Until a year ago I thought I had all the answers when it came to God.
I had great faith in those beliefs until the religious organization which taught me those beliefs was exposed as being wrong about a lot of things and intolerant of criticism.
What I believed...---,,,God created the earth and everything on it in preparation for human life.
The first two people were perfect until they willingly disobeyed their Maker, forcing him to enforce his promise to punish them if they did (He governs himself with his perfect justice and righteousness). God withheld from himself his ability to see future events as this would make meaningless his gift of free will.
When the two sinned, they became imperfect, and that genetic defect was passed down to all their offspring. God would allow time for humans to conclude that they are incapable of prosperity without the guidance of their Father. That's why He allows suffering.
Upon their becoming defected, God put in place an arrangement by which man would be released from the bonds of sin and death. He promised a Messiah, or Anointed One who would make everything right again. Jesus Christ fit the description given long before he appeared, spent 3 years teaching and showing off his miraculous healing powers then died as a perfect man (Jesus did not inherit the defective gene since he was not the result of his parents having intercourse) Therefore, his death can be considered an equal exchange for the perfect life that Adam lost, just as God's people of the past, the Israelites offered blood sacrifices at the temple. That ancient Jewish arrangement is said to have foreshadowed the Messiah's sacrificial death.
By heeding his commands and imitating his way of life, anybody from anywhere has the opportunity to receive forgiveness for their sins and redeem themselves to God and receive future blessings.
What are those blessings? That's where the Bible can be interpreted differently.
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