Meh. Wasn't he just 30 years or something?

And God's Holy Righteous Penis. (no images or sex in the link, sadly; just the words of a nut)

See, This is where I find the failure in Christianity. There is a failure to understand God. According to the Bible, God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. This means that even before he created the universe, even with free will, he knew everything that was to come. Therefore, even though we do not know or comprehend his plan(s) HE knew exactly what and how to create to achieve His goal(s). As bad as it may be at times, we live in the best possible world for this outcome to be achieved. We are not "letting sin happen", all is as it must be for God's will to be done.

Either that, or God isn't omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, which turns Him from God into "a god". If He is only "a god" then Christianity is just an overweening mob, and the gods of other religions have just as much importance as He does. Which makes the Bible claptrap. How can an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent God become angry with his creation, when any flaws are only of His own creation?

You can choose one or the other , not both.

Must be the latter one. Judging from the bible, the Christian/Jewish god behaves like a child who has drawn a picture, and then tears it up because it turned out ugly, before he puts the blame on the drawing sticks being crappy (not admitting to having made them, too).

I don’t agree with that, because Jehovah’s Witnesses pattern their organization after the arrangement of the first century Christian congregation, thus we are not organized into the Clergy Laity Class that denominations are today.

Jesus gave some organizational instructions to his disciples at Matthew 23:8-11. In what to call each other, he said, “But YOU, do not YOU be called Rabbi, for one is YOUR teacher, (meaning himself) whereas all YOU are brothers. (Or sisters) 9Moreover, do not call anyone YOUR father on earth, for one is YOUR Father, the heavenly One. 10Neither be called ‘leaders,’ for YOUR Leader is one, the Christ. 11But the greatest one among YOU must be YOUR minister (servant).”

Jesus told his disciples not to give each other titles, such as Rabbi, Father, and Leader. That doesn’t mean that those are the only titles that should not be used. The context shows he meant we shouldn’t use any titles, because he said, “All you are brothers.”

However what do we find today? Different denominations adding titles before the name of those having prominence, such as Reverend Jesse Jackson, Bishop Fulton Sheen, Pope John Paul II, Pastor Mark Jeske, Father John Misty etc..

Jesus said, “All you are brothers.” Hence all Jehovah’s Witnesses are designated brothers.

EARLY CHURCH HISTORY
So when did this unbiblical distinction between clergymen and lay persons come about? Church historian Charles Jacobs, in The Story of the Church, writes: "In the beginning most of the work of the congregation was done by people who had no official position. It was voluntary service, freely rendered. By the middle of the third century, it was done by the professional clergy. Between clergymen and laity there was a sharp distinction. The clergy, too, were divided into higher and lower grades. In the higher grades were bishops, presbyters and deacons; in the lower grade sub-deacons, lectors, exorcists, acolytes and janitors. All of them were inducted into office by some form of ordination, and the idea of local organization had gone so far that in some churches even the grave diggers were ordained. Thus the work of the Church was passing out of the hands of the many into those of the few, and these few were coming to be regarded as belonging to a higher class." http://www.plymouthbrethren.com/clergy.htm

We see that most denominations have apostatized from the way the first century congregation was set up. Instead of everyone being brothers there's now the class distinction of clergy and laity. With the clergy being paid.

However, when Jesus sent forth his apostles to preach, he told them, “You received free, give free.” (Matthew 10:5-10) (See Acts 8:20 also.) Yet less than 300 years later, as we see from the above, men were being paid to provide what Jesus says should be provided free.

Today’s clergy, besides taking titles for themselves in disobedience to Jesus, want the members of their congregation to tithe 10% of their income. This is also unbiblical.

Tithing was a requirement only to the Israelites under the Mosaic Law Covenant they had agreed to with God. Tithing thus is not a requirement for Christians. The Bible shows repeatedly that the Law Covenant was done away with. For example Romans 10:4 says, “Christ is the end of the Law.”

The ‘older men’ overseeing Jehovah’s Witnesses congregations volunteer their time and do not get paid. Neither do Jehovah’s Witnesses tithe, or pass a collection plate. How do Jehovah's Witnesses maintain their meeting places? By the use of contribution boxes that are off to the side and out of the way. And no it's not expected we line up after meetings to contribute. You give what you desire to give, when you desire to give it. If you don't believe me, check out any congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses and see for yourself.



I do. The Bible tells us at Matthew 22:34-40, "After the Pharisees heard that he (Jesus) had put the Sadducees to silence, they came together in one group. 35And one of them, versed in the Law, asked, testing him: 36“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37He said to him: “‘You must love Jehovah your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind.’ 38This is the greatest and first commandment. 39The second, like it, is this, ‘You must love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40On these two commandments the whole Law hangs, and the Prophets.”



You say churches that have an intolerance of someone sinning are wrong and hypocritical. You are obviously referring to the practice of churches expelling those who continue to practice sin after being warned, however that is what Christians are commanded to do.

We just discussed the greatest commandment and that it’s to love God. First John 5:3 add’s more saying, “For this is what the love of God means, [that we observe his commandments;] . . . “ Another commandment is found at 1 Corinthians 5:11-13 which says, “. . . quit mixing in company with anyone called a brother that is a fornicator or a greedy person or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner, not even eating with such a man. 12. . . “Remove the wicked [man] from among yourselves.”

1 Timothy 5:20 adds more saying, 20Reprove before all onlookers persons who practice sin, that the rest also may have fear.

Obviously reproving and removing unrepentant people from a congregation is because their conduct can spread to others. Reproving and removing ‘practicing’ sinners is for the good of all, even the sinner. Why is it good for the sinner? Because some repent and are reinstated.

Yep. The early church did away with calling each other 'brother' and 'sister' because it was freaking out the Romans. When you're only marrying the people you call brother and sister, well...

That's also the only reason circumcision was made optional. They found that they were converting a lot of Roman women, but no men. Mainly because the guys didn't want to take knives to their penises just to worship a new god. Most of the alterations were made in order to better convert the Romans.

Which kind of highlights how bad the church he set up was. I mean, the point of it was to convert as many people as possible. That's why each of the gospels is aimed at a different demographic. Matthew targets the Jews, promising bloodshed and vengeance, and heavily quoting the OT to give his words weight. Mark focuses on the general unbelievers, emphasizing service and sacrifice and saying "this is the great person you could be like". Luke aims for the Hellenics (Greco-Romans), by talking about his great feats and god heritage, as if he were one of their demigod heroes. John reinforces the church itself by giving circular proofs, shaming people for looking for proof and doubting, and not relying on any external sources for proof.

So with all of that, it's pretty clear that the early church was supposed to convert as many people as possible. And yet it failed. It had to change in order to survive. You'd think that a being who's able to give prophets visions of the future would know that the way things were set up isn't working. So this means one of two things.

1. He meant for the church to evolve.
2. He's not omniscient and didn't foresee the problems.

Either way, it doesn't bode well for a church based on one that failed.



That's generally because of low literacy rates. See, they needed to spread the word, but there were limited ways to get it out. Especially among the poor, who were the least likely to be able to read and the most susceptible to their teachings. So they recruited public speakers to talk to the people.

And then there were problems.

You may note that everyone who reads the book has a different interpretation. Left on their own, the people started coming up with a bunch of weird theories. So, they had to reinstate the priest class and teach them the words the right way. Of course, this could all have been avoided by making the bible only readable in the correct way, but it's not like your god is omnipotent and omniscient, right?



...huh? Nobody's asking for a tithe anymore. Ever been to a non-Witness congregation? Most denominations pass around a collection basket or have ushers walk down the aisles with the baskets. Any and all donations made to churches are entirely voluntary and have nothing to do with a tithe. For that matter, nobody except the priest gets paid, and even then it's only because he needs to actually support himself.

...Hey, since the Law Covenant is done away with, does that mean that homosexuality s okay? After all, the covenant included all the prohibitions against homosexuality, which weren't repeated in the NT by Jesus. For that matter, I believe there's a reference in Revelation of two men in bed, one of whom is taken by the rapture.



If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting; (2 John 1:10)

Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them. (Romans 16:17)

See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. (Colossians 2:8)

So does this mean you're also supposed to shun non-believers and not even exchange greetings with them? Makes Witnessing a little hard, don't you think?



Yes, taking away a person's family until they start agreeing with you is an excellent way of making them 'repent'. So how do you know they truly repent and don't feel blackmailed into pretending to?

Other scriptures need to be consulted to arrive at the correct view of this subject.

OMNIPOTENT
If someone handed you a baby would you wrap your arms around it with all your strength? The easy answer is of course not, we need to be gentle in holding a baby don’t we.

Have you ever been yelled at or whispered to? The likely answer to both those questions is yes.

The point is we have ability’s that we have control over don’t we. We can raise or lower our voice, and we can use our strength to be gentle or rough can’t we.

Now let’s turn our attention to God’s abilities and how he uses them. The dictionary defines omnipotent as; almighty or infinite in power. The Bible agrees. Exodus 6:3 call’s him ‘God Almighty’, and a footnote says that means omnipotent.

