₦airaland Forum

Dtruthspeaker:
Do humans not possess love, justice, wisdom and power? Yes!
In terms of degreeness, do humans have the same degrees of love, justice, wisdom, and power? No some people are stronger, wiser and love more than others, yet, everyone deals with each other properly/improperly.

So, this means that the degree of these things are not relevant. What is important is that we have them and we are held responsible/liable for how we use them, which is the Standard.

And what is the standard? The standard is that
1) There are some things that can be forgiven and some that can never be forgiven. And we all know them.

2) Forgiveness is exercisable at the discretion of the offended, hence why it is at your right and discretion to forgive your wife for cheating or fire your driver for running away with your car to sell it. Or exactly how politicians forgive bandits but punish a poor driver who had an accident that killed famous people.

And then God telling you to forgive others, do you not see that it is for your own benefit? If you do not forgive your neighbour, how does it affect Him?i God is not begging you oo.

At this point, it feels like you're not really engaging with the argument being made.

The original question was why an all-loving and perfectly just God could not simply forgive Adam and Eve rather than allowing generations of suffering. Instead of addressing that, you've repeatedly shifted the discussion, from free will, to the curse, to animals being property, to God being above moral commands, and now to whether humans also possess love, wisdom, and justice.

That's why it comes across as ill-prepared and somewhat bad faith. Each time a difficulty is raised with one explanation, the conversation moves to a different explanation rather than resolving the previous one.

If your position is that God can do whatever He wants because He is God, then just say that. But if you're arguing that God's actions are morally justified, then the moral questions being raised need to be answered directly rather than sidestepped.

Dtruthspeaker:
A lot of people think and claim that they are perfect in their minds and every one understands that love is reciprocal, just is, is about delivery that which is accurately due to another, wisdom is about the logical processing and use of information and powerful is about the ability to act on a matter. And all these are present with you in those cases, so you are no different.

And yes, he said forgive 70 times 7 of which you yourself get that the lesson there is about correcting your unforgiving heart where which if someone even mistakenly steps on your feet, you people must revenge your own. And that Law is for us, for as you see, He is above it . So, you have not said anything valid (Besides this is Off Point)

Ps:
When you say your girlfriend is a cheat or when you fire your driver, you have condemned them. If you were a baron you would have put them in your own prison

You're missing the distinction I'm making.

I'm not claiming humans possess love, justice, wisdom, and power in the same sense or degree as God. The question is whether God is the perfect standard of those qualities. If He is, then appealing to imperfect human behavior doesn't explain or justify divine behavior.

As for the girlfriend and driver examples, ending a relationship or employment is not the same as condemning billions of descendants to suffer the consequences of that person's actions. The scale and nature of the consequences are completely different.

And when you say God is "above" the command to forgive, that raises another question: if forgiveness is a moral good that God commands humans to practice, why would the being who defines morality be exempt from it? Shouldn't the highest moral standard exemplify the virtues it teaches rather than be excluded from them?

sonmvayina:
Constantine wanted a single religion for his empire. He knew that religion was what brought people together and people rarely fight during religious ceremonies. He invited all the religious leaders to Nicaea to fashion out a religion for his empire. They could either choose between Christianity or Mithrasm. They voted to go with Christianity. They spent the next days formulating it's creed. Simple.
Before them each society has its own codes that govern their society.
The Christians had to invent the ide of original skin and then then proceeded to create a solution for it...then Catholicism was born.
What was obtainable in the Jewish society was that sin was regarded as a personal thing. Your life was completely your responsibility. If you break any of the laws there are set down modalities for admitting you back into their society. Even in African society it was so...

I see where you are coming from but frankly there are a few very huge historical problems with your account.

First of all Christianity existed for nearly three centuries before Constantine, and core ideas such as sin, salvation, Jesus' death and resurrection, and the significance of Adam are already found in the New Testament, especially in Paul's letters, which were written long before the Council of Nicaea.

