I have been reading many of the other forums and it just seems that people ask a
lot of questions about God and the Christian faith. However, due to one reason
or another these questions are never answered. I just felt it was my duty to
give it a shot to answer any question any one might have. I also made this forum
for the chance for atheists to challenge Christainity. I wanted to show people
that there is an intellegent base for the Christan faith. One final thing, I
will try my very best to answer all questions in order, as quickly as possible
and with the best possible answer. I must ask that when many questions are asked
that you would be patient with me while I type responses. That being said "
Bring it on" lol
Well said. I ask this of you. Why is free will considered important in the
creation of humans? That is, why do humans need to have free will to be happy?
I'm asking because free will causes a lot of problems in the world. Why did God
create humans with free will? Could he just as easily created them without free
will. Some may argue that free will is needed to be complete. Could not God make
free will unnecessary to be complete? God is omnipotent he should be able to do
this. Wouldn't it be better to make all humans like happy robots unable to make
bad decisions like murder, rape, etc?
Quote by CyberDragoonWell said. I
ask this of you. Why is free will considered important in the creation of
humans? That is, why do humans need to have free will to be happy? I'm asking
because free will causes a lot of problems in the world. Why did God create
humans with free will? Could he just as easily created them without free will.
Some may argue that free will is needed to be complete. Could not God make free
will unnecessary to be complete? God is omnipotent he should be able to do this.
Wouldn't it be better to make all humans like happy robots unable to make bad
decisions like murder, rape, etc?
Free will is a double edged sword. God has a plan. But we have to freely choose
to follow His will. If we were just mindlessly obedient, there would be none of
the creativity and innovations that we now have. Free will gives us the ability
to act on our own.
Are there problems in the world because of free-will? Sure. But that was part of
the plan, too.
See, I think that ultimately, God wanted to see if he could EARN our love. If we
were without free-will, we would have no choice but to love him, but that's not
love. Not really.
With free will, God knows that what love he recieves from us is genuine.
Quote by CHC999I only have a few very
simple questions
1) If god does exist, who creted god?
2) Why did he created everything?
3) How do you know theres only one god?
1. Nobody. He is Eternal. The image of the moebian strip, which has no beginning
or end, would be a good illustration of his nature.
2. Only He knows that. Maybe He was bored. Maybe He was curious. Either way, He
did.
3. That's strictly a matter of Faith. He told us that any other "gods"
were false. We must either take Him at His word, or doubt it. But if we doubt
His word, then we have no reason to obey Him, and then we fail to follow Him.
1) Why do you believe in god?
2) If god is omniscient, then he knows everything that will happen to us. So why
we have free will? It doesn't matter the choices we make, because he knows what
choices we will make. And if he created us, than he chose what choices we would
make! It doesn't make any sense.
Quote by Jinn1) Why do you believe in
god?
2) If god is omniscient, then he knows everything that will happen to us. So why
we have free will? It doesn't matter the choices we make, because he knows what
choices we will make. And if he created us, than he chose what choices we would
make! It doesn't make any sense.
Beleive it or not I have never been asked Why I beleive in God.
Perhaps I could answer that question with one of my own. Jinn why don't you
beleive in God? And in regards to your second question, yes he knows what we
will do in the future. However In the Bible it says The Lord's gets his greatest
sense of happiness when a "lost sheep" returns to Him. I'm sure you
have a favorite line in some movie, but even though you know its going to be
said, when you hear it it still makes you happy. Not that I'm comparing the
saving of one's soul to a favorite movie line, I'm just using that as an
example. Good questions thanks Jinn
I hope that answers your questions, If not please call me out
1)How can god be goodnatured, peaceful and careing, when it is impossible to
feel emotions for a omniscient and omnipotent being?
(feelings are emotional reaction on experiences and new
happenings/archievements/appearences.... if you are omniscient you allready know
everything and therefor have no emotional reaction to happenings)
2) God is omniscient, omnipotent and perfect. Being perfect means that your
furthers, bestest state is allready archieved and there is no need, no sense and
no possibility in further envolving.
How come that "our" god changed from a cruell, fearful, powerful and
punishing god, into the loving, caring and forgiving god he is today (as the
bible teaches us about his atributes)?
3) Isnt it rather disappointing and a sad excuse to answer religious question,
believers dont have proper answeres to, with a simple "gods ways are
unknown" or "only god knows" ?
Even the most popular religion, Christianity, with all variations pushed into
one group, make up only about a third of the world population. No matter what
you believe, a majority of the world disagrees with your beliefs. You have
statistical proof people are easily fooled by incorrect religions. Whether they
are ignorant the truth or they are denying the truth, a majority of mankind is
fooled into having untrue beliefs.
Now here's the question: If the majority of mankind is fooled into believing an
untrue religion, why are you immune to mankind's tenancy to believe a religious
falsehood? Isn't it more likely that, regardless of whether it is true, most of
us believe what we are raised to believe? Doesn't this suggest that all
religious beliefs may be a product of the human mind, rather then an accurate
description of reality?
Quote by bwebFree will is a double edged
sword. God has a plan. But we have to freely choose to follow His will. If we
were just mindlessly obedient, there would be none of the creativity and
innovations that we now have. Free will gives us the ability to act on our own.
Are there problems in the world because of free-will? Sure. But that was part of
the plan, too.
See, I think that ultimately, God wanted to see if he could EARN our love. If we
were without free-will, we would have no choice but to love him, but that's not
love. Not really.
With free will, God knows that what love he recieves from us is
genuine.
I'm arguing that since God is all-powerful could he just FORCE us to love him
genuinly? If all things can be done by God then surely forcing someone to truly
love you would be easy. Also you said that forced love is not true love.
