Why did God create the earth?

[Warathel]

Yes I would most certainly like the fundamentalist christians viwes on the subject, i've heard a few but most of them are speculations and I simply wonder if any of you know why God created earth, and in what scripture thsi indeed what written.

But if you do not know of any written parchment on the subject please wimply tell me your oppinion, I would find it most fascinating.

[kobuk]

For eventual fellowship with us in the future. As per all of the plans for this that will bring this plan eventually to closure.]

We will be free-will beings who are infinitely loyal forever. In great part because we will have been directly instructed in how insane evil actually is. It's really really insane. But we have to learn that truth. And the existing Holy Angels will learn that truth right along side us in this perfect plan.

[Warathel]

yes but does that not make god human and thusly flawed in the sense that he wanted fellowship, god is flawless and thusly he can have no feelings, does teh church not teach that feelings betray you and are the devils strings to pull as he will, so thusly god can ahve no feelings and thusly he can have no need for fellowship which also questions why he created angels which for some reason people think are beutifull beings, dont get what tahts about, but I digress.

But are we really free-willed beings if we are forced to follow god, doesnt that make us the opposite. And evil is another flawed conept, its to general to even remotely apply to anything, evil is not insane, its simply confusing beacuse there are to many defintions of what truly is evil.

[sageoffools]

Yes I would most certainly like the fundamentalist christians viwes on the subject, i've heard a few but most of them are speculations and I simply wonder if any of you know why God created earth, and in what scripture thsi indeed what written.

But if you do not know of any written parchment on the subject please wimply tell me your oppinion, I would find it most fascinating.

Revelation 4:11 "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created."

Regarding your following questions, I will break them up into smaller parts to make answering them easier.

yes but does that not make god human and thusly flawed in the sense that he wanted fellowship, god is flawless and thusly he can have no feelings, does teh church not teach that feelings betray you and are the devils strings to pull as he will, so thusly god can ahve no feelings and thusly he can have no need for fellowship

First, let me say, your understanding here is flawed in several respects.
1. Yes, God is flawless, but He also has feelings.
(Deuteronomy 6:15 "For the LORD thy God [is] a jealous God among you lest the anger of the LORD thy God be kindled against thee, and destroy thee from off the face of the earth."
Ephesians 2:4 " But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us")
2. Feelings are not evil, although they can betray you. The problem that many churches have with feelings is that people often base all of their decisions on those feelings. Sometimes you have to do things in life that don't make you feel good.
3. God does not NEED fellowship, although He desires it. Similarly, a human does not NEED social interaction. Someone could be stranded on a deserted island and still survive, although there would be a strong desire for that interaction.

But are we really free-willed beings if we are forced to follow god, doesnt that make us the opposite.

Yes, we are free-willed beings...for now. We are not, at this point forced to follow or even acknowledge God. There will come a point when we die that our decision here on this earth, whether to follow God or reject Him, will be made permanent. Once you die you will be forced to recognize the authority of God (and at that point you will do it willingly) according to Philippians 2:10-11
" That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of [things] in heaven, and [things] in earth, and [things] under the earth;And [that] every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ [is] Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
But until you die you have a choice. "Choose wisely"

And evil is another flawed conept, its to general to even remotely apply to anything, evil is not insane, its simply confusing beacuse there are to many defintions of what truly is evil.
Even you do not totally believe what you have just written. If you are being totally honest you would admit that there are things that almost everyone on the planet would consider evil. Rape, murder, cannibalism, etc. would all be considered, by most, if not all, reasonable people "evil". The problem is, who gets to define what is "evil".
Is right and wrong (morality) based on public opinion? If this is the case we cannot fault the Nazis, public opinion in their country said "Kill the Jews". We cannot fault the Dutch for euthanizing the elderly, because public opinion says that they are useless and should be disposed of.
Is it based on personal feelings? It is right so long as it makes you feel good and doesn't infringe on someone else's rights. The first problem that you run into is defining rights. People see different things as their "right". Should we allow people to post pornographic billboards across the street from a school? No, because that billboard would be infringing on the rights of the students and their parents to learn about those things as their parents see fit. But to say no we are infringing on the rights of the landowner who wants to post the billboard.
Do we condemn the Unibomber? or Charles Manson? They were exercising their "right" to pursue their own happiness. And the pain of others brought them happiness. (Yes, a twisted form of happiness, but who are we to say they are wrong?) But they were infringing on the rights of others. True, but to condemn them would be to infringe on their "rights".
Perhaps right and wrong are based on a set of ideals conceived as our species "evolved". A set of rules that helped us determine how we could best live together. The problem is that society continually changes and "evolves". If this was the case the rules would continually have to change with them. If in 20 years murder was legalized it would still be wrong and still be evil. If in 50 years molesting children was legalized, it would still be a horrible, repulsive and evil act.
The definition for right and wrong cannot be determined by man, because that would give any other man the right to change those rules as he sees fit. So the logical conclusion is that there must be a predetermined standard. A set of rules that supersedes mans rules and feelings. Those rules are the rules given by God in the Bible.

[sageoffools]

My apologies, I realize my previous post strayed from the OP. But I believe the post was important and relevant.

[Warathel]

Do please read this and reply I have found these conversations most fascinating.


3. God does not NEED fellowship, although He desires it. Similarly, a human does not NEED social interaction. Someone could be stranded on a deserted island and still survive, although there would be a strong desire for that interaction.

Now your simply twisting words are you not? A man needs food, a man needs love, a man needs water and so on, and he also desires them, he can be without them, but not to well, a man needs fellowship or he will go insane and kill himself, a man on a desert island will eventually kill himself if not saved.

So as I see it here you are simply twisting words for thoose two mean the same, if a man desires something he must ahve it, and when a man must have something he needs it.

Yes, we are free-willed beings...for now. We are not, at this point forced to follow or even acknowledge God. There will come a point when we die that our decision here on this earth, whether to follow God or reject Him, will be made permanent. Once you die you will be forced to recognize the authority of God (and at that point you will do it willingly) according to Philippians 2:10-11
" That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of [things] in heaven, and [things] in earth, and [things] under the earth;And [that] every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ [is] Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
But until you die you have a choice. "Choose wisely"

No man is ever willingly forced, he is forced or has decides for himself, a man chooses, a slave obeys.

And is that not untrue in itself that I have a choice til' I die? Do I then ever have a choice, yes I have a choice over what I will do on this earth, but in the long run, did I ever have a choice? How can god create a being who has free-will and then restrain them to inevitably be judged, is that even fair? That the almighty god who created the earth gives us free-will to beleive waht we want and then takes us to his court and judges us, and then we stand there going "what the hell man, I went all over the world, i've seen hundreds of religions claiming that their god is the one true god, how was I supposed to know that you indeed was the one true god?" Don't you find that unjust?

Even you do not totally believe what you have just written. If you are being totally honest you would admit that there are things that almost everyone on the planet would consider evil. Rape, murder, cannibalism, etc. would all be considered, by most, if not all, reasonable people "evil". The problem is, who gets to define what is "evil".
Is right and wrong (morality) based on public opinion? If this is the case we cannot fault the Nazis, public opinion in their country said "Kill the Jews". We cannot fault the Dutch for euthanizing the elderly, because public opinion says that they are useless and should be disposed of.
Is it based on personal feelings? It is right so long as it makes you feel good and doesn't infringe on someone else's rights. The first problem that you run into is defining rights. People see different things as their "right". Should we allow people to post pornographic billboards across the street from a school? No, because that billboard would be infringing on the rights of the students and their parents to learn about those things as their parents see fit. But to say no we are infringing on the rights of the landowner who wants to post the billboard.
Do we condemn the Unibomber? or Charles Manson? They were exercising their "right" to pursue their own happiness. And the pain of others brought them happiness. (Yes, a twisted form of happiness, but who are we to say they are wrong?) But they were infringing on the rights of others. True, but to condemn them would be to infringe on their "rights".
Perhaps right and wrong are based on a set of ideals conceived as our species "evolved". A set of rules that helped us determine how we could best live together. The problem is that society continually changes and "evolves". If this was the case the rules would continually have to change with them. If in 20 years murder was legalized it would still be wrong and still be evil. If in 50 years molesting children was legalized, it would still be a horrible, repulsive and evil act.
The definition for right and wrong cannot be determined by man, because that would give any other man the right to change those rules as he sees fit. So the logical conclusion is that there must be a predetermined standard. A set of rules that supersedes mans rules and feelings. Those rules are the rules given by God in the Bible.


A most fascinating read I msut say and worthy of discussion. Yes I do beleive my theories and I might add I have theories not beleifs, of course all humans are bound to beleife in some form, beleif in oppinions, beuty, love, religion, whatever it is for a human to be certain he must beleive, just to make it clear that I am in no way putting myself above the common man, I beleive in my ideas, but they are still theories always ready to be changed and altered.

But Good and Evil, Right and Wrong are conepts that only slightly change through histroy, the base has always been there, murder has been wrong as long as civillization and even under that has been the norm, so has robbery and rape and all other common no-no's of our day. And putting up such extreme examples as the Nazi's and the Dutch does not seem to prove my theory innaccurate.

You see whats right and wrong has always been decided by the people, society and the human mind, the bible is a making of man and so is the morality it represents. Humans had to decide it was right, not god or Jesus but humans had to beleive it was the right morality and that it made sense, cause as you said, we are free beings ready and allowed to beleive what we want and thusly we had to beleive it for it to be correct.

Of course the greatest idea that denounces the theory that the bible is the most reputable source of morality, is the fact that even the bible is preceived differnetly, there are so many different kinds of churces and have been through time, that the idea that there is one ultimate and unquestionable idea of what the bible says, is indeed rodiculous beyond beleif. And also one should count in the fact that there have been so many translations, versions and editions of the bible that by now one cannot truly beleive that the bible they read is even remotely related to what was written in the beginning.

And of course when talking about good and evil one should always mention the gays for some reason, dont get why their so special to everyone, homosexuality is as natural as the sky and the earth. But I thought it would be interesting to mention my oppinions on the subject even though it is slightly off topic.

Christians of all kinds tend to say the same thing over and over, that homosexuality is unatural and that people are using their bodies in ways god did not intend. I'll start with the male anus for it is key in this argument. The male anus is constructed to give a man pleasure when tightened. And since god created humans he also created this pleasure trigger and thusly he created humans to be able to have anal sex and certainly enjoy it.

But I guess the one true argument against homosexuality is the idea that two males cannot reproduce, which is a really stupid complaint, there are millions of unwanted children probably happy to be under the care of two men, not only that but gay relationships in general cannot have accidental children and are thusly most often more prepared and willing for the task than straight couples are. Altough do not hold me to that to strongly.



Well im really excited to hear any oppinions on this, well, rant.

[sageoffools]

3. God does not NEED fellowship, although He desires it. Similarly, a human does not NEED social interaction. Someone could be stranded on a deserted island and still survive, although there would be a strong desire for that interaction.

