Is atheism the default position?

[Lance]

Pray to God the Almighty for Wisdom and you don't need to go to school to know anything. Make Him your Rock and you will outwitt every scientist on the face of the earth.

[wright]

Pray to God the Almighty for Wisdom and you don't need to go to school to know anything. Make Him your Rock and you will outwitt every scientist on the face of the earth.

Laughable. If your god gave special dispensation to his faithful that freely, it would be overwhelmingly evident and there would be very, very few atheists.

If you have that kind of faith, did you just pray to know how to read? That's a skill that does not come easily to most people; I have taught adults basic literacy.

You need to stop making nonsensical claims and preaching, and start providing some evidence to back up your statements. That is actually a requirement here; read the forum rules.

[Mr. Blackwell]

Pray to God the Almighty for Wisdom and you don't need to go to school to know anything. Make Him your Rock and you will outwitt every scientist on the face of the earth.

That doe not answer my question. you said that p eople who dont beleive in God are stupid. I think alot people here are smarter than me. And they dont believe? I don't want to outtwit scientist I just want to be smart. All I have to do is pray?

[Lance]

Yes jaybwell. Pray for wisdom. But pray with your heart. Take a moment why you want to be smart and then pray.

@wright "laughable?" Why is that? The reason why there are so many unbelievers today is because of religion and technology. These two has corrupted and diluted our humanity thus pulling us further from God.

[Mr. Blackwell]

Yes jaybwell. Pray for wisdom. But pray with your heart. Take a moment why you want to be smart and then pray.

If God gave me this life wouldn't i seem ungreatful if I asked for more from Him?

[Lance]

more is nothing to God because He is more than more. We are extrodiarly to have Him treat us like His children and I am humbled to call Him Father as He would have all of us call Him. Don't be burden of how much should you ask but consider how would you ask and why? If God deems it necessary for you to have he will render them to you. No one on the face of the earth knows what you need than God the Father Himself. And no once cares of your needs more than Him.

[Mr. Blackwell]

more is nothing to God because He is more than more. We are extrodiarly to have Him treat us like His children and I am humbled to call Him Father as He would have all of us call Him. Don't be burden of how much should you ask but consider how would you ask and why? If God deems it necessary for you to have he will render them to you. No one on the face of the earth knows what you need than God the Father Himself. And no once cares of your needs more than Him.

People prayed for Mr. Anfauglirs dad why do you think he needed to see his dad die and see his mother suffer? Why does God need to make his mother suffer from disease? Why did you need to say a mean thing to him? How do I ask God to not make people suffer i think that is better than asking for smarts or being outwit scienctis?

Good night.

[Lance]

Before we begin to blame God let us look at what really happened in the first place. Every suffering has a cause in the beginning whether man-made or natural. Now in Anfauglirs situation, all he said is what he's going through but if are to factor God into His miseries I would want to know the history of his family first before I put the Blame on God. For Him to come here and Blame God is more offending than me saying what i've said.

[One Above All]

Before we begin to blame God let us look at what really happened in the first place.

Exactly, let's look at what really happened, per your beliefs.
Who created evil again?

[Mr. Blackwell]

Before we begin to blame God let us look at what really happened in the first place. Every suffering has a cause in the beginning whether man-made or natural. Now in Anfauglirs situation, all he said is what he's going through but if are to factor God into His miseries I would want to know the history of his family first before I put the Blame on God. For Him to come here and Blame God is more offending than me saying what i've said.

Your grammar cleared up real quick didn't it.

[wright]

more is nothing to God because He is more than more. We are extrodiarly to have Him treat us like His children and I am humbled to call Him Father as He would have all of us call Him. Don't be burden of how much should you ask but consider how would you ask and why? If God deems it necessary for you to have he will render them to you. No one on the face of the earth knows what you need than God the Father Himself. And no once cares of your needs more than Him.

