Easy, but unaccpetable. God create us with a gazillion imperfections and then "test"s us. For what, his amusement? To see if I measure up? My reposne to a God like that is, BLOW ME, I ain't playin' that game. I cannot and will not believe in a God like that.
No, not a tie. Scientific knowledge/progress, and your imaginary friend God a tie? Dream on. Your religious psychosis is no contender. And you neednât let me know if you ever do manage anything like a return of equal force. It would be unmissable .
You did say the Creator does this, the Creator does that. You did say the Creator is unknowable. But ok, now it is - in your opinion-, you know things about an unknowable Creator. Little difference your explanation is the same. Can you honestly not see how such a basic contradiction makes your explanations irrational? I keep thinking like a human being??. Then what are you thinking like.!? Sure Optional77ZZzzz thinks like a Troll but, are you being serious? And what are you talking about "pure energy could by chance coalesce into the Universe as we know it." That's not science That's not what I said nor anyone else apart from yourself. And what on earth makes you think an atheist thinks they would be judged anyway? Why would those who don't believe fairy tales are real, be afraid that the bid bad witch from the sky is going to judge them? You may have fallen for that superstitious nonsense but I don't think the less gullible do. I repeat, can you give any concrete reason why when arguing the Universe needed to be created, you have no logical grounds to argue why a Creator wouldnât need to be created? And a Creator which has always existed, begs the question then why wouldnât the Universe have always existed.? Can you not supply any clear, non contradictory answers to those two questions ? Even if they are only 'in your opinion'
Bingo. Theism says the world is flat. Science proved it is round. Theists went nuts, killed a lot of people who believed the world is round, then it slowly and begrudgingly accepted the world as round. Theism says the earth is the center of the universe. Science proved this wrong, that the earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around. Theists went super-nuts, killed or persecuted everybody who dared suggest the earth is not the center of the universe. Slowly the rational view won over more and more "heretics" until theists must begrudgingly agree to peaceful coexistence. It takes the Catholic Church 400 years to apologize to Galileo. Now we're here and the theists are grasping at any straw to proclaim that their deity really did create the universe. "Big Bang is wrong because it doesn't give a complete exact history of the universe in every microscopic detail." What a load of crap! This is the straw on which theists hang their creationism hat? That, along with the childish stunt of closing their eyes, putting their hands over their ears and shouting "LALALALALALALALA...!" whenever it is shown just how ridiculous a necessary-Creator theory must be ("turtles all the way down"). I can respect Deism. It almost works, and the Deists try very hard to fit their belief into a rational universe. But even the typical theistic notion that an allegedly infinite Creator would bother to inject "Himself" into the lives of mere flawed mortals on an unremarkable planet circling an unremarkable star in an unremarkable galaxy is howlingly laughable. Whatever helps them sleep at night.
Following along with this same idiocy, we can say: There is no difference between a boy and a girl. Both are children. There is no difference between an apple and an orange. They are both fruits. So what is your point! If indeed you had one. Because in fact your first statement is wrong, and your second is pointless.
Your mortal acquiescence is not required and I can assure you, you ARE PLAYING. I also realize from your reaction, more enlightenment is beyond your comprehension at this point.
Not a tie because stu says so... Oh my goodness, what a laugh... You can't prove your case, but you win? You must have graduated law school with even lower grades than jem...
Just to play Devil's advocate D), here's what I learned when I was weaning myself off Christianity. You have three Divine attributes: 1. God is all-powerful 2. God is all-knowing 3. God is all-good Logically God can be any two, but not all three. An all-powerful, all-knowing God cannot be all-good because evil is rampant in the world and he allows it. An all-good, all-powerful God cannot be all-knowing because he can't find all the evil in the world and stop it. An all-good, all-knowing God cannot be all-powerful because even though he knows all the evil, he cannot stop it. One way the Church has dealt with the Problem of Evil is to claim that an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God must allow evil in order to give humanity freedom of choice. People are free to choose good or to choose evil. The dilemma for the Church with this rationale for Evil is that it still doesn't address the Problem of Pain. Sure, a person who rapes children has made the wrong choice and will allegedly be punished in an afterlife (nevermind the terrorized victims in this life.) But what about all the pain and suffering caused by natural disasters? Plenty of people get hurt and killed by events that have no human agency behind them. How can an all-good, all-knowing, all-powerful God stand by and let a helpless infant get slowly crushed in a landslide? The Church has no answers for both the Problem of Evil and the Problem of Pain.
Yea, I've heard that line before. It's the old, God works in mysterious ways line. In other words, you don't have a clue. I will concede that I may be an unwilling participant in the game, but that doesn't sound like a loving God to me, and I refuse to believe in anything less. You put a human face on God and God becomes very small and petty. Just the kind of prick that would "test" someone. Why is your God so small?