God Debate (Jesus, moral, Creator, beliefs, choice)

[michel]

Hi Coldheat;
I notice that you are new here, and therefore wanted to Welcome to the forum -

You might like to have a look at :- Articles for New Members ; from there, there is a link to the forum rules, which you ought to see.

Perhaps you could post here: re you new to ReligiousForums.com? to introduce yourself to the forum?

[Pah]

The only problem pandamonk has is thinking that all Christians take the bible literally. Perhaps the "answers" given should be left to those who have a lteral interpreation of the bible.

[Aqualung]

Originally Posted by pandamonk

It may seem necessary now that it is, but God could have created anyway he wished, and made it not necessary, and he should of if he loved us. He could of made us learn and grow and all that other stuff you talked about without putting us through pain and suffering.

I don't know if that's true. I think He had certain rules He had to follow.

Originally Posted by pandamonk

But in catholicism, babies are baptised, they have not in any way sinned. So they only sin they are baptised for is original sin. And why do we even talk of original sin if it is not an issue?

I think the Catholics are creating a huge sin to baptize infants. We don't belive in infant baptism, and we only baptize people once they have reached "the age of accountability" (8 at the youngest, but some may need more time), which is the age at which people know what a sin is and know how to not sin. The Catholics made up that infant baptism thing. It was never the practise in older time. Did you ever read of John the Baptist baptising infants?

Originally Posted by pandamonk

My beef with organised religion is the dogmatism; the power they have over society; the way us atheists are looked down upon; the enforcement they have on everyones' life whether they like it or not; the way they stand in the street or come round to your house telling you, you are going to burn in hell if you don't follow our path; the wars and fighting that religion causes eg. in Ireland between catholics and protestants; anti people behavior, eg. anti gay; the way they invent things to make people hate eg. the evils of witches, satanism, atheism, etc. ; and on and on and on and on. It is not necessary. Why do you need to show blind faith in something you do not even know exists?

I don't know which churches you're looking at but I don't look down on you or any other athiest. I repect your beleifs, though if we were good freinds I might push a few pamphlet . It's just a beleif that I know something that you don't, but that it's important for you to know. This isn't dirision, this is love. I would only tell you these things nicely, I wouldn't force it upon you or tell you you will burn in hell. That's not a very good way to go about it, and I'm sorry that you have had that sort of experience with "religios" people. I don't think that wars were cause by real organised religion. We don't hate gay people. We just think that they are sinning because of a choice they made. I have plenty of gay friends, and I respect them as much as anybody else. Everybody sins. I guess you have a point that most organised religions have abused there power, but I do not beleive I am a part of one of those religions, or that most religions follow these paths.

Originally Posted by pandamonk

If he was all-loving he would want everyone to progress to what he wants them to be, and would give them the ability to do so.

He has given everyone the ability to progress. That is what our time here is for, and everybody who ever recieves a body has been given the chance to progress.

Originally Posted by pandamonk

"Only the strong, the people who endure to the end, will progress.", yes i agree, but God is who made these people strong, God gave these people the ability, and did not others. God created these people the way they are and created others not strong enough. He picks and chooses who he wants to make it and who he wants to suffer eternally. An all-loving God would want everyone to progress, and would make everyone progress to avoid any pain and suffering, and he could do so without affecting free will(by instilling the ability in each of us from the start).

God did not make some people strong and some people week. He gave everyone their own individual strengths and weaknesses. There is a quote in the Bible (I'm sorry I'm not sure where, but I don't have my Bible handy right now) that says that God will not allow you to be tempted beyond your ability to handle the temptations. He knows your strengths, and so He tempted you in keeping with those strengths. It is your fault you didn't fight the temptations (and by "you" I just mean people in general. This isn't a personal attack )
You say that he could allow us to progress without messing with free will. This is not true. Free will comes with suffering, becuase there are always people who will make the wrong choices, and will cause suffering. In the beginning, before the Earth was created, God saw the need for his spirit children, you and I, to progress. Satan gave one plan, which was essentially the plan you give. He would allow everyone to progress without suffering, but that would only work if there was no free will. We have to suffer to progress with free will

Originally Posted by pandamonk

Why do we "need" trials? If God loved us all, he would lets us all pass the test or whatever. He would help us, he would prove himself to us through means we would all accept, just so we would do as he wishes and live in eternal happiness with him, which he must make us do if he loves us.

He does help us. As I mentioned earlier, he does not let us be tempted past our ability to endure. Some people just choose not to endure, because they don't see the point. He does prove himself, in very convincing way. Some people's vision has just been obscured by the world or by Satan.

