What's your general opinion of Christianity?

UltraDolphinRevolution · Oct 25, 2018

eworm said:
I still genuinely don't understand how you can say that. I'm not trying to "gotcha" you here, I actually don't see your logic. If I knew everything about how your "purely biological" brain ticks and about the information that has influenced it thus far and the information that will influence it until the time comes for you to go to work tomorrow - what would prevent me from doing the "math" and predicting your brain's reactions?

Because, similar to an AI, I have choices.
Let's say I like apple pie and strawberry pie exactly the same. If I had apple pie the other day, we could probably predict that I would eat strawberry pie today. But if I had eaten both apple pie and strawberry pie the other day (i.e. my experience favors none of the choices), there is no way to predict which one I am going to choose.
I am not just the sum of my experience+DNA. My DNA influences my decisions substantially, yes, but I do make choices and these choices have an impact on my experience which also influence my choices. Again, I could be wrong but I personally haven't seen strong evidence for it yet.

eworm said:
- all He created was good

Including the animals who keep their prey alive so that they can eat it slowly (while the prey is still alive?). Some Japanese soldiers are reported to have done this in World War 2, but you will explain it away with the help of free will. But what about the animals which do this?

eworm said:
- He made us in His own image

Or we made him in ours. The westernized Jesus and the claims of a black Jesus by African-Americans points to my interpretation. You know what they say about cows...

eworm said:
- He created us so He could love us

Careful, you almost make it sound like God has needs or wishes.

eworm said:
- we rejected Him out of pride and f*cked it up

God knew this would happen but he created this supposedly good world anyway. Could he not have created a world which is BETTER but still contains free will? I can think of one: A world without a pedophiles. I bet being a pedophile has something to do with genes. Just recently a huge study (500.000 people) found that homosexuality is based on genes. If this gene shows up in females, it increases their sex drive and beauty, if it shows up in men, they are gay. From an evolutionary perspective of selfish genes this makes sense. But was God the author of pedophilia or homosexuality? (I do not EQUATE THE TWO AT ALL! just to be clear; consenting adults can do whatever they want). How in the world did humans fuck up and created pedophilia?

eworm said:
Either way, evolution doesn't and can't disprove Christianity. It's not relevant.

I was curious where you stand on this (as you know many Christians have a problem with it).

Please tell me: Why does God discriminate against amputees? He heals the sick, the blind, saves people from accidents, etc. But he never allows limbs to grow back. Not even a finger. There are tiny animals that are able to do it. Are they more powerful than God or does God have prejudice against amputees?

Subtle Demise · Oct 25, 2018

eworm said:
That's what I'm arguing - no, morality does not change. If morality was evolving and changing, it wouldn't be "like science". You'd have to argue that the world's rules are constantly changing and shifting, the physics now are different from the past physics and who knows whether we'll still have gravity in some hundred years. Our understanding of the world changes, yes - by coming closer to or further away from a real, objective, static truth about the world. So do the moral principles we operate on the basis of can change by getting closer or further away from what Good really, objectively is.

Yeah, science's definition is our understanding of the world. It is in a state of constant change as we make new discoveries. Even scientific laws can be altered or debunked entirely if enough evidence is found. For early man, religion and science were pretty much one and the same. They believed the sun was the source of all life and that it was some kind of God. Later we found out the sun was just a superheated ball of gas and there are trillions of them just like it throughout the universe. Morality too can be in a constant state of flux. Until pretty recently, it wasn't considered morally reprehensible to hate a person based on race, religion, gender, sexuality, nationality, and others. We discovered that maybe it wasn't a good thing to do.

eworm said:
Again, why am I arguing about all of this. There is no reason to argue the results and consequences of God's existence without discussing that very existence first. I keep trying to go back to "is God real?" and all I'm getting in return is "Christianity isn't good". Hey, newsflash - you don't believe in "good" or "evil", apparently, only in opinions about things. If morality is not objective, your own argument against the good in Christianity (even forgetting that it's irrelevant to the "reality of God" question in the first place) is obliterated. It's no argument, it's an "I don't like it!" childish tantrum.

