(August 15, 2013 at 12:02 am)Undeceived Wrote: How do you personally decide what is good and what is evil? Fill in the blanks:
An act is right if and only if __.
An act is wrong if and only if __.

No such thing as an "only if" here. Shades of gray are very real, for the factors of what's good and evil are many and varied. The reasons why the Christian god is evil are many and varied, and no amount of apologetics can help with this issue.

(August 14, 2013 at 2:20 pm)Undeceived Wrote: The question lurking here is "Is God good or evil?" God is loving to the point of rejection, so I follow Him. If He turned out not to be loving--an evil god--I would not follow him. But that's the difference between you atheists and me. You believe that if God exists, he would be evil.

It would be more accurate to say that if the specific God most Christianists describe existed as described, he would be evil, based on the description (I think Christians should jettison the OT, Jews seem to be the only people who can handle it).

(August 14, 2013 at 2:20 pm)Undeceived Wrote: I know that He is good.

You believe he is good. If there is a God, you are not in a position to know its true nature.

(August 14, 2013 at 2:20 pm)Undeceived Wrote: If we keep using the word "atrocity", we talk at each other with two definitions, one with the "atrocity" done for judgmental reasons, and another with "atrocity" done for malicious reasons.

Good intentions don't make atrocities okay. Omnipotence makes atrocities unnecessary.

(August 14, 2013 at 2:20 pm)Undeceived Wrote: We must be careful when replacing God's moral code with our own.

He doesn't even follow the rules he's supposed to have authored.

(August 14, 2013 at 2:20 pm)Undeceived Wrote: We have a tendency to be biased.

True enough.

(August 14, 2013 at 2:20 pm)Undeceived Wrote: If the whole world was in anarchy and we had each killed at least one person, we would be less likely to prosecute a murderer.

I'm with you so far.

(August 14, 2013 at 2:20 pm)Undeceived Wrote: God is good or evil quite apart from His deeds.

Deeds are the only thing that matter when judging whether someone is good or evil. When someone says they are good and they do bad things, we don't believe them. And we shouldn't.

(August 14, 2013 at 2:20 pm)Undeceived Wrote: And our labeling a deed "atrocious" is bias from the start.

Something that is atrocious is appalling and horrifying. Like killing everyone in a village, including the children. Do you think an unbiased person would not consider that atrocious?

(August 14, 2013 at 2:20 pm)Undeceived Wrote: So ronedee gave the correct answer: that if God did something atrocious, or "undeservingly cruel" as the definition goes, he would stop following God.

Based on the evidence, most Christians are fine with God doing atrocious things, they just usually say that it's not an atrocity when God does it...presupposing the atrocity is entirely justified as though an omnipotent being can be backed into a corner where commanding an atrocity is its only option. Perhaps ronedee considers God to have been misrepresented in the biblical accounts that attribute those commands to him.

(August 14, 2013 at 2:20 pm)Undeceived Wrote: But let's put the real question on the table: is said deed really cruel/atrocious, or is it deserved?

Do all the people in a town deserve to be killed if one of them worships a different God? Deuteronomy 13:13-19

Does your brother, wife, or child deserve that if they worship a different God? Deuteronomy 13:7-12

Do they deserve death for working on the Sabbath? Exodus 31:12-15

Do the sons of sinners deserve death? Did all the first-born of Egypt? The children of conquered towns?

I would think the answers to each of these questions would be 'no', and that your choice would be between accepting the God in question as at least not benevolent; or accepting that not everything in the Bible that says it is describing the will of God is actually doing so.

(June 10, 2013 at 10:00 pm)FallentoReason Wrote:

(June 10, 2013 at 9:55 pm)Godschild Wrote: No you will not be tortured in hell, so you're wrong on that point, but yes hell will be your chosen eternal destination.
You are correct to say, Jesus took on your sins, yet they are not forgiven until you accept Christ as your Savior and Lord, no one's sin is forgiven until they accept Christ for who He is and what He did for them. There's nothing hard here to understand, it was made simple to understand.

Think it was just a bad hangover and I assume you know what a hangover is, try being crucified and let me know about half way through, oh you need to be beaten within a literal inch of your life before hand.

Sorry to interject... but this has been done to death in a couple of threads dedicated on the topic. There was no sacrifice because we're talking about an omnipotent and omniscient entity. What did he sacrifice if he didn't stay dead? How is it a sacrifice if he knows nothing will be lost in the long run? In short, any entity paying itself for something is by nature meaningless and void of any substance. It's just pure

Jesus made himself human, and lived on earth with the same temptations we have. If at any point He had sinned He would of been condemned for it forever, because without His sinless life there is nothing to save from sins.

I'll precede this by saying again that I haven't done an in-depth study of hell...
But I have studied God's holiness and I understand this much:
If God is holy and perfect and all that stuff, and sin is rebellion against God, then God doesn't need to go out of His way to toss us into hell - all that hasbto happen is for Him to let us carry on, and without Jesus to atone for our sin, it's as impossible for us to live in God's presence as it is for darkness to stay in a room when the light is turned on.
God gave us breath, and life, so even now we all have something of Him in us, sustaining us. This is why the first recorded name we have for God (YHWH, or Yahweh), is actually pronounced as a breath in, and a breath out. Whether we like it or not, our every breath is a tribute to our Creator.
Sin is absence of God; the two cannot co-exist.
God simply allows us free will, and as we choose darkness He distances Himself from us and lets us make our decisions, for the duration of our lives.

Quote:Jesus made himself human, and lived on earth with the same temptations we have.

Evidence or are we simply supposed to take your word for it?

Gandalf and the rest of the Istari manifested themselves into human form and lived on Middle Earth with the same temptations everyone else had.

Equal evidence deserves equal time..

How do you know Jesus was perfect? I wonder what he was thinking when he whipped those people out of the temple, especially after giving the command of "turn the other cheek".

Quote:How do you know Jesus was perfect?

Because he said so, dummy.

(August 15, 2013 at 5:55 pm)Ryantology Wrote:

Quote:How do you know Jesus was perfect?

Because he said so, dummy.

Daumn.

(July 31, 2013 at 8:17 pm)BadWriterSparty Wrote: You have much to learn still about the Atheist argument, which is sad because there's actually not that much to know.

quote worthy if anything ever was

(August 15, 2013 at 7:01 pm)fr0d0 Wrote:

(July 31, 2013 at 8:17 pm)BadWriterSparty Wrote: You have much to learn still about the Atheist argument, which is sad because there's actually not that much to know.

quote worthy if anything ever was

I would hope so!