Hey hey I rang the freakin bell here!

LOL!! Well, this thread really Jumps the Shark, doesn't it? Any minute I'm expecting to see a virtual Vince McMahon present Spider with the Bible Belt, whereupon he holds it up high, but upon seeing Abra trying to sneak back in the ring, clobbers him with a folding chair.

"Take THAT you childish, Christianity-hating Pantheist!"


-Kerry O.

Goodnight, Irene!

What with my obvious intelligence and Abra's wasted mind, Spider is trying to conjure up a worthy adversary.

All we need is JB's very attractive butt, and the unholy triumvirate, the Axis of Evil will be complete.

... and its goodnight from me

... and its goodnight from him

You can never prove too me that there is no God, nor can you prove to me that there isn't.

Thanks to science I have the Schrodinger hypothesis to guide my (lack of) faith.... fnord to all of you!

Oh... whether (s)he does or does not exits, God is irrelevant.

Like it ...

I had a case of Shrodinger's once ... penicillin clears that right up in a week

Well, this case has been ongoing for nearly a decade... No need for the penicillin though. Until "Sky-daddy" decides to answer for their failings in person, I have no need/desire for his/her/its salvation.

Ummm... is this an either/or statement?

Essentially yes... but more to the point; the (non)existance of any deity is irrelevant. The world goes on its way without divine guidance. If there is some sort of divine hand, it is either inept, or uncaring at best.

A benevolent entity would not tolerate the conditions here.

Then in your opinion, there are no benevolent humans?

You are jumping to a conclusion that is not inherent in my post. There certainly ARE benevolent humans, but there are just as many malevolent ones, and quite a large number of ambivalent ones as well.

The statement I made refers too the conditions of ill-fortune, disease, starvation, plague, and any other sort of suffering that comes too mind.

If there were in fact an all powerful benevolent entity guiding and creating the universe, then why would it (being the ultimate power) allow for suffering in the first place?

Either there is an entity of limited power, or an uncaring one. Why does God not cure cancer, or regrow lost body parts?

Pray, and pray, and pray... I have never once heard of an amputee every getting a limb to grow back, and I grew up around some very faithful and devout believers.

Free will.

If an amputee grew back a limb because of prayer, it would be difficult to deny God's existance. Thus robbing many of their free will.

Knowing that God exists wouldn't rob anyone of their free will.

In fact, if they don't know for sure that God exist then it's impossible for them to reject him or disobey him.

So ulimately it's impossible for a non-believer to sin. They can't disobey a God that they don't even believe exists.

You're appeal to free will as an excuse for God to ignore mankind is completely without merit.

How wouldn't it? People would believe out of fear of punishment rather than because they want to know and love God.

If you believe that your state has laws or not, they do. Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

Pray tell, what would the point be of giving people "free will" setting them up to "sin" and then masking your existence, and condemning them to hell if they choose to deny you?

Sounds like a cranky *****y girlfriend more than any worthy deity too me.

It seems to me that as it is right now people believe more out of fear of punishment than actual informed or reasoned choice.

But you already beleive out of fear of punishment.

If you dont believe, you believe you will go to eternal hell and be damned!

Your god has told you that.

So you are gambling on eternal life that you can get enough good deeds in and get on god's good side before he takes your life away and deposits you in one of the two places (if you are catholic, then three)

I don't believe in hell like most Christians do. I don't believe that it is supportable from a Biblical standpoint. Hell is separation from God. If you don't want to be in God's presence, then why should God torture you by forcing you to be? If you don't obey God's laws on earth, why would you in heaven? And yes, not everybody has heard about Jesus, but people were saved through faith before the Jesus was born. I think the only assured way to heaven is through Christianity, but obviously there are vagaries to salvation that could include non-Christians. The pre-Jesus Jews who were saved because they repented of their sins and believed that God would forgive them. Maybe that's all that's required, I don't know. But if someone said "The planes going down, you can put on this parachute and jump, you are sure to live or you can go down with the plane and maybe you'll get lucky", I'll choose the parachute any day.

So what?

Do you think God wouldn't be able to know what's in their hearts?

You don't give God much credit Spider.

Besides that flies in the face of what I've stated many times.

Which should God be more pleased with, a well-behaved atheist who doesn't even believe in God at all?

Or a God-fearing Christians who is convinced that God exists?

You're argument doesn't even hold water.

Based on what you're saying here God would be much more please with people who are well-behaved and don't even believe in him, than by people who are convinced he exists.

You argument here is totally devoid of common sense Spider.

Do you think that God is devoid of common sense?

I think I give God much more credit for being intelligent than you do Spider. Based on your arguments God would need to be a complete moron.

The threat of hell doesn't exist for someone who is saved. I don't have to fear hell, because I choose to love God. Think about the terminology that is in the Bible of salvation. It's called by God "my rest" and Christians are encouraged to "enter my rest". You couldn't rest if you were in fear. I became a Christian because I wanted to know if there was a God or not and I had given a lot of different belief systems a chance and felt that Christianity deserved one.

If your heart is full of fear, you wouldn't be able to decide if you would have chosen God out of love. God can't know things which won't happen. So if you never get the opportunity to love God, then God wouldn't know you would love him.