Couldn't God simply MAKE it true love. Why should God be hampered by human
definitions of love? He could simply change any rule anytime he wants. He could
make the only true love forced love. He is all-powerful so this is concivable
for him.
Couldn't God FORCE humans to be creative and innovative? He could easily FORCE
people to do it.
I'm sure that God did not mean to have wars as part of hte plan. Maybe but I
think it's unlikely.
You've also said that God wanted to try to earn the love. Couldn't he just bend
reality and FORCE himself to earn it? Like one day he just says "I shalt
earn love!" And it just happens like out of the blue. Why should God
wait?
I guess what I'm trying to say is that why does God have to wait for whatever he
is wating for humans to do? Couldn't he just speed up time for himself?
The folllowing is a copy of an older post I have made.
"Let me show to you why God is IMPOSSIBLE or at least the Christian
interpretation of God.
"Perfection Seeks Even More Perfection
What did God do during that eternity before he created everything? If God was
all that existed back then, what disturbed the eternal equilibrium and compelled
him to create? Was he bored? Was he lonely? God is supposed to be perfect. If
something is perfect, it is complete--it needs nothing else. We humans engage in
activities because we are pursuing that elusive perfection, because there is
disequilibrium caused by a difference between what we are and what we want to
be. If God is perfect, there can be no disequilibrium. There is nothing he
needs, nothing he desires, and nothing he must or will do. A God who is perfect
does nothing except exist. A perfect creator God is impossible.
Perfection Begets Imperfection
But, for the sake of argument, let's continue. Let us suppose that this perfect
God did create the universe. Humans were the crown of his creation, since they
were created in God's image and have the ability to make decisions. However,
these humans spoiled the original perfection by choosing to disobey
God.
What!? If something is perfect, nothing imperfect can come from it. Someone once
said that bad fruit cannot come from a good tree, and yet this
"perfect" God created a "perfect" universe which was
rendered imperfect by the "perfect" humans. The ultimate source of
imperfection is God. What is perfect cannot become imperfect, so humans must
have been created imperfect. What is perfect cannot create anything imperfect,
so God must be imperfect to have created these imperfect humans. A perfect God
who creates imperfect humans is impossible.
The Freewill Argument
The Christians' objection to this argument involves freewill. They say that a
being must have freewill to be happy. The omnibenevolent God did not wish to
create robots, so he gave humans freewill to enable them to experience love and
happiness. But the humans used this freewill to choose evil, and introduced
imperfection into God's originally perfect universe. God had no control over
this decision, so the blame for our imperfect universe is on the humans, not
God.
Here is why the argument is weak. First, if God is omnipotent, then the
assumption that freewill is necessary for happiness is false. If God could make
it a rule that only beings with freewill may experience happiness, then he could
just as easily have made it a rule that only robots may experience happiness.
The latter option is clearly superior, since perfect robots will never make
decisions which could render them or their creator unhappy, whereas beings with
freewill could. A perfect and omnipotent God who creates beings capable of
ruining their own happiness is impossible.
Second, even if we were to allow the necessity of freewill for happiness, God
could have created humans with freewill who did not have the ability to choose
evil, but to choose between several good options.
Third, God supposedly has freewill, and yet he does not make imperfect
decisions. If humans are miniature images of God, our decisions should likewise
be perfect. Also, the occupants of heaven, who presumably must have freewill to
be happy, will never use that freewill to make imperfect decisions. Why would
the originally perfect humans do differently?
The point remains: the presence of imperfections in the universe disproves the
supposed perfection of its creator.
All-good God Knowingly Creates Future Suffering
God is omniscient. When he created the universe, he saw the sufferings which
humans would endure as a result of the sin of those original humans. He heard
the screams of the damned. Surely he would have known that it would have been
better for those humans to never have been born (in fact, the Bible says this
very thing), and surely this all-compassionate deity would have foregone the
creation of a universe destined to imperfection in which many of the humans were
doomed to eternal suffering. A perfectly compassionate being who creates beings
which he knows are doomed to suffer is impossible.
The Omniscient is Surprised
A God who knows everything cannot have emotions. The Bible says that God
experiences all of the emotions of humans, including anger, sadness, and
happiness. We humans experience emotions as a result of new knowledge. A man who
had formerly been ignorant of his wife's infidelity will experience the emotions
of anger and sadness only after he has learned what had previously been hidden.
In contrast, the omniscient God is ignorant of nothing. Nothing is hidden from
him, nothing new may be revealed to him, so there is no gained knowledge to
which he may emotively react.
We humans experience anger and frustration when something is wrong which we
cannot fix. The perfect, omnipotent God, however, can fix anything. Humans
experience longing for things we lack. The perfect God lacks nothing. An
omniscient, omnipotent, and perfect God who experiences emotion is
impossible."
Thus God in the Christian sense of the guy is IMPOSSIBLE."
If you can please comment on all the points I make.
I do not believe in God. Partly for the reasons above and partly of personal
preference. There are other reasons of course, but that's a story for another
day.
cyberdragoon, your points are good but long not the only points that proof the
contradictions in the existence of god in the christian sense.
To argue agains some points of those points christians have to assume that god
can also change laws of logic, world and physik, but to argue agains other
contradictions christians have to asume that he cannot do this very thing. So
even there is a contradiction.
I am an atheist but as a believer the only way for me to argue would simply be
that the god in sense of christianity is false and inaccurate to some extend, or
simply that we cant understand those connections yet but maybe will someday.
For agnostics and atheists, God has not spoken or proven Himself outright? Why?
Why does God stay quiet for some and not for others? How do thiests make this
"faith" switch flick on?
YES! this is getting fun this is just what I wanted. Very intellegent.