I never said I didn't believe in good or evil. Everyone believes in good and evil, they just have different ideas about what they mean. I was speaking about God in a hypothetical sense and holding him to his own moral standards. Growing up in church, it was easy to talk about him in a way as if he was real. Christianity itself has done more good than bad in my opinion. I've even taken advantage of Christian food pantries to feed my kids when money was tight.

eworm said:
Let's try to eliminate your hypocritical moral outrage against Christianity from the discussion using a hypothetical. Let's say a new religion shows up and it says "God exists, He's a personal being - and He hates people". Would you then believe that religion? Because none of your arguments thus far seem to contradict God's existence, only His loving nature and/or His almighty nature and/or His three-personal nature. You're being heretics, but not atheists. Let's say a god exists, but is not like the Christian God outside of being personal. Why would you not believe in that one?

The point I was trying to get to is that if God is not all-powerful or all-knowing, then either he doesn't exist, the Bible is wrong, or both. If the Bible has an error in it, it is no longer the infallible word of God. The being described in the Bible really doesn't seem to be any if those things. He had a tough time figuring out what the hell was going on in the Garden of Eden. Not long after that, he regretted creating life and just decided to destroy almost all of it and start over. This is in stark contrast to the sudden personality shift between the old and new testament. Now all of a sudden we have a God who loves his people and was willing to sacrifice his son who was also a part of himself in order to save us (sucks to be anyone who lived during the old testament, I'm sure it was considerably more difficult to reach heaven during those times). A man who was supposedly without sin, but doubted God ("Father, why have you forsaken me?"), which I thought was a sin. Honestly though, the two testaments are so radically different in tone and seem to describe different deities. Almost like it was two separate religions slapped together.

As for if I would believe in any God: no I wouldn't. See, with science, the people making claims have to show their work and provide proof of what they're claiming. We can look at the science journals and see evidence for any scientific law or theory. You mentioned to someone else about historical events. We don't believe someone just because they said some event took place. We can go to a museum and see the artifacts and ancient texts and documents. There are all kinds of photographs and video evidence of archaeological finds. These finds can be dated to long before the events in the Bible, and sometimes even contradict it. For instance, there is no evidence that there were ever Jewish slaves in Egypt. Nor have we discovered where they wandered the desert for 40 years. You'd think we'd find skeletons or at least a hardened and preserved piece of manna or something by now.

I believe Genesis describes Earth as something like a dome sitting atop four pillars. Well, we've been to space, and photographed the Earth many times. We have robots on Mars, and deep space probes that go even further. We have yet to find any other intelligent beings out there yet, but I believe we will soon. Maybe not within my lifetime, but the probability of there being some other life-bearing planet in the vast universe is pretty high. How would the discovery of alien life forms affect your faith?

eworm said:
I mean, this "obvious nonsense" has only been around for over two millennia, people have died for it, people have changed their lives due to it..

In the history of mankind, Christianity is relatively new. It even borrowed traditions, teachings and concepts from the older religions, namely paganism.

UltraDolphinRevolution · Oct 25, 2018

Subtle Demise said:
Yeah, science's definition is our understanding of the world. It is in a state of constant change as we make new discoveries.

Yes, but the laws of the universe do not change. Our understanding of the universe changes.

Subtle Demise said:
Until pretty recently, it wasn't considered morally reprehensible to hate a person based on race, religion, gender, sexuality, nationality, and others. We discovered that maybe it wasn't a good thing to do.

We discovered it? Bad choice of words. There is nothing to discover.
BTW hate has become such empty word. If it's not morally good to love e.g. Germans, then it's also not morally reprehensible to hate Germans. Anyway, morality is subjective, so you can have your views.

With regards to the discrepancy between the God of the Old and New Testament: I wouldn't call the eternal torturer (New Testament) more pleasant than the children-killing psychopath (Passover) of the Old Testament.

SG854 · Oct 25, 2018

UltraDolphinRevolution said:
We discovered it?

