Charismatic Chaos

But where did this belief come from? Someone told that person that it was true. That person, unless they went out of their way to admit they had no proof and just believed because it made them feel good (very few to none of the faithful I know were taught in this way), were either lying or had been duped by someone further back. This is true. I couldn't agree with you more. People should be educated about what science has shown, should be exposed to as many religions as is feasible, and at a suitable age, the chiuld should be allowed to make up his or her own mind as far as religion goes. It will never work that way though, and that's sad. This is only true as long as the parent is indoctrinating their child. If the parent is up front and honest and says, this is what I believe, this is why, but here are opposing views, the child will have a much better time of it. This is true. Indoctrination, no matter who it comes from is wrong. But, I would be interested in what you consider to be indoctrinating a child with atheism. Is teaching them that the earth is 4.5 billion years old indoctrinating atheism or just teaching science?Edited by Perdition, : No reason given.Edited by Perdition, : Wow, dB coding is hard...err something...yeah

I can't speak for Brian, but I would love it if there were a God. Someone who was watching over us and who could give us an afterlife, a way for us not to just stop. Death scares the hell out of me.All that being said, I'm not going to believe it because I want it. I want there to be elves and fairies and a million dollars in my bank account, too, but I won't believe in them until I see some sort of evidence for their existence.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with mythos, allegory and parable. On the contrary, I think they are a large part of what makes being a human so interesting, and being an aspiring writer myself, I find them invaluable as a tool. However, I don't believe them. I love the stories of Paul Bunyan and Calamity Jane and Pecos Bill, etc. They're part of American mythos and are very fun to read, but I don't think there really was giant with a large blue ox who chopped down trees in my neck of the woods.I love going to the movies and getting lost in the worlds of Tolkien, ROddenberry, or Spielberg, but again, I don't leave the theater thinking they're true. That's the difference. In religion, people left the show believing the allegory rather than just appreciating it for what it is.

But there are two issues. We live in a world with limitations on what our will is able to actualize, and we live in a world where our will itself is limited.I can decide to fly, but no amount of trying can make that decision bear any fruit. An all-powerful god could have put the same limitations on decisions to harm another, innocent person. If god wants to punish people who choose to do wrong, does he have to wait until they actually do so? Can't he punish them for making the decision in the first place?To the other point, there are a whole multitude of things I can't conceive of, and therefore, can't will myself to do, whether they're possible or not. My will is therefore limited already. God could have given us free will, but made it impossible for us to conceive of doing wrong. We would still be able to make decisions on what to do, our options would just be a little more limited than they are now.I don't see how the fact that we can, and do, commit wrongs means they are necessary for free will. Any being with unlimited power and imagination could have come up with an infinitude of scenarios where we would still have "free" will (as we do now) but where innocent people would not have to be harmed for his own sick desire to punish people who, as you've said, merely follow through on their in born addiction.

But why were we tainted by our forebearers? That makes no sense, especially from a just god. If he were truly just, he would allow each person to freely choose sin or not, rather than giving them an addiction because their gret-great-great-...-great grandparents made a bad choice.Secondly, if we're truly addicted, we can't be held to blame as much as someone not so addicted. Besides, say what you will about yourself, but I'm not addicted to sin at all. But the purposes intended was fopr a free people to worship god and exist in a paradise. Even assuming we all get burdened with original sin, he could allow all of us to live freely and not have us have the option of being unfit. And, if we allow the choice to be unfit, for some reason, there is still no reason to allow the person making the wrong choice to be able to carry it out and hurt an innocent. The fact that god allows people to not only make the choice, but to carry it out, means he has no problems with people getting murdered, raped, or robbed, as long as he knows who to erase from the book of life. It's like he sees us as bugs for his own amusement, not concerned one whit for how our lives go. And that's not moral or just, it's at best amoral and indifferent. But we have predispositions and influence. Gravity, physics, and human brain chemsitry are all limiting factors. We're surrounded by them, and yet God says "This is where the line must be, you must be allowed to make other people suffer, otherwise, my whole experiment fails." Frankly, that says a whole lot more about the experimenter than it does about the experiment, and it doesn't say anything nice. But he could determine people's wills and hearts by giving them a smaller range as well. Why does he have to allow people the choice of murder, rape and torture, couldn't blasphemy and pride be enough? Even if he does have to allow us the choice to do wrong such that someone else will suffer, he doesn't have to let us carry it out. Once he sees our decision, he could cause a chain of events that leads to the person not being able to carry it out, he can do anything, but he seems to limit himself in this particular place for no discernable reason. I don't see it. The desire to pull someone's fingernaisl out is wicked enough without making it possible for them to do so. And using wickedness as a means of salvation is a serious flaw for a being that could have picked any means as a mechanism for slavation. It screams of sadism that he would pick this one. And trying to say that by suffering rape, torture, murder, etc makes someone more receptive to god's statement of salvation is just ignorant of the facts. There are no marked differences in religious belief before or after something such as this, and if anything, it's a step away from religion as people are left to understand that a giod that allows this to happen merely for his own omniscience to have clear and unadulterated evil to punish is not a good god.It sounds as if God is either sadistic, or just wants to punish people, so he stacks the deck such that he will have people to punish. That's fine, couldn't he send me a questionaire? Couldn't he test me without putting other people's lives, sanity, and bodies on the line? It's way to Draconic and drastic for someone as powerful as god is supposed to be. It smacks of post hoc reasoning and attempting to cover over cognitive dissonance. "This is horrible, but it must be for a good purpose, thus..." I don't see it. All the suffereing seems to be one sided, and it's definitely not his.