16 Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ. You are the Son of the living God."
17 Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah! No mere man showed this to you. My Father in heaven showed it to you.
John 1
18 No one has ever seen God. But God, the one and only Son, is at the Father's side. He has shown us what God is like.
John 10
34 Jesus answered them, "Didn't God say in your Law, 'I have said you are gods'??(Psalm 82:6) 35 We know that Scripture is always true. God spoke to some people and called them 'gods.' 36 If that is true, what about the One the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why do you charge me with saying a very evil thing? Is it because I said, 'I am God's Son'?
Note that John is usually understood as the beloved disciple.
Then going on your evidence John claimed Jesus was the only son of god, but not Jesus himself.
If you want to take Christianity verbatim then we are all sons of god. Coincidently that's why we start our prayers with 'Farther'.
i'm not really seeing anything constructive here. all i am seeing is a lot of people ganging up on one persons beliefs with the same arguments ive seen a million times before.
there is a lot of people in this thread who should be throughly ashamed of themselves.
To be fair the person being ganged up on is more than holding his own! However, that said, I utterly agree with mile.
Due to the lower than expected ticket sales for the Pope tour of Britain, you can now buy the tickets online via ebay.... You can pay via papal..... Buddoom tisshh.
To be fair the person being ganged up on is more than holding his own! However, that said, I utterly agree with mile.
Dont think people are ganging up on ghbearman, fair play to him hes been replying well. But on the other hand as an atheist its a bit unfair if i'm not allowed to mention my non-beliefs.
Surely as an atheist i've got as much right as a religious person to put forward my side and why i think theres no god ? I find it unfair i have to go past churches where basically i'm told i'll go to hell if i dont believe in God, the second that atheist lot in London started putting up adverts saying 'come on , theres no god, get on with your life' they got into a lot of trouble. But its okay for the other side of the coin to put forward their argument ?
But the thread was always going to happen as the Pope coming over here is a huge story. Not every news item on TV has been pro-religion, they've also put forward the other side of the discussion.
Must admit i'm dreading when its December and the controversial name for 'that' time ;)
Dont think people are ganging up on ghbearman, fair play to him hes been replying well. But on the other hand as an atheist its a bit unfair if i'm not allowed to mention my non-beliefs.
Surely as an atheist i've got as much right as a religious person to put forward my side and why i think theres no god ? I find it unfair i have to go past churches where basically i'm told i'll go to hell if i dont believe in God, the second that atheist lot in London started putting up adverts saying 'come on , theres no god, get on with your life' they got into a lot of trouble. But its okay for the other side of the coin to put forward their argument ?
But the thread was always going to happen as the Pope coming over here is a huge story. Not every news item on TV has been pro-religion, they've also put forward the other side of the discussion.
Must admit i'm dreading when its December and the controversial name for 'that' time ;)
two wrongs don't make a right.
of course, i never remeber ghbearman starting a pro religion thread, it always seems to be atheists starting an anti religion thread.
maybe you should be taking your arguments into a church if your that annoyed.
Dont think people are ganging up on ghbearman, fair play to him hes been replying well. But on the other hand as an atheist its a bit unfair if i'm not allowed to mention my non-beliefs.
Surely as an atheist i've got as much right as a religious person to put forward my side and why i think theres no god ? I find it unfair i have to go past churches where basically i'm told i'll go to hell if i dont believe in God, the second that atheist lot in London started putting up adverts saying 'come on , theres no god, get on with your life' they got into a lot of trouble. But its okay for the other side of the coin to put forward their argument ?
But the thread was always going to happen as the Pope coming over here is a huge story. Not every news item on TV has been pro-religion, they've also put forward the other side of the discussion.
Believe me, I'm not a religious person in the slightest (and I agree fundamentally with a lot you've said above), and I'm more than happy for any believer/non-believer to have their say in the right place and time. It's just that I simply don't believe that the WOS forums should be the venue. We're a close-knit community on here and 99.99% of the time, 99.99% of the posters get on really well. There's nothing like a religious or political debate to fire up a whole load of disagreements and spark flame wars - hence why they're not allowed here.
