Re: You don't know Him

[snkiesch]

Your bible says you are wrong about God wanting everyone to believe in him. Read Romans 9 and Matthew 13:10
"The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. This is why I speak to them in parables:

Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand."
You could also ask a Calvinist. They have just as much evidence as you do. None.

[monkeymind]

Wow, Tothesea! When your God saw that you mistakenly believed things were getting worse, He knew how gullible you were and then began to spin His web of lies. How trapped you are, wrapped up in a cute little white bundle and hanging by a thread.

Good luck with that! Read and re-read these posts, that may help you to break free.

[generousgeorge]

OH NOESSSS     "The Feather of Ma'at"    I repent!!!!     

[RaymondKHessel]

Lol@ KCrady...

I always say that a lot of theists that come here end up like a handicapped puppy getting stampeded by buffalos...

But to see KC pop up in this particular thread... It's like a Panzer tank vs. a hampster. Talk about overkill lol. I love it though. KC's stuff is always on point. 

[generousgeorge]

If they were to come with any ammunition besides the Bible quotes,their Sunday School "indoctrination specialists" told them was the literal word of god, they would be better equpped to have meaningful dialogue.

Course it's kind of fun for huge Buffalo herds of Atheists to trample over little hamsters making the sign of the cross just before being turned into a damp spot on the prairie.  

What never ceases to amaze me is how the power of the indoctrination they receive so completely negates any rational capability they might have had if they had not been innoculated with the Christian Cult virus early and often.

It is shameful and evil.

[lotanddaughters]

Lol@ KCrady...Talk about overkill lol. I love it though.

Great observation. I laughed hard. 

[Astreja]

OH NOESSSS     "The Feather of Ma'at"    I repent!!!!    

Ma'at rocks the house.

And I've always loved the story of how Isis reassembled Osiris and brought Him back to life by singing to Him.  That is one hard-working and determined goddess -- A much better role model than Biblegod.

[tothesea]

Can you explain why the above substitutions would not be equally valid, if stated by someone who had "direct experience" of Allah, Brahman, or Osiris?

>snip<

There is only One God.  Logically, if the Universe was created, it all goes back to a single Source.  Whether there are many powers and principalities on Earth is not the question.  One God created all of it.  Whatever name you wish to use for Him, use it, for He is the Source of all of them.  What is more interesting is what God has told us He wishes to be called, which is Father.  That is what has been revealed onto me.  The truths I will impart to you about God here are from direct revelation, so please keep that in mind when you respond.

So you're just such a special little snowflake, that the omnimax Creator of a hundred billion galaxies tore through the dimensions of time and space--to end famine and AIDS in Africa?  To bring enlightenment to the whole world?  No--to reveal his presence to you, and you alone.  Yeah.  I'm sure he created the whole Cosmos just so that the person behind the Internet moniker "tothesea" could exist.  Right?

I never said or thought I was special above and beyond any other human being.  God loves everyone, I love God, I love everyone too.  I do not place myself above any other person.  I feel I am blessed for the revelation I have received and I share that freely.  Regardless of what His plans are, part of His plan was to reveal onto me His existence.  However, that doesn't make me special because He does it all the time.  If you weren't so insular in your views, and branched out your understanding, considering both sides equally, you would find abundant testimony from people all over the world from every faith and practice receiving revelation of Gods existence.  Of course that isn't evidence for a keen mind such as yours, who apparently needs the Creator of the Universe to dance a little jig in front of you for your amusement before you would believe. 

BTW, whichever deity this is that has revealed itself to you, it cannot be the deity of the Bible.  Here's why:

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.  Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, [even] unto the end of the world. Amen.

--Matthew 28:18-20

And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.

--Mark 16:15

But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and [be] ready always to [give] an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:

--I Peter 3:15

According to your personal revelation, all of this is futile.  There is simply no point in talking to anyone about God, since only those (assuming there are any besides you, God's favorite magic unicorn) to whom God reveals himself directly through inner experience can have any chance of "getting it" anyway.  All of the sermons in the Gospels and Acts, all of the Epistles, all of the writings of the Church Fathers and the great theologians through the ages--vanity, all is vanity, useless gusts of words addressed to the mind, with which the real God has nothing to do.

I'll stop you right there.  You ever watch the movie Office Space?  Remember that board game the main characters friend designed?  "Jumping to conclusions"?  I think you could be a world champion.  First of all, just because I said that the only way to know God is by direct revelation doesn't mean that you cannot seek out God and find Him yourself, which millions of people all over the world find out every day..  The whole point of the gospel is to set you up, so to speak, to receive that revelation, which He does give abundantly.  Your childish understanding of the gospel really shines here.  Don't you know that when you are baptised by the Holy Spirit you have a personal relationship with the Creator?  What happened to me is nothing new;  the only thing that is different about it is that I wasn't looking for God.  That isn't even new, because again, if you ever bothered to consider both sides equally, which you are loathe to do of course since you would no longer be the center of the Universe, you would see that unbelievers receive visions quite frequently.


