jbernier

Exactly! This strikes me as nothing more than a desperate end game strategy to try to preserve a deeply fallible doctrine of infallibility.

Asha'man

Sure would explain all those genocidal and murderous rages in the OT.....
:notworthy

Gullwind

Here's a good one.

2 Kings 8:25 through 10:30. Its a long passage, but it tells the story of God telling Jehu to destroy the house of Ahab, the massacre at Jezreel and how God was pleased with Jehu as a result.

Hosea 1:4-5. Describing how God is going to avenge those massacred at Jezreel on the house of Jehu.

Gregg

No, this is not a contradiction because (hand waving hand waving hand waving hand waving), and because I said so. Got that?

Uni

that is fine...you may still think i am wrong, you are intitled to that. but the argument itself is not flawed and is logically sound.

Roller

The one I like:

Gen. 37:28 Then Mid'ianite traders passed by; and they drew Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ish'maelites for twenty shekels of silver; and they took Joseph to Egypt.

Gen. 37:36 Meanwhile the Mid'ianites had sold him in Egypt to Pot'i-phar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard.

Gen. 39:1 Now Joseph was taken down to Egypt, and Pot'i-phar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him from the Ish'maelites who had brought him down there.

Who bought Joseph? Midianites? Ishmaelites?
Who sold Joseph? Midianites? Ishmaelites?

converted

God gave mankind free will to be good and/or evil and unfortunately, mankind does not always choose the correct path. Does God step in and make every good person's life turn out "good" in worldly terms? That answer is No. If God interferes with every decision of mankind, then mankind may as well just be a collection of robots. Have people suffered terrible lives on Earth? The answer is yes in worldly terms. There is starvation, poverty, war, disease, etc...

In the grand scheme of a 75 year life on earth versus eternity, a man's suffering here lasts a blink of an eye relatively no matter how horrific a persons life is. Consequently, when people indicate that they could not understand how there could be a loving God given all of the pain in the world, I say that having (a) free will and (b) a spirit that lasts for eternity is worth any suffering that I might go through in this life.

If you don't believe in a loving God and eternal life, then life to me would seem rather unfair and hopeless. In fact, to me it would be downright depressing to think that life is a big accident of nature and any day my life could be thrown into chaos due to being hit by a car, being fired from a job, having a heart attack, or being mugged and shot on the street, or any other calamity.

converted

You have free will and you can choose to ignore God your whole life. My belief is that God continuously tries to pull people toward him throughout everyone's life. I believe that persons that shut out God likely go through more trials and tribulations in their lives than those that walk through life with faith in God.

That actually would be a very interesting study to perform - survey 10,000 devout Christians and 10,000 atheists and assess their mental well-being. My own personal experience is that I am much more content now than when I was not going to church. I did not go to church for 20 years. I always thought there was a God, but I am much more content since I started going to church weekly. There probably are studies like that out there that indicate Christians are more content people (my conjecture...), but I am sure Atheists will just scoff and say it is because "religions is an opiate for the masses" and Christians are more content because they are ignorant....

Gregg

If you need to believe in God and eternal life to find hope and meaning in life, that's all well and good. However, why is it necessary for some people to believe in a god who sends billions of people (sorry, "allows them to choose") to eternal suffering? Why not believe in a god who forgives everyone sooner or later, a god for whom the redemption of his/her/its children is always possible?

Also, can you accept that even though life without belief in God and eternal life might seem "rather unfair and hopeless" to YOU, this does not necessarily apply to others? Can you accept that many atheists DO find a great deal of meaning and fulfillment in life, even if they recognize that the Universe is unfair (or more accurately, indifferent)?

And anyway, why should life be considered hopeless? Human beings HAVE managed to create societies where most people live fairly comfortably and have many opportunities for growth, fulfillment, and personal enrichment, economic or otherwise, even if they don't take advantage of those opportunities. The chances of us not destroying ourselves eventually are kinda slim, but we've managed surprising things before. I find great hope in imagining a brighter future for humankind, even if I don't live to see it.

Biff the unclean

Well when you don't believe in a God then when you don't go to church there is no guilt. Just like you don't feel any guilt or lack of contentment when you don't go to Mosque or plop down on your prayer mat every few hours.
It's an opiate in the sense that it causes the very problem that it pretends to cure. You only feel better with it because first it made you feel worse.
Christians aren't any more content than anyone else.
But as for being ignorant it's much worse than it seems. Ignorance is only the absence of information, that's no big deal. It's easy to fix. Christianity demands that Christians actually reject the information they are given that is not approved for Christians. That's willful ignorance which is much much worse than plain old ignorance.