Health and Religion

[Astargath]

Many times i've got problems because of religion to be honest. Maybe i'm unlucky but everytime i'm trying to go in church something bad happening to me.

The devil doesn't want you to go to church and be saved, so he just might be making trouble for you so that you think that religion is doing it.

Talk about free will, eh? The devil can do things to you all the time to prevent you from believing in god but god himself cannot reveal himself to everyone convincingly so you wont need to believe in him because he likes to play games with the devil. Give me a break with your 10 year old stories.

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[Astargath]

God doesn't place more emphasis on blind faith than on reason. If God did this, He would have not created the universe. Rather, he would have created a bunch of non-embodied spirits, and then let them attempt to figure out some form of body on their own by faith alone... which they couldn't have done because of their lack of imagination.

All of the universe exists to train people to use their faith to make things happen like God does. But people are such infants that it will take them most or all of eternity to figure out how to use faith, even though they have the abundant examples of the universe. The examples of the universe are the things that make for visible faith rather than blind faith.

Yes he does otherwise you wouldn't need to believe in god to go to heaven. In fact atheists should go to heaven instead of theists because they are the ones using reason to find out the truth. Unlike theists that believe what they are told without ever trying to find proof or evidence.

How do you train yourself to use ''faith'' exactly? Faith: ''strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof'' Every baptist has faith in his religion just like every Catholic or orthodox or muslim or christian. They all have faith in different things and yet not all of them can be right, clearly faith is not working, is it? How would we ever know which one is correct if we are only using faith? Don't you see how stupid that is?

Believing in God doesn't mean believing that He exists. We know that He exists simply by observing nature, or when we attempt to set ourselves up as gods by trying to believe that God doesn't exist. Believing in God is believing in the things that He tells us in the Bible. Such faith is using reason, basing faith on Bible and God knowledge. Such is reasonable way more than atheism, which tries to force belief in atheism on the so-called atheist while the so-called atheist knows for a fact that God might exist.

"Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." The most important faith in this life is saving faith... Jesus salvation faith. It is found through the Bible. Then in Heaven, faith will be increased because we will see some of the results of our faith, and we will understand more of the Word of God, making our faith in the rest of it grow.

The atheists, like everyone else, don't know for a fact what is going to happen in the next second. We all live by faith. To a great extent it is your choice regarding which faith you attempt to have. Examine, extensively, whatever it is that maintains your faith, and the truth of the direction you want your faith to move in. Make sure it is correct. That is the best you can do.

Let me ask you something badecker, imagine you were born in a heavy islamic country, imagine that you never leave the country either. How certain are you that you would have found out that the ''real god'' is the god from the bible? 1%? Less?

The answer to this question is detailed in some ways.

1. All people have a natural knowledge of the real God. This knowledge isn't complete. But it exists.
2. I don't know that I would have ever found the important truth about God in Islamic countries.
3. I don't know that I would have ever stepped out of wrong faith, into the proof of God's existence in Islamic countries.
4. It is by God's mercy that I am what I am regarding God, and regarding most of my life.
5. Consider that in the past, many of the Arab counties contributed greatly to the basic sciences of math and astronomy. The knowledge of coming to see the truth about God still exists there. Note that even the Koran talks briefly about Jesus, and makes reference to the Bible, and to the religion of the Jews. Knowledge of the real God is penetrating through the false gods even to Islam and Muslims... if only they would use their heads and recognize it.

Praise and thanks to God that He found it good and right to make it easy on me to find Him, by placing me in a situation where I have some of the best info about God. I don't understand how and why this works the way it does.



EDIT: My ability to understand these things, shows how religion and my mental health work together. But, if I am wrong, and if you can show that I am nuts, then your mental health is being impacted by what you believe, your religion.

You are close to understand the obvious flaws of religions but not quite there. You said it yourself, you thank god because he put you in this situation, meaning that god doesn't want Muslims, for example, to find out the real truth, he wanted you to find it but not others, isn't that a bit unfair? That's the fundamental problem of religion, you are sure you believe in the right religion now just like you would be if you were born there, you would think like now, that the islamic faith is the real faith.

Since you know this, you also understand that atheism is one of the silliest religions that there is.

As I have explained over and over, the reasons why God does what He does with us, are based on the amount of faith we have in Him or against Him. This includes the faith we have before we are conceived. This means that God's judgments are righteous, because He is doing what we ask in our faith. (One of the weaknesses of science is that it has no clear way to measure the spirit, soul and faith.)

The only unfairness that exists along these lines, is the unfairness many people claim that God has, when He bends over backward to warn people about their choices, but they go on their merry way anyway. Then they blame Him when it doesn't work out for their benefit, because He gave them what they asked for.

All Muslims have a choice to make. Either continue with Islam. Or get out of it. If their faith in God becomes strong, God will work their getting out of Islam. Their faith is where their choice lies.

Don't consider me an atheist, I'm not and I really don't like to consider myself any name. ''Muslims have a choice, they can continue Islam or pick one of the other thousands of religions but why would they do that? They are probably thinking the same about you, there is a muslim badecker out there telling them that christians have a choice, continue their faith or accept the real god from the Quran. You are too blind to see it though.

[CoinCube]

Don't consider me an atheist, I'm not and I really don't like to consider myself any name. ''Muslims have a choice, they can continue Islam or pick one of the other thousands of religions but why would they do that? They are probably thinking the same about you, there is a muslim badecker out there telling them that christians have a choice, continue their faith or accept the real god from the Quran. You are too blind to see it though.

There is no need to consider yourself any name. There is a great need to determine what you believe in and why.

Consider the various religions and ideologies as looking glasses. They are functional instruments designed to take us somewhere.

Now some instruments may be totally obscured their lenses covered in mud or painted over so they offer very limited guidance. Others may offer satisfactory images but simply be unavailable locally where someone needing it can obtain it.

What is important is that we pick the best looking glass that we can and grab ahold of it. If we do that we maximize our odds of heading in the proper direction.

If we select a sufficient instrument it sustains us and itself through us. It guides us away around the worst ravines and obstacles. If we pick an inferior or opaque glass we may walk over the edge of a cliff.

As we head in the proper direction we or those who follow us will eventually encounter others heading in the same direction. That is when the opportunity arises to examine other looking glasses and if necessary clean the mud or paint spots off of our own.

[tvbcof]

...
As I have explained over and over, the reasons why God does what He does with us, are based on the amount of faith we have in Him or against Him. This includes the faith we have before we are conceived. This means that God's judgments are righteous, because He is doing what we ask in our faith. (One of the weaknesses of science is that it has no clear way to measure the spirit, soul and faith.)
...

