Secular Nativity

[Stranger]

So someone else is telling you these are scary

Not for the first time, I wonder if English is your first language.

Humans aren’t designed to break faith and trust with God They chose to do it themselves.

I did no such thing. I've never seen any reason to think there is a God to break faith with. If you're referring to 'original sin', then that is just the same as designing subsequent generations to be 'sinners'. No moral difference.

Specific sins or wrong doings are the symptoms of that choice.

The choice that I, and countless others, never made.

The job of Christ is to counteract that disseminated alienation from God so that people can and do live lives unalienated from God.

Except that it doesn't even work, does it? Despite the moral obscenity of substitute blood sacrifice and the pretend death of Jesus, Christians don't magically stop being human and never 'sin' again.

Having no penalty for wrong doing or insufficient penalty or consequence constitutes zero justice.

But there are no consequences in your fairytale. Not if we believe that the nonsense sadomasochistic antics of your monster God have actually made a difference. It appears that the only people who face consequences are those of us who aren't absurdly overcredulous.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

How can you posit a god that makes a rule that any sin needs too be paid for with death and yet is relaxed enough to say that it could be one death to cover all the sins but the one death is a cheat and that's somehow good enough?

I’m not sure relationships follow the type of arithmetic you seem to be employing. If a mother has three children for instance, in your scheme of things. Each child only has a third of it’s mother’s love. Such application of maths is preposterous. She may love them all equally or love none of them. Your formulas are therefore not safe IMV.
Since Jesus states that there is no greater love than self sacrifice I don’t think we can possibly divvy up that love using simple maths. Similarly since sin is dimensionless can we safely assert that a person can only take on One other persons sin?

Each sin is a breach of trust and alienation from God whether it’s one sin or several.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I did no such thing. I've never seen any reason to think there is a God to break faith with. If you're referring to 'original sin', then that is just the same as designing subsequent generations to be 'sinners'. No moral difference.

But you’ve already acknowledged that humans do moral wrong, that human innocence is not a thing.

Now, If you believe that some will get away with it and that you can get away with it doesn’t that favour a moral approach where not getting caught is paramount since that moral landscape is the most real to you? What on earth is it that keeps you believing in justice. What is your benchmark?

The choice that I, and countless others, never made.

That could be fence squatting, God dodging or antitheism. Celebrity atheist Alex zo’connor is fond of mentioning the legions who wouldn’t follow God even if they knew he existed.

As an agnostic you don’t have the luxury of the impossibility of God.....If you are agnostic.

[Stranger]

But you’ve already acknowledged that humans do moral wrong, that human innocence is not a thing.

Humans are not perfect. The moral problem is that your God expects perfection from its imperfect creation. Whether that's due to 'original sin' or not, doesn't matter, it's still stupid, cruel, and unjust.

Now, If you believe that some will get away with it and that you can get away with it doesn’t that favour a moral approach where not getting caught is paramount since that moral landscape is the most real to you? What on earth is it that keeps you believing in justice. What is your benchmark?

What are you going on about now? According to your fairytale, all we have to do to get away with anything, is believe in your insane immoral, unjust God, and it's absurd substitute blood pseudo-sacrifice.

Piss easy if you're world-class at suspending disbelief, not so easy if you value morality and logic.

That could be fence squatting, God dodging or antitheism.

Now you've just taken what I said out of its context to go off into one of your favourite fantasies.

Celebrity atheist Alex zo’connor is fond of mentioning the legions who wouldn’t follow God even if they knew he existed.

Given how bloodthirsty and immoral it would be if all this was true, I'd be one of them, for this version of God.

As an agnostic you don’t have the luxury of the impossibility of God.....If you are agnostic.

Some versions of God are impossible simply because they are self-contradictory. You describe your God as good and just, and yet you believe the "Jesus died for our sins" bollocks. Those claims contradict each other.

[jeremyp]

Humans aren’t designed to break faith and trust with God They chose to do it themselves.

Yes they are. If  God designed  them and they chose to break faith and trust in him, he must have designed that feature - unless you are saying he screwed the design up.

[jeremyp]

Your formulas are therefore not safe IMV.

