How Do Christians Reconcile The Following Question Regarding Their Faith?

[InChrist]

You must be a fan of Andrea Yates, then.

Never heard of Andrea Yates.

 

[Buttercup]

It is one thing to be say you once believed as I do or claim you were once a Christian, but the fact is many claim to have been Christian who really never were. According to the scriptures a Christian is one who has been born again to new life in Christ. The old has passed away and the Christian is a new creation. So you may have gone to church, had a "Christian" family or adhered to certain beliefs for a time , but that does not mean you ever were a Christian because a new creation in Christ who has been born again with life from above cannot be ...unborn. So you may have the head knowledge of Christianity as a religion, but that is a far cry from knowing God personally by the Spirit.

I was absolutely a born again Christian. Also, it's not you who gets to discern who is and who isn't your definition of a Christian. That's quite presumptuous and disrespectful.

 

[InChrist]

I was absolutely a born again Christian. Also, it's not you who gets to discern who is and who isn't your definition of a Christian. That's quite presumptuous and disrespectful.

Okay, I can't stop you from claiming you were a Christian, but I don't believe you were because anyone who knows the living God could never turn away from Him. As Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." John 6:68

 

[Katzpur]

I don't mind long posts in the slightest. I always appreciate that someone takes the time out of their day or cares enough about the topic to spend a half hour typing their thoughts out. So, never any worries there, I'll read every word. My responses, on the other hand, tend to be brief. I'll hope you'll put up with that characteristic of mine. I don't enjoy communicating via text.

If you can deal with my long posts, I can deal with your short ones.

I had no idea until reading those two paragraphs how much Mormon doctrine is similar to reincarnation. How fascinating! I'm kind of interested in reading more just for the sake of edification.

Actually, I've heard it described as being similar to reincarnation by many people -- just none of them LDS. I honestly don't know all that much about reincarnation, so it may be more similar than I've always thought. I think the main thing to understand about Mormon theology in this regard is that we believe the human spirit is eternal. Yes, it was created by God, but the material from which He created it has always existed. So, the next point is that the spirit is the essence of life. It can exist within the confines of a physical body, but it does not need to. The thing is that the spirit itself never really changes. Its attributes are pretty much constant over time. We believe that each of us started our existence in spirit form, came into this world as mortal beings at birth, at which time the spirit that had previously been living in God's presence entered into the physical body giving it life. At death, the individual's brain functions cease and the physical part of us dies. The spirit, however does not die, but continues to exist as a fully cognizant entity at that point and resides in an intermediate realm -- neither Heaven nor Hell -- until the resurrection, when it re-enters a newly perfected and immortal body, never to leave it again. That new body, however, is still essentially the same in appearance as it was during mortality (in other words, I would be recognizable to people who knew me here). The body is different in that it is no longer subject to aging, disease, deformity or death. If I understand reincarnation correctly, someone can live one life as a worm, another as a frog, another as a chimpanzee (I threw that in there just for you) and another as a human. This would be impossible according to Mormon thought. I was "me," Katzpur, during my premortal existence (before I had a mortal body). I am "me," Katzpur, now, complete with my totally imperfect body and all. I will be "me," Katzpur, after my spirit leaves my body after my body stops working completely, and I will be "me," Katzpur when I have a new, immortal body where the very same spirit I possessed during my pre-mortal life will reside forever.

So, let me make sure I understand something before we go further. Are you saying that before this murdered child was born she was with the Father in heaven and chose this awful path for her brief life here?

Believe it or not, some Mormons would answer "yes" to that question. I would not. We have no official doctrine telling us just how much we knew beforehand. I have heard people say that some chose to endure horrible lives just for the opportunity to live at all. Oddly enough, , I've never heard anyone say that who didn't have a pretty great life himself. I have an LDS friend who grew up in an abusive, dysfunctional family, married a narcissistic, abusive husband, has battled cancer and has, in short, had one ****ty life. If you ever want to see this lady go ballistic, you'll tell her that she chose (or even agreed to) the life she has. I tend to agree with her. Who would choose such a life? I suspect that we looked at things, during our pre-mortal lives, pretty much the same way we do now. When told about any potential terrible things that might happen to us, we always tend to think, "No, that won't happen to me. It will happen to someone else instead. I'll take the gamble that my life will be pretty much perfect." Tell a teenager who gets in a sports car while high and drives down a winding road at 80 mph that he's going to be dead by the end of the night, and he's sure you're full of it. We have no doctrine as to how much we actually knew about our upcoming lives before we were born. We could possibly have known some of what we would experience, but my gut feel is that we were pretty much in the dark about what to expect -- at least in terms of our own personal experiences.

