Why be good?

[Esquilax]

What part of "He made us" is unclear?

The part where that has any connection to the claim that he has ownership of us. My parents made me, they don't own me; why is this any different for your god? Because he says so, and you have conferred upon him some authority over everyone else?

"He made us; we belong to Him" (Ps. 100:3) does not merely suggest the voluntary giving of our lives to God; it implies His objective right as Creator. Everything that exists belongs to God.

Oh, okay: so god claims that he owns us, based on nothing, and you believe it. And this is sufficient reason?

If we are speaking about God, and God is properly defined, then He is by definition an omniscient being.

Okay, well, I'm not going to play a semantic game with you, I'll just ask this: how do you know that the god that you worship fits that definition, then?

You speak of the possibility of being ignorant of the existence of things because that is your human experience. God, however, created all things out of nothing. Therefore, if something exists at all, it is because God created it or somehow defines it Himself. (Evil for example is not a created thing but it is defined in its relation to God Himself who is all good.) And because God is omnipresent, there is no possibility that some undiscovered thing is tucked away in a corner into which God has not yet looked. God does not discover and there are no such corners.

... Unless something existed that god did not create, and was not privy to. And unless there is some corner that god was unable to look into. Aside from the fiat assertion that neither of those things exist, you've given absolutely nothing to say otherwise, and yet you continue to make the positive claim that they don't, which has a burden of proof attached.

Since God is the creator and all things (including us) belong to Him, then yes, He gets to set the rules. And as a perfect being, His rules are also perfect.

... Unless he's not perfect, but just thinks that he is. See, you can't cover for one assertion, with another assertion.

Or you could just reason it out and arrive at the same conclusion. But you won't, so fiat assertion it is.

I think it's pretty clear that my reasoning, on any subject, does not contain a god. If you ask me to reason things out, but you don't add a shred of new evidence to my pool of knowledge, chances are I'm not going to suddenly agree with you at the conclusion.

Is this a serious question?

It's growing more serious by the second, yes.

Yeah, actually...in almost every post people assume what Christians believe even when what is claimed to be a Christian belief is flatly erroneous. Some of these errors are honest mistakes. After all, why should atheists spend a lot of time researching what Christians (and Catholics in particular) actually believe? Other errors are due to misunderstanding or mere parroting of things posted repeatedly in this forum. I think the setting up of an intentional straw man is rare, but it happens unintentionally quite often.

And all of these errors? They're either things we've actually encountered other christians as believing- did you just not notice that your religion is bigger than just what you and your particular sect of it believe?- or consequences of that belief that we see, but christians tend to just dismiss by fiat. Like the idea that god cannot know he's omniscient; that's a simple logical outgrowth of the claim itself, and yet all you've done is dismissed it with "god is defined as omniscient." It's kinda the trouble with dealing with theists in general; you'll privilege what you already believe over objections to it, based on faith. We're coming at this issue from two extremely different angles.

Oh, got your hackles up now, eh? But for no reason. I did not disrespect any soldiers in any way.

When you rob them of their voices by speaking for them, you are disrespecting them. The fact that you don't see it, just makes it worse.

Since you are angry, this is probably not the best time to answer your post.

I will say this: in a previous post, I have pointed out that many people who claim to be atheists are angry with God, and many forum members disagreed with me on that. Well, I think you have provided some anecdotal evidence that I may have been right.

You know what? Go fuck yourself, you fucking animal. I explained goddamn well why I was angry, I made it pretty fucking clear that I'm angry at you for the sheer arrogance and presumption of the statement you made, and that I was angry from a personal place, not only because this is a particular bugbear of mine, but because of a highly personal experience. You didn't waste a single breath in trying to turn that into another predatory opportunity to preach and discredit, just like you did when you found out I was abused as a kid. You're just fucking lying now.

I will try to remember you and your wife at mass tomorrow.

Make sure you go to confession too; wouldn't want all that false witness you just bore to net you a place in hell.