Playing God - the afterlife

[JJ Husker]

But it's not simple. We are guilty - why? Because of a sin committed thousands of years before we were born. Because of that sin, we are born into a world of sin, and we can't not sin.

 

But God sent his Son to atone for sins for all time by dying on the cross as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. So if Adam's sin makes us guilty for all time, why doesn't Jesus' sacrifice make us guiltless for all time? Why are we still here in this world, still guilty at birth 2,000 years after Christ's sacrifice?

 

If Adam's sin made us guilty, God's atonement should obviate that, right? Why aren't we living in Eden again after Christ's death and resurrection? Was Adam's sin stronger than Christ's sacrifice? Apparently so, since we're still sinning, still guilty of Adam's crime at birth.

 

I don't get this line of thought. Yes we are born with original sin and their is evil and sin in the world but how does that make us forever guilty and how does it make God unloving? He gave us free will so that we would have the choice to freely love him back. If we were simply born into heaven with no adversity whatsoever, what kind of existence would that be? We wouldn't be able to choose to love him. I think that would be much more cruel than allowing bad things to happen. That would just be a total exercise in futility. It is not that hard to live a life on earth and then spend eternity in heaven. I really don't get the argument that it's so terribly difficult and mean spirited to expect a little bit of effort. But, I also believe that we are unable to experience joy without sorrow, life without death, good without evil, etc. If he removes any opposite from the table, the other side of it just isn't possible.

 

BTW, Christ's death does wipe out our sin. I'm not sure why you're approaching it like it doesn't. Do we still sin? Yes, but those sins can be forgiven. It is not that difficult, in fact it's downright simple.

[knapplc]

But it's not simple. We are guilty - why? Because of a sin committed thousands of years before we were born. Because of that sin, we are born into a world of sin, and we can't not sin.

 

But God sent his Son to atone for sins for all time by dying on the cross as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. So if Adam's sin makes us guilty for all time, why doesn't Jesus' sacrifice make us guiltless for all time? Why are we still here in this world, still guilty at birth 2,000 years after Christ's sacrifice?

 

If Adam's sin made us guilty, God's atonement should obviate that, right? Why aren't we living in Eden again after Christ's death and resurrection? Was Adam's sin stronger than Christ's sacrifice? Apparently so, since we're still sinning, still guilty of Adam's crime at birth.

 

I don't get this line of thought. Yes we are born with original sin and their is evil and sin in the world but how does that make us forever guilty and how does it make God unloving? He gave us free will so that we would have the choice to freely love him back. If we were simply born into heaven with no adversity whatsoever, what kind of existence would that be? We wouldn't be able to choose to love him. I think that would be much more cruel than allowing bad things to happen. That would just be a total exercise in futility. It is not that hard to live a life on earth and then spend eternity in heaven. I really don't get the argument that it's so terribly difficult and mean spirited to expect a little bit of effort. But, I also believe that we are unable to experience joy without sorrow, life without death, good without evil, etc. If he removes any opposite from the table, the other side of it just isn't possible.

 

BTW, Christ's death does wipe out our sin. I'm not sure why you're approaching it like it doesn't. Do we still sin? Yes, but those sins can be forgiven. It is not that difficult, in fact it's downright simple.

 

Christ's death wipes away your sin if you believe in him. That is predicated on a chance to know who he is, and to understand and accept the Gospel. While Undone's references to Romans and "imprinting on our hearts" is nice, it's flies in the face of Jesus' own teaching:

 

Mark 16: 14-16 Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen. He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned."

 

Jesus > Paul, so I'm going to take Jesus' word over Paul's on this.

 

So, in order to be saved, you must 1) Believe, 2) Be baptized. This comes straight from Jesus, who is God, and whose word is incontrovertible. Now Paul, a non-disciple, post-crucifixion convert whose writings dominate the New Testament, says differently in Romans, as Undone points out:

Romans 2: 1-16 "You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance? But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God "will give to each person according to what he has done." To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favoritism. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares."

 

The two verses in bold are verses 7 and 14-15, which Undone alluded to above. Paul is talking to the Romans, a people who only recently found Jesus at the time of this epistle, and he is attempting to assuage their fears over "judgment." It's a bit of salesmanship - don't worry about not knowing Christ, don't worry about your relatives/family who didn't know Christ, if they were "good people," they're in the clear with God. Of course, that's not what Jesus said would happen, but Paul is looking for converts, and the rules are getting bent, just a few years after Jesus' resurrection.

