I was a full Christian because I was born into it. Until my mom and pastor couldn't answer any of my questions about the faith, i started to do research on my own. Im getting closer and closer to just giving up on it. I just dont understand why a being would put a bunch of souls on a rock for the sole purpose of worshipping him. just sounds like something Kanye west would do imo
What about an evil person, does God send them to hell (for an eternity?) A finite crime does not deserve eternal punishment.
Alot of your questions are because people view themselves as something other than what they are: WE are CREATED. I don't care who you are, what religion, we are created. We have so many finite emotions, so many finite pleasures, such fragile bodies, and yet we think we're the toughest awesomest most omniscient shit in the universe. Also: Human's are creatures OF religion. we are creatures of faith. that is how we can recognize trust, and emotions based on faiths. that is how we reason. To say "i have no religion" is like saying "i dont have to breath" its just not gonna happen, you are having faith in something. It seems unfair to send people who never hear the good news to hell doesn't it? But here I am typing out the good news but nobody even reads the whole thing. What makes you think somebody born in a culture in papua new guinea is going to listen and not just shun me, considering they've been told something for 30 years by all their relatives. you guys at least have heard christianity and all its worth and still shun it like its some mental disease. Also, its not wrong for God to send people to hell, after all since I am a sinner, if i were to be judged by my actions, it would be perfectly just for me to be there for eternity. That's what the great fall was. Fortunately, God has decided to save me by sending his son and saying "believe in his perfection as my son and he will be judged instead of you" its hard to accept but think of the gratefulness and thanksgiving!! That's why I would want to worship and adore him, that's why i would type this out so that hopefully someone would read it... Just try to define your definition of "fair" and then you will see how self-righteous your view of yourself is. This is pretty much the most i can do.
Do I understand you to say that, instead of just accepting that his creation is flawed and cutting us some slack, God kills his kid. I'm not liking this guy... Why not just go "woopsie!" and start over.
Don't you understand, he IS cutting slack!! He sent his only son to die for us, and all we have to do is truly believe that there is nothing one can do except believe that he did die and he did live a perfect life. To the letter. Adam and Eve (which i'm sure you're familiar with) sinned, which caused all their children to inherit this sin. SO, don't accuse God, blame your great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great X10 grandfather. Of course if you don't believe in the Bible then this is just like d'oh!
Didn't God create Adam and Eve? Blaming them for sinning is like blaming a puppy for peeing. They do that. They're puppies. If you don't want sin, don't create humans, bake cookies First God creates Satan (and his angels), who rebels, then he creates Man, who sins. Dude should get Martha Stewart to help him with his projects.
He did create adam and eve, and he allowed sin to tested. but think of it this way: which do you appreciate more a CEO at a job because you had a good resume or a CEO at the same job after working your way up after 10 years starting as the janitor God could change everyone's personality so that they cannot sin. This would also mean that we would not have a free will. We would not be able to choose right or wrong because we would be “programmed†to only do right. Had God chosen to do this, there would be no meaningful relationships between Him and His creation. (that second part i just googled) if you google it you'll find answers not just on these boards...unless your just looking for a bone to pick but i mean come on thats just so elementary right!!!
Yeah, but that position is way more intellectually honest. The scientific method works solely on empirical evidence and is by FAR the most accurate model of determining reality that we have. Using that method, we can deduce that there is insufficient evidence that a god exists (the reason there is a debate about it in the first place). In fact, whenever we do test the "power" of god (prayer studies, faith healers, etc.), they come up woefully inaqeduate for a god that claims to manifest himself in reality. And don't come back with "he cannot be measured" or "he works in mysterious ways" because, again, you have yet to demonstrate that he actually does; all you're doing is just mental masturbation. I'm sure you're comfortable in your belief of a "revealed" truth (Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, etc.), a lot of people are. They cherrypick around scriptual verses endorcing to slavery, torture, pedophilia, stoning of homosexuals, etc. to find material that they do not, by modern 21st century secularized morality (look at morality before the advent of the secularized states.. its repulsive; in fact, you'd probably get burned 400 years ago for simply stating the opinion you hold), find unsettling and claim that to be "god." Well then why not just take god out of the picture? Think about it. Morality shifts over time and serves a very evolutionary purpose; those society's that are more cooperative being the ones that are more able to survive what can be a very harsh planet. Why does someone have to be magical to preach that one must not treat others like shit? Theists..
More like.. a CEO at a job for no other reason other than the board members liking you or a CEO at the same job after working your way up after 10 years starting as the janitor and if you don't get your way up there (or if you happened to live in an area with another company) you get thrown into a lake of burning fire forever I'll take the first one please.
First off, we can easily debate what is "empirical evidence" on the issue of reality. You might have the idea that I throw out scientific evidence, which I do not. I am very much a follower of science as you my friend, do not jump to conclusions. There is insufficient evidence that a god doesn't exist either, because how far can science go? Will science get all the way to the Big Bang and then come to a halt due to lack of knowledge to advance to understand a "time" before time? I will in no way ask either of those things, because there is no need to. I follow science as much as an educated atheist, because I still find myself an "Atheist" in a sense, but when you come to realize that nothing can demonstrate the existence of a "God" of some kind, then answers will be revealed. All science is doing for you my friend, is paving the way for you to understand the Laws of the Universe, which is this unknown "God." The opinion I hold is science and a "God, or a non conceivable idea" go hand in hand. I was not "revealed" these answers by Jesus, Buddha, Mohammad, etc, because they are not the "unknowable." These men did not teach "One must live perfect in order to be rewarded by God." They are simply men who understood the Laws of cause and effect, nothing more. Once again, you are assuming I am apart of a modern religion. Morality is important because there is no "God" smiting us if we do bad. If I kill someone, "God" will not come down and use revenge. We must use morality because "God" does not effect our lives like you probably assume, so we must live in a way that will allow us to live without conflict and revenge. That is morality. These "magical" preachers that you assume I believe in, taught the same thing. They did not teach of heaven and hell, they taught morality. Uneducated..
If your point simply boils down to calling "God" the underlying laws of nature and reality as we know it (similar to Einstein), than yes, I think we would be in agreement with each other; there is still a large amount of things we have yet to understand. However, I do not find it correct to label those things as "God" because, as defined, god is a conscious being. I do not believe that position is as of yet justified.
God is not defined as a conscious being. We as humans have created that perception of him. We can not fathom in our minds an absolute perfection.
God doesn't "send" anyone to hell. That's the big misunderstanding here. Again: God doesn't send anyone to hell. People send themselves there. sounds harsh, but that's just the way I believe it is...
As long as you live a good life, no matter what power you look up to you'll be accepted with open arms into heaven.
I feel like as long as you live a good life without stepping on others you'll die and be happy. If not, you will be going to your own personal hell. I believe in God, i know he's there, but I don't really believe in all those rules. I feel like some of the words in the bible are His, but for the most part humans took it upon themselves to write how they wanted the world to be run.