If the Christian God is all powerful and all knowing, doesn't that mean

[heidler1]

that this God is in total control of everything? If the forgoing is true then why don't this God's followers quit trying to help this God enforce this God's laws. When this God needs no help plus the followers don't know what their God wants any way.

Especially considering that one of this God's laws is "JUDGE NOT". "JUDGE NOT" is a just and rational law because religious humans are too damned prejudiced to judge other humans in matters of religion.

If this God had not wanted Obama to win the election, it figures then, that Obama would of lost. So this God's followers should rejoice in the fact that God won again, and always will. God has a heads I win tails you lose game all cooked.

I happen to be an Atheist.

[ben_meyers]

1. Can God make a rock so heavy that he can't lift it?

I think we solved that one in freshman year. Took a few bottles of Ripple as I recall.

[tblue]

2. I've always wondered why they felt such a need to do God's work for Him.

And always defend Him, as if he was too feeble to do it for Himself. You'd think they'd have more 'faith' in God if they really believed He was all powerful.

And if He was all powerful, why didn't he stop the Holocaust? Or was that what He wanted? Would they do that? If they would not, are they then more merciful than God?

[undergroundpanther]

6. psst..

God is only the externalized and unacknowledged desires of hypocrite bad people to dominate,rule,abuse other people and excuse themselves for the damage doing that does.
God told me to smite______.

Then when they are getting arrested for smiting___. the manipulating asshole fakes claim satan had control and Satan did it.

Pretty convenient way to fuck people over and get away with it if you are an abusive shit head and people are faith addled enough to swallow it.and sadly a good amount of believers are..

[napoleon_in_rags]

3. Well, there's a few things God can't do...

Like defeat chariots made of Iron. (Judges 1:19) Maybe Obama's campaign was sort of an Iron chariot campaign... ;)

[heidler1]

5. I hope that Obama can bring peace to our troubled world.

Our current Gods seem to be as baffled as Bush. If Obama can even come close to pulling the rabbit out of a hat, Hell I might even take up praying.

[undergroundpanther]

7. Iron?

Hmm If iron he cannot overcome..what if the rock that was too big for him to lift was a meteorite made of iron? LOL

There a rock god cannot lift.An iron meteorite.

Iron traditionally in pre-christian beliefs was used to contain or repel evil or troublesome spirits or demons.
Guess god fessed up there, he is just a demon. He fesses up to that in a few places in that book BTW.

[napoleon_in_rags]

9. What do you believe? Are you pagan?

Just curious. :)

[undergroundpanther]

18. Not exactly pagan

Nature is too brutal and ugly to the creatures in it for me to consider nature anything but impersonally and terribly cruel.

I have a rather different way I see stuff.
If there were god(s)that created this situation here,where life must destroy life to live,and die anyway,I'd want to destroy that god for being a sick sadistic monster.That's where the mal-theism comes in.

If there are any super consciousness ground of being type thing I think if it is involved in making this world operate as it does,I hate it.


If there is anything "out there" not involved with,that is beyond this cruel violent impersonal cruelty,I would identify more with it.

I hate the way this world is.I truly hate it. I hate that everything I love dies,the innocent,gentle and sweet gets damaged,hurt abused wounded ,destroyed by the predatory,I hate the predators not because of what they are but I hate whatever FORCES them to have to do what they do.everything beautiful rots,everything alive must kill and die.I hate that.I hate the human condition.Existing is painful and I HATE that. Evolution is painful process when you look at it up close,,and there is no reason behind it's horrors but it forces beings to randomly try to adapt with the horrible conditions life faces in a world out to destroy it one way or another.

Why is it this way. It's ghastly.

So, any god that sets up a world like this,I must despise it.
So because of the depth of hate I would feel twords a god that would make this mess I choose to disbelieve.

There is the unknown consciousness archetypes.I explore THAT. I can look like a belief but I can throw anything I think is true now,away.I don't have a framework to rationalize the horrors I see in this world it IS senseless.

So for me,I search to find a way to liberate.To seek something better than THIS suffering. I want to be free of all of this. No more birth in screaming and blood and misery, or horrors of death,disease trauma,no more domination and crushing, no more murder and tearing apart, no more rape,war,starving and beatings and abuse,no more predators prey or parasites.No more strife and senseless crazy shit.No more terrible vulnerability,no more life cut down, cut short and dreams deferred.. No more empires and sickening consumerism that leads to more and more suffering,no more have all and have nothings..

I want to liberate.

I want to find a way to leave this reality or change it so radically down to the micro-particles,until it is no longer so senseless callous and violent.I want the the cause of pain ,the pain,and the aftermath of it to cease harming. I want life to be worth something to life.I want the world to be aware of itself and aware of the terrible vulnerability and injustice this world is and continues to force us to endure. I want to find a way to remove the horrible in the condition of existence.

