What IS good, and how do we determine it?

[robvalue]

Thanks so much everyone! We're having a lovely meal today at one of our favourite places

Here's my thoughts, for what they are worth! I would wager every atheist here would agree with me on at least the first point.

1) You are too good for Catholicism.

2) Your stated reason for belief that Jesus really was God is the success of the church and all its history. If you're interested, this is argument from incredulity fallacy: you can't imagine any other way for all this to happen other than Jesus really being God. The truth doesn't depend on our ability to imagine it. There is a very simple and much more likely alternative: people continued to think Jesus really was God throughout the church's history. As I'm sure you'll agree even now no one can prove there is a god or that Jesus was God, so the belief alone is enough to keep all of Christianity going. So it's no surprise that this could have always been the case, when proof was similarly impossible. If people really believed it, what difference would it have made if it was actually true or not?

3) A question I asked earlier: how would you feel if you were gay? Would you still love a God who insisted you repress who you are, even when gay sex hurts no one else? Not long ago a teenager killed herself because she couldn't handle how much God was disapproving of her just for being the way she was. Your gut reaction to gay sex being "off" is not surprising, since you're not gay All of sexual attraction is bizarre when viewed objectively. It only makes sense biologically, and to the individuals. Not wanting to do it yourself isn't a reason to stop others wanting to do it, that's sensible morality, so why would God stick his oar in and say otherwise?