Is America the greatest country

[Catholic_Lady]

[...]So when someone talks about wanting every gun owner to get killed by getting shot, I use the word "innocent" to describe them in the sense that they are not criminals deserving of a death sentence merely because they have a gun.  

And yet they deserve a death sentence merely because they were born human. All you're saying is that only god gets to harm and kill people, or even wish for them to die. All we get to do is praise god when they do die and/or get otherwise punished.

As for the story of Eve eating the apple, I've talked many times about how neither me nor the majority of Catholics see this story as a literal one. It's more a symbolism of human sin, free will, and the fact that none of us is perfect and will inevitably do things wrong sometimes.

You're still dancing around the issue. It doesn't matter, if it's a literal female eating a literal apple, or not  - according to your god because of our POTENTIAL for "doing things wrong sometimes", we don't deserve to live forever, the way humans were - allegedly - originally intended to. In fact - many of us deserve to live in utter poverty, ignorance and indignity, just because - as C. Hitchens put it - we were created sick and commanded to be well.

But the belief is that we are going to live forever. We don't believe death is the end all be all, it is only the beginning of the next life. 

This is not a perfect analogy, but it does help bring some understanding and put things into perspective:

In a mother’s womb were two babies. One asked the other: “Do you believe in life after delivery?” The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.”

“Nonsense” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?”
The second said, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.”
The first replied, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”

The second insisted, “Well I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.”
The first replied, “Nonsense. And moreover if there is life, then why has no one has ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.”
The first replied “Mother? You actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?”
The second said, “She is all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.”
Said the first: “Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.”

To which the second replied, “Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus and you really listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.

- Cath News  https://www.facebook.com/CathNews/?pnref=story