Secondly Nicaea did not invent Christianity or original sin. Its primary purpose was to address the Arian controversy and clarify Christ's relationship to God the Father.

That said, you're right that later Christian theology developed concepts in ways that differed from earlier Jewish thought. Judaism generally emphasized personal responsibility, as seen in Ezekiel 18, whereas some Christian traditions developed stronger doctrines of inherited sin.

So the more interesting question isn't whether Constantine invented these ideas historically, he didn't, but whether the Christian interpretation of Adam and inherited sin is a faithful development of earlier Jewish beliefs or a departure from them.

Truthseeker10:
Do You mean that animals started "suffering" as a consequence of human action?

According to the biblical explanation you're presenting, yes. The claim is that animal suffering is a consequence of the curse that followed human disobedience.

My question is whether that is just. If animals suffer because of human actions, then creatures incapable of moral choice are bearing the consequences of decisions they never made. Why should a just system work that way?

This is quite misleading as all parties are allowed to filled in their election observers with inec

Dreal1247:
More often than none, the real government is shrouded in secrecy. When people begin to spill the real reasons behind some resignations, protests may become the order of the day. Most world leaders have an oath of secrecy which they are duty bound to follow. There are still individuals who appear bigger than some governments those interests must be protected.

Perhaps. But if secret forces are behind Starmer's reported resignation, were they also behind the last five UK Prime Ministers who left office?

• Liz Truss: resigned after the fallout from her mini-budget triggered market turmoil and a collapse in political support.

• Boris Johnson: resigned following a series of scandals and a mass resignation of ministers from his government.

• Theresa May: stepped down after repeatedly failing to get her Brexit deal through Parliament.

• David Cameron: resigned after losing the Brexit referendum he had called.

• Gordon Brown: left office after losing the 2010 general election.

The common thread isn't necessarily hidden rulers. More often, Prime Ministers fall because they lose elections, lose Parliament, lose their party, or lose public confidence.

UK is officially ungovernable...
6 prime ministers in 8 years is pretty much a circus

sonmvayina:
Those were invented for control. It is all for social engineering.

I'll really love to hear more about this cos that's certainly one possible explanation, but simply calling them inventions for social control doesn't demonstrate that they are false.

Many ideas can be used for social control, religious, political, and even secular ones. The real question is whether these doctrines emerged because people were trying to manipulate others, or because they were attempting to explain human nature, morality, suffering, and our sense that the world is not as it should be.

If you think they're inventions, what evidence convinces you that they were deliberately created for control rather than sincere attempts to answer those questions? I'll really love to hear more from you

MaxInDHouse:
When God brought the Israelites from Egypt to the promised land He told them that their wrongdoings will affect their children {Exodus 20:5} so wicked ones among them concluded that they will live anyhow they choose since it's their descendants that will pay for their blunders so God sent Ezekiel to correct their wrong thinking that each wicked person will be punished for his errors. What God meant initially is that when a person chooses to be evil his children will know and learn a lesson not to follow his footstep but when any of his children, grandchildren up to the fought generation chooses to follow his footstep then God will bring back the error of their great grandfather upon such one.

God is not punishing us for Adam's sin rather the curse brought upon the planet remains until God's Kingdom (government) begin. So until then the ground remain cursed

Jesus answered the question based on what those people asked:
“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, so that he was born blind?” John 9:3
It's Adamic sin which brought a curse upon the planet that's affecting us not the sin of our parents God only punishes a wicked person who chooses to follow the footstep of his wicked ancestor.

A diligent study of the Bible explains it when God cursed the ground everyone is affected unless you are not living on this planet and the curse came as a result of Adam's rebellion.
So when God later promised to bless the planet {Psalms 67:6-7} He is talking about the time when His own government will reign in all the earth! Matthew 6:10

Note how the Psalmist put this words:

The earth will give its produce; God, our God, will bless us. God will bless us, And all the ends of the earth will fear him. Psalms 67:6-7

By that time all inhabitants of planet earth would have come to know that it's wrong to choose humans as rulers over us! 1Samuel 8:10-18

It took me while to carefully read through all of your points so that I understand your interpretation, but points seems to raise as many questions as it answers.

