(February 3, 2012 at 12:50 am)Godschild Wrote: Your mistake is believing anyone is good compared to the perfect God. God is omniscient and understands what good is. Evil = sin so to speak, it is those who sin and are not believers in Christ who will spend eternity in hell. Sin = not doing the will of God, I do not know how anyone can possibly be perfect enough to do God's will every day. Forgiveness is the key, forgiveness comes through Christ. Everyone sins, it's those who accept Christ who attain forgiveness, those who do not accept Christ do not receive forgiveness and thus hell is their eternal destination.

There is nothing perfect about the God that is described in the Bible.

The first thing the God does is confess to being a jealous God. He's already imperfect right there. Then he's also a vengeful God. Far from perfect.

Moreover, there would be absolutely nothing "perfect" about a God who can't forgive people unless they are willing to nail his son to a pole.

In fact, do you realize that by accepting Jesus as your "savior" you are indeed condoning having Jesus nailed to a pole to pay for your sins.

In fact, accepting that Jesus was crucified to pay for your sins would be no different from God handing you a hammer and spikes and pointing to Jesus and the Cross and saying, "Unless you are willing to nail my son to a pole to pay for your sins I won't grant you admission into my perfect heaven."

That's basically what these fables require of you.

Besides, what would be the point in an eternal hell of suffering that no one could ever escape from or be pardoned from?

Clearly it's not going to do any good for the people who are suffering. They most certainly aren't being taught a "lesson" because its eternal. What's the point in an eternal lesson that never ends? It would be utterly pointless.

Therefor the only other possible reason that this God could have devised such a wicked scheme is because he actually enjoys knowing that people are suffering eternally. Otherwise why bother doing it at all?

If it doesn't do the people who are suffering any good, and it serves God no useful purpose then what would be the point to it?

It's clearly a man-made fable intended to scare people into obeying a religious scam.

There simply can be no other explanation. No genuinely all-wise (supposedly benevolent) being could possibly have set up such an asinine and utterly useless situation.

There would certainly be nothing "perfect" about such a demonic God.

The very fact that any human being falls for this absurd religious scam is beyond me. We've dismissed the Greek Gods as being nothing more than pure mythology for far lesser reasons.

It's really quite simple. No supposedly "perfect" God could be as screwed up as these religious myths demand.

I don't know about you, but such a God would be far beneath me in terms of compassion and love.

Even if I were to sentence some to eternal punishment and suffering whilst I was in an emotional fit of rage, it wouldn't be very long before I regained my composure and forgave them and withdrew the sentence.

To think that a supposedly "perfect and benevolent" God could sentence people to eternal suffering and punishment (and in some cases for having done nothing more than merely not believing in him) is simply ludicrous.

With all due respect it would be utterly stupid beyond any rationale.

Moreover, think about this,...

The GOOD NEWS that Jesus supposedly brought is that MOST PEOPLE are going to hell!

That's right.

Jesus is said to have taught:

Matt.7

[13] Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
[14] Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Well if only few make it into the Kingdom of God, then clearly the vast majority of souls that this God creates are sent to this eternal hell.

This would be a loser God. A God who loses the vast majority of souls that he creates.

In other words he would be an extremely inefficient creator of souls.

That my friend would be far from being "perfect".

Face it. The religion is nothing more than an outrageous scare-tactic scam created and maintained by mortal men.

There's no way it could be about any genuine divine being. It's simply far too ignorant.

Care to show me a religion that isn't "far too ignorant" to be about a genuine divine being? Or anything of any stripe about any "genuine divine being" that isn't "far too ignorant" in and of itself?

(February 3, 2012 at 9:19 am)Rhythm Wrote: Care to show me a religion that isn't "far too ignorant" to be about a genuine divine being? Or anything of any stripe about any "genuine divine being" that isn't "far too ignorant" in and of itself?

I could certainly show you.

The real question is whether you could see it.

Probably the first thing you'd need to do is remove any and all preconceived notions that you may already have concerning what you imagine in your mind when you say a "genuine divine being".

If you are thinking that such a being must necessarily be a totally separate entity from yourself with it's own egotistical consciousness, then I doubt that I could help you with that.

But if you are open to the possibility that this higher being may actually be an intimate part of your very own consciousness, (or vice versa) then we might actually make some progress.

Sounds like something splinter would say to a ninja turtle.

I didn't ask you to plead for me to be open. I said "show me". Is your "genuine divine being" difficult to demonstrate?

(February 3, 2012 at 6:54 am)tackattack Wrote: As far as your rationale; for any people to earn hell or heaven, they would have to be able to freely choose between good and evil.

I choose neither. Good and his neighbour Evil are two noisy annoying children who can't get along, while all I want is peace and quiet somewhere else alone.

Quote:Knowledge of what evil is, but choosing what is God's will would then be what earns your ticket to the pearly gates.

And what if I don't want your candy man's golden ticket to his chocolate factory? I automatically get sent to hell? That's not a choice.

If you're an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good being, why even create the universe? Why not just create Heaven with all the good souls to kiss your ass forever, and just forget about making the earth, all the evil people, and this ridiculous "test" system to determine where you end up for eternity? Especially since God is supposedly planning on destroying the entire universe some day anyway. It just doesn't make sense at all. That's what a more efficient, and truly all-good god would do and not worry about all the evil people.

I know, I know, God created Hell as a place to send Satan after he rebelled, but if I was all-knowing I wouldn't have created Satan in the first place, or else made him be all good like all the other angels.

(February 3, 2012 at 3:09 pm)Doubting Thomas Wrote: If you're an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good being, why even create the universe? Why not just create Heaven with all the good souls to kiss your ass forever, and just forget about making the earth, all the evil people, and this ridiculous "test" system to determine where you end up for eternity? Especially since God is supposedly planning on destroying the entire universe some day anyway. It just doesn't make sense at all. That's what a more efficient, and truly all-good god would do and not worry about all the evil people.

I know, I know, God created Hell as a place to send Satan after he rebelled, but if I was all-knowing I wouldn't have created Satan in the first place, or else made him be all good like all the other angels.

You call what I've put in bold a loving choice, I say that would be truly tyrannical.

Quote:I mean, would anyone here start a new family with their partner if they 100% knew that any children would be horribly disabled and spend what lives they did have in crippling pain?

G-C would...and then he'd say it was his fucking 'god's' will or some such nonsense.

Quote:Knowledge of what evil is, but choosing what is God's will would then be what earns your ticket to the pearly gates.

But what if you don't want to go to either a heaven or hell? What if you're happy with simply returning to the state you were at before existence?
If there is only two options and no other then where's the freedom?

It's that 'either you're on my side or his!' What if I have no interest in taking sides? What if I don't want to play ball?

Had to add this, Bertrand. Some relevance as he speaks a bit about morality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aPOMUTr1qw

Quote:Thus evil is not necessary to allow free-will if God knows everything

.


Free will is not possible if your deity is omniscient.

While we are on free will: Christians say if we love and obey God to heaven. BUT if we do not, and break his rules we go to hell. A psychologist would call that "an approach-avoid conflict" I call it coercion.There is no real choice. What is the point of free will if those are your choices? The dichotomy is cruel.God plays with a stacked deck.

'Evil' is a moral value, not an objective reality and not absolute.