skyhook won't answer those posts enigmaax. He will pick out one random line, and say "do you trust jesus?" or some gay shit like that.

enigmaax;1149318 wrote:Why do believers get so sad when someone dies? If the ultimate goal is to get to "true life", death should be a glorious event, right?

The natural human emotion of loss of personal friend and/family is what* causes the sadness. The comfort comes from the knowing that the eternal presence with God is now in store for that individual.

Con_Alma;1149324 wrote:The natural human emotion of loss of personal friend and/family is was causes the sadness. The comfort comes from the knowing that the eternal presence with God is now in store for that individual.

Since this comfort has never been and never will be proven, would the stretch of said person feeling comfort accompany a delusional mindset designed to smooth out life's hard times?

If so, would you argue that comfort, even if told lies and myths, is a greater benefit than the trade off of a flawed mind?

enigmaax;1149317 wrote:So does god have a "plan" or does he just know what is going to happen? ...

Yes. That plan is explainedbin the Holy Scriptures.

enigmaax;1149317 wrote:...If he actually has a plan, does he make sure we make the decisions to follow it? ...

No. The plan will unfold and be carried out no matter the decisions we make. We have the ability to make whatever decision we choose.

enigmaax;1149317 wrote:...So like, if you are about to get hit by that bus, will he save you so you can sustain his plan?...

The plan is not inclusive of being hit by a bus or not. However, that is not to say that divine intervention does not occur.

enigmaax;1149317 wrote:...If he doesn't have a plan, prayer is worthless because he is going to let you make your own decisions and he isn't going to control anyone else's actions, right?

Prayer is not worthless at all. od is well aware of your thoughts and feelings. Prayer is about clarifying them and in your own mind through communications and a growing relationship with God himself. Prayer si for your benefit and growth. Prayer requests are important but one must remember that it is a process that benefits you through faith and trust that God will provide all that you need. Sometimes what you are requesting isn't what you need.

God can and does intervene when He sees fit.

sleeper;1149325 wrote:Since this comfort has never been and never will be proven, would the stretch of said person feeling comfort accompany a delusional mindset designed to smooth out life's hard times?

If so, would you argue that comfort, even if told lies and myths, is a greater benefit than the trade off of a flawed mind?

Hard times on earth are not going to be avoided. They are even told to us they will exist. Comfort doesn't come from easing hard times on earth. Comfort comes from the faith and belief of eternal presence with God. One is either open to that or he/she is not.

Con_Alma;1149327 wrote:Yes. That plan is explainedbin the Holy Scriptures.



No. The plan will unfold and be carried out no matter the decisions we make. We have the ability to make whatever decision we choose.



The plan is not inclusive of being hit by a bus or not. However, that is not to say that divine intervention does not occur.



Prayer is not worthless at all. od is well aware of your thoughts and feelings. Prayer is about clarifying them and in your own mind through communications and a growing relationship with God himself. Prayer si for your benefit and growth. Prayer requests are important but one must remember that it is a process that benefits you through faith and trust that God will provide all that you need. Sometimes what you are requesting isn't what you need.

God can and does intervene when He sees fit.

what a crock of shit

DeyDurkie5;1149329 wrote:what a crock of ****

...to some, indeed it is....to others, those that are open to such connectedness, it is very real.

Con_Alma;1149328 wrote:Hard times on earth are not going to be avoided. They are even told to us they will exist. Comfort doesn't come from easing hard times on earth. Comfort comes from the faith and belief of eternal presence with God. One is either open to that or he/she is not.

That didn't really answer the question. I fail to see how the trade off of comfort for believing in a faith/philosophy/etc. is worth the lifetime commitment in a deity in which its basic existence can never, has never, and will never be proven.

For example, look no further than AiG. If these scientists spend their time actually solving real problems instead of trashing research that doesn't conform to scripture, wouldn't the world be a better place? If your average laymen spent less time at church professing a faith than would be laughed at at another point in history(like the Greek gods, or Thor is now), they could do some more productive with their free time.

Does it not bother you that your belief in the Christian God would be totally different in you were born in another time or another part of the world? Don't you feel cheated that your parents indoctrinated you into a belief system before you could speak a single word or have any rational thought; and now you've gone your entire life knowing nothing else? I would feel cheated, I did feel cheated, and now that I'm on "the other side" I want to help free those flawed minds from an old fashioned myth to better society.