We got a telescope and discovered it in a lab

SuperDan · Oct 25, 2018

its a lie ! based on controlling the masses ... you dont need a god to be a good person

mechagnizmz · Oct 25, 2018

What strengthens my religious belief in a God (I am a practicing Catholic) are the numerous real-life examples of where people have experienced him. For example:

The testimony of Gloria Polo who goes around the world telling of her experience of afterlife - https://www.catholicweekly.com.au/god-got-glorias-attention-lightning-hells-gate-vision-purgatory/

... and many other testimonies of people whose lives have drastically changed due to their discovery of an afterlife (and therefore God). Just search on Google.

God bless you and have a nice day.

Tigran · Oct 25, 2018

Just remember.. Christians are sheep.

That's not even an insult. They call themselves that.

eworm · Oct 25, 2018

Reiten said:
Now I have a few questions to @eworm :

Where does God come from? You probably know where I'm heading with this question, but still humor me.

Before I can really ask the question I want to ask, I need some clarification. What are the characteristics of God? God is often described as all-powerful, all-knowing, well generally omnipotent. What of this holds in your belief?

The last thing that interest me is the discussion of free will. I tried to figure out how you define free will from your posts, but just couldn't get any good definition, so would you be so kind to provide one, or if I missed it a place to look?

I doubt anything I say will be able to change your view on religion, and I doubt you'll be able to change mine, but I find this discussion interesting and hope that you'll respond.

Neat, this sounds promising.

1. I can indeed see where you're going with this, but I'm not gonna wiggle around. I'm perfectly comfortable saying God doesn't "come" from anywhere or anything. Now, in terms of "origin of the world" debacle, this sounds like a very convenient premise, but maybe my next answer will help understand why it's not quite a cop-out.

2. God is, among others:

all-powerful, which means He can create and alter the state of things with His will alone. Like create the universe, for example.
all-knowing, which means He possesses perfect knowledge about everything. This is quite natural considering He is the one who created everything and keeps it in existence at all time. Also since He is...
outside of time, which means He doesn't "predict" the future and doesn't "remember" the past. We live in time - having a past (meaning things and qualities we lost) and a future (meaning we're going to change). Since God is...
a Perfect Being, of course He doesn't change (as change would imply changing for better or worse, neither of which real perfection can do). In short, every millisecond of all history/current moment/future is "now" to God. He doesn't have "just one second" to listen to a one-second-long prayer of a dying person, for example.
three-personal, which is a big mystery and I can hardly explain it, but there are some elements that I may touch on it. For one, one can think of it like going from the second dimension to the third dimension. A being of 2D realm, could never imagine what a cube is, even when they were told it's "made of several squares that form one cube". All explanations would sound ludicrous. We're kinda like that. We live in a world in which one being can't be more than one person (without some personality disorders, but that's not the same). Secondly, while we call Jesus "son" and God "father", it is only the closest word we have to explaining the relationship. One fault in it is that it implies "order" - it would imply Jesus was "second", but that's not the case, God was "complete" from the start. The point of the "father-son" relationship is to drive home that Jesus is not like us "created", but "begotten" - aka, like a human parent gives a human nature to their child, God's son is also fully God (albeit, again, not "a second God" like Zeus and his bunch, it's just to drive home the divine nature). Finally, it's pretty obvious that if God is Love, well, there's no love with just one person. In His own nature, God's love manifests itself.
much more, but I'll spare you for now

So yeah, it all "holds in my belief"

3. I would broadly define (human) free will as "the manifestation of the being's "self" through the ability to question". Questioning one's own nature, one's own decisions, one's own actions, the world around oneself, the other people, reasoning and logic also - it manifests itself in our actions, thoughts, beliefs, relationships, experiments, wishes,pretty much everything - but it all boils down to "questioning", I'd say. If we had no free will, we would never notice we could possibly not have free will.

UltraDolphinRevolution said:
Careful, you almost make it sound like God has needs or wishes.

Needs, no. At least not in the sense we understand the word. But wishes? Why not? Of course He has wishes, did you miss that part of Christianity that says God willed the world into existence?