I want liberation.

I don't care about beliefs or whatever..Because there is horrible bad things that are happening here,it's like consciousness is locked on a planet that tortures itself.

I want it to stop.
If it cannot be stopped, I want out.
I did not choose to be born.
I did not agree to live in a pay to exist human world.
I do not want to be forced to compete or die,win or lose,abuse or be abused,survive anyway you can and die anyway.

I want to go where I am at peace and safe, happy and no more strife,a place or dimension or anything else it might be that is away from this.

I can imagine beautiful things, worlds were things are not ripped apart,eaten,exploited,hurt sickened,lost.I want to be where I belong.And that is not HERE in this reality the way it is.

So while I exist I do not want to make it worse, more painful,but I also realize I can't help it sometimes,Beings suffer because of me and I suffer because of them,..I hate it.I hate feeling love only to have my heart stomped,I hate the horrible isolation,I hate feeling like the last unicorn. I hate life as it is lived here. I wish there was a way to take it's sting away.It's strife,violence,struggle denial,and conflicts.

But I realize I cannot do it. And I cannot deny it hurts, or pretend it isn't there hurting.It feels like being shot through with a thousand arrows and crying forever, not just for me, but for everything that suffers here with me.I am unable to dull my senses to the point I can be like most are.I wish I could.I tried to ram a pencil through my temple in elementary school because of the pain I saw and felt all around me, it made no sense. It hurt and I thought if I could just shut off my mind,stop my senses I wouldn't mind the pain. The pencil shattered and I got a scrape, but my skull was harder than a pencil.And I still live knowing everything precious will be destroyed.I will die,you will,my beloved cats,we get sick,we get hurt,we suffer and die over and over in millions of ways millions of times..And it hurts.

Why is it this way?

Is there a way to stop this?

If not,why don't we try to change it, instead of endlessly arguing over which gods are right,or points of view,property ,money ,the systems we invent,nations,who owns what,who deserves what,WTF? It will all pass away.

But the suffering it never stops. Why?

Buddhists deny living hurts by claiming reality is an illusion.
Christians want to be rescued and taken away to a better place
Pagans try to revel in the hideous circle of life and accept life sucks by pretending it had a purpose and it is ok if it sucks
and atheists are trying to deny the unknown to avoid the problem of submitting to a abusive over- being/creator that makes life painful for all.

I see the conflicts and I wonder why they don't just stop this crap and realize who cares about all that shit, life hurts.How do we stop this suffering? Illusion or not it still hurts.Even if you try different ways to force yourself to accept it.It hurts

[undergroundpanther]

4. Also

in the bible it said Jesus refused to rule all the kingdoms of this world.He turned satan's offer down and jesus said his kingdom is NOT of this world so the Dominionists should quit trying to take over the world,for jesus.Because he said his kingdom is NOT HERE. And it isn't here.Until god puts it here and not a minute before and also jesus has no clue when that will happen either.So you apocalypse watchers find a new hobby.
And those trying to maybe stage one,through political manipulation, give it up.

Also, in the bible it says no one can comprehend the mind of god(he's a basket case I think ) and in the same book jesus says, not even jesus(I) know whom god will choose to be in heaven.
So fundies you are not as saved as you would like to think you are.
So better work on learning what love is.

And if you become the nicest person to everyone or the most obnoxious vicious hypocritical "warrior for jesus" or another pain in the ass evangelical shooting his mouth off on the street and have converted many people, or you stage a coup to make this country a theocracy and kill all the gays, you still might end up in hell.Why? Because not even jesus knows who his father(god) chooses to go to heaven.What pride makes you think you know god's 'will more than,well,god?

So...Leave the non christians ,and others alone..Shut up your pharisee styled showy faith displays and cease that very public vanity praise worship tv and go pray in a closet like jesus said you are supposed to do.

Oh and I am a Mal-theist.
:evilgrin:

[madrchsod]

8. god does`t have anything to do about anything

as you say..."judge not" is a universal law and has nothing to do with religion. personally i do not know if there is a god and that does`t bother me one bit...i try to live my life following the words that are given by christ and others who came before and after him.


yes the dilemma that the christian fascists face...why did god let obama be elected?...

maybe he did it to "test their faith" :rofl:

[Igel]

10. Why does knowledge equal control?

Knowledge is power (in some cases) if you decide to use it in that way. A lot of people think that it can only, that it must, be used in that way. They view things only in terms of power.

They're fools. Every decent parent knows it. So do most managers and mentors.

