Johnny Skeptic

Not likely. What about God’s many sins, not the least of which are hypocrisy and murder? The probability that God told Christians via James that if a man refuses to give food to a hungry person he is vain, and his faith is dead (KJV) is virtually zero. If giving food to a hungry person is a worthy goal, it is worthy for humans AND for God. Human effort alone could never feed all of the hungry people in the world. True love will always provide help when those who ought to provide it refuse to provide it, but God won't. In addition, God frequently destroys food supplies with hurricanes, tsunamis, and other means. From a Christian perspective, there is no such thing as a natural disaster. If God created the weather, he created hurricanes. Injuring and killing people with hurricanes, and destroying their property, is not necessary towards the achievement of any worthy goal. Such deplorable conduct is a form of indiscriminate terrorism. The Old Testament says that God killed all of the inhabitants at Sodom and Gomorrah. That was an example of God deliberately killing bad people, that is, if the babies at Sodom and Gomorrah were bad, but today, for some strange reason, God indiscriminately kills people with hurricanes. Indiscriminate killing is sufficient evidence that God is evil or mentally incompetent. You would not claim that God is mentally incompetent, but if he were mentally incompetent, how would he act any differently than he acts now? The correct answer is, not any differently at all. Even Attila the Hun did not kill his own devout and faithful followers.

But many millions of the followers of the God of the Bible have already asked God for tangible help for millennia, for example, during the Irish Potato Famine, but to no avail. Do you actually believe that for some strange reason God is going to change his evil ways now? If you were an amputee, would you ask God for a new limb? Would you say to a Christian amputee “if you actually believed that God was omnipotent, you would personally ask God [for a new limb] and you would tell other [amputees] to do the same”? If God is always consistent regarding providing help with requests for salvation, which would mean that he is loving and compassionate regarding spiritual needs, he would also always be consistent regarding providing help with tangible needs. Since God does not consistently provide help regarding tangible needs, it is a virtual given that he does not exist, or if he does exist, he is evil or mentally incompetent.

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. Obviously, not very much.

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.

What do you believe that God chief goals are?

Will you please tell us why God punishes people for sins that their ancestors committed, and why God ordered the death penalty for a Jew who killed a Jew, but not for a Jew who killed a slave?

You are wasting your time discussing the character of humans. The most important issue is the character of God. No belief system is any better than its foundation. The foundation of the Bible is God's perfection, love, and good character. If those claims are false, the Bible is the result of lies and innocent but inaccurate revelations. Logically, reasonably establishing that God has good character is necessary before any discussions can take place regarding the character of humans.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to rhutchin: As you know, God punishes people for sins that their ancestors committed, reference Exodus 20:5. At the GRD forum, Steven Carr recently started a thread that is titled 'Killing people for other peoples' crimes'. I challenge you to participate in that thread. The link is at http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=187813.

Do you believe that we should pass new laws that punish people for sins that their ancestors committed? If not, why not?

Why do you believe that god injures and kills innocent animals? Do you believe that dinosaurs predated humans, and that they killed each other prior to when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit?

Joan of Bark

So your loving and merciful God has punished a billion people for the actions of two people who didn't even know what sin was?

How do you know I haven't? Are you a mind reader? I wasn't always an atheist. I used to be a god-fearing boy who believed in prayer. Clearly, I was wrong in holding that belief.

And exactly how does God judge six month-old babies, anyway? For the sin of soiling their nappies?

I have, although I still don't understand why a God who is supposed to be so loving needs to be asked to save the lives of those he allegedly loves.

DBT

Adam and Eve, as complete innocents did not have free will, and were no more responsible for their actions than new born babies.

We also do not have free will in relation to 'choosing God' as we are not given sufficient information to do so.

djrafikie

IN THEORY. No one seems to be able to prove they (or most of the people in the bible) existed at all.

Edit: God did not give us free will at all actually, people swallow that part of the bible and miss the actuality, which is that you don't get to choose god at all. What you get to do is choose to spend your life grovelling and at the end if you do it sufficiently he throws you a scooby snack, or refuse to grovel and at the end he smacks the end of your nose until you start grovelling.

Of course, you get free will in the sense that you can choose to partake in non-grovelling activities, but half of the fun of owning a dog is that it follows you around the house with big liquid eyes because it has taken a shine to you. If that was'nt the case, more of us would own ibo's.

Rutchin is clearly an ibo for god.

