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Consistent in your cheap arguments, farva. Can't be bothered to ever make an effort when you can just dismiss everything by insinuating that others are stupid.
you argue that I'm making assumptions, but the thing is I'm forced to because you intentionally write minimalist BS to avoid being cornered.
You dismiss everything with the back of your hand and I'm convinced that there's some kind of psychological mechanism in your head that makes you not even realize how dishonest you are and it feeds that weak little ego of yours and makes you feel like you're actually doing this like a respectable person.
So spot on it's scary.
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Everyone uses guides, even smart people. That was my only point. As to my reticence in going more in depth, that mostly has to do with how many times posters such as yourself use words like "trash" and "cheap" in a thread full to the brim with one word insults. I'd rather just agree to disagree and maintain that these discussions can be had without cheap shots, but maybe that's just optimism.
At least you got JD in your corner 
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On October 14 2013 03:54 farvacola wrote:Everyone uses guides, even smart people. That was my only point. As to my reticence in going more in depth, that mostly has to do with how many times posters such as yourself use words like "trash" and "cheap" in a thread full to the brim with one word insults. I'd rather just agree to disagree and maintain that these discussions can be had without cheap shots, but maybe that's just optimism. At least you got JD in your corner
Guides like what, my mom, my previous knowledge, the various people who affect my life? The first person who used "guide" meant that smart people don't need God. Now, I don't necessarily agree with the way he said it, but when you say "everyone uses guides", it's vague as hell, considering the meaning of "guide" that was first used in this thread.
As for your criticism of my use of the words "trash" and "cheap", don't forget, you hypocrite, that you have called me an ignorant out of the gate, TWICE in recent weeks, without ever explaining why my positions were that of an ignorant. You make no arguments, you made statements of belief and you insulted my intelligence without ever giving us any reason to think you've got any credibility on any matter whatsoever.
I wouldn't insult you, I would try to pick at your brain and I would try to understand you - but you kicked in the door insulting me, and now I'm doing what I can with the little information you're willing to give me. I specifically asked you to tell me what you meant by "guide" and you give me an answer that's even more confusing than before.
I can't even agree to disagree because I don't know what you even think besides the very surface, the only part of you that you haven't been able to completely hide with general language and the general "shitting all over the chess board and declaring victory" persona. I'm willing to be done because this won't lead to anything but I hope that people know what you're doing on these forums :/
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Yes, I am too quick to use words like ignorant, but can you at least understand why someone might be quick with that language given the way threads like this develop? Most people coming to drop one word insults have already made up their mind, and then when I read statements like, "relatively few Christians go out of their way to share love.", it is difficult to avoid mocking such a thing. Ascertaining the behaviors of a group so large enough to decide where relativity lies is practically impossible, as is putting forth an essential representation of Christianity. The nature of the internet and media only makes this harder; it is very easy to forget who is working in the soup kitchen when all one sees are Westboro Baptists and anti-gay, anti-women religious conservatives. It is far better, and safer, to say that Christians do both bad and good things and that it would be best for the "good" Christians to do their part in reeling in the harmful ideas of fundamentalism and the like.
It is along these lines that my unadorned "Christians aren't necessarily like that" statements are motivated; it is in the interest of those who want Christianity to mean love to remind those outside of the Christian spectrum that those who speak most loudly and are most visible are not the rule, and that the "rule" as to what constitutes a Christian is being fought over on a daily basis, very much like how Republicans are now divided and fighting over exactly what it is their party stands for.
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That's fair. I do hope, however, that by now you understand that when I said "relatively few Christians go out of their way to share love.", I essentially meant that Christians are no more loving than the rest of us. As a general rule, people in general, Christians included, are pretty self-centered. I did not mean to say that Christians are exceptionally bad or anything like that.
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Well considering that I do not count as a legitimate Christian in the eyes of many other Christian doctrines, I do not disagree with that at all. That's what makes this all pretty ironic.
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On October 14 2013 04:01 Djzapz wrote:
"shitting all over the chess board and declaring victory"
I would concede defeat if someone did that, no joke, it's how Deep Blue defeated Kasperov.
