I am an optimistic fellow and see many positive markers going up, as well as markers I check for evil going down. I have stats.
I am a bit of a futurist and see many benefits, just a generation or two ahead, that we could be enjoying today. And I see us hamstrung by the evils of religions. That is what drives me. Along with other character traits. It get’s complex.
I am aware of some shortcomings and enhance as opportunities present themselves.
If a man creates a child then becomes incapable of being a father through injury, death or job does this make the man a bad person? If he is mature enough to accept another man being father to the child that he cannot be a father to, is he a lousy human or a good human?
In this world a parent cannot always be a parent. I see a valuable lesson to parenting in that Biblical story. Joseph was man enough to accept, love and care for a child not of his loins, he was a true father… can you not see that important lesson for humans? BTW this goes for stepmothers and mothers too.
Indeed. That myth shows man acting correctly and God acting like a self-centered self-serving gig who engages in bestiality in order to create a chimera half breed half God who he plans to have needlessly murdered.
Nice people and a piss poor God are in this myth.
Strange that you recognize how well we do yet ignore that prick of a God.
The old pick and choose reply. Pick what suits and ignore the rest. How is god being a prick? Did he rape and beat Mary? Did he cause her physical pain? Did he not assure Joseph and Mary about the infant? Did he beat them? I mean really he needed a messenger, he picked two people he could trust. They happily accepted. Where is the bad? God could not be there to be an actual parent to a human child. Seems to me he did a good job of choosing loving parents for his child. That to me is a caring personality.
Well since Jesus did not die only his physical body did, sure. If it required my one child’s life to save many children, in a heartbeat I would send him although he probably would sacrifice himself for the many.
Would you not? We are not mere selfish self centered animals. We are sentient beings that should be able to see and do the greater good even at our own expense or life.
If I was the one to be able to do the job I would. If it is my kid that is able and not I, then it is my kid. At what point did I say I would not? If my kid is willing to serve then he had to get that from his parents. Seems to me Jesus knew what he was doing and willingly happily stepped up to the plate. He could have just kept his mouth shut and done carpentry. He sacrificed himself for others. But, since he did not really die there could not have been a sacrifice. God knew his kid would not die so heck, no sacrifice.
You do not know if there was or was not a need. If souls are real then there is a great possibility that it was needed. If souls are not well, there still could have been a need. I was not there nor were you.
For the greater good sacrifice is required, parents sacrifice their kids every day. People allow and encourage their kids to go into careers that take the lives of those kids. Those kids die saving others. How horrible those parents are. The parents even though incapable should have jumped in before their kid…
2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
In what way do you think sacrifice makes any sense. It has never made sense to me, and probably never will.
Why does one have to get nailed to a cross so that people in the future can have fun and have their sins forgiven.
The whole thing implies an ancient superstition about the “limited good”, and about a less than all powerful god that have to comply with a moral standard which is beyond him.
If you always take the literalist reading of the Bible, then the contradictions are overwhelming - if you take the Bible, however, as an anthology of theistic faith, which has developed over the course of time, and is still in the learning curve, then to give thanks to a “cosmic” Father may make all the sense in the world. Although I am unconventional in many aspects of Christianity, I say grace at meals to the “Father”.
With regard to the Father and Mother question, I regard the planet more as my “Mother”, and am thankful for the wonders of nature towards “Mother Earth”. I also expect her to react against mankind, if we endanger life on the planet - since we are not the only life forms and we need the variety to survive. The rise in water on the surface is already having its effect. Is that “evil” or just the normal run of things? Sometimes I look to the Flood in the OT as a prediction, rather than story of past occurences - but my ideas of morality ar so lacking that I couldn’t judge it, even if I were certain that intention was behind it.