Somewhat of a commentary on crowbots thread.

Why does god set up such crazy obstacles for people to overcome?

Not baptized, not saved. Not christian, not saved.

What about people born in parts of the world that haven't even heard of christianity? Does god just say **** them? He created them, and knew that they would not know of christianity, so does he enjoy giving souls to satan?

Lots of other examples using the same logic that I won't go into here, but the god described in the bible seems awfully twisted/ for a being of such intelligence. He certainly doesn't seem very enlightened.

the more pertinent question is why do otherwise intelligent people feel compelled to believe obvious self-contradictory nonsense when it comes to religion (all kinds, not just christianity).

is one's ingrained religious cultural heritage really that strong where it can't be overcome by intelligence (in most cases)?

or do most people psychologically need the security blanket of religion for comfort/ego so badly that they subconsciously make themselves incapable of applying the same level of analysis to religion as they would to anything else? (DN would be prime example of that).

wow...this will be a fun 'discussion.'

i'm staying out of it (don't think anything will be accomplished).

DN's day...

Plays big game last night (up/down $125k)..
Goes to bed.
Wakes up today at 2
Reads message board at 2:25 and realizes he is slammed pretty hard again on his own website.
Shrugs...
Hangs out with wife.
Goes and plays golf (wins/loses 2xs the salary of the guys slamming him)
Shrugs..
Hangs out with wife..
Big Game..

Repeat

Shrugging all the while.

It's nice for me not being famous (or good at anything)...Nobody cares what I think.

God is a concept,
By which we can measure,
Our pain,
I'll say it again,
God is a concept,
By which we can measure,
Our pain,

Take the example of an adult parenting a baby or toddler - the baby/toddler doesn't understand why he or she is not allowed to do certain things. It might seem crazy to the baby/toddler and get the kid upset.

Assuming that there is a God, God would be much further up the chain compared to a human than the adult/baby comparison. Basically, we can't really comprehend why God set things up this way.

In terms of the not baptized, not christian = not saved; there was another huge thread on this. Myself, I don't believe that a fair God would predestine (is that a word?) people who never had a chance to make a reasonable choice to an eternity of hell.

This point was certain to be brought up. It is the same way people who believe in the god outlined in the bible explain everything. They always say because its all part of his master plan that us lower level intelligent beings simply can't comprehend.

But that simply is not a good explanation. It is a cop out that a lot religious folks use because they follow with blind faith without doing any real thinking so far. For us to believe this, we have to believe the following:

1) That God created all humans, yet prefers certain ones over othera
2) The ones he prefers were already predetermined, so he created people that he knows will be eternally damned
3) This is all part of some big master plan that only an all-knowing being can comprehend, however ridiculous and boneheaded it seems to such lowly intelligent beings as humans

This seems like an awful waste of time for an omnipotent being, unless he gets bored like us. Kinda similar to the argument that God put the fossil record in place - as well as preformed other scientific tricks - just to test the faith of people who live in the 20th and 21st century, as an argument against evolution.

I think the whole idea of a heaven and hell is pretty ****ing retarded.

I think it's just as likely that god would punish people (send to hell) based on uncontrollable things such as whether or not we believe (thoughts aren't controlable) as it is for god to punish people based on whether or not they like Animaniacs.

Much more likely that heeaven and hell were made up as a way to control people's behavior.
Muhc more.

The concept of hell and eternal damnation has always given me problems - doesn't quite fit with a loving God - why create those humans in the first place? I've read one interpretation where hell is just the "absence of God" or maybe you just become dust and bones and that's all folks.

As for your comment that "This is all part of some big master plan that only an all-knowing being can comprehend, however ridiculous and boneheaded it seems to such lowly intelligent beings as humans" - yeah, pretty much; we have to assume that we're too lowly to understand this master plan.

