Have you ever forgiven someone? If so, who needs God to forgive a second time?

[French Patriot]

I think you misunderstand the theological meaning of the terminology you're using. A sin in this context is the transgression of the divine will or any rule or law held to embody or express some part of it, hence god is the ONLY being who can forgive it. Other people forgiving you your sins might smooth the path in this life, but in the larger scheme of most monotheistic religious traditions it doesn't count for much.

To know God's will, he has to be around to explain his wishes or will.
Are we to just guess after his long R & R?

Scriptures say that his justice is close to an eye for an eye, when he is not having people stone for slight infractions that is, so if he punishes someone I have forgiven, then he is not living by the rules we know of and if he does not come to correct then he is not worthy of being called a God.

Regards
DL

 

[Sal]

"my current understanding of evil is that it is merely an absence of God"

Um, I guess all us atheists are evil then.

Not true you evil....oops, Freudian slip.......lol... no I would not say that, just because you do not believe in a higher power does not remove him from your being. If he is everything good, he is present in your goodness regardless of belief and frankly I don't think he cares whether we believe in him or not.

 

[French Patriot]

I don't take the bible literally. I do not believe in Satan as an incarnate being, at least at this point I don't think so anyway. My beliefs are something which evolve as I go according to my experience. I examine, accept, discard, re-examine.
I'm not sure that he did.
It's the need to explain, that would not be my explanation nor my understanding.

I would say there likely was no evil at the beginning but things evolve... my current understanding of evil is that it is merely an absence of God, an absence of light...we however have consciousness and we act...thus we may perform evil deeds...

You have to read the bible literally to some point if you are going to try to believe in Jesus and the God it is trying to sell.

I would say that we must perform evil to survive and since you might be a softer Christian, if I can use that phrase, let me explode on you a bit before heading for bed. More for your information than to throw us off topic. Remember as well that I am a religionist like yourself and not an atheist. I just have a better God.

It was God's plan from thebeginning to have Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit. This can bedemonstrated by the fact that the bible says that Jesus "was crucifiedfrom the foundations of the Earth," that is to say, God planned to crucifyJesus as atonement for sin before he even created human beings or God damnedsin.

1Peter 1:20 0 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but wasrevealed in these last times for your sake.

This indicates that Jesus had no choice.

If God had not intended humans to sin from the beginning, why did he build intothe Creation this "solution" for sin? Why create a solution for aproblem you do not anticipate?

God knew that the moment he said "don't eat from that tree," the diewas cast. The eating was inevitable. Eve was merely following the plan.

This then begs the question.

What kind of God would plan and execute the murder of his own son when therewas absolutely no need to?

Only an insane God. That’s who.

The cornerstone of Christianity is human sacrifice, thus showing it‘s immorality.

One of Christianity's highest form of immorality is what they have doneto women.

They have denied them equality and subjugated them to men.

hhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqN8EYIIR3g&feature=relatedttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqN8EYIIR3g&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dspWh9g3hU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c0RFxXrYzg&feature=related

------------------------


Christians are always trying to absolve God of moral culpability in thefall by whipping out their favorite "free will!", or “ it’s all man’s fault”.

That is "God gave us free will and it was our free willed choices thatcaused our fall. Hence God is not blameworthy."

But this simply avoids God's culpability as the author of Human Nature. Free willis only the ability to choose. It is not an explanation why anyone would wantto choose "A" or "B" (bad or good action). An explanationfor why Eve would even have the nature of "being vulnerable to beingeasily swayed by a serpent" and "desiring to eat a forbiddenfruit" must lie in the nature God gave Eve in the first place. HenceGod is culpable for deliberately making humans with a nature-inclined-to-fall,and "free will" means nothing as a response to this problem.

If all sin by nature then, the sin nature is dominant. If not, we wouldhave at least some who would not sin.

Having said the above for the God that I do not believe in, I am aGnostic Christian naturalist, let me tell you that evil is all human generated.Evil is our responsibility.

Much has been written to explainwhat I see as a natural part of evolution.

Consider.