Both tend to know their charges, and know what their charges don't know, their charges' weaknesses. I know I've watched my kid make mistakes, knowing full well that he's going to make the mistake and deciding not to intervene. I did the same thing when I was the boss to some undergrad work-study students. And when I was teaching some college classes.

The goal isn't to keep people from making mistakes, to intervene to protect their track record. The goal of being a mentor or a parent or a manager is to help them to learn how to be good (whether it's being a good person, good employee, or good scholar), without the process causing them or others damage that's either too great or irreparable.

And so, armed with the knowledge that my kid is going to fail miserably at some things and make some pretty bad mistakes, I'll be sitting on the sidelines to help him recover, repair the damage, and avoid those mistakes in the future.

There are those who believe that the role of things like religion and government is to rule a person's life to make sure that the person commits no errors. They don't just exhort, they command and prohibit behavior at a very low level, and enforce and prohibit trivia. The behavior at issue may vary--whether it's women driving or wearing a niqab, drinking the wrong beverage and listening to the wrong music, saying certains words and flying a certain flag, or talking to those of the wrong political persuasion and reading the wrong books, listening to the wrong newscasts. They're all power freaks and therefore, by (my) definition, fools, buying into some idea of corporate salvation and believing that no one can be saved unless the collective is saved.

I'm not an atheist. Therein lies a difference. "Damage that's either too great or irreparable" doesn't include, to my thinking, the Holocaust or the Holodomor, however heinous those crimes against humanity were, because both the killed and the killers will live again, to learn and to be reconciled to each other. If you don't believe in and hope for the resurrection, then the Holocaust and Holodomor were irreparable, unforgiveable crimes that should never have been allowed to occur. It's an irreconciliable difference in perspective.

[heidler1]

11. IMO a God with absolute power without absolute knowledge would blunder

about most everything. Bush was/is a near perfect example. Palin too seems to desire absolute power, but lacks knowledge, pretty common characteristic.

[undergroundpanther]

19. I have seen enough

Igill wrote<
"Damage that's either too great or irreparable" doesn't include, to my thinking, the Holocaust or the Holodomor, however heinous those crimes against humanity were, because both the killed and the killers will live again, to learn and to be reconciled to each other. If you don't believe in and hope for the resurrection, then the Holocaust and Holodomor were irreparable, unforgiveable crimes that should never have been allowed to occur. It's an irreconciliable difference in perspective.>

I don't share that perspective,even though I think these crimes should never have occurred and the damage is done I know I cannot control what happens.People do what they do.And even tho the holocaust happened it happens again and again in different ways in every nation over and over.It gets resurrected again and again And..We never learn to stop it really.The "resurrections" are senseless.

I want out.I never asked for this. I don't want this. But here I am.
Why must it hurt so much to exist?.
Life is a curse on life.Consciousness should have never been caged and forced to be born in helpless bodies be exploited abused broken by adults,who in turn were exploited abused and broken until sufficiently tamed to be exploited for labor to make another person rich,as if this exploiter was better than the rest.It is WRONG..

I look forward to death.I long to be snuffed out of this reality.I am not at peace here,I don't want resurrection that is pointless,in this horrid prison.I do not want any more pain,struggling,longing,and dreams dashed .No more abuse,traumas and senseless injustices.No more happiness just to see it fade as a stifling wave of despair erases it like it never was.No more beauty defiled,Innocence betrayed and love crushed. No one seems to learn horrors continue, war after war,and no one can stop it,no one cares enough to try to really.So history repeats again.Nothing is learned from the killers of yesterday,no we tolerate them as they rip everything we love apart..because we lie to each other to ourselves calling bad good and good bad.There is no savior. There is no way out.We are in a flesh jail.And we are trapped.It hurts.
For Nature itself is violent senseless and kills.The behavior of molecules is violent. Galaxies in space are violent.It is woven as the essence of this reality.I hate it.
This world is not my home.

[TCJ70]

12. I love it when people just take the words...

..."JUDGE NOT" from that verse and stop there. How about a little context.

Anyway, I'm a member of a church that takes some criticism around here sometimes and in talking to my friends from around the country, many of them were avid Obama supporters. None of us are very political, so none of them were actively campaigning (but our crowd has never been one to do that). I think if you want to talk about God in relation to power over the events of the world, there are times in the Bible that we read about God taking action against a nation to teach it a lesson.

Was George Bush a lesson for the zealots of the church who are open to God's leading? Who can say. All I know is, there was a major shift of support from Rep to Dem in my branch of the church.

[heidler1]

13. I don't see how it changes the meaning to include " lest ye be judged as ye judge"

The way I used it was in regard to condemnation. The way way it was said in the Bible was in regard to condemnation. Favorable judgments have seldom been a problem. Unless they are a lie to subvert the truth from coming out.