If so, why? Do you really think we need to experience such extreme pain to learn some sort of lesson? If so, what's the lesson in allowing yourself to be raped, murdered and chopped up?

No, I don't think that -- that we need to experience such extreme pain to learn a lesson, even though it sometimes works out that way. As you may or may not know, we believe that both God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, are corporeal beings with "flesh and bones." Now, I don't mean they are "mortal"; I mean they have a physical form that resembles that of a human. Their bodies are, however, perfect, immutable and incorruptible. When I said in my prior post that we wanted the opportunity to become like God, what I failed to mention was that we wanted to be more than merely spirit beings. We wanted to have a perfect, immortal body like He does. In order for that to ever happen, we had to first have a mortal body, a body that would potentially be subject to disease and injury and even to being raped, murdered and chopped up. For a baby who dies hours after its birth, the requirement that he obtain a body has been met. He can then move on to the next phase of his existence and will ultimately have a perfect body that can't be harmed in any way.

Let's come back to this later.

Sounds good to me. Before I sign off, though, I'm going to repost a couple of paragraphs from my last post. In those, I asked you some questions. They weren't hypothetical. I'm really interested in knowing your answers to them. I'll put them in red font this time around:

God placed them in a world where both good and evil existed. They would have to learn to discern between the two and make good choices, as each of us must do. If no one were permitted to make poor choices, how would any of us learn anything about evil? How is good even good if there is nothing with which to compare it? You ask why would God create someone who "rapes, murders and dismembers a child, all the while sitting back, watching and doing nothing about it." Have you asked yourself when, exactly, He should step in and stop this from happening? Should He prevent the evil before it happens? If so, how? By simply zapping the monster before he ever did anything monstrous? Or by zapping him immediately afterwards? If He were to miraculously keep the murderer from committing his crime, wouldn't people then be justified in saying, "What's up with God anyway? That man didn't do a thing, and God just struck him dead for no reason?" It's not as if the monster is ultimately going to get off Scot free. Justice will eventually be served.

Another thought... Are you suggesting that God not allow men to commit any evil at all, or would you just somehow restrict it to "less evil"? Where would He draw the line? Would it be okay for a parent to verbally abuse his kid? Could he get away with slapping his kid across the face? How about beating him up? How about torturing him? How about killing him? I'm assuming that you'd say that one of these things crosses the line between acceptable and unacceptable. Are you absolutely sure where that line should be drawn? We see this life as a mere spec on a timeline of our existence that's going to never, ever end. The trials we experience in mortality will be like a single drop of water in the ocean when we've moved on to the next part of our existence. Our existence is about becoming perfect, not as starting out that way.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Exactly. It's obvious God has the capacity to create a utopia where there is no murder, no starvation, no natural catastrophes. That's what Heaven is, right? So, why do we have to go through all this crap first? Why is he so mean? What's his motive? Creating humans with the heinous capacities we have and then tossing in free will as a get out of jail free card seems like a weak plotted horror story.

You raise some good questions! Actually, God did create a utopia, one where Adam and Eve, created perfect, could have lived forever! (Along with their offspring.) But Adam chose to disregard God's prohibitive command.

BTW, have you ever thought of the commands Adam and Eve were given? (I never did, until it was pointed out to me.)
They only had three: to procreate (Genesis 1:28), to cultivate the Garden (Genesis 2:15), and to not eat from one tree. So there was only one prohibitive command! The other two were fun to do, especially the one to procreate! So obedience wasn't difficult. (There were many other trees to eat from; God wasn't depriving them of anything.)

I will continue this later, but I've gotta get to sleep! Just read Genesis 3:1-6, and try to look for issues that were raised....one is about who was the liar, and another deals with who has the right to rule. When I come back, we can discuss these. Ok?

