If you have a question about Jesus

[Fool]

No D.

If there is no God, there is no free will, and I have no choice but to be as I am, and you have no choice but to be as you are. So it is CREEPY when you pretend as if I do have a choice.

Or do you believe in the soul?

[Azdgari]

Fool, if there is an omnimax god, then free will is impossible anyway.  Your god must not be all-powerful or all-knowing, for you to think you have free will.

[DVZ3]

No D.

If there is no God, there is no free will, and I have no choice but to be as I am, and you have no choice but to be as you are. So it is CREEPY when you pretend as if I do have a choice.

Or do you believe in the soul?

The soul to me, is just a biblical, poetic way of discribing the personality of my brain after years of different stimulus from envoroment, parents, and people.

You however, seem to come in contact with people, probably by geography, to beleive like you do in some higher power controlling and watching over you. You also fail to see that this is just people controlling your behavior for selfish reasons emotionally, financially, for power, or political persuasion. (sometimes even all the above!)

Even as poetic and beatiful as the idea of a soul seems, it's obviously not reality which we (not you though) see everday.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But, not to get off point about your comment to put god first in front of family.  I ask you this.  Would you kill your wife and kids if your god commanded it of you?  Much like the story of abraham.  Or will you come up with and make excuses for your god of why he wouldn't ask this of you today?

[ksm]

If there is no God, there is no free will, and I have no choice but to be as I am, and you have no choice but to be as you are. So it is CREEPY when you pretend as if I do have a choice.

Why? Show your working.

[Fool]

Fool, if there is an omnimax god, then free will is impossible anyway.  Your god must not be all-powerful or all-knowing, for you to think you have free will.

Feel free to open a debate, and we can go at it.

[Fool]

Even as poetic and beatiful as it seems, it's obviously not reality which we (not you though) see everday.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But, not to get off point about your comment to put god first in front of family.  I ask you this.  Would you kill your wife and kids if your god commanded it of you?  Much like the story of abraham.  Or will you come up with and make excuses for your god of why he wouldn't ask this of you today?

Hmm, believers in God outnumber nonbelievers in the world. So perhaps you're missing part of reality. Perhaps you have a magic decoder ring that I don't? (Oh, you don't like appeals to popularity? )

I would kill my wife and kids if God wanted me to. There you go, you have a quote. Now if you're interested in actual discussion you'll read the rest of the paragraph. I would have to be sure that God would consider it a capital offense for me NOT to take my wife and child's life AND that God had all of our best interest in mind. Considering that He caused the death of His own Son to be the salvation of the world, I'm convinced that He is trustworthy. It would be highly unexpected however, and I would feel comfortable asking God exactly why. He wrestled with Jacob, and told Abraham to offer his son, and Isaac agreed that God was trustworthy... so though He slay us, I will trust Him.

[DVZ3]

If there is no god... Then the world would be a better place.  It would keep humans from doing so-called god's work.

As far as free will goes, when we master human psycology, politics, physics, quantum mechanics, and a culture free from god, only then will we begin to understand why we are the way we are and the decisions we make.

But even after we have mastered and perfected all these, there will still be a fool standing in the way of all of it.

[DVZ3]

Hmm, believers in God outnumber nonbelievers in the world. So perhaps you're missing part of reality. Perhaps you have a magic decoder ring that I don't? (Oh, you don't like appeals to popularity? )

^^^ It's quite obvious you haven't studied history at all, especially human history.  The 'masses' are the ones that are 'outnumbered' as you say have usually always been the ignorant ones that were just plain wrong.

Many cultures like the Aztecs sacrificed people (even beautiful young virgins) in the hope that their god would bring a bountiful harvest for the people.  The masses beleived this, and they were wrong.

The 'masses' believed that the earth was the center of the universe.  Again, just plain wrong.

The 'masses' believed that the earth was flat.  Again, just plain wrong.

The 'masses' believed that man would never fly.  Again, just plain wrong.

There countless examples old and new of this pattern that has emerged.

And today, the 'masses' believe in a god who watches over us.... What do you think comes next?????  

[Azdgari]

(1): If a detail about the future can be known accurately, then that detail about the future exists in a state that in principle is knowable.

(2): For a detail about the future to be knowable, it must have a definite future state, for otherwise knowledge about it would be impossible.  For example, if the future of whether X will occur is set in stone and a deity says "X will occur", and it occurs, then it is possible for it to have done so from knowledge.  If the future of whether X will occur is not set in stone and a deity says "X will occur", and it occurs, then that was an educated guess, rather than knowledge, since the deity could not have truly known whether X would occur.

