.

Because it clearly states in the bible "Not to commit murder" it also affects other peoples free will.

Its like a stated in my other post, you cannot explain God and religion based on human reasoning because God does not think like a human and we cannot think like God we approach religious situations simply and purely by faith.

Is this the greatest false dichotomy in the history of logic?

No, God is explained in terms of human reasoning all the time, UNLESS there's a contradiction somewhere...in which case the "you can't use human reasoning" card is played.

Completely illogical and completely unfair "cake and eat it" situation.

No, I have showed you in the bible where God said that he would NOT destroy a city if any righteous were there. That is not speculation.

You are ASSUMING that they are innocent and that there will be no ramifications if left alive. As stated before, if you had a chance, only one, to kill baby Hitler everyone would take it. That is because we know of the ramifications of leaving Hitler to live. Well, God already knew the ramifications so it is no different. And God does not live in our known realm, so the same logic would not apply.

OF COURSE I AM!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are talking about the actions of God. So I have to assume that God exists in order to talk about his actions. I could not justify the OT killings if God did not exist. But no one here is trying to do that, so....

You also refer to above comments.

once again theists base their arguments on the ideal that "God can do no wrong" instead of looking at the facts and making a decision on their own. When you already start with a conclusion, then whats the point of even discussing anything.

If the answer to this question: "Can the Christian God do evil?" is no, then even if the bible said he violently murdered billions of people, youll just think of some random excuse like "they deserved it", "they would have been the next hitlers!", etc to explain away the obvious injustice that occured.

Finally, if God is so just and all knowing, why does he allow mass murders, tyrants, and the like to live instead of killing them when they are young?

Don't give me that crap. I just gave you a fictional example (i.e., a parable) of how a complex concept works. You say it's a false dichotomy.

Here's the problem you have (remember that the context of the question involved his destination being heaven):

Option A- You Kill, He Goes to Heaven, You Go to Hell
Option B- You Kill, He Goes to Heaven, You Go to Heaven (Guilt/Repent)
Option C- You Let Him Live, He Goes to Heaven, You Go to Hell
Option D- You Let Him Live, Both Go to Hell
Option E- You Let Him Live, He Goes to Hell, You go to Heaven
Option F- You Let Him Live, Both Go to Heaven

If you were the only two people on Earth (to remove extraneous variables) and if you accept (and you already did) that his default destination is heaven and your default destination is hell, then options A and C are equivocal to the default and options B and F are improvements. Option D and E are the only ones where his situation is hurt.

Your trap is this:

Your only options are to kill or not kill, so we need to isolate the situations independently:

Kill Leaves Options A and B, but the probability of Option B occurring is much lower due to your choice to kill based upon what we know from the rest of the Bible. This is for two reasons:

1) You violated the law, which is a sin. God has stated that sin separates us from God. This makes it more likely that your heart becomes hardened and unreceptive, but it gets worse:,
2) You killed the only person who will challenge your false view of things. You are much less likely to find salvation because you have noone one to point out your own fallacies. You believe lies that go unchallenged.

If you don't kill, the probability of C,D,E, and F are valid. Options D and E are the only losing options for him but they are highly unlikely (if not impossible) if his default position was heaven to begin with. (I won't give you specifics right now because it's a major hijack. If you don't take this at face value or research why this is in depth, then you're going to fall victim to circular logic).

Option F greatly increases, however, based upon his influence, friendship, and prayers for you (based upon what we know from the rest of the Bible).

In other words, your chances of going to heaven are heavily dependant on you not killing him. Also, while it doesn't really bother him in the eternal context that you killed him, he'd much rather have your friendship and companionship and to have you in heaven (because he is "perfected" to embody love)...so both of you gain by living.

I dont think you understand what free will is. God is all knowing and just I cant give you a reason why he allows mass murders etc, other than he gives those people the choice to either murder or not to, its up to them God will not stop them, he will warn them what might happen if they deicde to go done that route and could be punished for their actions in this life and in the next life but He will not stop them from doing it, he will only give them the information and knowledge NOT to do it and there will be a consequence due to their actions.

Yes God killed the first born of the Egyptian people who did not accept his word, this action was only a re-action to them by not accepting the warnings that God had so clearly demonstrated to them and warned them that this would happen if they didnt let his people go.

This is exactly the crux of the issue.

Christians, you may think this cartoon from the other thread is just a joke, but it's also overwhelmingly true:


And that's what happens whenever you assume a conclusion first (e.g. God can only do good things) and then move on from there. You're FORCED to defend the conclusion no matter what.

