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God. A Serial Killer!

Red Herring

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Hitler and Stalin are still in the lead. :newwink:

yup, this would be more in the range of Pol Pot.

As a toothfairy agnoticist (also known as pedantic atheist) I will have to temporarily accept the working hypothesis that God exists to participate in this discussion.

Now we have to figure out if man is God´s property or his own master (meaning whether a human being has any right of existence of his own as a child would have a right of its own after being thrown into this world by its parents). If we don´t, then He can very well do as He pleases, because we are merely toys of no intrinsic value. If we do have our own value, things change.

Yet we also have to decide if there is such a thing as free will. If there isn´t, once again we are toys. If we are free and He is allknowing but doesn´t intervene, murder, war, etc. are our own dealing; but it still leaves us with natural desasters, floods, etc. Every time one of us gets devoured by a lion, that lion (also part of the creation, whether or not less worthy than us - His supposed favourites - is yet another question to discuss) gets his dinner. Circle of life, bla bla bla. That leaves natural desasters, etc. But once you accept destruents as part of the creation, they too get their free meal.

So via qui-profit-le-crime we come to the conclusion that the all knowing, all-loving God provides for everybody, worms and germs included. He just doesn´t always favour our species. Now why does it have to be connected to pain and suffering? That´s yet another question for another day. Back to the studio.
 
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Sniffles

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Abraham Lincoln is the worst mass murderer in American History. More Americans died in the Civil War than in all of the other wars put together, and it's all Lincoln's fault. For some deranged reason we honor this man as a hero, putting his face on the penny and five dollar bill, and we built a memorial in his honor. American ideals are pretty messed up, and if you look at the types of leaders that other countries honor, then you'll see that those countries are messed up too.

;)

You forgot the part about him freeing the slaves....what an awful awful man! :newwink:
 
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Sniffles

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Here's a nice poem that touches on this issue:

FREEDOM
by Charles Peguy

GOD SPEAKS:

When you love someone, you love him as he is.
I alone am perfect.
It is probably for that reason
That I know what perfection is
And that I demand less perfection of those poor people.
I know how difficult it is.
And how often, when they are struggling in their trials,
How often do I wish and am I tempted to put my hand under their stomachs
In order to hold them up with my big hand
Just like a father teaching his son how to swim
In the current of the river
And who is divided between two ways of thinking.
For on the one hand, if he holds him up all the time and if he holds him up too much,
The child will depend on this and will never learn how to swim.
But if he doesn't hold him up just at the right moment
That child is bound to swallow more water than is healthy for him.
In the same way, when I teach them how to swim amid their trials
I too am divided by two ways of thinking.
Because if I am always holding them up, if I hold them up too often,
They will never learn how to swim by themselves.
But if I don't hold them up just at the right moment,
Perhaps those poor children will swallow more water than is healthy for them.
Such is the difficulty, and it is a great one.
And such is the doubleness itself, the two faces of the problem.
On the one hand, they must work out their salvation for themselves. That is the rule.
It allows of no exception. Otherwise it would not be interesting. They would not be men.
Now I want them to be manly, to be men, and to win by themselves
Their spurs of knighthood.
On the other hand, they must not swallow more water than is healthy for them,
Having made a dive into the ingratitude of sin.
Such is the mystery of man's freedom, says God,
And the mystery of my government towards him and towards his freedom.
If I hold him up too much, he is no longer free
And if I don't hold him up sufficiently, I am endangering his salvation.
Two goods in a sense almost equally precious.
For salvation is of infinite price.
But what kind of salvation would a salvation be that was not free?
What would you call it?
We want that salvation to be acquired by himself,
Himself, man. To be procured by himself.
To come, in a sense, from himself. Such is the secret,
Such is the mystery of man's freedom.
Such is the price we set on man's freedom.
Because I myself am free, says God, and I have created man in my own image and likeness.
Such is the mystery, such the secret, such the price
Of all freedom.
That freedom of that creature is the most beautiful reflection in this world
Of the Creator's freedom. That is why we are so attached to it,
And set a proper price on it.
A salvation that was not free, that was not, that did not come from a free man could in no wise be attractive to us. What would it amount to?
What would it mean?
What interest would such a salvation have to offer?
A beatitude of slaves, a salvation of slaves, a slavish beatitude, how do you expect me to be interested in that kind of thing? Does one care to be loved by slaves?
If it were only a matter of proving my might, my might has no need of those slaves, my might is well enough known, it is sufficiently known that I am the Almighty.
My might is manifest enough in all matter and in all events.
My might is manifest enough in the sands of the sea and in the stars of heaven.
It is not questioned, it is known, it is manifest enough in inanimate creation.
It is manifest enough in the government,
In the very event that is man.
But in my creation which is endued with life, says God, I wanted something better, I wanted something more.
Infinitely better. Infinitely more. For I wanted that freedom.
I created that very freedom. There are several degrees to my throne.
When you once have known what it is to be loved freely, submission no longer has any taste.
All the prostrations in the world
Are not worth the beautiful upright attitude of a free man as he kneels. All the submission, all the dejection in the world
Are not equal in value to the soaring up point,
The beautiful straight soaring up of one single invocation
From a love that is free.
 

