How "Christian" of him!!

[Jon Miller]

God always speaks through people, he never once just appeared to a large community and told them do to something.

Many of your complaints show a lack of understanding about who God is.

Jon Miller

[Boris Godunov]

You don't understand my beliefs.

Yes, I do. You're trolling, not a genuine convert. It's amusing, so I'm not encouraging you to stop the game, but I'm not going to waste time replying to your "arguments."

[DaShi]

I'll just say that as a Christian I don't believe that one should fool his self into believing that God would just let them do whatever they want. That results in all kinds of evil. Look at the leaders of the Islamic state in Iran. They claim to be holy but lie, murder and exploit the poor.

Boris is making a good case that this may indeed be what God wants us to do.

Anyway, my god is better than yours.

[Jon Miller]

Boris is making a good case that this may indeed be what God wants us to do.

Anyway, my god is better than yours.

No he is not, he is fundamentally misunderstanding/representing God because he hasn't read and thought about the stories in the Bible and what they mean.

Jon

[Ben Kenobi]

False dichotomy. Any omnipotent, omniscient being could surely create a universe where it wasn't necessary at all for it to ever have to kill a child. What's the point of being all-knowing if you couldn't predict and therefore prevent cases where you'll have to do such a horrible thing?

Basically sums up to why does suffering exist in the world. I'd argue personally that there can be a spiritual benefit in suffering.

OK, I admit I have a hard time believing you're being honest here--this sounds like just another "lie for Christ" that you are so prone to make.

This is the honest to God truth Boris. I didn't cross over until February of 2001. This year will mark the first year I've been a Catholic longer than I was with the Mennonite church. I was with them for four years, from 2001 to 2005.

But if it is true... holy ****, you're one messed up person. If you were so morally and intellectually weak that you would actually think such a thing, absent a divine dictate to tell you otherwise, then you qualify as a sociopath. Part of me hesitates to continue this conversation, because in the off chance I somehow convinced you to abandon your faith, then I suppose you would be one of those who would commit atrocities...

I know what my life was then and what my life is now.

I ask again: if it's proven to you tomorrow, beyond any doubt, there is no god, will you therefore think it's morally acceptable for parents to kill their own children for any reason they so choose?

One, it's already been proven to me that this outlook on the world is false. I gave you an honest answer to your question. This was my belief before, I was a pro choice person before I went to university and I saw nothing wrong with abortion.

See my response to Kidicious above. Animals are different because they don't have sentience, they aren't self-aware.

WRT to how God is, we aren't self aware either.

Regarding a god and men, as I said to Kid, something is either moral or immoral based on the act itself, not on who is committing it.

Is it moral for me to perform surgery on you? No. Is it moral for a surgeon who is trained how to do it properly to perform surgery on you? Yes. Whether an act is or is not moral does depend on who is doing the act.

If it's immoral to kill innocents, it's immoral to kill innocents. Arguing otherwise renders the morality/immorality meaningless. Then it just becomes "anything the god says to do is moral, anything that you do in defiance of what the god says to do is immoral."

But that's not what I'm saying here Boris. I understand your argument. God, by definition is morality. Morality is as much a part of him, as your personality makes you Boris. God cannot do an immoral action because it would be contrary to his nature. WRT to ending and beginning life, that is His prerogative. It is not murder, else all death in and of itself would be murder. He gives us a gift, which he returns to himself at the appointed time.

Uh, clearly I *don't* follow the exact same playbook. Are you a complete ******? You're talking to someone who is gay and neither ashamed of it nor thinks it's immoral. Where's that in the Biblical god's playbook? There are tons of cases where my morality and the Bible's diverge.

Yet there are areas where they converge. Those are the one's I'm interested in.

I have arrived at morality independent of any belief in a god. That's because I can rationally justify my morals, without having to appeal to a magical being to tell me so. That's part of being a rational, empathetic human being. That some (but definitely not all) of my morals coincide with Bible morals is just that--a coincidence.

Boris, where does Reason come from? Did you give it to yourself?

It's the same coincidence that will have different civilizations on opposite side of the globe with entirely different religious traditions believe in some similar moral values. It's because some basic moral ideas (not murdering, not stealing, not lying), are EASY to justify without divine dictate. They make good rational sense in their own right, to anyone with an ounce of empathy.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. The reason this is so is because our Reason is God-given. It makes sense therefore that societies in general would keep many of the same codes. And why you, when exercising that facility would come to much the same answer.

If you need a god to tell you what's right and wrong, then you have no genuine moral compass and are just an automaton, subject to the dubious interpretations of translations of 2000+ year old writings that were passed down orally for centuries and centuries...