 

So, if you don't believe in Christ, according to Christ, you will be condemned. So how does that make God unloving? Easy - there are literally billions of people on this planet right now who will never know Christ. Not out of their own doing, and not out of any fault of their own, but because they were born in an area so remote that Christian missionaries can't get there. Or, maybe missionaries got there in the past, and as missionaries were wont to do in the past, tried to "convert" the heathen via the sword, and it didn't take with their ancestors (people tend to resist conversion at sword point, after all), and today they were born in a non-Christian land. So they're condemned, as Jesus said, because of the fault of their fathers - which is actually the fault of Jesus' own missionaries. Either way... condemned. That's not love.

 

Regardless, none of this should be happening at all, anyway. Once Christ died and was resurrected, Adam's sin was wiped away from Man. If Christ's action were as powerful as Adam's sin, a "loving" God would have eliminated sin after that sacrifice, would have put Man back into Eden (which is still there, just guarded by an Angel), would have placed us back into paradise. But he didn't. We're still here, guilty from birth for Adam's sin. That is not, in any way, the act of a loving God.

[carlfense]

If we were simply born into heaven with no adversity whatsoever, what kind of existence would that be? We wouldn't be able to choose to love him. I think that would be much more cruel than allowing bad things to happen.

Serious question: how would that be cruel? It sounds great to me. Was it cruel to place Adam in the Garden of Eden? If so . . . how could that have been the action of a "loving god"?

 

 

 

I'm paraphrasing here and I'm definitely not the author . . . but I saw a quote recently that said "If I could prevent a defenseless child from being raped I would do so. That's the difference between me and god."

[sd'sker]

I would peruse internet message boards, with an eye towards those who bad mouthed me or claimed I didn't exist. That would be a good start for the list of those who would not be joining me in the afterlife.

for an all-powerful, superior being, that sounds awfully petty and vindictive.

(this was the only response i have read. i know this thread is two pages long, so i missed a lot of the conversation.)

 

My first response was just me trying to be funny. You should read through the thread. Lots of more serious, interesting stuff than my smart ass answer.

i somewhat assumed that.

[Undone]

It's getting a bit hard to work out the multi-quoting and respond to each post in a single post itself. I'm going to try to hit on a few points nonetheless.

 

JJ brings up a point that I think is a good one, and I'll expand on it in a way he didn't. I wonder if the doctrine of hell is more an emotional issue rather than an intellectual one. Example: If sin truly is what the Bible says it is (and I think we agree that morality/good/evil exists...one way or the other, no matter your worldview perspective), how many people have you met who say they reject God/Christianity because they don't believe in a God that is both completely loving and completely just that then sends *all* people to heaven? None that I've ever met.

 

And I know what the counter is to this - that God set man up to fail.

 

But when knapp went back to "Why aren't we in Eden right now after Christ's death?"...or possibly it was someone else who had said that the Eden "proposition" was situationally perfect, it has to again be pointed out that man was still given free will. And maybe my post isn't getting arranged like I think it's being arranged in my mind... but my point is, is it possible that this idea that some go to hell is logically necessary if some go to heaven?

 

Sidenote: I'm extremely impressed with the low level of ad hominems in this thread.

[knapplc]

It's getting a bit hard to work out the multi-quoting and respond to each post in a single post itself. I'm going to try to hit on a few points nonetheless.

 

JJ brings up a point that I think is a good one, and I'll expand on it in a way he didn't. I wonder if the doctrine of hell is more an emotional issue rather than an intellectual one. Example: If sin truly is what the Bible says it is (and I think we agree that morality/good/evil exists...one way or the other, no matter your worldview perspective), how many people have you met who say they reject God/Christianity because they don't believe in a God that is both completely loving and completely just that then sends *all* people to heaven? None that I've ever met.

 

And I know what the counter is to this - that God set man up to fail.

 

But when knapp went back to "Why aren't we in Eden right now after Christ's death?"...or possibly it was someone else who had said that the Eden "proposition" was situationally perfect, it has to again be pointed out that man was still given free will. And maybe my post isn't getting arranged like I think it's being arranged in my mind... but my point is, is it possible that this idea that some go to hell is logically necessary if some go to heaven?