Like If the curse is not a punishment on individuals, but merely a consequence of Adam's rebellion, then we're still left with innocent people, including infants babies, suffering and dying because of something they never chose. Whether we call it "punishment" or "consequence," the moral issue remains the same.

Regarding Ezekiel 18, your explanation is possible, but the chapter's main point is broader: God repeatedly emphasizes individual responsibility. That seems difficult to reconcile with the idea that all humanity continues to suffer because of a single ancestor's act thousands of years ago.

On John 9, Jesus did more than reject parental guilt. He explicitly rejected the assumption that the man's blindness was caused by someone's sin. That seems to push against the idea that every instance of suffering is traceable to personal wrongdoing.

And on the curse itself: if God imposed the curse and has the power to remove it, why allow it to continue for thousands of years? If the purpose is to prove that human rule fails, wouldn't an omniscient God already know that outcome? Why must billions of humans and countless animals suffer through the demonstration?

Finally, saying that everyone will eventually learn that human rulers fail doesn't fully address the original question. The issue isn't whether human governments are imperfect. The issue is why a just and loving God would choose a system in which untold suffering becomes the means of teaching that lesson. Hope this puts a lit on this.

Truthseeker10:
When did animals begin to "suffer" according to you?

Whenever animals first became capable of experiencing pain, fear, hunger, disease, injury, and distress.

But the timing isn't really the issue. The question is whether their suffering is justified. If animals are not moral agents and cannot sin, why should they suffer as a consequence of human actions at all?

Dtruthspeaker:
Why do you break up with your girlfriend/wife when she cheats on you? And why did sack your driver who stole and tried selling your car? Why did you not simply say "i forgive you" and move on with them?

The difference is that I'm not claiming to be perfectly loving, perfectly just, all-wise, and all-powerful. He even command us to forgive seventy times seven times 😜

Humans often struggle to forgive because we're limited, emotional, and imperfect. God, on the other hand, is supposed to be the moral ideal.

And even when people end relationships or fire employees, they don't usually condemn billions of descendants who had nothing to do with the original offense. That's the part your analogy doesn't address.

There is no rebellious or fallen angel named Satan anywhere in the Hebrew Bible. And the notion of such a divine being, as well as such a background, are creations of the literature of Greco-Roman period Judaism and early Christianity.
In Bible scholarship you can't find any reference to any such entity or any such background anywhere in the Hebrew Bible. Any attempts to identify such references in the Hebrew Bible are attempts to renegotiate passages that refer to other things.
Isaiah 14:12: So, Lucifer in Isaiah 14:12, that's a reference to the human king of Babylon.
Ezekiel 28: Ezekiel 28 is about the human king of Tyre as a representative of humanity in the Garden of Eden.
Job 1–2 & Zechariah 3: In Job 1 and 2 and Zechariah 3, the reference is not to an entity named Satan. The reference in Hebrew is to hasatan "the Satan." And there, "satan" is being used as the title of an office or a role within the divine council. This is someone who works for God and does God's bidding as kind of a prosecuting attorney, because "satan" is a generic noun that just means "adversary" or "accuser."
You even have the angel of the Lord identified as a satan when they come out against Balaam in Numbers 22. So, anybody can step into the role of an adversary or accuser, and that's why you have just such an office, role, or position within the divine council.
And then you have this bizarre reference in 1 Chronicles 21:1 to a satan: an adversary, an accuser, inciting David to number Israel. When we look at the parallel passage in 2 Samuel 24:1, there it's God who incites David. While there are some scholars who suggest that the lack of a definite article in the reference to "satan" in 1 Chronicles 21 might indicate this is being used as a personal name, I don't think that is accurate. I think, instead, it is just obscuring God's role in that incitement and just using the indefinite "an adversary, an accuser" in place of the reference to God themselves.
So, it's in the Enochic literature that we see this use of Satan not only as a title for the head malevolent angel, the fallen angel who is responsible for all the calamity that ensues, we also see the plural "satans" being used to refer to a class of deity in the Enochic literature. By the time we get to the New Testament, "Satan" has become the name of this head malevolent angel, the one who rules over all the other malevolent angels and demons.

