"What are you going to say to God when you die?"

Do you have anything other than unsupported blind assertions to offer?

You can start by providing something resembling genuine evidence that your cartoon magic man actually exists. “My favourite Bronze Age mythology says so” isn’t “evidence” for your cartoon magic man, it’s evidence for the propensity of the authors thereof to make shit up, such as that hilarious nonsense about genetics being controlled by coloured sticks.

Indeed, you might want to ask yourself why any genuinely existing god type entity would allow itself to be associated with nonsense of this sort, in the light of the additional assertion that your cartoon magic man purportedly possesses “perfect foreknowledge” of the future. As a corollary of that assertion, said entity would therefore have known in advance that this, and other nonsense assertions contained within the pages of your sad little Bronze Age mythology, would be utterly destroyed by modern scientific discoveries.

It’s a bit difficult to believe that your mythology was either “divinely inspired”, or even more amazingly, the direct product of a fantastically gifted magic entity, when said mythology contains so many assertions about the observable universe and its contents that are demonstrably wrong.

The whole of Genesis 1 is a farce, for example. Earth purportedly “created” before the Sun? Astrophysicists have know for decades that this is ass-backwards, and that planets are formed by accretion after their parent stars. We now have space telescope imagery of the process in varying stages of completion taking place right now in other parts of the galaxy.

For that matter, we know that the Solar System isn’t unique - other stars with collections of planets orbiting them have been known for nearly two decades. The idea that Earth is somehow “special” died a death with Copernicus, let alone the discoveries of modern astronomy and astrophysics.

The assertion that plants were purportedly “created” before the Sun existed to power photosynthesis, is again hilariously absurd. Not only had the Sun appeared on the scene before the other Solar System bodies, but the first photosynthesising organisms weren’t even plants, they were cyanobacteria. We have fossil stromatolites in Western Australia dating back 3.5 billion years, that are identical morphologically to present day stromatolites.

The first organisms that could be considered “plants” didn’t put in an appearance until around 1.2 billion years ago, which was the time that Bangiomorpha pubescens appears in the fossil record.

Your mythology also has the appearance of vertebrate taxa completely arse about face. Your mythology asserts that whales appeared before land animals, again an assertion known to be hilariously wrong. Whales didn’t appear until the Eocene, while the first land animals date back 300 million years earlier to the late Devonian. Even other mammals pre-date whales by up to 100 million years - Castorocauda, a sort of monotreme analogue of modern beavers, was alive in the Jurassic era.

Likewise, birds appeared in the late Jurassic, around 200 million years after the first land animals.

Indeed, the only organisms that are even mentioned in your mythology, are either vertebrates, insects or the odd marine crustaceans and molluscs. Something like forty entire Phyla of eukaryotes alone are absent entirely from your mythology, not to mention the entire Domains of Archaea and Eubacteria.

If you think the above litany of absurd errors was the product of a fantastically gifted magic entity, then either said entity left its brain in the toilet cubicle when it chose Bronze Age nomads to scribble the mythology in question, or you need to get out more and learn something about reality. Because the FACTS destroy any pretence that your mythology is something other than bad fiction concocted by piss-stained nomads.

As for the diseased fantasy that is the “global flood”, don’t even think of trying to prop up that cretinous bilge, because you’ll have a very bad time here once the FACTS destroying that nonsense are brought here in any quantity.

Oh, and don’t try hand-waving any of this away with fatuous appeals to the merely asserted “supernatural” (otherwise known as magic), because those of us who paid attention in class will simply laugh at your feeble apologetics.

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I feel like we get a lot of Christians that ignore our arguments and just come here to preach about their religious views instead.

They soon learn that preachy bollocks and sanctimonious panhandling receive short shrift here.

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:rofl: :joy: :sweat_smile: :rofl: :joy: I just want to let everybody know I gave you that “heart”, because your post gave me a much-needed laugh. A really GOOD laugh, I must say. :sweat_smile: :rofl: :joy: :rofl: :rofl: Damn! I might even print that out and find somebody to make me a t-shirt with those words on it. Imagine how many other people I could provide with a really good belly-buster laugh! I do always enjoy making others happy. That’s awesome! I like you, Pryce. You have a great sense of humor. Thanks for the chortles. :smile: :+1:

It’s like feeding pigeons, it only encourages more of their nonsense. :smirk:

Though I laughed so hard when he said that evolution was just an opinion I was offering as if it were a fact, I almost drowned in a glass of wine.

Can’t find it now but I had a real good laugh when he said something about men should always be in charge. Oh hee, hee, hee, here I go again. That’s it right, just hand wave away half the human race as being able to make any decisions on their own.

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I’ve had this question before.

First, consider Pasquale’s Wager: If I believe, I lose nothing when I die if there is no God, but if there is a God . . . then I gain eternal paradise.

Well . . . which God (or gods) do I buy into?

With all the different sects, the odds are overwhelmingly against me, as I’ll almost definitely pick the wrong sect (or religion), and get Hell anyway.

Atheism is the smart bet.

Since God is all knowing and all wise, I would have faith that I get a pass and enter Paradise anyway.

But if God is unreasonable, then we’re all screwed with an eternal, infinite pinecone anyway . . . and religion or belief makes no difference.

