God says “Love me or die”

[Zen Badger]

Exactly, why would you choose not to believe in gravity? It's self-evident, you don't have to choose. But if the same could be said about God, if you did not have the choice, then that would be taking away your free will, which is not God's way.

No, cos I would still have the free will to reject him, BTW, how do you know this is not gods way?

And [b]I[b] reiterate that no, it would not be God manifesting Himself. Did I or did I not say that God would never do such a thing and would not condone it? This is because life is a gift to us from God, and returning that gift is foolish when the gift is one given out of love.

So god isn't bad weather then? My point being that you are only prepared to attribute the good things
to god and not the bad things even though you claim he is in everything.

The Bibl eis the inerrant word of God as seen through the eyes of man. As I have detailed in other topics, it is not that God inspired these people by planting words in their heads, it is that they were inspired by what they saw and their understanding of God to write about Him.

So the bible is not then the word of god, but the words of men.

So why should we take anything it says seriously?

What the Bible is suggesting with the 'punishment' of unbelievers goes right back to what I said about punishing oneself; essentially, it is suggesting that unbelief is harmful to oneself and is itself the punishment.

If unbelief is its own punishment I can live with that.

And even die with it if thats the worst I'm going to face.