Amaleq13

Discussions about evolution belong in E/C, not here.

Thanks in advance for not continuing that particular tangent.


Amaleq13, moderator

JPD

Yes, but we could both be (as you have inferred). But being wrong and being wrong and being punished for being wrong is the difference between an entity of generous spirit and a short-sighted bully.

Ooops - sorry - I should have put my statement in quotes - I was indicating the obvious limitations of a view that expresses the opinion that because person B does not believe in the God that person A believes in, that person B is somewhow wrong or bad or misguided or evil. There isn't a God that I believe in, as should have become quite clear by now!

JPD

Ah if only it were that simple! What we are dealing with - the basis of faith - does not lend itself to clear cut distinctions of the type necessary to form a knowingly accurate picture of what is. What you end up with is a fuzzy wavy picture of sorts of what might be. You lack the tools to tune the picture in - what you come up with is your own private channel.

rhutchin

Faith is what a all people take with them into death. A person may have a fuzzy picture only because he has never personally experienced death with all its ramifications. The Bible provides a pretty sharp picture of what happens. Whether that picture is truth is the issue; not its sharpness.

rhutchin

Given that the biblical God is a generous spirit, it would seem better to go with him.

No. It just means that he made a wrong decision. If the person is evil, then the decision he makes determines his accountability for that evil. You can believe in any god you desire. Everyone knows that they will die. What they believe about the events after death vary.

rhutchin

He could had called the police who would have arrested (perhaps killed) the homocidal maniac as they are authorized to do and then taken care of the family.

There are other options. Consequently, the actions were either right or wrong.

OK. The only faith that matters is that which is based on truth.

Angra Mainyu

wiccan windwalker, I don’t know, and it’d take some time to do that research, but I don’t see the relevance of it. So, I’ll ask, what do you mean?

There are many things that can be seen as thinking outside the box. What do you suggest I do?

Btw, I’d still like to know what you think of homosexuality.

So, you advocate for passing laws that would make homosexual behavior a capital offense. You also advocate for laws that impose capital punishment for other “sins”, apparently.

Thanks for the answer. I have to say, I’m glad that most of the world doesn’t have those laws.

I had written a reply to the rest of your points, but I'll have to drop it. So, I guess that's it. You promote the execution of homosexuals and some other "sinners", while I'd find those laws unacceptable. We might have to agree to disagree.

JPD

This is why it is so important that religion and state are kept separate. The Taliban's punishment for a person convicted of being homosexual was to push a wall over on them. Is there a part of you that would look at this and say "Hmmmm...actually that seems a bit extreme....someone who is homosexual is following their sexual feelings...they can't help but be homosexual....they might spend their life in denial to avoid the possibility of being executed thus lying to themselves and to whichever God the ruling regime believes in"

I truly hope that you don't find capital punishment acceptable for this. I find it appalling and sad that anyone would consider capital punishment valid for a person's sexual preference. They're not harming you personally, they're not making it more likely that you would become a homosexual - and in return you think that they should be executed? I hope not. There is quite enough suffering in the world already.

If the OT or the OT & NT in conjunction stipulate capital punishment can you not see why reasonable people - who can see another way forward free of such blind and ignorant bigotry - would reject the Bible? Surely the text SHOULD be about personal belief - what you feel and think inside - and not about trying to force other people's actions to conform to some bizarre ideal that the Bible coaxes and threatens with.

Johnny Skeptic

Killing babies is not legitimate punishment for sin, but God kills babies.

Getting back on topic, why should anyone pay any attention to what the Bible has to say about homosexuality? If you mention Pascal’s Wager, I will tell you that it is impossible to convince someone to love you based upon threats.

God has sinned according to his own moral standards, so he does not have the right to judge anyone. Decent people do not have a choice whether or not to love a God who has committed numerous atrocities against mankind. Your definition of the word "atrocity" is much different than decent peoples' definition. A web definition for the word "atrocity" is "the quality of being shockingly cruel and inhumane". God is definitely shockingly cruel and inhumane. Consider the following:

God makes people blind, deaf, and dumb, reference Exodus 4:11.

