Evolution and the Pope

Quote: FrGamble

Quote:

While God encourages us to do good He discourages us to do bad.

While I admire your choice to spend your life doing good works the best you are able, I do not envy you having to defend your position.

Quote:

The greatest gift we have is free will

Believe it or not I kind of agree with you. I heard an ad on the local Christian music station the other day of someone praising God that they were in a car accident and no body got hurt. I thought about all the other people listening to the radio at the same time who were in a car accident and someone did get hurt, or someone died. Does God love the person who was unhurt more? Of course not. The gift of true faith and trust in God is not to only praise Him in the good times but to trust Him in the bad as well. When tragedy strikes sometimes the only thing we have to get us through is the truth of God's eternal love and the hope that this evil does not have the last word in our lives. Where would we find this hope and inspiration in the midst of the bad times without God? It is not a huge surprise that suicide has become an epidemic in our secular culture.

Quote: petroglyph

What is so great about free will, if poor choices can send us to Hell for eternity?

Without free will there is no love, no greatness, no beauty. Yes you can squander free will and be held accountable for it, but it might be a little harder to go to hell than you think. Remember the Lord is merciful and loving.

You were given free will at your birth, but it is only a loan. Someday you will have to return the gift to the one who made you and make a account for how you used it. Make it a good one!

Quote: FrGamble

I thought about all the other people listening to the radio at the same time who were in a car accident and someone did get hurt, or someone died. Does God love the person who was unhurt more? .

This way thinking, the Christian way, creates
a schism in a lot of people, it makes for a
lot of confusion. I was a Christian wannabe
in my early 20's for about a year.

I attended meetings with young people like
myself and we read from the Bible and praised
god and sang songs. It was all very nice and
very comforting for a few months. But as I
got to know them better, a lot of them were
confused about how god worked.

God didn't seem fair at all, and they were
constantly pounding that square peg into
the round hole by whittling the peg till
it was round. In other words, they were
making excuses for god all the time. These
were not 'found' people, as they claimed,
they were truly lost and clung to each other
for support. I have seen this in Christianity
ever since. I usually treat them with kid
gloves because they are so dependent on
the religion and each other. Like people in
a 12 step program.

Quote: petroglyph

While I admire your choice to spend your life doing good works the best you are able, I do not envy you having to defend your position.

Nor do I. 99.9% of Christians never put themselves
in the position of dealing with non believers, so
they never have to defend themselves. I don't
blame them for that. Like all cults, most of the
members are encouraged not to speak about their
beliefs to outsiders.

Quote: FrGamble

Quote:

Believe it or not I kind of agree with you.

Well, I have a starting point at least.

Quote:

It is not a huge surprise that suicide has become an epidemic in our secular culture.

Quote: petroglyph

Are you aware of some prohibition against self termination other than "not destroying the vessel"?

We have free will, yet to the Church, suicide
gets you a permanent one way ticket to hell.
Makes no sense, just like the rest of it.

Quote: Evenbob

We have free will, yet to the Church, suicide
gets you permanent one way ticket to hell.
Makes no sense, just the rest of it.

Bob, after checking in on this thread I realize that you know much more than I about religion and the bible.

I have asked others that studied Christianity if they were aware of someplace in the bible where it was said without ambiguity that suicide is a sin.

The only response so far, from the bible, has to do with not destroying the "vessel" which as some think refers to the vessel that contains the soul. I truthfully don't know and in this thread I found an opportunity to ask others who may know. I would like chapter and verse if someone knows it, I can look it up from there. I was gifted a bible. The only other one I had, I stole from a motel once when I was young. Guess I was curious? I have been informed since that, those were "Gideons Bibles" and they were expected to be taken so it wasn't like I was "really" stealing?

Quote: petroglyph

if they were aware of someplace in the bible where it was said without ambiguity that suicide is a sin.

It's not covered in the Bible. They lump
it in with the 6th commandment, you
shall not murder. Only the Catholics make
it an unforgivable sin, who knows why.

Quote: Evenbob

It's not covered in the Bible. They lump
it in with the 6th commandment, you
shall not murder. Only the Catholics make
it an unforgivable sin, who knows why.

Thanks Bob, I notice that you didn't phrase that as so many do " it does say don't murder" it doesn't say not kill. And I know little about it, but I can at least try to get that distinction right. Big difference.

You may be quite correct on that. The person was in a religious college who informed me they felt there was a defense for suicide re: God. It doesn't make sense to me, that a person or some people would not be here were it not for modern medicine at all, even it that modern medicine was administered by an atheist and against that persons will while unconscious. Apparently not all atheists believe in DNR requests?

That may be stretching it a bit to get my point across, but I'm ok with that analogy.