[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.

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