On the contrary, I would say that one of the problems with religion is that it has no clear way to measure the 'spirit, soul and faith' relative to what is possible in publicly known science at this point.  'Science' can pick a face out of the human mind...sort of.  The religious flocks are VERY prone to follow leaders like Hagee, Robertson, Baker.  (Not to pick on Christians, but it is the culture I know the most about.)

If you think about it, what we pretty much know about the state of technology today, and what the technocrats are promising (with a good deal of hype) in the future with their AI and their 'singularity' and what-not is on par with what at least the Abrahamic religions consider to be true.  That is, and all-seeing entity who you cannot hide from, which will judge a person based on their past actions, and an infinite after-life.

As a 'pure Atheist' (and a systems analyst) I'm currently at least playing with the idea, if not favoring it, that it would make sense to employ the modern 'god-lite' technologies on anyone who wishes to be in an elected leadership position.  Probably voluntarily would work fine.  Basically, if someone wanted to run for a political office, they could take a sophisticated test to find out such things as whether they are more loyal to a greater Israel than they are to the constitution of the United States.  If they don't want to take the test, fine, but they would be at a disadvantage to those who would willingly do so.

[BADecker]

...
As I have explained over and over, the reasons why God does what He does with us, are based on the amount of faith we have in Him or against Him. This includes the faith we have before we are conceived. This means that God's judgments are righteous, because He is doing what we ask in our faith. (One of the weaknesses of science is that it has no clear way to measure the spirit, soul and faith.)
...

On the contrary, I would say that one of the problems with religion is that it has no clear way to measure the 'spirit, soul and faith' relative to what is possible in publicly known science at this point.  'Science' can pick a face out of the human mind...sort of.  The religious flocks are VERY prone to follow leaders like Hagee, Robertson, Baker.  (Not to pick on Christians, but it is the culture I know the most about.)

If you think about it, what we pretty much know about the state of technology today, and what the technocrats are promising (with a good deal of hype) in the future with their AI and their 'singularity' and what-not is on par with what at least the Abrahamic religions consider to be true.  That is, and all-seeing entity who you cannot hide from, which will judge a person based on their past actions, and an infinite after-life.

As a 'pure Atheist' (and a systems analyst) I'm currently at least playing with the idea, if not favoring it, that it would make sense to employ the modern 'god-lite' technologies on anyone who wishes to be in an elected leadership position.  Probably voluntarily would work fine.  Basically, if someone wanted to run for a political office, they could take a sophisticated test to find out such things as whether they are more loyal to a greater Israel than they are to the constitution of the United States.  If they don't want to take the test, fine, but they would be at a disadvantage to those who would willingly do so.

The point isn't the measuring of religious things. The point is the lack of ability of science to measure a lot of things that scientists believe. This places science into the same basic category as religion.

What are people healed by when they are healed? I can see at least 3 basic possibilities:
1. Science or nutrition that does something;
2. Placebo and placebo-like effect;
3. Something from outside of either of the above that has enough sentience and power to do the healing.

Science is simply the observation and measurement in many cases. In a few cases (relatively), it is duplication of something observed and measured. We know it might work if we duplicate it in science fashion, but there is nothing that we understand enough of the fundamentals of, to say for certain that we know why it works the way it does. We just aren't that deeply in tune with the operation of physics and nature, yet.

[BADecker]

God doesn't place more emphasis on blind faith than on reason. If God did this, He would have not created the universe. Rather, he would have created a bunch of non-embodied spirits, and then let them attempt to figure out some form of body on their own by faith alone... which they couldn't have done because of their lack of imagination.

All of the universe exists to train people to use their faith to make things happen like God does. But people are such infants that it will take them most or all of eternity to figure out how to use faith, even though they have the abundant examples of the universe. The examples of the universe are the things that make for visible faith rather than blind faith.

Yes he does otherwise you wouldn't need to believe in god to go to heaven. In fact atheists should go to heaven instead of theists because they are the ones using reason to find out the truth. Unlike theists that believe what they are told without ever trying to find proof or evidence.

How do you train yourself to use ''faith'' exactly? Faith: ''strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof'' Every baptist has faith in his religion just like every Catholic or orthodox or muslim or christian. They all have faith in different things and yet not all of them can be right, clearly faith is not working, is it? How would we ever know which one is correct if we are only using faith? Don't you see how stupid that is?

Believing in God doesn't mean believing that He exists. We know that He exists simply by observing nature, or when we attempt to set ourselves up as gods by trying to believe that God doesn't exist. Believing in God is believing in the things that He tells us in the Bible. Such faith is using reason, basing faith on Bible and God knowledge. Such is reasonable way more than atheism, which tries to force belief in atheism on the so-called atheist while the so-called atheist knows for a fact that God might exist.

"Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." The most important faith in this life is saving faith... Jesus salvation faith. It is found through the Bible. Then in Heaven, faith will be increased because we will see some of the results of our faith, and we will understand more of the Word of God, making our faith in the rest of it grow.

The atheists, like everyone else, don't know for a fact what is going to happen in the next second. We all live by faith. To a great extent it is your choice regarding which faith you attempt to have. Examine, extensively, whatever it is that maintains your faith, and the truth of the direction you want your faith to move in. Make sure it is correct. That is the best you can do.

Let me ask you something badecker, imagine you were born in a heavy islamic country, imagine that you never leave the country either. How certain are you that you would have found out that the ''real god'' is the god from the bible? 1%? Less?

The answer to this question is detailed in some ways.

1. All people have a natural knowledge of the real God. This knowledge isn't complete. But it exists.
2. I don't know that I would have ever found the important truth about God in Islamic countries.
3. I don't know that I would have ever stepped out of wrong faith, into the proof of God's existence in Islamic countries.
4. It is by God's mercy that I am what I am regarding God, and regarding most of my life.
5. Consider that in the past, many of the Arab counties contributed greatly to the basic sciences of math and astronomy. The knowledge of coming to see the truth about God still exists there. Note that even the Koran talks briefly about Jesus, and makes reference to the Bible, and to the religion of the Jews. Knowledge of the real God is penetrating through the false gods even to Islam and Muslims... if only they would use their heads and recognize it.

Praise and thanks to God that He found it good and right to make it easy on me to find Him, by placing me in a situation where I have some of the best info about God. I don't understand how and why this works the way it does.



EDIT: My ability to understand these things, shows how religion and my mental health work together. But, if I am wrong, and if you can show that I am nuts, then your mental health is being impacted by what you believe, your religion.

You are close to understand the obvious flaws of religions but not quite there. You said it yourself, you thank god because he put you in this situation, meaning that god doesn't want Muslims, for example, to find out the real truth, he wanted you to find it but not others, isn't that a bit unfair? That's the fundamental problem of religion, you are sure you believe in the right religion now just like you would be if you were born there, you would think like now, that the islamic faith is the real faith.

Since you know this, you also understand that atheism is one of the silliest religions that there is.

