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Is the need of salvation an evil lie from religions?

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Gnostic Bishop
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Re: Is the need of salvation an evil lie from religions?

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armenia2012 wrote: God gives people free will!! .
Not if there are none who never sin and there are no such people according to your own bible.

Christians are always trying to absolve God of moral culpability in the fall 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 that caused our fall. Hence God is not blameworthy."

But this simply avoids God's culpability as the author of Human Nature. Free will is only the ability to choose. It is not an explanation why anyone would want to choose "A" or "B" (bad or good action). An explanation for why Eve would even have the nature of "being vulnerable to being easily swayed by a serpent" and "desiring to eat a forbidden fruit" must lie in the nature God gave Eve in the first place. Hence God 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 would have at least some who would not sin. That being the case, for God to punish us for following the instincts and natures he put in us would be quite wrong.

Regards
DL
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Re: Is the need of salvation an evil lie from religions?

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armenia2012 wrote:The need for Salvation is very real!! God gives people free will!! And there is a real devil who seeks to steal, kill, and destroy. Jesus came down from Heaven and died for our sins so that we could avoid Hell but we have to keep in mind that Hell is a very real place for those who don't turn their their lives over to God and make a commitment to live for Him. If you read or listen to the bible you will see that a lot of the prophecies have either come to pass are happening now or are gonna happen in the future. So no salvation is not a lie it is very real and very much a need for those who want to hell.

I agree! If you go to hell, it is because of your own choices due to your own free will
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Re: Is the need of salvation an evil lie from religions?

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:adore: :lol:

yeah, kinda like abu grahib or guantanamo :slap:
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Robert Tulip

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Re: Is the need of salvation an evil lie from religions?

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Gnostic Bishop wrote:
armenia2012 wrote: God gives people free will!! .
Not if there are none who never sin and there are no such people according to your own bible.
Lets try to work through this problem against the theological framework of grace, fall and redemption. The Calvinist Tulip framework of predestination has actively wrestled for centuries with the problem of explaining the tension between free will and divine power.

We can bracket the hypothesis of supernatural agency on the part of God, meaning we suspend judgment to instead focus on analysis of experience. I prefer to think of God as a metaphor for the order of the cosmos, revealed in the laws of physics and the complex systems of the evolution of life. Against that framework, it makes sense that our evolution has given us both free will and the power to sin. It is a fallacy for you to claim/imply that freedom requires perfection.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: Christians are always trying to absolve God of moral culpability in the fall by whipping out their favorite "free will!", or “ it’s all man’s fault”.
Here I would like to explain my theology of the fall, to explore this point of the relative guilt of man and God.

I place all mythology within the framework of natural science. The principle feature of this framework, considering modern knowledge of cosmic order, is that the astronomy of earth’s orbit has stable slow cycles that drive climate. The dominant pattern is a 21,000 year cycle that causes the advance and retreat of glaciers, by changing the amount of sunlight reaching the earth in summer and winter. This pattern of light, called insolation, has been stable for the entire time of the existence of life on earth, four billion years, meaning that all DNA on earth has evolved within this context.

My hypothesis is that given the immense period involved, DNA has evolved to adapt to this slow cycle. What that means is that just as species adapt to the daily and annual cycles, they also adapt to this much slower period. If so, then the timing of the cosmic seasons is marked by the date of the perihelion, the point where earth is closest to the sun. The perihelion now happens around 4 January every year, and will advance by one day every 59 years until it reaches the June solstice in about ten thousand years.

Against this orderly cosmic framework of terrestrial time, the fascinating observation is that the period when the perihelion was in the months of fall, from September to December, corresponds to the period from 4000 BC to 2000 AD seen in Biblical theology as the time of the fall from grace. The perihelion hit its low point, the December solstice, in 1246 AD.

Although hard to prove, it is possible that this underlying orbital driver of climate change over this period found a reflection in the matching underlying framework of Jewish and then Christian myth. This hypothesis is strengthened by observation of the abundant imagery in the Bible which sees time in terms of the slow clockwork movement of the heavens, including precession of the equinoxes. This model entirely explains the Indian Yuga theory of a planetary cycle between golden and iron ages, which can be understood as the times when the perihelion is in golden summer and iron winter, with a stable natural cycle of about 21,000 years.

