...a dozen healthy infants...

[PostScript]

"Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select--doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and, yes, even beggarman and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. I am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so have the advocates of the contrary and they have been doing it for many thousands of years." –John B. Watson, Behaviorism, 1930


People are the product of genetics and the environment. The main question is which one is more important in any given circumstance. So, the question is, of course, why would God set the stage for a disaster and then hold us responsible? Just doesn't make any sense.

If you are gay, you are gay for reasons beyond your control, whether it be genetic or due to your history/environment. Even the moment of making a choice concerning your orientation would not really be up to you, but the history of punishment/reinforcement concerning the issue prior to your ultimate decision. So, we are essentially puppets, and that doesn't make sense if God is supposed to be all loving and kind.

And, what about Satan...how could that be a loving thing to do? Creating him was "good"? Do the ends justify the means...not for us, I suppose...only for God.

[Danieltwotwenty]

We and angels are free will beings and we are products of our own choices, God created us this way so that we could choose to love him and seek a relationship with him. If he made us automated robots then we would not have a choice to love and it wouldn't really be love. With homosexuality the jury is out on what causes it but all Christain lives are hard the road is not going to be easy, we all have compulsions to sin whether it be sexual or violent etc...

[PostScript]

What I was trying to say is that we are more like robots than free beings. It also is pretty obvious what causes homosexuality: environment and genetics. What else is there?

[jlay]

God is responsible for the idea of freedom.

Man is responsible for his acts of freedom

What else is there?

Sin.

The world is full of people who are victims of their genetics and environment. But there are also examples of people who achieved and overcame in spite of those things.

If you are gay, you are gay for reasons beyond your control

Totally not true. There may be urges or tendencies that seem out of our control. But our response to them is most certainly not. You might as well say, you are a thief or a murderer for reasons beyond your control. What people do with their genitals is always a choice, regardless of tendencies.

If your a puppet, then so is your notion that we are all puppets. God is just pulling your strings. your frustration with being a puppet? Just another string being pulled.

And, what about Satan...how could that be a loving thing to do? Creating him was "good"? Do the ends justify the means...not for us, I suppose...only for God.

Do you have infinite perspective? You can really only judge the world based on your very small, puppet existence. Which according to you, is just you having a string pulled by the puppeteer. Your perspective is finite and flawed. How could you begin to understand the ends considering that you are self consumed with your own little sliver of reality.

If you want to follow that thinking to its logical ends then so be it. But you'll have to admit that your objections are really just the result of your strings being pulled. The person who is anti-gay is also just a product of his genetics and environment. So, trying to get someone to accept homosexuality is trying to go against their genetics and environment. And at the end of the day, your conclusion that God can't be loving and kind is also just another string being pulled. Enjoy.

[PostScript]

I suppose that is the point. Man has no freedom. You say we are responsible for our acts of freedom, but if God has predetermined everything, how are we responsible?

And we can take that predetermination to a very basic level.

Suppose there are two children: A and B

A grows up in a loving home, with parents that believe in God and who daily tell A that there is a God. They love A and teach A how to love...love is patient, love is kind, love does not envy or boast...they praise A for being "good" and doing "good" things. A learns how to behave this way and really has no control over being otherwise unless he/she learns to be otherwise determined by events/lessons in his/her environment.

B grows up in a worse situation. B is never taught how to love, and is actually taught values contrary to love. B is praised (if ever) when he/she does something "bad"...primarily stealing. Stealing is the only time B gets something he/she wants. Stealing is the only time when B feels acknowledged or feels good. B will never learn otherwise unless he/she is taught otherwise.

And, we must not expect that either child can overcome their programming to seek or desire to learn the opposite of what they have been taught because that is all they have come to desire.

Tell me, Jlay, who will be our thief? And, more importantly, who's fault is that?

You mention sin, which caught my attention...what do you believe sin is? Everytime anyone steals, is it always a sin? Why? And, what about Satan? Do you have an answer? even your own personal answer?