As I have explained over and over, the reasons why God does what He does with us, are based on the amount of faith we have in Him or against Him. This includes the faith we have before we are conceived. This means that God's judgments are righteous, because He is doing what we ask in our faith. (One of the weaknesses of science is that it has no clear way to measure the spirit, soul and faith.)

The only unfairness that exists along these lines, is the unfairness many people claim that God has, when He bends over backward to warn people about their choices, but they go on their merry way anyway. Then they blame Him when it doesn't work out for their benefit, because He gave them what they asked for.

All Muslims have a choice to make. Either continue with Islam. Or get out of it. If their faith in God becomes strong, God will work their getting out of Islam. Their faith is where their choice lies.

Don't consider me an atheist, I'm not and I really don't like to consider myself any name. ''Muslims have a choice, they can continue Islam or pick one of the other thousands of religions but why would they do that? They are probably thinking the same about you, there is a muslim badecker out there telling them that christians have a choice, continue their faith or accept the real god from the Quran. You are too blind to see it though.

Why would I consider that you might be an atheist? I have been saying that there aren't any atheists, because anybody with those tendencies knows for a fact that God might exist somewhere that he hasn't checked out yet. So, he knows that God might exist. So he isn't an atheist, no matter who he is. He is just trying to be one in some cases.

You have had some Christian training. But rather than seeing the logic in Christianity, you would rather present some fallacies about the religion, than accept the truth of it. It's who you are trolling. You are simply against God because you are. You don't really have a reason. You simply are.

[BADecker]

Many times i've got problems because of religion to be honest. Maybe i'm unlucky but everytime i'm trying to go in church something bad happening to me.

The devil doesn't want you to go to church and be saved, so he just might be making trouble for you so that you think that religion is doing it.

Talk about free will, eh? The devil can do things to you all the time to prevent you from believing in god but god himself cannot reveal himself to everyone convincingly so you wont need to believe in him because he likes to play games with the devil. Give me a break with your 10 year old stories.

My stories are a lot older than 10 years old. And you, obviously, don't understand the role the devil has [played in our lives. Besides, God isn't going to force revelation on those who don't want Him to be revealed to them... not yet, anyway.

[CoinCube]

Chinese Christian Advocates: Xi ‘Has Particular Animosity’ Against Christianity
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2018/04/16/xi-has-particular-animosity-against-christianity/

WASHINGTON, DC — Persecution against Christians, Muslims, and other religious groups in communist China has escalated as Communist Party leader Xi Jinping’s atheist regime attempts to crack down on religion in the country, a top official from a U.S. religious freedom panel and a human rights lawyer told Breitbart News.
Bob Fu, the founder and president of the U.S.-based Christian human rights group China Aid, and Kristina Arriaga, the vice chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), indicated that China’s oppressive tactics employed against Christians have intensified in recent years.

Their comments came in response to a Breitbart News question on the state of Christianity in China posed during a discussion on religious oppression sponsored by the Heritage Foundation on Friday.

“A lot of things have happened in the last few months that are very troubling for the future of Christianity in China,” Arriaga told Breitbart News.

“The situation for Christians there is dire. … One thing we know for sure is that the persecution [against] Christians has doubled in intensity,” she added.

Earlier, she noted that communist authorities recently demolished the Golden Lampstand Church in addition to taking down crosses and religious iconography from various other worshipping centers.

Echoing Arriaga, human rights lawyer Fu told Breitbart News the number of persecuted Christians in China has “dramatically increased” over the last year.

“The number of people we documented who are persecuted among just Christians alone last year reached 223,000 compared to these 48,000 in 2016,” the human rights lawyer explained, adding:

When the communist party took power the number of Christians was estimated [to be] about less than 1 million in 1949, but now according to the Purdue University sociologist research, the number of Chinese Christians already reached over 100 million. They projected that by 2030 the number of Christians would reach at least 224 million. So it is a staggering development.

Fu noted that persecution has only fueled the growth of Christianity in China to the dismay of Xi.

“Apparently the persecution will only help accelerate the growth,” he proclaimed, noting that even the number of Christians “who worship at the government churches had dramatically increased.”

“You can see that he [Xi] has particular animosity against Christianity in particular,” Fu told Breitbart News, acknowledging that the communist regime has identified “underground churches” as a “severe national security threat,” along with political dissidents and human rights lawyers.

Fu is a Christian refugee himself who fled China after Beijing imprisoned him and his wife for two months for “illegal evangelism” in 1996.

Holding her young child, Li Aijie, a U.S.-based Christian refugee who fled Chinese persecution, shared her ordeal during Friday’s event, stressing that Beijing sentenced her husband to 19 years in prison for criticizing the Chinese Communist Party on social media.

Her plight highlights the Communist government’s brutal treatment of Christians and other faith adherents who refuse to conform to the party’s atheist views.

The human rights lawyer noted that China had expanded its surveillance tactics to monitor all religious Chinese, particular Muslim Uighurs (or Uyghurs) in the province of Xinjiang and Christians.

Beijing has “forced” churches to install “face recognition systems,” Fu revealed.

“Every church [in China] is forced to install face recognition systems and every church building … is forced to put a sign [up] banning children, students, civil servants, military personnel, and communist party members from entering,” Fu noted during the discussion.

“They use the face recognition systems to record the image and try to purge the communist party member who dared enter the church,” he continued.

Consistent with the tenets of communism, China’s government prohibits employees from practicing religion.

Arriaga described the predominantly Muslim autonomous province of Xinjiang and the adjacent Tibet Autonomous Region as “police states,” noting:

Thanks to government policy, the Tibetans and the Uighur Muslims basically live in a police state. The state not only bans the practice of religion, it’s also suppressing any cultural practice associated with religion. For instance, Tibetans, as you know, cannot study their language or their culture.

The Xi administration is an equal-opportunity oppressor, indicated the official from the U.S. commission, explaining that “all faith adherence in China are subject to extrajudicial detention.”

“People are held against their will for months at a time without contact with their family and the outside world under horrible conditions,” she said.

Li confirmed that China is keeping her husband under deplorable conditions. While thanking U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration for granting her refuge in America, she asked for help in liberating her husband.

Arriaga acknowledged that the Trump administration is taking action to promote religious freedom in China.

Xi stressed at the quinquennial Communist Party conference last year “that all religions must be ‘Chinese-oriented,’ as part of his effort to ‘Sinicize religion,’ or make it more Chinese, by instilling socialist core values,” reported Newsweek in October.

[BADecker]

Chinese Christian Advocates: Xi ‘Has Particular Animosity’ Against Christianity
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2018/04/16/xi-has-particular-animosity-against-christianity/

WASHINGTON, DC — Persecution against Christians, Muslims, and other religious groups in communist China has escalated as Communist Party leader Xi Jinping’s atheist regime attempts to crack down on religion in the country, a top official from a U.S. religious freedom panel and a human rights lawyer told Breitbart News.
Bob Fu, the founder and president of the U.S.-based Christian human rights group China Aid, and Kristina Arriaga, the vice chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), indicated that China’s oppressive tactics employed against Christians have intensified in recent years.