(3), from (1): If a deity has knowledge of all details about the future (as required by omniscience), then all details about the future must in principle be knowable.

(4), from (2) and (3):  If a deity is omniscient, then all details about the future must have definite states.

(5), from (4):  If all details about the future have definite states, then only one choice is ever available for anyone to choose:  The one that they actually pick.

(6), from (5):  If one can only ever make one inevitable choice, then one has no free will.

QED

[Astreja]

You mean because it's impossible to know the future?

I think that it is extremely unlikely that anyone can foresee the future with 100% accuracy.  I have a hunch (but can not prove) that the very possession of such a vision would alter the future -- Kind of like a time-traveler's version of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, if you will.

It is, however, not at all difficult to make reasonably good guesses as to future events, simply by allowing one's imagination to play around a bit with the possibilities and probabilities.  For instance, if there's an insurgency in a country and the rebels are using a specific building as their rallying point, guess which building the counter-insurgency is going to attack and guess which building will receive a "prophecy" of destruction?

Example:  On another discussion forum, back in late December 2005 or early January 2006 I myself predicted the death of Slobodan Miloševic who subsequently died about three months later.  It was a no-brainer, actually:  64-year-old man with hypertension, heart condition and a lot of enemies, confined to a prison cell in a foreign land.  Most probable outcome=______________.

It is also not difficult to cause "prophesies" to come true, simply by planting an idea in someone's head and letting them do the work to make it happen for real.  This is the proverbial self-fulfilling prophesy.

Finally, it's positively trivial to write a highly accurate "prophesy" after the fact.  In fact, I suggest that the accuracy of a prophesy is directly proportional to the probability that it was written after the events it supposedly foresaw.  This is the corollary of my prediction-alters-future hypothesis:  When an event has happened, it has a probability of 1.0; therefore, any retroactive prediction does not have to take into consideration the chance that the events might not happen.  Any lack of accuracy is just poetic license.

For all of these reasons, I think prophesy is grossly overrated and almost certainly not credible evidence of divine influence.

[Sky]

Did Jesus wear a Tunic?

[Astreja]

I would kill my wife and kids if God wanted me to.

This isn't foolishness.  This is insanity.

I hope that your wife reads this post and takes appropriate legal action.  Seriously.

ETA:  For the record, if I were faced with the same situation I would disobey without hesitation.  I would seek to defend myself and my family with all means necessary, including lethal force against the deity that gave the order, to the limits of my strength.

[DVZ3]

I would kill my wife and kids if God wanted me to.

This isn't foolishness.  This is insanity.

^^^ I was expecting this answer and will give no comment.  It doesn't even dignify a response.  It speaks for itself.  :'(

I think deep down he knows he wouldn't but then he would have to disobey his imaginary love for which he has never seen!

[Azdgari]

I hope that your wife reads this post and takes appropriate legal action.  Seriously.

Indeed.  Otherwise, something like this might happen:

http://www.clickorlando.com/news/9009375/detail.html

A man sentenced to 90 years in prison for attempting to set his Orlando home on fire with his family sleeping inside said God commanded him to sacrifice his wife and children, according to a Local 6 News report.

Hans Missal, 51, admitted to dousing his Orlando home with gasoline last March. Missal also duct-taped the doors shut and ran a hose from the house to a car tailpipe while his wife, son and daughter slept before he attempted to set the structure on fire.

Tuesday, Missal said he was following God's orders.

Missal compared himself to the Bible's Abraham, who was commanded by God to sacrifice his own son, and said he received a message from God to kill his entire family, Local 6 News reported.

"God had a plan for my family, I had no idea what that plan was," Missal said. "I trusted God and God was faithful to the end."

...

[natlegend]

 

If there is no God, there is no free will, and I have no choice but to be as I am, and you have no choice but to be as you are. So it is CREEPY when you pretend as if I do have a choice.

Why? Show your working.

WRONG Fool, wrong wrong wrong. Soooooooooooo wrong. Epic fail. Yes, PLEASE DO show us how your came to this conclusion.

[natlegend]

I would kill my wife and kids if God wanted me to.

Sick, just plain sick. You have revealed your true nature Fool, and it is just as bloodthirsty as that of the imaginary god you worship. I feel quite ill now...

