@SilverlinedJenn - Yes, I think many of the people at that time were like that.  Societies had to make land grabs for their own survival which required them to kill.  The Jews were just one of them.  Even blaming it on their god wasn’t something new, because many cultures (Greeks, Romans, Norse, Egyptian) fought in the name of their various gods.  What makes Judaism so unique is that it is the basis for Christianity, and I have a hard time swallowing some things in the Bible that don’t make sense in modern times.  If I do decide to go back to Christianity, I would be much like you in my beliefs, not taking the Bible so literally.  In fact, I doubt I would even read anything but the Gospels.  There are inconsistencies that I can’t reconcile with the message of a loving god, and while that would make sense for something that was written by humans, the very fact that it was written by humans makes me question the authenticity of the message all by itself.  That is one of the major reasons I don’t believe.

I know I don’t know all the answers, and I am all for people believing what they think is right and makes them feel happy.  If people find that religion helps point them toward the truth, then by all means let them believe, if nothing else until they find a more suitable answer.  But one of the problems with religion is that it says it is the only right answer and does everything in its power to pull you in and keep you from leaving.  Not all religious people are like that, but religion itself is.  Every religion says their way is the only right way, and so many of them are mutually exclusive and therefore cannot all be right.  It is just so confusing, frustrating, and I want no part of it.  There has to be a better way to find the answers than that, in my opinion.

@homefire - Yes, God knows where it is going to lead them, but if he kills them before they do it, they never actually did it.  It doesn’t matter if God is “out of time” or not.  The people never actually rejected him, so he is killing people that have committed no crime.  Plus, if God sees everything in advance, then he would know that what really happens in the future would be that he stopped them before they rejected him, so they never actually rejected him (future perfect).  How can you judge someone for a sin that wasn’t (and never would have been) committed?  And once again, why even create them in the first place if he knew that he was going to kill them?  Why even give them a chance at life at all if he was just going to take it away so quickly, anyway?  It is you who is still thinking inside the box, the box of the Bible.  Christians have invented this dimension where God resides, where the laws of physics and morality only apply when they want them to (or as long as they don’t contradict the Bible), and they expect people to swallow such a ludicrous idea.  Just because you invented a hypothetical dimension doesn’t mean it really exists, and the fact that it conveniently correlates exactly to your beliefs only makes it seem more imaginary.  In the meantime, those of us in THIS dimension have only our knowledge of THIS dimension to base everything on.  In a world with evil God cannot be both omniscient and omnipotent, at least not a proactive god.  Either he would know everything in advance (obviously knowing about evil) and would be powerless to stop it, or he would stop it and would contradict what he knew about it in advance.  If God is proactive, good, perfect, omnipotent, and omniscient, then EVIL SHOULD NOT EXIST.  He would hate evil and want to stop it, and would know everything that is going to happen and would have the power to change it, and because he is perfect he wouldn’t miss a thing.  Now if you have a god that doesn’t take an active role, then it might work because God isn’t interfering at all.  It is also incredibly inconsistent with the message of the New Testament.  The Bible says that God sent a Savior, even though he knew most people would reject him.  The Bible says that all of us (innocent and not) are automatically condemned to Hell from the moment we draw breath unless we “accept” Jesus (John 3:18).  It does say that he will destroy the world eventually (seems to be a common theme of the Bible), but he at least gives us a chance.  If God is so intent on killing people that he knows are going to reject him, why bother sending his son?  According to the NT message, God obviously cared for people (who were going to reject him) so much that he sent his son to die, but in the OT he is just content to kill them?  God gives all of us a chance in the New Testament (even though he knows most will reject him), but in the Old Testament he gave some people no chance.  I thought God never changed.  If what you are saying is true, why would God wait until the end times to kill those who have rejected him?  Why not just do it right now and get it over with?  Besides, why would God destroy the world unless he felt there was no other option?  It would only make sense if he didn’t know an answer (or there wasn’t one) other than utter destruction.  That would imply that omnipotence and/or omniscience are not qualities of God, unless there really was no way to fix it.  And again, if there was no way to fix it (as was apparently the case with the Flood) then why not destroy it as a “pre-emptive” measure, just like he did in Genesis?  Why wait?  The same thing goes with Jesus.  Why did he wait so long to send him?  God is “out of time” so he could have just created the world (knowing in advance) with that contingency already in place.  There was no need for all of those billions of people to suffer in the interim.  And it still doesn’t make sense why there would need to be a Hell if God could just prevent non-believers from being born (he is “out of time” and knows where our actions will lead us, right?).  I know, I know, God would have a good reason that we can’t understand.  It seems so convenient how the answer is always something we can’t understand.

