Humans are biased and project their own emotions and needs onto an all powerful timeless entity.
The reality is that human souls are the best construction material and God is working on adding a patio out back. She told me yesterday.
And an omnipotent God lets natural disasters happen, or causes them. Someone who lets bad things happen is bad, ergo you believe God is bad.
Welcome to the club.
Of course you judge lots of gods all the time, by denying their existence. Wouldn’t be true if you had strong evidence your brand of god exists - have any?
And the consolation to the person being ravaged by Ebola? Is his solace that at least his pain and suffering will be somehow useful to the next generation?
I made the argument before, but it’s worth repeating. If the Bible had ended with Jesus Christ dying on the cross, then God’s a sadist. But the Bible is a story of hope, Jesus reappears to his Apostles. Many of them go out and build a church.
After a disaster, if you light a candle and some others do the same, it snowballs. Perhaps it’s an unfortunate way for people to learn, but people do. Surely, 9/11 was a tragedy, but I have to believe that the U.S. is better prepared today than before 9/11.
There would be no need to be prepared if stuff like this did not happen. You believe god created a world where it does happen all the time, right?
Why did Adam violate one of God’s rules and get kicked out of the Garden of Eden?
Couldn’t God have made man perfect and sinless. Couldn’t God make a world without natural disasters. My job is not to judge him, most Christians believe that they are servants of God. I am here merely to live out my faith and act according to what I believe the Bible and prayers ask me to do.
People who want God to do things differently, I do believe that in a way and manner they want to “play God” they want God to do things their way. I am not interested in God doing things my way. I am His servant and not the other way around.
In some versions of the Gospels, Jesus reappears to his Apostles. In others (like the first version of Mark), it ended with an empty tomb.
Regardless of that though, I’m not sure how that is supposed to make this person’s suffering any better. Is this to say that any and all pain and suffering is worth it as long as the reward is there?
I posted some problems with this sort of logic earlier in the thread and I confess, I must have missed your responses to them. The gist is though that if suffering is actually good for us, then that’s a powerful argument to inflict suffering on each other, don’t you think?
I’m not sure what you are trying to get at here - it seems to me that it’s a much better state of affairs to not have had the wanton death of 9/11 then it is to be ‘prepared’ because of 9/11.
Because Adam didn’t know it was wrong to violate God’s rules. He hadn’t eaten from the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil yet.
I fail to see how God could not have made man perfect - how does a perfect being create something imperfect?
What is your response to the Joshua Challenge?
What’s the answer to these questions? The answer would appear to be “Yes.”
Most of the people you are talking to - maybe all of them - don’t believe in God, so it stands to reason they don’t want God to do anything. They want you to explain your opinion.
And what about the “good questions?”
Know where God is hiding out? Maybe we can send in a SEAL team.
First, there was no Adam and no Garden of Eden (you don’t have to an atheist to know that) do basing theology on it is like basing zoology on the Flood myth.
Second, it is clear that the Eden story is a just-so story, explaining why we die, why we have to work, while childbirth is painful, why snakes have no legs, and why we hate snakes. (Well, Indiana Jones, at least.) The snake is no Satan, there is no original sin, and Adam and Eve went on to live a long time. There are similar stories in most cultures.
Gee, you don’t post like you are a robot. If you think God gave you a brains, moral judgment, and free will, maybe you should make use of them.
If you were the servant of a mass-murdering tyrant would you feel the same way? Look how many Communists excused what Stalin did because they had faith in the Party. Is that your role model?
pchaos says The Second Coming is just a metaphor, so taking the Eden story literally doesn’t make sense. And it doesn’t address the core issue anyway.
Nah, let’s send in NASA they have experience.
To me, it would not be difficult to respond to this type of challenge. I would read the Bible, consult with other church members, and pray, then I would act accordingly. To me, this approach is superior to an atheist relying on logic.
You’ve failed to respond to some other straightforward questions.
God’s not a sadist, people are just douche bags.
Apparantly you don’t know what the Joshua challange is and haven’t even bothered to find out.
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The Joshua Challenge is a Biblical challenge where in you assume the role of a man in Joshua’s army. Latro posted a link to it.
Well, in that case, I will ignore it.
Look, I do not respond to challenges posed by men, I only respond to challenges posed by God and by life.
I’m not sure what you mean - are you saying that you aren’t going to respond to my challenge OR are you saying that your response to the challenge is that you would ignore God’s right hand man (Joshua)?