[ParkingPlaces]

Fool

You believe in jesus, etc. etc. You for some reason think that at least some atheists have questions about him, as per your OP. You also seem to think that if we do have questions, we're really stumped, because there is no place to find answers to any of our questions about the dude. It's not like the internet has search engines or anything. So you offer your services.

Here you are, in gospel mode, ready to demonstrate your self-professed expertise in a subject very few here are interested in. You have the experience of thousands of posts on atheists sites, and yet you claim indignation when a bunch of atheists hanging around an atheist site (I know, the coincidences here are staggering) don't respect you en masse. And as we ask you questions from our point of view, you insist on answering them from your own. And then you are stunned to find that your magical words haven't causes any of us to go dive in the closest baptism tank ASAP. Wow.

Having been an atheist for almost 50 years now, I'm real short of questions about christianity. Real short. As in, I have none. The inconsistencies, biblical and otherwise, in the christian world long ago convinced me that your god is no more real than the gods of the hindus or the pharaohs or the zoroastrians. The only questions I have is how you can believe the drivel, and no christian has yet shown up and explained their beliefs in those terms. Hence any confusion I, or most of the other atheists here have about jesus and moses and floods and snakes and sacred calves and tablets and the digestive system of whales is how in the world you guys can swallow that stuff.

I have finally concluded that many christians (esp. those prone to show up here and brag about their voluntary ignorance) is that they require authority at the god level to be able to coexist with other people on this planet. They need to believe that there are external reasons for not raping and robbing and getting the hots for their neighbor's wife, and luckily for them, there is a "morality for dummies" book out there, available in every motel room. Given that they can also customize the lessons and the meanings and the insinuations to match their own needs and wants and dreams and justifications is just icing on the cake.

Find a passage in the bible that explains how the post-flood marsupials all walked to Australia. Find a passage in the bible that exonerates Galileo. Show me some geological proofs of genesis, some explanations of where the weaker Egyptians gods went to. Explain to some acceptable degree why your god is afraid of iron chariots. And tell us why you wear clothes of mixed materials when your big boss made it taboo.

But don't go thinking I'm about to take an aptitude test on jesus and need to brush up on the details. Most of us prefer to limit our ignorance to things worthy of ignorance. Jesus is one of those things. Live with it.

Addendum: Lots of posts as I wrote this. But your "I would kill my wife and kids if God wanted me to" post is way to far over the top. Don't worry about a thing that I wrote above. Just know this. I'm an atheist to save your wife and kids and every other wife and kid of every other believer who believes the same thing, christian or otherwise. If it's immoral to give a fuck about other humans, then I'll proudly call myself immoral. And I would far rather go to hell if I'm wrong than kiss the big butt of any god who can command that sort of loyalty on faith alone. One of you is a huge creep. Probably the real one.

[Sky]

Did Jesus own a hammer?

[none]

Did Jesus own a hammer?

now we are getting somewhere....

[ParkingPlaces]

Fool

If your god ever does tell you to kill your family, do the right thing and shoot yourself. If he exists, he'll ask why. All you have to do is say "Oops, I missed".

On the bright side, even Texas executes people who claim god told them to do it. So it's really got to be wrong.

[ksm]

Even as poetic and beatiful as it seems, it's obviously not reality which we (not you though) see everday.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But, not to get off point about your comment to put god first in front of family.  I ask you this.  Would you kill your wife and kids if your god commanded it of you?  Much like the story of abraham.  Or will you come up with and make excuses for your god of why he wouldn't ask this of you today?

Hmm, believers in God outnumber nonbelievers in the world. So perhaps you're missing part of reality. Perhaps you have a magic decoder ring that I don't? (Oh, you don't like appeals to popularity? )

I would kill my wife and kids if God wanted me to.

I'm tempted to claim that this is a Poe. However unfortunately it is likely not.

There you go, you have a quote. Now if you're interested in actual discussion you'll read the rest of the paragraph. I would have to be sure that God would consider it a capital offense for me NOT to take my wife and child's life AND that God had all of our best interest in mind.

And how would you achieve this certainty? How would you be sure?

And frankly how dare you judge god? If he tells you to kill your family shouldn't you just obey - what's with this impudent conditions of surety you place upon this?

Considering that He caused the death of His own Son to be the salvation of the world, I'm convinced that He is trustworthy.

According to the story Yaweh's son Jesus came back to life. Your wife and kids would stay dead.