However for the time being i must ask that no other replies be written until I
can post mine, which should be in the next coupla hours. Thanks a lot
First off lets me start by sayig this is Araszun. I'm not on my computer and I
forgot my password to my Araszun account (dang you windows password saving
feature) so I hafta use a friends account. LOL DO'H . Any
way I think I under estimated the time it will take to come up with responses to
all your replies. You guys have come up with excellent questions and I truly
appreciate that. I
will not be responding with 1 big response, but instead small focused responses
using Logical Syllogisms.
.syl·lo·gism ( P ) Pronunciation
Key (sl-jzm)
n.
Logic. A form of deductive reasoning consisting of a major premise, a minor
premise, and a conclusion; for example, All humans are mortal, the major
premise, I am a human, the minor premise, therefore, I am mortal, the
conclusion.
So lets get started with Mephisto2k, your question was
Quote by Mephisto2k1)How can god be
goodnatured, peaceful and careing, when it is impossible to feel emotions for a
omniscient and omnipotent being?
(feelings are emotional reaction on experiences and new
happenings/archievements/appearences.... if you are omniscient you allready know
everything and therefor have no emotional reaction to happenings)
?
My response
1. Christ was Deity
2. Christ had emotions ( refer to Matthew 21:12 for anger and 26:38 for
sadness)
Conclusion= God has emotion
p.s I apologize for stopping every one from posting, I'm sure a few people
wanted to but were stopped because of my request. I didn't mean for people to
stay out of the conversation, I just didn't want to get overwhelmed. Please, I
want every one to post, just keep in mind that I will replay in order of those
who replied first. So i guess every one post as much as you like
LOL, using logic as a form for the base of the argument... how about using
proofs? Can you derive Christ was a deity?
Can you derive Christ had emotions other than referencing to the Bible!
The argument does not follow if the premise is false or questionable to that
degree.
My syllogism is true. The burden of proof falls on you to "prove" it
false.
merged: 01-17-2006 ~ 11:46am
Mephisto2k in response to your second point, I first have some clarification
questions. I had some trouble understanding the second sentence ( "Being
perfect means that.....") please rephrase that for me. Following that you
made the assumption that God was not a loving, caring, or forgiving God "in
the old days" ( The Old Testament). Am i accurate in that evaluation? Also
are you saying He's a fearful God or a God to be feared?
merged: 01-17-2006 ~ 11:53am
Mephisto2k your third point is excellent. There are many times in my life that i
have been dissapointed in many things without having the answer. Just because
thats true, does your third statement disprove God?
3. Assuming the Bible was perfect at the start, human errors of
translation/misinterpretation will have marred it by now.
Conclusion:
Either the Bible or God is imperfect. For the sake of argument let us assume
that gods must be perfect. Thus it could only mean the Bible is imperfect. If
the Bible is imperfect it is logical to conclude that we cannot possibly take
all of it at face value without proof.
If a section of it were shown to be untrue we must look to the other sections
for signs of error. We need proof that these sections are not wrong. Hence
because of this your reference of the Bible cannot be used as evidence without
proof of its validity. For all we know the sections you pointed out may have
been errors in translation. Due to this you must prove that your sections in the
Bible are not false before they can be used as evidence. After all you cannot
defend truth with lies or guesses.
Here's my own syllogism...kinda....
1. God is omnipotent and omnisicent.
2. God knew that when he told Adam and Eve about the Tree of Good and Evil that
they would eat the fruit.
3. God was dumb or naive to tell them in the first place rather than tell Adam
and Eve not to eat the fruit or he'd kick them out of Eden. Why didn't he just
make the tree invisible? He knew the choice they would make so the argument
that, "He wanted to see what choice they would make," is
false.
Conclusion: God is not omniscient or the story of Adam and Eve is untrue.
Assuming the latter option to be true then that only furthers the contridictions
in the Bible.
Very good points. Syllogisms are one of the best ways to discuss and/or debate
this type of topic.
I'd like to take on the first syllogism you created because if I can show you
the false premise (and therefore a false conclusion) then the second one is
irrelevant.
Point number two states that "the Bible is known to have significant errors
in it." This is where your argument falls short and therefore cannot stand.
The web page you added is a great source for the "preceived"
inconsistencies or contradictions. These are fun to go through because every one
is either misrepresented, misquoted, or taken completely out of context. So,
what I'd like to propose, instead of going through every single one right now
why don't you let me know which one you'd like me to prove and I'll do that very
thing. If you truly study the edymology, the historical context of the document,
and the context of the verse you will find that every one of those on that web
page will prove to be a false contradiction. Therefore, I think it's fair to say
that if I can show even one of those "contradictions" false then the
entire web page is suspisious and needs to be acknowledged for it's
untruthfulness.
Quote by Jinn1) Why do you believe in
god?
2) If god is omniscient, then he knows everything that will happen to us. So why
we have free will? It doesn't matter the choices we make, because he knows what
choices we will make. And if he created us, than he chose what choices we would
make! It doesn't make any sense.
1. At the risk of being ridiculed, I have felt His presence. It isn't something
that I can describe. All I can say with any certainty is that I know it to be
true. That is the basis of Faith.
2. God DOESN'T know what we're going to do. He is cognizant of everything we
have done, and everything we ARE doing, but because of free will, it is up to us
to determine what we will do next. He's wise enough that he could probably
accurately predict what we might do, but even He doesn't get his predictions of
our behaviour right all the time.
God wants us to chose Him and His will, but we are free not to. In many cases,
the Bible describes God as being "angry". You don't get
"angry" at something you predicted. You get "angry" when
you've asked one of your people or followers to do something, and they flat-out
refused to do it.
I'm arguing that since God is all-powerful could he just FORCE us to love him
genuinly? If all things can be done by God then surely forcing someone to truly
love you would be easy. Also you said that forced love is not true love.
Couldn't God simply MAKE it true love. Why should God be hampered by human
definitions of love? .
