Can Christians answer the following points? (Just out of curiosity)?

sorry there is no logic in R&S. But you make very EDUCATED and VALID points. why is it the christians never make any valid points?

Even if I am the only one, thank you so much for asking a serious question, and I will do my best to answer them to your satisfaction.

One, God being referred to as a "he". I don't know how far that travels. God is definitely monotheistic. I don't know enough about Hebrew to know whether it is a thing of language, but I do know in most languages, instead of "it" the word "he" is used. Sorry if it doesn't work that way in Hebrew, but the other reason they might have used he is because men were considered leaders in the Hebrew culture, while women were the respected, yet obedient wives. Ok, not quite like that... a marriage was a compromise on both sides, but I won't go into that. Basically, men thought God appeared more manly than womanly. And God did use this throughout time, referring to his church as his bride. I suppose he felt certain aspects in the stereotypical man were better for explaining who he was. In return, wisdom is described as a female.

So I have no complete answer there, only a few guesses. But hey, they're logical ones. All I can say is - I don't know what God was thinking at the time, but it seems to have worked out okay. So I'll put it on my list of questions for when I can speak to him face to face.

As for angels having wings - I think that's quite a modern assumption. It is never mentioned in the Bible, and in many Renaissance (and earlier) pictures, wings don't enter the picture. Maybe there was a famous picture painted of the scene where the angels told the shepherds the news on the hillside, and the artist painted in wings to depict that they were in the air, flying? I have no idea when that first appeared. The halo, also, is not mentioned in the Bible, but that is put in lots of paintings, as angels (and divine beings) glow with a yellow light...

As for Jesus and sacrifice. I think it was more the symbolism - it was more that he was being sacrificed FOR us, rather than to God. And it wasn't a "Oh, here God, these are all the sins of the people, just, well, put them on that shelf over there, will you?". The sacrifice part meant Jesus had to give up his... well, the only way I can think to describe it is, connection to God. He could no longer feel God's presence. And people go on about Jesus' physical pain, but what really hurt him was when God left him. So that was what he sacrificed. Being a divine being, he got it all back within a few days.

As for the creation of sin, yes, in a sense he did. You have probably heard this before, but sin really is just free will, which God gave to us to ensure we weren't robots, instead thinking people who willingly chose God.

Just because God is referenced as a "male" does not mean that there has to be a female also. God does have sexual organs, He is just referenced as a "he" because he is everyone "father" or father-figure, so to speak. I hope this helps.

Angels are only depicted as having wings by human paintings, not the Bible, probably to just distinguish them from humans.

And yes, God the Son sacrificed himself (the perpetual sacrifice, negating any future need for animal sacrifices) for sins. God did not "create" sin, so to speak, he created free will, and the choice to go against the will of God is sin. Jesus' sacrifice was to atone for the horrific things mankind does, perpetually.

I hope this helps, but wanting logical and literal interpretations of the supernatural is not plausible or possible.

added: I thought you were just curious? If you've already made your mind up about religion in general then why ask the questions? You won't be satisfied by any answer. BTW, determining a standpoint on religion shouldn't be based on a reply in yahoo answers, especially when they didn't give any answer.

added again: yes, only paintings. what Bible are you reading that says angels have to earn their wings? are you sure it wasn't a children's book? you mention vatican artwork yourself, you just answered your own question.

and no, the people that wrote the Bible did not care that in thousands of years it would be too politically incorrect to say the word father when referencing the creator of everything. And how is this an avoidable "problem" in a theological debate? It's apparently only your problem.

It's becoming quite obvious that you know nothing about religion; that doesn't help you when you're trying to refute it. It's only makes you look rather silly.

1) God is referred to as a male because, as the creator of man, he is literally the father of all mankind. Father here being a figurative reference. It is used of others such as the first person to live in tents is described as the father of those who live in tents. Also, father is used as a metaphor because in the custom of the ancient east, the lineage descends from the male line. And the gift of holy spirit which comes from God is referred to as 'seed' so it comes from the male not female parent. If we were being literal and not figurative, God would be 'it' in the neuter because God is spirit and neither male nor female.

2) The bible only describes the Cherub and Seraphim as having wings. These are only described according to visions and it is very likely from the descriptions that what is being described is a metaphoric image not a literal one. Angels are usually described as appearing as male humans. Literally however, angels are spirit beings and have no gender. They do not have wings and have no actual form as we know it. From the information we can find in research, they seem to be able to adopt any form, however, the idea of their having wings comes from men who have extended the visions of Ezekial etc to include all angels.

