Philosoft

I think the point is, why would God bother contrive a plan that relies on gopherwood + water + miracles, when He could eliminate the first two with no additional effort on his part, then make sure only the gopherwood + water part is written down, thereby causing otherwise observant people to ask, "Where the hell did all the water come from and where is the evidence it was even here?" and other, roughly-equally-observant but perhaps more fanciful-minded, people to say, "Well, maybe God just miracled it."

Advocatus Diaboli

Me heart!

*dies*

SEF

God could have told biblical people the correct order of creation. He could have told them about dinosaurs. He could have told them about stars, cells, germ theory, gravity, relativity, quantum mechanics etc. Some of those would actually have been useful, eg germ theory instead of a bunch of silly unjustified laws. He didn't - because he didn't exist. Strangely enough the biblical people knew only what a bunch of peasants might be expected to know or guess - and considerably less than their better educated and more sophisticated neighbours knew. Perhaps god really loved the neighbours better and was whispering all the quality info to them. Or perhaps (more likely) there's no god and the neighbours simply weren't so moronic and complacent.

Still, at least the real jews don't believe in this warped modern xian view of them and their fairy tales (because they know them for what they are). They appear to value education a lot more than those xians who, having stolen the stories, were stupid enough to build a world view on them being literally true. There's a StarTrek episode ...

Sven

Also see "my" thread in BC&H concerning the fact that Jesus told the disciples to preach to the whole world, but didn't tell them about America and Australia.

Magus55

We test toxins and new scientific discoverers on helpless animals, which on any human would violate the amendment of no cruel and unusual punishment, we butcher millions of animals for food, and you are arguing that God is mean because He killed a bunch of animals He created in the first place with a flood? Please.... :boohoo:

Jack the Bodiless

...Because, being non-omniscient, we need to find out if they work, and if they have nasty side-effects.
...for us to eat, yes.
Yes.

Perhaps you could have a crack at explaining why God would kill those animals?

Plognark

You're misdirecting.
We all already know full well that humans are not perfect and just and omnibenevolent.
I think the issue is the fact that the biblical god is also none of these things, in spite of wishful thinking and willful ignorance.

EGGO

{edited}

We're testing on the animals because we're not all-knowing like God, we don't know what could happen if something happened to animal cells or whatnot.

God doesn't need food, but he does love them animal sacrifices, and as if killing off the whole world wasn't enough, he wanted Noah to commit more sacrifices for his pleasure.

Personally, I don't know why you're using the, "If he made it he can do whatever he wants" defense, since you obviously won't let us have our cloning or even eat our babies or anything.

Yes, yes I do expect you to reply saying that "God made those children." Please make sure you also tackle the other posts before this too, mine is still waiting.

Godless Wonder

The reason God went through the rigamarole of having Noah build the Ark, and magically getting all the animals on board, and magically keeping them alive on board the ark, then magically feeding them once the flood subsided, even though every thing they'd normally eat was long dead, then magically replenishing the earth, and magically running around erasing all the evidence of the flood and fabricating mountains of evidence disproving the flood, and running around burying dinosaur and other fossils in a manner which makes evolution look to be undoubtedly true, all the while gleefully muttering, "Heh heh heh! ... see who believes in me now!" is because the Christian God deliberately wants to trick as many people as possible into thinking it's all a myth, so he has impersonated a myth perfectly. There's a verse in Thessalonians about this, about God sending a "strong delusion" so that they may believe a lie.

He needs fools, er, fuels, for Heaven's basement furnace. However, he has underestimated the faithfulness of some, and a surprising number were not able to be fooled by God, and these flagrantly disobedient unfooled ones must be punished! He will smite them! He will smite them good for their impudence in failing to be fooled by his trickery, I'm sure. He's got an even bigger trick up his sleeve for those who think they're going to Heaven, heh heh heh.

[supersonic thermonuclear nutjob fundy mode: off]

skepticalbip

The answer is obvious... There is only seating room for 144,000 in heaven. God has to find some way to justify sending the remaining billions to hell. See how benevolent he is?