Of course, the relationship between you and the rest of Christendom is not really our problem.  We have no dog in that fight.  What is perhaps more relevant to us is your claim that the Divine, however defined, can only be apprehended through a special inner experience.  First, this claim rests on the unspoken premise that the Divine does not and/or cannot act directly upon external reality.  If it could, then we could observe external reality by means of the scientific method, and note a pattern of observable events that are consistent with the existence and action of a particular sort of Divine agency, but not with atheistic naturalism or other conceptions of the Divine. 

The Kingdom of God can be observed at any time, in any place.  The internal and the external is Gods domain, Himself being the Souce of all things, and the Source of all action.  If God wanted to let Himself be proven by instruments, then we wouldn't be having this conversation.  He prefers to stay behind the scenes and let humanity come to its own conclusions.  You miss the point, trying to test reality for God when your life itself is the test.  Right now I have an A+ and you have an F.  You might want to consult some crib notes because you are not prepared for the final exam.

On the other hand, if the true Divine nature can only be known through a revelation to the hidden recesses of the selves of certain lucky and special people, it follows that as far as external reality is concerned, the existence of the Divine is indistinguishable from its non-existence.  Universe can be expected to behave exactly as it would if gods (or at least the True God of your special revelation) did not exist.  When it comes to reality, and our anticipation of how reality will behave, your expectations must be the same as ours.  You must join us in expecting a naturalistic Universe that does not behave as if it had a God in it.  Or to encapsulate it in a single phrase:

You live in the same godless Universe we do.

It has nothing to do with luck or being special.  It is all part of a grander design which science is unable to observe.  A servant does not know his masters business.  If he did, he would no longer be a servant.  I need not join your nihilistic understanding and your futile ways, which all lead to death (..one of us..one of us..).  I worship the God of the living, not the dead, and unless you know Him, you have no life in you, and will perish with all of your outmoded ways.  The ways of Sin will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven, so there will be nothing for you there.  You're simply playing for the wrong team.

Now, the second problem for your approach: you are far from the only person claiming to have had a special, mystical revelation of the Divine--and most, if not all of those other claimed revelations differ from yours in terms of the Deity or Deities they purport to reveal.  How can we know that you, and not Neale Donald Walsh or the authors of A Course in Miracles, or Mohammad (the Qur'an), or Amazonian shamans, or any one of a wide range of mystic experiencers is The Right One?   

In accordance with what you've claimed, it is impossible even in principle to apply any sort of reality-test to claims of Divine revelation.  If it were possible, then reality-testing, rather than Divine revelation, would be the way to discover the truth about the Divine.  So, if we have had no mystical experiences of our own, we have no reason to trust yours over the myriads of other mystical experiences reported by other people, and reality will not validate yours over the others.  If we have had mystical experiences of our own, and if we want to accept some mystical experience as veridical, we should trust our own rather than yours.  After all, we would know our own experiences happened.  We'd have to take your word for it that yours did.

It's not a problem at all.  You notice that I am not saying, follow me to know my God.  I am not even saying, know this specific God and read this material.  I am saying, open yourself to the possibility that God exists, and seek Him out.  I know because of my experience, that the Creator is merciful and unconditionally loving, and will reveal Himself to anyone who asks sincerely and with an open heart.  What foolishness it is to close that door;  even you must admit that human knowledge is extremely limited, and even more limited than that, are our perceptual faculties.  What a human being can discern at any given time does not measure up to the enormity of what is going on in the moment, regardless of how many definitions and labels man tries to abstract reality with.  There is something that is always beyond any words, that is God, which cannot be placed into a convenient little box for study and dissection.  You don't have to take my word for it.  You can experience it directly, first hand, at any time, once you give up the idea that you are qualified to rule out the Creators existence, and open yourself up to the possibility that you might be wrong;  moreover, that you would want to know that Creator, if He did in fact exist.


However, if it is true that no experimental or observational test made on external reality can be used to compare purported revelations (because the Divine putatively acts only within such revelations and is otherwise un-observable and undetectable), then we have no reason to take any of them seriously.  No matter which particular revelation one might want to believe, one must also believe that it is possible for all those other mystics to be deceived or in error, and there is no way, even in principle, to know that they are wrong and you are right.  At a minimum, all-but-one of the mystical revelations of the Divine are wrong.  So, in the case of any particular revelation, it is far more probable that it will be one of the vast mass of wrong ones, than that it will be the One True Revelation. 

