1) Because it's basically the basis of the entire Christian religion. Without God's forgiveness, Christianity couldn't even exist (Well, it could, but it'd be vastly different...).Entity wrote:Why should I bear that in mind? What is your basis for that? Why do you believe that? (and those are real questions, I'm interested to know the answers )
2 & 3) A lot of that is because I've been raised believing that, and that's one of the biggest things my church preaches.
Entity wrote:But that's exactly what you're saying! You're saying God is a corrupt judge who will ignore evil. Perfection is the standard, and it always has been. Adam and Eve were perfect, until they ate the fruit and launched the world into sinfulness.
I guess I'm not being clear enough... Maybe this will make more sense:
When you're in high school, your semester grades are recorded. You then send that record into colleges you're interested in attending. Getting good grades is the goal obviously, but it's not enough to not fail your classes. For example, THIS will improve your chances of making it into a good college:
THIS will not:French: A
English: A
Science: B
History: A
Math: A
The point I'm trying to make with this analogy is that you can't just skate on by in high school to get into college by settling for C's, just because they're "passing grades". The same can be said about whether you get into heaven or not. If you're a good person overall, those few sins are not enough to land you in hell, because God forgives those. If it's closer to being half and half, then that isn't gonna cut it.French: C
English: D
Science: C
History: C
Math: C
I'm not saying it's NOT relevant, but not everybody follows the Bible word-for-word-for-word. What I was saying about culture earlier is more of a Methodist belief. Methodism is less about obeying every word in the Bible and more about learning from it and applying what you learn from it to your own life. But even so, it's not considered a separate religion from Christianity, because it preaches the same stuff.Entity wrote: The Bible was written over a time period of thousands of years. The culture changed drastically over that period, and of course it has changed since, but the culture doesn't matter. Everything in the Bible is still relevant.