What Religion Are You?

I'd also like to point out that I have nothing against the religious, only the religion.

As the saying goes, don't hate the sinner, hate the guy who created it.

 

I never said that believing in something makes it a religion. If you're going to quote me, quote me accurately please.

Add me too, please.

 

"Is it credible that such extremities of torture should be necessary for us? Well, take your choice. The tortures occur. If they are unnecessary, then there is no God or a bad one. If there is a good God, then these tortures are necessary. For no even moderately good Being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren’t" -C.S Lewis

Your arguments are well founded, but I am sorry to tell you they are very outdated. St. Augustine sums it up your argument is a way,

"If one of two contraries be infinite, the other is totally destroyed. But ‘God’ means infinite goodness. Therefore if God exists, no evil should be discoverable in the world. But there is evil. Therefore God does not exist."

However, an answer is proposed by him as well,

"God would not allow any evil to exist unless out of it he could draw a greater good. This is part of the wisdom and goodness of God."

While I understand that the concept of God can be very difficult to grasp (don't worry I don't expect this argument to win you over) you should at least attempt to understand that through suffering people can be brought closer to Jesus.

Think about this why did God create darkness? It doesn't help us. When you get up in the middle of the night and stub your toe on a dresser, you reach for the light, because you can not see. If it was always light how could you ever truly appreciate it for what it is?

Perhaps you should consider the possibility that there has to be darkness so you can find the light? Bad things happen yes. Is it terrible? Certainly? Is it meaningless? No.

Think about it like this. Christians were the first doctors. They founded the first hospitals, and they provided numerous leaps and bounds in the medical field. Those "Real world doctors" are there because, through God, medical aid became possible.

Mind giving some examples. Not questioning what you said, but I would like to directly appeal to each point you give. Or at least try!

Ah yes, another old question! I can tell by the way you have worded this that you believe God is some omnipotent being whose sole desire is to control our lives, while at the same time doing nothing to help us. Well feather, God doesn't kill people just because they don't believe in him, at leat not anymore! You bring up murder. Well, Christians have always believed that God has given humans free will. Free will is the ability to do whatever we want, however, we want, wherever we want (Summing it up). This means that yes, murder will happen and will continue to happen, but you have free will also! You could, for example, join the police force and work to limit the number of these murders. I know many people believe that God contradicts himself, and this is a perfect example to disprove that! God gave you free will, but he also gave that murderer free will. He is NOT going to say, "Hmmm, well I think I will go back on my word."

 

i cant be assed to argue with religious people, because your arguments dont make any sense nor will i even be able to persuade you to change your views

 

I mean, I am Christian and so is my family, but I don't go to church too often or anything like that, and I'm not necessarily too religious although I do believe there is a being of some sort. It gives me comfort. I'd like to think that because sometimes when you're feeling all alone, you just need someone to talk to. I feel like ''God'' is sort of more personal when I'm in touch with him rather than praying to him as if he is my superior.

 

People have to die eventually. I don't believe people die in vain. I believe something good always comes out of a tragedy or an atrocity. God uses bad things to bring out good things. Also, the pain of life is a reminder that this wretched world is not our home.

Is it the parents' fault if their child gets into a fight at school, despite being raised properly? Is it the car companies fault if the driver wrecks the car, due to his poor driving skills? Is it the country's fault if one of its citizens causes trouble in a neighboring country, despite his country of origin being a low crime, functional first world country?
God told Adam and Eve to not eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. He gave them a choice. They chose wrong. Eve was gullible enough to fall for Satan's tricks, and Adam joined in. Because of their disobedience, we all suffer.

 

I see where gehenna and enderdragon are coming from, but I still have to agree with bawss here. While I find it easier to understand christianity now, thanks to you two, I can't find solace knowing that God would let people die, even if it's for the greater good. Wait... Wait wait wait. I think I'm starting to get it..... hmmmmm ****. I think I just had a tiny change of heart towards god.

 

The thing is, God isn't making it happen to them, but allowing it. It's a result of sin, and the free choice of the people around the person, no matter how good or bad that person is. God allowed free will to enter the world, because he wanted people to have the choice of loving him, or not. That's why there's so many bad things that happen.

 

C.S. Lewis makes a good point, and actually serves to make me dislike the judeo-christian god as a solution for suffering, because it allows people to rationalize otherwise unnecessary suffering in the first place. Instead of attempting to solve diseases and cure humanity, where would we be if humanity all just went 'this plague is an act of God and nobody can cure it because it's for the greater good?'

Very likely the same as we were back when this really was the generally accepted reason for diseases... very, very dead at age 30 of preventable diseases like Polio, Smallpox, and Bubonic Plague.