Also, my biggest part of religion is it teaches built in logical loopholes for believers such as "you can't disprove god" and "Oh, you may be right but God told me my faith would be tested" or "That part of the bible wasn't meant to be taken literally". These logical loopholes help justify an erroneous belief, does it not bother you that nowhere else on the planet would these loopholes standup to any critical review.

Religion's very basic premise is weak, it can't handle any scrutiny from a rational mind, yet rational people, with PhD's still believe this shit. Does that not bother you?

OSH;1149254 wrote:
It would help if you actually read the Bible instead of googling "funny" pics or memes. I don't care if you do that googling...just make sure you get the chance to read the verse OR just look like sleeper...

Have you actually read the entire Bible Osh? My guess is no. My guess is 95% of believers never read the entire book of their faith from front to back. One doesn't need to read the entire Bible to spew its BS. If anything, reading the Bible would only further ruin your faith because it has so many BS stories, contradictions, etc. that any rational person couldn't possibly still believe it.

Also, the posting of meme's with some truth to it, like the Egyptians who apparently never experience any such thing as a flood, don't you think they would place that in their history somewhere? And their would be gaps in generations of people dying in the flood, there isn't. How does it feel to believe in a book riddled with stories that never happened?

Con_Alma;1149324 wrote:The natural human emotion of loss of personal friend and/family is what* causes the sadness. The comfort comes from the knowing that the eternal presence with God is now in store for that individual.

Comfort sounds more like a coping mechanism. If you thought there was nothing after this life, it'd be much more difficult to overcome that natural sadness. You want to believe that when someone does something bad, there will be some type of justice. Maybe the only justice will be hell. Or, when someone who seemingly didn't deserve a fate (a child), you want to believe there's some reason for it, somewhere else to go, so life doesn't seem so senseless.

If you "know" that there's an ultimate destination and its as great as you want to believe, you wouldn't need "comfort" because you'd be too overcome with the natural emotion of happiness for the person who reached it that you'd want to celebrate it.

Con_Alma;1149327 wrote:Yes. That plan is explainedbin the Holy Scriptures.



No. The plan will unfold and be carried out no matter the decisions we make. We have the ability to make whatever decision we choose.



The plan is not inclusive of being hit by a bus or not. However, that is not to say that divine intervention does not occur.



Prayer is not worthless at all. od is well aware of your thoughts and feelings. Prayer is about clarifying them and in your own mind through communications and a growing relationship with God himself. Prayer si for your benefit and growth. Prayer requests are important but one must remember that it is a process that benefits you through faith and trust that God will provide all that you need. Sometimes what you are requesting isn't what you need.

God can and does intervene when He sees fit.

Can you summarize "the plan"? I hear it referenced at different times. For example, when someone meets what we as mortals want to interpret as an untimely death on earth, I hear, "God had a plan". So when a six year old I know died of cancer, presumably God's plan all along was to let her live a few years here and then since her purpose had been served, she could just rot in her human shell for a couple years. Or did god's plan not get that detailed?

Same situation, maybe she was just a piece in a larger plan because her story led to so much other good. If donations to find cures and such is considered good. Or people suddenly resolving their petty human disputes to come together is some great higher purpose lesson. Or maybe it was that a few people became "saved" as the story reached different parts of the world. So perhaps god's plan all along was to use this kid as a pawn to get more buy-in from a few random non-believers?

But when you can't explain the negativity away, you just have to believe that God is so good that if he didn't intervene he must've had a reason because that is what this book written by men says. That is what gives people "comfort"?

Another situation. Relative of mine just threw away 18 years of marriage, moved 600 miles away, leaving her kids (albeit temporarily) and is "loving life." Things are working out - she got a new great job, she found a place to live quickly. She and all her friends talk about how great god is and how he's guiding her and taking care of her. So, I'm to compare the two situations I just described and believe that God will intervene for a person who just shit on the sanctity of marriage and make sure that life works out - is that because he had a different plan for her all along?

http://youtu.be/SSxgnu3Hww8

OSH;1149254 wrote:IWP:

It would help if you actually read the Bible instead of googling "funny" pics or memes. I don't care if you do that googling...just make sure you get the chance to read the verse OR just look like sleeper...

Here's the [NASB] 2 Kings 2:23-24 passage:



It hardly says that "God sent bears." You have complained about Christians picking and choosing Bible verses to fit whatever they want...that's exactly what you did -- and did it terribly. At least when Christians do it they get the verse right, there's SOME applicable material with it.