God punishes people for sins that their ancestors committed, reference Exodus 20:5.

God killed babies at Sodom and Gomorrah

God kills people with hurricanes, including some of his most devout followers. Even Attila the Hun did not kill his own followers.

God empowered a savage Devil to help him attack mankind.

God is willing that some people starve to death even though he has food in abundance. In the Irish Potato Famine alone, one million people died of starvation, most of whom were Christians. It is probable that many if not most of those Christians desperately asked God to provide them with food, but to no avail. In the KJV, James says that if a man refuses to give food to a hungry person, he is vain, and his faith is dead. This makes God a hypocrite. Human effort alone could never feed all of the hungry people in the world. Lest you say that the Christians who died in the Irish Potato Famine may not have been righteous, I will tell you that James said that Christians should feed hungry people, not just righteous hungry people. What is your definition of a righteous man? Are you a righteous man? One of the best ways to get an unrighteous hungry man to become a righteous man is to give him food. It is a matter of how badly God wants to prevent people from starving to death.

How do you suggest that we prevent God’s killer hurricanes from seriously injuring and killing people, and destroying their property? Is it your position that God has made it possible for the world to become a Garden of Eden if everyone acted like they should act? If so, I find your position to be quite strange because ever since Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, somehow, whether through genetics or through some other means, God has ensured that everyone commit sins at least some of the time, meaning that it is impossible for anyone to always acts like they should act. Otherwise, some people would be perfect and would not need to be saved.

God injures and kills innocent animals.

Today, it appears that all tangible benefits are distributed entirely at random according to the laws of physics. This is to be expected if God does not exist. If he does exist, then he frequently distributes tangible benefits to those who are not in greatest need, and frequently withholds tangible benefits from those who are in greatest need, and with no regard for a person’s worldview.

Do you believe that hurricanes do or do not operate in a random manner?

God deliberately withholds information from some people who would accept it if they were aware of it. It is not likely that a loving God would reveal information to people who he knows would reject it, and withhold information from people who he knows would accept it if they were aware of it. If God exists, there is no doubt whatsoever that he could easily decrease the number of people who go to hell, but refuses to do so. Decent people are not able to love a God like that. The main question is how much does God really want to keep as many people as possible from going to hell? Obviously, not much. If God exists, he is much better able to keep people from going to hell than anyone else is.

God endorses unmerciful eternal punishment without parole. If mercy is anything, it is forgoing eternal punishment without parole even when justice, in this case, God’s justice, requires it. Otherwise, mercy is meaningless.

No rational being, whether a human or a God, ever intentionally does anything without the hope of benefiting himself and/or someone else at present, or in the future. It is a virtual certainty that no God could derive any benefits whatsoever from making people blind, deaf, and dumb. It is most certainly not necessary to make a man blind, deaf, and dumb in order to convince him to become a Christian. In fact, one of the best ways to convince a man not to become a Christian would be to make him blind, deaf, and dumb. Another good way to convince a man not to become a Christian would be to kill his child with a hurricane. It most certainly is not necessary to allow a man to starve to death in order to convince him to become a Christian. If God had always provided all of the hungry people in the world with food, and had always told everyone, tangibly, in person, that he was the source of the food, the Christian church would surely be a lot larger than it is today.

In the Old Testament, God ordered the death penalty for a Jew who killed a Jew, but not for a Jew who killed a slave. In addition, the New Testament does not clearly oppose slavery, even though it easily could have if God exists.

The Bible is a hateful book. Consider the following Scriptures:

Revelation 14:9 And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,

10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:

11 And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.

Revelation 9:1 And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.

2 And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.

3 And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.

4 And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.

5 And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.

6 And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

Mark 14:21 The Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! good were it for that man if he had never been born.

