If god is a perfect being....

k why do people here keep saying that God created us to benefit us or somethign along those lines? Why the hell are we so important? More importantly, how would YOU know God's reasons for creating you? I don't understand how you guys can make claims and assumptions out of thin air about how this or that happened and claim they're true. Just because you believe does not *in any way* make anything true, no matter how much you want it. You're an imperfect person, as you say, and as such, your judgement is imperfect, thereby making your claims unreliable. I don't understand how people can just indulge themselves into believing something they have absolutely no way of making *the least bit* certain of (and I'm not even talking about proof).

Can God be a perfect "being"? I see beings as, by definition, bounded off from other beings; that means that they are limited by their boundaries. Just a thought.

Jin, i agree with everything u bring up here.

As an athiest perhaps one of you kind people could answer me this;

If god was so powerful why did he let jesus die
and
how did the death of jesus save our sins?

To quote Nas, God's son: "Everybody gotta die sometime."

why early in life and why in such a nasty way?

plz also answer the part at how it saved sins.

thx

Christianity claims that no man can go to heaven by hiw own works, for the sins commited during a lifetime make this impossible. Mankind sins, and just as mankind was barred from paradise, so is it barred from heaven.
Christ, as the son of God, was perfect, in so far that he didn't sin. His death then, is much akin to the death of a lamb in a sacrificial ritual.
The lamb(Jesus) is killed as a substitute for our own sins.
Because Jesus made that ultimate sacrifice, those that truly believed in his words and pray to him for salvation, true believers that is, now can indeed enter heaven. Because our sins have been paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ.

Does this answer your question, Freethought?

JL. It has been argued that God, as such, exists in the details, or the atoms if you will. So God permeates everything then, IS everything.
However, faith in itselfs requires ideas one can comprehend (to an extent) in so far as to believe they are truth. Otherwise one adheres to hollow (for him/her) phrases. That being the case, writing about God as a 'being' allows people to visualise him more, so to speak.
Furthermore, you equate perfection to having no boundaries? I'd say that that applies more to a term like infinity.

miG, believing implies 'not knowing'. The moment you know something, is the moment you stop believing in it, and start knowing it. This rings especially true for belief systems.

Naj.

Why is it presumed that every person born after christ would commit sins? Also does it not seem unreasonable that if a person chooses a life where god and religion plays no part in it that they should be destined for hell?

Who is the true sinner?

but why would one choose to stake one's existence on a belief of something that is written in a book that has been modified countless times and interpreted scores of different ways?

It's a fairy tale, a feel good story. It's like watching a movie that makes you feel so good you want it to be true.

What you have to do is convince the gullible that an evil God exists; that is a God that will reject you by casting you out into a void or torturing you with intense pain for eternity (hell) because of your religious beliefs. I say an evil God because I can't conceive of a loving God doing this. But, believe it or not, Christians believe a loving God will do such a thing. Be very thankful loving humans don't. We know evil humans do.

But wait, there is a way out of this situation. There is a way to appease this angry, vengeful and intolerant God. In the past it used to be a sacrifice; a human, animal or whatever. Now God did us a big favor, to show us that he's not really 100% evil. He decides to come to earth, disguised as a human, get himself killed (Passion) and tell us that was the sacrifice needed to make us acceptable to him. Don't ask me to explain the logic of this. It's nonsense but believers like it because it's so easy. All they have to do is believe, accept the story (accept Christ) and, BINGO, instant heaven. God is happy. You've appeased his vanity.

Remember he came disguised as a human. That means some people aren't going to pick up on this. And we know what God is going to do to them.

Have you sinned; that is have you cheated on your spouse, committed fraud, raped a woman, committed murder? No problem. Die a believer and you will be forgiven. You will be with God. Don't believe in God, or even worse, believe in a false religion (aren't they all false to someone?) and you're doomed.

Remember, the whole trick is to tear you down (you're evil), make you have a very low opinion of yourself (or else you're vain) and submit yourself totally to the Lord (be his slave) so he may forgive you for your sins (the evil you were inherently born with).

For example;

So, you ask, why are we here on earth? Well one thing should be obvious. We're doomed from the moment of conception. We're labeled evil the minute we emerge from the womb. So it appears our only purpose is to be a slave to a God. Life is a test to see if our soul will believe or not believe; more importantly, to believe in the proper manner or not. Life has no other purpose.

Do you go to church on Sunday? It's hellfire and damnation for you, according to the SDA. Saturday is the proper day to worship and God will not accept you into his house if you can't get the day right.

Are you a Protestant? Then, according to the Catholics it's hellfire and damnation for you; or, at least, that's the way it was in the past. They had a thing called Extra Ecclesia Nulla Sallus (EENS). It meant if you were not a Catholic you went to hell. As the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 put it "Extra Ecclesiam Nullus omnino Salvatur." "Out of the Church there is positively no Salvation". Well that changed with Vatican II. The Catholic church no longer believes in EENS. They just can't seem to get it right.

However if God is the guy responsible for putting us poor souls here on earth another question has to be asked. Does God really care what we believe? It's obvious that God puts souls in every conceivable belief system, from atheist to the most fervent God-fearing body-floppin, snake handling Christian. Could he be practicing the Calvinist doctrine of predestination?