Now your simply twisting words are you not? A man needs food, a man needs love, a man needs water and so on, and he also desires them, he can be without them, but not to well, a man needs fellowship or he will go insane and kill himself, a man on a desert island will eventually kill himself if not saved.
So as I see it here you are simply twisting words for thoose two mean the same, if a man desires something he must ahve it, and when a man must have something he needs it.

According to Merriam-Webster, Desire is:
1 : to long or hope for : exhibit or feel desire for <desire success>
2 a : to express a wish for : REQUEST (http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/request) [wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth]ey desire an immediate answer>
I do not see anywhere in that definition where it says desire=need.
Additionally, I am not twisting words, in fact, you are the one doing the twisting. If a man does not have food he will eventually die. If he does not have water he will also die. However, a man can go his entire life without love, but still be alive. The only question would be what was the quality of that life. The same could be said about a man that has no social interaction. True, many in solitary suffer mental health problems, but they do not die. The other difference is that we are imperfect, flawed people and we need things. We rely on things (like water and food) for our existence. God is perfect and does not need anything.

No man is ever willingly forced, he is forced or has decides for himself, a man chooses, a slave obeys.

And is that not untrue in itself that I have a choice til' I die? Do I then ever have a choice, yes I have a choice over what I will do on this earth, but in the long run, did I ever have a choice? How can god create a being who has free-will and then restrain them to inevitably be judged, is that even fair? That the almighty god who created the earth gives us free-will to beleive waht we want and then takes us to his court and judges us, and then we stand there going "what the h*$# man, I went all over the world, i've seen hundreds of religions claiming that their god is the one true god, how was I supposed to know that you indeed was the one true god?" Don't you find that unjust?

Yes, yo do really have a choice. There are laws that govern our countries, you have the choice whether to follow them or not. Is you ability to choose real? Yes. Will you be punished if, in making your choice, you choose not to follow those laws? Yes, but this does not make your freedom to choose any less real.
Additionally, you know that the God of the Bible is the one true God the same way that almost everyone who believes the Bible comes to that conclusion: study. The problem is that most people come to the Bible closed minded. If they even look at it at all they read it with the presupposition that it is faulty and erred. I used to work in a biotech lab. All 25-30 people in that lab were evolutionists with degrees in biology. Almost every one assured me that the Bible was faulty, yet none of them, by their own admission, had every actually read it. There are several (well known) people that have come to the Bible as atheists, skeptically looking to disprove the Bible and they all were changed by it. Each one of them wrote a book detailing why, after truly searching the Bible, they came to believe it. C.S.Lewis, "Mere Christianity", Lee Strobel "A Case for the Creator" and Josh McDowell "Evidence that Demands a Verdict". These are three of the best. I encourage you to read them and decide for yourself.


But Good and Evil, Right and Wrong are conepts that only slightly change through histroy, the base has always been there, murder has been wrong as long as civillization and even under that has been the norm, so has robbery and rape and all other common no-no's of our day. And putting up such extreme examples as the Nazi's and the Dutch does not seem to prove my theory innaccurate.

Actually, they do. The Nazi's said that murder was OK, so long as you were killing a Jew. The Dutch say killing is OK, as long as you are killing an elderly person. The Romans said that killing was OK, so long as you were killing a Christian. (These things were not only sanctioned, they were encouraged) However, just because their society and their government said they were right did not make them right. I think any reasonable person would agree that these things were wrong.
The law of right and wrong superseded the law of these governments and societies. But in order for one law to supersede another, the law must be created by someone higher in authority.
If we are both residents of a town, and you decide that you no longer want people walking on the sidewalk you cannot create a law, nor can you enforce a law on me, because you have no authority.


You see whats right and wrong has always been decided by the people, society and the human mind, the bible is a making of man and so is the morality it represents. Humans had to decide it was right, not god or Jesus but humans had to beleive it was the right morality and that it made sense, cause as you said, we are free beings ready and allowed to beleive what we want and thusly we had to beleive it for it to be correct.

The problem here is that in one statement you argue that we are not truly free-willed beings and in this statement you try to use the fact that we are free-willed beings as an argument against the validity of the Bible. You cannot argue against it a one point and then in another, try to use it to support your argument.
Additionally, your argument is erred. You do not have to believe something in order for it to be correct. A person in the jungles of South America may not believe that people get into metal boxes and travel around faster than any animal that he has ever seen. But the fact that he does not believe it does not keep it from being true. The Bible, and the ideals and morality that it teaches is true, and has always been true, whether people have believe and embraced it, or whether they have hated it and tried to rid the world of it.


And of course when talking about good and evil one should always mention the gays for some reason, dont get why their so special to everyone, homosexuality is as natural as the sky and the earth. But I thought it would be interesting to mention my oppinions on the subject even though it is slightly off topic.
Christians of all kinds tend to say the same thing over and over, that homosexuality is unatural and that people are using their bodies in ways god did not intend. I'll start with the male anus for it is key in this argument. The male anus is constructed to give a man pleasure when tightened.

First of all, I did not bring up gays. Secondly, the reason that Christians say that homosexuality is unnatural is because the Bible says that it is unnatural.
Romans 1:26-27 " For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet."
I will not get into any more discussion about gays, there are plenty of other threads to discuss that, and this post is lengthy enough.

And since god created humans he also created this pleasure trigger and thusly he created humans to be able to have anal sex and certainly enjoy it.

Finally, again you argue against something in one instance and then try to use it later to support your argument. People get pleasure from raping little children. Does that mean that God intended His creation to be used this way?


Yes I do beleive my theories and I might add I have theories not beleifs, of course all humans are bound to beleife in some form


Did I miss something?

[Warathel]

First off I do apologize for my previous rabble, said many things that were out of context but I thought it would be interesting to see your reaction on them, the pay off was not great though so I apologize and I'll try to stay more to the point.


According to Merriam-Webster, Desire is:
1 : to long or hope for : exhibit or feel desire for
2 a : to express a wish for
I do not see anywhere in that definition where it says desire=need.
Additionally, I am not twisting words, in fact, you are the one doing the twisting. If a man does not have food he will eventually die. If he does not have water he will also die. However, a man can go his entire life without love, but still be alive. The only question would be what was the quality of that life. The same could be said about a man that has no social interaction. True, many in solitary suffer mental health problems, but they do not die. The other difference is that we are imperfect, flawed people and we need things. We rely on things (like water and food) for our existence. God is perfect and does not need anything.

Well we are talking about a man as a person, not as a body, the body will die without water and food but a man will die without company will he not? Now it surely is my fault for not pointing that out earlier to strengthen my point, for in my folly I thought it was rather obvious.

Now I know I sounded like an accuser but I stand by my point in that you, not intentionally mind you, said the same thing, I was merely remarking upon in which way you twisted your words. And words have more meanings than those depicted in Webster mind you, are words not a philosophy of their own?

God does not NEED fellowship, although He desires it. Similarly, a human does not NEED social interaction. Someone could be stranded on a deserted island and still survive, although there would be a strong desire for that interaction.

I find this interesting so once more I shall bring it up.

Now does this not mean, that if God indeed simply desires fellowship, the fact that he created us, does that not mean that he needed fellowship? Let me clarify. You said a man desires fellowship but does not need it, if god simple desired fellowship why would he then create humanity if he did not need them, the fact that god created something out of desire, does that not seem strange?

Yes, yo do really have a choice. There are laws that govern our countries, you have the choice whether to follow them or not. Is you ability to choose real? Yes. Will you be punished if, in making your choice, you choose not to follow those laws? Yes, but this does not make your freedom to choose any less real.

Yes I do acknowledge our reality as free-willed beings, i am merely remarking on gods injustice in giving us free-will and then simply believing that we will come to the conclusion ourselves that he is the one true god when we are constantly surrounded by people saying that they hold the book of the one true god. I never denied the fact that we have free-will, I only questioned it.

Through time many has said that their book and their belief is the one true belief, that their belief makes the most sense and that their belief is unflawed and that their god is supreme have they not?

Many Christians of course love the argument that by statistics their religion is the largest, which is quite ridiculous, statistics are to trusted nowadays for they are highly fallible. First of Christianity is said to have 2.1 billion followers and the next in line is Islam with 1.4 billion followers. The thing here is that when counting christian followers one takes in all different groups based off christianity, which are incredibly diverse in their beliefs and most of them are religious opposites. So in a way, christianity is the least followed religion for it, as all religions is highly in consistent and each individual follows their own personal Jesus.

Now this argument may seem off topic but I assure you I only brought it up so that you would not argue to much against the statement previous to these two.

Additionally, you know that the God of the Bible is the one true God the same way that almost everyone who believes the Bible comes to that conclusion: study. The problem is that most people come to the Bible closed minded. If they even look at it at all they read it with the presupposition that it is faulty and erred. I used to work in a biotech lab. All 25-30 people in that lab were evolutionists with degrees in biology. Almost every one assured me that the Bible was faulty, yet none of them, by their own admission, had every actually read it. There are several (well known) people that have come to the Bible as atheists, skeptically looking to disprove the Bible and they all were changed by it. Each one of them wrote a book detailing why, after truly searching the Bible, they came to believe it. C.S.Lewis, "Mere Christianity", Lee Strobel "A Case for the Creator" and Josh McDowell "Evidence that Demands a Verdict". These are three of the best. I encourage you to read them and decide for yourself.

I will certainly try to find those books in good printings.

But I find your... Accusation one might call it, incorrect and rather ignorant, no offense intended. I do not believe that God is the one god, and I certainly don't believe any religion what so ever, especially not christianity. And I have done the study, I read the bible back when I was fifteen and it is true what Penn Jilette once said "reading the bible is the easiest way to become and atheist". I personally agree with that fully, for after I read the bible i had a hard time believing how anyone could believe it, of course I was fifteen so I guess i should read it again but I think I still have a point here. The bible is a really bad book, its poorly written, its got no real message and if anything it tells us how to live and it barely does that clearly, it is by far one of the most ridiculous religious books I have ever read.

And I have read a few mind you, not the Qur'an yet, hard to get a copy of it over here, but I have read the Tao (Dao) te Ching, Paradise Lost and several scriptures of Confucius. Currently trying to get a hold of a good copy of the Divine Comedy but its harder than I thought to get anything good from Sweden, poor supply on good books over here-

My point being that I have studied Christianity and other religions and Christianity is one of the least consistent and most non-direct and they claim that there's a message, a purpose of their holy book, but in reality it seems the book is mostly just long rabbles of events that doesn't seem to have taken place, and yes once can find certain opinions on the way man should live in the book, but it can all misread in so many ways that its ridiculous, the bible has no answers and even worse, it has no good questions.

And if you haven't I'd recommend you read the works of Oscar Wilde, Voltaire and Nietzsche.