3) When God created Adam he gave Adam spirit and also gave Adam dominion over all the earth, when Adam fell he lost the spirit and all the dominion was transferred to the devil who corrupted everything. Thus if Jesus was sacrificed 'to' anyone, it could be said to be the devil in the sense of 'paying the devil to buy man back from him'. Although some believe that Jesus Christ is God, Christ himself always declared himself to be the son of God, not God himself (although there is still a huge debate among many about this). For sacrificed for sin read sacrificed to redeem man from the consequences of the sin of Adam, which is being enslaved to the devil who is God of this world, and also being subject to death etc (the full redemption of which is yet to be fulfilled).

I can try. But keep in mind that I'm only speaking for myself, based on what I believe, and my opinions do not represent all Christians.

1) God is only referred to as male because of the authority that seems to rest on males. Most every society throughout history has been patriarchal, and because of this, more emphasis was placed on God's "masculine" attributes rather than His/Its feminine attributes. In the Bible, the words used for God actually mostly denote no gender at all. However, there are several times that the Hebrew words used denote feminine aspects of God. For example, God's wisdom is referred to as a woman. In truth, God has no gender. It just seems disrespectful to me to refer to God as "It."

2) Artist's rendering. Nowhere in the Bible does it actually say that angels literally have wings. I don't believe they do.

3) That's a complicated subject, and it's really hard to answer. I'm not quite sure how to answer it without my response sounding like a bunch of religious gobbledygook. I guess you could say that in a way, God did sacrifice Himself to Himself to appease Himself, but it's a lot more complicated than that. Whole books have been written on the subject, and I just don't have the time to go into it now. Can I be allowed to perhaps think it over, and come back to this question?

Edit: You said:

Then why must angels earn their wings and why does the vatican sanction holy paintings of angel-like figures with wings behind them (and the sun-shaped and unnecessary halo)?

The idea of an angel "earning" their "wings" is a new invention. It isn't in the Bible, and it isn't part of traditional Christianity. In fact, the earliest reference to angels "earning wings" is from the movie "It's a Wonderful Life", which came out in 1946.

As for the paintings, it's probably because it doesn't matter. Why were artists allowed to depict Jesus as being white? Why was God painted as a old, bearded white guy? Because that's how the artist saw it, and that's how they wanted to paint.

As far as the third point, again, that's a really deep theological subject. I'm not sure there is anyone here with a doctorate in theology, who could actually satisfactorily explain the concept to you without it sounding like religious gobbledygook, as I already said.

Not xtian - G*D has no form, body or gender, seems rude to call G*D - it.

Not all angels mentioned in bible are said to have wings many are referred to as "men"

jesus never existed and g*d is not a trinity. The concept of god as trinity was stolen by the Roman church. The Roman Empire created the jesus as a compilation of all the mangods and crucified world saviors to keep the Empire from being divided by the uprisings of religious dispute. Create 1 mangod, unify the Empire, rally the people around the new mangod, tell them the mangod must have all the world believe in him = More people and territory for the Empire without the use of the military. Problem solved !

1) The "He/Him/His" etc references the role that God plays for humanity. He is akin to a loving Father for us who can be stern at times when he has to be but is willing to guide us. Also, Jesus Christ referred to him as "Father." In regards to the monotheistic status, he still is. The counterpart was actually originally/historically (and still is, although I know that Protestants will thumb me down for saying this,) incarnate in the One Apostolic Catholic Church. This was actually discussed in Mass a month or so ago. The Church represents the mother for us. Thus, this also symbolizes the unity between God and the Church. I also believe that historically speaking, many religions had a head figure that was male representing the leader of the divine, the Judaic culture was no exception. So tradition plays a part in here as well. Some also had a Mother Earth, which I believe the Church translated into Mother Church for our religion in the sense that the physical laws are down here on Earth, but the true power comes from the Divine. Also back then, many cultures had males as the head of a household so it'd make sense for the head figure to be male.

