Self-Mutation

If you believe in God, he can do those things. If you do not believe, he will not force Himself upon you.

Let's say you ask a girl out and she says no. Do you yell and scream and beg her until she goes out with you? Or do you move on to a different girl?

mountainman

You are aware of course that the "Holy Spirit" is female.
For example, see the Nag Hammadi Codices.

Joan of Bark

So why don't Christians pray for an end to malaria? Or earthquakes? Don't Christians give a damn about people? Or is it God that doesn't give a shit?

Or are you going to argue that earthquakes are a result of free will?

angelo

Of course! how stupid of me. Earthquakes are the Earth's choice of free will. If the planet wishes to have an earthquake, then an earthquake it shall have. You see, it's called free will.
Apologists have tried every trick in the book to explain the evil that abounds in the universe, proving beyond a shadow of doubt that a benevolent god cannot exist.
The escapism to ''free will'' is one of many excuses and the most absurd.

temporalillusion

Actually I like this idea.. nevermind the gospels were written in a completely different language than Jesus spoke.

Now the question becomes why did Jesus write 4 gospels with so many contradictions? Why did he write them so that it looks like some of them are based on other gospels, but are slightly changed to change what the other one says? They can't even agree on the basics of salvation or the nature of Jesus!

I think it's another kind of test... God created the tree and then told them to not eat of the tree knowing full well they would, and knowing that they didn't know good from evil so they wouldn't know eating from the tree was bad.

Jesus wrote the four gospels himself, but the test is we're supposed to know which one is the right one. You have to believe Matthew and only Matthew otherwise it's like the fruit all over again.

ETA: Oh, we failed the test since we've been using all 4, that's why there's so many denominations, because they're all trying to harmonize the 4 gospels.

angelo

But Mathew, or whoever was the author had the gospel of Mark in front of him when he/they wrote Mathew. So perhaps Mark is the true gospel written by jeebus.

purple_kathryn

So I guess all those people who don't get what they pray super hard for just weren't doing it right then :huh:

Javaman

This is precisely why S-M's proposal can not be true. If this is unclear at all, here it is in question form for you to answer:

Given the premise Jesus wrote (poofed into existence) the four accepted gospels at the same time as he was appearing to Paul, why didn't he make their accounts jive?

Why on earth would Paul's magic Jesus need to explain the words of the Earthbound Jesus (especially where Paul says to do the opposite of what Jesus said)?

angelo

No! You just don't pray any old way.you have to do it right. You first have to travel to the North Pole. You see, the Earth is a globe. To make sure your prayers are heard in heaven, if you live anywhere but the N/P your prayers just head out into space. Heaven is directly above the Earth, so they're likely to be heard. :Cheeky:

purple_kathryn

Freewill only seems to matter to SMs god when it's an explanation why can't interfere in bad things. Otherwise he's more than happy to meddle on a seemingly random basis (but only in things that could have happened without his meddling anyway)