This is what leads to dangerous behavior backed by unsubstantiated beliefs. It doesn't matter whether they're Christian, Muslim, Jewish, whatever. Don't forget, many of those killings that "God is responsible for" in the OT were executed by men who claimed to be operating under God's command. If God didn't really command them, or they "heard wrong", or they twisted facts before writing the stories for the Bible, then we have a SERIOUS problem, don't we?

are you joking me? kids/firstborns have no choice in whether or not their pharoah let's the jewish people go. give me a break.

and killing someone after warning them is STILL TAKING AWAY THEIR FREE WILL. I don't think you understand what free will is. Regardless, my point was in response to Jib, namely, if God in the OT would do this:

why doesnt he do it now? I don't see God commanding Christians to kill anyone these days, whys that?

So, now the Bible is not only "fictional."

It's also the only piece of literature on record where the narrator is flat-out lying to its readers.

Every theism/atheism debate essentially breaks down to that. Christians think that it's exactly the opposite.

seriously wtf are you talking about.

First of all you have to look at the situation in the old testament. The Jewish people were chosen by God to be his ambassadors to the world (and eventually the lineage the messiah would come through) and had to be both maintained as a people group and have their religious culture maintained. So, God killing the Egyptians, Assyrians, Hitties, etc. makes total sense given the Jewish people's situation.

Why wouldn't he do that today? Because the messiah (Jesus) came and there is no point to maintain any sort of people group. There is nothing to protect.

Obv. if you disagree in either of my points, then God is a fiery ******* or doesn't exist.

i only disagree with your point that it makes "total sense" for God to brutally rape and murder millions of people to "protect" the Jewish nation. Obviously an all-loving, omnipotent God couldn't think of a better way. Hmm how about instead of impeding people's free will by KILLING THEM or HARDENING THEIR HEARTS he impedes their free will by making them as all-loving as Him? Oh wait, that would mean he would turn them into heartless murders, my bad.

Maybe Atticus Finch hated black people and was trying to get his client to fry but he was such a bad lawyer that he failed. (but the narrator failed to tell us he was evil)

Do you go around thinking crap like that?

You think the Bible is fiction and then you want to go around questioning the narrator who has told you that God is perfect. If you want to actually read it, then you have to go by the objective facts laid out in the book. Any story would become meaningless if you did that.

I could explain this further (we could do a long dicussion about bronze age religious practices in the area) but I guess two questions:

Do you believe the bible to be reliable at all? If not, why do you care so much about people dying at all?

once again, wtf are you talking about?

you said:
how does this have anything to do with God being all-loving yet murdering millions of people? Are you saying that if the HUMAN AUTHORS of the bible say something, we should consider it a fact and ignore everything else in the book? If some author wrote a book about his dad, and called him the greatest and most loving person in the world, but in chapter 1 and 2, he talks about how his dad killed 1 million people for no good reason, i would say that the author is either delusional or lying, wouldnt you?

i dont care about people dying, i care about Christians who, because they are forced to believe their God is all-loving, try to explain away the murder and rape of millions as if its a good thing. This is both concerning and disgusting.

So you agree that the cartoon is true? Do you also agree that assuming a conclusion is illogical?

If God does not think like a human, I see no reason at all to believe or follow anything he says - since his "laws" may not mean what we think they mean. "Do not kill" might actually mean "Don't eat tomatoes" or "Climb a tree every day" in god's reasoning.

If God does not think like a human, he is, for all intents and purposes - completely and utterly alien to our way of thinking - and therefore, does not merit worship.

Why? Why would it matter what Christians (or Atheists, Buddists, Taoists, Hindus, Muslims, Wiccians) or anyone thinks. Why not just have a cest la vie approach and focus your time not on message boards combating ignorant theists but on whatever you choose? Is the pursuit of truth (if truth even exists) that important to you?

because ignorant theists have a negative effect on my life, it is in my best interest to combat their ignorance. and yes, the pursuit of truth is important to me, but i post on this board when i'm bored at work. i read posts on this board to improve my knowledge and for a good laugh ... it is not coincidental that theists posts fit the latter 95+% of the time.

Are you not arguing that the Bible is false under the pretense that the character of "God" is incompatible with a perfect and benevolent entity?

You've merged a lot of things into your argument, none of which invalidate what we're talking about:

1) Human authors (Everyone agrees that humans wrote this stuff down)
2) Murder (How can God murder if the power to give and take life is reserved for him anyway? Is everyone eventually murdered by God in your view?)
3) God made it clear that the wages of sin was death. These people, by their actions, willingly chose a path of sin. Is your argument that God should have suspended the rules for them? Was he supposed to remove their free will?

So, you can choose any of the following:

1) Bible true, God Good (Christian Infallible Perspective)
2) Bible partially true, God Good (Christian Fallibility Perspective)
3) Bible False, God Doesn't Exist (The Bible is much like a historical fiction)
4) Bible False, God Exists (Islamic/Other Perspective)
5) Bible True, God Bad (Satanic Infallibility Perspective)
6) Bible Partially True, God Bad (Satanic "Stairway" Perspective)

You can't identify ignorance until you have a stranglehold on truth.

So, what defines truth? Science? Feelings? Human/Personal Experience?