how do you know that?

edited in after - I wrote the next paragraph first - I just had an idea - Are you from the USA because it suddenly occured that if you are maybe its because the USA is still a young country - only 200 years or whatever compared to Britains history of 2000 years. It was easy for the USA to say we base our law on gods law and people believed it. Britain has had law since before the Roman era 2000 years ago. maybe theres a cultural difference as to why you insist that law must be gods law.

Look! Reason alone dictates no-one wants to be murdered (if somebody wants to be murdered they are insane)
No rational person wants to be murdered and yet there are insane people who murder people. So the law says - ok she didnt want to be murdered - you murdered her - prison.
The law is based in reason (the criminal law at least) Regardless of whether there is a god or not MANKIND HAD LAWS LONG LONG BEFORE ANY HOLY BOOK! How do you think societies began - Of course its the countries laws determined by men - howelse could it be - forget the bible - there were laws four thousand years before the bible

 

I think you make a very astute obeservation saying that we all know internally that murder is wrong. The question is why do we feel this and why is it wrong.

Reason may tell may not to commit murder for practical reasons but to say I shouldn't do it because I wouldn't want it done to me is reasoning from a moral standard. Why should I care about what someone else wants, they're not me. If life is about survival then when killing someone benefits me, why not? Why not take advantage of the weak?

If the country decides what is ultimately right and wrong then these standards are arbitrary and subject to change. We should ask ourselves if the slavery in America was okay back one hundred and some years ago when the country decided it was. Was there nothing inherently wrong with this back then? Is it just wrong now because we have decided it is wrong or has it always been wrong?

Or, were the nazis who carried atroctites under orders from the government guilty? They were just doing what their government decided was right. Should they be held accountable? Did they do anything inherently wrong?

Christianity gives specific answers to these questions.

 

Columbo.

Agree..The laws of the monothiesm [christianity/islam exct]
Are but recent pan-national morality/law 'sets'
Gilgamesh ruled uruk under a set of laws 3000 years before
islam for example..existed. And 2500 years before the nazarene
spoke on a hill.

Occam

 

And it also says if you dont believe the answers to be correct.
If you think some of the specific 'answers' to go against your
rational moral code.
You will burn in hell forever..
Now thats what i call fair and equitable punnishment for a 'crime'

Your premis is unfounded [that god dictated these laws]
Christianity is not a set of laws laid down by god..It is absurd to
imagine it even possible unless god is irrational.
Christianity is just another bunch of laws made up by men..
The men who create the monoliths called 'organised religion'
No different than laws of nations called 'organised society'

Occam

 

Hello Occam,

Christianity is not about following a set of laws. It is a personal relationship with the God who created you. There is no way that imperfect, sinful people like you and me can justify ourselves before a holy, perfect God. There is no amount of good works and no amount of following the law that can do this.

That is why God made a way for us to be forgiven of our sins and made right before Him through His Son Jesus Christ. It's a free gift that we can accept or reject. God gives us a choice, but He wants a relationship with us.

 

Hello Occam,

Christianity is not about following a set of laws.

Is that not what you were talking about?
The laws of christianity?

It is a personal relationship with the God who created you. There is no way that imperfect, sinful people like you and me can justify ourselves before a holy, perfect God. There is no amount of good works and no amount of following the law that can do this.

Who EVER said we were perfect?..Or that perfection can exist..It is a human concept only. If we CANNOT justify ourselves before this 'perfect being' no mater how much good we do..then what is the point..?
Occam would rather justify his actions rationally to himself..that is
something he CAN do.. though even that is damn hard.

That is why God made a way for us to be forgiven of our sins and made right before Him through His Son Jesus Christ. It's a free gift that we can accept or reject. God gives us a choice, but He wants a relationship with us.

And if we dont accept HIS gift..If we use the REASON HE GAVE US to
make our own way.
[and in so doing call jesus but a wise man but no son of god. But say all
we humans are equaly the children of direction unknown]
Then christianity say occam will burn in hell.
We return to the BASE IDIOCY..That GOD TORTURES..
Or do u say there is no hell?

Occam

 

Presuming, of course that there is a god ! And that it is the same god that made you !

