Scholar8200:
Darkness is the absence of Light. Evil is what is left when God withdraws from that which He created and adjudged good!

ValentineMary:

So anybody that lies should die Pls remind me why u are still alive, why Peter who batryed Jesus was spared (remember nobody gave the couples 3 chances as they did Peter), and pls remind me why most those corrupt religious leaders and politicians are still alive.

Brigance:


If by self-learning, you mean imperfect, then no.

Heck, Yahweh did had perfect beings in mind.

And if you'd put words in Yaweh's mouth and say He planned on a self-effacing being who will continue on an unwinding voyage of malfunctioning, then he has no business getting angry each time they slip.

This defeats the idea of an eternal retribution, Hell fire as the case may be.

TomHagen:
This your logic na wa o. Before God created anything was there evil? As at Genesis 1:1

naijadeyhia:
Was the Holy spirit present there? If Yes where is the proof?

Did the Holy Spirit lay hands on Ananias and his wife and kill them? If Yes where is your proof?

If there was a cctv camera there at the time what would it have captured? A man dying by himself or a man strangled by a spirit?

Can your evidence hold up in a court of Law?

Did Peter touch them or did he only say words? Did Peters words contain words like die, death, kill, terminate? Etc

What if an autopsy had been done and discovered that Ananias and Sapphira died from shock and cardiac arrest?

damogul:


This is what you do not understand. Free will is not immeasurable. Free will is given to man within certain guided limits otherwise man would be lost forever same way a computer is able to arrive at answers to a question by using different approaches but all within its realm of programming.

God giving man free will isnt imperfection. If it was then there would be no morality in existence as all would do solely as they deem fit but throught free will choices we are able to learn and understand and grow.

How would I know cold steam and hot steam are not the same if I do not choose to touch it or I refuse to take instruction when told one is hot and one is cold.

If you live in a house with your kids to yu the walls and doors can serve as boundaries and your kids are free to roam within the house but not outside those boundaries.

blessedvisky:


Hi seun. What actually happened here was a misuse of power by Peter. If you recall, Peter was in charge of the church after Christ ascended Matt 16 :18
Matthew 16:18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 16:19 And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
John 21:15 So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. 21:16 He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. 21:17 He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.

So we know Peter had power, and he misused it. If he didn't want either of them to die, they won't have. The church and apostles grew in knowledge throughout the book of Acts. A classical proof of this fact is Acts 8.
Simon wanted to buy the power of the Holy Spirit from Peter. Peter rebuked him sharply but he didn't die. Why? Because Peter was now wiser than making someone die.
And BTW, you don't have to lie to get a point across. The Bible doesn't record ananais and sapphira having children. I know it must be really hard for you, but don't say what the Bible didn't say.

Cc winner01

Brigance:


The freewill brouhaha huh?

I'd like to take the approach that the very fact that you think we have freewill means that we do not.

For it must seem to me as a luxury thrust upon us without our permission, so to speak.

And no, I do not share your opinion that Yahweh/Religion handed over morality to us.

Seun:

Why not answer the questions yourself, since you think they are relevant to our discussion? Answer them and make your point(s), if you can.

damogul:


Believe what you wish

KingEbukaNaija:


There is nothing logical in the write up . They simply dropped dead for lying . The wages of sin is death . Durrhh !!!

damogul:



God never created Evil. Evil is as an absence of good. Adam and eve were good until they became adulterated and their 100% record of obedience was tainted by a singular act of disobedience which removed their good so like a seed planted, evil began to grow and increase.

You see why i say that for someone seeking the truth you ask the wrong questions. Your questions are a mockery and never a quest for truth.

KazukiIto:
I believe there is a God. As someone that programs, I see its parallel in nature every day. Someone designed Nature, I will call him The Creator. My problem is with religion. To be very specific, 'organized religion'. There is practical wisdom in some of their doctrines, in other areas, they are overly wrong. In essence, no particular religion is exhaustive, we should borrow positives from each and try to better humanity. Afterall, there is always sense in every nonsense.

Seun:

Why not answer the questions yourself, since you think they are relevant to our discussion? Answer them and make your point(s), if you can.

naijadeyhia:



Seun the point you so badly want me to make will be found in your answers to my questions. I guess you already know this so tactically don't want to commit yourself which is why you asked me a question of your own rather than answer my very simple questions.

Answer them and be honorable for once in your life.

To the mod that banned me......na you go tire ....but God bless u still.

fr3do:


oh I see,
this is religion, it musn't make complete sense, but atleast this incident happened in the first century A.D, these days the Lord tarries.

But from another angle, Peter was a bit zealous, my religion is not petetainity its Christainity, I follow Christ.

damogul:



Ok so on Nairaland there are rules which have been laid down and when broken is meant to be served? Yet with God you all conveniently look away from God's rules and focus on His judgement same as in the case of Ananias and Saphira.

Is the Judgement to blame or is the rule breaker the one to blame for breaking the law and waking up the judgement?

