Just wanted to see how long it would take somebody to place it. Obviously, not long at all. 
All sin is not equally wrong. A God who draws no distinction between a petty thief and a serial killer is a worthless sociopath who deserves no respect or fealty.
Why does he need this whole elaborate Jesus pageant to forgive people for trivial sins anyway? Why can’t he just say that some sins aren’t that important and most people aren’t evil enough to warrant eternal torture? He makes the rules, doesn’t he? Why go through a charade like the passion if he can just decide to forgive people? No sacrifice is required.
(BTW, the answer to the OP is no, I wouldn’t want a hand in killing anyone. If God wants to put a hit on someone he can do it himself)
DtC you are just plain wrong. Get it, just plain wrong. It’s obvious you have no understanding of this matter by the wording of your questions.
Diogenes, So there should be degrees of sin. From say 1-10. What constitutes a trivial sin? If you commit a say medium sin over and over, does that make the degree go up? I understand the concept of all sin is equal in God’s eyes, not necessarily comfortable with it, but I get it. Hitler may be in heaven, depends on what happened before he died. The petty thief may have turned his back on God and didn’t make it.
The Jesus pageant was to get people’s attention. Look at this. It worked. Most things aren’t still being discussed 2000 years later. Nothing wrong with sacrifice. We all do it for those we love. The people who tried to save Jesus were told by him not to. Plus, we still have to remember that the Bible was interpreted by man and not some literal how to manual. As originally stated, if Jesus said to not try to save him, I would have to back off. His mother did.
Gadfly mentioned God knowing what’s going to happen, so we don’t have a choice. While you’re playing that video game, don’t you have options, different ways have different outcomes. If someone is looking over your shoulder and knows what’s going to happen, but says nothing, did that take away your choice? I’m probably really going to sound like a nutcase(more than you already think I do, it’s okay), but I don’t think we’re the only thing God’s got going. There is a reference in the Bible(might be later in Job) about all the worlds God made. It’s probably arrogant to think we’re it. We were probably his practice run. IWLN
SunTzu2U:
Care to tell me why I’m wrong? I understand this stuff completely. I just don’t buy it.
IWLN:
Of course there are degrees of sin. Are you honestly asserting that theft or blasphemy is the same as murder or rape? Get a grip on reality. If all sin is equal in God’s eyes then he is an evil motherfucker and deserves nothing but a kick in the balls…especially since he invented sin in the first place and deliberately created beings who were incapable of avoiding sin. He made people imperfect. It’s his fault. Why should people be held accountable for being the way God made them?
Get their attention for what purpose?
How so?
Plenty of myths are much older than the Jesus myth. So what?
We don’t do it we don’t have to. If I have a choice between selling a kidney to feed my family or simply blinking a pile of cash onto my table I Dream of Jeannie style, I’m picking the blink. There is nothing that was accomplished by the passion that could not have been accomplished in an instant by the sheer will of God. If he wanted to “get people’s attention” he could have chosen to visit each and every one of them, past , present and future simultaneously and told them whatever his big important message was. Jesus was rather ineffective because that strategy reached no one who lived before Jesus, very few who lived contemporaneously with Jesus and a decided minority even now. Plus, the story sounds ridiculous to those who value things like reason and proof. It’s one impossible religious story out of thousands. How are people supposed to know that it’s the right one. it’s as if God left ten pound box of paper clips to trhe world and said that only one of them could pick the lock to the pearly gates. If you pick wrong, you fry. Wouldn’t he want to pick something a little more surefire if he actually gave a shit about saving people.
Furthermore, he’s only “saving” us from Himself. Doesn’t he have power over his own actions? If he doesn’t want to torture people forever for being Jewish or for beating off to granny porn, then get this, he doesn’t have to. And if he does, he’s a prick and I want nothing to do with him.
DtC by whose assertion do you quantify sin? YOURS? If this is the case you should avoid foisting your opinions on others.
Again, there are no degrees of sin. Its wrong no matter what YOUR view of degree. Its not a scalar measure but a true/false method. Is stealing a sin? Yes. Is murder a sin? Yes. Is murder worse than stealing? Not in God’s eyes but maybe in your narrow point of view.
Again, I point out that even the murderer who was crucified next to Christ asked for forgiveness and received salvation that very instant.
To answer your other question put simply it is called “free will”.
Humanity has a choice on whether to be good or bad. This was given it at the beginning of human existance.
If Jesus was so ineffective why does he have so many followers today?
Also, from your language usage I can tell you lack the ability to express yourself even halfway intelligently. If you have to resort to using vernacular language it shows a blaring inadequecy in your ability to understand any point which counters your biased opinion.
