demi-god anyone?

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And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country.

And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country.

Unlike catzmeow, I do not believe God is bad, I do not believe anyone who sins even goes to hell. We are told the punishment for sin is death, to me this means nothing you have no soul, you have no awareness you are nothing, but worm food. I also do not bleive that non-christains are punished for not believeing in God. Some non-christains behave in a more Christ like manner than christains. For example I do not believe Ghandi is going to be punished, I think he will know the joy of heaven. Also someone stated that Christ died for our sins and that means he takes our sins away so we should be able to do what we like. I do not think that is how this process works, I believe Jesus was a person just like us, he was tempted and frustrated many times yet still did not sin. I think he was here to set us an example, to show us we can go without sinning, not that because he died we can now sin just as long as we seek redemption through him. He was showing us how we should try and live. These are just some of my thoughts, can't wait to see other opinions.

I can remember finding this stuff rational and reasonable at one point in my life. Now I look at it, and I think, "why do people buy this nonsense?"

I'm not anti-God. I don't know if there is a god or not. If there is one, though, I am quite confident that he/she/it doesn't look the description of him/her/it in the Bible.

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Terrorist-Supporting Atheist Moderator.

Billy Bob: "From now on I don't want to be quoted. EVER! "

Apparently so. But fear of eternal (*)(*)(*)(*)ation simply isn't enough to make me abandon my principles.

I'm entitled to my opinion on the matter. God can do what He wants; I'm entitled to think it's unfair and twisted.

If God demanded human sacrifice, would you kill off your neighbors to please Him? If not, then you're judging God in exactly the same way you say I am. If you would, then there's not much left to be said.

Some things are not moral even if God demands them.

That would imply that I think the way I do because of some external persuasion. I think the way I do because of my own application of logic and morality.

But I'm not. I'm agnostic, not atheist. I recognize the possibility that God exists.

Admittedly, it's easier to stand on principle when I'm not sure if God actually exists, and any punishment is abstract and, if it occurs, will occur after I'm dead.

But the principle is still valid. God can make the rules, but I don't have to respect bad rules (or their maker) just because they exist.

A fair point. See above for my main answer. In addition, however, consider where the analogy fails. There's no question at all that the government exists, and needs taxes to operate. God wants me to mail tax payments to an anonymous P.O. box, for unknown reasons and purposes, and hope for the best.

And there's a *huge* difference between making someone pay taxes and consigning them to eternal torment.

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Scarred survivor of the April 2008 Mod War.

If there is a "God".
If there is a "God who created humans and their surroundings."
If He has a personal interest in the lives of humans.
If He had information useful to us, as humans, on the conduct of our lives.

How, then, would you expect him to communicate that information? What qualities would you expect such a message(s) to have?

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"I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution." March 4, 1869, Grant's First Inaugural Address

I think I've reached my limit of not-caring about this discussion anymore.

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Terrorist-Supporting Atheist Moderator.

Billy Bob: "From now on I don't want to be quoted. EVER! "

What if the very principles you are holding to are meant for how men are given to deal with men, but not how men are allowed to deal with their creator? (Thank you for a previous post, in this thread, that was not mine, for bringing out of me this perspective.)
You have the freedom to think any way you wish. The part that amazes me, is that the more honest I become with myself, the more I understand how honest God is. He makes no secret that this is the destiny of a human soul. He makes no secret about the rules. He makes no secret about what it’s going to be like, if you choose to reject him. He also doesn’t hide His words from those who are humble enough to admit he’s in charge.
God demanded that Abraham kill his only son. I don’t think that it gets any more graphic than that. But also, Abraham knew the promise of God, and that it was a sure as God’s demand. That kind of trust, says the Bible, is counted by God as righteousness.
I don’t think the Bible allows for us to conclude that God would demand anything of a man, unless it was moral. And just to set the record straight, God IS morality. He invented it.
Think of the worse “sin” you have ever committed. Think of what influenced you to make that decision. Now think about the thoughts that caused you to do what you did. Do you think that the debate in your mind was between you and yourself?
If the existence of God is possible, then what steps have you taken to know for sure “if He is, who He is, and what does He expect of you”. (Masculine personal pro-noun is by my own choosing.)
If your doctor said you had an inoperable malignant brain tumor the size of a pencil eraser. At it’s present rate of growth, you will have a year, maybe less, to live. It’s in a area of the brain, that can’t be accessed by any known means to modern medicine. (There is no cure.) You wont even know its there for another couple of months. Then he shows you an x-ray with this little dot on it, that looks like all the other little dots on the film. You can’t see it, touch it, smell it, taste it, and you can’t even get a biopsy, but all the medical team is convinced. Do you start making plans? Or carry on as if they had never even spoken to you?
I doubt if you have to respect the only brain surgeon alive who even claims you have a prayer of getting rid of your brain tumor either. But he makes the rules, right? If you don’t follow the diet, take the meds, and come to his treatment sessions, the certainty of your fate is relatively unchanged.
If the doctor who thinks he has a cure for you, states: if you take this medicine, it may cure you or it may kill you in six months. Its still your choice, right? Normal people would start looking in all the medical journals they could to come up with in order to find some kind of confirmation of what he’s saying. Before you take the meds, right? You would talk to other doctors, you would read other professionals on the subject. Therefore, my question still remains - you know the government is there because you get mail from them, you see the green trucks in the parking lot at the Reserve Center. You see the news paper head lines. You see the pictures from the front. You see the radiology reports. You had other nurses and doctors standing around confirming the diagnosis. So why aren’t you as diligent about researching what happens to you after you die? What happens if you find out too late, that you were looking in all the wrong places for evidence of God who created you, and then you face Him in judgment and he points out how long and hard you looked for a cure, and yet, you spent 20 minutes a week, answering fools in chat, on a subject more serious, which you know nothing about. Is it because you really didn’t want to believe? Or is it because you were just lazy? (I hope you respect my honesty, and that I am not doing ad-homs. I really believe it’s that serious.)
Truth, but the process is the same. You wouldn’t send your taxes in, if you meet 40 people who don’t send their taxes in, and the IRS didn’t even care. You have to decide how important this issue is, then act accordingly. My post was just to bring the issue into people’s thoughts. How much of a villain would I be, if I knew people who were destined for hell, and didn’t act like it mattered to me at all? If someone sits still long enough, I am ready to challenge them to figure out where they stand with God. AS a former police officer and currently a software quality engineer, I am familiar with evidence. My biggest gripe is, that people treat this subject as if they have been studying it for years, but when questioned on why they believe what they believe, it always goes back to what they think is evidence. 90% of the people I talk to, don’t have a clue about what real evidence looks like, much less have an evidential standard that they can rely on.
If I asked you how that envelope got in your mail box, you would say, “The mail man brought it.” But how do you really know? You would say, that the mail man was a fact, yet you can’t say, because you didn’t see him. Now if I was holding a gun to your head and asked you that same question, you would be more honest and say, “I think it was the mail man.” People don’t think that Hell is real or that they even think they have to answer to God for their actions. Until you really understand the stakes, I don’t see how anyone could take it seriously.
Just what will happen to you after you die. You wont find science on what happens, but you will find enough to act in a reasonable manner. Just like, the airline can’t promise you will arrive at your destination safely, but you trust them enough to take their word for it. All I am saying is that there is also enough proof for you to trust the Bible, I am guessing you just haven’t considered looking into it all that hard.