They are not my formulas, they are your formulas. It's your religion that says the wages of sin are death and it's your religion that says one temporary death is enough to make that alright.

Don't blame me for the fuckwittery in your beliefs.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Humans are not perfect.

I agree, but others don’t. Indeed they would perhaps reject the idea of perfection. And what do we mean by ‘Not perfect’. Do we mean “Not perfect, but for what we are, we’re OK or to put it another way we’re not perfect but so what. Or does not being perfect make us seek perfection. Since moral perfection does not reside in us it must reside somewhere...or no where. And since this is morality we are talking about it must be couched in a personal entity.

The moral problem is that your God expects perfection from its imperfect creation.

But that isn’t the Christian account. The Christian account is mankind is created as perfectly and morally acceptable to God and the creation rather than being described as imperfect is described as being good by God.

Whether that's due to 'original sin' or not, doesn't matter, it's still stupid, cruel, and unjust.

Given that in Christianity Mankind is created morally perfect enough for God and the universe is good, you seem to be pushing your view and then blaming the Christian God for it.

The Christian account is thus
The universe is created as “Good”
Man created morally perfect enough for God
Man turns back on God
Man commits sins as a symptom of the previous.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Humans are not perfect. The moral problem is that your God expects perfection from its imperfect creation. Whether that's due to 'original sin' or not, doesn't matter, it's still stupid, cruel, and unjust.

It seems to me perfectly reasonable to lay our predicament on previous generations and for those generations to do the same. But we cannot blame them entirely since you have agreed we are not morally perfect. We can say that somehow then, they are responsible for the pressures that tempt us into wrong doing

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Yes they are. If  God designed  them and they chose to break faith and trust in him, he must have designed that feature - unless you are saying he screwed the design up.

I am saying they could have chosen not to, since if you can choose to do something you can choose not to do it.
That's pretty straightforward.

[Maeght]

I agree, but others don’t. Indeed they would perhaps reject the idea of perfection. And what do we mean by ‘Not perfect’. Do we mean “Not perfect, but for what we are, we’re OK or to put it another way we’re not perfect but so what. Or does not being perfect make us seek perfection. Since moral perfection does not reside in us it must reside somewhere...or no where. And since this is morality we are talking about it must be couched in a personal entity.But that isn’t the Christian account. The Christian account is mankind is created as perfectly and morally acceptable to God and the creation rather than being described as imperfect is described as being good by God. Given that in Christianity Mankind is created morally perfect enough for God and the universe is good, you seem to be pushing your view and then blaming the Christian God for it.

The Christian account is thus
The universe is created as “Good”
Man created morally perfect enough for God
Man turns back on God
Man commits sins as a symptom of the previous.

Perfect enough? Surely you are either perfect or not.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Either the tendency was inherited from Adam, if you follow that line of thinking (in which case it's possibly Adam and Eve's fault, but we've just inherited it, you don't blame or punish people for their inherited traits). Or we were designed with this tendency - but if we're all sinners, the eight billion of us alive at the moment and the hundred or so billion that came before us, save one special case, then that's not 'choice', that's a deliberate design choice or a cataclysmic design flaw.

We inherit our morality and moral landscape though. I think you’ll find that committing the sin that our forebears did also does not completely exonerate us from committing it

According to whom? That's your take, there's plenty of Christians out there who are ready to explain that the wages of sin are eternal damnation, lakes of fire and an overseer with a pointy stick.

But they wouldn’t say you are fated to go to hell by something inherited. You can choose to face God thanks to what Jesus has done.

Like being gay? Like eating shellfish? Like having poly-blend shirts? Like not honouring abusive parents? But not slave-owning. Not rape. Not killing, if God wants that person dead. Why are we worrying about arbitrary rules like sin when the whole 'knowledge of good and evil' thing is that we have a sense of morality?

But you would say that you have turned against homophobia and slave owning.Are homophobia and slave owning inherited? If not where does that leave your other thesis that we can’t be blamed because we inherit the tendency. Here you are both blaming and rejecting the notion of inheritance. Confused or what?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Perfect enough? Surely you are either perfect or not.

I think you’ll find I said perfect enough for God.
And you cannot get more perfect than that.