By the way: "Demon" is itself a product of Greco-Roman period Jewish literature. It is borrowed from a Greek concept, and there's no term that can legitimately be translated as "demon" anywhere in the Hebrew Bible.

If you want a good analogy for the way the word "satan" is used in the Hebrew Bible, the Greek concept of "devil" works just fine. You have the notion of the devil, which sounds like an office or a position rather than somebody's name; you have the notion of a devil, which can refer to a class of deity; and you have the notion of plural devils. That's exactly how the word "satan" is used in Hebrew. And again, that wouldn't become the name of the head malevolent divine being or angel until around the first century CE, around the time of the composition of the New Testament.

I'll love to hear your opinions and contributions about this topic.
Shalom

MaxInDHouse:
From God's standpoint Adam is the only human being punished you and i are strangers to Him until we gain perfection then He will start dealing with each person according to his or her deeds. Today whatever happens to us is like Adam still suffering for what he brought upon himself. Romans 5:12
He promised to give each honest hearted and sincere individual a chance to live in Paradise for 1,000 years where there won't be death or suffering it's after the 1,000 years that God will start dealing with each of us as an individual but for now we are all children of the rebellious man Adam who deserves whatever happens to them!

That view raises a few questions. If God sees all humans merely as extensions of Adam's punishment until some future point, why does the Bible repeatedly speak of individuals being judged according to their own actions even now? For example, Ezekiel 18 explicitly says, "The son will not bear the guilt of the father."

Also, if people today "deserve whatever happens to them" simply because they descend from Adam, then suffering, disease, abuse, and the death of infants would be punishments inflicted on individuals who never personally chose Adam's rebellion. That seems difficult to reconcile with the idea of a just judge who does not punish children for their parents' sins.

Romans 5 does teach that Adam's sin affected humanity, but it does not necessarily follow that every tragedy that befalls a person is something they deserve. In fact, Jesus rejected that assumption when discussing victims of disasters and people born blind (Luke 13:1–5; John 9:1–3).

So the issue is whether inherited consequences are the same thing as deserved punishment. Those are not necessarily identical concepts.
Again how can you claim to understand the standpoint of god

MaxInDHouse:
The planet and everything on it was designed for the pleasure of Adam who is God's son {Luke 3:38} so from God's standpoint they are Adam's properties they don't have such value before God unlike their owner who is under punishment.
Read what God's heavenly Son uttered regarding other creatures:

"So have no fear; you are worth more than many sparrows" Matthew 10:31

So don't view any other creature as man because from God's standpoint they are just like man's properties! 🙂

That may explain the biblical perspective, but it doesn't solve the moral question.

If animals are merely property with little value, then why does the Bible repeatedly portray God as caring for them, feeding them, and taking notice of them? And if value is determined solely by ownership, does owning something make it morally acceptable to inflict suffering on it? 🤷🏽

More importantly, your argument seems to be shifting from "animals suffer because of Adam's sin" to "animals suffer because they don't matter as much." Those are two different explanations.

The question remains: if God is perfectly just and compassionate, why create sentient creatures capable of pain and then subject them to suffering for a punishment they neither chose nor understood?😏

MaxInDHouse:
God has all the power to do whatever He wants what most people do get wrong about Him is His way of judging matters. He is not power drunk like humans who doesn't think before they act simply because they have the ability God thinks deeply before acting on issues.
All things both visible and invisible were created by Him {Revelation 4:11} so He can take away the energy sustaining them at will!

When you hide your face, they are terrified; when you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. ‭Psalms 104:29 NIV‬

Having the power to do something and being justified in doing it are two different questions.