However, even though God has infinite power, would he use all his power in making, for example a blade of grass? Like we do he would use just the amount of power a situation called for wouldn’t he?

OMNISCIENT
An online dictionary defines omniscient as; having complete or unlimited knowledge, awareness, or understanding; perceiving all things.

Now it’s true the Bible says God can see the future. For example Isaiah 46:10 says of God, “The One telling from the beginning the finale . . .” But does his ability to see the future mean that God HAS to be omniscient, meaning does he have to use this ability to the full and perceive all things? Or like his ability to control his power, can he be discretionary in it’s use?

The Bible indicates that God use’s this ability of foreknowledge selectively so that whatever he chooses to foresee and foreknow, he does, but he’s discretionary in it’s use because of the effect it would/could have on the free will of his intelligent creatures. For example, he could look ahead and see how your life is going to play out. However, the moment he did that, you would no longer have free will, whatever God saw would be foreordained to occur.

Logically, there should be no conflict between God’s foreknowledge (as well as his foreordaining) and the free moral agency of his intelligent creatures. And this proves to be the case for God does extend to his intelligent creatures the privilege and responsibility of free choice, of exercising free moral agency, thereby making them accountable for their acts. (De 30:19,20; Jos 24:15; Romans 14:10-12)

To summerize, the Bible shows that God’s doesn’t use his ability to foresee the future to the full so as to qualify himself as omniscient.

OMNIPRESENT
Various religions describe God as omnipresent, a term suggesting that God dwells everywhere simultaneously. However, the Bible speaks of God as having a specific place of dwelling . . . in the heavens.

In prayer king Solomon said, “May you yourself listen from the heavens, your established place of dwelling.” (1Kings 8:43)

After his resurrection the Bible says; . . . For Christ entered . . . into heaven itself, now to appear before the person of God for us. (Hebrews 9:24)

When teaching his disciples how to pray, Jesus Christ told them to address their prayers to “Our Father in the heavens.” (Matthew 6:9)

These verses clearly indicate that God dwells, not everywhere, but only in heaven.

What, though of scriptures such as Psalm 139:7-10 where David said regarding God: “Where can I go from your spirit, and where can I run away from your face? If I should ascend to heaven, there you would be; and if I should spread out my couch in Sheol, look! you would be there. Were I to take the wings of the dawn, that I might reside in the most remote sea, there, also, your own hand would lead me.”

Note that David first asked: “Where can I go from your spirit?” *

By means of his holy spirit, God can see anything and exert his power anywhere, without literally going there or dwelling there. To illustrate: Think of scientists examining the soil on mars. They don’t do it by being there, they do it by studying detailed photos and other information transmitted back to Earth by probes sent to Mars’ surface. Likewise God doesn’t have to be someplace to observe something. Hebrews 4:13 says, “There is not a creation that is not manifest to his sight.”

*The Hebrew word above translated “spirit” refers to God’s active force, the power God uses to accomplish his will. This powerful active force, or holy spirit, can extend anywhere, allowing him to be all-seeing and to accomplish his purpose from a fixed location, his “holy dwelling” in the heavens. Deuteronomy 26:15.

Omnipotent means unlimited power. That does not mean "using all power to make a straw of grass", but more something like "more than enough power to do anything."
I can't see what you're trying to explain, but it sounds to me like you've misunderstood the word a bit...

If a god really can see the future, and all possible futures there are, then why go all batshit crazy over people not doing what he wanted?
- here we can go into a long discussion of how a simple event can change the entire future of the planet, but... It's late and I'm tired.
- we can also go onto a long discussion of possible events, and how a tiny little thing done differently can change the entire future. If so-and-so happens, you get one outcome, but if so-and-so happens, you get a completely different outcome. If you take all the possible outcomes of one situation, add up all the outcomes of different other situations rising from the first situation, and keep going like that for a bit, you get some billion outcomes from one single event, and even more if you go further. And this goes on around the entire globe all day, steered by free will. Mix a god into that, and you get a big mess in my view...

As for omnipresent... That's the one I have the most difficulty understanding. See above comment. If god is supposed to be everywhere, all the time, then it's no wonder he can't get anything done. More than enough to just keep track of. And oh boy, where to interfere? Should he save the little girl with cancer, or should he prevent a person from slipping on a banana peel, or perhaps go to oversee some bad weather so it wrecks up things a little (it's a neat way of making people pray, so why not?)

No, all in all I still have troubles imagining an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent god. No wonder he does such a bad job when handling so much on his own...

Now, I think it would be a whole lot easier with the greek/Roman/Nordic (and similar) gods. At least they had the decency to split up the work between them. Much more efficient, if you don't count the "occasional" fight and disagreement. Plus, they didn't even try to be perfect.

Let's be frank here, if that's what Witnesses tried to do then you're almost certainly wrong about your whole organizational structure, since the "structure of the first century Christian congregation" is documented about as much as the first century British/Gaelic/Celtic pagan practices that "Wiccans" are aiming for. That is, your church is built upon wishes and guesses and post ad hoc archeological/historical references. It's not that it's not true, but you've got to realize that what you're talking about is more Remus & Romulus than Julius Caesar, right?

That doesn't make it wrong because I truly don't believe that anyone's organizational religious structure is wrong unless it involves something illegal, but what you're describing just isn't impossible with the injection of even more fiction into an already fiction-ridden subject. You might as well say, "We believe that Jesus was a Jedi Knight, and we model ourselves after the ways of the Force and a strict interpretation of the Lost Jedi Codicil of AD 57."

That's a lovely interpretation, but it's actually wrong. If something actually possessed omnipotence then strictly it would be impossible for it to "use less" since all power would be directly ascribable to that being. That is, to be omnipotent but "use less power" would actually be a description of a finite god, since not all power would necessarily derive from his omnipotence, a state that becomes worse when you follow it with your



Which describe omniscience that allows for blindness, but if it saw something before or after (since you see all things before and after) and you're not already restricting its power then it would always know all things before and after, which would mean it would have to blind itself for all time to everything regarding what it "decides" to not be aware of, which wouldn't be omniscience at all, it would be something that is restricted in power (and thus not the source of all power) and restricted in vision (and thus not aware of all things). From there on you're just picking and choosing according to your mortal, finite mind which things you think it knows about or doesn't know, which power you've decided it is enacting and what, presumably comes from the regular, normal ways power comes about.

EDIT: Or to make this clearer, to willingly blind yourself to a thing as an omniscient god you'd first have to be aware of the thing and by being aware of the thing you'd know everything. There's simply no possible way to choose to be blind with omniscience, anymore than there's a way to be "weak" when all power derives from you. You can try to parse that in all sorts of ways to fit your agenda, but rationally it simply doesn't work. It can't work. Once you posit an omnipotent, omniscient deity they're absolutely culpable for all things, whether you like them or not. In fact, this notion of "free will?" It would be a sham, because the only will possible would be will derived from that omnipotence. Every will would be owned by that omnipotence, regardless of any notions of "well, he doesn't want to." All that proves is that you're painting your deity into a corner as a hypocrite: "I love you baby, I don't mean to hit you but I just can't help it."

Which of course means that your omnipotent, omniscient god isn't anything at all like that, it's just whatever deus ex machina that you're deciding it is. God isn't omni-anything, it's just your personal slave to describing what you want it to describe without forcing any responsible behaviors upon it, or subject to another interpretation, you've got a responsible omnipotent god but a bunch of lazy, irresponsible religious people who need that god to be limited so they don't look like they're personally supporting things that they dislike that omnipotence would surely make that god responsible for. Either way, someone's a douche and if that's your personal religious interpretation it fails basic first philosophy and logic.

Again, all of this goes away if you stop trying to stuff your god into logic and reason. When people just throw faith at things and stop trying to make it... explain, then you're left with people who have religion but aren't relying on all the shitty, impossible/implausible stuff and have to make it all appealing without magic and irrationality.

You can do that, but you don't do it with quoting books. You do that by being good people and supporting good causes. As it is, organized religion is on the wane all across the globe because all too often you guys' personal message and personal biases seems to stuff your brains full of bullshit so much that you're all missing the main "good parts" of the Bible, which can be neatly summarized across most denominations as "don't be an asshole to other people."

I already know the definitions of those words. Didn't need to be told them, as I used them properly. You obviously didn't read my post properly. Try again.

Science did not create or cause gravity and it's a force that is currently beyond full understanding. There is practical knowledge, you know that a knob turns a door just like gravity pulls us down. This is called a priori knowledge. You don't have to do any collecting data and proving it to know these things. Knowing God satisfies a priori and a posteriori, practical knowledge with proof and even better than and beyond that. Many people in my church, including my pastor, knew in childhood before ever even hearing of God or the Bible, already had a concept of God above with unconditional love for us. It's outside of science and like gravity, yet there it is... evidence that fits the theory of our connection to God with thousands worldwide who can testify to this.

Science is the number one creative interpretation of "there may not be a God at all" and yet can't prove it.


