Thomas Less

I really only want serious thinkers willing to write serious answers to this. I read the logic below and think it makes a lot of sense. I don't want a fight, I just want to hear the thoughtful response.:

If I were God I WOULD have created a being that could end up in hell, because without that, Heaven would be impossible.

It really is that simple for me. We discussed what in the post God’s Goals or Purposes For Humanity we described heaven and spent some time thinking about the type of relationship God wants us to ultimately have with him. As a short re-cap, I believe that real love and real relationships have to be built on mutual choice. Robots cannot truly love or be loved. God did not create us to be robots and to love him regardless. We have a choice because heaven cannot be heaven if we don’t have a choice.

Now the logical response is “But couldn’t God have just had everyone who didn’t choose to be in a relationship with him simply cease to exist? He didn’t have to create a place of perpetual misery and torture.”

I strongly disagree. God wants to have a “heavenly” relationship with as many of us as possible. Fear is one of the greatest motivators. No one will have the heavenly relationship with God because they are afraid of hell. But some people will start their search for God because they have a fear of hell in the back of their mind. We are all EXTREMELY valuable to God and he doesn’t want to lose a single one of us. If the alternative to not having a relationship with God is simply ceasing to exist, some people will decide that isn’t so bad. However, if the alternative is hell, or even might be hell, some will at least make that decision with great care

I know someone could claim I'm promoting my website, but I really want intelligent, thoughtful people who can disagree respectfully to help me logically think discuss these issues. Please, only serious answers from respectful people on both sides.

We are assuming if you are reading this you have already read the discussions about whether a all-powerful, all-knowing God would have created humans or not. Now lets ask the next question: What does that discussion really prove?

It would seem to me that the argument that it is illogical for the Christian God to have created humans is so weak, that it proves nothing. Our existence doesn't prove a creator was needy or weak. The simple fact we exist doesn't contradict any of his characteristics. I even think the argument that our creation is perfectly logical is very strong, but I will concede that it does not, alone, prove that the Christian God exist.

What do you think?

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I've heard some atheist state that a God as awesome and powerful and the Bible says the Christian God is, would never bother to even create humans. Could someone expand this discussion a little. I don't really understand this statement.

I'm serious about this. Are there any real thinkers out there? I would like some serious, intelligent, well thought-out challenges to the very basic tenets of Christian faith. No jokes about Santa and no soft ball questions you think are difficult but have been answered a 1000 times. I haven't been even challenged on this yet and I've read things by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens.

I really want to know if there is, I'm not looking for a fight. It appears to me the apostles of Jesus would have known for sure if he was resurrected or not. If they knew he wasn't (they stole the body etc.) they all had to have agreed on the same lie. That isn't that big of a deal. But then all of them suffered imprisonment and all but 1 death which they could have avoided if they just told the truth. Many people die for things they believe are true, but aren't. That doesn't appear to be the case here. It wasn't a matter of belief. They would have known for sure. I don't really want an arguement of premise here. I just want an example of another group of people who told a lie, knew it was a lie, and chose to suffer and die for that lie rather than tell what they knew was the truth.

Please, example only. There has to be some but I can't think of any.

Seriously. If we are just a more intelligent animal, what gives us the right to kill and eat other animals. I know religious people say we are made in the image of God and rule over animals so they have a "out" but a true atheist would either be a vegetarian, or believe it is OK to kill another human. Either we are all just animals, so we shouldn't eat each other, or it is ok to kill animals to eat, and humans are just animals, so it is OK to kill and eat humans.