I've had plenty of arguments about religion with my mate (who's very religious) in the pub, spouting much the same arguments and counter arguments seen here, and at the end of the day neither of us are going to alter each others beliefs. Same thing here.
Get what you mean, started a non-religion thread would be bad. But its just a big news story, the Pope coming to britain so its just gone from there.
true, and i don't have a problem with that kind of discussion. but for the last 3 or 4 pages, the pope's visit has hardly been mentioned. im not attacking the thread or what the OP wanted to talk about.
of course you really have to be some sort or simpleton to think that starting a thread about the pope wasn't going to turn into a thread about 'why i think religion is shit'
i would go so far as to call it trolling or looking to cause trouble. its why its in the guidlines. but as foggy pointed out those are just guidline and dont always have to be followed or stuck to.
(rebelstar is new though, so he wasn't to know. :p )
i would go so far as to call it trolling or looking to cause trouble. its why its in the guidlines.
If you want to start looking at the guidelines it also mentions being respectful to other people, regardless of their sexual orientation. Theres loads of negative words which could be considered homophobic or upsetting to anyone who is gay on Chit Chat.
We're a close-knit community on here and 99.99% of the time, 99.99% of the posters get on really well. There's nothing like a religious or political debate to fire up a whole load of disagreements and spark flame wars - hence why they're not allowed here.
Yeah good point. Was hoping it would be a half decent discussion as it is big big news about the Pope coming over. But yeah its a tough one as you kinda guess whats going to happen to threads like this.
If you want to start looking at the guidelines it also mentions being respectful to other people, regardless of their sexual orientation. Theres loads of negative words which could be considered homophobic or upsetting to anyone who is gay on Chit Chat.
i'd feel the same way if a gay fella was being ganged up on, or if there was page after page about why homosexuality is wrong.
When I was in USA, I started going to a baptist church..and it was wild fun. I got touched on the head, the devil cast out and the pastor was speaking in tongues to me! You got grub and stuff if you were poor. Everyone hugged you till you bled. You sang strange songs at the top of your voice. You were allowed to roll about on the floor. It was marvellous fun to be honest.
In UK, I'd NEVER contemplate going to a church. They need to Jazz it up and dump all gossipy old grannies first
I'm really impressed by this Pope since I watched his mass..he gives good mass. He's quite sincere sounding and soft spoken. I liked the Pope..he's got nothing on JPII however.
When I was in USA, I started going to a baptist church..and it was wild fun. I got touched on the head, the devil cast out and the pastor was speaking in tongues to me! You got grub and stuff if you were poor. Everyone hugged you till you bled. You sang strange songs at the top of your voice. You were allowed to roll about on the floor. It was marvellous fun to be honest.
That sounds more like pentecostal than baptist, I've been to baptist a few times and never seen anything like that going on...just sitting in the pews as per usual.
Were they waving rattlesnakes and speaking in tongues too?
That sounds more like pentecostal than baptist, I've been to baptist a few times and never seen anything like that going on...just sitting in the pews as per usual.
Were they waving rattlesnakes and speaking in tongues too?
Oh yeah, my mistake..it was Pentacostal. No snakes, but plenty speaking in tongues yes. Funny, Pentacostal doesn't do anything fun like that in UK. At least, not the two I went to, which were bore city.
Anyhoo, after a few trips to a south Florida Pentacostal church, I DEFFO felt the power of Jesus in me. It wore off quick when I came to UK though.
Seriously, I just did one of my incredibly rare sojourns into the city of Wolverhampton during lunch break and I swear there must be more freaks per square foot than any other place on earth. I counted two traffic stoppers (they hang around at sides of roads jumping out onto oncoming traffic I think just for the thrill of getting knocked down), the religious nutter telling everyone (v. loudly) they're going to burn in flames, two pimps, the cowboy and some pisshead masturbating in the busstop.