 

Sidenote: I'm extremely impressed with the low level of ad hominems in this thread, with the exception of a few drive-by posts.

 

Adam had Free Will, and Adam was in Eden. Can't have it both ways. Either we were given a clean slate upon Christ's sacrifice or we weren't, and we clearly weren't. We were still being punished (are still being punished) for Adam's sin, despite Christ's sacrifice 2,000 years ago. Clearly that sacrifice didn't have the same effect on me as Adam's sin had on me - Adam's effect was stronger, and that flies in the face of Christ's Godhead.

 

And the doctrine of hell must be a factual issue, not an emotional issue, or the church is lying to us, and lied to us throughout the Middle Ages when hell was a frequent tool used to keep the rabble in line.

[Undone]

Adam had Free Will, and Adam was in Eden. Can't have it both ways.

I'm honestly not following. Adam's born into union with God, but he's not forced to love and obey Him. It seems to me that the Bible suggests that the angels had already been sorting out this good/evil thing already prior to the creation of man. It seems that God was indeed "sparing" (for lack of a better word - that one may come back to bite me, it's the best I can do running at this fast of a clip) man from this ability to know evil. But again, God didn't create a robot - he created a human being. Why He did that? That's a tough one for me. But He did. So upon Adam (and through whom) all can choose to obey or not obey, yes; the burden is placed.

 

But I'm not following how you view it as impossible to "have it both ways." Quite possibly it was just my reading comprehension. Adam clearly did have it both ways, or so it seems to me: he was born into Eden with a perfect union with God while simultaneously being given the choice to break that perfect union.

 

 

And the doctrine of hell must be a factual issue, not an emotional issue, or the church is lying to us, and lied to us throughout the Middle Ages when hell was a frequent tool used to keep the rabble in line.

A difficult one, to be sure. Possibly a different discussion train? Probably in my opinion it, it is. The epitome of evil and selfishness, and certainly terrible theology just for starters.

[knapplc]

So if Adam was free from sin - for a time, anyway - when Christ died to obviate Adam's sin from mankind's shoulders, and theirs as well, that would have been a great time to allow Humanity back into Eden. If Adam's sin made us all wrong, Jesus' sacrifice should have made us all right, and the best place for the righteous is in that same harmony with God that Adam had.

 

But we didn't get that. In fact, life continued as normal after the death on the cross. Everyone was still sinful, sin still had/has sway over humanity, and we're all going to hell if we don't believe.

 

It's the absurdity of that story, and the incongruity of the outcomes of Adam's/Jesus' actions that is so hard to swallow, as is the behavior of a supposedly loving God once that sin was washed away. And yet, we still have suffering, we still have the threat of damnation hung over our heads... for what? A crime we didn't commit 6,000 years ago, which was supposedly taken off our shoulders 2,000 years ago?

 

It just doesn't pass the smell test.

 

And the argument that "God's ways are beyond those of man" or any logic-based argument relies so heavily on the trust that 2,000 years worth of men haven't messed with this doctrine that it beggars belief. The trust in what the Bible tells us is a sinful mankind that, at no point in the two millennia since Christ has nobody altered or repurposed scripture to suit their own ends is too much for me to take. And when it's so easy for an omnipotent God to simply pop by once in a while and save the odd baby from starvation or the odd country from the wrack and ruin of war, and he doesn't.... that's pretty hard to justify with the concept of a loving God in the face of our freedom from sin these past 2,000 years.

 

So then we fall back to "Free Will." All this muck that we suffer through all our lives and all the lives of the past 100 generations since Christ cannot simply fall to allowing Man to have Free Will. A loving God would not allow an insurmountable mountain of evil to happen to his children simply so we have the ability - a dubious right at best - of turning away from him. The tremendous narcissism it would take for a being to allow all this suffering just so we could prove we love him is way, waaay outside the boundaries of what would make God "loving." No father in his right mind would treat a child he loves that way.

[Undone]

It just doesn't pass the smell test.

The intellectual smell test? Or the emotional smell test? Or both?

 

And the argument that "God's ways are beyond those of man" or any logic-based argument relies so heavily on the trust that 2,000 years worth of men haven't messed with this doctrine that it beggars belief.

