I envy people who have Faith

[BlueBloodedBlue]

I don't but it must be a real comfort to believe in a higher power and have something that gives a meaning to everything.

That's it really.

@Malie

You either can't or won't answer direct questions, it's very strange.

I've only known people to behave that way when discussing something they claim to believe strongly in if they either know that their answer will undermine their point of view (e.g be hypocritical or displaying double standards), or they don't actually understand the topic properly.

Not sure which of the two categories you fall into but neither is much use on a discussion forum really is it?

You have a remarkable and dishonest capacity for deliberately misrepresenting what people who disagree with you are saying.
I nowhere said humans are instinctively good. I was pointing out that the Christian God, according to your own texts, murders a lot of people.
And the Human Rights Act was a reaction to nazism and developed by secular governments. It did not arise out of Christianity.

The Christian Church, or at least parts of it, have been slow adopters, after secular society, of key human rights in modern society such as women’s rights and gay and lesbian rights. Many churches have not even achieved equality there.

The Church has a very poor history on human rights. Even on an on obvious human rights issue such as slavery, there was not a universal Christian condemnation of this, with many Christian defenders of this. And of course Christian countries, founded on Christian principles, were the slave traders and owners.

You've done nothing but attack. Attack other posters, attack other religions, attack atheism. You are not a victim here.

Again, what about the persecution of LGBT people that goes on in Russia? That's ramped right up under the ROC and they certainly back it up with Biblical teaching.

My parents gave me life but if they killed me I think a jury would probably consider that murder.

Ok, this must be some kind of wind up. This is trolling, surely?

I think @Malie is really actually trolling at this point.

Sadly some misogynistic people do think like that.

@Malie you still haven't answered the question whether or not the killing of thousands of innocent children in the Biblical Flood was cruel, making your god just another cruel one. If aborting a child is cruel, then so is killing them in floods - or is there a double standard here that I'm not aware of?

That actually made me laugh!

How very convenient!

I have long suspected you are not a Christian and just having a laugh and now I am sure this is the case!

(Disclaimer - I'm not God)

Very long explanation for this, but in a nutshell...

A third of the angels, lead by Lucifer, rebelled against God. At some point they mated with human women to produce the Nephilim (their giant hybrid offspring) thus polluting the bloodline of the human race:
"The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown".

God possibly saved Noah and his family because they had not been affected by this.

The Nephilim were evil and "Every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time".

God sent a flood to cleanse the Earth (his creation) and restore it's goodness. He could have sent an asteroid to wipe it out completely but decided to again offer hope to humanity.

The people of Earth were sacrificing their live babies in fire. Yes they were drowned, but I look at it like they were being saved from a miserable life and the wickedness around them and inevitably also becoming wicked. I believe all babies and children are taken to Heaven, so although it appears cruel, it was most likely merciful.

@Vincitveritas well, that's awfully convenient. I mean, all those evil newborn babies and toddlers who deserved to die. In its own way this is as bad as the concept of original sin, where all of us get to take the blame for something we didn't actually do.

You're not selling God to me here.

A friend was mocking conspiracy theories and wondering how supposedly intelligent people believed in them ..she then went to.R Catholic service for communion ( body of christ etc ) and to. pray to various saints for interventions .. I kept quiet ..

Come back to me when you can create an atom.

You can't have suspected long as I've only been registered a few weeks. Why wouldn't I be a Christian?

@pointythings I think you missed the part about the bloodline.

Yes there are different points of you but you seem as though you keep attacking mine as I have no right to it.

@Vincitveritas I didn't, I just consider it a cop-out. Were all the animals evil too? Even the ones with intelligence? Chimps, bonobos, gorillas?

And what explanation do you have for the book of Job? Yes, it was Satan's idea - but your god didn't stop it, did he?

We are not talking about the human rights act after the war we are talking about human rights in history

I'm sorry. I mixed you up with Malie.

Or maybe I should apologise to Malie.

It is so funny that you guys have done nothing else but attack me and yet you say I am the one doing the attacking. A clear case of projection! I have not attacked anybody else’s religion at all and yet you say I have. I can assure you that the persecution of LGBT people in Russia went on under the Communists when Christians were also under heavy persecution. It has nothing to do with Christianity in Russia

So are you accusing God of not being righteous? Do you think that a righteous God could not righteously judge the world today with what is going on in it? Or is your God one who just should come to the aid of human beings who are completely messing up his world?

We are not talking about the human rights act after the war we are talking about human rights in history

Which Christians have a terrible record on. Slave owning, women owning, appalling treatment of gay men. And that's not even touching on the awful abuses of women in the Catholic church in Ireland.

There are lots of Christians who have done very good things in the name of their faith. There are lots of Christians who have done terrible things in the name of their faith. Which rather says to me it is not the faith which makes them good or bad but their moral character (which will have been shaped by a whole load of their life circumstances and experiences).

@Malie thank you for answering as expected. So in your world view it's OK to behave like a murderous sociopath, as long as you're a deity and you've branded the other guys as 'evil'. Yep, that's perfectly clear. There was a bloke called Hitler who thought along much the same lines.

The concept of righteousness has long been used to justify atrocities.

@pointythings No, the animals did no harm, that's why they were saved on the ark. The whole Earth could not have been flooded to wipe out mankind without most of the animals also dying. Animals are separate to humans in that they do not have a soul or a conscience. I'll get back to you on Job, limited time at the mo.

@mattermore No probs.

So are you accusing God of not being righteous? Do you think that a righteous God could not righteously judge the world today with what is going on in it?

I can't square a righteous God with one who goes around murdering children, no.

@Vincitveritas 2 of each animal doesn't begin to save the animals. It doesn't even provide a viable gene pool.