The question ultimately comes down to authority. If right and wrong is whatever I choose to believe, then there is no foundation, no basis for anything other than arbitrary pleasure. If there is a right and wrong, which is no different than the immutable laws of the universe, then even if we deny their existance, we cannot escape them. This is my belief, that the laws are no different now than 2000 years ago, because human nature has not changed.

This is why Jon Miller, Imran, and Nikolai--and who knows how many other better Christians--rebuke you for your complete and utter failure to represent your faith well. You give your religion a bad name by engaging in such transparently dishonest tactics and impugning the motives rather than engaging in genuine debate.

I daresay the reason you find me offensive is because I won't take your bullcrap or give you a pass or your preferences.

To correct one of your earlier bad assumptions: I'm not an "ex-Christian," I've never been one. The closest I've come to believing in anything metaphysical was a flirtation with Buddhism in college. But I soon realized that it was just as irrational as the other religions.

If I thought there were a god, I wouldn't feel any need to be angry with it, since I enjoy great health, relatively abundant wealth, and lead a rather lovely life full of the joys of friends, family, and even a sweet cat that is a total purr monster

Then why all this anger to Christians Boris, if you are truly content?

[Ben Kenobi]

Not that it is relevant if he wasn't considered perfect--Nowhere in Genesis does it make any claim that God talked to anyone else about the impending flood, so any conjecture as to such is just making **** up.

Does it say that he spoke only to Noah?

Look, I know why you are fighting this one so hard. If it's true that God warns everyone of his impending judgment, then it's also our responsibility for failing to heed the warning. There is no excuse.

[Berzerker]

so you are making it up?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Then why all this anger to Christians Boris

I haven't felt any anger to Christians from Boris. Just frustration to you, which is understandable considering your "debating" style.

[Kidlicious]

Boris is making a good case that this may indeed be what God wants us to do.

Anyway, my god is better than yours.

Boris is chicken. You are a fool.

[Kidlicious]

I daresay the reason you find me offensive is because I won't take your bullcrap or give you a pass or your preferences.

Let it come from yet another mouth. You are a liar.

[DaShi]

Boris is chicken. You are a fool.

It's already been stated that you aren't worth listening too, so I'll just add, "Nyah! Nyah!"

[Nikolai]

Yes, I do. You're trolling, not a genuine convert. It's amusing, so I'm not encouraging you to stop the game, but I'm not going to waste time replying to your "arguments."

Knowing poly, he very well might be, but so far he reminds me more of a person who have just converted. Those are often going a bit far in their radicality. I've seen a few conversions, and this reminds me of those at least.

Kid: What denomination are you? I don't think I've seen that mentioned yet. Might be helpful to know.

[Ben Kenobi]

so you are making it up?

There's simply no evidence to show one or the other. We don't know. There's nothing in the bible that explicitly said that he did, and there's nothing to show that he didn't.

Definitively asserting the passage as 'proof' that God did not warn them, is foolish, because we simply don't know how he warned these people. There are multitudes of ways God warns people, and people are generally oblivious to those warnings.

Personally, I believe he did speak and test other people before Noah. It makes sense that he would test their hearts and then come to the conclusion that Noah, who passed his test, was declared righteous in his eyes. This IS significant, and it is stated in scripture. How God came to this conclusion, we don't know. Scripture is silent on this matter. All we know for certain is that God found Noah to be righteous and commanded him to build a boat, which he obeyed, and thus saved his family from a cataclysm.

After which, God makes a covenant to Noah stating that never again will he destroy his creation in a flood.

[Ben Kenobi]

You are a liar.

You want me to call you out? Fair enough. Where have I lied?

I've given you a pass on the countless things you've said for the simple reason that you've stated that you've come over. Great. Wonderful.

But I am going to ask you to prove your allegation.

[Berzerker]

There's simply no evidence to show one or the other. We don't know. There's nothing in the bible that explicitly said that he did, and there's nothing to show that he didn't.

Either God warned everyone or a handful of people, the Bible says it was a handful of people. And the notion that God's warning thru some old guy building a boat should be a valid warning doesn't hold water Everyday in every country some guy is announcing the end is here. If God wanted to warn people, he'd warn them himself and leave no doubt.

Personally, I believe he did speak and test other people before Noah. It makes sense that he would test their hearts and then come to the conclusion that Noah, who passed his test, was declared righteous in his eyes. This IS significant, and it is stated in scripture. How God came to this conclusion, we don't know. Scripture is silent on this matter. All we know for certain is that God found Noah to be righteous and commanded him to build a boat, which he obeyed, and thus saved his family from a cataclysm.

Then lets apply some logic, God had judged the world wicked and sent the flood as punishment. Why would God warn everyone he wanted to wipe out?
The mesopotamian/semitic versions say the gods kept the flood secret...