Actually, they do. The Nazi's said that murder was OK, so long as you were killing a Jew. The Dutch say killing is OK, as long as you are killing an elderly person. The Romans said that killing was OK, so long as you were killing a Christian. (These things were not only sanctioned, they were encouraged) However, just because their society and their government said they were right did not make them right. I think any reasonable person would agree that these things were wrong.
The law of right and wrong superseded the law of these governments and societies. But in order for one law to supersede another, the law must be created by someone higher in authority.
If we are both residents of a town, and you decide that you no longer want people walking on the sidewalk you cannot create a law, nor can you enforce a law on me, because you have no authority.

I have a hard time seeing a point in this but I shall do my best to try and comprehend this, and do please tell me if I in any way have misread your views.

But I feel compelled to see where these extreme cases of good and evil can bring us and see if I can prove you wrong, or at least confuse you by using your own methods for I see now that you do indeed have a valid point with bringing up the Nazi's and the dutch, the question is, why are you not bringing up the Christians?

Christians, all over the world have killed countless men, women and children who did not believe as they did, the witch-burning or the crusades can be brought up for classic examples, and of course the bibles support of slavery and the idea that women are worth less then men, the bible is holy I hear, then be damned any man who believes that the idea that is holiness is a righteous one.

Preaching aside my point is, that the bible is not a reputable source of morality, and is certainly not a reputable source for good or evil thus proving my point that it is decided by people and is thus a loose concept that is simply inaccurate to define as one single impenetrable truth, is it not?

The bible, if anything should never be trusted for moral guidance, yes it tells you not to kill, and it tells you not to steal, but it tells more "evil" than "good", and I bet, that if you take your bible as I have here, you'll find that it is wriddled with what you would call evil.

And might I add that authority is not something one should respect, people who want authority are people who want power, and why should, no. How can, any man respect someone who wants power. Politics and policemen are dreadful necessities only in place because people are not smart enough to be civilized.

Finally, again you argue against something in one instance and then try to use it later to support your argument. People get pleasure from raping little children. Does that mean that God intended His creation to be used this way?

Now this statement confuses me greatly, I do fail to see how I in some way argue against myself here, my point was that it was natural to have anal sex for god created our bodies to enjoy it did he not? He did not create our bodies to have it enjoy small children in sexual ways, but he did create our bodies to enjoy anal sex, and he may not have intended it for men to have sex with each other, but then why did he place such a sensation there in the first place? That really is all I'm questioning.





I know you didn't bring up gays, I did, wanted to see if you had something on it, just for fun really, so lets not turn that into yet another conversation for it would be most unsatisfactory.

Now then, please respond this is getting more and more fascinating by the word.

[sageoffools]

In responding to your post I am going to remove my quotes that you quoted. I hope you realize that I am not trying to be sneaky, I am simply doing this for the length of the post.

Well we are talking about a man as a person, not as a body, the body will die without water and food but a man will die without company will he not? Now it surely is my fault for not pointing that out earlier to strengthen my point, for in my folly I thought it was rather obvious.
Now I know I sounded like an accuser but I stand by my point in that you, not intentionally mind you, said the same thing, I was merely remarking upon in which way you twisted your words. And words have more meanings than those depicted in Webster mind you, are words not a philosophy of their own?

I did not twist my words, despite your assertions. My point is that desire is not the same thing as need. The reason that I posted the Webster definition is to show that I am not the only one saying that. Desire not being need is a fairly well understood concept. I now understand that when you say "man" you are referring to th mental state of a man. A person does not mentally die from lack of contact, there have been plenty of people that were cut off from social contact that, when re-introduced to society, were able to pick back up their social life. True, they may be changed, but they are not dead.
Again, though, this argument is not really relevant to the issue of God. You are confining God to the way that we understand men. As I said before, God does not "need" anything, that also includes fellowship, He simply wants it (I have changed the word "desire" to "want" purposely, to avoid any other confusion. In America the word "desire" is often used interchangeably with "want" and rarely with "need". Again, I am not trying to be misdirective, but when I say "desire" I mean "want").

I find this interesting so once more I shall bring it up.
Now does this not mean, that if God indeed simply desires fellowship, the fact that he created us, does that not mean that he needed fellowship? Let me clarify. You said a man desires fellowship but does not need it, if god simple desired fellowship why would he then create humanity if he did not need them, the fact that god created something out of desire, does that not seem strange?

Ummm...no.
If you had the ability to create something out of nothing in order to satisfy a want that you had, would you not do so?
For example. Why do people have children? Do they "need" to have children? No. People can get along just fine, sometimes better, without them. People have children because they desire, or want, to have them. Is it strange that they create something out of a desire?

Through time many has said that their book and their belief is the one true belief, that their belief makes the most sense and that their belief is unflawed and that their god is supreme have they not?
Many Christians of course love the argument that by statistics their religion is the largest, which is quite ridiculous, statistics are to trusted nowadays for they are highly fallible. First of Christianity is said to have 2.1 billion followers and the next in line is Islam with 1.4 billion followers. The thing here is that when counting christian followers one takes in all different groups based off christianity, which are incredibly diverse in their beliefs and most of them are religious opposites. So in a way, christianity is the least followed religion for it, as all religions is highly in consistent and each individual follows their own personal Jesus.

I will concur to an extent. Statistics are often flawed, and often can be used to portray any data the user chooses it to show. Although the question of how many followers each religion has, or how those numbers are reported, is not really relevant to our discussion, I will make one comment about this.
When people in America refer to "Christianity" they are talking about people that base their religion on the Bible. (eg.Catholics, Baptists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, etc.) Now true, each of these religions interprets the Bible in a different way, they each claim to base their doctrines on the Bible, making them, by name at least, Christians.
I also understand your assertions that following even a Christian religion is difficult because even among "Christian" religions they all differ in their interpretation. Again, the way that you must decide, as I said before, is by study. I am not a Baptist because I have Baptist parents or Baptist family. I am a Baptist because the Baptists teach the Bible most closely to the way that I understand it and believe it. If the Baptist start changing what they teach, if, for example, the Baptists as a whole begin to deny that Jesus is the only way to Heaven, I will not change my belief and continue being a Baptist, I will quit being a Baptist and find a different religion. Unfortunately this is not the case with most people. Most people join a religion because they have family that are in that religion and they base their beliefs on what that religion teaches. I think they are wrong. I base my beliefs on what the Bible teaches, as I understand it, and I found a religion that is as close as possible to agreeing with me.


I will certainly try to find those books in good printings.
But I find your... Accusation one might call it, incorrect and rather ignorant, no offense intended. I do not believe that God is the one god, and I certainly don't believe any religion what so ever, especially not christianity. And I have done the study, I read the bible back when I was fifteen and it is true what Penn Jilette once said "reading the bible is the easiest way to become and atheist". I personally agree with that fully, for after I read the bible i had a hard time believing how anyone could believe it, of course I was fifteen so I guess i should read it again but I think I still have a point here. The bible is a really bad book, its poorly written, its got no real message and if anything it tells us how to live and it barely does that clearly, it is by far one of the most ridiculous religious books I have ever read...

My point being that I have studied Christianity and other religions and Christianity is one of the least consistent and most non-direct and they claim that there's a message, a purpose of their holy book, but in reality it seems the book is mostly just long rabbles of events that doesn't seem to have taken place, and yes once can find certain opinions on the way man should live in the book, but it can all misread in so many ways that its ridiculous, the bible has no answers and even worse, it has no good questions.

I find it interesting that over the past 2,000+ years there have been countries founded on the principles of the Bible (America), it has been studied, believed and revered by kings and generals, philosophers and physicists, generals and artists. Millions of people who, even if they did not believe every thing about the Bible, looked to it as a source of wisdom and guidance. But you, in your one brief reading though it as a young teenager have decided that not only is it all false, it is also poorly written and has no real answers for anyone.
I think at that point I would begin to question my own experience with the Bible.

I have a hard time seeing a point in this but I shall do my best to try and comprehend this, and do please tell me if I in any way have misread your views.
But I feel compelled to see where these extreme cases of good and evil can bring us and see if I can prove you wrong, or at least confuse you by using your own methods for I see now that you do indeed have a valid point with bringing up the Nazi's and the dutch, the question is, why are you not bringing up the Christians?
Christians, all over the world have killed countless men, women and children who did not believe as they did, the witch-burning or the crusades can be brought up for classic examples, and of course the bibles support of slavery and the idea that women are worth less then men, the bible is holy I hear, then be damned any man who believes that the idea that is holiness is a righteous one.
Preaching aside my point is, that the bible is not a reputable source of morality, and is certainly not a reputable source for good or evil thus proving my point that it is decided by people and is thus a loose concept that is simply inaccurate to define as one single impenetrable truth, is it not?
The bible, if anything should never be trusted for moral guidance, yes it tells you not to kill, and it tells you not to steal, but it tells more "evil" than "good", and I bet, that if you take your bible as I have here, you'll find that it is wriddled with what you would call evil.

I will heartily agree with you, the Bible is riddled with evil. It chock full of evil. Evil people, evil actions, evil words. The problem is that you seem to be equating the Bible recording it with the Bible sanctioning it. There are many heinous acts recorded in the Bible, but that does not mean that God is saying we all should commit those things, they are just being recorded because they happened. To be honest, I would be skeptical of a book that only recorded the good things that people did and never recorded anything bad.
To give an example, there is a man in Genesis named Lot. After his wife died his daughters got him drunk and slept with him in order to get pregnant. By recording this was the Bible condoning incest? Of course not, it was just recording the events as they happened.
As you mentioned, there Bible records slavery and abuse. But it is not condoning or encouraging those things. My history book in school records them to, but I don't think they are telling me I should go out and get a slave.
Finally, although I did not bring up "Christians" it is true that there have been many heinous crimes committed in the name of "Christianity" and the Bible. But I believe that they were wrong. I also think that if you look at the Bible you will see that the Bible teaches that they were wrong as well. Just because someone claims to be doing something in the name of God does not mean he really is.

Now this statement confuses me greatly, I do fail to see how I in some way argue against myself here, my point was that it was natural to have anal sex for god created our bodies to enjoy it did he not? He did not create our bodies to have it enjoy small children in sexual ways, but he did create our bodies to enjoy anal sex, and he may not have intended it for men to have sex with each other, but then why did he place such a sensation there in the first place? That really is all I'm questioning.

Think about a blender...Yeah, like a home blender that you would use to make smoothies. If I had some branches from a tree in my yard that I wanted to get rid of I could stick them in my blender. It would probably even chop up some of the branch, the problem is, that is not what the blender was designed to do.
Just because something can be used for one thing does not mean that it was designed for that. And often, when an object is used to do something that it was not designed for, it will eventually break. Maybe not the first time, or even the hundredth time, but typically, it will eventually break.


Now then, please respond this is getting more and more fascinating by the word.

I am glad that you are enjoying our exchange, I know I am. I only hope it is helpful.