Lance, this forum is not a soapbox for you to preach to atheists. Most people here expect you to talk to them, not at them. Preaching is expressly prohibited in the forum rules; once more I encourage you to read them. You agreed to abide by them when you became a member of this forum.
 

[Lance]

i'm not preaching i'm telling what i believe is the Truth.

@ Lucifer. God didn't create evil. He created Satan but Satan rebelled thus evil was born.

[One Above All]

i'm not preaching i'm telling what i believe is the Truth.

Without evidence to support it, that's called "preaching".

@ Lucifer. God didn't create evil. He created Satan but Satan rebelled thus evil was born.

EDIT:
Here's the full verse with a link:

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Post scriptum: I'd give you a +1 for not saying that Lucifer is Satan, but the rest of your post doesn't justify it.

[Lance]

@ Lucifer. That's not true. The KJV contridicts itself by using "evil" in that specific verse. If you read the Standard Version Bible, in that verse it says "calamity." In many parts of the Bible it states that God cannot stand evil, so how can he create them. Therefore the KJV is contricting a lot of chapters and verses in the Bible by that particular verse which is why in the ESV version it's "calamity." Now if you have the wisdom of God you would discern well which one is TRUE.

[One Above All]

@ Lucifer. That's not true.

Did you just call me a liar or are you flirting with me?

The KJV contridicts itself by using "evil" in that specific verse.

If you'd read the rest of the Bible, you'd see that it really doesn't.
Adam and Eve: God created the snake, knowing full well what it would do and that humans would not be able to withstand temptation.
Adam and Eve: God lied to them about dying the very day they touched or ate from the tree.
Adam and Eve: God created the tree and put it in the middle of the garden, knowing full well that humans would eat from it.
Adam and Eve: God created humans imperfectly and demanded perfection from them.
Noah: God killed everyone, even newborn babies.
The Bible: God tells us to rip pregnant women open.

I could go on, but I won't.

If you read the Standard Version Bible, in that verse it says "calamity." In many parts of the Bible it states that God cannot stand evil, so how can he create them. Therefore the KJV is contricting a lot of chapters and verses in the Bible by that particular verse which is why in the ESV version it's "calamity."

Prove that the ESV is better than the KJV.

Now if you have the wisdom of God you would discern well which one is TRUE.

The wisdom of God is pointless. I have more wisdom than God, therefore I can discern which one is FALSE.
Hint: It's all of them.

[Lance]

LOL@Lucifer Actually if you gonna go there to adam and eve you have to go way beyond that. The Devil was there way before adma and eve was created and God put Him there so he could prove to Satan that he cannot rebelled against Him. Unfortunately, Adam and Eve failed God but God didn't lose Hope from them.

think of it like this. Satan was a Son of God who went to Harvard earned a Master's Degree and came home to his Father and rebelled against Him because he thinks he's smarter. Now, God the father instead of smoking Satan into nothingness, he said to Himself I will prove to you through my Children he is the one and true ruler. God is playing Satan by his own game and Satan will lose in the end. Get it!

I'll see you all tomorow and good night and may God bless us ALL. Merry Christmas!

[Astreja]

Now if you have the wisdom of God you would discern well which one is TRUE.

How on earth could an actual god put together such a dog's breakfast as the Bible?  Moreover, if an actual god did write the Bible (but I so doubt it...), how could it possibly expect mere mortals to comprehend it?  Why are there 30,000+ different Christian sects and 3 major divisions of Judaism?

And how accurately do believers hear the small, still voice of their imaginary friends?  Who's to say the voice of the "Holy Spirit" doesn't actually belong to a cunning, soft-spoken demon or a telepathic trickster from Alpha Centauri?

Oh, and even if the correct translation from the original Hebrew in Isaiah 45:7 was calamity... WTF is a "loving" god doing creating "calamity" in the first place?  That's not performance...

[One Above All]

LOL@Lucifer Actually if you gonna go there to adam and eve you have to go way beyond that. The Devil was there way before adma and eve was created and God put Him there so he could prove to Satan that he cannot rebelled against Him. Unfortunately, Adam and Eve failed God but God didn't lose Hope from them.

