is BY confessing you are wrong and in need of salvation. The first step is to admit that noone but you is responsible and that God alone can save you.

 

You're not far from the kingdom of Heaven.

[wild20 0]

Okay Biscuit, lets turn the tables. Please explain to me why humans were devoloped with a natural sense of right and wrong, and no other animals have it. When we do something wrong, we know we have done it. No other animals does. A ability to know right and wrong is not learned. Scientists agree. It is a "pre-programed" ability. And let me ask you another thing. Where did the organsm that we are all from come from? This will help sort things out. Thanks!

[biscuitrat 0]

So first you say there's no such thing as evil and then you say to take responsibility for what evil you do? You can't have it both ways, evil can't be both illusory and concrete, which is it?
The Bible says that the only way to Christ and eternal life is BY confessing you are wrong and in need of salvation. The first step is to admit that noone but you is responsible and that God alone can save you.

Ugh. I would never be a Christian because I'm too fond of my religion's freedom of movement and thought. Just because the Bible says that all who do not accept God are heathens and sinners doesn't mean I want to plummet to an age without such freedoms of religion and love to accept a religion I question. When I die, I'll go somewhere I can respect, somewhere I deserve, be it hell or a Hindu's heaven, I'll be content because I lived my life the way I wanted to, without fear and with constant pursuit of knowledge and understanding. I've yelled at everyone that's come to my door because they have the indecency to try and convert me against my will, as if I'm some form of animal that's begging to be trapped, tamed, and shown around the world. There is a right way, morally, of doing things, and there's the wrong way. But I've discovered there's a Christian way as well that recalls the Bible in every aspect of life - I could never entrust the morals of my life to a book. Ever.

About evil, now. There's no such thing as a full-fledged evil force. Evil, as an adjective, describes something malicious, foul, or horrible by any stretch of the imagination. It's illusory, just as good is.

I never appreciated the caste system because of the status of the "untouchables" and the poor. There are many such people in India and in helping a few with food or clothing (we gave them my old clothes and some of my old toys), you can help heal yourself. Life is full of changes and choices, and within cultures, these things are either more hidden or more open.

Hinduism teaches that ultimately there is no good or evil but that the two meet in Brahmin.

Brahmin is a caste, not a place.

I also don't believe that everyone should be forced to be punished for an eternity for choices they could have corrected in the present. That logic is just too harsh. That's why I like to think there is a reincarnation spiritually, so you can correct those errors before you progress to a heaven, cleansed. Damning a person to a lake of fire forever isn't my idea of a fair option.

@Wild - Animals have this too. Dogs and cats and several other pets can sense emotional changes in their masters. They have an innate ability to know that something isn't going as it should, and they provide an emotional pillow for us. As an aspiring vet, I have no idea what causes this or how it comes to be, but it's something I've wanted to research. After all, regardless of the fact that they're animals (as we are), who's to say they can't know what is right and what is wrong?

I'm going to assume this is part of imprinting. When a child is young, they are educated on what is right and what is wrong. Therefore, they know that if they do something bad, they will be punished and with enough punishments behind them, they'll resolve to avoid that bad part. It would have to be the same way with animals. When I trained my dog, I had to make sure she kept focus on me as a child would to its parent. Gradually both child and puppy would learn the right and wrong way of doing something and accept a reward for it. For a puppy, it would probably be a small treat, but for a child, it's the realization that what they did made someone happy or pleased - this is a positive response that they will want to reciprocate.

That's my logic for now.

[Joshua 0]

Ugh. I would never be a Christian because I'm too fond of my religion's freedom of movement and thought. Just because the Bible says that all who do not accept God are heathens and sinners doesn't mean I want to plummet to an age without such freedoms of religion and love to accept a religion I question. When I die, I'll go somewhere I can respect, somewhere I deserve, be it hell or a Hindu's heaven, I'll be content because I lived my life the way I wanted to, without fear and with constant pursuit of knowledge and understanding. I've yelled at everyone that's come to my door because they have the indecency to try and convert me against my will, as if I'm some form of animal that's begging to be trapped, tamed, and shown around the world. There is a right way, morally, of doing things, and there's the wrong way. But I've discovered there's a Christian way as well that recalls the Bible in every aspect of life - I could never entrust the morals of my life to a book. Ever.

 

You are right about what the Bible teaches, it teaches one God who created us to enjoy a personal relationship with Him and that other ways are no ways at all but rather idolatry. Christ said He is the only way to God and that all others are false. The Bible isn't going to beat around the bush about it, it claims one way, one truth, one life, and that Christ Jesus.

 

That my friend is one of the many things that keeps many people from ever coming to Christ. They have the freedom to choose Him or reject Him and they refuse because they don't want to acknowledge His authority over their lives. I won't deceive you, that's exactly what Christ asks for, your heart. He will save you, but He buys you with a price, and you are born again to serve Him and no other.