First, let us eliminate what some see as evil. Natural disasters. Theseare unthinking occurrences and are neither good nor evil. There is no intent todo evil even as victims are created.

Evil then is only human to human.

As evolving creatures, all we ever do, and ever can do, is compete orcooperate.

Cooperation we would see as good as there are no victims created.Competition would be seen as evil as it creates a victim. We all are eithercooperating, doing good, or competing, doing evil at all times.

Without us doing some of both, we would likely go extinct.

This, to me, explains why there is evil in the world quite well.

Be you a believer in nature, evolution or God, we should all see thatwhat Christians see as something to blame, evil, we should see that what wehave, competition, deserves a huge thanks for being available to us.

There is no conflict between nature and God on this issue. This is howthings are and should be. We all must do what some will think is evil as wecompete and create losers to this competition.

Regards
DL



----------------------------



Theistic evolution.

http://www.youtube.com/user/ProfMTH#g/c/6F8036F680C1DBEB

 

[L Gilbert]

Not true you evil....oops, Freudian slip.......lol... no I would not say that, just because you do not believe in a higher power does not remove him from your being. If he is everything good, he is present in your goodness regardless of belief and frankly I don't think he cares whether we believe in him or not.

lol Actually I can accept that I am evil. The term is pretty meaningless in my books.
My position is that gods n goblins are simply imaginary beings that people invented whenever they found something they couldn't figure out. So gods have popped up and died as we evolved. All I see the monotheistic gods being are simply the results of a rather silly pissing match between religious people a la "my god's bigger and better than your god, so there".
Wifey thinks that even if there are such things that have other than a imaginary essence, they are irrelevant because we cannot understand them and by all appearances, none of them seem to give a crap about one little race on one dinky little planet.

 

[Sal]

lol Actually I can accept that I am evil. The term is pretty meaningless in my books.
My position is that gods n goblins are simply imaginary beings that people invented whenever they found something they couldn't figure out. So gods have popped up and died as we evolved. All I see the monotheistic gods being are simply the results of a rather silly pissing match between religious people a la "my god's bigger and better than your god, so there".
Wifey thinks that even if there are such things that have other than a imaginary essence, they are irrelevant because we cannot understand them and by all appearances, none of them seem to give a crap about one little race on one dinky little planet.

yeah I can respect that... my god is not much like what I was taught to believe...

French Patriot, there is a lot there and I have to be up early...will get back to you tomorrow on this...

night all

 

[Cliffy]

We forgive others, not to let them off the hook, but let ourselves off the hook of grudges and animosity. We are the only ones who suffer from holding grudges.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

To know God's will, he has to be around to explain his wishes or will.

Agreed, and there are those who would say he's given us a book with all the necessary specifications. Unfortunately there are others with different books who say the same thing, and the books are not consistent or compatible.

...he is not living by the rules we know of and if he does not come to correct then he is not worthy of being called a God.

Again, agreed. Theodicy, or the problem of evil, is one issue that no religion has ever provided a satisfactory explanation for. Whoever wrote the story of Job certainly gave it a try, but ultimately failed, in my view. It ends with god saying, in essence, that he doesn't have to explain anything to us, he's god, he can do whatever he wants and we just have to deal with it. The murder of 20 children at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut provides a case in point. Either god was powerless to prevent it, in which case he's not quite as advertised, or he could have prevented it but didn't, which makes him evil. The only way out of that that I can see is to postulate that the event has some mysterious purpose in the Grand Plan it's not given to us to understand. To my way of thinking, taking that line means abandoning any claim to being a morally good human being. If that event is in any way not unreservedly a bad thing, then we cannot really know what it means for something to be good or bad, our values are random and meaningless.

Taking the atheist position resolves it all: good and bad become purely human values, not something handed down from a deity, they're the products of our hard won increments of knowledge and contemplation, which to me seems obviously true. It's clear from Christian scripture, for instance, that we're expected to own slaves, the OT provides rules about how to treat them and nowhere in the NT is there any criticism of the institution of slavery, yet no civilized nation allows it. There could hardly be a clearer indication that our values are ours, not some deity's.