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"I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution." March 4, 1869, Grant's First Inaugural Address

I dunno. How about the way he did in the OT -- by talking directly to us, performing miracles, and the like?

Instead he skulks around and insists we believe in him without evidence.

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Scarred survivor of the April 2008 Mod War.

Aren't Christians the one's who rail against the rest of us for being relativists? How can you hold two different standards? The whole idea behind having principles is to always stick by them regardless of what is invovled.

He invented it, we obviously perfected it. If we have higher standards of morality than god, then what does that say?

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sputterman: "Aiding the enemy? If the truth aids the enemy then we are in the wrong war."

What if they are? I can only use the tools I have at my disposal. Your argument is an appeal to simply cease thinking when it comes to God.

So to be clear, you're saying "Yes, if God demanded that I kill my neighbors, I would do it?"

That's just circular reasoning, though. God saying that anything God demands is moral. It's once again using the Bible to "prove" Christianity is the one true religion. I could just as easily use the Koran to "prove" Islam is the one true religion. After all, it says so right there in the book.

I disagree, but you're entitled to that belief.

Yep. I take responsibility for that debate, my actions and the outcome.

A fair bit. I was raised in the Christian church, so I pretty much got inundated with Bible theology. In young adulthood I concluded that objectively proving God's existence or nonexistence is impossible -- which it is. So I became agnostic. God may exist, He may not; I'll find out when I'm dead. I keep my mind open to new evidence -- that's why I enjoy religious discussions -- but so far I have not encountered anything that has sparked me to change my position.

Now you're comparing the science of medicine with faith. Just because I can't see it doesn't mean that other human beings can't. A tumor is not an invisible being; it's a finite, understood biological complication. It's provable, unlike God.

But again, there is palpable evidence that the surgeon is right and knows what he's doing. He's not an invisible voice in my head -- which, by the way, is a common symptom of brain tumors.

Because the existence of tumors and the government are testable, provable. God is not. Trying to prove God's existence is, logically, a waste of time; it can't be done. Meanwhile, I'm getting along just fine without Him, so there's not a lot of urgency.

If God will send me to hell because I didn't look in the right place, or because I used my God-given gift of reasoning to determine that trying to prove His existence was futile, then screw him. He will know that my intent was honorable. If that's not enough, so be it.

While I appreciate that this makes sense from within your worldview, trust me when I tell you that it can be really annoying to be the subject of such concern. I'm sure it's heartfelt, but it's also condescending.

I think believers would do well to always consider the possibility that it's *their* religion that is the false one, not the other guy's.

Fair enough. Here's my standard:

1. God hasn't spoken publicly to humanity since Jesus' time. Therefore the only evidence is the word of people who have been dead for millennia. There is no way to judge the validity of such evidence. It's hard enough separating truth from fiction with modern urban legends. Stories that are 2,000 years old are beyond validation.

2. God is not testable. Any test I can devise, he can evade, ignore or simply change the results.

Thus the only possible evidence would be a direct encounter with God. Maybe you've had one; great. I recognize the possibility. But you can't prove it to anyone else. They have to take your word for it.

It's not complicated. God is omniscient and omnipotent; therefore, he can only be revealed if he chooses to reveal himself.

Don't know. I'll find out when I die. So will you.

What you're essentially saying here is, "Why take the chance? Follow God, and if He doesn't exist, no harm done. But if he does exist, you're saved."

There are two main answers to that:

1. I refuse to claim belief in something when what I'm really doing is hedging my bets. Don't you think God would know the difference between true belief and strategic belief? Similarly, I refuse to live my life a certain way "just in case."

2. How do I know that your God is the correct one? Maybe I should worship them all -- "just to be safe." Except I think any God worth the name would be wise to that scheme, too. So I'm back to trying to pick out the One True Religion from among the thousands of available offerings.

Airplanes can cite safety records: planes take off and land every day. It's a finite situation, with evidence, that I can weigh and measure. Totally unlike God.

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Scarred survivor of the April 2008 Mod War.