FAST6191 · Oct 25, 2018

mechagnizmz said:
What strengthens my religious belief in a God (I am a practicing Catholic) are the numerous real-life examples of where people have experienced him. For example:

The testimony of Gloria Polo who goes around the world telling of her experience of afterlife - https://www.catholicweekly.com.au/god-got-glorias-attention-lightning-hells-gate-vision-purgatory/chemic

... and many other testimonies of people whose lives have drastically changed due to their discovery of an afterlife (and therefore God). Just search on Google.

God bless you and have a nice day.

Yet I go anywhere in the world or speak to anybody of a given background and any such "experiences" will tend to reflect the local/background practices -- I tend not to go to deepest, darkest Japan and find someone espousing the virtues of some African mystics, by similar token I go to the middle east and will not tend to find a practising Muslim talking about Thor (unless it is the film, in which case they will talk your ear off). Similarly if I go look at records of "experiences" before contact with various religions I will similarly have a hard time finding anything that would say some hitherto unknown to them knowledge was dropped.
I can induce/reproduce such experiences reliably with chemicals, trauma and other means (continuing with the above thing about groups can you guess what happens when I go speak to some cult members in the southern US?), and commonly attribute or discount those claiming such things by virtue of those three.

"an afterlife (and therefore God)"

How do I know they have not discovered Valhalla? If they have discovered an afterlife it does not have to be the "Christian" (again widely varying interpretations of such things) version.

UltraDolphinRevolution · Oct 26, 2018

eworm said:
Needs, no. At least not in the sense we understand the word. But wishes? Why not? Of course He has wishes, did you miss that part of Christianity that says God willed the world into existence?

A will is stronger than a wish. If he is all-powerful, he could create a better world than ours. We can easily think of better worlds than ours. I am not even talking about earth quakes, I'm sure they have a purpose regarding this planet. William Lane Craig just argues that our world could be the world in which most people are saved, but even that is ridiculous.
I can give you a world in which more people are saved: a world in which human limbs grow back after a prayer group prays for it. Which brings me back to the question: Why does God not and never has healed amputees?

When I first read this, I didn't take it seriously, but it made me think.

phalk · Oct 26, 2018

The same as with every religion.
It's a man's thing. Not related to any god or the divine at all.
I believe a god does indeed exists, but I can't fathom a god not to be something universal, as in, a being or thing that created the whole universe.
Also, by this definition, this god would not interfere here at all. There's no such thing as miracles or divine intervention. Those are just delusions of hopeless people.

Tigran · Oct 26, 2018

eworm said:
Neat, this sounds promising.

all-powerful, which means He can create and alter the state of things with His will alone. Like create the universe, for example.

Which means he is a complete dick considering kids with cancer, kids starving to death, the general defection rate of humans. And can't even protect people in his own churches.

all-knowing, which means He possesses perfect knowledge about everything. This is quite natural considering He is the one who created everything and keeps it in existence at all time. Also since He is...

Which means he is a complete dick because he murdered thousands of innocent Egyptians by knowing the Pharaoh *who's heart HE hardened btw* wouldn't let Moses' people, go... THEN send a whole bunch of plagues over innocent people who literally didn't have choices in the matter. Either be killed by a plague or be killed by a Pharaoh that YHWH made a jerk in the first place.

outside of time, which means He doesn't "predict" the future and doesn't "remember" the past. We live in time - having a past (meaning things and qualities we lost) and a future (meaning we're going to change). Since God is...

That makes him a literal Mother fucker considering the whole Jesus is God thing.

a Perfect Being, of course He doesn't change (as change would imply changing for better or worse, neither of which real perfection can do). In short, every millisecond of all history/current moment/future is "now" to God. He doesn't have "just one second" to listen to a one-second-long prayer of a dying person, for example.

See above for him being a complete dick/asshole. Not to mention the whole fact that he apparently *going by you're view here* has no problem with Abortion since he knew those parasites would be aborted early. Also, the whole... He knows you're going to go to hell since day one or whatever.

And if YHWH is a perfect benign being as you claim.. How the hell is Satan/Devil/Lucifer *By the way... What has he actually done that's supposed to be so evil?* exist?

Oh.. You're theory also falls apart in the story of the Tree. If God was supposedly a perfect being that knew what was going to happen... WTF was the whole deal with the tree to begin with?