 

The words are those of Christ's who ever lives, and we serve in the Spirit of the Law, not the letter, for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. You see, the Bible asks not only obedience, but for us to change our hearts. It asks us to literally become different people on the inside, the outward actions are not enough to satisfy God. He sees our hearts, and asks us to live in love, in faith, in peace, in joy, and He gives us what we need to accomplish this.

 

In short, Christianity is about the heart. In 1 Corinthians 13 it says we can know all knowledge and wisdom, speak in all tongues, work miracles, give to the poor, and even die for God, but if we don't do it with the right heart, with love, it doesn't mean anything.

 

 

About evil, now. There's no such thing as a full-fledged evil force. Evil, as an adjective, describes something malicious, foul, or horrible by any stretch of the imagination. It's illusory, just as good is.

 

I never appreciated the caste system because of the status of the "untouchables" and the poor. There are many such people in India and in helping a few with food or clothing (we gave them my old clothes and some of my old toys), you can help heal yourself. Life is full of changes and choices, and within cultures, these things are either more hidden or more open.

Brahmin is a caste, not a place.

But if all evil is illusory then anything is permissible, do you say that it is alright to kill and rape and plunder to your heart's content since evil is not real?

 

I also don't believe that everyone should be forced to be punished for an eternity for choices they could have corrected in the present. That logic is just too harsh. That's why I like to think there is a reincarnation spiritually, so you can correct those errors before you progress to a heaven, cleansed. Damning a person to a lake of fire forever isn't my idea of a fair option.

That's another reason people don't accept Christ, they don't want to admit they're so bad that they need His sacrifice. They don't want to admit that they're so bad they deserved death and that He paid that price for them.

 

But the Law says every secret thought in our heart will be revealed in the final day. Every time we lusted after someone not our wife. Every time we wanted something that wasn't ours. Every time the hate blossomed up in us so we'd have killed someone if we could've gotten away with it. Christ said that all the murderers and adulteries and blasphemies and evil thoughts come from the heart and these defile a person. (Matthew 15:18-19)

 

The Bible says God is a just God and that we will stand trial for every idle word we've every spoken, every evil thought we've ever had, every cheap shot we've ever took at someone, and that when God counts sins, noone will be able to stand.

 

Psalms 130:3 If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?

 

Matthew 12:36 But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.

 

Romans 3:19 Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

 

Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

[biscuitrat 0]

Evil may be illusory, but that doesn't stop immoral things from happening. No one really can. I wrote a satire about this in fantasy form in which an empire, hoping to end a series of wars that has ripped apart their land, institutes a new religion bringing peace from religion. But there's so much more hidden beyond the volumes of their holy books than they know. Just like within my story, no matter what religion we take up, we cannot stop ourselves from doing these immoral things because if we're used to it, we continue it. Some do it for revenge, others for the sake of shedding blood, and still others because it's the life they chose to lead. We can't prevent this - but that doesn't mean that it was the work of a deity or a devil. What Hitler believed was that there was a supreme race. He felt World War I, which he fought in, had been a loss because of the Jewish people who served in the army. Moreover, he noticed that mostly Jewish families had their savings intact after the depression and increased inflation in Germany. Also, he was snubbed at a university he tried to enter (an art school) and the professors were Jewish. Although his family was Jewish, he wanted to overlook this. He wanted to get rid of what he claimed had made his life go wrong and he never turned back from this. He wanted them to suffer as he claimed the German people suffered. I've read at least three biographies of Hitler for a report I did on him and a consecutive poem I wrote about the rationalism behind the concentration camps. What caused this scenario of horror was influence. A powerful man can do anything he wants to get what he needs. He founded the party on the fundamentals of rebuilding Germany and he led them astray. Germans as a whole felt horrible about their involvement and would not mention it if asked. Once you're swept away, you're adrift for a long time. A rapist operates off of sexual urges or the will to unleash his inner rage on someone else. A raped victim will probably think of the experience as someone's way to torment an innocent person. However, what Zacharias says about slicing a baby would be his own opinion. We would all be horrified, truly, and there's nothing genetic about it. He would have acted on an impulse, nothing more. Impulses are just spurts of information to your brain, basically your way of testing your actions and your limits. There's nothing evil about that.As far as the "things people think about Christianity" bit of your post, I agree that I don't like the fundamentals of Christianity. I know I have sinned but I don't like sacrifice. I'm a very possessive person and I find the morals of the religion ultimately strict. I've known many uber-Christians through my school, one of them being my best friend, and she's restricted from so much, such as D&D, certain movies, and other things because of the content. If you're not free to imagine and grow through your imagining, why would you pick such a religion? Christ isn't the only option out there. I don't advocate my religion as much as I want but I was born with it and I'm not fond of converting myself or others. And you're right, I don't like having a thing that may not exist have authority over my life. I won't let a book near my life because I want to be in control of myself, my thoughts, and my heart is for those people I know alone. In the end, you have to decide who would want a being that threatens to damn them to a life in a fiery lake to rule over them in such a manner? It's like a two-sided coin. You rarely ever get a roll around the rim.