It was a relief to walk into Game and be around normal folk ;-)
Oops, reverse, reverse ! Think i've made a clanger.
Apologies, i thought ghbearman was roman catholic, looks like i was wrong.
i was a roman catholic up to the age of reason. i've defected from that organisation and hold a small amount of contempt for those who practise it. i guess the next time round i'll have to work harder on the hypocrisy.
The 7 days of the week were apparently nothing to do with Genesis originally; they were tributes to the seven wandering stars in the sky that the Greeks could see at the time. Monday (Moonday), Tuesday (mardi - marsday), Wednesday (mercredi - mercuryday), Thursday (Jeudi - Jupiterday), Friday (Vendredi - Venusday), Saturday (Saturnday) and Sunday.
Makes you thank your lucky stars the Greeks didn't discover Uranus...
funny i thought the greeks were all over the anus.
Not read through this thread yet, as it seems to be rather lengthy, but I'm just posting to say that I was in Edinburgh during the visit, and seen loads of people queuing up to see the Pope Party with their little Saltire flags....and I had to stop to let a bunch of Bishops pass by....but other than that I managed to completely miss it all !!
One thing I did notice though, is that despite being able to ever find a policeman when something gets stolen, broken into or punched up a bit, there seemed to have been some sort of cloning program put in place this week to produce enough to cover every possible entry point for assassins....They were even spread out along the railway track coming from East Lothian....
Anyhoo, the Pope and his friends seem to be a decent bunch...apart from a few hundred Saltires lying about the place, and a few metal barriers left strewn about the roads, they seemed to tidy up after themselves.....
I was brought up as a Catholic and it was always adamantly insisted by RE teachers that Jesus declared himself son of man not son of God.
Incidently, I consider myself a Catholic even though I don't believe in God in the slightest. Catholicism is more a community than a religious claptrap vehicle. That's what sets it apart, the tradition of community
um, torot, Son of Man is a divine title (recall how the Jewish leaders were offended when Jesus applied this to himself in his trial)
Hi gh.
I didn't know that, I was always taught that there was a definite distinction between son of man and son of God and we even had to do an essay about how Jesus resisted calling himself son of God.
I teach (not RE lol) at a Catholic school now and they are still the same. Maybe its a Catholic thing I don't know enough about the different versions of the scripture to comment really tbh.
The thing I don't get is though the idea that to be Catholic you have to believe in God. Not necessary, the abstract idea of Catholicism distills the idea of God out of the whole equation. Hence the term 'Catholic Mafia'
Why do athiests always bang on about God not stopping the wrongs of the world :(
Because it's a valid point. A God who was all good would not allow suffering to any degree - if he did then he could not be literally "all good". And God is infinitely good, according to His followers, so his goodness must therefore have no limits at all, and so there must be no suffering at all. And yet there is. The only way out of this paradox is to accept that God, if he exists at all, is not infinitely good, and if his followers are wrong on that point, then they can be wrong on any other.
We were supposedly made in his image and therefore allowed free will, so most of the wrong in the world is actually done by us, with that same free will, hence people can do evil or good, how can a God that has given us free will get involved without stripping us of that free will, I'm confused :(
He can't. But if he was infinitely good then he wouldn't have given us both free will and the ability to cause harm to ourselves and others, as it would lead to us suffering. Again, it's a myth that contradicts the facts (a good description of religious beliefs in general).
And we don't even have total free will either.
And no, I'm not religious, but do belive in a God and moreso Spirituality and sometimes wonder why quite constantly I see non Spiritual people attacking God
They don't. They attack religion. Religion and God are two entirely different things. God is the creator of all things, and may or may not exist. Religion is man made, and definitely does exist.