You attack other’s point of view out of ignorance with a forgone conclusion that anything anyone has to say which runs contrary to your belief system must be wrong. You intend to beat your point over everyone who disagrees with you regardless whether you are correct or not. Based on your language and circular logic (or illogic) I can’t see belaboring this discussion with you.
Post what you may here. It doesn’t prove anything. When the time comes and you part this earth my prayers are you find solace in your beliefs and that they do not fail you.
Please CITE. By that I mean give me “chapter & verse” from the Bible. 
[ul]
[sup]Don’t the Catholics believe in two types of sin? Are they not Christians?[/sup][/ul]
kniz please cite where it is not in the Bible.
You know what would really suck?
Here’s Jesus, about to absolve humanity of sin through his sacrifice, and you come along and save him.
Then later that night, you guys are celebrating and he chokes to death on a grape.
I’m mean, you could have absolved humanity! Way to go.
I’d tell him to execute him, but to nail him to a five-pointed star instead of a cross. That way, when I come back to modern times all the Christians will wear pentagrams!
Nah, I’d tell them to let him go. No sense in executing harmless crazies.
There’s no way I would feel qualified to make the decision without first consulting the Giant Squid Lords of The Deep.
You owe me a new irony meter!
Diogenes, I’m really not trying to tick you off. Don’t know why it seems to. I didn’t say all sin is the same to me. I live here on earth, the same one you do. So stealing my stereo has a lot different impact on me than stealing my child. I have a very firm grip on reality as far as this life is concerned. This trip on earth is just a little blip, a tiny part of our lives. We know very little. When the bible says all sin is the same to God. What I believe it’s saying is all sin separates you from God, therefore it’s impact as far as God is concerned is the same. I believe in God without a doubt in my mind and I still sin. We’re here to learn. This is like preschool for how to develop a better soul. How do you know God invented sin anyway. First part of the Bible, Genesis says “Let us make man in our own image”. I have never assumed God was just hanging out on his own. Us does imply at least one other being. I asked a preacher once who was with God(who was us). There was alot of hemming and hawing. Hey, I like that phrase. Then he told me Jesus was with him. I asked him how he knew. He had to leave for a meeting and was going to get back to me. It’s been 15 years, still waiting. I actually don’t assume much of anything. I do theorize and speculate. Seems like for God to create sin, that would be a sin. I don’t believe that nothing existed before our world was made. Good and evil didn’t come into being just for little old Earth. Making man and women in their image, didn’t necessarily mean physically. So you may have a tough time kicking anyone in the balls. I think when it came to making the physical people, Adam and Eve may have been the first, but not the only ones. I don’t even have a problem with evolution as one of God’s tools, but it’s been a hard one to prove. He did give us free will. We still have free will and don’t always use it wisely. He gave you a choice to believe or not. If you think it’s all a myth, why does it make your so angry? IWLN
Mangetout, Do the Giant Squid Lords of the Deep have prior experience in this type of decision making. You can’t just trust any old sea animal to do your thinking for you. IWLN
I can’t decide whether that’s profound or just really, really stupid. Or possibly both.
On the “all sin is equal” thing, IANAC but let’s think of it this way: You have to jump a 30-foot gap to get to Heaven. Whether you fall short by an inch or by 25 feet, you’re still going to go “splat”. In the sense that sin represents a “falling short”, any sin is too much, without it being forgiven by Jesus/God.
Some people take a “might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a goat” approach to this. Others view it as saying that there is no sin so trivial that it does not require forgiveness, nor any sin so great that it cannot be forgiven. I like the second interpretation better, personally, but chacun a son gout.
Would I tell Pilate to free Jesus? I dunno. Ideally I’d like to talk to Jesus about it. What if Pilate freed him and the Jews rioted and were subsequently slaughtered by the Romans – do I want that on my conscience?
Or, if Pilate thinks I’m [a] god, maybe I should just command him to convert to Judaism himself, or to become a disciple of Jesus. Wouldn’t that be interesting?
Nice comparison with that video game, but it’s kind of a crap comparison. You know that Mega Man is going to beat Freeze Man. No, that isn’t taking away a player’s choice. But if you Know, really Know that the player’s going to lose exactly four ticks of life, two lives, get an arm extension, and you know exactly the route the player is going to take, then, yes, there is no such thing as free choice, because everything’s already been determined, and you know all the determinations.
Interesting idea about the practice run. If there’s an omnipotent being, I suspect that we were created for entertainment purposes.
And you love and respect this tyrannical maniac, obsessed with humanity? Noone deserves to suffer eternally, but I’d sooner throw Hitler in a pit than a petty thief, thank you.
Really? What if it was stolen right in front of him? In a sarcastic manner, obviously in jest? Given back upon request? Am I still as bad as a serial killer?
