Selsaral

Similarly, he designed human beings to be exceedingly religious, thereby destroying his goal of having people believe in him and go to heaven. The vast majority of people who go to hell aren't bad people or atheists who deny that he exists, it is extremely devout humans who are so excessively religious and devoted to their own non-christian religion that they could never convert to christianity.

Gary Welsh

I'm not sure what you're saying, here. Were you responding to me?

Scottyman

Uhhhh......................................What?:b anghead:

Jobar

Selsaral is, I think, pointing out an insoluble difficulty with the Christian God- He made humans with the inborn tendency to believe what their parents do. And since by most Christian's views, anyone not a Christian winds up in hell, that (God-created) tendency means that most humans are hell-bound. And a just God would not do things that way.

Keith Russell

Gary:

The Bible clearly states that God created evil.

Now, I don't believe in 'God', so I don't believe that 'God' 'created' anything.

But the Bible does clearly state this.

As for omnibenevolence, I'm not sure the Bible claims that characteristic for 'God'.

If it does, that would merely be another example of Biblical contradiction.

Another, among many.

Keith.

Scottyman

I don't know about that Jobar. It seems to me that Selsaral is caught in that same religious trap that convinced me to be an Atheist in the first place. On one hand he's saying that people are extremely religious because they want to go to heaven and that's the root cause for them going to hell. I think he's saying this will happen to them because it would be people outside his form of religion. Correct?

If so, this is the exact kind of lunacy that religious fundamentalism is all about. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. Maybe Selsaral can elaborate on this a little as to enlighten us.

Amos

Could you please show me where you get this because I think you are wrong. That is, you fail to make a distinction between God and Lord God.

Scottyman

I fail to see the difference. You are just arguing semantics. What the heck is the difference between "god" and "lord god"? They are both considered by theists to be the one and only "god", correct?

Amos

Well I don't know about theists, but Gen.1 makes it clear that God created the essence of existence and Lord God gave form to this essence. In other words, "God said" and "Lord God made." This makes God the first cause of creation and Lord God the second. If you don't see the difference I can see why you are confused.

Scottyman

Ok, I read the bible, it's been many years now but I studied it when I was younger and my interpretation was that they were the same entity. The bible is full of that kind of stuff and a lot of people take it way too literally. Our teachers told us many times over that it was considered to be the same god. I don't believe any more but that's what we were taught.