CORE · Oct 26, 2018

GOD = Has Always Been. Always Is. Always Was. And Always With You. He is nothing any mere Mortal Mind can comprehend.
IT IS UP TO YOU TO ASK HIM INTO YOUR LIFE AND GUIDE YOU.
Freewill = Do what you want but just take heed that not every choice will be a good one.
Miracles = They are very real in many occasions unfortunately not everyone experiences them.

God in general is with you but will not impose on you where he is not welcome , but yet if something bad happens oh it his fault but how is it Gods fault when you did not believe in him in the first place neither did you care only when something terrible happens.

In that regard this is the only way God can reach some people they never listen and get into a mess and sometimes embrace God and are delivered through Jesus who died for All of Humanity you have a chance to come back even after all that mess you have done.

You Submit yourself to God Willingly Lovingly and Unconditionally the kind of Love you have for your Parents only greater God comes first before Everything and Everything in your Life is Blessed I Love God and he Loves Me just as He Loves Everyone of Humanity.

But you dont need to be Saved because in your mind you have not Sinned and dont care or dont Believe so you cant be Judged. It Does not matter what YOU BELIEVE , WHO ARE YOU BEFORE GOD? I am not Better than anybody else neither do I have a Phone Number to ring and ask God please help me i down in the dumps and lost.

What I do DO However is I just Talk to God through our Lord Jesus Christ , And I Talk to God and Jesus and The Holy Spirit as ONE! I see that in my mind as Multiverse Levels and even then my Feeble Mind is still way off because I am nothing without God No One is yet here we are and that alone is a Gift to Exist. GOD LISTENS AND KNOWS WHAT IS IN YOUR CORE!

(No it not why my Name is CORE but guess it should be.)

Satan = The Fallen Yet Appointed god of this Fallen World.

He and his Minion are always with you too tempting you and Imposing on you and Most of The Time We Give In And Have A Good F***ing Time YES HAHAHA.

Or so you think. God does not Impose does not go where he is not wanted but always takes us back with open arms.

The Enemy is always Corrupting and Tempting yet is considered as Freedom and Rebel GIMME A F***ing Break that is how we are enslaved through our Weak Minds Porn , Drugs , Violence , Money , Sports , Gambling , Cars , Fame.

I dont know about Everyone Else But I dont like the idea of being somethings Bitch especially something that Loaves us with a passion think twice before shakin your Bacon at that Porn you dont know what is sitting beside you the same goes for all this Hate Going on all around us.

CHRISTIANITY! A Follower of Jesus Christ do unto others as you would have them do unto yourself , Love Thy Neighbor and Enemy We are all Brothers and Sisters United in Jesus Christ. Tell Me what is so Hateful about That , as I type this and think about the Lord and try to put this into words I Tell no lie I am in Tears and Dont Give a F**k who thinks that pathetic or Sad because the Pure Love that Burns Nothing Can Put that Passion Out!

Catholic - Protestant - Mormon - Jehovah - Jew? If I left anything out Think about your so called Man Made Religion are you a Catholic or a Christian they are not the same thing!

You dont need to go to Church to Know or Talk to God The Temple of God is within YOU so Clean it up think of it as Streaming on a Device you make the Choice what you want to Stream God or the Enemy. Think of it as a Visitor you like to make sure your house Clean and Presentable like an interview even.

Churches are quick to Slam Nasty Video Games or Judge someone because of theyre Character but yet Bribe you with Christian Yoga and Dancing or other Crap! It is up to you to Beg God not the other way around God already gave us Life and offered a way back to Him through his son Become a god through God or Die Like a Dirty Fly like the Lord of the Flies that He and his Minions are.

No Man can deliver you from your Sin but God , so Confess to self Appointed Holy Fathers at your own Peril.

A Personal Relationship with Jesus is not Dangerous it is THE WAY JESUS IS THE WAY!

If anyone is Offended Good it means your Belief is a Lie and you are not 100% Sure Because if it was you would not be Offended.

I am not Looking For Praise What I Say is Irrelevant to God I do not Speak for God I Testify from my perspective one Human Being to another Jesus Christ is the Truth , Saviour , King of Kings AMEN.