 

[damngrumpy]

I am amazed the year is barely two days old and already the launch of troll season has
begun. As for forgiveness each person decides their own level of acceptance or the
forgiveness of others. Really if you cant forgive yourself you can't forgive others either.
Retired Canadian Soldier, I too have a lot of Irish in me, and a lot of Highland Scott as
well and memories are long and grudges can be even longer. Forgiveness is in short
supply around the globe.
There is a saying in the Middle East for example it goes something like this

"sit quietly by the river, if you wait long enough the bodies of your enemies will float by"

How forgiving is that.

 

[French Patriot]

We forgive others, not to let them off the hook, but let ourselves off the hook of grudges and animosity. We are the only ones who suffer from holding grudges.

Part of the pleasure of forgiving is the fact that you are telling the other that he can get off the hook so I cannot agree with your view.
It is self-serving without serving or thinking of the community at large.

If we are to love each other, then that is expressed by what we do9 for the benefit of each other and not just the self.

Regards
DL

 

[petros]

Te perdono loro frances.

Respecto
Pedro

 

[French Patriot]

Taking the atheist position resolves it all: good and bad become purely human values, not something handed down from a deity, they're the products of our hard won increments of knowledge and contemplation, which to me seems obviously true..

I snipped for brevity but thanks for the good reply.

I gave Sal a longish post above that speaks about Theistic evolution and from that POV, even though that link has been altered, agrees in most part to how we both think. Quite rare for me to get help instead of hindrance from religion.

Here is the working link if you are interested.

O Necessary Sin of Adam (Does Christian Theology Need Adam & Eve?) - YouTube

Regards
DL

I am amazed the year is barely two days old and already the launch of troll season has
begun. As for forgiveness each person decides their own level of acceptance or the
forgiveness of others. Really if you cant forgive yourself you can't forgive others either.
Retired Canadian Soldier, I too have a lot of Irish in me, and a lot of Highland Scott as
well and memories are long and grudges can be even longer. Forgiveness is in short
supply around the globe.
There is a saying in the Middle East for example it goes something like this

"sit quietly by the river, if you wait long enough the bodies of your enemies will float by"

How forgiving is that.

The less you forgive, the more psychological harm you do to yourself so I hope your level of acceptance is quite expansive.

Thanks for the insult as well as your reply. I forgive you.

Regards
DL

 

[Sal]

You have to read the bible literally to some point if you are going to try to believe in Jesus and the God it is trying to sell.

Perhaps, but I am not trying to believe in Jesus and the God that the bible is trying to sell. I am not trying to believe in anything. I have never questioned the existence of God, because I have not been moved to do so. From the time I was quite small however, I believe it was when I was 8, I began to examine the nature of God as I was told by my Catholic School and church and the nature of God as what I actually experienced.

I would say that we must perform evil to survive and since you might be a softer Christian,

I would no longer term myself a Christian or really anything for that matter. But I am not offended when labelled that by some. I do not believe we have to perform evil to survive unless by that you would term my action evil if I were to defend myself and kill someone in the process. I would not term that as evil.

if I can use that phrase, let me explode on you a bit before heading for bed. More for your information than to throw us off topic. Remember as well that I am a religionist like yourself and not an atheist. I just have a better God.

It was God's plan from thebeginning to have Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit. This can bedemonstrated by the fact that the bible says that Jesus "was crucifiedfrom the foundations of the Earth," that is to say, God planned to crucifyJesus as atonement for sin before he even created human beings or God damnedsin.

1Peter 1:20 0 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but wasrevealed in these last times for your sake.

This indicates that Jesus had no choice.

If God had not intended humans to sin from the beginning, why did he build intothe Creation this "solution" for sin? Why create a solution for aproblem you do not anticipate?

God knew that the moment he said "don't eat from that tree," the diewas cast. The eating was inevitable. Eve was merely following the plan.

This then begs the question.

What kind of God would plan and execute the murder of his own son when therewas absolutely no need to?

Only an insane God. That’s who.

I do not believe any of that. I do not deny its possibility I do question its probability.