I agree that many of the Christians refused to play along with the attacks on Obama which is good.

[TCJ70]

15. Those verses have intrigued me lately...

...because of the context of them. It says you'll be judged by the same measure you judge others. So does that mean that as long as I can stand up to my own criticism I can judge? Still being worked out in my head.

I can't deny that those verses call for self-examination before anything else though.

[thraxis]

14. I actually had some sympathy for atheists before I came to DU.

But now all I can say is that some of you guys are the biggest bunch of bigots I've seen since I lived in the South. I couldn't give a rip about what your religious opinions are but if your intent is to be accepted as a "normal" part of society, you've shot off nine toes and you're taking aim at #10.

[heidler1]

16. Being "NORMAL" is like Real Estate, Location Location Location.

Here in the USA being an Atheist is considered abnormal. In much of Europe it is about as normal as being a Christian. IMO many Atheists here in the USA would like to be accepted as normal, too. I believe that long after I'm dead, I'm 83, it will become normal to be an Atheist. Anything that fences in people is bad. In the mean time you can expect to be confronted with logical attacks on the Bible because that's the only way to break through the distrust and hate.

Just two days ago a giant stride was made in the enlightened direction when Obama was elected President of the USA. The RW religious have taken a big hit and they know it. Their utterances will IMO show them up for what they are.

[thraxis]

17. If you are 83 then I have great respect for you, no matter your

beliefs. Simply because your experiences over that length of time have no doubt formed your opinions and the wisdom of that speaks volumes.

[knitter4democracy]

20. Oh, for Pete's sake.

Let people vent a bit, why don't ya? We Christians have our own groups here, and we have many places in real life to vent. What do atheists have? They've got DU and some blogs and a few other places. That's it. It's not like they have atheist bookstores, like we have Christian bookstores, or places everyone gathers once a week to commune together.

Look, I'm a Christian, too, and I'm even in the minority (Eastern Orthodox--there aren't that many of us in the States), but I'm okay with the posts here. Listen to our atheist and agnostic neighbors, and see what you can learn from them on how to love them.

[Random_Australian]

21. The fact that you consider atheists to be some distinct group not part of normal society

means that you don't have the necessary understanding of the world to put together an argument that I would respect.

That is the longer version. Initially, I simply wrote that you'd have to be a freaking idjit for thinking that.

[IndianaGreen]

22. God died in Auschwitz

The God of history, in control of everything, died in Auschwitz. Either he was in control, and did nothing to prevent the Holocaust, which makes him an accomplice to genocide and deserving of our scorn, or he is not in control.

[heidler1]

23. These random acts of inhumanity seem sufficient to prove that there is no God

intervention that has a purpose of preserving man kind. Then add in the random natural disasters like hurricanes, flooding and earthquakes and proof that God serves mans ability to survive gets pretty far fetched. However in spite of the forgoing those who believe claim that "God is love".

[zonmoy]

24. Or did that just prove gods malevolent nature.

[Meshuga]

25. God as in a personal God idea died way before Auschwitz

Enlightenment killed God. Before that you could say "God is angry with us" or "God doesn't get in the way of human evil" or whatever.

[heidler1]

26. Yup, now days people that say " God is punishing us because we sinned are laughed at"

Now days most crime/sin is attributed to social unfairness either real or perceived.

[quaker bill]

27. No it doesn't

A great many people are confused about a great number of things. The confused often look for God in the supernatural.

I do agree thoroughly with the "judge not" bit.

Nothing figures and imagining it does or should is part of the confusion. I knew Obama would be our next President the day he announced and placed modest bets with those at work that he would win by 5 to 7 percent. I have enjoyed the cokes I won on the bets.

I was strongly called to work for Al Gore in FL during meditation. Was I called to help him win, or just to call upon a few thousand voters to make it close? I do not know. Perhaps it was all just expose the theft and get GWB off to a horrible start. I will never know and the knowing does not matter.

I happen to be a Quaker. Are we progressive? We marry same gender couples just the same as mixed gender couples, without any distinction between them. You tell me.

[TWiley]

28. Religion merely rationalizes horrific events.

If God is loving and good, and God is all knowing, then why would he allow those who worship Him to suffer?

Most would conclude something from this list:
1) God is not good
2) God is not loving
3) God is not all-knowing
4) There is no God

Hence, for religion to survive, major rationalizations need to be sold as "truth" to explain away this inconsistancy. The crucifixion of Christ was actually an act of love, or the innocent suffer because their ancestors sinned.

Who would buy a life-insurance policy if it only paid 5% of the time?