And I am thinking full-well about the next life, much more than you know.  That is exactly my point here.  If God really does care about our lives (including the eternal aspect) why did he create Hell?  The people who reject him are doomed to that Hell, and he seems perfectly happy to shorten their lives and send them to that eternal torment prematurely.  If God really cares about our suffering, then why would he be so eager to kill and send us to be tormented?  Perhaps he only cares about the suffering of the righteous, but he seemed perfectly content to torture Job (excuse me, “let” Job be tortured).  Plus, why the need for eternal punishment for beings so vastly inferior to him?  How does our defying him affect him in the slightest, especially enough for our “tiny specks” to merit eternal torment?  If he wants to have communion with the believers, then by all means take them to Heaven.  But why torment the non-believers?  There is no chance for them to have communion with God once they are in Hell, so there really is no purpose for them to still exist.  Why not just kill them and let their souls die with them?  No, the reason Hell is even a part of Christianity is because it is an incredible power play.  When you have the power over someone’s soul, making them think they will suffer for eternity if they don’t believe your religion, then you can easily scare people into leaving (and keep current proselytes from straying).  There is no practical purpose for it at all, unless God just is that bloodthirsty, which goes against the whole “loving God” idea.  Before you even give me any of that nonsense about needing to be punished for our sins so we understand of the weight of them, I’ll save you the trouble.  What good does it do to punish people who are already dead, when they aren’t going to have the opportunity to apply those lessons because they’ll be in Hell for all eternity?  It only makes sense as a fear tactic, and a damn effective one at that.  Most importantly, if God is that bloodthirsty then what’s to stop him from sending me (or you) to Hell even if I believe, just for his own sadistic pleasure?  You are right that suffering in this life is like a paper cut compared to eternity.  That is exactly what I am afraid of.

I’ll leave the animal topic alone.  I already sufficiently answered that before.

“If you trust him, he won’t send you to Hell.”  How can you be so sure?  Just because the Bible says so?  I’m sorry, that’s not good enough, especially coming from a source that is designed to be biased in his favor.  And you’re right that trusting him means believing that, which is why I don’t trust him.  God has a history for punishing people – particularly innocents – so what’s to stop him from deciding to punish me?  What if one of my parents did something horribly wrong and God decided to punish me for it?  There are many instances in the Bible of this (the firstborn of Egypt, David and Bathsheba’s first child, that whole passage about being punished to the fourth and fifth generations, etc.).  So we know it is true in this life, so how do we know the next life is any different?  You expect me to take what is supposedly “his” word from a biased source, from a biased perspective, based on blind faith when all my thoughts and instincts tell me not to believe it?  I’m sorry, I can’t do that, and that seems perfectly logical to me.  It seems much more illogical to go against what my mind and all of my instincts are telling me just because someone says so.  You say to go back to your third paragraph, but I have already told you how much that paragraph doesn’t make sense in my second paragraph.