First of all, God is supposedly omniscient, so he already knew what would happens. He's also supposedly omnipotent[1], so that makes him directly responsible for everything that will ever happen.
Second, God created paradise and put the snake in there[2] to prove that he couldn't rebel?
You should practice your English a bit more.

think of it like this. Satan was a Son of God who went to Harvard earned a Master's Degree and came home to his Father and rebelled against Him because he thinks he's smarter. Now, God the father instead of smoking Satan into nothingness, he said to Himself I will prove to you through my Children he is the one and true ruler. God is playing Satan by his own game and Satan will lose in the end. Get it!

Or I can think of it this way:
Satan and God are imaginary, just like everything else in the Bible. It's a story written by ignorant goat herders who knew nothing about the world. It would make a good "Turns out the supposedly bad guy[3] is the good guy and vice-versa" movie, and maybe it would also give children nightmares, but that's all.

I'll see you all tomorow and good night and may God bless us ALL. Merry Christmas!

No thanks. I've taken the red pill a long time ago.
Also, I don't celebrate christmas.

1.	But is allergic to iron chariots for some reason.
2.	Note that the snake is not Satan. You should read up on that.
3.	Satan.

[caveat_imperator]

You've really never thought about any of this thoroughly, have you Lance?

[screwtape]

@ Lucifer. That's not true. The KJV contridicts itself by using "evil" in that specific verse. If you read the Standard Version Bible, in that verse it says "calamity."

It looks like there is a dispute over translation.  You know, the books that make up the bible were not originally written in english, so you would have to go back to the originals.  In the originals, hebrew, the word used there is ra'.   It is the same word that is used in Gen 2:9:

...and the tree of knowledge of good and evil

It makes no sense to say the tree of knowledge of good and calamity since it is talking about morality. 

It is also used in gen 2:17 with regards to the tree.  Again, same word in gen 3:5:

and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil

again, since it is talking about morality, it makes no sense to talk about good and calamity. 

Again in gen 6:5:

And GOD saw that the wickedness of man [was] great in the earth, and [that] every imagination of the thoughts of his heart [was] only evil continually.

same word.  again, calamity makes no sense.  How about gen 13:13:

But the men of Sodom [were] wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly

Are you saying the men of Sodom were calamaties? 

There are at least 25 instances of this usage.

So, what do you think there, Sunny Jim?  Maybe your preferred translation of the bible is a little bit wishful thinking?

[velkyn]

LOL@Lucifer Actually if you gonna go there to adam and eve you have to go way beyond that. The Devil was there way before adma and eve was created and God put Him there so he could prove to Satan that he cannot rebelled against Him. Unfortunately, Adam and Eve failed God but God didn't lose Hope from them.

My, my, yet more adding to the bible by a Christian.  How are those boils, lance? 

think of it like this. Satan was a Son of God who went to Harvard earned a Master's Degree and came home to his Father and rebelled against Him because he thinks he's smarter. Now, God the father instead of smoking Satan into nothingness, he said to Himself I will prove to you through my Children he is the one and true ruler. God is playing Satan by his own game and Satan will lose in the end. Get it!

Funny how God must work with Satan constantly.  We have him betting with Satan in Job  We have him required to release Satan after chaining him in the “pit” after killing all of the “evil” people and letting JC reign for a millennium.  I guess God isn’t so powerful after all.  Shame that you’ve evidently never read your bible, lance.  Your ignorance is fun, though.

I'll see you all tomorow and good night and may God bless us ALL. Merry Christmas!

I love how good Christians like this always try to use a supposed blessing as an attack.  Yet more evidence on how much they are just brats who get off on threatening others and ignoring their own supposed “holy” book.

[Graybeard]

…  Unfortunately, Adam and Eve failed God but God didn't lose Hope from them.

