Christopher Hitchens has died

philologos wrote: »

It's a product of our free will. God gave us liberty, we do what we will in there. As for "if it exists". I think it's pretty evident. Look at the newspaper, read about what has happened today, I can guarantee you that you'll find wrongdoing left, right and centre.

Again avoiding the central theological and philosophical problem of where sin comes from in the first place. It had to come from god if it created the universe and everything in it. Apparently nothing happens without this god, so sin is his baby. If such a deity was "upset" by sin then why did he create it in the first place?

God tempts us? Explain this a little bit more.

Gives us intelligence and the ability to discover, yet when we do this we get damned. Tree of knowledge anyone? OK take someone who is a member of the extreme(and they would feel more accurate representation) of the Christian right. Science and their own two eyes show them that many of the stories touted as fact in the old Testament are fables at best and utterly laughable at worst. If they think "hmmm don't really believe the old Noah story TBH". BANG straight to hell. IE it's better to be ignorant.

God gives us the liberty to do as we will, God gives us standards to live by. We can choose to follow those standards, or choose to disobey them. If we couldn't choose we'd be mere automaton.

Right, so lets go back to square one. Garden of Eden. Exterior. Day. Lovely place all told. Blessed by and in the presence of god. They can do what they like, but don't touch the special tree. They do and get kicked out of gods sight. The name numpty who put the tree there in the first place. That's like any dog owner leaving a roast on the kitchen table and leaving said dog on it's own for an hour. You would want to be a bit retarded to think old fido won't chow down and utterly sadistic if you then throw the dog out on the streets because it did so. You'd have the ISPCA on you for that one and social services would send someone around to feel your bumps. Daft.

Jesus died for the sin of the world. How is that a "chosen people" terminology.

More like he died for the locals as it was a small scale Jewish splinter faith. Oul Paul made it universal. EG from Matthew(speaking about bringing the message to gentiles) ""It is not fair to take bread and throw it to the dogs. to his apostles "Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Of course at other times he seems OK with gentiles and again we're back to confusion. But I'm quite sure if Jesus was around today he'd be shocked christians are happily eating sausages and for the most part not snipping off bits of babies willies. We have Paul the Grecoromanised Jew to thank for our bacon fryups. Well... Not really. Thank the Greeks and Romans at the time. They saw food restrictions as a bit daft(like all Latins to this day they loved their pork) and circumcision uncivilised and barbaric and a way out was found.

As for taking life - God has bestowed it on us, and as far as I'm concerned He has the right to take it away as well.

That's a tad masochistic IMH. Not a little cruel on the part of this god too.

What happens down the line when at some point in the future we become functionally immortal? It's not impossible, it's a question of engineering. Heavy duty engineering in fairness, but a 1000 years ago so was powered flight or "thinking" machines. One man's science is anothers magic. One can practically posit a future where humanity or it's engineered descendants can manipulate reality and be immortal to all intents and purposes. Then we would be "gods". Or as close as makes no diff. We may even be able to create new universes out of singularities in the lab. That would be the full package. Indeed I could more easily believe our own universe was created in such a way. Makes more sense than an internally inconsistent deity born of Bronze age tribal sand dwellers jostling for political power.

Also, to clarify murder is unlawful killing. The ultimate standard in terms of this as far as I would see it is what God has revealed to us. If people do what is evidently wrong, God is entitled to take their lives away.

OK(mad stuff Ted, but OK). How many died in natural disasters throughout history. Nothing natural about them if you consider your god is controlling the least little thing. When Noah was reading his Ladybird "how to build a boat" book many 100's of 1000's of people were knocking about. Apparently all of them sinners and every single one of them destined to drown and burn in hell. Nice.

It's peculiar how people seem to whip up the idea that God is immoral, but rather God throughout the space of time as far as Judeo-Christianity is concerned has punished as a result of wrongdoing. Looking to the history of Israel presented in the Hebrew Scriptures, this is exactly what He did.

So a woman deserved to be burnt to death in a "pillar of salt" for having a look? Yet someone like David who was responsible for torched earth policies, adultery and all sorts of shenanigans was exalted? What about all those Egyptian babies? They deserved to die? That's an example of morality? Or good judgement? Foooook :eek:

Hobbes wrote: »

Pretty sure the devil is the one who gave us liberty. Prior to that we were just part of Gods private zoo.

Well the devil bit came later H. The devil has really evolved as a character. Early on he was a judge sent by god, or just someone who got in the way in a minor sense. We have to thank some ergot blasted monks in the 2nd and 3rd centuries for more flesh on satans bones. The medieval types went to town on it. He's up there with Mary in the texts. Hardly mentioned much at all. The "serpent" in Eden has no name. Indeed isn't even a snake. He had legs when he was talking to the humans. Only after did god curse all snakes to crawl on their bellies for ever. All snakes mind you, not just the talking one. Bit OTT on snakes I would have thought? Which again he created. Unless that slipped his mind? You never know. With all that creation of the universe, you're bound to get distracted and create an evil quasi lizard with vocal chords and a semblance of good sense. A lizard you don't warn the two eejits about, that will tempt them to rebel and eat fruit. Fruit from a tree you planted. You couldn't sell this guff to tree year olds in an episode of the teletubbies.