What's there stopping your God from reserving a separate section of Heaven for good men whose only "crime" was to not believe in a deity who refuses to reveal himself to the world?
The answer is nothing, except for the petty spite and jealousy of this supposedly kind and loving God.
[/QUOTE]
There are no good men. Nobody is good but God alone. To turn away from God is to turn to evil. As for God being spiteful, jealous?
Isaiah 5:20 "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter."
Putting the blame on God won't bring any good.
I've been referred to Romans 1-8 by another Christian regarding this matter. I'm not sure what he wanted me to find (he didn't specifically say), but I can't say I found anything particularly useful. Which chapter(s) and verse(s) should I be looking at?
Right. You said this.
Or maybe they're just asking to not have to be punished simply because they didn't choose to believe a supposedly a loving God who shows no proof of his existence.
And I'm saying in the quote it's addressed already. This is asking for a pardoning of sins so that they are not held guilty and deserving of punishment. The quote answers that Jesus already did that. You suggest that by not accepting salvation from Christ, unbelievers are still expected to somehow be innocent. I recommend reading Romans 1 (perhaps 2 and 3, but I'm not through reading those yet), where Paul explains that you have no excuse against God.
Not at all. What I "resented" (if that's indeed the accurate word to use here) was the implication that we're not very intelligent people by expecting us to accept an argument full of loopholes, inaccuracies, and self-contradictory claims.
A reasonable misunderstanding. But I think you're quite intelligent. No, I think it's something deeper than intellect that prevents you from accepting it. Because I have seen both believers with intellect, and nonbelievers. So it must be something else.
Unless you're a mind reader, that's an untruthful claim. Nobody actually says they want to go to Hell, it's just you who's trying to push the responsibility on them by falsely claiming that it's their choice.
Incorrect. We can deduce this from Revelations and from the story of the rich man and Lazarus. In Revelations, when the people suffer the wrath of God, they do not repent, but scorn and curse God. They refuse to repent. They're just sitting there suffering when they know they're wrong, and they know what they can do to be saved. Similarly, the rich man in Hell never repents to God, in fact he insists that the prophets God sent us was not enough of a warning. The rich man isn't repenting at all, he's complaining!
The only reason people go to Hell, or that there's a Hell at all, is because that's exactly the way your God wants it. How difficult would it be for an all-powerful deity to change the status quo? Not at all. But your God does nothing. That alone says more than enough.
The only reason people go to Hell is because they do not want to be with God. If things were anything other than how they are now, God wouldn't be just. If God had not died for his own people so that they would come back to him, we would not understand how much he loves us. You ask how difficult it would be to change the status quo, but the fact is God already has. Hell is the status quo, we are all on default set to Hell. But God has set in place a way for us to be given salvation. The question is whether or not we want it.
Baseless claims are not evidence.
Which is irrelevant because we have a basis for our evidence.
You think eternal fate is determined by "odds?" And you are so important that we should "mark your words" on the subject? Hopefully you can recognize your errors here, and be sickened by it ...