So, God’s creation failed… how do we explain that? Did He make a mistake when He made them out of mud and meat?

think of it like this. Satan was a Son of God who went to Harvard earned a Master's Degree and came home to his Father and rebelled against Him because he thinks he's smarter. Now, God the father instead of smoking Satan into nothingness, he said to Himself …

“… Wait, I have a better plan!”

How many times have you heard that one?

Look, Yahweh had no difficulty killing the Midianites, Amalkelites, Moabites, Canaanites, Assyrians, Ethiopians, etc, ad nauseam, and all they did was worship other gods. Yet here is Satan who not only rebels but sets himself up as a false god… and what does Yahweh do? “Oh I know, I’ll let him walk the earth… that’ll teach him…”

And anyway, who created Satan?

Here’s a few clues:
Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Amos 3:6 Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?

Exodus 4:11 And the LORD said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD?

(With all those evil deeds, you wonder why Yahweh needed Satan alive.

[Traveler]

...In many parts of the Bible it states that God cannot stand evil, so how can he create them...

I LOL!!! I'm an artist. I cannot stand crappy art, but I sometimes create it. I cannot stand snot, but I sometimes create it when I have a cold. I cannot stand baked sweet potatoes but I create them for my loved ones who like them. If an all powerful god were to exist he most certainly could create anything at all.

I haven't read through all the pages of this topic, but has anyone cried POE yet? 

[One Above All]

I haven't read through all the pages of this topic, but has anyone cried POE yet? 

*Cries POE-shaped tears*

Is that good enough?

[dloubet]

@ Lucifer. God didn't create evil. He created Satan but Satan rebelled thus evil was born.

But the god character knew the Satan character would rebel and create evil when it created the Satan character. Thus by creating the Satan character, the god character created evil. Through that act, the god character put it's stamp of approval on evil.

The god character is ultimately responsible for everything its creations do because it created them with full knowledge of what they would do. If the god character desired a different state of affairs, it would have created a different state of affairs. This is an inescapable implication of an omniscient and omnipotent being creating things. Nothing can act outside the creators intent.

[jaimehlers]

Only stupid people don't believe in God. But i stand to be corrected.

How...original.  Calling people who disagree with you 'stupid'.  Maybe you'd better prove your point.

Sorry Jet but God is not that easy like some physics experiment. If you want to know God you have to find a way to believe in Him first. and if you can't then like i said you're stupid.

This is nothing more than the usual statement of "you have to believe first, and then it makes sense", which is exactly how scam artists work.  They 'convince' people by getting them emotionally invested first, 'believing' in the scam, at which point it's easy to sell them on whatever the scam artist wants.  You might say religion is different, but I say that if they use the same methods...

Physics is a replay of something that's already there. God created everything and he is the source so you cannot prove him with man-invented scienific methods. Only idiots do that like those scientist and guess what they're making everything even more complicated.

If God created everything, we'd be able to find proof of it using science.  So far, we haven't exactly; the closest we've come to a "source for everything" is the Big Bang, which almost certainly didn't create anything.  Also, I think I see where your gripe is; you're upset because science isn't simple.  Well, sorry, but tough.  Complaining that science makes things more complicated isn't the way to get people who agree with science to listen to you.

my desire for the truth lead me to God. For those who believe in God but cannot read, blessed are they for there are those who knows how to read but does not believe.

So, your desire for the truth led you to God.  Details?  And your attempt to give thanks that there are people who can't 'read' but believe because there are people who can 'read' but don't believe is both asinine and nonsensical.  You might as well say, "I'm thankful that there are those who believe in God but are not intelligent, blessed are they for there are those who are intelligent but do not believe."

Pray to God the Almighty for Wisdom and you don't need to go to school to know anything. Make Him your Rock and you will outwitt every scientist on the face of the earth.

Praying for wisdom is like praying for gold; you can want it however badly, but you're not going to find it by sitting on your butt.  Same with thinking you can outwit scientists by believing in God.  Most of the things that you rely on day to day were invented by the use of science; if you truly want to show that you can outwit scientists, then try to live without electric power, automobiles, grocery stores, etc.