Johnny: Such vicious hatred could only have come from the mind of man. No decent person could love a God who inspired writings like that. The writings describe a being who is much worse than Adolf Hitler.

If you have children, if they were drowning, would you be willing that any of them perish, or would you try to save all of them?

He who is best able to help people is most culpable of refusing to help people. Since God is much better able to help people than anyone else is, he is much more culpable of refusing to help people than anyone else. True love will always provide help when those who ought to provide it refuse to provide it. Since God refuses to provide help when it is not available from any other source, rational minded and fair minded people have no choice but to reject him.

Is it your position that hurricanes selectively seek out unrighteous people to injure and kill?

If God were mentally incompetent, how would he act any differently than he acts now? The correct answer is, not any different at all. No mentally competent man or God helps decent people AND kills decent people.

The best decisions are the best informed decisions. Science and education provide better informed decisions. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the part of the 1800's, advances in science and education have closely paralleled a growing lack of interest in religion. Today, even some evangelical Christians geologists admit that a global flood did not occur. Young earth advocates have become increasingly scorned by leading scientific organizations. Historically, 100 years is a very short time. During the last 100 years, dramatic changes have taken place regarding how people feel about religion. If current trends continue, in another 100 years, there will be much less interest in religion than there is today. What I am getting at is that the jury is still out. There is a lot of information that we do not yet have that we need to have in order to make better informed decisions.

What are the chief factors that determine religious beliefs? Some of the answers can be found in Kosmin and Lachman's 'One Nation Under God'. The authors provide a lot of documented evidence that shows that in the U.S., the chief factors that determine religious beliefs are geography, family, race, ethnicity, gender, and age. Those factors are entirely secular, and do not indicate divine involvement of any kind. Now why in the world would a loving God go out of his way to make it appear to millions of people that the chief factors that determine religious beliefs are entirely secular?

If the God of the Bible exists, either he is never involved with the distribution of tangible benefits, or he is sometimes involved with the distribution of tangible benefits, in which case no one would be able to determine when he does that. If the former, then no one should ever expect to receive a particular tangible benefit from God. If the latter, then God frequently distributes tangible benefits to people are not in greatest need, including to some evil people who never become Christians, and frequently withholds tangible benefits from people who are in greatest need, including some of his most devout and faithful followers. One thing is for certain, no Christian can ask God for a particular tangible benefit in this life and be assured that he will receive it. That is to be expected if God does not exist. Any loving God would be concerned with peoples’ spiritual needs AND their tangible needs, just as any loving human parent would.

Many skeptics are loving, kind, and forgiving people. It would be out of character for them to reject a loving human, or a loving God. Human oversight is a good thing. Without it, there would be anarchy in society. Divine oversight would be much better than human oversight if it was fair. It is already well-established that God is not fair. If God’s chief desire is the save the elect, there is most certainly no need for him to beat up the elect with hurricanes, plagues, and starvation. In your opinion, what is God’s chief desire(s)?

Now you can claim that I have not provided sufficient evidence that God has committed atrocities against mankind if you wish, but rational minded and fair minded people know that if God exists, he is either evil or mentally incompetent. Under our legal system, many of God’s actions and allowances are punishable by life imprisonment or death. If refusing to feed hungry people is wrong, it is wrong no matter who refuses to feed hungry people, including God. If killing people is wrong, it is wrong matter who kills people, including God. If hypocrisy is wrong, it is wrong no matter who is a hypocrite, including God. If God told lies, you would consider that to be an atrocity. Are you actually going to tell us that telling lies is worse than killing people and allowing people to starve to death when you have plenty of food?

The Bible says that God is loving. Since the best evidence indicates that that is not true, it is a virtual certainty that he does not exist. If he does exist, no decent person is able to love him.

JPD

If so it raises serious questions about your reigious beliefs. So a homosexual will spend eternity in hell according to your beliefs. On top of that you deem it acceptable to have them put to death before they are sent to hell. You have just encapsulated a very good reason to avoid your religion. It is ugly and twisted.