And since you must agree with us that all other mystic revelations are false, there is no reason for us to accept your revelation as valid, even if we should happen to experience a revelation that agrees with yours.  After all, there's a billion Hindus in the world, and countless millions of them, especially their Yogis and Gurus, report mystical experiences that (to them) validate Hinduism.  Since they're all wrong, and they don't (and can't) know it, we likewise cannot know that we (and you) could not also be wrong.

Just because some people are misled in their beliefs, doesn't mean that there is no real truth out there.  Man used to think the Earth was flat..did that mean the Earth wasn't round?  The conclusions you keep jumping to are really elementary errors of logic.  If you knew my God, then you would believe me, it's as simple as that.  Since you don't, and are trapped in ignorance and error, and you reject it as foolishness.  The truth stands on its own though, and as you dance around it, it's easy to pick apart your colossal mistakes of judgment and reason.  I don't need to have my experiences validated, nor does God have any need to be proven by scientists.  What would be the point?  If God wanted everyone to know unequivicably that He does exist He would simply just make an appearance.  There is no point in any logical scenario that God will be "proven" by science.  It's ridiculous.  It belies your lack of understanding of the ways and purposes of the Creator.  In any case as I keep saying, there is no need for anyones experience of God to be validated in order for belief to dawn.  You can know it for yourself without needing anyone else or to be informed by any other source. 

Which is more likely?  That the Divine (however defined) would: A) Camouflage its existence so perfectly that no one could possibly know it was there, and B) then reveal itself to one person or a few persons;  Or, that the one person or few persons claiming to have received the true Divine revelation is/are lying or in error?  Since you would have to agree with us that the vast majority of people claiming mystical experiences of the Divine are lying or in error (to the extent that their revelations differ from yours), it follows that you are also far more likely to be lying or in error.  "But I just know it's true!" is something every mystic of every persuasion will tell you when it comes to their own experiences.  Just as inner conviction and felt certainty do not validate other people's revelations, they cannot validate yours.

Whatever is more likely in your eyes, or by the weights and chains and levers you attach to the issue for your limited comprehension of the truth, again doesn't amount to a hill of beans.  It doesn't matter what we believe about God;  God is, and His existence proceeds all action in the Universe.  What He wants and understands is what is important, and is the Source of what happens here.  To be ignorant of that is to be completely in the dark.  You can weigh the issue any way you like to say that I am wrong, but the simple fact is that just like you cannot disprove Gods existence, you cannot rule out my experience either.  How likely it is in your eyes doesn't matter, as I have told you that you can know it for yourself.  Whether you lack the courage or not is a completely different issue.

To summarize:

1. Universe behaves exactly as it would if there were no supernatural Divine agents.[1]

2. At a minimum, nearly all people claiming mystical revelation are lying or in error.

3. There is no way, even in principle, to demonstrate that any purported experience of the Divine is true, even if the experience is one's own.[2]

A simple application of parsimony (Occam's Razor) to this means that claims of mystic revelation of the Divine should be rejected.

To summarize, I am speaking directly from my experience of the Creator of the Universe.  My testimony is true.  He does exist.  You can never prove otherwise.  You also don't have to.  You could find out for yourself.  I have told you how to do that.  If yours was truly a logical mind, you would consider both sides equally.  Science, in all of its glory, considers how the Universe came to be as the primary question of existence.  The question of God is the primary question, as evidence by our history, philosophy, culture, religion, and pretty much every other system of thinking and discerning reality.  But you, the mighty KC, can dismiss it in just a few paragraphs.  It's amazing to see how anyone could blind themselves so thoroughly.  Consider both sides equally, and maybe you stumble upon the truth some day.

Actually, that's not where our disagreement lies.  The world does make sense to us.  Scientists can accurately model the behavior of reality from the sub-atomic scale all the way up to the expansion and gravitational behavior of the entire known Cosmos, all without ever having to employ a variable in their equations to account for the existence and/or action of any invisible supernatural beings.  Even you must agree with this, since your main claim is that "God" can only be known through subjective experience.
 
Debating the question of whether a particular god is "good" or not is merely an argument over the moral status of a fictional character, like debating whether or not Darth Vader ought to be considered the hero, or the villain of the Star Wars movies.