I know that song "Imagine" by the Beatles. It's just a song and makes a poor plan for an argument. Are we all going to smoke pot and the world is going to suddenly understand and love each other and hug and cry? There was no revolution, the hippies were hilariously wrong, 'Imagine' that. You had more to say about what you think Christians see sinners as before you indirectly called Protestant Christians crazy. And yet here you are giving me the Paul McCartney. So respectfully, that's your opinion and you have a right to it.

But in case you were just playing dumb I'll give a short rundown.

Protestant Christians know ( believe ):

*The roman catholic church is corrupted by satan, specifically, the papacy
*The antichrist will very likely be a united states president
*The pope will pull strings to make the government enact a law that prevents Christians from doing business
*Christians will be raptured and those that weren't will be at war with the forces of the devil
*The sign that the time is drawing near is that the Temple in Jerusalem a new one will be built
*Look it up. Revelations.

Pretty much it.



Ha ha funny, let me simplify it.

In the time of Jesus:

*Baptism in water
*Love thy neighbor
*Jesus was sacrificed

Christians today:

*Baptize in water, just like back then
*Love their neighbors ( fellowship ), just like back then
*Acknowledge salvation through Jesus

The generation of Christians in the time of Jesus has not changed, there are Christians right now doing as in that time. Has nothing to do with human life-span or the quickening.


In other words God knows he is right which you deliberately twist into "the game is rigged," but even then both of these prove that man cannot abide / survive with sin, he needs God to bail him out. You are neglecting the importance that man was given free will. We were not made to be perfect, but "very good." Adam and Eve made a critical choice to disobey, eating the apple released lucifer's ages old plague of sin upon humans for the first time, and a very good sitation in the beginning has spiralled down to the crummy times of war, crime, and immorality we have now. But it's the connection with God that will save man, and whether or not you will be saved is your choice. The problem with your post is that you are trying to blame sin on God. Absolutely wrong. Who made sin? A certain individual with free will who once was known as lucifer.

You need to collect data to know what gravity -is-, but yes, we do have a sense of what it is already from childhood. But like everything else, we first learn about it through trial and failure. Kids pull tablecloths and get things raining down on their heads, and ergo, things fall down, not up. If you throw a ball into air, it will eventually return in a downward motion. A baby does not come with the foreknowledge that there is a thing such as gravity. Like slightly older children, they learn. From the moment of birth when they "fall down", they start learning.

Babies are in essence acting like animals. Their first months they do little beyond "eat, sleep, poop" and playing. Playing is the best way to learn. If you leave a newborn baby in the dark with no social influence but only having their basic needs taken care of, they will learn nothing and know nothing as long as they are kept that way - well into their adulthood. Learning comes from playing, communication and other social activities, and experience. It starts right after the baby is born, and keeps going. Most of it is done by learning, but some of it is instinctive, a way of surviving, such as being able to locate the nipple to get food, close their eyes to go to sleep, and making noise to indicate they're unhappy with something. All babies know this, even animal babies. They even practice some of this behavior inside the womb (suckling their thumbs, smelling, "peeing", sleeping, and "entertaining themselves") and in that essence learn how to do it. They don't have use for higher knowledge just yet. They're happy with their "eat, sleep, poop and play" routine. None of them have knowledge of a god. Their still primal brain needs years to grow and collect information before they can even grasp the concept, and by then they've had more than enough influence through social interaction and their senses to make their own concept of a god - influenced by their surroundings.



"With proof"? What kind of proof? You didn't submit any so-called proofs, so I'd like to hear it.



We don't come with the foreknowledge that there is a god. This is something that seeps into our brain as we grow up, affected by what our parents and those around us believe. A three-year-old might have a concept of a god, but if the're told about the tooth fairy, they also have a concept of the tooth fairy.

Have you asked a toddler that has just come into talking whether there's a god or not?



Science isn't a creative interpretation. Science has a lot of creativity behind it, because sometimes you have to be creative to come up with a thesis, which is then followed through with lots of sciency stuff, testing, asking questions and getting answers and that sort of stuff, until you end up with a scientifically verified theory. Theories can be changed as new knowledge comes along.

There are no scientifical proofs that there is a god. However, there seems to be parts of our brain that has a "find a deeper meaning with life" function. We want to find connections, to find hidden meanings and to find something that explainis everything. In there is probably our fascination with the unknowable, such as "there is a god"




The song "Imagine" was not in my mind when I wrote that. I wrote it simply because do you have the faintest idea of how many wars and fights that have started because of religion? "My god is better than your god" or "this land is ours by religious right, let's take it!" or the "prosecution wars" from the Christian beginning are but a few examples.

I was just pondering that if religion wasn't in the equation, we'd have a lot less war.



I'm seriously wondering who is playing dumb here, because it's not me...



This is just BS pulled out of a hat. There was no concept of United States presidents at the time the bible was written down. And the pope thing? He's a form of Christian, isn't he? Why would he want a law that won't let him do things?

None of this makes any sense.



And that proofs? Not a thing, except that we love following old (and to be frank, quite pointless) rituals.

Also, I don't think babies appreciate being dunked in water by a person they don't know (that's probably why most of them scream).

Loving neighbors... Well, if you're gonna share a fence there's no point going crazy like Donald Duck and his "favorite" neighbor Jones. Ergo, it's quite logical to if not love them, then at least respect them. Otherwise there will only be wars over trees hngin over the fence and such stupd things.

And as stated above, if you need someone else to take the blame for the bad things you do, you're irresponsible. That's why Christians needed Jesus in the first place. Someone to take the blame for all the stupid things they do, and someone to tell them to be nice. Because they obviously haven't figured out that you're responsible for your own actions and that it is logical to be nice toward others in today's society (or people won't be nice to you).



More religious BS that I don't believe. Sorry, but it just is.
People tried when I was younger and still naïve, but even then they didn't succeed.

As for the Adam and Eve story, it was in essence a self-fulfilling prophecy. "Don't eat fruit from that tree" is bound to make someone do it. And therein lies the essence of sin. If the tree had not been mentioned, or if God instead had said the fruit was poisonous instead of saying "it's the fruit of knowledge", we'd still be living in Paradise. So God created sin. The whole affair with the snake was just temptation that eventually led to sinning. Don't for one moment believe the god you love so much was perfect. If anything he was the one with most faults of them all. But this sin was apparently needed, because otherwise humans would be stupid as a tree and would never have gotten free will in the first place (they would just obey what they were told). The devil in form of a snake might have been the temptation in all this, but I think that at some point One of them would have eaten from the tree. It's just something to do with curiosity and an inbuilt instinct to try new things to see if they're safe.

The story of Adam and Eve can be interpreted in several ways. You have your way, I have mine. I don't know who of us are right, because interpretations are just that - no one knows who is right without proofs for one or the other.

The connection with God will not save anyone. Take the billions of religious people who have starved, died, turned ill with fatal diseases and died in religious wars, and ask if they didn't pray. I bet most of them did, and it didn't do them a thing, except on random occasions when fate threw them the best hand. You see, that's why a "paradise in heaven" (or what you chose to call it) is needed. People have to die to get there, and we still don't know for sure what happens when we die (I stick to the "all goes dark because the brain dies" thesis, but that's my opinion). It's very effective propaganda. Make people afraid that they won't go to paradise, so they'll follow God's will.

We're a bit like sheep that way. If there's a whepherd, we go anywhere the leader goes, without thinking it through first. Even if it happens to be to our deaths. I don't exactly wonder why the shepherd reference is used so much... If people could think for themselves, they would not be so much like sheep. They would stay away from the wolf, and would be able to fight if need be, instead of being a helpless fool. They would be able to find food instead of waiting for it to fall down into their hands. They would be able to take responsibility for their sins, instead of waiting fo the shepherd to tell them "it's alright, I'l take the blame".

We are not meant to be perfect. That's because of how our brains work when we interact with what is around us, how we form memories, and because the human brain is a master in taking things the wrong way. It's also because mutations in our DNA happen on random. Whether or not we were created, or just were an effect of many mutations from monkeys to humans, we're always going to be far from perfect. We're not "very good" either. We just are. We exist, like elephants, like monkeys, like bacteria, like worms. Even like dinosaurs (although they died out leaving the Earth they ruled to us, eventually. We're just slightly better at living together and taking advantage of the resources around us, an we also have a more advanced brain (but it still has the "primitive parts" from the animal world - and we're not good at keeping in check, which is why we do stupid things in the first place).

I wasn't complaining about God I was complaining about humans(Christians) who wonder why God "allows" bad stuff to happen to good people; why the world is so messed up. I acknowledged that people have free will. I was making the point that in spite of our free will God's omniscience trumps it. That the current world is necessary to achieve his plan, whatever it may be. Lucifer did not create sin. According to doctrine, Lucifer cannot create, he can only twist. MAN made sin. Of course, God played no role in this. It isn't as if making something forbidden and mysterious doesn't make people want it more. Kind of like teenagers and drinking in the US.

BTW, God's omniscience also trumps Eve's eating of the apple. He knew she would do this. So, basically he was goading her into doing it as much as Lucifer.

Therefore, God has NO RIGHT to become angry, as in so many stories in the Bible. He is the only being to blame for anything he doesn't like, OMNISCIENT, OMNIPOTENT, OMNIPRESENT, remember?

