Answered Questions

[Thor]

Fore the Same attonement covers your sin when you willfully disobey, covers you when you are doing your absolute best and simply fall short because you do not have the capacity to completely comprehend.

So you can "willfully disobey" all you want and "Jesus" has you covered? Sweet!

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Fore the Same attonement covers your sin when you willfully disobey, covers you when you are doing your absolute best and simply fall short because you do not have the capacity to completely comprehend.

That's where it all falls down, of course. By that standard murders, rapists, child molestors, etc are all in Heaven (provided they sincerely repented), while notable human beings like Mark Twain, Robert Ingersol and Christoper Hitchens who lived exemplary lives are condemned to eternal suffering for simple honesty of disbelief.

Dandy, that. Just dandy. Live a life of unrelieved, horrific debauchery and have one second, just one split second of sincere repentance for the pain you've caused and the lives you've wrecked and you wind up in the bosom of God forever and ever Amen.

I find that utterly repugnant.

Boru

[Thor]

That's where it all falls down, of course. By that standard murders, rapists, child molestors, etc are all in Heaven (provided they sincerely repented), while notable human beings like Mark Twain, Robert Ingersol and Christoper Hitchens who lived exemplary lives are condemned to eternal suffering for simple honesty of disbelief.

Dandy, that. Just dandy. Live a life of unrelieved, horrific debauchery and have one second, just one split second of sincere repentance for the pain you've caused and the lives you've wrecked and you wind up in the bosom of God forever and ever Amen.

I find that utterly repugnant.

Boru

Yup. According to these ridiculous beliefs, ANYONE can get into "heaven"! Maybe Hitler repented just before killing himself. In this case, imagine being a Jew who was murdered along with his entire family. You're walking around in "heaven" and you see Hitler joking with some of his buddies (they also repented before dying). How would you feel?

[Minimalist]

Maybe Hitler repented just before killing himself

Why would he? He thought he was doing god's will. If European history tells us anything he might have had a point.

[freedomfromforum]

And if he's merciful, why does he allow children to get cancer? Or cerebral palsy? Or muscular dystrophy? Or be born blind, missing limbs, or with Down's Syndrome?

Don't you know? It pleases god to afflict the innocent; just look at what he found pleasure in doing to that Jesus dude.

[Bad Writer]

Drich, why is prayer necessary to change our will? We are perfectly capable of doing this without resorting to supplication, so by your own admissions prayer becomes unnecessary and superfluous. If you're right that we should pray the way you've outlined, then how does A/S/K fit into the equation since this line of yours seems to require the petitioner to ask for knowledge that only God can give? This is contrary to what you just proposed here.

[Drich]

Fore the Same attonement covers your sin when you willfully disobey, covers you when you are doing your absolute best and simply fall short because you do not have the capacity to completely comprehend.

So you can "willfully disobey" all you want and "Jesus" has you covered? Sweet!

Why would Jesus Have you covered?

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Drich, why is prayer necessary to change our will? We are perfectly capable of doing this without resorting to supplication, so by your own admissions prayer becomes unnecessary and superfluous.

We are slaves to sin. You couldn't stop sinning even if you really wanted too. (Your example of porn demonstrates this very well.)
Prayer is the only real way to break those chains.

If you're right that we should pray the way you've outlined, then how does A/S/K fit into the equation since this line of yours seems to require the petitioner to ask for knowledge that only God can give? This is contrary to what you just proposed here.

A=Ask as in Prayer In the A/S/K Abbreviation. We have been instructed in Luke 11 by Christ to seek God's will. If you Keep reading luke 11 the very next message is the A/S/K Message.(where you find out what God wills for you to pray for.)In short We have then been instructed to Ask for the Gift of the Holy Spirit which will guide instruct and direct us.

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Fore the Same attonement covers your sin when you willfully disobey, covers you when you are doing your absolute best and simply fall short because you do not have the capacity to completely comprehend.

That's where it all falls down, of course. By that standard murders, rapists, child molestors, etc are all in Heaven (provided they sincerely repented), while notable human beings like Mark Twain, Robert Ingersol and Christoper Hitchens who lived exemplary lives are condemned to eternal suffering for simple honesty of disbelief.