The world makes sense to you?  You mean science explains everything?  What about the mind? Consciousness?  Emotions?  A million other things which are integral to life as we know it?  Science doesn't explain much beyond how to fit slot A into groove B.  Concerning your debate and fictional characters, it is better to consider whether anything is "good" at all.  By definition, only God *could* be good.  Chew on that one.

tothesea

1.	The alternative is that it behaves as if some particular Divine agency exists, in which case we could learn of that Divine agency without requiring inner experience as you claim.
2.	If it were otherwise, how could there be so many deluded mystics?

[pamindfw]

^^^ Sorry, I think you're deluded.  How do you know you're not?  You were feeling bad about the world, maybe a little fear and anxiety added in, and believing a magical god/creator is on your side makes you feel better.  I'm sure you want to be a good person.  Most of us do.  Believing in this stuff does not make you a better person.  You can do that yourself.

[Emily]

You can weigh the issue any way you like to say that I am wrong, but the simple fact is that just like you cannot disprove Gods existence,

I agree, god cannot be disproven, but he also cannot be proven.

you cannot rule out my experience either.

yes we can. Your experience means completely nothing to us. I for one don't care about someone else's testimony if I haven't experienced it myself. So your story, as important as it is to you, means absolutely nothing to me. I don't care about how great of a life god has given you. You are claiming you once were an atheist and god came to you without you seeking him. By that logic he should do that to me and he hasn't[1]

My testimony is true.  He does exist.

I hate to break it to you but personal testimony isn't going to win any souls to Christ here. We've heard all you have to say many times. It gets old and repetitive. It's nothing new to us, and personal testimony hasn't gotten very far.

It's only true in your mind, love. Those in Jonestown had personal testimony that Jim Jones saved them; Charles Manson's family had personal testimony that Manson saved them. Same with the church of Scientology and every other cult out there. The only reason your testimony seems true is because you refuse to look outside of your little box at reality.

You can never prove otherwise.

...and this just shows your stubbornness. What's your point here?

1.	And I know what you are going to say. "Em, you claimed you were a christian" Well, you are right. I was a real Christian with strong faith at one point. What I wrote is coming from the point of view of an atheist.

[Gordon Freeman]

tothesea, you never really clarified how your god is unconditionally loving yet would send you to hell if you don't obey. Do you know how properly to use "IF" statement? Every programmer knows it. IF, THEN, ELSE statements are conditional. Your god only saves IF you accept him as your savor. You see, I as a human don't love unconditionally, but I would never send my cats to hell even if they left my house and went to another person. I would not run over them by car if I saw them on the street. I would welcome them into my yard every time they came and I would offer them food and shelter.

Yes, I would throw them out if they peed in my house (but even that I didn't do that last time), but that's just because I can't explain them that I don't want them to pee. I am trying to teach my cats to ask to go out when they need to pee and make some crap, but when my cat peed in the house, I simply cleaned after it and I didn't throw it out. Well, I tried to let my cat knows that I don't want that to happen again, but hey, I love my cat and I don't want to hurt it or do something bad to it even if it doesn't do all I want it to do. After all, I am just a human: not omnipotent, not all knowing, not unconditionally loving and such. Yet, I show more love for cats than your god shows for people. I would (almost) never let an animal die if I could do something to save it from death. When I say almost never, it means if I had to choose between a human and an animal or if it is not a mosquito or a fly, or if I am not starving and chickens are nearby, I would do all I could to save an animal.

You said that your god makes a rain falling on just and unjust. I laugh at this. Of course he does, he can't make it different!

[Operator_011]

tothesea,

Can you please go back to this post and attribute names to those you're replying to.

Moderator_020 has already spoken to you about using the quoting function in this post.


After that, I'd like an answer to this post from me.

Thanks.


Eleven.

[Gordon Freeman]

Unconditional love, you say...

I post this video, even it has nothing to do with this thread, but it show how excited is a person who takes first steps after 180years with eLEGS. If I could make this person walk and bring her joy of walking I would do that. But your god, or any other god doesn't do anything about it. Unconditional love, you say? Oh, that makes me mad, very mad and angry.

Fast forward to 2:00 and listen very carefully what she says and how she says it. Watch her face and smile. And don't thank god that she made few steps. Thank scientists!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcM0ruq28dc[/youtube]

[nogodsforme]

^^^^As a person who was in a wheelchair for a while, this is the coolest thing I have seen in a long time. You religious folks can keep on waiting for the milk jug of your choice to grant your wishes. We, instead, will bow down before the cute, science-geek Euro-person with amazing chisleled cheekbones. Brilliant is the new sexy! He had me at Achtung! Although he is no Robert Downey, Jr., his invention is pretty darn close to the Iron Man suit!

[Gordon Freeman]

This is not a perfect technology, but if a person in a wheelchair is so happy about using it, it is priceless. It just makes me angry when I think that there will be christians who will give credits to their god for this.

