Are these signs?

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Originally Posted by ermitonto

Well, we humans didn't choose to all be sinners by nature, did we? No, if God created us and we are all sinners by nature, it must be God's fault for the design flaw, and thus all sinners would be really innocent.

I gave the idea of God a chance. I really did. For the first 13 or 14 years of my life I was a Christian. But I failed to find any sign of God. He failed to answer my prayers. He failed to show even the slightest sign of his existence. This, combined with the wacky tall tales and outright contradictions found in the Bible (see http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.co...a/by_name.html) caused me to reject the Christian dogma much of my society expected me to unquestioningly accept. Believe me, this was not an easy or impulsive decision (it's hard to tell your parents you no longer believe in their deity). It involved a lot of careful thought and a long period of trying and subsequently rejecting various rationalizations for God's existence. But in the end it was apparent that Christianity had as much proof of its veracity as any other religion did, i.e. none at all.

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Once again, read what I wrote before.

"Why did God even allow us to screw up so badly? Well because if he had not, and made us incapable of making descisions, then we would be drones, robots, with no free will. So giving us that free will, we were able to do what we want."

Were we damned to fall in sin to begin with? Perhaps, surly God knew what we would choose. Its possible (which I can't with 100% surness) that God created us in this physical world so that we can by choice, overcome sin and be reborn into the perfect human later. (In the new Heaven and Earth)

It's unfortunate that this list of "contradictions" convinced you to quit. Most of them are just commonly misunderstood (ie: Why so many people find it necessary to go to Church) Either you were unlucky enough to grow up christians who cannot answer questions, or you simply did not care to try anymore. God works in diffrent ways and I know that you have been told that before. But, the bible also does explain that not everyone could be saved (which would seem like another "contradiction") because how a person can truly believe in him, the same goes for the opposite. Absolutly despise him, or rather the christians which they can see. This is our choice, it's not like its impossible for everyone to be saved but it is pretty much impossible by works of man at this point.

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Originally Posted by ermitonto

The insinuation that every man, woman and child has done things so horrible that they are all deserving of THE DEATH PENALTY (but God just happens to be nice enough to spare us) is so comtemptuous of humanity I don't even know how to describe it.

Perhaps my suspicions were right. Christianity, in proclaiming an imaginary being as superior to man, makes people begin to attribute all good traits of man to God's wonderful creation, and all his negative creation to his innate evilness, thus propagating a very profound hatred of humanity.

You're trying to tell me, that there's this guy in the sky, who decided one day to do a little experiment and make these little creatures with free will. But oh no, all of them are sinning! Gotta punish the sinners!

What the hell did God EXPECT?! He can't get mad at us for sinning. He should have known we would all sin. He is all-knowing, right? He created everything and has a divine plan for everything right? So he already knows everything my "free will" is going to do (what kind of free will is that anyways, if all my actions are already programmed into God's mind right now?).

Besides, it doesn't matter if I give God a chance right now. According to the Bible, I'm going to Hell anyways. Watch me guarantee myself eternal damnation:

First, I will direct you to three exerpts from the Bible. They are:
Matthew 12:31-32

Mark 3:29

Luke 12:10

Now, all I need to do to guarantee myself eternal damnation is blaspheme against the Holy Ghost. Fuck the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost does not exist; it is a fabricated lie of the Christian dogma. There. I'm going to Hell and a million Jesuses can't save me now.

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YES! We are deserving of this death penalty, but thoes who believe in him do not truly die. I don't know what you can't grasp about this but its really not that hard. We were created to be perfect, and since we are not (by our choice) we need to be saved.

What did God expect? Exactually what happend, and if you paid any attention you would have realized that our ultimate goal is to be in the perfect new Heaven and Earth. Sinless, the way we should have chose in the beginning. Your actions arn't "programmed" into God's head, but he does know what you will do and how you will live your life. Predestination is better explained by a wise man I know, but I can do my best.

And again, I cannot tell you how many time this one is misundestood. No, your not "damned to go to Hell" as of now because of your blasphemes, every sin is forgivable. This is almost comparable to the 10 commandments. Do christians have to obey the 10 commandments? Of course not. It is a good scource of guidelines but invalid at this point in time. Much like the "Unforgivable sin". He gave commands like these to a certain group of people, and even to them today this rule does not apply. Ever since Jesus died for our sins, we are only expected to follow 2 rules.

