As a christian I have a question for non believers

You don't understand evolution.

This is the least logical explanation possible in any situation.

If there is a God, I would like to believe it would judge its creations on how they behaved in life and not how their believed in life. If God is so petty and insecure as to condemn you to an eternity of torment because you didn't believe it existed, well, that doesn't seem like a being worthy of our worship.

I usually say live and let live, but I'm curious.

If that's all it takes to cure a person, then no Christian on Earth would ever die, and... if the dying person is going to heaven, why would you delay his/her trip to heaven by prolonging his/her life on Earth?

The opening post somehow reminded me of this line in Bioshock Infinite ;

Priest: Are you ready to be born again? Are you ready to have your sins cleansed? Are you ready to have your past erased? Do you hate your wickedness? Are you ready to be born again in the blood of the lamb?!

@Blizz87: Don't let religion highjack your desire to be good. They are two completely different things.

Let's assume for the sake of the argument that God is real and that hell and heaven are real too. Also, let's assume that God mainly judges people based on your latter logic: whether they believed in his existence or not. In such a scenario, what good would it do you to dismiss God as being unworthy of our worship? If not believing would condemn you to a life of eternal torment and damnation, I don't see how its in your best interest to reject the existence of God based on the unworthiness of worshiping him, given how this is an essential criterion of how God judges people in our illustration or whatever. What I'm trying to say here is that from a pure utilitarian or self-interest perspective, whether God is worthy of worship or not is irrelevant and a minuscule matter in comparison to his ability of condemning you to eternal torment and suffering.

For the sake of clearness I'm a Muslim so I naturally believe in God and in an eternal afterlife of either pleasure and blessing or torment and damnation.

which version of christianity is the right one?

and christians try to deny evolution.... pfft.

Ah, the "we live on a knife's edge, ergo proof of God" argument.

Why do people think this is evidence of design? If there were a designer, why wouldn't 100% of the universe be habitable to support life instead of only .0001% (or however much of it it is) of the known universe? Wouldn't that be more in line with design? How does being on a knife edge prove anything aside from chance? Seems to me the reason conditions are perfect here for life to have arisen and nowhere else (as far as we've been able to discover) is due to two things: time and scope. When you have such incomprehensible vastness and introduce billions upon billions of years into it, chances are very likely that at least a sliver of that space somewhere will become supportive to life to some degree.

If I may....

Why is it in my best interest? From a utilitarian perspective it's vitally important, because it frees me to be able to view and explore life in ways I deem suitable which is essential for growth, and (this is not directed or meant as an insult to you) allows me to not live my life in cowardice. I find the concept of eternal damnation to be one of the most disgusting and deplorable beliefs in existence and people who preach it are scum. It's incredibly abhorrent and vile, and this juvenile boogeyman scare tactic needs to die ASAP.

Your previous post (about people living their daily lives based upon fear) is not an apt comparison, and I'd like to hear you elaborate on. Sure, people take precations in life everyday, but I wouldn't say that's fear as much as it is calculated risks. It's certainly a far cry from predicating and dedicating your entire life's behavior every waking moment because you're living in a world consumed by fear.

This is precisely why I'm agnostic...Intellectual Honesty.

why does god, the creator of the entire fucking universe, act so human?

lol

Why not? Like he gives a shit.

what's human about him?

Is that guy just minimalist or is he just an idiot piece of shit lazy to draw a**?

If God is just arbitrarily deciding what is moral and immoral then morality is still subjective (see euthyphro dilemma), it's just that the subject in this case is God.

The Bible actually answers your question.

@Blizz87: So if the pastor was not in town that day God would have let the kid die? He seems like a huge dick.

Doctors can't predict everything. Just because it can be explained by a few doctors at the time doesn't mean it was God.

Also, what if the girl was a good person but not Christian? He would have let an innocent person die just because she was brought up in say, a Muslim household?

The entire point of Divine Command theory is that it is not subjective. I'm not sure why you assume God would need to be capricious in his moral rulings.

The euthyphro deliemma has been addressed many times over. I personally enjoy the response of Aquinas, but that's just me.

The god of abraham is self contradictory and his traits are impossible.

The only point of divine command theory is to create an universal meta-ethical system. It might try to appear objective but it fails miserably in doing so, for the simple fact that a subject, i.e. God, is determining his own ethics. I'm not assuming God needs to be capricious (although the biblical God certainly does seem as such), but by definition it's still a subjective morality in the same way ideal observer theory is subjective.

Is your god perfect? Is he all knowing and all powerful? Then he would desire no worship, would not reward people for being gullible, and would not punish those who didn't believe in him. Why does he even care if people believe in him? What's with his massive ego and tender nerves? Hell, if he's all powerful and all knowing, he knows exactly what it would take to make me know he exists, and yet he doesn't do it. If some being exists out there and wants us to know it is there, he's either incredibly stupid/powerless, or he's an immoral dick, and that's the point.