EcK

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God owns everything.
He cannot steal.
Assumptions Assumptions,
maybe it's on a lease

So it'd be like killing one's children then ? :popc1:

Peguy said:
Such is the mystery of man's freedom, says God,
I must have missed the exclusive interview
AGAIN

You know what they say about people talking to invisible friends and making assumptions out of nowhere in medical circles.

You forgot the part about him freeing the slaves....what an awful awful man! :newwink:
And another certified fact for religions and solidely backed by evidence this one!
Darn.

This thread has been making a huge assumption from the start, that there is such a thing as god. You don't discuss the 'snow on the porchyard' if there's no evidence of any snow there.
Reason is what distinguish us from animals I hear.
 

The_Liquid_Laser

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You forgot the part about him freeing the slaves....what an awful awful man! :newwink:

And another certified fact for religions and solidely backed by evidence this one!
Darn.

I'm fairly certain that Lincoln can be credited with freeing the slaves. Or do we need a scientist's official seal of approval to verify this fact. :alttongue::rolli:
 

Jaguar

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I cannot believe in a vengeful, critical, jealous or mean G*d who with one hand gives us the freedom to choose between good and evil, then on the other smites us for the wrong choice??! If we were parents, these days we would call that inconsistent parenting and likely to do some sort of psychological damage to our children.

We attribute, even in the Bible, Koran, Torah, these attributes to G*d because it makes Godhead seem more accessible to us and more like we would expect a Godhead to be. This isn't the G*d of freedom of choice between good and evil, love, forgiveness, peace and kindness???

We are reaping what we sow and doing these things to each other then blaming the core of universal consciousness, for our use of religious tenets to condone the evils we perpetrate on each other and for the choices we make!

Globally we are reaping the rewards of our own actions, weatherwise, climatic change, famine and pestilence, not G*d's anger for goodness sake.

I'm sorry, but you're going to have to leave this thread at once.
You make far too much sense. :D
 
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Oberon

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I cannot believe in a vengeful, critical, jealous or mean G*d who with one hand gives us the freedom to choose between good and evil, then on the other smites us for the wrong choice??!

This is the prevailing perspective, but it is based on a fundamental misunderstanding... the choice has never been between good and evil.

The choice is between life and death.
 
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Sniffles

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You know what they say about people talking to invisible friends and making assumptions out of nowhere in medical circles.
Yeah I believe they're called Frenchmen. They really pulled a good one at Lourdes now didn't they? :rolli:
 

InsatiableCuriosity

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This is the prevailing perspective, but it is based on a fundamental misunderstanding... the choice has never been between good and evil.

The choice is between life and death.

This is my personal perspective and I do not expect anyone else to believe as I do, nor do I expect to persuade others that my belief is the only right belief:

I'm sorry Oberon, but that makes no sense to me either. I find that these constructs do not feel truthful - religion per se feels like a means to divide the people of the world into sects, each of which wars on another while each feels superior to the others and warns that any who believe otherwise are not "chosen". The atrocities that are inflicted on this basis throughout history, to me at least, reek of those seeking power over others, to hide or manipulate any truths that existed in the words of the prophets to their own ends, and control their adherents.