[Str82Hell]

This is not a perfect technology, but if a person in a wheelchair is so happy about using it, it is priceless. It just makes me angry when I think that there will be christians who will give credits to their god for this.

Tomorrow it will be perfect and the day after tomorrow unnecessary.

[Emily]

That is a great video and a great device. It also angers me when people thank god and give him credit for such discoveries. Whether it's the eleg, prosthetics, chemotherapy or any other medical discovery. When the mailbag was up and running many people wrote in claiming that god has healed amputees by giving them prosthetics. Even though they clearly don't understand the point of the question if god is responsible why did he wait so long for these discoveries to be discovered? Why did he wait so long for the discovery of electricity and computers and the flu vaccination and cancer treatment? If god does exist why didn't he make those technologies available to Adam and Eve when they got banished from the garden? Why make it so civilization has to discover these technologies if he so loves the world that he gave his only begotten son?

A friend of mine who happens to be a very strong and devout christian just got a tumor removed from her brain. Prior to her surgery she prayed for god to protect her, which I had no major problem, but right after surgery she thanked god for protection. It's kind of sad to not thank the doctors who spend something like 10 years in med school, long hours at work and constantly on call when at home get thanked only after some imaginary man in the sky, if they get thanked at all.

It may not be perfect technology but I am excited to see the path this technology takes in the future.

[Operator_012]

tothesea, I have a question for you. Why did you edit your OP to almost the same thing that you wrote in comment #94? Doing so disrupts the flow of the first couple of pages, and the comments that were raised against your original OP.

[monkeymind]

^^^Yeah that really confused me until I remembered the Modify function.

Put it back the way it was please!

[Tykster]

I don't lie, about anything, except....

 

[ibelieveinGod]

Unconditional love, you say...

I post this video, even it has nothing to do with this thread, but it show how excited is a person who takes first steps after 180years with eLEGS. If I could make this person walk and bring her joy of walking I would do that. But your god, or any other god doesn't do anything about it. Unconditional love, you say? Oh, that makes me mad, very mad and angry.

Fast forward to 2:00 and listen very carefully what she says and how she says it. Watch her face and smile. And don't thank god that she made few steps. Thank scientists!

[modbreak]Reposting of youtube clip removed[/modbreak]

I notice you and others say your God, believe it or not he is your God,  He will still judge you, You can tell him one day that he is not your God and he can't   judge you and and he will tell you in so many words to watch him. God loves every one and he wants us to decide for yourself if we will follow him, and he is not cruel, satan is the cruel one and he was let loose to do his damage, and he is doing a good job of it. God loves you and he does not want to send anyone one to hell, this is the last thing he wants to do. He told us what would happen if we don't believe, the rest is up to the individual, there fore you are sending your self to hell not him. When growing up did your mother tell you that if you did not listen to her that there would be consequences?
She still loved you but there were sometimes harsh punishments. Hell is the ultimate punishment, so much more to lose. So "your god" comment sand unbelief  won't exclude you from anything

[Ambassador Pony]

So yahweh is not, and, has never been, all-knowing.

Gotcha. Thnx.

[Operator_011]

Put it back the way it was please!

Unfortunately the staff can't do that. However, tothesea is now in the 'Edit Restricted' membergroup and can no longer edit or delete his posts until we return that privilege to him.


Eleven.

[Astreja]

I notice you and others say your God, believe it or not he is your God...

Nope.  No evidence that it even exists, and plenty of evidence that the mythical being described in the Bible is simply too stupid to warrant the title 'god.'

Satan is the cruel one and he was let loose to do his damage... {emphasis Mine}

"Let loose" by your god, apparently.

God loves you and he does not want to send anyone one to hell, this is the last thing he wants to do.

And yet your alleged god supposedly created hell, on purpose.

I am *not* impressed.

He told us what would happen if we don't believe, the rest is up to the individual, there fore you are sending your self to hell not him.

This is a pathetic mindf%ck regularly used by Christians who cannot reconcile their "loving" god with the infinite barbarity and atrocity of even one sentient being being tortured for eternity.

Your god supposedly has 100% of the power and authority.  It therefore automatically bears 100% of the responsibility for all the suffering in your mythical hell, and there's nothing you can do to excuse it away.

Admit it, ibelieveinGod:  You, yourself are deliberately worshipping a torturer-god, and I will go out on a limb here and assume that you also believe in substitutionary atonement.  That means that you have chosen to let someone else die in your place.

Explain to Me how this myth of yours makes you a better person, rather than a deluded and morally bankrupt puppet whom I would not trust to clean My cats' litter boxes.