Their comments came in response to a Breitbart News question on the state of Christianity in China posed during a discussion on religious oppression sponsored by the Heritage Foundation on Friday.

“A lot of things have happened in the last few months that are very troubling for the future of Christianity in China,” Arriaga told Breitbart News.

“The situation for Christians there is dire. … One thing we know for sure is that the persecution [against] Christians has doubled in intensity,” she added.

Earlier, she noted that communist authorities recently demolished the Golden Lampstand Church in addition to taking down crosses and religious iconography from various other worshipping centers.

Echoing Arriaga, human rights lawyer Fu told Breitbart News the number of persecuted Christians in China has “dramatically increased” over the last year.

“The number of people we documented who are persecuted among just Christians alone last year reached 223,000 compared to these 48,000 in 2016,” the human rights lawyer explained, adding:

When the communist party took power the number of Christians was estimated [to be] about less than 1 million in 1949, but now according to the Purdue University sociologist research, the number of Chinese Christians already reached over 100 million. They projected that by 2030 the number of Christians would reach at least 224 million. So it is a staggering development.

Fu noted that persecution has only fueled the growth of Christianity in China to the dismay of Xi.

“Apparently the persecution will only help accelerate the growth,” he proclaimed, noting that even the number of Christians “who worship at the government churches had dramatically increased.”

“You can see that he [Xi] has particular animosity against Christianity in particular,” Fu told Breitbart News, acknowledging that the communist regime has identified “underground churches” as a “severe national security threat,” along with political dissidents and human rights lawyers.

Fu is a Christian refugee himself who fled China after Beijing imprisoned him and his wife for two months for “illegal evangelism” in 1996.

Holding her young child, Li Aijie, a U.S.-based Christian refugee who fled Chinese persecution, shared her ordeal during Friday’s event, stressing that Beijing sentenced her husband to 19 years in prison for criticizing the Chinese Communist Party on social media.

Her plight highlights the Communist government’s brutal treatment of Christians and other faith adherents who refuse to conform to the party’s atheist views.

The human rights lawyer noted that China had expanded its surveillance tactics to monitor all religious Chinese, particular Muslim Uighurs (or Uyghurs) in the province of Xinjiang and Christians.

Beijing has “forced” churches to install “face recognition systems,” Fu revealed.

“Every church [in China] is forced to install face recognition systems and every church building … is forced to put a sign [up] banning children, students, civil servants, military personnel, and communist party members from entering,” Fu noted during the discussion.

“They use the face recognition systems to record the image and try to purge the communist party member who dared enter the church,” he continued.

Consistent with the tenets of communism, China’s government prohibits employees from practicing religion.

Arriaga described the predominantly Muslim autonomous province of Xinjiang and the adjacent Tibet Autonomous Region as “police states,” noting:

Thanks to government policy, the Tibetans and the Uighur Muslims basically live in a police state. The state not only bans the practice of religion, it’s also suppressing any cultural practice associated with religion. For instance, Tibetans, as you know, cannot study their language or their culture.

The Xi administration is an equal-opportunity oppressor, indicated the official from the U.S. commission, explaining that “all faith adherence in China are subject to extrajudicial detention.”

“People are held against their will for months at a time without contact with their family and the outside world under horrible conditions,” she said.

Li confirmed that China is keeping her husband under deplorable conditions. While thanking U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration for granting her refuge in America, she asked for help in liberating her husband.

Arriaga acknowledged that the Trump administration is taking action to promote religious freedom in China.

Xi stressed at the quinquennial Communist Party conference last year “that all religions must be ‘Chinese-oriented,’ as part of his effort to ‘Sinicize religion,’ or make it more Chinese, by instilling socialist core values,” reported Newsweek in October.

Most Chinese people are reasonably intelligent. They understand that if the government says "NO" to something they want, that government must be getting an advantage, and they must be losing something. The beginning of Galatians 5, "It is for freedom that Christ has set you free."

[Astargath]

Many times i've got problems because of religion to be honest. Maybe i'm unlucky but everytime i'm trying to go in church something bad happening to me.

The devil doesn't want you to go to church and be saved, so he just might be making trouble for you so that you think that religion is doing it.

Talk about free will, eh? The devil can do things to you all the time to prevent you from believing in god but god himself cannot reveal himself to everyone convincingly so you wont need to believe in him because he likes to play games with the devil. Give me a break with your 10 year old stories.

My stories are a lot older than 10 years old. And you, obviously, don't understand the role the devil has [played in our lives. Besides, God isn't going to force revelation on those who don't want Him to be revealed to them... not yet, anyway.

But he will let the devil, forcefully convince people to do bad things. hmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[Astargath]

God doesn't place more emphasis on blind faith than on reason. If God did this, He would have not created the universe. Rather, he would have created a bunch of non-embodied spirits, and then let them attempt to figure out some form of body on their own by faith alone... which they couldn't have done because of their lack of imagination.

All of the universe exists to train people to use their faith to make things happen like God does. But people are such infants that it will take them most or all of eternity to figure out how to use faith, even though they have the abundant examples of the universe. The examples of the universe are the things that make for visible faith rather than blind faith.

Yes he does otherwise you wouldn't need to believe in god to go to heaven. In fact atheists should go to heaven instead of theists because they are the ones using reason to find out the truth. Unlike theists that believe what they are told without ever trying to find proof or evidence.

How do you train yourself to use ''faith'' exactly? Faith: ''strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof'' Every baptist has faith in his religion just like every Catholic or orthodox or muslim or christian. They all have faith in different things and yet not all of them can be right, clearly faith is not working, is it? How would we ever know which one is correct if we are only using faith? Don't you see how stupid that is?

Believing in God doesn't mean believing that He exists. We know that He exists simply by observing nature, or when we attempt to set ourselves up as gods by trying to believe that God doesn't exist. Believing in God is believing in the things that He tells us in the Bible. Such faith is using reason, basing faith on Bible and God knowledge. Such is reasonable way more than atheism, which tries to force belief in atheism on the so-called atheist while the so-called atheist knows for a fact that God might exist.

"Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." The most important faith in this life is saving faith... Jesus salvation faith. It is found through the Bible. Then in Heaven, faith will be increased because we will see some of the results of our faith, and we will understand more of the Word of God, making our faith in the rest of it grow.

The atheists, like everyone else, don't know for a fact what is going to happen in the next second. We all live by faith. To a great extent it is your choice regarding which faith you attempt to have. Examine, extensively, whatever it is that maintains your faith, and the truth of the direction you want your faith to move in. Make sure it is correct. That is the best you can do.

