Enlightened rants...

[AFTT47]

There is a dark sinister force that always corrupts religion - and people are too afraid to look at it in its dark evil heart. It is always the case the worst of humans end up being regarded as pure wise leaders to be relied on for religion and the propaganda is such that the truthful are regarded as fabricators and the liars are taken as reliable authorities regarding it. Truth is to be known through reasoning, Quran is to be understood through reflecting over its verses along with the Sunnah that is its explanation, and when you know the truth, then find its people. Don't look for people that are praised to find the truth just because they are praised by the masses - no that should be a serious clue that the magic of the dark forces WANT people to follow that person.

MK, how am I to know the difference? I am a flawed human being with limited intellect and limited wisdom. If God made me, He knows this, obviously. If my intellect, my wisdom and my heart are not up to seeing through this "dark, sinister force", why would HE have created me in the first place? You might say I DO have what I need to see the Truth but that doesn't work either. God is omniscient so He knows exactly what my fate will be - even before He creates me. If my fate is to be fooled by the "dark, sinister force", He will know it. Why create me then?

You seem to think we think we know what God would be like. I can't speak for anyone else but I sure as hell don't think that. I have absolutely no idea what an actual God would be like but I think I have some good idea of what God would NOT be like. God would not be so irrational that even I - limited though I am - can see it. God would not have flaws like anger, pettiness, jealousy - even greater than my own. God would not have made me as I am and put me where I am - knowing that I am fated to Hell - unless He is incompetent, callous or evil.

God would be better than me in every way. But the God you and your holy book (and others and their holy books) tell me of appears to me as a monster. Perhaps I have been fooled but as I said, God would have known this would happen. He created a doomed being.

There is something I think you and other theists don't get: We don't have the presumption to question a real God. We don't believe that God exists. We are questioning YOU and others like you - flawed, limited human beings like ourselves. We question what we are being told by a very dubious source. We might not be any better than you but we employ a method (science) which self-corrects for human limitations. Science is limited but it has a proven track record of being the best tool we've got to discern what might be true, what is probably true and what is CRAP. If we are wrong about that, who is to blame? We are using the brain God supposedly gave us to the best of our abilities to come to this conclusion. Don't bother invoking free-will because it doesn't matter. Even if there is such a thing and we've got it, the omniscient God that supposedly created us KNEW where that would lead us. He can't pass the buck to us.