Dandy, that. Just dandy. Live a life of unrelieved, horrific debauchery and have one second, just one split second of sincere repentance for the pain you've caused and the lives you've wrecked and you wind up in the bosom of God forever and ever Amen.

I find that utterly repugnant.

Boru

Maybe before your 'dandy' rant you should have ask or looked up what repentance means.

What it's not: the I'm sorry for all the bad crap I've done loop hole you think it to be.

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A couple of points:

1. No, I don't need to know every facet of the universe to grasp that God is not a needed explanation for anything. Since naturalism has an overwhelmingly successful explanatory track record, it would be up to the religionists to demonstrate that naturalism is wrong, and that God is required as an explanation.

That's just foolishness. Your claim was God is never the answer for any phenomena in the universe. To which I simply observed that one must know not only the question, but also the answer to every currently known and Yes even unknown occurrences in the universe to make that statement with any hope of accuracy. Which indeed would make you God, or just some douche bag who doesn't really know what He is talking about. I'm guessing "B." Otherwise as God you would have placed yourself in a terriable paradox that you should have saw coming, which is another problem with you being God.

But I'll be fair - name a natural event or phenomenon that cannot, positively CANNOT be explained by natural means. In other words, give us a verified phenomenon to consider whereby God is the only possible explantion. Take your time.

Move the goal post much? Or do you simply not understand the nature of unknown phenomena? (which is what is actually being discussed.) Because again in order for you to accurately make the statement you did, you would not only have to know and accurately explain away all known Phenomena, you would also have to be able to account for all unknown phenomena as well. (Which again would make you God by definition, which brings us back to our paradox in your logic.)

Maybe next time take your own advise and take your time, and give your posts a little more thought, before posting.

2. The questions in my OP are simply what the vast majority of religionists believe to be true about God: that he is all-powerful, all knowing, merciful, just, and so on and so forth. My answers are an attempt (and I say with all humility, a pretty fair one) to show why these beliefs are not logically tenable. As another poster mention, it doesn't matter that I lack belief in God when I wish to point out that the qualities attributed to him are nonsensical. In the same way, one is not required to believe in Father Christmas in order to point out that reindeer can't fly.

What makes this discussion 'un-tenable' is the straw man you introduced to dismiss the God of the bible. Of course your version of God does not exist, you just made him up based on what you think "religionist" think of God.

If your looking to actually engage in a viable discussion about the God of the bible then why not discuss what is actually written about Him, rather than create and attack you personal version of Him?

Or were you only prepare to discuss the same old atheist straw men?

3. Kaiser Soze, hemorrhoid sufferer, riding in an iron chariot, would clearly render God paralytic with fear.

We will have to agree to disagree here.

Boru
[/quote]

[Faith No More]

THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT!

Christianity is the Freedom to do you personal best!

It is not a list of rules or nor the absolute standard the Jews received. Fore the Same attonement covers your sin when you willfully disobey, covers you when you are doing your absolute best and simply fall short because you do not have the capacity to completely comprehend.

We've (You and I ) have talked about this 1/2 a dozen times

Missing the point again, Drich. My statement was in response to the claim that we should ask those who know him for true answers. They can't all be true, regardless if Jesus has low standards.

[pineapplebunnybounce]

Ok, so this petitioning god for wants and desires, does it ever work or is it a waste of time?

It works when what your asking for is in His will to give it to you.

However if you pray the Lord's prayer and learn to want what God wants, the the petitioning prayers become less frequent. I am to the point where I have found a contentment (more so than I did before, I still want stuff.) that allows me to be happy with what I have.

Don't get me wrong I still ask for health and I still do want things, but my life no long revolves around obtaining what I want.

But you changed his will though. if before you prayed, god was going to do A. then you pray and he does B. Let's say for the sake of argument his end goal is C. Giving you B doesn't affect his achieving C, so he grants you B like you asked.

It still stands that he would've done A had you not prayed. So you did in fact change god's will and that was the purpose of your prayer. Calling it petitioning doesn't change the fact that you are trying to change god's will, with a believe that you will succeed.

[fr0d0]

A stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to gentiles