Jayjay

So God gave people sex drive, then said not to have sex except in particular situations? Wouldn't it have made much more sense to remove the sex-drive altogether, and simply tell people that they should have sex if they want to have children? Why give a person desire to do something, then ban it?

God does not exist, so we are not blaming him for anything (why is this so difficult a concept for theists to comprehend?). Even if he did, I wouldn't blame him for being what he is. All I'd do is point out the inconsistencies I perceive, just like I do now (though if God did exist, these would be more than just hypothetical musings).

hezekiah jones

Originally posted by Magus55
Why do atheists always use the argument that since evil exists in the world, God can't exist? That is such a pointless argument.

Don't conjure up your pointless "god" and you won't have to deal with pointless arguments.

Stephen T-B

Dear Radorth: why don’t you answer my question? You tell us that if god were to make an appearance, we atheists would still refuse to obey him. What can you envisage him telling us that we would refuse to do?
You must have some ideas.

Dear Magus55: why don’t you answer my question? You tell us that we choose not to believe in god., so I’ve asked you if you could choose to believe something which at present you regard as unbelievable?
Could you? Couldn’t you? Yes or no. Simple.

(Why am I being ignored? Is it because I don’t exist?)

Shake

I love you! Nothing like a woman who understands calculus! Good one, Jen!

Selsaral

Magus55, please rescue my plummeting opinion of you by actually answering this question. This isn't the only question you conveniently avoid answering. You don't find it suspicious that you so conveniently ignore an idea that crushes your position?

braces_for_impact

And now I have fine christians like Rad and magus55 accusing me of intellectual hypocrisy, and failure to take responsibility.

This is what I get from people who specialize (and not very well) in a field called apologetics. These apologetics combine the best of both worlds. Convuluted logic involving truly vast amounts of intellectual hypocrisy, and failure to take responsibilty by heaping all of our "sins" on some would-be savior. Gawd forbid we question our world view, we might discover a few things. Instead, let us make incredibly desperate grasps at straws.

Selsaral

Well Magus55 you clearly aren't here for discussion, or learning, or even debate. You completely ignore every good point made to you. You have proven your intellectual dishonesty. Obviously you are here only to preach, and I have no desire to listen. You are now on my ignore list.

THE_LEGENDARY_HQB

Ahh, I so love it when we get into these circular, or should I say,infinitely circular discussions with X-tians, don't yall?

2 things to say here.

1. Christianity, as I understand it, posits a sovereign God
When an atheist or other nonbeliever points out the absurdity of trying to reconcile the God of the Bible with the world around us, we aren't {or at least I'm not} asking for God to do everything for us. What's very important to the discussion here is that Christians claim God to be omniscient .
That means absolute knowledge of past, present. and future.
From the Nazi death camps to the invention of Twinkies, God saw it all coming.
Now, let us examine the Christian worldview and plan of salvation. If I'm misinterpreting or distorting anything, I'm sure my fellow hypocrite Rad will correct me. Humbly, of course.

God is the Creator of the Universe and everything therein. Millions of galaxies, billions of planets. God needs nothing...after all, what could possibly be necessary to God?
Yet, with everything going for Him, God decides he is missing something, praise and worship.

So, between 6 and 10 thousand years ago, God's loneliness becomes too great a burden. .
He creates humans to worship Him. Sounds somewhat sketchy, don't you think? Indeed, the Bible seems to say that the primary purpose of Man's existence on Earth is not happiness, not love, but fawning, groveling adoration of his big Daddy.

Now, God absolutely knows everything that could and will go wrong with His master plan. And He stilll goes through with it.
Christians claim Adam and Eve were created perfect, without sin, yet, to me, the very word perfection means they would never choose to sin, since doing so, against the supposedly clear commandments of the Allmighty would be quite stupid and therefore...imperfect.

God places a tree in the Garden of Eden. On this tree, he places fruit wich gives anyone who eats it knowledge of good and evil, something He had apparently forgotten to give to them. Of course, this raises the question of exactly how much free will God originally meant for us to have. After all, how can you make a truly informed choice of you're ignorant of good and evil, right and wrong? But that's another question.
Adam and Eve, though closer to God than modern man, supposedly, were still insignificant specks of dirt compared to Yahweh. The horror of what would happen when they ate that fruit was absolutely known to God.