If suffering is a way to get closer to Jesus, doesn't that prove my point that God really isn't a benevolent, all powerful being? If I were an all powerful, benevolent being, I'd just remove the suffering of everyone altogether in an act that would make literally the whole world believe in me as an accepted fact. Right now, this almighty benevolent being leaves salvation from sin up to what is essentially a crapshoot, with the people who get saved being the ones who accept that this bad **** is happening to them and they can do nothing about it but pray to Jesus.
Even worse is that people who never heard of Jesus and will never hear of Jesus thanks to age, location on the map, or family values, are just going to go to hell anyways even if they did suffer like bastards.

I'm sorry but f*ck that. F*ck that to oblivion. It is absolutely unacceptable to use the suffering of a people as a catalyst to drive belief, because generally a sufficiently suffering person will believe anything.

This argument is exceptionally masochistic, disgusting, and recklessly passive.

What exactly is it you need to appreciate? The pain? You can't enjoy yourself without suffering?
EXCUSE ME?

All of humanity has been a constant struggle to get to the top DESPITE pain, to overcome things that we previously couldn't explain that killed us, maimed us, destroyed us. We got to where we are despite billions of us dying from preventable causes that we couldn't explain and so attributed to religion. We fight against those who create suffering because we want a peaceful life.

If there were no such thing as darkness, me stubbing my toe would have been entirely my fault, something I have to live with because I saw it coming and could have dealt with it.

In your analogy, the darkness created by God isn't just stubbing your toe; it's disease, war, drought, famine. It's suffering on a tiny scale, all the way up to mass suffering. It's saying that these things are things CREATED BY GOD to hinder us in such a way that we gain a better appreciation for the life we are living.

Not sure how loving it is to deliberately give someone A.I.D.S, then tell them to overcome it to live better as a person. Not sure how loving it is to create Cancer, a disease so terrible that even the huge sums of money being thrown at it for research have done so little to reduce its impact on the human body that it is still to this day one of the most awful diseases on this planet.
Not sure how it is a good thing that there are people born missing limbs, without proper brain functions, and generally born at a huge disadvantage, then to go up to those people and say 'but it's good because god wanted this'.
Not sure if it's a big good thing that the black plague wiped out more than 1/3 of the entire population of Europe in 10 years through some of the most afwul symptoms.

If you're going to claim that God created darkness you can't claim simultaneously that he is a good God.

This is blatantly false.

A simple google search reveals that the Hippocratic oath, the code to do no harm, comes not from christians but from the Greek, specifically the Greek philosopher Hippocraties, from whom the oath gets its name.

Even worse this degrades those of us who do good out of the kindness of our hearts by attributing that go to another (effectively stealing the credit for the good deeds of humanity) and actively makes your previous argument invalid.

I mean, honestly.
'GOD CREATED DARKNESS TO MAKE US APPRECIATE LIFE, but also he doesn't want us to have to go through this darkness so he's dripfeeding us miniscule amounts of knowledge to prolong the suffering.

- Crusades?
- Islamic Terrorism?
- Boko Haram?
- Christians in Palestine?
- the Jewish people vs basically everyone?

So god actively allows bad things to happen not to teach the world but because he wants to give people the choice of 'love me unconditionally or die'?

Is this not an issue to you?

@_featherpaw_ 'for the greater good' is not an acceptable excuse for an all powerful being. God theoretically has the power to prevent all suffering but according to christianic belief, he allows it because we don't love him.

It's narcissistic, it's a guilt/power trip, and it's despicable.

 

That's exactly the point - both reasons are correct, to an extent. He uses bad situations, and if people are willing good things will come out of bad events. Each time someone sins, it distances them from God, but they have a chance to get right back at it if they want forgiveness, but you have to WANT it. To the second part, it's all about where you want to end up after life. I believe there's a Heaven and a Hell, and if you put your will in accord to God's, you will go to Heaven, but if not you will end up in Hell.

 

@DarkTitan_, I have a question for you. Why does the Catholic church put itself between the man and God? Why do you have pray to saints to get to God? God's not some pompous king that we need to go through subjects in order to get to Him. We Protestants reject a middle man, and we believe God does too.
I don't need to go to a priest to confess my sins. "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned." should be directed to God and not an ordained minister.

I'm not being aggressive when I say this. I'm just asking "why?".

 

OK but why?

Why does Sin distance us from God? Is sin more powerful than God? Why would god exploit the suffering of people to get them to love him? Does God require our love to allow us into heaven?

Is this not emotional exploitation?

If I were to tell you that only by loving me will I give you a piece of candy, but if you don't love me I will cut you, would you like me as a person?

If you were hanging from a cliff and the only person who could save you didn't pull you up because you didn't love them enough and technically it's your fault the cliff broke underneath you, would you like that person?

If you were told that your parents committed an atrocity, and therefore you're going to jail (a la North Korea), would you think that these people were doing a good deed?

See the issue is God could stop sin at any time, and could allow all of Humanity into heaven, but he doesn't. He makes us suffer, plead, and beg for forgiveness, and if you don't do this because you don't know he exists (like if you're a newborn dying of a disfigurement) then too bad so sad, you're going to hell baby!

