Abiogenesis, evolution and morality

Originally posted by sonship
We are not commanded to be able to fully comprehend. We are commanded to believe. God in Christ, a righteous God-man and undeserving of judgment, was accountable in a substitionary way to make atonement for us the truly guilty ones.

When were my Muslim neighbours "commanded" to believe? Are they "truly guilty ones"?

Originally posted by FMF
When were my Muslim neighbours "commanded" to believe? Are they "truly guilty ones"?

We are commanded to believe refers to believe the message of the Gospel.
When this may reach a person differs.

But all have sinned. If your Muslim neighbors did not think that they had sinned they probably would not bother being Muslims in the first place.

You want desperately to find logical fault with the New Testament.
My reaction is different. Rather than hunt for some logical fault with the gracious offer of the Son of God, I consider my conscience and His life and act for me, and His words of explanation.

I also consider His command I live through Him and that I tell others the good news.

As I read the letters of the Apostle Paul, even from the author of some 13 of the 27 NT books, I do not get the impression that there was absolutely nothing who could have still question.

So, I am like a man on a desert island who has been given some food and a menu. I read and I eat and I live. I could starve by not eating but only questioning every conceivable thing written in the menu.

I prefer to "Taste and see that the Lord is good."
You have your conscience and the Gospel. You react as you wish.

Originally posted by finnegan
Is there an absolute standard of right or wrong to which God can be held accountable?

Who would you propose to hold him accountable if he is the lawgiver?

Originally posted by sonship
We are commanded to believe refers to believe the message of the Gospel.
When this may reach a person differs.

But all have sinned. If your Muslim neighbors did not think that they had sinned they probably would not bother being Muslims in the first place.

You want desperately to find logical fault with the New Testament.
My reaction is differen ...[text shortened]... e that the Lord is good."
You have your conscience and the Gospel. You react as you wish.[/b]

Answers to my two simple questions would have been more interesting.

Originally posted by sonship
We are commanded to believe refers to believe the message of the Gospel.
When this may reach a person differs.

Are the people who have not been reached by the "command" you speak of, like my neighbours for example, tortured by incineration for eternity by your vengeful angry God figure according to your own understanding of "perfect justice" and "ultimate morality"?

Originally posted by FMF
Are the people who have not been reached by the "command" you speak of, like my neighbours for example, tortured by incineration for eternity by your vengeful angry God figure according to your own understanding of "perfect justice" and "ultimate morality"?

According to your belief system what is perfect justice and why?

Originally posted by sonship
We are commanded to believe refers to believe the message of the Gospel.
When this may reach a person differs.

But all have sinned. If your Muslim neighbors did not think that they had sinned they probably would not bother being Muslims in the first place.

You want desperately to find logical fault with the New Testament.
My reaction is differen ...[text shortened]... e that the Lord is good."
You have your conscience and the Gospel. You react as you wish.[/b]

You think it was a god who did the commanding. In actual fact it is men who do the commanding. If you don't believe that, have your god come down and do some commanding sometime. When that happens, you will have been proven to be right all along and we atheists will have to accept that in light of incontrovertible evidence. Till then. Good luck getting a god to respond.

That is the main thing you cannot do, get a god to respond. You only THINK that happens because you have been programmed that way by, guess what, other men.

A god would not need the kind of hierarchical system men have devised but people are so extremely gullible in spite of their vaunted intelligence, they swallow all of these religious overtures hook line and sinker in spite of having not a single word with a real deity.

For instance, how can anyone be so gullible as to really believe a god would kill innocent infants to get a pharaoh to 'let my people go'?

Or do you want to just ignore that part of your religion saying, we don't have to live by the OT, the NT is different, etc.? It is the same 'god' in the OT as the new, do you deny that?

If so, how can you not come to the conclusion all that was just fairy tales written by men?

Originally posted by sonhouse
You think it was a god who did the commanding. In actual fact it is men who do the commanding. If you don't believe that, have your god come down and do some commanding sometime. When that happens, you will have been proven to be right all along and we atheists will have to accept that in light of incontrovertible evidence. Till then. Good luck getting a go ...[text shortened]...

