I'm engaged!! !

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Aye. "Merely following orders." Luckily,
even when Goering said it, it wasn't much
accepted.

It's vitally important for Christians to be aware of. Some carry around lone New Testaments -- a theologian friend of mine calls those "the amputated Bible", which is a good illustration of how "one" the two testaments really are. The Old Testament is the New concealed, and the New Testament is the Old revealed.

Sopho might appreciate this: The Old Testament is meant mainly for history. It chronicles the highlights of the history of God and man. The idea for us Christians is: To know where we are, we have to know where we came from. Too many run around saying, "I'm saved! I'm saved!" without really comprehending what all they are saved from. It's not just Hell, by the way, that we're saved from; it's also part of ourselves -- approximately, Freud's "id". The "old nature" (id) is still present in Christians, which is why they still sin all the time, but God adds a new nature -- one which wants to be good. Spiritually, we're reborn. But mentally, we still have that original evil nature. Therefore, within any real Christian, there's a constant personal battle going on, while God strengthens our spirits with His power to win that battle, so long as our free will (that part of us which God never touches) remains for good. When that will weakens and drifts, the evil within us can gain ground, causing us (by our own wills) to behave badly.

You're right, except for "merely". "Merely" implies the follower has no idea why he's following.

a lot of people don't
I didn't

Since you admit that you don't understand
God's reasons, THAT'S exactly what you are
saying.

I wouldn't abide by a shedload of awful laws which the government refused to justify, just so I didn't go to prison.

I masturbate. I explained in another thread that I believe God created it. Yes, lusting is wrong, and it's pretty hard for a single person to fantasize about sex with his/her spouse, though not impossible: I venture to guess that one can imagine one's future spouse (not necessarily a real person -- just an imagined one), and be sinless in masturbating to it. It's not the masturbation that's wrong, it's the lusting after people you're not married to. Even my best friend, a theologian, who believes masturbation is wrong, says he only believes so because of the lusting that's involved. Now, he argues that imagining one's future spouse -- especially when you don't even know them yet(!) -- is impossible. I argue, from experience, that my imagination can do that.

And, lusting is indeed inherently dangerous, as we've seen from countless home-wrecking affairs -- though it's full detriment does not occur when it's just a passing thought. But, if you don't volitionally reject the passing thought, then it has damaged you.

In that case, it's not lust itself which is damaging. It's lack of self control and selfishness. Who do I harm if I look at someone and think "s**t I want to f**k them."

The guy just got engaged. We should be happy for him, not fighting with him - at least in this thread. Are we going to turn yet another thread into a Christian-bashing thread? Aren't there enough of them already?

He seems happy enough to discuss this. I'll stop if Ragtime wants to though. I did congratulate him earlier, in fact, I was the first to. I do genuinely hope he is happy with his wife. It's hard not to bring this round to religion though when he believes I shouldn't be allowed to get married for religious reasons.

Did God create Evil? I know the Catholic step around, but I'm
curious as to your view.

God did not "create" evil. Evil is not a "thing." Evil is an absence of (or deliberate avoidance of) good, as darkness is an absence of light. In creating a good creation, and allowing for free will, God allowed for the presence of evil, just as creating light allowed for shadow to exist.

He rather seems to enjoy it. If I thought
otherwise, I wouldn't be asking.

Strangely, it was not the Catholic view I was interested in,
but rather that of a man who has some very different views
on what the bible says from the dogma which MOST Christian
churches follow.

That actually wasn't the Catholic view. (Or maybe it is - I'm not familiar with what Catholics believe on that point.) That was what I've come to believe from my own study on the subject. And if it happens to coincide with the Catholic view - then whaddaya know, they got one right.

No problem. Brace yourself. Eternal damnation is our original, default state.
Not only is it our original, default state, it's not even God's fault. It's part of our automatic inheritence as humans from the first of our kind. When Adam and Eve were ignorant of good and evil (for evil already existed, as committed by Lucifer in Heaven shortly before he was thrown out), they were innocent. Could they have accidentally sinned? No. That would be impossible. Sin is a volitional, deliberate decision to go against God. That means that their ignorance would have to be lifted, in order to even make a right-or-wrong decision. Free will means little when only one option is known. So God created the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and told Adam and his wife not to eat that tree's fruit. ALL the other trees -- likely hundreds -- in the Garden of Eden were good, fully-allowed, health-giving, and all-sufficient to sustain them. But God gave them a choice whether to obey Him or not.

Now, this is crucial: Eve's taking the forbidden fruit offered by Satan, and Adam's subsequent partaking of that fruit, was not a "what if", or a simple experiment to see what would happen. The moment that choice was presented to them -- the moment the verbal commandment by God was given to them not to eat of that tree -- their free wills were given real-world meaning and implications, and, they knew in their hearts that it was sinning against God to eat of that tree.

So, we're all born in a default state of rebellion against God, and He, yet again, presents us with a free choice to get out of that sorry state -- a very painful and costly choice to Him, Who took all our sins upon Himself, and died on the cross to create it.

Again, do I understand all His reasons? Of course, I do not. The puzzle is simply incomplete for our understanding at this time. And as we all know, incomplete is neither wrong nor contradictory.

Now you may say, with your current perception: "Well, I just can't and won't believe in any god that could be that cold-hearted! I don't understand why He would do those things if He cared about us!" Well, if you ask Him in prayer, geniunely and humbly wanting to know, He'll show you enough to know it's true.