It just bugs me, what kind of "humble" heavenly father demands worship, demands it to the point of threatening to destroy your eternal salvation if you don't meet the demands?




Just putting that out there.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/2011 09:07PM by anon123.

I don't think God is that way. I think the scriptural texts we have don't really encompass the love of God. I think man has turned him that way to take advantage of things.

If you are up for an extremely interesting read, there is a great book I highly recommend. It is a good read for athiests, mormons, christians, budhists, hindus, or really anyone. "The Misunderstood God: The Lies Religion Tells About God " by Darin Hufford. You can usually find it in Barnes and Noble, Boders or on Amazon. Can't recommend it enough. It is one of the few books that changed my life and world view completely, and I think for the better.

All kinds of people will make up qualities about some god they want to believe in. (He's actually kind, it's just people who don't understand him, etc.)

But looking at holy writs, it's clear the gods of major religions reflect the values of the people who invented the god.

If you look at the world, it is exactly what you would expect if there were no god. Would a god who is remotely benevolent create a system where we have to kill animals to eat them to survive? Would a god create humans who are supposedly imperfect just for sport? I wouldn't want to acknowledge a god like that.

Anon123: Would you want to acknowledge a God that fed the poor, healed the sick, took care of people, was friends with the friendless, loved the un-loveable, loved the adulterer, sinner, drunkards, rejects, stood to help social outcasts, forgave everyone, would die for you, and loved people that hated him?

Do you believe in a God that created:

· poor people
· sick people
· people who are socially inept and friendless
· people with a penchant for multiple / serial partners
· people with a proclivity towards an addiction
· a world where he had to incarnate himself then have himself killed to atone for the inadequacies of his creation
· people who hate him

Really?

Schlock
Would you want a God that created perfect people all alike and then forced them to worship him? Welcome to the perfect clone land now bow down before perfect clones....oh wait I didn't need to ask, you were perfect and interpreted it. Never a bad day, never a cut finger, never a lost limb amputees not a problem in perfect world, just 100% perfect clone like existence where all the thinking has been done for you. Just program the clones, and direct the program to never make a mistake, and have them always be programmed to perfectly worship you. Programmed and forced love, and your perfect firends that look just like you are chosen for you (hey that sounds like the morg!)

Or would you prefer the original approach that God put us in a perfect state, and then let us choose?

If you ran the universe, which one of the above scenarios would you choose then, since you don't agree with how God's running this one? That's the alternative approaches really.

How would you do it if you were God. I think God did it perfect. One thing nobody can argue with, we know he doesn't force us to worship him. How do I know that? He's not doing it right now.

QuestioningMo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Schlock
> Would you want a God that created perfect people
> all alike and then forced them to worship him?
> Welcome to the perfect clone land now bow down
> before perfect clones....oh wait I didn't need to
> ask, you were perfect and interpreted it. Never a
> bad day, never a cut finger, never a lost limb
> amputees not a problem in perfect world, just 100%
> perfect clone like existence where all the
> thinking has been done for you. Just program the
> clones, and direct the program to never make a
> mistake, and have them always be programmed to
> perfectly worship you. Programmed and forced love,
> and your perfect firends that look just like you
> are chosen for you (hey that sounds like the
> morg!)
>
> Or would you prefer the original approach that God
> put us in a perfect state, and then let us
> choose?
>
> If you ran the universe, which one of the above
> scenarios would you choose then, since you don't
> agree with how God's running this one? That's the
> alternative approaches really.
>
> How would you do it if you were God. I think God
> did it perfect. One thing nobody can argue with,
> we know he doesn't force us to worship him. How
> do I know that? He's not doing it right now.

I'd like to acknowledge that your response is just the kind of defense mechanism believers use to put the burden on the person questioning. It is offensive in that it 'shoots the messenger' and shuts down any and all discussion. This is exactly what Morgan Freeman in "Bruce Almighty" said of being a God: "You think you can do a better job?" What kind of omni-everything talks like that? It was a huge let down in an otherwise good comedy.

No one has claimed that they can do a better job. It's the other way around. Believers claim God is in charge, yet the system, his/her/its system, appears exactly as it would be if NO ON was in charge.

"You think you can do a better job?"

Let's talk about slavery and animal sacrifice. God of the OT loooved murder, mayhem, land grabbing, rape and pillage and best of all slavery. Oh, and he likes his barbecue, too. Guess who invented "no slavery" and an end to cruelty to animals?

OT God treated women as second class citizens, chattel, property to be traded in; in fact he arranged it so that it was possible for the criminally minded (another one of his fabulous creations) to rape women and hurt children. Guess who invented laws to curb and prevent this? Movements and revolutions to uplift women? Child protection?

"You think you can do a better job?"

OT God and even his holy son Jesus had nothing, NOTHING, on health and medicine. All they had to offer were a bunch of silly, childish, superstitious beliefs in rubbing clay on eyes, or dipping in magical pools to cleanse or heal. Medical advancement, anyone?

Guess who invented civilization, rule of law, order, technology, DNA, space travel (just to make sure there were no people living on the moon or the sun) etc? Who figured out the earth was not flat? Yes, man does a better job in all these than God. Yes, the world is still f*kd up in many places, but we're doing a better job at making this life more livable, more bearable and perhaps more meaningful than God ever did.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2011 02:16AM by charles, buddhist punk.