As for evolution and the fossil record, that only is a problem if you take the old testament literally vs allegorically (I think that I'm using the word correctly). Why couldn't each day in Genesis be a very long "day" or hundreds of thousands of years? I'm going to guess that the original writer of Genesis didn't have an understanding of science that we have Today and would write in terms that he could understand back then.

the problem you run into with that type of flexible interpretation approach is god ends up not being necessary to explain anything at all, so what's the point of god?

Not sure I understand - God and Science can co-exist in my mind.

But even so, why create humans and predetermine who gets to enter bliss, and who just becomes dust and bones?



But the point is, that the master plan just seems ridiculous. An enlightened all knowing-being wouldn't toy with humans like this. It wouldn't remain invisible for thousands of years and reward those with faith when it knew that how illogical it would seem to most that such a being would do that.

An omnipotent being that created us would show up with relative frequencey and lead us down a path to enlightenment. We would live in a eutopia without hate and suffering.

So while yeah, it could be just part of some crazy mixed up plan that we couldn't possibly comprehend, odds are, it isn't. It's like telling a grown man that all these years santa clause really does exist, and that when he caught his parents putting presents under the tree, and when they explained to him that that's what they had been doing for years, it was all part of santas master plan. It could be, but almost certainly isn't.



Okay. I'll give you this one. This is plausible.

Much more likely because.......... in your owns words, tell me why it's much more likely. Don't quote someone else, I don't want a link to anything- tell me why Hotbacon thinks this way.


Food for thought- a common thing that I find in these threads is not so much that people don't believe in God but they are unhappy with the job that he has done, which is interesting. You believe that you would have done it different or better, but how? I have a question- has anyone considered the thought that too much credit is given to God for bad things? What if he isn't even involved? What if he's an etilist?

No evidence at all that heaven or hell exist
Nothing.
But yet it's incredibly plausible that they were made up as a way of controlling people.

To clarify, I never said I don't believe in god. I just said that the god described in the bible, and any other of the major religions, is well, just about as believable as a god that shoots lighting bolts from the sky. I do not know if there is an all-knowing creator of the universe. What I do know, is that he would not act in childish/vengful the way described by christianity. The universe is a big place, with potentially millions of other life forms on billions of other planets. To think that a creator would put humans up on a pedestool (even over the beings on this planet), is just intelluctually ignorant.

Also, it is not that I am unhappy with the job a so called creator did with our universe. It is just that I think it silly to believe the idea that a god who knows the outcome of everything, would let some souls into eternal bliss, or eternal damnation, depending on what we do in our brief stint on earth, when a lot of people (actually all) have zero control over whether they pass this epic test.

More likely, if something did create us, it probably just sparked the big bang and let things unfold naturally from there.

So to sum it up, no, I'm not giving god credit for only bad things, because I think it is far too unrealistic that a god as described in the bible would even exist.

Also, you say, "What if he isn't involved"? I think a god as described in the bible would be a little involved. After all, he is at war for all the human souls with the devil. Also, he doesn't want people warshipping false gods or anything like that, so I think we would have heard from him...Oh wait, hurricane katrina....



AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Yes, a supreme being with infinite intelligence is giong to be an elitist. Or what if he's just an *******? LOL

God is not at war with Satan- you are. He already beat him down long ago. The question then begs why not destroy Satan instead of just banishing him from heaven? Answer is I don't know, only God does. I suspect that a spirit cannot be destroyed, a spirit is infinite, whether good or bad. It can, however, be confined, hence what happened.

The Elitist thing was tongue in cheek on my part, I already know that he is. Nothing less than the rightouess is accepted into heaven. He is as elitist as it gets. Put it this way- you can be drafted into the club, but if you don't put in the work you wil never sip champagne with the winners.

god is one mysterious dude

How can I be fighting satan if I don't believe he exists?

The reason you don't know so many things, is because the theory of the god you believe in has so many holes in it. One can say that there is a colony of marshians living under mars. We all know its fake, but there are some people that believe it to be true, and as of yet, we can't disprove them.


As per the elitist thing, how do you know? Did god come down and talk to you. Did he announce to any generation currently populating earth?

