NO. There is a God. I am not some crazy old lady shouting Bible verses out, but I know there is a God. People have the wrong picture of God. He IS NOT a 'magic sky man'. You all probably say this and stuff like this b/c you can't see him. What ever happened to faith? Why is it so hard for people to believe? I mean, I would think some of y'all would want to believe. A heaven you go to when you die. Yeah, I know what your thinking. She's crazy. There is no Heaven. Look, I may not be an expert on Heaven, but I know that's where I'm going when I die. Now your thinking, you won't go anywhere when you die. Your dead. Not true. My body is dead. My soul is alive, and going to see the two people who let me be born. The God who loved me so much that He gave His only Son. His Son who loved me with an endless and undying love. A love that gives me assurance that no matter what, no matter what I do, where I go, who I see, How far I try to run He still loves me. Doesn't everyone crave a love like that? I know I did when I was 4 years old. I didn't wait for church to start. I ran up to the pastor, told him I wanted to be saved. Ms. Robin talked with me, and I prayed. God came into my life that day, though it can be a hard life I can handle it better knowing no matter what I go through God's there and He'll take me through it. It's an honor to have troubles and trials, in my opinion. He only gives trials and troubles to those who can handle it. Ponder it for a while, if you must. God bless.

Believing in God and Heaven, and that you'll see your loved ones again, must be comforting. That's why people believe it. That doesn't make it true.

"Why is it so hard for people to believe?" The same reason you don't believe in Poseidon, I don't believe that God pretended to sacrifice his "son"

No offense.

Listen, I do not have any family in Heaven. All of my family is living, thanks to God. Why wouldn't you believe in Jesus? I hate to think of those who do not believe there is a Jesus. You know why? Because its those we Christians are put on earth for. To help them. To show them. And when they don't believe I feel like I've failed. I know I will not be able to witness to everyone and they all get saved, but I want someone to believe. You are one of them. You probably think I'm an old 40 year old woman, who's never been married. But guess what? I'm a teenager. (Shocker, huh?) Your right, I've never been married. I just hope that you get saved oneday, before its too late. I'll pray for you.

There are countless examples of people that had so many troubles and trials that they killed themselves. Clearly, God gave them more than they could handle. How do you explain this?

Why wouldn't you believe in Santa Claus? No difference, quit being a hypocrite and come back to reality.

Hello, and welcome to the board.

You will find that we try to be picky about the words we use here. You say you know there is a god, and then go on to not once mention any proof that you know it. You reference faith here. Faith is precisely what it is that i reject.

faith-t8012.html?hilit=is faith a virtue&start=15

Why do i reject faith? Because faith does not rely on evidence. It does not rely on empirical, verifiable, demonstrably true facts. What does that mean?

It means that while you have complete faith in your god, so do the hindus. And neither one of your religions can demonstrate to any degree that your belief systems are more accurate than the other. The only way to convince someone is through appeals to magic, authority, emotion, or communal unity.

What's worse, neither hindus nor christians, nor shinto can prove any more accurate than the imagined ravings of a mad man. The only difference is that one set of imaginings were set to paper hundreds of years ago, while the other's delusions are recent.

God is not a magical guy in the sky? Religion is precisely magic. That's why it requires faith, and rejects naturalistic descriptions of the very phenomena which religions claims to be supernatural, or magical in origin. The evolution of life being a prime example where real data and knowledge is to be had on a subject but it is rejected in favor of arguments of ignorance and magic.

Faith is not an avenue to the truth, but a rejection of what others can prove is demonstrably true in favor of holding one's favored myths up as absolute truth. In spite of evidence to the contrary and a lack of evidence in support.




Of course it would be great if death was not the end of us. That's why we have invested so much into these myths. Nobody wants to just cease to be. But i cannot force myself to believe something which is evidentally false. I just can't do it. My understanding of the world is not based on what i would LIKE to believe, or on what sounds nice. It's based on what i can honestly determine seems to be the more likely truth. And when i can verify that the wind is causing a squeaking sound, and not a ghost, why would i even attempt to delude myself into believing the supernatural explanation when the natural one is so obvious?



Again you say "know" but that is not the word that applies. You hope very fervantly that you go to heaven, but you most certainly do not know it. You have faith you will be going to heaven. But as stated earlier, faith is an expectation held despite no evidence for it and defended against evidence to the contrary.





There is no indication that such a thing as a soul exists. It can only be assumed on the pre-supposition that it is true and a demand that we be more than the other organisms which inhabit this planet. It is a special pleading because of our refusal to acknowledge the painful truth of death. A self delusion meant to blunt the sting of losing loved ones to the inevitable course of life.

Likewise, the gods you describe are neither evident, nor necessary for what we can demonstrate really happens in the natural universe.





