Are these signs?

[GHoSToKeR]

I reckon when it's really the time of Armaggedon, God will send us a pamphlet or something.

[beachguy in thongs]

There is no real beginning according to the scriptures! time is outside of God! for example you have both outser space and time but yet God is seprate from both! he has always been......Jesus says before the world was created we were with him! thats because we have always been also with him! there is no begining! or end! it's a paradox!.........the scriptures say in the beginning was the word! which is Christ! and in genesis is says in the beginning god made man! that would only apply to actually making humans because we were already created before the earth was in spirit!...............

The followers of Christ asked! Lord when is the end!...Jesus said" have you found the beginning? but yet you look for the end? I tell you the truth the beginning is where the end is too!...............we have always been with Christ from day #1.............

That was a 'special' post. Thanks for making me good about myself, because when I read people talking like that, I say, "Wow, he quoted Christ!"

(That last sentence was torn between two ideas flying out of my head at the same time.)

[MyAntiDrugIsAmy]

what these natural disasters are a sign of, is that we are fucking up our environment with all this pollution causing sever erosion which is fucking with the earth. the erosion is probably responsible for the abnormal change in weather patterns not just the regular cyclical weather occurrences since the earth started. maybe if we stopped fucking up

also, new orleans is flooded because it was built under sea level and the drainage systems were primitive, and none of the buildings were made durable enough.

[ermitonto]

There is no real beginning according to the scriptures! time is outside of God! for example you have both outser space and time but yet God is seprate from both!

Time is outside of God? If time logically precedes God, that means there are aspects of the universe that were not created by God. If God has to follow the rules of time, he can't be all-powerful.

If God is not outer space, then where is he? He must be somewhere, and if it's not in outer space then where on our planet can we find him? The answer is, nowhere. Ever since we haven't been able to find physical evidence of "the heavens", of "spirits" and of "God", Christians have stopped believing that these things are real physical entities and have started believing they are actually in some weird transcendental parallel universe that we can't detect, which means for all practical purposes that they don't exist (since if they cannot interact with our universe in any measurable way, they must be outside the event horizon of the universe and thus we cannot possibly know anything about them).

Here you can find out all about the holes in the "parallel universe of soul stuff" theory: http://www.jcnot4me.com/Items/theolo...la_la_land.htm

[Ousted]

I reckon when it's really the time of Armaggedon, God will send us a pamphlet or something.

LOL, God's thoughtful like that. "RSVP not necessary - GOD" LMAO.

[Kokujin X]

Ah, well this is more then what I expected in reply... but i'll do my best. Anyway, from what I see the question that seems to bother some of you most is the fact you say "God kills innocent people" and therefor is capable of evil things. The other thing was what... How can we tell which natural disasters are punishment and which are not? Well, let me explain it this way. (Sorry for my poor explanation before, I was trying to get all my thoughts out at once..) Anyway, Natural disasters are a combonation of 3 things.

1. Punishment
2. To show us the impact Sin had on creation
3. To get people to talk to God

First explanation
Punishment of "innocent" people does not exist. Its punishment of sinners, which we all are. We're all guilty in his eyes, because all of us have sinned. You must realize, the fact we arn't all killed this very instant is a blessing. All of us deserve to die, so whats all this mumbo jumbo I hear about God doing evil? Its that people simply look at things the wrong way.

Second explanation
Like I said before, the act of man sinning had effect on all creation (in our universe)

Third explanation
A lot of people go through their lives not thinking about God at all. You notice when something like a tornado happens, lots of people will seek God (wether it be seriously or just a passing thing) but it gets people to talk to him. He allows problems to occure in our life when we turn away from him.

Well, I'm sorry for sounding so uptight and whatnot but God isn't to be taken lightly. Please, don't be so quick to try and debunk Gods existance. Why try so passionatly to prove him wrong? I don't understand why some people don't even give it a chance... It all makes sense. The big picture that is, questions like "why doesn't God just kill us all and start over" doesn't explain why God can't exist. And yes, as I saw mentioned before, it does boil down to something we just can't understand. And think about it, if God is real then how can we expect to?

Another thing I just want to stress is that, don't just take this as another "Blind christian rant" and that I can't possibly know what i'm talking about. Please, at least treat me as a human.

[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.

[Mellow Man]

That was a 'special' post. Thanks for making me good about myself, because when I read people talking like that, I say, "Wow, he quoted Christ!"

(That last sentence was torn between two ideas flying out of my head at the same time.)

Well my friend I am glad it lifted your heart! .Jesus says: Do not let your heart be troubled" A day will come when I shall wipe away every tear from your eye and you shall cry nomore!..................It's true my friend before the world was created you were already born! Jesus stated clearly,I have created you before the world was! therefore you always were!..........

by the way my friend the qoute"I mentioned earlier was also followed by another statement from Jesus"Congratulations to the one who stands at the beginning:that one will know the end! and will not taste death!.....what does this mean? the person looking for the end should really be looking for the beginning and the beginning is with Christ! so if you find Christ you have already found the End as well! therefore you won't taste death because you are alive in him!......................then Jesus continue's and says"Congradulations to the one who come into being before coming into being!?????..........what the Lord means here is congradulations to the one who found me in the beginning because I too will be there at the end as well! so therefore by coming into Christ is coming into spirit before actually dieing and coming into spirit...other words be in spirit even in this life!.....for your true life which we believe is the end is actually the beginning !.........from spirit to spirit with Christ!..........

[beachguy in thongs]

Thanks, MellowMan, I'll come back after and read that again and absorb more of it into my brain.

[ermitonto]

Punishment of "innocent" people does not exist. Its punishment of sinners, which we all are. We're all guilty in his eyes, because all of us have sinned. You must realize, the fact we arn't all killed this very instant is a blessing.

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.

All of us deserve to die, so whats all this mumbo jumbo I hear about God doing evil? Its that people simply look at things the wrong way.

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

Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.

Mark 3:29

But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.

Luke 12:10

But unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven.

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.