It would be highly unexpected however, and I would feel comfortable asking God exactly why. He wrestled with Jacob, and told Abraham to offer his son, and Isaac agreed that God was trustworthy... so though He slay us, I will trust Him.

Abraham didn't question, he just obeyed.

[SherB]

I would kill my wife and kids if God wanted me to.

Sick, just plain sick. You have revealed your true nature Fool, and it is just as bloodthirsty as that of the imaginary god you worship. I feel quite ill now...
 
 

And this is the biggest and best argument against christianity that exists. At least most of the other religions, buddhism, etc., don't even think about things like this. So if there were to be a god, I'd certainly pick one from some religion other than your sick and bloodthirsty one. This is why a 'messiah' can convince 1000 people to drink poison kool-aid. This is why another dude who claims jesus spoke to him kept all his followers with him while their house was set on fire (Waco) And the list goes on and on.

In my state, Washington, there have been at least three women who have murdered their children in the last few years. All claimed that god told them to throw the kids off the bridge. The only thing I can ask of someone like you is that, if and when, god whispers in your ear that he'd like to see your family a little earlier than would happen without your assistance, please go ahead and finish the job.

What drives me crazier than anything else about these deals is that for reasons I don't quite understand, jesus tells the sheeple to shotgun their families and then they try and fail to cut their own wrists with a butter knife. So please, when the urge comes upon you, don't waste your wife and kids and then fail miserably on the last part. Save at least one shell for yourself and rid the world of one more sick, deluded, piece of shit. People like you are poster children for what is wrong with christianity and why the world would be a better place if it were banned.

Just my opinion, no I think my words are not just opinion but statements of fact. SherB-

[anthony_retford]

         
Thank you taking the time to answer my questions. Usually I don’t get questions answered so I appreciate your efforts.

That being said I feel strongly that you should not love your god to the extreme you admit and love your wife a distant second. I did say that if you answered in this way you should see a psychologist. I say this because you are seriously deluded. I was sent to a Catholic boarding school for years, attended church for more years, and was married to a strong-practicing Catholic. It was only once I began seeing what went on in the world and left the comfortable fold that I realized more and more that there is no god and no holy spirit. In looking at the bible I could see that no divinity had anything to do with such a petty and nasty book.  I am now embarrassed to see adults such as you who believe in talking snakes, a woman made from a rib, a world-wide flood, the earth being only 6,000+ years old, a god who sacrificed himself to himself for some imagined ‘sin’ caused by eating an apple, and so on and so on. I was particularly embarrassed myself for not even questioning events such as mass slaughters that happened in Egypt and when Jesus was born, when no one thought them important or significant to write about them.

You say “God intends to save many Chinese people from themselves, and to treat all of them justly. He has grace in store for each and every one.” What does this mean in day-to-day language? Save them from themselves? Grace in store? You and your fellow believers may understand something in these terms but I don’t.

Thank you admitting you can’t think of anyone you know and love but don’t know what they look like. I can’t help feeling that whatever love you would feel would be miniscule considering you love your wife less than something you imagine in your mind.

Why do you want to honor a god who has killed untold numbers of people, for example in the great flood that you surely believe in, although the Chinese people did not notice anything unusual when this supposed world-wide flood was in action.

You say you want to see your god’s face but isn’t it true that xtians believe that any man who sees your god would be destroyed? Perhaps you mean in your afterlife? How can you know your god as you think he knows you? Your god has been around for all time and surely before he got involved with you he was doing many other things. If you believe he knows if you have an ingrown toenail, how can you expect to know what your god did billions of years ago, or will do, because you believe that of him, billions of years in the future. I find this a fatuous statement.  And you continue to use this peculiar language – washed by his grace.

So now you are saying that your god will save anyone with hate in their heart? All you need to do is hate this world (no wonder you want to find another one) with its ‘sin’ and misery, and you will be saved. Apparently you translate receiving pleasure as a result of sins since you did not address the other pleasures of life. But what about the simple pleasures Fool? Do you have children and do you get pleasure from them? How about a nice sunset or the woods in the early morning? Or a multitude of beautiful things this world has to offer?

You wrote that your god saves the oppressed. Does this mean he is going to save broken children in Africa who are starving to death? What purpose does that serve, to have children starving and then wait for them to die so they can see the face of your god. What good has that done them?

