I'm not dancing around any issue. Why are you asking to begin with? When you believe in something other than yourself then we'll talk.

Better yet, when you actually believe in God, then we can talk about.

[quote=Ashley-Star*Child,Dec 7 2004, 02:25 PM]
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[quote]Whats this got to do with the price of fish?

It's meant to be frightening I guess, though thats not the reason I have it...it's a prop from the Bram Stoker's Dracula movie. [/quote]

I'm just commenting, aren't I allowed to do that?
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Of course. It just seemed as though you were having an unprovoked jab...nevermind

I see... so you have no way of knowing thats the way it is, and its simply a belief! Thanks for finally admitting it!

If I saw a parant throw their child to the ground, and start kicking, stomping, punching, and trying to kill them, then I would most certainly try to stop them. Creating a living thing does not give you the right to kill it.

For that matter, creating a thing does not give you the right to make that thing worship you as something more divine than you are. God, a jealous, wrathful, hateful being, is certainly not divine, and certainly not worthy of my worship. If god were to exist, I'd find him rather sickening and contemptable

So yes, if we were to assume god was an actual entity, and he were to come down from on high and start slaughtering people whimsically, as he is won't to do, then I would most certainly try and fight him, as I'm sure many would.

No Stellar, it's not just a belief, it's the way it is.

Seraphina, I hate to tell you this, but God DOES have the right to do whatever He wants, and not even fallen angels are stupid enough to fight Him. The war in Heaven was between angels, they wouldn't dare fight God, because they know that they would lose, in every way possible.

So, you saying that, after what you have just read, what would you imagine would happen to you if you did such a thing? I tell you, that you a mortal, would not come out victorious againt God who created you. They have places for people who imagine such things, and the confines and grotesque punishments aren't of this world.

So, by your logic, people should have just let Hitler do whatever he wanted, no matter how evil he clearly was, because of the very real possibility that he would beat them?

Man, you're a coward

If god did turn out to be real, then I would also be standing with Sera and countless others to fight him off. Power does not make one right, and standing up for justice, regardless of whether or not you'll win, is what I believe a human being should do.

I could not call myself a living, thinking human being, if I sat back and watched my species be ruthlessly oppressed and murdered by an overrated bully, such as the god you seem to beleive in. Winning or losing is irrelevant, I'd be quite satisfied knowing I died defending those I love from the greatest evil that has ever existed.

Ahh, but God is no humanly power. We're talking on different wavelengths here.



Who ever said God was a human being? I've already told you He's NOT. God is GOD. Not human. Humans die and perish, God has always existed, and always will exist. Generations of humanity live, die and perish, but God is and always will be.

And despite his eternal life, he's never grown out of his petty, wrathful, evil, tyranical, backwards, oppressive, hypocrytical, murdering nature?

How do you know it's the way it is?



Hes stuck in childhood!

You know, I don't mind the Christian god....for the most part anyway....while I myself can read the bible and thing "what a loony", I can understand people who simply ignore this, and choose to worship a loving, caring god, utterly unconnected with the guy described in the bible. Most Christians fall into this catagory.

What gets to me, however, is the ones who not only acklowedge how tyranical the bible god is, but actually support it, and argue in his favour in some kind of "might is right" ideal.

The Creator would willingly do no harm to his creations, he does not interfere with us, having given us true free will (unlike the Hebrew Demon). The Hebrew Demon has quite a field record of harming all creation (why destroy all life in a flood to get rid of one small species, when he could have tailored a man-specific 100% deadly plague and made Noah and his family immune) and mankind specifically. Some God you have there, he puts Satan to shame with his evil...Incidentally, I hold him to the same standard of conduct that he holds me. I am not a "Do as I say, not as I do" type of person! Thank the Creator that the truth is finally coming out on your religion!

Again I ask, who are you to judge? Does a child judge his father and punish him, or does his father judge and punish the child for stepping out of line? I tell you it's the latter. Yes, human fathers are a bad example, but as I've said before, God does love and forgive, but He's not going to put up with arogance, insolence, and outright disrespect just because some human tells Him to. It just doesn't work like that. When you love the Father, the Father will love you in return. Turn against Him and he'll turn against you.

