The point of the thread was to look at the "atrocities" of the Old Testament in a different light and different scenario. The atheists here are always crying about that, and yet in a different situation, one that is a little closer to home, they would do the same thing. That is being self contradictory. That is the point.

As far as sin vs evil, I really do not differentiate that much, but the word used for sin means "missing the mark". I would say that sin is the actual act and the evil describes the act. But I do not think that it makes much difference how you look at it.

I will just use one to make my point. Homosexual sex is evil. To have homosexual sex is a sin. Does that clear it up for you?

I would say that the idea behind this is that we are all fallen and all fall short of the glory of God. Now one can claim to be more righteous because their sins are only the "little ones".

I would be much more mortified of the latter situation. But that does not mean that he cannot receive forgiveness of his sins. Nor does it mean that he is less worthy of heaven then me. I think that it takes a different person to do the latter then it does to do the former. It will be harder for the latter to turn and repent then it will be for the former. I think that it is important to remember what Jesus said,
Jesus also talks about people being punished according to their sins. Some with few lashes and some with many.

But you trying to compare your own sin to that of someone else so that you can feel better about yourself is just pride.

It is not our place to judge anyone. It is our job to love and God's job to judge. Don't be a backseat driver.

Not at all. Answering to the most extreme examples doesn't clear up absolute blanket statements.

I do not think that you are understanding what I am saying. IMO, evil is descriptive of an act and a sin what the person is committing, hence missing the mark. As far as I have seen the two used that is what I would believe.

Would you still believe this were it not for your religion?

Evil, it depends upon your reasoning capability. For the most part it's just genetics/experience/attitude. I've seen men who could have made a difference in this world, instead they chose to make a difference in their pocket /neighborhoods. Now true evil today is classified as a person being a sociopath, which is not the case. True evil feels, breaths, exploits, they always exploit that's the common denominator.

Without my religion I would not believe that evil exists at all. Evil is a word that is used for reference. If there is no God then there is no defining good, and if there is no defining good then there can be no evil.

Jib, (and I won't call you a douche for what you do for a living anymore because after knowing you, I now admire your personal integrity as opposed to those other salesmen)

Have you ever lied to a customer?
How likely is it that you will lie to a customer in the future?

If the answers are "yes" and "highly", then...

Should you quit your job because it conflicts with your religion?

I appreciate that very much.

I am not going to say that I have never maybe embellished a little or left out certain things, because I am sure that I have at times. But what I can say is that I have never told someone something like a car is good when it is not. I will not do something like that. I have sold cars that were not the greatest in the world, and that is exactly what I told people. I have also lost a lot of money in my career because I am not willing to say what it takes if that means lying. But I sleep a lot better at night.

I had a couple one time that was upside down in their car and they wanted to get out. They did not have good credit either. So after rolling their inequity into the new one and looking at the interest rate that they would get I sat down with them. I was the sales manager at the time. I told them that I could do the deal and that the bank would take it, but it was not the smart thing for them to do. They should keep the car that they have, as there was nothing wrong with it, and wait till they are in a better situation. They wanted to do the deal anyway. It was not smart for them, but I did my part and told them straight that in my professional opinion is was a bad move. I slept well that night. And I will continue to do the same thing. Being a salesman is not as black and white as most people think. There is a lot that goes into it.

Outright lie, 0. Being in the exotic car end again it is much easier and better to be straight forward. You can do better in the long run by not lying. That is why I stay in this end of the business. It is more about building relationships with people.

In order to be a good sales person you do not have to lie. Although in the domestic market it helps as the customers lie every chance they can, so it levels the playing field. But you can make a good living not lying and you life is a lot less stressful.

It took you until post #32 to break out that steaming pile. It probably would have come out earlier had I not called you out on it at the beginning of the thread. So predictable.

I was answering a direct question by YOU. My answer has nothing to do with this thread. This topic has nothing to do with my thread. You just want to be right so bad about me.

So the only reason it entered into this thread was because you brought it up. That is pretty much the opposite of what you said. I laid out what the purpose of the thread was, and you paid no attention, because once again, you only see what you want to see.

For the purposes of this thread someone could have said an elephant told them what to believe, and it would have made no difference as long as their beliefs were consistent and they were not holding a double standard like so many atheists on this forum.

Isn't this a way to rationalize yourself out of a lie? You're basically saying, "These things that I have done are not outright lies according to my standards, so they will remain acceptable to me."

It's hard to claim absolute Biblical morality when you define sins according to your own standards. So you do exactly the same things an atheist does when it comes to morality. Congrats!

What are you talking about? You think we'd kill all the people of a civilization, including the women and children? I have no idea how you can possibly think the atrocities in the old testament are related to your killing Hitler example.