[Warathel]

I did not twist my words, despite your assertions. My point is that desire is not the same thing as need. The reason that I posted the Webster definition is to show that I am not the only one saying that. Desire not being need is a fairly well understood concept. I now understand that when you say "man" you are referring to th mental state of a man. A person does not mentally die from lack of contact, there have been plenty of people that were cut off from social contact that, when re-introduced to society, were able to pick back up their social life. True, they may be changed, but they are not dead.
Again, though, this argument is not really relevant to the issue of God. You are confining God to the way that we understand men. As I said before, God does not "need" anything, that also includes fellowship, He simply wants it (I have changed the word "desire" to "want" purposely, to avoid any other confusion. In America the word "desire" is often used interchangeably with "want" and rarely with "need". Again, I am not trying to be misdirective, but when I say "desire" I mean "want").

I feel compelled to go back to my previous point of the statement, go way back that is. I do agree with you to a certain extent but I also feel that we are speaking with distinctively different purposes in mind and no development can be found in anymore discussion of words, so let me get down to my real point which I seem to have lost.

If god desired fellowship why did he create humanity, why did he create the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and why did he create the snake, and why did he create humans with free-will. To me that seems like an obvious recipe for disaster.

My true point, or question rather, is why did god create humanity and its surroundings in the Garden of Eden? How could an all knowing being like god not predict such an obvious mistake, that even for a lowly human is almost embarrassingly obvious. The mistake being the humans first error of eating the apples of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. How could he not predict such an obvious disaster, it makes little sense to me.

For god is over-perfect is he not? Of course humanities failure does not prove him imperfect, but it does in its own way prove that god is unjust and rather deceitful, in a way god is Satan and heaven is hell, I wont get into that to much because it'll just turn into a ramble. But do think about it, god put humanity into a situation with unfavorable odds, a newly created race, humans are probably quite stupid then, and god created the snake, so if the snake indeed is anything, it is not Satan it is god.

Some say god tested his creation and I find this quite ridiculous for is he not all knowing and should he not know the results of what would have happened for as I said, its quite obvious. God may not have told them to eat the apples directly, but his creation the snake was the perpetrator, and did he not decide how the snake should act and be?

Ummm...no.
If you had the ability to create something out of nothing in order to satisfy a want that you had, would you not do so?
For example. Why do people have children? Do they "need" to have children? No. People can get along just fine, sometimes better, without them. People have children because they desire, or want, to have them. Is it strange that they create something out of a desire?

No it is not strange to create something out of desire, but it is strange that god would create something just to satisfy himself, and then do unto it what I have written above.

I will concur to an extent. Statistics are often flawed, and often can be used to portray any data the user chooses it to show. Although the question of how many followers each religion has, or how those numbers are reported, is not really relevant to our discussion, I will make one comment about this.
When people in America refer to "Christianity" they are talking about people that base their religion on the Bible. (eg.Catholics, Baptists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, etc.) Now true, each of these religions interprets the Bible in a different way, they each claim to base their doctrines on the Bible, making them, by name at least, Christians.
I also understand your assertions that following even a Christian religion is difficult because even among "Christian" religions they all differ in their interpretation. Again, the way that you must decide, as I said before, is by study. I am not a Baptist because I have Baptist parents or Baptist family. I am a Baptist because the Baptists teach the Bible most closely to the way that I understand it and believe it. If the Baptist start changing what they teach, if, for example, the Baptists as a whole begin to deny that Jesus is the only way to Heaven, I will not change my belief and continue being a Baptist, I will quit being a Baptist and find a different religion. Unfortunately this is not the case with most people. Most people join a religion because they have family that are in that religion and they base their beliefs on what that religion teaches. I think they are wrong. I base my beliefs on what the Bible teaches, as I understand it, and I found a religion that is as close as possible to agreeing with me.

I gotta say I feel slightly disappointed that you did not respond to my true point, for I only mentioned the statistical folly so that you would know my stance on it if you were to use it against my true point, in a way it was merely a safety measure and I would like to read a response to my point and theory that the fact that there are so many religions and through time have been even more, in a way proves that no religion can logically say that their belief is the one true belief.

I find it interesting that over the past 2,000+ years there have been countries founded on the principles of the Bible (America), it has been studied, believed and revered by kings and generals, philosophers and physicists, generals and artists. Millions of people who, even if they did not believe every thing about the Bible, looked to it as a source of wisdom and guidance. But you, in your one brief reading though it as a young teenager have decided that not only is it all false, it is also poorly written and has no real answers for anyone.
I think at that point I would begin to question my own experience with the Bible.

I do not question my experience with the bible merely my study of it, then again the two are pretty much the same i guess. And I find myself curious over the fact that you bring up these arguments of nations and great men, for it does seem that more nations and cities have been founded on unity and pagan beliefs than that of christian. And a great man has no good deed done, great men die terribly it seems, and if they don't die terribly they live terribly. But to be more accurate I would certainly like to know which great men and nations beside the US you are talking about.

For the Americas is a land of the most vile beliefs don't you think? The United Statians as i like to call them, cant believe they would historically pride themselves with calling themselves Americans, its the continent for Thor's sakes not your petty history. Very close to an off topic rabble here and I do believe we should learn from our previous mistakes and not rant on this completely different discussion any further but I would feel remiss if I were to delete my previous statement so if it bothers you simply ignore it, if not, then I guess some off topic chatter wont hurt a soul.

I will heartily agree with you, the Bible is riddled with evil. It chock full of evil. Evil people, evil actions, evil words. The problem is that you seem to be equating the Bible recording it with the Bible sanctioning it. There are many heinous acts recorded in the Bible, but that does not mean that God is saying we all should commit those things, they are just being recorded because they happened. To be honest, I would be skeptical of a book that only recorded the good things that people did and never recorded anything bad.
To give an example, there is a man in Genesis named Lot. After his wife died his daughters got him drunk and slept with him in order to get pregnant. By recording this was the Bible condoning incest? Of course not, it was just recording the events as they happened.
As you mentioned, there Bible records slavery and abuse. But it is not condoning or encouraging those things. My history book in school records them to, but I don't think they are telling me I should go out and get a slave.
Finally, although I did not bring up "Christians" it is true that there have been many heinous crimes committed in the name of "Christianity" and the Bible. But I believe that they were wrong. I also think that if you look at the Bible you will see that the Bible teaches that they were wrong as well. Just because someone claims to be doing something in the name of God does not mean he really is.

Ah, how perfectly exquisite, did you not just prove my point? By your words, a man can misinterpret the bible can he not? That does bring up the question, what makes you certain that your interpretation is correct, don't you think that's hubris? And please do not answer that its right because you believe it for I would be most disappointed.

And yes the bible is indeed filled with cruelty, no readable book can be without it, but my point is just what i previously stated, the bible has done more evil than good in the interpretation of men, and my point with this whole discussion on good and evil is that the bible should not be trusted for a good guide, for it should be clear to you now that the bible is only what you believe it to be and the interpretation of it is vast and sometimes strange, but often logical, and if you think your interpretation is infallible you are indeed a poor christian. no accusation intended, mere speculation.

Think about a blender...Yeah, like a home blender that you would use to make smoothies. If I had some branches from a tree in my yard that I wanted to get rid of I could stick them in my blender. It would probably even chop up some of the branch, the problem is, that is not what the blender was designed to do.
Just because something can be used for one thing does not mean that it was designed for that. And often, when an object is used to do something that it was not designed for, it will eventually break. Maybe not the first time, or even the hundredth time, but typically, it will eventually break.

I am quite delighted that we are still talking about this for it interests me greatly, now then.

I find your metaphor unrelatable and really just a longer version of what you stated before and what you stated later in that post. I guess my point did not come across so I guess I'll have to evolve it.

My true question here, is why did god create the pleasure trigger, there is no need for it right? There is no point to it at all, correct? But for it to be used to anally pleasure a man, now why did call "install" such a function onto a human if he did not meant us to use it? Of course we do not have to use it, but if god did not indeed for us to have anal sex or same sex relations, why was he so foolish as to create a function that gave us a damn good reason to do it? Is he testing us once again? If he is then I find he is far worse a Tyrant than that of Hitler.



Its hard not to appreciate conversations like this, all Christians I have talked to either believe in god but don't care or tell me to shut up because I apparently am a walking bastion of deceit and lies, quite irrational really,

So I commend you for your rationality for it pleases me greatly.

[cubanito]

I am very sorry that you have met Christians that "shut you up" rather than engaging your ideas in respectful dialogue or debate.

I would like to address your initial question only. I will not devote the time to chasing down every new question you pose, but would be glad to discuss one thing at a time. Sageoffolls and you can continue your multiquote fest, I would rather deal w only ONE topic at a time.

We believe God is the Greatest Being.

Now, what is greater, that which is Impersonal only, like some amorphous "force" way out there, or that which is not only an enormous force way out there, but is ALSO a personal being right next to you?

People think the greatest and most powerful is somehow a "big" and distant thing, unaproacheable and unintelligeble. Sort of like a giant that we ants can know of, but which, because it is so gaint, is unawares of us.

But in reality, God is much, much greater than that. He is not only Infinitely "large", He is also infinitessimally small. God can not only place the universe as His footstool, He is also able to fit Himself inside atomic nuclei.

Thus God is more than some "force", like an amorphous tapioca pudding permeating everything and responding impersonally. He is ALSO a personal Being, in fact, in a matter we CAN NOT understand, He is 3 Personal Beings.

When I was an agnostic, it seemed rational to me that, if there were a God, I shouldn't be able to fully understand Him. Think about it: is it logical that you should be able to make sense of the totality of the Creator of the universe, if such a Creator is real? No, of course not. If the Creator of the Universe is real, such a Being would have some aspects that would be rational enough to understand, but such a Being would also have aspects that are beyond any human understanding.

And so we have the Christian God, a Being that is partially explainable, but at the core will forever remain beyond full description.

Now, such a Being SHOULD be Personal. That which is Impersonal, like electricity or a rock, is less than that which is personal, like me. I am both a compilation of various atoms and forces, all very impersonal, and something more, something which does not change even when those atoms flow in and out of me, and those forces as well. In a sense, to a materialist, I am more than the sum of my material parts: I am a person. I am greater than just a rock or a force. I am both an "it", an object occupying timespace AND a person, a being, or as the Scriptures call me, the image of God. Like Dr Evil's "mini-me" clone, I am a "mini-god".

So why did God create anything? Why not simply remain in the content bliss of Himself? Becasue He could. Because He chose to. Because, Being Greater than an impersonal tapioca-pudding-like force, He made a choice.

The god you propose is an impotent god, no more vital than, well, a tapioca-like-force. Some handy-dandy tool that a Jedi might tap into. But not a Person. A real Person with feelings, and plans and choices.

Now, can I give you a detailed map of this God? Can I set Him out in a nice algorythm, or stuff Him in a well proportioned box, put a ribbon on it, and deliver Him to you on Cristmas? No, sorry, God is a Lion. A wild untamable beast that is not fully predictable, nor necessarily plays "nice." My God has Claws, and Fangs, and has been known to rip people apart for looking at Him the wrong way.