[Nearly Sane]

I think you’ll find I said perfect enough for God.
And you cannot get more perfect than that.

'more perfect' is meaningless. As Maeght said, it would seem a thing is either perfect or it's not. If it is perfect it cannot act in an imperfect way. You think 'man' was both perfect, and behaved in an imperfect way. Your thinking is logically contradictory.

[Maeght]

I think you’ll find I said perfect enough for God.
And you cannot get more perfect than that.

There is no such thing as perfect enough is my point. You are either perfect or not.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

'more perfect' is meaningless. As Maeght said, it would seem a thing is either perfect or it's not. If it is perfect it cannot act in an imperfect way. You think 'man' was both perfect, and behaved in an imperfect way. Your thinking is logically contradictory.

OK let me clarify. Humans were created morally perfect

[Nearly Sane]

OK let me clarify. Humans were created morally perfect

But you think they acted morally imperfectly, so that's still a logical contradiction.

[Stranger]

Given that in Christianity Mankind is created morally perfect enough for God and the universe is good, you seem to be pushing your view and then blaming the Christian God for it.

Because, if all this wasn't just a sick fairytale, it would be the Christian God's fault/choice.

The Christian account is thus
The universe is created as “Good”
Man created morally perfect enough for God
Man turns back on God
Man commits sins as a symptom of the previous.

Which is an account of the morally indefensible 'original sin' crap. One couple (or whatever you think they represent) committed 'sin' (without, apparently, even having the knowledge of good and evil), and now everybody else has to pay the price.

It was God's choice to do that. Your God is vindictive, evil and unjust.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

But you think they acted morally imperfectly, so that's still a logical contradiction.

I said they chose to act morally imperfectly.

[Nearly Sane]

I said they chose to act morally imperfectly.

Which is a contradiction for a morally perfect being.

[Gordon]

I said they chose to act morally imperfectly.

But in #64 you said "Humans were created morally perfect" - so are you saying that a moral perfect human can still choose to act immorally? If so, that seems like a strange and contradictory position you are advancing.

No wonder some of us think that Christianity is utterly bonkers.

[jeremyp]

OK let me clarify. Humans were created morally perfect

And yet our news is full of humans being morally imperfect. It's hard to see this as anything but a screw up by God, if he created us and if his expectation is we would not do anything to upset him.

[jeremyp]

Which is a contradiction for a morally perfect being.

And this is my point. Christians are claiming that humans are created by God morally perfect in spite of the evidence that tells us we are not morally perfect. And we haven't even got on to God's ridiculous plan for rescuing us from a situation that he, not only created, but should have foreseen.

Anybody who thinks this self contradictory mess is real is deluded.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Because, if all this wasn't just a sick fairytale, it would be the Christian God's fault/choice.

Which is an account of the morally indefensible 'original sin' crap. One couple (or whatever you think they represent) committed 'sin' (without, apparently, even having the knowledge of good and evil), and now everybody else has to pay the price.

It was God's choice to do that. Your God is vindictive, evil and unjust.

Everyone inherits there moral environment going right back to the earliest moral humans.
We find though that door that Adam shut. The door to communion with God is still open. Thanks to Jesus. That some people don’t take it and yet others do is not evidence that it is Adam’s sin that causes rejection of God or that we will be judged only on Adam’s sin.

We know there is then an environment of alienation from God and moral imperfection. Could there be genetic or memetic inheritance too who knows

[Nearly Sane]

And this is my point. Christians are claiming that humans are created by God morally perfect in spite of the evidence that tells us we are not morally perfect. And we haven't even got on to God's ridiculous plan for rescuing us from a situation that he, not only created, but should have foreseen.

Anybody who thinks this self contradictory mess is real is deluded.

And, of course, some of those beings will become 'morally perfect' in heaven

[Walt Zingmatilder]

But in #64 you said "Humans were created morally perfect" - so are you saying that a moral perfect human can still choose to act immorally? If so, that seems like a strange and contradictory position you are advancing.

No wonder some of us think that Christianity is utterly bonkers.

You can be morally perfect. That is how you begin/ were created/are. But you can also choose to remain in that state or choose to leave / lose that state.

That’s straightforward.