It's why I believe Christianity in all its forms to be fallacious and flawed, because Christians off all stripes constantly try to ignore OMNISCIENT, OMNIPOTENT, OMNIPRESENT. If, as Will Galen postulates, God self-imposes a limitation upon himself, he STILL only has Himself to "blame" when things turn out anti to what he desires.

It's like being given a test where you were the one to create the test and know the answers, and then when taking it giving random answers and getting mad at people who passed when you fail. Only yourself to blame.

You can't have OMNISCIENT, OMNIPOTENT, OMNIPRESENT and be surprised/angry/disappointed/etc. The cake is a lie.

Of course not. That's just stupid, assuming that we think science created gravity. Science is a tool that we use to understand the universe. Technology is how we affect the world with that knowledge.



A knob doesn't turn a door. It pulls the bar holding the door back so that the door can open.

Ever seen a baby in action? One of my cousins, when he was a baby, was playing with a flashlight and hadn't yet figured out how it turns on. He kept staring into the bulb when it was off. Then his thumb would slip and turn the flashlight on. Once his vision cleared, he would stare at it in wonder, I would turn it off to save the battery, and then repeat. Eventually, he figured it out and clicked it on and off rapidly. And then the battery went out and he was heartbroken.

If this is a priori knowledge, then why did he have to collect data for it?

Also, a priori knowledge refers to knowledge that 1. can be derived from reason alone or 2. is self-evident, i.e. a tautology. For instance, if the word water refers to a liquid that is wet, then saying that water is wet is a priori.
If I gave you a contraption that you've never seen before where all the parts are encased in an opaque plastic, then can you figure out how to use it without testing and collecting data? Probably not. So I kind of doubt that learning to use a door is a priori.



So you have proof? Can we have it? The bible and warm fuzzies don't count.



Warm fuzzies are not proof. I get warm fuzzies watching gay men make out and I'm pretty sure that if I tried to use it as proof that all men need to make out with each other all the time, it wouldn't work.

Also, what does that mean for those of us who don't feel it? I never felt that, so if people are supposed to feel it before even knowing that there's a god, what does that mean? Are we pre-damned? Are we permanently cut off from your god? If so, then why does he throw a tantrum when we don't worship him?




Sorry. Give me a moment to compose myself.

Nevermind.

Anyway that's not how it works. We gather information and put it together to form hypotheses. If your god existed, then we would see evidence pointing towards that. There is no evidence that supports it. If there were, science would be wholeheartedly behind your god. There isn't, so it isn't.



Except for the sexual revolution, the fallout of the Stonewall Riots, breaking traditions that held us back...



Heh. The world is the most secular it's ever been since the invention of religion. These are the most peaceful times our race has seen since then. The most war-torn countries in the world are highly religious, like the ones in the Middle East. The most secular countries are the most peaceful. They also report the highest levels of happiness and are the most wealthy and well educated.



Speaking as someone who had plenty of exposure to Protestants growing up, despite being raised Catholic, you're pretty much alone. Only Evangelists believe in the Rapture. And why would the pope try to get Christians out of business? The pope IS Christian. And somehow I doubt that non-American Protestants believe that the anti-christ will be the AMERICAN president.

You do realize that it's Revelation, not Revelations? No s on the end, because it's not plural. It's only one mushroom samba. If you haven't even read the title, I'm surprised that you would know so much about the contents.

As for the Temple? If people believe that it's going to be completed, then of course it'll be completed. They're going to want to fulfill what they think is destiny.



Well, drat.

Christians back then:

Circumcision was mandatory
Believers weren't allowed to talk to non-believers
Were actually Jews, since the split hadn't occurred
Refused to make idols of the cross or Jesus
Adultery got you stoned and not in the good way
Followed OT laws to the T.

Christians today:
Do whatever they want and use the bible as an afterthought and refuse to follow the OT except for possibly a certain Leviticus verse.

The similarities are overwhelming. Also, baptism is a Catholic sacrament, not Protestant.



So...he put us into a situation where we had to be saved. That's like throwing someone off a boat in the middle of the ocean so that you can toss them a lifesaver and call yourself a hero.



Question: if someone hands a small child a gun and tells them not to shoot themself in the head, is it the child's fault if they shoot themself in the head? Or is it the fault of the person who gave them the gun in the first place? Because something that dooms everyone who exists doesn't sound like a safe weapon to place in the hands of kids who don't know right from wrong.

Also, the actions of two people doomed an entire species who didn't make that choice. So humans aren't being judged by their actions, but by the actions of two people who died long before any of us were born.



-Hands a weapon to people who don't know about things like consequences, good, evil, or why clothes can be a benefit to people who walk around in a garden full of prickly plants
-Gets surprised when they don't realize that a talking snake isn't a good thing to listen to
-Declares that all humans are doomed because of it
-Is to blame for menstruation
-Knows in advance that all of this will happen and allows every single person on the planet to die because of it

Sounds like a good guy to me.



Oh, really?

In Genesis, after he discovered what the snake did, he told it that it was going to "crawl on its belly and eat dust". Which is why snakes have no legs. Now, this seems a very strange punishment for a fallen angel, doesn't it? Either Lucifer was possessing the snake or shapeshifted into one, since angels don't have material forms. In both cases, this makes the punishment pointless. If he's possessing it, then he can possess another form anytime he wants. If shapeshifting, he can change his form. And in both cases, why would it affect the snake? In the former situation, the snake was an innocent host and in the latter, snakes weren't even involved at all.

In Job, the context - in the original Hebrew - makes it clear that they're not talking about Lucifer. Satan is Hebrew for "the opposer", and it's clear that it refers to an office, not an individual. Michael is the one playing Satan for that story.

Had to take another look at Genesis. Interesting...


It seems that even though we were made in God's image, when Adam and Eve ate the fruit of knowledge, we became even more like God, and that he is "worried" that we might become even more so. So much for being Omniscient! If I remember correctly, pointing this out in Bible Study was what got me kicked out of said Bible study! lol!

Let's clear it up, quick. My church / any Adventist church would strongly disagree with that ( the pope being a Christian ), just the way it is. Not necessarily my views on the pope, although the current one has beady eyes. 'Revelations' is a chummy, coloquial reference among my church, because it recently it split off from a larger one from some disagreement that I'm far removed from, 'Revelations' being one of the things that helped them through it. I haven't read Revelation all the way through since I was twelve, the most recent books I completely read were Ecclesiastes and Psalms because I was just in a Hallmarky mood.


If a woman paints a painting of a goat with horns then does that mean that the parents painted it? You're also implying that Adam and Eve would have HAD to eat the fruit. If we were to equate eating the fruit with going down a ladder then it's you saying that Adam and Eve were already on the ladder and would need to get down to continue their life. The truth is that they were on the ground and never had to go up the ladder to get back down in the first place. Makes sense.

Unlike doing backflips in your mind to render God into an unjust entity at fault for everything instead of the Creator. You shouldn't allow outside information to take root in your head and develop into wrongheadedness because the world is replete with untruths and half truths. There's a saying "you can't avoid a bird landing on your head but you can stop it from making a nest." The point to having a connection with Him is to deal with the intrusive doubt that everyone ( even believers ) has because of external machinations.

This whole ordeal isn't like a test some high school freshman can retake. It's to bring an end to suffering and to redeem oneself of the stigma of a past injustice. It has to happen this way because that's the situation we are in by of the choices two individuals made. It's not like they were children with brains still developing or teenagers who can't control the risk / reward switch in their heads. But two people with sky high IQ's given an imperative. The Creator knowing what was to come, that doesn't mean that you pile the blame on Him or that he can't feel angry. Why? Because he left us the Word ( the Bible ), and the symbolic sacrifice of Jesus, which is tantamount to him having already bought you a ticket for you to get through to the heavenly gates.


Aaaaannnnnd? Accept the reality of it or don't like it, the point is that God will remove sin because sin is dangerous and kills us like cancer, we enjoy the afterlife, and no sin will bother us ever again. A plan to remove sin that has been hurting and killing us for thousands of years is wrong... how?


And then, when nobody is looking it's upgraded to theory by the very people who want that to happen. Science has problems:

It's divided into branches and fields - marine biology, archeology, meteorology, botany, neurology, agriculture, etc, and then diving into nutty paleontology, then further down into whatever science studies the farts of penguins. It's a brothel of info approved by themselves, and everyone with their own agendas with most in agreement to propogate evolution and other snazzy ideas. Not one 'expert' alive has the whole picture ( the agragate ) the whole picture of what could be called reality because of the amount of material and the busywork of separating the bs and research / data whose goal is recognition or patents, or funding for more research, frivolous or earnest. Compared to the Bible which is concise and clear, and goes into further explanation only when it has to. Not perfect but solid. One person can get the gyst of it very soon with assistance from someone in their church for instances where correct interpretation / clarification is asked for.