I think if God created me with a brain then he would want me to use it, so it only makes sense that I think through these things at length.  I am using all my limited abilities to earnestly seek the truth, but I am imperfect and may not receive all the information (or may not understand it when I see it).  If I don’t come up with the right answer before I die, what then?  If Christianity is true, then the Bible says I will be sent to Hell because I didn’t believe, even though I spent my lifetime trying desperately to find the truth and came up short.  So basically, in order to not go to Hell I just need to shut my brain off and swallow the Christianity pill based on blind faith and hope that is right.  But what if Christianity is wrong?  What if some religion (perhaps one that doesn’t even exist) is the true one and we are all doomed to their Hell?  I can’t base my decision (either way) on the fear that I might be wrong, because I might be wrong no matter what I believe.  During my last several years as a Christian, I had the same feeling that I do now, fear that I might be wrong and going to Hell.  Simply becoming a Christian for that reason will give me NO peace.  I will not trust my life to any god that may or may not exist until I am sure that is what I need to do.  Would you simply trust your life on blind faith to a mass murderer or a terrorist?  Not without a VERY sufficient reason, and even then it would be hard to come up with one.  That is how I see it.  I no longer have my blinders on, following and trusting the first thing I see.  It is actually blind people that have to trust more, trusting that their dog will take them along a safe path, trusting that other people won’t take advantage of their disability, and trusting their other senses to suffiently make up for their lack of sight.  In other words, the fact that I am not as willing to trust as I used to be may actually be an indicator of NOT being blind anymore.  No, not trusting doesn’t give me peace, but neither did trusting.  I said earlier how much I still feared Hell even while I was still a Christian.  Besides, just because you have peace and feel secure doesn’t mean you are not in danger.  But I do feel a bit more peace now that I am exploring all the options rather than just settling on one that I hope is true.  This way, the option I choose will be one that is thought through more thoroughly and therefore more likely to be true.  And who says I have rejected God?  I have not all-out rejected the idea of God, just the Christian god.  Like I said, I do not feel completely secure, but I didn’t feel secure when I was a Christian, either.  But I would rather die searching than die completely believing in something wrong.  Economically, it is a smarter strategy to diversify your portfolio than to “put all your eggs in one basket.”  Yes, the latter has more gain potential, but it also has incredible loss potential.

@homefire - 

“Of course he won’t stop us from rejecting him–that’s what free will IS!”

But if what you are saying is true about God killing people because he knew what they were going to do even though they hadn’t done it yet, then that is exactly what you are saying he did.  He stopped them before they could reject him, and therefore he has killed people that have committed no crime.

“Of course I’m thinking inside Christianity.”

What I am trying to get you to do is think about the things in the Bible and about what you believe and look at them to see if they really make sense.  Put aside your assumptions and think about it.  If you automatically assume things are true without examining them, then you may be basing your entire belief system on something wrong.  When I try to get you to approach something rationally, you do to a point, but your rational replies are always based on other assumptions.  I try to attack one assumption, and you come back with others.  Some assumptions always have to be made, yes.  We assume that the theory of gravity is true, even though it has not been proven.  But these are assumptions that make rational sense based on the information we have.  You are offering up assumptions that don’t make rational sense and expect me to believe them, based on nothing more than the Bible.  You assume things are true because they are written in the Bible, and you also assume that things are written in the Bible because they are true, even if they don’t make rational sense.  Plus, this is also circular reasoning.

“Surely you have had occasions in your life that were painful and difficult, but later looked back and saw ways that they had strengthened you, or had allowed some wonderful thing to happen.”

Perhaps, but I’ve also had plenty of occasions that I have looked back and wished had never happened, and always will.  I also know plenty of other people who have experienced horrible traumas and have walked away with mental disorders and such, unable to function for the rest of their lives because of it.  Or people who commit suicide.  Obviously it was too much for those people to handle (several of them were even Christians), so the passages about God not giving us more than we can handle and working all things together for good, those were obviously not true in their cases.  Those passages are self-fulfilling prophecies.  You tell people that God will not give them more than they can handle so they believe it and get through it.  You tell God will work all things together for good so they believe it.  It doesn’t mean it is actually the truth, you just try to get people to believe it so they make it true.  If someone doesn’t believe it, then you just write it off to lack of faith, or demonic influence, or somehow find a way to say it is good.  Once again, you are ASSUMING there is a good purpose and try to find it when there may not be.  Now there may be something good in those situations, but you can’t just assume there will be because you want there to be.  Look at it objectively without the rose-colored glasses.

“Same thing.  You are assuming you know as much or more than God.”