Don't be bashing Bruce almighty! I love that movie! XD

dagny Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> All kinds of people will make up qualities about
> some god they want to believe in. (He's actually
> kind, it's just people who don't understand him,
> etc.)
>
> But looking at holy writs, it's clear the gods of
> major religions reflect the values of the people
> who invented the god.
>
> If you look at the world, it is exactly what you
> would expect if there were no god. Would a god who
> is remotely benevolent create a system where we
> have to kill animals to eat them to survive? Would
> a god create humans who are supposedly imperfect
> just for sport? I wouldn't want to acknowledge a
> god like that.

We don't have to kill animals to survive. We choose to do that. Many of my friends are vegans or vegetarians. Picky, I know, but true.Some animals may have to kill to survive, but we do not.

My point is that life has to live off other life (except for those lifeforms that can use the sun for direct energy and a few other exceptions). Nature is not a friendly system, in case anyone has not watched an animal being eaten by another animal. Let alone a god that would let animals suffer at all.

I was thinking of how brutal food chains are in general. When thinking about creation and how life is maintained, I don't think humans are all that significant, even if a few are vegetarian.

Life, be it a plant or animal, is usually food for something else. It would make me wonder how much a creator really valued life.

dagny Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My point is that life has to live off other life
> (except for those lifeforms that can use the sun
> for direct energy and a few other exceptions).
> Nature is not a friendly system, in case anyone
> has not watched an animal being eaten by another
> animal. Let alone a god that would let animals
> suffer at all.
>
> I was thinking of how brutal food chains are in
> general. When thinking about creation and how life
> is maintained, I don't think humans are all that
> significant, even if a few are vegetarian.
>
> Life, be it a plant or animal, is usually food for
> something else. It would make me wonder how much a
> creator really valued life.
I understood your point. I was simply correcting you one one point. Human beings can survive without killing animals. Since plants are not sentient so far as we know, I don't have a problem eating them and don't see any cruelty there. I understand your point about the food chain

It is the gospel, i.e. good news, of "my way or the highway". There is little room for choice, and you are told from day 1 what to believe, and then insist you are using free will to choose TSCC, because you "know" they are "true". We were brainwashed. Most LD$ never compare themselves to anyone else let alone question xstianity, because they already "know" they are superior.

Forgiveness, Grace, and God's Death Sentence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGkgmU9vG_o

http://WhyWontGodHealAmputees.com/

http://godisimaginary.com/

Sorry to rain on your parade, bona dea, but you live by killing animals like the rest of us. Vehicle tires are made from animal products. Tell me you don't travel by car or bus.

Fiber boards and particle boards contain rendered animals in the glue and resin. Got any synthetic wood in your home?

Vaccines and insulin are made from the remains of slaughtered animals. Without killing pigs, every diabetic would be at risk of death.

The fact is we have to kill subordinate life forms in order to live. There is no escape from it, and it does kind of make God look heartless.

Don Bagley Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sorry to rain on your parade, bona dea, but you
> live by killing animals like the rest of us.
> Vehicle tires are made from animal products. Tell
> me you don't travel by car or bus.
>
> Fiber boards and particle boards contain rendered
> animals in the glue and resin. Got any synthetic
> wood in your home?
>
> Vaccines and insulin are made from the remains of
> slaughtered animals. Without killing pigs, every
> diabetic would be at risk of death.
>
> The fact is we have to kill subordinate life forms
> in order to live. There is no escape from it, and
> it does kind of make God look heartless.
For most of the history of mankind we didn't have tires, particle boards etc and the human race didn't go extinct.We survived just fine, It is a choice and, BTW, I never claimed I don't eat and use animal products or that life would be the same if we didn't use them. The point is, animals do not need to be a part of our diet for us to survive and that is the only thing I disagreed with Dagny about.I don't deny that there is a food chain and that animals kill other animals and I am not trying to explain god. My only point is that human being s don't need to eat meat to survive. We could also survive as a species without vaccines, insulin, rubber, particle board and glue and in fact all of those things are relatively new.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/2011 11:15PM by bona dea.

>Vaccines and insulin are made from the remains of slaughtered animals. Without killing pigs, every diabetic would be at risk of death.

Most all insulin used now is human insulin produced by bacteria through the use of recombinant DNA. Off hand, I can not think of a vaccine that requires killing animals

Any vaccine that uses egg...which most of them do...kills an unborn chicken...

stormy

It is hypothesized that humans made gains in brain size and intelligence by switching from a mostly plant based diet to a mostly animal based diet. Meat packs a lot of calories and our large brains require many calories to function. It's easy nowadays in our first world abundance to criticize "savage" behavior but it is part of our biological history, perhaps we wouldn't be where we are today without it. No doubt some wish we weren't so successful and populous.

I have a difficult time fighting the thirst for blood all the many generations of ancestors piled on me. This can be compared to our love of fatty, salty, and sugary foods. These resources were scarce to thousands of generations before modern times so we go crazy for these types of foods because they taste so good, a biological trick to get us to consume the calorie dense food.

Also, sentience for other animals is debatable, does a cow really know it is a cow like we know we're humans and we know a cow is a cow? Maybe, but I don't think we'll ever know, it would help if we could communicate with any animals on a level both can understand. Some animals are highly itelligent as we perceive intelligence but sentience is a whole different matter.