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I am religious and believe in free will

70 (27.6%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

113 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (24%)

Total Members Voted: 249

[Bohandas]

So, did it all sit around for a few billion years after He made it, or do you doubt the age that scientists have computed for the universe and Earth?  If so, why?  Specifically because the Bible says it was made in 6 days?

It works out completely rationally if you assume that God comes from a planet that is tidally locked with it's sun.

[Bohandas]

The source is Satan. I don't know why/how he sinned at first. Does anybody have any ideas?

On he contrary, if we take satan's existence and backstory as a given then that is all we need to conclude that sin can arise spontaneously

[Loud Whispers]

Inb4 time traveling Jesus

[TempAcc]

The whole definition of "days" in genesis is hebrew in origin. It can mean a vaguely long ammount of time or an actual day, depending on context, which is something greek translations don't really deal very well with, and all the modern translations of the bible come from the old greek translations of the hebrew texts.

Hell, even the whole thing about lucifer being "the adversary" and the same thing as satan is a construction that showed up way later through the catholic church. The adversary, lucifer and satan are all mentioned separately and under different contexts. Lucifer and "adversary" are very likely to having been terms used to make reference to a certain babylonian king of the time, who may have persecuted jews, and probably had an honoriffic attached to his name that made him famous, IE "morning star".

Its also kind of funny how modern day christians are so attached to the idea of a hell, which is very much derived from the greek pagan idea of tartarus. The closest thing to hell hebrews believed in was sheol, which isn't exactly described as horrible or punishing, just as a place where the souls of the dead go to, both good and evil, and its sometimes described as not being eternal, being closer to an idea of purgatory rather than hell, and may have just meant "grave" rather than an actual realm of afterlife. Purgatory itself is a catholic construction, too.

[Bohandas]

Its also kind of funny how modern day christians are so attached to the idea of a hell, which is very much derived from the greek pagan idea of tartarus. The closest thing to hell hebrews believed in was sheol, which isn't exactly described as horrible or punishing, just as a place where the souls of the dead go to, both good and evil, and its sometimes described as not being eternal, being closer to an idea of purgatory rather than hell, and may have just meant "grave" rather than an actual realm of afterlife. Purgatory itself is a catholic construction, too.

"And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever" -Revelation 20:10

[TD1]

What is "the beast?" Does it mean animals go there?

[Loud Whispers]

It's from revelations, it's the apocalyptic 7 headed 10 Kinged dragon/false prophet/obama metaphor

[TD1]

Sooo....Cerberus?

[USEC_OFFICER]

"And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever" -Revelation 20:10

Revelations was written around Nero's time, if I remember correctly, or at least long after Christianity spread out from Judea and into the rest of the Roman Empire. As such that passage reinforces the idea that Hell is a Greek/Roman concept which was added to Christian thought. _{Though to be fair, Revelations is a weird book overall and up to at least the Reformation they thought about throwing it out of the Bible because it didn't fit in with the rest of the passages. Best to take it with a grain of salt.}

[Loud Whispers]

Sooo....Cerberus?

Nah, literally it sounds like a funky hydra; metaphorically that idea of 7 crowns means seven rulers or kingdoms/interpretations may vary

[Dwarf4Explosives]

So he tolerates sin on earth to maintain free will, then when we die he takes away the sin and we still have free will?

I think the idea is pretty much the moral equivalent of being distracted by shiny stuff. In this case, the shiny stuff is god.

[breadman]

That can be sidestepped by not punishing people for what they don't know.  It's kind of an issue of culpability vs. responsibility.  Did they mean to break your laws?  Did they do so knowing full well what you desire of them?  If not, don't sweat it so much.

That hinges on God having lesser punishments for people who just doubt His existence, which may well be the case but I don't think there's much support for that idea in general.  Most Christians believe you'd go to Hell in some fashion anyway, although some certainly believe that Hell has various levels of punishment, despite there again not being a whole lot of evidence for that to my knowledge.

True, it doesn't fit with standard binary afterlife beliefs, which is one reason I haven't been able to get on board with any  trinitarian Christian faiths.  Interestingly, my original faith postulates a greater variety of levels in Heaven than in Hell.

[TempAcc]

The main problem with the whole idea of hell, as conceived in modern christianity, is that it practically doesn't take culpability into account, which would make God's justice inferior to modern day western civilization justice systems, which reflects an outdated, medieval moral system. Interpretations vary, of course, but even the interpretations that allow for some measure of culpability seem unreasonably unfair in comparison to non divine justice systems. This is among the reasons to why I distanced myself from both protestantism and catholicism.

Here's an example:
1-Prima kills a man. Prima has no particular reason for having done this, other than maybe disliking said man. Prima does not regret her act and does not ask for forgiveness.
2-Secunda kills a man. Secunda did this because this man has kidnapped her, kept her in captivity and tortured her for +5 years. Secunda does not regret her act and does not ask for forgiveness.

Now, if you asked pretty much any american pastor, he would say that both Prima and Secunda would go to hell, because regardless of the reason each of them had for commiting murder, they've committed murder, which is a mortal sin, and warrants condemnation to eternity in hell. Punishment is dealt in accordance to an almost Kelsenian view, in which the moral nuances are thrown aside in favor of a purely objectivist viewpoint. You committed a sin, you go to hell forever, period.

Now, in pretty much any reasonable court of law, the particularities of each case would be taken into account. Prima would most certainly receive greater punishment than Secunda.

All of this basically means that, by applying an outdated, nearly medieval concept of justice and making it divine, the most popular branches of christianity today are making God's justice seem unfair and inferior to (most) human justice systems.

[Frumple]

... I'd fairly well disagree that most american pastors would consider #2 murder, or think Secunda was going to burn. Especially since it's pretty explicitly not murder in the biblical sense. KJV mistranslation or not, a great deal of the american faithful are bloodthirsty enough that killing like that wouldn't exactly trigger a 'thou hast sinned' reaction. Other parts of the situation might trigger ones, because a fair chunk of the church scene is misogynistic as fuck, but there'd be a substantial chunk that would give the killing a by.

[Orange Wizard]

justice

That's... kind of missing the point a little.

The level of suffering in Hell varies depending on what level of sins one has committed. Jesus himself backs this up. Admittedly most of the other evidence comes from Revelation, but there's also some passages floating around in the epistles IIRC.

Now, remembering that the punishment in Hell is for every single sin one has committed, which is an insanely huge number, the contribution of suffering from one individual sin (even murder) is probably quite negligible.

What this means for Prima and Secunda is that (barring a later conversion) they will be suffering anyway. As you said, any reasonable verdict would consider Secunda's sin to be much less grave than Prima's, and so it is reasonable to assume that Secunda's punishment would be a bit more bearable.

E: Frumple pointed out that Secunda's crime probably wouldn't count as murder to begin with. Which is a fair point. Personally I'd debate that a little, but we don't really have enough details.

...

Interestingly, the biggest contributors to one's suffering would be blasphemy ("the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name", Exodus 20) and encouraging another person to sin ("it would be better for him to have a millstone tied around his neck and be thrown into the sea", Mark 9? I think? Jesus said it, anyway).