This is another reason. You say that we have no sense of context, but God has no sense of context, either. Stealing bread to feed your bread racket. Wrong, and you’ll be thrown in hell forever. Stealing bread to feed your starving family. Wrong, and you’ll be thrown in hell forever.
If the Christian God does exist, and I ever got a chance to communicate with him in human form, I’d give him a slap. In the eyes. After I’d soaked my hands in paint thinner.
It’s not free choice. Free choice obviously doesn’t exist if God knows the outcome of everything! We may feel like there’s free choice, but if God knows how Everything is going to happen, then Everything is Predetermined.
It’s really not so difficult to understand, yeah?
Also - not to speak for other Athiests, but I sometimes get angry because of percieved foolishness on the side of people that do believe in the Bible, and the bigoted and warped beliefs that can rise out of it. It’s either an “I hate you” thing or “I feel so sorry for you that it makes my head hurt” thing, depending on the person.
As for the All Sin Is Equal thing - the only Sin that’s ever given a value above any others is blasphemy, and that’s contradicted by another passage. I mean, this “Live up to the standard of an omnipotent being, or beg forgiveness, or burn forever” system is already extremely silly, but for the sake of argument, I just wanted to point out the bit about blasphemy.
Cites? I got 'em.
So, blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is unforgivable. Alright. And again:
But wait: All things can be forgiven. Really. Even though we said that blasphemy couldn’t.
God’s starting to sound silly now. Blaspheming worse than mass-murder? He’s ego isn’t that fragile, is it?
Oh, and for the record, God: The Holy Ghost is just a gormless teenager with a sheet over his head.
But, see, if you went back in time you could ask Jesus all that. Or slap him in the eyes. Or both. Whichever you like.
Uh-oh – that sounds like blasphemy. I’m screwed. ;j
I’d attempt to let the guy live, I think.
Yes, MINE. My conscience, my sense of compassion, my sense of what is just. I have nothing else to go by. If something seems unjust to me or uncompassionate, I’m going to reject it, pure and simple. The Bible says that people should be put to death if they work on the Sabbath. Does that strike you as just? Did God really say that?It sounds to me like backwards tribal primativism. Either that or God is a dick.
It’s a DEBATE forum, dude. Are you seriously contending that only those who buy into your definition of “sin” should be allowed to express opinions here? Grow up.
Again, there are obvious degrees of sin. Only a sociopath would seriously argue otherwise.
Some of it’s a lot wrong, some of it’s a little wrong, some of it, like blasphemy, is outright trivial and harmless.
You can assert this all you want and I’ll keep calling it bullshit.
Yes. Obviously.
Sounds to me like your God is the one with the narrow point of view. I want nothing to do with such a God.
Read your Bible again. The dude (who was a rebel against the Romans, not a “murderer”) did not ask for forgiveness. He just asked Jesus to “remember” him in Heaven. He never said he was sorry for anything. This variation occurs only in Luke anyway. Mark and Matthew both just say that the rebels taunted Jesus on the cross.
Not really. Man did not know good and evil until after he ate the apple. Eating the apple was not a sin because Adam and Eve didn’t know it was wrong. They didn’t know it was wrong to disobey God. God put the apple there, then he sent the serpent to tell them to eat it (Yes, God sent the serpent. He knew what the serpent would do before he created it, therefore anything it does can be blamed squarely on the creator). Adam and eve never had a chance. They did what God intended them to do. They did what God knew they would do before he created them. It is logically impossible for anything to happen against God’s will because he already knows everything that’s going to happen. For something to go against his will would imply that he is not omniscient.
Ad populum arguments are a logical fallacy, dude. I would argue that Christianity as a religion has more to do with the teachings of Paul than of Jesus but to answer your question, Christianity is popular because it has been the incidental religion of those who had the most political power for the last 1500 years or so. End of story.
[uqote]Also, from your language usage I can tell you lack the ability to express yourself even halfway intelligently.
If you have to resort to using vernacular language it shows a blaring inadequecy in your ability to understand any point which counters your biased opinion.
[/quote]
Ad hominems are even stupider than ad populums. I understand your points quite well and have heard them many times before. I respond in vernacular language because that is the response such points deserve. Also, it’s funny.
What point am I ignorant of? Just because I don’t buy your argument doesn’t mean I don’t understand it.
I happen to be correct but be that as it may this is a DEBATE forum, friend. If you don’t want to be disagreed with, don’t post here.
What have I said that was circular?
I don’t have any religious beliefs so how can they fail me?
Pascal’s Wager is also a fallacy, btw. Even when it’s veiled.
1 John 5:17 states that “Not all sin is fatal”. If not all sin leads to death, then how can you conclude that there are not degrees of sin?