I hear ya, sca. I regard petty as "I made you and all the rest of everything that exists, and if you don't hold a certain belief that's not apparent by the nature (that I also created), then you will suffer for all eternity."

I would describe "worship me for no other reason than that I had someone else say that you should or face eternal pain and punishment" or "here, have some free will but if you use it you'll be sorry" to be at least a little bit petty (and this part survives into the New Testament).

But I'm trying to not debate, still curious about the "in the presence of god" part above as I'm still sure it is just a difference in word usage that has me confused.

This is where faith comes in.

The idea of god being unable to dwell in the presence of sin seems odd to me because it puts an "unable" next to a presumably all powerful entity.

On the other hand, if phrased as "God is everywhere, but is angered by sin, and cannot (or will not) accept a sinful person into his eternal kingdom," that sounds more like the phrasing I was brought up with.

(If Jesus is co-equal with god and is of the same nature, he clearly was able to hang about with sinners during his earthly life. Did he have an ability that God the father did not? This is the sort of question that is often answered with the phrase "it's a divine mystery." Answers like that were like live bait to some in my Sunday school classes of yore.)

He certainly had the ability to suffer on the cross, which God the father did not.

Absolutely your right and privilege. I can't seem to manage it myself. I hope I would defend your right to faith to the death if it came to that, and could expect the reciprocal. (and I'm really glad it hasn't come to that!)

Not able to respond in deatil at this time - not avoiding the question. You might have to wait until tomorrow.

Reminds me of an old Sunday school jest - Q: What is something that we all can see but that God cannot see? A: An equal.

Okay, not a knee-slapper, but instructive church humor seldom is. (On the other hand, seminary students that I know can't get enough of 'Holy Grail.')

If you take "hell" to mean the complete absence of God, and if you accept hell as the punishment for sin, then in order for Jesus to take on the sins of the world, he had to take on their punishment too, which is the absence of God within him. Only then could he truly "suffer" for their sins, thus paying their spiritual debt so that everyone thereafter could be saved from hell themselves by accepting his sacrifice.

Or something.

There's no honor to being good if you never had the option to be bad. Prisoners in solitary confinement are chaste, but we don't admire their commitment to chastity the way we do nuns.