Try out the sliding-sin scale today!

I see in a lot of places the idea that God doesn't really measure "levels" of sin. All sin is equal in the eyes of God, whether it be stealing a candy bar or wiping out an entire country. Both crimes get the maximum sentence, which is death/hell/a combination of the two/something else not all that pleasant. There isn't really a sense of a punishment that is proportionate to the crime. Rather, all crimes are equally bad.

Very often, the idea that all crimes equal the same maximum punishment is seen as okay, and a just thing, and who are we to question God?

I touched on this in the comments of my last post, but if that principle -- all crimes are equal -- are applied to actual people, would we really enjoy being around those types of people?

Then let's try applying that to a society. Say we lived in a country where capital punishment was given to those who stole candy bars. Capital punishment was given to those who committed adultery. And capital punishment was given to serial killers.

And that's just with actions we all agree are crimes (though the second one falls under a moral crime). What about someone who says something unkind to another person, and capital punishment is also applied there. Or someone who hates another, and thus must also be put to death. Or one of the favorite scenarios I see Kirk Cameron using -- if you've ever told a lie, you've broken one of the Ten Commandments, and thus deserve to go to hell.

Would anyone find that type of society just? Or compassionate? Or merciful? Instead, wouldn't we find that society to be on the tyrannical side? A society that gives no leeway for the imperfections of human nature?

Under no circumstances would anyone call that society good. We would say that living in that manner would be perhaps tantamount to torture, because everyone would be so worried about being imperfect that they'd never just be allowed to live.

The workarounds I see for this are that I can't judge God by man's reasoning, I must use God's reasoning. The problem is that as soon as God is described as good, or just, we need some way of defining those words. Otherwise, any description of God becomes meaningless.

Another workaround for this could be that we have to make allowances for the sinful nature of man. Since we know that no one is going to behave perfectly, we must have a society that operates in that fashion, so that people are constantly getting killed through capital punishment. If that were the case, then we wouldn't have a society left.

But isn't the fact that we're making allowances for the imperfection of man admitting that a law structure demanding perfection isn't just? That it's almost borderline cruel? If we're applying a standard of justice to this, then a society should organize its laws to require perfection regardless of how sinful said subjects of the society are.

I think, therefore I kill you.

You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, 'You shall not murder'; and 'whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.' But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment .... You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Matthew 5: 21-22, 27-28.

I see the Sermon on the Mount get used quite a bit to demonstrate just how sinful everyone is -- while you may not have physically murdered someone, if you were angry with them, that's just as bad. While you may have been physically faithful to your wife, looking at a non-wife woman is just as bad. Emotions and thoughts carry as much weight as actions do in the eyes of God. When you finally stand before God, He'll still have a fierce judgment for you even if all you did was think angry thoughts towards another person.

Yet, if thoughts carry that much weight, hold the same merit as actions do, does that mean that it works in reverse? Say I come across a starving person, and think loving, compassion thoughts towards him, or think about how much I'd love to give him food, and yet physically don't give him anything.

I highly doubt anyone would tell me that thinking about giving him food was just as good as giving him actual food.

Say person A is murdering person B, and I happen to stumble across the crime. I stand there, thinking that I should really stop person A, even picture myself doing so. Yet, I just watch as person B gets killed.

No one would congratulate me for stopping such an awful crime, even though I had good intentions towards doing so.

And we see this same situation in the Bible -- faith without works is dead. If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? James 2: 14-16

Thoughts alone don't seem to carry equal weight when it comes to being judged. Bad thoughts alone are enough to get one condemned, no matter what the action is, but good thoughts alone aren't enough to escape condemnation.

I believe in a God I don't talk to.

I've been pondering lately the ways in which I believe in God. And I'm not sure I can say that I believe in a God who personally interacts and cares about how I/we go about our lives.

For example, one of my co-workers was pregnant. She was two weeks away from delivery, only to have the baby strangled by the umbilical cord. When I learned about this, I felt an incredibly amount of grief and compassion for her -- not just for what she lost, but that she got that far into the pregnancy, and was so close. That, if she ever becomes pregnant again, she won't be able to enjoy the experience. That she had the room prepared, the name picked out, all her dreams about how she'd raise her child, and all of that was gone.

In looking back, not once did I pray to God asking Him to be there for her, to shower her with peace, or any of that. I didn't pray to God, asking how this could happen. I didn't actually pray to God, period.

In a second example, I found this week that I had made an unavoidable mistake when I submitted some numbers to another department (unavoidable because I interpreted what I was supposed to differently than how the other department operates, and there was no way for my interpretation to be caught until I saw the final numbers). Fixing this mistake is going to affect every other department.

In telling people what happened, and trying to see if it even can be fixed, I was trying to think of solutions. It was maybe five or six hours later that I thought I would pray to God ... followed quickly by a thought of having no idea how that would help. Either the mistake can be fixed, or it can't.