â??Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandmentsâ?� (Matt 22:37-40). â??This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensomeâ?� (1 John 5:3).

So in retrospect, all we have to do is follow these commands. I can agree aswell, they arn't burdensome.

Who is to say what a 'sin' is? The man himself, of course, no one else.
I bet sin in His eyes is perpetual, and I think he's come to terms with it.

People say, "What would Jesus do?"

But, "What would God do?" If you were God, you'd smoke weed.

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Originally Posted by Kokujin X

Once again, read what I wrote before.

"Why did God even allow us to screw up so badly? Well because if he had not, and made us incapable of making descisions, then we would be drones, robots, with no free will. So giving us that free will, we were able to do what we want."

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And yet, if God knows all my actions before I ever do them, how is it that I'm not a drone or a robot? How can free will possibly exist? It's one of the endless contradictions in the Bible.

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Were we damned to fall in sin to begin with? Perhaps, surly God knew what we would choose.

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Perhaps? If God knew, then the answer is YES. Not perhaps. God MADE us sinners. He fucked up his model.

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Its possible (which I can't with 100% surness) that God created us in this physical world so that we can by choice, overcome sin and be reborn into the perfect human later. (In the new Heaven and Earth)

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Then why doesn't he clearly outline what sin is and what sin isn't? Why only provide it in an old book with wacky stories of witches, demons, ghosts, talking animals, pregnant virgins, and a God who doesn't care about all the slavery going on but hates anybody who is gay (...something they don't even have any control over, anyways. What a caring God, punishing people for the way they're born :rolleyes: ).

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It's unfortunate that this list of "contradictions" convinced you to quit.

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It's unfortunate you don't see the glaring errors in there, and that you must find a rationalization for each and every one because you believe so fervently that the book must be true, throwing logic out the window. The book was so haphazardly thrown together it's funny. Sorry, but the editors of the Bible weren't able to comb out all their fuck-ups. Please, do tell me how the following verses could possibly be reconciled into something that is logically consistent:

Acts 10:36: "The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ."
Matthew 10:34: "Think not that I [Jesus] am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword."

Joshua 7:1: "For Achan, the son of Carmi ... took of the accursed thing."
Just 23 verses later we find...Joshua 7:24: "And Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah..."

Exodus 20:13: "Thou shalt not kill."
1 Samuel 15:2-3: "Thus saith the Lord of hosts ... go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare him not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass."
What a wonderful, caring God who ORDERS HIS CHOSEN PEOPLE TO COMMIT GENOCIDE! :mad: :mad: :mad: If this creature were real, he would be deserving of the worst kind of hatred.

Oh, and don't forget the overwhelming scientific evidence that Noah's Flood never happened and that the Earth is billions of years old, both of which contradict very well-known stories of the Bible. I can drag out the evidence if you want, but I'll assume you're already familiar with it.

Now, if we already know some parts of the Bible are just bullshit, how can one rationalize believing with absolute unshakable faith in the other parts? You can't just pick and choose.

I don't particularily hold a lot of faith in a doctrine that claims to know all the answers to the most complex issues of the universe, nicely wrapped up in a simplistic explanation of "and so god said let there be..."


EDIT: also in a book (the bible) that was written approx. 600 years after jesus, translated from word of mouth.

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Originally Posted by ermitonto

And yet, if God knows all my actions before I ever do them, how is it that I'm not a drone or a robot? How can free will possibly exist? It's one of the endless contradictions in the Bible.

Perhaps? If God knew, then the answer is YES. Not perhaps. God MADE us sinners. He fucked up his model.

Then why doesn't he clearly outline what sin is and what sin isn't? Why only provide it in an old book with wacky stories of witches, demons, ghosts, talking animals, pregnant virgins, and a God who doesn't care about all the slavery going on but hates anybody who is gay (...something they don't even have any control over, anyways. What a caring God, punishing people for the way they're born :rolleyes: ).