If your god is all-powerful why did it take thousands of years to reveal his plan? Why did one man forgiving those who treated him unjustly result in the turning point in human history? You have a very inflated viewpoint and an incorrect one.

You say god likes to show that you can fight evil with good and can make the world better place just by loving people. How would this have worked out when Hitler was on the rampage? Should we have just loved him and not fought him? I am sure you don’t doubt that fighting was the answer not love. If someone attacks your wife will you love him or kill him? Maybe you wouldn’t do anything as you don’t love her very much. Oh yes, you think she is cool. I would lose my cool if my wife told me she loved some god over me.

A last word about your language. It is known as jargon. You are initiated into a club whose members all talk the same. You don’t even recognize it by now. Your form of jargon uses expressive and flowery statements that sound as though they mean something, but leave outsiders with an empty taste. For example, your last three words were “reconciling all things.” What does that mean to you? Do you expect all others to know what you mean? I don’t know, neither would almost every other person in the world.
   
   

[Grogan]

Who recorded those conversations since not a single word of the New Testament was written in the presence of Jesus?

Well I've got no reason to believe that not a single word was written in His presence, but I think that Luke penned Luke, John penned John, Matthew probably penned Matthew, and a guy named John Mark probably penned Mark.

I think they all had significant help.

I think you should read up on these books, if they are that important to you, seriously. 

Also, you've not addressed my point, which is none of the words written in the gospels were done so by people who would have heard any word uttered by Jesus. Not one.

I'd like you to acknowledge that and not skirt around the point I made. I don't care what the name of the authors' of the gospels were (Also, ever heard of Q? I mean even the naming convection is most likely a fabrication with no bearing on the actual authors names).

Straight from Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel#Dating

Dating
Estimates for the dates when the canonical gospel accounts were written vary significantly; and the evidence for any of the dates is scanty. Because the earliest surviving complete copies of the gospels date to the 4th century and because only fragments and quotations exist before that, scholars use higher criticism to propose likely ranges of dates for the original gospel autographs. Scholars variously assess the consensus or majority view as follows:

Mark: c. 68–73,[14] c 65-70[2]
Matthew: c. 70–100.[14] c 80-85.[2] Some conservative scholars argue for a pre-70 date, particularly those that do not accept Mark as the first gospel written.
Luke: c. 80–100, with most arguing for somewhere around 85,[14], c 80-85[2]
John: c 90-100,[2] c. 90–110,[15] The majority view is that it was written in stages, so there was no one date of composition.


Traditional Christian scholarship has generally preferred to assign earlier dates. Some historians interpret the end of the book of Acts as indicative, or at least suggestive, of its date; as Acts does not mention the death of Paul, generally accepted as the author of many of the Epistles, who was later put to death by the Romans c. 65.[citation needed] Acts is attributed to the author of the Gospel of Luke, and therefore would shift the chronology of authorship back, putting Mark as early as the mid 50s. Here are the dates given in the modern NIV Study Bible (for a fuller discussion see Augustinian hypothesis):

Mark: c. 50s to early 60s, or late 60s
Matthew: c. 50 to 70s
Luke: c. 59 to 63, or 70s to 80s
John: c. 85 to near 100, or 50s to 70


Dude, you've got some sort of cognitive dissonance or you're a POE. If it's the former, and you are being sincere, I'd have to guess that this is really the first time that anyone ever suggested that the gospels weren't written by Jesus' actual disciples!!!!!!!!!  I know that's how I was taught my entire life. It's a convenient lie, but trust me, those who told you that or let you think that, they knew the truth.

[Joseph]

(1): If a detail about the future can be known accurately, then that detail about the future exists in a state that in principle is knowable.

(2): For a detail about the future to be knowable, it must have a definite future state, for otherwise knowledge about it would be impossible.  For example, if the future of whether X will occur is set in stone and a deity says "X will occur", and it occurs, then it is possible for it to have done so from knowledge.  If the future of whether X will occur is not set in stone and a deity says "X will occur", and it occurs, then that was an educated guess, rather than knowledge, since the deity could not have truly known whether X would occur.

(3), from (1): If a deity has knowledge of all details about the future (as required by omniscience), then all details about the future must in principle be knowable.

(4), from (2) and (3):  If a deity is omniscient, then all details about the future must have definite states.

(5), from (4):  If all details about the future have definite states, then only one choice is ever available for anyone to choose:  The one that they actually pick.

(6), from (5):  If one can only ever make one inevitable choice, then one has no free will.

