With respect, I would be grateful if you could offer some light on my previous questions, especially in view of your apparent belief in predestination. If God ‘knows’ what’s in store for us then clearly we cannot have free will, and individuals merely suffer according to ‘his’, apparently arbitrary, will.
Your explanation for the hypothetical little girl does not explain why she had to suffer if God is ‘ultimately in charge’. You describe the ‘devil’ as also ‘in charge’ but presumably the Judeo-Christian assumption is that God takes precedence in terms of power. Your belief that she is now in a better place does not atone for the ‘evil’ done to her, and it is perfectly possible for someone to enter purgatory without such a violation, if God is the director of all things. By any humanistic system of morality it would not seem unreasonable, as Lobohan has done, to describe ‘his’ behaviour as sociopathic. If we assume that the little girl is ultimately innocent, given her hypothetical age, then presumably she is being punished, according to your previous comments, due to the sin of her ancestors. This is, without avoiding the non-falsifiable discussion of God’s existence, an illogical and ultimately immoral system of ethics. I do not understand why a person could justifiably support or worship the creator of such a mechanism, regardless of the lack of scientific or reliable documentary evidence.
It is the failure of the internal moral logic of all religious systems, which I understand least about believers. You can migrate the goalposts to suit modern cosmology, biology, physics etc., or more commonly simply disregard them (à la child humming with fingers in ears), but the morality offered to us in religion breaks down under even the most cursory examination. I have yet to hear a coherent defence that can explain this, rather than deferring to a non-explanation.
I was attempting to double quote you;)
How well would we have remembered that our sins have been forgiven if God would have just proclaimed all sin is forgiven.
How many times had the chosen people of God forgot what was handed to them and followed false gods? What would make me open my eye’s to how much God loves me(us) than to have his son die on a cross for sin’s he had not committed.
How else could the grave have been conquered other than for a sinless being to be put there. The grave could not hold him because he had the chance to sin, was tempted and did not sin.
I am sorry for you that you can’t see the tremendous love that came from the sacrifice.
What would have given Abraham the faith he showed in Genesis chapter 22?
He was willing to do whatever God asks of him.
*Of course one could say that there are many people today that kill their children and try and make some kind of defense such as this when they are truly sociopaths or mentally unstable. *
So why didn’t he? He’s god, he can do whatever he wants.
How do you know you’re not following a false god?
If that’s the case, it’s only because god wanted it that way. As god, he could easily have done it any other way. That he chose this way, that he chose to torture and kill himself, appears to indicate insanity.
What love? What sacrifice? God had himself tortured and killed to do something that required neither torture nor killing seeing as how it was god doing it. This isn’t love, it’s closer to insanity.
I had a religion class in college. The amazing fact is that anyone has the nerve to call themselves a Christian, yet they are too lazy to read the bible themselves.
I don’t know why you seem to think it is an amazing accomplishment. It’s just a boring book full of silly rules and weirdness. Why haven’t you read the bible?
I didn’t comment as to whether I’ve read the bible.
At the pace the average adult reads, it would take 1 full year to read the entire bible, if they read 10 minutes a day Monday through Friday.
What puzzles me, frankly, is that you are not the first (and sadly, won’t be the last) to say that you’ve read the entire bible and display so little (actually, none is the correct word) evidence of it.
By the way you are allways going on and on about how people haven’t read the entire bible, that being your particular schtick, I would have thought that, yes you did read the ENTIRE bible.
Front to back and back again.
I’m not trying to corner you. I’m just trying to understand your beliefs.
I think that would be a waste of time anyway. Most of the people here think that if they someone corner you by using logic to pick apart your belief system like nerds picking apart the plot holes in a Michael Bay film, you will have some epiphany or something. Of course that won’t happen. You believe what you believe and no one on some messageboard is going to disuade you of that.
All I’ll say is that I always get concerned when I meet someone who mindlessly follows some belief system to the point where they can’t objectively question it.
Then I would hope God would judge her based on how she lived her life and not how well she mindlessly conformed to some religeous dogma. Otherwise such a God is not deserving of worship.