It isn't OUR definition of Love that holds Him back, but the very nature of what
Love truly is. Love is not something you can force. Love must come on its own.
If it doesn't, it's not Love, it's just lip-service.
I could make a robot, and I could program it to tell me it loved me all the
time. But deep in my heart, I would know that it was only doing it because I
wanted it to, because I made it that way. If I were particularly shallow, I
might be able to ignore that. But not being shallow, I can't.
And if you had the power to make a Universe, you probably wouldn't be shallow,
either. And you would have all that power at your disposal, but no real love. In
the end, wouldn't you feel isolated and alone, even in a sea of
"praise".
You would want something more. You would want someone, even just once, to tell
you that they loved you. Not for the stuff you could give them. Not for the
power you had. But because they genuinely loved you without condition.
Some would then bring up the arguement of Hell. Some would say, "Well, if
God loves us, why does He send some of us to Hell?"
The answer is simple. He doesn't. We put ourselves there. Hell was originally
envisioned as seperation from God. A dark, empty void where we went when we
chose not to be with God. Just us, all by ourselves for all eternity in a cold,
dark place. Nothing but eternity, and our despair.
It was human failure to understand just how severe that was that prompted
writings of fire and brimstone. We couldn't grasp the concept of eternal despair
wrought of our own doing, so the scribes began to write of physical torment,
which we can all relate to, as the equivalent of Hell.
Most of what we envision of Hell these days comes from Dante's Inferno. But it
isn't what God envisioned.
We were free to chose to be at His side by obeying His will, or we were free to
spend eternity cold and alone, because there was no one else out there to
provide us with the kind of Love He wanted to bestow upon us.
Quote by jasaiyajinFor agnostics and
atheists, God has not spoken or proven Himself outright? Why? Why does God stay
quiet for some and not for others? How do thiests make this "faith"
switch flick on?
God "talks" to all of us. Some of us just chose not to hear. I was an
aethist once. I wasn't hearing God, but He was there.
One day, I heard. It was by accident, I think. No psychological trauma. No
period of overwhelming stress or hardship, as you read about in most people
"finding God".
No, I was minding my own business and doing my normal things when I just noticed
things a little differently.
The conclusion was inescapable, though I tried to shut it out for some time.
But I eventually came ot accept that there was a God, that He was talking to me,
and that I had simply been refusing to hear.
Now, that being said, I'm hardly the perfect Christian. God and I don't always
see eye to eye. I'm willful, probably more than just a tad disobedient, and
sometimes it's hard to do His will without knowing what the real plan is. But I
try my hardest to follow Him, because ultimately, I have to have Faith that He
knows what is right.
Quote by CyberDragoon
1. God is omnipotent and omnisicent.
2. God knew that when he told Adam and Eve about the Tree of Good and Evil that
they would eat the fruit.
3. God was dumb or naive to tell them in the first place rather than tell Adam
and Eve not to eat the fruit or he'd kick them out of Eden. Why didn't he just
make the tree invisible? He knew the choice they would make so the argument
that, "He wanted to see what choice they would make," is false.
Conclusion: God is not omniscient or the story of Adam and Eve is untrue.
Assuming the latter option to be true then that only furthers the contridictions
in the Bible.
Except that your logic is flawed.
According to Cabbalistic writings, the name of the Chief of the fallen angels
was not Satan, which is a title meaning "Adversary", and not a name,
and it was not "Lucifer" which means "morning Star". That
was a mistranslation by an early monk, who mistook a metaphor for a literal
name. Instead, the name of that Angel was Sammael. Now, that translates as
"Poison Angel". Interesting, yes?
Now, take it further. We were given free will, because, as I discussed, God
wanted to know that the Love we felt for him was genuine. But He knew that we
wouold eventually do wrong. Just because you don't know the difference between
right and wrong doesn't mean you don't do the wrong thing. It just means that
you aren't aware that you're doing the wrong thing.
The sin we commited in the Garden of Eden wasn't gaining the knowledge of right
and wrong from the Tree of Knowledge. It was wanting to become like God.
That is what Sammael, in the form of the serpent, told us. "If you eat
this, you will become like God."
Now, an Angel's name, in the Cabbalistic writings, described it's function.
Sammael was named "Poison" by God, and that was exactly his purpose.
To spread "poison", in the Garden of Eden. The "poison" of
Vanity, Lies, Greed, and Pride.
But if he was named "poison", then that was his function, and
therefore, it was set up to happen that way? Why? Because God wanted our Love,
but to ensure that it was real, He had to give us free will. But Free Will also
gave us the chance to do the wrong thing from time to time, without ever being
aware of it.
The fruit was placed there because God knew that we would eventually succumb to
temptation and eat of it. Had we not been told that we would be like God, it
would have simply been us doing wrong ignorantly. But our sin was Greed and
Pride, and so we had to be expelled from the Garden of Eden.
"The wages of sin are death", we were told. And that was the order of
things. God knew this. And He knew that we had chosen that path in his effort to
find Love from us.
So, to prevent us from having to pay that price, He came to us in the form of
Christ, who was without sin. He died on the cross as a means of paying our wages
of sin for us. He took Death upon Himself out of His love for us, in the hopes
that we would understand, and return to Him.
In other words, what happened in the Garden of Eden wasn't naivety or stupidity,
but rather, a necessary part of the process, determined by the fact that we were
given free will. Not just because He wanted our Love, but because He felt it for
us as well.
Quote by Youri..i
have one question.. could god make a taco soo hot that he himself cannot eat
it?..
My question is why would He want to? That would be a waste of food.
Since Youri's question is similiar with mine, I'll aswer
yours. The question never asks "would he" but "could he". It
ask what is Gods true power and not his use of it.
In response to the question stated above about the stone and the taco:
"If God is all powerful
Could He make a stone that He Himself could not move?"