[RaymondKHessel]

I notice you and others say your God, believe it or not he is your God,  

No, "he" is not. You are saying this to convince yourself. Would it have any effect on you if an ancient Roman told you that your god was Jupiter? How about if a Muslim told you that Allah was your god?

Hell, I'll do it right now. I notice you say your god is my god. Believe it or not, your god is Bugs Bunny.

Does that move you?

He will still judge you,

No, you and your fellow nutbars will judge us. That's about as far as it goes, and has ever gone.

You can tell him one day that he is not your God and he can't   judge you and and he will tell you in so many words to watch him.

Uh-huh. Whatever helps you sleep at night sparky. Do you realize that even if your god was real (and it most certainly is not), nobody here would want anything to do with it? It's a barbaric, bloodthirsty monster that you worship.

Now, do you see anything fundamentally retarded about the following:

God loves every one

satan is the cruel one and he was let loose to do his damage,

Your magical invisible space fairy CREATED an incarnation of cruelty and evil to reek havoc on the world?

In what backwards ass parallel universe does this constitute anything remotely "loving"? It's like saying that you love your kids, and then you sick a pack of rabid dogs on them. What the hell is wrong with you man? "Oh, *I'M* not the evil one. The DOGS are!!!"

Give me a BREAK.  

Face it. You worship an evil god. Whatever loopholes you create to justify it, whatever mental gymnastics you perform to wrap your head around it, that's the bottom line. You believe everything came from this god. Erego, so did cruelty and evil. Yet you somehow can call this fictional character ALL LOVING because A.)You've been told he is by a 1,500 year old book of Jewish myths, and by people you know and trust, and B.)You have to have a scapegoat to blame all life's messed up stuff on. Helllllloooo? Your incarnation of evil COMES from your god! It's the exact same culpability as somebody hiring a hitman rather than do the killing themselves.

I mean damn. Read the old testament sometime! If sending bears to kill 42 kids for calling a preacher "bald head" isn't evil to you, what is!?

God loves you and he does not want to send anyone one to hell, this is the last thing he wants to do.

I thought your god was supposed to be all-powerfull? How can it not get what it wants? According to your religion, anywhere from 50 - 98% of the human race goes to hell. Do you think this god of yours could have a higher success rate?

He told us what would happen if we don't believe, the rest is up to the individual, there fore you are sending your self to hell not him.

First off, no, no god's ever told me anything. I've heard a lot of (generally undereducated and ignorant) HUMANS tell me what I have to do, based on a tremendously flawed, proveably contradictory mess of an ancient text full of dragons and unicorns and talking goats and snakes and a whole MESS of straight-up disgusting behavior. I've certainly never heard a GOD tell me anything. Not even a "Hi! How ya doin?"

2nd, if we pretend your magical murderbook is actually true, I'm not sending myself to hell. I didn't make the rules, did I? No. Your "all-loving" god did. And then it supposedly allowed the "free-will" choice of A.)Believe in me despite the complete and utter lack of evidence or B.)Suffer ETERNALLY and INFINITELY. That's not free will. That's a guy holding a gun to your head and offering you the "choice" of blowing him or getting shot in the face. Forever.

Why is that above all things, your god places the highest value on believing something without evidence? Why not on something more quantifiable, like good deeds, or donations to charity, or how many pushups you can do? Why build our brains in such a manner that we naturally don't accept things without evidence? Answer: It didn't. Your god doesn't exist. Your religion places maximum emphasis on belief in Yahweh because the clergy knows that without that, everything else falls apart. Without the belief, the religion is powerless. It can't lobby politiians effectively. It can't collect money. It can't get you to feel guilty and come to them for absolution.

Your religion values faith above all things because without faith, the religion is effectively neutered and doomed to extinction. This is all just a time-tested method of the clergy controlling your behavior in exchange for a little slice of comfort when it comes to the subject of death and justice.

Wake UP man. It's the 21st century. You and your kind have been spouting this s**t off for thousands of years, and it was done for thousands of years before the Jews slapped together your holybook and left half of it on the editing room floor. It was just done with different gods.  You've voluntarily made yourself a mental slave to a demonstratably false and logically laughable ancient manuscript. It's embarassing, to yourself, and to the entire human race.

 When growing up did your mother tell you that if you did not listen to her that there would be consequences?
She still loved you but there were sometimes harsh punishments. g

Right. But you know what? If she told me when I was 3 years old, "Don't eat cookies before dinner", and, not having any idea what right or wrong was, I ate a cookie, she didn't kick me out of the house buck naked in the middle of winter, break my hands and feet with a hammer, spray me with wolf bait and say "You're never allowed back to this house. And neither are your children, or your children's children, or anybody they'll ever know."

