How about gawaDUH?

 

"Fools mock, but they shall morn"
The word of God!

 

The fact is....BDV, that while you may not believe it, it is still polite to show respect for other peoples beliefs, name SOMETHING!! where I have completely disrespected your beliefs? whatever they are? Come on now...and find soemthing. I thought you were more grown up, you are acting like a child.

 

Explain this one:
My Grandfather and Grandmother were missionaries in China for mostof their lives till Mao ran them out of town. Then they did missionary work elsewhere. They spent their whole lives devoted to God and lived in poverty. They retired and lived in a mission home, while still on occasion giving speechs to children about the goodness of God. Then one day my grandfather went to the bank to cash his pitifully small pension check so he could go grocery shopping. This man who had spent his whole life living and suffering for God (he was beaten and tortured by Communists in China) was beaten and mugged by a bunch of thugs for his grocery money, and subsequently died from the injuries. Some reward!
Then my grandmother, two years later contracted bone cancer and lived another 6 months in agonizing pain and misery. She died heartbroken and in pain. So explain to me how this was part of gods plan?
I especially would like to know why it is ok for a person who leads a good life helping others and remains an upstanding citizen to the end of their days to go to hell because they were an unbeliever. But a murdering thief and rapist who has done nothing but spread misery and pain their whole life, then on their death bed they accept "Jesus into their heart". So they get to go to Heaven? What a crock!
So if I were so inclined to go lead a life of murder and crime, it would be ok becasue I have that safety net. Just as long as I get born again I'm safe. I understand that Christians have to preach it that way, because otherwise they would be out of followers real quick. But it is still a crock.

 

The real question is not whether the Bible is inspired, but whether it is true. If it is true, it does not need to be inspired. If it is true, it makes no difference whether it was written by a man or a god. The multiplication table is just as useful, just as true as though God had arranged the figures himself. If the Bible is really true, the claim of inspiration need not be urged; and if it is not true, its inspiration can hardly be established. As a matter of fact, the truth does not need to be inspired. Nothing needs inspiration except a falsehood or a mistake. Where truth ends, where probability stops, inspiration begins. A fact never went into partnership with a miracle. Truth does not need the assistance of miracle. A fact will fit every other fact in the Universe, because it is the product of all other facts. A lie will fit nothing except another lie made for the express purpose of fitting it. Alter a while the man gets tired of lying, and then the last lie will not fit the next fact, and then there is an opportunity to use a miracle. Just at that point, it is necessary to have a little inspiration.

It seems to me that reason is the highest attribute of man, and that if there can be any communication from God to man, it must be addressed to his reason. It does not seem possible that in order to understand a message from God it is absolutely essential to throw our reason away. How could God make known his will to any being destitute of reason? How can any man accept as a revelation from God that which is unreasonable to him? God cannot make a revelation to another man for me. He must make it to me, and until he convinces my reason that it is true, I cannot receive it

 

bigdmizer,

Exactly so.

And very eloquently put IMO.

 

Waxy:

Look man, I'm sorry if I came off wrong to you about what I said.

I am not at all trying to say that these kids have any less chance at getting to Heaven that you and me. All I'm saying is that they have a much harder living situation that I have. IMHO those kids deserve Heaven for how much they have to suffer. I can't bear the thought of a kid like that having to suffer through life and then go to hell for lack of faith in God. But like I said, I don't have all the answers. I really wish I did because you would be the first to know. My heart goes out to other nations that have such harsh living conditions. I know that I'm spoiled rotten to the core when compared to them. My best prayers of hope and guidance will always go to those people. It should have never been that way for them, and I wish there was some supernatural thing that I could do for them, but all I can do right now is pray for them...and I do. Hopefully you get a better understanding from this point of view.

BDV:

2 words...grow up. If you can't respect others beliefs and ideas, and then how could you respect your own? If you were to actually believe in Suess or whatever, I'd be totally fine with it. That's what you believe, so live it. If your religion requires you to believe in an old dirty rag, and you do, I'm not going to sit here and condemn you for it.

You haven't told me anything that proves me wrong. You could never prove Christianity wrong with your opinions and ideas because that's just it...your opinion.

Waxy, it's definately not God's fault. As I have already said, we sinned against him in the beginning. Man, long ago, brought sin and poverty upon himself PERIOD. Yes, God did pass the judgment upon man, but man brought the judgment upon himself. I don't see how that's so hard to understand for you guys. We aren't perfect in any way. God is perfect in every way. There are very hard situations in the world today, but when you say it's all because of God...you're just being silly about it. You're passing the blame on to someone else because you don't want to take it that it's our fault. I don't know how else to put it. Look, this is what I believe. If you don't believe it, I'm sorry. I can't make you believe it. All I can do is pray and hope for the best for you.

 

It is God's fault in the sense that as the one 'being' who could solve the problem, he refuses to do so in a timely manner. Who cares whose fault it was, why not just solve the problem? God's refusal to take the high road is a glaring inconsistency with the portriat of a merciful and just God. How merciful is it to allow an infant to starve to death over a deed their ancestors committed some 300 generations ago?

Whistler

 

Thanks whistler, you've done it again.

Waxy

 

So basically your whole argument boils down to: God can't exist because bad things happen in the world and he doen't fix them.


Why should God do the things you want him to when you don't believe in him?

 

No, if you read this entire thread (boil some coffee) you'd see that that is only one small part of the argument.

Waxy

P.S. How about because you believe in him?

 

Waxy, out of 10 pages, any part is just a small part....even a two page section.

 

Very True.

Waxy

 

Like I said...never ending circle.

 

That it is ....now then, that we finally agree on something...do we agree to disagree on everything else? except hese two things?