What you have done here is presented an emotional appeal based on subjective experience designed to illicit an emotional response. There is no evidence or indication that you did this on sound footing. Are we meant to take the impetuous decision of a four year old as evidence for wise decision making? Isn't the whole point of parenthood that children are unable to make decisions for themselves?

It is also unlikely that you remember any such decision, but far more likely that those in your family who were old enough to remember have helped you construct this memory from their own interpretations of events.



As pointed out, there are a great many people who cannot handle it. Not only are there suicides, but there are also slow spirals of malaise which result not in suicide, but mere existence. Not living life, but surviving it. Or those who are outright murdered by the "trials" of god. Or raped, or burned, or ruined by natural disasters.

I appreciate you sharing your opinions. You will find we return in kind.

No, I do not 'hope' as you put it, that I will go to Heaven. I know I will. There is no guessing. There is no hoping. There is only a peace and knowledge that God has put in my heart when I had first been saved. That was nearly 9 years ago. And now about the trials. Those people were probably not believers. Let me give you an example: You have this enemy. Someone who doesn't like you, whenever they need help they won't ask you, even though you're the best person to ask. You hand out gifts on, lets say, Christmas. Do you give them one? Probably not. Why? Because they don't ever let you help them. You may think they will turn it down anyway. That's like God. He knows if you are going to turn His help down. But He offers it anyway. Those people didn't think they needed His help, they didn't want it. If they had, they'd probably still be alive. God wants us to come to Him with our problems, not run away with them. Whe we try to do things ourselves, things get ugly. We are not perfect so we can't make anything perfect, only God can. And NO! That is not what parenting is for. I may not be a mom myself, but I have 5.5 siblings. I am the oldest and I help out the most. I know what parenting is for. It is to raise a child in the right direction. There's even a Bible verse 4 it. I have very calmly read your comments and insults and i would appreciate if you read mine. Probverbs 22:6, Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he shall not depart from it. KJV. The Bible does not say make the child's every decision for him. It does not say he doesn't understand anything, so he can't be saved. No. It actually say's quite the opposite. A child is not stupid. A chilld knows what he wants. A child knows when God is calling. Do you have children? I don't think you do. You don't understand if you don't have or don't live with a lot of kids. I was saved at 4. I knew that God was calling my heart. I was not stupid. I remember the day. I kept telling everyone for days that I was going to get saved. I went to church and ran down the pews, straight to where my pastor was sitting. I told him I wanted to be saved. He told ms. Robin to take me to a back room, where we talked for about ten minutes, I asked God to come into my life and I was saved. I ran out of the room, and began spinning around in the pews. The chour was singing, and i was happy. DO NOT tell me I didn't know what I was doing. I knew, and I had wanted to do that. No one told me to. I wanted to be saved and go to the Heaven my Mom talked about. I wanted to be with her when Jesus came back. Yes, there are disasters in life. That's the way its meant to be. You cannot blame that on God. You have to blame that an Adam and Eve. They sinned and now our world is not perfect. What do you expect from a world that defies God everyday? There is no such thing as magic. Magic is a tool for the Devil. He wants us to believe Christianity is magic. The rest of the religions might as well be. They are fake. Their 'gods' have died, but not risen again. They have not done anything for the world besides confusing people and cause people to mock God. Why do I not believe in sant claus? because he's FAKE!!! Why do parents tell their children that? I have always known there was no 'Santa Claus'. No big fat man sliding down a chimney. Why is it when Daddy's out of work Ol' Boy Santy never brings presents? When Mommy and Daddy take off no presents for little Molly or Henry or anyone like that? I(ps: I don't know anyone named that, and my Mother has been here since the day I was born.) I do not describe 'gods'. There is only 1 God. I find this pathetic. I am in reality. Reality is that there is NO santa claus. The reality is that people are ignorant. The reality is that people DIE. Yes, sad but true. When they die, they go to Heaven or Hell. Now your going to rant about how cruel God is that he would send people to Hell. NO!!!! He made Hell for the Devil and the Devil's Angels. People just succumb to the Devil and he takes them right in with him to Hell. I don't understand you people. The USA was founded on Christianity. The country ran very smoothly back then. Ever wonder why? I'm sure you do. Read a KJV 1611 Bible. It will explain everything a whole lot better than I ever will be able to. Or contact my Youth Preacher @ 1 555-5555 (EDITED: NEVER GIVE YOUR PHONE NUMBER ON THE INTERNET!) ask for Robert if a women answers. then ask Robert what you want to know, or ask for my Pastor's number. Tell him you want J.T.'s number and have some Bible things you want to know. God bless.

Athi, athier, athiest. Being a little bit atheist is rather like being a little bit pregnant. Either you believe in reality or you don't. Reality is explained by science.

Sorry to disillusion you Katelyn, but the Jesus you believe in is a fake. There is no historical Jesus in the epistles of Paul. Jesus of Nazareth was a work of fiction invented by Mark nearly a century after the purported events. It is all made up.