Take care!

 

[Katzpur]

You raise some good questions! Actually, God did create a utopia, one where Adam and Eve, created perfect, could have lived forever! (Along with their offspring.) But Adam chose to disregard God's prohibitive command.

BTW, have you ever thought of the commands Adam and Eve were given? (I never did, until it was pointed out to me.)
They only had three: to procreate (Genesis 1:28), to cultivate the Garden (Genesis 2:15), and to not eat from one tree. So there was only one prohibitive command! The other two were fun to do, especially the one to procreate! So obedience wasn't difficult. (There were many other trees to eat from; God wasn't depriving them of anything.)

I will continue this later, but I've gotta get to sleep! Just read Genesis 3:1-6, and try to look for issues that were raised....one is about who was the liar, and another deals with who has the right to rule. When I come back, we can discuss these. Ok?

Take care!

I'm glad you've joined the conversation, Hockeycowboy. I will be looking forward to comparing beliefs with you. You've told Buttercup what you believe about the Fall of Adam. I haven't done so yet, but will tomorrow. I've gotta get to sleep, too!

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Never heard of Andrea Yates.

Famous case: she drowned her four young children to make sure that they died while they could still be guaranteed to go to Heaven.

 

[buddhist]

I was a devoted Christian for a very long time, 25 years or more - a Trinity believing Protestant taught that our creator God is omniscient (all-knowing) omnipotent (all-powerful) and omnipresent (present everywhere at the same time). This creator designed and created men and women fully and completely all by 'himself'.

What I don't understand, is if this creator purposefully designed and unleashed upon the earth a creature capable of rape and murder, why isn't 'He' to blame for these atrocities? Why would you construct a being with the potential to do so much harm to his fellow humans? What was the motive?

If my son murdered a human and I supplied the gun knowing ahead of time he'd shoot someone, I'm held accountable for my part in the homicide. How much more so should God be held accountable for DESIGNING a creature that he KNOWS ahead of time (he's omniscient, remember) will murder a fellow human?

I agree.

I had been in orthodox Christianity for decades, with many of those years acting as a teacher within it as well. I left after realizing, in my perspective, that orthodox Christian theology actually presents a god who is limited, selfish, and immoral.

• Limited, because he could not exist on his own without creating a separate creation to fulfill his unfulfilled needs.
• Selfish, because he created creation and all of its inherent suffering, even while possessing foreknowledge of all the evils and deficiencies in his creation.
• Immoral, because, knowing the inherent evil and suffering his creation would produce, continued to create creation as prime mover, yet blames and punishes the creature for what he originated and foreknew.

 

[InChrist]

Famous case: she drowned her four young children to make sure that they died while they could still be guaranteed to go to Heaven.

Oh yes, I remember the case, but didn't remember the name. That woman, I believe will be held accountable for murder which violates not only God's direct written command, but I believe the moral standard regarding taking another life engraved on each person's conscience.

 

[Intojoy]

Adam was created holy with the ability to make a choice contrary to his nature.

The Angels too were created as holy sinless beings with the ability to choose contrary to their nature. However the Angels that sinned were confirmed in unholiness while the good Angels were confirmed in holiness and forever can not sin.

Man was given salvation post sinning unlike the fallen angels.

Like it or not, this is what scripture says.

 

[Intojoy]

Oh yes, I remember the case, but didn't remember the name. That woman, I believe will be held accountable for murder which violates not only God's direct written command, but I believe the moral standard regarding taking another life engraved on each person's conscience.

Some Christians claim that Christ put an end to capital punishment for murderers. Actually the Noahic Covenant provides the commandment to execute murderers.

While it would be wrong to carry out this punishment under the Mosaic law, it is fully required under Noahic law.

That woman should receive the death penalty.

 

[InChrist]

Some Christians claim that Christ put an end to capital punishment for murderers. Actually the Noahic Covenant provides the commandment to execute murderers.

While it would be wrong to carry out this punishment under the Mosaic law, it is fully required under Noahic law.

That woman should receive the death penalty.