I see God as allegory for this main natural order of our planet. That means God is entirely responsible for the fall, just as the tilt of the earth is responsible for the fall each autumn, and the spinning of the earth causes night and day. Man exists inside this orbital framework, with freedom to choose but with options constrained by natural systems. We can choose not to go to sleep at night, but our health is better if we conform to the natural daily order embedded in our genetics.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: That is "God gave us free will and it was our free willed choices that caused our fall. Hence God is not blameworthy."
We don’t blame the sun for setting at night and making the world cold in winter, and nor should we blame God for the fall from grace into corruption which continues to bedevil the world. These processes have to be understood as the operation of natural impersonal systems.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: But this simply avoids God's culpability as the author of Human Nature. Free will is only the ability to choose. It is not an explanation why anyone would want to choose "A" or "B" (bad or good action). An explanation for why Eve would even have the nature of "being vulnerable to being easily swayed by a serpent" and "desiring to eat a forbidden fruit" must lie in the nature God gave Eve in the first place. Hence God is culpable for deliberately making humans with a nature-inclined-to-fall, and "free will" means nothing as a response to this problem.
My example of sleep helps clarify this point. Nature makes us want to sleep for about eight hours out of twenty four. But we don’t call nature culpable, as that would introduce personal agency, intentions, deliberation and moral responsibility into what is a genetically-induced process.

If the fall from grace interpreted in the standard 7000 year theory of Christian time is a reflection of a real orbital process, as I argue above, there is no basis to blame God for this problem.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: If all sin by nature then, the sin nature is dominant. If not, we would have at least some who would not sin. That being the case, for God to punish us for following the instincts and natures he put in us would be quite wrong.

Regards
DL
Your logic here could be improved DL, although the ideas are very worth pondering. The fact that everyone is flawed does not mean flaws dominate our life. Nor is the pure perfection of some the only alternative to a domination of sin nature. Humility requires that any claims to perfection be seen as mythical.

The other theme here, considering the potential for future human perfectibility, is that the perihelion cycle is now on the upswing, having passed the shortest day nearly 800 years ago, so the underlying planetary driver is for improvement, not decline. We are headed slowly towards a new golden age, when we all may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.
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Re: Is the need of salvation an evil lie from religions?

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Robert Tulip

Wow. Nicely done although I am not qualified to judge the veracity of your long range view.

I did pull a few things that I do feel qualified to speak to.

"Against that framework, it makes sense that our evolution has given us both free will and the power to sin. It is a fallacy for you to claim/imply that freedom requires perfection."

I agree that we all have the power to sin and do so out of necessity.

For evolution to work, we must both cooperate/do good and compete/do evil.

Watch this baby exercise both by showing a positive bias as well as forming a negative one at the same time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIc-4h9RIvY

I do not see my writing as promoting that freedom needs perfection but if I did, I agree that that notion is false.

I think a bit like Socrates on freedom and do not think it can exist for mankind because we are born too weak and have to rely on each other for survival. I adlib here. The way he sais it was, who will make my shoes if I declare myself free.

R T

You put these two conflicting points down.s

"That means God is entirely responsible for the fall,"

"and nor should we blame God for the fall from grace into corruption which continues to bedevil the world."

I do not blame imaginary Gods for anything.

I also recognize that we have some corruption and evil in the world but if you check the stats, all the markers for evil are at the best levels per capitae than we have ever enjoyed. Those include violent death, even from war, slavery, crime and poverty.

If you have stats that show differently I would love to see them.

"But we don’t call nature culpable, as that would introduce personal agency, intentions, deliberation and moral responsibility into what is a genetically-induced process."

I can definitely say that nature is culpable or to blame for something and doing so does not introduce personal agency.

If an earthquake hits and kill many, nature is definitely culpable whether nature is sentient or not. It isd still a natural act.


"Your logic here could be improved DL,"

No. It is already perfect. Evolving perfection that is. Just kidding.

