I ate Pascal's Wafer

Why not? I haven't seen a justifiable reason why they are bad. The key point is that they are used in socially acceptable situations. Cursing around your friends is fine, but cursing around the old ladies at the nursing home is not (unless they, too, curse). Of course even then cursing is not objectively wrong--it just stems from respect for those who do not share your views. If a person is offended by curse words, then the respectful thing to do is to refrain from cursing around them. This is what I want my children to learn--not that cursing is objectively bad because I say so.

It depends. If they want to live a safe life without worrying about imprisonment and being removed from everything else they like, then they should consider following the law. If they strongly believe in the principle that the law is wrong, then they should break the law to do what they ultimately believe in--so long as they understand the risks.

I dislike parallels between a concept and Nazi Germany because I believe they are overused, but I think it's relevant in this case.

In Nazi Germany, it was illegal to hide Jews (or whoever else the government was going after) from the police. If you were hiding the enemy, then you were breaking the law. Now, many people thought that such a law was ultimately wrong. Why should it be a crime to keep people alive and in good health? However, some were not willing to take the risk to their own lives and simply refused to take a risk for their beliefs. Others did help hide the Jews, and were likely punished for it if they were caught.

Should they be punished for breaking the law? I don't think so because they were just acting on what they thought was right. However, this is up to the discretion of the government. The government could punish them too, even if it meant that it was doing one more immoral act in the process. The governing body is not the ultimate source for morality. If it punishes people for acting on their own morality, then by that system of morality the government is doing an immoral action.

In other words, I can go out and kill some people, and as long as I am not acting out of malice it is alright?

The Bible I have says that it is wrong to kill another person. I can grant that the original version meant murder, so I'll let you have this point.

However, you still need to demonstrate how God's killing of an entire population is not murder.

So rather than giving children the chance to change the course of history, he just wipes everybody out. As another poster pointed out, this just means that God is too lazy to get Noah to change things without killing the whole population. That somebody might do a crime later in their life is not a justification for killing them now. With the proper influence (Noah and the gang immediately comes to mind), their future actions can change.

Ah, but children were held accountable for their sins (or sins they would have commited) in the Noachian flood. They were at least physically punished by the drowning, and that's assuming that they didn't end up in hell afterwards.

So, is the fact that nobody is perfect or innocent a justification for killing them all? My neighbor certainly isn't perfect. Can I kill him? I know of some people who are much less perfect than me. Can I kill them too? It's not malice--they aren't perfect and they deserve to die. God did it justifiably at least once, so why is it wrong for me to do this?

Actually, I forgive people whether or not they ask for it. I don't care whether or not a person asks for my forgiveness. I believe it means more when I forgive them and they didn't ask for forgiveness. So, I ask again--am I more moral than God?

Where did I say that?

Well, there you go. I am more moral than God. I don't require that somebody ask forgiveness from me before I forgive them. I am even capable of forgiving people if they don't want it, although this hasn't happened yet. Why in the world would I want to worship somebody is more immoral than I?

Sure, he did feel the pain just as we would have. That's not what I was getting at. A few moments of pain--even intense pain--to an infinite entity is like a pinprick to me. Jesus spent only a fraction of his existence here, and suffered only slightly compared to his existence in heaven.

But again, this is not the main point I am getting at. My point is that the sacrifice was irrelevant in the first place, so even if it was a true sacrifice it was worthless.

Why is that? Is Jesus/God/etc not omnipotent? Are you putting God in a box? Why can't the almighty creator of all existence give Jesus a mortal life again?

-Nick

winstonjen

Exactly, so the ENTIRE world wasn't evil. There was a chance that god killed the innocent humans along with the guilty, and the innocent animals could have done no conscious wrong.

Also, most of us here know more of the bible than most Christians, so why don't you post your own thoughts, or is thinking for yourself a sin?

The correct question is, who isn't more moral than god.

I ate Pascal's Wafer

The only people I can come up with are some of his followers.

-Nick

winstonjen

See? With some rudimentary brainwashing and hanging out with fundies, you too can think like them! I guess being a fundie is contagious!

Magus:

Gen 6:8b - Because the LORD thought that they would look cute in incest together.

:boohoo:

I ate Pascal's Wafer

Thank ya JEEZUS, ah see tha LIGHT!

Here yee, here yee: evilushion is ah LIE frum thuh PITZ uf HAIL!! REPINT! REPINT!!

Do I sound convincing yet? I surely hope that you aren't right about the contagiousness of fundies!

-Nick

winstonjen

Nah, I was just pulling your leg. As we can read in the Atheist's Testimony thread, many people are turned away from theism by fundies.

Hear that Magus? To save more souls, stop witnessing!*

*Void where prohibited by Divine Plan (TM)

I ate Pascal's Wafer

Hehe. Yeah, I suppose this is true enough.

But, but--how can we SAVE thuh SOLS of peeple if we don't REECH OUT to dem an let dem know thet they will BERN in HELL if they don't REPINT?!? We must SCAIR dem into BELEAF er else they will not aprrechiate the POWER of JEEZUS!!

As counter-intuitive as that is, it is very true.

-Nick

winstonjen

Exactly. The bible says that those who don't know and don't choose Jesus don't go to hell, because they never knew.

Eskimo: Would I have gone to hell if you didn't tell me about it?

Priest: No, not if you didn't know.

Eskimo: Well then, why did you tell me?

So, Magus, stop pretending that you don't want people to go to hell. You just tell people just so they have 'no excuse' to believe, and so they send themselves to hell. :boohoo:

winstonjen

Thanks for the big, fat Non-Sequitor, Magus. How does the suffering one endures qualify someone to judge what is good or bad? Perhaps we should let masochists dictate the laws?

Magus, I am not trying to mock you, but please, think before your post if you do not want to be ridiculed. Try to refute your arguments if you were on the side of your opponents.