Originally Posted by pandamonk

They did not know good or evil, it's not they did not know basic survival, and that "this" fits into "that", lol. I suppose sex is good, so yeh they could not know the goodness of it, but that does not mean they could not have known what their bodies are for. They did know what their bodies were for, "God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number' ". They knew that they were to increase in number, so knew that their bodies must be used to reproduce.

They didn't know what there bodies were for. They were in the Garden for a long time, and they had NO children, yet, as soon as they ate the fruit, what did they do? They put on clothes. They realised the power of thier anatomy. They knew they should increase, but were they able to until they ate of the fruit? No. They didn't know how, they didn't know you had to put the round peg in the round hole, yet.

[michel]

Originally Posted by pandamonk

Ok, finally, you have described your God. Ok, so he is all-loving, (infinitely loving), and cannot do or command anything of any harm, because he loves infinitely and cannot bare to see anything be hurt, especially by him. Now that you must agree. If not, you cannot, for one second, call your god anywhere near all-loving. And if not, you are talking absolute tripe, and nothing you say can be of any interest in this debate, so i will merely ignore you until you start talking sense.

I cannot see how an all loving good could ever punish, but for the sake of argument well say he can punish for evil acts.

An all-loving god, that punishes for evil acts, would not punish for disobeying his will, if they did not/could not know his will being disobeyed, is evil. If he did, he would be acting unjustly and it would be greatly unfair on the thing being punished, and an all-loving god could not act unfairly(unjustly), harming a, somewhat, innocent(as it did not see that what it was doing was wrong)being.

Now to look at the Bible. Hmm, don't have to look very far to find an instance of this unfair behavior. (Gen. 3:16-19)

God constantly acts in an un-loving way throughout the bible, as i showed in the first post here: Can the Christian god be all moral, Or even at all moral?

[/indent]

You still don't get it do you ? You seem to have a mental block.

Are you a parent ? - if you are one, you will no doubt understand that a parent has nothing but love for his/her child; that does not mean that he/she will never be in the position of needing to show anger or to scold a child - for the child's own good.

Imagine if you will, your child, whom you notice is about to put his hand in the flame of a gas cooker "Oh, please, my lovelly son, don't do that, it might hurt you" - you would whisper, because you love your child ?
Come off it - you would run up to him, grab him and take him away from the cooker as fast as you can; you would also say in an emotional voice (because of what has just happened) "Johnny you must not do that - that is bad because you will hurt your hand badly - you must not do that......."

The above example negates your "and cannot do or command anything of any harm"

"And if not, you are talking absolute tripe, and nothing you say can be of any interest in this debate, so i will merely ignore you until you start talking sense. "

tripe is stomach tissue of a ruminant and especially of the ox used as food; how can I "TALK" tripe ?
and nothing you say can be of any interest in this debate, so i will merely ignore you until you start talking sense. "

That is a shame; because I was beginning to think that that is the only method for dealing with you - but unfortunately, I realize that you cannot help thinking the way you do; and it is up to me (as well as the others on this forum) to try to show you the errors of you ways...........

Now to look at the Bible. Hmm, don't have to look very far to find an instance of this unfair behavior. (Gen. 3:16-19)

God constantly acts in an un-loving way throughout the bible, as i showed in the first post here: Can the Christian god be all moral, Or even at all moral?

If we're into talking about talking about parts of animals, I would respond "Cod's wallop" - but I shan't, because that would be lowering myself to your level.........

[coldheat]

'does a God exit'?

Athiest vs Muslim Student

http://www.generationislam.org/multi...=1187_0_41_0_M

[Aqualung]

The link didn't work

[Mike182]

wow ive missed a lot of debate here lol - a lot of writing to read

from what i figured has already been said - were talking about God as a parent

gods wrath is terrible and powerful

but is rivaled only by his love and mercy

children dont know enough to decide if something will or will not hurt them (like putting their hands in fire) so parents take them away from fire and shout at them

God is doing this only on a bigger scale because we dont know enough to decide the effects of our actions

[Jaymes]

Try it again, Aqualung... it didn't work for me the first time either, but on the second time it did.

And hi coldheat! I know you mean well, but it can be considered rude to plug the same link into several different places (I noticed you used it in your 'I believe therefore I'm Muslim' thread as well). It might be better to start a new thread--that way everyone can be focused on just your link. You could put it in the debate section if you want people from other religions to debate over it with you, or in the Islam section of Discuss Individual Religions if you just want thoughts from other Muslims on the videos.

[coldheat]

Copy and paste this in a NEW window

http://www.generationislam.org/multimedia/

And then go to Video: Debate at Leicester University Does God Really Exist?