It can be done in a semester if you actually read it. It’s not that long. They say the bible can be read aloud in 70 hours. Let’s say that it takes 35 hours to read it. That a Christian can’t spare an hour a day for a month to read something he’s assuming is his God’s inspired word can only be attributed to laziness or stupidity.
For fuck sake, highlight the parts you don’t understand and ask your preacher about them!
As for displaying evidence for reading it… I’m an atheist. Any rational person who reads the bible would be.
Not much substantive to add as the OP and his ilk obviously have their shields set sufficiently high to deflect any rational thought.
But I have a bit of an issue with what seem to be the kneejerk expressions of folk being “happy” for Gbro and his brother. Yes, to some extent ths is merely a convention of politeness. But we’ve got no idea who Gbro’s brother is. For all we know he could be the nastiest child molesting, wife beating piece of shit alive, without whom the world would be better off. Moreover, his “miraculous” recovery has apparently provided further “proof” for the OP to continue in and try to spread his delusion. Whereas maybe a little more undeserved suffering that hit close to home might have caused a couple of the OP’s braincells to rub together and start to question whether a supreme being exists or, if he does, if he is benevolent.
Hell, I don’t know Gbro or his brother. Tho as a general rule I don’t really wish anything bad to happen to anyone, I really don’t care what happens to someone hundreds of miles away from me whom I’ve never met or heard about. Nor do I think most of you ought to care about me or mine. Of course, if the brother had cacked, we would have been saved from one more BS witnessing thread.
There was a time-------when I was young and doe eyed and impressionable----that I would see claims like the one being bandied about and think, “Whoa, this place has some really bright people.”
But I found there is no faster way to induce internet amnesia than to engage them. Look, **Gbro **is making some claims. If I was inclined to lay siege to his witnessing------and I had read the bible cover to cover 7 times---- I’d be using his own bible to engage him.
But I can’t tell you how many times now I’ve seen posters attacking Christians and make comments like “I’ve read the bible” only to find that they not only didn’t use the bible in a bible discussion, but got cold feet when challenged.
A knowledgeable poster should be able to debate Gbro right here, right now *on Gbro’s terms. *
Telling me you’ve read the bible, and showing me you’ve read the bible are 2 different things.
Eleventy Billion! What do you think an IQ pissing contest would gain us? Smart people can still do stupid things after all.
I think it’s more of an indictment of your standards that you think reading a 800,000 word book that’s made out of snippits is a major accomplishment. The Stand has almost 500,000 words for fuck sake.
I’ve read the bible from cover to cover. You want evidence? I’m now an atheist. There’s your evidence.
What would you accept as evidence for reading a book? You seem to be looking for something specific.
What does this have to do with reading the bible? Or with what this thread is about? Now that people have laughed at your ‘logic & reason is witnessing!’ bullplop, you’ve just found another way to avoid talking about the OP.
It would appear that you’re familiar with some of my posts on this topic.
I have zero interest in witnessing to this crowd, and while I respect those who do, my interest is in representing the bible accurately. IOW, I’m more interested in the accuracy of the texts, the accuracy of the history and so on.
So, I’m less interested in how someone should view homosexuality than I am in what the bible actually says on the subject; I’m less interested in whether someone worships Jesus as the capital G God than I am in what the bible says (or in this case, doesn’t say) about the Trinity; I’m less interested in how someone sees Hell in their faith than I am in what the history and use of the words in the original texts were, including how the biblical characters saw Hell.
In the end, I think it is only for internet chest pounding that claims like “I’ve read the entire bible” (7 times!) are made. It has been my experience that there has almost always been a huge divide between the claim and the performance.
If you’ve read the bible and have the temerity to wade into a GD discussion, your working knowledge should be manifest; it should be obvious, and so the claim “I’ve read the entire bible!” is unnecessary.
I would also guess that your friends encouraged you to join Mensa, but you were ambivalent. The meetings were fine and all, but you simply didn’t have that much interest.
I would have also guessed that you find those tests to be somewhat arbitrary and oblique, and perhaps with a slight cultural bias.
But what do I know?
Are you as reticent about talking about The Stand, or do you find it sufficient to simply claim to have read it?
