I doubt that there are very many people in the world who have never heard of Christianity of Jesus Christ. Now, hearing enough of the word taught ACCURATELY in order to believe is a different story.

But you are right, God is not stupid and no matter what you call the way he set things up its the truth. You can lable it No True Scottsman or Dippity Hippity Doo for all I care.

The truth is this; God is all knowing and all wise and has foreknowledge of the whole future YET does not control the future of peoples decisions, because they have freewill.

He just knows what they will and will not believe and for those who will believe when presented with the word he gets it to them and for those who will not, its obvious he supplies them a chance also. As for the pygmy bushman in Australia who lives in hut and never has talked to anyone outside of his tribe? Well, thats covered also, because God looks on the hearts of ALL MEN and if anyone truly is searching for the true God, He will bring it to them.

Like it or not, agree with it or not, its the truth from the words perspective, so talk to God about it not me, He set the rules up, I can't help it if there are people who choice to not know or play by the rules, regardless they still exist and effect all people here and now and in the future.

They are not searching for God....

They also are not meek nor humble, as a matter of fact very arrogant and prideful.

These combinations put a wall between them and God, they will not allow the truth to enter their heart.

1Pe 5:5b for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.

Jam 4:6b God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.

Psa 10:4 The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek [after God]: God [is] not in all his thoughts.

1Jo 2:16 For all that [is] in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

1Ti 6:4 He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings,

man you have got to be the POE-MIESTER SUPREME, with cheese, exrta cheese...

If I have a choice between A and B and one of your gods knows ahead of time with 100% accuracy what I will chose then I DO NOT have free will to choose as my choice is predetermined. If he doesn't know then I may have free will and your gods are not omniscient...

We talked about this once before. I brought up something similar as the greatest single reason to not believe in a specific religion. You agreed. RLK, bunny, and even sometimes Splendour go along. But most religious people don't. They are too stupid or crazy to realize that the incredible correlation between the religion someone is born into and the religion they now believe in is overwhelming evidence that, given so many religions, there's is likely to be wrong.

Tim Keller argues there are always three parts of belief: personal, cultural, and intellectual. He argues non-Christians reject Christianity on all three fronts, always. His rationale would reasonably explain why someone born in a certain culture would be more likely to believe as the culture influences them. For instance, most people from my 11 years of public schooling were atheist because this was the cultural climate, and it took them getting out of that atmosphere (being more educated, as time went on) to see there were more options than one. Thus I witnessed for many years atheism doing the same "brainwashing" religions are accused of, and having the same effects. It is always my hope that the intellectual aspect of decision-making will override the false cultural teachings, and personal preference wont get in the way of truth.

My experience is the atheists who moved on to the real world and out of the highly atheistic influences became more sensitive to areas of life that lack in explanation in any particular atheistic worldview, such as morality. When these people would have families, see children, and experience life more fully, they would realize the insufficiency of the religion of atheism into which they were indoctrinated.

C.S. Lewis: "A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere -- 'Bibles laid open, millions of surprises,' as Herbert says, 'fine nets and stratagems.' God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous."

the whole problem starts with the word BELIEF. in order to "believe" i have to suspend my critical thinking and just accept what a particular religion tells me because it is the word of god. atheism doesn't ask me to believe anything. it presents arguments and facts based on scientific research and i can accept them or not. atheism will not excommunicate me if i reject some of its main arguments no matter how much evidence they have.

now i'm not saying that people cannot be influenced by being in an atheist community. but that is not what happened in my case.(btw, i was an atheist, now i prefer to think of myself as an agnostic leaning towards atheism)


is this the religion brought us our morals argument? now i'm not going to deny that religion has some good teachings about how to live your life.

but i am going to argue we could have become a lot more moral a lot quicker if it were not for religion.

who do you think is less likely to want to go to war for example? a person who believes this is the only life they'll have or a person who believes he is doing god's work and will be rewarded in heaven for his sacrifice be it in the name of jesus, allah or whoever?

i would also argue that religion held back the advancement of morals in the human race. women were looked upon as second class citezens because of eve being the temptress in the garden of eden.

we prosecuted homosexuals right up until the latter half of the 20th century.all becuase "man should not ly with man".

i heard someone say on here that the bible permit slavery. i don't know if this is true, but if it is then that is a travesty.

again back to the bible. written by man, and different men at that. yet god in all his divinity could not give the same message to all the nations on earth. no, instead he had to give different messages to different nations and create tensions which are still causing wars today. that does not sound like the work of an omnipotent creator to me. it sounds more like the work of humans trying to control other humans.