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On October 11 2013 03:18 packrat386 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 11 2013 02:52 woreyour wrote:On October 11 2013 02:03 packrat386 wrote:
By the way, if you could somehow arrive at a proof that there is no god using only our assumptions about the nature of god and formal logic you could have a faculty position at any philosophy dept in the country Again, you don't need to prove it because your not the one claiming something  If you still don't see why I'm not the one claiming something then you really aren't getting the concept of faith. Christianity never claims to KNOW that god exists, only that they believe and that they have been told by others. Let me offer an analogy for why your argument is the one that requires proof. Let us consider the case of the existence of intelligent life in the Andromeda galaxy. It seems that there is no logical argument for why such life could not exist and that there is no logical argument for why such life must exist. We also lack the ability to gather data on whether such life exists because none of our instruments have that capability. Therefore if someone were to come and tell you that they believed that intelligent life did exist (or did not exist) in the Andromeda galaxy, how could you claim that they are wrong? Logic and empirics are powerful tools, but there exist problems of a very slippery nature such that neither is sufficient to resolve it.
what is probable can be posible. Someone or someday, proof would be provided. Maybe not today, maybe on the near future. But if you want proof for the talking burning bush then it is just hard. Aliens can be more viable than imaginary friends.
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On October 14 2013 23:04 woreyour wrote:Show nested quote +On October 11 2013 03:18 packrat386 wrote:On October 11 2013 02:52 woreyour wrote:On October 11 2013 02:03 packrat386 wrote:
By the way, if you could somehow arrive at a proof that there is no god using only our assumptions about the nature of god and formal logic you could have a faculty position at any philosophy dept in the country Again, you don't need to prove it because your not the one claiming something If you still don't see why I'm not the one claiming something then you really aren't getting the concept of faith. Christianity never claims to KNOW that god exists, only that they believe and that they have been told by others. Let me offer an analogy for why your argument is the one that requires proof. Let us consider the case of the existence of intelligent life in the Andromeda galaxy. It seems that there is no logical argument for why such life could not exist and that there is no logical argument for why such life must exist. We also lack the ability to gather data on whether such life exists because none of our instruments have that capability. Therefore if someone were to come and tell you that they believed that intelligent life did exist (or did not exist) in the Andromeda galaxy, how could you claim that they are wrong? Logic and empirics are powerful tools, but there exist problems of a very slippery nature such that neither is sufficient to resolve it. what is probable can be posible. Someone or someday, proof would be provided. Maybe not today, maybe on the near future. But if you want proof for the talking burning bush then it is just hard. Aliens can be more viable than imaginary friends.
Uh but all powerful is self-contradictory?! think about the "creating a rock so heavy he can't lift it" paradox, which can be generalized to "create a task you cannot solve".
If there is a "solution" to this without going "meta" like: god created logic/is all powerful therefore he is not bound to it etc. . . please let me know.
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On October 10 2013 01:00 Rodberd wrote:
besides anti-gay, judgemental,hypocritical,hateful, condescending and excluding?
i think narrow-minded hits it quite well...
[add the normal stuff like, "think they have the only and all-solving belive" "their god is the greatest" "there is no other thing" "explain science than? cant? HA we won" or "evolution is crap" here]
Could it be that these opinions of yours have just formed recently? Really sorry for you loss.
Coincidentally, the preacher said yesterday that the thing nonbelievers know most about Christians are the things we are not allowed to do.
Describing christians in one word? Human. (props to Zetter) Sadly it looks like many of our armchair keyboard computerscreen philosophasters can't even state the very obvious/think outside the box and go for the average instead.
Like this very classic example:
On October 15 2013 02:59 Hryul wrote:
Uh but all powerful is self-contradictory?! think about the "creating a rock so heavy he can't lift it" paradox, which can be generalized to "create a task you cannot solve".
If there is a "solution" to this without going "meta" like: god created logic/is all powerful therefore he is not bound to it etc. . . please let me know.
An answer without metashit?
Just teleport the rock on the moon where gravity is much lower, then I think even God may be able to do it.