I don't claim that Christ put an end to the capital punishment and think murders should receive the death penalty.
http://www.gotquestions.org/death-penalty.html

 

[Sunstone]

Okay, I can't stop you from claiming you were a Christian, but I don't believe you were because anyone who knows the living God could never turn away from Him. As Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." John 6:68

The fact you are perfectly willing to tell people you don't even know whether or not they were a Christian speaks volumes.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Oh yes, I remember the case, but didn't remember the name. That woman, I believe will be held accountable for murder which violates not only God's direct written command, but I believe the moral standard regarding taking another life engraved on each person's conscience.

But why would what she did be immoral?

I understand that you think that she violated God's command, and probably that she will be punished for it, but if she guaranteed that her children would end up in Heaven and not Hell, isn't what she did the most selfless act imaginable?

 

[Windwalker]

Adam was created holy with the ability to make a choice contrary to his nature.

These are easy things to say, until you think about them logically. If someone's nature is holy why would they ever act contrary to that nature? Why would they make a choice to do something that fulfils no need or desire within them? That makes zero sense. The only way they would act contrary to their nature would be if there was a flaw in them, a pathology.

Since Adam in the mythology is making choices that are contrary to some supposed external law imposed upon him, he most obviously has a desire, a need to fulfill in making that choice. That need had to be there. Plus the fact he had to be told "Don't do this", shows it was not his nature. You don't make choices to do something unless it fulfills a need. You do not just arbitrarily make choices to violate your own instincts for no reason. You're not going to be sitting pleasantly at a meal with your family, happily recounting your day, smile at everyone and then set off a bomb in the room unless there is something radically wrong with you. To make a choice like that, one that runs contrary to your nature as a loving human being, shows a problem with you.

Adam therefore must have had a problem. He would have had a mental illness. He must have been created with errors in his design for that to happen. Either that, or he was not created "holy".

 

[prometheus11]

You raise some good questions! Actually, God did create a utopia, one where Adam and Eve, created perfect, could have lived forever! (Along with their offspring.) But Adam chose to disregard God's prohibitive command.

BTW, have you ever thought of the commands Adam and Eve were given? (I never did, until it was pointed out to me.)
They only had three: to procreate (Genesis 1:28), to cultivate the Garden (Genesis 2:15), and to not eat from one tree. So there was only one prohibitive command! The other two were fun to do, especially the one to procreate! So obedience wasn't difficult. (There were many other trees to eat from; God wasn't depriving them of anything.)

I will continue this later, but I've gotta get to sleep! Just read Genesis 3:1-6, and try to look for issues that were raised....one is about who was the liar, and another deals with who has the right to rule. When I come back, we can discuss these. Ok?

Take care!

Before eating of the tree of the KNOWLEDGE of good and evil, how would Adam know it was evil to disobey God and good to obey God?

 

[Forgemaster]

It is one thing to be say you once believed as I do or claim you were once a Christian, but the fact is many claim to have been Christian who really never were. According to the scriptures a Christian is one who has been born again to new life in Christ. The old has passed away and the Christian is a new creation. So you may have gone to church, had a "Christian" family or adhered to certain beliefs for a time , but that does not mean you ever were a Christian because a new creation in Christ who has been born again with life from above cannot be ...unborn. So you may have the head knowledge of Christianity as a religion, but that is a far cry from knowing God personally by the Spirit.

I was also a Christian, truly born again. But as I got further and further in I began to see that if your God exists then I want nothing to do with him. As stated before, he's selfish, cruel, and I find him to be rather petty. So you can't say I didn't know God, I did my best to do what was pleasing to him, yet here I am, a heretic, and loving every minute

Okay, I can't stop you from claiming you were a Christian, but I don't believe you were because anyone who knows the living God could never turn away from Him. As Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." John 6:68

And yet here we are, you follow aimlessly and without question but that's what I saw. There's so much about "the living God" that is so wrong, why differentiate between God and Satan at all? They seem to have similar traits.

 

[Katzpur]

I agree.

I had been in orthodox Christianity for decades, with many of those years acting as a teacher within it as well. I left after realizing, in my perspective, that orthodox Christian theology actually presents a god who is limited, selfish, and immoral.

