Asha'man

Are you really so blind that you can't see the fundamental contradiciton between these two statements?

If you are going to be killed for not believing, then you don't have free will on that topic, do you?

Choice 1: believe and live.
Choice 2: doesn't exist, because you are dead, and that isn't a choice!

Invader Tak

So what's your god gonna say about *your* "evil, lies, untruths, lack of regard or respect" for your fellow human women? (This is amply evidenced on other threads)

Again, what a maroon.

GreggLD1

More like I'm accusing you of worshipping a monstrous fiction.I think my pride would be quite effectively destroyed by seeing other people simply cease to exist. I don't need to see them suffering.

Anyway, in many primitive societies, suffering is actually a SOURCE of human pride. Many Native American tribes practiced torture of captive enemies, and these captives took great pride in being able to take incredible amounts of pain without crying out.He most certainly did. He tried to obey God and let the Hebrews go, but an omnipotent God kept hardening his heart and making him change his mind. In what fantasy world does this qualify as "not trying"?

Gregg

GreggLD1

An omnipotent god creates thinking, feeling, frail little creatures and then gets so angry when they show just a tiny bit of pride, wilfullness, or lack of gratitude that he decides they deserve painful destruction and eternal torture. This mean-spirited vindictiveness you call "justice."

I'm sorry, this God is not "greater than I can imagine." There are many human beings who are much more merciful and just.

Gregg

Old Man

No. There is a window of opportunity that God gives to most men to believe. That window is a time limited period. As in the parable of the prodigal son, God gives a man time to come to his senses. Then he may inflict punishment. Or may be not. Actually in the case of those destined for hell, commonly punishment is held back and they are allowed to live long into old age.

Rom 2:4 Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?

Old Man

You will find that God is very merciful. However, sometimes (often) the human path goes into such a downward spiral that only a sharp shock can bring the world back to its senses.

Old Man

Atheists have yet to posit an explanation for the big bang (or the existence of ghosts).

God is not of the same opinion as you. Pharaoh saw the Egyptians suffer but did not unharden his heart.

One can take pride in one own actions being good, eg in passing examinations. But that is not the pride that the bible talks about, which is the refusal, effectively, to acknowledge that one has been created by a being superior to oneself in every conceivable capacity.

And there is no record of Pharaoh trying. You are just making that up.

winstonjen

No, you're the one who is refusing to read and understand what the bible actually says. Exodus SPECIFICALLY mentions how god did not let the Pharoah let the Hebrews go, just so god could show off what he could do, e.g. mass disasters and genocide.

MortalWombat

Exodus Chapter 10

14
And the locust went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested in all the coasts of Egypt: very grievous were they; before them there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such.

15
For they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left: and there remained not any green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the field, through all the land of Egypt.

16
Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron in haste; and he said, I have sinned against the LORD your God, and against you.

17
Now therefore forgive, I pray thee, my sin only this once, and intreat the LORD your God, that he may take away from me this death only.

18
And he went out from Pharaoh, and intreated the LORD.

19
And the LORD turned a mighty strong west wind, which took away the locusts, and cast them into the Red sea; there remained not one locust in all the coasts of Egypt.

20
But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go.

Dominus Paradoxum

Most atheists would probably deny the existence of ghosts, and would say that so-called sightings are really hallucinations. As for the big bang, what makes you so confident that everything needs an explanation? You cannot simply assume the principle of sufficent reason without arguement. And if everything requires an explanation, the principle of sufficent reason itself requires an explanation. Why is it that everything should have a sufficent reason for its existence? If there can be no answer to this question, then you would have to take the principle of sufficent reason as a brute fact. But that's contradictory, for the very thing that the principle of sufficent reason asserts is that there can be NO brute facts. And what, I ask, do you suppose to be the explanation of God's existence? If everything must have a cause, so must he. It will do no good to suppose him to be "self caused", for a thing must already exist in order to be able to cause anything. To posit a thing, and then the thing itself as an explanation of the thing, just moves round in a viscious logical circle. Nor will it be of any help to say that his essence or 'nature' entails his existence, for *what* then is the explanation for his essence? To say it is in the "essence" of essences to exist merely moves round in a circle again. And even granting that the big bang has a cause, what makes you think that this cause would be anything like a personal agent?

Nonsense. You would have to prove a few unsuppoerted assumptions for it to follow from the bare fact that morality exists that "humans are great sinners who have rebelled against God."
You would have to:
1. Prove God exists.

2. Prove that, if he exists, he's the source of morality.

3. Prove that the bible is an accurate guide to history.

And so on. Incidentally, what do you mean by "humans"?All humans, or just some, or most, or what? If all, it must be because they are by their nature sinful. And as God creates them with a "fallen nature", it is he that is responsible for their misdeeds.

In any case, your second assumption can be easily disproven. To quote Bertrand Russell:

"Kant, as I say, invented a new moral argument for the existence of God, and that in varying forms was extremely popular during the nineteenth century. It has all sorts of forms. One form is to say that there would be no right and wrong unless God existed. I am not for the moment concerned with whether there is a difference between right and wrong, or whether there is not: that is another question. The point I am concerned with is that, if you are quite sure there is a difference between right and wrong, then you are then in this situation: is that difference due to God's fiat or is it not? If it is due to God's fiat [His willing it to be so], then for God himself there is no difference between right and wrong, and it is no longer a significant statement to say that God is good. [And if whatever he wills is "by definition" good, then to say God is "good" is a mere tautology.] If you are going to say, as theologians do, that God is good, you must then say that right and wrong have some meaning which is independent of God's fiat, because God's fiats are good and not bad independently of the mere fact that he made them. If you are going to say that, you will then have to say that it is not only through God that right and wrong came into being, but that they are in their essence logically anterior to God."

And one more thing:

"This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. 3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women,children and infants , cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys. - 1 Samuel 15: 2-3 [My emphasis]"

Were the children and infants "great sinners who have rebelled against God"? Do they bear the guilt of their parents?