Subject:
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Re: God and the Devil and forgiveness (was Re: POV-RAY orange color)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 1 Sep 1999 13:46:03 GMT
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Viewed:
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1376 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek writes:
Simon
http://www.SimonRobinson.com
> I just don't want to share heaven with murderers and torturers, no
> matter if they decided they were sorry, really really sorry, or not. I'd
> rather share hell with the honest hardworking folk who won't go along
> with your god's little game. I reject your god. If I stipulate he exists
> for the sake of this discussion, he has no moral right to pass
> judgement. His morals are flawed. Mine are better. This life is what is
> important.
OK - I may dislike a lot of what Christians say but I'm with Jesse on this one.
The mistake I think you're making is to try to categorize people into 'good'
people
(the hardworking ones who haven't directly murdered anyone) and 'bad' people.
Look - I like to think of myself as a good person. I do my best to help others
around
me - I try to be polite and honest etc. to everyone. I try to be fair in my
trade
dealings and provide a good service to any 'customers' I havce.
Yet how many kids in Africa
have starved or died of diarroeah who wouldn't have if I'd given even half
that money I've
spent on plastic bricks to Oxfam instead? I *know* that yet even today I just
went
and blowed $40 on a Lego set because it was going cheap and it had some bricks
that would look good on the massive station I'm building. I'll bet there's tons
of kids who'd have wanted that set more than I did. Why am I building this big
station anyway? Probably
because *I* feel good building it. Why am I going to post the pictures of it
on the
web when I've finished it? Well I'll probably try to tell myself it's because
other people
would like to see it so it'd be kinda nice, but fundamentally it'll really be
to do with
*me* feeling good that other people can admire what I've built? Does that make
me
a nasty person? Well, not by any of our standards. Does anyone post
pictures on the web for any other reason? Is there even one of you reading
this who, no matter how nice you try to be, doesn't spend 99% of your time
doing
things because they make *you* feel good? To be honest if any of you claim
to be that person, then I probably won't believe you.
So let's get back to this God and heaven thing. For the time being let's put
aside
the arguments about whether God exists, and concentrate on the question that,
*IF*
God exists and is as Jesse, John N and others have described, is it fair for
you to
complain if he let's murderers into heaven...
Well we are (hopefully) all horrified at the thought of someone killing
someone else.
Let's look at it from this hypothetical God's point of view. This God is pure
love/selflessness/consideration for others. By his standards, this is probably
what it looks like. (G=God, U=us,M= a murderer)
<===GOOD BAD===>
G U M
Not only that but we come in, having spent 99% of our lives thinking about
ourselves,
and then we turn up in heaven, saying 'look at me. I'm good. I'm a lovely
person.
I've never deliberately hurt anyone. Well apart from those times in high
school but
they were ages ago. I should be here but that other guy shouldn't be...' etc.
etc.,
when by the standards of this God we've been
absolutely *awful*. So what is this God going to think?
> I reject the notion that we're all sinners. I'll never accept that. It
> can't be proven to my satisfaction. People are basically good, not evil.
> A newborn baby cannot possibly be a sinner, he has committed no acts of
> evil and he cannot be held responsible for the acts of his ancestors. So
> your god is wrong about that and evil for condemning that baby to
> purgatory.
Yeah - people are good by your standards, but the Christian argument would go
that that is only because your standards are so incredibly bad in absolute
terms.
Even though you think your standards are quite good because they are marginally
better than the standards of other people around you.
Get the point? Still say that a God as I've described him would have
no right to pass moral judgement?
I've made it clear in other posts that I've got a lot of doubts and
concerns about what Christians say in general, but in this case the Biblical
argument does make a lot of sense to me.
Now Jesse, what was that you were saying about this could start a whole new
thread...
Simon
http://www.SimonRobinson.com
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