But so are you, by assuming that you know his purpose is good, or that he has a plan for all of it.  That is what I am saying.  By even believing the Bible, you are assuming that you know as much or more than God, and you limit him accordingly.  You assume the Bible is God’s word, and God’s only word, simply because it says so.  How is that any different from what I am doing from the opposite perspective?  All I am saying is that we can’t just assume we know anything about God one way or the other.  God might have very well been doing a good thing by killing those people, by causing pain, or even by creating Hell.  But it sure doesn’t seem like it from an objective view.  And like I said before, that is all we have to go on, and it is all God (if he exists) gave us to go on.  So it only seems to make sense to use the brains he/she/it gave us to explore this matter, rather than just falling back on a book and leaving it at that.  If God wanted us to explore things from a perspective other than what our rational minds can comprehend, then wouldn’t he have given us the ability to do that?  If so, then why didn’t he?  Was he powerless to do so, or did he just not see it in advance?  If not, then how can he possibly hold us accountable for not doing something he didn’t make us able to do?

“Really?  Where is this written?  And who is the judge of who is innocent?  You?  Isn’t that pretty arrogant?  I don’t know that, and you don’t either.”

It seems much more arrogant (and wrong) to presume you can be the judge of who is guilty.  There is a reason we have laws making someone innocent until proven guilty.  We do not assume someone is guilty until proven innocent.  Give me some reason why these people are guilty and deserve punishment, otherwise I have to assume they are innocent.  Also, give me a reason why I should assume a child, not even old enough to understand what they are doing and perhaps not even walk, could possibly be guilty.  Plus, there are times when God holds people accountable for his actions.  The Bible says in Exodus that “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart” so that he sent his armies after the Israelites and they all died.  God punished people for something that he did, and the Bible even says that!  That right there is cause to make me fear God will send a believer to Hell, because he punished someone for something they didn’t do.  Yes, this person had done other things before, but the one action that prompted the death of thousands as punishment was done by God.  You say that we can’t understand the ways of God, but that is a cop-out.  You can’t provide an answer, so you say the answer isn’t possible to understand, and expect that to be sufficient.  It isn’t.

“Believe me, that’s nonsense I’ll never give you, because it’s not scriptural.  I have a feeling we can never begin to comprehend the consequences and weight of our sins.”

That’s good, though I have had some people very well-versed in the Bible (people with seminary degrees) who have said that to me.  I am glad to know we are on the same page with that first sentence, though my reasoning is a bit different than yours.  We can’t understand the consequences and weight of our sins, yet we are held accountable for them anyway?  I fail to see the justice in that.  Yes, yes, we can’t understand God…bla, bla.  I already addressed that.

“Where did you get the idea that God would ever send one of his followers to hell?  There’s never been any indication that he would do that…Because God has NO record for doing that. He has always done exactly what he said he would.”

First of all, how do I know he said it?  How do I know the Bible is God’s word, and God’s only word, and that humans didn’t mess it up somehow?  But where did I get the idea?  I said before that God punished Pharaoh for something he did.  Plus, like I said before, would you trust a mass murderer or a terrorist even though they had always lived up to their word?  The very fact that they have killed so many people is reason enough not to trust them.  One day, the thought just came into my mind that all I had to go on that I was really going to be spared from Hell was a few sentences in some book.  How do I know that book is true?  And then I read some other things written in that book.  God has killed countless billions throughout the Bible, which by itself is enough reason for me to think he might torture me just for the satisfaction.  He “let” Job, one of his most faithful followers, be tortured, and bribed him in the end.  Getting more than what you had in the end, getting a new family does not make up for the tragic loss of your original family.  I can’t see how any person with a heart can see what happened to Job as being just, simply because God wanted to prove a point to Satan.  The more reasonable explanation is that God used Job as one of his pawns in his chess match against Satan.  God tortured (turning a blind eye to someone’s torture might as well be the same as actually torturing them) one of his most faithful followers.  How do I know he won’t do the same thing to you or me?  How do I know he won’t just “let” me suffer in hell for a couple millennia just because he wants to prove a point to Satan?  What’s to say that he won’t find some trumped up charge that “justifies” him sending me to Hell, even though I accepted his son?  The God of the Bible has a history of being cruel and heartless, and I have trouble trusting that such a being would truly let me live when he could just as easily let me suffer for his own enjoyment.  In a way, he already has.  I try to have faith and believe Christianity, but I am deathly afraid of Hell.  I try to believe that Christianity is not true and there is no Hell to fear, but I am still deathly afraid of Hell.  He seems to already be getting immense pleasure out of that.

