Well I think God has a grand plan and like any plan it goes through stages.

Thanks for answering. We'll have to agree to disagree on #1.

Doesn't this beg the question of why a loving god created us as evil and deserving of wrath?

If you're tempted to respond with original sin and man choosing evil, etc, then why did god allow us to be tempted by evil? Since he's omniscient he knew we'd give in to evil, so why did he create us as vulnerable to evil (and in his omniscient mind destined to become evil)?

Why wouldn't he ask you to do that? God's done that many, many times, according to your Bible.

Has God changed?

If he did ask you to kill someone, would you do it?

Yeah for some reason i just dont like plans that have the stage of killing kids. Just trying to through out some ideas for God encase he wast to hit the reset button.

Have you ever thought that God allows these tragedies as a means of forcing mankind to work as one to alleviate the suffering of the afflicted few? And that, by forcing us to do so, we may get a glimpse of what is possible when we put aside our petty jealousies . . .

For the record, I am Agnostic.

+1 morality is -ev in the true athiests overall belief system, unless its a charade to trick the moral into thinking they arn't really the wolves that they are.

(please no accusations of trolling by mods as this is core christian thinking that I've presented or +1'ed)

Your disclaimer about trolling says an awful lot about what you call "core Christian thinking".

You can't even put forth what you believe without having to also say, "No, seriously, I'm not just being an offensive dick to get a reaction, this is what I really believe!".

well you guys are so intellectually dishonest and i like posting on 2+2

Why, because I claim to be an atheist and a decent, morally responsible human being at the same time?

Its funny that the wolves are the ones who have a problem with devastation and destruction you would think it would be the other way around. It kind of reminds my of the biblical Gods love or pat robertson. Its like bizzaro world.

Well i was just speaking generally, but I would say if you are a decent and morally responsible person, that it is in spite of your athiesm

I wouldn't say "despite", but sure -- atheism and morality don't really have anything to do with each other.

A person can be a decent, honest, compassionate, moral atheist or a mean-spirited, selfish, thieving atheist who beats his wife.

And one could substitute Christian, Jew, Muslim, etc for atheist in the above sentence as well.

Freewill puts us in the arena of temptation.

Why allow us to be tempted?

So we can overcome the world through Christ the Lord and come out even better than Adam and Eve. God does everything for his own glory.

We're in a different stage of God's plan so its unlikely God would require killings like in ancient Israel.

As for me killing someone for God: Highly unlikely. Read the Psalms. They say God abhors men of violence.

Athiesm is a counter intuitive intellectual assertion thats leads one to a very dark place if taken seriously.

Beating ones wife seems pretty illogical for any reason really. I guess it just happens when a person gets really pissed and can't controll themself. However robbing people would seem to be a smart move if you had a good opportunity with mimimal risk of being caught. I think this is where we need to focus when we talk about application of morality. If no God this seems +ev, if God -ev.

Hmmm. So why didn't god send Christ the Lord at the very beginning? What about all the billions of people who lived and died before Christ?

And why does god need to play such games with us? He's omniscient, he already knows who is going to choose "the real god" and who is going to choose "a fake god", so he already knows who's going to heaven and hell before he even creates them.

So why create the hell-bound people at all?

Why does an all-loving, all-powerful god have a plan that involves so many nasty stages?

He didn't need stages when he created light, or the universe, or man and the animals. He just willed it to be so.

So why did god will us to go through a time when he "required killings like in ancient Israel"?

And yet his followers have been among the most violent people in the history of the planet.

Let me ask you this -- all those Christians that perpetrated the Crusades and the Inquisition and all of the other murders (or killings, if you prefer) in god's name... Surely many of them really believed in Jesus as their savior. Did they get into heaven? Or does God "abhor men of violence" so much that they go to hell, just like a perfectly decent human being who worships a different god or no god at all? Someone like Gandhi, for example.

Is Gandhi in hell while those crusaders and inquisitionists and witch hunters are in Heaven?

Did you seriously just say that if you didn't believe in god then stealing would be a smart move?

And yet I do not steal, anything, ever, whether I could get away with it or not.

It's interesting, isn't it?

I guess what i would say is your not a true athiest, like you don't have alot of faith in your athiesm. You just like the idea of blasphemising God.

I don't like the idea of blaspheming god. I truly and sincerely wish that there was a loving god who had a plan and all that, I really do. The world would be a much better place if that were the case.

And what, pray tell, is a "true atheist" in your mind? How do I not fit the criteria?

You know you have so many questions I think you should read the bible and work with a commentary and concordance. Seeking the answers to these questions on your own would be much more satisfying. The easy answer seldom is appreciated.

Well as i posted earlier atheism is a counter intuitive intellectual assertion. I think it is difficult to purpetually remain in this lie to ones self and your conscience will peep its head as yours has as evidenced by some of your posts. As I also posted earlier this could be a charade however because of the monsterous "table image" of the reality of a cold calculating true athiest.

O.K. I guess I need to define the true athiest. If one truly believed in survival of the fittest and no higher power than oneself then this person starts to look something like cole south at the poker tables pulling sick bluffs and not thinking twice about it and looking for all possible +ev plays and angles. At the poker tables this is fine and people expect this sort of thing but in real life this is kind of psychotic.

I mean, we all want to accumulate wealth and can see how this would be beneficial to our survival right? (This is gray as to weather this should be a big concern for the christian, however a natural conclusion for one not believing to trust in God rather than riches). Well if thats your goal and the only rule is dont get caught, robbing as i've described in the previous post does'nt look too outragious anymore does it? I mean we dont say awe kill the lion hes a killer, look what he just did to that antelope, lol. No he's just trying to survive.

I suppose what I have described is the end result of an ambitious athiest and you possibly are on the low end of ambition as far as athiests go. I think I should change "true athiest" to "ambitious athiest"

cliff notes: a true (ambitious) athiest is a lion just trying to survive, (possibly be king of the jungle)

Lucky your God implanted morals into us so our lack of belief and noting you say about true atheists matters.

You know very little about atheism. Many atheists are secular humanists and are nothing like whatever it is you're trying to describe.

God is very moral.
As long as you fear him, obey him, only have sex with women, tithe, and look down on nonbelievers; you are welcome to have slaves, commit genocide, mutilate your child's sex organs, and treat your wives and daughters as property.

lol at the idea that this joke of a religion was not made up by men in bronze age palestine.

What a weird post. The slavery of the ancient world wasn't the slavery of the modern African slave trade and circumcision even today is considered by some to be hygenic.

As for the other two I'm too lazy to bother but its neat how you remove the people and male chauvinism from the equation. Very pat.

Very good recommendation.