I don't dispute that, according to the Bible, God can give life and take it away. The question is whether His actions are morally good. Saying "He created everything, therefore He can do whatever He wants" explains His authority, but it doesn't explain why innocent suffering is just.

If God thinks deeply before acting, then there must be a good reason for animals suffering, children dying, and entire populations enduring misery. Simply saying God has the power to do it doesn't answer why it is morally right for those who never chose the actions being punished.

MaxInDHouse:
All the creatures were placed under the control of Adam (man) on planet earth so when the ground is cursed all living creatures on the planet suffers!


To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. ‭Genesis 3:17 NIV‬


From that moment the ground is filled with negative effects affecting everything on planet earth!

Brotherly doesn't that seem cruel, inhumane and unjust I mean that still means innocent creatures are being punished for someone else's actions.

If a human ruler cursed an entire planet and caused billions of animals to suffer because of one person's mistake, we would call that unjust. Why should the same standard not apply to God?

And if God chose to curse the ground, then the suffering of animals is ultimately a result of God's decision, not the animals' actions. They had no free will in the matter, no understanding of the command, and no opportunity to choose differently.

MaxInDHouse:
As the Creator of all things nobody can stop Him but when it comes to intelligent creatures He has given them freewill so they can choose to obey or disobey Him that is why He promised to destroy all opposers of His works! Psalms 37:7-11🙂

But isn't that the point I was making in the first place. If Man truly have free will and God is not omniscient, then how can He be certain that every one who opposes his will, will eventually be defeated and His plan will succeed? 🤷🏽

Either He already knows the future outcome, which implies foreknowledge, or He doesn't, in which case the future remains open and His victory is not guaranteed.

Also, if he truly isn't omniscient then how does he prophecy about the future and how is it so certain each and every one of his prophecies will surely come to pass 🤷🏽😏

MaxInDHouse:
As the Creator of all things nobody can stop Him but when it comes to intelligent creatures He has given them freewill so they can choose to obey or disobey Him that is why He promised to destroy all opposers of His works! Psalms 37:7-11🙂

But that still doesn't explain why innocent beings suffer. You don't see it that way ? 😏

If suffering and death entered the world because humans misused their free will, why do animals suffer from disease, predation, starvation, parasites, natural disasters, and extinction? Animals didn't choose to disobey God, don't understand moral laws, and aren't moral agents.🫠

Why should creatures incapable of sin bear the consequences of a problem they didn't create?

MaxInDHouse:
This is what presumption often leads to because the Bible God never claim to be Omniscient in fact He made it clear to all readers of His books that there are lots of things that shocks Him.

If God isn't omniscient, then that creates an even bigger problem for your argument. How can He be certain that His plan will succeed, that evil will ultimately be defeated, or that His future promises will come true?

You can't appeal to prophecy and God's ultimate victory while also claiming He doesn't know the future. At that point, God's success becomes a hope rather than a certainty.

oranget:
Can you kindly provide the verse in which it was written that women could prophesy in CHURCH as long as they had their head covered.

I think you were referring to 1 Corinthians 11:5 which says;

"But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven."

Now, my questions are:
1. Where was church mentioned in that chapter?
2. Is it only in church that people can pray and prophesy?

The broader context of 1 Corinthians 11 strongly suggests Paul is discussing conduct in the gathered church. He begins the section by talking about worship practices and later, in the same discussion, repeatedly refers to the assembly "coming together" (1 Corinthians 11:17-18, 20, 33). If Paul considered women praying and prophesying in the assembly unacceptable, it would be strange for him to spend several verses explaining how they should do it properly rather than simply forbidding it.

Also, your argument proves too much. Yes, people can pray and prophesy outside church. But Paul wasn't writing a general manual on every place prayer can occur; he was addressing issues in the Corinthian congregation. The question is not whether prayer and prophecy can happen elsewhere, but why Paul gives instructions for women who pray and prophesy if he intended them never to do so in the gathered assembly.