On October 11 2013 01:54 corumjhaelen wrote:Show nested quote +On October 11 2013 01:48 woreyour wrote:On October 11 2013 01:34 IronManSC wrote:On October 11 2013 01:29 woreyour wrote:On October 11 2013 01:15 packrat386 wrote:On October 11 2013 01:11 woreyour wrote:On October 10 2013 21:38 MarlieChurphy wrote:I find op to be spot on and hilariously ironic. As for me, it would be pretty hard to choose one word to describe Christians, and don't be so contrived to think I have a different word for christians as I do for muslims or catholics or whatever. I'd use the same word. Probably something like nutjobs, idiots, ignorant, etc. yea this: On October 10 2013 02:23 Salv wrote:If I could use one word to describe the majority of Christians I would choose ignorant. I think there are far too many Christians who are unaware of: - Their own Bible.
- Evolution
- Abiogenesis
- Scientific theory
- Fallacies
That's not to suggest all Christians are like this though and as an atheist from a semi-religious family I understand where some people are coming from when describing their faith. I've actually been christian, catholic, mormon, baptist and been to other churches as well. My parents did a great job (unwittingly) making me understand that all these people are basically speaking the same crazy language but arguing semantics. It's all just nonsense. They should actually force kids in elemntary schools to be a different religion each year and it would produce a lot more intelligent athiests imho. I think it was Penn Jillette who said that when he read the bible it served as a catalyst to make him more atheist. I mean a lot of the stuff in there is on some fantasy fiction novel level. PS- Does anyone else think the semantic issue of being called 'athiest' versus 'an atheist' is an important distinction? 'An athiest' sort of implies you practice some anti religion rules or go to athiest group meetings. 'Atheist' is just like nobody knows or will know so idgaf. So like if someone asks you like; "What church do you go to?", you would reply with "I'm atheist." and leave it at that. Where as an atheist would be more sort of militant about it and say something like; "I'm an atheist, you believe in that crap?" they have this new term, "Religious Activist" or "Anti-Theist" for that I think. Yeah I am becoming one of those guys coming from just not believing in "god". I really think it is time we inform and push back as some people are just guillible and they need some people to explain or reason out with them to really make them realize for themselves. Please enlighten us all with your logical proof that there is not a god. You can't "inform" people about something for which no conclusions can be drawn from the evidence that we have well lucky me, for a few seconds I snag a believer Alright, here we go! As I atheist, the burden of proof is not with me as I am not claiming somthing. I just dont believe in a "god". So tell me what is your proof or claim and it would be my pleasure to enlighten you. Shall we dance? Why is there no God? What proof do you have? Cwutididthere haha yup clever. When they go that route I would like to give an analogy to better explain what they are trying to cook up. like say in a trial, we are not there to prove that person A did NOT kill person B. We are there to prove if person A is guilty of killing person B. The question is : is your analogy half as smart as you think you are ? Aren't you arbitrarily deciding that this is how things work ? Or in other word, is someone going to cite Bertrand Russell, or are we going to go directly to Dawkins and the like ? Am I going to convert to the cult of Quetzacoatl out of despair in my fellow atheists ?
Falsification>Burden of Proof I realised recently. Or in other words, if I have to prove that there is an invisible teapot in space and I fail to bring up evidence for the teapot(*), as opposite it doesn't necessarily follow that there is no teapot, the opposite also could be that the teapot is inverted, and why even think in terms of negations and contraries? A single non-existant teapot doesn't negate all other hypothetical teapot swirling around in space. (not the definition of falsification, more like why burden of proof sucks ass)
(*)And additionally, absence of evidence does not imply asfrwrwjgjsagjasgh u know what i mean
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The word that best describes Christianity in 1 word is fear. The entire religion is based on fear of heaven/hell. All religions have something they're based on though.
Christianity, Fear
Buddhism, Suffering
Judaism, Forgiveness
Every religion has it's thing. Most of the traits like anti-gay or judgemental stem from his core value. You can take that core value & make it a positive or a negative. Sadly most people go with a negative because it's easier
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Christianity is not about fear lol. We fear God, but not in its negative sense. We don't fear God as being scary, but we know who he is and what he is capable of. We fear his power. We fear hell because we know how sinful and human we are, just like everybody else, and we know that God determines our destiny. While God is just, he is also gracious, merciful, and abounding in love, and a lot of people forget those things about God. The Christian life is about living by faith. Many people say we have a "blind faith," but faith is only as good as the object you place it in. We place our faith and hope in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died for our sins and rose again and will come back again someday.