Of course not. Your whole arguement is based on zero evidence and pure blind faith. Now that may help you come to terms with life and death, and may even cause you to act in a way beneficial to humanity, but in the end, you still can't see ****.

So keep doing your best to get on the gods VIP list. I'll be busy living my life here on earth.

My theory is that god is cruel because cruelty, like in humans, has anger at its source.

When god was growing up his mommy told him "god, you are omnipotent and omniscient and you are destined to grow up and do great things". He heard this every morning before his breakfast of pre-eggs and pre-ham and every night just before lying down on his bed of clouds to go to sleep, wondering where his daddy was and why he was abandoned to be raised by a single parent. He also contemplated what great things he might do, and slowly developed a plan to create the earth, plants and animals and such. He planned very well and figured he could do it in 6 god-days.

Finally he reached the end of his home-schooling (no, he never went to pre-school) and embarked on his journey to do great things. So he began the creation he had been thinking about for so many god-years, but the going was much slower than he anticipated. By the end of the 6th day he had created an enormous mess that he could either leave as it was, scrap and begin again or spend another day trying to fix things. He fell asleep unsure of what his path would be. He woke up on the 7th day, looked at his creation again, and decided F&*K it, Im watching pre-football.

Mommy looked at the mess he had made and ridiculed him. "Omniscient? Omnipotent? I knew your low-life fathers pre-genes were worthless". He knew that he would listen to her rants for eternity, and this made him angry and spiteful, so he decided to spend one more god-hour on his creation, during which he did his best to turn order into chaos and leave his beings to fend for themselves, blind to the obvious things around them.

And now every time mommy biatches about him or berates his daddy, he turns to his creation and creates another disaster to cool his anger.

If you don't believe he exists then guess who's side you are fighting with?

Plenty of holes yet cannot disprove. CANNOT. So, good luck with that.

Uh, neither? Why does there have to be sides? It's not a one or the other ultamatum here.



Ok. Go ahead and disprove that Santa Clause doesn't exist. CANNOT, and that is relatively should be relatively easy than trying to disprove a mystical being created everything in the universe in x number of days. So good luck with that.



I hate spoiled kids.

If in fact you believe satan doesn not exist he has done his job, and you are on his side, whether you realize it or not, by default.

I don't want to prove that Santa Claus doesn't exist- I love him.

If in fact you believe that screech not believing in Satan means that he is on Satan's side, then whether you realize it or not, The Flying Spaghetti Monster has taken control of your thoughts, by default.


You are a nutcase dude.

Right..... the flying spaghetti monster defense. Of, course, I am the nutcase in this equation. Remember, many said Jesus was nuts- alot of brilliant people were at one point or another reffered to as crazy- I am once gain in good company.

Riiiight, the Jesus defense.

Remember there is no evidence that he even existed. So yes, you are in good company.

Unbeleivable.

Someone here tries to point out how unlikely it is for god to exist, and your rebuttal is that people thought his son was crazy.

It's just a constant circle with you Lois. Whenever you try to prove Gods existance, you rely on his magical powers and things that supposedly happened thousands of years ago.

LOL.

A lot of crazy nutjob psychoes were thought of as crazy too.
Yeah, you are in good company.
I could go into more depth as to why you're totally wrong here, but I have a feeling it would be in vain.

Has it really come to this at this site, where instead of real discussion there are actually idiots saying Jesus wasn't real?

What a sad day for FCP.

Lois,

no one said Jesus never existed. I think his powers are pretty questionable though.

Also, the lack of intelligent discussion in these threads is mostly thanks to you. And I am not saying that because you believe on God, since there are many posters (like Gobear), that believe in God and can have a good informed discussion about it without sounding like a 2 year old.

Since it's so laughable, then surely you have some evidence of Jesus's existance right?

This should be good.

there is no empirical evidence that jesus existed at all. most scholars do think there is enough corroboration in texts written years after the fact that he must have been a real person, but that's all his existence is based on.

As are many things/people. It's called written history.