Seems to place us in a trap; therefore, proving that this God could not in fact
exist because we can't answer the question yes or no because either answer
proves He is limited.
However, your first statement is wrong. "All powerful" assumes or
implies that He can do everything. This is not true. How is that possible you
ask? Simple, read the Bible. Read His own words for your answer. GOD CANNOT SIN
- He cannot lie, He cannot break His promises, He cannot hate...and so on.
Therefore, God is NOT ALL POWERFUL. Once again, as mentioned above, if your
premise is false then the conclusion must also be false.
Bweb, some of ur points are excellent, but there are some i would disagree with.
Yes, God gave us a free will, but he also knows all. Since He is the Beginning
and the End, of course he would know the future. He knows what we will choose
with the free will he gave us, the choices we will make. That's why in the
bible, it says, he has "predestined" people to be conformed to His
likeness. By "predestined," it means he knew beforehand what those who
will ultimately accept him and those who will ultimately reject him.
When God told Adam not to eat of the fruit of knowledge, he probably knew that
Adam would disobey. But God has a plan for everyone. God knew what would happen.
Maybe all that the humans are going through are necessary for the end result or
because of man's imperfection, it's unavoidable. But who understands the mind of
the Lord? As it says in Romans 11:33-34,
"Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How
unsearchable his judgements, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the
mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?"
Man alone cannot understand the wisdom of God. That is why we trust Him, because
he knows what's good for us.
I have been reading many of the other forums and it just seems that people ask a lot of questions about God and the Christian faith. However, due to one reason or another these questions are never answered. I just felt it was my duty to give it a shot to answer any question any one might have. I also made this forum for the chance for atheists to challenge Christainity. I wanted to show people that there is an intellegent base for the Christan faith. One final thing, I will try my very best to answer all questions in order, as quickly as possible and with the best possible answer. I must ask that when many questions are asked that you would be patient with me while I type responses. That being said " Bring it on" lol
Well said. I ask this of you. Why is free will considered important in the creation of humans? That is, why do humans need to have free will to be happy? I'm asking because free will causes a lot of problems in the world. Why did God create humans with free will? Could he just as easily created them without free will. Some may argue that free will is needed to be complete. Could not God make free will unnecessary to be complete? God is omnipotent he should be able to do this. Wouldn't it be better to make all humans like happy robots unable to make bad decisions like murder, rape, etc?
I only have a few very simple questions
1) If god does exist, who creted god?
2) Why did he created everything?
3) How do you know theres only one god?
Free will is a double edged sword. God has a plan. But we have to freely choose to follow His will. If we were just mindlessly obedient, there would be none of the creativity and innovations that we now have. Free will gives us the ability to act on our own.
Are there problems in the world because of free-will? Sure. But that was part of the plan, too.
See, I think that ultimately, God wanted to see if he could EARN our love. If we were without free-will, we would have no choice but to love him, but that's not love. Not really.
With free will, God knows that what love he recieves from us is genuine.
1. Nobody. He is Eternal. The image of the moebian strip, which has no beginning or end, would be a good illustration of his nature.
2. Only He knows that. Maybe He was bored. Maybe He was curious. Either way, He did.
3. That's strictly a matter of Faith. He told us that any other "gods" were false. We must either take Him at His word, or doubt it. But if we doubt His word, then we have no reason to obey Him, and then we fail to follow Him.
1) Why do you believe in god?
2) If god is omniscient, then he knows everything that will happen to us. So why we have free will? It doesn't matter the choices we make, because he knows what choices we will make. And if he created us, than he chose what choices we would make! It doesn't make any sense.
Beleive it or not I have never been asked Why I beleive in God.
Perhaps I could answer that question with one of my own. Jinn why don't you
beleive in God? And in regards to your second question, yes he knows what we
will do in the future. However In the Bible it says The Lord's gets his greatest
sense of happiness when a "lost sheep" returns to Him. I'm sure you
have a favorite line in some movie, but even though you know its going to be
said, when you hear it it still makes you happy. Not that I'm comparing the
saving of one's soul to a favorite movie line, I'm just using that as an
example. 
Good questions thanks Jinn
I hope that answers your questions, If not please call me out
1)How can god be goodnatured, peaceful and careing, when it is impossible to feel emotions for a omniscient and omnipotent being?
(feelings are emotional reaction on experiences and new happenings/archievements/appearences.... if you are omniscient you allready know everything and therefor have no emotional reaction to happenings)
2) God is omniscient, omnipotent and perfect. Being perfect means that your furthers, bestest state is allready archieved and there is no need, no sense and no possibility in further envolving.
How come that "our" god changed from a cruell, fearful, powerful and punishing god, into the loving, caring and forgiving god he is today (as the bible teaches us about his atributes)?
3) Isnt it rather disappointing and a sad excuse to answer religious question, believers dont have proper answeres to, with a simple "gods ways are unknown" or "only god knows" ?
Even the most popular religion, Christianity, with all variations pushed into one group, make up only about a third of the world population. No matter what you believe, a majority of the world disagrees with your beliefs. You have statistical proof people are easily fooled by incorrect religions. Whether they are ignorant the truth or they are denying the truth, a majority of mankind is fooled into having untrue beliefs.
Now here's the question: If the majority of mankind is fooled into believing an untrue religion, why are you immune to mankind's tenancy to believe a religious falsehood? Isn't it more likely that, regardless of whether it is true, most of us believe what we are raised to believe? Doesn't this suggest that all religious beliefs may be a product of the human mind, rather then an accurate description of reality?
I'm arguing that since God is all-powerful could he just FORCE us to love him genuinly? If all things can be done by God then surely forcing someone to truly love you would be easy. Also you said that forced love is not true love. Couldn't God simply MAKE it true love. Why should God be hampered by human definitions of love? He could simply change any rule anytime he wants. He could make the only true love forced love. He is all-powerful so this is concivable for him.