Yes jaybwell. Pray for wisdom. But pray with your heart. Take a moment why you want to be smart and then pray.

@wright "laughable?" Why is that? The reason why there are so many unbelievers today is because of religion and technology. These two has corrupted and diluted our humanity thus pulling us further from God.

Praying for wisdom is useless.  Wisdom is gained from others, not from inside our own heads, and it certainly isn't 'beamed' from some 'almighty' source.  If it were so easy as simply praying, there would be things that could only be gained through prayer, yet there are none.  And as for there being so many unbelievers, were it not for religion, faith would have died long ago, and were it not for technology, humans would not be here.  Agriculture is a technology; stone points on a spear are technology.

more is nothing to God because He is more than more. We are extrodiarly to have Him treat us like His children and I am humbled to call Him Father as He would have all of us call Him. Don't be burden of how much should you ask but consider how would you ask and why? If God deems it necessary for you to have he will render them to you. No one on the face of the earth knows what you need than God the Father Himself. And no once cares of your needs more than Him.

The thing is, a father understands that his children will grow up.  Nobody remains a child forever, and God would necessarily know that.  In fact, parents expect their children to grow up in order to be able to care for themselves, instead of asking their parents for everything forever.  If you are saying that God expects us to ask him for everything for all our lives, then you are saying that he doesn't want to be a 'father'.

----

I think that's enough of a response for now.  I strongly suspect that you don't actually believe the things you're saying here, because they're too nonsensical even for believers.

[Lance]

@ jaimehler Thank you for ur long response but you're missing a lot of my points. I'll jus point one for now until ur back and then we roll into meaningful discussion. ok the one i'm gonna point now is ur last argument where you posit that God is not a father if he expects us to ask Him for help way into our old age. Well, the thing is u cannot take the things of these world ie parenting and compare them to God. Also parents are required to teach their children forever no matter the age. have u heard the saying "it never is too late to learn something."

[jaimehlers]

@ jaimehler Thank you for ur long response but you're missing a lot of my points. I'll jus point one for now until ur back and then we roll into meaningful discussion. ok the one i'm gonna point now is ur last argument where you posit that God is not a father if he expects us to ask Him for help way into our old age. Well, the thing is u cannot take the things of these world ie parenting and compare them to God. Also parents are required to teach their children forever no matter the age. have u heard the saying "it never is too late to learn something."

A better question is, how do you know that God expects us to depend on him for the entirety of our lives?  And please do not answer "because the Bible says", because the Bible was written by people, with everything that implies.  They could have gotten it wrong too, and did in a number of areas (translation errors, scribal modifications, etc).  There's too much in the Bible that's just flat out wrong to take it for granted that it's the word of God.

The point is that if God is a metaphorical 'father' to everyone, that suggests that he wants people to grow up and not depend on him for everything.  For example, I can and do get help from my parents when I need it, but I also give them help when they need it.  It stops being a dependency relationship once I'm old enough to pull my own weight.  Yet according to many religious believers, God is here to see to our every need for the entirety of our lives, and we never give anything meaningful back.  You've made it quite clear that you think God is here to provide for people's needs; "pray to the Almighty for wisdom and you don't need to go to school" is one of the things you said, and I'm sure I could find several more examples of this attitude in your various posts.

To put it bluntly, I consider this belief to be selfish.  People who think their God is only there to give them everything they need and that they can pretend they don't have to learn anything from the real world do nothing to contribute even while they preach about how wise and beneficent their deity is for giving them what they need so they don't even have to exert themselves for it aside from asking God.  So, too, might a little baby preach (if it could) about how the parents are only there to see to the baby's needs.  Of course, we all know what ends up happening to the baby as it grows older.

[Lance]

BECAUSE GOD CREATED US FOR A REASON - HIS REASON - AND WE NEED HIS HELP IN ORDER TO SUCCEED! thank you.