I have one of Keller's books and he's an excellent read because he looks at the God question from multiple angles.

It was confusing me for quite a while because the prophecies all relate the Jews in the Milennial Kingdom but that might be the Jews converted to Christianity. Zechariah 10 predicts a sea-change on the part of modern Jews.

I'm starting to think The West is God's operational launch pad for Spiritual/Cosmic warfare because it contains the oldest cells of his believers. Most of his missionaries come from Christian Western countries.

The bible calls the times we are living in The Last Days. I wouldn't be surprised if a huge number of people have been reincarnated up to a point where he could save them. The End Time Witnesses' prophesyzing will be seen throughout the world.

That's why its important that Christians not be shaken. He makes Truth inroads on the world through us til he can reincarnate everyone into a position to accept and experience the truth. Do some people end up in hell? Very possibly. Christ says the road is Narrow. He ought to know...He's the Door at the end of the road.

I think Christ breaks the Law of Karma. Its just billions of people are unconsciously waiting on God to either send missionaries or make his final display in the End Times. Missionaries frequently encounter opposition when they bring the Gospel. That's a given.

So the "dogma" serves a purpose. People God has saved on the front end shouldn't give up because God still has billions he could potentially save on the back end. No one should ever give up his eternal life option any more than they'd take a loss in the stock market because lots of people around them made bad investment decisions. Its one of the silliest arguments: because millions of other people don't believe that you shouldn't continue in your own belief.

I am facepalming so damn hard right now between splendour and megan's posts.

It's funny that I was ambitious enough to explain how IMO all religions relate to each other and a possible universal truth?

What's really funny is you could reject this statement so fast without any reflection at all. It reflects very poorly on your thinking ability and also your tolerance.

See this is where skepticism sometimes leads: automatic intolerance.

The ancient Hebrews believed in Reincarnation as do the Kabbalists today as do the Buddhists and Hindus today.

Reincarnation dropped out of sight as a doctrine in an early phase of Christianity but Christian doctrine was often under attack and even paganized by the Roman Emperors. The question is who dropped it? God or the Devil or Both?

I was able to think through your post just fine thank you very much. "automatic intolerance" wouldnt that apply to your reply to my reply, using your logic?

Well you know some minds focus on discrepancies and make them control while other minds focus on similarities and inconsistencies to find out how to integrate them.

I think most of the atheist posters only focus on the discrepancies and allow it to control their thinking.

Pirsig talks about integrative thinking in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. A very good friend of mine once told me I'm an integrator like the Narrator that Pirsig writes about in his book.

FMP. I think that phrase is more accurate.

Zechariah 12:10
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...10&version=NIV

As a moral nihilist the whole morality argument is pretty much a moot point for me. I don't think morality needs an explanation because it's meaningless, human-contrived bull****.

If the word "belief" means something that you are almost positive you are correct about, your above statement is clearly wrong. When there are twenty different theories about anything, none is above even money. If you want to argue that you might as well choose one religion rather than none at all with the realization that it is less likely to be true than all the other ones combined, thats a different story. But why not instead opt for the RKL/bunny solution of believing in a much vaguer religion rather than trying to get more specific than is warranted with the information available?

RLK and bunny are both smarter than I'll ever be. But one of my gifts in life was I could always spot an expert and I try continuously to put my mind with the best and the brightest minds in Christianity and the way isn't as vague as most theist posters think. The Way is Jesus and that's why we focus on him so much.

I know this is a rookie mistake, but I'm gonna bite. Atheism is NOT a religion. This isn't the first time I've seen religious vernacular used to describe atheists/atheism in this forum and I find it quite childish. While I disagree (to put it mildly) with most of what you say, you usually come across as genuine and well intentioned. This sort of unneccessary (because your point is no less clear if you omit "the religion of") insult just makes you look like a peddler of propaganda. I'm just saying...

That aside, I don't think you're right anyway. Morality can exist without God, unless your definition of morality needs God to exist. Also, it's staggeringly arrogant that you give so much weight to the cultural aspect of the decision of the majority of people who you went to school with to become atheists, yet those who find religion are free thinkers who made themselves open to the truth. Are you for real?