Your voodoo is not my voodoo.

Your question is irrelevant to non-believers for that very reason; they don't believe it.

I believe in money.

he's petty, jealous, wrathful, vengeful, and inconsistent for starters.

and can be stopped by iron chariots.

...because he's created by man

Honestly if God were to send me to hell simply because I didn't believe in him then it would be God that is morally corrupt not me.

Well one thing's for sure, you need to work on your humbleness.

Not every non-believer is bad or going to hell.

For example, lets say you were sexually abused as a child by someone who claimed to be for God and lets say they were even a pastor of a church.

Now lets say that you (being this abused child who has had his or her image of God mutilated) grow up to not only not believe in God but also hate him because you think (and who in this position wouldn't) that he was the cause of all the pain you went through as a child (which is sadly what your phony pastor dad made you believe).

Now, do you think that someone in this scenario God would let go to Hell when they died? I don't think so.

God CLEARLY stated in the Bible and I quote "The sins committed by the child who is led away from me are not held on that child... they (sins) are held on the person who led them (the child) away from me... I (God) do not forget what has been done to my children".

You see, that right there clearly states that if someone who is led away from God (usually by pedophiles and phony Christians) who is living a life of sin (doing drugs, having sex with a bunch of different people, self mutilating themselves) that because they were led away from God and because God knows the amount of inevitable pain they endure, because of what they went through, he will not hold the wrongs they do to them.

Further meaning that in Gods eyes a child (every one is a child of God born again or not) who is led away from him is rendered sinless in his eyes (like the bible said, "The sins of the child who is led away from me are not held on that child... they are held on the person who led them away from me").

I'm not saying that you meant any wrong by what you said in your forum, it's just that for being someone who says you've gone through stuff you'd think that you would be a bit more humble and considerate of the fact that not all non-believers are non-believers because they might hate God,

you have to take into account the fact that there are pedophiles and really bad phony Christians in this world who are constantly (not only ruining Gods image for them) hurting and breaking the hearts of those who do not have God in their life.

Hopefully you understand what I'm saying and don't take it as that I'm being cruel to you.

Because it's human created?

If the God you present is true and I were to be presented by him at my death. I would ask for forgiveness as I have led my life to help those of others and I believe my actions to be of a good man. However I would ask you, how would you feel if when we die the God we are presented with is not the one you worship. How would you deal with knowing that your belief was a lie?

You believe in an agreeable abstraction of inherent value?

I believe in money's divine power and influence.

I would like to think if there was a god he would strike down a few of those television evangelists and faith healers who make millions of dollars using his name and praying upon the weak and the feeble to better their own selfish lives. Alas that has not happened.

Perhaps if he struck down the politicians that use "god" as a means to create a wholesome imagine for their policies to appeal to a larger audience so they can rule the largest nations on the planet.

Equally have you ever wondered as a Christian....just what the point in hell is???

is eternal damnation really a solution to an unchristian life?

So somebody could murder a thousand babies and end up in the depths of hell....and I could lead a reasonably positive life and simply be a bit unsure about the whole "god" thing BUT... end up burning next to him. Its a flawed concept.

To each their own. We will all know for sure one day.

Regardless of how you look at it... with that many variations of dominations within a single religion it only proves what I said about religion being a good thing but hard to follow. People believe in what suits them best... which is highly convenient don't you think?

The point being drilled across the board is that we should live our lives like decent people... Nothing stops someone from making a new spin off of religion and no one even bats an eyelash. If you are a religious person, then good on you. However, we both know neither of us KNOW... ;) saying otherwise is ignorant.

Do you believe everyone that believes in something different than you is doomed to an eternity in hell? Maybe I am wrong with what I believe... but I find those that automatically try to disprove all other religion as if it is purely fictional while backing their own with fervor funny and extremely short sighted.

I'm done with this thread because it is pointless... however, it is impossible to be "informed" of things that can not be proven by science. You and everyone else can believe whatever they want... I would never hold it against you or anybody else for believing in different things or having differences in opinions regarding religion. If you are all decent people... who the hell cares what you believe in?

@RageQuit4Life: the world wasn't "made" to fit our needs, we are the ones that evolved to adapt to what the world had to offer, its called evolution,

It's just so damn complicated , seriously we gotta just wait to see what happens ....

Personally , i just try to be "Good" to ppl and to myself , as long as i ain't got no problem with my conscious i'm fine !

There is no conclusion to this kinda arguments and stuff.

This seems like a very poorly worded version of Pascal's Wager, and that wager is a laughably poor argument. It still boils down to a threat of violence (hell) to try to coerce people into behaving the way you want them too. If your god is truly all knowing, presuming I took your threat seriously, when I got to the judgment of my soul he would know I only played lip service to him during my life to avoid hell, and that I still thought he was a petty, belligerent, self important, egotistical, genocidal, bloodthirsty, misogynistic, homophobic, dumbass. So he would throw me in hell anyway.

