@auroreII,
auroreII wrote:
You mention that there is a difference between God and human. You say forgiveness in humans facilitates closure which is healing for the person who forgives and I agree with that. When I asked you to tell me what do you consider a moral God? You said, "One who punishes the guilty and not the innocent". "Guilty" and "innocent" are not very specific. I could probably go out on the street and ask people what makes someone guilty and what makes them innocent and get a hundred different answers. That point is argued in the courts all the time. Society as a whole develops their standards for what constitutes criminal behavior and what doesn't, but that can differ from society to society. Even so some believe there are universal truths. The bible gives us two commandments, 1. that we love God and 2. that we love our neighbors as ourselves. The bible says on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. According to this it seems that good and evil are determined by how we ourselves would want to be treated. (Love that new catch phrase I've been hearing on TV, "We are how we treat each other".) The bible says that God is love. So to love God I guess would be to love love, to have love in your heart. The bible says that God does not see as man sees, but he can see into a person's heart and look at their motives.
Wouldn't justice, in order to be truly just, require that the guilty suffer the same consequences as the one who was hurt, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? That would only be fair, right? Yet it's obvious that this would not make things better. It would just make everyone eyeless and toothless. Yet can we just ignore justice? Can God? Christians believe that justice does exist in the world. They believe that some day there will come a day of reckoning when justice will be served. Yet we, being imperfect people, how can any of us hope to stand on that day? God made a way. Our sins have been paid for. Jesus, because he was perfect in all his ways, born not of imperfect man , but of God, and not deserving of death, came to take our punishment and die in our place that we may have life everlasting. He didn't have to, but he loves us that much. When we accept Jesus as our savior we give up our rights to justice for something better. There is justice in the world. We have closure in Jesus' death. There is love in the world. We can forgive because we are forgiven. Can there ever be love if there is no forgiveness?
Jesus is God to you is he?
If so, can God die? Is Jesus dead right now? If not, then there was no true sacrifice was there?
Give a lkisten to this and read the quotes below and come back and we can chat as then you will know why I do not go against the morality and wisdom in the quotes I put.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKNup9gEBdg
Ezekiel 18:20 The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.
Deuteronomy 24:16 (ESV) "Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin.
Ezekiel 18:20 (ESV) The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.
The declaration which says that God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children is contrary to every principle of moral justice. [Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason]
Remember that Jesus was a Jew and that the Jews rejected him as their savior.
Do you have two children? Would you punish the innocent one instead of the guilty one?
We are all children of God in your dogma. We are all sons of God. If you will not punish your innocent son instead of the guilty one, what makes you think God would punish his innocent son instead of his guilty son?
How would the victims of the guilty get closure if the innocent are punished instead of the guilty?
Regards
DL