Does the father have the right to terrorise and muder their child for stepping out of line?

what a God you worship! I will love my children, no matter what, until my dying breath and maybe even afterwards (Deism afterlife is not like the Xian's). I hold your God to the same standard of conduct that he holds mankind! Since he really is real, I am not overly worried about him being angry with me anyway. You on the other hand had better worry about Islam being the real religion!

What? The flood was to kill the Nephillim, and because the then fallen angels had been with women, and poluted humanity, God got just a *little* upset with all the crap that was going on and decided they weren't worth the trouble. He WAS going to wipe out humankind, BUT, and ONLY but, because God found favour with Enoch's grandson Noah....

Here read it for yourself:
Genesis 7
1 The LORD then said to Noah, "Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. 2 Take with you seven [1] of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, 3 and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. 4 Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made."

And God had the right to do that. Now, notice how He kept several pairs of EVERY living thing He made? I would say that plague idea you've got is irrelevant.

God also said He would never do that again (and by that I mean, wipe out the ENTIRETY of humankind, which He didn't do anyway, because of Noah) and the convenant of that was the rainbow. And don't start talking about the end and wiping out etc, THAT is a different story.

Read the next post. God does things on a grander scale than humans, because well, you know, like He's GOD. Plus you all worry about death, and God wiping out people. Death is a human concern to begin with. However, afterlife punishment is another story. Maybe that's why people fear death so much to begin with?

So he could have tailored the plague to be Human and Nephillim specific, but in his blood-thirsty Hebrew Demon ways he had to destroy everything! Come on, you are grasping a straws to such an extent that you have created quite a hay rick there beside you! Please, your pagan mythology, whether mainstream or Enoch, means absolutely nothing to me and 5/6ths of the world)!

Again you did not read the part about how He SAVED several pairs of EVERY species - INCLDUING humanity. It is no mythology, and it's most definantly NOT pagan.

You say it isn't a mythology? What's the difference between it, and the Ancient Greek's stories about Thor, and Mount Olympis?

Or, say, since he knew it would come to that, he could have just made his creation so that he doesnt have to wipe it out later on... You know, cuz hes, like GOD.

Well like I have said, You have free will and you are not a puppet on a string. You decide what you want to do with your life and what is written on your heart.Lets put it this way, The GOD in question has drawing a line in the sand and with your free will you will have to decide what side you want to be on. To the statement about murder the bible states you should not murder, it dont say you should not kill. Murder to me atleast is to kill for profit/or to gain from the act. But to kill in defence is not murder. The story is written(the bible) from start to finish and what part we play in it seals your own fate. The fight is between good and evil and not between GOD and mankind, we are just the tools in which its played out with and for. I hope this straightens out what I am trying to say with out going on for pages and pages. I dont think anyone can explain there stance in a little statement but can only state what they are thinking at the time. Peace to all and keep an open mind.

big whoops! Bloody Jehova murdered everything in the world in it's billions and trillions but actually saved two of everything. No sweat he wiped out 99.999999999999999% of life, he saved .0000000000000001% of it! Sorry, you just convicted your homicidal God of mass murder!


No, murder is premeditated and your God being an all knowing God would know how everything was going to turn out, so to kill everything for sin means that he murdered everything. When you talk about the battel between good and evil, you admit that your god is modeled on the Persian concept of a Good God (Jehovah)and an Evil God (Satan). If your God was stronger, there would be no Satan wandering the earth, no matter you bogus explanations!


About 500 miles across the Mediterrean (as the crow flies) and that is the only difference. They are both pagan mythology!

Yet, since he knows everything, he made me so that I'd cross that line.

[QUOTE]so to kill everything for sin means that he murdered everything."

So when we execute mass murderers in today's society, we are committing murder under this logic. Am I understanding that correctly?




[QUOTE]Deism afterlife is not like the Xian's"

Do you even know what it is or when the CHRISTian afterlife begins?

Thats not a very strong argument to use against a man who is against the death pentalty

That depends on who to talk to....but in my opinion we do, as a society, commit murder, since we actually have other options; I do not intend to start a dialouge on capital punishment!

Are you talking about what the bible says or what Xians teach each other - two entirely different things you know. By the bible (depending on where you read) it eithers starts at death (as Jesus said to the one man being crucified with him) or on the second coming and involves an eternity of singing praises to a meglomaniac! Xians seem to think it starts at death and is just so wonderful, you do anything you want. Boy are they gonna be surprized when they are hauled up in front of Anubis and Thot to have their heart weighed against a feather!

