Belief in God without Religion?

[Annoni]

Oh wow.
I have so much to say to all this O_o
I'm gonna go get some coffee, warm up my fingers, and have "We see where this is going" ready to be pasted.

[Lisa111]

Originally Posted by onion

The thing about Christianity is you cannot pick and chose what and what not to believe. It's either all true or none of it is true. You either believe God, or you believe He is a liar. I can tell you I believe God, because for me there is to much evidence of His existence to call Him a liar, when the book is the WORD of God. So to eliminate any part of the Bible is eliminating what God Himself said.

Yet hundreds of thousands of Christians "choose" to ignore the rather unpleasant parts of the Bible. Like how to sell your daughter, or how to beat your slave, or how to stone an unruly citizen.

God is perfect. Hell is what we deserve, when you become Saved or come to the realization for you need of a Savior it because evident that this is what we deserve. God created the world to have a relationship with Him. Because He gave man a free will, man chose to sin against Him, and therefore we separated ourselves eternally from God, and He calls us to be reconciled back to Him, which is why He came down to earth in the form of a human so that we could have a one time sacrifice to be reconciled back to Him and share the relationship with God that we were supposed to have. A lot of people say "oh well if God sends us to hell then He doesn't love us, He is not perfect". This is because you are choosing to love darkness, you don't realize everything wrong that you have done. You have committed a capital crime against your creator. In life when you commit a crime, are we not punished? Hell is our punishment for our Sins.

God is a jealous god. Basically he's saying, love me above all us and do exactly as I say without question, or I'll send you to an eternity of pain and suffering. Hmm...

[John 6:29]

Originally Posted by Lisa111

Yet hundreds of thousands of Christians "choose" to ignore the rather unpleasant parts of the Bible. Like how to sell your daughter, or how to beat your slave, or how to stone an unruly citizen.



God is a jealous god. Basically he's saying, love me above all us and do exactly as I say without question, or I'll send you to an eternity of pain and suffering. Hmm...

Christian's do ignore parts of the Bible, because they are human... and we won't be free from our sin nature until death. The bits a pieces you are referring to are parables, examples, and old testament law. We are under the new testament law now because we have the Messiah (Jesus).

God is a jealous God. He want's you to have Him in every aspect of your life and praise Him because He is the one that gives and takes away. When you become saved this isn't a burden, this is what you like to do. It's hard to comprehend I know, because I was once in your position. He wants us to enjoy our lives, and I am telling you, if you follow Him, you will be happier than anything on this earth could possibly ever make you, yes there are tribulations, Job is an example of this but our eternity is so much greater. God isn't saying follow me or be destroyed, He is saying you have chosen your own way so you WILL be destroyed, and you need a Savior to escape this destruction, which is Jesus. A way to look at this is, God made creation, so we love Him for His creation and His love for us. An example, a mom has a baby. Now when the baby is born we tend to get caught up in the creation of the baby and how cute it is and how perfect it is. Yet we respect the mother and father because they are the creators of the baby, and ultimately we respect the mother and father more, because without either one of them the baby would never be born. Just like with God, without Him creation is impossible. We love His creation but ultimately we should love Him for creating it, not the things of it. Or a candy bar, say you love reeses, well your obsessed with the candy bar, and often times forget that someone created this for you to enjoy. Its the same concept of God.

The Bible says if you commit one sin, you have commited all sins. Imagine if this was the structure the law was based off of. E.G. You steal a candy bar, and get caught. Now you broke the law. You are guilty of murder, rape, stealing, so on and so forth, you would be greatly punished. God is the creator of all, and His laws are more perfect than anything the human mind can grasp or create. So if you disobeys God's law you can assume there will be a greater punishment then any man can grasp or create as well.

As Human's it is hard to accept this, but God came to earth, He performed miracles and helped thousands of people. Because He helped them and claimed to be the Son of God, we (humans) all crucified Him. We killed our creator, and He did absolutely nothing wrong. We mocked Him, and He didn't save Himself because it was the will of the Father that He be put to death by humans, and raised again. Jesus in fact asked for the Father to forgive all of mankind while he was being mocked and crucified and beaten, because even though we forsaken Him; He wanted to save us. I agree as being a Human this is hard to comprehend, why didn't He just save everyone? I don't know. I will find out when I get to Heaven. But I do know He died for everyone and man has a responsibility to be reconciled back to God. And for me this is greater than any love that has ever been shown to anyone on this earth. A perfect creator, dying for imperfect humans. The Bible says "large is the gate to distruction, narrow is the path to the Kingdom of God", which shows the majority of you will more than likely disagree with everything I say because as humans we try to understand God's ways but it is beyond us. This is why we have Faith.

[Pour the Teapot]

it doesn't matter what you believe, just having something to believe in at all is something that keeps many people going. god doesn't care what you think, as long as you try your hardest to be a good person.

[Christinaa317o8]

Originally Posted by YourNightmare

What is your rationale for him wanting equal amount of love from everyone? People could and probably do worship him with different amounts of love. The connection you'd have would be proportional to the amount of love and dedication you show, which (at least for the love part) you claim god wishes to have equally.

God loves US equaly, why wouldn't he want the same in return? I know that there's people who love and show more dedication than I do, so I'm not setting any proportions. I'm saying that God would want to be loved back as he loves us. He's obviously not, but why wouldn't he want that?



You didn't really answer the question. I asked what is your definition of god and basically you gave the concept you gave before that you wouldn't view him as being all-powerful. So aside from not being all-powerful, what is your definition of him?

I can't define God. I don't think anyone can. He's far too complex for me to sit here and make a full-length definition. I guess basicaly, God is the creator of Heaven and Earth, the creator of man. He is a spirit of a higher power and the spiritual form of Jesus. He's the guidance I look to when I'm struggling or even when I'm not. He's the reason I'm here today. The explanation for miracles. In the end, I don't completely know who God is because he left a bunch of things unclear which is where difference of opinion and belief comes in.

I'm not really sure what you meant by definition though.



But you did say that it is perfectly fine for others to have different beliefs. Since you didn't seem to show any reasons against them having it, then it would be implied that you have no problem with others having different beliefs. So this brings it back to you disagreeing with her while strongly making it seem like you have no problem (and presumably also agree) with other people's takes on it.

You're not making sense to me. IT IS perfectly fine for others to have their own beliefs on God without following a certain religion. I say this because I'm Catholic and I don't believe in everything that Catholics teach and preach and do. So I myself mix and match my beliefs about God. That does not by any means justify that I would believe anyone else's mixed matched ideas. I just don't have a problem with them doing it. Because God has not recently come down to Earth and cleared up the things he left unclear. He hasn't come down and told us which one of us is right, thats just something we assume.


But isn't god meant to be the closest thing to perfection? You claim he wrote it and you also claim it is flawed. So that leaves a few possibilities: (1) he wrote it half-assed, (2) he has a long list of flaws and you can probably come up with other possibilities.

I don't recall stating that God is the closest thing to perfection. If he was, then he would have time for all of us. And people wouldn't live miserable lives. So whether or not he's suppossed to be perfect, he's deffinitley not in my mind anyways. I don't think he finished writing it. And I think he should. But until that happens, basicaly the bible and the way we preceive it is the only thing to tell us whether we're wrong or right. But so many of our beliefs go beyond whats mentioned or clearly stated in the bible.

------------------------

[MadPoet]

Originally Posted by onion

The thing about Christianity is you cannot pick and chose what and what not to believe. It's either all true or none of it is true. You either believe God, or you believe He is a liar. I can tell you I believe God, because for me there is to much evidence of His existence to call Him a liar, when the book is the WORD of God. So to eliminate any part of the Bible is eliminating what God Himself said.

But isn't that exactly what Christians have done? Pick and choose what to believe throughout the bible? Sure they believe what the bible says about God, but what about the things that God has said to do? In The Old Testament, for example, God clearly did not believe that women were as important and valuable as men. He taught that men should be honored more than woman. So, if we were to believe every thing written in the bible, wouldn't that apply as well? Wouldn't that mean that Christian's are sinning, because they do not believe men are more valuable than women? In my mind, saying "God says there is a Hell, but that, in my mind, is far to cruel" is no different than saying "God used to teach that women were of less value of men, but that doesn't hold to be true in the New Testament or in society today." But God still said it. He obviously does not believe that women are good for anything else other than having kids for men. If I'm going to believe all of the bible, that would also mean that I would have to believe this as well, that I'm not as worthy as a man. That homosexuals will burn in Hell. I would have to believe that if I committed a terrible sin, I must be stoned. Do you hold things like this to be true? Assuming you do not believe these things... then what do you believe God is? Do you believe he is a liar?

[Annoni]

Gonna try a different format of responding that'll save time.

You all have God as the evil punisher... I'll explain more within this.

Originally Posted by Concrete Girl

Yet, when I was faithfully going to Church the only thing I ever felt was that I was pressured to believe all that the bible states, or I would not be able to enter Heaven. That is how I feel as a Christian, not at all comfortable, but unaccepted and pressured. Not the need to become a Christian, but the need to escape from being a Christian, if that makes any sense.

I don't believe in Hell, or the devil, yet that is clearly stated in the Bible that there is a Hell. I also don't believe that if there WERE a Hell, that God would send ANYONE no matter what kind of sins they had committed, to suffer so much as they would in Hell. That would simply make him evil, and far from perfect, don't you think?

I would truly love to be a follower of God as I always have been, but without all of the extra crap that goes along with being a Christian, and going to church as a Christian.

If you don't believe in a hell, then you believe in a god that can be with sin, yet in being with sin that make the god imperfect and therefore no better than any human. All this "extra crap"... some if it you really do need to pay attention to, but some of it is just extra fecal matter.

Originally Posted by anishift

I have a few questions.
Aren't we ALL supposed to be the sons and daughters of God? Why did Jesus have to die for our sins? What does that even have to do with ANYTHING? What about before Jesus died? Did the people who died before that not get the forgiveness we do?

Yes, we are all sons of daughters of God. Jesus had to die for our sins because it was the only way, the only price powerful enough to counter sin. He was the Son of God, like His Father he was blameless and did not sin. To put another human on the cross would've meant nothing, as we are in sin already and not near as holy.

What is the point, anyway? Why did Jesus have to die, and why couldn't we just be forgiven in the first place.

Because God is in Heaven, and to be in Heaven is to be with God, and God cannot be with sin. We are sinful, so there needs to be salvation to be presented with God.

Sure, a loving father would be disappointed if his children were not keeping with the values he gave them. But I know that even if I went out and started "whoring" myself, my Dad would still want to know how I was doing all the time and he would still love me, even if he didn't like what I was doing. My parents wouldn't kill me if I didn't do what they wanted or if I didn't worship them.

God still wants to know (and does know) how His children are doing, and He still loves them the same, but being holy He cannot tolerate sin except through Jesus, so if the child denies Jesus, there is nothing God can do because of the free will He has given. God does not like it when we're turned over to Satan and Hell, but the alternative is for God to be with sin, but I'm repeating myself.

I can tell you that if I were to create a universe and a species I would not expect them to worship me. I would want them to lead lives of respect and honesty, not expect them to have faith that I didn't program into them in the first place. I mean yea, we're supposed to have a "choice" but how much of a choice is it when we're faced with the fire of eternity if we don't do what he wants? Apparently knowledge of good and evil are programmed into us, why not faith too? God is a perfect God, so why couldn't he just forgive us? What does letting his son die have to do with anything?

Because faith, by definition, IS a choice. It's something we have to do on our own. Good exists within us. Evil exists within us. Faith becomes a product of our heart and thoughts according to good and evil.

Originally Posted by Lugez

All right I see your point. Still doesn't convince me that he's my father. He's my creator.

WSWTIG... -> We see where this is going

We do have the will to do what we want. And honestly, if she wanted to be a whore than LET her. If it's what makes her happy...I don't believe God should judge her for that. She is in the right by doing what she pleases....

WSWTIG

I believe he created life so it could take care of itself. Life is meant to flourish and go on it's own, not be tampered with like the Christian God apparently does.

The bible has a different view, but, WSWTIG.

A reasonable God would know that not everyone would follow him. I agree here. But I don't believe he yearns for anything, because he wants us to live our lives the way we see fit.

Why would He not yearn to be loved by His Creation? That makes no sense. He yearns for them to be saved, not to have themselves willingly thrown to sin and Satan and eventually Hell if they so choose in their life.

So even by his faulty "parenting" he's still perfect? Doesn't make sense to me.
Not faulty parenting, it's the dealings of sin that have stolen the hearts of God's children which is the "fault".

If God was all powerful as they so say, there would have been another way.

See what I said above to another person. Jesus was God in the flesh, a big enough sacrifice and price for the world's sin.

Again, the WRITERS (ancient peeps) of the Bible say we are in his image but....Yeah, you see where this is going.
Yup... ISWTIG.

I want to talk a little more about sin here, as I think here it would be more appropriate.

