Why did God murder children for making fun of a bald guy?

[Bad Writer]

:yawn:

[Minimalist]

It's moral equivalent of a bullying parent saying, "Because I fucking said so!" after a child asked them why they were just smacked.

It is in man's interest to believe, not God's. If we are commanded to believe in him, it is because faith cultivates an attitude of interiorisation and detachment, which unshackles the mind from the chains of worldly illusion. With this attitude of interiorisation and detachment, man can discover the saving truth within himself. In Judaism, the truth is exteriorised as Divine Law. Jesus interiorised the Law, and gave it to humanity: love thy neibour as thyself, and love God with all thy being. Christianity is the path to inner enlightenment, which has proven its efficacy by two thousand years of religious practice.

[My imaginary friend is GOD]

It is in man's interest to believe, not God's. If we are commanded to believe in him, it is because faith cultivates an attitude of interiorisation and detachment, which unshackles the mind from the chains of worldly illusion. With this attitude of interiorisation and detachment, man can discover the saving truth within himself. In Judaism, the truth is exteriorised as Divine Law. Jesus interiorised the Law, and gave it to humanity: love thy neibour as thyself, and love God with all thy being. Christianity is the path to inner enlightenment, which has proven its efficacy by two thousand years of religious practice.

Oh, so your religion is the right one because it's old and it says nice stuff? You do know that there are a bunch of other religions that are older and way more peaceful, right? Buddhism, for example.

[Urizen]

Paul gave him a serious identity crises. He thought that he could be all things to all people.

Don't the idiots claim that jesus = god?

Talk about bi-polar.

Jesus claimed that a person should forgive another person 7 times 70. The God character hardly forgave anyone even one time.

The apparent contradiction is really between God's love and his justice. How can the God of Love be so 'cruel' in the punishment of sin? Justice is severe, rigorous, exact. Love is merciful, compassionate, forgiving. In the Old Testament, God's justice is emphasised in the form of Divine Law; in the New Testament, the emphasis is on God's love, as personified in Jesus Christ. How can these two natures be compatible?

God is love: sin is forgiven. God is justice: sin has corrective consequences. To see only God's justice, or look only at his punishments, makes him appear cruel and unforgiving; on the other hand, to disregard justice would mislead people into thinking that transgressions are without corrective consequence. Moreover, since justice requires reward as well as punishment, there can be no justice without love; for only love is proportionate to the human soul, and there is no reward greater than love. Christ would not be Love, if he were not also Yahweh, God of justice. Love enters justice through divine mercy, and justice requires love through its very rigour and perfection. Divine Rigour requires Divine Mercy.

So infinite Love is not incompatible with perfect justice. Rather, the two complement and imply each other. You may therefore rejoice in the knowledge that unconditional love and rigourous justice are the ultimate principles of reality.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

---

Paul gave him a serious identity crises. He thought that he could be all things to all people.

Don't the idiots claim that jesus = god?

Talk about bi-polar.

Jesus claimed that a person should forgive another person 7 times 70. The God character hardly forgave anyone even one time.

---

The apparent contradiction is really between God's love and his justice. How can the God of Love be so 'cruel' in the punishment of sin? Justice is severe, rigorous, exact. Love is merciful, compassionate, forgiving. In the Old Testament, God's justice is emphasised in the form of Divine Law; in the New Testament, the emphasis is on God's love, as personified in Jesus Christ. How can these two natures be compatible?

God is love: sin is forgiven. God is justice: sin has corrective consequences. To see only God's justice, or look only at his punishments, makes him appear cruel and unforgiving; on the other hand, to disregard justice would mislead people into thinking that transgressions are without corrective consequence. Moreover, since justice requires reward as well as punishment, there can be no justice without love; for only love is proportionate to the human soul, and there is no reward greater than love. Christ would not be Love, if he were not also Yahweh, God of justice. Love enters justice through divine mercy, and justice requires love through its very rigour and perfection. Divine Rigour requires Divine Mercy.

So infinite Love is not incompatible with perfect justice. Rather, the two complement and imply each other. You may therefore rejoice in the knowledge that unconditional love and rigourous justice are the ultimate principles of reality.

Sounds legit.

[Urizen]

:yawn:

The swine snorts, the fool sneers, the boring yawns.

If you see bullshit, then rub the bullshit off your lenses.

Oh, so your religion is the right one because it's old and it says nice stuff? You do know that there are a bunch of other religions that are older and way more peaceful, right? Buddhism, for example.

The truth is timeless. Belief and faith only prefigure the awakening of the truth in oneself. Belief is indirect and volitional; knowledge is direct and Intellective. But belief encourages an attitude of interiorisation, and culminates in the reflection of the Intellect upon itself. We can know the truth, because we are the truth. The truth is merely eclipsed by the vanities and worldly attachments of man. Christianity gives man a key-idea that opposes these illusions, so that he can find the truth in himself.
Buddhism is another interiorising religion. Despite its methodological differences, the Buddhist vision actually reinforces the truth of Christianity; it may not call it God, for its method is one of silence, yet it contains the reality of God in the form of Transcendence and Immanent Justice.

[Ryantology]

Or, Christianity reinforces the truth of Buddhism, since the latter predates the former by 500 years. Christianity is nothing more than the vanity of a man who had the conceit that he was the son of some god.

[Zen Badger]

:yawn:

The swine snorts, the fool sneers, the boring yawns.

If you see bullshit, then rub the bullshit off your lenses.

Oh, so your religion is the right one because it's old and it says nice stuff? You do know that there are a bunch of other religions that are older and way more peaceful, right? Buddhism, for example.

The truth is timeless. Belief and faith only prefigure the awakening of the truth in oneself. Belief is indirect and volitional; knowledge is direct and Intellective. But belief encourages an attitude of interiorisation, and culminates in the reflection of the Intellect upon itself. We can know the truth, because we are the truth. The truth is merely eclipsed by the vanities and worldly attachments of man. Christianity gives man a key-idea that opposes these illusions, so that he can find the truth in himself.
Buddhism is another interiorising religion. Despite its methodological differences, the Buddhist vision actually reinforces the truth of Christianity; it may not call it God, for its method is one of silence, yet it contains the reality of God in the form of Transcendence and Immanent Justice.

Wow, a whole lot of words to say fuck all.

[max-greece]

Totally pointless argument for an atheist to take part in.

The theists we are arguing with hold 2 things as fundamental truths. The first is that there is a God and the second is that he is good. Nothing will apparently, ever change their minds. Any story, piece of evidence, anecdote, scientific proof what have you will fall on deaf ears. It doesn't matter how horrific the stories in the Bible - they will explain them away.

I don't think they are being disingenuous in doing this. They really can't see outside of the box. Only when they properly question their fundamental premise will they be able to see the horror of what they are arguing for.

We have been round this block with Drich and others so many times. Look how many times we have eventually heard things from their mouths that would make a billy goat puke.

You may as well go argue with a brick. It will change its mind about the same time they do.

[Tonus]

Well it's obvious that since some skeptics attribute the incident to the God character at all just shows how brainwashed people really are. They claim that there is no celestial deity yet they give him credit for all sorts of acts. They are as fanatical believers as the most brainwashed fundie.

It's a story, a tale, a myth. Why wouldn't we treat the characters in the story as exactly what they are? Recognizing that god empowered a man to send bears after kids in a story doesn't mean we believe god exists outside of the story. If I were explaining the plot of an Iron Man film, no one would accuse me of believing that there was a man who built the suit in real life.