That is precisely why many scholars see 1 Corinthians 11 and 1 Corinthians 14 as addressing different issues, rather than Paul first permitting women to prophesy and then later issuing a blanket prohibition.

sonmvayina:
i have a different take outside of the two you provided.
whoever penned those stories in the bible never meant for the stories to be taken literally,
it is lazy mined people who are bereft of using their brain cells that fall on the sword of literal interpretation.
The people who originally owned the story do not see it as such.

God created a Man and A woman, at least that is what all the belief systems of the world says,

i believe what we should have done is sit down and figure out what being a man and a woman entails rather than complicate it with additional titles like 'christian'

Your take is quite an interesting one but if the story isn't meant to be taken literally, then what is the basis for doctrines like sin, the Fall, and the need for salvation?

And while understanding what it means to be human is important, that doesn't answer whether God exists, what morality is based on, or why suffering exists. Those questions remain either way.

MaxInDHouse:
Because billions are still in doubt as to who has the right to set standards it's a relatively few like one out of thousands is on God's side. That's why God allows for thousands of years to pass if any human government can bring lasting peace and security!

That doesn't really answer the question. If God is omniscient, He already knew from the beginning that no human government would bring lasting peace. So what is being proven, and to whom?

Allowing thousands of years of war, disease, famine, oppression, and death to demonstrate a conclusion He already knew seems less like a lesson and more like unnecessary suffering. An all-powerful God could establish His right to set standards without billions of people paying the price for a point that He knew would be proven from the start.

And if the majority remain unconvinced after thousands of years, doesn't that raise questions about the effectiveness of the demonstration itself?

gohf:
God Himself created the earth and it was dark and He Himself never said it was good.

So while God formed the light He is also the reason there is (or was) darkness. It is also His decision at some point to completely destroy darkness.

God is responsible for the options available to us, He is responsible for us having a choice in the first place because He made it that way and so He doesn't judge us for what He has done but what we do, with what He has given us.

Now what you are doing here is blaming Him for making things that way, instead of accepting the way things are and making the best of it -which is wisdom. Seeing that no matter how you blame or "fault" Him nothing will change -which isn't wisdom.


God who created this earth, and left the kind of men who turned it this way, decided to create a new earth and leave a different kind of men so that the utopia you wrote about is a reality.

If God's process of creating perfect men is this then get with the program or get left out of it, it's still a choice though.

You're basically saying, "Stop questioning the design and just accept it." But that doesn't answer the criticism.

If God knowingly created a system where billions would suffer, sin, and perish, despite having the power to create a world without those outcomes, then the fact that He can eventually fix it doesn't absolve Him of responsibility for creating it that way in the first place.

Imagine an engineer deliberately builds a bridge knowing it will collapse and kill thousands, while having the ability to build a perfectly safe one. Promising to build a better bridge later wouldn't remove responsibility for the first disaster.

You say God shouldn't be judged for what He has done but for what we do with what He has given us. But what He gave us includes our nature, our environment, the possibility of evil, suffering, disease, natural disasters, and the conditions under which every human decision is made. Those weren't our choices.

And saying "get with the program or get left out" doesn't solve the moral question either. The question isn't whether God is powerful enough to enforce His plan. The question is whether the plan itself is morally justifiable when an omniscient being could have achieved the same end without the immense suffering along the way.

A future utopia doesn't explain why centuries of pain, death, and misery were necessary when an all-powerful God had other options available from the beginning.

gohf:
God Himself created the earth and it was dark and He Himself never said it was good.

So while God formed the light He is also the reason there is (or was) darkness. It is also His decision at some point to completely destroy darkness.

God is responsible for the options available to us, He is responsible for us having a choice in the first place because He made it that way and so He doesn't judge us for what He has done but what we do, with what He has given us.

Now what you are doing here is blaming Him for making things that way, instead of accepting the way things are and making the best of it -which is wisdom. Seeing that no matter how you blame or "fault" Him nothing will change -which isn't wisdom.


God who created this earth, and left the kind of men who turned it this way, decided to create a new earth and leave a different kind of men so that the utopia you wrote about is a reality.