Then there's science having an agenda other than truth and being in bed with politians and marketers for its own gain, not individual people and their core inner needs. It's all to propogate hypotheses as 'facts' and buzzwords, and pretty much any other purpose you can think of. Fear, paranoia, claiming there's a problem where there is none so that they can sell their remedies. Then every period they take a selected portion of the studies and summarize it into a new and fresh journal of science or some other publication, essentially it becomes masses of ordinary people manipulated into believing in fantastic things because some fancy, edited book tells them these things are true.

1 Collect Data, 2 Assume, 3 Test and Collect Data, 4 Conclusion. That's all fine when done within the scrutiny of a supervisor, but exactly who is checking their facts and the way they get them? Any hack can arrange a small control group of four people and release the findings without disclosing the detail, who is going to wag their finger at them? Especially when a facility has security checkpoints and restricted areas? They can coin terminology and spin complex insinuations into charts and back into a different results and it works because science is modular. Science ( today ) can be brought to the lab straight from pro-atheist trailor parks and any other propaganda wagon that feels like it. I don't care if science is 'peer approved' as that amounts to being just like the Huffington Post with experts scratching the backs of their fellow experts. I don't care if it's correcting itself as it has to to keep its material palatable and exciting to the world. The Word ( the Bible ) has been consistent all this time, it hasn't changed its message nor does it need the tone of a sales pitch. I'm sure you know the magnitude of credibility the Dead Sea Scrolls meant when they were discovered.


No, but testimony is proof that is so strong that witnesses of crimes are allowed to submit their testimonies as evidence in court for a jury to deliberate and arrive at a verdict. Testimonies of religious experiences count in the millions. As to why you haven't felt the 'warm fuzzy,' sin has been making man less well since it's introduction. Not your sin, but sin in general has affected humans in general. Not to say that you're doomed, but everyone is dealt a different hand and the presence of amounts of sin during birth is a factor.

Sin is like the dark side of the Force in that it's quick and insidious to convert an open individual with temptation / temporary reward, and someone with a strong connection to Him is like a Jedi who has taken a while to develop their inner coping mechanism to resist intrusive temptations. Those who are on the path to or have tasted the dark side maybe wouldn't notice the 'warm fuzzies' if they were distracted or occupied with positive Force disruptive behavior. You can choose to approach the Word with the wrong oppositional attitude, you're going to find the reasons you want to make God look like an asshole. Or you can face the Word with intent to allow it to correct that in your head which needs remedy. If you're going to use a spiritual tool such as the Bible then it makes sense to buy its message, otherwise don't use it.


Please follow the course of the topic so that I don't have to backtrack and dig it back up. Here:




Hope that jogs your memory.


To be honest, after all this typing I just want to address your stuff as quickly as possible because I'm keyboard fatigued. Okay, I get it - you don't want to believe. Let me explain the consequences...


You will be burned to ash and and your ash will be trampled. I can't find the other verse, but it will be as if you had never been and everything you have said and done will be reduced to nothing, because you will be nothing. I guess God will retroactively erase you and your accomplishments. Anyway, in case you find it close to that time and you feel the fear and want to be saved then get yourself into the company of Adventists or Pentecostals, fast. Prostrate yourself before God in abject shame, confess your sins, beg ( BEG! ) for forgiveness and cry, and believe. If you feel small and guilty then that's the right way. Then just white-knuckle through whatever they want you to do. That may mean getting on the floor and washing a man's feet ( a woman's feet if you are female ) or falling to the floor and speaking a made up language ( this is called Glossolalia ).

The pope is Catholic Christian. Deal with it. There is nothing TO disagree with, just because he doesn't have all of your views on Christianity doesn't mean he's not Christian. You believe the same god and the same part of the bible (New Testament), which means both you and the Pope are Christian. There are several ways to be a Christian, and he simply follows a slightly different version of the same religion as you (and loves to wear robes and a funny hat, but that's beside the point).

'Nuff said.



... I think you completely misunderstood what kattenijin meant. And what is the painting analogy good for?

Sure, Adam and Eve didn't HAVE to eat the fruit, but that's beside the point. The point is that the temptation was essentially put there by God by putting the tree there - the snake just talked them into doing it. The snake would never have been a problem if the tree had not been there. And God created all creatures, right? Then why did he punish his own creation for being possessed? Pretty sure the actual snake didn't want to do anything bad, and it was left without legs because God was pissed off at his own creation(s, if you count in Adam and Eve).

If they had not climbed down the ladder to live their life, they would still be running around naked in Paradise doing absolutely nothing sensible.



Not letting in outside information esentally mean "don't bother learning anything new". Not gonna do that, sorry.

I can avoid a bird landing on my head. Just wave around crazily, and it sure won't sit down. As for nesting, I'm pretty sure birds prefer trees to heads.



Why would they need to eat from the tree of knowledge if they had sky high IQ? I'm pretty sure it was the opposite.

And God didn't actually leave the word. Someone wrote down the bible, and those people were humans with their own motives. That's why translations of the bibe never say quite the same as the "original".



I don't think you understand science. It's an incomplete thing. There is no absolute certainty in science, and because of that it is flawed by default. But the difference is that science allows for changes. If a scientist finds a long-believed theory to have flaws, the corrections can be added if there's ground for it. That's why we continue to do science. We do it to understand the world around us. Without science we'd still be living in caves and eating only veggies and fruits.

Science is creative. It allows for people to study the world around them. Without science we would not have medicine, could not do surgeries, and sure wouldn't be sitting around our computers all day. We would have to walk everywhere, and we would have no light, no electricity. And the list goes on.

Without religion we would... Simply go on living our lives. Religion is the replacement hypothesis for anything science we can't understand.

What's "nutty" about paleontology? Dinosaurs are awesome, and ruled this Earth up until some 65 million years ago. How else do you explain the skeletons?

And it's "Hypothesis --> Collect Data --> Test --> Collect more Data --> Repeat if necessary --> Conclusion/Make a scientific theory" which might be followed up with another round of hypotheses and data collecting when someone finds new information.



Depends on the scientists, but also those who assign money to scientific projects. They need money to do what they do, and not all the money-givers have clean consciences.

As for checking the facts, there are peer reviews and trials on many levels, and the scientists often find new information that can change the scientific theory.

Scientists are not always right, but science is trial and failure.



What's the sin during birth you talk of? Are babies sinners the moment they come out of their mommies? What a world they come in to, when they can't even take their first breath without being labeled as a sinner

Then again, living is a sin according to some religious people, so waah, you're doomed anyway.



Proof????? Are you actually serious? And I still have left to see someone 2000+ years old, by the way.

And I have no idea what else you might mean, so it does not "jog my memory" in any way.



Avoiding making a comment? I see that...

Christians are apparently of the opinion that they're above everyone else. Wasn't pride a sin?

"You will be burned to ash and and your ash will be trampled."
Well, since I don't believe in Heaven but probably will be buried one day (hopefully far into the future), you're not that wrong. But being burned in an Armageddon of some sort? Meh.

The truth is, everyone who dies will be nothing in the sense of "not being a human any longer", but you will turn to earth and be a part of everything that grows. You'll eventually be a part of the air other people breathe in, and that way become a part of the rest of the world. It's how nature works.



I don't feel the need to be saved. And how can a bunch of sinners-from-birth-with-their-own-church save me in any way? Unless, of course, I actually need saving in the form of drowning, car crash, or any sort of real troubles.

And I'm not washing anyone's feet except from my own (and future children). That's the weirdest ritual ever.

Unless I do something Wowzy, I'll probably be forgotten when those who know of me are long dead. Not my problem, as I'll be gone, too.

For the rest, especially the made-up language (can I speak Vulcan? Or Elfish? Always wanted to learn that! ) it's mostly signs of insane behavior, so I'd rather not.

Since you are quoting your favorite "man" all the time, I'll quote mine:



That's what I'm living by, and it suits my purpose. I choose to do what I want with my life, and have freedom in doing so. I have respect for life, so I don't go around doing stupid things. Rules of the society makes (mostly) sense, so I follow them, because I know doing the opposite can have consequences for me and my surroundings. I have respect for my own life, so doing stupid things is essentially stupid. I spend my time doing things I enjoy, which does not involve spending hours in church (I have more sensible things to do on a Sunday, like sleeping in). I live my life to the full. I know I'm not guaranteed a long life (no one are), so I make sure I do something I lke to do every day, because I can only be sure that I have this life. What comes next (if there is a "next") I don't know. I don't want to punish myself in any way of what might happen. To me, it's throwing away time and energy.

Unlike some, I also don't do what people tell me to do unless it makes sense for me to do so. I judge for and against, and if it turns out to be a stupid thing to do, I don't do it. I don't like being shepheded around. I'm not a sheep, nor have I any intention to be one. Using your brain instead of letting others think for you all the time is the smart thing to do. People may have other intentions than you think they do, and not always good intentions. This is what free will truly is about.

It's not an egosentric way to live life (if someone might be of the opinion that it is). If a person have respect for their own life in the "right" way, they usually also have respect for other people's lives. That way it's possible to live rather peacefully together.

I'm a human being, and like all other human beings, I'm not perfect. I do stupid things once in a while, but I usually make up for it. I also don't expect anyone to take the blame for my mistakes, either. No one in my lifetime, and no one who lived 2000 years ago.