Yes, Hell was supposedly “created” for the Devil and his angels, but we are still doomed for it.  God knows everything in advance, and knowing everything in advance he knew that he would “have” to send us to Hell when he created it.  So he knew full well that he was creating it for us and not just the Devil and his angels.  Unless God is not omniscient…

“Maybe you don’t realize that a parent suffers much more when their child is ill than when they are ill themselves.”

I realize that so much more than you know.  I am not a parent, but I am afraid to become a parent.  I am afraid of bringing a child into the world that will automatically be condemned to Hell unless they accept God.  God commands us to have children, most of whom will end up in Hell.  But I would much rather I suffered in Hell than have my child suffer in Hell.  So I will defy God if I must, go to Hell if I must, if it means it will prevent more people (especially my children) from suffering in Hell.  Yes, it may be more of a punishment to the parent, but that only makes it more cruel.  If your parent killed someone and the court decided to execute you instead, I don’t think you would see it as anything BUT cruel.  It may be more effective, but that doesn’t make it right.  And you say there was no indication the child suffered?  The child was dying for seven days.  Any death that takes seven days to complete can’t be anything but painful, and we do know that babies feel pain.  Besides, wouldn’t making the child suffer be a more effective punishment for the parent?  Hmmm.

“Once again, you’re attaching way too much importance to death, and equating it with suffering, when the issue is really LIFE–eternal life!”

If eternal life in Heaven is really the reason for people to become Christians and NOT a fear of Hell, then why did God even need to create Hell?  If all he wants is for people to commune with Him in Heaven, then why not just let those who reject him die with their bodies?  Why does he need to torture them for all eternity?  Better yet, why not just bring everyone to Heaven, rather than creating this arbitrary rule that prevents you from doing so?  An omnipotent God should be able to do that.  You say that God cannot have evil or imperfection in his presence, but if God is truly omnipotent he should have been able to come up with a way around that.  Yes, I know…Jesus.  God should have been able to provide a better way, one that has more evidence and is much easier for us to believe than some two thousand year-old story that is built on fables and fantasy.  Oh…and death.

Besides, if fear of Hell is not the motivator for people to become Christians, then why the urgency?  Why are Christians so heavily involved in missions and witnessing around the world?  Why are Christians so concerned for the lost?  If being damned to Hell is not the issue, then what is the big deal about it, anyway?  The plan of salvation is designed to get people to fear Hell, and then tell them there is a way out through Jesus.  Fear is the entire motivator, nothing else.  You can say it is about love and eternal life all you want, but that simply is not true.  I don’t care about going to Heaven, I just don’t want to go to Hell.  But your Bible says it is either one or the other, and it only gives these unsatisfactory, ridiculous explanations and reasons for what to do and why I should do it.

“You’re assuming God to be a beast again.”

Based on what is written in the Bible, where God floods the Earth and kills all but a few (and has promised to do it again), where God tortures and kills children, where God has created Hell and condemned us to it, and where God threw his own son in the path of a bullet?  I could go on.  There are so many things written about your God in the Bible that would make it easier for me to believe Adolf Hitler was a saint than to believe that your God is NOT a beast.

“If you have spent your life seeking Truth, you have nothing to fear.  Remember, God knows your heart!”