GOD BLESS

Delerious · Oct 26, 2018

I'm just going to sum it up with my thoughts on religion in general.

Personal religion - Believe what you want as long as you're not hurting anyone, infringing on their basic human right or sacrificing animals.

Organized religion - Some pros and cons. Often times encourages basic human morality and fellowship. However, can be rather controlling of their followers, some more than others. Women in Catholicism and Mormonism can't uphold the priesthood, therefore you can't help but question some of the motives toward women in general in those religions. Catholics baptize babies, who don't have free will at that point, so i don't really understand that. Also, I can't help but question where some of the money they get from tithing goes to. For Islamic sects, as long as they're not putting so much emphasis on Shariah Law, I'm typically fine with it, but they also have some of the same issues that a lot of Christian sects have. Ultimately though, I don't prefer to debate someone's spiritual beliefs unless they are infringing upon someone's basic human rights. Of course, some will argue that organized religion, to a degree, infringes upon one's right to liberty, but ultimately, the individual has the choice to leave the religion, and in most cases, have their name removes from their records. Which, by the, is another issue I have with organized religion - they like to keep records on people.

Cults - This is where shit gets very gray, often very dark shades. There are some cults that aren't too loony or terrible, but we've all heard horror stories behind some of them. And I'm sure just about everyone here knows about the Westboro Baptist Church which hates LGBTQ people and Jews. Anyway, I'm largely against cults, mostly because of the level of control their leaders tend to hold over their followers. And often times, cults participate in rituals that vary from questionable to outright disgusting.

--

Christianity - There are many who describe themselves as Christian, but don't necessarily follow a particular sect of Christianity. As a whole, I think Christianity is largely good, with most of the flaws being in organized sects of the religion. Many of the stories in the Bible are pretty great, though some certainly make God out to be an asshole.

I myself am more or less agnostic. I believe that there very well could be a central consciousness that gave law to the universe, but I'm just not sure that I can put my faith in a being that wants to be worshiped for it.

Subtle Demise · Oct 26, 2018

Delerious said:
Cults - This is where shit gets very gray, often very dark shades. There are some cults that aren't too loony or terrible, but we've all heard horror stories behind some of them. And I'm sure just about everyone here knows about the Westboro Baptist Church which hates LGBTQ people and Jews. Anyway, I'm largely against cults, mostly because of the level of control their leaders tend to hold over their followers. And often times, cults participate in rituals that vary from questionable to outright disgusting.

I think a lot of the worst ones are gone now. After what happened with Heaven's Gate and Jonestown, I think people are less willing to mess with the dangerous ones. A lot of them these days are almost just for fun type things. A cult like TOPY for example is more of a fan club for bands like Psychic TV and other artists, and even a record label at one point. They are mostly innocent, although you can find some of their video productions on YouTube now and you can see why they were being investigated in the UK for producing snuff films (all the violent stuff was fake, though). If you count Westboro and Scientology as cults ( I do), then yeah those ones might pose an actual threat some day, but right now, Westboro only says vile things, and I don't believe they ever get physically violent. Scientology seems to mostly prey on celebrities, so I have a hard time being empathetic to those who get scammed by that one. My only concern is for the children who have to be indoctrinated by their parents and will suffer for it in many ways.

Glyptofane · Oct 26, 2018

Not a fan.

plasturion · Oct 26, 2018

What I can say, trying to figure out what is Christianity for personal meaning and use can be wrong. You can always find an argument to deny certain things. You can also interpret things wrong outside church. It's like two different visions about conception of synchronicity between C. Jung and Z. Freud. Most important thing in discovering Christianity is Kenosis. Direct response God to human due the life, personal relationship, trust but also confirmation.

dpad_5678 · Oct 26, 2018

No such thing as a "good Christian". If you follow the bible word for word, you're not a good person because you'd be doing some fucked up shit and would end up hating a LOT of different types of people.

On the other hand, you may loosely follow the bible and not be a complete suckup. And at that point, you're no longer a true Christian.

