Religion: pros & cons pt1 (Religion)

by dhw, Wednesday, October 29, 2014, 19:22 (3676 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

DHW: I hope I haven't offended Casey, as she has not replied and I tend not to hold back in these discussions.
TONY: Don't be apprehensive. I am not so easily offended. Casey [...] is not so thin skinned either. So, no worries.-Thank you. This is important to me.
 
TONY: First let me say that I don't expect you to take my word for anything, and God doesn't expect you to follow blindly either. [...] Instead of responding to these in my own words, I would prefer to let the Bible speak for itself. -Although I'm always impressed by your erudition and it can be fun to trace the links, it might save us both time if you stick to your own words! -Dhw: "Christians believe that Christ died his agonizing death on the cross in order to redeem them [...] What precisely is the point and process of this “redemption”? If we are good, we will be rewarded; if we are bad, we will be punished. So where does Christ's agony fit in? Couldn't the designer have “redeemed” us without Christ's blood? -TONY: (link to an article) This is a wonderful breakdown of that topic.-I'm afraid both you and the article assume a range of premises that I cannot accept. I will cherry-pick from your post to explain why:-TONY: What kind of ruler would Jehovah be if he broke is own laws? [...] Adam was sinless, until he sinned. So in order for the law of equivalence to be maintained, it required a sinless life to be given up freely in exchange. There was no other way to both maintain the law AND his sovereignty AND redeem us AND remain above reproach himself. The 'If we are good, we will be rewarded; if we are bad, we will be punished.' Is a bit misleading though. We are all bad. We all sin. We all fall short. And because of that, we all die.-I neither believe nor disbelieve in God, but the picture you draw of him and of “us” makes little sense to me. Let's begin at the beginning. I don't take the Adam and Eve story literally, but I find its implications horrendous. Didn't God, in his infinite wisdom, know what would happen when he organized the temptation? And is it justice that we must all pay for their sin? I don't accept that we die because we're sinners. All matter disintegrates, and if God did make us, I don't believe human bodies would have survived intact for ever, or that they would after a resurrection (see below). Weren't Adam and Eve meant to have children? Wouldn't they all have grown older? Nor do I believe that new-born babies are sinners, and although no doubt we all do wrong eventually, that doesn't mean we're bad. You've said God wants us to be happy. So why this constant harping on about how bad we are and undeserving of his love? Who spreads all this misery? If we enjoy life and do as we would be done by, why must we assume we need to be redeemed? You ask what kind of God Jehovah would be if he broke his own laws. He made the laws in the first place. Nobody forced him to condemn the whole human race for Adam's sin, and nobody forced him to ask for blood, let alone the blood of his son, so that he could forgive us, although he might not anyway.-I don't believe that the zillions of humans will be resurrected (at what age and in what state?), or that we're to be killed off again afterwards. Someone called John had a vision, and its inclusion in an anthology of religious writings was controversial, but we're supposed to believe it. And even if God did say to us all, “Love me or I'll kill you off again,” and in fear and trembling we replied, “I love you, God,” he'd know what's in our hearts, and he'd have known it even before resurrecting us, so what's the point? I find the near-death experiences reported by people like Pim van Lommel and Eben Alexander far more convincing than the long ago apocalyptic visions of a Mr John.
 
I have had a happy life. I don't think I'm a bad person, though that may sound arrogant. If I thought I might meet my darling wife again, I'd be delighted. But if death is the end, so be it. I don't see it as a punishment, but as an inevitable fact of material life. If there is a God, I will gladly say a huge thank you for his marvellous invention (life), and I would also wish that others could be as lucky as me. But if he rabbits on about my sins, and tells me Jesus died so that he (God) could forgive me, I still shan't understand why he felt obliged to impose such bloodthirsty conditions in the first place. You say there was no other way he could “remain above reproach”. It's good to hear that the biblical God considers he might be open to reproach. Grateful though I am for my life, I can think of far more terrible grounds for reproach than forgiving sinners without first demanding the blood of Christ. Please forgive my scepticism.