I'd like to take a moment and say that I'm looking for a serious discussion; I've seen people get banned for having a different opinion here, it seems it's either, "I believe in God or screw you," here. If we could keep that away from this thread for alittle while, that would be great. Less ignorance and more open minds is helpful.
A quick note about myself, I was once a Lutheran but stopped believing, that's really all you need to know about me.
I suppose I want to go through the reasons I stopped believing in the first place, and get your opinions on them and have an open discussion about it. This thread's purpose isn't to "attack" your believes, I just want to here your side of it and maybe we'll all come out better people.
1. Evidence: I understand that Christianity is based around faith, by why is it that God makes it ENTIRELY by faith? We can't confirm the Bible is legitimate, even if we could prove Jesus existed we couldn't prove he performed miracles, there's simply nothing to prove his existence.
As a fairly intelligent person, I find taking only faith and no facts VERY hard. I am one of those people who, "need to see it to believe it." I can't help that, and because of this I will be damned to hell because I don't run off of pure faith?
2. Free will: God gave has free will; we can choose to break his commandments, and we don't have to believe he exists. At the same time, he knows the past, present, and future. What significance does free will have when he already knows everything? Wouldn't him not knowing and us being programmed to believe be the same as it is now?
3. Adam and Eve: Why is it, that out of all the possible trees, God chose to forbid them from eating from the tree of knowledge? If he doesn't want to control us, why limit our knowledge or be punished? Before they ate from the tree, they didn't "comprehend evil." Only after did they realize they were both naked, but wouldn't that mean that before they ate from the tree and knew good and bad they were essentially, "robots?"
4. Hell: Why would a caring and loving God allow anyone to be condemned there for all of eternity? I understand punishment is necessary, it's what convinces us to not make a repeated mistake as we truly know the consequences, but what can we possibly learn without a second chance? If we loose our faith by the time we die, why is it that we aren't punished as a reminder that he does indeed exist, and then allowed into heaven?
I have more questions, although I'd like to start with that (assuming I don't get infracted for thousands of points because my opinion is different then most of yours).
Remember, I'm not here trying to destroy your opinions or force mine on you. Like my username suggests, I'm just looking for the truth.
A quick note about myself, I was once a Lutheran but stopped believing, that's really all you need to know about me.
I suppose I want to go through the reasons I stopped believing in the first place, and get your opinions on them and have an open discussion about it. This thread's purpose isn't to "attack" your believes, I just want to here your side of it and maybe we'll all come out better people.
1. Evidence: I understand that Christianity is based around faith, by why is it that God makes it ENTIRELY by faith? We can't confirm the Bible is legitimate, even if we could prove Jesus existed we couldn't prove he performed miracles, there's simply nothing to prove his existence.
As a fairly intelligent person, I find taking only faith and no facts VERY hard. I am one of those people who, "need to see it to believe it." I can't help that, and because of this I will be damned to hell because I don't run off of pure faith?
2. Free will: God gave has free will; we can choose to break his commandments, and we don't have to believe he exists. At the same time, he knows the past, present, and future. What significance does free will have when he already knows everything? Wouldn't him not knowing and us being programmed to believe be the same as it is now?
3. Adam and Eve: Why is it, that out of all the possible trees, God chose to forbid them from eating from the tree of knowledge? If he doesn't want to control us, why limit our knowledge or be punished? Before they ate from the tree, they didn't "comprehend evil." Only after did they realize they were both naked, but wouldn't that mean that before they ate from the tree and knew good and bad they were essentially, "robots?"
4. Hell: Why would a caring and loving God allow anyone to be condemned there for all of eternity? I understand punishment is necessary, it's what convinces us to not make a repeated mistake as we truly know the consequences, but what can we possibly learn without a second chance? If we loose our faith by the time we die, why is it that we aren't punished as a reminder that he does indeed exist, and then allowed into heaven?
I have more questions, although I'd like to start with that (assuming I don't get infracted for thousands of points because my opinion is different then most of yours).
Remember, I'm not here trying to destroy your opinions or force mine on you. Like my username suggests, I'm just looking for the truth.

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