No. I think for you to be able to say that you would have to look at the specific situations. Isn't a lie when you say something that you know not to be true? I also never said that I am perfect. Nor did I say that I was justified in everything that I have said throughout my career and life. I was trying to be honest with you. I am not perfect, and I do not think that no matter what job you are in or who you are, you will not slip up and say something that is not perfectly in line with your morals. As we have talked about before, life is not black and white. It would be a lie for me to say that I have never done anything that someone would consider a lie. I do not feel that I am deceitful. Now if it turns out when I die that God says, "hey, some of this **** you were saying was wrong" then I will deal with that. But I can honestly say that I attempt to be as honest of a person as I possible can.

In my opinion being a Christian is not about who can follow the rules the best. The pharisees were really good at following the rules, and yet Jesus came down on them harder than anyone else. Why do you think that is?

Have you ever lied to you wife?

So I should define sin according to what your standards are? Isn't it up to us to decide what would fall under a lie or what would fall under gluttony or many other things?

If that civilization was damaging to the world as Hitler was to the Jews you would not feel it is the same thing?

If I proved to you that all of the people were as wicked as Hitler and leaving one person, including children, alive would result in the end of man kind, you would feel it was completely different?

Do you not hear what you are saying?

You are basically saying that you know for a fact that innocent people were killed. Can you please provide me with your evidence. Thank you.

Of course not. Big difference between individuals and whole civilizations.

For God's commanded genocide to make sense to you, you have to believe that the entire civilization was wicked, so you do. It's amazing to me that you're arguing that an entire civilization of people could have possibly been horrible enough that they all deserved death.

Lol at asking me to prove there were innocent people there. The only knowledge I have of it is from the Bible. I suppose if I were still Christian I'd probably want to believe that none of them deserved mercy. It would have shattered my worldview to think that God could command such horrific acts from his people.

Arron W quoted the passages in the other thread about Abraham questions to God about any righteous people being in Sodom. Did you read that, or would you like me to find it again and post it? The point was that he asked God if God would destroy the city if there were any righteous people there. Basically the answer was no.

So yes I do believe that every person had to die. Considering that you have no reason to believe that there were innocent people there, other than you just want to believe that, then you should as well.

I asked you if you would still believe that homosexuality is evil if it were not for your religion. You answered with a NotReady-style nonsense reply of "you cannot judge good and evil without god".

Please don't be coy and pretend like I somehow tricked you into making that post. You were chomping at the bit to tell the atheists that we're not capable of judging good and evil due to our lack of belief in the Lord God our Saviour. That was your motivation for starting this thread, after all.

According to you, without a belief in Christianity I cannot say that "Hitler was evil", or that "child rapists are evil". I somehow need the Lord Jesus Christ to put his evil stamp of approval on these people in order for me to pass judgment. Whatever.

Including Lot's wife?

She disobeyed her husband by looking back at god's handiwork. Obviously the bitch deserved what she got.

She was warned. I do not understand the issue here.

It seems to me that you believe that she was punished for what she did. When I see it as she was told what would happen and yet she chose to ignore that and look back anyway. So she faced the consequences of her actions.

So what is your problem?

I answered the question. This is what I believe. I so not see what is so nonsensical about this.

Please, I made my motivations clear. This has nothing to do with it at all. Now my position on this subject has been established many times. But this has nothing to do with this thread at all. I think that my motivations were very clear, and this had nothing to do with it.

This has absolutely nothing to do with this thread whatsoever. I have made that clear many times. But as per usual you here only what you want to.

So if you would like to start a thread about the justification of morality I would be more than happy to chime in with my perspective. But this is not the thread for that at all.

If you cannot see that then you are more blinded then I could have ever imagined.

For me evil is all about intent not the act in of itself (in reference to the virus scenario). Preventing evil or preventing the greater of the 2 evils gets into a pretty gray area, which when looking at the policies of W. over the last 8 years, look where that got us? Now that brings me back to my original point. His intentions were to stop the evildoers but the killing of innocents seemed pretty ****ing evil to me. I am sure he feels quite different, omg we have been safe from the evildoers for the last 8 years so it was all so worth it. I can say one thing that type of thinking is pretty damn evil.

I stick a gun to the back of your head and tell you that if you turn around, I'll shoot you in the face. You turn around and I shoot you in the face. What's wrong with that? Your were warned, after all.

Your point is interesting in that you focus on the intent. I've been studying the idea of what "love" is lately and I think it might be similar to evil.

In the book I read by Peck he personally from his psychiatirist viewpoint defined love as an action verb. Meaning that true love comes about from action not emotion as most people think. He also doesn't lump romantic love in with this definition of love. Romantic love is more of a fantasy/illusion thing to him but of course its quite powerful.

But the more I think about Peck's definition of love I think he only got part of it right. Love only becomes an "objective" experience if it is put into action but there has to be a source and the source and intent can be hard to spot.

A lot of evil does arise from people's hearts because "The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?"

I used to have a lot of problems with the heart thing because I thought the heart was reliable. But actually the heart is linked to your emotions and emotions are never reliable and frequently unstable. Your emotions could be a reading of your heart like a thermometer is of the weather but they are never a totally stable measure to base your actions on. That's why God gave us a written moral and spiritual code and tells us to be slow to anger and to speak.