(December 10, 2008 at 11:56 am)Daystar Wrote: I don't understand all of this. I really don't.

You're not alone, I don't understand much of it myself....

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Purple Rabbit, if you were raised a believer, what was it that convinced you there is no God?

(December 10, 2008 at 3:09 pm)CoxRox Wrote: Purple Rabbit, if you were raised a believer, what was it that convinced you there is no God?

The argument from suffering worked for me when I was 12. Where I live they have a law against innocent bystanders not assisting in life threathening situations. I wondered why god should be an exception to that just rule. Later there were Darwin, Spinoza, Einstein, Kant, Hume, Dennett, Pinker... well, the works.

The problem of evil has been my biggest obstacle for the same reasons.

(December 11, 2008 at 11:26 am)CoxRox Wrote: The problem of evil has been my biggest obstacle for the same reasons.

If I may, CR, I think that the problem there is that you look at evil backwards as far as mankind and God are concerned.

God can't simply remove evil at his whim because mankind is lord over their own planet under the influence of Satan. They have rejected God and chose evil. They continue to do that.

Daystar, if we assume the bible is a true account of God, then He 'steps into' human situations when He wishes e.g the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah etc. I cannot begin to grasp how He can 'hold back His hand' at some of the evil we humans perpetrate. Take the example of a child. I've read accounts of a child being abused who prayed to Jesus to help them and make it stop. (It didn't) An earthly parent could not sit back and watch their child being hurt against its will, so how can God?

Its called cherry-picking

I must admit that I find it so much easier, and find that it solves so many little problems to simply say that the Bible, how ever interesting and profound many find it, is simply not true.

When you believe that, all those niggly little problems simply evaporate like early morning mist on a sunny day.

Others, of course, may wish to disagree

Of course its not true I just have to try and explain that to some

Have you ever seen this one?

[youtube]zDHJ4ztnldQ[/youtube]

http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/

(December 11, 2008 at 12:04 pm)Daystar Wrote:

(December 11, 2008 at 11:26 am)CoxRox Wrote: The problem of evil has been my biggest obstacle for the same reasons.

If I may, CR, I think that the problem there is that you look at evil backwards as far as mankind and God are concerned.

God can't simply remove evil at his whim because mankind is lord over their own planet under the influence of Satan. They have rejected God and chose evil. They continue to do that.

Mankind isn't almighty, your god is claimed to be so. Try your argument on kid cancer. Then kid cancer is not caused by what medical science finds but by the kid self (or even worse, by it's parents). That is both cruel and morally abject. Imho it is evil even to suggest so. On top of the cruelty is the negation of medical science and all of it has done to cure patients in the absense of an almighty god (if man can cure, what's holding back god?). Something to think about when you end up in some hospital and you are left to medical science, an event that will happen to most of us eventually.