Couldn't God FORCE humans to be creative and innovative? He could easily FORCE people to do it.
I'm sure that God did not mean to have wars as part of hte plan. Maybe but I think it's unlikely.
You've also said that God wanted to try to earn the love. Couldn't he just bend reality and FORCE himself to earn it? Like one day he just says "I shalt earn love!" And it just happens like out of the blue. Why should God wait?
I guess what I'm trying to say is that why does God have to wait for whatever he is wating for humans to do? Couldn't he just speed up time for himself?
The folllowing is a copy of an older post I have made.
"Let me show to you why God is IMPOSSIBLE or at least the Christian interpretation of God.
"Perfection Seeks Even More Perfection
What did God do during that eternity before he created everything? If God was all that existed back then, what disturbed the eternal equilibrium and compelled him to create? Was he bored? Was he lonely? God is supposed to be perfect. If something is perfect, it is complete--it needs nothing else. We humans engage in activities because we are pursuing that elusive perfection, because there is disequilibrium caused by a difference between what we are and what we want to be. If God is perfect, there can be no disequilibrium. There is nothing he needs, nothing he desires, and nothing he must or will do. A God who is perfect does nothing except exist. A perfect creator God is impossible.
Perfection Begets Imperfection
But, for the sake of argument, let's continue. Let us suppose that this perfect God did create the universe. Humans were the crown of his creation, since they were created in God's image and have the ability to make decisions. However, these humans spoiled the original perfection by choosing to disobey God.
What!? If something is perfect, nothing imperfect can come from it. Someone once said that bad fruit cannot come from a good tree, and yet this "perfect" God created a "perfect" universe which was rendered imperfect by the "perfect" humans. The ultimate source of imperfection is God. What is perfect cannot become imperfect, so humans must have been created imperfect. What is perfect cannot create anything imperfect, so God must be imperfect to have created these imperfect humans. A perfect God who creates imperfect humans is impossible.
The Freewill Argument
The Christians' objection to this argument involves freewill. They say that a being must have freewill to be happy. The omnibenevolent God did not wish to create robots, so he gave humans freewill to enable them to experience love and happiness. But the humans used this freewill to choose evil, and introduced imperfection into God's originally perfect universe. God had no control over this decision, so the blame for our imperfect universe is on the humans, not God.
Here is why the argument is weak. First, if God is omnipotent, then the assumption that freewill is necessary for happiness is false. If God could make it a rule that only beings with freewill may experience happiness, then he could just as easily have made it a rule that only robots may experience happiness. The latter option is clearly superior, since perfect robots will never make decisions which could render them or their creator unhappy, whereas beings with freewill could. A perfect and omnipotent God who creates beings capable of ruining their own happiness is impossible.
Second, even if we were to allow the necessity of freewill for happiness, God could have created humans with freewill who did not have the ability to choose evil, but to choose between several good options.
Third, God supposedly has freewill, and yet he does not make imperfect decisions. If humans are miniature images of God, our decisions should likewise be perfect. Also, the occupants of heaven, who presumably must have freewill to be happy, will never use that freewill to make imperfect decisions. Why would the originally perfect humans do differently?
The point remains: the presence of imperfections in the universe disproves the supposed perfection of its creator.
All-good God Knowingly Creates Future Suffering
God is omniscient. When he created the universe, he saw the sufferings which humans would endure as a result of the sin of those original humans. He heard the screams of the damned. Surely he would have known that it would have been better for those humans to never have been born (in fact, the Bible says this very thing), and surely this all-compassionate deity would have foregone the creation of a universe destined to imperfection in which many of the humans were doomed to eternal suffering. A perfectly compassionate being who creates beings which he knows are doomed to suffer is impossible.
The Omniscient is Surprised
A God who knows everything cannot have emotions. The Bible says that God experiences all of the emotions of humans, including anger, sadness, and happiness. We humans experience emotions as a result of new knowledge. A man who had formerly been ignorant of his wife's infidelity will experience the emotions of anger and sadness only after he has learned what had previously been hidden. In contrast, the omniscient God is ignorant of nothing. Nothing is hidden from him, nothing new may be revealed to him, so there is no gained knowledge to which he may emotively react.
We humans experience anger and frustration when something is wrong which we cannot fix. The perfect, omnipotent God, however, can fix anything. Humans experience longing for things we lack. The perfect God lacks nothing. An omniscient, omnipotent, and perfect God who experiences emotion is impossible."
Thus God in the Christian sense of the guy is IMPOSSIBLE."
If you can please comment on all the points I make.
I do not believe in God. Partly for the reasons above and partly of personal preference. There are other reasons of course, but that's a story for another day.
cyberdragoon, your points are good but long not the only points that proof the contradictions in the existence of god in the christian sense.
To argue agains some points of those points christians have to assume that god can also change laws of logic, world and physik, but to argue agains other contradictions christians have to asume that he cannot do this very thing. So even there is a contradiction.
I am an atheist but as a believer the only way for me to argue would simply be that the god in sense of christianity is false and inaccurate to some extend, or simply that we cant understand those connections yet but maybe will someday.
For agnostics and atheists, God has not spoken or proven Himself outright? Why? Why does God stay quiet for some and not for others? How do thiests make this "faith" switch flick on?
YES!
this is getting fun this is just what I wanted. Very intellegent.
However for the time being i must ask that no other replies be written until I
can post mine, which should be in the next coupla hours. Thanks a lot 
First off lets me start by sayig this is Araszun. I'm not on my computer and I forgot my password to my Araszun account (dang you windows password saving feature) so I hafta use a friends account. LOL DO'H
. Any
way I think I under estimated the time it will take to come up with responses to
all your replies. You guys have come up with excellent questions and I truly
appreciate that. 
