Lets start with a pretty straight foward question. As a young man who believes in the Christian conception of God -- why do you believe he endowed you with free-will (the capacity to take another mans life, if you so chose, as laid out in the initial question), but will hold you in contempt, subjecting you to horrific eternal suffering if you so choose to exercise-utilize this "gift/burden" in a manner which was in discord with how he would like you to?
Ummm.... if I may interject, I firmly believe that anyone killing ME is morally wrong, so please don't. Thank you and have a nice day.
First of all, I don't believe in the Christian religion per se. I don't believe in a messiah but I do believe in God. However, your question applies just as well so I'll answer it. When God gives us free will, it is never a black and white thing. Free will is not a question of "will I choose to kill another man" or "will I not." Free will is the capacity to make any decision and act upon it. God gave me the gift of choosing whether I want to eat pizza tonight or steak. Not only that, but I can choose how I want my steak cooked, who I want to invite over to dinner and what we will all have for dessert. Among the array of choices that I have, none of them is breaking any moral law before the eyes of god. If I choose pizza instead of steak, god isn't going to get upset with me. Now, you choose to align free-will with murder and the ramifications of my actions if I choose to murder another individual. It clearly states throughout the scriptures, as given to Moses, that thou shall not kill another man or woman. This is a sin before God. I do have the right to exercise my free will and break a commandment, but having fore-knowledge of those commandments places me in a state of culpability. Out of the nearly infinite array of decisions that you can make in your life, god has basically said that you cannot do 10 things. I don't see how this is restricting anyone's freedom. Have I sinned? Sure. I've lied, stolen, etc. The difference here is that god also gives you the free will to repent for your sins. I don't believe in going to a priest to talk to god, I go straight to the source. That's what you do when you screw up. Have you ever made your dad or mom upset with you, and you knew what you did was wrong and saw them suffer from it? What was your internal gut reaction? It was to make amends with them and show them that you really do love them and what you did was wrong. If god asks the same of you, is that too much to ask? He's given you consciousness, free-will and the ability to experience. I mean, you really cannot get a greater gift, yet everyday people are so willing to throw it back in his face and live a life of excess, immorality and sin. Why?
Hi aphie, Very cogent post, I must say! You end with: "Why?" Don't take my reply as an answer, only FWIW (in ET language). As you value Moses, you probably also value Genesis. This is the answer to "Why". In fact first pair of people made full use of their prerogatives as received from God: "Free will is the capacity to make any decision and act upon it." They acted upon it against the law God gave them. Further: Genesis 3:15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." I am not really competent to go into this. Hebrew, Greek and Latin traditions deal all with this and I think, converge one one thing that the serpent will in the end be defeated." and if you won't mind I would add: John 1:17 For the law was given by Moses, [but] grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. I'm giving these quotes simply as an introduction to notions you introduced in your post like: conscience, sin, immorality. From Genesis, it seems clear that God means what He says and that He doesn't kid around. You want to do things differently, simply go ahead, be My guest. From this your: "I go straight to the source" is interesting as Adam doesn't seem to have been able to swing it. In fact the scriptures have a lot to say about all this. From previous ET threads we can also be sure that "reason" and "rationality", in spite of being furiously debated, don't wheigh much in these matters. Wisdom, few if nobody even seems to know about it. When Adam and Eve had to start taking care of themselves, the only thing they could take out besides new clothes, was free will and wisdom. For us, I think, that's all that we also can count on. "Going straight to the source", IMHO (ET dialect) must be carefully pondered by our wisdom and by not mouthing off too loudly about being "rational". I'm sure though that at such time that: "it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." will have come to pass, that at such time God will say time is up! Be good, nononsense
Cmon now Aphie, I gave you a very straight foward question and you basically tap-danced around it. I will assume though, through what you wrote, that you feel God gave us the free-will to committ sins because he wanted to test us?
Hey gamer, If you don't get the answer you want, it doesn't mean somebody is tap-dancing. Free will, you got it. You also got a clear answer on this: you strictly do as you please. What do you mean by committing sins and being tested? When time is up, God committed himself only to you as far as garanteeing your free will. That's all. Nothing more. For sure you're not going to be able to tap-dance around this. Adam couldn't tap-dance around it either. Did you imply that you expected something more than that?
Isn't this about the only country saying something like "Freedom under God"? For sure "Gotta love this Country.... ".
Nice post, and thanks for the compliment. When I said, "go straight to the source," what I meant was that I believe every man should pray directly to god. I do not believe it is necessarily to go to "confession" and have an intermediarary pray along with you to god. If you need spiritual counseling in your religion, however, then of course your rabbi, priest, etc. are always there for you. Genesis is interesting to me because it is both the very basis for the judeo-christian religion. What I am not so clear about is how to interrpret Genesis. Should I interpret Genesis in the more literal sense, or should I read it in the more metaphorical sense. How much error was introduced into Genesis through years of translation? These are questions that are open in my view. I don't think it is critical to one's faith, because the general meaning within Genesis is clear enough despite the translation. I have read that adam eating from the fruit of knowledge is more of a metaphorical translation than an actual literal one. Did Adam truly eat from an apple, or is this more of a story created in such a way that humans will better understand through a metaphorical sense than the literal one?