I'm going to cut this down to the key points; I don't believe I'm leaving anything integral out or changing your meanings. Correct me if I do.
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Originally Posted by Rae-Est
First of all, I'll explain what I believe. Salvation, like almost anything in life, is a choice. You have to realize that you are a sinner and that Jesus Christ is the only one able to free you from that sin.
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Agreed.
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John 3:16-17: "For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved."
So, for my first point, obviously God created the world and gave man freewill. Freewill gives man the ability to choose between heaven and hell. God sent Jesus in order to give man that choice, and thus, we have the strange predicament of those who are going to end up in hell due to not choosing Jesus Christ. By the way, please remember that God sent Jesus not to condemn but to save.
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Agreed.
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My next point is that God gives us a choice, which by default means that we, not God, are the ones to condemn ourselves to hell. If you'll notice, God doesn't want to condemn any man to hell. Therefore, God will cast us into hell but only because we have chosen not to believe on Him. I do not believe in a sadistic God who takes pleasure in throwing people in hell; that's not a part of His character.
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Please indicate where in Scripture you find support for this belief.
God created humans knowing that 99% or more of them would be condemned to eternal torture because He created them fallible.
Instead of revealing Himself to them on a regular basis as a reminder, He instead relies upon other, also fallible, humans to share His message. Those people are expected to understand and follow that message, whether it is presented effectively or accurately
or not. If they follow an incorrectly-communicated message, or if their only exposure to the message is a nutcase ranting on a street corner, they are still expected to know, understand, believe, and follow the accurate message.
Meanwhile, Jesus spoke in parables, as He said, so that those without understanding would be confused. In other words, so that those who didn't already get it would not ever get it.
God also intentionally deceives people:
2 Thessalonians 2:11-12
And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
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I suppose the argument that I'm a "feelgood false Christian" is interesting considering that I do believe God is a God of love. The first reason for that should be obvious: see John 3:16. God loved "the world," meaning everyone, enough to send His Son to save us all. Not that everyone accepts it, but yes, it was an act of love, first and foremost.
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Yes. God loved the world so much that He had to sacrifice Himself to Himself to free the fallible people He created from the Law He created because He was too holy to be in the presence of the sin which He created. Agreed.
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1 John 4:16 "And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him."
That's pretty straightforward. The definition of love, according to this verse is God, and God is the definition of love. If that isn't somewhat "feelgood," I don't know what is, and since you believe the whole Bible, I'm expecting you to agree with this.
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The point is not that God doesn't love anybody. The point is that God is not all about love. God is also about war.
Exodus 15:3
The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name.
Feelgood Christians -- like you, sorry to say -- pick and choose the parts of the Bible they like, and discard the rest like so much toilet paper. You ignore the parts of God that you don't wish to see; thereby, you create God in your own image, by pretending that He is as YOU wish Him to be, rather than as He is.
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Now, the reason I say that I think God is loving despite the fact that He knows some people will reject Him is because He originally gave Adam and Eve a choice. It was a choice between a beautiful life in the garden of Eden with Him and with wonderful foods and one another or ultimately death. That, in and of itself, is what freewill is all about.
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Questions for you:
God is omniscient. Therefore, before He created Adam, He knew that Adam and Eve would eat from the Tree, yet He left it there for them anyway.
God already knew the difference between good and evil. Why would He need a tree bearing fruit that teaches that difference, since He already knew? After all, HE CREATED good and evil. Surely, He knew the difference.
Before Adam and Eve consumed the fruit from the tree, they did not know the difference between good and evil. This means that they could not have known that it was wrong to disobey God.
Therefore, neither Adam nor Eve was capable of sin until after the sin was already committed. God created sin, and knowingly set Adam and Eve up to become the first sinners.
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God wants us to obey Him. That is His desire, and if we knowingly choose to obey Him, then we please Him. Adam and Eve had one command from God: "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." (Genesis 2:16-17)
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And did they die in the day they ate of it? Yes or no? Was God honest?
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What God made was perfect. ("And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good."-Genesis 1:31) The world was perfect... until Adam and Eve chose to sin.
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"Very good" is not the same as "perfect", at least in my dictionary.
As noted above, Adam and Eve could not choose to sin until they knew what sin was. That was after, not before, eating of the Tree.
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So when you accuse me of thinking that God delights in tormenting His creation, you are very wrong. Man brought this upon himself, and God gave Him the way out: salvation. That is why God can be a God of love and still allow people to go to hell. He gives them a choice.
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What choice is given to, say, tribesmen in Africa?
Do you believe that God already knew that those souls would be sinners, and therefore sent them to bodies that would never be exposed to Jesus' message?
What choice is given to children who die too young to comprehend God's Word, or the mentally retarded, mentally ill, slow-witted, or fetuses aborted?