I
will not be responding with 1 big response, but instead small focused responses
using Logical Syllogisms.
.syl·lo·gism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (sl-jzm)
n.
Logic. A form of deductive reasoning consisting of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion; for example, All humans are mortal, the major premise, I am a human, the minor premise, therefore, I am mortal, the conclusion.
So lets get started with Mephisto2k, your question was
My response
1. Christ was Deity
2. Christ had emotions ( refer to Matthew 21:12 for anger and 26:38 for sadness)
Conclusion= God has emotion
p.s I apologize for stopping every one from posting, I'm sure a few people wanted to but were stopped because of my request. I didn't mean for people to stay out of the conversation, I just didn't want to get overwhelmed. Please, I want every one to post, just keep in mind that I will replay in order of those who replied first. So i guess every one post as much as you like
LOL, using logic as a form for the base of the argument... how about using proofs? Can you derive Christ was a deity?
Can you derive Christ had emotions other than referencing to the Bible!
The argument does not follow if the premise is false or questionable to that degree.
My syllogism is true. The burden of proof falls on you to "prove" it false.
merged: 01-17-2006 ~ 11:46am
Mephisto2k in response to your second point, I first have some clarification questions. I had some trouble understanding the second sentence ( "Being perfect means that.....") please rephrase that for me. Following that you made the assumption that God was not a loving, caring, or forgiving God "in the old days" ( The Old Testament). Am i accurate in that evaluation? Also are you saying He's a fearful God or a God to be feared?
merged: 01-17-2006 ~ 11:53am
Mephisto2k your third point is excellent. There are many times in my life that i have been dissapointed in many things without having the answer. Just because thats true, does your third statement disprove God?
1. The Bible is allegedly the word of God or inspired by him.
2. The Bible is known to have significant errors in it.
http://www.atheists.org/christianity/contradictions.html
3. Assuming the Bible was perfect at the start, human errors of translation/misinterpretation will have marred it by now.
Conclusion:
Either the Bible or God is imperfect. For the sake of argument let us assume that gods must be perfect. Thus it could only mean the Bible is imperfect. If the Bible is imperfect it is logical to conclude that we cannot possibly take all of it at face value without proof.
If a section of it were shown to be untrue we must look to the other sections for signs of error. We need proof that these sections are not wrong. Hence because of this your reference of the Bible cannot be used as evidence without proof of its validity. For all we know the sections you pointed out may have been errors in translation. Due to this you must prove that your sections in the Bible are not false before they can be used as evidence. After all you cannot defend truth with lies or guesses.
Here's my own syllogism...kinda....
1. God is omnipotent and omnisicent.
2. God knew that when he told Adam and Eve about the Tree of Good and Evil that they would eat the fruit.
3. God was dumb or naive to tell them in the first place rather than tell Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit or he'd kick them out of Eden. Why didn't he just make the tree invisible? He knew the choice they would make so the argument that, "He wanted to see what choice they would make," is false.
Conclusion: God is not omniscient or the story of Adam and Eve is untrue. Assuming the latter option to be true then that only furthers the contridictions in the Bible.
Very good points. Syllogisms are one of the best ways to discuss and/or debate this type of topic.
I'd like to take on the first syllogism you created because if I can show you the false premise (and therefore a false conclusion) then the second one is irrelevant.
Point number two states that "the Bible is known to have significant errors in it." This is where your argument falls short and therefore cannot stand. The web page you added is a great source for the "preceived" inconsistencies or contradictions. These are fun to go through because every one is either misrepresented, misquoted, or taken completely out of context. So, what I'd like to propose, instead of going through every single one right now why don't you let me know which one you'd like me to prove and I'll do that very thing. If you truly study the edymology, the historical context of the document, and the context of the verse you will find that every one of those on that web page will prove to be a false contradiction. Therefore, I think it's fair to say that if I can show even one of those "contradictions" false then the entire web page is suspisious and needs to be acknowledged for it's untruthfulness.
Well, interesting discussions. I just had a simple old age question.
If God is all-powerful,
Can He make a rock that he can't lift?
There are a number of answers for this question, but as a warning,
each answer leads to a pit of difficult questions.
1. At the risk of being ridiculed, I have felt His presence. It isn't something that I can describe. All I can say with any certainty is that I know it to be true. That is the basis of Faith.
2. God DOESN'T know what we're going to do. He is cognizant of everything we have done, and everything we ARE doing, but because of free will, it is up to us to determine what we will do next. He's wise enough that he could probably accurately predict what we might do, but even He doesn't get his predictions of our behaviour right all the time.
God wants us to chose Him and His will, but we are free not to. In many cases, the Bible describes God as being "angry". You don't get "angry" at something you predicted. You get "angry" when you've asked one of your people or followers to do something, and they flat-out refused to do it.
It isn't OUR definition of Love that holds Him back, but the very nature of what Love truly is. Love is not something you can force. Love must come on its own. If it doesn't, it's not Love, it's just lip-service.
I could make a robot, and I could program it to tell me it loved me all the time. But deep in my heart, I would know that it was only doing it because I wanted it to, because I made it that way. If I were particularly shallow, I might be able to ignore that. But not being shallow, I can't.
And if you had the power to make a Universe, you probably wouldn't be shallow, either. And you would have all that power at your disposal, but no real love. In the end, wouldn't you feel isolated and alone, even in a sea of "praise".
You would want something more. You would want someone, even just once, to tell you that they loved you. Not for the stuff you could give them. Not for the power you had. But because they genuinely loved you without condition.
Some would then bring up the arguement of Hell. Some would say, "Well, if God loves us, why does He send some of us to Hell?"
