Ok Christianity, please reconcile this for us: [video=youtube;QVgZqnsytJI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVgZqnsytJI[/video] In summation. the devil goes to god, and says, sure, Job is a righteous man, but he is only so, because you have blessed his life for being so righteous. Take that away, and he will curse you. Instead of god going, "dude, he's my bro, go eff yourself" God goes, you are on, it's a bet. Really? Is this the God you expect to reward you for your life?
And do you expect God to always bless you constantly where you never have a worry in your life? I find people like you funny. "I will follow God only if he makes everything perfect in my life otherwise I have better things to do." The path to Heaven is narrow.
Is the path to Heaven narrow? Or is the God of the bible a freaking psychopath and just as evil as the devil of the bible, that any sane person shouldn't follow?
You are not forced to follow God, you are more than free to turn your back on him if you wish but you really should not try to bring others down with you. That is just being selfish. - - - Updated - - - Don't follow him then but considering you are taking time out of your day to post on a religious forum I think its fair to question your motivations. Either you are reaching out for some answers or you have some desire to convince people to turn away from God. I wonder which it is.
The truth is, the real god, the one true god, is a god of love, unconditional love, God is love, and god loves you. That God would have never made a pact with evil to do that to Job. God does not care whether or not you worship it. God truly loves you for who you are, and only wants the best for you, and would never act against you.
Do you realize that maybe God put Job through that (my favorite story by the way) so that it could be written down and Christians in the future would be able to take a lesson from it that no matter how hard life can get, keeping your faith will ultimately see you through.
it's a bit of a stretch to say 'not forced', when compliance is at gunpoint. so we're not at all FREE to turn our backs on him. FREE would be without wildly inappropriate consequences. and yes, we should try to shout this loud enough for others to hear. it's long overdue, but not too late.
but only those already invested (believers) could take that message from it. those without belief find it fairly terrible.
I used to use that same argument and it is a pretty effective one. There really is not a good argument to counter it but once God did come into my life I no longer felt as if I was being forced, I actually found peace and now I would not change it for anything. - - - Updated - - - If you are not a believer then God is not going to bother you.
Fair enough. Finding peace is a big thing. Meantime, Yahweh doesn't bother me any more than does Zeus or Odin. What bothers me is humans insisting that their god ought to be venerated by others. And worse, imposing elements of their dogma on broader society, via lobbying and social pressure etc.
Uh, maybe God could have came up with a better way than to slaughter a man's children to teach future generations about faith.
Possibly, or maybe he found the perfect one. I think its important to remember that we are talking about an omnipotent being here and to think that we can even begin to comprehend his reasoning or methods is foolhardy. We were given just as much as we needed to know in the Bible, and even I will admit that it is a bare minimum so I think it is more likely that we simply do not understand what God is doing and for our purpose here on Earth, it is not necessary for us to know what God is up to. If we are to assume that the traditional "God of love" of the Bible is true then we should also assume that God doesn't get excitement from going around slaughtering people. There must be something else going on there that we do not know about. I believe it is at this point, when these questions arise, that we need to put that faith to the test. If it were easy to be a Christian than everyone would do it.
As an atheist - I can tell you that I don't care and why should you? What we really need to do today is look at how religion is impacting our world, not demeaning others for their beliefs. If we're going to go down that road, we naturally have to look at radical Islam because that's where we're getting the most trouble right now. Christians, for the most part in today's society, hold down jobs, pay their taxes and lead productive lives. While I don't believe what they believe, they certainly are a step up from radical Muslims that are forming huge caliphates in the Middle East and slicing and dicing anyone who doesn't agree with them. If we're going to trash religions - let's put them into perspective, shall we?
It's ok, I think the right wing media circus has bashing Muslims down to an art form. The danger from Christians in this country isn't that they are going to kill us all, it's that they are going to pass laws against us all.