Which is exactly what your boogieman of a god did to Adam and Eve, who's ancestors have been fucked generation after generation because they did something "bad" before they even had the ability to comprehend what good or bad WAS.

Hell is the ultimate punishment, so much more to lose. So "your god" comment sand unbelief  won't exclude you from anything

Do you feel better now that you got that out of your system? Do you really think something this limp-wristed and unsupportable is actually going to make ANY impact on anybody here? You must have an awfully high opinion of yourself. This is like Chick-tract, 3rd grade indoctrination Christian conversion tactics your spouting off here. So because YOU, some random clump of text on the internet, makes a statement in the form of a fact, that's it? We're just supposed to be shocked into some great revelation or something?

You just don't realize how pathetic this is. You offer literally NOTHING substantial in your post. You offer no compelling arguement. You show no sign of anything resembling critical thinking. You admittingly worship a primtive and ugly desert deity from ancient Palastine... One that encourages rape, murder, genocide, child killing... And not only do you DEFEND this idea, you've been indoctrinated to the point that you've twisted your brain into a pretzel in order to actually BELIEVE that this fictional super villian really LOVES you, despite all the atrocities it allows to happen.

I pity you. I really, really do. I wish you could step outside of yourself and see how screwed up you really are as a person. But you won't. Your religion has had thousands of years to make loophole after loophole to excuse all the things that are obviously wrong with it. Combined with humanity's natural ability to justify and rationalize things, you have no chance to escape. You've devoted to much time and energy and emotion into the ideas, and to question them now would mean admitting that you've spent the majority of your life as a judgemental, preachy asshole who's voluntarily crippled your intellect and ability to reason... And mark my words, if there WAS a god, your intellect and ability to reason would be the "gift" to be celebrated... NOT your ability to believe what other people tell you without evidence.

Your post was just sad. Sad, sad, sad. I suggest you do a little reading around the forum before you start preaching at people. You'd save yourself a lot of time when you realize we've heard it all before, and that this particular post of yours was about as pathetic and uncompelling as you can get without just straight up quoting scripture at us.

Sigh. You poor bastard.  

[Asmoday]

I notice you and others say your God, believe it or not he is your God,  He will still judge you, You can tell him one day that he is not your God and he can't   judge you and and he will tell you in so many words to watch him.

Replace "God" in this short paragraph with Allah, Vishnu or any other deity you don't believe in. Then think about why this argument would be unconvincing for yourself if someone said it to you.

Once you've done that you know why this argument carries as much weight as if you had spoken about wet toast instead.

God loves every one and he wants us to decide for yourself if we will follow him, and he is not cruel, satan is the cruel one and he was let loose to do his damage, and he is doing a good job of it.

It seems you missed a few important bits here.

1) No matter how often you say something else, you can't change the fact that the god you believe in says "Believe in me or be tortured forever."
That has nothing to do with love or wanting us to decide for ourselves.

2) If you think, that sending somebody to everlasting torture because they don't believe in you is not cruel, then you should get your moral compass checked.

3) You say Satan is cruel and God isn't. Yet at the same time you say Satan was "let loose." If God was not cruel, why would he let Satan loose?

God loves you and he does not want to send anyone one to hell, this is the last thing he wants to do.

God is supposed to be the omnipotent creator of everything, is he not?

So if sending people to hell is the last thing he wants to do, why does he do it anyway?

He told us what would happen if we don't believe, the rest is up to the individual, there fore you are sending your self to hell not him.

Sorry, but you are wrong.

According to the bible it's not up to the individual but to God alone. Even before someone is born he has already decided if that person will go to heaven or hell. According to the bible your fate is already decided before you are born. When somebody goes to hell for disbelieving in God, it's because God decided to send that person to hell long before that person was even born.

When growing up did your mother tell you that if you did not listen to her that there would be consequences?
She still loved you but there were sometimes harsh punishments. Hell is the ultimate punishment, so much more to lose.

That comparison doesn't work that way.

To make it work I'd have to assume you never knew or saw your mother; all you had was an old letter written by a person claiming to speak for your mother, telling you that she loves you and if you don't do what that person wrote in the letter she'd  torture you for the rest of your life.

So "your god" comment sand unbelief  won't exclude you from anything

Just like your clearly foolish belief in God and Jesus won't exclude you from your punishment when you die and find yourself in front of Quetzalcoatl.

See how that works?

[RaymondKHessel]

Hmm... Three completely different people, with literally no dogma or standardized "official" material between them to go to for responses (besides reality)... The only shared qualifiers being a lack of belief in gods and an abundance of lucidity and critical thought... And we all come up with more or less similar points, plus or minus some juicy tidbits here and there.