And yet, He put it there, knowing they'd eat it.

Fast forward a few thousand years. God is getting sick of animal sacrifices and stonings, so he decides to divide Himself, like a supernatural protozoan, and come down to Earth, to free us from the Law He originally told us would last forever. Ooops.
Except...He's still one God.

Jesus offers Himself as a sacrifice to satisfy His own wrath.
In other words, God felt He was worthy enough to pay His own penalty for a punishment He imposed. Fits in pretty well with the omninarcissistic God of the Bible, no?

Of course, if Jesus became sin in God's eyes, and the punishment demanded by an infinite being for sin is eternal torment, than should not Jesus be in Hell right now? How could God allow Jesus {Himself} back into Heaven, when He has not paid the full price for the sins heaped upon Him? Wierd, no?

Right now, God posesses every tool He needs to bring me to Him.
I'm not the kind of guy who would look God in the face and say "nyah nyah, I can't see you!" If I die three minutes after writing this, and go staright into the Fire, than that was God's Will. If He really valued my eternal soul, He certainly wouldn't kill me before revealing Himself to Me so I could spend eternity in Glory with Him, no?

He is sovereign, after all, and since this is His realm, He has the final responsibility. See, that's what makes so many people gag at the Christian concept of Hell. Not only is the idea of eternal torture for finite actions repugnant to many people, but what makes it even more galling is the fact that, if Christian doctrine is true, every single person in the Lake of Fire is there because God put them there.. He knew exactly what it would take to bring them to the Light, and decided not to act, because it would mess with His big scheme. Knowing and being cognizant of the thousands of other religons that Satan would create to decieve His creations, He still chose to offer the exact same ammount of real evidence for Christianity as exists for all other supernatural religons. Like Islam, like Hinduism, like Shintoism, like Rastafarianism, Christianity holds as its sacred cow the concept of faith, a concept which would be completely reduntant if His existence was an accepted, testable fact.

Now, try reading the above as an impartial observer. If this was anything other than Christianity, would it not sound just a little unhinged?

Now, onto my next point.

2. One thing I enjoy doing is placing the full ramifications of a fundie's belief in front of his or her face. Christians often claim that morality comes from God. Compassion is certainly considered a Godly virtue, no? So how much compassion do you have for your family in Hell?

Think back to your childhood. Think of all the friends and family who loved you, cared for you, helped you through tough times. Now ask yourself, how many of them were born agaiin? How many of them had the mantle of Christs' righteousness?

Since it's likely that many of them were not born again believers, you must assume that they're in Hell. Think about it! Imagine your grandmother having her skin roasted off of her, screaming for just a tiny drop of water that she'll never get.
Think of your grandfather, or uncle, or best friend, gnashing his teeth in a kind of pain you can't even begin to fathom.
Can you hear the cries? Maybe they'd sound like the poor victims of the Warwick fire, except...infinitely worse.

Now stop and ponder, between your prayers to your "Heavenly Father", if you think they would ever, ever willlingly send themselves there. If they didn't, who did?

Now, imagine being forced to spend eternity with the same monster who decreed that everlasting agony is part of His "Holiness". Imagine, as He demands your worship throughout the ages, that this same egotistical, petulant, glory hounding deity has condemned your cherished friends and family to be tormented "in the presence of the holy angels".

Your joy in Heaven will forever be mitigated by the knowledge that your loved ones are writhing in torment in a lake of fire and brimstone.

If, after all this, any Christian can come to me and say with a straight face "my God is a God of Love!", then I must admit, he has testicles the size of a blue whale.

So, how about it, Old Man and Maguss, how're those grandparents of yours doing?

Oh God, please help me! I'm burning up! This is the worst pain I've ever felt! Please Lord, have mercy upon me! Please, please, please! Noooooo!

Glory!

HQB

winstonjen

Well, Magus55 and Old Man? What is your reply to The_Legendary_HQB?