Here is what I believe...Ok, IF there is a God (I said in my first post I'm playing Devil's Advocate a little on you, so what do I really believe?) I would think he would be NEITHER all good, nor all bad. He just IS. Why? Because when he created life, I don't believe he had a complete set standards on what "right" and "wrong" was. Because when you eliminate the human conscious from the Earth....Is there such a thing as morals? When our planet was just a barren wasteland and water and rocks where there morals? No. So how did "sins" and "right" and "wrong" come about? In short, HUMANS came up with it so we could have a functioning stable society. Who is to say that us and God have the same exact idea of what right and wrong is?

Okay. This is going to be interesting.
Did you ever hear completely about the story of Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden? That should answer most of it. In the beginning, God created all this stuff, made man and woman in his own likeness, and everything was very good to God. If there was any sin, God would not have thought so. So as of yet, there is so wrong, but He gave His two children a choice, and said do not eat of the one tree. It was the only restriction God gave.
This is where Satan comes in.
Satan deceives Eve, and Eve gets Adam to eat the fruit.
This was the first sin, and from that point on, original sin would be in everyone's lives.
And there was no "barren wasteland" like you say, not for very long anyway. God created things pretty quickly if you read about it. The earth is only something like 5000-6000 years old.
God was good, and being made in His image we were good. Satan came along and introduced to us what is wrong, sin. So, there is your good, there is your wrong.

So I don't believe God would view everything as black and white. That this is a "sin" and that isn't. I believe God would look at what you did through YOUR eyes. If you were true to your core, and honestly believed that what you were doing was right, I believe you would be rewarded (I don't believe in Heaven or Hell, so I can't say what happens because it's impossible to know).

I know you don't like references to the Bible, but the Bible also says it is actually black and white. There is no "sort of sinning". You either sin, or you don't. But, as you don't believe in Heaven, Hell, and thus Heavenly rewards, WSWTIG.

However, I believe that a reasonable God would have SOME standards by how he would want others to live...But I believe the most important thing would be to respect his creation. Including life. Would a God want someone going around destroying everything he created? No, he reasonably wouldn't like that.

That is very true, and ties in with the 10 commandments. Of course we should respect His Creation, but that is only a piece of it.

Again, I don't view him as my father. I don't believe "loving" him is necessary, but I PERSONALLY believe that the LEAST you should do is to be grateful for this life. I never viewed the relationship between me and God as parallel between parent and child....But I believe our relationship with each other is a good one. This is just me though.

Hmm... how would you think your relationship with God is a good one? I don't mean to judge, but by the bible (which I understand you do not go by) it doesn't seem right.

And you want the child to love you. If it doesn't, are you going to kill it and send it into a burning pit of hell for all eternity?

God does not want to send His children to Hell, He would rather not, but because they were deceived by sin and have not turned to salvation, there is nothing He can do because His Creation does have free will with their lives.

Ok...He'd be surrounded by his worshipping angels with his thumb up his ass. Better?

Still...I feel bad for those angels. Eternity of worship? That's got to suck ass.

The angels love worshiping their God, they believe His is more than worthy of their praise, as do I, but this is obviously a personal thing.

Originally Posted by YourNightmare

From what I get out of it, the idea of Christianity is to practice peace, forgiveness, compassion, kindness, being grateful for the life you've been granted, etc... . If god were a person, I don't think he'd have too big of a problem if you don't do everything as outlined in the bible as long as you still adhere to the philosophy and moral teachings of the belief. I can see many reasons why you may dislike Christianity, as I suppose one may be the over-emphasis on punishment and very little on grace and mercy.

Hmm. True enough, I guess, but missing key parts. It's the salvation that matters the most.

It is your belief so you shouldn't think that you cannot believe in it because of what a certain belief says. You can in a way mix and match bits and pieces to personalize your belief. Theoretically, you could believe in the christian god, Vishnu and worship Satan all in one go if you wanted to.

The OP asked about mixing with the Christian God, and I am forming my responses with that in mind. Let's just look how this works out from the beginning.

Bible: In the beginning, God...
OP: In the beginning, the god that I imagine...

Theoretically, yes, you could, but is it all right?

Oh how I smile whenever I read that. There is a very big problem you face when you say something or someone is perfect at everything, which is his perfection at imperfection. You may laugh at this but it is true, if he is to be perfect at everything, then that must by logic include being perfect at imperfection.

Not true, really. Perfection is separation from imperfection. Perfection is not perfection at imperfection in part. I don't know how to make that more obvious. In extremes the opposite is not always true by relation or association to the extreme.

With the above idea in mind and the fact that god committed many sins, I don't think he has too much of a problem with it. One main verse that shows this is:

“The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Galatians 5:19-21)
It does not matter if god hates the sin of the person or the person in general, it is hatred and dislike either way. As you are quite familiar with the bible, I'm sure you know more than one passage where god's rage and fury was mentioned.

Whoa, okay, you're far off track here. God did not commit any sins. At all! And yes, God's fury and rage is mentioned, but He loves His Creation and is angry with the sin, not the people.

Before you quote this and try to give some argument against it, bare in mind the initial thing I said, for him to be perfect, he must be perfect at imperfection. The obvious counter to that argument is that he is perfect only at "good things", however, that is not what is mentioned nor is that what you mentioned.

Took that into account. Perfection is away from imperfection, imperfection is not found with perfection in actions or anything else by perfection.

This is where I get very skeptical. If a god were to show unconditional love, then why not let all of his creations into his wonderful place of joy and such? Why have a place set up simply for punishment in some form? I find it rather hard to wrap my head around the idea that he loves you unconditionally even while he decides for you to suffer endlessly.

See what I've said quite a few times now about God not being able to have a connection or relationship with sin. He doesn't decide for us to suffer endlessly.

You see, since the beginning, Satan has envied God, and in His envy He wants to destroy God's creation, so Satan brought sin into our lives that is detestable to God. Actually, my girlfriend read a book that somewhat has this in it.

"Being unable to defeat God through raw power. Satan's legions decide to wound God as deeply as possible by stealing the love of his beloved through seduction, and having seduced them to his party, to ravage them body and soul, and having ravaged them to mock them, even as they are hurled to the depths of hell with God himself unable to save them because to their rejection of him. This is Satan's motivation and goal for every man, woman, and child into whom God ever breathed the breath of life, Like a roaring lion, he hungers for us"
His beloved, that is us, that is the people in the world. Soak it in. Satan is the perpetrator.

"Evil is not the point. The point is the love story. We live in a love story that is set in the midst of a war. When you understand those two things, you will suddenly understand Christianity, and you will understand your own life."
The war, that is the war on the spiritual level, the war between good and evil.
The love, that is the love from God

Related verses:
John 10:10 :: The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
1 Peter 5:8-9 :: Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.
James 4:7 :: Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Originally Posted by Christinaa317o8

God can't have THAT much of a problem of sin if he can forgive.
And not all sins are equal in God's eyes, thats why there's venial sin and mortal sin.

That's more of a Catholic thing, although there is the "unoforgivable sin", which is to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. But at that point, that person isn't seeking salvation anyway. Also, I've been told mortal sin is still forgivable..?

I'm Catholic but I deffiniatley don't agree with half of what the religion follows by. But I agree with the basic teachings and rules and comandments ect. because I find them in the bible and they're easy to understand. But the things that have different interpretations, like homosexuality I follow my own beliefs just as MANY others do. And God cannot judge that because he didn't make that topic clear. One Christian says that homosexuality is wrong, while the priest of that church says its okay. People follow their own beliefs everyday. And its okay for the OP and anyone else to do so as long as they've looked into the bible and they've searched for other opinions. Which is what the OP has done.

It is actually quite clear on the topic of homosexuality, very clear. It's the pressures of the world that practises homosexuality that are clouding what the verses and passages actually mean.
I do agree though, some things are hard to understand in the bible and can be taken a few different ways. But, you still must be careful, because it is possible to take things out of context or think slightly differently of the wording to think adultery is okay, killing is okay, etc.

Personaly, I think that some things in this world are out of God's control. I don't think that he has POWER over everything because I refuse to believe that he would let the beautiful world he created to be peaceful end up to be a world of murders drugs and rapes. Then again, the very first sins occured between adam and eve not long after he created the world.

If you believe God does not have complete control, then you believe in a world of chaos, therefore God is not omnipotent and all-knowing by your views, so exactly why do you consider following Him if He isn't that great to you?
But the truth is He DOES have the power, but He has given each of us a choice, and sin infests the land and the hearts of everyone. The choice if what is important: If we were all forced to have faith, is it really faith?

I don't think he has such a big problem with sin as Annoni makes him out to have. We're all born with "original sin" aren't we?

It's clear. He has a huge problem with sin, so much so that anyone that hasn't been saved by Jesus can't be with him, because God cannot tolerate sin.

All in all, the bible as well as God is too complex for a lot of us to understand. God created the bible, in my opinion, to create diversity in beliefs. So that he could be preceived in different, but EQUAL ways. We don't worship him in equal ways, but we do see him in countless different ways and I truly do not think that he cares.

I think he does love us unconditionaly, but like I said I still don't think he has time to control everyone's future and plans. I don't think he can cure everyone's suffering and I don't think he's sent enough angels to help. But he still does love us all, he created man.

God exists separate from time, so of course He has the time for everything and everyone.

I think that the OP's belief of Hell isn't quite logical. Hell is not made of fire and burning flames and what not. People who have killed and murdered endlessly go to hell. They don't stay there forever though, that's why there's reincarnation. To me, hell would be a place that consists of misery for those to go who were never sorry and never felt any remorse for what they did wrong. However, those who do commit horrible sins and find God and his forgivness, they are given another chance to go to Heaven. But Hell DOES exists.

I'd be repeating myself, so see everything I've said before if anyone wants my response to this.

Originally Posted by Lugez

I believe that this is the main issue when arguing with Christians. People like us don't believe that this ancient book is the word of God, and for good reason.

WSWTIG?

To me, it's the same thing as me writing down on a piece of paper "God says he loves you." Afterwards, I'd run around saying READ THE WORD OF GOD!!

Eh, I know this is a WSWTIG, but the words in the bible are God-breathed, they are His words sent to us so that we may know Him. How would you explain all the prophecies and the things that tied in with science thousands of years later?

This is why I believe the Bible is flawed, because it was written by men...But Christians don't believe that, and then they stick to the book with their arguments while we aren't swayed by those words.

I'll admit it is a bit flawed. It's been translated hundreds and hundreds of times, there is going to be some error from the original words, especially away from the original language, but they do work that out and it's fairly error-free as long as it's in the original language. As soon as it is translated that will always present a small problem.

And with that, it pretty much impossible to sway each other...

Hmm, really?

[Annoni]

Originally Posted by Xujhan

I find it convenient that you brought up the parent/child argument, because it's actually further reason to believe that the traditional Christian god is less than praiseworthy. Some of the primary tenets of parenting go as follows: Your children owe you nothing. It was your choice to bring them into this world, and it is therefore your responsibility to care for them until they are capable of caring for themselves. At that point it becomes your duty to allow them to make their own choices, even if you disagree with them. You cannot make demands of your grown children as repayment for the effort you put in raising them. Anything they choose to give you should be given freely out of love, not out of obligation.

Love is what God looks for. And I'm not looking for the views of the world, quite honestly those are easily tainted by sin. A child should acknowledge the wonderful life that God has graciously given, and the gift of Heaven He gives with mercy after.

So a god who demands that we follow his laws, regardless of our feelings, and who demands that we worship him and ask his forgiveness for our sins - besides being simply vain and jealous - fails some of the basic tests of parenthood. God has no more right to condemn someone to hell for faithlessness than the father in your example would have to beat his daughter for her actions. If you wish to argue that god is perfect and cannot be wrong, then perhaps the father should follow god's example and beat his daughter. Wouldn't it then be those parents who choose not to abuse the children who are being "sinful"? How absurd or destructive would god's demands have to get before you think we should begin to question him?

Hold up. You're portraying God with a strong flavor of Satan.
God does not demand that we follow, He asks and certainly gives us a whole list of reasons why, any one of which I would not hesitate for. God has supreme rights for anything - everything was created through him and for him and by him.
And do not compare God as the father that would beat for wrong actions. He is a loving Father, and does not wish harm upon His children, it is Satan that tears people apart. It is Satan that ravages heart, soul, and physical being. And it is a person's choice to allow that to happen, Jesus's price for sin was already paid, all we have to do is accept it with our hearts.

My belief is that we should question everything. That way we learn and grow. I'm not willing to blindly accept any god or religion, nor do I think anyone else should. I think there are too many reasons to doubt god's perfection to willingly hand him the devotion he seeks. In a way, it's Pascal's wager in reverse. If god is truly loving, then he will forgive your lack of belief. If god is not willing to forgive such a minor fault - that of simply having guessed wrong on a yes or no question - then he is a vain, spiteful god, and the correct moral choice is to defy him. That's how I see things.

Question everything, yes. Without question there would be almost no understanding, but do not question so much as to have no room for faith which God asks for. We shouldn't blindly accept any god or religion, that is true, and it is not asked of us to do it blindly. Pascal's Wager... I have problems with that, but I think most people can gather that.
Such a minor fault? A yes or no? This is a lifestyle that we're talking about! This determines what happens after life too! It is not simply a yes or no question and should not be taken lightly as such. God is forgiving, but if you refused salvation and choose to dwell in sin, you cannot dwell with God because sin is detestable to Him. You've gotten God very mixed up with Satan in some ways, and I can see why you would want to defy Him in that case.

