God: The Great Tempter

[Rhondazvous]

He's got some work to do before he's even up to our level. That's why we don't worship him.

But if we're not careful, he'll beat us with experience.

[Chad32]

I try to remember back to when I was a Christian.  I guess the horror never really dawned on me.

Oh, the priests made very sure that we didn't like god when we were kids. Telling us that if we sin, god would take what's dearest to us, did the job just fine. But being a kid, I didn't reflect on the trinity and so I made a distinction between God and Jesus. I still liked him, just loathed the father.

I was like that at one point too. Jesus seemed like a seperate entity to me, so I just followed Jesus and hoped he could protect me from his dad.

[abaris]

I didn't notice any of the kids talking suicide or anything like that.

I didn't talk suicide either. I just didn't like the guy. And it made me start asking questions.

My childhood, for the record, wasn't traumatic at all. My parents weren't the ones forcing religion down my throat. The state, back in the 60ies still heavily catholic, tried. At primary school.

[Rhondazvous]

They disobeyed god’s commandment to kill women and boys. How wicked of them. And Yahweh is so gracious that he didn’t require them to martyrdom to get their 7 virgins. Don’t you just love this god?

If it's evil to disobey god, then I'll just have to be evil.

They were totally evil people who received judgement for their crimes, but they were to be redeemed eventually by Christ for eternity.  They were removed because they were actively trying to prevent the coming of that savior.  Also, I believe that their deaths were much easier than a huge percentage of christian followers' deaths right now.

How could they "actively trying prevent" the coming of a savior they'd never heard of?

Jesus said if they'd seen the miracles done in Israel they would have repented. So in his superior wisdom, god punished people he knew would have repented and gave his word to people he knew would not keep it. How are you goingto shoehorn justice into this?

[Rhondazvous]

And that's the bottom line. God doesn't do things out of love or justice. he does things because he can. Might makes right. So who the fuck are we to question the all mighty?

Why do you say that he doesn't act out of love or justice?  Taking our punishment in our place is not love , and allowing us to suffer for our wrongs is not justice?

I've already answered that question. You ignore what I've said. So why should I repeat myself?

[Simon Moon]

How do you figure?

Thousands of Christian sects, many involved in wars throughout history. All over competing interpretations of  texts supposedly provided by a god, that should have known of a better method to transmit his message.

The majority of humanity is not currently, and have not been Christian throughout history. Again, shouldn't this deity have been able to figure out a better method of transmitting his message? A method that would have been able to convince almost everyone on the planet?

I know I could have come up with a better method, and you could have too.

So instead, according to many Christian sects, we have a system, where the vast majority of all humanity that has ever existed, is going to be punished for eternity (or annihilated, according to others) , all because this deity had a poor method of communicating. 

Is that your idea of "working out rather well"? 

I guess since you have discovered the "truth", it has worked out rather well, for you. Not so much for those of us (the vast majority of humanity) that are destined for eternal punishment. 

Any being that created this system, does not deserve to be worshiped, even if it does actually exist.

It's been extremely successful, having started with a small band of ragtag disciples and has been growing ever since.  It's the largest faith in the world and is still growing.  God doesn't require that we all interpret the bible the same, but that we have faith in his son.

Which is still an immoral system.

The vast majority of humanity will still be punished for eternity for a thought crime.

[Rhondazvous]

I try to remember back to when I was a Christian.  I guess the horror never really dawned on me.

Oh, the priests made very sure that we didn't like god when we were kids. Telling us that if we sin, god would take what's dearest to us, did the job just fine. But being a kid, I didn't reflect on the trinity and so I made a distinction between God and Jesus. I still liked him, just loathed the father.

Sounds like a recipe for cognitive dissonance once you found out they're supposed to be one and the same.

[Lek]

Why do you say that he doesn't act out of love or justice?  Taking our punishment in our place is not love , and allowing us to suffer for our wrongs is not justice?

Oh, please!

Jesus is god, according to your own trinity. So he just sacrificed a hull. Been there, discussed that as nauseam.

Secondly, as I already said. God is supposed to be omniscient. So what's the point in tempting, if the outcome is already a known quantity? Just as the Jesus suffering, this only looks good if you don't scratch the surface. But the first question asked inevitable exposes the rust underneath.

God doesn't make the choices for us. You can choose whether to murder someone or not.

I agree that Jesus is God, but I don't get what you mean when you say that God sacrificed a hull. Jesus is man as well as God. When he died, it was a man who died. How does Jesus being God effect the sacrifice?

[Lek]

The vast majority of humanity will still be punished for eternity for a thought crime.

The bible says that Jesus' sacrifice was for all mankind, not just for a few of us.

[abaris]

How does Jesus being God effect the sacrifice?

Since it comes with the job description of god that he can't die. Three personas, one of them died - for three days. That's a magic trick rather than a sacrifice. But we've already been there, months ago.