Radorth

No I think you owe us an alternative which does not create contradictions in God's behavior. If he intervened in some cases and not others, I'm sure we'd be hearing about his arbitrary behavior instead. If he did not permit abortion, we'd be hearing that he permits unwanted children to exist and be miserable. It is at least ironic that if all children were physically taken care of, the earth would have self-destructed from overpopulaton by now.

As it is, ALL children are saved automatically, as they cannot be held accountable and have not grown dumb enough to refuse free gifts anyway.

Rad

Opera Nut

And what was the Pope doing while Hitler, a good Catholic, was slaughtering millions of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and other "undesirables"??? Nothing.

The Nazi motto was "Gott mit Uns" (God is With Us). You can't tell me that Christian dictators are any kinder or nicer than atheist or muslim dictators.

Eventually, the Nazi slaughter of Jews led to their downfall. Because all the Jews that saw the danger and got out in the 1930s and came to America, the great physicists, like Bohr and Einstein, were the team (The Manhattan Project) that developed the atomic bomb that was dropped on Japan. They were too bigoted to see that the Jewish brain drain was their undoing.

I find that a delightful irony, that brains and technology beat a huge army, a huge war machine, and brute force with a completely new weapon, undreamed of in the past.

But then there's no wonder that Germany is called "Switzerland's Bad-Assed Neighbor" (Dave term).

GunnerJ

Who, exactly, are "us?"

Philosoft

Do you honestly know what you're talking about when you refer to a "contradiction"? What contradictions would obtain if we lived in a world that had 10% fewer tornados?

Pardon? Is this not exactly what the majority of Christians claim he does?

And the only way you can think of to deal with overpopulation is for God to allow abortions and tornados? I can think of dozens of ways that don't require killing or aborting and I'm not even omniscient.
Is this really the "it's not so bad if children die" defense?

Radorth

For all any of us can prove, yes.

If you say so. I'd like to read the stuff again myself before determining their motives.

Perhaps "fractious" would have been a better word than "tendentious."

Unlike myself.

Far fewer than you read into it I'm sure.

Many will say to me "Lord, Lord...." It's a matter of a contrite heart, not the words uttered of course, something you have failed to see but which is quite plain in the NT- another example of it's uniqueness.

Very clever, and irrelevant.

If the saving truth was at stake, yes. Atheists love to point that out, but don't mind leaving families who condemn their beliefs.

There's a great deal of truth to it. The point is that people become more open minded when their personal philosophies lead them nowhere. IMO, the atheists on the philosohy threads who admit their hoelessness are the more honest ones.

It would be if you just read the NT looking for problems. You'd miss all kinds of stuff.

And eating and sex, driving cars too fast, crossing busy streets, climbing trees (yawn)

And we wouldn't be here. Oh wait. He could just impregnate ALL females by the Holy Spirit I suppose. Not a bad idea if everybody lived as Jesus did.

Rad

Radorth

Yes, but it is a much different thing to intervene after humble and open invitation. What you are asking is different, and interferes with free will. In the case of tornadoes and natural disasters, you have a better case since free will is not as important a consideration. But as I have pointed out, if God said his world was imperfect weatherwise, but it was the best he could do, no one would refuse to live here. Your point is moot. As it is, they have a choice not to build in tornado alley and on earthquake faults but we do anyway. You are basically blaming God for human stupidity.

No I can think of other ways, like eliminating sex and dropping condoms from heaven. But of course it is neither my will nor God's that people suffer and die. I'm just pointing out the irony of it, as I am wont to do.

Not as you present it. It depends entirely on the child and how much they will harm themselves and others and whether they might suffer a greater loss than dying and going to heaven. In this stinking world, we must invariably choose the lesser of two evils, in case you haven't noticed. The whole idea of abortion, which you doubtless support, is to spare unwanted children. Or is it to reduce inconvenience to the mother? I get confused.


Rad

Opera Nut

As far as Xtians breaking up families, my self respect is too important to tolerate Xtians calling me a heathen. It's unhealthy to subject oneself to such name calling and leads to low self esteem. That's why my BF has cut off all contact with his kids and I refuse to set foot in that state. The presumptuousness of fundies is breathtaking.

Christians deliberately refuse to see the similarities in all the major religions, because they are convinced their religion is superior and right for everyone, although there are thousands of different cultures around the world, and six billion people.
What hubris!!!!

As far as being hopeless, I am a whole lot less hopeless now because I don't have good Xtians telling me I should work for the church for nothing, even though I have been unemployed for several years. They just couldn't do anything to help me find a job or pay me for my services, even though the preacher was quite well off. If god works thru people on earth, then I decided that God wanted me to starve to death, because his people are not helping me a damn bit.

I have real hope instead of false hope in a sky daddy. I have the hope of facing reality and doing real things in the here and now instead of hoping for heaven, praying, abdicating responsibility for my life because "it's in God's hands" and just praying my ass off until I die.

A quote from a writing you no doubt think is heathen and evil, because it's not Christian, the Talmud:

"He who saves one life, saves the world entire. And he who destroys one life, destroys the world entire."

(Also spoken at the end of the movie Schindler's List by the accountant, ben Kingsley.)

Radorth

It's not about being superior. It's about being uniquely able to save everyone who is willing to be willing, to forgive all manner of sin and blasphemy even in the world to come, to save the irreverent and the ignorant in spite of themselves. It cannot be compared with other religions. It is generically incompatible with any religion which are nothing more than self-help philosophies like your own.

Of what? That by liberating Iraq, democracy will miraculously spread around the world, the people of the Mideast will become tolerant, and we won't set off World War III?

You mean like helping the Kurds double there produce output as my Christian friend has done?

Glad you found a solution for all problems. Some of us still see our limitations.

Rad

luvluv

mike:

A Bible scholar is typically a person who is well acquainted with archeology, languages (Greek, Coptic, etc), and ancient documents. He is essentially a historian, and it is ridiculous to ask a historian to answer PHD level philosophical questions. That is simply another field of endeavor. You would typically ask a proffessional theologian, philosopher, or ethicist to answer these types of questions. Or at the very least someone who has experience with the topic at hand.

BUT EVEN THEN you don't try to answer such questions in 10 - 15 pages and PRETEND you've covered all possible ground on those issues. Anyone who reads that book and accepts it in total never had any doubts about Christianity in the first place.

I think you have naive expectations about the Bible. It is a formidable and complex treatise on morality, but it is far from complete.

Celsus:

Uh-huh. Which is kind of why I said (and I quote myself):read in conjunction with a book that takes the opposite position.

mike_decock

Understood.



Which is why I can't buy the notion that the Bible is in any way Divine Revelation or Divinely Inspired.

-Mike...