Originally Posted by Union Of V

OOOOOoooo this is a FUN debate!!!! I can't possibly debate every side to it, but here are some great points that cropped up:

This is interesting. So say someone lived their entire life without explicitly serving god, however she worked for the poor, saved lives, helped those around her and lived a life dedicated to bettering the lives of others. You're saying she's a theistic satanist and the enemy of god? Why should I worship him then?
There's a verse for this.
Isaiah 64:6:
All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our sins sweep us away.

This is hard to understand, but I'll try.
Our righteous acts, when done without done as if working for God, are like filthy rags to Him, because then it is self-pleasing, selfish.
Know what the original language for dirty rags really meant?
Used tampons.
Imagine, doing all these acts of kindness then coming to God after, and saying, "God, look at all the good I have done, here, it is in this box as a present to you!"
And in that box, to Him, is a box of used tampons.
Self-righteousness is not a good quality in God's eyes, and I dare say the same for millions of people in the world.

So... the bible is the word of god because it says so in the bible? Enough said...

You will find many prophecies in the bible and many things that tie in with scientific discoveries that would not even be possible to guess. If you want proof, the bible is full of it.

The concept of not worshipping god as sinful, as Lugez touched on, is a bit bizarre in my eyes. For me a sin is committing a reproachable act, and I can't see how not believing in something can be considered a reproachable act - in fact I'd hesitate to call it an act at all. For me the concept of sin must be universal, and not just confined to one particular faith.

It is sinful for at least one major reason. Worship is putting something above oneself. If you can't even put the Creator of everything, including your life, the lover of your soul, the only one to save you, if you can't put Him above you, then it's an insult to Him. All the work and love He poured into you was ignored, yet He will continue loving, and continue to offer His hand whenever you accept it.

----------

[Lisa111]

Originally Posted by Annoni

Hold up. You're portraying God with a strong flavor of Satan.
God does not demand that we follow, He asks and certainly gives us a whole list of reasons why, any one of which I would not hesitate for.

God asks that we follow him and only him else we get thrown into the fiery pit of death. Uh huh...

And what if God told you to kill your offspring, like Abraham and Isaac? You would? ...

[Annoni]

Originally Posted by Lisa111

God asks that we follow him and only him else we get thrown into the fiery pit of death. Uh huh...

And what if God told you to kill your offspring, like Abraham and Isaac? You would? ...

Mmhmm, yes, He does ask us. Life of sin with Hell after, of a life of sin, with salvation and redemption and a life of Heaven.

And if God so asked, I would. Do you actually know the story of Abraham? He didn't actually end up killing his son, it was more a test of faith to see if Abraham trusted in God's higher understanding. I would trust God. I have faith in Him.

[Lisa111]

Originally Posted by Annoni

Mmhmm, yes, He does ask us. Life of sin with Hell after, of a life of sin, with salvation and redemption and a life of Heaven.

And if God so asked, I would. Do you actually know the story of Abraham? He didn't actually end up killing his son, it was more a test of faith to see if Abraham trusted in God's higher understanding. I would trust God. I have faith in Him.

God's way of asking is like a person pointing a gun at your head and saying, "You have every right to disobey me, because you have free will. Although, if you do, I'll shoot you..."

Yes, I know the whole story. God asked him to blatantly lie to his son (as when Isaac told Abraham that they'd forgotten the sacrifice, and Abraham replied, God will provide us one...), then kill him in God's name. Then the angel came down and said, "Do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me."

That whole encounter, if it actually happened, had to be traumatizing. Think of Isaac's reaction to this whole thing... His dad was going to kill him... Come on... And the fact that Abraham would actually go through with it is a test of his sanity... I don't have empathy, and even I know that's not right...

[John 6:29]

Originally Posted by Concrete Girl

But isn't that exactly what Christians have done? Pick and choose what to believe throughout the bible? Sure they believe what the bible says about God, but what about the things that God has said to do? In The Old Testament, for example, God clearly did not believe that women were as important and valuable as men. He taught that men should be honored more than woman. So, if we were to believe every thing written in the bible, wouldn't that apply as well? Wouldn't that mean that Christian's are sinning, because they do not believe men are more valuable than women? In my mind, saying "God says there is a Hell, but that, in my mind, is far to cruel" is no different than saying "God used to teach that women were of less value of men, but that doesn't hold to be true in the New Testament or in society today." But God still said it. He obviously does not believe that women are good for anything else other than having kids for men. If I'm going to believe all of the bible, that would also mean that I would have to believe this as well, that I'm not as worthy as a man. That homosexuals will burn in Hell. I would have to believe that if I committed a terrible sin, I must be stoned. Do you hold things like this to be true? Assuming you do not believe these things... then what do you believe God is? Do you believe he is a liar?

As I've stated. Christian's are not perfect, just because we are saved does not me we are in turn better than anyone else. It means that we have chosen to attempt to be more Christ-like whether we fail or not. Christian's do have disagreements in the Bible because we are human and will not understand it to the full degree until our relationship with Christ is fulfilled when we die.

God never said that man is more important than woman. In fact it say's the median. God created man AND women in His image, thus we are both like Him (Genesis 1:27. The difference is that woman would not have been created if God did not see that man was lonely and He knew exactly what man would need, someone to comfort Him, and encourage Him which is why He made woman (Genesis 2:18, 20-24). Both were given equal authority over the earth. The difference between man and woman is their roles in society, not necessarily that one is more important than the other. The role of man is to be a leader, as man was created first and is to support his family through labor (even though this is not how society is anymore, so yes we are technically living in sin because we see so often today that women are the workers in the families). The woman's role is to support, encourage, comfort her husband, and maintain the family. Each are equally important. And example of what I mean would be this, in school, you know what is required of you in order to get good grades, however. Doing this on your own is almost impossible, you need support from family, teachers, and friends or you will struggle greatly with this. It is the same with man/female. Men are to lead their families, yet they need the support of the women to do so.

Homosexuality is not condemned by God except in the Old Testament. It is a sin, YES. But so is lying, so is anger, so is malice, so is cursing, so is using God's name in vain, so is murder. You commit one sin, and you commit them all. There are people who are Christian and are gay, the thing is they should be trying to be more Christlike and control their urges to be with the same sex. Much like we most learn to control our anger, or any other sin. The thing is many Christian's condemn a lot of things and twist the Bible around. But let me point out another thing. In Matthew, Jesus was tempted by Satan, and Satan was tempting Jesus by the use of Scripture, and Jesus resisted this temptation because He knew scripture better than Satan. The point I am trying to make is that Satan has been there since the beginning, he knows scripture better than any Christian a live because he has been studying it since the beginning of time, now if Satan wanted to confuse people, and lead them astray do you not think that he has people planted in Churches to confuse people? Satan has no rules, he will do any means to lead people away from Christ, as long as they don't believe in the need for a Savior, Satan is winning is his eyes... So although people claim to be Christian, and maybe some of these peoples are Pastors and religious leaders in Churches, this doesn't mean that they are saved, they can be actually under the influence of Satan himself.

As Christian's it is us who need to discern whether or not the Church is speaking the truth or not. The Bible never says that being a Christian will be easy, it actually says the opposite, so it's no wonder so many people don't want to do it. We want everything handed to us which won't happen in Christianity, we are to deny ourselves and follow Christ. You can sit here and say, well Christians do this and Christians do that, and I will have the same answer for you everytime... Christian's still sin until their death, and revival with Christ.

[edit]
Also if you think Abraham had it hard, read about Job. Just because we have faith in God does not mean our lives are going to be easy, or even logical. We just trust that God is doing everything for His glory, again it comes down to denying ourselves and following our Savior. We give up our 80 years on earth, for eternity with God. Even though in this example of Job, God destroyed all he had and known, but because of Job's faithfulness he was rewarded both eternally and on earth by the end of the book of Job.

[Annoni]

Originally Posted by Lisa111

God's way of asking is like a person pointing a gun at your head and saying, "You have every right to disobey me, because you have free will. Although, if you do, I'll shoot you..."

Yes, I know the whole story. God asked him to blatantly lie to his son (as when Isaac told Abraham that they'd forgotten the sacrifice, and Abraham replied, God will provide us one...), then kill him in God's name. Then the angel came down and said, "Do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me."

That whole encounter, if it actually happened, had to be traumatizing. Think of Isaac's reaction to this whole thing... His dad was going to kill him... Come on... And the fact that Abraham would actually go through with it is a test of his sanity... I don't have empathy, and even I know that's not right...

No, God's way of asking is more like, "You have every right to disobey me, because you have free will. Although, if you do, know that Satan is waiting to ravage you in sin, and I cannot tolerate to be with sin."
It's an offer for life, not a choice between life and death. There is a slim difference, and it means a lot.

There is a bit more to the story than that. And God did not actually ask Him to lie, all Abraham said is God will provide the offering, and guess what? God did, and it was not His son. Kinda cool.
For Abraham, the Bible said it was a relief and a gift to both, as it was also shown to Isaac belonged to God.

[John 6:29]

Also referring to Annoni's post to clear it up in a simple paragraph: the punishment is our sins, God is a judge not a punisher. Satan is the creator of all evil, read Genesis 3, we chose to follow Satan instead of God, therefore are separated and ALREADY JUDGED into damnation. God however, offered a plan for Salvation (the death of His son) to save us from this punishment, so you're calling God a evil punisher, when Satan was the one who caused this punishment and God died for us so we don't have to deal with this eternal punishment.

[Annoni]

Originally Posted by onion

Also referring to Annoni's post to clear it up in a simple paragraph: the punishment is our sins, God is a judge not a punisher. Satan is the creator of all evil, read Genesis 3, we chose to follow Satan instead of God, therefore are separated and ALREADY JUDGED into damnation. God however, offered a plan for Salvation (the death of His son) to save us from this punishment, so you're calling God a evil punisher, when Satan was the one who caused this punishment and God died for us so we don't have to deal with this eternal punishment.

^Everyone, read this.
I was never good at shortening things

[Lugez]

Okay. This is going to be interesting.
Did you ever hear completely about the story of Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden? That should answer most of it. In the beginning, God created all this stuff, made man and woman in his own likeness, and everything was very good to God. If there was any sin, God would not have thought so. So as of yet, there is so wrong, but He gave His two children a choice, and said do not eat of the one tree. It was the only restriction God gave.
This is where Satan comes in.
Satan deceives Eve, and Eve gets Adam to eat the fruit.
This was the first sin, and from that point on, original sin would be in everyone's lives.
And there was no "barren wasteland" like you say, not for very long anyway. God created things pretty quickly if you read about it. The earth is only something like 5000-6000 years old.
God was good, and being made in His image we were good. Satan came along and introduced to us what is wrong, sin. So, there is your good, there is your wrong.

Yes, I am familiar with the story. I was raised as a Catholic.

I think Christians would have MUCH more credibility if they had other sources of God's will except some old book. I asked how God defines sin, and you give me a fictional story of Adam and Eve...

And did you HONESTLY just say that the earth is 5000-6000 years old? Have you completely ignored all the physical evidence that suggests that the earth is actually 4.6 billion years old? Evidence also suggests that humans have been around for about 100,000-200,000 years. I'm sorry, but you need to REAL LIFE FACTS before you debate further. There's no nice way to put this. It's comments like this that make me questions everything Christians believe.

Why would He not yearn to be loved by His Creation? That makes no sense. He yearns for them to be saved, not to have themselves willingly thrown to sin and Satan and eventually Hell if they so choose in their life

It makes more sense to me that he would want his creation to LIVE and learn its way on its own. He didn't create life so it would worship him, he did it so it would LIVE.

Not faulty parenting, it's the dealings of sin that have stolen the hearts of God's children which is the "fault".

God does not want to send His children to Hell, He would rather not, but because they were deceived by sin and have not turned to salvation, there is nothing He can do because His Creation does have free will with their lives.

Very interesting, but this raises another question: You say we have free will....But God wants us to follow his ways, and Satan wants us to follow his own ways....So really, is it just a battle to see who turns to God and who turns to Satan/sin? Do we really have free will then? Wouldn't the one with the most influence sway us?

You say that the dealings of sin STOLE the hearts of God's children, so isn't it Satan's fault that people sin? NOT the people themselves? Why should God condemn others for something thats arguably not their own fault?

And the problem with sin: Is that it HAS CHANGED throughout the centuries. What God wanted in 600 AD is COMPLETELY different than what present day God wants. Crusades? Middle Ages? Renaissance? 18,19,20th centuries? "God" wanted different things in all these different ages. He's been very inconsistent (assuming he's the one dictating. I believe this is just the evolution of society, not God changing his views).

Hmm... how would you think your relationship with God is a good one?

Because I believe a reasonable creator would be more thrilled by seeing his creation flourish than to sit back and except praise and worship from everyone. I've been trying to live my life in such a way, and I feel that God would be pleased with my efforts...

The angels love worshiping their God, they believe His is more than worthy of their praise, as do I, but this is obviously a personal thing.