"although the ideas are very worth pondering. The fact that everyone is flawed does not mean flaws dominate our life. Nor is the pure perfection of some the only alternative to a domination of sin nature. Humility requires that any claims to perfection be seen as mythical."

I agree with your last.

I do not see the ability to sin/compete as a flaw. As stated above, competition, which causes victims and is seen as evil by most, is necessary for our continued survival. At least I think it is.

Competition is what makes us strong and that is how the fittest maintain their position.

For a God to punish us for having to do evil/sin would be wrong.

That does not mean that on earth we should not punish. We should and have to to protect ourselves from those who would compete or do evil by sin against us in an illegal way.

Regards
DL
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Re: Is the need of salvation an evil lie from religions?

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Gnostic Bishop wrote:Robert Tulip
Wow. Nicely done although I am not qualified to judge the veracity of your long range view.
Here is a good diagram illustrating the long term climate trends. It shows that northern summer insolation was highest ten thousand years ago (=~ summer solstice), is now lowest (=~winter solstice) and will be highest again in ten thousand years. It shows the climatic fall (=autumn equinox) occurred in about 5000 BC, the same time as the myth of the fall from grace.
Image
Gnostic Bishop wrote: I do not see my writing as promoting that freedom needs perfection but if I did, I agree that that notion is false.
You said in response to the statement “God gives people free will”, “Not if there are none who never sin”. I read that to mean God can only give people free will if there are people who never sin, and therefore that freedom needs perfection. That seems like a clear direct inference but perhaps you meant something different.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: You put these two conflicting points down.
"That means God is entirely responsible for the fall,"
"and nor should we blame God for the fall from grace into corruption which continues to bedevil the world."
If you read them in context they are not contradictory. The first is just a statement equivalent to saying that night follows day, while the second is about the error of constructing a myth of God as an intentional entity who deliberately decided to inflict evil upon the world.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: I can definitely say that nature is culpable or to blame for something and doing so does not introduce personal agency.
Culpable means guilty of doing something wrong. We do not call nature guilty of doing a wrong in the case of an earthquake. This example illustrates the slippery slope of anthropomorphism. We can take a word such as culpable and argue it involves no agency, except that in practice and by definition culpability is directly associated with moral responsibility and free will. In common usage you cannot be culpable without intentional wrongdoing. Nature has no intentions.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: Competition is what makes us strong and that is how the fittest maintain their position.
No. Fitness is a combination of cooperation and competition. Natural selection in evolution involves cumulative adaptation in complex interdependent systems. As John Lennon said, love is the answer.
Last edited by Robert Tulip on Tue Apr 12, 2016 10:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Is the need of salvation an evil lie from religions?

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R T

I can screw up in 3 languages and I plead being French as my excuse for where we differ in our interpretation in definitions.

I have no problem with your changes of how I expressed my views.

"You said in response to the statement “God gives people free will”, “Not if there are none who never sin”. I read that to mean God can only give people free will if there are people who never sin, and therefore that freedom needs perfection. That seems like a clear direct inference but perhaps you meant something different."

Christians say that we have a choice between sinning and not sinning. They use that in the total of a persons life.

My point is that that cannot be a true statement unless we have an example of someone who has always chosen to not sin or a person who has never sinned.

IOW a person who has always done good and never done evil.

When we find such a person, then we can say that we have a choice of not sinning.

I don't think I would use the word perfect to describe that person though.

Regards
DL
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Re: Is the need of salvation an evil lie from religions?

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Gnostic Bishop wrote:Christians say that we have a choice between sinning and not sinning. They use that in the total of a persons life.
At Romans 3:23 Paul says "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." The context of the fall from grace means that for Christianity, it is not possible for anyone except Jesus Christ to be without sin.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: My point is that that cannot be a true statement unless we have an example of someone who has always chosen to not sin or a person who has never sinned. IOW a person who has always done good and never done evil. When we find such a person, then we can say that we have a choice of not sinning. I don't think I would use the word perfect to describe that person though. Regards DL
The need to idealise the potential of freedom from sin is exactly why Christianity invented Jesus, to have the example of the 'pioneer and perfecter of faith' as Hebrews 12:2 describes him. A perfect person entirely without sin cannot exist. But we do have free will about specific decisions. We always have the capacity to choose to resist evil and do good, but exercising that choice with total consistency and accuracy is the path of the cross and resurrection, an ideal myth.
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Re: Is the need of salvation an evil lie from religions?