Your answer is too simple.
The Christians have a much bigger head count.

Current day almanac figures state

Christianity: 2 billion

Islam: 1.3 billion

Hinduism: 900 million

Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 850 million

Buddhism: 360 million

Chinese traditional religion: 225 million

primal-indigenous: 150 million

African Traditional & Diasporic: 95 million

Sikhism: 23 million

Juche: 19 million

Spiritism: 14 million

Judaism: 14 million

Baha'i: 6 million

Jainism: 4 million

Shinto: 4 million

Cao Dai: 3 million

Tenrikyo: 2.4 million

Neo-Paganism: 1 million

Unitarian-Universalism: 800 thousand

Rastafarianism: 700 thousand

Scientology: 600 thousand

Zoroastrianism: 150 thousand

Interesting data.
Can it be so that Judaism followers are just 14 million? I mean, if you consider just how many there are in USA alone, it should be more than 40 million worldwide...

They should not count the USA because of its hardcore materialism...

Since the count (especially for the Christians) is based on the membership figures of the individual churches/temples/mosques/synagogues/etc and include every living person that is (on paper) a member of that unit, no matter how long it has been since they have participated in the dogma of that religion, no matter if they have deconverted or joined another religion, I find these figures to be questionable. Even then 7 out of every 10 people in the world would consider the Christian bible to be mythology! Incidentally, a little research on the internet (still the fastest way) shows that Christian websites give high figures for their membership and non Christian sites give much lower. So basically Beowulf is pretty close when the said 5/6ths.

I'd like to see a source for those stats.

It dosen't take into account the fact that most of those Christians don't even really practice, they just go to church because it makes them feel good.

Are you saying that is what you do?

My goodness, are you actually saying you BELIEVE in God? *clap clap* Because if you don't, then your comment is irrelevant.

It's Yahweh actually. God has many names, but YHWH is one of the most Holy. What's the difference between God and Greek mythology? Because Greek mythology IS mythology, the Bible is NOT.

Nope, I dont, and it doesnt make it irrelevant.

Oh you don't mean that the day you step into a country you are automatically converted to any of its ideal. It's just a bit extreme to put a = sign there...

Yes it does, especially the way you are portraying it.

Yeah sure...chuck us Non-religious and Atheists in with those fence sitting Agnostic bastards

Where the f*** do you get off insulting my faith just because I don't believe in your little cult book of Enoch? You're just like the old Roman church-"We know God better than any of you, so piss off and do what we say because it's the only way that's right!"

You have no right to say what God thinks about a certain subject-you're human too, descended from the same sin, you're no better, God won't see you better-so where the hell do you get off insulting my devoution?

Sorry that I don't believe in the world's oldest Fanfiction of a great book.

Burnside, I believe that it came from this site or other similar sites of a Xian bend:
http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html

Why? Simply because you say so? There is no more evidence to support the existance of your god, than there is to support the existance of the gods the ancient greeks worshipped...or the ancient Egyptians...or any culture for that matter.

Just like those cultures, it was once believed that thunder was caused by your god being angry...we now know this to be false. It was believed that earthquakes and other natural disasters were brought about by the same thing, and we also know this to be false. Not once has your religion presented anything to make itself more credible than any of the thousands upon thousands of belief systems that have come before or after it.

So, again, what exactly is it that you're presenting to us that should make us believe your story to be truth, and turn away everyone else's as fiction?

you can expect an answer like:"God Told me" It is funny how xians believe in everything that has no proof and things that have proof are fake such is teh logic of religions

Yes, so I've noticed....

I still think it's mad The creationism vs evolution debate, for example, is so utterly redundant, I don't know why it crops up so often - evolution is supported by a mountain of evidence. Creationism is not...in fact, creationism is contradicted by a great deal of evidence. But still they argue for it.

Religion has got to be the ultimate brainwashing tool

Well, I know this has been said before, but I will say it again: there probably won't be any changed minds from these sort of threads.

But I will still put in my 2 cents on it, anyway.

I was raised in a very Christian influenced home, and tried very hard to make that belief system work for me growing up. For better or for worse, it has some nice, laudable aspects. The God of the Bible and the God of modern churches are VERY different. The hip, updated, modern God is one of love, and what is wrong with love? However, Christians are blind to the fact that their 'never-changing' god (and his holy text) has undergone more reinventions than Madonna.