I wouldn't want to praise my creator. If I created something, I would want that life to live. I believe the best praise is (like I said countless times) to live your life to the fullest and enjoy your life.

How would you explain all the prophecies and the things that tied in with science thousands of years later?

The bible had prophecies? The only prophecy I was aware of was Revelations, which hasn't happened. I'd like a few examples from the bible.

[Lisa111]

Originally Posted by onion

Also referring to Annoni's post to clear it up in a simple paragraph: the punishment is our sins, God is a judge not a punisher. Satan is the creator of all evil, read Genesis 3, we chose to follow Satan instead of God, therefore are separated and ALREADY JUDGED into damnation. God however, offered a plan for Salvation (the death of His son) to save us from this punishment, so you're calling God a evil punisher, when Satan was the one who caused this punishment and God died for us so we don't have to deal with this eternal punishment.

God created Satan. I'm still wondering how an omnibenevolent being even has the ability to create evil.

Why are we pre-judged?

Originally Posted by Annoni

No, God's way of asking is more like, "You have every right to disobey me, because you have free will. Although, if you do, know that Satan is waiting to ravage you in sin, and I cannot tolerate to be with sin."
It's an offer for life, not a choice between life and death. There is a slim difference, and it means a lot.

A choice of life and death is exactly what it is. If one doesn't choose God, one dies.

Okay, the analogy is more like this... Two guys are standing next to you, one with a gun. The other says, "You have every right to follow me or disobey me. If you decide to disobey me, this guy is going to shoot you."

There is a bit more to the story than that. And God did not actually ask Him to lie, all Abraham said is God will provide the offering, and guess what? God did, and it was not His son. Kinda cool.
For Abraham, the Bible said it was a relief and a gift to both, as it was also shown to Isaac belonged to God.

Let's face it. God told Abraham to kill his son. Abraham lied to Isaac to get the kid the rest of the way to the sacrifice without having to forcefully drag him there.

Of course it was a relief. On the other hand, if I were Isaac, I'd be a little skeptical of my father, who was completely willing to kill me... A sane person wouldn't kill their child, regardless of who asked.

[John 6:29]

Originally Posted by Lisa111

God created Satan. I'm still wondering how an omnibenevolent being even has the ability to create evil.

Why are we pre-judged?

We aren't pre-judged. We were judged at the time we became knowledgeable of God and a Savior, and chose to reject that because of our sin nature.
John 3:18
"He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."

God did not create evil. Evil does not contain any means of physics, it does not have energy, spatial dimensions, or matter. Therefore evil cannot be created. God allowed for evil and good to happen. But if you are looking for a author of evil, the first man to ever commit a evil deed was Lucifer.

Isaiah 14:12-14
"How you have fallen from heaven,
O star of the morning, son of the dawn!
You have been cut down to the earth,
You who have weakened the nations!
"But you said in your heart,
'I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne above the stars of God,
And I will sit on the mount of assembly
In the recesses of the north.
'I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.'

Lucifer desired to be better than God. And so God gave Satan the reign over evil, and cast him and His followers from Heaven. If you want to get into more detail of evil read Ezekiel 28:12-19.

In Ezekiel 28:15 it say's that God created Lucifer without sin.

"You were blameless in your ways
From the day you were created
Until unrighteousness was found in you.

This shows that God is not even the AUTHOR of evil, but Satan formed evil from his heart.

As I keep saying, many of these questions do not make sense, and will not be answered until we get to Heaven. The Bible is NOT based off of knowledge it is based off of Faith.

Think of it like this:
You are going to skydive, you have a parachute, as you leap from the plane you have faith that your parachute will deploy and save you from death. However, you DO NOT KNOW that your parachute will deploy, you simple have FAITH it will. You may have a ton of knowledge in the world about sky diving and about how your parachute works, but in the end you simply have faith it will deploy and save you from death. Much like the bible, we studying to get more knowledge and understand God's ways and how He works. But in the end it is not our knowledge that saves us. It's our Faith that Jesus will be there to rescue us from destruction.

Even as a Christian, we will have our doubts, much like a skydiver. We will ask the "what if this, what if that", so on and so forth. But in the end like the skydiver, we have Faith we will be saved.

[Annoni]

Originally Posted by Lugez

I think Christians would have MUCH more credibility if they had other sources of God's will except some old book. I asked how God defines sin, and you give me a fictional story of Adam and Eve...

I know this is the same answer you'll get almost anywhere but here I go. If there was definite proof, then there would be no faith required, and thus no choice.

And did you HONESTLY just say that the earth is 5000-6000 years old? Have you completely ignored all the physical evidence that suggests that the earth is actually 4.6 billion years old? Evidence also suggests that humans have been around for about 100,000-200,000 years. I'm sorry, but you need to REAL LIFE FACTS before you debate further. There's no nice way to put this. It's comments like this that make me questions everything Christians believe.

Did you HONESTLY just say the earth is 4.6 billion years old? Evidence also suggest that if the flood really did happen, things would certainly seem billions of years older. These are also real facts, acknowledge these before you debate further.

Let me ask you this, I have a hard time understand. According to you, how did earth come to be?

It makes more sense to me that he would want his creation to LIVE and learn its way on its own. He didn't create life so it would worship him, he did it so it would LIVE.

He did it for both, sort of. I actually believe He did do it for both.

Very interesting, but this raises another question: You say we have free will....But God wants us to follow his ways, and Satan wants us to follow his own ways....So really, is it just a battle to see who turns to God and who turns to Satan/sin? Do we really have free will then? Wouldn't the one with the most influence sway us?

Yes! It's a battle. Yes, we really have free will still. There's a lot of room to move around between those two. The most influence depends on what you truly want and what's in your heart, so it's going to vary from person to person. Some people rejoice in sin, others rejoice in purity. But as it is, sin tends to be a lot more tempting to us.

You say that the dealings of sin STOLE the hearts of God's children, so isn't it Satan's fault that people sin? NOT the people themselves? Why should God condemn others for something thats arguably not their own fault?

That's exactly it! It's Satan's fault. This is exactly what evil is. This is why it is such a heartbreaker for God! It's is sin's fault, man and woman were made good, but sin is the evil. Satan condemns them of his will to destroy all of God's creation, in order that God may be hurt by the loss. But God haas the ultimate counter to Satan, and that is Jesus, but in sin people find ways to make Jesus fake or a lie, or twist around the truth, so that through sin, Satan gets his way and one more person cannot be with God, their Creator.

And the problem with sin: Is that it HAS CHANGED throughout the centuries. What God wanted in 600 AD is COMPLETELY different than what present day God wants. Crusades? Middle Ages? Renaissance? 18,19,20th centuries? "God" wanted different things in all these different ages. He's been very inconsistent (assuming he's the one dictating. I believe this is just the evolution of society, not God changing his views).
You're partially right and partially wrong, you have to remember God is the one thing that will never change; everything else changes and because of that we may see different sides of Him.

Because I believe a reasonable creator would be more thrilled by seeing his creation flourish than to sit back and except praise and worship from everyone. I've been trying to live my life in such a way, and I feel that God would be pleased with my efforts...
Praise and worship is not just sitting back. There are quite a few things you can do very actively for God in praise and worship.

I wouldn't want to praise my creator.If I created something, I would want that life to live. I believe the best praise is (like I said countless times) to live your life to the fullest and enjoy your life.
Opinion respected.

The bible had prophecies? The only prophecy I was aware of was Revelations, which hasn't happened. I'd like a few examples from the bible.

Oh there's TONS. I don't know a whole lot off the top of my head though. Can I have some by Monday? I'm not as wise about the bible as some people here think I am. One huge one though is the coming of the Messiah, the messenger, Jesus. But, I think you'll say that could be debated when the things were wrote and when (if?) Jesus did come, so I'll try to find some more modern day ones. I know some, but I have to find where they are in the Bible.

Originally Posted by Lisa111

God created Satan. I'm still wondering how an omnibenevolent being even has the ability to create evil.

Satan had free will, and he was jealous of God, and now spends his time spreading evil and deceiving hearts.

Why are we pre-judged?
Original sin, aka: Sinful from birth. It's a huge debate. But, according to the bible we may not be pre-judged if we had no knowledge of the Savior.

A choice of life and death is exactly what it is. If one doesn't choose God, one dies.

You die either way, the outcome is if you find new life or not in Heaven after.
However, it is an offer, and with the offer we can make a choice.

Okay, the analogy is more like this... Two guys are standing next to you, one with a gun. The other says, "You have every right to follow me or disobey me. If you decide to disobey me, this guy is going to shoot you."

Sort of it, but not really. My "version" of this is a lot more accurate to what I think God is like, but no one knows for sure, but my view has a bit more biblical support to it.

Let's face it. God told Abraham to kill his son. Abraham lied to Isaac to get the kid the rest of the way to the sacrifice without having to forcefully drag him there.

Abraham did not lie though. Had he actually killed his son, that would be the offering, but that did not happen and God provided an offering after that still, so Abraham did not actually lie.

Of course it was a relief. On the other hand, if I were Isaac, I'd be a little skeptical of my father, who was completely willing to kill me... A sane person wouldn't kill their child, regardless of who asked.

You would be, but Isaac would not because he had more udnerstanding of God's intentions and plans for his life.

----------

[Lisa111]

Originally Posted by onion

We aren't pre-judged. We were judged at the time we became knowledgeable of God and a Savior, and chose to reject that because of our sin nature.

What if it's, you know, just not my thing... That still sounds like attrition.

God did not create evil. Evil does not contain any means of physics, it does not have energy, spatial dimensions, or matter. Therefore evil cannot be created. God allowed for evil and good to happen. But if you are looking for a author of evil, the first man to ever commit a evil deed was Lucifer.

If God created everything, but didn't create evil, evil would not exist... God created Lucifer, and, if everything is created in God's image, by God, who is omnibenevolent, Lucifer shouldn't be able to do evil.

[Annoni]

Originally Posted by Lisa111

What if it's, you know, just not my thing... That still sounds like attrition.

If God created everything, but didn't create evil, evil would not exist... God created Lucifer, and, if everything is created in God's image, by God, who is omnibenevolent, Lucifer shouldn't be able to do evil.

If by not your thing you mean you don't want to follow God, don't want to take up salvation etc, then... well, your loss, honestly. And God's, for losing someone to sin.

[Lisa111]

Originally Posted by Annoni

Original sin, aka: Sinful from birth. It's a huge debate. But, according to the bible we may not be pre-judged if we had no knowledge of the Savior.

I can't imagine how one would be sinful until they actually sinned...

You die either way, the outcome is if you find new life or not in Heaven after.
However, it is an offer, and with the offer we can make a choice.

By "die", I meant hell. Still sounds like attrition...

Sort of it, but not really. My "version" of this is a lot more accurate to what I think God is like, but no one knows for sure, but my view has a bit more biblical support to it.

What Biblical support?

Abraham did not lie though. Had he actually killed his son, that would be the offering, but that did not happen and God provided an offering after that still, so Abraham did not actually lie.

At the time, Abe had no idea whether or not there was actually going to be another sacrifice there. He went with the idea and intention to murder his son. That still constitutes a lie...

You would be, but Isaac would not because he had more udnerstanding of God's intentions and plans for his life.

If I were Isaac, I'd be a little skeptical of the God who told my father to tie me up and stab me to death...

And the fact that God praises Abraham for his willingness to murder his son without question is ... condoning blind faith ... I can't do that!

[TheWhiteTornado]

I'd have to say that i do something similar to you. I mean i'm christian, i just disagree with a few parts. The way i see it, everyone is trying to please God, they're just doing it in different ways and they just happen to call him something else. I don't see why people who try to please him and do it the 'wrong' way should go to hell. The big thing for me is that i just see heaven as a place for people who lived with good intentions. Try to do good things with your life and you're in; try to do bad things and hell awaits. These are just my personal beliefs

[Xujhan]

Originally Posted by Annoni

I find it convenient that you brought up the parent/child argument, because it's actually further reason to believe that the traditional Christian god is less than praiseworthy. Some of the primary tenets of parenting go as follows: Your children owe you nothing. It was your choice to bring them into this world, and it is therefore your responsibility to care for them until they are capable of caring for themselves. At that point it becomes your duty to allow them to make their own choices, even if you disagree with them. You cannot make demands of your grown children as repayment for the effort you put in raising them. Anything they choose to give you should be given freely out of love, not out of obligation.

Love is what God looks for. And I'm not looking for the views of the world, quite honestly those are easily tainted by sin. A child should acknowledge the wonderful life that God has graciously given, and the gift of Heaven He gives with mercy after.

"God is god, therefore he gets a free ride"? No, I don't buy that. I acknowledge that I have a good life, yes. I also acknowledge that millions of people do not have good lives, that billions throughout history have not, and if Christianity is to be believed, that many of them continue to suffer now in hell, even those now born many hundreds of years ago. I am aware of plenty of good reasons for earthly suffering, and I don't deny their validity, but eternal suffering is another matter.

