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It seems there is a general consensus that a person with no knowledge of God(swt) can not be held accountable for disobeying what he does not know.
Some Christians spout something similar that one can not be held accountable for rejecting Christ if one has not heard the "Good word" and so did not have the chance to reject or accept it.
This has always seemed problematic to me. It means missionaries and preachers are putting innocent people at unnecessary risk for no other reason than to support their own wish for other people to believe the same unsubstantiated claims that they themselves do.
In other words:
1) Person is safe if they did not hear the "good news".
2) If person hears the good news and reject it they are not safe.
3) Therefore by telling them about god/Jesus you put them at risk in a way they were not before.
In this light going around telling people about god and/or Jesus is a cruel and dangerous thing to do and those theists who do so should be seen as almost criminal in their willingness to put people in unnecessary danger.
Of course I see no reason to think there even is a god so this is not my problem, but it has always been an issue that does not quite add up for me.
Who was the first person in the world who expressed a belief in YOUR God, and why wasn't your God obvious to the humans who preceded that person? Since the very presence of creation removes any doubt about your God and His attributes, your God should have been apparent to any and all who beheld creation. For general purposes, I just used Moses as that First Beholder of your God.
Believers in multiple gods or "false" gods or no gods at all preceded, by thousands of years, the notion that the universe was created by your Abrahamic God. Which leaves you with the difficult task of explaining why they failed to recognize your God, merely by looking at the sky and the trees and having no doubt about the evidence. Indeed, if that were the case, organized religion would never have emerged, for there would have been no need to write Genesis, everyone would already intuitively have known all that.
Scripture indicates that the first man on earth (Adam) was well aware of God. What is your evidence to the contrary?
Some Christians spout something similar that one can not be held accountable for rejecting Christ if one has not heard the "Good word" and so did not have the chance to reject or accept it.
This has always seemed problematic to me. It means missionaries and preachers are putting innocent people at unnecessary risk for no other reason than to support their own wish for other people to believe the same unsubstantiated claims that they themselves do.
In other words:
1) Person is safe if they did not hear the "good news".
2) If person hears the good news and reject it they are not safe.
3) Therefore by telling them about god/Jesus you put them at risk in a way they were not before.
In this light going around telling people about god and/or Jesus is a cruel and dangerous thing to do and those theists who do so should be seen as almost criminal in their willingness to put people in unnecessary danger.
Of course I see no reason to think there even is a god so this is not my problem, but it has always been an issue that does not quite add up for me.
For a change I actually agree with you.
You may have heard the joke about the Eskimo and the Missionary
Eskimo: Let me see if I understand this, my past sins don't count because I didn't know they were sins.
Missionary: that is correct
Eskimo: Now that I know they are sins if I do them I will go to hell
You may have heard the joke about the Eskimo and the Missionary
Eskimo: Let me see if I understand this, my past sins don't count because I didn't know they were sins.
Missionary: that is correct
Eskimo: Now that I know they are sins if I do them I will go to hell
Missionary: that is correct
Eskimo: Than why did you tell me.
LoL....
But you are still born with a God given conscience...
Every human alive knows when they are doing wrong " anyone who deneys this is a lier or he has ignored it to the point where it died" either way at some point he knew better..
Now if you obey this conscience , whether you believe in God or not" and i dont meen half heartedly" then it will grow, just like if you dont then it will wither and die.
Disobedience to this inner voice will ultimatly be what counts anyway because in my opinian not every person who has died in the past 100 yrs has heard the so called good news.
But i think if they where just then God revieled himself to each one in his own way.
To sin is to go against natural law- against the laws of physics..against divine law and instruction. Sinisterism or sin is much like a person speeding up a one way street the wrong way...eventually there will be disaster on impact. Dexter is the movement to the right- the right path and the right direction of travel in the universe. Sin or sinister literally means moving to the left or a leftist movement that is contrary to the laws of nature and God...For instance if you see a vine growing..you will notice from our perspective the vine twists in a spiral - one that moves to the right...This is a small example of the concept of righteousness.
Atheists just like believers can travel in life the wrong way..it is not some mystic religious question - it is physics. The ancients understood the concept...and the law...if this was not the case there would be no such concept as right and wrong...the wages of being wrong is death.
^ Then the answer is that anyone can sin given all you have to do is define sin to incorporate them. Given there is no evidence there is a god or a "Divine Law and Instruction" you get to make it up as you go along. For example your own obvious homophobia can be justified by just inventing a god who's "Divine Law and Instruction" is against homosexuality.
In short it seems what constitutes "sin" so whether or not any group of people can "sin" is down to nothing more than whatever your own personal definition of "sin" is. This thread and it's title makes as much sense therefore as me asking "Can people with one leg spludunkylunk?". Of course they can... depending only on what you tell me "spludunkylunk" actually means.
I turn my back for less than 24 hours and I miss out on a butt-kicking contest about sin and atheism!
Sin, according to evangelicals and probably many other literalist theists, is falling short of god's perfection and glory. For an atheist, who does not believe in god, it's pretty hard to fall short of something that doesn't exist. But to a theist, god exists, and so atheists fall short of god's perfection and need his salvation. In other words, sin is in the eye of the beholder. Sin is a judgment upon your actions based upon some given external standard, in this case, a religion's understanding of what they allege to be god's will and perceive to be your (non)conformity to it.
Atheists have moral convictions and consciences just like everyone else, they are simply regarded as private and personal and inappropriate to impose on others. So we don't have terms like "righteousness" or "sin" to talk about. The closest thing in the Bible is the verse, "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling".
Have your ever read the bible or been to a church? Atheists are closer to perfection than theists and their gods.
The poster is attempting to draw me into an argument over whether God exists. I can't win that argument here. I'm the only one that needs to be convinced, and I am. I might actually have a chance with someone with an open mind.
As far as my original post, I believe God has made Himself known to all men because the Bible says so (and I believe the Bible is truly the word of God). I also believe it because it has happened to me & most people throughout history. I believe atheists are denying the obvious.
It is actually others who have taken this thread off-topic (trolling as you call it).
The original topic is "Is it possible for an atheist to sin?" Your comment was "God has made Himself known to all humans." Finally, after being challenged 4 times to support your claim, you answered that the Bible says so. You could have said so earlier. Now you've added that you believe atheists are denying the obvious. OK. You believe that. I don't remember any atheist posting anything on here that would indicate that they think anything about God is obvious. Are you open to learning what the atheists on here really think? I'm sure they'll tell you.
BTW, I'm not discussing whether God exists with anybody. Ever. I simply prefer to keep my mind open to listen to many points of view.
I will prob get cut for being off topic but here goes.
What in the world do you mean by " Why is there only two choices ???!
Choice # 1 There is a God
#2 There is not
I think many people add some of these:
Choice #3. I don't know if there is a God, but I think there probably is.
Choice #4. I don't know if there is a God, but I doubt that there is.
Choice #5. I don't care. It never enters my mind.
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