Based on these two examples, I see no way that I can currently say that I believe in some sort of personal God. If I did, wouldn't I be interacting with God in the two examples I listed?

Two hands can hold a lot of information.

I've been reading a lot of different blogs recently, and two things jumped out at me. Or maybe it's one thing, with two sides.

On the one hand, I've seen a lot of comments that essentially say the more one devotes to Christianity/Jesus/God, the more one is aware of one's need for a Savior. Your awareness of your sinful state is constantly re-enforced and revealed to you, and shows you more and more just how far aware you'll ever be from being like Jesus on your own.

On the other hand, there's the idea that the more one follows the path of Christianity, lets Jesus mold you/shape you/change you, the more Christ-like you become.

I've been trying to figure out if both ideas can be true at the same time, and I don't think they can be. If one is becoming more Christ-like -- the second option -- then wouldn't there be less of an awareness of one's sinful state, since there'd be less sin inhabiting a person, compared to the pre-Christian years? And, vice versa, if the journey with Jesus leads one more and more aware of one's sinful state, then one is in fact not becoming more Christ-like?

Legalize this!

If you read only the Synoptic Gospels for a while, Christianity starts to greatly resemble that dreaded legalism.

For this reason, the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, "Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything." And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, "Pay what you owe." Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, "Have patience with me, and I will pay you." But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and the went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, "You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?" And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart."

-- Matthew 18: 23-35

The biggest thing I get from this section is that it's not enough to simply accept the forgiveness of God. If you don't forgive others, you won't end up in a great place. Which comes very close to the idea that your actions can determine whether you truly receive salvation or not.

I also think the Western world has a habit of glossing over just how prevalent the concept of slavery was back then. Not only are most of the players in this parable referred to as slaves, the lord was legally entitled to sell the slave, as well as the slave's wife and children. And it's simply presented as a fact of life. We can say that obviously God wouldn't endorse slavery as it's morally wrong (or that it wasn't actually slavery as we knew but barely qualified to what we define slavery as today). Yet the concept of slavery is so entwined in this parable, even up to the aspect of people being sold.

I'm pretty sure the overall point of the parable is the idea that if one is forgiven by God for something huge, it's incredibly hypocritical to turn around and refuse to forgive another person when what the other person did was done on a much smaller scale. But there's also an idea here that a person can in fact do something to release themselves from the debt, whereas the penal atonement theory teaches that you can't do anything, and Jesus paid the debt for you (Granted, it could easily be desperation, since the first slave owed a huge sum that he could probably never pay. Nor did he actually have to, as the lord forgave the debt, period).

The torture aspect also made me do a double-take. Odd. I can glide over reading the word "hell," as I'm kind of immune to that word because it's a rather common one. But the lord here is compared to the Heavenly Father, and the lord is also someone who handed the bad slave over to be tortured because the lord was angry over the hypocrisy. I understand the anger. But the lord/Heavenly Father actively handing someone over to be tortured is interesting to mesh with the idea of "God doesn't send people to hell, people send people to hell."

You only thought you were a Christian.

I've come in contact with quite a few former Christians who are now atheists. In all instances, the atheists were very conservative evangelical/fundamentalists. The charge is often leveled against them that they were never true Christians in the first place. Part of what's included in that charge is something along the lines of the atheist had more faith in the factual knowledge of the Bible, or the faith was too dependent on the factual knowledge of the Bible, rather than God Himself. Because the faith was so rigid, and not properly dependent upon knowing God, the atheist lost his faith for that reason.

These atheists have family members who are still the conservative evangelical/fundamentalists that the atheists once were. So if the atheists were never Christians because they never knew God, and because the faith was too tied up in a rigid view of the Bible, doesn't that mean that the family members who are currently Christians aren't Christians as well?

Jesus vs. Old Age.

Would there have come a point at which Jesus would have stopped aging? Would he have reached old age, period?

Assuming for the moment that the Garden of Eden scenario really happened, and Adam and Eve were real people, would they have produced the way humanity does today? The normal course that we see today is that people are born, live, and then die of old age. Yet in the Garden, there was no death. So no would in the Garden -- assuming Adam and Even had offspring -- would have died of old age. I'm just wondering what the cut-off point was in terms of aging. Where would the body have said, "Age this far, and no farther?"

There's the idea that Jesus was without sin. Yet at the same time, he was born into this world and growing up in the same manner that all other people do. For all outward appearances, he would've died of old age at some point in time, thus receiving that wage that sin pays.

(Come to think of it, I vaguely remember some series like Left Behind touching on this, in that all the people who were Raptured to Heaven were then in bodies that were at the age of 33, and would be that age for eternity. It was somehow connected to the age of Jesus when he started preaching or was crucified).