• Limited, because he could not exist on his own without creating a separate creation to fulfill his unfulfilled needs.
• Selfish, because he created creation and all of its inherent suffering, even while possessing foreknowledge of all the evils and deficiencies in his creation.
• Immoral, because, knowing the inherent evil and suffering his creation would produce, continued to create creation as prime mover, yet blames and punishes the creature for what he originated and foreknew.

That sounds like orthodox Christianity, all right.

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

You should understand my answer if you are born again.

Satan lied to Eve when he said "you shall be like God knowing good and evil."

But Satan isn't in that story. The NT authors who claimed this either have non-canon stories referenced or are lying.

Adam did not become like God, he did not know good but he did know evil and this is why he covered himself and hid himself.

The only thing A&E did was learn how to make stuff up.

The central determining question is and always will be, is the bible at he word of God? Or is it just another book written by men?

Selah

God told me humans wrote it. It's verifiable because all the books are attributed to human authors. Is God lying to me?

But why would the standards that He gave us then apply to Him?
Do the rules and standards we give our pets apply to us?

We taught our dogs to have respect (with arguable results, LOL), be kind to smaller dogs (especially puppies), take turns, etc. We raised them with (simplified) morals we would have taught kids had we had any. It's worked out rather well so far. I expect us to have similar morals as an entire family. It's amazing just how much we have in common despite being different species.

Exactly. It's obvious God has the capacity to create a utopia where there is no murder, no starvation, no natural catastrophes. That's what Heaven is, right? So, why do we have to go through all this crap first? Why is he so mean? What's his motive? Creating humans with the heinous capacities we have and then tossing in free will as a get out of jail free card seems like a weak plotted horror story.

Well, He DID make a heaven that can supposedly host a rebellion by a greedy archangel or whatever. If Paradise can't keep it's stuff together, why assume Earth can?

Genesis and Revelations are... a chore. I'd rather not have to go digging through them. But Revelations 12:9 and 20 should be able to start you off.

Is there evidence in Genesis the author of Revelations is correct?

Never heard of Andrea Yates.

Imagine if Abraham were a woman and successful in child-icide.

Okay, I can't stop you from claiming you were a Christian, but I don't believe you were because anyone who knows the living God could never turn away from Him. As Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." John 6:68

But that's between her and God. God could've gone all Book of Job on her and it ticked her off.

BTW, have you ever thought of the commands Adam and Eve were given? (I never did, until it was pointed out to me.)
They only had three: to procreate (Genesis 1:28), to cultivate the Garden (Genesis 2:15), and to not eat from one tree. So there was only one prohibitive command! The other two were fun to do, especially the one to procreate! So obedience wasn't difficult. (There were many other trees to eat from; God wasn't depriving them of anything.)

I will continue this later, but I've gotta get to sleep! Just read Genesis 3:1-6, and try to look for issues that were raised....one is about who was the liar, and another deals with who has the right to rule. When I come back, we can discuss these. Ok?

Take care!

Technically, Eve is created AFTER the rule was given not to eat from the tree.

Adam was created holy with the ability to make a choice contrary to his nature.

The Angels too were created as holy sinless beings with the ability to choose contrary to their nature. However the Angels that sinned were confirmed in unholiness while the good Angels were confirmed in holiness and forever can not sin.

Man was given salvation post sinning unlike the fallen angels.

Like it or not, this is what scripture says.

So God is competent to provide salvation for humans but is incompetent to sign off on angels?

 

[Hockeycowboy]

Before eating of the tree of the KNOWLEDGE of good and evil, how would Adam know it was evil to disobey God and good to obey God?

If I may ask you a question: growing up, how do you know it was wrong of you to disobey your Mom and Dad? (As an example Were you told that, if you touched your Dad's prized model airplane, you'd get in trouble? There were many other models he had, and you could play with them; but that one, you couldn't touch.

Would it be wrong of him to 'lay that law' down? No....as your Dad, he was the authority figure. He had the right to tell you what you could and couldn't do. You needed to recognize that.

Now, your parents would spank you for 'breaking the law.' God's punishment was more severe! Why?

I'll get into that later. Life beckons!

Take care.