I'm trying to understand what you're saying here. Do you mean 2,000 years since the original new testament documents were penned? If so, is looking at the original content of that material not enough? Is that what you mean? That the fruit of those waving the Bible and the intersection of evil invalidates the message?

 

No father in his right mind would treat a child he loves that way.

But where does punishment factor in for a father then? Objectively, subjectively, not at all?

[knapplc]

It doesn't pass either the intellectual or emotional smell test.

 

What I'm saying with the 2,000-year thing is, it's been 2,000 years since Christ sacrificed himself on the cross to wash away sins. But the day after that happened, innocent babies were "born into sin" and have continued to do so for the last two millennia. Christ's act, as God, MUST have been stronger than Adam's act, as Man. So, being stronger, why didn't we start over at that point? What's the point in making 100 more generations live, suffer and die in a sinful world when Christ "freed us from sin?" It makes no sense.

 

Immediately upon that sacrifice being complete, Man should have been placed back into that right relationship with God and move forward, free and sinless. But we aren't, and we're living today as if nothing had happened back then. A logical conclusion would be that nothing did happen back then - at least, nothing out of the ordinary. Certainly no God came to earth, sacrificed himself for our sins and freed us from sin. Because if there were an action like that from God, there would be no need for more "punishment," because, like Adam, we'd be perfect and in a Right relationship with God after Jesus freed us from sin. There would be no more hoops through which to jump.

 

That's why it doesn't pass the smell test. It's far too logical to think that Jesus was what he really was - yet another in a series of "messiahs" of his age, who did the same kinds of things, who said the same kinds of things, who died an ignominious death, but whose followers, having nothing left to do, perpetuated his godhead to keep themselves employed. It was a cult, much like Jim Jones or David Koresh (without all the nasty "kill yourself or others" of course - not the greatest analogies and I apologize for not being more creative). Unlike those, it stuck, but it stuck not unlike Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Islam, Judaism, or any other "isms" we have today. A priesthood was built around it just like all the other religions, and just like all the other religions, it has its own codes, its own holy book, yadda yadda yadda.

 

There's nothing special about Christianity. It's the regional belief of a group of humans. None of its tenets are proof of anything any more than the tenets of Shiva are proof that Hinduism is "the one real faith."

[Undone]

Immediately upon that sacrifice being complete, Man should have been placed back into that right relationship with God and move forward, free and sinless. But we aren't, and we're living today as if nothing had happened back then. A logical conclusion would be that nothing did happen back then - at least, nothing out of the ordinary.

I encourage you to correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd probably use this quoted snippet as a synopsis of your position, under which you may even possibly attach the tagline: "The 'free will' concept is illogical."

 

I feel I've already answered with my ultimate response to that...perhaps I haven't quite exhausted it. But I think I have. So I'm probably cool with just leaving it here.

 

The implications you've proposed though (Christianity = smoke and mirrors) tempts me to start a thread on origins. Because I'm genuinely interested in what a person in your position believes about origins. And it's possible that at this point you're not interested in that topic. That's cool, too. But for me, and maybe it's just the way I'm wired, I'd probably spend 365 days a year trying to sort it out. Because my mind needs answers to these questions. And I'm not putting words in your mouth, because some peoples' don't.

[knapplc]

Have at it. I'm interested in all kinds of origins. It was the very search for answers to all these questions which put me where I am today - that, and a pretty exhaustive Bible study, ironically.

[Landlord]

Immediately upon that sacrifice being complete, Man should have been placed back into that right relationship with God and move forward, free and sinless. But we aren't, and we're living today as if nothing had happened back then. A logical conclusion would be that nothing did happen back then - at least, nothing out of the ordinary. Certainly no God came to earth, sacrificed himself for our sins and freed us from sin. Because if there were an action like that from God, there would be no need for more "punishment," because, like Adam, we'd be perfect and in a Right relationship with God after Jesus freed us from sin. There would be no more hoops through which to jump.

 

 

 

 

Would another logical conclusion be that God has a plan in store for His glory that we fail to be able to appreciate or understand properly due to our limited abilities? Your argument makes me think of a five year old coming to the highly logical conclusion that "if my mom loves me, she should buy me all the toys that I want - since she doesn't buy me all those toys, she most definitely can not love me." Obviously the mom still loves the boy, but the boy is incapable of comprehending truths more complex and profound than his wisdom. Good luck convincing the boy that he might not know what he's talking about, though.

