No God More Suicide - US Suicide Rate Increases 24% (Egyptian, protestant, quotes)
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Actually, technically, God, by introducing (indeed, creating) death, has caused literally every death of every human, animal and plant since the dawn of time.
God didn't introduce death. Man did by committing sin.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JerZ
If God had not created death, even Satan could not cause anyone or anything to die, since the idea is: God created literally everything, Satan creates nothing and is vastly inferior.
Further, in order for Satan to even influence whether someone dies, it has to be at God's allowance even if God is not actually striking the person/plant/animal dead Himself, directly. Again, Satan is considered to be inferior to God. Satan can not cause death unless God allows him to. Neither can people cause death unless God allows them to, nor can animals cause death unless God allows them to...God causes every single death either directly or by looking the other way, period. And again, even if Satan "has a hand in" someone's death, he - Satan - is merely using God's created tool, NOT a tool Satan created.
First of all, how silly does it sound that you are arguing about the rules for God and Satan, talking about them like they really exist when you claim they don't exist. Second, God allows Satan influence on this earth because man chose to give the keys of this realm to Satan by making it a cursed land of sin. Man is responsible for his own actions. Personal accountability just doesn't exist in your fantasy world, apparently.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JerZ
If this particular belief system is to be espoused then one must understand that indeed, God has caused the death of every single thing that has ever lived and will cause the death of every single thing that ever will live.
First of all, how silly does it sound that you are arguing about the rules for God and Satan, talking about them like they really exist when you claim they don't exist. Second, God allows Satan influence on this earth because man chose to give the keys of this realm to Satan by making it a cursed land of sin. Man is responsible for his own actions. Personal accountability just doesn't exist in your fantasy world, apparently.
In my fantasy world personal responsibility means saying "I say" not "God says". Even if you believe what you are saying is the word of God you still have to take responsibility for what comes out of your mouth.
A young family member was depressed. They went to a doctor and I asked the doctor what was wrong with this person. The good doctor put it simply. She has lost hope. Hope is faith and the light and the end of our daily tunnel...take away faith and depression can set in...we are but frail human beings.....HOPE is your only wealth....FAITH>
Since increased secularisation has taken place in society....I see more and more hopeless and depressed young people....even if there is no God...it is better to believe....the offered alternative that is presented to young people does not cut it....no wonder they are killing each other and themselves....they have no HOPE.....no faith.
Man made death? Man introduced death to the world? God didn't create that? Death wasn't God's idea? God's invention? It was man's? God surely must have been surprised! Clever, clever man.
Now that is a different sort of twist, Jeff.
Further, God didn't foresee exactly how this would go? He didn't invent death with the explicit foreknowledge that it would happen to every person? And every innocent animal too, BTW. God didn't explicitly create something horrific, then explicitly create beings to be imperfect and to then screw up in a very specific way (the fruit) in order to suffer it? That was a total surprise? God stood there squealing "WHAT the..."?
Wow, God isn't omniscient, then. This is a revelation. It's going to surprise the church, though.
In my fantasy world personal responsibility means saying "I say" not "God says". Even if you believe what you are saying is the word of God you still have to take responsibility for what comes out of your mouth.
Precisely.
I have to be good because being good is the right thing, not because if I'm good, some big being will give me a giant reward. (And how the hell such an M.O. could be considered truly good at heart, I'll never know.)
God didn't introduce death. Man did by committing sin.
First of all, how silly does it sound that you are arguing about the rules for God and Satan, talking about them like they really exist when you claim they don't exist. Second, God allows Satan influence on this earth because man chose to give the keys of this realm to Satan by making it a cursed land of sin. Man is responsible for his own actions. Personal accountability just doesn't exist in your fantasy world, apparently.
So God should have never created anything?
Everyday I wake up and am happy to see another day...I never see darkness...I am never without hope..all I understand is that all will be fine...that I am safe....that I have the opportunity to do what I wish...I know that I am part of his universe and all the power of the universe is delivered to me....all because I invite God to reside in me....
Nah, if dude felt like creating, go ahead, create, but how about not creating with the intent of driving its creation to foul-ups resulting in pain, agony and death necessitating "saving" from one's own foul undeserving self and blah blah? And instead, invent lessons and growth, and even the choice to reach for God, that actually reflect love for the creation, not sadism?
Call me crazy but I feel like that would vastly improve matters. Just sayin'.
Oh, one other easy detail? Don't also punish the animals and the plants.
There, I just thought of two vast improvements over how things went down, and I'm just a stupid human.
I have to be good because being good is the right thing, not because if I'm good, some big being will give me a giant reward. (And how the hell such an M.O. could be considered truly good at heart, I'll never know.)
You know how sometimes people will say atheists secretly believe in God or are mad at God? It kind of makes me wonder if they are projecting and people who say that secretly don't believe in God. Because if they did, how do they presume to speak for him? How in the crap would a person reconcile that if made to answer for it? Call it humility? "Well, I listened to what a man claiming to know said. I did what he said. He had a book."
Everyday I wake up and am happy to see another day...I never see darkness...I am never without hope..all I understand is that all will be fine...that I am safe....that I have the opportunity to do what I wish...I know that I am part of his universe and all the power of the universe is delivered to me....all because I invite God to reside in me....
And I can do that without a belief in a god. The fact that I can do that no more proves there is no God than you feeling good every morning proves that there is one. To me life is about the life we are living not the promise of one after I die.
My father as an adult was often depressed. He was reportedly a very happy child and teenager. It was not the lost of faith that made him depressed, no it was being ripped up by shrapnel on Juno Beach Normandy and 54 years of pain that depressed him. And in the 18 hours of laying on the cold beach unable to move at all with the sounds of war all around him did not turn him to god nor the full year in hospital afterwards? The frequency of his depression lessened as he aged as the pain grew less or he got more used to of it.
Yesterday was the funeral for a local minister who committed suicide, not due to lack of faith or losing faith but for other things going on in his life and being a fragile person.
Blaming atheism for suicides makes Jeff feel good about himself but makes no sense if we are trying to prevent them from happening. I'd rather see the real issues addressed rather than for some religious people to feel superior or perhaps th show us as inferior. Not dying that you are doing that but others here and on some sites certainly are.
Everyday I wake up and am happy to see another day...I never see darkness...I am never without hope..all I understand is that all will be fine...that I am safe....that I have the opportunity to do what I wish...I know that I am part of his universe and all the power of the universe is delivered to me....all because I invite God to reside in me....
Part of his universe? He doesn't have a universe. Look in your bible. No universe mentioned anywhere, especially not in Genesis 1.
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It's going to surprise the church, though.