Johnny Skeptic

Fellow skeptics, are you aware that rhutchin said that God's character is a non-issue? What he meant was that regardless of God's character, people who refuse to accept him will go to hell. Of course, that does not work. Rhutchin has not reasonably established that God exists. It is impossible for a man to reject a being unless he knows that he exists. Second of all, Rhutchin has said that God is fair, but no man can fairly be held accountable for refusing to accept God if he does not know that God exists. If God exists, it is his intention that some people not know that he exists. It is an absurd notion that an all-powerful, all-knowing God is not able to convince more people that he exists. If he is not able, then he wouldn't be a God. If God does not want everyone to know that he exists, then he is not worthy of being accepted. In fact, decent people have no choice but to reject such a God. It is impossible to convince someone to love you based solely upon threats, so Pascal's Wager is obviously a fraud. The Bible says that God is loving and compassionate. A loving and compassionate God would do everything that he could to let everyone know that he exists, and that he has good character. Hence, it is a virtual given that the God of the Bible does not exist as he is described in the Bible. As such, the Bible should not be trusted. In addition, is God does exist, decent people are not able to accept him under the terms that he has imposed on mankind. Jesus said that in order for a man to become saved, he must love God with all of his heart, soul, and mind. It is impossible for a decent man to love God with all of his heart, soul, and mind.

If God exists, his character definitely is an issue regarding whether or not people are able to love him. If rhutchin believed that God told lies, he would not be able to love him. God has committed numerous atrocities against mankind that are much worse than lying is. The character of God is the main issue, not the character of humans. No belief system is any better than the foundation upon which it is built. The integrity of the Bible depends lock, stock, and barrel upon God's supposed perfection and good character. Since God is not a moral being according to his own standards, he is a hypocrite. Rhutchin surely does not approve of hypocrisy among humans, but where God is concerned, rhutchin has somehow been able to abandon his morals and principles and endorsed God's hypocrisy.

Johnny Skeptic

Just so you know, the second letter in rhutchin's name is h, not u. What is ibo?

hatsoff

Love is not a rational thing. It is more or less a state of mind. And it is a state of mind that relatively rational people can have, even when the object of their affection is so "obviously" unfair.

I don't think you have to assume God is loving or fair--at least in the human sense of the word. God may very well be beyond human understanding. It is, logically speaking, unfair to hold a diety to the same standards as a mortal, because we have no way of knowing how that diety should and does operate.

Johnny Skeptic

You are quite naive. The world "rational" is not the main issue. The main issue is whether or not there are sufficient grounds for accepting Christianity. My position, and your position since you have rejected Christianity, is that there are not sufficient grounds for accepting Christianity.

If a deity wishes to reveal to me that he exists, why he does what he does, and what he wants me to do with my life, in ways that are clear to me and to everyone else in the world, I will consider what he has to say. Otherwise, it is my position that the best approach is to be an agnostic pending the possible future availability of additional information. Jesus said that in order for a man to become saved, he must love God with all of his heart, soul, and mind, reference Luke 10:25-28. I am not able to make a committment like that based upon the evidence that is available at this time. Regarding "we have no way of knowing how that diety should and does operate", I do not believe that it is logical to love any being with all of your heart, soul, and mind if you have no way of knowing that he exists, and why he does what he does. Following your own same line of reasoning, any kind of behavior from a supposed God should not be considered unacceptable unless we have more evidence. I do not believe that that approach makes any sense.

Why did you reject Christianity?

rhutchin

Not exactly. It is a non-issue simply because it is God who will judge you. (If you do not believe in God, then character is obviously not an issue). Regardless of God's character, that which matters is the basis on which God will judge you. Character may be a determinant of the judicial standards but it is important to know what the judicial standards are and not the character of the entity establishing the standards. Character does not change the standards, so it is a non-issue.

I have no burden to establish that God exists. God can exist if I cannot prove that He exists. If a person cannot know with certainty that God exists, then he wants to avoid taking the position that God does not exist if God does indeed exist because the impacts of that error are considerable. Consequently, a reasonable person might seek to prove that God does not exist, but if he is unable to do that, he will assume that God does exist.

This is wrong. Knowledge of the law is not a requirement to be judged by the law. Fairness might require that a person be told about the existance of a law prior to holding a person accountable for that law, but the judicial process can convict a person of violating a law of which he is ignorant.

If God wants some people to know that He exists, then we might reasonably conclude that God will reveal Himself to those people. The issue here concerns those people whom God is willing to know Him but whom He does necessarily want to know Him. For example. God will want the "elect" to know Him, so He will reveal Himself to the elect. God may be willing for the "nonelect" to know Him but He will not directly reveal Himself to them so that the nonelect would have to come to know God indirectly, by reading the Bible, hearing about God from someone, or other means.

Johnny Skeptic again demonstrates his ignorance of the Wager.

Nice opinion but not worth anything. God is God and not what Johnny Skeptic says He must be.