So what you're saying isn't based on the bible, it's based on what other people have told you about the bible. Also, the pope worships Christ, so he has as much claim to being Christian as you do. Saying he isn't is just No True Scotsman.



Her parents or the goat's parents?



Absolutely correct. If the bible says that unicorns exist - and it does - then unicorns must exist! All outside information to the contrary will corrupt your mind! Shun anti-unicornism for the sake of your soul!

And the bible also says that insects have four legs. Counting those legs and getting six? That's Satanic! Counting is now evil!

Though considering that the bible can't even keep an internal count consistent when they list the lands the count was about right afterwards, I think mathematics is just devilish. Hey, that explains my Precalc scores! I got 66.6%.



This person must not have heard of arms. Or hats. Now, you can't stop a bird from pooping on your head, but I don't think that fits the metaphor.



But you say later on that not all people have it.



You have two people who listened to a talking snake, didn't realize that walking around naked in a garden of prickly plants was bad, didn't have any knowledge of good and evil - that is, that obeying the guy who commanded their obedience is good and not doing it is evil - and you consider that they had sky-high IQs? You fail IQ.

Also, prove it. The bible says nothing about IQ.



1. Your god is the one responsible for the cancer in the first place. If someone gives someone else cancer and then helps them get rid of it, that's not charity or benevolence, that's justice.

2. Prove sin exists. I'm not going to a doctor who'll tell me that I need surgery to remove a cancerous tail when I don't have a tail to begin with. We call that fraud.



No, there are plenty of people looking. YOU are the one who's not looking, since your science comprehension is on par with a toddler's.





Please, talk to me more about science. I heard that laughter heals people. We keep this up, you're gonna be healing cancer patients soon.



At least it's a threesome. Is it all-male? :lovestruc



Well, orgies are always better.



But orgies soothe the soul!



Nobody considers a hypothesis a fact. Or a buzzword. That's just stupid.



Like claiming that you have sin and that you need it removed like a cancer!



Are we still talking about science? Because I can only think of one book where people are expected to believe fantastic things because it says so. And that people write plenty of books about, since everyone has a different interpretation.



They have to publish their exact methodology. Anyone can follow the methods and see if the results are the same as the original tests. Even if they're not scientists, they can hire a lab and supervise the results - or even do it themselves - and see what happens. In fact, quite a few creationists have done this before.



Everyone. They can't be taken seriously without publishing the results. If they do that, then they have to include the exact number of people involved, the questions asked, and the color of the walls that day. Anything less and it gets tossed out. Getting a hypothesis to theory level is like throwing a baby into a shark tank. The only ones that survive have to be clad in solid armor to avoid getting ripped apart.



1. Nope. Laypeople are perfectly capable of understanding what's going on, assuming that they've passed middle school level science classes. I understand why you have trouble with it.

2. Nope. Every step is documented. If it doesn't happen, the results are thrown out. If something looks iffy, it's thrown out. It's more strict than a teacher who gives an instafail for splitting an infinitive.



Atheists don't have trailer parks. Christians do. And you're seriously telling me that science is as credible as "this banana is proof of god" and "why isn't there a crocoduck"? Because that bespeaks an ignorance FAAAAAAAAAAAAR beyond anything you can possibly accuse science of.

Also, scientists are highly competitive. Even if they agree with the results of someone else's test, they'll try to tear it apart just so that they can claim honors. It's like Game of Thrones, except you're not allowed to behead anyone. Most of the time.



Actually, the Dead Sea Scrolls have considerable differences from the current versions of the bible. Did you know that they acknowledge the existence of Ra? In several points, Ra is seen talking to the pharaohs. Later on, they changed all his dialogue to Yahweh's.

Also, read the apocrypha. You wouldn't believe some of the things those say. Like Jesus killing a kid for splashing in a puddle. These were written in the same time period as the rest of the gospels and they can't even keep their stories straight.



Okay. So my 'good feelings' when two men make out IS proof that all men must make out with each other all the time. That's how strong testimony is.



Millions of people masturbate to gay porn, too. The evidence is just racking up!



Okay, so if I don't feel the proper feelings and that leads me away from your god, then it's not my fault. If I'm supposed to get the warm fuzzies and that's proof that your god is real, then I'm being prevented from getting the truth through circumstances beyond my control.



So it has cookies?



Sounds like cookies. Yay!



I was raised Christian. I did face it with the intent to allow it to brainwash me. Fortunately, all the rape, murder, incest, genocide, and slavery in the bible failed to correct the parts of my brain that rejected that message.



Yep. Now I remember both myself and simmer22 rebutting it, which you haven't responded to.



I thought we established that the consequences are cookies?



Sounds like what I already believe will happen and I don't care, since I'm already fine with nonexistence.

Also, finding the other verse might be easier if you actually read the bible.



*searches feelings* ...nope. Still fine with nonexistence.

Also, why would getting saved make me go to hell? At least, I assume that's what any afterlife with Adventists or Pentecostals is, by definition. (Hey, that's a priori knowledge!)





Um...you do realize what "washing feet" means in terms of the bible? Let's just say that "feet" refers to an organ further up the body. And 'washing' is done with the mouth. And it's impossible to 'wash the feet' of a woman, since women don't have feet.

Gives a whole new meaning to dropping to your knees before God...



Keep replying, please. I need more amusement.

The Church of the Jedi disagrees with you and is just as valid. What do the followers of Thor have to say? Look! I've declared myself a Groo Adventist and I say you're going to the Hell of True Scotsmen!

This stuff is fun. If you're dead certain on certainty in Christianity, isn't that the worst sort of hubris? Aren't you claiming to speak for your god? Not "as I understand this..." but presuming to judge other people in (ahem, let me capitalize this for you guys) His Name?

I seem to recall an awful lot of important bits in the Bible not a little opposed to this sort of thing, but definitely, absolutely, totally opposed to that sort of thing. And yet each and every one of you folks seems dead set of letting that go over your head.

"Well, they aren't Christians. I'm a Christian..."

It would be cute if it weren't so sad. Identity politics. You've reduced your faith to a flag you wave and an exclusive jersey you're wearing trying to keep the people you've decided are on the opposing team or who badfun your religion from having access to. You're fucking Gatekeeping, which isn't religious behavior, it's just nasty, terrible person human behavior.

Good job. Now off with you to go burn heretics, amiright?



It's always good to be debating with an expert whose so interested in their own religious context, and by extension others, that they've not actually bothered to read their religious texts for years and years - and yet they consider themselves ready to argue with dead certainty upon the matter. If I hadn't done basic math since I were twelve I wouldn't argue with anyone about that, but religion? When it's religion suddenly everyone's an ecclesiastical badass - "I'm not saying the Pope's a bad person, but have you seen those beady eyes?" Seriously? Wow. Just wow.


If a woman's father painted all things and knows all things then she did not paint anything. At best she was the instrument upon which she painted what he chose her to.


Let me be explicit: Adam and Eve already ate the fruit before the world was created, because if your God is omniscient then he knows the future as well as the past and he can't become willfully blind as postulated by our friend Galen because to do so would require him to know what he was deciding to not know about, and by knowing that he would know everything.

The deity you present doesn't "let" you do anything. You're only doing what's already been done and everything you do is an expression of what he either chose you to do (if his omnipotence trumps his omniscience) or that he was compelled to do (if his omniscience determines how his omnipotence must express.)

This isn't really an argument. This is simple, plain-as-night-and-day logic. To argue otherwise is to argue for limits to your deity, which then tumbles him out of Heaven and into Silver Age Superman territory - something that's capable of a lot of impressive things but with definite limits and finite boundaries.

Or, again as I mentioned previously, you could stop trying to support the whole bit with logic and reason and abandon that entirely, and focus on your faith. Because when you all try to describe the Bible, when you try to express all of this crap as anything other than allegorical lessons, fictions designed to teach you philosophical and ethical points? It all falls apart.


They already did whatever your god knew he'd already designed them to do.


WTF. Does it even?


How would you even know lies and half-truths if they came out of your anus and bit you on the ass? If you're only basing this on the Bible then by your own admission you're a terribly shitty student. And you're chastising other people? Seriously? And you can't even wrap your head around some of the most basic logical notions of your own religion, you've not read your own religious texts in years, and... Look, it's natural to get defensive, but you're essentially all "Look, I haven't watched a game in ages and I don't know any of their stats, but you can't listen to the haters - my sports team is the best ever!" No one's telling you that you can't root for your team, but if you want that team to be the "best ever" you should probably come to the table with a lot more and lot better than you're attempting to.


That's a stupid saying. But in the context of the Biblical god, remember: If he can't avoid the bird landing on someone's head then what you should get out of it is that "fate" and predestination trump everything, even god; or else the bird's making the damned nest because he decided that it would before the universe was created.



That's funny. I'd have sworn, just from reading the OT, that the point was to keep some bronze age sheepherders from fucking pigs and killing the wrong people; and from the NT that it was "Try not to suck. Be nice." Which is why on the whole I'm okay with the NT and laugh at the fact that OT is still in there because the Nicean Council had such small penises and political chops despite being, you know, ordained by the Emperor, that they left it in all Jewish-like.


