You haven't disproved all of the other gods (and goddesses) that are or have been believed in. But I doubt that you believe they exist, do you?
There is a big difference in Christians/bibles and other religions. 1) Its a personal relationship with a real person 2) The bible is his way ( GOD )of reaching out to us. In where other religions reach out to what they want to believe is God. 3) freewill to love him. 4) Grace as a free Gift to us with an inability of merit. Out of his love for us. Knowing what we have become ,Therefore;Still loving and pursuing us.
Which is in itself a religion: even if Jesus did exist (which I find doubtful), believing that one can have a personal relationship with him at this present moment is undeniably religious.
So Christians like to claim. But it is only from the Christian perspective that the Christian God is reaching out to us; to everyone else, all we see is Christians reaching out to their God. And indeed, the same is true of all religions: Islam states that Allah reached out to humans via the Qu'ran, Hinduism states that Krishna reaches out to humans via his various avatars, etc, yet everyone else just sees Muslims and Hindus prostrating to deities who might as well not be there. And yes, the same applies to my own Wicca.
Just as the man being tortured has the free will to divulge information. "Believe what I tell you to believe, or burn for eternity".
If he knows what we have become, if he wants us to change, and he is as powerful as he claims to be, then why are we still as we are? Either he values our free will above our health and happiness, or he is callous. Which?
Your response to Thanks giving Ect, come on.Do you really believe that????Or about the history of Pocahontas.... I need to pinch myself to make sure I'm awake and not in a night mare!!!~!
But where is your evidence that they don't exist? How can you disprove it?
The premise of the question, as you point out, is ridiculous.
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It has always struck me that it is better to believe in no god than to believe in a false God ...
It never seems to occur to the religious among theists that the the division of religion right down to individual beliefs actually PROVES that AT LEAST most of them MUST logically be wrong if there is but one truth of God ...
Not only that, but Jesus promised all truth to all his followers [John 16:13] and knowledge of the future ... it is obvious that almost all Christians then , divided not having all truth ,... well deduce it yourself...
Check with scripture and one finds no denomination of Christanity follows every word of God as they claim they do ... check out Judaism against the Tanakh [or OT] and it just doesn't measuer up either ...
If one cannot do better than religion then atheism seems the obvious alternative ... religion thus give God a bad name ...
It gets worse if one can bear to look further, sinners telling other sinners that sinners with be tortured for ever and ever [whatever that is] toscare people into saying they believe this self-contradictory spiel ... especially when all they have to read what they say they believe [but are told it doesn't mean what it says
2 Timothy 2:19 Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.
1 John 3:8 He that committeth sin is of the devil
For myself I believe in love, because the desire to love cannot be separated from me [it stayed even during deepest darkest depression] , but it is hard toeven know what love means in a world that is destroying itself and has managed to separate power to change anything from anyone who believes love is the only way mankind could have survived ...
it was a bad move to disenfranchise the loving from religion and from society ... it rather sealed the fate of this world... bar a few more wars, some plagues, various vulcanisms ... all the result of inability of mankind to tolerate equality, sharing, caring , justice ... which our hearts and consciences try their best to require of our selves ...
Ah, so you basically only abstain from committing atrocities because you think you wouldn't get away with it? Somehow, I don't believe that. If all we could aspire to in terms of ethics was avoiding the stick and grabbing at the carrot, the world would be in a far worse shape than it is or ever was.
Ah, but whether morality is objective or relative does not hinge upon the presence of an authoritarian supreme judge - that's a different issue altogether.
So, a murderer who's never caught is not a murderer? I don't think so.
Because physical pleasure is not identical with happiness. We are, after all, committed to self-preservation by our deepest-seated instincts. For the most part, short-term gain at the cost of long-term sustainability is perceived as just the kind of hare-brained stupidity that it is. (Unless you're in your late teens or early twenties, and pretty much waste yourself for whatever kick you might derive from it.)
I don't remember the Bible ever mentioning anything about age restrictions. Do you?
As noted above, many teens and twens do just that. And then they grow up, realizing that the pursuit of happiness and the pursuit of instant gratification are two VERY distinct agendas.
The question though is how could it not be exactly as it should be ... do we not know yet that God's 'plan' is comprehensive and perfect ,and known to God from beginning to end of time ?
Did Jesus not say that the whole world MUST worship Satan before he can return? [Rev 13:3-10] ... just a few of the 144,000 saints standing against the united might of the whole earth under one united religion led by Satan ... is this not why 2Thess 2 describes that religion must fall away in order for Satan to confess his blasphemy [2Thess 2:4] and die as a man [Ezek 28] ?
Jesus said that he had come only for the House of Israel [Matthew 15:24] and sent his disciples to continue this the only work they were given to do for God [Matthew 10:5-6 , Acts 2:36]... consider then that very few 'Christians' today even know who the House of Israel were before they were scattered for idol-worship long before the Jews were scattered for disobeying the old covenant ...
Consider that the new covenant says that it is with the House of Israel and the House of Judah ['Jews'] ,only with those descended from those who broke the old covenant [Heb 8:8-9]... modern 'Christians' do not even read the covenant which they claim saves them , it says it is with a remnant of Israel, no-one else ...
Sinners teach these days that sin is OK so long as one believes them , but what they say is not in scripture ... how do they get away with pretending their sin is OK but the sin of others leads to a mythical and meaningless endless torment ???
Only God can blind people that well , and we know why... Satan has to be snared , and the kingdom gotten ready by the few before the countless many of the gentiles can be ministered to and saved [Rev 7:9-10] ... the few have to be first ,so the many have to go by the broad way to Christ , suffer delusion for a while , die as sinners , get saved by works after the Millennium .. all solely becaise the kingdom has to be prepared to handle so many billions ...
The plan goes on after that too , comprehensive, beautiful... so why should we be concerned about apostate religion now ? If we want to follow Christ then we should be doing what he said, looking for the lost house of Israel scattered long ago amidst all nations of gentiles...
I want to read more about the remnant.As the author of this thread I would prefer responses that are as close as possible to the questions in the OP, and would like everyone to make new threads for issues that don´t have much more in common with the OP than merely being related to ethics and morality as a whole topic. Just saying. Thanks.