If God's process of creating perfect men is this then get with the program or get left out of it, it's still a choice though.

What are you talking about in genesis chapter 1
Throughout the chapter God repeatedly “saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25)

MaxInDHouse:
That single act of disobedience leads to a question that needs to be answered.

Who has the right to set standards for mankind: God or humans?

As simple as this question may sound majority of humans finds it really hard to answer!

If the issue is simply who has the right to set standards, then why does forgiveness require generations of suffering, death, and punishment? A parent can establish rules, uphold authority, and still forgive a child without condemning their descendants. The question isn't whether God has the right to set standards; it's why an all-powerful God couldn't uphold those standards while also extending immediate mercy.

The Cosmic Plot Hole: Why the Story of Faith Feels So Complicated

​If you dig into the traditional story of creation and salvation, you eventually run into a wall of frustration. The narrative seems simple: humans break a rule in a garden, and launches a rescue mission. [/color] But the moment you ask logical questions, the story requires a massiv. e tower of theological "lore" to explain away its plot holes.
​Why did an all-powerful, all-loving God make it this complicated?

​The Broken Window and the 4,000-Year Wait
​If human history was fractured over a single act of disobedience, why didn’t God just say, "I forgive you" and move on?[color=#990000]
​Theology argues that true forgiveness isn't free, someone has to absorb the cost of the damage. To maintain perfect justice, God couldn't just wave a wand; He had to pay the debt Himself on the cross.
​But then comes the timing problem: Why wait 4,000 years to do it? Leaving generations of people in a spiritual holding cell (Hades) while waiting for the "perfect historical window" of Roman roads and Greek language feels agonizingly slow. To a skeptic, it looks like a human-made rationalization to fix a timeline glitch.

​The Heaven Paradox: Curing Free Will
​To justify human suffering, religion relies heavily on free will; the idea that genuine love requires a real choice to choose evil.
​But if Heaven is a place with no sin, does that mean free will is stripped away at the pearly gates?
​To fix this leak, philosophers argue that earthly freedom is broken, while heavenly freedom is perfected. In Heaven, you aren't a robot; you simply have such flawless clarity and fulfillment in the presence of God that choosing evil becomes completely unappealing.
​Earthly Freedom: The power to choose between good and evil.
Heavenly Freedom: The achievement of desiring only the good.

​The Ultimate Battle: Divine Foreknowledge
​Even if you accept the free will defense, you face the absolute boss battle of philosophy: If God knows everything, He saw the entire movie before hitting play.
​He knew the snake would talk, the fruit would be eaten, and millennia of atrocities would follow.[color=#990000][/color] Why go through with it?
​Theology claims a universe with free creatures who can love is fundamentally better than a universe of programmed robots, or that the Fall allowed God to display His ultimate attribute of mercy. But it still leaves a devastating question: Is the prize truly worth the price tag of human history?

​Where the System Shatters: Animal Suffering
​The free will shield works for human tragedy, until you look at a creature with no moral choice.
​Animals didn't eat any forbidden fruit. They cannot sin, and they don't participate in a cosmic drama of salvation. Yet, for hundreds of millions of years, innocent animals have endured disease, starvation, and the brutal reality of predation.
​If a human engineer designed a machine that required the agonizing friction of innocent parts just to function, we would call it a horror show. While theology scrambles to blame a corrupted natural order or the "package deal" of physics, But for the skeptic, animal suffering is often the definitive proof that the universe isn't a broken masterpiece undergoing a patient, divine restoration. Instead, it looks exactly like what evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins described: a universe of "pitiless indifference."

​The Verdict
​When you connect the dots, you are left at a crossroads. On one side is an intricate, mind-bending theological framework that views history as a patient, loving rescue mission. On the other side is pure, cold logic, the view that religion is an elaborate, evolving coping mechanism built to rationalize the chaotic suffering of a universe ruled by blind physics.
I'll love to get your views and contributions to this dilemma.
Shalom

Did you know the phrase "faith in Jesus Christ" is actually a mistranslation?
Hello everybody, If you know anything about Christianity, you know that you have to have faith in Jesus. It's kind of the most obvious thing, right? Yet the phrase "faith in Jesus Christ," as it appears in Paul, is likely a mistranslation. So let me break that down.