The cornerstone of Christianity is human sacrifice, thus showing it‘s immorality.

I am not so sure that this is true FP.

One of Christianity's highest form of immorality is what they have doneto women.

Yes it was culturally influenced when it evolved.

They have denied them equality and subjugated them to men.

True enough, but as we evolve women are taking back their power. As the world shrinks, women from different belief systems come together to work for equality. The bible is of course going to have cultural influence and a certain mindset due to the time in which it was written. Because women are physically weaker this was inevitable. As physicality for survival becomes less and less, women's power increases.

------------------------

Christians are always trying to absolve God of moral culpability in thefall by whipping out their favorite "free will!", or “ it’s all man’s fault”.

That is "God gave us free will and it was our free willed choices thatcaused our fall. Hence God is not blameworthy."

But this simply avoids God's culpability as the author of Human Nature. Free willis only the ability to choose. It is not an explanation why anyone would wantto choose "A" or "B" (bad or good action). An explanationfor why Eve would even have the nature of "being vulnerable to beingeasily swayed by a serpent" and "desiring to eat a forbiddenfruit" must lie in the nature God gave Eve in the first place. HenceGod is culpable for deliberately making humans with a nature-inclined-to-fall,and "free will" means nothing as a response to this problem.

If all sin by nature then, the sin nature is dominant. If not, we wouldhave at least some who would not sin.

Sin is a relative term. I do not necessarily view wrong-doing as sinful. I regard it as less evolved. When people know better, they do better.

Having said the above for the God that I do not believe in, I am aGnostic Christian naturalist, let me tell you that evil is all human generated.Evil is our responsibility.   Much has been written to explainwhat I see as a natural part of evolution.

Interesting.

Consider. First, let us eliminate what some see as evil. Natural disasters. Theseare unthinking occurrences and are neither good nor evil. There is no intent todo evil even as victims are created.

Agree

Evil then is only human to human.

Okay I will go with this for the sake of following where you are going.

As evolving creatures, all we ever do, and ever can do, is compete orcooperate.

Yes

Cooperation we would see as good as there are no victims created.Competition would be seen as evil as it creates a victim. We all are eithercooperating, doing good, or competing, doing evil at all times. Without us doing some of both, we would likely go extinct. This, to me, explains why there is evil in the world quite well.

Sure, not a bad way to look at it.

Be you a believer in nature, evolution or God, we should all see thatwhat Christians see as something to blame, evil, we should see that what wehave, competition, deserves a huge thanks for being available to us. There is no conflict between nature and God on this issue. This is howthings are and should be. We all must do what some will think is evil as wecompete and create losers to this competition.

But competition is a choice especially when there is an abundance. All could be shared all of the time. But I do not use the term evil with regard to survival, it just merely is.

We forgive others, not to let them off the hook, but let ourselves off the hook of grudges and animosity. We are the only ones who suffer from holding grudges.

I agree, it is psychologically healthier to forgive and move forward! ♦

Sorry Cliffy, the Warren Buffet is in my signature...don't know why it isn't properly placing it

 

[French Patriot]

Sal

" But competition is a choice especially when there is an abundance. All could be shared all of the time."

Abundance would allow us tocooperate instead of competing for sure but that is not the case. That iswishful thinking and not a good position from which to form a good theology. Agood theology covers both the times of abundance and the times where there isshortage.

--------------------

"Sin is a relative term. I do not necessarily view wrong-doing as sinful."

I agree with the first partof your sentence. That is why our human courts ask for pre-sentencingreports.

Could I have an example ortwo of where wrong-doing is not sinful so I can see if I agree with you onthis?

-------------------------

I found your statement ofwhen you were 8 interesting. It reminded me of this clip that speaks of children.
Many think that any religious education of the young is abuse and basically indoctrinating them into the belief of lies, fantasy, miracles and magic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSnyC1glMBA

Regards
DL

 

[Sal]

Sal
Abundance would allow us tocooperate instead of competing for sure but that is not the case. That iswishful thinking and not a good position from which to form a good theology. Agood theology covers both the times of abundance and the times where there isshortage.