And there you go. It was simple coincidence that right after a servant of god complained about kids taunting him (oh, wait...CURSED them in the name of the lord), those two bears suddenly strolled onto the scene and killed 42 of them while apparently ignoring him. PURE FUCKING COINCIDENCE!!!!

Skyhook79;1149273 wrote:Interesting because many of the "stories"/ "lessons" in the Bible about human behavior told thousands of years ago are relevant still today.

One can say that about many stories told by the followers of any belief through our planet's history. A Greek story revolves around a kindly elderly couple who lived on the outskirts of a town. Two gods in human form visited said town, but everyone refused to give them shelter for the night. Until they reached the elderly couple, who despite being poor, took in the gods, gave them the better share of their meager dinner and took them in for the night. The next day, the gods revealed themselves and flooded the town (turning the jerk people into frogs or something in the process), but saved the elderly couple and blessed them so that when one died, they both were turned into trees in front of a temple to live together forever.

So, archaic belief systems do provide good stories on how to live ones life. Which doesn't mean that Zeus and Hermes really are existing deities, just as it doesn't prove the existence of Jebus or your god.

enigmaax;1149318 wrote:Why do believers get so sad when someone dies? If the ultimate goal is to get to "true life", death should be a glorious event, right?

Believers are sad because they will not get to see their loved one on Earth anymore, that is a common human emotion, but they are also joyful knowing that they will see them again in Heaven. every believer funeral I have gone too is a celebration of the person's life on earth.

enigmaax;1149344 wrote:Can you summarize "the plan"? I hear it referenced at different times. For example, when someone meets what we as mortals want to interpret as an untimely death on earth, I hear, "God had a plan". So when a six year old I know died of cancer, presumably God's plan all along was to let her live a few years here and then since her purpose had been served, she could just rot in her human shell for a couple years. Or did god's plan not get that detailed?

Same situation, maybe she was just a piece in a larger plan because her story led to so much other good. If donations to find cures and such is considered good. Or people suddenly resolving their petty human disputes to come together is some great higher purpose lesson. Or maybe it was that a few people became "saved" as the story reached different parts of the world. So perhaps god's plan all along was to use this kid as a pawn to get more buy-in from a few random non-believers?

But when you can't explain the negativity away, you just have to believe that God is so good that if he didn't intervene he must've had a reason because that is what this book written by men says. That is what gives people "comfort"?

Another situation. Relative of mine just threw away 18 years of marriage, moved 600 miles away, leaving her kids (albeit temporarily) and is "loving life." Things are working out - she got a new great job, she found a place to live quickly. She and all her friends talk about how great god is and how he's guiding her and taking care of her. So, I'm to compare the two situations I just described and believe that God will intervene for a person who just shit on the sanctity of marriage and make sure that life works out - is that because he had a different plan for her all along?

Life is not a snapshot, it may take a little time or a lot of time to see the bigger picture.
That could be a great verse for a song...

The failed logic in this thread is the assumption that in order for God to exist the Bible/Religion must be 100% true.

pmoney25;1149442 wrote:The failed logic in this thread is the assumption that in order for God to exist the Bible/Religion must be 100% true.

I'm not sure anyone said that the Bible has to be 100% correct in order for there to be a god. But if it isn't 100% true, its value as absolute truth to be used to back up every point about why you just or must not act a certain way goes right out the window. If it isn't 100% truth/accurate, it is just another book with some potential. And in that case, how can anyone possibly know what is true enough to quote and/or true enough to believe?

For example, the minute you say, "god says in the Bible...," one has to immediately wonder if god really said it or if a person somewhere along the line decided that the line worked for his own purposes. So, how can a partial work of fiction truly be "the Gospel"?

Con_Alma;1149327 wrote:

No. The plan will unfold and be carried out no matter the decisions we make. We have the ability to make whatever decision we choose.

So no matter what choices I make the end result will be the same? Damn I should tearing shit up because either way it will lead to god's plan for me. Goodbye family, hot bitches and blow everyday.

pmoney25;1149442 wrote:The failed logic in this thread is the assumption that in order for God to exist the Bible/Religion must be 100% true.

who made that assumption?

