re: Can you guys explain why?

C'mon man... False prophets

But why false prophets? Why everything? Because he's bored? I don't know if there's a heaven, but I most certainly don't think there's a hell. He wouldn't allow it based on what I know in scripture. It wouldn't make any sense.

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Why are there multiple religions if God created everyone?

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Because he also gave us free will.

I'm not one that believes God is interacting in our day to day lives. I think he cares about where we stand with him in the end. Otherwise you have a god that is not only not benevolent but extremely cruel.

The bible is an imperfect text written by imperfect people but I think it's as good as we can do.

As far as my feelings on religion this video is kinda cheesy but it speaks to my general opinion. TIFWIW LINK

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I think asking a believer to explain why they believe beyond "I just do" is reasonable. If they cant defend their belief, maybe they start asking questions.

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Although I think this premise is ridiculous, I'll humor you.

I believe in God because of experiences in my life where I believe that he carried me and brought me from a figurative death to a figurative life. Does everything about this God make sense to me? Of course not. Does that discount what I believe to be true about my faith journey? Of course not.

You can't expect someone to logically prove something that they can't logically prove and it's awful to demand that they do so.

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IMO, Job is very strong logical evidence against the christian God.

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I'm listening but if you tell me it's because God doesn't make sense to you, I don't know what to tell you.

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Well it's kindof a bullshite answer, but I expect you already knew that.

Saying "it's faith" or "it's God's will" or "God is mysterious" are all cop out answers. They're the theological equivalent of your mother saying "because I said so, that's why."

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I'm not disagreeing, but you're just piling on with another obvious answer. Mothers ALL say "because I said so". It's expected. You don't answer any questions by asking why mothers do what they do, because the answer is already known.

I don't expect Christians to come up with an answer that others can understand. I don't think it's possible. And I'm fine with that.

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I'm listening but if you tell me it's because God doesn't make sense to you, I don't know what to tell you.

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The entire book of Job is an inherent biblical contradiction.

God, an omniscient being that is supposedly totally and completely loving, makes a bet with an evil fallen angel that he created knowing said angel would become evil and corrupt his creation. This bet requires a perfectly loving being to allow his creation to suffer unspeakable horrors for the sake of proving a point to another member of his creation (all events which he knew would occur before he ever created anything). He then rewards Job's blind faith with a new family, land, wealth and his health....ignoring the fact that no human would ever actually get over the loss of their entire family and life no matter how much you reward the, after the fact.

It's both complete nonsense and contradictory.

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I'm not disagreeing, but you're just piling on with another obvious answer. Mothers ALL say "because I said so". It's expected. You don't answer any questions by asking why mothers do what they do, because the answer is already known.

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The problem is that this only works with younger children. We all reach the age where "because I said so" doesnt fly anymore. The parent then either provides valid reasoning, backs up invalid reasoning with psychological or physical punishment or the child ignores them.

Using this logic, God treats us like small, ignorant children expecting us to ignore the intuition and critical thinking skills he gave us

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So there are certain things that Christians are somehow capable of understanding that others are not? Is that what you're asserting?

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Well, no. I just don't understand why I'm supposed to give a damn what Christians believe or, more importantly, why I'm apparently supposed to correct their wrong thinking. The OP knew before he asked the question that the only answer would be "it's all about faith". Christians can't do better and you and I won't ever accept that answer. I'm OK with that.

Where I have a problem with Christianity these days is with the fundamentalists, who have somehow taken over all religious conversations. When I was a kid in the 60's (when the US was much more religious) I never participated in a school prayer outside of (weirdly) football games. It never came up because sane people apparently were in charge. Now the lack of school prayer is somehow judged to be 1) an indication that Christians are being persecuted, and 2) everything that is wrong with our education system. (My mother was a lifelong school teacher and devout Baptist Sunday School teacher who would have had an absolute conniption fit over people pushing for school prayer.)

Also when I was a kid, every few years we'd take field trips to Glen Rose's Dinosaur Valley State Park to view dino footprints in the Paluxy River. Our science teachers never once intimated that humans walked among dinosaurs, because... well, because they weren't idiots. AFAIK science teachers still don't do that, but if you go to that park these days you'll see the nutjob Creation Evidence Museum just outside the entrance, which presents "evidence" of exactly that. I honestly don't know how we got to this point. The Creation Evidence Museum would have quickly gone out of business in 1965. These days it thrives.

This sort of nonsense I have a real problem with, but I don't think either problem is representative of most Christians.

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Using this logic, God treats us like small, ignorant children expecting us to ignore the intuition and critical thinking skills he gave us

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I agree with everything you said, I just don't understand why we should care. Some denominations are clearly nutjobs, but "normal" Christians also think they're nutjobs. And on the flipside there are plenty of good things Christian churches do that nobody else does. In the context of SECRANT, I get the pick-on-everybody-all-the-time mindset. But in real life I don't really get it.

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finestfirst79

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Cheers all around. You seem like a pretty level-headed guy whose heart is in the right place. I'll not agree with you on everything but I'll get you a beer sometime anyway.