(I don't mind religion being attacked as "most" religions have nothing to do with the original message of the prophets, but don't like the idea of people reducing this world to nothing but solid matter and no spiritual dimension with no room for spirituality or a God or whatever you want to call it), all this talk of God Botherers and yet it's only ever the people who don't believe I ever see banging on :(
Then, with all due respect, you must have your eyes permanently closed. Have you never been called on either at home or in the street by the Jehovas Witnesses, or others? Yet you never get stopped by an atheist group? Religious groups trawl prisons, refuges, homeless people, etc, not to help them, but to recruit them into the "faith", where they will earn money and power for the leaders of that religion. Atheists don't do that.
Some religions force you to turn your back on those who don't share your beliefs. Yet agnostics don't do that.
And look how much money is wasted by religions on statues, churches/mosques/temples/etc, when Jesus never spent money on things like that. If they'd follow his lead then they'd give the money to charity, to the poor, to the homeless. Jesus never built a church or a temple, never put up a statue to anyone. Religions do. Yet atheists and agnostics don't.
Many of my mates are either atheist, or agnostic (I'm the latter), and we don't go around trying to convert people, or handing out leaflets, or otherwise making claims that contradict what we see with our own eyes. It's religion that does that.
The things wrong with the world are due to man. No one is going to save us from our sins. Its upto us alone. Religion brings wars and apathy in its followers. Spirituality gives you the incentive to be better, and do good.
You're missing the point on three counts:
1) Man is not responsible for all of the wrongs in the world. Man did not cause the Black Death, typhoid, cholera, cancer, birth defects, blindness, earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes, famine, drought, insanity, etc.
2) I agree that man is responsible for a large part of his own state, but if there is a God then God is responsible too, as he gave us the means and the desire to do evil.
If a man (forgive the horrible example, it is a real world example) takes a gun into a school and shoots and kills a lot of people then it's the man's fault, right? Of course. But if I'd have give him he gun, knowing what he was going to do with it, then I'd be just as responsible.
And if I somehow made that man evil and made him want to commit that hideous act in the first place then I, by extension, am evil too. And if God exists, is all powerful, and knows everything, then he created Adolph Hitler, Hindley and Brady, Jack the Ripper, and everyone else who ever committed evil, and he made them that way.
God is at least as responsible for man's evil as man is, perhaps far more so.
3) Even if you and I are right that man is responsible for his state, then that's only in the abstract. In reality a man is only responsbile for his own sins. Adolph Hitler might have been truly evil (no argument there from me), but no one could say that he was responsible for the first world war, or for the crimes of the Roman emperors, or for the African slave trade.
Yet in this world we suffer for the sins of others. How is that just?
But I blame the organised religions for deceiving the people.[/QUOTE]
Right. So even though he's abused his children abismally, you'd still blindly trust him. I honestly don't know if that's stupid or insane.
oh, but you've a strawman in your question - we cause much of the evil in the world, why are you blaming God when people misuse their free will?
Because God should not have given people free will, if it allowed them to hurt each other. God shows no responsibility at all. And it's not a "strawman" (please don't try to fudge the issue), it's a valid question that I ask.
now then, regarding God being all-powerful, would you be happy if God did intervene and protect the Pope - does this then force the issue and make you believe He exists? or do you prefer free will?
My belief or non-belief is regardless of whether or not I prefer free will. And how would I know if he did intervene?
However, you touch on a valid point. Even though I don't (at this moment) believe that you can prove or disprove that God exists, if proof were given that God exists then I would believe in him, yes. If the proof were conclusive, then I would believe in him. But that's the difference between the religious and the non-believers, isn't it? The non-believers tend to be a lot more open minded than the religious, who just refuse to see anythign that contradicts their viewpoint.
You might deny that, but answer me this; if proof were given that God does not exist, would you then stop believing in him? I realise that you might say that that proof does not exist (and I agree), but this is a hypothetical question. If proof were given that God does not exist, then would you stop believing in him?
Most religious people would say "no", thereby showing exactly how open to reason they are.
I do not have hard answers for the problem of evil, sorry. There are various theodicy theories, or there's deism if the problem is too much. I think atheism goes too far and does not adequately deal with e.g. the anthropic principle.