I can see why a lot of people hate Christians and view them as being ignorant, stubborn, close-minded, and all the other hateful words you can think of, but there is a true Christian faith on this earth, and that faith in Jesus is not of this world. Granted it is hard to come by genuine, faithful believers who are loving and forgiving and all, but seeing how many divisions and cults there are in Christianity as a whole (and bible thumpers, "you're going to hell" type people, and all that) only shows how persistent Satan is to derail people and keep them away from the one true, living God. Satan's objective is to confuse the faith and appear wonderful and right, but somewhere he will twist words and/or beliefs. As long as Satan keeps you away from Jesus, his love and forgiveness, in some way or form, he's happy. That's why there are a lot of weird or scary believers out there. It's a spiritual strategy to keep people away from coming to Jesus.
But, bear in mind that not all people in these groups are necessarily non-believers. Every believer at some point will struggle on some level of being a "light that shines before men." We may be too harsh, too judgmental, or too direct and can come off as any of the names listed previously in this thread. This is why we can't judge people because only God knows the heart.
I've been to plenty of churches over the years and most of them are very nice, friendly, welcoming, and wonderful people who pray for you and get to know you. A lot of the messages are great too. But i've also been to churches where people barely notice you at all after several months of attendance (because there's so many people there). Don't get me wrong, but it appears that people generally talk like they've walked into a church and someone cursed them or tried to convert them on the spot and now we're this evil group of people... and honestly i've never heard or seen such a thing. I don't know, I think you just have to go to the right church. Don't stop at just one or two churches, go to multiple.
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On October 15 2013 05:33 IronManSC wrote:
Christianity is not about fear lol. We fear God, but not in its negative sense. We don't fear God as being scary, but we know who he is and what he is capable of. We fear his power. We fear hell because we know how sinful and human we are, just like everybody else, and we know that God determines our destiny.
Pretty sure fear is correct actually. Don't do that you'll go to hell. You're sinful, your behavior is disgusting, you'll go to hell. Repent or suffer for eternity. It scares the "fag" out of people it it forces others to maintain their belief out of fear. FEAR is what got people to continue to "believe"
While God is just, he is also gracious, merciful, and abounding in love, and a lot of people forget those things about God. The Christian life is about living by faith. Many people say we have a "blind faith," but faith is only as good as the object you place it in. We place our faith and hope in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died for our sins and rose again and will come back again someday.
Just: Inegality is abound. Where's the justice? There's no justice on Earth. There's no justice in determining who goes to hell and who goes to heaven (assuming only believers go to heaven). And if you think there's justice in Heaven, well that's just what you believe.
Gracious: God is gracious, God is gracious they say. That's just one of the words from the list of words they use.
Merciful: Binary system decides who goes to hell and who goes to heaven. A single factor.
Love: Genocide (committed by God himself in the bible and by humans in reality), plagues and disease in general, suffering, etc.
Even if I believed in a God, especially if I believed him to be omniscient and omnipotent, I couldn't possibly convince myself that said creator is just, merciful and loving (and I won't even consider "graceful" because that's meaningless). If the biblical God exists, he's way too full of himself to be considered "loving" or "good", he's way too harsh about the punishment of non-believers to be considered "merciful".
So you say that you don't "fear" god, you're not truly afraid. If that's so, why are you praising a profoundly immoral God? Fear. Unadulterated fear of hell.
And I'm basing this on interpretations of the Bible that you may not agree with personally IronManSC, but that'd put you in some sort of minority opinion regarding the scripture.
