If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters–yes, even his own life–he cannot be my disciple.

It’s from Luke 14:26. Check it out yourself if you don’t believe me.

regards

It would be more productive if you keep thinking about the errors you pointed at the Genesis history, what do you think? See this way, and I can’t see the logical in your point yet.

I did think about what you claim are errors, but your problem is that I explained why they aren’t errors. That you fail to understand the logic I’ve presented is not a failure on my part.

I could trash all your argument after reading your opinion that God was alone at the creation of the humans. So, or you start again accepting that God was not alone, or we can stop here

As far as I’m aware, at no point in the Old Testament does it say that God was anything other than the One God, YAHWEH. There is no mention of Jesus or holy ghosts, and nothing to indicate that God wasn’t alone at the creation of the universe. You claim otherwise, so I ask that you present the chapter and verse from the Old Testament, specifically Genesis that you keep referring to, where it explains who, beside God, there was to talk to.

You’re also completely missing the point of my initial argument, which is valid even if God had, in fact, manifested himself in different personas or aspects. Does it make a difference if free will was given to Adam and Eve by Jesus? Is there anyone making God give humans free will? If not, what is your argument, exactly?

If you say a child to not put the hands in the oven, they really need to know “the moral” of that???

If you tell a child not to put their hand in the oven, but the child doesn’t even know what an oven is, how is it to know what not to do?

Let’s say I tell you, “don’t do that!” Now, you have no idea what it is I’m telling you not to do, but that’s not my problem. As soon as you do it, I’ll punish you. I don’t care that you have no idea what I’m talking about.

Now, when God told Adam and Eve that they shouldn’t eat the fruit, they understood that. They even understood why (because God said so) and what would happen if they did (they’d be cursed and die). I’m not arguing with you here. What I’m saying is that before eating the fruit, they did not possess what which the fruit was there to give, and that very thing was necessary for them to understand that not doing what God told them to was wrong.

Get it?

To end this, you didn’t understand my last point, the “So, you’re saying I have free will, but I don’t have a choice?” thing.

I did understand it, but it seems you did not even understand what it was I had a problem with. You said, and I quote, “to respect the choices of others is a duty that your free will not gives to you a chance to choose, you just have to do it”. You’re telling me that I have no choice in this matter. Those were your exact words. So, if I don’t have a choice, I don’t have free will.

So, unless you admit that your post is wrong from the beginning (as you said that God was alone) I’ll stop from here.

If God wasn’t alone, then you show me the verse that says who else was there. Until then, you haven’t in any way proven me wrong.

Lastly, you’re assuming the Bible is literally true, which is a problem in itself. If you mean to tell me that the mere usage of the words “us” and “our” proves that God was not alone (which in itself doesn’t actually have anything to do with my argument), are you also arguing that everything that follows Genesis is literally true? Is the earth 6000 years old? Did Jonah really live in the belly of a whale? Did zombies really rise from the graves after Jesus was crucified? Did Jesus actually curse a fig tree for not bearing fruit in off-season?

Either you’re a biblical literalist, or you accept that mere prose does not actually prove anything.

You raised others points beyond those ones that you first comment. Talking about sacrifice? I told you the inconsistent of your arguments inside your text, and you are pushing a discussion endless. It would be more productive if you keep thinking about the errors you pointed at the Genesis history, what do you think? See this way, and I can’t see the logical in your point yet. I could trash all your argument after reading your opinion that God was alone at the creation of the humans. So, or you start again accepting that God was not alone, or we can stop here – and that for me is alright, if YOU want to change the Christian’s concepts.

About the other think, the “supposition of good and bad”, common! You are acting like child – just as they did! If you say a child to not put the hands in the oven, they really need to know “the moral” of that??? Do they need to burn themselves to know that is bad? It’s is a law, and period. I have the “free will” of deciding to use drugs, even when lots say that this is not that bad. So, I don’t have to know for sure that something is bad to obey someone who I admit that is more clever that me. That’s free will, but whatever my decision is, It is my responsibility.