I agree. I think that atheists are as closed minded as those who believe in God. I honestly don't see how anyone can sanely claim to know if God exists or not.
will return later, not trying to avoid the questions. I'm just concerned about Martijn breathing down my neck...
I'm surprised this thread hasn't been closed yet, though I'm glad it's not, as it's interesting and very relevant - the issue of God and life after death is about the most relevant subject of all, surely?
By the way, GHBearman, I'm not having a go at you personally, and I respect your courage in standing up to so many people who oppose your views (and though I don't agree with you, I do respect the way you don't descend to abuse when outnumbered) it's just that I dislike the hypocrisy and dishonesty that (I honestly believe) permeates religion. It's not God I'm arguing against, it's the organised belief in God, by people who claim to know about him, but do not give any proof, and so often use the power their religious organisations give them to abuse and repress other human beings.
If Jesus came down to Earth tomorrow, then he's surely not be pleased at all with the major religious leaders, who are all (so far as I can see) filthy rich whilst a quarter of the world is literally starving to death.
Comments
a little bit of old miles is killed everytime there is a thread like this.
not much left of him i'm afraid. :-(
Then going on your evidence John claimed Jesus was the only son of god, but not Jesus himself.
If you want to take Christianity verbatim then we are all sons of god. Coincidently that's why we start our prayers with 'Farther'.
To be fair the person being ganged up on is more than holding his own! However, that said, I utterly agree with mile.
Dont think people are ganging up on ghbearman, fair play to him hes been replying well. But on the other hand as an atheist its a bit unfair if i'm not allowed to mention my non-beliefs.
Surely as an atheist i've got as much right as a religious person to put forward my side and why i think theres no god ? I find it unfair i have to go past churches where basically i'm told i'll go to hell if i dont believe in God, the second that atheist lot in London started putting up adverts saying 'come on , theres no god, get on with your life' they got into a lot of trouble. But its okay for the other side of the coin to put forward their argument ?
But the thread was always going to happen as the Pope coming over here is a huge story. Not every news item on TV has been pro-religion, they've also put forward the other side of the discussion.
Must admit i'm dreading when its December and the controversial name for 'that' time ;)
I don't case what anyone says, i'm calling it new years eve like i do every year!
two wrongs don't make a right.
of course, i never remeber ghbearman starting a pro religion thread, it always seems to be atheists starting an anti religion thread.
maybe you should be taking your arguments into a church if your that annoyed.
Are you going through cold turkey or something ? ;)
Believe me, I'm not a religious person in the slightest (and I agree fundamentally with a lot you've said above), and I'm more than happy for any believer/non-believer to have their say in the right place and time. It's just that I simply don't believe that the WOS forums should be the venue. We're a close-knit community on here and 99.99% of the time, 99.99% of the posters get on really well. There's nothing like a religious or political debate to fire up a whole load of disagreements and spark flame wars - hence why they're not allowed here.
I've had plenty of arguments about religion with my mate (who's very religious) in the pub, spouting much the same arguments and counter arguments seen here, and at the end of the day neither of us are going to alter each others beliefs. Same thing here.
Oh blimey yeah, that was a storm in a tea cup and a half ;-)
true, and i don't have a problem with that kind of discussion. but for the last 3 or 4 pages, the pope's visit has hardly been mentioned. im not attacking the thread or what the OP wanted to talk about.
of course you really have to be some sort or simpleton to think that starting a thread about the pope wasn't going to turn into a thread about 'why i think religion is shit'
i would go so far as to call it trolling or looking to cause trouble. its why its in the guidlines. but as foggy pointed out those are just guidline and dont always have to be followed or stuck to.
(rebelstar is new though, so he wasn't to know. :p )
*facepalms*
:razz:
If you want to start looking at the guidelines it also mentions being respectful to other people, regardless of their sexual orientation. Theres loads of negative words which could be considered homophobic or upsetting to anyone who is gay on Chit Chat.
