You might be more moral than you realize

Now you're finally initiating the proper discussion of this topic. Indeed! That is the dilemma here. God doesn't interfere with "free will", so what purpose does praying really have? I think free will within the boundaries of the Christian religion is limited to the human species though. I would imagine, that the praying towards God/Jesus could have resulted in a malfunction of the gun. Maybe that would have been considered an answered prayer. Since the praying was most likely done in a fashion of "Please help me/us", from a religious point of view it would have been justified.

see. It's not a yes or no answer...

 

It will but not always as you expect it to be.

C'mon, this is basic Christianity 101.

- - - Updated - - -

I already answered this for you.

 

Richard Dawkins is obviously more moral than this "Jesus" character, because I bet Dawkins would "save" those at least who were moral, and did good works (or maybe just save everybody), rather than being an elitist ego-maniac like Jesus - only saving those who happen to pick one particular unproven unscientific super-hero out of the tens of thousands on offer (Zeus, Wotan, Thor, Krishna, Allah, etc., etc.)

Decent human being: "I pick, uh, well it's so hard since none of them has given us the courtesy of proving themselves to a jury-level of proof, but, well I pick ZEUS."
Jesus: "WRONG!! Now I'm going to see that you burn and burn and burn some more, while the fully repentant former Auschwitz prison guard who found me is going to bask in heaven."
Clearly Jesus is not moral.

 

You seem to be under the impression that Christians should have Jesus on speed dial and whenever they need something, they ask, and He delivers.

You obviously are not quite up to speed on what being a Christian is and I do not mean that to be offensive in any way.

 

Correct. Yes, Jesus operates just like Wotan, and Krishna, and Bigfoot do (i.e. they operate in very very strange ways, ways that we just don't understand for some reason.)

- - - Updated - - -

I've honestly been impressed at how civil you've been on this and other threads, and I do appreciate that.
Thanks.

Question: if YOU had Jesus' magic super-powers, would you have answered any of the prayers to him to cure cancer once and for all? I would, how about you?

 

Yes He does.

He will always answer but probably not in the way we want but if we follow Him, we will see it works out in the end.

As for death, well none of us know when God will call us home but He will call us all home someday. That is up to Him.

 

You're too wise to believe in a magic invisible man in the sky, and I admire that about you.

 

A good example would be going through a divorce.

Now you may pray and pray and drop to your knees and ask for help and it doesn't seems like God answers but one day, a few years down the road when you are married to the new woman you know you really love, you will see that God helped you.

 

Too bad he's such a supremacist that he didn't answer the Jews prayers during the Holocaust (he's too much of a prick to help people that don't beg to HIM, and only HIM....it's all about HIM.) Would you have answered their prayers? I bet Sam Harris would have.

 

Who said I do believe? Post #20 in this topic

 

Maybe God wanted them in Heaven,,,,,,,,,,,,maybe God has been using the Holocaust to affect other people in some way.........God's methods are not known to us.

As I said before, God tells us that death can come at anytime and to be prepared, He doesn't say some types of death will not happen.

If you die from being burned in an oven, being beaten to death by your husband, die of cancer, get hit by a car.........does it change God's message?

 

So if I lose a limb and pray to the invisible friend, somehow, someway, he'll answer that prayer (like millions of amputees have likely prayed for), but he chooses to ignore the request to regrow the limb, but magically answers it in some way that we don't know if he exists or not (since it could just be COINCIDENCE)?
I think religious people need to really really study the concept of "coincidence"....until the slavery-approving magic man in sky cares about us enough to cure amputees (he does it for many other species, just not us, for some strange strange reason.)

 

I have a hard time thinking that that is actually the case. Christians still look up to people, even non-divine people, who save others from moments of peril, and no doubt, had Jesus turned up and saved everyone, they'd still praise him rather than argue that that didn't seem to be in keeping with God's hands-off policy.

The issue is instead that because you're linking it to their faith, it suddenly hinges on their identity and what they see as fundamental aspects of themselves, and most people, religious or otherwise, bypass their normal thinking strategy when their identity is threatened. A sizeable chunk of marketing, political campaigning and even things like journalism and so on hinges on this idea, knowingly or unknowingly. We can bemoan that this is the case, but that doesn't make it not so.

 

Listen to yourself, you just JUSTIFIED THE HOLOCAUST. That makes you no different than a Nazi, it can be argued.
I condemn Jesus, if he is divine and exists (which I doubt of course), for sitting on his hands while the Holocaust was taking place. Do you?

 

So you think that God should answer every prayer as we want?

Maybe because you lost that limb you went to rehabilitation and met your future wife who loves you more than anything and gives you a beautiful family in the world whereas if you didn't pray you would have turned into an alcoholic living in a dark room.

 

They don't go to heaven, because they are not Christians!!
Moral, hard-working, honest people, who just happen to be Jewish, suffer the same fate (according to a sane reading of the Bible) as Gandhi will allegedly suffer for daring to pick the wrong super-hero: they'll burn, and burn, and burn some more, for good measure. This treatment is far worse than Hitler dished out to them....so Jesus is less compassionate to people than Hitler. But god/Jesus could (if he's all-powerful as advertised) change his ways any second, and tell us all that, but he chooses not to because he's either incredibly immoral, or isn't really divine....either way I'm glad I left him, as he's not worth worshipping either way.

 

Well that is their fate then. The Bible is clear about what it takes to go to Heaven.......it doesn't pull punches in that area.

It was ultimately their choice.

Jesus gives them a choice, Hitler did not.

 

I'd regrow the limb....just sayin', since I don't think humans are less important than the millions of individual animals that god has (apparently) regenerated limbs for.

- - - Updated - - -

Blind obedience....that's what it takes.
That's absolutely ridiculous.

 

There is no blind obedience, in fact, Christians are probably more confused about what to follow than anyone else. The difference is that we know who to ask to help guide us, then we carry on as normal.

I rarely read the Bible unless I want to look up something specific but it doesn't affect my relationship with God. Sometimes I read it just to feel closer to God and I have no idea what its talking about.

 

But not people who don't hear about Jesus' message, through no fault of their own.
Jesus was sick.

 

Those who have never heard of Him get a free pass to Heaven.

I forget what its called but its mentioned in the Bible.

Those too young or incapable of understanding will also go to Heaven.

 

Clearly the allegedly all-knowing, all-caring, all-powerful god/Jesus are not real, since they are obviously about the worst communicators in world history. Clearly most people on the planet aren't even Christian, because he was such a pathetic communicator. Clearly.

- - - Updated - - -

So do aborted babies, so apparently we should abort lots of babies, and NOT tell people about Jesus!

 

God tells us that the path will be narrow for those entering Heaven and the Bible also says that thou shall not kill.

 

Yeah but so are UNICORNS (mentioned in the Bible), so of course we can't take anything the Bible says seriously. No more seriously than the book about Jack and the Beanstalk, for example. The Bible is a fairy tale for gullible and fearful (of death) people.

 

I would just like to thank you for the debate by the way, its fun to talk to people.

As for the stories in the Bible, well what God wants us to know, He is very clear about........the rest of it is just context. We do not, and never will, know what all of it means or if it is literal or not but that is not the point in reading the Bible. Those Christians who get hung up on verses are also missing the point of what your walk with God should be about.

I often laugh at the preachers who have torn apart Revelations and think they know what it all means.