I do not deny miracles, and definitely believe in an unfathomable, supreme presence that is so vast I couldn't even begin to imagine or describe. For me at the moment however, no established religion completely meets my personal spiritual beliefs, but Gnosis and Buddhism come very close.
 

Nonsensical

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Hitler and Stalin are still in the lead. :newwink:
Hitler killed between 11 and 17 Million, and Stalin killed over 22 Million, but Christians hold God responsible for so many more deaths. I'm just saying it's blasphemy to blame it all on God. I'm taking a stab at those who wrote the Bible.

God is within us all. Does man kill? Does God kill?
;)

To name a few:
-Christianity says Jesus is the only way to God.
-Christianity portrays God as an unmerciful, vengeful God.
-It's paradoxical: it preaches love and peace yet slams down and condemns sinners.
-Gays=EVIL
-all other dogmas=EVIL
 

Totenkindly

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Hitler killed between 11 and 17 Million, and Stalin killed over 22 Million, but Christians hold God responsible for so many more deaths.

Actually I found it more ironic that all that is in the text, but Christians in general DON'T want to admit that God is ultimately responsible for all those things, being in charge as he is. Bad actions are usually laid at the feet of human beings making bad decisions... or blamed on Satan. (And if God is denoted as being responsible, it has to be argued that he does it for good reason. Even the question "Why did God allow sin = allow suffering?" is answered by saying there is a greater good involved.)

To name a few:
-Christianity portrays God as an unmerciful, vengeful God.

It's portrayed as both, which is why some people see the collection of books as cobbling together two things that aren't necessarily like.

-Christianity says Jesus is the only way to God.

Anyone can believe that. We all believe something about salvation/goodness and how to save ourselves. There's just no way to prove something is exclusively true.

-It's paradoxical: it preaches love and peace yet slams down and condemns sinners.

Well, honestly, even our [secular] penal system can't agree on that. Do we want to punish offenders? Or rehabilitate them? And the same people that believe in capital punishment still believe in love and can do good things.

There's a lot of Christians who will still treat people kindly, yet believe them to be going to hell if they don't change their ways. I think it's kind of sloppy to just assume "going to hell" means "treat them like crap." There's a lot of variation among believers.

-Gays=EVIL
-all other dogmas=EVIL

See above. Aside from Westboro and the psycho right-wing radio/TV show hosts trying to whip their audiences into a submissive frenzy, people typically are holding a position of personal disagreement while restraining themselves from doing harm or wanting to do harm.

I think what I have an issue with is the willful ignorance of the topic in question. It's very difficult to get anyone to actively examine and then discuss such things from both sides; they don't WANT to understand (even if they'd end up disagreeing), it seems very self-protective at other people's expense to me.
 

The_Liquid_Laser

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To name a few:
-Christianity says Jesus is the only way to God.
-Christianity portrays God as an unmerciful, vengeful God.
-It's paradoxical: it preaches love and peace yet slams down and condemns sinners.
-Gays=EVIL
-all other dogmas=EVIL

You are saying Christianity, but it is hard in some cases to tell if you really mean Christianity or the Bible. We can talk about the Bible if you want to discuss a single source, but there are many, many forms of Christianity. The things you say are true of some forms of Christianity, but they are untrue about other forms.

Also while some of the things above depend on how one interprets the Bible a couple of them don't represent the Bible, but they do represent how Christians sometimes fail to follow their own teachings. For example:

-Christianity portrays God as an unmerciful, vengeful God.

You may not believe this but the Bible consistently portrays God as merciful. One reason He doesn't appear that way is because the culture of the Old Testament is wildly different from ours. When the people of that culture heard the stories they really did view God as merciful. However when people today read these stories we think, "No way in hell is God merciful."

To the modern reader the Old Testament God appears irrational and angry. Ironically the Jewish people have the modern stereotype of being meek and rational. Where is the disconnect? If you really want to understand the Old Testament my suggestion would be to ask a rabbi.

-It's paradoxical: it preaches love and peace yet slams down and condemns sinners.

I think anyone who reads the New Testament should be clear that this was not the intention of Jesus. And yet people often do contractory things. This has more to do with the contradictions within people rather than Christianity itself.
 
