Are all atheists this ill-informed about religion?

[John V]

Well, you don't think god, who, according to the Christian world view, is s all powerful and all knowing, should be held accountable for his actions. So why should man, who know nothing and can do even less, be held accountable for things over which we have only limited control?

God is all knowing. We're not. He's obviously in much better position to make correct judgments than we are.

The Bible tells us that god hardened Pharaoh's heart. Yet Christians still find some kind of way to make Pharaoh responsible. By putting yourself in line with this worldview, you betray an inability to think either rationally or compassionately.

The bible also says that pharaoh hardened his own heart.

You claim to disagree with us but you don't look at the whole picture. And you don't address what we are saying. You just pick some little thing and disagree with it. That is dishonest.

Go to a theist board and try being in the minority role, with 5 or 10 people jumping in on your conversation, and see if you can address every point made to you.

[Rhondazvous]

The problem with your argument is that we’re talking here about a god who set the original man up. Keeping from him the knowledge of good and evil. Putting that knowledge in the fruit of a tree then telling the man not to eat the fruit. Adam had no way to know that disobeying god was wrong. Yet god punished him.

In telling him not to eat, god gave him a priori knowledge that eating was wrong. The tree provided experiential knowledge of good and evil. There's more than one type of knowledge. A virgin might have full intellectual knowledge of sex, but he doesn't really know what sex is until he partakes.

Note that Paul said that Eve was deceived, but Adam wasn't - i.e. Adam willingly sinned. He knew that what he was doing was wrong, but did it anyway.

Notice when he ate the fruit there was no wrestling with his conscience. No acting against his better judgment. he had none. Where is the justice in god holding him responsible for exercising a conscience which he did not have?

[GrandizerII]

There's no way around the basic fact that saying "Obey me or else, because I am more powerful than you are" is immoral behavior by any being, even your concept of God.

Judging by the meat aisle or insecticide aisle in the local store, that's what we humans do with other species. So, by your own standards, we're immoral. Why should we not then be judged?

If I was God, I would not give human beings any good reason to eat animal meat. I would ensure they were perfectly satisfied physically and psychologically without it.

I would also ensure that no creature is a natural pest to others.

[John V]

Notice when he ate the fruit there was no wrestling with his conscience. No acting against his better judgment. he had none. Where is the justice in god holding him responsible for exercising a conscience which he did not have?

If they had no means of judgment, how is it that one of them was deceived, but the other wasn't?

[John V]

If I was God, I would not give human beings any good reason to eat animal meat. I would ensure they were perfectly satisfied physically and psychologically without it.

I would also ensure that no creature is a natural pest to others.

And Biblically, that's how it was before the fall, and it will be that way again in the end.

[Rhondazvous]

Damn! It's so obvious that the Jewish god was just something they created to justify genocide.

Christians, I don't care what you say. You cannot unwrite what is written. You can revise the Bible to leave these problematic passages out, but we already have our copies.

Here's another one:

Mark 6
4 But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house.” 5 Now He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. 6 And He marveled because of their unbelief. Then He went about the villages in a circuit, teaching.

Think about it...why couldn't he perform many miracles there, but he could elsewhere?

Well, obviously, by the time Jesus came along the people in his country had switched from bronze to iron and he couldn't deal with that and so had to go elsewhere.

[GrandizerII]

If I was God, I would not give human beings any good reason to eat animal meat. I would ensure they were perfectly satisfied physically and psychologically without it.

I would also ensure that no creature is a natural pest to others.

And Biblically, that's how it was before the fall, and it will be that way again in the end.

All because of that damn "apple" tree.

[GrandizerII]

Here's another one:

Mark 6
4 But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house.” 5 Now He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. 6 And He marveled because of their unbelief. Then He went about the villages in a circuit, teaching.

Think about it...why couldn't he perform many miracles there, but he could elsewhere?

Well, obviously, by the time Jesus came along the people in his country had switched from bronze to iron and he couldn't deal with that and so had to go elsewhere.

lol, I bet the Gospel writers did not like that Jesus failed at times. So they had to provide a reason for the failure.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

It's not that the robot was programmed to do everything; it's that the programmer knew the robot would develop this murderous tendency as a part of its AI. If the programmer knew that, and built this robot that way, then he would be responsible for its actions, not the robot.

To whom would he be responsible? The analogy is inaccurate. The human is the creator god in the analogy, so he should be the only human. Their are no children for the robot to kill, or parents of those children to demand accountability.

Way to miss the point entirely. Or maybe you didn't; maybe you think humans are incapable of holding God morally accountable for the design of this universe/world. But using your example, if the human told the robot it had to be destroyed because it had merely followed its programming, the self-aware robot would be right in thinking the human was an asshole.

There's no way around the basic fact that saying "Obey me or else, because I am more powerful than you are" is immoral behavior by any being, even your concept of God.

Judging by the meat aisle or insecticide aisle in the local store, that's what we humans do with other species. So, by your own standards, we're immoral. Why should we not then be judged?

We don't tell the animals "obey me or else". We simply eat them or keep them off of our crops/out of our homes. I don't kill my dog when he doesn't obey me, if he's just doing dog stuff; I might be upset that he pooped on my floor despite the fact that I told him not to, but if I lock him in the house so that he really has no choice in the matter, then the blame is on me, not him. If we consider Genesis a literal story, then placing the untouchable Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil right in the middle of the garden (the only place they can go) where they constantly have to be tempted by it, and waiting for them to be "tricked" (or not) into eating from it so you can punish them for their disobedience is insane and capricious. I might as well shoot my dog because I left a box of doggie treats out and he ate them.

[John V]

Well, obviously, by the time Jesus came along the people in his country had switched from bronze to iron and he couldn't deal with that and so had to go elsewhere.

You're not thinking it through - no surprise.

Jesus typically went somewhere, people heard about it and brought their sick to him, and he healed them. That practice is dependent on the people bringing the sick to him. If the people don't have faith, the sick don't come, and so only the few with faith are healed.

Point being: god frequently lets his people participate in his workings, but they need to have faith to participate.

Similarly, God strengthened Israel against its enemies, but still, Israel needed to go up to fight in the first place in most cases. If the people were afraid of the iron chariots, they don't go up to fight, god doesn't force them, and the chariots aren't driven out.

We also see this in Israel going to the promised land in the first place. They sent in spies, most of whom reported that the inhabitants were too strong to be driven out. They wouldn't go up to fight, and god didn't force them too.