Pascal's Wager: What Have I Lost?

[37818]

Anyone have an answer to why God says we're already condemned? Why does he set standards he knows people can't reach?

That knowledge of good and evil was God`s (Genesis 3:22). So it is according to God's infinitely good standard.

[Tassman]

Read Genesis. Adam and Eve. they could have met the standard but chose not to. We are their "crack babies" - God felt sorry for us and gave us a way to get clean.

Science tells us that Adam and Eve are fictions.

"Organisms evolved from simple forms by natural selection. This includes humans. We are the end result of a long, slow, natural process of development. Moreover, there never was an original pair. It may be that at some point in our past — a hundred thousand years or so ago — humans went through some kind of bottleneck, but we are still looking at a population of 10,000 or so. Moreover, even if all humans are descended from one woman — “Mitochondrial Eve” — no one thinks that we are descended only from one woman. Or that that woman and her mate were in any significant sense different from their parents or their contemporaries."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michae..._b_874982.html

So this leaves us with Adam and Eve''s disobedience as an allegory, nothing more. So what of the "second Adam" and his atonement for such "disobedience"...an allegory too?

[Tassman]

Read Genesis. Adam and Eve. they could have met the standard but chose not to. We are their "crack babies" - God felt sorry for us and gave us a way to get clean.

Science tells us that Adam and Eve are fictions.

"Organisms evolved from simple forms by natural selection. This includes humans. We are the end result of a long, slow, natural process of development. Moreover, there never was an original pair. It may be that at some point in our past — a hundred thousand years or so ago — humans went through some kind of bottleneck, but we are still looking at a population of 10,000 or so. Moreover, even if all humans are descended from one woman — “Mitochondrial Eve” — no one thinks that we are descended only from one woman. Or that that woman and her mate were in any significant sense different from their parents or their contemporaries."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michae..._b_874982.html

So this leaves us with Adam and Eve''s disobedience as an allegory, nothing more. So what of the "second Adam" and his atonement for such "disobedience"...an allegory too?

That knowledge of good and evil was God`s (Genesis 3:22). So it is according to God's infinitely good standard.

Mythology!

[Doug Shaver]

you are already condemned for your sins, your own actions.

Why should I believe that?

believing is just a drowning man grabbing a rope tossed to him.

You are throwing me a rope and telling me that I'm drowning. Aside from your say-so, I have no reason to believe that the rope will be of any benefit to me.

[Doug Shaver]

The depravity of man is at the same time the most empirically proven fact and the most intellectually denied - Malcolm Muggeridge

And I should believe that just because Malcolm Muggeridge said it?

[Doug Shaver]

I'm talking within a framework of a Christian worldview. From that point of view opposing God is evil, even if the opposing happens unknowingly.

So, you have a worldview that says anyone who disagrees with it is evil. How very convenient for your self-esteem.

[JonathanL]

So, you have a worldview that says anyone who disagrees with it is evil. How very convenient for your self-esteem.

Why would it be? As a Christian I'm continually fighting (and sometimes even succeeding) against my God-opposed flesh, so asserting that my worldview is "convenient for [my] self-esteem" is just ignorant of you. It's pretty much the very opposite of being convenient for my self-esteem.

[Doug Shaver]

It's pretty much the very opposite of being convenient for my self-esteem.

It's a relative thing. It doesn't matter how low your opinion of yourself is, as long as your opinion of everyone else is even lower.

[JonathanL]

It's a relative thing. It doesn't matter how low your opinion of yourself is, as long as your opinion of everyone else is even lower.

If my opinion of everyone else is lower than my opinion of myself it's not because of my worldview, but because I'm a sinful human being. Looking down on other people because you believe we're all sinners by nature and oppose God isn't a necessary, or even probable conclusion of my worldview. I don't know where you've got that notion from, but it certainly isn't through rational reflection.

[37818]

That knowledge of good and evil was God`s (Genesis 3:22). So it is according to God's infinitely good standard.

Mythology!

And your proof that it is mythology is?

[Tassman]

And your proof that it is mythology is?

The creation narratives in Genesis (and Adam and Eve in particular) are scientifically falsifiable and falsified.

[37818]

The creation narratives in Genesis (and Adam and Eve in particular) are scientifically falsifiable and falsified.

How?

[Sparko]

Why should I believe that?


You are throwing me a rope and telling me that I'm drowning. Aside from your say-so, I have no reason to believe that the rope will be of any benefit to me.

It's your choice, Doug. I was just explaining the Christian view.

[Tassman]

How?

Science tells us that Adam and Eve are evolutionarily impossible fictions and that the Genesis creation narratives contradict the origin, history and evolution of the universe(s). There is considerable evidence supporting these facts.

[Doug Shaver]

I was just explaining the Christian view.

I know what the Christian view is. I used to be a Christian. What you have not explained is why I should go back to believing the Christian view.