critical thinking made ez

I think it requires a higher faith in logic NOT to choose God. It is easy to fear something like a God and believe what you are told by the Authority in charge and accept their God in the current package they are delivering him in than in rejecting the party line and thinking for yourself. Questioning everything that is told to you and using reason not blind faith to decide how you live your life here on earth.

You bring up another good point also. What is the real difference in choosing one or the other (I will assume you believe we atheist and all others outside your religion have chosen Satan's way)?

Hitler chose God, he believed in him, and worshiped him. He carried out what he believed in his heart would get him into heaven. Child killer, David Koresh also chose God. Likewise, men such as Einstein, and many medical scientists that have saved millions chose Satan in your Bibles definition.

Millions of Christians live day-to-day in the same existence as the non-believers. The Christian has hope that life will change for them and the nonbelievers has the same hope when things are not balance in their life.

Another will join Christianity and their life is suddenly changed for the good, many great things happen. While just as mine did when I STOPPED believing, it changed for the better, I became more successful, money, happy marriage and family, and better job. I had none of that back when I was a believer, yet I won’t say that it was my belief or nonbelief that did it.

It reminds me of the guy who is broke, suddenly joins Amway and become rich. He claims it was Amway because he wants more people to join. He knows most will fail. He made it because he worked at it not because of Amway; he could have joined any other corporate cult group and would have been just as successful. All religions work the same way. They use a small handful of success to sell the rest. After that they use threat of Hell to finish the rest off.

What difference in a person’s life can be proven by making the choice of one path over the other? I believe one of your answers will be… that they are assured eternal life. But I say if nothing in this life can be shown to make a difference, why believe that it will after death?

So what is the real positive difference?

critical thinking made ez

Are you sure this is a fair warning? Remember that the Creature was wiser than both Adam and Eve and they were now talking with TWO authorities about what they could and could not do. What they could and could not achieve. They had no clue that the creature was evil, in fact, thought it beautiful and wise. Why should they have believed one over the other?

If you had two bosses and one said blue, the other yellow. Which one do you follow? Nature tells us to follow the one that promises the most. Nature tells us to achieve the most. They did what God created man to do. He was programmed by God to choose the creature's way.

critical thinking made ez

I think we have moved this discussion out of the Existance of God realm enough to move it to Miscellaneous Religious Discussions.

John Paul

I believe in God because of my own studies and interpretation of the words of the Bible.

Besides...how can you look at this world and NOT see the divine intervention of A god, not just the Christian God? There's too much structure to be by chance.

Jesus is THE way....no man comes unto the Father excpet through Him. If you don't believe me see quote at bottom... The real difference is where you will spend eternity. This earth and all things included in it are going to pass away but only things for Christ will last forever. Your money, success. better job, will all pass away, but only that which you have done for God will make a difference in the end. If you are serving the world you will need to change and get back to Christ if you want to be saved from hell. Sorry that's pretty much the way it is.

Nowhere in the Bible does it say that Christians should kill all the Jews...In fact we are supposed to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. As I said before Jesus is the only way. And obviously Hitler and Koresh were quite perverted in their beliefs about God. Unless they were miraculous

That's true, but that's not how Christian's are supposed to live. They have to let Christ be Lord of their life and not themselves. Many "Christians" don't understand this and make a bad example for the rest of us who are trying. But they are ignorant about it. They can't help that until someone corrects them.

The positive difference is that we are saved for our sins and try to let Christ be total Lord of our life. We will be saved when the judgment day comes and unfortunately for those who belives Christ can be "Savior" and not "Lord" will perish along with all the nonbelievers. Sorry that's just the way it is.

critical thinking made ez

If you have proved Christianity to yourself via study and interpretation then you have violated the requirement of having faith in his word. To study it, takes from your faith and replaces reason into its place. Reason is a type of proof which doesn't require faith. Be careful why you believe, you may have lost your faith already.

Where do you see divine intervention? As long as the nature laws are not violated, there is no intervention.
So you agree with me in that there is no difference that can be demonstrated on earth and that the eternal life card is the only thing you can hang your hat on.



Such empty words from a follower of Christianity. I bet you support the non-love Bush has for the US enemies and his Christian desire to persecute and kill them. So get your story straight with the rest of Christianity. I agree that Bush should kill them, no turning the other cheek etc.

Biblical practices here, will just kill more of the innocent. So Hitler and Koresh did nothing worse than other Christian leader. They did what they felt the Bible dictated them to do. That is the danger of following the Bible or any other religious doctrine... See OBLaden for another version.



Back to this again. No difference in life now, just hope in an afterlife and a hope that 1. there is a god. 2. That there is an afterlife. 3. That you figured out the magic formula to find favor with the god. 3. That you succeeded in applying the formula to attain an afterlife. 4. That this afterlife is worth skewing your present life for.

Justus

Interesting .... Incest & Polygamy ..... seemingly two pratices given tacit approval by God ..... whereas homosexuality is expressly (and strongly) forbidden / punished ... Dietary restrictions Bad .... but wait not any longer ... pork is now ok .... but no meat on Friday ( fish ) .... Wives and Concubines ok .... Sisters and cousins ok ..... well sort-of (that was then ... this is now )yet G-d is unchanging and his laws (word) perfect.....

Did Adam / Eve eat out of physical hunger (or simple craving for a new taste) ... or was there not a deeper motivation as pointed out for knowledge / growth and a questioning of G-d's authority .... (Genesis 2:9* The Tree of Life & The tree of knowledge) .. was G-d (and whoever else was there ... Genesis 3: 22) reacting out of selfishness ..... (to parapharse) G-d must be a government bureaucrat because only a government bureaucrat would ..... create such a convulted situation ... disavow any responsibilty and ... punish future generations .... then later claim /expect praise for creating a solution ....
(which again in it's "logic" could only spring from the working of a goverment agency / committee) <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

Sorry for the tangent .. rant ...

Realityisreality

God does not have to explain himself,since his acts need no explanation for they are all good.God created evil even as he said in the Bible.God is love and atheists tend to believe that if he was,then he should explain himself to them.This is not wise for the creature to assume the Creator needs to explain himself.Within ourselves is good and evil.God told us to do good.If the atheists demand that God remove evil,then he is trying to touch the moon with his finger.It is not going to happen.God tells all to repent and get ready for the day of judgement.A child can understand that.

critical thinking made ez

I think God does need to explain, how else can we decide which God to believe and follow? Surely you must have accepted some plausable reason/evidence for your belief in this one God/religion you follow. Therefore, you even demanded proof before you believed. Don't expect us to until we have been satisfied with sufficent proof.

Justus

Please be patient with me as I am perhaps a bit slow...... but to clarify I was not really expecting an answer directly from Big G himself .... what I was hoping to illustrate was that the conclusions reached by a believer (as to the nature / character / motivation of G-d) is not the same as one who is not a member of the same "Goverment" agency .... I Thank You for not addresing that issue but instead offering a preprogrammed message. I have many problems and honestly sought answers about my dobuts and concerns yet much like you those individuals (in the real world clergy) I approached were just as sympathatic and insightful.... Again Thank You
_____________________________________
Occupation: Minister of Gospel of Jesus Christ
Interests: God and his word
Basic Beliefs: God is real and can be known

Sorry but I had to look at your profile curious not flippant .... what denomination?

Wizardry

A child can also understand that spaces go after punctuation marks, but we mustn't ask too much from the trolls.

BTW, how exactly does an all good God create evil anywho? Out here in the real world, that's a contradiction, which makes your entire argument invalid.

*sigh* It's like the trolls aren't even trying anymore.

Peace out.