There is no past for an omniscient being, and the reason you can't "retake the test" is because your god knows how you're going to do and made you take it a certain way because he has omni = all power. Don't worry Shoosh, if you're a terrible person it's because you were made this way.


No, that's presuming that you're limiting your god again. "I knew enough to make them, but not enough that I didn't know everything they would ever do - because I only claim to be omniscient because Shoosh Malooka's comprehension of what that word actually would entail is necessarily limited." You're putting your god in a box. You're making it smaller.


Of course we can blame him and of course he could feel angry. By definition of omnipotence and omniscience we'd all be doing exactly what we're supposed to do. And your god? Well he'd have to be doing every single thing at once, all the time. No limits. It's not "what does god think/feel/believe/whatever," with omnipotence it's always and forever "god thinks/feels/believes/whatevers" everything. Because you don't do anything, it's all your god.


Because he was so omnipotent he had to create someone specific to kill to have the excuse of doing what was presumably fully within his power without any sort of theatrics, or else his power is enslaved to his foreknowledge in every important respect and once he created the universe he was bound to perform it in this specific manner (which, by the way, we're implicitly only seeing a small portion of since all actions must be performed, again, because of that nasty omnipotence.)


You know what kills like cancer? Cancer. And more cancers, and also cancer. And you know where cancer comes from? Yeah, that would be your god, either as director or marionette.

If there's an omnipotent god? Well guess what else comes from god: Sin.

But really, there's no use complaining about either in this conversation, since there's no free will on the part of yourself or even god, because omniscience would remove the illusion of free will from god.


...

Depending on the denomination and interpretation I've met some "sins" I didn't care to partake in, but I've never been bothered by most of them. In a lot of cases? Kind of nice.

But you know what bothers me? Religious people who try to argue logic and philosophy when they'd do a 100% better to just try to sew up ethics and make that rock solid. Then if they want to peer up into the cosmos while looking down their noses at the rest of humanity and see if they can't discover which star is the eye of Jesus winking down at them, then at least we could all go "Those religious folks, they've got some weird habits but at least they're not assholes."


Aye, this is terrible stuff. Verily, it is so terrible to study the world and thus find the foundational elements that use to cure cancer and write forum posts on the internet with. Because if there's anything we can all agree with about your Christian god, it's that he likes people to die from cancer and there's that whole book in the Bible declaring the evils of social networking, right?

No? But surely there's a commandment then, a Big 10 pronouncement? Something on the order of "Thou shalt not explore thine physical world around you, that thee might comprehend my wonders."

Wait a second... Are you putting your god into a box again? I think you are. Yes, I think that's exactly what you're doing. Why do you hate god?


Right, and the one on the table in this post you've made is called "My Agenda of Anti-science, by Shoosh Malooka: By which I Attempt to Paint Jesus as Condemning Fossils."


No, not except Professor Shoosh, who along with not reading his own Bible in years and still presenting himself as a religious scholar, is so well represented in the sciences that he's here to tell you: "It's all crap."



...

If it's so easy to understand then why have you fucked it up so much in trying to explain it? Why are there literally thousands of denominations of Christians arguing over what it precisely means? You can't even get your head around some pretty basic tenets of your faith, and you're also doing that totally annoying "I'm such a Christian" thing where you judge so you can be judged and throwing rocks from your glass house, etc.

You're the F student of Linear Algebra confidently telling us "This shit is easy. I totally glanced over the first chapter last night before I smoked out. Just copy my answers and you'll totally ace this test!" At least Galen knows how to copy/paste other people's arguments from other websites, which at least implicitly reminds us that he's not confident that he could present a better argument for his cause than the (pretty terrible) ones he's plagiarizing.


Right, because religion never has an agenda that it seeks to present by becoming involved in politics and religion has absolutely no marketing ever.




Buzzwords, like propagate and hypothesis. Preach the theory, right?

Fear? Paranoia?

"You better be a good person, because god is watching your every move and he'll send you to hell if he disapproves."

It's almost like science and religion are both more or less human constructs, subject to the personal biases and complications of human beings interacting with them. Oh, except that the modern world came from science and.... well I guess religion gave us the Salem witch trials and 9/11. But I guess in the beginning it was important to tell people which sorts of slaves they could buy and to totally not fuck with eating shrimp.



Indeed. How dare someone believe in something because some fancy, edited book tells them that something is true. I hear that Bible thing even has whole chapters that got left out on the editing table.


It's called the peer review process. It takes many painful years to go through? Did you forget that when you decided that you were expert enough on the subject to evaluate and dismiss it? Or did it slip your mind, on account of you trying to figure out how to parse omniscience in a way other than "knows all things, past and future, beginning to end?"


You know what would be even harder? For some hack to gather twelve people and write a book together. I mean, who was there to put that shit together except for a group of discontent political appointees who were only there because the Emperor told them they had to.


Unlike the Vatican, where Professor Shoosh has personally crawled into the Pope's promise chest and fingered the bones of saints. And there was absolute no gatekeeping involved in the various laws that were created around the time of the Reformation restricting access of the public to the Bible, else they form unpopular political and social opinions of their "very easy to understand" religious text that they were murdering each other in the streets over.


You've obviously not been in very many trailer parks. Trailer parks are where poor people live, and the poor are almost always well represented with religious views. Why shouldn't they be? If you strip away the nonsense about Professor Shoosh's fucked up failure of omniscience/omnipotence religion does present some people with a modicum of basic ethics that's probably not present in a lot of their home environments (because they're poor.) And then there's hope, because when it's absolutely apparent that your life on this planet is an utter failure and won't ever get better because rich people are complete asswipes thinking things might get better if you'd just die probably seems kinda nice.

Why did you use them as your reference? Honestly, you're really really terrible at all of this.


Good for you! It's always nice to see someone who's confident enough with themselves to outright declare: I don't know anything. I don't want to know anything. But I'm sure that everything I don't know is entirely useless because I'm an expert on it. What's that a degree in Jessica Simpsonism or something?


Except the Vatican 2.0., the Councils of Nicea, the Reformation, the advent of Islam, hundreds of translations and re-translations, the rise of secular political power and the removal of mandatory church services. Except for two thousand years of constant change? Yeah, nothing to see there.

Oh. You were serious? Wait a second Reverend Shoosh, are you saying that you not only haven't read your Bible (but are telling us all about it), don't understand omniscience/omnipotence (but are telling us all about it), don't know anything about science (but you know enough to know it's wrong, right?) and you don't know shit about history (but you know nothing's changed in religion in thousands of years) BUT you're stepping up to the plate and trying to tell us about how things are?

I can't restrain myself...

HOLY FUCK... ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

Why are you even in this conversation? I'm a professed atheist who's apparently read the religious book you're promoting more than you. I apparently know more of your own religious history. You don't know anything about trailer parks even!

Why should anyone regard anything coming out of your mouth as valuable, because this.... this is nonsense. Religion is a very minor part of my life, the part where I like books and mythology and am polite enough to go hang out with someone if they ask nicely even if it means hanging out with a bunch of tools on weekdays, but I fail to see at any point where you're presenting anything with any understanding or expert knowledge sufficient that someone should take what you have to say as... well, if you were a map the only way I'd comfortable use you is by saying "Just go left every time the ShooshQuest tells you to turn right, and you still might not get there but at least you won't be so savagely lost as whoever thought they knew what they were doing when they made this."


And it's regarded as the weakest and most prone to fail of all sorts of testimony. CSI and Follow the Money for the win, baby. Don't tell me you're a legal expert now too?


Okay Shoosh Skywalker, now you're getting somewhere. You know what else the Dark Side is? It's a parable from a work of fiction written by humans. Whoa, mind blowing, right? But it's true: Just like the Bible is a stirring, exciting tale of incest and violence that ultimately has a message of peace, hope, and people standing up to injustice? Star Wars has all that too!

But no one (well, I hope no one) has killed anyone for being a canon heretic about Star Wars so far. We'll see in two thousand years, but no amount of fanboy dickery really compares with that... y'know, just from a guy who's actually read your holy book and paid attention. All the shitty Star Wars advocates in the world aren't trying to shut down cancer research and deny evolution because "Whoa dude, that stuff...someone could, like, make that stuff up and, like, anyways it's not in Jedi so it's crap."

So really, I'm not going to weigh in directly on your ethical analysis of Star Wars, Shoosh - but you'd probably be better off sticking to it instead of worrying about religion and logic and history and... well, lots of things you've brought up in this thread so far.



If you're going to use anything it would probably make sense to understand it, but you've staunchly defended the hypothesis that says "Don't try to understand anything if it's not in the Bible, which I haven't read in a while, and of course the people who disagree with me don't understand it the way I do, but it's so simple that anyone could..." let me just amend this part explicitly from my own point of view... "People think the Bible is so simple because they overlook the actual content of the book because they get bogged down with trying to establish the authority of the book's position. Which means that you all take some nice stories that might be pretty simple: Don't be a dick. Share. Don't kill people. Look after your family. Don't put gross shit in your mouth unless you know it won't kill you - and you turn it into the worst, most blastedly evil version of fanboy canon wars ever imagined." You've taken a story about a nice guy doing nice things and you've reduced it to "HARRY POTTER IS REAL YOU MOTHERFUCKER AND IF YOU DENY HIS REALITY I WILL STAB YOU!" Plus, y'know, your own personal spin of anti-science and whatever other biased cultural nonsense you guys want Jesus Potter to tell the kids.