QED

Hebrews [13:8] Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever.

He is the domain where every existence takes place.

All the weird doctrines in the world are attributed to ignorance. When we will all be fully evolved, we will unanimously agree with Azdigari. It depends on our noviceship to believe weird things.

For a detail about the future to be knowable, it must have a definite future state, for otherwise knowledge about it would be impossible.  For example, if the future of whether X will occur is set in stone and a deity says "X will occur", and it occurs, then it is possible for it to have done so from knowledge.  If the future of whether X will occur is not set in stone and a deity says "X will occur", and it occurs, then that was an educated guess, rather than knowledge, since the deity could not have truly known whether X would occur.

'For a detail about the future to be knowable, it must have a definite future state' therefore its objective knowlegde.

Now since the deity has the option of saying it without setting it in stone (but saying it in a bible) it is not necessarily an educated guess, so there exists an avenue for exercising faith.

Proverbs [25:2]

It is the glory of God to conceal things,
but the glory of kings is to search things out.

Luke[12:2]

Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known.

If a detail about the future can be known accurately, then that detail about the future exists in a state that in principle is knowable.

2Kings [19:25]
 "Have you not heard
that I determined it long ago?
I planned from days of old
what now I bring to pass,
that you should turn fortified cities
into heaps of ruins,

](4), from (2) and (3):  If a deity is omniscient, then all details about the future must have definite states.[/

Ecclesiastes [1:9] What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done;
and there is nothing new under the sun.

(5), from (4):  If all details about the future have definite states, then only one choice is ever available for anyone to choose:  The one that they actually pick.

(6), from (5):  If one can only ever make one inevitable choice, then one has no free will.

Ecclesiastes[6:10]

Whatever has come to be has already been named, and it is known what man is, and that he is not able to dispute with one stronger than he.

[ksm]

Hmm, believers in God outnumber nonbelievers in the world. So perhaps you're missing part of reality. Perhaps you have a magic decoder ring that I don't? (Oh, you don't like appeals to popularity? )

Also the people who don't believe in Christianity outnumber those who do. Perhaps you are missing part of reality?

See how that argument doesn't work....?

[Agga]

BUMP:

So, give me the same grace you give yourselves, I'll reply as I am able.

Ok.

When you get around to answering them I have another question;


Did Jesus say that homosexuals should be put to death?

[Al Stefanelli]

God saves the elect by His own pleasure, and seems to not get very specific but His principles are clear. Everyone deserves to be repayed justly for their sins... if you are receiving pleasure in this life from your sins then you are not the one who is on the path of salvation... God lifts up the poor, the oppressed, the broken. The scum of the world are being saved... It took him thousands of years to reveal His plan of salvation directly... the reason, in short for why Christians still sin, is that they are in the process of conquering the patterns and habits that they and the rest of the world have collected...

More insanity....

Everyone deserves to be punished for sin, everyone, bar none...
But, God only saves who he wants to, so
This meaning, he damns who he wants to... 

So, free will really doesn't exist in the frame of who your god chooses to save...

He is vague about some enigmatic principle that is clearly unspecific, but should be known by everyone
He lifts up the poor, oppressed and broken by doing nothing for them except being there for comfort... As if...
He is saving the scum of the world, meaning out of everyone, he damns anyone who is rich, independent and has got it together...

It took a dude who allegedly created the entire cosmos in six days, thousands of years to reveal a plan to save a species he created to fail, and it takes years for them to realize their salvation because they are acting the way that they have no choice to because of patterns and habits they have developed over years of time?

And you can't see why we think you are all crazier than a shithouse rat?  Jumpin' Jesus in pink satin pumps, dude...  Seek help...

[Gimpy]

No D.

If there is no God, there is no free will, and I have no choice but to be as I am, and you have no choice but to be as you are. So it is CREEPY when you pretend as if I do have a choice.

Or do you believe in the soul?

Where do you get THAT pile of horse crap?! "Free will" exists without an imaginary god. It's WITH the imaginary god that free will DOESN'T exist.

You really do live in an upside-down world, don't you?

Not only do you have a "choice" to believe in this sad creature, but you go through all kinds of rationalizations and contortions to make your "idea" of this god fit with some pointless reality.

Again, the pointless life is one led trying to maintain the belief in a non-existent being. When you do that, you miss out on a great deal this life DOES have to offer.

And it's a pity, too, because there are no do-overs!