Hi, katelyn.

You'll want to hit that enter button a few times. It helps make a post more readable.



You do not know you are going to heaven. You sincerely wish to go to heaven, and you sincerely wish that christianity were true, and you sincerely believe that you have done all that is necessary by the standards of the religion you joined to reach heaven.

But you absolutely do not know it.

knowledge can be defined as a justified true belief.

You have a belief based on un-sound justification. Faith.
It's like claiming expertise in a subject which you have never studied, but which you are VERY interested in studying. Really really REALLY believing something does not make it true.



The implication being that believers never commit suicide, or are defeated by the troubles of the world? Nonsense.



This is a short sighted view of what an omnipotent god would be capable of. If god were truly interested in helping people, he would do so, and not demand that we grovel in abject reverance at his existence. Just think about this for a second.

God knows everything. So not only does he know we don't believe, he also knew when he "created" us that we wouldn't believe. He knew, as he was making humans, that WHAT HE WAS DOING was setting up people so that they would not believe in him. He was the one who seeded us with disbelief. Being all powerful means that that is the only way for us to disbelieve in the first place, and also that if we deny his existence, it's because he made us deny his existence.

And an all-powerful god is also completely responsible for every evil deed which is ever perpetrated. Because it's all part of god's plan. And it has become abundantly obvious that god's plan includes rape, torture, murder, abuse, slavery, incest... everything.



What makes you think that? Who told you? Your friends, family, and pastor? A book? Other people? Your own imagination?



God has not made anything perfect. We have one hole to ingest air, water, and food. Statistically garanteeing that some proportion of the population is going to choke to death. Perfect design? We can't see harmful radiation, or smell some extremely lethal poisons. We are comprised of over 80% junk DNA. Our joints are prone to wear. Our eyes see things upside down and backwards. People are born with birth defects from faulty reproductive processes. Psychosis, disease, cognitive dissonence...

There aren't enough pixels for all that is demonstrably faulty with god's "perfect" creation. Why is that? Because god is terrible at making things? or because the universe is not striving to meet any perfect standard? Because the universe has no driving subjective purpose. Because life is a product of chemistry, and chemistry is not particularly interested in our gripes.



Raising a child in the right direction meaning what? Give them a bible and your done? Or, does it mean you have to guide your child so that they are able to make.... better decisions for themselves. So that they can make ... good deciscions when you aren't around anymore.



I was not insulting you at any point, Katelyn. I realise that people heavily invested in a dogma tend to see no difference between themselves and the myth they embrace. That is why it will be so hard for you to shrug off your mental shackles.

I know you are new here, so you aren't familiar with my post record on children. I am always here to tell people that children are more capable than most realise. That we should expect much from them, and enable them to their fullest potential. So i hope you don't think that i feel like children are to be seen and not heard.

stop-trying-to-keep-the-good-stuff-away-from-your-kids-t8850.html?hilit= good stuff kids

But it is a fact that children need guidance, and you admit as much in your response without trying to give me any credit for my statement.



A child also knows when monster lurk under their beds, or closets. A child is also convinced they have an invisible imaginary friend. A child also knows that babies come from storks, or presents come from santa clause.

Chirldren are notoriously gullible and that's because it is greatly to a child's advantage to believe and heed the advice of adults with more experience.

People often abuse this ability of children to accept what adults say as truth without question. that's why kids believe in santa clause, and storks, and god. Kids don't intuitivly guess santa clause's whole backstory. They are told that story. Just as they are told about god.



Please. Lets not pretend. it's silly for you to claim more life experience as an admitted teenager.



No doubt you think you remember that fondly. memories are a construct of the present, however, built on the spot from snippets of the past into a cohesive story. They aren't video clips laying the the back of your head. They are bullet points. And even the most powerful memories of people are still on the spot re-creations of events colored by all the intervening years and experiences.

http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/516.aspx



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recall_(memory)

I recorded my own flash-bulb memory of 9-11, sealed it and read it ten years later. My memory, and the recording had some significant detail departure. The broad stokes were correct, but the details were muddy. And that was when i was an adult.




Why not? you just did. How are disasters "meant" to be, if not by the intention of some overseeing power which orchestrates them?



Let me introduce you to this invention i made. I call it "The box of unending torture and punishment, for dogs". I made this box because i have a new beautiful puppy who love me oh so very much. But i want to test him to see just HOW much does he love me, and does he fear me enough to do exactly what i say no matter what.

So, i put the most irresistable treat in "The box of unending torture and punishment, for dogs" knowing full well that as a new born puppy with hardly any control over itself that it would find the irresistable treat... irresistable. Knowing full well that the puppy would gallop right into "The box of unending torture and punishment, for dogs" i placed that invention right in front of the puppy. But before i turned him loose i told him in no uncertain terms that he was NOT to go in there.

