"God is love. But He forces his love on no one. We are always given a choice"

it's a false choice. be with me by following me or choose free will. seems like it all adds up to being a slave to God.

"Wrong. There are many other sources most notably through the early traditional gospels and even some of the gnostic texts found at Nag Hammadi (as stated several times before)."

And? There are Vishnavists that believe that Jesus was just an incarnation of Vishnu and/or Krishna. You are going to have to use the Nag Hammadi yourself (it's your claim, not mine) to demonstrate that it supports that Jesus is the one true god.

You will have to forgive me for not just taking your word for it.

Cesar - Your link provides good quote material. I think as far as the Christianity true or not discussion you reject it for the same reasons I am questioning it and more.

So the most cliche scripture John 3:16 For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him

The words "everyone" and "the world" seem to indicate to me this applies to all humans not just Jews. It's things like this that I find hard to ignore.

Oh yes indeed.

I suspect because I have read many of them, not to mention studied the traditional gospels.

With respect to the comment about semantics surrounding 'space and time,' it is something you brought up. You want God to be proven to you yet you cannot define reality.

You ask for proof and I ask the question back to you. Prove that God doesn't exist.

I agree with Steven's concerns about free will.

If you are born and raised in say, Saudi Arabia, and you don't accept Jesus as your personal savior, according to the bible you are going to hell. Is it really free will to be born into a theocratic state that forces another religion other than Christianity, the so-called one true religion?

Getting tortured and then killed for believing in Jesus in spite of being born in Saudi Arabia, is this really free will? Why would a loving god allow such an unfair situation to manifest itself?

Further more, if god is love, this only begs more questions. We are god's creations. How can a being that is not capable of anything other than love create something that has the potential for so much evil? Even Hitler is a creation of god. If you say it's Satan that brings evil into the world, again this just complicates things, because where did Satan come from? Or is Satan just as powerful as Jesus?

And if god is love, why all the natural disasters that have nothing to do with anykind of violation of free will? Why have natural disasters and cancer that kills so many innocent children? That does not sound like love to me, and I fail to see a point, nor does this do anything to help free will.

"Ben, with all due respect, you have evaded my call to support claims using the bible. Could you be so kind as to support your belief that most people will not go to hell using the bible? Thanks."

Cesar, the singular issue with the tack you're taking in this discussion is your seeming belief that someone need prove something to you. They don't. David, IMO, has said it best: "I cannot prove to you that a God exists. I believe this is called faith. On the other hand, I am not sure how we can prove the spiritual realm through materialism. The two are separate, which is entirely the point."

I would only add that neither can you compel anyone to prove the existence of god to you, regardless of your entreaties. You demand proof. No one feels compelled to answer that demand, nor do they need to for their beliefs to be meaningful and true to them. Of course, I do understand that if people continue to engage you, you'll continue to demand for proof. A silly circle, it seems.

It may seem paradoxical, but I don't think so. We get to be where we choose to be. God
is unwilling that any should be apart from him, but he gives us free will. Some say the definition of hell IS being apart from God. If there is a sublime joy and peace that many
claim they get being in relationship with God, being outside that would in contrast be
painful, which many will tell you they also experience when choosing more selfish, independent ways on their faith journey.

By the exact same method used to disprove the existence of flying elephants in the berkeley sewers, we can show there is no God.


Disproving stuff is easy. Its when people start to believe such nonsense that the sane ask for proof.

@ Cesar: Fixed it for you.

If you are born and raised in say, Saudi Arabia, and you don't accept Jesus as your personal savior, according to some people's interpretation of the bible you are going to hell. Is it really free will to be born into a theocratic state that forces another religion other than Christianity, the so-called one true religion?"

David - I have heard the argument that hell might just be separation from God. My reading of the Bible clearly states otherwise. If it is true that hell is not torture that it is just an okay place, separate from God and not as groovy as heaven, I have to accept that the Bible contains error and therefore is not a book of God.

"You ask for proof and I ask the question back to you. Prove that God doesn't exist."

the children's cancer ward at your local hospital. why must children suffer? if it's to bring others to see the greatness of God, what a horrible, selfish being God must be.

@ Cameron:

"Disproving stuff is easy. Its when people start to believe such nonsense that the sane ask for proof."

But IF there exists a God and the limited cannot fathom the unlimited, then "the sane asking for proof" is not sane at all.

Bottom line: It's called Faith. Meaning believing what you can't physically prove. Some people feel the presence. Others don't. What is the human psyche that either insists that just because I feel the presence, then you must as well -- or conversely, that if I feel nothing, then it must be nonsense for everyone??? It's called Ego. And in either case, it isn't good.

"With respect to the comment about semantics surrounding 'space and time,' it is something you brought up. You want God to be proven to you yet you cannot define reality."

I never said I cannot define reality. We both accept that time and space exists. If you are going to all of a sudden just for the sake of argument claim that you don't accept that time and space exist, then this is where our conversation ends, because we require these axioms to communicate. Otherwise anything goes. I am a pizza, you are a cat, brains in a vat is true, etc.

"You ask for proof and I ask the question back to you. Prove that God doesn't exist."

It is disappointing to see that Christians continue with this canned reply. I never claimed that anything absolutely does not exist. Just like you never claimed that elves don't exist. That's because both your god and elves are theoretically possible to exist, and it is impossible to disprove them (or anything).