Yeah good point. Was hoping it would be a half decent discussion as it is big big news about the Pope coming over. But yeah its a tough one as you kinda guess whats going to happen to threads like this.
i'd feel the same way if a gay fella was being ganged up on, or if there was page after page about why homosexuality is wrong.
is that relevant? will your replies be affected by that?
In UK, I'd NEVER contemplate going to a church. They need to Jazz it up and dump all gossipy old grannies first
I'm really impressed by this Pope since I watched his mass..he gives good mass. He's quite sincere sounding and soft spoken. I liked the Pope..he's got nothing on JPII however.
We knew that already..
That sounds more like pentecostal than baptist, I've been to baptist a few times and never seen anything like that going on...just sitting in the pews as per usual.
Were they waving rattlesnakes and speaking in tongues too?
Oh yeah, my mistake..it was Pentacostal. No snakes, but plenty speaking in tongues yes. Funny, Pentacostal doesn't do anything fun like that in UK. At least, not the two I went to, which were bore city.
Anyhoo, after a few trips to a south Florida Pentacostal church, I DEFFO felt the power of Jesus in me. It wore off quick when I came to UK though.
Much like the will to live... ;-)
Seriously, I just did one of my incredibly rare sojourns into the city of Wolverhampton during lunch break and I swear there must be more freaks per square foot than any other place on earth. I counted two traffic stoppers (they hang around at sides of roads jumping out onto oncoming traffic I think just for the thrill of getting knocked down), the religious nutter telling everyone (v. loudly) they're going to burn in flames, two pimps, the cowboy and some pisshead masturbating in the busstop.
It was a relief to walk into Game and be around normal folk ;-)
i was a roman catholic up to the age of reason. i've defected from that organisation and hold a small amount of contempt for those who practise it. i guess the next time round i'll have to work harder on the hypocrisy.
funny i thought the greeks were all over the anus.
One thing I did notice though, is that despite being able to ever find a policeman when something gets stolen, broken into or punched up a bit, there seemed to have been some sort of cloning program put in place this week to produce enough to cover every possible entry point for assassins....They were even spread out along the railway track coming from East Lothian....
Anyhoo, the Pope and his friends seem to be a decent bunch...apart from a few hundred Saltires lying about the place, and a few metal barriers left strewn about the roads, they seemed to tidy up after themselves.....
Incidently, I consider myself a Catholic even though I don't believe in God in the slightest. Catholicism is more a community than a religious claptrap vehicle. That's what sets it apart, the tradition of community
Hi gh.
I didn't know that, I was always taught that there was a definite distinction between son of man and son of God and we even had to do an essay about how Jesus resisted calling himself son of God.
I teach (not RE lol) at a Catholic school now and they are still the same. Maybe its a Catholic thing I don't know enough about the different versions of the scripture to comment really tbh.
The thing I don't get is though the idea that to be Catholic you have to believe in God. Not necessary, the abstract idea of Catholicism distills the idea of God out of the whole equation. Hence the term 'Catholic Mafia'
hercules - now he was son of a god.
Because it's a valid point. A God who was all good would not allow suffering to any degree - if he did then he could not be literally "all good". And God is infinitely good, according to His followers, so his goodness must therefore have no limits at all, and so there must be no suffering at all. And yet there is. The only way out of this paradox is to accept that God, if he exists at all, is not infinitely good, and if his followers are wrong on that point, then they can be wrong on any other.
He can't. But if he was infinitely good then he wouldn't have given us both free will and the ability to cause harm to ourselves and others, as it would lead to us suffering. Again, it's a myth that contradicts the facts (a good description of religious beliefs in general).
And we don't even have total free will either.
They don't. They attack religion. Religion and God are two entirely different things. God is the creator of all things, and may or may not exist. Religion is man made, and definitely does exist.
Then, with all due respect, you must have your eyes permanently closed. Have you never been called on either at home or in the street by the Jehovas Witnesses, or others? Yet you never get stopped by an atheist group? Religious groups trawl prisons, refuges, homeless people, etc, not to help them, but to recruit them into the "faith", where they will earn money and power for the leaders of that religion. Atheists don't do that.