Originally Posted by Annoni

So a god who demands that we follow his laws, regardless of our feelings, and who demands that we worship him and ask his forgiveness for our sins - besides being simply vain and jealous - fails some of the basic tests of parenthood. God has no more right to condemn someone to hell for faithlessness than the father in your example would have to beat his daughter for her actions. If you wish to argue that god is perfect and cannot be wrong, then perhaps the father should follow god's example and beat his daughter. Wouldn't it then be those parents who choose not to abuse the children who are being "sinful"? How absurd or destructive would god's demands have to get before you think we should begin to question him?

Hold up. You're portraying God with a strong flavor of Satan.
God does not demand that we follow, He asks and certainly gives us a whole list of reasons why, any one of which I would not hesitate for. God has supreme rights for anything - everything was created through him and for him and by him.
And do not compare God as the father that would beat for wrong actions. He is a loving Father, and does not wish harm upon His children, it is Satan that tears people apart. It is Satan that ravages heart, soul, and physical being. And it is a person's choice to allow that to happen, Jesus's price for sin was already paid, all we have to do is accept it with our hearts.

I'm portraying god that way because that is how I see him; or at least the Christian interpretation we're debating. There is a phrase that states that "we are guilty of all the good we could have done but did not do." Just because god is not the direct cause of eternal suffering doesn't mean he is not still guilty of allowing it to exist. God created Lucifer, for one. He wrote the rules, for another.

If he is actually powerless to prevent this; if he cannot destroy or overpower Satan, if he cannot choose to forgive everyone of their sins, not just the repentant, if he truly cannot exist with sin, then perhaps he could reveal himself to the world so that people can know he exists and be warned that he is incapable of protecting us. There are many ways god could prevent eternal suffering. Unless he is totally powerless, he is choosing to allow this cycle to continue, and he is thus guilty of it. If he is that powerless, I think it would be better that humanity try to fend for itself in the afterlife than continue to rely on such a meager god.

Originally Posted by Annoni

My belief is that we should question everything. That way we learn and grow. I'm not willing to blindly accept any god or religion, nor do I think anyone else should. I think there are too many reasons to doubt god's perfection to willingly hand him the devotion he seeks. In a way, it's Pascal's wager in reverse. If god is truly loving, then he will forgive your lack of belief. If god is not willing to forgive such a minor fault - that of simply having guessed wrong on a yes or no question - then he is a vain, spiteful god, and the correct moral choice is to defy him. That's how I see things.

Question everything, yes. Without question there would be almost no understanding, but do not question so much as to have no room for faith which God asks for. We shouldn't blindly accept any god or religion, that is true, and it is not asked of us to do it blindly. Pascal's Wager... I have problems with that, but I think most people can gather that.
Such a minor fault? A yes or no? This is a lifestyle that we're talking about! This determines what happens after life too! It is not simply a yes or no question and should not be taken lightly as such. God is forgiving, but if you refused salvation and choose to dwell in sin, you cannot dwell with God because sin is detestable to Him. You've gotten God very mixed up with Satan in some ways, and I can see why you would want to defy Him in that case.

It all stems from a single question: does god exist? Yes or no. If you believe no, as I do, this entire debate is nothing more than hypothesizing. If you do believe, then complications of faith ensue, but for those who believe god doesn't exist, the matter is entirely simple. And no matter how much good they do in the world, god will condemn them to hell for their lack of belief, and from that a lack of repentance.

And speaking of which, why is sin so detestable to god? I'm only human, and I'm capable of forgiving someone even if they don't apologize for hurting me. Surely god is capable of at least that. God seems to be of assuming a stance of "well, if you don't want to apologize that's too damn bad for you, you can burn in hell." No person who spoke those words, or anything like them, would be considered enlightened. Why is god allowed this without question?

For that matter, why are we required to repent in the first place? I'm aware of having hurt people in my life, both directly and indirectly. I avoid it as much as I can, and I apologize and regret when I do cause harm. But I've caused no harm to god, except perhaps his pride. And if it's that easily wounded, he could stand to have it taken down a peg or two. But repenting simply because I'm not perfect? Hell no. If god had wanted us to be perfect, or perfect sheep, he should have made us that way. I feel no need to apologize for who I am, to anyone. Nor should any other person feel the need to.

Heh, apparently I start to speak with an edge when I get going on this topic. Sorry, I don't mean to offend anyone; as I've stated often I have no issues with people because of their beliefs. It's simply the concept of god that upsets me. I'm an idealist, and I've yet to run into a religious portrayal of god that I can look at and think: "Yeah, if that god exists I think I'd be pretty okay with it."

[John 6:29]

Originally Posted by Lisa111

What if it's, you know, just not my thing... That still sounds like attrition.



If God created everything, but didn't create evil, evil would not exist... God created Lucifer, and, if everything is created in God's image, by God, who is omnibenevolent, Lucifer shouldn't be able to do evil.

I gave this example before I'll give it again:
I don't believe in gravity. If I were to go to a cliff could I walk and float in air because I don't believe in gravity? No. I would fall, because the point is gravity is still there. You may chose not to believe in God or His teachings, but this does not eliminate the fact that He is there.


God created everything Good. Does a baker create a cookie to crumble? Did the baker make the crumbs? Or did he make the cookie? The cookie crumbles because of the absence of the baker.

Read the passages. Lucifer was created blameless, he separated himself from God and desired to be better than God, thus the "author" of evil came from Satan's heart because he was the first one to sin. To say God is the author of evil is to say God is evil, but He is blameless, and Holy, therefore cannot be the author of evil. Does this make sense? Like the cookie, sin or evil is the separation from God. In other words let me put it like this:

Say Bob was the first man to make a pair of shoes and you had to tie them to keep them from falling off.

Jamie who was his daughter, worked for Bob and desired to become richer than her father. She decided people hate the time it takes to tie shoes so she would make slip on shoes, and sell more shoes than her dad, and therefore make more money. Bob found out that his daughter was trying to over throw Bob's company with this idea by getting his employees who helped design the shoes to work for her, and Bob fired her, and the employees who followed her.

Jamie created the slip on shoes with her employers, and she was right. Slip on shoes were a big success, because people rather do what is easier.

Since Bob made the first pair of shoes, does this make him responsible for slip on shoes?

[Lugez]

Originally Posted by Annoni

I know this is the same answer you'll get almost anywhere but here I go. If there was definite proof, then there would be no faith required, and thus no choice.

I get it. The faith thing. I just want people to also think for themselves and not get all their answers from a book. Know what I mean?

Did you HONESTLY just say the earth is 4.6 billion years old? Evidence also suggest that if the flood really did happen, things would certainly seem billions of years older. These are also real facts, acknowledge these before you debate further.

Let me ask you this, I have a hard time understand. According to you, how did earth come to be?

Ok...I think we're going down the wrong path here. I don't want to respond to this because we're debating how a belief system can work by believing in God, but not believing in the Bible. The flood debate can save for another discussion. All I can say is take a geology course or something. You'll learn alot.

As for how the earth came to be: I honestly have no idea. I'm not a geologist or astronomer. But what makes sense to me is that God may have started something (created science, rather) and then life/nature/the universe took over from there...All I know is that this huge chunk of rock has been here LONG before we have, and will be around LONG after we're gone (assuming that the human species doesn't live long enough for the sun to destroy the earth).

He did it for both, sort of. I actually believe He did do it for both.

I disagree, but opinion respected.

Yes! It's a battle. Yes, we really have free will still. There's a lot of room to move around between those two. The most influence depends on what you truly want and what's in your heart, so it's going to vary from person to person. Some people rejoice in sin, others rejoice in purity. But as it is, sin tends to be a lot more tempting to us.

But you say that God made us good, without evil. So why would our hearts gravitate towards sin if that's not what we were made for? And if a person's heart is leaned more towards sin, isn't that a little unfair? I still don't see how we have a free will if whats in our hearts dictates whether we rejoice in purity or sin. It sounds like it's already been decided for us when we were born.

That's exactly it! It's Satan's fault. This is exactly what evil is. This is why it is such a heartbreaker for God! It's is sin's fault, man and woman were made good, but sin is the evil. Satan condemns them of his will to destroy all of God's creation, in order that God may be hurt by the loss. But God haas the ultimate counter to Satan, and that is Jesus, but in sin people find ways to make Jesus fake or a lie, or twist around the truth, so that through sin, Satan gets his way and one more person cannot be with God, their Creator.

Again, I don't see how free will fits into all this if Satan is the one controlling us. God should be punishing Satan, not the people.

You're partially right and partially wrong, you have to remember God is the one thing that will never change; everything else changes and because of that we may see different sides of Him.

I agree that HE never actually changes, but I disagree that we see different sides to Him. I believe that it's society twisting and manipulating us to believe that God acts a certain way and wants certain things out of us. But who is right? Is anyone right? It's impossible to tell.

Praise and worship is not just sitting back. There are quite a few things you can do very actively for God in praise and worship.

I don't mean to say that people should sit back. I guess I can understand how you could get that vibe, but that's not what I meant.

And I agree. Given the individual, praise and worship may work for him/her. But I don't believe the same glove fits all.

Oh there's TONS. I don't know a whole lot off the top of my head though. Can I have some by Monday? I'm not as wise about the bible as some people here think I am. One huge one though is the coming of the Messiah, the messenger, Jesus. But, I think you'll say that could be debated when the things were wrote and when (if?) Jesus did come, so I'll try to find some more modern day ones. I know some, but I have to find where they are in the Bible.

I shall give you time. If anyone else knows any, feel free to give out some....

[MadPoet]

Originally Posted by onion

Homosexuality is not condemned by God except in the Old Testament. It is a sin, YES. But so is lying, so is anger, so is malice, so is cursing, so is using God's name in vain, so is murder. You commit one sin, and you commit them all. There are people who are Christian and are gay, the thing is they should be trying to be more Christlike and control their urges to be with the same sex. Much like we most learn to control our anger, or any other sin.

This is exactly one the many things that pulls me away from Christianity. It is a sin to be who you are? Sure, men and women were created for each other, and to be partnered together. But just because you do fall into the category of what is normal in God's eyes should not mean that you are sinning. What you're saying here is that in order to be accepted by God, gays need to work towards not being gay. I'm sorry but, any God that I'd worship would accept me no matter what. Straight, gay, whatever. Otherwise, in my eyes, he's a complete jerk whose goal is simply to control everyone who believes in him. No way will I ever believe in a God like that.

The thing is many Christian's condemn a lot of things and twist the Bible around. But let me point out another thing. In Matthew, Jesus was tempted by Satan, and Satan was tempting Jesus by the use of Scripture, and Jesus resisted this temptation because He knew scripture better than Satan. The point I am trying to make is that Satan has been there since the beginning, he knows scripture better than any Christian a live because he has been studying it since the beginning of time, now if Satan wanted to confuse people, and lead them astray do you not think that he has people planted in Churches to confuse people? Satan has no rules, he will do any means to lead people away from Christ, as long as they don't believe in the need for a Savior, Satan is winning is his eyes... So although people claim to be Christian, and maybe some of these peoples are Pastors and religious leaders in Churches, this doesn't mean that they are saved, they can be actually under the influence of Satan himself.

I don't understand why you make it sound as if we have to be Christians in order to go to Heaven. What if someone was an amazingly good person, did everything for everyone else, and lived their lives dedicated to working to make others happy. Yet, they were not Christian, and did not fully believe in God. Would they go to Hell? Again, this makes me think, wow "God wants every single darn thing to be about him. No one else but him." In fact, it makes me think that God created the world simply so he could be in control of something. "Believe in me or you will pay."[/quote]

[edit]
Also if you think Abraham had it hard, read about Job. Just because we have faith in God does not mean our lives are going to be easy, or even logical. We just trust that God is doing everything for His glory, again it comes down to denying ourselves and following our Savior. We give up our 80 years on earth, for eternity with God. Even though in this example of Job, God destroyed all he had and known, but because of Job's faithfulness he was rewarded both eternally and on earth by the end of the book of Job.

Well yeah, our lives are clearly not going to be easy if we're under the power of a God who will torture us as he did with Job. Another question, since you brought up Job: In the bible, if I remember correctly, it clearly says that gambling is a sin. Yet here God sits, making a bet with Satan, and then ruining a poor man's life, killing his kids, saying "Oh, I'm so cool, I know this will make him love me even more." Yeah, right! If God did something like that to me, I'd rather worship Satan than worship a God like THAT.

[Lisa111]

Originally Posted by onion

I gave this example before I'll give it again:
I don't believe in gravity. If I were to go to a cliff could I walk and float in air because I don't believe in gravity? No. I would fall, because the point is gravity is still there. You may chose not to believe in God or His teachings, but this does not eliminate the fact that He is there.

Gravity is rational. God isn't.

God created everything Good. Does a baker create a cookie to crumble? Did the baker make the crumbs? Or did he make the cookie? The cookie crumbles because of the absence of the baker.

A perfect baker should make a perfect cookie...

Say Bob was the first man to make a pair of shoes and you had to tie them to keep them from falling off.

Jamie who was his daughter, worked for Bob and desired to become richer than her father. She decided people hate the time it takes to tie shoes so she would make slip on shoes, and sell more shoes than her dad, and therefore make more money. Bob found out that his daughter was trying to over throw Bob's company with this idea by getting his employees who helped design the shoes to work for her, and Bob fired her, and the employees who followed her.