To end this, you didn’t understand my last point, the “So, you’re saying I have free will, but I don’t have a choice?” thing. Of course you have choices, but remember that you freedom goes until the point you disturb the freedom from another. I respect you if you think that there is no sense in any beliefs, and I pointed out what you forgot to tell AT YOUR ARGUMENT. So, unless you admit that your post is wrong from the beginning (as you said that God was alone) I’ll stop from here.

Thank you very much by your attention.

Unfortunately, the only mistakes are in your reply. Here’s why:

If you read Genesis chapter 1 versus 26 you’ll read: “And God said, Let us make man in our image”. Do you really think that He was talking with the animals?

If Jesus is not God himself, but a separate person that can be spoken to, what does that make of the sacrifice? If Jesus is God, then God was not speaking to the animals, he was speaking to himself. You chose which is more convenient to your beliefs: A god that will sacrifice other people for the sins of a third group of people, while taking no responsibility for any of it himself, or a God that does what in people would be a clear sign of mental illness.

So I ask you: How couldn’t they know what to do? [...] What God wanted was that his creatures obeyed him at one single law because they wanted to do it, not because they were programmed machines.

Without knowledge of good and evil, how were Adam and Eve supposed to know it was bad to disobey God? To them, it simply was. It was neither good nor bad, it simply was, and they simply did. God told them to do something, yes, but how were they supposed to comprehend that not doing something they are told is bad before gaining the knowledge of good and evil?

Your answer betrays the fact that you have not even considered this problem, instead merely taken what the Bible says literally, and trusted that it all makes sense in the end. Well, it doesn’t, and now that I’ve pointed this out, what will you do?

There are a lot of other inconsistent statements at your post, and I suggest you to be careful. To not believe in God is a choice that you have, but to respect the choices of others is a duty that your free will not gives to you a chance to choose, you just have to do it.

This doesn’t even make any sense. So, you’re saying I have free will, but I don’t have a choice? What good is free will without the ability to make choices? If I “just have to do it”, then how am I any better than what you call “programmed machines”?

Do point out all my other “inconsistent statements”, I’m eager to hear them. But before you do, try thinking about your own statements, and whether or not they are consistent. Being a hypocrite is indeed worse than simply being inconsistent, wouldn’t you say?

I don’t know if you will read this, but there are some mistakes at your post, if you are talking about Bible’s concepts.

You said: “He hadn’t created himself as Jesus yet, so there’s really no one else to blame at this point.” If you read Genesis chapter 1 versus 26 you’ll read: “And God said, Let us make man in our image”. Do you really think that He was talking with the animals?

You said: “God punished Adam and Eve for doing what they couldn’t possibly know not to do, since they couldn’t know that what they did was wrong and God himself made them capable of choosing whether to obey or disobey, thanks to free will.” Again, by reading Genesis chapter 2 versus 16 and 17 you’ll see: “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” So I ask you: How couldn’t they know what to do? It is a gift to receive the free will, but remember that, even to us, this comes with a big responsibility. What God wanted was that his creatures obeyed him at one single law because they wanted to do it, not because they were programmed machines.

There are a lot of other inconsistent statements at your post, and I suggest you to be careful. To not believe in God is a choice that you have, but to respect the choices of others is a duty that your free will not gives to you a chance to choose, you just have to do it.

You make some points yourself (although, honestly, I hesitate to call them valid), so here is my rebuttal:

One, “science is the study of God’s creation” might be a better way of stating the Christian world view.

No, it really wouldn’t, because the blind assumption that it is “God’s creation” we’re studying is directly unscientific. What you said is a complete contradiction. Christians might be studying what they believe to be God’s creation, and that’s fine, but pretending that it’s science is, in my mind, dishonest. Ignoring contradictory evidence and ignoring the lack of evidence are both, again, directly unscientific.

If “god” has a creator then he isn’t God.