The Calvinist Doctrine of Predestination is primarily rejected by many Christians today. It, very generally, states that God decided before your birth which souls he wanted to have with him in heaven (Unconditional election) and which were destined for hell (Reprobation). Those he liked he put in selected human bodies that would be raised in the proper environment such that they would have the "right" faith. All others were put outside of that environment so they would never believe properly and, hence, be cast into hell. Even some of those that were put in the correct "faith" environment went to hell. Can't have too many souls in heaven. How are you going to feed them and where do you put the sewage (remember full body resurrection?)?

So, would Jews and Muslims be able to enter heaven and be with God? Well of course not. Why be a Christian if any faith or belief will let you enter heaven? But what are the odds of a Jew or Muslim converting over to the "right" Christian faith that will allow them to enter heaven? Very, very little. So who has the advantage here?

If we see this as unjust then we should accept the notion that God is indifferent to our beliefs, if we want to believe in a just God. Perhaps what he is more concerned about is how we behave. One would think that would be more important than believing in the "right" faith. In the name of the "right" faith one can easily slaughter innocent people.

Perhaps our purpose here is to learn, but that mystery will be explained when our time comes to pass on. In the meantime, obey the Golden Rule (it's a universal rule found in all major religions) and enjoy the gift of life. Don't fret over what is the "right" belief. No matter what you may think is the "right" belief there is someone out there who will tell you you're wrong and the lake of fire awaits you.

Naj, referring to the notion that God is in the particular, I was talking to an atheistic physicist yesterday who said that physics seems to point to the "final conclusion" that the universe may ultimately be some kind of Mind or Consciousness, but nothing like we can relate to. This position is much closer to the Brahmin of Hinduism than to the humanoid God of Christianity.

JL, I for one think there is a fascinating topic in and of itself. God and science shouldn't be the banners of opposite debating camps. I for one am not an atheirs, nor an agnost. I think there is a force out there, but I refuse to tag it with a name. Monotheism is a source of neverending conflict imho. Best steer clear of such strife.

Xingu, Hmm. Equating the Christian God with an evil god is not very just. There may be a few exceptions, but you will find that most beliefs deal with gods of some kind who expect and or demand worship. The reason for such is easy. A God that expected nothing would be evil towards earlier mankind. Why?
Worshipping a God with rituals gives a man a sense of control over that which he cannot control. By garnering a gods goodwill, you can hope he will give good weather for travel or harvests. If any God FAILS to expect some sort of sacrifice, that inadvertently means that men CANNOT use such rituals to create goodwill.

miG, until the advent of science as an alternative to understand the ways of the world, mankind had no way to explain what was happening around him but by believing it was controlled by a higher being. Most religions predate the age of Science, and most religious authoroties had difficulty embracing the concept of science, since it allowed for a worldview without a God.
When you talk about a book, true believers would say it is not 'a book', but THE book, which holds the word of God. How it has come to us (over countless years and many authors) was not widely known until recently, and even now people shrug it off as irrelevant. It's the message the counts, and not the messenger.
As for different interpretations. Every single word is open to different interpretations. That's the strnegth and weakness of communicating by means of words. Usually a group of erudite theologists construct the framework for the believers by doing the interpreting. The believers then get to hear the message of their god in one of the institutions of that framework(churches, mosques). The problems arise when people start to interpret the words in such a way as to help along their own ambitions and dreams.
Freethought. Not every person born after christ. EVERYBODY who ever lived. Humanity is born in sin and lives in sin because Adam and Eve chose to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil. God had forbidden this, and responded by casting them out of paradise. At that time, he said that men would líve 'in sin.'
Not believing in God implies not believing in Jesus Christ and his sacrifice. Since it is this belief that opens the gates of heaven, people who choose not to believe will go to hell.

Once again, I am not a christian, though I was raised as one. The main reason I stopped being a Christian is because of this last point. I for one feel that the way you live your own life should be the yardstick by which admission to heaven or hell is decided. Not by a belief perse.

Naj

Because he loves us!

Ok first of all who was this so called payment of blood to?

please don't post retarded things in this thread....

Re: If god is a perfect being....


There is a little bit of God in every one of us (believe it or not). Therefore, pose this question to yourself first before you ask it of God. Your quandry lies not in God but temporal sequence.

Oh yes lets get into time again.

There is no before or after in the conventional sense. Where there is alpha, omega has been and visa versa.

*snaps*

I would say if there is a debt out there it is to us.

i'm not some crazy Evangelical freak. i was answering your question.

Chris, I would not use the phrase "there is a little bit of God in all of us." Not because it is wrong, but because I prefer "there is both the absolute and relative in all of us; we are simultaneously godly and humanly." I do think that the Nazarene meant something like that, and we took it to be a (meglomanical) claim to his exclusive divinity, AS OPPOSED TO everyone else's profanity.

Having been raised a Christian like me as well, jin, you ought to know.
the payment mentioned is from JC to God in atonement for the sins of those who believe in JC as being the son of God who has come to earth to die for our sins.

Diest... Explain?

I agree 100% Naj... I don't think belief has to be the key to heaven, but actual acts of kindness, fairness, generosity, etc that should reflect about how good/bad a person is.

However, since, as you say, religion, as a mode of knowing the world is obsolete, and I agree, I am still puzzled by the fact that so many people keep believing.