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On October 15 2013 05:49 Djzapz wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 05:33 IronManSC wrote:
Christianity is not about fear lol. We fear God, but not in its negative sense. We don't fear God as being scary, but we know who he is and what he is capable of. We fear his power. We fear hell because we know how sinful and human we are, just like everybody else, and we know that God determines our destiny. Pretty sure fear is correct actually. Don't do that you'll go to hell. You're sinful, your behavior is disgusting, you'll go to hell. Repent or suffer for eternity. It scares the "fag" out of people it it forces others to maintain their belief out of fear. FEAR is what got people to continue to "believe" Show nested quote +While God is just, he is also gracious, merciful, and abounding in love, and a lot of people forget those things about God. The Christian life is about living by faith. Many people say we have a "blind faith," but faith is only as good as the object you place it in. We place our faith and hope in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died for our sins and rose again and will come back again someday. Just: Inegality is abound. Where's the justice? There's no justice on Earth. There's no justice in determining who goes to hell and who goes to heaven (assuming only believers go to heaven). And if you think there's justice in Heaven, well that's just what you believe. Gracious: God is gracious, God is gracious they say. That's just one of the words from the list of words they use. Merciful: Binary system decides who goes to hell and who goes to heaven. A single factor. Love: Genocide (committed by God himself in the bible and by humans in reality), plagues and disease in general, suffering, etc. Even if I believed in a God, especially if I believed him to be omniscient and omnipotent, I couldn't possibly convince myself that said creator is just, merciful and loving (and I won't even consider "graceful" because that's meaningless). If the biblical God exists, he's way too full of himself to be considered "loving" or "good", he's way too harsh about the punishment of non-believers to be considered "merciful". So you say that you don't "fear" god, you're not truly afraid. If that's so, why are you praising a profoundly immoral God? Fear. Unadulterated fear of hell. And I'm basing this on interpretations of the Bible that you may not agree with personally IronManSC, but that'd put you in some sort of minority opinion regarding the scripture.
Yes, there is a "fear" to it, but we don't live in fear as you assume. When we fear hell, it's because we recognize our sinfulness and rebellion against God. God made us perfect in the beginning. WE turned our backs on him, and we deserve to be punished for it. When we come to Jesus and recognize our sinful nature and our hopeless spiritual state we're in, we fear hell because we ultimately know that we would be separated from God forever. We are not the way God made us to be and that was our choice, not his. So yes, there is fear, but again, we don't live in fear after accepting Jesus because he regenerates you. He takes away your fear of death and hell and assures you that you are his, and when you accept Jesus personally, there is nothing that can separate his love from you.
God does not force us to obey him or worship him. He wants us to genuinely choose to love him and follow him. If we were forced to obey then either the entire world would be hardcore Christianity (or basically 'faith robots'), or we'd all be extinct because of our natural inclination to run away from God and be our own god of our lives. The fact that we wake up every day and continue to breath is in itself a mercy that God gives to all of us; another day of life, another chance to repent and turn to him.
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On October 15 2013 05:59 IronManSC wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 05:49 Djzapz wrote:On October 15 2013 05:33 IronManSC wrote:
Christianity is not about fear lol. We fear God, but not in its negative sense. We don't fear God as being scary, but we know who he is and what he is capable of. We fear his power. We fear hell because we know how sinful and human we are, just like everybody else, and we know that God determines our destiny. Pretty sure fear is correct actually. Don't do that you'll go to hell. You're sinful, your behavior is disgusting, you'll go to hell. Repent or suffer for eternity. It scares the "fag" out of people it it forces others to maintain their belief out of fear. FEAR is what got people to continue to "believe" While God is just, he is also gracious, merciful, and abounding in love, and a lot of people forget those things about God. The Christian life is about living by faith. Many people say we have a "blind faith," but faith is only as good as the object you place it in. We place our faith and hope in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died for our sins and rose again and will come back again someday. Just: Inegality is abound. Where's the justice? There's no justice on Earth. There's no justice in determining who goes to hell and who goes to heaven (assuming only believers go to heaven). And if you think there's justice in Heaven, well that's just what you believe. Gracious: God is gracious, God is gracious they say. That's just one of the words from the list of words they use. Merciful: Binary system decides who goes to hell and who goes to heaven. A single factor. Love: Genocide (committed by God himself in the bible and by humans in reality), plagues and disease in general, suffering, etc. Even if I believed in a God, especially if I believed him to be omniscient and omnipotent, I couldn't possibly convince myself that said creator is just, merciful and loving (and I won't even consider "graceful" because that's meaningless). If the biblical God exists, he's way too full of himself to be considered "loving" or "good", he's way too harsh about the punishment of non-believers to be considered "merciful". So you say that you don't "fear" god, you're not truly afraid. If that's so, why are you praising a profoundly immoral God? Fear. Unadulterated fear of hell. And I'm basing this on interpretations of the Bible that you may not agree with personally IronManSC, but that'd put you in some sort of minority opinion regarding the scripture. Yes, there is a "fear" to it, but we don't live in fear as you assume. When we fear hell, it's because we recognize our sinfulness and rebellion against God. God made us perfect in the beginning. WE turned our backs on him, and we deserve to be punished for it.