You'd think this would be a pretty good indicator that we're onto something with such a solid baseline for common sense and honest, no bullshit thinking.

But no, I'm sure it's just the work of the devil. Damn devil, clonin' R brains n' junk.  

Pretty impressive though, I gotta say. If Christians saw eye to eye to such a degree, they might actually be able to present something resembling a unified front against all the EVUHL heathens.  

edit: Reading over the last 3 posts again, I have to laugh. It's even a little embarassing. The source material we're arguing against is so 2-dimensional and goofy... And yet even with *3* of us pointing out the painfully obvious problems with it, I'm willing to bet it won't make a lick of difference. Sigh. First I laugh, now I think I might cry a little lol.

Meh. Naaah. I think I'm gonna go kill some zombies. That's what I'm a-gonna do. 'Night all!

[Emily]

I notice you and others say your God, believe it or not he is your God,  He will still judge you, You can tell him one day that he is not your God and he can't   judge you and and he will tell you in so many words to watch him.

He is no god of mine. Even if he is real I don't want him to be my god because of how much of a cruel monster he is. A lake of fire for eternity sounds more pleasant than bowing down to him. but to me, an atheist, he isn't my god, just like Allah isn't your god. If you were to have a discussion with a Muslim you'd probably say "your god". But to make it easier, put yourself in our shoes, then you can see why he's your god.

No one is going to judge us. When we die we will rot in the ground.

and he is not cruel, satan is the cruel one and he was let loose to do his damage, and he is doing a good job of it.

Obviously you have a high standard for what constitutes cruel, yet you claim Satan is cruel. First of all what does your god do to take care of Satan. Absolutely nothing. Your god drowned the entire world except for Noah and his family. Your god orders the death by stoning of homosexuals, those that work on the sabbath day, disobedient children, etc. Your god is remaining hidden and doing so is causing many people to even doubt his existence. If your god is real then he is doing absolutely nothing to prove himself to anyone.

There are two choices we can take. One path is to not believe in this god because there is no evidence to even suggest he and his son are real, or we can blindly believe him. I'd rather not believe in something blindly. It go where the evidence leads me and it's not the atheists fault that the evidence points so strongly to not believing in god. Your god hidden from view. It's not our fault we don't believe in him, free will or not.

Your god can easily pop out of nowhere, proclaim he is god and we still wouldn't need to believe in him. So him revealing himself to all of humanity wont violate his idea of free will, so why does he choose to be hidden?

this is the last thing he wants to do. He told us what would happen if we don't believe, the rest is up to the individual, there fore you are sending your self to hell not him.

And this is it - Believe. The bible told us what to believe, and all the stories in the bible are so unbelievable, why should anyone believe in it.

When growing up did your mother tell you that if you did not listen to her that there would be consequences?

She still loved you but there were sometimes harsh punishments. Hell is the ultimate punishment, so much more to lose. So "your god" comment sand unbelief  won't exclude you from anything

Well, yes she did. But my mother would never send me to burn in hell for not doing the dishes or cleaning my room when I was younger.

I don't respect your god because of his idea of hell being the "final punishment" It doesn't fit the crime in a lot of situations. Assuming hell is real, when Charles Manson dies he is going to hell if he doesn't repent and turn to Jesus, and when someone who stole bread for a meal is also going to hell, rubbing elbows with the most cruel of all monsters. The punishment is a bit extreme in a lot of cases.

Respect is to be earned, not given based on status. So far your god has not earned my respect because your god is responsible for so many atrocities. First, the flood. He didn't give a single person the chance to repent. Second, he is too busy touching tothesea to even care about the children who are starving to death and dying every single day because of a lack of nourishment. And third, well he really messed up this world he seems to love so dearly. Our own solar system is going to be destroyed in a few million years, that's if all the volcanoes and earthquakes, or disease, or wars don't destory us first. Your god has really messed up this creation he so loves. I hope we are only a prototype because to quote George Carlin "results like these don't belong on the resume of a supreme being"

[ibelieveinGod]

@RaymondKHessel

For one thing I did not call anyone a name, since you said I was a nut bar, [call me what ever, I dont care] at least I know what type of person I am dealing with.  
 I only feel sorry for you, God is real no matter what, I think we remind you that if we are right, you've got problems Otherwise why do you and others get there hackles up. I think it is sad and funny, what we believe should not have any impact on you, what you just said doesn't bother me, that is your opinion, and it is your right.  I thought I might get some half way intelligent argument, that was to much to hope for. When you start name calling that just show what kind of person you are. I won't waste any more of my time.

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