John A. Broussard

Why? (25 words or less, if possible.)

Awmte

To further clarify this, the fact that God made us does not entitle him to moral sovereignty over us. The fact that God is omnipotent does not imply his moral superiority over us; strength does not equate to morality. Neither does wisdom or intelligence.

John A. Broussard

The tragedy of the Frankenstein story (generally recognized as a play on god's creation of man) is that the monster doesn't worship his creator. Frankenstein wanted obedience, but the creature ran amok. Not too surprising, all things considered.

If mankind spent all of its time on its knees worshipping its creator, there would be no wars.

Also not much of anything else.

Evoken

And why should there be more? I think there is a pagan philosopher too named Celsus(?).

Well the thing with miracles is that they happen once in time and cannot be repeated, so that is a sort of problem. Maybe God could create something that everyone could go and see as a miracle, but he does not chooses to do it that way because that would mean that we would be forced to believe in him which is not what he wants.

I think you misunderstood my statement, I didn't said that atheists are immoral, I simply said that they do not consider anything as a mortal sin against God because they do not believe in God.

It has the passing from the founder(Jesus) to the first Pope(Peter) among other details which reinforce Peter's election above the other disciples.

Evoken

This derives from the erroneous position that God needs to satisfy man's needs and desires. And you are also looking at it from a parents perspective and their relationship with their sons, with God it is different.

rosy tetra

So God did not create people to have a parent/child relationship with them? I thought the Bible says in many places that he did. Or are you just saying that because God is God, he doesn’t have to be what we would normally consider to be a good parent? (i.e., he can kill us, plague us, etc. because he is so good and we are so bad)?

But then in Young Frankenstein, Dr. Frankenstein realizes what he has to do to fix things. He sacrifices part of his brain for the creature’s screwed up brain and kind of mingles identity with him. Is that the “New Testament� of Frankenstein?

rexrex4

IasimisI,
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I have often heard this argument by christians which claims that god forcing us to believe is a bad thing or that in any case this is not how he wants it; he wants us to freely choose him.
For the matter of forcing us, I deny that miracles force us any more surely than being told we will go to hell if we don't... or bribing us with the candy of heaven does. What miracles do do is prove that there is really something there to talk about. The bible (sorry, but I must say is only words on paper).Would I rather be forced to believe in an great good god which will result in my own best good than 'allowed' to freely and for whatever reason march to my doom? Definitely yes, and this speaks to how god wants it. It seems incredibly selfish, evil even, to have the creator more interested in getting love from his creatures than in caring for them. That is where I think the immoral nature of the A & E idea comes in.
What this 'god doesn't want to force us and it's not what he wants anyway' does is try to get god off the hook, when common sense would say the big guy should do the heavy lifting, not a puny little wretch like me.

John A. Broussard

Exactly! Human analogies when trying to evaluate god's motives are totally irrelevant. You can't measure god with a human yardstick. You can't even know if she/he/it exists in the first place.

Evoken

That is why I turn to The Church to tell me about God because he has revealed himself thru her.

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The big problem with that is (as I have mentioned before) every Abrihamic religion claims exactly the same thing. :banghead: You are left with a purely subjective argument that proves nothing and persuades no one.

"It felt right, therefore it must be."

Not exactly testable, verifiable, or critical.