re: The battle of religion and freedom, between church and grace

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I have a theological issue with this because I believe that without a literal fall of man that the death and resurrection of Jesus doesn’t make any sense.

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Quite right. An astute observation well stated.

I believe you are essentially saying your reliance and belief (faith) in secular anthropology and cosmology overrides your reliance and belief (faith) in Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection. Your anthropology and cosmology render moot and effectively nullify, at least for you it seems, Jesus’s entire life, ministry, and mission as effectively as though they never happened.

Jesus’s anthropology and cosmology are obviously quite different than your own insofar as he spoke authoritatively about the fall of man in several contexts and the plight we all find ourselves in thanks to Adam.

I believe a sounder approach recognizes Jesus’s physical death by crucifixion and his bodily resurrection validate his anthropology and cosmology, and his appreciation of the literal cataclysmic fall of man; not the other way around. Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me, Said differently, “if you don’t believe my words believe the miracles. They confirm who I am and what I say is true.”

St. Paul’s take was similar.

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But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.

And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.
We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.

For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.

If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

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We are living proof that particular combinations of Energy can be Self Aware. It is therefore no illogical reach to assume that the entire and infinite Energy Reservoir may be unified in a way that is incomprehensible to limited entities, and innately Self Aware. That would be ‘God’.

Further, that God would choose to ‘create’ limited and relatively self aware Entities for the sake of Love is no spiritual reach either. Jesus is supposedly “the First Born “ of the Creative Process. A Process and Entity (Jesus) which existed from the ‘beginning’, as there is no Time at this abstract level of Reality.

Jesus in this realm would indeed be Son of God(a derivative of), and perfect, but all LIMITED Entities thereafter, would not. Their limitations would be a fatal flaw, requiring a “Savior” to bail them out of their inevitable and assured “Fall”.

IMO, debate re historical theology aside, the above is in alignment with current Christian/Biblical narratives and is indeed The Truth. As Jesus so stated. It will be interesting to see what AI thinks about this.

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To say that death entered the world through a man who lived in the biblical timeframe could not be more at odds with modern science.

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And yet God is truth and men are fallible.

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He’s all-powerful. But he “cannot” lie? If he cannot lie, then he isn’t all-powerful.

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Geez! Ha. That is a red herring on a silver platter, but I'll bite.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God". In an indirect way, you are right; even a blind 'squirrel' finds an acorn on occasion.

Even God is constrained within the Word, of Truth. It/He cannot lie as He IS Truth. And Truth is the basis for a cohesive and functional Reality. Lie is a misrepresentation of Truth for an ulterior and likely pernicious motive. Or from a Divine Creative perspective, the Lie could be an option ("I create Evil...") for them who so choose - in the name of personal sovereignty and free will - not to subject themselves to the Divine Authority, but claim equality re their own perceptual, subjective paradigm. Such a claim is obviously ludicrous as it relates to Truth, but that Option must be lest God be accused of creating Individuals that are forced to worship It/Him. Which is the absolutely narcissistic Lucifer's claim whose 'Projection' is reflected in its own subjective Reality.

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"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"

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A red herring. What does the Logos have to do with whether God can or cannot lie?

KAI THEOS EN HO LOGOS

And divine was the Word.

That’s the way the Hellenistic Jews from Philo to Paul to “John” understood it. They (Philo, Justin Martyr, Origen) called the Logos “another god” and “second god” and called the Logos numerically distinct but united in purpose. There was no concept of the trinity created in the 4th century.

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Even God is constrained within the Word, of Truth. It/He cannot lie as He IS Truth.

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So you think he isn’t all powerful if he can’t do something as simple as lying. In the Bible though he does lie and even directs his spirit minions to lie and deceive on his behalf. Why pick only the scriptures that day God can’t lie and ignore all the ones where God is lying and deceiving. Even in Mark 4, Jesus is telling parables to deceive people.

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And yet God is truth and men are fallible.

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This is just a weird position. Everything we think we know about the world (religious or secular) is filtered through fallible humans.

"What is real? How do you define real? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.” — Morpheus, The Matrix

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Next chapter of the book on American colonists was 'religion and law.' The leaders of the Quakers served as judges in small towns. Witchcraft was occassionally the charge. In 1690 they hauled an old woman into the church for judgment:

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It’s strange to me that..

1. We have acts of terrorism committed by religious zealots on suicide missions even in modern times. Plenty of people will voluntarily die for religious beliefs.

2. There have been plenty of charismatic leaders (Jim Jones, David Koresh, Charles Manson, Marshall Applewhite) who led followers in a cult (or cultlike) setting that ended in death and disaster.

3. Just a few centuries ago women were being executed for witchcraft.

But we wind the clocks back 2,000 years to the Middle East and, well, it’s just not reasonable at all to think that a little more might have been made of messiah figure and his followers than there actually was in reality.

And you combine this with what I said before about the biblical account of creation and the flood being completely incompatible with modern science.

It’s baffling that educated people believe these things, but that is a testament to the cultural power of religion.

Wait a minute! “God bless you”? You just said you don’t believe in God. Help a brother out here.

What exactly is a higher power if not God?

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What exactly is a higher power if not God?

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Agreed. I call it God too.

I don't believe in an anthropomorphic God but I call my higher power, God like Christians (or other religions mostly) do.

Nobody that has a real relationship with the Lord will ever refer to Him as a higher power.
Those that come to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder to them that diligently seek Him.

That word diligently is the difference. When you diligently seek Him He becomes so much more than a higher power.