Next thing you know, the puppy dives right in. Well, what am i to do? i made "The box of unending torture and punishment, for dogs" specifically to torture and punish dogs. Now i have a dog in there, even though i told him not to go. What am i to do? Just turn him loose? after i warned him? Does he not realize that i am a man of my word?

Well, i guess, even though this entire situation is entirely in my control, and of my own design, i have no choice but to activate "The box of unending torture and punishment, for dogs".

But that also means i will have to get all the other dogs i can find and put them in there. Because the sin of one is enough to punish the lot.

Makes sense right?



What do i expect your god to do? See above.



Agreed.



Who, Chris Angel? I don't like him either, but the devil might be stretching it.



prayer-vs-magic-t6228.html?hilit= prayer vs magic

Look at the above thread. Magic is a claim that an event occurs without any discernable cause, or that happens through means outside or beyond the normal scope of reality. Just like god.

You don't want to call a miracle magic, but the words are interchangeable. You don't want to call prayer casting a spell, but they are the same thing. You don't want to call them magic because that word is rightly ridiculed and you want to distance your own magical thinking from the exposed sillyness of other magical thinking.

That's why you try to distance yourself from other religions and claim that those are fake, while yours is real. Special pleading. There is nothing to differentiate your set of myths from another. Story lines and particulars may vary, though not as much as you imagine (see link below) but they are all equally valid. that is to say, products of human imagination.

christ-in-egypt-the-horus-jesus-connection-by-d-m-murdock-f180.html




See above link.



Good. Now, explain why santa is fake and god is real. Use the same scrutiny you use on santa, and turn that on god.



Well, according to some counts there are over 330 million gods in the hindu religion alone. Not to mention the numerous religions that have been forgotten, or imagined by modern men which just haven't caught on. Any of these are just as valid as the judeo christian myth. Products of imagination.



And the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent god can do nothing about it?



That's wrong. Especially considering that the united states was famous as the LEAST religious country at it's founding. Want to see some quotes from the people who did the founding?

i-don-t-believe-in-anything-t6800.html?hilit=christian nation christian founding&start=15

Or about how smoothly the early country ran?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._History

These things are empirically demonstrably wrong. This is not a matter of opinion. You're a home-schooler, aren't you.

Attempting to convince “true believers” that what they believe is not valid, is akin to inventing the perpetual motion machine: it takes years of frustrating experimentation, and ultimately ends in failure. I gave up on the exercise decades ago. If a belief in God, or some other superpower, makes a person happy or keeps them from succumbing to depression over the foibles of humankind, it is little different than taking psychotropic drugs, drinking alcohol, or indulging in long distance running: the same centers of the brain are affected and the same brain chemistry altered. My philosophy is: if it turns your crank, who am it to try and stop it from turning? I have learned that my time is far better spent in wishing people well and abstaining from futile debate.

Oh, and by the way, I do believe in Santa Claus, at least in the sense of the famous response to Virginia in 1897 by the The Sun of New York entitled “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.”

http://www.newseum.org/yesvirginia/

Right on LeBeaux. But keep in mind part and parcel of such stupidity is flaunting it in front of impressionable minds. For all the futility in fighting it, the fight it is necessary to keep the flood walls in place to protect the less deluded.

Yeah, I guess you’re right, and it is certainly true that the evangelists and religious fanatics of the world are a cancer on society and a danger to peace and order everywhere. My problem is that I spent many years of my (rather long) life on the streets as a protester and social activist, and I pretty much exhausted all my energies in that direction long ago. Consequently, I have given up the front line in that battle to you folks who still have the desire and chutzpah to carry the torch.

Few people have the patience of Interbane. Proceed, sir!

I think this one is a lost cause.

I am a lost cause? What?! Excuse me, but I am a lost cause. You know why? b/c I DO KNOW THERE IS A God!!!!! I DO KNOW THAT I WILL BE IN HEAVEN WHEN I DIE OR Jesus comes back 4 me. You can NOT tell me i dont!!!! I came here to talk about books, but i only talk about Christian books. so you know what? I am going to make y'all mad and i dont care. I am leaving this. You continuously insult my God, and mock him. You tell me He's not real, but we shall see. You will oneday regret not listening to the 'teenager'. You know who told me everything i know? God! Yeah y'all think im some looney who is a complete idiot? i dont care. i dont care what y'all think. I will be in Heaven and i will feel so sorry 4 y'all that you didnt listen to me. and you know what? you just lost a fan on FB!!!!! I am teling everybody i know to tell their friends to tell their friends, and you just wait!!! Christian-Haters!!!! Y'all good for nothing sorry idiots deserve to rot in Hell!!!! I would pray 4 yall but im kinda mad right now. blieve what ya want. i tried. God you know i did. Goodbye!!!

>:(