I figured that you would like him. He takes a very analytic look at everything, and is a very genuine person.

I understand you point, but it is a little more complicated that this. I think a whole thread could be dedicated to this. But it is beside the point for right now.

Well first, you are not disassociating people of today from people then. I do not think that you would feel so much compassion if the entire world was same as it was then. At one point in Genesis God says about the preflood people that it came to a point where every single persons thought was purely wicked. Now you say, surely he is exaggerating. But you have no basis to say that. If the world truly did revert back to where everyone was like that, then no, I do not think that I would feel too bad about committing genocide. Just as I pointed out in the other thread that almost everyone would kill hitler or 1,000 hitlers in order to prevent the damage that he would cause. I would also wager again that if we were talking about killing baby hitler the response was would be exactly the same. But you do not offer justification for this contradiction in your belief, but pretend that the people were probably not as bad as God said they were.

People are a threat to humanity.

As far as Boyd's comment, you need to look at it in context. I have used that phrase many times myself. The point is that if the bible says something that is one thing, but just because people think hell is eternal and that is the predominant doctrine that does not mean that it is in the bible. Also, just because we feel something is wrong it does not mean that we should just cherry pick and find our own justification for that belief. Boyd is talking to an audience of Christians. If he were talking about this to atheists he would have said something very different. He also says that if something really does not feel internally consistent, maybe that is because we are interpreting something incorrectly.

There are a lot of what if's that could be applied. You and others have said it many times. "but what if God said to kill you first borns?" or "What if God said to hate blacks?" Well if both of these were true along with all of the other "what ifs" you guys come up with, then we would be talking about a very different God. A God that I do not feel would be worthy of praise. But that is not the case so your point is moot.

Poison the well much?

Just enough time for flyby insults?

I do not understand, could you elaborate?

Desensitized isn't really the right word. This would be heaven remember. You would become one with Christ. You'll be in a eternal state of bliss & happiness as you stated. So why do you think you'll need something to contrast it? Because your knowledge of human emotion tells you so?

I haven't insulted anyone.

I'm a mod at another board. It takes up quite a bit of time.

How come all the definitive answers conveniently exist outside of human knowledge? Just make up any story you want...I'd never be able to understand it anyway.

That is fine. I originally did not take it as an insult, but just as a shot at me.(but in a friendly way)

Then someone said that they were sure that you did not mean it as an insult.

Then someone else said they were sure that you did mean it as an insult,

And then you confirmed that it was an insult.

when you learn the answer to that question, you will learn where faith comes from

OH, the one thing that I would say about this counter argument, as I heard it before, is that even if it were true that God just wiped away all of our memories and that we were oblivious to the people in hell, God could not wipe away his own knowledge of those people.

So how could a loving God enjoy eternity even though people are burning in eternal torment for eternity?

That one is a little tougher to answer

God Bless you Jibninjas, you have twenty monkeys on your back and your fightin' em all lol..

I'm sorry but you're getting it from every angle, even the Christians lol and all I can do is sit here and watch!

that's comforting I guess? God my kids are burning in hell.. mm but God is wiping my tears, no big.

Here's another one that's tough to answer:

How could a God who lives outside of space & time and can't be gauged, measured, or understood by our earthly tools and methods have such petty human emotions like love, disappointment, or the need to be worshiped?

How do you know they are petty on God's scale?

So God really could be a being that feeds off our sweet, sweet tears? Chef was right!

I did not understand the first part but I sort of understand this. My point is, you have a computer. I'm assuming your quite wealthy by worldwide standards. Now if you were sure that your reward would be in Heaven you'd give all your possessions and follow Jesus like he commanded you. You haven't done that, hence I don't think you really believe that you will go to Heaven. This isn't an attack on you, I feel that about everybody. I don't think there is a person in church on sunday that would go to Heaven if it existed. They all are Christian by name only. "Joanne, that is quite a cute Sunday blouse!" "thanks mom got it for me just for the occasion!" it's like omg are you a moron, your spending your money on materials to make you look better while you worship your God? That 75 bucks goes soooooooo far for some starving kid in Africa. If God existed he'd likely look upon the people in mass on Sunday in disgust.

My point is, if you've given your life to serving other people like Mother Theresea, then ta-dah. You win. If you are waking up on sunday, driving to church, donating, being nice to people, then driving back home. Your not doing what Jesus told you, and you aren't going to heaven.