Here is a thought: If there is a ‘just God,’ he must use the same measuring stick to judge me as he uses to judge himself. ‘Frankly speaking,’ I have not even come close to killing, torturing, maiming, butchering burning, cutting open, raping, or destroying, as many places or people as the God of the bible.

As Jesus is part of a trinity - (And even if he was not.) I am more moral than him as well. I have never beaten people or animals with a whip. I don’t call people fools and then turn around and condemn others to eternal hell for doing the same thing I just did. I have never killed a fig tree out of season. I have never told any of my friends to go out and steal a donkey for me. Not once did I ever chase a herd of pigs over a cliff and then cover my abuse by claiming the pigs were possessed by evil demons. I may have called a woman a dog once. Perhaps twice. But that may be the only thing Jesus and I have in common. I have never trashed a temple, turned over vendors’ tables, or destroyed their livelihoods. I have not tried to convince people to hate their mothers or fathers. I do not tell people who refuse to be my friend that they will burn forever in the pits of a fiery Hell. Well… Except for that time when I was trashed on eggnog and Old Man would not let me ride on his scooter. What a dick! I’m a safe driver. I even have opposable bit toes… I’ve never told people that if they mumble to themselves and believe really hard, ‘they can move mountains.’ That would just be stupid.

I could probably add more to the list, but as long as God is willing to use the same yardstick to measure my sins that he uses for his own… I’m going to look like a fucking saint.

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I’m going to say nothing.

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Several problems with this “lake of fire”

You believe in it, because a book told you too. And not a science text or mathematical text. A religious text … made by primitive fire worshipping people.

In Mark, your Gospel of Mark, it says “all men’s sins will be forgiven.” So, there’s no need for a lake of fire if the Bible is self consistent. In fact, God is saving everyone, and there’s really no need for such a thing.

On a theoretical level; what kind of God, who is omnibenvolent, would send his creations to Hell? Why would He do that? Because we didn’t believe in His one and only begotten son?

Problems with that; 1.2 billion Hindu followers can’t be wrong. I refuse to believe that 1.2 billion people are headed to hell simply because they failed to believe in a religion, which like all religions, is a complete idiosyncratic development of an isolated region of the planet. Ie. Jewish religion and culture gave rise to Judaism and Jewish/Gentile culture gave rise to Christianity. In fact, if it wasn’t for Paulian Christianity, you wouldn’t be here right now preaching about Christ and what not.

Do you believe that 1.2 billion Hindus are going to Hell?

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…Or suggested slaves should obey their masters, even the cruel ones.

Well lets start with the dearth of objective evidence that this posthumous torture chamber exists, or is even possible.

Good question, it exposes an irrational contradiction, but then anyone who takes a close look at the natural world red and tooth and claw, might also be wonder what manner of deity would design and create such a horror of endless suffering. I guess this might help explain why atheism is almost universal among elite biologists.

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Of course. But for an indoctrinated subject like our friend in question, I think we have to attack the idea at its religious foundation if we’re to make any kind of progress.

With the psychiatric condition I have, hell is as real as apple pie. Right along with the eternal damnation part. I have to cope with ongoing internal insecurities that my post mortem fate includes an eternity there. It’s not something I chose to belief, want to believe, or expect others to believe - and I certainly don’t preach a particular way out of it. Nor do I rarely admit to anyone that I believe in it.

I have to work on a personal level just to accept myself for who I am and overcome personal guilt and shame from previous experiences in order to accept that the fate of Hell is so immensely terrible that winding up there is unthinkable.

That, of course, does very little in the way of helping me believe I won’t. The fact that it’s utterly unthinkable doesn’t belie the fact that it’s a distinct possibility.

Hell is a psychological state. People who believe in Hell are generally broken in some way and need to work on their selves in order to believe that they are good enough and valuable enough to avoid such a state.

To live with a belief in Hell is hard enough. Going around preaching it as the fate of all mankind sans Jesus Christ is just pure blindness. There are people who require a concept of Hell to work on themselves on an emotional level, and there are people who simply don’t need the idea floating around. And then, there are evil people who are actually going there (muahhahahahhaa - yessssss - to burnnnnnm) kidding - the fuck if I know.

If Hell exits, let’s hope it’s empty.

At the end of the day, whatever God is (assuming it exists) Hell has to be so utterly terrible a fate that any kind of omnipotent being would only point to its existence as an indication of what He/It is capable of.

Yes, if God is omnipotent, He can create Hell. Yes, an omnipotent God could conceivably send any soul he chooses into the furnace of eternal damnation. Would He? Well … I don’t act like i know the answer. I don’t act like I’m a good enough person to avoid it. I don’t act like I need a saviour to prevent it. I Don’t act like it couldn’t happen. In my case, when I was in my situation, I had a very distinct choice to make which would seal my fate. I made the choice not to send myself to Hell.

It’s really fucked up. I hate to talk about it as if it’s real. But for some very mentally ill people, it’s something we have to deal with.

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Well, Ratty, I’m sorry that some asshats came up with such an awful idea in the first place. The damage they have wrought in order to more easily make others compliant with their wishes is immense. The very notion of a hell has caused suffering, fear, and death. I find it particularly disturbing when it impacts the lives of children and those who are mentally or emotionally fragile. Its use as a concept is manipulative and, imo, immoral.

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