If so, how can you not come to the conclusion all that was just fairy tales written by men?

For instance, how can anyone be so gullible as to really believe a god would kill innocent infants to get a pharaoh to 'let my people go'?

From an atheistic point of view with no moral absolutes, why would it be wrong to kill an infant?

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
[b]For instance, how can anyone be so gullible as to really believe a god would kill innocent infants to get a pharaoh to 'let my people go'?

From an atheistic point of view with no moral absolutes, why would it be wrong to kill an infant?[/b]

Is the only thing stopping you from killing infants that you fear punishment from your deity?

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
According to your belief system what is perfect justice and why?

"Justice" is the determination of rights and the assignment of rewards and punishments. "Perfect" is simply an emotive or subjective word tacked on by people promoting an ideology or a particular point of view regarding the assignment of such rewards and punishments. sonship talks about the "perfect justice" of non-believers being tortured for eternity to try to distract from his morally incoherent gangster-like definition of supposed "justice".

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Is the only thing stopping you from killing infants that you fear punishment from your deity?

I believe in the sanctity of life, all life is precious. How about you?

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk

From an atheistic point of view with no moral absolutes, why would it be wrong to kill an infant?

1. Do you think it wrong to kill an infant?

2. If yes, is it wrong because god says so?

3. If god said killing infants would that then be a good thing?

Originally posted by wolfgang59
1. Do you think it wrong to kill an infant?

2. If yes, is it wrong because god says so?

3. If god said killing infants would that then be a good thing?

Why don't you answer my question first then I will answer yours.

Originally posted by sonship
God is a right One, a righteous One a greater than cannot exist.

Yet since we believe in the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, This One on our behalf was accountable to the highest righteousness, innocently, on our behalf. And He was God incarnate.

So in the mysterious triune nature of God, God submitted Himself to judgment and accountability, in ...[text shortened]... udgment, was accountable in a substitionary way to make atonement for us the truly guilty ones.

More to the point, we are not commanded to be moral, we are commanded to believe.

Whether Jesus himself or Abraham, to take two examples, that might include offering an only son as a human sacrifice.

People often ask what would happen if Jesus returned today. Well if his father took him to a mountain top and offered him up as a human sacrifice, I rather doubt that would be protected as the exercise of his sincerely held religious faith, which suggests a potential direct clash between human morality and faith and the law would probably, on balance, go with the morality aspect. Mind you, only a couple of fresh appointements to the Supreme Court of the USA might swing that decision the other way.

Originally posted by sonship
We are commanded to believe refers to believe the message of the Gospel.
When this may reach a person differs.

But all have sinned. If your Muslim neighbors did not think that they had sinned they probably would not bother being Muslims in the first place.

You want desperately to find logical fault with the New Testament.
My reaction is differen ...[text shortened]... e that the Lord is good."
You have your conscience and the Gospel. You react as you wish.[/b]

We are commanded to believe refers to believe the message of the Gospel.
When this may reach a person differs. But for most people the message arrives at birth when they are born into a Christian family.

But all have sinned. If your Muslim neighbors did not think that they had sinned they probably would not bother being Muslims in the first place. Like Christians born to Christian families, Jews born to Jewish families and Hindus born to Hindu families, most Muslims are born into Muslim families. Far from thinking they have sinned "in the first place" the notion of sin is introduced through their religion and is not, therefor, a reason for deciding to be born into a family that demands they accept the religion.

Of course where the sense of "sin" would be most evident would be when a Christian / Hindu / Jew / Muslim tells their families they wished to abandon their religion. That is when all hell breaks loose. As for the intense fever of anguish when my Irish Catholic sister announced she would marry an Irish Methodist and convert to his religion, it is seared into my memory. I might have understood marrying a Hindu (say) but a Protestant!!!

You have your conscience and the Gospel. You react as you wish. Which one might suggest a reasonable scenario in which to make a human sacrifice of your only son?