I suspect that when you have regular conversations with people and someone says things like, "There are no such things as elves" or any other supernatural being or thing, you don't say that they can't disprove elves or that it's theoretically possible for elves to exist. We don't tell children that the boogyman can't be disproven, and it's possible that he might be under the bed, do we?

But anyhow, are you actually going to support your claim with specific evidence from this Nag book or whatever?

"If you've never read where the 'bible' came from/how it was constructed, you might find such reading interesting. There are many books written during the same time frame that were excluded, there is still, among biblical scholars, disagreement over the characterization of some of the people in the bible (especially in light of some of the books left out). It's fascinating stuff, really."

Doug - interesting that you bring this up. This is another part of what has brought the validity of the Bible in question to me. I watched a program on the History Channel maybe a year ago about the origins of the bible. It talked about this one discovery where we found a rolled up bunch of papers in a cave (the discovery has a name, I do not remember) and there were several books would up in one bunch. Some of these writings were a journal, one was a scripture that the Catholic Church eventually included as a book in the bible (I cannot remember which book). There was also a story in that binding that said it was a scripture. It told a story of an ancient time when God banished a group of angels and they fell to earth. They started raping human woman for the pleasure of sex and those woman birthed giants. The giants ate men so men did not like them. The angles felt bad for man so they taught man how to make war and kill the giants which they did and the giants were wiped off the face of the earth.

The program said that there was nothing to distinguish that this story was any different from the scripture but the Catholic Church deemed one a book of the bible and the other fiction.

Things like this cause me to further question the bible and the idea that I was raised with that it is God's voice/words given to man without error.

To everyone participating in this thread, I'd be interested to know what belief system you were brought up with versus the belief system you have now.

Generally, I tend to only have discussions of this type with people if their "former" and "latter" beliefs are different.

"Cesar, the singular issue with the tack you're taking in this discussion is your seeming belief that someone need prove something to you. They don't."

Oh yes they do, otherwise I don't have to believe them. You do this do, by the way. We all do. If someone says elves exist, we collectively demand evidence. I simply don't give Jesus a free pass. Faith is not a get-out-of-support-claims card.

If no one feels compelled to answer my demands, that's fine, I will continue not to believe them. Just like you continue not to believe in elves, if I may be so bold as to assume that you don't believe in them, right?

And silly circle? I beg to differ. If someone threatened to take a family member of yours to a horrible place where they would be tortured, do you mean to tell me you asking for proof of this threat as a real one is silly? If a gang of bikers knocked on my door and said they were going to take my family away and torture them unless I paid them money, I would take such a threat very seriously. If I got an email from someone that claimed they could cast a magic spell to have my family teleported to them so they could torture them, why should I take that seriously?

"If you are born and raised in say, Saudi Arabia, and you don't accept Jesus as your personal savior, according to the bible you are going to hell. Is it really free will to be born into a theocratic state that forces another religion other than Christianity, the so-called one true religion?"

Where does it say this person is going to hell? You assume he rejects the Holy Spirit.
The good news of the Gospels are not limited by what man does. Assuming as we are, there
is a Holy Spirit, he is working everywhere.


I don't see where the Bible says just one rejection dooms anyone either. Choices go on every day. Everyone sins, likely every day. The choice remains, was to do next. Slavery
to the flesh or follow the Holy Spirit.

Bob Dylan- "You gotta serve someone"

"Things like this cause me to further question the bible and the idea that I was raised with that it is God's voice/words given to man without error."

Which brings me back to one of my original points - sorta - it's not the bible that should be important to you, god should be. Many christians don't view the bible as the inerrant word of god, just as many catholics don't view the pope as infallible (or even understand what that actually means in the context of church dogma).

Whether or not the bible is the 'one, true book' shouldn't be important to your belief in god or in your finding meaningful bits in it that can help you in your spiritual journey. Don't focus on the book, focus on the lessons/meaning and the greater understanding of what it means to follow god that you're attempting to achieve.

"the children's cancer ward at your local hospital. why must children suffer? if it's to bring others to see the greatness of God, what a horrible, selfish being God must be."

A world without suffering... Sounds great doesn't it? One without disease, death. One without torture. You said the children's cancer ward, you ever seen what children in the burn ward go through?

To answer your question about the way the world is right now. About why bad things happen to "good" people (I use air quotes because "good" people don't exist). The answer is, it's what we wanted. It's what we chose. If you believe in God, and I'll go a step further, if you believe in the Bible, this was the choice made in the Garden of Eden. It wasn't meant to be this way. In giving man a choice (and not making him an automaton), this is what man chose.

So now we reap the repercussions of our choice. We try to find ways to undo, to fix, to make better.

Because God wasn't selfish, we got a choice. We, the "human goodness" people. We are the selfish ones.

"@ Cesar: Fixed it for you."

Again this only makes the burden greater for you. Why so many interpretations? What is the point of having tens of thousands of denominations? How are we to determine what is and what is not the truth when it comes to Christianity?

The fact that Jesus has done nothing that I am aware of to prevent more humans from going to hell where they will be tortured FOREVER has yet to be resolved by Christians. A loving god could not just sit back and watch as the majority of the souls on earth march into hell. I would suggest that either your god is not all loving or that he does not exist.