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Originally Posted by Christie
(Post 1112357)
Let me be clear: All I'm writing here are MY beliefs. I don't pretend to know God in all it's senses. All you see here written by me is MY point of view.
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Unfortunately, your point of view has no evidence to support it. The God you believe in is not the God of the Bible; he is not the God of any sacred text of any religion that I'm aware of. Therefore, your God is merely a product of your imagination. Like an imaginary friend that you make up when you feel bullied by other kids in school.
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As you may have a view of God, I may have mine.
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I have read enough about different religions to respect different views; unfortunately, these same studies have weakened my own faith, but that is something I hope to repair. However, the difference between you and, let's say, the !Kung people of the Kalahari desert, is that they have an oral tradition which reasserts them that their view of the supernatural is correct. You, on the other side, have nothing: no written text, no oral tradition.
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But it there's something I'm sure of, is that the Bible is full of lies.
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Your intuition may or may not be correct, but I would need you to provide some actual evidence to support that claim. I mean, you wouldn't want me to follow what you say just because you say it is correct, right? :)
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Maybe at some point it has a bit of the truth, but the rest of it is just a lie made up because back then there was not so many sources of knowledge.
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I think you underestimate ancient peoples. They had the same sources of knowledge as we have today: empirical experimentation. The scientific method was known basically since people first started using herbs for medicines.
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I find your analogy pretty interesting, but I feel something is missing. Father A is not a witness of torturing and killing only. He is also a witness to the good little things people do to help the others by THEMSELVES. No one told them to be kind, there are people who never read the Bible, but are ready to sacrifice their time to help the others.
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The key word here is "little." I guess it must be easy to believe in a benevolent God as you do, when you spend your life in your happy gated community, where police doesn't shoot every black man because there are no black people, and where homeless people are not allowed to enter, and where you benefit from slavery and not suffer from it. Unfortunately, only a tiny percentage of humanity lives that luxurious life. Most people suffer in life, and see the world as it is: an ugly, unjust, cruel place. In this world - the cruel, unjust world in which 99% of humanity live - God of the Bible makes much more sense than the nice God that you imagine.
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He is a witness of people learning to accept the other people, no matter if they're black, white, jewish, because sinners or not, we are ALL his creation and we are ALL related as siblings in His eyes.
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Well, maybe in your circles having "a black friend" is a great accomplishment for humanity, but actually, the world as a whole is not more just than it was during the Second World War. It is not more just than it was during the slave trade to the Americas. It is not more just than it was during the Black Plague. It is definitely less just than it was before the emergence of sedentary stratified societies.
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Father A also watches animals getting saved by people everyday,
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And countless others being tortured by people everyday. Have you ever seen an ASPCA commercial?
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and animals saving people also.
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He also created sharks, grizzly bears, and countless other predators that see humans as lunch.
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He is not standing there, entertaining the torture and kill some of us have to endure.
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If He doesn't like it, then why does He allow it? And correction: it is not "some of us" but "a big chunk of humanity." Again, please try to understand that not all people on this earth were born with a silver spoon. Most of us actually have to work in order to survive. If you are unfamiliar with the verb "to work," you can check in a dictionary.
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Now, talking about Father B... I have to say that I'd rather have a father who gives me no directions than giving me the cruelest ones. And much more, if I don't respect His cruel rules, I'm gong to burn in Hell for eternity. At least, someone who is murdered in the case of Father A will have his or her soul into God's arms and will never have to suffer again.
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Oh, come on, are you actually trying to shovel that crap into my mouth, thinking that you will convince me that it is caviar?
Please try to be logical: since your God doesn't give any rules to play the game of life, that means that there is no hell or heaven. No reward, no punishment. Otherwise, your God would be really unjust: I mean, can you imagine being eternally punished for loosing in a game which rules you don't know?
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In the case of Father B though, if you don't respect things like letting your daughter be raped & impregnating her by yourself, you're not a respectable human being and do not deserve a place in Heaven. Really, Father B is a really gruesome guy in my opinion.
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Well, He is less unjust than a God who allows people to play a game of life without giving us the rules, and then punishing those who fail to follow these rules.
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I think I answered some of your questions while discussing the analogy, if you read carefully you'll find them.
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Thank you for your kindness. I hope, though, that my answers will allow you to look beyond your sheltered, priviledged life, and see the world as it really is.
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I don't think the God I know is the cruelest of all. A God who accepts all His children,
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Including serial killers? :wacko:
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no matter what religion /
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Even though most religions say that all the others are wrong?
Even though most of the world's dominant religions see only one normal orientation, and define all others as deviant?
Even though most of the religions of the world have been used to justify discrimination and exploitation?
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etc etc is not cruel. A God who tells you you're gonna burn in Hell for not 'killing' the other people that aren't like you is a cruel God.
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And God who allows people to burn other people alive isn't a cruel God?
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You see evolution as a cold and damned thing. I see evolution as a way of God to relate us to His other creations, to make connections between us and the outside world.
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Please learn what evolution means before you make statements about evolution. Major mechanisms of evolution include natural selection and mutation. The first is commonly known as "survival of the fittest," and while it is an oversimplification, it does include the notion that the weak ones die off early. Mutation, on the other hand, is a completely random process, in which most mutations are useless, a small percentage is actually useful for something, and an equally small percentage causes the individual to get very sick and die early. The worst mutants die off in the first week after conception - yes, women miscarry much more often than they realize.
Why God would use such a slow, cruel and inefficient - from an all-powerful being's point of view - way of creating life, is beyond the scope of my understanding.