Christianity is undoubtedly a crock of shit. Is there a prime mover? Fuck if i know, but simple thought experiment makes it pretty clear that Yaweh from the Bible has about a 0% of being that prime mover.

sleeper;1149332 wrote:That didn't really answer the question. I fail to see how the trade off of comfort for believing in a faith/philosophy/etc. is worth the lifetime commitment in a deity in which its basic existence can never, has never, and will never be proven.

For example, look no further than AiG. If these scientists spend their time actually solving real problems instead of trashing research that doesn't conform to scripture, wouldn't the world be a better place? If your average laymen spent less time at church professing a faith than would be laughed at at another point in history(like the Greek gods, or Thor is now), they could do some more productive with their free time.

Does it not bother you that your belief in the Christian God would be totally different in you were born in another time or another part of the world? Don't you feel cheated that your parents indoctrinated you into a belief system before you could speak a single word or have any rational thought; and now you've gone your entire life knowing nothing else? I would feel cheated, I did feel cheated, and now that I'm on "the other side" I want to help free those flawed minds from an old fashioned myth to better society.

It did answer you original question. Faith in Christ doesn't provide "relief" from hard times here. Hard times can't be avoided here.

The comfort that is present is a separate issue. There is comfort in know you have eternal life.

It doesn't bother me that people had different beliefs during different time periods at all. I am not cheated in any way. I get to decide if I accept and have faith in Christ.

My parents didn't indoctrinate me. It was not them that introduced me to the church. Why would you assume such a thing?

sleeper;1149333 wrote:Also, my biggest part of religion is it teaches built in logical loopholes for believers such as "you can't disprove god" and "Oh, you may be right but God told me my faith would be tested" or "That part of the bible wasn't meant to be taken literally". These logical loopholes help justify an erroneous belief, does it not bother you that nowhere else on the planet would these loopholes standup to any critical review.

Religion's very basic premise is weak, it can't handle any scrutiny from a rational mind, yet rational people, with PhD's still believe this ****. Does that not bother you?

You will always and forever have a problem with Christianity if it is logic you are relying on for an expatiation. God does not use logic for your benefit. There would be no reason to have faith.

The reason I am not bothered by others who claim to be rational not believing it or people wil PhD's accepting Christianity or not is because my potion and belief is not based on other's logic, rational, or acceptance of Christ as the Messiah.

BORIStheCrusher;1149456 wrote:So no matter what choices I make the end result will be the same? Damn I should tearing **** up because either way it will lead to god's plan for me. Goodbye family, hot bitches and blow everyday.

Not neccessarily.

There are wto groups of people in the world. Those who have eternal life with God and those who don't. The choice you make determines the group you are in.

enigmaax;1149344 wrote:Can you summarize "the plan"? I hear it referenced at different times. For example, when someone meets what we as mortals want to interpret as an untimely death on earth, I hear, "God had a plan". So when a six year old I know died of cancer, presumably God's plan all along was to let her live a few years here and then since her purpose had been served, she could just rot in her human shell for a couple years. Or did god's plan not get that detailed?

Same situation, maybe she was just a piece in a larger plan because her story led to so much other good. If donations to find cures and such is considered good. Or people suddenly resolving their petty human disputes to come together is some great higher purpose lesson. Or maybe it was that a few people became "saved" as the story reached different parts of the world. So perhaps god's plan all along was to use this kid as a pawn to get more buy-in from a few random non-believers?

But when you can't explain the negativity away, you just have to believe that God is so good that if he didn't intervene he must've had a reason because that is what this book written by men says. That is what gives people "comfort"?

Another situation. Relative of mine just threw away 18 years of marriage, moved 600 miles away, leaving her kids (albeit temporarily) and is "loving life." Things are working out - she got a new great job, she found a place to live quickly. She and all her friends talk about how great god is and how he's guiding her and taking care of her. So, I'm to compare the two situations I just described and believe that God will intervene for a person who just **** on the sanctity of marriage and make sure that life works out - is that because he had a different plan for her all along?

Here's the plan. We were born into sin. Christ was presented to die for those sinful ways. When the entire world has had the chance to know this and accept or deny Him, Christ will return.

We have many troubles in the world being human. They are irrelevant when considering the pure bliss of the love of God in eternity.

BORIStheCrusher;1149456 wrote:So no matter what choices I make the end result will be the same? Damn I should tearing shit up because either way it will lead to god's plan for me. Goodbye family, hot bitches and blow everyday.

You are missing the point. God is going to restore his Kingdom here on Earth regardless if I/you/anyone are on board with his plan. It's your choice to be on board or not.