Christianity is Morally Bankrupt

You and I are diametrically opposites. I am 99.9999% sure that God exists, and I would never dare to be proud of my own intellect and integrity. Additionally, your denial of Jesus in the flesh as Gods Son is an antichrist spirit, and dare I say that this is the entire reason for your topic. Humans are bankrupt insofar as our ability to do anything good within us...apart from God. Indeed, we owe our very lives to Him. I have seen evidence of a supernatural reality, and I can only warn you of your inner humanistic pride regarding your own efforts. This belief will fail.

1) I have heard extraordinary evidence of demonic possession/oppression in that I clearly heard several differnet voices at once come out of a guy...in my own living room. There was quite simply no other valid explanations as to why this occurred and two others also witnessed this event. You wouldn't, because your bias leans the other way to begin with. You have said yourself you don't want any sort of supernatural entity to trump your human reasoning anyway. You are, in fact, proud of your ability to rationalize and explain without resorting to any need to surrender. Thus, I never would expect you to accept any claim...valid or otherwiseIn fact, I would assert that human understanding by majority tries to disprove rather than prove God. We simply by nature would prefer to be our own gods.Answer me this, though. Is it logical for the sum of intelligence located on a virtual dust speck among one of many hundreds of billions of galaxies to defiantly limit its collective belief on human wisdom alone? Sounds a bit pompous and defiant to me. Edited by Phat, : No reason given.Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

My Take: Christianity and Ayn Rand's philosophy are 2 distinct religions
AMEN to that!Edited by Phat, : No reason given.Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

MY beliefs are not derived only from ancient texts. My beliefs are derived from a God who lives today and is as relevant as today's news. Obviously, one who does not believe in such a God has, in my estimation, never encountered such a God...so I can understand the reluctance to accept my beliefs. As for Science, I realize that it is not a faith and is a method and a discipline, to be sure. I also recognize that for those who have no internal(nevermind external) evidence of a living God, it is much more sensible to accept human intellect and discovery as the only way to go.For me, there is ample evidence that humans are flawed, and in fact even selfish and manipulative creatures. We do have altruistic traits as well, and I will admit to a bias towards original sin...the Bible speaks of such behaviors as being very typical of people. I certainly don't limit my belief in the Bible to the attitudes and beliefs that it shows were done in the past...I take my feelings and actions at today's face value much as I take any of yours. I firmly believe, however, in a living and interactive God that is well aware of human wisdom, progress,potential, and limitation.

The way I look at it, we essentially torture ourselves. It is our choice...the actor merely set the parameters. Our question is why the actor chose to allow for such parameters. Perhaps the question should be "why we cant have our cake and eat it too?"Or perhaps the question should be "why such drastic parameters"?

Provided they were never given an option to reconsider, I might agree....The question is, if you died or were near death and Jesus suddenly appeared to you either literally or strong metaphorically and asked you to accept Him, would you defiantly continue rejecting Him based on your own "precious" yet worthless free will? Or would you reconsider..... The issue is not what a God could or would hypothetically do to you....the issue is how you would respond to Him....assuming you became aware of an undeniable possibility...at least...of His existence.

A lot depends on which destinations are available in reality.Assuming that God exists...and further assuming relationship/acknowledgement is found only through Jesus...it would be silly to reject God and/or Jesus based on personal or societal interpretation of the Bible. The issue would involve a relationship with an active living entity.Too many people reject God based only on Biblical interpretation.Of course, for many, that's all they have to go on is the characters in a book.Assuming the ultimate decision would be made on meeting the character(of Jesus Christ) I could see no reason anyone would reject Him...unless they held their free will in higher regard....and simply chose rejecting.Edited by Phat, :

Or...God exists regardless of what people do or don't believe regarding His existence.Of course, critics would then ask me why I expected said God to be the Christian One...in which case I would only be able to say that I met Jesus...which then leads to my belief that all people on earth will meet Jesus some day. But again, how do I explain and/or defend my belief further?

So you don't think its possible that authors could be inspired from a source apart from themselves?

So God won't welcome Christians based on their behavior, yet will give everyone else a break? I wonder what the look on your face will be if your credentials are challenged at the front door??"Do you accept Jesus"?"what do you mean?""Just answer the question---to whom do you credit your presence here today?""Why shucks...i figger it has to be on me!""NEXT!"

So in other words you wouldn't worship a God that was closer to the dogmatic One and less the jar-imagined One? St.Peter: Jesus died for you so that you could have a chance at getting in. jar: You mean to tell me that those name-it-and-claim-it club christians were right?St.Peter: Not exactly...in fact nobody has gotten in on their own merits.jar:Well shucks, Pete..all I did was the best I could...I figgered I owed life at least that much....is it ok if y'all put me in the section that the atheists,agnostics, and Wiccans are a sittin. I dont get along with the Ike & Only Imagine crowd very well.... St.Peter: OK...but I must warn you...Logic,Reason,and Reality are a lot different than you expected.... jar: I kin hardly wait to start learn'n all over again! St.Peter: Welcome home, jar. Go gather round the fire and set a spell...there may be at least one other Episcopalian over there, but to you i'm sure it doesn't matter...Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

Its not as if you would have an alternative...but lets assume for a moment that you did. Lets assume that,largely due to complaints such as yours, God allowed you other lines to stand in. What type of exchange would you expect? A place where you still had free will and could eternally exist however you wanted to exist? What makes you want to hang on to your perceptions so much? If GOD exists, how do you expect to be judged? Based only on your heart for homeless people who have come to know you as "that spare-change guy"?I dunno why it bugs me so much the idea that we are always charged to give give give...regardless of whether rogue pirates or drunk outcasts deserve it or not.Maybe this is one of those little things that will decide my fate. All I know is I don't deserve to be broke...and find it hard to give what I barely have.Would Jesus forgive me for my selfishness? OR would I be allowed into heaven based on the same standard that I used to judge who deserved my spare change and who didn't?

Who are we to determine what God deserves or does not deserve?I think you have a wrong idea of God when you insist that the book says that we should judge Him.How did we earn such a right? How could we even begin to have the credentials to judge the Creator Of All Things Seen And Unseen?why would we dare think that God deserved pity anyway?Who made US God?

Using logic, the Creator of all seen and unseen would not steer us wrong. He gave us brains initially, and my hope is that He would help us. Why should He help us? The core of my belief and hope in life, love, and liberty is that God, if God exists, is good and wants us to survive and prosper.Were this not true, I sure as hell wouldn't trust humanity. Studies done in New Orleans, after Katrina showed that anarchy and lawlessness surfaced in as little as four days.Another reason for my faith? My hope and prayer would be that I didn't become that which I feared. (With apologies to the Somali pirate comment)

It all flows through Jesus Christ. The creator of all seen and unseen cannot be known or understood apart from Jesus Christ---at least for we humans. Perhaps whales have a different method of sharing communion.But then again, God is not simply a product of our imagination....I could be wrong.Add by edit: Do you believe that God is alienated from our idea of Him? If so, is it possible that Jesus death was every bit as important as His life...in order to provide reconciliation?Edited by Phat, : No reason given.