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OP: It's impossible to love, inspire, and encourage people (what we Christians are supposed to be doing) while telling those same people how awful and sinful they are, and condemning them to eternal torment at the same time. Your post, while short, smells of self righteousness. What about your own, sinfulness OP? Logs and splinters and all that.
I'd like to apologize to my atheist brothers and sisters here. So many use the Bible as a window, to scream through, rather than a mirror to examine oneself in. Whether you believe or not, you are loved.
I would not assume that everyone who is not necessarily religious is an atheist. There is a lot of gray area between the OP and an Atheist. Lots of people are just not preoccupied with this sort of thing and or simply do not care. The nones are becoming the majority group in this country and elsewhere in the civilized world. I know that is troubling for a lot of you Christians and people like the OP lash out from frustration because of it. And with the steep drop in the amount of Christians around the world Muslims are due to pass them in overall population within just a few decades. So I can understand the frantic attitude of some of your people.
As far as the OP goes although I do not like their approach they are certainly out there and I have encountered people like them too many times to count.
I'd like to apologize to my atheist brothers and sisters here. So many use the Bible as a window, to scream through, rather than a mirror to examine oneself in. Whether you believe or not, you are loved.
Aww I actually find this sweet. I'm not offended by this at all and this is the good side of religion. Thank you.
When Trump is out of office my headline will read:
Life Long Atheist Now Believes There Is A God. It might be Buddha though. Maybe Ganesha the deva of intellect and wisdom and remover of obstacles. That is so much more appealing then our traditional fire and brimstone God. I'll pray to Ganesha tonight to remove one of the greatest obstacles our country has ever faced.
After all is said and done, I will always prefer to believe in a higher power, than any other explanation for the universe....
Everything just seems far too improbable solely standing on THE BIG BANG!
If only our saviour would return to lead us and guide us out from our vast wilderness of ignorance. If such an arrival ever was to occur, there would be no more hatred, no more distrust, and no more Alt-Right...
After all is said and done, I will always prefer to believe in a higher power, than any other explanation for the universe....
Everything just seems far too improbable solely standing on THE BIG BANG!
I'm agnostic, meaning I simply don't know, just like everyone else. If there is a superceding consciousness when we die and a "god" of some type that is in control, it is not in any form that we could possibly ever be able to comprehend. If such a being exists, I'm also quite certain that it has better ways to spend time than worrying about how random blobs of protoplasm interact on a dust speck in some far corner of an infinite universe, much less about someone completing a pass in a football game, et cetera. This is why "thoughts and prayers" are worse than useless after tragedies, and only come from those who don't care but don't want to appear as not caring.
Scriptures use allegory to demonstrate points, and most scriptures were produced when only a miniscule fraction of the populace was literate, and even fewer knew anything about metaphysics. The only way they could imagine a "god" was if it was represented as a man in the sky who watches over all. All gods were invented by men in their own image. Hell was invented by men to keep believers in line. As the stories grew stale, more were written to keep the attention of the audience.
The Greeks and Romans and Hindus and a few more went beyond the simple human form and actually made their gods sound interesting, and gave them all sorts of wonderful magic powers. The stories told by Native Americans are particularly fascinating.
I still search for proof of something to hang my hat on, but I have yet to be rewarded with any solid proof of anything. Until someone comes back to talk about it and offers some sort of evidence, I will remain ignorant and agnostic.
I'm agnostic, meaning I simply don't know, just like everyone else. If there is a superceding consciousness when we die and a "god" of some type that is in control, it is not in any form that we could possibly ever be able to comprehend. If such a being exists, I'm also quite certain that it has better ways to spend time than worrying about how random blobs of protoplasm interact on a dust speck in some far corner of an infinite universe, much less about someone completing a pass in a football game, et cetera. This is why "thoughts and prayers" are worse than useless after tragedies, and only come from those who don't care but don't want to appear as not caring.
Scriptures use allegory to demonstrate points, and most scriptures were produced when only a miniscule fraction of the populace was literate, and even fewer knew anything about metaphysics. The only way they could imagine a "god" was if it was represented as a man in the sky who watches over all. All gods were invented by men in their own image. Hell was invented by men to keep believers in line. As the stories grew stale, more were written to keep the attention of the audience.
The Greeks and Romans and Hindus and a few more went beyond the simple human form and actually made their gods sound interesting, and gave them all sorts of wonderful magic powers. The stories told by Native Americans are particularly fascinating.
I still search for proof of something to hang my hat on, but I have yet to be rewarded with any solid proof of anything. Until someone comes back to talk about it and offers some sort of evidence, I will remain ignorant and agnostic.
"The point is this: One would expect skeptics, of all people, who claim to be 'responsive to the evidence,' to acknowledge this factual error. Yet not a single leader of the new atheist movement has publicly mentioned the factual problems with the 'hoax.' Had someone (or preferably all of them) done this, it would have affirmed the new atheist commitment to intellectual honesty, to putting truth before pride and epistemology before ideology, thereby restoring its damaged credibility."
What is this new atheism nonsense? New commitment? Damaged credibility? This is all news to me.
... and then send a good portion of the drowned to a lake of fire where they would burn in agony, forever. It is pretty amazing that the major religions of the world have incorporated these actions into the backstory of a God who is considered the ultimate standard of goodness.
It's beyond crazy, but then again, humans can be odd critters.
If I ever meet this so called "god", I'll give him a frickin wedgie - he won't be fire bombing anymore towns after that.
It's beyond crazy, but then again, humans can be odd critters.
If I ever meet this so called "god", I'll give him a frickin wedgie - he won't be fire bombing anymore towns after that.
Good luck trying to sneak up behind an all-knowing, omnipotent being. If an alien were to show up tomorrow with all the powers and attributes of the God of the Bible, making all the same demands and threats, we might want to oppose it. But there wouldn't be much we could do. Some tiny fraction might choose to raise their middle fingers and wade into the lake of eternal fire. But almost everyone would go along with eternal worship, and even learn to like it.
Good luck trying to sneak up behind an all-knowing, omnipotent being. If an alien were to show up tomorrow with all the powers and attributes of the God of the Bible, making all the same demands and threats, we might want to oppose it. But there wouldn't be much we could do. Some tiny fraction might choose to raise their middle fingers and wade into the lake of eternal fire. But almost everyone would go along with eternal worship, and even learn to like it.
If there is anything over there, I will be highly surprised. But it's guaranteed it won't be in the form of a skydaddy. That is an entirely human construct. If cows have a god, I'm sure it looks like a cow.
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It might be Buddha though. Maybe Ganesha the deva of intellect and wisdom and remover of obstacles. That is so much more appealing then our traditional fire and brimstone God. I'll pray to Ganesha tonight to remove one of the greatest obstacles our country has ever faced. 