[wild20 0]

But again Biscuit, you are forgetting that when we were merely "primates", we did not have the knowledge of right and wrong, what I want to know, is why evolutionists think that we came from a speck, when they don't know where that speck came from. Let me ask you something. Take your watch, set on the table, and watch it for an hour or so. Has it changed into a coffee maker? Why not? If you left it there for a million years, would it be a coffee maker. Do you believe it will be a coffee maker at some point? Any evolutionist in his/her right mind would say no. This is the point I am trying to make. You refuse to believe that a watch can turn into a coffee maker, or a radio into a computer. I can give you all this "Scientific" evidence that would suggest that it would be a computer in a million years, but you still would not accept it. Is a computer more complex than a radio? Yes. Is a human more complex than a one celled organism? Yes. Now let me ask you this. Is a Human more complex than a computer. The answer is still yes. No let me ask you this. You will not believe that a watch will turn into a coffee maker, or that a radio will turn into a computer. Things that are amazingly simple compared to a human, but you will still believe that we came, from nothing. I am not trying to be mean, but the problem here, is that too many people are believing that we came from something that did not exist. No I am serious. You believe we came from nothing. Nothing doesn't exist. Nopthing, is nothing. A bang, a fish, a reptile, a dog, a horse, a monkey, an ape, a human. And from that, we are here today.

[biscuitrat 0]

Everyone came from something. We came from unicellular organisms which grew bigger and bigger, eventually becoming more complex and eukaryotic. However, those were millions of years in the making. I believe that those so called "specks" which happen to be creatures that live their own independent existence were carried on such forms as an asteroid or a comet that made its landfall on earth or some such cosmic debris. If you claim that God created life on earth, why didn't he populate the other infinite planets? After the 4.6 billion years the earth has been around, wouldn't a deity get bored and move on? After all, humans have done nothing for said deity's own well being. Think of it as a child watching a culture of bacteria swarm a petri dish. It's impossible for an inanimate object to evolve so your example is a moot point. I never suggested that humans came from nothing - there has to be matter to create matter. There has to be some sort of spark that triggers life. I have a binder of these little cards I collected over the years about the mysteries of space. Within this, they discuss that life on earth could have been something like a primordial soup. The ingredients (the raw matter, "specks") and the correct settings (the earth was likely warmer when it was first created) would create this life. I've noticed the Bible doesn't have any records of dinosaurs. I checked out a couple of Creation science websites and found only that they believe T-Rexs' were vegetarian, and that fossils are the remains of the bad people who were washed away during the flood. That tells me nothing at all and those are ridiculous statements to me. At any rate, primates as ourselves are able to think and act in ways that, say, a mouse could not. But what you're trying to point out is that apes and monkeys who share our heritage and several of our features as well as analogous structures (why would we have a tailbone if we didn't first have tails?) are not capable of complex feelings. They don't have brains that are developed like ours. The more it protrudes to the back, the more developed the mind is. Our cranial cavity when displayed next to that of an early man and eventually an ape would be shown to become less protrudent in the temple and extend more towards the rear. Very few creatures have opposable thumbs so where else could we have gotten it from?My point (if you got lost in that spiel) is that the more developed your mind, the more complicated your feelings, the more you think about your actions, the more you understand what's going on, the more you are able to discuss the right and wrong of every aspect of your life. Don't compare two unlike things, even if you're trying to make a point. The whole watch -> coffee grinder thing is so irrational.

[wild20 0]

Okay. But then where did the Asteroids come from? See, this is why I have a hard time believing that evolution is even plausible. The bible says that God created every thing. As for dinosaurs, you can't go by that. The bible says nothing about many other creatures as well. It does not mention about the stick inescts. But does that mean it is false? No. Dinosaurs fall under lizards in the bible. So that argument is totally irrevelent. Now, I don't know what creation scientist websites you were at, but I will admit, there are some mixed up people out there. Now, I don't know if T-rex's were vegi or not, but there is no way to know. Now, you said not to use two unlike things. But may I make a point as to say that there is absolutely nothing alike between a asteroid or bang, and a human. So really, I could make the point that your belief is irrational. But I do that yet. And again, how to you even get a human with a mind, out of a bang. Because you see, you have given me no REAL evidence that evolution is correct. It is far easier to believe in a loving God that made us. And He is not bored. I also believe that He made other life on other planets. But chances are, we will never find them. And no, I don't believe in UFO's. So next, instead of tearing down my replies, I would try to give some evidence of your own.