No, He is not a tame Lion, but He is a Good Lion.

While His claws frighten me, and will one day frighten you as well, if you smell His musty breath and look into His eyes all your fears will melt away. For in Him there is Goodness, and Forgiveness, and an Everlasting Lovingkindness that is available to anyone willing to kneel and confess they have done Him wrong.

This is God. He is much, much Greater than the impersonal pantheistic force of Star Wars and the Hindoos. He is much, much Greater than the formulaic far away ineffable God of Islam. This is a God that became a man. That ate and peed and eventually got nailed to a tree and died for all the rotten evil things you have done, and I have done, to show us how much it has cost Him to make you, and to make me.

This is God, the only True God.

He made the Earth because He felt like it. And now the ball is in YOUR court, having been made with a will, you now too have a choice, for

"In the end there will only be 2 kinds of people. Those who say to God 'Your Will be done.' or those to whom God says 'your will be done."

JR

[Warathel]

That was indeed a delightfull read, worhy of discussion.

One thing that bothers me about religious people is that their all so damn certain of themselves, it is most vulgar if you ask me. Then again only other people are vulgar so my previous statement should be taken lightly. But it is still what bothers me, I am a man of doubt, I think you should question everything, especially those things that you are most certain of. And religion, like conspiracy theories tend to beleive that the absence of proof proves their religion. I beg to differ but I am also skeptic of the idea of proof, for it cannot always be found and logic should rule in its stead, I am no scientist but a rationalist. And that is why I find your theories/beleifs most interesting.

But what I found truly strange about religious folk such as yourself is that for soem reason you think you are correct, have you not heard what you beleive from humans? have not priests, a human written book and a pope told you it is so? Religion is certainly a human creation and I find it most foolish to beleive the words of humans, question them I found wise.

But what bothers me most of all is that religious folk such as yourself have in some rather strange way made themselves beleive that their religion is supreme, a religious persons faith can always bring him far above atheists and look down upon them with the pity so many beleive is righteous, but the idea that he can use his faith to denounce others is simply arrogant.

No human wants to be human, humans want to rise above what they are, its really quite natural to have the need to evolve some just found a shortcut. Religion is that very shortcut, a preacher comes up to you and tells you: "By not even having to think and simply obey the priests YOU can enter paradise, not only that but we beleive that you youself are a god in your own right". What an easy shortcut ey?

Of course im not saying this is the word on every priests tounge I am simply putting forward my point that religion, every religion is a shortcut to greatness, one that to many follow in folly for religion is false evolution.

There was never a single god if at all, human psychology proves it, but billions of personal gods, the fact that no human beleives identically to the other is the very proof of this theory. Of course it is understandable that not everyone beleives exactly the same, but everyone do not only beleive differently but carries the arrogant notion that their beleif is the correct one.



I do hope you respond cause judging form your previous post I can only imagine a creative and enjoyable response.

[sageoffools]

Warathel, I apologize for my delay in responding to your questions. I was actually out sick for the weekend. Now that I am back I am happy to respond to you.

If god desired fellowship why did he create humanity, why did he create the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and why did he create the snake, and why did he create humans with free-will. To me that seems like an obvious recipe for disaster.
My true point, or question rather, is why did god create humanity and its surroundings in the Garden of Eden? How could an all knowing being like god not predict such an obvious mistake, that even for a lowly human is almost embarrassingly obvious. The mistake being the humans first error of eating the apples of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. How could he not predict such an obvious disaster, it makes little sense to me.
For god is over-perfect is he not? Of course humanities failure does not prove him imperfect, but it does in its own way prove that god is unjust and rather deceitful, in a way god is Satan and heaven is hell, I wont get into that to much because it'll just turn into a ramble. But do think about it, god put humanity into a situation with unfavorable odds, a newly created race, humans are probably quite stupid then, and god created the snake, so if the snake indeed is anything, it is not Satan it is god.
Some say god tested his creation and I find this quite ridiculous for is he not all knowing and should he not know the results of what would have happened for as I said, its quite obvious. God may not have told them to eat the apples directly, but his creation the snake was the perpetrator, and did he not decide how the snake should act and be?

Let me sum up what I think you are asking, and then answer that. (Please feel free to correct me if I do not have your questions right). Your question seems to be one two-fold question, which is as follows:
Did God know that people were going to do wrong? And, if so, why would He create the world in such a way as to allow people to do that wrong and then judge them for it?
1. Yes, God knew that people were going to do wrong. This does not, however, mean that He caused them to do wrong, or that He is to blame for them doing wrong.
2. As I have stated before, God created humanity out of the desire for fellowship. Can you have fellowship with a robot? No. If you ask a robot a question it will tell you what you tell it to tell you. A robot does not have autonomous thought. The reason that man was created with a free will is because without free will there is no true fellowship. We would be robots. God would say "Tell me you love me" and we would say "We love you God". God wants us to love Him because we choose to love Him. If love is not a choice, it is not truly love. Which brings me to the next point. God created the Garden and the tree because without a choice it is not truly free will. If I tell my son he can pick what he wants to eat for dinner, and the only choice I give him is chicken, did he really get to choose? In order for freewill to be freewill one must have a real choice. If God created the Garden and said they could eat from any tree at all, they would not really have freewill. They would obey God because they had no other option. He placed the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden, not to test them, but because without the tree they would not really have freewill. They would not have a choice whether or not to follow God.
You say that man was created in the Garden with unfavorable odds. I find this curious. Man was placed in a giant Garden, filled with all of the fruits and vegetables that they could ever want or need. Every day God would come down in spirit to visit with them personally. In the middle of the garden He put one tree...ONE tree! There were no neighbors to want to steal their things. There were no other women to want to have an affair with. There was no one to fight with or want to kill. There was simply Adam and Eve and one tree that they were told not to eat. Those seem like pretty good odds to me.
You also talk of the injustice of God for creating man and placing him in the Garden with that tree. For giving him a choice and then punishing him when he makes the wrong one. Would you not think God more unjust for creating a world full of beings and giving us no ability to choose. Would it not seem more wrong for Him to create all of humanity as a group of mindless automatons who do good because we must, and worship and follow God because it is our programming? God has given us the wonderful gift of choice, what you do with it is what will either damn you or save you.

I gotta say I feel slightly disappointed that you did not respond to my true point, for I only mentioned the statistical folly so that you would know my stance on it if you were to use it against my true point, in a way it was merely a safety measure and I would like to read a response to my point and theory that the fact that there are so many religions and through time have been even more, in a way proves that no religion can logically say that their belief is the one true belief.

I think that if you had looked a little closer at the end of my response you will see that I did answer your question, although it may not have been as direct as you were looking for.
I do agree with you wholeheartedly. I do not think that any religion can claim that they are the one true religion. I am not even talking about religions. What I AM talking about is you, or anyone, taking the Bible, through careful reading and study deciding what you believe to be true, and then joining a church that teaches as closely as possible what you believe.
The reason I am a Baptist is because the Baptist church teaches the Bible the most closely to the way that I believe it.
There are times though, that you will be challenged on the things that you believe and as you study and grow in your understanding of the Bible you may even have to change religions.


Ah, how perfectly exquisite, did you not just prove my point? By your words, a man can misinterpret the bible can he not? That does bring up the question, what makes you certain that your interpretation is correct, don't you think that's hubris? And please do not answer that its right because you believe it for I would be most disappointed.

I do not think that I am always right. In fact, there are many times that I have talked with someone, discussing my interpretation of a passage from the Bible and they have shown me, from other Bible passages why my interpretation is incorrect. In those instances I change my understanding of the Bible. The problem is that there are entire religions based on false interpretations of the Bible. But when you show them, from other Bible passages, why their interpretation is incorrect they deny it and desperately cling to those things, simply because they are taught by their religion.
This brings me back to my original answer. The way that I come up with my interpretation of the Bible is by comparing Bible passages together. If there is a passage I don't understand I look at it in light of other passages to gain an understanding of it. I am not always right, but there are certain Bible fundamentals that I have cemented for myself in my own mind that I am correct about. I have done this by comparing scripture passages together and drawing a conclusion from them. There are reasons why I have chosen to join the Baptists and not another religion, but I will not get into that here.


And yes the bible is indeed filled with cruelty, no readable book can be without it, but my point is just what i previously stated, the bible has done more evil than good in the interpretation of men, and my point with this whole discussion on good and evil is that the bible should not be trusted for a good guide, for it should be clear to you now that the bible is only what you believe it to be and the interpretation of it is vast and sometimes strange, but often logical, and if you think your interpretation is infallible you are indeed a poor christian. no accusation intended, mere speculation.

Again, I do not think that all of my interpretation is infallible, but there are certain essential portions that I believe, through much study and comparison, I am correct about. I will concede and give one example. The Catholics, from what I understand, teach that in order to get to Heaven you must be a good person and do good works, hoping your good works outweigh your bad works. I believe that the Bible teaches that it is only by believing in Jesus Christ and asking Him to save you, that you can go to Heaven. I believe that based on several Bible passages. Titus 3:5a " Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us..." & Ephesians 2:8-9 "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God:Not of works, lest any man should boast."
This is one example, and two verses, just to give you an idea of how I have come to the conclusion that I have come to about the Bible. Again, the problem is that many people read the Bible with preconceived ideas about what they believe and then they try to find Bible verses to support those beliefs.


I find your metaphor unrelatable and really just a longer version of what you stated before and what you stated later in that post. I guess my point did not come across so I guess I'll have to evolve it.
My true question here, is why did god create the pleasure trigger, there is no need for it right? There is no point to it at all, correct? But for it to be used to anally pleasure a man, now why did call "install" such a function onto a human if he did not meant us to use it? Of course we do not have to use it, but if god did not indeed for us to have anal sex or same sex relations, why was he so foolish as to create a function that gave us a damn good reason to do it? Is he testing us once again? If he is then I find he is far worse a Tyrant than that of Hitler.
Sheep feel pleasure when people have intercourse with them. Some people feel pleasure when they have intercourse with sheep. Does this mean that God must have designed us to have intercourse with sheep? I think not.


Its hard not to appreciate conversations like this, all Christians I have talked to either believe in god but don't care or tell me to shut up because I apparently am a walking bastion of deceit and lies, quite irrational really,
So I commend you for your rationality for it pleases me greatly.
Oh, I think you misunderstand, I DO think you are a bastion of lies and deceit.:D I am only kidding. I am always happy to discuss things of the Bible, particularly if people have real and valid questions.

