to not understand why Christians think Jesus died for our sins?

[switcheroooo]

If Jesus died for everyone's sins, does that mean people are not accountable for their actions? You can kill people, steal and lie but have a protected status because Jesus died for your sins.

How does this work? Why are people not responsible for their own sins? Where is the justice?

Sorry that was supposed to be in response to @ZoggyStirdust

So why is he happy to have babies born into starvation and disease? ‘Free will’ has no possible causal relationship to a baby born with a terrible, painful illness.

I've given it plenty of thought thanks 😊 I probably haven't explained it very well because the Bible is pretty meaty. Have you read it? I recommend it! It's pretty different than most people expect.

God gave mankind free will. We are free to love by our own choice, which is true love. God could have chosen not to give us free will, in which case any outward expression of "love" would be automatic and have no meaning or value.

God gave free will to Adam and Eve. Of course He would, because He made Man in His own image. God has free will.

Adam and Eve chose to exercise the free will that God had given them, but in the wrong way. Satan, the fallen archangel, was so conceited that he wanted to replace God. He led Eve to doubt what God had said about the Tree of Life, and eat the forbidden fruit. Adam went along with that and shared the fruit.

By accepting Satan's word above God's, they gave Satan authority as the ruler/Prince/ god-with-a-small-g of this world.

Satan hates God and everything God wants and does. Satan is the author of lies and ultimately the cause of all evil.

So when people ask why does God allow terrible things - e.g. children dying of horrible diseases, or being systematically raped by gangs of men - they think God is in charge and doesn't care. Wrong. Satan is in charge of this world. God tends not to intervene unless we ask Him to.

Many, many people think that God does not exist or isn't a good God because they erroneously believe that He is responsible for all the evil in this world. The Bible makes it quite clear that He is not.

I hope this article helps:

https://www.gotquestions.org/Satan-god-world.html

Going by your logic, our symbolic forebears Adam and Eve should have virtuously refused to eat the apple, turned away from knowledge and remained their deity’s obedient, choiceless minions, with no ‘dignity’?

Doesn’t that kind of juvenile psychological gymnastics ever get tiring? When the answer you’re clearly always desperately trying to come up with is ‘None of it is God’s fault! None at all!’

I'm not necessarily saying it was wrong. Relationships change and grow over time, and God's relationship with us is no different.

There's plenty of evidence to suggest that hunter gatherer life pre agriculture was in many ways better - people were healthier, closer to nature, pretty peaceful, no world wars etc. Progress is inevitable though, and to me the story of the Bible is about how both sides of the equation can be brought back together now that the choice has been made. Interestingly the vision at the end of Revelations is of the Kingdoms of Heaven and Earth reunited but as a city instead of a garden - so kind of meeting in the middle if you will!

They allowed themselves to be deceived. Satan sowed doubt in Eve's mind by suggesting God had said something related but different to what He actually said.

Yes but why would the death of his son change that?

who makes the rules?

According to the bible god always know what's going to happen so he knew what Eve would do when tempted by the snake when he made her, the tree and satan. That doesn't sound like she had free will to me.

I’m sorry what?
satan is in charge and god doesn’t intervene unless asked (and even then, not always)

if god has the power to intervene but doesn’t then he’s not any kind of god I would want any dealings with. He’s evil.

if he can’t intervene, we’ll then he’s just not omnipotent is he.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

I do indeed google. But do you seriously trust google? Do you think google will give you factual answers on the afterlife?

A prime example of the kind of knots you'll tie yourself into trying to justify an unfounded belief! 'They allowed themselves to be deceived...' Isn't God in charge? Didn't he make them in the first place - in his image? Isn't he all powerful? Doesn't he know what's going to happen? This whole argument is just preposterous.

No one makes the rules, they just are - that's kinda the point!

So God's presence is so powerful in the Bible that you need to be purified in order to get close to him. In the Old Testament people did this purification primarily through animal sacrifice - the blood of the animal would kind of "absorb" impurities and take them away creating a temporary clean space where a person could be in the presence of God. This wasn't very effective though and people kept messing up. Enter Jesus, the "Lamb (i.e. sacrificial lamb) of God". His sacrifice was significantly powerful that it created that Holy space for everyone.

He’s so powerful that he needs to stick to the rules that “just are”

I mean the rules "just are" in the sense that God "just is" - I hesitate to say he created the rules because I think that sort of implies he can also change them. It's more like God is the rules.

Was he not capable of writing it himself?

"No one makes the rules, they just are - that's kinda the point!"

So the universe and everything in it was not created by god. So, what he for then?

The afterlife doesn’t exist. We die - the end.

God is omnipotent.

He gave us free will, so if he intervened without being asked, He would be going against the free will He gave us, wouldn't He?

Again I’m not following. He has to stick to convoluted rules but he is the rules but can’t change them?

A decent human would intervene if they saw a child being hurt. Especially they were all
powerful and couldn’t be hurt.

an omnipotent god choosing not to intervene is evil

🙄 if you don't believe then that's fine, but pointing out that a spiritual being didn't personally pick up a pen seems a fairly trivial gotcha argument.

Perhaps try thinking more deeply about the concept of free will? 🙂

Maybe our wires are crossed. I'm not sure what convoluted rules he has to stick to?