 

Aside from that, Knapp, I'm curious about two things. The first is why this very specific and focused element of the argument seems to be your dealbreaker. Why is this where you keep coming back to, when there are so many other elements to be discussed and examined? What I mean is, say God existed and had proved Himself beyond any shadow of a doubt, and Jesus had also proven Himself as God's son and the world's savior. Yet we still aren't in heaven or Eden, still living life as sinners who need to repent and have faith. Would you become a Christ follower then? Obviously that isn't the same as reality, where God hasn't proven Himself to be, but at least in my life, while I grant you your difficult questions and don't know all of the answers, I see enough tangible and reasonable evidence that God is who He says He is, and that outweighs other difficult areas.

 

Second, I'm curious why you spent so much of your life not just holding onto your faith, but so passionately devoting yourself to it, when you never felt the supernatural promptings of the Holy Spirit. How could your heart have ever been in it while you led Bible studies, VBS, etc? Seems an extraordinary amount of time to hold onto something that you never particularly felt to be real in your own life.

[knapplc]

That could be another conclusion, but it's not logical. It's not about buying toys or, in the extrapolation, spoiling or giving someone something they don't need, it's about giving the child the very basic things they need. Leave an infant alone on a desert island and they'll perish. The infant requires the presence of their parent. It's not a want, it's a need. For me to get to heaven, which is the purpose of my existence here, I crucially absolutely need the presence of God - but he's not here. Now, my dad is here, and if I got stranded somewhere and needed his help, I'd call and he'd come help me. My dad is a better dad than God. That's a problem.

 

As much as I've gone on in this thread, this is not the dealbreaker for me. The shed analogy I came out with a few dozen threads/months back was. I created this thread based on a question I ran across on the interwebz, and it intrigued me so I posted it here. Were God to prove himself beyond a shadow of a doubt, I have very high hopes that I would be logical/sane enough to be a follower. I grant you the evidence, but you must grant me the fact that the evidence is interpretable, and therefore questionable. Some see it one way and some another way, and lately I've come to see it another way.

 

Why did I spend so much of my life as a Christian? Most likely that has to do with my upbringing, and the fact that all my friends/family have been Christian, thus reinforcing my beliefs. It wasn't until I did a very thorough study of the Bible, cover to cover, that those nagging doubts we all have - and if you're honest with yourself, you'll admit you have doubts - those nagging doubts for me became not just a quiet voice in the background whispering, but a full-on shout saying, "Wait a minute!" It wasn't until I finally stopped, and stopped ignoring the doubt, that I allowed myself to see what had always been there.

 

As a child, you want to believe in Santa. Santa is awesome and full of magic and wonder and all those great things that make childhood so special. But the older you get, the more you realize how impossible Santa is. The full realization comes months, maybe years after the doubt seeps in, but it still comes. Church, for me, was always wonderful and special and a safe place. It was where I saw my friends and it was, especially during Easter and Christmas, full of music I love and sights and sounds that I felt were "home." So it came as a great upheaval in my life to step away from that, and I still miss many of my friends that I only saw at church. It's not easy giving this up, but it's right, at least for me.

 

I have a wife, as most know, and she's Christian to this day, and she knows full-well where I'm at. And we're still good and she still goes to church, and it's not a problem for me that she goes even though I think it is... what I think it is. I have had no negatives from my time as a Christian. Maybe if some of those bad things that happened to others in a church setting happened to me the story would be different, but they didn't and it isn't. I'm fine with Christianity, I just don't see it the way I did before.

[ZRod]

What I'm saying with the 2,000-year thing is, it's been 2,000 years since Christ sacrificed himself on the cross to wash away sins. But the day after that happened, innocent babies were "born into sin" and have continued to do so for the last two millennia. Christ's act, as God, MUST have been stronger than Adam's act, as Man. So, being stronger, why didn't we start over at that point? What's the point in making 100 more generations live, suffer and die in a sinful world when Christ "freed us from sin?" It makes no sense.

I'm just curious what the answer to this would be. Forget all this suffering and dieing crap and assume that's how it's supposed to be because of free will. So why is it that every human born after Christ's death is still guilty of the sin he died for 2,000 years ago? Why are we still guilty by birth and not guilty by choice? I'm definitely not as scholarly as you guys I'm just curious what the answer would be.