Now, in letters like Galatians or Romans and especially Galatians; Paul talks about the predicates for how you can understand God's action in human history and his intentions. He goes through some of the figures in Judaism, some of the biblical figures that are crucial to this idea of an unfolding plan that God has for his people.

So, one of those figures, obviously, is Abraham, who establishes the covenant. He circumcises and establishes that covenant with God. And Paul says that it's because of Abraham's faithfulness in this plan that the covenant is possible. Then he moves on to Moses. He explains that for a little bit, and then he says that it's because of Moses's faithfulness that his people come out of exile, establish the commandments, and so forth, that the covenant is continued. Then he moves on to Jesus.

So when you get to that phrase and I won't go into all the technical details, but in Greek, it's called the difference between a subjective and an objective genitive. The genitive is a case of possession, and you're either the subject or the object of that possession. Now, he's already talked about Abraham's faithfulness and used the genitive. He talks about Moses's faithfulness to the covenant using the genitive, and then he talks about Jesus using the exact same construction in context. And so that should be translated as "Jesus's faithfulness in God's plan" , that is, to be crucified and to have faithfulness in the idea that he would then be resurrected and establish a new covenant, or renew the covenant, or establish that covenant between God and the Gentiles.

He talks about participation in Christ and about the Spirit, I'll do another post on that. But he talks about how Jesus's faithfulness carries this forward. So he's explaining the place everyone is in now, relative to that idea of God's intention for human history, for his people, and now for the Gentiles.

So, over the last 30 years or so, scholars have debated this. As I say, most people will say "the phrase faith in Jesus" and think almost nothing of it, in the sense that it just seems so natural. When you read most English translations, that's what it'll say: "faith of Abraham": Abraham's faithfulness; Moses's faithfulness, but then it'll get to Jesus in the same letter and start talking about "faith in Jesus." I am of the opinion that it should be the other way around, and in fact it probably makes more sense. It doesn't mean that you wouldn't have faith in what Jesus has done, or that you couldn't have faith in Jesus in general but I do think that's a later understanding. I think what Paul's talking about is a trajectory of different figures who demonstrated their faithfulness, and that has allowed the moment to come that they are in at that present time when he's writing the letters.

So, if you go back to something like Galatians 3:26 or Romans 3:26, you're going to see that it'll say, in the genitive, "it is the faith of Christ Jesus", or "it is the faith of Jesus" that has allowed all of this to happen. But again, your English translations will swap the Greek and turn it into "faith in Jesus Christ." I think it should be the other way around.

Shalom

this is nothing short of a pump and dump right there

femi4:
Where was the security camera when thieves were burgling a shop

so god is a security camera right??
Got it

femi4:
God has given a man the WILL to choose

He wont force man to do the right thing

so where was he when all of this was plying out

gohf:
I didn't read ALL of the OP (I don't know if any have esp those who have committed) but to point something bcuz of your post.

God didn't create humans to sin or be sinners, if not the book of Genesis wouldn't be about the fall of man but the mistake of God.

It is correct to say God didn't create a perfect being, after all only God is perfect but the reason it's call fall of man is that men fell from the original goal God had for them.

Sin doesn't mean being human, it means going off course, so saying avoiding sin is "biological impossible" is like saying avoiding an error or a mistake is impossible that would mean all the so called morals, rules and the like are foolishness since it is biologically impossible for all man not to, for example, murder the innocent.

there is no way that an omniscient being did not have the foresight that that would happen, the crust of my claim is that god know all that was going to happen yet it still went ahead to create the broken world and man in that way anyway, its within his power for it to create a sinless, beautiful utopia yet he did otherwise. so its its fault

there is no debt free country on the surface of the earth