I am a strong Christian but even I am aware of the dangers of organized religion. Anytime you are dealing with a persons belief system, and those people start to form large groups, vigilance must be taken because overreactions are par for the course. For instance, you can often hear rumblings in certain areas about how some books today are simply evil and should have no place in society and given free reign I think you would see massive organized book burnings. Although it is doubtful that Christians are going to start tossing homosexuals from rooftops anytime soon, there are still many dangers to society that we must be aware of. I have also noticed that many people who seem to struggle with recognition in the real world often gravitate towards the church where people are a bit more accepting and they can find more success manipulating people in that forum which is a danger by itself. I have seen a number of these people and simply walk away, shaking my head in disgust at how easily people fall for some fancy rhetoric.
I'm not asking the right wing media circus - I'm asking you to explain yourself and your selective attacks. We're at war currently against radical Muslim sects. We're not at war against Christians at present. If you're truly bothered by cultists - why not mention the ones who are causing the most problems for us today? And - what laws do you think the fundamental Christians are going to pass that will impact you negatively? Abortion is here to stay. Gay marriage is here to stay. What is it that this group is doing to harm you? I am truly curious.
Well, first there's blue laws. (you do know what those are don't you?) Then there's the whole list of Cannon law that Christian politicians are constantly tying to sneak into secular law every day. "religious freedom" laws etc. Christians are a fundamental threat to freedom in this country, have been for a very long time. Islamic terrorists can't touch our freedom, but Christians sure can. And if given even half a chance, they will.
I would disagree with that. There have been times throughout our history when the nation would have fully supported Christian laws but we never saw any drastic changes occur.
If we the people let Christians have their way, there would still be witch burnings happening today. Working on a sunday would get you executed if Christians were allowed to have their way. All the terrible things that Muslims are currently doing, Christians perfected to an art form centuries ago. All for a God, that would do what the Christian God did to one of his most loyal followers.
I do not know any of my fellow Christians that would support witch burnings. In fact, we would be the first ones rushing into the fire to free those people. I am sure some sects of Christianity would support that but so would some parts of the secular nation also. You seem to be drawing a distinct line with Christians on the bad side and everyone else on the good side when in actuality you have good people and evil people which exist regardless of religion.
Besides which it's impractical to burn witches. Since most of them are also (or so I hear) vegans they would naturally have a low fat to body mass ratio and hence produce only a poor light and heat when set alight. As an alternate energy source (that's obviously the topic OP, correct?) one would be far better off setting alight someone like Michael Moore. Now HE would produce a jolly good and long sustaining flame; just like an oil soaked wick!
The guy you're arguing with obviously has some sort of agenda. I'm just trying to figure out what it is. Outside of that, more and more atheists and agnostics are supposed to show up. The bible does speak of a great falling away, and that it has to happen. So, I'd say in about 200 years from now, most of the world will be secular.
For someone so opposed to religion he does spend an inordinate amount of time here. I have seen this before, he is probably reaching out to God in his own way, searching for answers, and God will answer him if he is open to it. It reminds me of the little boy on the playground who hits the little girl in the arm because he likes her but he does not want her to know he likes her.
Of course I know what they are - or rather - were. Even your own link admits they've been nearly all repealed and those that remain were ruled constitutional by the SCOTUS as feasible because they include secular reasoning. Now, if we were living back in the 1700s you might have a case. But, because we aren't - you don't. I can only say "bologna" to this. If anyone is trying to sneak religion into law - it will be the fundamentalists - not the ecclesiasticals. Go ahead and show us one example of a politician getting canonical tenets into actual law. You can't. It doesn't exist. And, do you realize that those politicians who fought to have things like blue laws revoked considered themselves to be Christians? The biggest threat to this nation - in my opinion - is people like you who attack one group and make excuses for even worse groups. That's just not a defensible position. We had a fringe Christian blow up the Murray building in OKC. That was horrific. We had a much larger attack by Muslim radicals on the WTC. The WTC attack affected the freedoms of all of us and the Patriot Law went into effect. To deny that most of our recent losses of freedoms have been in the privacy department, and that those losses are directly related to Muslim extremism, is naive and foolhardy. If you want to bash religion - do that. Bash it equally across the board. I just get the feeling that you're really only interested in bashing one religion, which doesn't make much sense since the other has affected our freedoms to a much larger extent of late.
