The sin of pride

[Black_Jaque]

Exactly why do you deserve hell? For disobeying your father? Do your kids deserve hell for disobeying you?

Are you a father yourself? If not, it may be a little more difficult to explain but here goes.

If you just look at my deeds by themselves, you would reach your conclusion - that I’m just an average guy. But you have to look at the disobedience from the perspective of the loving authority. Yes, I deserve hell for disobeying my father. When you look at the deed you wouldn’t conclude that, but when you appreciate how much my father loved me you would recoil.

Oh nuts! I’ll admit, I cannot explain “why” in a logical fashion. That’s why I use words like “appreciate” because you can’t “know” or “figure out” how much a father loves his son. You won’t get this through reasoning, rather you will pick it up through reflection, contemplation, meditation, or experience. You need to look at this from a bunch of angles. To understand “why” you need to read and cogitate the Psalms perhaps. Those will give you a greater appreciation for how much God loves man.

You have to try to appreciate how good all of creation is. How much the Creator loves us. And then you’ll get a glimpse of how treacherous the seemingly inconsequential sins are.

Yes, my kids deserve hell for disobeying me. That’s why I do not take disobedience lightly.

 

[Aquarius]

Black Jaque:

Are you a father yourself? If not, it may be a little more difficult to explain but here goes.

If you just look at my deeds by themselves, you would reach your conclusion - that I’m just an average guy. But you have to look at the disobedience from the perspective of the loving authority. Yes, I deserve hell for disobeying my father. When you look at the deed you wouldn’t conclude that, but when you appreciate how much my father loved me you would recoil.

Oh nuts! I’ll admit, I cannot explain “why” in a logical fashion. That’s why I use words like “appreciate” because you can’t “know” or “figure out” how much a father loves his son. You won’t get this through reasoning, rather you will pick it up through reflection, contemplation, meditation, or experience. You need to look at this from a bunch of angles. To understand “why” you need to read and cogitate the Psalms perhaps. Those will give you a greater appreciation for how much God loves man.

You have to try to appreciate how good all of creation is. How much the Creator loves us. And then you’ll get a glimpse of how treacherous the seemingly inconsequential sins are.

Yes, my kids deserve hell for disobeying me. That’s why I do not take disobedience lightly.

Do your kids know that?

 

[askeptic]

Black Jaque:

Are you a father yourself? If not, it may be a little more difficult to explain but here goes.

If you just look at my deeds by themselves, you would reach your conclusion - that I’m just an average guy. But you have to look at the disobedience from the perspective of the loving authority. Yes, I deserve hell for disobeying my father. When you look at the deed you wouldn’t conclude that, but when you appreciate how much my father loved me you would recoil.

Oh nuts! I’ll admit, I cannot explain “why” in a logical fashion. That’s why I use words like “appreciate” because you can’t “know” or “figure out” how much a father loves his son. You won’t get this through reasoning, rather you will pick it up through reflection, contemplation, meditation, or experience. You need to look at this from a bunch of angles. To understand “why” you need to read and cogitate the Psalms perhaps. Those will give you a greater appreciation for how much God loves man.

You have to try to appreciate how good all of creation is. How much the Creator loves us. And then you’ll get a glimpse of how treacherous the seemingly inconsequential sins are.

Yes, my kids deserve hell for disobeying me. That’s why I do not take disobedience lightly.

I think you are just trying to justify the violence found in the Old Testament.

When you start ordering your wife to stone your kids for disobeying you and calling it justice, I’ll believe you.

 

[Black_Jaque]

Oh and I wanted to address whoever it was that said that nothing good can come from pride. That is not true and that is not what the Church teaches.

The Church teaches that as part of God’s creation, we are inherently good - we should be proud of that.

The Church also teaches that the 7 deadly sins are perversions of virtues. In other words, they are something inherently good that has been perverted, not converted.

So recognizing our dignity is a good thing - that kind of pride is appropriate and healthy. Thinking too much of ourselves, or too little of ourselves is pride perverted into sin, the deadliest of them all.

 

[Black_Jaque]

think you are just trying to justify the violence found in the Old Testament.

When you start ordering your wife to stone your kids for disobeying you and calling it justice, I’ll believe you.

Perhaps if I were a Jew, I would, I don’t know what the penalty was for a disobedient kid. But you seemed to have overlooked what I posted about the NT. There are two qualities that God possesses: He is just. And He is merciful. His mercy trumps His justice, but it doesn’t nullify it.

There is a teaching called purgatory. And that is the grey area between the light of heaven and the darkness of hell.

Why would I need to justify the violence in the OT?

 

[Black_Jaque]

Do your kids know that?

Yes they know that. And they know God is merciful, as I try to be. They probably deserve much more than I give them. But in showing mercy, they are given a chance to do better next time.

 

[JamesG]

askeptic:

I mentioned this before:
He doesn’t explicitly say to stone,

Good I’m glad you went back on what you said.

just that he should die. From the other quotes I posted and from my other reading of the Old Testament it seems that stoning was the common way to make a person die for breaking God’s law.

Either way, even if it’s not stoning, Jesus still seems to approve Moses’ teaching that person should die for “cursing” his mother or father.

