The reason your argument is flawed i beliebe is because you are putting the constraint of time on God. God made time for humans so they could have a will to decide what they wanted to do with their life. God can still know exactly everything that is going to happen with out us deciding it or us not being able to freely make that choice.
It is like watching a movie if the character in it were real. Just because we can know everything in the movie before it happens does not mean the characters are not making real dicisions that effect the out come of the movie.
God can be all powerful, there can be predestination, and man can have a freewill all at once. Part of being all powerful means God is all understanding.
If an atheist truly believes that his way of life is the right way, and that he is truly helping people in the world and contributing, God will not send this person to hell. Where on the other hand if he knows a God exists, but chooses not to believe in him because it is easier not to, or he thinks he hates this God for some prideful arrogant reason that persons chances of getting into heaven or a little bit lower. This does not however mean they cant' get into heaven. God is all powerfull and all knowing and all understanding.
I see, I understand. The problem is that praying to God isn't the illusion. Believing that praying to God and a milk carton are the same thing is an illusion. The milk carton argument works because we cannot see the forces at work and i would suppose this is just another factor that helps prove your case, but whether we can see something or not should never be a factor and deciding whether somthing exists.
I don't believe that God and a milk carten have the same rate of success. How often has someone prayed to a milk carton and a miracle happened? This is of course if you allow for room for miracles, but even if you don't.
A lot of prayers have been answered and acredit to pray to God, that haven't had any miraculous or incredible factor to it.
There has never been any incident of prayers being answered by milk cartons.
The milk carton has a significantly loser sucess rate than God. By the way the argument is stated people assume that God and the milk carton have the same success rate, but this has never been proven nor tested. Almost no one if anyone at all has ever prayed to a milk carton and had sucess. Even if they had God's sucess rate is still high and stronger with a better track record, than the milk carton.
Unless two people were to pray for two identical things, both praying to either the milk carton or God, over a period of time, I don't think this argument can be valid.
Actualy Scripture hardly states anything of what you said. Angels are not greater than man. They are below us. They have no freewill and therefore are little better than animals. God of course can give them the power to kill us if he likes, but that is God being greater than us, not angels.
No one is predestined to go anywhere but heaven, whether we follow this destiny depends on us. Maybe you should do some researchs because anyone who followed Jesus after he was crucified was no longer considered part of the Jewish community. The followeres of Jesus were outcasts and perscuted by leading Jewish figures. A lot of them weren't even Jews, but uncircumcised gentiles.
Whether Catholicism had a name or not untill 107 AD has hardly anything at all to do with the fact that Jesus founded it.
The word catholicism originates from from the Greek word Katholikos, which was later Latinized
into Catholicus.
The meaning of the word is 'Universal', which in itself means, 'of or relating to, or affecting
the entire world and all peoples therein'. It means, all encompassing,
comprehensibly broad, general, and containing all that is necessary.
Catholic means all people in all places, having all that is
necessary, and for all time.
It is also biblical (and we all know the new testament in the bible is considered a compliation of all of Jesus teachings.) It is in Matthew 28:19-20, "Go, therefore and make disciples
of all nations...teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you;
And behold, I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of
the world."
That is a statement of Universality, Katholicos, Catholicus, Catholic.
And before you argue that he did not say the exact word catholic keep this in mind: Language is a tool to convey meaning and understanding. Jesus didn't have to say the exact word "catholic" to say catholic. .
Jesus founded christianity which was later given the name Catholicism. No where from Jesus' life time to 107 AD when it was a more organized church with a name did it change. Nor were there any other denominations that broke off from the catholic church untill around the 16th century.
Actualy all of the examples you have stated are from the old testament. The old testament is meant to be read in light of the new testament and with the peop[le who wrote it background and knowledge in mind. Jesus clearly teaches against all of those things.
Wow. Just because people believe in God or claim so does not mean they have or use God as their moral compass. The God, I assume we are talking about the christian God, Does not promote war and if we are to actualy follow what this God teaches and use God as our moral compass we would not go to war, but most people do not follow God as their moral compass and thus do go to war.
The christian religion or at least the catholic religion which was the first and only christian religion founded by Jesus, does not believe that doubters will necesarily go to hell.
Catholics believe the God is an understanding God and will know each individuals given circumstance. This means that if the individual didn't have the proper environment to fully understand and come to reason on God's Existence, but was still a good person, and followed his teachings(this can be done without knowing what they are just as a child mimicks it's parents without know the actual word or it's meaning.) that person has a very good chance of going to heaven.
This doesn't now mean however that a person that openly disputes God just because he does not want to live that kind of lifestyle will have the same out come.
This argument against the stupidity of prayer is taken from an argument that was saying people who pray to God think their prayers are being answered. They 1) have their prayer granted. 2) have their prayer denied. Or 3) Need to keep praying. Now if i were to switch my prayer from God to the milk carten all three things can still happen. The difference being that it isn't accredited to God. It is accredited to the milk carten and in consequence coincidence.
The problem is that this can be applied to anything. I normally use UPS to deliver my mail. UPS Either Delivers my mail, cannot deliver my mail, or I need to continue to wait.
If i were to switch my mailing method to a milk carten, Either my mail cannot be delivered, I need to wait longer, or the milk carten by some random chance gets my mail delivered.
So the argument using the milk carten does not provide an argument against the existance of God, but simply shows that people are able to give credit where it isn't due.
War is bad because it destroy. Never is it beneficial for something to be destroyed. The statement that it refreshes is not true it is an illusion. Yes it might have gotten US out of the depression, but the countries that lost the war suffered greatly. The loss of something is always a loss, never a gain.
War is bad because it destroy. Never is it beneficial for something to be destroyed. The statement that it refreshes is not true it is an illusion. Yes it might have gotten US out of the depression, but the countries that lost the war suffered greatly. The loss of something is always a loss, never a gain.
I don't think you understand. You are just asserting that there is no soul. You have absolutely no evidence that there isn't. You are asking Me to do Your homework and prove to You that there is not a such thing as a soul.
Through a line of reasoning i came to the conclusion that there is a soul and that there is a God.
You tell me i need evidence such as pictures, instrument reading, etc., but this is not the only way you can have evidence that something exists. How many pictures have you seen of the wind? Yet through basic reasoning we can conclude that there is a such thing as wind. We know it exist because of the cause and effect it has on this world.
Evolution does not shape morality. If this was so than for each part of the earth that is extremely different than the other we would have extremely different moral systems. We do not have extremely different moral system. Everywhere on earth and all time periods the same basic moral system has prevailed. It has always been wrong to kill, cheat, lie, steal, etc. This can be seen from the most ancient civilizations.
And if there ever was a civilization (such as the mians) that did not follow the basic morals, there was always another group of people that either corrected them or took controll over them.
sure why not. Does it realy matter if we do or not? How realistic do you think it is going to be for man to live on the moon? You could say we already colonized. our flag is there anyhow. what more do we need? Just type up a document and have a bunch of old people sign it.
http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/facts/
(This law in no way magically makes a fetus any more or less sentient. If I made a law that toasters were human, it would not make it so.)
You do not make the laws. This statement has little if nothing to do with the fact that people with your mentality decide what they want the law to be when they want it to be that way.
And i clearly did state that it is the issue of where the "Fetus" is. If the "fetus" was to be in an egg outside of the women, your argument would no longer stand. The only reason you think it is right to kill an unborn child is because the fetus is a cluster of both the womens cells and the mans sperm in the body of a women. If it were to be a cluster of cells in an egg your form of logic would fall apart, because it is no longer part of the women.