Look, we all know Verona was a real place and the politics of Romeo and Juliet were certainly the sorts of things that could happen, but most of us recognize the message of that story to be less about the credulity of the story and more about what people can get out of the story. What you're suggesting people get out of the Bible is the least compelling, most useless parts of the book.

And unfortunately it's the part that people return to again and again, because once you've established that the important parts of the story are well, important, I get that you want to share. But Christians, or a lot of Christians, are absolute dicks about it, and once you guys start you're always ending up trying to convince people magic is real instead of people can be good people. And I know why, because it's hard to be a good person... it's so much simpler to scream at the top of your lungs "I'M A GOOD PERSON AND I GO TO CHURCH YOU COCKS, I AM SO MUCH BETTER THAN YOU!" than to actually provide an example.




OR if we were to regard it all as a nice little set of parables and morality plays we'd get...Nah, I'm just gonna toss out quotes to close this one out:

"Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see." Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

"Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will." Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

"He who fears is literally delivered to destruction." - Howard Thurman

"Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment." Mahatma Ghandi

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." - Mahatma Ghandi

And tldr, I'll proofread this for typos and clarity later. I want to be through with this for now.

Are you done? What set you off, the arrogant grandiose attitude in my posts or was it the shot at the Pope? I can appreciate everyone's reactions. Hugbugs: unbothered, innuendo, low-cost berating when it's deserved. Simmer and Kattenjin: Helpful, constructive, even though the person they're trying to help is difficult. But yours, you turned into the Hulk. The line by line excoriations that were directed at Christians? 4/100. It's the kind of post that Christians suspect is right under the hood of an "angry, hateful atheist."


I hope you're not saying that I should end my life. But if I were going to kill myself I would have done it already before the world was created, because omniscience.

It got my attention though. I read that getting pissed can be a real power high, as in powerful and on top of the world pure and straight from the lab. Also very rewarding to call someone out on what's right there, a whole treasure trove that has really got it coming. One of those is how I insulted Catholics, which was a bad move. Here is my apology to the people offended by the Pope shot:



That's as far as I go. Some here itt including myself are guilty of attacks, some indirect, others direct, and overkill from one person. I know this is the Debate Room, but is this modthesims? *checks*

Here's the thing, this is the Christianity Pt2 thread. I could be talking with Galen and others ( if there are any ) about how non-believers will feel when it finally dawns on them that they COULD have gone to heaven but now it's too late, and the look on their faces. Or about the 'selective blindness.' But Galen is Gale-gone, I wonder why. Meanwhile, the UNReligion Thread is over there and the mood there is... swell, seems like a party, people go there to feel welcome. And then there's the Christianity Pt2 thread.

Now.

Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipresent - you keep yelling that at me like I'm deaf. You say it makes God at fault for everything, he can't get mad, and he made sin. But he is infinitely powerful. He created everything, and made Adam and Eve because he is the Creator. It is highly possible that he created 'selective omniscience and blindness' for himself to prevent himself from going against himself, similar to how Jedi masters impose restrictions on themselves to keep order. If he were to go against himself then he would become the opposite of himself, which would be a Nega-God. Negative force. Antiparticles. Antimatter. That is what is going to happen after the final judgement when he decends to Earth with intent to consume the wicked who will burn in his presence. God is not evil but this act of killing everyone is his unusual act as the Nega-God. Sin will be consumed, as well as the Nega-force and God will return to his benevolent state. And that is why Adam and Eve CAN be blamed for sin. Selective onmniscience and blindess.

Your welcome.

As for the Atheist/non-theist/un-religion topic, there's too little life because most of us kind of agree on things.
I say like the people at the Atheist experience (example video and another one - more on Youtube) - if you want to discuss beliefs, you get a lot more out of it if you talk to hard-core believers. Plus, the people running the show have actually read the bible both as believers (now former) and non-believers (with a critical eye). If you are going to prove your god exists when you're discussing with an atheist, you better have good arguments...

I remember the Un-Religion thread was created because no one could discuss Christianity or belief here without someone starting the same circular debate about there is no proof of God, etc and it was really more like the Atheist thread. (And maybe I've been guilty of that too.)
But it seems like what Mistermook was saying was directly in response to the things that you said - not stepping outside Christianity altogether and saying that all religion is wrong. (Didn't word that very well but can't think of a better way at the moment)
(Although, according to the Site Rules: 15. Quoting People: Please try to use the quote tag sparingly - the use of it to pick apart someone's argument line by line not only is horrible to read in a thread, but it's just not classy and is usually only used to ridicule or degrade the original poster.)

The thing is that it's difficult to discuss atheism without bringing up theism. Atheism is pretty much the opposite to theism, and touches upon whether you believe or not belive a deity, so without bringing up religion there is no real point in the discussion unless you stumble over some interesting bits.

Why not a thread that includes both, so that everyone can participate? There are too few religious people who dare venture into the atheist topic, so the discussion doesn't quite take off into something interesting (because everyone mostly agrees). Then those who want to discuss Christianity in itself could keep on doing so, while those who want to discuss Atheism versus Theism could do so together in another topic, regardless of which religion/un-religion they follow.

As for using quote tags, it's a whole lot better than having to look for the tiny little line in a long text, especially if what you're writing has to do with that particular line and not the rest. I think it's a whole lot more annoying when people quote whole posts and just write one line underneath, which is a pointless way to use it. If you are quoting somebody on something, that's why the quote tag is there, isn't it?

The bad thing is when discussions end up in the "You're so stupid because you're a religious/non-religious person!!!!!"
I might agree with some of the points, but I don't agree on the insults (even if I don't have any qualms on returning the insult if it's been put against me, though usually finely wrapped into good arguments instead of pointless yelling). When atheists resort to pure insults, they're no better than the Christians who resort to screaming "You're a non-believer, so you'll burn in Hell!!!!!"

Shoosh Malooka, you are an idiot. Or you're an expert troll. Either way...



I always knew people like you were expert cherry-pickers. How, exactly, does the context imply that he said you should die? That's just egregious.

Anyway, as someone who actually reads both sides of the argument - including my own - I can say with absolute certainty what Mistermook's problem with you is. No, it's not insulting the pope. He's an atheist, as he says in his post, and the most atheists care is that you're being a hypocrite and demonizing the papacy because it disagrees with you.

No, the problem is that you haven't read the bible since, what, you were twelve? I'm willing to bet you've never read the whole thing, just listened to the relevant verses spouted out of someone else's mouth without context.
And then you claim that science is evil and out to get you. Considering that you've made it clear that you know nothing on that subject either, you're not qualified to talk about it.

So, you know nothing about either side. Yet you portray yourself as A. a representative of all Christians - or at least the Protestants - and B. the Holder of True Knowledge. That's arrogant. And you've proven yourself to be petty by taking a quote out of context to make it look as if Mistermook told you to go off yourself. You're a hypocrite, telling us to listen to your lack of knowledge while berating science for not knowing everything. If something disagrees with you, you demonize it, like with science and the pope. I'd say his attitude is a proportionate response to yours.

And now for your newest argument.



If you're going to use the fact that he created everything as proof that he's all powerful, please prove that he created everything. If yurgles being nergles is proved by the fact that all humans have two legs, you need to prove that all humans have two legs. Otherwise, the final conclusion is meaningless.



Maybe that's why there are so many prohibitions against sex in the bible. Why would he want to watch people having sex all the time?

But if he does keep the blinders on, then it's still his fault. If someone puts a windshield screen up and then starts driving, does the fact that he can't see what's on the road ahead mean he's not at fault if he hits someone? I mean, the people in front of the car have the free will not to step into the path of the car, right:?
If someone is watching a pair of children and one accidenally kills the other, then does the fact that he's out of line of sight mean that he isn't responsible for negligence? I mean, the kids have free will not to kill each other, right?
If someone is watching children and a pedophile lures them into a black unmarked van while he's not looking, does the fact that he wasn't looking mean that it's the childrens' fault?



You obviously don't know anything about antimatter, either. If a positron impacts an electron, they will blow up. Apparently, your Nega-God (snickers) is capable of surviving. And not blowing up the universe.

So you're saying that your god didn't create sin because he's good, and that he's good because he didn't create sin. ♪ Round and a round and a round we go, where it stops, nobody knows... ♪



Hold it right there! You're telling me that your god is being corrupted by evil and that this force can be destroyed, but he as an omnipotent being cannot do anything about it? Unforgivable! In the name of the moon, I will punish you!



Why is it still their fault? Maybe the Nega-God (snickers) did it.



I have a welcome? Oh, you meant 'You're'. Grammar must be ungodly, too. I apologize for unleashing a deluge of sin upon you.