Christianity is also good about giving you reasons to fear your own doubts and questions. If you are afraid (with Hell as incentive) to question something, you will probably keep on believing it. This has been true with this religion for centuries...nothing has been a bigger or better insitution designed to suppress people and their thoughts than the Church. It's amazing what forced illiteracy and torture can make folks worship.

A little thing called the circular argument also works both for and against it. "The Bible is true because it says it is true" sort of thing. Pretty much the only hard evidence that can be called up in a heated Christian debate is 'faith'. Not much to put your entire life's belief system on the line for, when you stop and think about it.

I'm 25 years old now, and while that isn't exactly a wise old age, it has given me time to both drop the scales of childhood "Oh God loves me bc church camp told me so" and to move past the angsty teen "I hate God and my parents and won't believe in ANYTHING". I've researched many religions out of curiosity (I find the many forms of Paganism a personal favorite). Currently I call myself a Deist, as I just can't reconcile myself with idea that everything was a total accident. It's still up for debate, though.

As an aside, arguing and name-calling on these sorts of threads only makes you look childish. It won't further your cause with 'the other side', in fact it will probably make them run the other way. Being belligerant and demanding is not a good way to make you case be heard. I say this for both Christians and non-Christians.

Ok, that's it. I will gladly argue any points of what I have said intelligently, but please don't tell me something like, "You are wrong because you are stupid and God told me so." Thanks.

[quote=JennRose,Dec 8 2004, 09:10 PM]Well, I know this has been said before, but I will say it again: there probably won't be any changed minds from these sort of threads. 

But I will still put in my 2 cents on it, anyway.

I was raised in a very Christian influenced home, and tried very hard to make that belief system work for me growing up.  For better or for worse, it has some nice, laudable aspects.  The God of the Bible and the God of modern churches are VERY different.   The hip, updated, modern God is one of love, and what is wrong with love? However, Christians are blind to the fact that their 'never-changing' god (and his holy text) has undergone more reinventions than Madonna.

Christianity is also good about giving you reasons to fear your own doubts and questions.  If you are afraid (with Hell as incentive) to question something, you will probably keep on believing it.  This has been true with this religion for centuries...nothing has been a bigger or better insitution designed to suppress people and their thoughts than the Church.  It's amazing what forced illiteracy and torture can make folks worship.

A little thing called the circular argument also works both for and against it.  "The Bible is true because it says it is true" sort of thing.  Pretty much the only hard evidence that can be called up in a heated Christian debate is 'faith'.  Not much to put your entire life's belief system on the line for, when you stop and think about it.

I'm 25 years old now, and while that isn't exactly a wise old age, it has given me time to both drop the scales of childhood "Oh God loves me bc church camp told me so" and to move past the angsty teen "I hate God and my parents and won't believe in ANYTHING".  I've researched many religions out of curiosity (I find the many forms of Paganism a personal favorite).  Currently I call myself a Deist, as I just can't reconcile myself with idea that everything was a total accident.  It's still up for debate, though.

As an aside, arguing and name-calling on these sorts of threads only makes you look childish.  It won't further your cause with 'the other side', in fact it will probably make them run the other way.  Being belligerant and demanding is not a good way to make you case be heard.  I say this for both Christians and non-Christians.

Ok, that's it.  I will gladly argue any points of what I have said intelligently, but please don't tell me something like, "You are wrong because you are stupid and God told me so." Thanks. [right][snapback]392518[/snapback][/right]
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You are wrong because you are stupid and God told me so just joking

[quote=Currently I call myself a Deist, as I just can't reconcile myself with idea that everything was a total accident. It's still up for debate, though[/quote]


why cant you reconcile that everything was a total accident? Think we are special or something? when the right substances mix with eachother stuff can be created by accident. look at maggots(the rotten meat in a jar experiment) i am not attacking i am just asking

Hotoke quote: "why cant you reconcile that everything was a total accident? Think we are special or something? when the right substances mix with eachother stuff can be created by accident. look at maggots(the rotten meat in a jar experiment) i am not aatcaking i am just asking"



I guess just for the simple reason I hope there is more out there than just "maggots in a jar". I don't know beyond a shadow of a doubt if there is or not, but here's hoping.

Nope, it doesnt. You're just trying to find ways of avoiding my point.

Don't pay any attention to Stellar. He'll argue with anyone who will listen.