[Warathel]

Let me sum up what I think you are asking, and then answer that. (Please feel free to correct me if I do not have your questions right). Your question seems to be one two-fold question, which is as follows:
Did God know that people were going to do wrong? And, if so, why would He create the world in such a way as to allow people to do that wrong and then judge them for it?
1. Yes, God knew that people were going to do wrong. This does not, however, mean that He caused them to do wrong, or that He is to blame for them doing wrong.
2. As I have stated before, God created humanity out of the desire for fellowship. Can you have fellowship with a robot? No. If you ask a robot a question it will tell you what you tell it to tell you. A robot does not have autonomous thought. The reason that man was created with a free will is because without free will there is no true fellowship. We would be robots. God would say "Tell me you love me" and we would say "We love you God". God wants us to love Him because we choose to love Him. If love is not a choice, it is not truly love. Which brings me to the next point. God created the Garden and the tree because without a choice it is not truly free will. If I tell my son he can pick what he wants to eat for dinner, and the only choice I give him is chicken, did he really get to choose? In order for freewill to be freewill one must have a real choice. If God created the Garden and said they could eat from any tree at all, they would not really have freewill. They would obey God because they had no other option. He placed the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden, not to test them, but because without the tree they would not really have freewill. They would not have a choice whether or not to follow God.
You say that man was created in the Garden with unfavorable odds. I find this curious. Man was placed in a giant Garden, filled with all of the fruits and vegetables that they could ever want or need. Every day God would come down in spirit to visit with them personally. In the middle of the garden He put one tree...ONE tree! There were no neighbors to want to steal their things. There were no other women to want to have an affair with. There was no one to fight with or want to kill. There was simply Adam and Eve and one tree that they were told not to eat. Those seem like pretty good odds to me.
You also talk of the injustice of God for creating man and placing him in the Garden with that tree. For giving him a choice and then punishing him when he makes the wrong one. Would you not think God more unjust for creating a world full of beings and giving us no ability to choose. Would it not seem more wrong for Him to create all of humanity as a group of mindless automatons who do good because we must, and worship and follow God because it is our programming? God has given us the wonderful gift of choice, what you do with it is what will either damn you or save you.

So God created the garden of eden and in it put his new creation, man, then when man was lonely he created the woman and placed here there as well, and then, he created a tree in order to give them free-will and thought, but he needed to be certain they ate the tree's fruits so he created a snake to fool them into eating the fruit. Then he cast them out of his garden and had them worship him because he needed love? For you see the need for love is the most selfish for it is also the most needed amongst men is it not so? So god needed love and to get it, he made sure his creation failed him so that he could punish them to an eternity of worship (or at least until the world ended for some reason), and if they did not worship him he would cast them into the hellfire when they died to scream and suffer for an eternity? If you ask me god works in mysterious, inefficient and breathtakingly cruel ways. And they said the native americans followed false gods, humanities desire to worship cruelty remains a mystery to me still.

I think that if you had looked a little closer at the end of my response you will see that I did answer your question, although it may not have been as direct as you were looking for.
I do agree with you wholeheartedly. I do not think that any religion can claim that they are the one true religion. I am not even talking about religions. What I AM talking about is you, or anyone, taking the Bible, through careful reading and study deciding what you believe to be true, and then joining a church that teaches as closely as possible what you believe.
The reason I am a Baptist is because the Baptist church teaches the Bible the most closely to the way that I believe it.
There are times though, that you will be challenged on the things that you believe and as you study and grow in your understanding of the Bible you may even have to change religions.

Truly the greatest human flaw is certainty, more specifically certainty in opinions, the wise have theories and conclusions ready to be changed, the religious have decisions it seems. I am not wise I am merely a fool amongst fools but it does seem to me that deciding something is like giving up thinking. You say that you studied the bible, decided it was true and then joined a church to be amongst those that felt the same? Seems far to popular to follow such a course nowadays, instead of studying everything people like to study one thing, believe it and then go to regular meetings to talk about how great it is that they all agree. Sorry a slight fit of anger came over me there that may not apply to you, but I digress.

You do say that you might find something that may lead you to another religion, I wonder why you are open to go between religions yet not open to go by yourself in the study of the world.

I do not think that I am always right. In fact, there are many times that I have talked with someone, discussing my interpretation of a passage from the Bible and they have shown me, from other Bible passages why my interpretation is incorrect. In those instances I change my understanding of the Bible. The problem is that there are entire religions based on false interpretations of the Bible. But when you show them, from other Bible passages, why their interpretation is incorrect they deny it and desperately cling to those things, simply because they are taught by their religion.
This brings me back to my original answer. The way that I come up with my interpretation of the Bible is by comparing Bible passages together. If there is a passage I don't understand I look at it in light of other passages to gain an understanding of it. I am not always right, but there are certain Bible fundamentals that I have cemented for myself in my own mind that I am correct about. I have done this by comparing scripture passages together and drawing a conclusion from them. There are reasons why I have chosen to join the Baptists and not another religion, but I will not get into that here.

I do still wonder, why are you so certain that you are correct? Did not humans first introduce you to the bible, did not humans write the bible? What makes you so certain the bible is the words of god and that the priest is a man of god instead of just a man in a robe? Mind you these are rather philosophical questions that beg to be dissected and questioned, and one might ask me why I'm so certain that there are no gods? And my answer is that I am not certain and will never be certain that when I die I'll become a ghost, be judged by god or someone will whisper in my ear who I believe in, or perhaps I'll be reincarnated into a larger bull. I do not know, but what makes you so certain that you do, when what you believe lies in the pencils and tongues of men?

Again, I do not think that all of my interpretation is infallible, but there are certain essential portions that I believe, through much study and comparison, I am correct about. I will concede and give one example. The Catholics, from what I understand, teach that in order to get to Heaven you must be a good person and do good works, hoping your good works outweigh your bad works. I believe that the Bible teaches that it is only by believing in Jesus Christ and asking Him to save you, that you can go to Heaven. I believe that based on several Bible passages. Titus 3:5a " Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us..." & Ephesians 2:8-9 "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God:Not of works, lest any man should boast."
This is one example, and two verses, just to give you an idea of how I have come to the conclusion that I have come to about the Bible. Again, the problem is that many people read the Bible with preconceived ideas about what they believe and then they try to find Bible verses to support those beliefs.

So your saying I can rape women and go to heaven by still just believing in jesus? I don't think so for it seems to me that you believe the same as The Catholics, that a man of good deeds and belief goes to heaven and that a man of ill deeds and belief or disbelief goes to hell, the humorous part is that by what you have stated one can certainly come to the conclusion that you think that a man of good deeds and disbelief is worthy of eternal torment? If that is gods way then damn is he a cruel bastard, but once again I digress.

My point is not that you believe the same as catholics cause it does not seem that you do, my point is simply what I just did and it should in some way prove the nature of human interpretation. But let me be clearer. The Bible is the words of god written down by humans, or so humans claim, then the bible was translated through the ages to the editions we have now, of course they were translated by humans. This does beg the question of the current bible can even be relied on to be accurate, I mean the newer editions of The Picture of Dorian Gray is twenty pages shorter so then imagine what could have happened to the bible if it has been translated and rewritten in countless languages and by countless people with the original source being latin which is a language where each sentence can mean about ten different things each with various variations. So it is certainly hard to trust that the bible you have is a correctly translated copy of the original words of god, of course you can always end the debate by saying that you believe it is so, but if you do you also prove my point that certainty is not an argument. Thus, by something as simple as this, do you not agree that the bible itself is untrustworthy and to leave its even still cryptic words to be interpreted by humans, is damn foolish.

Sheep feel pleasure when people have intercourse with them. Some people feel pleasure when they have intercourse with sheep. Does this mean that God must have designed us to have intercourse with sheep? I think not.

I do not like quoting especially not the bible but you quoted this passage at the beginning of this argument of ours that interests me:

Romans 1:26-27 " For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet."

From this quote I did realize the difficulty in arguing against belief, you believe homosexuality is wrong, not because it is logical or rational, but because a book told you so, someone once said that the argument "there are no atheists in foxholes" is not an argument against atheists but an argument against foxholes. So indeed your opinion seems to be based in the idea that you believe homosexuality to be wrong and unnatural, but what is natural is a religion of its own. I do not believe there is nothing wrong with being homosexual I simply see no reason that it is wrong, I see no reason why the love between two men or two women is wrong, but I find it curious that christians such as yourself find their love wrong and unnatural, yet the love of god is pure something I have many times over spoken against in this here post.

[kobuk]

Look at the end product to see what all of the previous was about. The end product is an infinitely loyal freewill creature. Millions of individual redeemed and ressurrected from out of fallen mankind. Impossible to produce any other way then by every means we will have witnessed, when looking back later from Heavan upon the entire past of fallen humanity and also fallen angelic history. Remember that up there will be every generation from Adam onward. Better more accurate stories cannot be told than by the actual accounts of the witnesses.

The great cloud of witnesses surely includes the Holy Angels. ;)
Heb 12:1 (http://www.searchgodsword.org/desk/?query=heb+12:1&translation=kjv&st=1&new=1&sr=1&l=en) - [In Context (http://www.searchgodsword.org/desk/?query=heb+12:1&t=kjv&st=1&new=1&sr=1&sc=1&l=en)|Read Chapter (http://www.searchgodsword.org/desk/?query=heb+12&t=kjv&st=1&new=1&l=en)|Original Greek (http://www.searchgodsword.org/isb/bible.cgi?query=heb+12:1&translation=kjv&ot=bhs&nt=na&sr=1&l=en)]
Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloudof witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

...peace.

[Warathel]

Do you have a point?

[sageoffools]

So God created the garden of eden and in it put his new creation, man, then when man was lonely he created the woman and placed here there as well, and then, he created a tree in order to give them free-will and thought, but he needed to be certain they ate the tree's fruits so he created a snake to fool them into eating the fruit. Then he cast them out of his garden and had them worship him because he needed love? For you see the need for love is the most selfish for it is also the most needed amongst men is it not so? So god needed love and to get it, he made sure his creation failed him so that he could punish them to an eternity of worship (or at least until the world ended for some reason), and if they did not worship him he would cast them into the hellfire when they died to scream and suffer for an eternity? If you ask me god works in mysterious, inefficient and breathtakingly cruel ways. And they said the native americans followed false gods, humanities desire to worship cruelty remains a mystery to me still.

Truly the greatest human flaw is certainty, more specifically certainty in opinions, the wise have theories and conclusions ready to be changed, the religious have decisions it seems. I am not wise I am merely a fool amongst fools but it does seem to me that deciding something is like giving up thinking. You say that you studied the bible, decided it was true and then joined a church to be amongst those that felt the same? Seems far to popular to follow such a course nowadays, instead of studying everything people like to study one thing, believe it and then go to regular meetings to talk about how great it is that they all agree. Sorry a slight fit of anger came over me there that may not apply to you, but I digress.

You do say that you might find something that may lead you to another religion, I wonder why you are open to go between religions yet not open to go by yourself in the study of the world.