The answer is simple. He doesn't. We put ourselves there. Hell was originally envisioned as seperation from God. A dark, empty void where we went when we chose not to be with God. Just us, all by ourselves for all eternity in a cold, dark place. Nothing but eternity, and our despair.
It was human failure to understand just how severe that was that prompted writings of fire and brimstone. We couldn't grasp the concept of eternal despair wrought of our own doing, so the scribes began to write of physical torment, which we can all relate to, as the equivalent of Hell.
Most of what we envision of Hell these days comes from Dante's Inferno. But it isn't what God envisioned.
We were free to chose to be at His side by obeying His will, or we were free to spend eternity cold and alone, because there was no one else out there to provide us with the kind of Love He wanted to bestow upon us.
God "talks" to all of us. Some of us just chose not to hear. I was an aethist once. I wasn't hearing God, but He was there.
One day, I heard. It was by accident, I think. No psychological trauma. No period of overwhelming stress or hardship, as you read about in most people "finding God".
No, I was minding my own business and doing my normal things when I just noticed things a little differently.
The conclusion was inescapable, though I tried to shut it out for some time.
But I eventually came ot accept that there was a God, that He was talking to me, and that I had simply been refusing to hear.
Now, that being said, I'm hardly the perfect Christian. God and I don't always see eye to eye. I'm willful, probably more than just a tad disobedient, and sometimes it's hard to do His will without knowing what the real plan is. But I try my hardest to follow Him, because ultimately, I have to have Faith that He knows what is right.
Quote by CyberDragoon
1. God is omnipotent and omnisicent.
2. God knew that when he told Adam and Eve about the Tree of Good and Evil that they would eat the fruit.
3. God was dumb or naive to tell them in the first place rather than tell Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit or he'd kick them out of Eden. Why didn't he just make the tree invisible? He knew the choice they would make so the argument that, "He wanted to see what choice they would make," is false.
Conclusion: God is not omniscient or the story of Adam and Eve is untrue. Assuming the latter option to be true then that only furthers the contridictions in the Bible.
Except that your logic is flawed.
According to Cabbalistic writings, the name of the Chief of the fallen angels was not Satan, which is a title meaning "Adversary", and not a name, and it was not "Lucifer" which means "morning Star". That was a mistranslation by an early monk, who mistook a metaphor for a literal name. Instead, the name of that Angel was Sammael. Now, that translates as "Poison Angel". Interesting, yes?
Now, take it further. We were given free will, because, as I discussed, God wanted to know that the Love we felt for him was genuine. But He knew that we wouold eventually do wrong. Just because you don't know the difference between right and wrong doesn't mean you don't do the wrong thing. It just means that you aren't aware that you're doing the wrong thing.
The sin we commited in the Garden of Eden wasn't gaining the knowledge of right and wrong from the Tree of Knowledge. It was wanting to become like God.
That is what Sammael, in the form of the serpent, told us. "If you eat this, you will become like God."
Now, an Angel's name, in the Cabbalistic writings, described it's function. Sammael was named "Poison" by God, and that was exactly his purpose. To spread "poison", in the Garden of Eden. The "poison" of Vanity, Lies, Greed, and Pride.
But if he was named "poison", then that was his function, and therefore, it was set up to happen that way? Why? Because God wanted our Love, but to ensure that it was real, He had to give us free will. But Free Will also gave us the chance to do the wrong thing from time to time, without ever being aware of it.
The fruit was placed there because God knew that we would eventually succumb to temptation and eat of it. Had we not been told that we would be like God, it would have simply been us doing wrong ignorantly. But our sin was Greed and Pride, and so we had to be expelled from the Garden of Eden.
"The wages of sin are death", we were told. And that was the order of things. God knew this. And He knew that we had chosen that path in his effort to find Love from us.
So, to prevent us from having to pay that price, He came to us in the form of Christ, who was without sin. He died on the cross as a means of paying our wages of sin for us. He took Death upon Himself out of His love for us, in the hopes that we would understand, and return to Him.
In other words, what happened in the Garden of Eden wasn't naivety or stupidity, but rather, a necessary part of the process, determined by the fact that we were given free will. Not just because He wanted our Love, but because He felt it for us as well.
..i have one question.. could god make a taco soo hot that he himself cannot eat it?..
My question is why would He want to? That would be a waste of food.
Since Youri's question is similiar with mine, I'll aswer yours. The question never asks "would he" but "could he". It ask what is Gods true power and not his use of it.
In response to the question stated above about the stone and the taco:
"If God is all powerful
Could He make a stone that He Himself could not move?"
Seems to place us in a trap; therefore, proving that this God could not in fact exist because we can't answer the question yes or no because either answer proves He is limited.
However, your first statement is wrong. "All powerful" assumes or implies that He can do everything. This is not true. How is that possible you ask? Simple, read the Bible. Read His own words for your answer. GOD CANNOT SIN - He cannot lie, He cannot break His promises, He cannot hate...and so on. Therefore, God is NOT ALL POWERFUL. Once again, as mentioned above, if your premise is false then the conclusion must also be false.
Bweb, some of ur points are excellent, but there are some i would disagree with. Yes, God gave us a free will, but he also knows all. Since He is the Beginning and the End, of course he would know the future. He knows what we will choose with the free will he gave us, the choices we will make. That's why in the bible, it says, he has "predestined" people to be conformed to His likeness. By "predestined," it means he knew beforehand what those who will ultimately accept him and those who will ultimately reject him.
When God told Adam not to eat of the fruit of knowledge, he probably knew that Adam would disobey. But God has a plan for everyone. God knew what would happen. Maybe all that the humans are going through are necessary for the end result or because of man's imperfection, it's unavoidable. But who understands the mind of the Lord? As it says in Romans 11:33-34,
"Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgements, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?"
Man alone cannot understand the wisdom of God. That is why we trust Him, because he knows what's good for us.