Answer me pls.

TomHagen:
This your logic na wa o. Before God created anything was there evil? As at Genesis 1:1

TomHagen:
So hell is for correction? Tell me something.

AnonyNymous:

I was busy at work. Now to your question.
********
First off, the rules on nairaland are not absolute. Why were the rules made? So that nairaland would be a good, productive forum. All the rules there restrict people that want to derail the forum. However, any complaint about the rules can be emailed to Seun or the rest of the mods and they will review and update if necessary. So just like the rules in any government, nairaland's rules are not absolute, and they evolve with time, depending on what we perceive as appropriate.
******
Now, those rules were by Peter, who was supposedly possessed by a branch of Yahweh at the time. I want you to note that Yahweh's rules cannot be changed in any way, because he is supposedly perfect. So shame on all you Christians that have a single poor person in your church. You're supposed to give everything you have to the church to distribute . I'm pretty sure your common sense will not allow you to do that. And that is the same common sense Ananias and his wife applied. They just wanted to take care of themselves. And they got killed for it. In fact, the fact that your god even sets rules is ridiculous, because no matter what rules are there, he supposedly sees the future and knows what everyone is going to do. If he sees that I'm going to eat rice this afternoon, and he can never be wrong, and then he now says 'Thou shall not eat rice', you're only confirming that this earth is nothing but an amusement park to him where we have no free will, and therefore nobody should be blamed for their crimes because everything everybody does is predetermined. RULES ARE ONLY SET WHEN THE OUTCOME IS UNCERTAIN. Nobody knows if a future criminal will kill or not so we set rules to tell people not to kill.
******
I can choose to eat rice or beans this afternoon and no predetermined statement by some Yahweh somewhere can tell me what I will eat.

kevoh:
Below is how Christians react when you make them see Bible stories from a logical angle

damogul:



Neither are Gods rules and Judgements absolute as they are only applicable to those who reject his escape route or who refuse to ask for mercy and forgiveness. in the Bible God gave rules not to act as a deterent alone but to also show that man cannot be as perfect as God is via keeping those rules because keeping them is impossible which brings us back to Jesus again.

Even if Gods your future actions does not mean he can interfere by Himself without letting you know about that future occurrence and hoping you would have a desire within you to want to avert it and if you do wish to avert it and it is beyond your control then you can ask Him to get involved. So Gods laws come with a forewarning and grace unlike Nairaland where you just type and the next thing you know you get banned without any forewarning.

Because Seun and co have no way of knowing the deep intents of your heart they just cut and slash via immediate bans but God who sees the end from the beginning does not because it could be that in another 5 yrs such a person would learn to love Him so he would never punish absolutely until when there is no more room for repentance which is the day of Judgement.

If there is a barbaric judgement such as {a man should kill and eat his neighbour if that neighbour sleeps with his daughter} such a barbaric law even though terrible is redundant and useless until the very law to which it applies is committed. so who do you blame?

again i ask you is it the Judgement that is faulty or the one who woke up the Judgement by committing the crime that Judgement applies to?

First of all, by absolute, I meant unchangeable. Unchangeable because your god is supposedly the embodiment of perfection. So if you're saying they're not absolute, you're saying that he's not perfect.

Second, we have plenty of barbaric judgements in the bible. In fact, do you know your Bible condemns eating crabs, shrimp, snail, oysters, etc? If you've ever tasted any of those you are a hypocrite. I'm sure the drunkard who made those rules at the time could not find a way to prepare delicious lobster so instead of experimenting with different seasoning and spices, he just said 'god said we shouldn't eat it'.

You said Seun and co have no way of seeing in our minds, which is true. However Yahweh does. What I don't get is how you will say Yahweh has made the future already, that future is perfect, and then he wants to change it. Christian logic baffles me all the time. Once again, rules are only made when the future is uncertain

So to your question. If the rules are faulty then the judgement will automatically be faulty. Therefore I am in no way obliged to follow those rules if they do not protect the interest of my (and my fellow humans) rights. A god that can ask people to destroy someone else's city and take their wives is protecting the interest of the attackers, but not the attacked.

Scholar8200:
There are other forms of retribution listed there pls.

Scholar8200:
No. I would define evil as the option available to the intelligent creatures, men and angels being free moral agents, to forsake God. And when this choice is made, such is severed from God and what is left is anything but good.

AnonyNymous:

Ohhh ok, we have common sense and then we have logic that is exclusive to Christian brains. I see. I'm done here

damogul:


yep! common sense, logic and faith are all exclusive to Christians so run along since you know you have hit a brick wall as usual.

AnonyNymous:

Brick wall? Lmao. You're the one that hit a brick wall by running to your typical 'only Christians will understand' argument when you have nothing left to say. You didn't even understand the post you quoted just now lmao. Anyway bye, I hope to see you shitting all over some atheist thread later so till we meet!

TomHagen:
Sophistry.