Why? Why is it so bad? I can turn my back on anybody who wrongs me even if they previously were nice. It's only bad because you're told it's bad to turn our backs to God, even though he doesn't care enough to give the people of Earth a good livinghood. Why would I not turn my back on him when he flooded Earth and killed everybody in the bible, and lets a bunch of people die even today?
You'd never be willing to accept that God should be able to let people die cruel deaths like those if you weren't conditioned to think it's normal for a merciful, loving God to let little kids starve in Africa. What's the excuse, we're "sinful" so it's fine? Come on.
God does not force us to obey him or worship him. He wants us to genuinely choose to love him and follow him.
So essentially the argument is "you don't HAVE to obey... but you'll go to hell". He genuinely wants us to make that choice, right. Like nobody's hand is being forced at all here. Nope!
If we were forced to obey then either the entire world would be hardcore Christianity (or basically 'faith robots'), or we'd all be extinct because of our natural inclination to run away from God and be our own god of our lives. The fact that we wake up every day and continue to breath is in itself a mercy that God gives to all of us; another day of life, another chance to repent and turn to him.
Woa calm down now, you jump to conclusions. If we were forced to obey, God, who btw is all-powerful, could make us obey. And since he's loving and merciful, we wouldn't have to run or be afraid, because we'd all be cool with him. And given his love and mercy, he'd be cool with us.
He wouldn't spend so much time being angry at how inadequate we, his creation, are.
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On October 15 2013 06:18 Djzapz wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2013 05:59 IronManSC wrote:On October 15 2013 05:49 Djzapz wrote:On October 15 2013 05:33 IronManSC wrote:
Christianity is not about fear lol. We fear God, but not in its negative sense. We don't fear God as being scary, but we know who he is and what he is capable of. We fear his power. We fear hell because we know how sinful and human we are, just like everybody else, and we know that God determines our destiny. Pretty sure fear is correct actually. Don't do that you'll go to hell. You're sinful, your behavior is disgusting, you'll go to hell. Repent or suffer for eternity. It scares the "fag" out of people it it forces others to maintain their belief out of fear. FEAR is what got people to continue to "believe" While God is just, he is also gracious, merciful, and abounding in love, and a lot of people forget those things about God. The Christian life is about living by faith. Many people say we have a "blind faith," but faith is only as good as the object you place it in. We place our faith and hope in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died for our sins and rose again and will come back again someday. Just: Inegality is abound. Where's the justice? There's no justice on Earth. There's no justice in determining who goes to hell and who goes to heaven (assuming only believers go to heaven). And if you think there's justice in Heaven, well that's just what you believe. Gracious: God is gracious, God is gracious they say. That's just one of the words from the list of words they use. Merciful: Binary system decides who goes to hell and who goes to heaven. A single factor. Love: Genocide (committed by God himself in the bible and by humans in reality), plagues and disease in general, suffering, etc. Even if I believed in a God, especially if I believed him to be omniscient and omnipotent, I couldn't possibly convince myself that said creator is just, merciful and loving (and I won't even consider "graceful" because that's meaningless). If the biblical God exists, he's way too full of himself to be considered "loving" or "good", he's way too harsh about the punishment of non-believers to be considered "merciful". So you say that you don't "fear" god, you're not truly afraid. If that's so, why are you praising a profoundly immoral God? Fear. Unadulterated fear of hell. And I'm basing this on interpretations of the Bible that you may not agree with personally IronManSC, but that'd put you in some sort of minority opinion regarding the scripture. Yes, there is a "fear" to it, but we don't live in fear as you assume. When we fear hell, it's because we recognize our sinfulness and rebellion against God. God made us perfect in the beginning. WE turned our backs on him, and we deserve to be punished for it. Why? Why is it so bad? I can turn my back on anybody who wrongs me even if they previously were nice. It's only bad because you're told it's bad to turn our backs to God, even though he doesn't care enough to give the people of Earth a good livinghood. Why would I not turn my back on him when he flooded Earth and killed everybody in the bible, and lets a bunch of people die even today? You'd never be willing to accept that God should be able to let people die cruel deaths like those if you weren't conditioned to think it's normal for a merciful, loving God to let little kids starve in Africa. What's the excuse, we're "sinful" so it's fine? Come on. Show nested quote +God does not force us to obey him or worship him. He wants us to genuinely choose to love him and follow him. So essentially the argument is "you don't HAVE to obey... but you'll go to hell". He genuinely wants us to make that choice, right. Like nobody's hand is being forced at all here. Nope! Show nested quote +If we were forced to obey then either the entire world would be hardcore Christianity (or basically 'faith robots'), or we'd all be extinct because of our natural inclination to run away from God and be our own god of our lives. The fact that we wake up every day and continue to breath is in itself a mercy that God gives to all of us; another day of life, another chance to repent and turn to him. Woa calm down now, you jump to conclusions. If we were forced to obey, God, who btw is all-powerful, could make us obey. And since he's loving and merciful, we wouldn't have to run or be afraid, because we'd all be cool with him. And given his love and mercy, he'd be cool with us. He wouldn't spend so much time being angry at how inadequate we, his creation, are.