 

I'm not outright putting down the Catholic church. The Roman Catholic church has been a blessing to Christianity. It has been an unmoving foundation for Christianity. It is the main reason why Christianity has existed for hundreds of years, which is why God has allowed it to exist for so long.

 

To your first question - we can, and do pray directly to God. We use saints because we can relate to them, and because they are say, somewhat recent real people. A saint is a perfect servant of God. We pray through their intercession to God, simply because we know the saints lives and who they are, ordinary people like us.

To your last part - Jesus while he was on earth ordained 12 people to be his witness to the world, and a way of receiving sacraments. Confession, or more commonly known as reconciliation, is a sacrament. The 12 Apostles of Jesus handed down the faith to each generation, as we do now. The 'ordained minister' is a priest directly from the Apostles, from the same line of Bishops and Popes. We confess our sins to him, because he is acting as Christ on earth, and he called us each to be priest, prophet and king. We aren't even confessing to the priest, but to God. He's just a witness.

Sin is the absence of love, and God is love. Nothing is more powerful than God, although Satan (the author of sin) is very powerful to make sin look very appealing. God gets to us in any way we can. Through the bad and evil, that may be the best way of getting his point across. Im not saying that God loves sin, but he can use it for good, if you know what I mean. Yes.

To the three questions similar to each other and the last one - God could put an end to all of it and allow everyone in to heaven. BUT, he wants everyone to CHOOSE him. He wants all those in his kingdom to WANT to be there, not to be forced. At the beginning, God created the human race, not because he wanted it to suffer, but because he wanted it to strive for good, and to earn eternal life with him.

 

OK. Thanks for clarifying.

 

Satan isn't the author of Sin.

In your religion, when god created Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden, he specifically told them not to eat an apple that was sitting on a tree within easy grabbing reach. He didn't put it behind a barrier, he didn't NOT CREATE IT AT ALL. He created this apple of knowledge and unleashed it onto the world, as being 'all knowing' he knew humanity would eat it' and being 'all powerful' he could have stopped it.

God could crush Satan (who he created) --> God doesn't crush Satan (despite knowing how to and being able to) --> God permits Satan to damn humanity (despite being able to prevent it) --> God damns humanity (despite knowing how to stop it and being able to do so).

If you took a small mouse and put it in a fire, then rationalized it by saying that the mouse CHOOSES to be in a fire and you'll only save it if it doesn't WANT to be in the fire, you're still putting a mouse in a f*cking fire.

If you have the knowledge that suffering is happening and the power to end that suffering forever, yet you do not end that suffering, you are allowing suffering to happen as surely as if you were causing it yourself. (which God, who created everything including suffering and sin, is).

It's a disgusting belief that teaches that one deserves their suffering because they do not love enough. If Sin is an Absence of love (which it isn't, it's transgression of divine law, read your bible), then God is the biggest Sinner of them all. It is not love to allow the suffering and eternal torture of those you allegedly care for because they do not love you back).

As an important side note, North Korea has a 3 generational punishment. God punishes every generation forever.

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Actually, even funnier is that you don't seem to know your own Bible.

Did you know God lied to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? He said if they eat the apple they'd Die. Not go to hell, not would unleash evil, they'd Die.

The Snake (who was retconned to be Satan) didn't lie to humanity. The Snake said that if they ate the Apple they wouldn't die. They ate the apple, they didn't die. God just freaked the hell out, despite knowingly lying to Adam and Eve about the ramifications of eating the apple he knowingly created and knowingly put within easy eating reach of these people who he created.

Essentially, Sin is just the concept of Adam and Eve discovering that God lied to them.

If you told your child they'd die if they ate an apple that you leave within their arms reach, then they ate the apple and you spanked not only their asses but the asses of their kids, and their kids, and their kids, and their kids, and their kids, and so on and so on and so on, you'd be the world's ultimate petty asshole. That's the Christian God.

 

Do you realize you fell for Satan's trick as Adam and Eve did? They did die, spiritually.

 

You've peaked my interest - what is your belief? If you'd like, we can take this to a PM instead of mucking this thread up with this stuff people don't really want to read xd

 

https://www.brawl.com/threads/67449/

 

For someone who takes the bible literally, you sure do make a lot of claims that aren't in the Bible.

The words are pretty clear.
-God says don't eat this apple or you'll die.
-The snake says you won't die, you'll know good from evil.
-Eve eats the apple. She learns good from evil. She doesn't die.
-God freaks out, and punishes the snake who told the truth, the innocent who trusted before she knew better, and the guy who did literally nothing wrong.

Read your bible, Gehenna. There is no mention of 'die spiritually', no mention of 'go to hell', no mention of Satan.

It's just a lying god, a trusting people, and a truthful snake.

Rational skeptic / agnostic atheist, and there's a thread for it Gehenna just created.