Now this is all irrelevant because Heaven certainly does not exist, but my point remains. Why do you praise this God that is fully prepared to send you to eternal damnation? Everybody assumes they're going to make it, well guess what read your holy book, it flat out says that people like you won't. I don't mean this to anybody in specific, I mean it to every "Christian" on this forum, although as I said before I think they're all Christian in name only.

Our House you are just like God, except for that one thing..

lol. no worries I am used to it. I also knew that this would be the case when I started this thread. I enjoy it.

Yeah, he seems like a good guy.

Fair enough.

I think I would feel compassion for the people of the time. In fact, if every thought was wicked, it might be easier for me to feel compassion for them - I wouldn't have high hopes. If I grew up in their time, would I have been a compassionate person? No, probably not, I'd have lived in a desperate struggle for survival, it doesn't feed the soul much.

You claim that every single thought was wicked. But you also claim to believe in free will. They all had the choice to do good. Why was their free will so different from ours? Why do we so often choose to do good, while literally nobody ever in that whole populace ever made the same choice?

Maybe they all suffered severe psychological traumas in childhood. Maybe they had no caring figures in their lives. Maybe they were taught deliberately that only a fool does good for others without getting something in return. Do we blame them for having been subjected to these conditions (even when God could have remedied the situation with a snap of his fingers)? And if they weren't subjected to such conditions, then how does this figure? They were all doing just fine, they had adequate moral instruction, etc etc, and yet none of them ever ever ever chose to do good? If that's true, then their free will cannot have been the same type of thing as our free will - otherwise someone somewhere would have had a good thought just for ****s and giggles.

But they did still have free will, right? So there was hope of redemption for all of them? By extinguishing them, God certainly ended that hope. Some of these people were babies, right? Days old. All of their thoughts were wicked? Really? And drowning isn't the worst torture by any stretch, but it's still a painful and scary way to go. Especially as many people would have been able to find some flotsam, or tread water for hours or days, before finally succumbing. Why did God subject people to such terrors instead of simply mercifully (and painlessly) ending them?

People who believe in a dictatorial God are, imo, a greater threat than most. Let's put the shoe on the other foot for a moment. Does it ever worry you, or downright scare you, that a bunch of Islamists may soon have nuclear weaponry? Would you say that their religion does nothing to increase the likelihood of their using such weaponry?

Is it really such a big leap for me to have similar feelings about Christians and their weapons?

Okay, I'll grant your point. I shouldn't have used a specific statement made toward a specific audience for a specific reason as a way to paint Boyd's general beliefs.

You say that, but remember that when the soldiers of Moses left the women and children alive, Moses scolded them and claimed that God wanted those women and children killed. If you had been one of the soldiers, what would you have done? Would you have said, "this cruel God is not the God that I follow," and thrown down your weapons?

That kinda hurts, BillNye. Not because you believe it but because of how misguided you really are. If Jesus had the internet and cell phones and cable TV don't you think it woulda made His job a bit easier getting His message out?

Well I would say that we get our many of our emotions from God. So it is not that he is taking them from us. Also, when talking about God we really can only describe his emotions to a certain extent. When he says that he is disappointed we know what he is trying to convey, but how he actually feels things may not be exactly how we feel things. Really hard to say.

You think he would troll poker forums and flame atheists?

Nah, it would be too obvious then. He'd still want you to come to the conclusion on your own.

You just contradicted yourself. You said that Jesus would use in ther internet etc, then you just said that he wouldn't want to make it too easy. He wants you to make your own decision. Do you really believe that Jesus would want his message to be "out?" Really? Last time I checked Jesus can do anything, he doesn't need internet, cell phones, and cable tv. All he needs to do is say "ok i love you all, come to heaven plz!" ta dah, everybody has eternal bliss. Damn what a fine idea.

I have actually thought about this a lot. I do not have a full answer for you yet, but I do think that a major role was played by the Nephilim. Now why the Nephilim were able to exist then and not now is where I have got a little stuck. My point more leans towards the fact that if God said that this was true, and God is the true God then we would have no reason to believe that he was lying.

All you are doing in this statement is questioning whether or not God was capable of knowing if he was doing the right thing. Again, you are throwing a lot of what if's, that would not be what ifs to the God of the bible. Or you are assuming that maybe there were some good people there, but God was to lazy to do anything about them. You are making excuses as to why you do not like what God did. You have yet to show any sort of justification for the train of thought.

But your concerns do not seem to be taking into account that the God of the bible and the god of the Koran are two different gods. Do you also fear that the Buddhists will get weapons?

I am not really sure how to take this statement, but I did laugh when I read it for some reason.

So you are saying that the men did not carry out the full order only because they felt compassion?