Let me ask you something badecker, imagine you were born in a heavy islamic country, imagine that you never leave the country either. How certain are you that you would have found out that the ''real god'' is the god from the bible? 1%? Less?

The answer to this question is detailed in some ways.

1. All people have a natural knowledge of the real God. This knowledge isn't complete. But it exists.
2. I don't know that I would have ever found the important truth about God in Islamic countries.
3. I don't know that I would have ever stepped out of wrong faith, into the proof of God's existence in Islamic countries.
4. It is by God's mercy that I am what I am regarding God, and regarding most of my life.
5. Consider that in the past, many of the Arab counties contributed greatly to the basic sciences of math and astronomy. The knowledge of coming to see the truth about God still exists there. Note that even the Koran talks briefly about Jesus, and makes reference to the Bible, and to the religion of the Jews. Knowledge of the real God is penetrating through the false gods even to Islam and Muslims... if only they would use their heads and recognize it.

Praise and thanks to God that He found it good and right to make it easy on me to find Him, by placing me in a situation where I have some of the best info about God. I don't understand how and why this works the way it does.



EDIT: My ability to understand these things, shows how religion and my mental health work together. But, if I am wrong, and if you can show that I am nuts, then your mental health is being impacted by what you believe, your religion.

You are close to understand the obvious flaws of religions but not quite there. You said it yourself, you thank god because he put you in this situation, meaning that god doesn't want Muslims, for example, to find out the real truth, he wanted you to find it but not others, isn't that a bit unfair? That's the fundamental problem of religion, you are sure you believe in the right religion now just like you would be if you were born there, you would think like now, that the islamic faith is the real faith.

Since you know this, you also understand that atheism is one of the silliest religions that there is.

As I have explained over and over, the reasons why God does what He does with us, are based on the amount of faith we have in Him or against Him. This includes the faith we have before we are conceived. This means that God's judgments are righteous, because He is doing what we ask in our faith. (One of the weaknesses of science is that it has no clear way to measure the spirit, soul and faith.)

The only unfairness that exists along these lines, is the unfairness many people claim that God has, when He bends over backward to warn people about their choices, but they go on their merry way anyway. Then they blame Him when it doesn't work out for their benefit, because He gave them what they asked for.

All Muslims have a choice to make. Either continue with Islam. Or get out of it. If their faith in God becomes strong, God will work their getting out of Islam. Their faith is where their choice lies.

Don't consider me an atheist, I'm not and I really don't like to consider myself any name. ''Muslims have a choice, they can continue Islam or pick one of the other thousands of religions but why would they do that? They are probably thinking the same about you, there is a muslim badecker out there telling them that christians have a choice, continue their faith or accept the real god from the Quran. You are too blind to see it though.

Why would I consider that you might be an atheist? I have been saying that there aren't any atheists, because anybody with those tendencies knows for a fact that God might exist somewhere that he hasn't checked out yet. So, he knows that God might exist. So he isn't an atheist, no matter who he is. He is just trying to be one in some cases.

You have had some Christian training. But rather than seeing the logic in Christianity, you would rather present some fallacies about the religion, than accept the truth of it. It's who you are trolling. You are simply against God because you are. You don't really have a reason. You simply are.

I can't say that the concept of a ''god'' doesn't exist or it's not possible but I know for sure the christian god is not real because of all the contradictions and because I have been there, as I said many times, I was a believer, 100% and yet here I am, I asked god for help to still believe in him and he didn't help. Either your god exists but he won't help me, which contradicts what he is supposed to be or he doesn't exist. I pick the last option.

[Astargath]

Don't consider me an atheist, I'm not and I really don't like to consider myself any name. ''Muslims have a choice, they can continue Islam or pick one of the other thousands of religions but why would they do that? They are probably thinking the same about you, there is a muslim badecker out there telling them that christians have a choice, continue their faith or accept the real god from the Quran. You are too blind to see it though.

There is no need to consider yourself any name. There is a great need to determine what you believe in and why.

Consider the various religions and ideologies as looking glasses. They are functional instruments designed to take us somewhere.

Now some instruments may be totally obscured their lenses covered in mud or painted over so they offer very limited guidance. Others may offer satisfactory images but simply be unavailable locally where someone needing it can obtain it.

What is important is that we pick the best looking glass that we can and grab ahold of it. If we do that we maximize our odds of heading in the proper direction.

If we select a sufficient instrument it sustains us and itself through us. It guides us away around the worst ravines and obstacles. If we pick an inferior or opaque glass we may walk over the edge of a cliff.

As we head in the proper direction we or those who follow us will eventually encounter others heading in the same direction. That is when the opportunity arises to examine other looking glasses and if necessary clean the mud or paint spots off of our own.

Your argument only works when you are assuming god actually exists but then again, you would have to prove a god exists and you haven't. If we assume a god exists, picking the ''best'' religion is still not that good because, first of all, how would you ever know, right?

[CoinCube]

Your argument only works when you are assuming god actually exists but then again, you would have to prove a god exists and you haven't. If we assume a god exists, picking the ''best'' religion is still not that good because, first of all, how would you ever know, right?

Your question gets us into the domain of truth theory. It is a complex topic.

Unless you are an adherent of philosophical skepticism you accept that objective reality aka truth exists and can be known.

The question we must then answer is how do we know something is true? What non arbitrary criteria or metric do we use to determine truth?

The best answer to this question that I know of is the the Coherence theory of truth. Here is a brief description of what this is.

Coherence Theory of Truth
http://mrhoyestokwebsite.com/Knower/Useful%20Information/Three%20Different%20Theories%20of%20Truth.htm

Put simply: a belief is true when we are able to incorporate it in an orderly and logical manner into a larger and complex system of beliefs or, even more simply still, a belief is true when it fits in with the set of all our other beliefs without creating a contradiction.
 
Sometimes this seems like an odd way to actually describe truth. After all, a belief can be an inaccurate description of reality and fit in with a larger, complex system of further inaccurate descriptions of reality, according to the Coherence Theory, that inaccurate belief would still be called “truth” even though it didn’t actually describe the way the world really was. Does that really make any sense?
 
Well, possibly … the reason is because statements can’t really be verified in isolation. Whenever you test an idea, you are also actually testing a whole set of ideas at the same time. For example, when you pick up a ball in your hand and drop it, it isn’t simply our belief about gravity which is tested but also our beliefs about a host of other things, not least of which would be the accuracy of our visual perception.
 
So, if statements are only tested as part of larger groups, then one might conclude that a statement can be classified as “true” not so much because it can be verified against reality but rather because it could be integrated into a group of complex ideas, the whole set of which could then be tested against reality. In this case Coherence Theory isn’t that far from the Correspondence Theory and the reason is that while individual statements may be judged as true or false based upon their ability to cohere with a larger system, it is assumed that that system is one which accurately corresponds to reality.
 