It seems that we are getting nowhere in our discussions. You assert that 1. God does not exist and 2. If God did exist, as He is understood in the Bible, He would be evil and cruel.
The problem that I have with all of your assertions, the problem that I have with the accusations of the majority of people that I have talked to that are atheists, is that you are making accusations about things that you do not know about. By your own admission you have never actually studied the Bible, just read it through once as a young teenager. We Christians are accused of being narrow-minded for not accepting that God does not exist. However, the people that make these accusations often refuse to acknowledge anything regarding God or religion and immediately dismiss any claims or proof to that end, often even dismissing the people making those claims. You say that because I have studied the Bible and come to certain conclusions about it that I have given up thinking. Have mathematicians or scientists given up thinking? There are scores of things in both math and science that, by close study, people have drawn conclusions about. We believe that the world is round. Have you ever seen the world from outside of it? I know I have not. I believe the world is round (I assume you do as well) because I have been told that it is. Have I seen pictures of it? Yes. But pictures are not solid proof. I can Photoshop a picture of my brother marrying a sheep. But despite never having actually experienced the roundness of the earth millions of people, including scientist believe it to be true and no mater how much you try to persuade them otherwise they will not believe you.
My point is that scientists (and regular people) believe things simply because they were told them.
There are hundreds of things that you believe simply because someone told you they were true. What does you body consume when you breathe in? Oxygen. I have never studied oxygen, I have never seen it, but I believe that is true because I have been told it. Who was the 1st President of the US? George Washington. I have never met him. I have never seen videos of him in office, I believe it because someone has told me that it is true. Why do we go to school? We go to school to learn the things that other people have studied and drawn conclusions about. Does this mean that we stop thinking about them? No, we simply take those things that have been concluded and build on them.
I have reached some conclusions about the Bible. Does that mean that I have stopped thinking about them? No, I take those conclusions and build the rest of my beliefs on them. You also ask why I would be willing to change religions if necessary, but I would not be willing to study the world. First, your incorrect assumption is that I have not studied the world, which I have. If you look at my bookshelves you would find books by everyone from Creationist scientists to Einstein to Carl Sagan to Stephen Hawking to Darwin. You would also find, in addition to many copies of the Bible in different versions, a Quran , a book of Mormon, a Jehovah's Witness Bible, in addition to several other "holy" books from different religions. I have studied other world religions, I have also studied science (I actually dabbled in cosmology for a while). But, despite all of my studies, I did not find anything that convinced me that God did not exist. There are too many flaws in the evolutionary "science". The reason that I bring up my own experience is because there are many like me. Believers are often painted as dumb ignoramuses blindly wandering after some phantom faith that they don't understand, closing their eyes to the glaring "truth" of science and evolution. While this may be true in some cases, there are just as many people who follow science and evolution in this same way. Let me ask you, how much study of science have you actually done? Have you ever approached science with an open mind, looking only at the facts? Or do you always approach science the same way most people do, presupposing that not only the facts, but the way that they are being interpreted are true. (e.g. There was a major find a few weeks ago, two different sets of fossils, one Homo habilis one Homo erectus, found near each other, both dating from the same time. The article went on to tell how this changed scientist thoughts on evolution and showed that they must have evolved parallel at some point. The first part of the article, where the find was described, was the facts being shared, the last part was the interpretation of the scientist. Just because two different fossils from two different "stages in the evolution of man" were found together does not necessarily mean that they "evolved together", but that is what people will believe because of the interpretation of the scientist.)

I do still wonder, why are you so certain that you are correct? Did not humans first introduce you to the bible, did not humans write the bible? What makes you so certain the bible is the words of god and that the priest is a man of god instead of just a man in a robe? Mind you these are rather philosophical questions that beg to be dissected and questioned, and one might ask me why I'm so certain that there are no gods? And my answer is that I am not certain and will never be certain that when I die I'll become a ghost, be judged by god or someone will whisper in my ear who I believe in, or perhaps I'll be reincarnated into a larger bull. I do not know, but what makes you so certain that you do, when what you believe lies in the pencils and tongues of men?As I stated above (so I will be brief), everything that you also "believe" or even know (except that which you have experienced) lies in the pencils and tongues of men. Everything you "know" about the past, everything you "know" about the present, except what you directly encounter, is based on what someone else tells you.

So your saying I can rape women and go to heaven by still just believing in jesus? I don't think so for it seems to me that you believe the same as The Catholics, that a man of good deeds and belief goes to heaven and that a man of ill deeds and belief or disbelief goes to hell, the humorous part is that by what you have stated one can certainly come to the conclusion that you think that a man of good deeds and disbelief is worthy of eternal torment? If that is gods way then damn is he a cruel bastard, but once again I digress.My point is not that you believe the same as catholics cause it does not seem that you do, my point is simply what I just did and it should in some way prove the nature of human interpretation.First you say I believe as a Catholic and then you say I do not believe as a Catholic. Which do you think is the case?
I can give you my answer. Can you rape a woman and still go to Heaven by believing in Jesus? Yes. This may seem objectionable to many, but I did not make the rules. Let me give you an example. In the Bible God calls Himself our Father. He also makes reference to our being adopted into His family when we are saved. So let us take the example of an orphanage full of children. A billionaire comes to the orphanage and says "Anyone that wants to be my child and live in my house and become heir to all that I have, can be, all they have to do is come and ask me to make them my child." Let's say 5 children come to him and ask to become part of his family and 10 do not. Is that fair? What if those 5 children, after becoming part of His family, start stealing things, and breaking things in the house. Do they still remain his children? Of course. But what if, while the billionaire's children are stealing and breaking things the children who remained at the orphanage (because they chose not to ask to become part of the family) make food for homeless people and go out on the streets to give it to them. Does that make them part of the billionaire's family? No. Is that fair?
God has stated to the whole world, "Anyone that wants to become part of my family and go to Heaven when they die, is welcome. All they have to do is ask me." If a person chooses not to ask, but does good things for others they have chosen not to do the one thing that they must do.
If I leave my children at home and tell them that if they clean their rooms while I am gone I will take them out for ice cream, when I get home it doesn't matter if they have done the dishes and mopped the floor and washed the windows, if they have not cleaned their rooms they will not get ice cream because they have not done the one thing that I asked them to do.
If we do not recognize that Jesus died for us and ask Him to take us to Heaven when we die, it doesn't matter what else we do because we have not done the one thing that He has told us to do.


I have omitted several of the things that you said, not because I find them irrelevant or because I do not want to answer them. I have simply done it because I think that the first response in this post answers a great deal of the questions that you posed in your post, most of which regarded being sure that the Bible was really God's Word and not man's, and being sure that the Bible was believable. Again, I think I answered these things in my first response in this post.

[Warathel]

It seems that we are getting nowhere in our discussions. You assert that 1. God does not exist and 2. If God did exist, as He is understood in the Bible, He would be evil and cruel.
The problem that I have with all of your assertions, the problem that I have with the accusations of the majority of people that I have talked to that are atheists, is that you are making accusations about things that you do not know about.

I am certainly not as well read as you so do please enlighten me as to how god is not cruel and unjust instead of blabbering on about how little I know for as Lao-Tze once said, the more you know the less you understand. Knowledge is found in books and schools but understanding is found in the human brain, so do please tell me how god is not cruel, for it is very curious to me.

By your own admission you have never actually studied the Bible, just read it through once as a young teenager. We Christians are accused of being narrow-minded for not accepting that God does not exist. However, the people that make these accusations often refuse to acknowledge anything regarding God or religion and immediately dismiss any claims or proof to that end, often even dismissing the people making those claims. You say that because I have studied the Bible and come to certain conclusions about it that I have given up thinking. Have mathematicians or scientists given up thinking? There are scores of things in both math and science that, by close study, people have drawn conclusions about. We believe that the world is round. Have you ever seen the world from outside of it? I know I have not. I believe the world is round (I assume you do as well) because I have been told that it is. Have I seen pictures of it? Yes. But pictures are not solid proof. I can Photoshop a picture of my brother marrying a sheep. But despite never having actually experienced the roundness of the earth millions of people, including scientist believe it to be true and no mater how much you try to persuade them otherwise they will not believe you.
My point is that scientists (and regular people) believe things simply because they were told them.
There are hundreds of things that you believe simply because someone told you they were true. What does you body consume when you breathe in? Oxygen. I have never studied oxygen, I have never seen it, but I believe that is true because I have been told it. Who was the 1st President of the US? George Washington. I have never met him. I have never seen videos of him in office, I believe it because someone has told me that it is true. Why do we go to school? We go to school to learn the things that other people have studied and drawn conclusions about. Does this mean that we stop thinking about them? No, we simply take those things that have been concluded and build on them.
I have reached some conclusions about the Bible. Does that mean that I have stopped thinking about them? No, I take those conclusions and build the rest of my beliefs on them. You also ask why I would be willing to change religions if necessary, but I would not be willing to study the world. First, your incorrect assumption is that I have not studied the world, which I have. If you look at my bookshelves you would find books by everyone from Creationist scientists to Einstein to Carl Sagan to Stephen Hawking to Darwin. You would also find, in addition to many copies of the Bible in different versions, a Quran , a book of Mormon, a Jehovah's Witness Bible, in addition to several other "holy" books from different religions. I have studied other world religions, I have also studied science (I actually dabbled in cosmology for a while). But, despite all of my studies, I did not find anything that convinced me that God did not exist. There are too many flaws in the evolutionary "science". The reason that I bring up my own experience is because there are many like me. Believers are often painted as dumb ignoramuses blindly wandering after some phantom faith that they don't understand, closing their eyes to the glaring "truth" of science and evolution. While this may be true in some cases, there are just as many people who follow science and evolution in this same way. Let me ask you, how much study of science have you actually done? Have you ever approached science with an open mind, looking only at the facts? Or do you always approach science the same way most people do, presupposing that not only the facts, but the way that they are being interpreted are true. (e.g. There was a major find a few weeks ago, two different sets of fossils, one Homo habilis one Homo erectus, found near each other, both dating from the same time. The article went on to tell how this changed scientist thoughts on evolution and showed that they must have evolved parallel at some point. The first part of the article, where the find was described, was the facts being shared, the last part was the interpretation of the scientist. Just because two different fossils from two different "stages in the evolution of man" were found together does not necessarily mean that they "evolved together", but that is what people will believe because of the interpretation of the scientist.)

I do not believe much barely my own eyes at times but science is a hard thing to doubt for it surrounds you, the cars, TV's, stereos, medicine, musical instruments, factories, dear Agrippa science is everything that surrounds you. My point is that yes science is a belief and as I've stated earlier so is everything for you see belief is a tricky thing and it is most deceitful and comforting. So I certainly do not deny the belief in science and I have not studied science for it is incredibly droll and only useful for those who wish to make new things through it. But I cannot deny what is has created for it surrounds us all, it is easy to deny religion for it cannot be seen, heard or touched, humans are by nature curious it seems, and believe little beyond their senses even though once senses cannot always be trusted it surely is the one true ticket to belief.