How do you know we are imperfect ? What tells you this?
Also how do you know god is perfect?
There is an assumption that we are evil but without reference to the bible can you show that all men are imperfect and evil? It is a typically Catholic stance to say we do evil because we are evil. The opposition to this is that people do bad things because they BECOME bad people - If you look at what the catholic church says on this - a person becomes evil more or less immediately after they were born. Can you without reference to the bible show that all men are imperfect and sinful?

 

Well, I am using the Bible as my ultimate authority to show me these things. But I know I'm not perfect personally. If you are you're the first perfect person I've ever met. For example I have lied, cheated, stolen...Have you ever done these things? If you're not guilty of any sin, you don't have to worry about punishment. However, if you are guilty you are separated from God according to the Bible.

I think just looking at the world today shows us that people are evil. Reality matches up with the account the Bible gives anyway. I think we all know that our hearts are really evil and not pure.

 

No.. u have it backwards.

Humanity does not match up to the bible.
The bible is based on what humanity is like.

Cause it was WRITTEN BY MEN. Based on there astute understanding of humans.
Occam never said the bible was written by idiots.. far from it.
Ir was writen by humans who KNOW humans.

Thus it has worked so well over the last 1600 years.. gathering the unthinking.. Just as the koran has done...

while the rational...the free. wonder how humans can be so dim.

Occam

 

The point is that we are fallen, sinful men. We are guilty before God of moral crimes and no amount of good works we do is going to take away that guilt. But God has a means for a pardon. He offers us forgiveness through His Son Jesus Christ who died a substitutionary death in your place. He did this for everyone because he loves us. It's a free gift. It's your choice whether you want to experience pardon or not.

We are all guilty before God and deserving of punishment. The punishment for moral crimes is Hell. God loves us and offers us a way to be forgiven. It is up to us whether we want to be restored to a relationship with the God who created us or whether we want nothing to do with Him.

 

That is, if you are presuming that the Bible is not divinely inspired by God.

 

JLPMGHRS

Occm suggests jesus would agree with occams position..
Not yours..

When did jesus speak of hell?
When did jesus speak of punnishment.?

Occam

 

And u presume that a book .. athing made by men is the law of god..
yet there are millions of books.

How is the bible anything but another book?

Occam

 

Oh the bible is no longer the word of god.. but only devinely inspired.
Next it will be devinely influenced
And then 'has reference to devinity'

Not suprising considering some of the HORROR staments that can be lifted from the bible.. Your set of rules that is fair.
Justifications for acts that would have the perpetrators on death row quick smart... like child killing.



Occam

 

The LORD answered: Because they have abandoned my law, which I set before them, and have not followed it or listened to my voice, but followed rather the hardness of their hearts and the Baals, as their fathers had taught them; therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: See now, I will give them wormwood to eat and poison to drink. I will scatter them among nations whom neither they nor their fathers have known; I will send the sword to pursue them until I have completely destroyed them. (Jeremiah 9:12-15 NAB)

Thus speaks your god of love. Who accepts no law but his own.
And kills all who do not follow that law.

Sounds like J S Stalin.

 

Jesus talked more about the reality of Hell than he did about Heaven.

One example of this is found in Luke 16:19-31, the story of the rich man and Lazarus.

"Then He will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matt 25:41)

"The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”(Matt 13:41)

Also Matt 18:8-9

 

When a Christian says the Bible is divinely inspired they mean it is the Word of God, no less. God used men to write down exactly what He wanted to say.

 

Okay but without a worldwide conference with God to verify that claim, how can you be so certain (other than the whole "jesus changed my life" bit) that those men were accurately transcribing what God wanted?

 

Well, you know, that's an interesting question. The Catholic position on that is that the Bible is the product of the church, and Christ founded the church and promised that the gates of hell wouldn't prevail against it, and the church determined which books were inspired and which ones weren't (historically, this is what happened anyway, regardless of what you believe about whether the Bible was inspired or not.) The Protestant concept is basically the other way around. For Protestants the church is really the product of people sitting and reading the Bible, and coming to various conclusions about what it means, hence the umpteen zillion different denominations based on different interpretations.

The Protestant position is that the believer simply believes that this is the word of God, that it is an act of faith, and where the Bible actually came from or who put it together is basically irrelevant. Where the Bible came from or who decided what was inspired and what wasn't really is an issue of historical importance, not only theological.

 

Hello Shane,

If the Bible is indeed inspired by God, could He accomplish what He wanted to write, even through sinful men?