Jamie created the slip on shoes with her employers, and she was right. Slip on shoes were a big success, because people rather do what is easier.

Since Bob made the first pair of shoes, does this make him responsible for slip on shoes?

Tough for Bob, he should compensate by making a better shoe instead of declaring Jamie "evil".

[John 6:29]

Let me just point an argument out, you can shoot it down or chose to do whatever you with it, and this is mainly for Lugez, and this isn't out of spite, this is simply to provoke your thought process.

You just said you want people to think for themselves, apart from what a book says.

All of History is faith. Chose what you will with this, facts or no facts. It's all faith. You say take a Geology course, I have. Is not the very thing these courses teach you based off a book, and other peoples opinions and studies? I will not get into arguing the age of the earth because truthfully no one knows. There's evidences for the Biblical approach and there's evidences for a scientific approach but none the less you would have to exist since day one of the universe to truly know the answer without a shadow of a doubt, so whatever you chose to believe is based off the opinions of others, and their studies... which is in turn FAITH.

Truth of the matter is, no matter what facts or studies you perform, they are all based off opinions. How many times does science change their thoughts or theories on a particular topic? How often are we finding things in science that we thought to be true at one point are now being proven false, or entirely different. I will not argue about the age because truthfully who knows? And this is a different discussion completely but no matter what you believe about History is all based on Faith.

Originally Posted by Lisa111

Gravity is rational. God isn't.



A perfect baker should make a perfect cookie...



Tough for Bob, he should compensate by making a better shoe instead of declaring Jamie "evil".

Gravity is rational because we know it to be real. What if we were born on a planet where gravity did not exist? Someone discovers a planet with gravity and says "there is this place where you are held down to the grown and you do not float around" because we have not seen this we chose to ignore this statement or we believe in it because of Faith.

God made creation perfect, man decided to stray from God. Just like Jamie. God allows us to make our own choices. If you have a kid, you can guide it and tell it what to do, but ultimately it is that kids choice to do what he or she wants to do, not yours. Though you desire for them to do the right thing, you allow them to make their own choices.

I am truly amazed you can say that God is irrational. If you truthfully believe all of this is coincidence, that is foolish. Simply learn about DNA and it's complexity, to say there is no creator is ridiculous.

Let me ask you, I want to build a car:
I put all the pieces required to build this car and all the tools in a garage to make this car. Billions of years pass by, eventually will this car create itself? No. It needs a creator.

[MadPoet]

Originally Posted by onion

Let me just point an argument out, you can shoot it down or chose to do whatever you with it, and this is mainly for Lugez, and this isn't out of spite, this is simply to provoke your thought process.

You just said you want people to think for themselves, apart from what a book says.

All of History is faith. Chose what you will with this, facts or no facts. It's all faith. You say take a Geology course, I have. Is not the very thing these courses teach you based off a book, and other peoples opinions and studies? I will not get into arguing the age of the earth because truthfully no one knows. There's evidences for the Biblical approach and there's evidences for a scientific approach but none the less you would have to exist since day one of the universe to truly know the answer without a shadow of a doubt, so whatever you chose to believe is based off the opinions of others, and their studies... which is in turn FAITH.

Truth of the matter is, no matter what facts or studies you perform, they are all based off opinions. How many times does science change their thoughts or theories on a particular topic? How often are we finding things in science that we thought to be true at one point are now being proven false, or entirely different. I will not argue about the age because truthfully who knows? And this is a different discussion completely but no matter what you believe about History is all based on Faith.

In a way, I can see where you are coming from. But at the same time, there's proof of most of the things that scientists have come up with. It's much easier to have faith in something when you can see it with your own eyes. I don't know about you, but at times it seems easier to believe that there was a so called "big bang" than to believe that a random man somehow came into existence and created everything that we see. And what about the other planets? How come they are not mentioned in the bible? Where did they come from? You'd think that if God created those as well, they would be mentioned. Would it be more likely that the Earth was created by the same thing as those other planets were created by, or that Earth was the only planet created by 'God' ? What it all comes down to, for a lot of people, is fact. And be honest, there are far more facts that prove scientists believe to be true than Christian's beliefs. You can say that it all comes down to believing that some things can not be seen, as I have heard a million times before, but the truth is that humans are always more likely to believe in the thing that has more fact, and more proof. Therefore, if there is a God, I would assume he would know these things, as he created us to begin with. Which is why I do not think God is going to send someone to Hell for not believing in him, for not being a Christian. If God created everything, he created science as well - if he didn't want people to turn away from him because Science was more believable, he should not have created it to begin with.

[Xujhan]

Originally Posted by onion

I gave this example before I'll give it again:
I don't believe in gravity. If I were to go to a cliff could I walk and float in air because I don't believe in gravity? No. I would fall, because the point is gravity is still there. You may chose not to believe in God or His teachings, but this does not eliminate the fact that He is there.

Counterexample:

Someone presents the same argument: "I don't believe the world is flat. If I were to walk forever in a straight line, would I not fall off the edge of the world because I don't believe there is one? No, I would fall, because the point is that the edge is still there. You may chose not to believe that it is, but this does not eliminate the fact that it is there."

Would you say they are correct?

[John 6:29]

Originally Posted by Concrete Girl

In a way, I can see where you are coming from. But at the same time, there's proof of most of the things that scientists have come up with. It's much easier to have faith in something when you can see it with your own eyes. I don't know about you, but at times it seems easier to believe that there was a so called "big bang" than to believe that a random man somehow came into existence and created everything that we see. And what about the other planets? How come they are not mentioned in the bible? Where did they come from? You'd think that if God created those as well, they would be mentioned. Would it be more likely that the Earth was created by the same thing as those other planets were created by, or that Earth was the only planet created by 'God' ? What it all comes down to, for a lot of people, is fact. And be honest, there are far more facts that prove scientists believe to be true than Christian's beliefs. You can say that it all comes down to believing that some things can not be seen, as I have heard a million times before, but the truth is that humans are always more likely to believe in the thing that has more fact, and more proof. Therefore, if there is a God, I would assume he would know these things, as he created us to begin with. Which is why I do not think God is going to send someone to Hell for not believing in him, for not being a Christian. If God created everything, he created science as well - if he didn't want people to turn away from him because Science was more believable, he should not have created it to begin with.

I really do grieve for you. I can tell that you are struggling with what to believe and I can tell God is at work in you. You are questioning the very things I question before I came saved. Let me answer some of these for you.

1. Yes it is much easier to believe in something with proof. But faith is another matter. Dictionary.com describes Faith as this: "belief that is not based on proof". Faith in science or religion is all based on proof, yes there's facts of both, yes science has more facts. This is why being Christian is on Faith.

2. Yes it is easier to put a belief in something with more facts. The bible says "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it" Matthew 7:13. Through this verse we can assume the people going to Heaven will not be many. So based off what you heard about humans like to believe what is based with facts, is true. But the question I ask is, how do you know your facts are facts? You don't, you believe what you hear, and what schools teach. I'm not saying some of these are true but I will show you what I mean in a minute. And I will agree with you this argument goes both ways, however I personally believe that science and every religion is simply there to avoid God. They want answers against God, so they say well because of this and this, there is no God. When in reality God is evident and factual through His creation. Again I will show you an example about the big bang in a minute.

3. The Bible does say God created other planets:
Genesis 1:14-16 (New American Standard Bible)

14Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years;
15and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so.
16God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also.








3. God created man to have a relationship with Him but we are born into darkness so we invent all these other means to escape being with God because we "love darkness rather than light". "This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil." John 3:19 this is what we will be judged upon. We love the Light or we love darkness.

4. Now I would go into more detail then this person does but I ask you to look at this link http://www.tangle.com/view_video.php...0c5940458979d5 although I disagree with some of venomfangx arguments I believe he explains this very well, and I suggest you watch it.

Originally Posted by Xujhan

Counterexample:

Someone presents the same argument: "I don't believe the world is flat. If I were to walk forever in a straight line, would I not fall off the edge of the world because I don't believe there is one? No, I would fall, because the point is that the edge is still there. You may chose not to believe that it is, but this does not eliminate the fact that it is there."

Would you say they are correct?

This is a straw man argument. My argument is for the sake that just because you chose to believe one way or another does not eliminate the fact that something exists. Perhaps try rewording it, but by the way I am absorbing this information it is a straw man argument.

However, my argument is simply based off my Faith. I believe that I am saved because I was living in what Christian's would call a lot of sin, possibly more sin than a lot of people on this board, but I am not here to brag or get into details of what this sin was. One day I had a desire to go to church, I went to church and started questioning religion, I tried to find answers for a lot of the same questions you are asking. I continued to live in sin, and then I eventually came to a point where I was ready to make a change because I saw that my life was going no where, and I had nothing to lose. As soon as I confessed to God and put my faith into Him, my desires completely changed. Immediately. I no longer had the same desires, although I do struggle with it, my life is completely changed. And this is why I believe what I do.

Before I knew I was going to hell, I believed I would go to hell because of my sin. Now like the bible says the spirit confirms with my spirit and I know there is a Heaven.

I truly grieve for a lot of you and if any of you have questions I will try to help you and I will pray for all of you.

I do not want to continue arguing not because I am flustered, but because of what the Bible tells me to do in situations like these. I will continue to answer any questions if you guys want to PM me, but I wish to not argue with you guys anymore. I do think all of you have valid points, but I ultimately believe in my Faith, and am willing to allow God to use me in anyway to direct you into Salvation.

Just please I urge you to question yourselves, can you not see that the things of things of this earth do not matter? They will one day all disapear. Whether its your death, the destruction of this earth, whatever you want to believe it all goes away. The things of God are eternal, and I really have a sadness for the way you guys reject it. I was once where you are and I will continue to pray for all of you. I just wish to no longer argue because I know ultimately it is God who will work through you, and not myself.

If you have any question please PM me.

[Annoni]

Originally Posted by Xujhan

"God is god, therefore he gets a free ride"? No, I don't buy that. I acknowledge that I have a good life, yes. I also acknowledge that millions of people do not have good lives, that billions throughout history have not, and if Christianity is to be believed, that many of them continue to suffer now in hell, even those now born many hundreds of years ago. I am aware of plenty of good reasons for earthly suffering, and I don't deny their validity, but eternal suffering is another matter.

Wanna hear a brutal truth according to the bible? All things are for His glory. It's true. But we cannot fathom how evil can be for His glory, so honestly the best way may just be to forget about it but that doesn't seem like an option, since each of you asks for definite proof if there is a God.
Also, onion has pointed out a few verses which support the people who have not heard of Jesus. There is still hope for them too, if their life was horrible here they still have a chance at a life in Heaven.
If you get to eternal suffering, that means you have not only had a chance to be saved like the bible says, it means you cast it aside and continued an unsaved life of sin with no repentance willingly, voiding your rights to Heaven as a gift.
It's so bloody simple I don't know people make such a fuss. There is freedom, there is forgiveness! Yet we argue. Yet we turn our faces from God and curse His name.

I'm portraying god that way because that is how I see him; or at least the Christian interpretation we're debating. There is a phrase that states that "we are guilty of all the good we could have done but did not do." Just because god is not the direct cause of eternal suffering doesn't mean he is not still guilty of allowing it to exist. God created Lucifer, for one. He wrote the rules, for another.

Well if you see God as having qualities of evil and Satan, the only thing I can say is that is not what God is, and I pray you see that.
onion explained the Lucifer thing, I think.
And yes, God allows sin to exist, because He wants us to have a choice.

If he is actually powerless to prevent this; if he cannot destroy or overpower Satan, if he cannot choose to forgive everyone of their sins, not just the repentant, if he truly cannot exist with sin, then perhaps he could reveal himself to the world so that people can know he exists and be warned that he is incapable of protecting us. There are many ways god could prevent eternal suffering. Unless he is totally powerless, he is choosing to allow this cycle to continue, and he is thus guilty of it. If he is that powerless, I think it would be better that humanity try to fend for itself in the afterlife than continue to rely on such a meager god.

He can do that, but for what I've said above plus reasons out minds cannot fathom, for the greater good that we cannot see, God allowed sin to still exist. God can forgive everyone of their sins, but people need to ask, they need to acknowledge God, otherwise, if they don't believe God in the first place, what's the need of being forgiven? But as there is a God, each of you should turn your hearts to God and ask for the easy forgiveness and live in that forgiveness, and spread the news of this saving grace to others so they may know the gift of Heaven which is not all that hard to have.

It all stems from a single question: does goes exist? Yes or no. If you believe no, as I do, this entire debate is nothing more than hypothesizing. If you do believe, then complications of faith ensue, but for those who believe god doesn't exist, the matter is entirely simple. And no matter how much good they do in the world, god will condemn them to hell for their lack of belief, and from that a lack of repentance.

I'm assuming that was a typo and you meant does God exist? Just making sure so people can understand without uncertainty.

