I can't beat this horse enough.

God creates man, God makes man free, through his freedom man becomes 'sinful' (breeches an arbitrary rule God imposed). Therefore, the only way to become 'free' of one's 'sin' is to accept a ritualistic human sacrifice and 'open your heart to God' (do whatever the orthodoxy demands of you).

That someone could argue of the virtue of this position with any sincerity is simply baffling to me.

For the sake of argument, let's say your god gave you the choice to replace someone whom you loved in hell.

Dear Auntie Mae the atheist or whomever is sitting in hell and before entering heaven god says "You can go in or you can take your Aunt's place in hell and she gets to go in. Which choice do you make?

Paul said he would but its hard to say if it came down to that he really would. Kind of depends on how hell bad is and how much you are saving auntie may from and how much you love auntie may. Ironically, we are taught to be selfish on this point alone and choose God before anyone else but there have been many stories about people wanting to switch. Like Constantine. Thats how keanu makes it into heaven. I also liked that movie what dreams may come. I didnt like it at first but it kind of grows on you. Its a fair question. Isn't that what some think jesus did for 3 days. We are suppose to be like jesus but it wasnt permanent for him either.

But all of this discounts my original belief that auntie may doesnt want to serve God for eternity and thats why shes not in heaven already so she does not want me to trade places with her. I like these prisoners dilemmas but I dont think any of us really understand what heaven and hell are.

A being or is not a being, if he is not a being of any sorts then god cannot communicate or have any intelligence. If god is a being then he has a physical presentation as god would have to some how commuicate to man (as he does various times in the OT) and somehow store this intelligence (as far as I can see we have yet to see any form of intelligence without having a physical form). God to be able to create anything has to be a thing, if he isn't a thing or a being then he is nothing.

But the singularity is a thing, it was a physical thing, with physical properties. Where your saying god is an idea, not a being, something that has no physical properties outside of an idea. As such it is no more real than say civil liberties, as these are an idea as well that we treat as real, as some people treat god as real, but in reality cannnot do anything, it is mere the idea of god that influences people, not that there actually is a god. As well if god cannot interact nor can god create then, then god has done nothing, did not create man, did not create the universe....so why worship him again? If god cannot make decisions (even though if you read the bible he does make decisions) and cannot interact with man, can communicate with man, cannot show himself in any way or form. Then how does god represent himself many times throughout the bible in physical form?

Your entire concept of god is no more real than an idea, and yes ideas can influence people but they aren't real things per se, and those ideas come from humans and are human creations, which puts god as a human creation then. As an idea cannot exist prior to humans existing.

You just completely contradicted yourself here, how can god influence anything if god cannot do anything, your previous post said god can't create, can't communicate, doesn't have a physical form, does not have intelligence as such cannot make designs, influencing someone is making a decision, an active decision to influence someone. Now if god is an idea, then god is nothing tangible and nothing worth worshiping, hasn't created anything and is nothing in the end outside of an idea.

First, Believer, you *agreed* with my statement about original sin...and yet you disagreed about the outflow of it.  If no Adam, then no original sin; if no original sin, then apparently no Jesus.  You allowed that this was "a big problem."  That's good as far as it goes, but what other theological reason would have Jesus coming to Earth?  Apparently, whatever it is, it has nothing to do with saving us from sin; one would think that this would mean no reason for Jesus to die at all.

Second, Latincanuck seems to be dealing with you on the contradictions in your post; I won't repeat and belabor his points, here.  But the bit about people deconverting because of an all-or-nothing approach? Not quite...at least not in my case.  I deconverted because the alleged "perfection" of "God's teaching" was wholly absent.  Worse: if one tried to allow for a reinterpretation which removed the difficulty, then you ended up denying other "religious truths."  Oh...and as a kicker...the church authorities usually ruled out any "reinterpretation" I could imagine, because of course someone else had thought of it first.  Far from being "perfect truth," religious doctrine was simply a logical trap to try to get you to "exercise faith," (read: believe nonsense regardless of how illogical it is, or how much evidence is arrayed against it.)