FP, sharing is not just wishful thinking, there are many society's which share their abundance and not just in the human kingdom. It is a reality not a fantasy.

As for good theology, (good is a relative term here) it is composed of a myriad of facets not merely one aspect; sharing is just one aspect

I agree with the first partof your sentence. That is why our human courts ask for pre-sentencingreports.

Could I have an example ortwo of where wrong-doing is not sinful so I can see if I agree with you onthis?

I do not think in terms of sin FP. Wrongdoing would be anything which harms another. I like the expression, do as you will, but harm no one. Anything which we choose to do which hurts another also hurts us because the energy put forth draws like energy back to us. So when we harm another in anyway we have harmed our own being. Christians believe this, most religions believe this. I have found this to be true. Some would call that sin, I just think of it as an error in judgement done either with a purpose to harm or out of ignorance.

When humans are harmed deeply at a young age, (damaged) it can skew their thinking and they continue the cycle of harm and hurt to both themselves and others. Some believe that by increasing the hurt done to them (punishing them) that they can alter that person's bad path. Sometimes that is true, other times it just eescalates that bad behavior.

-------------------------

I found your statement ofwhen you were 8 interesting. It reminded me of this clip that speaks of children.
Many think that any religious education of the young is abuse and basically indoctrinating them into the belief of lies, fantasy, miracles and magic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSnyC1glMBA

Regards
DL

Unfortunately this video won't play for me so I can't comment on it.






[/QUOTE]

 

[talloola]

I find it very easy to forgive people I love and care about very much, and those who are not in that
catagorie, who cares, I just move on. if they figure out they need to be forgiven, they can contact
me, I will easily forgive, as it doesn't mean that much to me with others.

When deciding to forgive, one must dig very deep to figure out how much forgiveness 'they' need to
have for you.

Sometimes as time goes by the incident becomes very clear, and it becomes a 50/50 situation, and
a heart to heart chat will clear everything.

I don't need anyone else to be part of the situation, no one else's business but ours.
I don't mix up any gods with my life, don't believe in such things.

 

[French Patriot]

Sal

Thanks for this.

Regards
DL

 

[Sal]

Thanks FP for the discussion ♦

 

[French Patriot]

I find it very easy to forgive people I love and care about very much, and those who are not in that
catagorie, who cares, I just move on. if they figure out they need to be forgiven, they can contact
me, I will easily forgive, as it doesn't mean that much to me with others.

.

I see your view working well for smaller hurts or sins or even crimes.

What if your child were raped or murdered though. Would you be so quick to forgive?

Regards
DL

 

[talloola]

I see your view working well for smaller hurts or sins or even crimes.

What if your child were raped or murdered though. Would you be so quick to forgive?

Regards
DL

yes, you are talking about big crimes and violence against others, and of course there would be
no forgiveness in that case, but also I would not spend my life in a turmoil because I won't forgive
such people who have done horrendous crimes, as rape or murder, I wouldn't humiliate myself by forgiving
such a person, and I also wouldn't be spending any time talking to any ficticious god, might as well
talk to a stuffed animal.
I will find my balance again in life, I have it within me to do so, along with my loved ones.

 

[French Patriot]

yes, you are talking about big crimes and violence against others, and of course there would be
no forgiveness in that case, but also I would not spend my life in a turmoil because I won't forgive
such people who have done horrendous crimes, as rape or murder, I wouldn't humiliate myself by forgiving
such a person, and I also wouldn't be spending any time talking to any ficticious god, might as well
talk to a stuffed animal.
I will find my balance again in life, I have it within me to do so, along with my loved ones.

I have no problem with your religious or non-religious views.

I do just a bit on your view of forgiveness.

I had to forgive the man who murdered my sister.
I found no humiliation in doing so.

We are all products of our environment and all contribute to what we all are. No one lives in a vacuum.
To not forgive means that I would have to hold a grudge against all who contributed to making that man a murderer and even against my own sister for putting herself near him. To forgive him is to forgive many.

Regards
DL