It's unfortunate you don't see the glaring errors in there, and that you must find a rationalization for each and every one because you believe so fervently that the book must be true, throwing logic out the window. The book was so haphazardly thrown together it's funny. Sorry, but the editors of the Bible weren't able to comb out all their fuck-ups. Please, do tell me how the following verses could possibly be reconciled into something that is logically consistent:

Acts 10:36: "The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ."
Matthew 10:34: "Think not that I [Jesus] am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword."

Joshua 7:1: "For Achan, the son of Carmi ... took of the accursed thing."
Just 23 verses later we find...Joshua 7:24: "And Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah..."

Exodus 20:13: "Thou shalt not kill."
1 Samuel 15:2-3: "Thus saith the Lord of hosts ... go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare him not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass."
What a wonderful, caring God who ORDERS HIS CHOSEN PEOPLE TO COMMIT GENOCIDE! :mad: :mad: :mad: If this creature were real, he would be deserving of the worst kind of hatred.

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1. Free will is how we sinned in the first place! I feel as if i'm explaining the SAME thing over, and over and over again! Does this make sense?

2. He didn't screw up anything, with our free will we choose to sin, we screwed up. He made us excellent in every way, and we were given a chance to open our eyes to sin, because if we had not the chance we would be robots. Does this not make sense?

3. He didn't clearly outline everything we should and should not do. Your sins are between you and God, no one else can decide what you did was wrong. The view that people are born homosexual, is only an excuse for people like you. It's simply not true and the bible explains that. It may say that God despises homosexuality, but not any more now then other sins aswell. They arn't born that way and even genetics tell us so. Identical twins are exactually the same, the same way a clone would be. But, one twin is normal and is hetrosexual, the other could be homosexual.... so hmm... its all sin. Its not the way we were born. Does this not make sense?

I almost can't believe you are willing to discredit the entire bible because you can't possibly imagin why death would be a good/reasonable thing. As far as Christianity being a bloody religion, it is. But it is uniquely a bloody religion. Contrary to bloodless religions, it takes sin seriously, indicating that God takes sin seriously, and gives a death penalty for it. Sin is not a small matter. It is the simple sin of pride that turned Lucifer into a demon. It was the simple sin of jealousy that caused Cain to slay Abel, etc. And in Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit, they believed the deceiver over a good and loving God, choosing to rebel against His love and denying the goodness of His character. Christianity is a bloody religion because it views sin as a holy God views it...seriously. Does this not make sense?

If none of these things make sense to you then we are going to continulessly try and prove one another wrong and most likely on the same topics, over and over. Its almost pointless, but understand. I will no longer try and convince anyone that God is real, but answer questions to thoes who want to know. Another thing is that read what I have to say in full. If you read what I had to say then there should be no need for the same questions being asked. Honestly, I don't know why this is so hard. Look at it in these terms, if i'm wrong, what happens? Nothing. If you're wrong, what happens? You missing the only opprotunity to live for eternity (which is a good thing) simply because you decided to deny God. Its an easy choice if you ask me...

I think the church is just another control mechanism and i don't realy care about the bible unless for some heavy reading.

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Originally Posted by ermitonto

Oh, and don't forget the overwhelming scientific evidence that Noah's Flood never happened and that the Earth is billions of years old, both of which contradict very well-known stories of the Bible. I can drag out the evidence if you want, but I'll assume you're already familiar with it.

Now, if we already know some parts of the Bible are just bullshit, how can one rationalize believing with absolute unshakable faith in the other parts? You can't just pick and choose.

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There is no "scientific evidence" that Noah's Flood never happend. And the Earth being billions of years old? Do you think that God would overlook something like that? Let me make a small comparison. Adam was created and looked what, lets say 25. When in actuallity, he was not even a day old. The Earth is the same way. One thing you don't seem to want to give up is this "evidence" that the bible is full of bull. Its not true, either passages are misintrupritated, etc.

Okay, I see you are a Creationist too. I guess I'll end the argument here then, since I know your type never accepts logic or reason or peer-reviewed science or those other things that advance mankind's knowledge. Oh well, it was nice and surprisingly easy arguing with you while the debate lasted.