Stopping a religotard in their tracks

[Savior2006]

I don't even talk to them. So I really don't know what to tell you.

[Desdinova]

lets say there's an amazon tribe no one has found yet.  within that tribe lives a man that for all his life helped others, never lied or cheated, or stole, or anything evil.  he is pure.  because of its isolation the tribe believes in a great banana god named guck.  based on christian beliefs and teaching this man can never enter heaven because he has never accepted jesus as his savior.  yet another man in new york who is a serial murderer may enter heaven by simply accepting jesus to wash away his sins.  does this make sense to the theist advocate?

[stromboli]

lets say there's an amazon tribe no one has found yet.  within that tribe lives a man that for all his life helped others, never lied or cheated, or stole, or anything evil.  he is pure.  because of its isolation the tribe believes in a great banana god named guck.  based on christian beliefs and teaching this man can never enter heaven because he has never accepted jesus as his savior.  yet another man in new york who is a serial murderer may enter heaven by simply accepting jesus to wash away his sins.  does this make sense to the theist advocate?

You used logic. Not fair.

[Desdinova]

You used logic. Not fair.

its not fair that you use underboob images to distract me from my posting.  but i like it. very much.

[Solitary]

I always stop them by telling them to close their religious propaganda books and tell me what they think. They always look perplexed and want to shake my hand and leave pissed off. Solitary

[Drummer Guy]

lets say there's an amazon tribe no one has found yet.  within that tribe lives a man that for all his life helped others, never lied or cheated, or stole, or anything evil.  he is pure.  because of its isolation the tribe believes in a great banana god named guck.  based on christian beliefs and teaching this man can never enter heaven because he has never accepted jesus as his savior.  yet another man in new york who is a serial murderer may enter heaven by simply accepting jesus to wash away his sins.  does this make sense to the theist advocate?

It does make sense to the theist advocate.  The hypothetical person you talk about is hypothetical.  There is nobody in the world without "sin" (according to the theist).  Because of this, the question is nonsense.

But we could rephrase it to a very good person, and a serial murderer.  Do you guys actually think that Christians never ponder these things?  When I was a Christian I wondered about that.  The answer I got is that god can't stand to be in the presence of sin, no matter how big or small.  The fact that a serial murderer can be forgiven before he dies is a demonstration of how forgiving god can be.

[Drummer Guy]

I always stop them by telling them to close their religious propaganda books and tell me what they think. They always look perplexed and want to shake my hand and leave pissed off. Solitary

I really like this approach

[Savior2006]

The answer I got is that god can't stand to be in the presence of sin, no matter how big or small. 

And that's a stupid answer. He can't do it? He can't stand it? That doesn't sound like a perfect god to me, but perfect is a meaningless term anyway.

[Drummer Guy]

did he break his leg because god didn't have the power to prevent it?   no, he broke his leg because he chose to go skiing and landed wrong after taking a jump
because the forces that caused it are beyond his control?  no, because god allows him to take the jump that he wants to take
did god cause the broken leg as a "lesson" for how not to ski? or as a punishment for something bad he did?  god did not cause it, the boy chose to act in such a way that caused it
or did god just not care enough to help him evade injury, despite his all-powerfulness?  this is where you're missing the point.  What would a world be like with no responsibility?  I wouldn't need to worry about working, we wouldn't need to farm/grow food.  We wouldn't need to do anything because all of our basic needs would be miraculously taken care of.  How can anybody grow as a person and really enjoy all aspects of life in a world like that?  How could they appreciate what they have?

[Drummer Guy]

And that's a stupid answer. He can't do it? He can't stand it? That doesn't sound like a perfect god to me, but perfect is a meaningless term anyway.

If something was perfectly holy and perfectly good, would it be fine with that being to hang around bad things?

I agree with you when it comes to semantics.  Not everything is very well defined here.  However, it's a mistake to think that Christian philosophers haven't at least attempted to figure these things out.

[PickelledEggs]

did he break his leg because god didn't have the power to prevent it?   no, he broke his leg because he chose to go skiing and landed wrong after taking a jump
because the forces that caused it are beyond his control?  no, because god allows him to take the jump that he wants to take
did god cause the broken leg as a "lesson" for how not to ski? or as a punishment for something bad he did?  god did not cause it, the boy chose to act in such a way that caused it
or did god just not care enough to help him evade injury, despite his all-powerfulness?  this is where you're missing the point.  What would a world be like with no responsibility?  I wouldn't need to worry about working, we wouldn't need to farm/grow food.  We wouldn't need to do anything because all of our basic needs would be miraculously taken care of.  How can anybody grow as a person and really enjoy all aspects of life in a world like that?  How could they appreciate what they have?

I really hope that you're only in poe-mode...

[Hydra009]

Why not?  I love my children but that doesn't mean that I should pad every corner of my house where they could get hurt.  It doesn't mean that I prevent them from going out and doing anything where they may get hurt.  It doesn't mean that I stand beside them 24/7 and stop them from doing anything that would hurt them.  If I want them to learn and grow as people I let them become their own person.  You may respond with a situation where they would die, and that does happen to some people, but does that mean that their parents didn't love them?

Well, if your kid is playing in traffic and you put the kid there and put the cars there, then yes, that would make you a bad parent.  And the sort of things that God is described as doing in the Bible are actually far worse than that.

[PickelledEggs]

Well, if your kid is playing in traffic and you put the kid there and put the cars there, then yes, that would make you a bad parent.  And the sort of things that God is described as doing in the Bible are actually far worse than that.

This.

God could have just left out violence, famine, injuries, and pain in general when he made his list of "things to include in the world"

[GrinningYMIR]

We're just God's favorite tv show, at least we haven't hit the re-runs yet

[Hydra009]

God could have just left out violence, famine, injuries, and pain in general when he made his list of "things to include in the world"

In fairness, he did take out the part about people hurting each other with merely their thoughts.

He added in random brief sharp pain with no explicable cause and extremely vivid nightmares, though.