JCC If there is a God, then why is there evil and suffering?

Another example why the Christian god is an ass.

Bend the knee, obey, and you'll have love and forgiveness and sunshine and lollipops and unicorns, forever. Don't, and my Me you'll suffer for it.

The only point in which I can see god creating man in his image is when humans are teenagers. Otherwise every example just reinforces my view that god is one of the most overrated, overpowered fictional heroes in history.

How in the world do you get this stuff from my posts?

You said that following Jesus is the only way to heaven.

I believe everyone goes to Heaven. It may seem unpleasant at first to people who were very selfish and cruel, but spiritual progress continues after death, and eventually everyone enjoys the intense joy of eternal union with God and all loved ones.

How do you know this?

It's my belief. As I said in the first post of the "What do you believe?" thread. Check it out.

Okay... will you please stop editing your post, now? Every time you edit it, I get a quote notification.

to your knowledge is there any organization you can attend that holds this view in common, ghost?

I'm not ghost, but there's plenty of churches out there which agree with what Ghost is postulating.

I didn't edit that last post, but sorry. The alert system is just messed up. I get 3-10 alerts for every post I'm tagged in.

There's plenty of Protestants around here with similar views. And as I said, official Catholic doctrine is that nonChristians can go to heaven too. Also, Mormons believe in 3 levels of Heaven, and only the Antichrist and a few others go to hell in their version. It's kind of mainstream here in Rhode Island.

Selfish and cruel like your god?

Yes,there is official Catholic doctrine that says non Catholics can go to heaven.However,they have to be actively looking for the truth.

Using the phrase "searching for truth" to describe going to heaven? I like it!

I really don't know why you're trying to bait me.

What evidence do you have that I believe in a selfish and cruel God? Because evil and suffering exist? Or something else?

Maybe we can actually direct this back to the original topic too.

I think what he's getting at is... it's pretty selfish to say that the only way somebody will get into heaven is if they believe what they are told to believe and worship somebody without question.

I think that's a pretty narrow interpretation of that verse.

Where did I say that?

I believe everyone will go to Heaven, including atheists.

Who's in Hell? Is there a Hell? Is Stalin in Hell?

I've answered this already in this thread. My personal beliefs...

Everyone goes to the same "place"/state-of-existence when they die. If you were cruel and selfish, you probably won't enjoy it at first. But each soul will continue to spiritually progress to God after death, and eventually everyone will greet eternal union with God and their loved ones with intense and everlasting joy.

Fear of Hell is one of the top causes of ignorance, prejudice, and religious extremism in the world today (as well as one of the root causes of many atheists' disgust with religion, despite most religions not having this view of hell). For believers, I think it is very good and healthy when you overcome fear of God with love of God.

I truly hope you are not being sarcastic.

I wasn't talking to you, specifically. I'm not in this discussion between you and Ender. I was just providing a guess to the question of where he's coming from.

nevermind, huge derail

I know. I'm just saying, I never said anything like that, if that is what E_S thinks. Tone is such a difficult thing to convey on the Internet. And I guess it doesn't help that I'm still a little worked up from the Muslim Revolution thread.

I never said that you said that... like I said, I wasn't quoting you.

No, I'm saying that God is celebrated as wise, benevolent, loving, and just. Yet that's completely inconsistent with the jealous, capricious murderer we have in both testatments of the Bible. I'm not trying to bait you, I'm asking why the apparent word of God has such a horrible man in that role but you're celebrating him?

What kind of just and fair spirit decides to knock up a woman who is married to another man, then to take the fallible and inquisitive natured man he created and lecture them sternly on how adultery was a sin? Only for the golden-tongue'd hypocrite's son to save a woman from being stoned to death for that very sin?

What kind of creature sends his son to not only fail, but to set mankind up to fail for generations by expecting them to adhere to the standards and lessons of a demigod when that same creature created the fallability in man which all but ensured they would never succeed at it?

Then he promptly buggers off for centuries and leaves us, his apparent children, to flounder in misery, decay, war and suffering because we apparently didn't show him enough love or some **** - because he made us this way!

If god exists - and I'm largely convinced he does to people in the way Santa does to very young children - then he made humans as nothing more than a plaything for whom the bar is always set too high and the punishment for failure, apparent eternal torment. I can only conclude that worship of this vengeful deity is done more out of fear of hell than any real ideological commitment to the proto-socialist Jesus Christ and his teachings.