I'm jumping in on some of these.
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John:Do we only need salvation from the punishment for sin?

Rosangela:
Not only from the punishment, but it certainly is the most important part of it.

Tom: The "most important" part of sin is that it separates one from God, which causes pain, misery, suffering, and eventually death.


John:Is sin so favorable or benign?

Rosangela: OK, take God out of the picture. The pleasures of sin are passing pleasures, but they do offer a certain measure of pleasure and, from a practical point of view, it is better to have a life with a little pleasure than with no pleasure at all.

Tom: This doesn't really address the question. Is sin, of itself, lethal? Or is it only so because God will eventually kill those who choose it? Is God against something which, if He didn't intervine, is benign?


John:Is the punishment the problem?

Rosangela: Even God, before the entrance of sin in the world, used the warning of punishment to try and prevent man from falling into sin.

Tom: God warned that sin would result in death. Satan said God was lying. God was telling the truth.


Rosangela: Sin is so deceiving in its nature that God felt it was necessary to inform His creatures about both rewards and punishments in order to help them to not choose sin. Do we want to be wiser than God?

Tom: Sin is so deceiving that it causes people to view God in a way He is not. So He sent His Son that we might both see the true nature of sin (it causes death -- look to the cross) and Himself (Christ was willing to be lost forever rather than see us die).

Rosangela, what I am trying to establish here is the “clear picture” of what I am supposed to be saved from. Putting all religion and theology aside, what is it that I should realize that is wrong with me, or what danger am I in that I should need salvation. Why do I need a savior?

It seems rather odd that the one who is supposed to be my savior is the one that is threatening me. I am not sure I care for someone who proposes to be the solution for the damage he wants to cause to me. Sure, I might have to deal with him because of the size of his muscles. But if that is what it is about, I do not know what you are talking about, as far as feeling His tender touch; hearing His voice saying He loves me; seeing His eyes looking at me with love. Sounds like hypocrisy at its ultimate. Good riddance, except if I have no choice.

You call it “warning” but that is called “threatening”. An invitation to heaven with a gun at my head is hardly an invitation. It is coercion. Now the fact that Christ died to “pay” the threat off does not make me think of him any more highly. Rather it is only more reflective of some stupendous scheme.

So what is that clear picture?

You are not convincing me at all that I need salvation. In your statements I see a Giant with whom I am supposed to play politics.

Sorry to have to put things so bluntly, but “this gospel” does not "lighten me up".

I have not seen anything here yet to show me that I am wicked, and need salvation. What is wicked?

Suppose you were to live forever - in sin, would you see the need for salvation?

quote:

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Taking God out of the picture? Without the Holy Spirit to act in the heart? Probably not.

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Are you the only person in the universe?
Does doubt, anger, fear, malice, wrath, covetousness, … make life-lets say pleasant?

I suggest that the more insulated Christians are from the out-and-out sinners(the dopers, hookers, the poor, the fearful, the feeble, the lost and confused) the less they see the horrors of sin through the stained glass windows.

Nothing wrong with being with good souls...unless you forget the wicked ones.

Go "eat with the gentiles" and tend their wounds and you will see starkly what sin can do.

Bro. Willy does this quite often: he can probably say a thing or two about the reality of sin outside theological comforts.

Christ said the hookers and the con-men (reborn)will enter the kingdom before the smug pew warmers, even if they are from the right church.

It seems like the ones inside the stained glass windows are worried about God doing them in; while the ones outside are worried that they are playing with "fire" and it is only a matter of time before sin does them in.

Maybe if man could see a God who is not out to do us in; but here to save us from sin before it does us in; they just might think it a good idea to get saved before it is too late.

For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

Is the glory of God, which we are short of, the ability to destroy so wonderfully? Or is it that we are not destroyed because we are short of this destructive glory?

You can take up this idea with Tom on your destruction thread. I am talking about salvation of the wicked here, and so far, according to Rosangela, it looks like I need to be saved from God's glory.

Gal 6:8 For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.