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Robert Tulip wrote:
Gnostic Bishop wrote:Christians say that we have a choice between sinning and not sinning. They use that in the total of a persons life.
At Romans 3:23 Paul says "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." The context of the fall from grace means that for Christianity, it is not possible for anyone except Jesus Christ to be without sin.
Gnostic Bishop wrote: My point is that that cannot be a true statement unless we have an example of someone who has always chosen to not sin or a person who has never sinned. IOW a person who has always done good and never done evil. When we find such a person, then we can say that we have a choice of not sinning. I don't think I would use the word perfect to describe that person though. Regards DL
The need to idealise the potential of freedom from sin is exactly why Christianity invented Jesus, to have the example of the 'pioneer and perfecter of faith' as Hebrews 12:2 describes him. A perfect person entirely without sin cannot exist. But we do have free will about specific decisions. We always have the capacity to choose to resist evil and do good, but exercising that choice with total consistency and accuracy is the path of the cross and resurrection, an ideal myth.
If we all fall short, then that is our normal. To punish a person for being normal is not kosher.

"We always have the capacity to choose to resist evil and do good,"

I disagree and evil may not be as evil as we think.

I have this old O.P. to explain why. I hope you do not mind my taking a shortcut.

-----

Can you help but do evil? I do not see how. Do you?

And if you cannot, why would God punish you?

Christians are always trying to absolve God of moral culpability in the fall by putting forward their free will argument and placing all the blame on mankind.
That usually sounds like ----God gave us free will and it was our free willed choices that caused our fall. Hence God is not blameworthy. Such statements simply avoid God's culpability as the author and creator of human nature.

Free will is only the ability to choose. It is not an explanation why anyone would want to choose "A" or "B" (bad or good action). An explanation for why Eve would even have the nature of "being vulnerable to being easily swayed by a serpent" and "desiring to eat a forbidden fruit" must lie in the nature God gave Eve in the first place. Hence God 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 do evil/sin by nature then, the evil/sin nature is dominant. If not, we would have at least some who would not do evil/sin. Can we then help but do evil? I do not see how. Do you?

Having said the above for the God that I do not believe in, I am a Gnostic Christian naturalist, let me tell you that evil and sin is all human generated and in this sense, I agree with Christians, but for completely different reasons. Evil is mankind’s responsibility and not some imaginary God’s. Free will is something that can only be taken. Free will cannot be given not even by a God unless it has been forcibly withheld.

Much has been written to explain evil and sin but I see as a natural part of evolution.

Consider.
First, let us eliminate what some see as evil. Natural disasters. These are unthinking occurrences and are neither good nor evil. There is no intent to do evil even as victims are created. Without intent to do evil, no act should be called evil.
In secular courts, this is called mens rea. Latin for an evil mind or intent and without it, the court will not find someone guilty even if they know that they are the perpetrator of the act.

Evil then is only human to human when they know they are doing evil and intend harm.
As evolving creatures, all we ever do, and ever can do, is compete or cooperate.
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 either cooperating, 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, you should see that what Christians see as something to blame, evil, we should see that what we have, competition, deserves a huge thanks for being available to us. Wherever it came from, God or nature, without evolution we would go extinct. We must do good and evil.

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

This link speak to theistic evolution.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-new ... 66/?no-ist

If theistic evolution is true, then the myth of Eden should be read as a myth and there is not really any original sin.

Doing evil then is actually forced on us by evolution and the need to survive. Our default position is to cooperate or to do good. I offer this clip as proof of this. You will note that we default to good as it is better for survival.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBW5vdhr_PA

Can you help but do evil? I do not see how. Do you?
And if you cannot, why would God punish you?

Regards
DL
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