To Screech and.. well pretty much Screech. I have contributed alot to these conversations, and not once has anyone said I was a 2 year old, not once have they said I can't make a point or should be locked up- the only person saying this stuff is you. Yes, CrowTrobot, TimWakefield,Mattxnt and others that I respect, I rarely agree with them and often are at different ends of the spectrum,but by and large we hande it with a degree of respect that I have always appreciated.

You should look at how they handle themselves and act accordingly.

Lois,

Thanks for the excellent advice.

There are quite a few figures in history that exist only in writing and I don't see anybody all pissed off about that.

Charles Manson, Jim Jones, BTK killer. Great company indeed.

How many killers and psychoes never mention God or Jesus, actually claim to not believe in God yet there names don't come up when I talk about you? If I was to judge you by the minutest of your kind I would assume you were a wackjob, but I refuse to do that. It's ignorant and shortsighted.

My point is that you compared yourself to Jesus and other great thinkers because you were called a whackjob. I was making an ironic comparison.

Just want to throw this out there, but there were 140,000 prophets, including Moses, Jesus and Mohammad. Do you seriously believe that 140,000 seperate people were all liars, or delusional?

Are those my only choices?

You obviously lack a basic understanding of probabilities. My advice is to stop playing poker immediately.

Edit for clarity: 140 000 people out of all the people that have lived is nothing. And thinking like this is wrong because there are a ton of people out there with a ton of stupid ideas (think scientology). People are dumb, and judging something based on numbers rather than the idea/logic will lead you to the wrong conclusion most of the time.

Wow, I thought by saying "just throwing this out there" would indicate a non-hate inspired response. Alas, I was sadly mistaken. Im just trying to make some sort of a point, that 140,000 having devine inspirations, all of the same magnitude, is at least grounds for the "maybe there is actually something higher than us" arguement.

Yes you are right, 140,000 isnt exactly a massive #, and doesnt exactly PROVE my case at all. However it brings up the point, that if a decent amount of people are experiencing the same thing, then there should be some sort of discussion pertaintaining to its validity.

If we look at these cases deeper, we must ask ourselves, well where did these "one God" ideas come from? Doesnt seem logical, at least to me, that shiet written pertaining to attributes and qualities of God, were simply the figment of ones imagination. Of course there is no way to actually prove the mind cannot come up with these conjectures. Well, unless we lock a group of people away since birth, allow them to grow up in a manufactured "reality" and see if ideas of God, or simply the teachings of God, arise.

Its almost the same logic one can use for Aliens/Ghosts and other supernatural entities. An idea must arise from somewhere.

i think you just made the opposite point of what you intended.

Lol, but I believe those 2 exist too. However, I can see how it could be determental to my argument

I hate you. The Earth is at the center of the universe. The world is flat.

Aliens/ghosts and other entities are a lot more realistic than a god that divides predetermined souls into good and evil or a god that shoots lightning bolts out of his ***.

Lol, was this your angry day? BTW, your arguements are valid, and I have yet again, lost another round.


eari
But also, one can see how people could easily believe either of your cases. Its not so abstract, that it was pulled out of someones ***, unlike if someone had mentioned "water is 2 hydrogen molecules and 1 oxygenmolecule", in say the year of 100AD.

Just ask Friedmann.

(That's actually a great play on words that I just made. Brownie points to anyone who gets it)

only one n in friedman

That was part of my pun. Never mind, I'm a nerd.

Hahaha, I could have been cranky and hungover that day but I doubt it.

With regards to the H2O thing, that's true. You may be right. But you're probably not. "Truths" we discover like water = H2O, come as our civilization progresses. These things wouldn't be understood by earlier civilizations because they never had the same train of thought, the technology, or the exposure to ideas that we have today. God on the other hand, is a more ancient idea created by ancient civilizations. As civilazation advances, the idea of god is becoming more and more less believable. Science moves in one direction along the time scale, while the idea of god and other mythical tales moves in the other.

I like your point.

They worship the creation rather than the creator. Anyone know what scripture that is?