You don’t understand. If you go around cursing your mother or your father then you are acting in a manner that will prevent you from entering the kingdom of God. that alone is death.

Jesus seems to contradict himself, because in the first quote I posted it seems that he is reinforcing Moses’ law (deaths for trivial crimes included), and in other places he seems to change it (i.e. alter sabbath law). To me this is just more evidence that people who wrote the Gospels were putting bits of themselves into their writing, and this is why Jesus contradicts himself.

Jesus is not contradicting himself he is quoting the law that the Jews understood. Then he is trying to explain it in another way and open their eyes to the truth.

You have to understand that what is in a mans heart is exactly what will get you into the kingdom of God.

It’s not as though there are only a few stoning passages in the OT, the entire OT portrayes God is violent and vengeful.

Well you don’t understand the Catholic perspective on the OT at all then.

Consider the Flood, why wipe out every human being, including innocent children? Consider the plagues sent upon the innocent Egyptian population to subudue the pharaoh. Consider the fact that God doesn’t bother to send an anti-slavery commandment, or an anti-polygamy commandment, or an anti-poor-treatment-of-women commandment, but seems far more concered with sacrificial laws and stoning people for breaking the commandments that he did send down.

If you want an OT answer to these question then read Job.

None of this invalidates my faith in Christ.

You see when we collectively reject God destruction naturally occurs upon us. such is the nature of the world that we live in.
We also can’t possibly fathom the mind of God.

In the end all that maters is that we are given a choice to be childern of God or reject him.

 

[JamesG]

askeptic:

For the record, here are some stonings/deaths attributed to GOD:

Clearly these things are attributed to God, not man.

You don’t make any sense.

Everything that God says is Good you attribute to man. Everything that you can find to prove in your mind that God is evil you attribute to God.

Do you have anything Good to say about God?

 

[JamesG]

1. This is the first time I have mentioned stoning.

1. I would not stone someone if the law said it was OK.
2. I would not stone someone who tortured, raped, and killed my family. Nor would I stone someone for collecting sticks on the sabbath.
3. I wouldn’t hold myself accountable to any higher power. I decide if I will stone people.
4. I am very skeptical of messages from men who claim to speak for God.

Would you stone someone for picking up sticks on the sabbath?

Then you should be skeptical of yourself because you are claiming to speak for God. In fact you are acting like a God which is the very sin that satan encurages.

 

[Aquarius]

JamesG:

Then you should be skeptical of yourself because you are claiming to speak for God. In fact you are acting like a God which is the very sin that satan encurages.

Of course I am skeptical of myself.

Where did I claim to speak for God?

How am I acting like God? How do you know what God acts like?

 

[JamesG]

askeptic:

A key feature of justice is that the punishment should fit the crime.

Stoning for picking up some sticks on the sabbath is not a punishment that fits the crime.

An eternity in hell for deliberately missing mass and not repenting is also a punishment that does not fit the crime.

This is not justice.

You really can’t get over this whole stoning issue can you? You can’t for even one second see that you basically agree with Christ when you say that we should forgive and show mercy.

What you don’t realize is that when you act out of love toward someone you have accepted Gods message. You see, God has a personal relationship of love with each of us. He loves us so much more then you can possibly imagine. For that very reason he is always wanting to show mercy and forgive you. But if you turn away from him deliberately then you are only hurting yourself. God offers us all eternal life so why would you reject that?

The law of God is not written in stone it is written in your heart when you act out of love.

Tell me something, how can you offer yourself eternal life?

 

[askeptic]

JamesG:

Good I’m glad you went back on what you said.

You don’t understand. If you go around cursing your mother or your father then you are acting in a manner that will prevent you from entering the kingdom of God. that alone is death.

Jesus is not contradicting himself he is quoting the law that the Jews understood. Then he is trying to explain it in another way and open their eyes to the truth.

You have to understand that what is in a mans heart is exactly what will get you into the kingdom of God.

Well you don’t understand the Catholic perspective on the OT at all then.

If you want an OT answer to these question then read Job.

None of this invalidates my faith in Christ.

You see when we collectively reject God destruction naturally occurs upon us. such is the nature of the world that we live in.
We also can’t possibly fathom the mind of God.

In the end all that maters is that we are given a choice to be childern of God or reject him.

Yours is a fairly liberal view of the OT when compared to some other views I have seen Catholics hold.

If you look at the other OT passages I posted, they contain direct commands from God himself to stone people and kill people for various offences.

It doesn’t talk about “spiritual” death, but physical death, at times by stoning.

Do you believe that when OT says “The LORD said to Moses…” it means God said to Moses, or backward human beings wrote down what they thought God wanted?

 

[Aquarius]

askeptic:

Yours is a fairly liberal view of the OT when compared to some other views I have seen Catholics hold.

If you look at the other OT passages I posted, they contain direct commands from God himself to stone people and kill people for various offences.

It doesn’t talk about “spiritual” death, but physical death, at times by stoning.

Do you believe that when OT says “The LORD said to Moses…” it means God said to Moses, or backward human beings wrote down what they thought God wanted?