2) I believe the depiction of angels with wings was either a man-made interpretation from later on... descriptions of angels in the Bible are very rare. If you notice in almost every culture in history. The mythology of creatures with wings is almost a denotation of being on high or of a celestial nature. Human envisioning of angels probably followed these guidelines. I do not personally know what angels look like, but I can imagine that if they do not have wings, it's an artistic interpretation that denotes divinity. Same as halos, it's to represent divinity or a celestial nature. Whether it's absolutely a factual representation or not does not take away from an angels' purpose to serve God and (depending on your beliefs) serve us. That is what is important.

3) God did not create sin. Humans did through free will and selfish actions. With all this sin, we were not able to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven which God desired us to. Nothing impure can enter however. Before Jesus Christ, we were entering into Limbo after death, awaiting a messiah. God became human for us. He is called the Son because he was no longer playing the role of Our Father, he was playing the role of one of us while representing himself on Earth. We are God's children, thus he is termed "the Son."

Now to answer the last part. In some ways, yes. Consider this analogy though, say that a friend owes you a huge sum of money. A ridiculous amount! Say that instead of trying to pay you back, any money that they earn they squander on meaningless things. Finally, something happens and they do not have the money to save their own skin. Have they deserved this fate based on their actions? Yes, but you care about your friend a whole lot! You do not want to see them suffer like that! So, despite the debt that they owe you, you take from your own savings to save them; you even drop the fact that they owe you. Yes, it costs you A LOT. But it has given your friend a chance to rise up again and get back on their feet and (you pray) see the error of their ways.

This...I believe is the best analogy I can give for the sacrifice that God made on our behalf. I think a better analogy is if you just drop the debt that your friend owes you for the sake of being a goods friend. That may be a better module.

I hope you get the idea? It is that we got to the point where we would never have any chance into getting into the kingdom of Heaven. This wasn't just for all past sins but sins that were to come from humanity. So something dramatic had to be done and God sacrificed himself, so that justice was served and atoned for on our behalf. God is very just. He wanted us to come, but wasn't just going to bend the rules. So he took the hit for us.

Hope this was somewhat logical and made sense!

Peace

You can use the Bible and biblical characters to ask a question but you don't want Christians to give you truthful answers from the Bible. How one-sided is that?

You don't really want answers do you?

Christianity is very logical only you haven't understood it so you would rather insult Christians and God's Word than hear what God would have to say in response to such questions as you have asked. Truthful answers obviously scare you to death.

Since you don't really want the true answers, I won't bother answering.

1/ The Greek word for “love” in the expression “God is love” (1Jo 4:8) is also in the feminine gender but that does not make God feminine.

Solomon (Pr 1:1), applied the title qo‧he′leth (congregator) to himself (Ec 1:1) and this word is also in the feminine gender.

Hence the use of the term "he" does not constrict God to any particular gender.....Additionally God revealed his personal name as Jehovah or yahweh; the definition of this name is - “He Causes to Become”. This does not conflict with the belief in one Almighty God...

...some people call their cars she but that doesn't mean there is also a male car :0

2/ The wings are referred to in multiples to indicate their ability to travel very quickly; it does not refer to literal wings as you have rightly pointed out, they are not bound by physical laws

3/ An excellent point...if Jesus was God then he cannot have been sacrificed to himself! He was Gods son who provided an equal and corresponding ransom for mankind which God Almighty collected

EDIT: sorry, sorry, sorry! I just have to add a scripture to demonstrate the innaccuracy of some responses :o

The prophet Ezekiel saw “four living creatures,” and in a later vision, he identified these as angels of the rank known as cherubs. (Ezekiel 1:5; 9:3; 10:3) Each of these angels had four wings, which showed their ability to respond swiftly in any direction to God’s commands

The angelic creatures called seraphs that Isaiah saw had six wings. (Isaiah 6:1, 2)

Revelations 14:6 - And I saw another angel flying in midheaven

God is spirit, spirit has no gender

Angels are mentioned looking like humans in the Bible. Artistic licence on the wings.

Jesus is God in human flesh. Sacrificed to cover the sins man commits. Self sacrifice out of love.

No. ur puttin words in the bible that arent there.... First off its a he that doesnt mean there is a she. And that is common culture that angels have wings they actually are supposed to look like regular people. Yes jesus was sacrificed to sin or beezelbub or the devil all the same. God didnt create sin we did and the devil was the factor in that. And the trinity which your sayin is right but their arent necesarily the same they are different things Holy spirit, Jesus, and God thanks for posting this question and letting me answer it.