Because of this, the Coherence Theory does manage to capture something important about the way we actually conceive of truth in our daily lives. It isn’t that unusual to dismiss something as false precisely because it fails to cohere with a system of ideas which we are confident are true. Granted, maybe the system we assume to be true is quite a way off the mark, but so long as it continues to be successful and is capable of slight adjustments in the light of new data, our confidence is reasonable.

You are concerned that you cannot prove God exists to your satisfaction. My reply is that your inability to prove God has in this instance absolutely no relevance to Truth of God.

It is important to remember what we can prove.

The #1 Mathematical Discovery of the 20th Century
https://www.perrymarshall.com/articles/religion/godels-incompleteness-theorem/

Gödel proved that there are ALWAYS more things that are true than you can prove.

Any system of logic or numbers that mathematicians ever came up with will always rest on at least a few unprovable assumptions.

Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem applies not just to math, but to everything that is subject to the laws of logic. Incompleteness is true in math; it’s equally true in science or language or philosophy.

And: If the universe is mathematical and logical, Incompleteness also applies to the universe.

Gödel created his proof by starting with “The Liar’s Paradox” — which is the statement

“I am lying.”

“I am lying” is self-contradictory, since if it’s true, I’m not a liar, and it’s false; and if it’s false, I am a liar, so it’s true.

So Gödel, in one of the most ingenious moves in the history of math, converted the Liar’s Paradox into a mathematical formula. He proved that any statement requires an external observer.

No statement alone can completely prove itself true.

His Incompleteness Theorem was a devastating blow to the “positivism” of the time. Gödel proved his theorem in black and white and nobody could argue with his logic.

Yet some of his fellow mathematicians went to their graves in denial, believing that somehow or another Gödel must surely be wrong.

He wasn’t wrong. It was really true. There are more things that are true than you can prove.

A “theory of everything” – whether in math, or physics, or philosophy – will never be found. Because it is impossible.

A priori Truth is mathematically inevitable. God is such a Truth. The religious have a more elegant way of summing this up. They call it the necessity of faith.

You ask why can't I prove God? This is the wrong question. The correct question is can I build an integrated and coherent worldview without God? Can I follow the coherence theory of truth and construct a True worldview without God.

Only you can answer that question for yourself. I will tell you, however, that for me the answer was no.

[Astargath]

Your argument only works when you are assuming god actually exists but then again, you would have to prove a god exists and you haven't. If we assume a god exists, picking the ''best'' religion is still not that good because, first of all, how would you ever know, right?

Your question gets us into the domain of truth theory. It is a complex topic.

Unless you are an adherent of philosophical skepticism you accept that objective reality aka truth exists and can be known.

The question we must then answer is how do we know something is true? What non arbitrary criteria or metric do we use to determine truth?

The best answer to this question that I know of is the the Coherence theory of truth. Here is a brief description of what this is.

Coherence Theory of Truth
http://mrhoyestokwebsite.com/Knower/Useful%20Information/Three%20Different%20Theories%20of%20Truth.htm

Put simply: a belief is true when we are able to incorporate it in an orderly and logical manner into a larger and complex system of beliefs or, even more simply still, a belief is true when it fits in with the set of all our other beliefs without creating a contradiction.
 
Sometimes this seems like an odd way to actually describe truth. After all, a belief can be an inaccurate description of reality and fit in with a larger, complex system of further inaccurate descriptions of reality, according to the Coherence Theory, that inaccurate belief would still be called “truth” even though it didn’t actually describe the way the world really was. Does that really make any sense?
 
Well, possibly … the reason is because statements can’t really be verified in isolation. Whenever you test an idea, you are also actually testing a whole set of ideas at the same time. For example, when you pick up a ball in your hand and drop it, it isn’t simply our belief about gravity which is tested but also our beliefs about a host of other things, not least of which would be the accuracy of our visual perception.
 
So, if statements are only tested as part of larger groups, then one might conclude that a statement can be classified as “true” not so much because it can be verified against reality but rather because it could be integrated into a group of complex ideas, the whole set of which could then be tested against reality. In this case Coherence Theory isn’t that far from the Correspondence Theory and the reason is that while individual statements may be judged as true or false based upon their ability to cohere with a larger system, it is assumed that that system is one which accurately corresponds to reality.
 
Because of this, the Coherence Theory does manage to capture something important about the way we actually conceive of truth in our daily lives. It isn’t that unusual to dismiss something as false precisely because it fails to cohere with a system of ideas which we are confident are true. Granted, maybe the system we assume to be true is quite a way off the mark, but so long as it continues to be successful and is capable of slight adjustments in the light of new data, our confidence is reasonable.

You are concerned that you cannot prove God exists to your satisfaction. My reply is that your inability to prove God has in this instance absolutely no relevance to Truth of God.

It is important to remember what we can prove.

The #1 Mathematical Discovery of the 20th Century
https://www.perrymarshall.com/articles/religion/godels-incompleteness-theorem/

Gödel proved that there are ALWAYS more things that are true than you can prove.

Any system of logic or numbers that mathematicians ever came up with will always rest on at least a few unprovable assumptions.

Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem applies not just to math, but to everything that is subject to the laws of logic. Incompleteness is true in math; it’s equally true in science or language or philosophy.

And: If the universe is mathematical and logical, Incompleteness also applies to the universe.

Gödel created his proof by starting with “The Liar’s Paradox” — which is the statement

“I am lying.”

“I am lying” is self-contradictory, since if it’s true, I’m not a liar, and it’s false; and if it’s false, I am a liar, so it’s true.

So Gödel, in one of the most ingenious moves in the history of math, converted the Liar’s Paradox into a mathematical formula. He proved that any statement requires an external observer.

No statement alone can completely prove itself true.

His Incompleteness Theorem was a devastating blow to the “positivism” of the time. Gödel proved his theorem in black and white and nobody could argue with his logic.

Yet some of his fellow mathematicians went to their graves in denial, believing that somehow or another Gödel must surely be wrong.

He wasn’t wrong. It was really true. There are more things that are true than you can prove.

A “theory of everything” – whether in math, or physics, or philosophy – will never be found. Because it is impossible.

A priori Truth is mathematically inevitable. God is such a Truth. The religious have a more elegant way of summing this up. They call it the necessity of faith.

You ask why can't I prove God? This is the wrong question. The correct question is can I build an integrated and coherent worldview without God? Can I follow the coherence theory of truth and construct a True worldview without God.

Only you can answer that question for yourself. I will tell you, however, that for me the answer was no.