And speaking of which, why is sin so detestable to god? I'm only human, and I'm capable of forgiving someone even if they don't apologize for hurting me. Surely god is capable of at least that. God seems to be of assuming a stance of "well, if you don't want to apologize that's too damn bad for you, you can burn in hell." No person who spoke those words, or anything like them, would be considered enlightened. Why is god allowed this without question?

Ah, thank you, easier question.
Sin is not tolerable to God, because He is holy, He is blameless, He is perfect.
Sin is tolerable to you because you live in it, are not as holy, blameless, or perfect as He is. Sort of like a climate thing, if you can relate to that.

For that matter, why are we required to repent in the first place? I'm aware of having hurt people in my life, both directly and indirectly. I avoid it as much as I can, and I apologize and regret when I do cause harm. But I've caused no harm to god, except perhaps his pride. And if it's that easily wounded, he could stand to have it taken down a peg or two. But repenting simply because I'm not perfect? Hell no. If god had wanted us to be perfect, or perfect sheep, he should have made us that way. I feel no need to apologize for who I am, to anyone. Nor should any other person feel the need to.

In repentance you are also acknowledging God's existence and Jesus's life that was on this earth and the price he paid in blood for your sins, and everyone else's. Being simply aware of bad things you've done or being sorry for them is not acknowledging or embracing any of that.
And God DID make us perfect! Oh yes He did. But Satan introduced sin to humanity, and here we are in our wonderful little cesspool.

Originally Posted by Lugez

I get it. The faith thing. I just want people to also think for themselves and not get all their answers from a book. Know what I mean?

Yupp. Respected.

Ok...I think we're going down the wrong path here. I don't want to respond to this because we're debating how a belief system can work by believing in God, but not believing in the Bible. The flood debate can save for another discussion. All I can say is take a geology course or something. You'll learn alot.

Noted, but don't forget there's also a lot you can learn by taking the bible's words into account.

As for how the earth came to be: I honestly have no idea. I'm not a geologist or astronomer. But what makes sense to me is that God may have started something (created science, rather) and then life/nature/the universe took over from there...All I know is that this huge chunk of rock has been here LONG before we have, and will be around LONG after we're gone (assuming that the human species doesn't live long enough for the sun to destroy the earth).

Phew, thought you were gonna say "Big Bang"
I think that's somewhat like the idea I had before turning the pages in the Bible.

But you say that God made us good, without evil. So why would our hearts gravitate towards sin if that's not what we were made for? And if a person's heart is leaned more towards sin, isn't that a little unfair? I still don't see how we have a free will if whats in our hearts dictates whether we rejoice in purity or sin. It sounds like it's already been decided for us when we were born.

This I do not know, neither does any other human. We can make lots of theories, sure, but all we know is that sin is a freakin' lot more tempting than God's truth. Satan found our weakspot.
Unfair... hmm... I wouldn't think of it as unfair. Merely because I don't think of fairness a whole lot, but that's me. True, to others it may seem unfair, and that's the painful part I guess for God, watching everyone turn to sin instead because it's more immediately tempting, whereas He is more tempting for things after life usually.
Ah, seems we have touched upon a largely debated thing in Christianity. Predestination. Has God already planned out our lives for us, and it only seems we have free will? I do not claim to know for sure, but I think He knows all that is to come and all that has come, and it works with His plans, yet we have free will, but what we do in our free will is already known.
Needless to say, people do change.

Again, I don't see how free will fits into all this if Satan is the one controlling us. God should be punishing Satan, not the people.

It's viewed this way: Satan already has the maximum punishment, he is forever cast out of Heaven. Satan does not really feel joy or anything, all that is in God in Heaven. That's why he was cast out from Heaven.
So Satan is already punished, but he envies God more and is more jealous of Him, so he ravages people and their hearts and souls with sin, which was first found in Satan.

I agree that HE never actually changes, but I disagree that we see different sides to Him. I believe that it's society twisting and manipulating us to believe that God acts a certain way and wants certain things out of us. But who is right? Is anyone right? It's impossible to tell.

You do have a point, society does put different views on things too as well as individual people. It could be that someone is right, or because God is so unfathomable, we're all wrong or we only have a piece of the truth.

I don't mean to say that people should sit back. I guess I can understand how you could get that vibe, but that's not what I meant.

Eh, sorry, it's the Internet, misinterpretations are going to happen.

And I agree. Given the individual, praise and worship may work for him/her. But I don't believe the same glove fits all.

Praise and worship is extremely flexible actually, worship can be so many different things that people don't even think of. Even baking a cookie can be worship in a way, but that requires digging for a verse that's in my mind. I shall fetch it later along with some examples of prophecy.

I shall give you time. If anyone else knows any, feel free to give out some....

Thank you.
And also, thanks for being very respectful about this, and sorry for my words which may seem harsh...

Originally Posted by Concrete Girl

This is exactly one the many things that pulls me away from Christianity. It is a sin to be who you are? Sure, men and women were created for each other, and to be partnered together. But just because you do fall into the category of what is normal in God's eyes should not mean that you are sinning. What you're saying here is that in order to be accepted by God, gays need to work towards not being gay. I'm sorry but, any God that I'd worship would accept me no matter what. Straight, gay, whatever. Otherwise, in my eyes, he's a complete jerk whose goal is simply to control everyone who believes in him. No way will I ever believe in a God like that.

A sin is a sin. If who you are is sinful, then it is a sin to be who you are. If you seek redemption and go through with it, then you are no longer sinful. Jesus is the link.
Note that homosexuality is not a sin because it's not normal in God's eyes, rather it's an insult to what He made us for and is detestable to Him. It was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.

I don't understand why you make it sound as if we have to be Christians in order to go to Heaven. What if someone was an amazingly good person, did everything for everyone else, and lived their lives dedicated to working to make others happy. Yet, they were not Christian, and did not fully believe in God. Would they go to Hell? Again, this makes me think, wow "God wants every single darn thing to be about him. No one else but him." In fact, it makes me think that God created the world simply so he could be in control of something. "Believe in me or you will pay."
Well yeah, our lives are clearly not going to be easy if we're under the power of a God who will torture us as he did with Job. Another question, since you brought up Job: In the bible, if I remember correctly, it clearly says that gambling is a sin. Yet here God sits, making a bet with Satan, and then ruining a poor man's life, killing his kids, saying "Oh, I'm so cool, I know this will make him love me even more." Yeah, right! If God did something like that to me, I'd rather worship Satan than worship a God like THAT.

I've said the reasons over and over. Questions have been answered many times, and often the new ones a repetitions with a twist.

I think I'm mostly done here. Concrete Girl, if you have any more specific questions that have not been answered, I will try to answer them to the best of my ability.
Also, I will keep my word on finding examples on prophecy, it is my promise.

-----------

[Xujhan]

Originally Posted by Annoni

"God is god, therefore he gets a free ride"? No, I don't buy that. I acknowledge that I have a good life, yes. I also acknowledge that millions of people do not have good lives, that billions throughout history have not, and if Christianity is to be believed, that many of them continue to suffer now in hell, even those now born many hundreds of years ago. I am aware of plenty of good reasons for earthly suffering, and I don't deny their validity, but eternal suffering is another matter.

Wanna hear a brutal truth according to the bible? All things are for His glory. It's true. But we cannot fathom how evil can be for His glory, so honestly the best way may just be to forget about it but that doesn't seem like an option, since each of you asks for definite proof if there is a God.
Also, onion has pointed out a few verses which support the people who have not heard of Jesus. There is still hope for them too, if their life was horrible here they still have a chance at a life in Heaven.
If you get to eternal suffering, that means you have not only had a chance to be saved like the bible says, it means you cast it aside and continued an unsaved life of sin with no repentance willingly, voiding your rights to Heaven as a gift.
It's so bloody simple I don't know people make such a fuss. There is freedom, there is forgiveness! Yet we argue. Yet we turn our faces from God and curse His name.

If you want to understand why people make such a fuss, here's the best explanation I can give, at least regarding my beliefs. I see accepting god as the easy road, in the same way that Christianity preaches that giving in to sin is the easy road. It's easier to put blind faith in god than it is to question whether god is actually just and loving.

I believe that if god really does exist after all, I'll want a lot of answers before I will happily accept him as god. Yes, there is heaven and forgiveness, but for me the price would be compromising my own beliefs and my freedom, and that's not something I'm willing to do. If god exists and I get my answers, and judge to the best of my ability that god is indeed good, then I'll accept him.

In the mean time, I'm living my life to its fullest and doing my best to be a good person and a positive influence in the world. If that's not good enough for god, then bluntly, god's not good enough for me. If that means I burn in eternal damnation, at least I'll burn with a clean conscience. That is truer freedom to me than any gilded cage.

Originally Posted by Annoni

I'm portraying god that way because that is how I see him; or at least the Christian interpretation we're debating. There is a phrase that states that "we are guilty of all the good we could have done but did not do." Just because god is not the direct cause of eternal suffering doesn't mean he is not still guilty of allowing it to exist. God created Lucifer, for one. He wrote the rules, for another.

Well if you see God as having qualities of evil and Satan, the only thing I can say is that is not what God is, and I pray you see that.
onion explained the Lucifer thing, I think.
And yes, God allows sin to exist, because He wants us to have a choice.

I actually see god as not existing at all. As I've said, for me this is all hypothetical debate, mostly for my own enjoyment. It's a fun exercise to consider and articulate my beliefs, and to respond to those of others.

Originally Posted by Annoni

If he is actually powerless to prevent this; if he cannot destroy or overpower Satan, if he cannot choose to forgive everyone of their sins, not just the repentant, if he truly cannot exist with sin, then perhaps he could reveal himself to the world so that people can know he exists and be warned that he is incapable of protecting us. There are many ways god could prevent eternal suffering. Unless he is totally powerless, he is choosing to allow this cycle to continue, and he is thus guilty of it. If he is that powerless, I think it would be better that humanity try to fend for itself in the afterlife than continue to rely on such a meager god.

He can do that, but for what I've said above plus reasons out minds cannot fathom, for the greater good that we cannot see, God allowed sin to still exist. God can forgive everyone of their sins, but people need to ask, they need to acknowledge God, otherwise, if they don't believe God in the first place, what's the need of being forgiven? But as there is a God, each of you should turn your hearts to God and ask for the easy forgiveness and live in that forgiveness, and spread the news of this saving grace to others so they may know the gift of Heaven which is not all that hard to have.

It's not "sin" I'm arguing against; it's the punishment for sin. Personally, I think some of god's sins at least make the world a heck of a lot more fun, and I'll certainly agree that without any sin at all the world would be dead boring. It's hell and eternal suffering that I'm arguing against, because that has no conceivable purpose other than punishment. Again, if god can explain to me why it is actually good for so many billions of souls to be so tortured, I'll cease complaining. Personally, I doubt he'd be able to find an explanation I'd find satisfactory.

Originally Posted by Annoni

It all stems from a single question: does goes exist? Yes or no. If you believe no, as I do, this entire debate is nothing more than hypothesizing. If you do believe, then complications of faith ensue, but for those who believe god doesn't exist, the matter is entirely simple. And no matter how much good they do in the world, god will condemn them to hell for their lack of belief, and from that a lack of repentance.

I'm assuming that was a typo and you meant does God exist? Just making sure so people can understand without uncertainty.

Yes, typo corrected, thank you.

Originally Posted by Annoni

And speaking of which, why is sin so detestable to god? I'm only human, and I'm capable of forgiving someone even if they don't apologize for hurting me. Surely god is capable of at least that. God seems to be of assuming a stance of "well, if you don't want to apologize that's too damn bad for you, you can burn in hell." No person who spoke those words, or anything like them, would be considered enlightened. Why is god allowed this without question?

Ah, thank you, easier question.
Sin is not tolerable to God, because He is holy, He is blameless, He is perfect.
Sin is tolerable to you because you live in it, are not as holy, blameless, or perfect as He is. Sort of like a climate thing, if you can relate to that.

If god is perfect, shouldn't that come with perfect tolerance? Why exactly can god not tolerate sin? Is he allergic to it? Is it to his eyes what an unbearably bright light would be to ours? Are sin and god like matter and antimatter? Just because I'm 100% blond doesn't mean I can't stand to be around brunettes or redheads. Just because I'm 100% British doesn't mean I can't tolerate Americans or Scotsmen. If god is perfect and free of sin - and I question even this - why is it that he cannot tolerate sin?

Originally Posted by Annoni

For that matter, why are we required to repent in the first place? I'm aware of having hurt people in my life, both directly and indirectly. I avoid it as much as I can, and I apologize and regret when I do cause harm. But I've caused no harm to god, except perhaps his pride. And if it's that easily wounded, he could stand to have it taken down a peg or two. But repenting simply because I'm not perfect? Hell no. If god had wanted us to be perfect, or perfect sheep, he should have made us that way. I feel no need to apologize for who I am, to anyone. Nor should any other person feel the need to.

In repentance you are also acknowledging God's existence and Jesus's life that was on this earth and the price he paid in blood for your sins, and everyone else's. Being simply aware of bad things you've done or being sorry for them is not acknowledging or embracing any of that.
And God DID make us perfect! Oh yes He did. But Satan introduced sin to humanity, and here we are in our wonderful little cesspool.

