Originally Posted by GlobalSmiles

I'd reply with . . .

On a cosmic scale your understanding of good and bad are trivial. So when we understand so little how are we to judge it as a whole.

Religions are generally faiths with rules that help people as a society and in their private lives. Any attack on people's sensibilities in this area seems to me to be arrogant and over-reaching.

So long as he golden rule applies, live and let live I say.

Originally Posted by Nash

Even a life of no religion(being a soft or hard atheist) seems to still be a religion. All they do is subsitute something else for God(money,sex,material things, their own vain desires), these things become their God.They perform rituals daily worshiping their false God. What do people call out when having sex..ohhh God its good, or how about if they find $100,000, oh my god look at this!! We are all guilty of it but if we are to look at the religion of God which is to take no other God for worship except Him. We find that those who dont believe in God or religion have already replaced God with their own personal god or gods and they go through rituals worshiping those gods.

Originally Posted by GlobalSmiles

I'd reply with . . .

On a cosmic scale your understanding of good and bad are trivial. So when we understand so little how are we to judge it as a whole.

Religions are generally faiths with rules that help people as a society and in their private lives. Any attack on people's sensibilities in this area seems to me to be arrogant and over-reaching.

So long as he golden rule applies, live and let live I say.

Originally Posted by nemesis

Yeah I suppose any action can be justified as long as the reason behind it is beyond our comprehension. A convenient excuse which this thread points out from the beginning. The truth is if one cannot come up with a legitimate reason why God behaves the way he does you simply do not have one. The beyond comprehension argument isn't really an argument at all.

Originally Posted by nemesis

Yeah I suppose any action can be justified as long as the reason behind it is beyond our comprehension. A convenient excuse which this thread points out from the beginning. The truth is if one cannot come up with a legitimate reason why God behaves the way he does you simply do not have one. The beyond comprehension argument isn't really an argument at all.

Originally Posted by ThresholdOutlet

I don’t trust someone who speaks to invisible men, but then I’m not going to stop and stare either. They have a right, but if they try to justify their actions they have a hard time; about like trying to knock ducks out of the air with bowling balls.

Though I have heard some sensible reasons to be open to the possibility of a god, but of course that could apply to flying elephants too. But if it makes one happy…it’s probably a good thing – maybe.

Originally Posted by nemesis

I was reading another thread recently in the philosophy section and I came across a comment that made me think. The poster basically said that if God does exist then you probably shouldn't judge him and it made me ask why not?

A belief in God does not necessarily mean a belief in his absolute infallibility. The Greeks most certainly didn't believe their gods were infallible and neither do most pantheistic religions for that matter. An ancient sect of Christians known as the Gnostics found the actions of God in the Old Testament so irreconcilable with his teachings that they dismissed all his actions in it as that of another evil God they called Deimurge. I find the later point particularly interesting. The reason is that rather then just ignore all of God's heinous acts in the Old Testament, they attributed it to another being at which point suddenly that being whose actions were no different then God's from the perspective of other Christians suddenly became evil.

I can't help but wonder, if I crossed the streets and spoke to a few Christians who possessed only passable knowledge about the actions of God in the bible and mask them as the actions of another god from a fictional cult would they condone the actions of that other God? What would we think of that other religion? I think we all know the answer to that question.

If there was proof that there is a God then there are plenty of actions (assuming the bible to be true to him) for him to be judged by that would most certainly eat away at any pretense of perfection. There is most certainly no evidence whatsoever that he is infallible as he is prone to temper tantrums, jealousy, self-contradiction, psychotic outbreaks, vengeance, promoting slavery, inciting wars, prejudice, mass murder, genocide, plague infliction, torture and many other atrocities that if committed by a human would no doubt be considered a one way ticket to hell by most Christians.

That's exactly what we need actually, to cross examine the actions of God and think whether or not we would ever perceive such a thing the same way if we were to remove the title of the supposedly infallible one and attribute it to someone or something else. And even more importantly, do we really want such a being to exist?

I mean seriously, how many people who live in big cities are hoping the story of Sodom and Gommorah are true ? Sodomites? Farewell San Fransisco. Greed? Remember the Olympics Salt Lake City? Murder? I smite thee Detroit.
I say this because someone in another thread actually mentioned this story in yet another thread regarding the Pope's visit to the US saying how we all need to get our act together. I find this interesting. Does he think it is within the God he worships ability to destroy an entire city or possibly even country of 300 million as what happened to the two cities in the story of ancient past? That is the being who he worships?

Obviously I'm an atheists, but not only do I not believe in God now that I begin to think about it I hope he doesn't exist. At least not as any religion has ever defined God or multiple gods in the case of pantheistic religions. I think I'd rather take my chance with oblivion after death then risk the chance of eternal damnation considering the nature of the being that supposedly has the right to judge me and I'm not saying that for dramatic effect either. Your thoughts?

Originally Posted by ThresholdOutlet

I don’t trust someone who speaks to invisible men, but then I’m not going to stop and stare either. They have a right, but if they try to justify their actions they have a hard time; about like trying to knock ducks out of the air with bowling balls.

Though I have heard some sensible reasons to be open to the possibility of a god, but of course that could apply to flying elephants too. But if it makes one happy…it’s probably a good thing – maybe.