gdeering

Why is he so insecure? God created humanity so he could either torture them forever, or so that he'd have everlasting sycophants, insure steady stream of worship and burned bull smoke. I wonder what the name of the tree was whose fruit made God so odd?


Gregg

Failte

We're all going to die anyway, so unless you're adding the ever-so-common "or you're going to spend eternity in hell", the threat is meaningless. The majority of the world doesn't worship (or even believe in) your god. It must be a depressing and soul-sucking sort of worldview that believes most of the world is doomed. Although, I guess, it appeals to the ego that christians are so special.

Why does your god want to be worshipped? Why does he want to be praised? That seems to be a small, petty, and insecure sort of deity. One more suggestion that man has built a god that has the same weaknesses and foibles as we have. It just gets more and more obvious as believers start to cherry-pick what they believe and what they follow.

Sai

Well honestly its such a ridiculous concept. What human could be so weird that he would care if he was worshiped by ant bugs. We would be so much less than ants to a god that theres no comparison. Create a universe so it would have people in it to sing praise to it who made the universe?

That is REALLY weird.

Dark Virtue

Awesome. Because the majority of us here don't reject God, we simply lack a belief in him. Two very different things.

You're responding out of context...again.

I'm talking about Adam and Eve. They were put in a situation where there could have been only ONE outcome: failure.

God hasn't offered me anything because he hasn't made himself known to me. You claim that God has shown himself to you because of your radio experience. We haven't had an experience like that, so why are you blaming us? Would you be a Christian now if it hadn't been for that experience? NO, you've said so yourself.



AGAIN, you're taking this out of context. I'm referring to the Garden of Eden story and how they were set up to fail so that God could teach us all a lesson as you say.

Explain to me how you think that Adam and Eve could have made any other choice? Why was the serpent allowed in the Garden? Did he sneak in? Did God not know? If God is omnimax, then he HAD to know and he HAD to have allowed this to happen. He HAD to know all this was going to transpire before the serpent was even created!

GOD WANTED MAN TO FAIL. How can you see anything differently? EXPLAIN. Be specific. Reconcile this with omnibenevolence.

IBelieveInHymn

By not believing, that is rejecting. Jesus said, if you reject me, I shall reject you in front of the Father.

How are you coming to this conclusion? Adam & Eve had the intelligence to tell the Serpent NO, but they didn't.


God hasn't offered you anything yet, maybe he will, maybe he won't. You will never know until that day comes. And it comes when you least expect it.


Like I said previously. They had the intelligence to tell the serpent NO.

They said yes, right? Well, a yes also comes with a NO.

I don't know.

I would have to say no, because God is omniscient. He knows all.

God can foretell the future, but if he would have turned the tables on Adam & Eve, then he would be going against his word, and that is giving mankind the ability to choose right from wrong.

How did God want man to fail? I'm not a failing species. I'm glorified and renewed in Christ. I'm far from failing.

Dark Virtue

I reject God just as much as I reject leprechauns and the Easter Bunny.

Are you refusing to see the difference or is this something you simply can't comprehend? A lack of belief is not a denouncement. This isn't a difficult concept.

First, don't equate intelligence to wisdom. Second, you have to consider A&E like children. They weren't worldy, the didn't have any experiences to draw upon. If you take the Bible literally, then this is the first time they made a mistake. That's pretty harsh.

See your comment above. If God hasn't offered me anything yet, then how can I reject it?

But not the wisdom!

Kids make mistakes all the time. Do you banish your child for the FIRST mistake they ever made? That's essentially what the Garden of Eden story is.

EXCELLENT answer!

Now start to think of the WHY. God let him be there for a reason. He knew what the serpent would do, so he let him in. By doing so, he CONDONED the fall of man, and in creating the serpent, he set it all in motion.

Are you starting to see the problem yet?

This isn't about turning the tables or removing free will. You're worrying about the wrong things here. This is about a) creating a bad situation to place them in and b) creating the worst zero tolerance policy ever. They messed up ONCE, because of the situation God placed them in, isolated in an area with a creature God created knowing would trick them and doing NOTHING about it. God said not to eat of the tree, but did he ever warn them about not listening to talking serpents? Didn't you ever, as a fallible, limited human parent tell you child not to talk to strangers? Why didn't God warn them?

I've shown you how God wanted man to fail.

He placed them in a situation where they would be confronted with a being that God created (knowing what he would do and what the outcome would be) and he never warned them about the danger.

How are you reconciling this with an omnibenevolent God? That's what I want you to discuss.

You're not a failing species? Aren't you the one waving the book around that says that all men are born sinners? Your book says you have failed the moment you draw your first breath.

badger3k

It was to distinguish them from the cynics that they were supposedly told not to take a staff, since that was a common way of recognizing the cynics, at least according to what I have heard. However, since I have also heard that most of what is claimed to be in Q is very close to cynic philosophy, this could also indicate a branch of cynics who split off and became (or joined) Christianity. That's off the top of my head, though, and I'm not sure how accurate what I have heard is.

badger3k

I really want to hear of these Jewish scholars who have dissected what Jesus says and agree that they are historical. I would be really surprised if they weren't of the Jews for Jesus variety, with all the bias that entails. Of course, there are the few scholars who think that there was in aramaic originally (not Hebrew as IBIH says), but I think those have been refuted on the strength of the evidence - not that that matters to IBIH. For those who don't know, he basically said that he believes the bible is the word of his god because the bible says it is.

ChristMyth

I'm still waiting as well. I think we will probably be waiting a very, very, long time

renassault

I guess if Christ had said in Mark "Take nothing for your journey" and in Matthew "Don't take anything for your journey" you'd still think it was a contradiction.

Not only is there a perfectly good solution (yet again) here, there are two. One is that the outer rim was used in the measurement. This would produce a diameter of the outer circle whereas the actual circle measured would be the inner (along the stem), making pi=C(inner circle)/d(outer circle). The second is a rounding, similar to H.E. Barnes' book Pearl Harbor After Quarter of Century(1980)..according to you he thought Pearl Harbor was in 1955.

3.14 is not far from 3 in terms of large numbers (30 by 10) and insignificant details.