I didn't ask god to let his son die two thousand years before I was born, I'm certainly not about to thank him for it. It doesn't make a spot of difference to me whether I'm "tainted with sin", since it seems that it's god that cannot stand it. As I've said before, if he cannot accept me as I am, I see that as his failing, not mine. And in that case, thank goodness for Satan. I have no more desire to be perfect than I have desire to seek god's forgiveness for my imperfections. Acceptance I would take, but forgiveness is patronizing and condescending.

[Lisa111]

Originally Posted by onion

Gravity is rational because we know it to be real. What if we were born on a planet where gravity did not exist? Someone discovers a planet with gravity and says "there is this place where you are held down to the grown and you do not float around" because we have not seen this we chose to ignore this statement or we believe in it because of Faith.

That's absurd! All planets have gravity.

God made creation perfect, man decided to stray from God. Just like Jamie. God allows us to make our own choices. If you have a kid, you can guide it and tell it what to do, but ultimately it is that kids choice to do what he or she wants to do, not yours. Though you desire for them to do the right thing, you allow them to make their own choices.

Perfect things do not spawn imperfection. If imperfection does not exist, nothing can be imperfect. If evil does not exist, nothing can be evil. That's like saying two dogs mated and spawned an animal that never existed...

I am truly amazed you can say that God is irrational. If you truthfully believe all of this is coincidence, that is foolish. Simply learn about DNA and it's complexity, to say there is no creator is ridiculous.

I prefer coincidence. Even if there were a higher power, how are we to know it's the Christian God?

Let me ask you, I want to build a car:
I put all the pieces required to build this car and all the tools in a garage to make this car. Billions of years pass by, eventually will this car create itself? No. It needs a creator.

I don't want you to reply to this because it's off topic. But, so you never ever say this ever again... A car cannot pull itself together because it's not a living, growing organism... Living growing organisms can pull themselves together.

[InSovietRussiaORGASMGotU]

Originally Posted by Annoni

Hmm. True enough, I guess, but missing key parts. It's the salvation that matters the most.

Why is salvation more important than the peacefulness, mercy, compassion, etc...? I think that they're all equally important but please explain your stance.

Originally Posted by Annoni

The OP asked about mixing with the Christian God, and I am forming my responses with that in mind. Let's just look how this works out from the beginning.

Bible: In the beginning, God...
OP: In the beginning, the god that I imagine...

Theoretically, yes, you could, but is it all right?

I don't see why it wouldn't be alright. The OP isn't destroying the beliefs of salvation, peace, mercy, compassion, etc... . There is now the idea of resurrection but still most of the christian belief is there.

Originally Posted by Annoni

Not true, really. Perfection is separation from imperfection. Perfection is not perfection at imperfection in part. I don't know how to make that more obvious. In extremes the opposite is not always true by relation or association to the extreme.

You're right on the definition of perfection. But you're ignoring the premise of my argument, which is the idea that god is perfect at every single possible thing (calling onto the idea of all-powerful if you want also). So by that, he must be perfect at imperfection because he is perfect at every thing. You cannot say he is perfect at everything except for imperfection. That's a contradiction.

Originally Posted by Annoni

Whoa, okay, you're far off track here. God did not commit any sins. At all! And yes, God's fury and rage is mentioned, but He loves His Creation and is angry with the sin, not the people.

LOL the underline shows you agreeing with what I said. It is anger nonetheless as the verse didn't specify the target of the anger. If you read my entire post on that section, you'd have seen that it read:

It does not matter if god hates the sin of the person or the person in general, it is hatred and dislike either way

So, seeing as how you have supported my argument, the only thing that is left is your argument for why god cannot sin. Ideally, try to present your argument without using circular reasoning, bare assertion fallacy and such.

Originally Posted by Annoni

Took that into account. Perfection is away from imperfection, imperfection is not found with perfection in actions or anything else by perfection.

The problem still stands that you ignored the premise for the perfection so you simply give me the definition of perfection.

Originally Posted by Annoni

See what I've said quite a few times now about God not being able to have a connection or relationship with sin. He doesn't decide for us to suffer endlessly.

Wait... so if god doesn't decide for us to go to hell, then who is judging? It cant be god so please explain this.

Originally Posted by Annoni

You see, since the beginning, Satan has envied God, and in His envy He wants to destroy God's creation, so Satan brought sin into our lives that is detestable to God. Actually, my girlfriend read a book that somewhat has this in it.

"Being unable to defeat God through raw power. Satan's legions decide to wound God as deeply as possible by stealing the love of his beloved through seduction, and having seduced them to his party, to ravage them body and soul, and having ravaged them to mock them, even as they are hurled to the depths of hell with God himself unable to save them because to their rejection of him. This is Satan's motivation and goal for every man, woman, and child into whom God ever breathed the breath of life, Like a roaring lion, he hungers for us"
His beloved, that is us, that is the people in the world. Soak it in. Satan is the perpetrator.

"Evil is not the point. The point is the love story. We live in a love story that is set in the midst of a war. When you understand those two things, you will suddenly understand Christianity, and you will understand your own life."
The war, that is the war on the spiritual level, the war between good and evil.
The love, that is the love from God

All of this simply is a biased view on Satan and on God. Essentially, whenever there's something bad you point the finger and say "SATAN, it was him all along" and whenever there's something good, you point the finger and say "GOD, it was him all along". That's all that the above quotes you gave are showing except it's constructed into a nice fancy story.

Originally Posted by Annoni

Related verses:
John 10:10 :: The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
1 Peter 5:8-9 :: Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.
James 4:7 :: Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Some of these verses can teach good morals. However, I'd rather have your explanation and your interpretations instead of you tossing me a bunch of biblical passages. I'm not interested in what the bible has to say, if I were, then I'd read it myself. I'm interested in what you have to say.

[Union Of V]

Originally Posted by onion

1. Yes it is much easier to believe in something with proof. But faith is another matter. Dictionary.com describes Faith as this: "belief that is not based on proof". Faith in science or religion is all based on proof, yes there's facts of both, yes science has more facts. This is why being Christian is on Faith.

2. Yes it is easier to put a belief in something with more facts. The bible says "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it" Matthew 7:13. Through this verse we can assume the people going to Heaven will not be many. So based off what you heard about humans like to believe what is based with facts, is true. But the question I ask is, how do you know your facts are facts? You don't, you believe what you hear, and what schools teach. I'm not saying some of these are true but I will show you what I mean in a minute. And I will agree with you this argument goes both ways, however I personally believe that science and every religion is simply there to avoid God. They want answers against God, so they say well because of this and this, there is no God. When in reality God is evident and factual through His creation. Again I will show you an example about the big bang in a minute.

3. The Bible does say God created other planets:
Genesis 1:14-16 (New American Standard Bible)

14Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years;
15and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so.
16God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also.

3. God created man to have a relationship with Him but we are born into darkness so we invent all these other means to escape being with God because we "love darkness rather than light". "This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil." John 3:19 this is what we will be judged upon. We love the Light or we love darkness.

Considering proof is needed to validate all fact, then the definition of faith in 1. implies that faith has not been validated, unlike scientific observances. QED we can ignore 2. and 3.

I'll only address one part of the debate so as not to fuel it - it's already gotten to a very advanced stage

So what image do we get of God? Someone who is completely uninterested with the plight of humans, and only wishes to save those who will worship him without questioning. He is content with condemning the hard working, the charitable, the concerned and the kind to eternal torture. Meanwhile Satan doesn't mind who joins his ranks, so long as they don't adhere to the dehumanised ranks of religion.

And you expect us to be CHRISTIANS?

[Lorelei]

Originally Posted by Concrete Girl

I've been thinking for awhile, that my doubts in God may not be doubts in God, but just rejection of the Christian faith in general, if that makes sense. My question, though, is can you believe in the Christian God but not be a Christian? For instance, I do not believe people who commit suicide go to Hell (which is a Christian belief) instead, I'm leaning towards believing they are simply immediately reincarnated, whereas those who do not commit suicide have the choice to be reincarnated or continue on to Heaven. I guess you could say that I'm kind of following my own beliefs, but they're not really common beliefs of the Christian Faith.

Does God mind if you mix and match beliefs? Do you have to part of a certain Religion? If you believe in the Christian God that doesn't made you a definite Christian, does it? I want to and always will believe in God, but I despise the Christian faith. Does that make any sense?

So anyway, I just want some input on all of this crap, so I figured, TH should be the perfect place for input on something like this.

Obviously, many devout/fundamentalist Christians would be against you, but if you don't like the Christian faith to begin with then it probably won't matter to you.

Your beliefs and practices are completely up to you. If you believe in God but you aren't religious, that's okay!

On a more personal note, I think it's really cool that you're figuring things out for yourself. Good luck!

[Protege]

Originally Posted by Concrete Girl

I've been thinking for awhile, that my doubts in God may not be doubts in God, but just rejection of the Christian faith in general, if that makes sense. My question, though, is can you believe in the Christian God but not be a Christian? For instance, I do not believe people who commit suicide go to Hell (which is a Christian belief) instead, I'm leaning towards believing they are simply immediately reincarnated, whereas those who do not commit suicide have the choice to be reincarnated or continue on to Heaven. I guess you could say that I'm kind of following my own beliefs, but they're not really common beliefs of the Christian Faith.

Does God mind if you mix and match beliefs? Do you have to part of a certain Religion? If you believe in the Christian God that doesn't made you a definite Christian, does it? I want to and always will believe in God, but I despise the Christian faith. Does that make any sense?

So anyway, I just want some input on all of this crap, so I figured, TH should be the perfect place for input on something like this.

Haha, you sound alot like the way i used to think before God finally came it my life. I was totally against the labeling of "Christian" and yet I was looking for something. I've driven through lots of bummpy roads in my life and one day i really crashed. I needed help and lots of it. (although at the time I didn't really believe in God, i doubted alot) But God has revealed himself to me and i am a strong believer now. It's not about the label, God is God no matter what you call yourself and if you want your life to turn around for the better, all it takes is giving God a chance to enter your life. I used to be really stubborn and would reject listening to anything about church, Jesus, and God. I didn't want anything to do with it because I thought the whole idea was a method of brainwash and pointing fingers at bad people.

It is true that sometimes you find "Christians" who are less than ideal. But we have to remember that we are all human and we all make mistakes. God doesn't ask us to be perfect. All He ask is for us to love Him the way He has always loved us. Although a life living for God does come with some cost attached. It's not an easy life, I can tell you that. But in the end I can guarantee you it's all worth it. The biggest and hardest thing we have to do in order to truly survive in this world is have faith in God.

Faith. That's a big word. What does it mean exactly. Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. We get so used to living a life where everything appeals to at least one of our five senses, that we come to the conclusion that if we can't see it, hear it, smell it, feel it, or taste it, then it's probably not real. And at first glance God doesn't seem to apply to any of those senses. But I tell you something, if you give Him a try and truly call out to Him with all your heart, He will come to you and soon you will be able to see him. You will be able to hear him, and you will most definately be able to feel Him. But it takes faith. Faith that he exist, faith that he loves us, and faith that his word is true.

The bible is his word. I know it's a hard concept to grasp. It took me a while to trust it too. No, there isn't any hardcore evidence saying that the bible is really God's word, other than what the bible says itself. But if that's something that you still doubt, ask God for an answer. You can talk to him. The same way you talk to any other friend. God WILL listen and he will answer. Maybe not literally with a great big voice, but he'll show you in other ways. You just have to be patient, keep your eyes and ears open, and and most important of all.... have faith.

The fact that your asking questions is a good thing. Your searching for answers and I can confidently tell you "everyone who asks recieves; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened."

Keep looking for answers, if you truly want to know more about God, the truth will be revealed. It's not about the names of "religion" but the relationship you have with God.
God Bless

your friend,
Protege

[PhoenixAlive]

Originally Posted by Annoni

Second, yes God minds very much if you mix and match beliefs. Do you know why?
The world is stuck under this childish notion that WE define who our God is. We control Him, and we can alter reality with our beliefs. If we believe reincarnation, there will be reincarnation.
Imagine the disappointment you would have when you end up Hell when you die.

Why would God care which human perception of him and "his word" we follow? God is entirely beyond human comprehension, so no one religion can claim to have Him pegged. I am of the belief that God and faith are universal (almost all theistic religions are right).

Originally Posted by onion

The thing about Christianity is you cannot pick and chose what and what not to believe. It's either all true or none of it is true. You either believe God, or you believe He is a liar. I can tell you I believe God, because for me there is to much evidence of His existence to call Him a liar, when the book is the WORD of God. So to eliminate any part of the Bible is eliminating what God Himself said.

I completely disagree with this. I was raised Roman Catholic and I still identify as that. However I don't think that in order to be Christian you have to believe in the Bible word for word.

God's word as written in the Bible was inspired by the Holy Spirit, not written by Him. There are many things in the Bible that do not apply to society today. There are many things in the Bible that do apply and that one should try to emulate when living their life. Custom and convention (the semantics of religion) are created by man, not God.

I think that God wants you to be a good person, to love others and yourself, and to have a relationship with Him. How you do that is entirely up to you.