What do you call someone who deliberately writes a bad program and releases it, knowing that it WILL cause harm?
The Office Development division at Microsoft, obviously. What a silly question.
Bill Gates is God!
“A” god. He’s kind like Strife and Eris on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.
Probably because I didn’t have anything to say. I could have said something… but your insatiable need to correct my spelling is the only thing I felt was worth responding to.
…it makes me think one of two things…
1.) You care enough about me that you don’t want me to look like a jackass.
2.) You will desperately do anything to make yourself look smarter.
It’s hardly an insatiable need, given that I’ve only corrected your spelling once that I can recall. My problems with your world-view have virtually nothing to do with your spelling. My problems with your world view is that it is simplistic to such a degree that it moves you to propound arguments that are are contraindicated by what I presume to be your purpose here: to witness effectively for Christianity.
While I am an atheist, I don’t think myself especially hostile toward Christians as such. I enjoy the contributions of Malacandra, Polycarp, and tomndebb, to pluck three names out of the ether. I don’t think Christians are necessarily stupid, foolish, delusional, or evil, unlike some atheist posters I could name. It is possible to witness effectively for Jesus whileout being logically inconsistent, without being obscurantist, and without engaging in self-deception or deception of others.
That is my experience, anyway. Such would not be my experience if you were the only Christian I were acquainted, because your posts are all of those things. Take your assertion above:
This statement is so ludicrous on its face, so pointless and silly, that anyone who thinks about it can point out its logical (dare I say it?) lacunae. And it’s not necessary. A genuinely thoughtful Christian apologist (C. S. Lewis, natch) long ago pointed out why believing in God’s omniscience need not lead one to such absurdities.
You do not understand the Old Testament, my friend. It was god’s will that the Hebrews be afflicted and rise out of that affliction. It was never his will that his chosen people have an easy road to the promised land. Just like it was god’s will that Jesus suffer and be crucified. God subverts free will when ever it threatens his plan for his puppets to suffer. He forces people to sin in his service.
God is a brutal monster. God is evil.
Ok… allow me to rephrase the statement. God transcends space and time.
IMHO He does save us from pain if me are martyred, just others don’t see it, they are blinded to it and think the person is suffering much more then they are. This (again IMHO) is part of the mercy of God.
The physical life of the body is nothing, these bodies are made to be disposable, so losing a physical life really means nothing in the case of someone who is saved. Paul puts it as:
What you expect from me is impossible. You basically want me to put limitations on God. However, I believe in a God that has no limitations except the limits HE can set for Himself. When God is presented without limitations the atheist shudders because that goes against all the atheist believes… that all things have limits and man can reach and overcome those limits. God can do what He wants and does what He wants for His own pleasure. There is no scientific explanation for that, I’m sorry… I really am… but sometimes you just need to accept the fact that you’re a microscopic organism in a vast universe where objects of fire and rock chaotically dance around each other. Anything at anytime is possible and bound to happen, and it does… and there is a world and space and time that man cannot control. That is God.
How am I logically inconsistent?
I said it was invisible, I didn’t say there wasn’t an eye that couldn’t see it. Just because the human eye doesn’t see the invisible pink unicorn doesn’t mean there isn’t an eye that can.
Atheists have a bad habit of telling the believer how God should be instead of listening to how God is. I don’t fully understand God, and what I do understand is so mundane to who and what God really is… but I still know what the basic foundation of that belief is, and that belief is love.
I’m fully aware of the absurdity of an invisible pink unicorn. God is in control of His omnipotence and omniscience… it’s not like we have to worry about it… if God wanted to He could very well create an invisible pink unicorn and we’d have nothing to fear… in fact, we wouldn’t even know it was there.
Just because something is invisible doesn’t mean it doesn’t have physical properties. If something is invisible it’s just not seen but it still exists. If I was turned invisible, I would still physically exist as I was before being turned invisible. I’d still have my arms and legs and organs and hair and color pigments, they just can’t be seen, but they still exist as they were. If I was turned invisible, there obviously must be means to become visible again, and upon turning visible I would retain my previous physical properties. Thus, an invisible pink unicorn can exist. If something exists there is an eye that sees it.
Does this mean something other than “He exists outside time and space”, and if so please define.
I have a question. Are you saying God can’t exist outside of time and space, as in, nothing can?
Nope.
I’m saying that the phrase “outside space and time” hasn’t been defined, and thus is a null term.
Let’s take the “Outside space and time” hijack here.
I haven’t read the thread but I think the OP is basically a rephrase of “why does God allow evil?” only more specific.
I think something pushes mankind forward to discovery, not only on the objective scientific front about how our physical world works but about more subjective things as well, such as Buddha trying to figure out why man suffers. Things like, can we find a sustainable peace for mankind and how do we work toward that end? What is justice? Should we reach out in compassion and mercy to lift up our fellow man or should we just grab all we can for ourselves and those who immediately affect us?
I look at folks like MLK and Gandhi and see people who pursued a cause they felt was important enough to risk their lives for and endure the hardships for. They were willing to accept whatever the consequences were for their actions. That’s my view of the Jesus story as well. Martyrs make a commitment to an ideal or concept and live with whatever comes of that commitment even if it’s torture and death.
I suppose some might define a merciful God as one who took Joan of Arc quietly in her sleep just after she was condemned. God’s way of saying neener neener to those who had condemned her.
I acknowledged that upthread, 'cept I probably wrote theodicy and problem of evil and other such terms, what with me being an asshole & all.
I think something pushes mankind forward to discovery, not only on the objective scientific front about how our physical world works but about more subjective things as well, such as Buddha trying to figure out why man suffers. Things like, can we find a sustainable peace for mankind and how do we work toward that end? What is justice? Should we reach out in compassion and mercy to lift up our fellow man or should we just grab all we can for ourselves and those who immediately affect us?
I look at folks like MLK and Gandhi and see people who pursued a cause they felt was important enough to risk their lives for and endure the hardships for. They were willing to accept whatever the consequences were for their actions. That’s my view of the Jesus story as well. Martyrs make a commitment to an ideal or concept and live with whatever comes of that commitment even if it’s torture and death.
I suppose some might define a merciful God as one who took Joan of Arc quietly in her sleep just after she was condemned. God’s way of saying neener neener to those who had condemned her.
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Evidently I did miss something in the thread.
You can’t have missed me being an asshole; you’ve been a member here too long. 
evidently I did because I haven’t thought so during my membership.
I’ll try to pay closer attention. 