free country David f. You could and are probably in the majority as far as your belief in human nature. Every human has the seed of corruption. You don't need to teach a child to be bad, dishonest, nasty. It comes automatically. You need to teach them not to be dishonest etc etc. Anyway a day will come when you will face judgement and declared guilty or I will be a fool just trying to rescue you from the 'non existant' judgement or Judge. I am just glad that mercy is available to those who accept the truth as lived out by Jesus Christ.

Dear runner,

You and I will both die. That will be the end for both of us. There will be nothing more for us after that then there is for an ant, a koala or a tree. There is absolutely no evidence that there is anything more after our death. I hope it is a long time before it happens to you.

david f.,

<<You and I will both die. That will be the end for both of us. There will be nothing more for us after that then there is for an ant, a koala or a tree. There is absolutely no evidence that there is anything more after our death. I hope it is a long time before it happens to you.>>

To the contrary, there is much evidence. Since Jesus rose from the dead (established by historical investigation), all human beings will rise again. Some to everlasting life and others to everlasting damnation.

I didn't invent that position. It's straight from Jesus himself. Take a read of Matthew 24 and 1 Corinthians 15 in the New Testament.

Yes, we will die, but that will not be the end: 'Just as it is destined that each person dies only once and after that comes judgment' (Heb 9:27).

According to God's promise, where will you be one minute after your last breath? Scoffing at runner and me or dealing seriously with God Himself?? I encourage you to pursue God now so that what happens in eternity will not take you by surprise.

Dear OzSpen,

The stories in the Bible are only evidence that some humans wrote down the fantasies or legends around at their time. Those stories are no more a historical record than the Buddhist Tripitaka, the Hindu Bhagavad Gita or the Muslim Koran. It is no more factual than any of those documents and no more to be believed than any of those documents. All these other religions have their sacred literature, and there is no reason to accept the Bible rather than the documents cited above. The man-god Jesus was an attempt to make the newly invented religion acceptable to the world which had many human/divine figures. The Bible just is an expression of the superstition runner and you share. After my last breath I will breathe no more. I will still be dead. There is no evidence for the existence of any deities or any of the religions mentioned above. You and runner will probably retain your superstition. I will retain my reason. Christian and Muslim missionaries encourage people to adopt their superstitions. I would rather be free of superstition. God and Allah exist only in the imagination of some humans.

A few thoughts to add.

One way people read the story of Adam and Eve regarding eating the forbidden fruit, is that this was a good thing. That we now have a moral attribute to differentiate good from evil. Or that by eating the fruit we have obtained free will, But that's not the context of the bible. In the beginning God made Adam and Eve. And it was good. He gave the fruit from plants to mankind, and the grass and leaves to the animals. There was no murder, there was no killing, there wasn't even predator and pray.

Then there was the conversation between Eve and the serpent. This is a conversation close to what a conman might have with someone else. Take the truth and try to twist it, or just out right lie. Eve though this through, and with Adam they both choose to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They were tricked, but they chose it themselves, and they considered it on their own. Therefore the ability to have a free will, and the ability to consider moral decisions existed before eating that fruit.

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What happened afterward continued on throughout this book in the bible. Now men and women were aware of sinful options, they are handicapped with their moral judgement by considering to do evil. It's not that they are better at discerning right from wrong, but now instead that doing wrong is part of the judgment call whether they know it's wrong or not.

This is evidenced by Adam and Eve's first children. Two brothers, and one killing the other out of jealousy. Since then this trait of choosing evil continues on with more generations told from Cain's lineage. Eventually leading to the decision God had before the flood. Mankind has turned to evil in all they do, and is bent towards that direction. Pre flood and post flood this is talked about in the bible our state towards sin, selfishness, and outright evil. Mankind hasn't changed from this.

However, even from the very beginning, when Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden fruit (it was only forbidden to eat from one tree. It wasn't forbidden to eat from the tree of life. That decision occurred after eating the fruit of knowledge of good and evil); after they ate from the fruit, they say their nakedness. And tried to cover themselves up with fig leaves. God however gave them better clothing. He killed an animal made clothes for them. To this day God has helped us to cover our nakedness, and our sinfulness. From giving the laws to the Israelites to direct us away from evil, and point out that it was there; to later Jesus coming teaching, and dying for our sakes so that we can have God's salvation and the Holy Spirit. We can be continually cleansed and clothed because of God so that we are not naked in our sin.

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