I wonder how that stuff would be seen if found in the Quran?

 

[askeptic]

JamesG:

You don’t make any sense.

Everything that God says is Good you attribute to man. Everything that you can find to prove in your mind that God is evil you attribute to God.

Do you have anything Good to say about God?

I don’t believe in the Judeo-Christian God.

To me the harshness, the stoning, the lack of mercy in the Old Testament (if you read the quotes at times these behaviors are ordered directly by God, I advise you to read Exodus, Leviticus, and Deutoronomy in full), is evidence that a primitive and violent culture was trying to threaten human beings into good behavior.

Improvements made by Jesus to me are evidence of human rebellion against those unjust laws, and evidence of human progress and development.

It is still worth pointing out that Jesus does not condemn slavery, and he does not condemn sexism which was rampant at that time. (Just as OT God doesn’t condemn polygamy, slavery, sexism)

Modern society has made further improvements because since that time people have become more sensitive and sophisticated.

 

[askeptic]

JamesG:

You really can’t get over this whole stoning issue can you? You can’t for even one second see that you basically agree with Christ when you say that we should forgive and show mercy.

What you don’t realize is that when you act out of love toward someone you have accepted Gods message. You see, God has a personal relationship of love with each of us. He loves us so much more then you can possibly imagine. For that very reason he is always wanting to show mercy and forgive you. But if you turn away from him deliberately then you are only hurting yourself. God offers us all eternal life so why would you reject that?

The law of God is not written in stone it is written in your heart when you act out of love.

Tell me something, how can you offer yourself eternal life?

I suppose medical progress could potentially eliminate aging and allow us to live as long as the universe exists, which could very well be an eternity. But that’s not the point…

Look, I’m glad you focus on the positive aspects of Christianity. I don’t deny that they are there. I agree with teachings about love, forgiveness, helping people, and all the good stuff.

I don’t think that people who divorce and remarry, or people who use birth control, or people who deliberately miss mass etc. are rejecting God for an eternity. I think in many situations it is practical to divorce and remarry and use birth control.

Even rapists and murderers don’t deserve an eternity in hell. For the sake of justice they deserve to be punished, but their wrong-doings aren’t evil enough to merit an ETERNITY of punishment.

 

[askeptic]

Aquarius:

I wonder how that stuff would be seen if found in the Quran?

A good point. Interestingly enough, Muslim law is not that different from OT law.

Muslims stone adulterers, kill apostates, go insane over “blasphemous” cartoons of their prophet… That sounds a lot like OT Jews.

 

[Black_Jaque]

Stoning for picking up some sticks on the sabbath is not a punishment that fits the crime.

An eternity in hell for deliberately missing mass and not repenting is also a punishment that does not fit the crime.

This is not justice.

Says who?

How do you know your own sense of justice isn’t warped? What if you looked at those sins from a different angle?

BTW, I know what you are talking about. Been there done that. But I’m dead serious in that you have to stretch your mind to look at these things from as many angles as you can.

 

[Aquarius]

Black Jaque:

Says who?

How do you know your own sense of justice isn’t warped? What if you looked at those sins from a different angle?

BTW, I know what you are talking about. Been there done that. But I’m dead serious in that you have to stretch your mind to look at these things from as many angles as you can.

OK. What angle are we missing?

 

[askeptic]

Black Jaque:

Says who?

How do you know your own sense of justice isn’t warped? What if you looked at those sins from a different angle?

BTW, I know what you are talking about. Been there done that. But I’m dead serious in that you have to stretch your mind to look at these things from as many angles as you can.

I don’t see how you can possibly look at it in a way that will justify the idea of stoning a person for picking up sticks on the sabbath. (I don’t know how Jews did it, but muslims will bury a human being up to his neck in the ground and have people throw rocks at his head until he dies. This is death by torture.)

I don’t know how you can say that someone who uses a condom is evil enough to be in hell for an eternity.

When your children leave their toys scattered on the floor and don’t clean up, or when they draw on the walls of your house, do you stone them to death or do you perhaps give them a timeout and take away their favorite TV program of the day?

I don’t think you should have to stretch your mind to accept these things. I don’t need to stretch my mind to acknowledge murder and rape as gravely evil deeds. I don’t need to stretch my mind to know that it is our duty to fight against oppression and to help poor people get out of poverty. Those things are self evident to me.

You do need to twist your thoughts a great deal to justify the idea of mudering a person by throwing rocks at him because he picked up some sticks on a sabbath. And for me this is evidence that this law has nothing to do with morality or justice, because if it did human beings would naturally accept it the way they accept the fact that rape is evil.

 

[Black_Jaque]

OK. What angle are we missing?

From the angle of a God who literally loves you into existance. Came and took that “stoning” on your behalf so you would have a second chance, and a 3rd chance, and a 4th and a 5th.

Of course God is not something you figure out, He’s a someone you get to know. Ask Him to reveal Himself to you. He’ll do it.

I admire your sincerity. I’d much more appreciate sincere atheists than so called cafeteria Catholics, or people who do not think about their faith life at all. In fact, I’d guess that if I had the experiences you had, I wouldn’t be Catholic either.