And yes, I have an infinite perspective. And, my frustration has probably been governed or allowed. That is what is even more frustrating because it leads to me wondering: WHY!

And if you do not wonder why, there are probably more strings attached to you than to me.

[B. W.]

I suppose that is the point. Man has no freedom. You say we are responsible for our acts of freedom, but if God has predetermined everything, how are we responsible?

And we can take that predetermination to a very basic level.

Suppose there are two children: A and B

A grows up in a loving home, with parents that believe in God and who daily tell A that there is a God. They love A and teach A how to love...love is patient, love is kind, love does not envy or boast...they praise A for being "good" and doing "good" things. A learns how to behave this way and really has no control over being otherwise unless he/she learns to be otherwise determined by events/lessons in his/her environment.

B grows up in a worse situation. B is never taught how to love, and is actually taught values contrary to love. B is praised (if ever) when he/she does something "bad"...primarily stealing. Stealing is the only time B gets something he/she wants. Stealing is the only time when B feels acknowledged or feels good. B will never learn otherwise unless he/she is taught otherwise.

And, we must not expect that either child can overcome their programming to seek or desire to learn the opposite of what they have been taught because that is all they have come to desire.

Tell me, Jlay, who will be our thief? And, more importantly, who's fault is that?

You mention sin, which caught my attention...what do you believe sin is? Everytime anyone steals, is it always a sin? Why? And, what about Satan? Do you have an answer? even your own personal answer?

And yes, I have an infinite perspective. And, my frustration has probably been governed or allowed. That is what is even more frustrating because it leads to me wondering: WHY!

And if you do not wonder why, there are probably more strings attached to you than to me.

What is sin? Sin is an attitude of the heart that…presumes…

Sin presumes on the love of God, presumes on the grace of God, presumes on the patients of God, or presumes that there is no God, presumes that there is no choice so that a person can justify ones personal acts. This produces fruits or manifestations of sin such as sexual immortality, stealing, coveting, slandering, etc…

Sin is the heartfelt attitude that presumes it can game the system i.e. transgress with impunity God's own moral nature by pitting God’s own laws, moral standards, against each other.

Lastly, regarding your comment in first post…

An absolutely moral, reasoning Creator would be morally just to those whom he created with the ability to morally reason. How could God be morally and truly just if he denies moral reasoning within creatures he designed to reason morally? Wouldn’t sin be the creatures own moral doing then and not God’s?

You may like to presume that God was a fool for making creatures that could sin but to deny the creature’s own moral reasoning would prove God unjust, unloving, unkind, and terribly unomnipotent. God is just to all, way beyond our mortal comprehension because he lives true to his own standards perfectly.

Here is a mystery: sin exposed, dealt with justly, fairly, rightly without violation to Creator or Creature would take a grand plan indeed…
-
-
-

[Silvertusk]

You will find that lot of Christians are child B - and through the changing saving power of Jesus become completley different people apart from their upbringing.

SIlvertusk.

[Rob]

Knowing what we will choose and deciding what we will choose are two completely different things. The reason God knows what we will choose is because he is outside of time. He is not a puppeteer controlling our every action and decision with celestial strings. It is simply his nature to see the whole picture.

I have a close friend who was child B, but then became A through Christ and went on to attend seminary school.

[Reactionary]

What I was trying to say is that we are more like robots than free beings.

I don't know where you got that idea from. Human behaviour is too unpredictable to attribute it to genetics. Otherwise psychology textbooks would be telling us how to predict other people's reactions in certain situations. We would nearly be able to read each other's thoughts. There are, of course, some traits (many of which are negative) that are preconditioned in the genes, but the fact that many people nowadays are too weak to try and change them, doesn't mean it's impossible.

[PostScript]

Silvertusk: Yes, but those experiences, which led them to Jesus and those experiences which predispose them to accepting him are out of their control.

Reactionary: You misunderstood me. Genetics doesn't predict behavior, but a history of learning and environmental circumstances does. That is where the field of Behavior Analysis stems from: controlling and predicting, determining, and changing behavior.