Again more philosophical talk, not something I enjoy. ''a belief is true when it fits in with the set of all our other beliefs without creating a contradiction.'' Ok, if it's so simple, your god is not real. If your god is truly omnipotent and all knowing then why are we here? Oh, right, he gave us free will but then how can he be omnipotent. If we have freewill there is no way for him to know what we are going to do, otherwise it can't be freewill, kind of like: can god create an object so heavy that he can't lift it? The whole idea of god is already contradictory not to mention all the other contradictions mentioned by me before. Like the bible teaching not to kill but pages later saying, kill everyone that works on the sabbath. So I guess I just proved god is not real, right?

[CoinCube]

Again more philosophical talk, not something I enjoy...

Ok, if it's so simple...
your god is not real.
...
The whole idea of god is... contradictory.
...
So I guess I just proved god is not real, right?

I have laid out my own worldview for you in some detail. I have handed you my looking glass if you will and given you a chance to examine it.

I find the picture to be crystal clear but maybe for you the image is out of focus or you find yourself simply unable to use it.

You can certainly choose to reject the Abrahamic faiths but that is not a conclusion but a beginning. Having thrown away the looking glass that got you and your ancestors to where you are today you are now wandering blindly and in great need.

The logical result of gutting ones foundational principles without accepting a replacement ideology is incoherence and self-contradiction. Overall that is not a good place to be.

Your task now is to find Truth to the best of your ability, and your dislike of philosophy is going to make the process more difficult for you. What you need is to build a fully integrated and coherent worldview for yourself and accomplishing that is no small task.

I would recommend against Nihilism. I have examined that road and do not think it leads anywhere good. Maybe look at Bhuddism. They usually focus on compassion, understanding, and limiting human suffering and simply avoid the question of God. That is a far better approach then incoherence or illogical denials.

Dalai Lama Speaks - What About God?
https://spectrumofbeliefs.blogspot.com/2009/04/dalai-lama-god-what-about-god.html?m=1

Finally, at the end of his talk, questions were invited from the audience. A man said, "I understand Buddhism does not believe in God. What is your opinion about God? Does God exist or not?". His Holiness laughed, grabbed the hands of the two spiritual leaders on each side of him, lifted them in the air, fixed his gaze upon the audience, and said emphatically, "God exists or God does not exist. Leave it for us. Your task is to learn how to live peacefully."

[Astargath]

Again more philosophical talk, not something I enjoy...

Ok, if it's so simple...
your god is not real.
...
The whole idea of god is... contradictory.
...
So I guess I just proved god is not real, right?

I have laid out my own worldview for you in some detail. I have handed you my looking glass if you will and given you a chance to examine it.

I find the picture to be crystal clear but maybe for you the image is out of focus or you find yourself simply unable to use it.

You can certainly choose to reject the Abrahamic faiths but that is not a conclusion but a beginning. Having thrown away the looking glass that got you and your ancestors to where you are today you are now wandering blindly and in great need.

The logical result of gutting ones foundational principles without accepting a replacement ideology is incoherence and self-contradiction. Overall that is not a good place to be.

Your task now is to find Truth to the best of your ability, and your dislike of philosophy is going to make the process more difficult for you. What you need is to build a fully integrated and coherent worldview for yourself and accomplishing that is no small task.

I would recommend against Nihilism. I have examined that road and do not think it leads anywhere good. Maybe look at Bhuddism. They usually focus on compassion, understanding, and limiting human suffering and simply avoid the question of God. That is a far better approach then incoherence or illogical denials.

Dalai Lama Speaks - What About God?
https://spectrumofbeliefs.blogspot.com/2009/04/dalai-lama-god-what-about-god.html?m=1

Finally, at the end of his talk, questions were invited from the audience. A man said, "I understand Buddhism does not believe in God. What is your opinion about God? Does God exist or not?". His Holiness laughed, grabbed the hands of the two spiritual leaders on each side of him, lifted them in the air, fixed his gaze upon the audience, and said emphatically, "God exists or God does not exist. Leave it for us. Your task is to learn how to live peacefully."

I don't like philosophy because it's not practical. Philosophy is like science but without experiments or evidence. Look at old school philosophers, they believed in really crazy things sometimes, people too. I don't blame them, obviously the information and knowledge they had at that time was limited and some of the conclusions they arrived at were somewhat logical at the time but they were wrong many times about many things, mainly because all they used was ''thought'' and a lot of assumptions.

[BADecker]

Your argument only works when you are assuming god actually exists but then again, you would have to prove a god exists and you haven't. If we assume a god exists, picking the ''best'' religion is still not that good because, first of all, how would you ever know, right?

Your question gets us into the domain of truth theory. It is a complex topic.

Unless you are an adherent of philosophical skepticism you accept that objective reality aka truth exists and can be known.

The question we must then answer is how do we know something is true? What non arbitrary criteria or metric do we use to determine truth?

The best answer to this question that I know of is the the Coherence theory of truth. Here is a brief description of what this is.

Coherence Theory of Truth
http://mrhoyestokwebsite.com/Knower/Useful%20Information/Three%20Different%20Theories%20of%20Truth.htm

Put simply: a belief is true when we are able to incorporate it in an orderly and logical manner into a larger and complex system of beliefs or, even more simply still, a belief is true when it fits in with the set of all our other beliefs without creating a contradiction.
 
Sometimes this seems like an odd way to actually describe truth. After all, a belief can be an inaccurate description of reality and fit in with a larger, complex system of further inaccurate descriptions of reality, according to the Coherence Theory, that inaccurate belief would still be called “truth” even though it didn’t actually describe the way the world really was. Does that really make any sense?
 
Well, possibly … the reason is because statements can’t really be verified in isolation. Whenever you test an idea, you are also actually testing a whole set of ideas at the same time. For example, when you pick up a ball in your hand and drop it, it isn’t simply our belief about gravity which is tested but also our beliefs about a host of other things, not least of which would be the accuracy of our visual perception.
 
So, if statements are only tested as part of larger groups, then one might conclude that a statement can be classified as “true” not so much because it can be verified against reality but rather because it could be integrated into a group of complex ideas, the whole set of which could then be tested against reality. In this case Coherence Theory isn’t that far from the Correspondence Theory and the reason is that while individual statements may be judged as true or false based upon their ability to cohere with a larger system, it is assumed that that system is one which accurately corresponds to reality.
 
Because of this, the Coherence Theory does manage to capture something important about the way we actually conceive of truth in our daily lives. It isn’t that unusual to dismiss something as false precisely because it fails to cohere with a system of ideas which we are confident are true. Granted, maybe the system we assume to be true is quite a way off the mark, but so long as it continues to be successful and is capable of slight adjustments in the light of new data, our confidence is reasonable.

You are concerned that you cannot prove God exists to your satisfaction. My reply is that your inability to prove God has in this instance absolutely no relevance to Truth of God.

It is important to remember what we can prove.

