I don't believe we have free will, but never mind that for a second: If that is how free will works, then it clearly favors the evil. The person being violated (raped, killed, stolen from, etc.) is being violated against their will. Thus, the idea of free will only applies to the perpetrator. Better yet, these people who are violated won't be "unviolated," simply because the perpetrators end up in hell. Would the infinite torture of these perpetrators make the violated feel better about being violated? What exactly does this burning forever in hell teach the perpetrators anyway? By the time they get there, it's already too late, all the wrongdoings they were going to do have already been done. Punishing them forever does nobody any good. By the way, there are tons of example in the bible where god ignored people's free will. Does the book of Job come to mind? Lot's wife being turned to a pillar of salt? Countless other times when god supposedly interfered in the affairs of man? We still see tons of supposed "miracle" stories today. Assuming you believe in those, why was it okay for god to interfere and thus violate those people's free will, but not when, say, a person is being beaten to death on the street in a random act of violence?
Didn't finish reading it. About the punishing part. Every person who does something horrible isn't punished eternally. If you accept God as your savior, and believe and trust in him, you will not be punished. However, if you don't ask God to be your savior you will be punished.
By this standard any triple rape homicide criminal can get away with it if he "turns to god" where is the justice in that? He gets to go to heaven because he made this god of the ego's happy?
So basically what you're saying is that we humans do a better job at separating the moral from the immoral than god does? I agree 100%. In your proposed theology, god will punish you for not believing in him, no matter how good you are, and reward you for believing in him, no matter how evil you are. Humanity, on the other hand, will punish you only for doing illegal things, and leave you be otherwise. The human system, while not perfect, is still amazingly superior to god's system in this scenario.
You people have a strange talent for taking Biblical things and twisting them to sound downright horrible. Not a good talent to have.
Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps you're the one twisting it to sound better? As a believer, you're certainly not qualified as a neutral observer. I'm not twisting anything, I just point out the things I see. Feel free to point out where I'm wrong. It's intellectually dishonest to attribute intentions to me that I do not hold.
I think that these videos are super funny! NOTE: these contain curse words don't watch unless you are 13 years old. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jz0JcQYtqo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch5MEJk5ZCQ These are better than MLP but are not as fluffy.
Erm. To follow god, one would need a pure heart and soul, which they achieve by loving god. I think they are saying if you love and follow god, you wouldn't really be the kind to commit triple homocide rape anyway.
I refute this statement. PS3's processor architecture is a novel idea, but unsuitable for the market Sony targeted with it (that being, game developers en masse with varied software platforms and coding practices). Technologically more advanced, maybe, but superior? No. A Prius is technologically more advanced than a Corvette - not superior. That being said, there's games on both platforms I would really like to have and I don't favor one over the other. I just think Sony gambled foolishly on their hardware. I don't see a lot of "twisting" going on here. Floods, plagues, punishments from on high, and that incident regarding Job alex already pointed out - your god sure doesn't need any help to sound horrible. And then we're asked to believe this is the god who loves us? Even if I did buy into the christian mythology wholesale, all I need to do is turn on the news to realize he threw up his almighty hands a long time ago and said "Screw it, I'm done, I'll sort you all out when you show up at my gates." But down here on this mortal coil? We're on our own. For better or worse, it's up to humanity to make things right. Whether you do so out of faith or moral imperative doesn't matter one bit to your fellow man.
Alright, so there are a lot of posts I want to respond to, but I'm to lazy to quote from the previous page, so I'll try to remember. How is Lot's wife an example against free will? The angels said, do not look back or you will die. Very simple, but they did not forcibly stop her from being able to, which would have been a violation of free will. Although warned, she turned back, and it cost her her life. Same with adam and eve. God said do not eat from this tree. However, he made the tree so that we would have free will. Otherwise, we would not be making a choice to follow God, there simply would be no other option. Earlier in this thread, when we were discussing Heaven, one of the main things that came up was that people did not want to go to Heaven because they assume they loose free will. Now however, people seem to be blaming God for giving us free will when He has the power to stop bad stuff. This is a double standard. As to the whole God's plan things, I believe that God has a comprehensive plan for each and every moment of our lives. But, it is up to us whether or not we follow it. NOTE: To all the new-comers on this thread....Welcome. We have worked really hard to keep this debate civil, reasonable, free of flaming, and un-personal. Please try to keep it that way so we can keep these healthy debates going and not turn anything into a flamewar.
From your logic, you'd think the prison population would be overrepresented by those who aren't Judeo-Christian, wouldn't you? After all, if they are not the kind to commit crime, they shouldn't be in jail? Well, here are some actual numbers: Percentage of US citizens that are Judeo-Christian: 80.20% (2007 survey) Percentage of US inmates that are Judeo-Christian: 83.76% (1997 statistics) Percentage of US citizens that are atheist/agnostic: 4.00% (2007 survey) Percentage of US inmates that are atheist: 0.21% (1997 statistics) Now, if you include those who just say "Nothing in particular" as well, the number goes up from 4% to 16%, further separating the percentage of non-religious in the country vs non-religious in jail. The prison statistics only include "atheist" as a group, so to be perfectly fair, only 1.6% of US citizens said they were atheist. Still, that number is almost 8 times bigger than the prison inmate number, whereas the Judeo-Christian number for inmates is actually smaller, though just barely. There's ten years between these surveys, so things may have changed a little, but I doubt all the non-religious suddenly went ballistic and all the Judeo-Christians suddenly decided to be perfect angels over a ten year period. Also, about 20% of inmates asked gave no answer, and agnostics were not represented. So in theory (though extremely unlikely statistically speaking) there could be another roughly 20% atheists/agnostics in there, but you'd have to be extremely presumptuous and tentative to go with that sort of thinking. So, here's what I can see: Being Judeo-Christian does nothing to stop people from committing crimes. The non-religious are extremely underrepresented in the prison population in comparison to the country population, which means that they are not committing crimes nearly as much as their religious counterparts are.