See, here's the thing. A lot of people think God either hates you and slaughters you for not listening to him, or he controls you and doesn't let you live the way you want. We have to understand why Jesus died on the cross for our sins (yours and mine alike).
God made us perfect and holy and in his image. We were made to be in relationship with God and to reflect his qualities and love. But... we wanted to live life on our own, thus sin came into the world and infected us all. According to the Bible, the wages of sin is death. Because God is holy and just, he cannot allow sin to go on forever or live with it.
So, knowing how sinful we are, God had a plan in mind to send Jesus, the sinless Son of God (also named Lamb of God) to be a substitute for us. In the Old Testament, people sacrificed animals to atone for their sins as a substitute, which God accepted, in place of their own bodies. The blood atones, and they had to do this quite frequently. This was symbolic in the Old Testament and points to Jesus, who would come to die for us. Jesus, who was sinless, and is God himself, represented all of humanity and took the sins of the world upon himself. He shed his blood for us. That is why we look to Jesus for forgiveness from sins we commit, because he is holy and blameless and gave his life as a ransom. He took the death and punishment that we should have. Because he was blameless and sinless, he was the only one qualified to die for sins once and for all. We no longer have to offer sacrifices for our sins, we can freely and boldly go to Jesus and ask for forgiveness "in Jesus' name."
So one may say that Christians still sin, and it is true, we do. However, when we accept Jesus, his sacrifice, and know who he is, he "covers us with his blood" (justification) and "declares us righteous before his eyes." All we can do is accept his claims and promises, trust them, and live by faith in him with the power and help of the Holy Spirit that he gives you. We're so tainted with sin that he even has to give us a GUIDE to help us get through life.
Knowing the sin we brought upon ourselves, God was still loving and merciful to make a way back to himself. He's basically saying "you brought this sin upon yourselves, and here I am dying for you, covering your sins with my blood, and making a way for you to be made right in the eyes of God." It is a free gift, believe it or not. He made it so simple for us. He wants us to accept him, but if we don't and decide to live in our sin, then there is a place prepared for all evil and sin someday, which is hell. Keep in mind that hell wasn't even made for people, nor was it meant for them. It was made for Satan and his demons who rebelled against God. Unfortunately, the sin that came into the world through Satan results in us going there as well by rejecting the only way out. If you want nothing to do with God who lovingly died for you so that you might know him, then there is a place someday that has nothing to do with him.
When Jesus was on his way to raise Lazerus, he wept. He knew he would raise Lazerus, but he wept because he felt the sorrow of his family when they lost him. He tasted the bitterness of sin and what it does to the human race (death), the masterpiece that he enjoys the most out of all creation. He doesn't like death, nor does he want anyone to die. He made a way for us to be made righteous in his eyes and to someday live with him forever. Sin infects us so much that it takes only the power of God to cleanse us. Sin is nasty, and that's the reality of what we see all over the world today. The opposite of good is evil. The absence of God is hell. While there are horrible things going on in the world, there are also a lot of good things.
I wouldn't say that God is mean or controlling. He's basically offering to rescue you, but sadly most people don't want it.
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EPT