The #1 Mathematical Discovery of the 20th Century
https://www.perrymarshall.com/articles/religion/godels-incompleteness-theorem/

Gödel proved that there are ALWAYS more things that are true than you can prove.

Any system of logic or numbers that mathematicians ever came up with will always rest on at least a few unprovable assumptions.

Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem applies not just to math, but to everything that is subject to the laws of logic. Incompleteness is true in math; it’s equally true in science or language or philosophy.

And: If the universe is mathematical and logical, Incompleteness also applies to the universe.

Gödel created his proof by starting with “The Liar’s Paradox” — which is the statement

“I am lying.”

“I am lying” is self-contradictory, since if it’s true, I’m not a liar, and it’s false; and if it’s false, I am a liar, so it’s true.

So Gödel, in one of the most ingenious moves in the history of math, converted the Liar’s Paradox into a mathematical formula. He proved that any statement requires an external observer.

No statement alone can completely prove itself true.

His Incompleteness Theorem was a devastating blow to the “positivism” of the time. Gödel proved his theorem in black and white and nobody could argue with his logic.

Yet some of his fellow mathematicians went to their graves in denial, believing that somehow or another Gödel must surely be wrong.

He wasn’t wrong. It was really true. There are more things that are true than you can prove.

A “theory of everything” – whether in math, or physics, or philosophy – will never be found. Because it is impossible.

A priori Truth is mathematically inevitable. God is such a Truth. The religious have a more elegant way of summing this up. They call it the necessity of faith.

You ask why can't I prove God? This is the wrong question. The correct question is can I build an integrated and coherent worldview without God? Can I follow the coherence theory of truth and construct a True worldview without God.

Only you can answer that question for yourself. I will tell you, however, that for me the answer was no.

So, you would rather go after Coincube with your stupid questions that I already answered multiple times. It's because you think mere talk is proof for something, without going after the meat of the content of the talk.

Again more philosophical talk, not something I enjoy. ''a belief is true when it fits in with the set of all our other beliefs without creating a contradiction.'' Ok, if it's so simple, your god is not real. If your god is truly omnipotent and all knowing then why are we here?

Do you think that you are complex enough to determine that believing in something is simple?

God placed us here for His own pleasure, part of which is so that we can have pleasure, which happens best and most when we recognize His greatness and worship Him, for which He rewards us (even though it was He Who gave us the ability to worship Him), so that He gets glory from us, so that He has an excuse to return goodness to us for the glory that He receives, so that we both, God and mankind, can increase throughout eternity.

Your self-imposed stupidity is like the core of a black hole... extremely dense, but existing only in a single point - note that according to geometry, points don't exist. Rather, they are the "place" where two real things touch each other. You should be thanking God that He is holding you alive, and giving you a chance to turn back to Him... before it is too late for you.

Oh, right, he gave us free will but then how can he be omnipotent. If we have freewill there is no way for him to know what we are going to do, otherwise it can't be freewill, kind of like:

As I have told you maybe a dozen time, the only free will we have, exists regarding aspects of our faith in God. Remember how God elevated Abraham as explained in Genesis in the Bible? God did it because Abraham happened to turn a bit of his free will towards God in ways that surprised and pleased God. Then, in His delight, God rewarded Abraham by both, physical reward, and the ability to increase his (Abraham's) own faith within himself. A tiny touch of Abraham-free-will, and the big complete self-control of God-free-will working together.

can god create an object so heavy that he can't lift it?

As I have told you in the past, Jesus is the rock that God can't lift. Why can't God lift it? Because Jesus is God, and yet is distinct from God in ways not understandable. The Rock, Jesus, lifted Himself onto the cross (because He could have overcome the people that seemed to be doing the lifting, any second), willingly died there, and then arose from death. He is the rock that God can't lift, but He lifted himself. Note that those of us who believe in God/Jesus are being moved into a place of glory similar to Jesus.

The whole idea of god is already contradictory not to mention all the other contradictions mentioned by me before. Like the bible teaching not to kill but pages later saying, kill everyone that works on the sabbath. So I guess I just proved god is not real, right?

Again, there is no contradiction in the killing thing.

Any and all people that God commanded ancient Israel to kill, were people that were killing other people for nothing, and raising up children who did not believe in God and would die in Hell. So, God was stopping the killing by executing them.

In addition, the earth is he Lord's and all its fullness. It's His property. Since we barely understand the thinking and wisdom of God because of our remoteness, talking against Him is simply a failure on our part.

You are the one who is mistaken. Not believers in God, and certainly not God. When will you stop making your mistakes? Or is it that you have locked yourself into perpetual mistake making with no change ever forthcoming?

[BADecker]

I can't say that the concept of a ''god'' doesn't exist or it's not possible but I know for sure the christian god is not real because of all the contradictions and because I have been there, as I said many times, I was a believer, 100% and yet here I am, I asked god for help to still believe in him and he didn't help. Either your god exists but he won't help me, which contradicts what he is supposed to be or he doesn't exist. I pick the last option.

There was a time that Satan was on God's side, as well. You are far from the first joker who has turned against God. Satan might have had a bit of an "chance," because God had given Him tremendous power and glory. But even if yo are a billionaire, your strength is only the strength of man, which exists in weakness without God.

[BADecker]

Many times i've got problems because of religion to be honest. Maybe i'm unlucky but everytime i'm trying to go in church something bad happening to me.

The devil doesn't want you to go to church and be saved, so he just might be making trouble for you so that you think that religion is doing it.

Talk about free will, eh? The devil can do things to you all the time to prevent you from believing in god but god himself cannot reveal himself to everyone convincingly so you wont need to believe in him because he likes to play games with the devil. Give me a break with your 10 year old stories.

My stories are a lot older than 10 years old. And you, obviously, don't understand the role the devil has [played in our lives. Besides, God isn't going to force revelation on those who don't want Him to be revealed to them... not yet, anyway.

But he will let the devil, forcefully convince people to do bad things. hmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Only if the people freely want that force against themselves, a thing which you seem to want for yourself.

[CoinCube]

I don't like philosophy because it's not practical. Philosophy is like science but without experiments or evidence. Look at old school philosophers, they believed in really crazy things sometimes, people too. I don't blame them, obviously the information and knowledge they had at that time was limited and some of the conclusions they arrived at were somewhat logical at the time but they were wrong many times about many things, mainly because all they used was ''thought'' and a lot of assumptions.

Assumptions cannot be avoided. It does not matter how much science we do there will always be something at the foundation that is a priori.

Some of the ancient philosophers got into trouble because they based their worldview on multiple assumptions that were falsifiable. These assumptions were proven untrue and their constructed worldview was exposed as lacking coherence lacking truth. Other ancient philosophers were more cautious and their ideas are still deeply studied to this day.

Philosophy and assumption are not optional. Your only choice is to be aware of your assumptions or to close your eyes and embrace blindness.