For one, that is assuming God is good.  But that doesn’t answer my question.  John 3:18 says “he that believes is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only Begotten Son of God.”  If I spend my entire life earnestly searching for truth, yet that search never leads me to a belief in Jesus, then the Bible says I am condemned.  It doesn’t say that I will be exonerated simply because my intentions were good or that I was trying to find the truth; it simply says that I have to believe or I will go to Hell.  Or what if a non-believer was seriously hurt by a Christian (or someone claiming to be a Christian), so badly that they were traumatized for life and ended up rejecting Christ because of what a representative of Christ did?  Could you really blame them for doing so?  I personally know people (as in close friends) who have had that happen to them.  Yet once again, your Bible says that person is already condemned because they haven’t believed.  The Bible says that their blood will be on the Christian’s head, but so what?  The Christian is still going to Heaven and the non-believer to Hell, unless God goes against his “promise” like I fear he might.

I might check out that book you suggested.  I am not closed off to the idea of God, nor am I completely closed off to some semblance of Christianity.  I have been reading several non-Christian books (Dan Barker, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens), but I have also been reading some Christian books (C.S. Lewis, Lee Strobell).  Who is the author?  If you are not wanting to continue this discussion (which it sounds like you might be) that is fine; you can just e-mail it to me or send me a message on Xanga or Facebook.  I will let you know in advance that I already have a long reading list I am trying to work through, but it really sounds like it might be helpful to read it.  Just so you know, that doesn’t mean I will end up believing Christianity (in fact, probably not), though I promise I will be as open-minded as I can be while I read it.  That is all I can promise to do.

Yes, I believe we might be going in circles here.  I have already explored a lot of these questions, many of them I even pondered while I was still a Christian.  The reason your answers haven’t been acceptable to me is because those were the same answers I got back then, and they didn’t make sense then either.  If you choose to believe, that is your prerogative.  If that is how you want to live your life and it is what makes you happy, then by all means go for it.  I simply cannot (at least not at this moment) choose to believe Christianity.  You can believe what you want to believe, but please also allow me to do the same.

I suppose there is a possibility I wasn’t a Christian at all, but then I would also ask if you are really a Christian.  You know you are a Christian, and I know I was.  I believed it wholeheartedly for so many years, based my whole life upon it, and completely absorbed myself in it.  I had clear spiritual experiences that at the time I could only describe as God speaking to me.  I really felt I had a relationship with God for many years.  Even when I started having my doubts, I spent many years desperately trying to cling to my Christian faith because I had believed it for so long.  I know though that someone like me does go against the whole “once saved, always saved” idea, because if I was really a Christian that means that someone who has rejected their faith is going to Heaven.  It is easier to just say a person like me never was a Christian, or to say that God has spewed me out of his mouth, that way it is easier to say I am going to Hell rather than tainting Heaven with my unbelief.  I know, I used to say the same thing to people when I was a Christian.  I encountered some Christians who had “fallen away,” and I would ask them that same question.  Just because it is easier for you to believe that doesn’t make it true.

Yes, your reply was a bit long, but look at mine!  Lol.  And I do know that you care.  I appreciate that.  I don’t believe in prayer (prayer actually seems a bit silly to me now), but I do appreciate the sentiment.  Some Christians say they are praying as a form of guilt trip or other manipulation, but some say it because they genuinely do care.  I know that you are one of the latter.  My arguments may sometimes come across as a bit harsh, but this is a very serious topic for me and I have a lot of vested interest in it.  I have also lost a lot through this whole ordeal, and I still have some bitterness and anger inside.  I try not to let it cloud my judgment, but sometimes when I am making arguments it works its way into it.  I have also had to learn to keep my guard up because of how many Christians have tried to manipulate me or take advantage of me, so some of it may also be a defense mechanism.  It is not my intent to insult you or personally attack you in any way, but at the same time I don’t want you to make (or keep making) the same mistakes I did.  I wasted many years of my life believing that, and I feel like I missed out on so much of what life has to offer.  I am trying hard to move on and trying to find a place where someone like me fits into society, but it isn’t easy.

Thank you for your friendship.  I have lost many friends through this, though it has definitely taught me who my real friends were.  That only makes me all the more thankful for every friend I still do have.  While I knew you at PBC – especially while you were my Sunday School teacher – I really grew to admire and respect you.  Even though we may not believe the same things anymore, that has not changed.