Do have it clear that this following theory has a fine amount of symbolism: Of course I would sooner trust the man in the labcoat saying "we can stop global warming" than the priest saying "this is gods judgement", curious how he seems to enjoy punishing us, but more of that later. For you see the priest holds a book in his hand which so many before him have held but the man in the labcoat holds many books, far to many to count and he holds years of trial and error, one is human and one wants a god to love him. I do not trust priests the way I trust the man in the labcoat for the man in the labcoat is as brilliantly human as it ever can be, they say that vegetarians seems to prefer animals over humans, well priests seems to prefer gods over humans.

But let me hit the subject more straightforward. You say there are no proof that god does not exist, very true but there are also no proof that god does exist. Except the bible, but that's belief, the belief that god exists does not prove his existence but it sure makes you believe it does. I do not believe in god for the concept is illogical but I cannot deny my belief in science for either science is a vast illusion or it indeed is real for I see, hear and touch it everyday, I will always doubt things even science but, science gives me everything, and god, well his followers sure seems to enjoy taking things away.

Knowledge is what you seem to speak mostly of and I thought is was obvious but apparently not, I wondered why you were not open to go by yourself in the study of the world and I'm not talking about knowledge, for the world is what we perceive it to be, the study of the world is certainly not found in books but in the human mind it seems. For a book can be read but for it to be understood is as rare as it is for a sitter to understand a painting.

As I stated above (so I will be brief), everything that you also "believe" or even know (except that which you have experienced) lies in the pencils and tongues of men. Everything you "know" about the past, everything you "know" about the present, except what you directly encounter, is based on what someone else tells you.

History is the study of the invisible and so is the past, but there is a thing too many believe to be important nowadays and that is knowledge, people do not enjoy understanding things as long as they've read about it, I do not read books that have facts, for no book does, books are philosophy in ink, often very poor philosophy but philosophy nonetheless. A book of facts is a book filled with things believed to be facts, and as you have stated and as I have concluded long ago, we all believe, that's how things are true. But you see if science is belief then so is religion, the difference is that the first is based on logic and the second is based on belief. The first on humans and the second on gods.

First you say I believe as a Catholic and then you say I do not believe as a Catholic. Which do you think is the case?

Although my point was deluded and hard to understand that was not what I meant, I simply wanted to show you, through and abstract example, the power of interpretation.

I can give you my answer. Can you rape a woman and still go to Heaven by believing in Jesus? Yes. This may seem objectionable to many, but I did not make the rules. Let me give you an example. In the Bible God calls Himself our Father. He also makes reference to our being adopted into His family when we are saved. So let us take the example of an orphanage full of children. A billionaire comes to the orphanage and says "Anyone that wants to be my child and live in my house and become heir to all that I have, can be, all they have to do is come and ask me to make them my child." Let's say 5 children come to him and ask to become part of his family and 10 do not. Is that fair? What if those 5 children, after becoming part of His family, start stealing things, and breaking things in the house. Do they still remain his children? Of course. But what if, while the billionaire's children are stealing and breaking things the children who remained at the orphanage (because they chose not to ask to become part of the family) make food for homeless people and go out on the streets to give it to them. Does that make them part of the billionaire's family? No. Is that fair?
God has stated to the whole world, "Anyone that wants to become part of my family and go to Heaven when they die, is welcome. All they have to do is ask me." If a person chooses not to ask, but does good things for others they have chosen not to do the one thing that they must do.
If I leave my children at home and tell them that if they clean their rooms while I am gone I will take them out for ice cream, when I get home it doesn't matter if they have done the dishes and mopped the floor and washed the windows, if they have not cleaned their rooms they will not get ice cream because they have not done the one thing that I asked them to do.
If we do not recognize that Jesus died for us and ask Him to take us to Heaven when we die, it doesn't matter what else we do because we have not done the one thing that He has told us to do.

God does not speak to his creation it seems, god has not told anyone to follow him, humans have told them they literarily wrote the book on it. And in fact, you make the rules you always do, humans are free-willed we do as we like, we make all the rules because we decide what we do and what we do not do. And by your standards you seem to think a person should be rewarded for doing what they are told rather than doing good, it is the belief of fools that they know best and that is the essence of discipline.

But I still wonder how you can even like such a god, you believe in him but to think that he is a just god is beyond my understanding, morals should value humans not gods, for if gods exist they certainly should be able to handle themselves.

[sageoffools]

I am certainly not as well read as you so do please enlighten me as to how god is not cruel and unjust instead of blabbering on about how little I know
I think you misunderstand my comment. I was not trying to insult you or even speak to how much you know or don't know. I do not know you so that is something I could not speak on.

The point that I was trying to make was this: By your own admission you have never actually studied the Bible. In this post you also claim that you have never studied science. True, you cannot understand things simply by reading them, but you also cannot understand things without first knowing them, and typically we come to know things that we cannot personally experience by reading about them.
So by your admission everything that you know about both the Bible and science has been told to you by someone else. Every "flaw" in the Bible that you are so sure of has been told to you by another person. Every argument for why the Bible is not true, is from someone else's lips.

But let me hit the subject more straightforward. You say there are no proof that god does not exist, very true but there are also no proof that god does exist. Except the bible, but that's belief, the belief that god exists does not prove his existence but it sure makes you believe it does.

What proof do you have that air exists? You cannot see it, you cannot feel it. The only way that that you know that it exists is 1. because someone has told you that it exists and 2. Because you see the effects that the air has. You see the air as wind that moves the trees, you see it as a tornado or hurricane that tosses cars like toys. You "know" that air exists because you can see the effect that it has on the things around you. I know that God exists, not because I can see Him, but because I can see the effect that He has on the things around me. I also believe that God exists because the Bible tells me that He does, and I there is enough proof for me to verify the validity of the Bible that I believe it is true.

I do not believe in god for the concept is illogical but I cannot deny my belief in science for either science is a vast illusion or it indeed is real for I see, hear and touch it everyday, I will always doubt things even science but, science gives me everything, and god, well his followers sure seems to enjoy taking things away.
I am not asking you to deny science. But you are not talking about science. The earth is not science. The sky is not science. Water is not science. All of these things that you can touch and see and taste and hear are not science, they are creation or nature. Science is simply the exploration of these things. Unfortunately there are two different aspects of what we now call science. As I said in my last post, there is science "fact". These are the things that we actually truly know. These are the processes that we can observe and test. Then there is science interpretation. These are the conclusions that are drawn about the actual "facts" of science. Again, I am not asking you to question the facts of science, I am challenging you to question the interpretation of those facts as posed by prejudice evolutionists. When an evolutionist makes a find he tries to understand that find with the belief that evolution is true and real. Every interpretation of the science fact is by nature, going to be bias to evolution because every fact is examined with evolution presupposed. An evolutionist does not examine a find while questioning if evolution is true, he takes that find, assures himself that evolution IS true, and then seeks to interpret the facts in a way that fits with what he believes about evolution.
Again, I think if you observe the true "facts" of science you will find they are not so opposed to the Bible as some would have you believe.

Is Christianity about belief? Absolutely. Does it take faith to believe in God and to trust the Bible? Definitely. But it takes no more faith for us to believe the Bible than it takes for you to believe the interpretation of the "facts" of science from some "learned" scholar. The difference is that we as Christians are willing to acknowledge that religion requires belief and faith, whereas scientist refuse to acknowledge that, not the facts of science, but their interpretation of those facts requires faith, even cringing at the mention of the word"belief".


As you will notice, I have stopped answering each and every question that you pose, not because I am dismissing them, but because I am simply trying to address the heart of every issue and concern that you have raised up until this point.

[Warathel]

I think you misunderstand my comment. I was not trying to insult you or even speak to how much you know or don't know. I do not know you so that is something I could not speak on.

I got quite angry from reading your next to final comment last time and well it came out there it seems.

The point that I was trying to make was this: By your own admission you have never actually studied the Bible. In this post you also claim that you have never studied science. True, you cannot understand things simply by reading them, but you also cannot understand things without first knowing them, and typically we come to know things that we cannot personally experience by reading about them.
So by your admission everything that you know about both the Bible and science has been told to you by someone else. Every "flaw" in the Bible that you are so sure of has been told to you by another person. Every argument for why the Bible is not true, is from someone else's lips.

I am quite certain that I stated before that I do agree with you, we are all believers in our own way. So its not like I in any way misunderstand your point but I do believe you have misunderstood mine.

It is true what you say, what we know is told or written by others but that is not my point at all, my point is what Lao-Tze said so long ago, for knowledge is quite useless, and again as I said books are philosophy in ink, for philosophy is the true strength of man and it does not matter how much we know for without understanding, philosophy if you will, we can never create the marvel of the human mind, ideas. So I do not argue against you but I do feel I must tell you that indeed what I know from the bible is told by others, and as you know same goes for you. I may not have studied the bible as intently as you have but such does not negate my questions or opinions, or at least not yet for it is curious to me why you still talk of this matter which we agree upon and have yet to answer, or one better, question my questions.


What proof do you have that air exists? You cannot see it, you cannot feel it. The only way that that you know that it exists is 1. because someone has told you that it exists and 2. Because you see the effects that the air has. You see the air as wind that moves the trees, you see it as a tornado or hurricane that tosses cars like toys. You "know" that air exists because you can see the effect that it has on the things around you. I know that God exists, not because I can see Him, but because I can see the effect that He has on the things around me. I also believe that God exists because the Bible tells me that He does, and I there is enough proof for me to verify the validity of the Bible that I believe it is true.

Strange how do you witness gods effect? For air I can feel and see, as you said indeed air can be believed to exist for it is visible to the human senses, but god does not seem to be for if he was all would believe in him, of course if he was a subtle force which we can only feel when we believe in him then that theory can indeed be applied to every religion.

Yet I do wonder why you choose to believe the bible, to me science makes the most sense for again, it is in all that surrounds me, concrete, computer's, houses, phones, the Internet, books, printing, tobacco, coffee, boats and so on, to me it does not make sense not to believe in the creations of humanity for science is indeed organized knowledge, but what I do wonder is why you believe the bible, how does it make sense compared to any other religious scripture, for indeed we tend to believe things we are told but what we believe is not what we are told, no, belief is ideas, I may read Nietzsche's 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' or perhaps Mark Twain's 'Is Shakespeare Dead?' but they are in a way merely stories for us to reflect upon and so is the bible the only difference is that the bible is a story people believe to be true. I've always found it strange that the only difference between the bible and a bedtime story is that people held the bible in their hand and shouted that it was a book depicting actual events which is quite comical for if The Bible is based on history then it should barely be true, if at all.

I am not asking you to deny science. But you are not talking about science. The earth is not science. The sky is not science. Water is not science. All of these things that you can touch and see and taste and hear are not science, they are creation or nature. Science is simply the exploration of these things. Unfortunately there are two different aspects of what we now call science. As I said in my last post, there is science "fact". These are the things that we actually truly know. These are the processes that we can observe and test. Then there is science interpretation. These are the conclusions that are drawn about the actual "facts" of science. Again, I am not asking you to question the facts of science, I am challenging you to question the interpretation of those facts as posed by prejudice evolutionists. When an evolutionist ma