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Oberon

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...I find that these constructs do not feel truthful - religion per se feels like a means to divide the people of the world into sects, each of which wars on another while each feels superior to the others and warns that any who believe otherwise are not "chosen". The atrocities that are inflicted on this basis throughout history, to me at least, reek of those seeking power over others, to hide or manipulate any truths that existed in the words of the prophets to their own ends, and control their adherents.

I do not deny miracles, and definitely believe in an unfathomable, supreme presence that is so vast I couldn't even begin to imagine or describe...

What you have observed is, I believe, accurate. The disconnect lies between what humans do in the name of God (or in the name of religion, which is worse), and what God does (or even that He simply exists).

Jesus reserved his anger for the most outwardly religious people he encountered, specifically for the reason that those individuals were luring others away from really knowing God. This observation is consistent with what you said earlier, which I quoted above.

I would encourage you to do a slow contemplative read starting in Matthew chapter 5 (the Sermon on the Mount). As you're probably already aware, you'll find a lot there that rings true. As far as I can tell, this is the core of the Christ's message, and it's what keeps me coming at it from a Christian point of view.
 

Totenkindly

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If you really want to understand the Old Testament my suggestion would be to ask a rabbi.

hee.... and if you do, ask a few different ones.
Because you will probably get a different interpretation from each.

From what I understand, the interesting thing about Judaic culture is that they are not modernistic -- they don't insist that there is only "one right/best" answer, at least not in this area. They accept it is interpretation, and two rabbis can still be both respected and considered insightful and informative even when they disagree.

I don't really find that in Christian circles, it really does seem a lot that even when people just try "get along" and not criticize each other, there's still this underlying sense that one person is more right than the other regardless of what can be proven (that if you pushed them and MADE them state their underlying feelings, it would be "I'm right, and they're misleading people"), and the goal is to "have things right." This attitude might have been changing in recent times but still is in play.
 

angelhair45

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hee.... and if you do, ask a few different ones.
Because you will probably get a different interpretation from each.

From what I understand, the interesting thing about Judaic culture is that they are not modernistic -- they don't insist that there is only "one right/best" answer, at least not in this area. They accept it is interpretation, and two rabbis can still be both respected and considered insightful and informative even when they disagree.

I don't really find that in Christian circles, it really does seem a lot that even when people just try "get along" and not criticize each other, there's still this underlying sense that one person is more right than the other regardless of what can be proven (that if you pushed them and MADE them state their underlying feelings, it would be "I'm right, and they're misleading people"), and the goal is to "have things right." This attitude might have been changing in recent times but still is in play.

You are very right. One of my biggest problems with the christian church masses is that they CANNOT deal with anyone different or anyone who disagrees with their beliefs. You are considered to be back-slidden, blinded, or a wolf in sheep's clothing if your beliefs differ from their beliefs even within the realm of Christianity and the Bible. There is absolutely no room for growth because you are not allowed to question anything for fear of doubt setting in. That atmosphere doesn't breed truth, love or acceptance.
 

Nonsensical

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You are very right. One of my biggest problems with the christian church masses is that they CANNOT deal with anyone different or anyone who disagrees with their beliefs. You are considered to be back-slidden, blinded, or a wolf in sheep's clothing if your beliefs differ from their beliefs even within the realm of Christianity and the Bible. There is absolutely no room for growth because you are not allowed to question anything for fear of doubt setting in. That atmosphere doesn't breed truth, love or acceptance.

;)
 

guesswho

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God is not a killer. People can be killers. People can be evil. Because evil in the end is just a possibility.

God cannot be a killer because from my point of view he is a concept. But it is the people who use concepts and doctrines as an excuse for killing and evil.

The crusades and the inquisition are the first examples of killing in the name of god I can think of. Makes you wonder. Who has the right to judge? Who is entitled to do that?
Is there any human capable of some ideal justice. Capable of bringing things to an ideal order?

I have many reasons NOT to believe in God, or at least the Christian god.
I think the biggest reason for not believing in God is that, as the creator of everything around as, the entire universe in all it's complexity...he surely did a poor job with the bible.


"So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them".
It's actually the other way around.

At least that's how I see it.
 
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