I agree, but I must point out that this is the Christian error: the failure to see this reasoning through to the end. Science isn’t just about stating that something happened, it needs to explain how it happened, and show how it relates to the rest of the universe. Simply claiming “God is, period” doesn’t explain anything whatsoever, it is not backed up by any evidence, and there is simply no reason at all to assume it to be truth.

Either you’re worshiping a false god, or God cannot logically and reasonably exist because his existence is predicated on an impossibility.

Suppose we accepted that the one who made our universe is not original. Still, somehwere along the line, there has to be a first or original Creator; one who made the first thing that was ever made. This is God.

Again, I agree, but this is not what you and other Christians believe. You don’t worship whatever god was the first god, and who spawned all later gods. No, you believe specifically in the Abrahamic God, and you ascribe him the status of “first” regardless of whether or not there are other gods before him. Again, entirely unscientific, because you haven’t even tried to find out whether or not your God is the True God. You merely assume it as fact.

First, however, I will state that such an authoritative statement, regardless of the motive or nuance perceived, is unprovable. It’s an assertion with no substance.

It absolutely is, and I’m glad you picked up on it. Now, please say the exact same thing about your claim that your God is the “first” god, that this is all God’s “creation” and that God exists at all. If you do that, then I will gladly refrain from stating that God does not, in fact, exist.

If one questions whether or not Jesus lived then they must question the existence of every Greek philosopher and even Alexander the Great simply on the bsis that the written account reflecting the existence of Jesus dwarfs the account of any other man by many multiples.

And what makes you think that isn’t exactly what we’re doing? Remember, that is the scientific way, to question even the claims we want to believe as much as we question those that are irrelevant to us.

Virtually no credible historians deny that Jesus did walk the earth.

This statement is a bit disingenuous, because I know of no historians that confirm that your Jesus walked the earth. That is, the Jesus that performed miracles, raised the dead, walked on water and came back from the dead. Historians will confirm that a person most probably existed, that may have had that precise name and may have been punished in the same way. This doesn’t actually confirm anything Christians believe.

L. Ron Hubbard most definitely existed. He is quite real. Yet his religion, what he wrote about as truth, is not.

Joseph Smith was probably just as real. No one doubts his entire existence. Yet no one can confirm that he actually was visited by Jesus and given a new Bible to translate.

Why does Jesus have to be everything you believe he was, even though there is NO evidence to support it, when you aren’t willing to extend the same beliefs to all other, similar figures in history? In other words, why should I disbelieve all other similar figures in history the exact same way you do, yet mindlessly accept that your favorite figure was everything you claim he was?

Without the exitence of Christ there is no hope. There is no reason for existing. We are all accidents and have no reason for living outside of our own puny existence.

You keep telling yourself that, if that’s what you need to do to rationalize your own irrational beliefs.

Atheists all around the world live joyous, fulfilling lives, filled with love from relatives and friends, and they all have every reason to continue living. Your claim is so ridiculously thin that it takes nothing more than looking around you to disprove entirely. Open your eyes, Joe. Stop telling yourself what to believe, and actually look at the world instead. Do you see atheists being without hope? Without a will to live? Do we behave like “accidents” to you?

These are the kind of arrogant, disrespectful comments that make many people despise Christians. You don’t want to love your fellow man at all. You just want everyone to know how much better you are, and how much happier they’d all be if only they shared the same delusions you do.

The reality is that Christ is exactly who He claims to be. And all men will bow before Him one day. You may deny Him today, just as He said men would. But you will not deny Him to His face. If you persist in denying Him until death, then you will tremble before Him afterward as he denies you to the heavenly Father. May He open your eyes to this truth before it is too late.
Respectfully,

And there the open-minded, pro-scientific charade comes crashing down. Baseless claim after baseless claim. Threat after threat. Arrogance after arrogance.

I won’t end my comment with “respectfully” because, quite honestly, I have no respect for you. You lost it all by making all the mistakes you chastised me for making, and acting as if you had the superiority to be allowed to do so.