Which Religion are you?

[Squall7]

It's not really a flaw per se. It goes to how we each view the Bible. I view it as the inspired word of God. You appear to not and this makes the discussion difficult because we don't really have a common foundation to go off of. My points will be based on the Bible, yours are based on your own ideas which may be influenced to a certain extent by the Bible, but also by other philosphies that are far outside the Bible. But even if you account for translational and copyist errors over the years, the concepts and events are still there (and as his written inspired word, I believe that God has made sure that the conceptsm events, and ideas in the Bible have been preserved even if the exact to-the-letter text is gone. The entire Old Testament deals with what God told Israel to and what would happen if they did and if they didn't do it. And time and time again they didn't do it and suffered the consequences. God tells us what he wants us to do and we have the free will to either go along with it or not.

1. It would be a short discussion if we both worked from the view that the bible is always correct, without taking into the equation the context in which it was written.
2. Take even a modern language today. Translate a phrase from English into another language and back. It won't be the same, and will often make little sense.
3. How does God tell us what we should do? It's society that tells us what we should do. It's our own sub-conscious mind that tell us what to do. Everyone but God (directly) tell us what to do and what not to do.

The reason we're screwing up the world is because we were not created to rule this world and lack the capabilities to do so.

Actually, it's because we began to value materialism over human, animal, plant and the general environment. Civilisation through the ages has indocrinated people into believing that life is something that can be used, thrown away, especially for the purpose of accumulation and collecting things.

Adam and Eve lived under God's rulership until they caved into Satan's temptation and were cast out. They were on their own at that point, and by extension all their descendents down to this day.

Not entirely sure what the point of that is, other than to say that it was all Adam and Eve's fault (blaming the world's ills on two people who were supposedly duped into doing something wrong - which could be ficticious anyway, is not very helpful). Blame shouldn't be passed down. The lesson is to learn self-control. Nothing more.

You teach your child beforehand what not to do in order to not get hurt. This is what God does. He does not force us to comply though, and if we don't, we shouldn't be surprised if we get hurt.

So before you send you child off to school, do you brief them on every danger that could possibly happen to them? No. When dangers arise, you tell them the best way to avoid being hurt. Sure, we may tell our kids, "if someone offers you something...", but in the end, there still has to be that threat there in the first place for us to know what dangers are out there.

Besides, you're refering to advice from the bible as advice from God. Please read up on "simulacra and simulations" to see why this is false (The representation is not the actual thing. God's word is not God's word. The bible merely represents God, it is not God and therefore is flawed in itself).

If man is using religion to control man, then they are not following God.

Indeed. One does not have to be Christian to read the bible. However, that doesn't stop people from posing as God-followers and instructing people how to live their lives and such for their own benefit.

Free will. We can choose to obey God or not. There are consequences for either course of action.

But what is Free-will? We cannot have free will, because everything we base our descisions on is determined on what has come before. Thus we are literally trapped. If someone has been abused by a preist, and has a certain personality, they will choose in many occassions, not to follow God. In essence, our decissions are based on subjectivity - how we are, how we are feeling at that time, what is happening, rather than objectively - why we are inclined to make a certain decision, and whether it would be best to do something/not to do something. And this isn't even going into the concept of neurosis, conditioning and phobias.

The bad consequences from our actions are our own work, and by extension the Devil's since he is the original source of our sinful, imperfect nature.

If the bad consequences of our actions are from our own work, then why is it that good things can happen to bad people? Surely the concept of consequences is independent of the concept of Evil? Bad things also happen to good people. Why is it deemed such that when:
1. a bad thing happens to a bad person, it's justice and he deserved it.
2. a good thing happens to a bad person, but we'll wait until he gets his just deserts.
3. a bad thing happens to a good person, but those things happen anyway.
4. a good thing happens to a good person, and that's because they deserved it.

Now, surely implementing God into this is a bad idea - either he allows the injustices as well as the justices, or he exercises no control over anything. In essence, he stays out of people's way. If God did stay out of people's way, surely we would have literally no evidence to support the existence of God, even from so-called accounts in the bible? The only explanation if God were real - He did get involved, but he doesn't anymore. So in effect, it's God's lack of intervention that is to blame from attrocities, and not the people's who wholeheartedly believe that they have a special bond with God, in which what they do is always in God's master plan.

And people that make expressions like that are generally lashing out and making statements not supported by the Bible.

Yet, they insist as much as you're insisting now, that they are right and everyone else is wrong. Hence the problem. How do I determine if you're right or the person down the street is right? Why do I believe what I currently believe? Because it's what I've figured out for myself. It isn't backed up by anything other than my own opinions and experiences. When people begin to feel that God is on their side, they see it as a license to do anything they wish.