As for whether or not that "means that none of it is true," stop and consider: where, exactly, do we in the modern world get these religious ideas?  Simple: from other people.  For example, I got the idea that, say, the Gospel According to Mark was "God's Word," from my church of the time (i.e., the Roman Catholic Church.)  Okay...but where did the Catholics who taught me this get it?  From other Catholics, of course.  One might trace things back to Ecumenical Councils and from there to local councils, and from there to usages in the Fathers of the Church...but at the end of the day, this idea ("The Gospel of Mark is God's Word.&quot is either correct, or not.  So...how good is the word of the Catholic Church concerning the Gospel of Mark?  You see here how important it is for any witnesses to be reliable.  Oh...and atheists don't claim that there is *no* truth at all in the Bible.  In fact, I'll go on record right here, right now as claiming that there is *much* truth in the Bible.  But that is not the claim that is uniquely made for the Bible.  The claim that is made for the Bible is that it is the written teaching of a perfect God who loves humanity and wishes to lead us into all truth.  So...if God is perfect, then he cannot fail to understand how to teach us; if he loves us, then he would not lie to us, and he would see to the preservation of his word to us.  That "truth exists" within the Bible is actually not much of a claim.  That is why the stronger claim of *perfect* (read: inerrant, infallible, or prophetic, as you choose) truth is made.  For example, I can open my Bible (NRSV) to Proverbs 22:3, which reads, "The clever see danger and hide; but the simple go on and suffer for it."  I have no difficulty at all citing this statement (and others like it, in the Bible) as "true."  It is utterly banal, and we do not exactly need a "divine revelation" to know this...but the statement is indeed true.  Here, then, is a *major* problem with the Bible: what is claimed for it by others (inerrancy, infallibility, etc.,) is at best unprovable, when it is not in fact outright disproven.  What it claims for itself (a history of Jesus, for example,) is again either unsupported, or false.  And to top it all off: when it is right...it very often is so in a way which makes it...well...irrelevant.  And this is "God's Word" to humanity.

Here's a kicker: these possibilities (unsupportable, false, irrelevant) are the same possibilities for all the other "sacred scriptures," around the world.  Take the Koran, for example.  It informs us that humanity came from "a clot of blood."  There are two ways to take this: as referring to the origin of each human individual, or referring to the origin of the human species as a whole.  And it's a wrong statement, either way.  Plan on keeping your Bible, while adding the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price?  Here's the short version: a prophet is only a prophet when acting as such; the First Presidency of the Latter-Day Saint Church is supposed to be a prophet; a General Convention is when the First Presidency is supposed to be acting as a prophet...and a former President of the Church taught, at a General Convention,  that blacks were inferior, and that such a teaching was to be held as God's Word, contained within LDS scriptures.  Not only is that repulsive in itself, but here's a kicker: virtually nobody within today's LDS Church, that I ever ran across, believes this.  Which by LDS standards, theoretically should mean that the entire church is apostate.  Oops.  I guess that the Latter-Day Saints aren't any better at "preserving God's Word through history" than anybody else is.  (Oh...and as for the "inferior" thing...I do believe that we now have a President-elect that disproves *that* little notion...which shows this racist teaching to be *false* as well as repulsive.)  So...God's Bible, Koran, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price are all false.  If I may make an observation: God's not doing so well in the "truth" department, here.

Now, I'll make an honest admission.  I did *not* study every single scripture on the planet.  I doubt that such a thing is possible, and even if it were, it would only be good until the next "revelation" comes along.  But really...how much optimisim do *you* have that, say, a thorough study of the Bhagavad-Gita will fare any better?  The Upanishads?  The Book of Urantia?   Scientology The Fundamentals of Thought?  And even if you *did* find truth...remember what kind of "truth" we found in the Bible: banal, and wholly unworthy of the label "divine revelation."

Think about it, Believer.

Please.

Conor