We don't need religion. It's destructive and teaches incorrect beliefs such as homophobia, etc.

eworm · Oct 28, 2018

UltraDolphinRevolution said:
A will is stronger than a wish. If he is all-powerful, he could create a better world than ours. We can easily think of better worlds than ours. I am not even talking about earth quakes, I'm sure they have a purpose regarding this planet. William Lane Craig just argues that our world could be the world in which most people are saved, but even that is ridiculous.
I can give you a world in which more people are saved: a world in which human limbs grow back after a prayer group prays for it. Which brings me back to the question: Why does God not and never has healed amputees?

You do realize you're making a complete non-argument, right?
Your argument is that God can't be the ultimate Good, because the world He created has plenty of painful and evil stuff in it. But that only means you admit a premise of "there is such a thing as Good and such a thing as Evil and they are objective, they are not our subjective perceptions". And if it is indeed objective, aka written into the world like the laws of physics, then it is indeed God the Creator who knows better what's good, what's evil, and what evil shall lead to a greater good. On the other hand, if you actually think that what's evil or not depends on one's viewpoint, culture, subjective feelings - then you're holding God to a standard that boils down to "I don't like", which won't hold as an argument for a second.
Recommended reading is C.S. Lewis (again) "The Problem of Pain". Perfectly straightforward and fairly exhaustive set of answers about the whole "suffering vs loving God" dilemma. Might seem like I'm evading the questions by pointing you to a different source, but I'm not gonna do the argument any more justice than Lewis did, especially in a forum post.

Tigran said:
That makes him a literal Mother fucker considering the whole Jesus is God thing.

I don't think you know what "fucking" is.

Tigran said:
Not to mention the whole fact that he apparently *going by you're view here* has no problem with Abortion since he knew those parasites would be aborted early. Also, the whole... He knows you're going to go to hell since day one or whatever. (...) You're theory also falls apart in the story of the Tree. If God was supposedly a perfect being that knew what was going to happen... WTF was the whole deal with the tree to begin with?

You keep talking like God "sees the future" - in response to the post in which I've explained that's not the case. He is outside of time, meaning He is "now" in every moment, whether it's the past, the present or the future for us. He doesn't see what's gonna happen, He sees what is happening. This means our actions still matter and fate is not pre-determined.

The tree is a symbolic story in which what matters is that humans selfishly rejected God. Humans were created to live in God. His Good were our good, His wishes were our happiness, His love was our "energy source". But humans decided to rely on themselves, to seek some other good (which doesn't exist) and thus pride was born. Pride - as in the wish to be "more", to be "better", to be "above". And a prideful creature is inherently incompatible with God, who is "more", "better" and "above" all creation. Whether the prideful act really was disobedience about a fruit or something completely different is irrelevant to the point. Even if it was, in that sin humans cut themselves off from God. The car threw away its engine, the predatory animal removed its own teeth, the gamer broke their controller - we screwed ourselves over.

I'm sorry to hear you consider yourself a "parasite" though. I hope you get happier.

NeroAngelo · Oct 28, 2018

The Islamic story of Satan is kinda cool, Satan was cast out of heaven because when god created Adam, he asked all his creation (Djinns and Angels, Satan is referred to as lord of Djinns) to bow to him, Satan refused, saying why should someone made of Fire bow down to someone born of clay, so god cursed him for his arrogance and cast him out, Satan asked god for one favor that god granted: to live till the end of days and prove to god that humans are unworthy, and swore to him that he would lead his flock astray.

CosmoCortney · Oct 29, 2018

For me all theistic religions are equally outlandish.
But as long as religious people don't harm themselves or any others by their religious believes it doesn't bother me. I also disagree with religious influences on politics.

TerribleTy27 said:
Love your God with all your heart soul mind and strength, and love your neighbor as you love yourself.

In my point of view our universe has started with the big bang. Before the big bang there was no matter, space and time. Without time there couldn't have been any time for god creating the big bang, neither any time for god to be created.
Got this way of thinking after reading Stephen Hawking.
So.. it is up to me who I love.

What's your general opinion of Christianity?

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Hail Mary

Im Aware ... Im Unaware

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3:16

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temporary hermit

Ape weak on own. Ape strong in unity.

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Clueless Importer

i snack raw pasta and chew lollipops

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