Even if I knew your god is real, (which I do know he isn't, we can't disprove "God" but your god has a name, Yahweh, and specific characteristics that when studied show he has severe internal contradictions which logically rule out his possible existence) I still wouldn't worship him, because he is morally inferior to me.

This. The second you give one of your God's a name and characteristics, you make it possible to disprove him definitively. Yahweh, the great one god of monotheism, absolutely doesn't exist. We cannot disprove the idea of a "God" as a whole though, no. But that isn't saying much because no one can disprove my assertion that their is a leprechaun on my shoulder who is whispering all these things into my ear who is invisible and beyond time and space.

I don't think theists know just how little they gain by asserting we can't definitively disprove the idea of god.

@Randolph: Damn, man. That was harsh XD

and the tower of babel falls

While atheist like to preach and shout there is no God because there isn't any physical proof other than the bible. But they don't have proof that there isn't a God either.

Also, God didn't create us to fill some ego or out of boredom. God intended for us to live enteral life until man fell into sin ( Adam and Eve). God loves us so much that he send his son Jesus to die a horrible painful death just so that all of us may one day have eternal life with him.

Yes, Jesus could come back any time he wanted ( and he will eventually). But it's easy for people to say they believe that way. It takes FAITH to believe when the world doesn't show much evidence of his existence.

God is trying to win the hearts of his own creations and it's sad many reject him. Yea, being a good person is great, but not acknowledging the creator or what his son did for you, why would he let you into heaven? When you laugh, and mocked him?

In addition, God allows bad things to happen to sometimes test you. He gives permission to the devil to do horrible things to people to either come to him for strength to overcome or fall further.

Like I said, when you encounter God in a supernatural way, life's diffrent. And that is why I believe always will.

Can't live a life like others in my 20's who get drunk every weekend. Sleep with any and every one, getting high etc. I can have a blast without doing all those things. The Christian life is definitely not a boring way to live.

I've never been a believer. I cannot grasp the concept of God. I went to church ever Sunday and went to catacism as a child and even then I never really believed. Wars have been started, and continue, over religion. People have lost their lives over something so meaningless. The church sent an army of children to war, where they were brutally slaughtered, because of religion and their God would protect them. Their are so many religions out their preaching damnation and bullshit. For what? Money? Control? I don't know and I don't care. Religion is bullshit no matter which God is real, if any.

Isn't pretty blasphemous to pretend to know God's intentions?

A couple questions for you, if you don't mind.

1) Since my Bible knowledge is a bit rusty and you mentioned Adam and Eve, are we told why God decided that eating from the Tree of Knowledge was a sin? Why was he purposefully trying to deny them knowledge?

2) I might have missed your answer, but several people have asked you a question that I find interesting, and while it might be hard for you (in your faith) to answer, I think it's only fair since you pretty much posed the question to us: If you died and discovered that you had been worshiping the wrong deity, would you just ignore everything you lived your life believing and just embrace this new God?

3) According to the last sentence I quoted, do you believe that the world is divided in 2 types of people; the ones who are pure and believe in God, and the ones who spend their lives drunk/drugged and having sex with everyone they meet? And do you believe Christians do none of those things?

4) I know you'll reply with "You have to do both", but if you could only do one of the two, which one do you think would gain you Heaven? Being a good person who spent their life helping others and being charitable, but laughed at the possibility of God's existence, or being a selfish, petty, self-serving person who has an altar at home and goes to the church every Sunday asking for forgiveness?

5) A lot of Christians I know believe in God (obviously) and Heaven/Hell, but when I ask "why do you follow God's teachings?" they don't say "I want to be a good son/daughter", "I want to make my Father proud", etc....more often than not, their answer is "I don't want to go to Hell". In your opinion, is this true faith, or is it just "covering my ass just in case"? Will they gain Heaven with that sort of motivation?

6) Do you believe as it being the absolute Truth everything that is written in the Bible? If yes, are you ok with everything your God supposedly did? If not, do you pick and choose which parts are real and where does your right to choose comes from?

I know it's probably quite a bother to answer, but I'd appreciate if you replied to every point; I'm curious to know your views on it, and who knows, it might sway someone to your side of things.

God is totally Real !

He's also a total Jerk. He thinks he's too good for facebook and twitter ! Well, I wasn't gonna friend his ass anyway ! :(

@lostrib:

His intentions are known if you read the bible. Saying that I myself am God or believing that I know everything or am better than God is blesplmy.

The bible says if you deny Jesus on earth, he will deny you before the father ( God).

The Bible says Jesus will come back to earth one day.

God loves his creations and is trying to win hearts/ souls.

Nothing I said was wrong.

But the bible was written by men...