Some religions force you to turn your back on those who don't share your beliefs. Yet agnostics don't do that.
And look how much money is wasted by religions on statues, churches/mosques/temples/etc, when Jesus never spent money on things like that. If they'd follow his lead then they'd give the money to charity, to the poor, to the homeless. Jesus never built a church or a temple, never put up a statue to anyone. Religions do. Yet atheists and agnostics don't.
Many of my mates are either atheist, or agnostic (I'm the latter), and we don't go around trying to convert people, or handing out leaflets, or otherwise making claims that contradict what we see with our own eyes. It's religion that does that.
You're missing the point on three counts:
1) Man is not responsible for all of the wrongs in the world. Man did not cause the Black Death, typhoid, cholera, cancer, birth defects, blindness, earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes, famine, drought, insanity, etc.
2) I agree that man is responsible for a large part of his own state, but if there is a God then God is responsible too, as he gave us the means and the desire to do evil.
If a man (forgive the horrible example, it is a real world example) takes a gun into a school and shoots and kills a lot of people then it's the man's fault, right? Of course. But if I'd have give him he gun, knowing what he was going to do with it, then I'd be just as responsible.
And if I somehow made that man evil and made him want to commit that hideous act in the first place then I, by extension, am evil too. And if God exists, is all powerful, and knows everything, then he created Adolph Hitler, Hindley and Brady, Jack the Ripper, and everyone else who ever committed evil, and he made them that way.
God is at least as responsible for man's evil as man is, perhaps far more so.
3) Even if you and I are right that man is responsible for his state, then that's only in the abstract. In reality a man is only responsbile for his own sins. Adolph Hitler might have been truly evil (no argument there from me), but no one could say that he was responsible for the first world war, or for the crimes of the Roman emperors, or for the African slave trade.
Yet in this world we suffer for the sins of others. How is that just?
But I blame the organised religions for deceiving the people.[/QUOTE]
Right. So even though he's abused his children abismally, you'd still blindly trust him. I honestly don't know if that's stupid or insane.
Because God should not have given people free will, if it allowed them to hurt each other. God shows no responsibility at all. And it's not a "strawman" (please don't try to fudge the issue), it's a valid question that I ask.
My belief or non-belief is regardless of whether or not I prefer free will. And how would I know if he did intervene?
However, you touch on a valid point. Even though I don't (at this moment) believe that you can prove or disprove that God exists, if proof were given that God exists then I would believe in him, yes. If the proof were conclusive, then I would believe in him. But that's the difference between the religious and the non-believers, isn't it? The non-believers tend to be a lot more open minded than the religious, who just refuse to see anythign that contradicts their viewpoint.
You might deny that, but answer me this; if proof were given that God does not exist, would you then stop believing in him? I realise that you might say that that proof does not exist (and I agree), but this is a hypothetical question. If proof were given that God does not exist, then would you stop believing in him?
Most religious people would say "no", thereby showing exactly how open to reason they are.
I agree. I think that atheists are as closed minded as those who believe in God. I honestly don't see how anyone can sanely claim to know if God exists or not.
I'm surprised this thread hasn't been closed yet, though I'm glad it's not, as it's interesting and very relevant - the issue of God and life after death is about the most relevant subject of all, surely?
By the way, GHBearman, I'm not having a go at you personally, and I respect your courage in standing up to so many people who oppose your views (and though I don't agree with you, I do respect the way you don't descend to abuse when outnumbered) it's just that I dislike the hypocrisy and dishonesty that (I honestly believe) permeates religion. It's not God I'm arguing against, it's the organised belief in God, by people who claim to know about him, but do not give any proof, and so often use the power their religious organisations give them to abuse and repress other human beings.
If Jesus came down to Earth tomorrow, then he's surely not be pleased at all with the major religious leaders, who are all (so far as I can see) filthy rich whilst a quarter of the world is literally starving to death.