Freethinker

How long do a person's ancestors have to live in a place for that place to be considered their ethnic background? For instance, I'm an American and all sides of my family have lived in America since colonial times. Prior to that, most of them came from Ireland and Scotland. At what point is such a ancestral background considered just American and not "Scotch-Irish"?

Or say a woman's ancestors lived in Holland for centuries, but her grandparents moved to Mexico, her parents were born in Mexico, then they immigrated to the US, where she was born. Is she considered Mexican, Dutch, both?

In 2 Kings 2:23-24, there is a story about some kids making fun of Elisha for being bald. He curses them in the name of the Lord and two she bears come and maul the kids. What is the point of this story?

If you shine a spotlight with the bat logo during the day or on clear nights, you wouldn't be able to see it. You'd only be able to see it at night when it can be reflected off the clouds.

If you want to pray for me, that is fine. Pray all you want. However, why inform me that you are going to do so? It seems to me that this can do nothing except possibly lead to conflict.

What is your religion or faith (if any) and do you feel the United States has gotten better or worse since 1950?

The reason I ask is that in the early to mid 1950s, "In God We Trust" was added to all currency (previously, it was only on coins), "under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance, and the National Day of Prayer was created. If you are a theist and you believe the US has gotten worse since then, what does that say about the effectiveness of these mottos and prayers?

If I were to fly across the international date line, traveling west, at 11:59:59pm on 12/20/2012, it would then become midnight on 12/22/12, would it not? I have found a loophole to save our planet!

Theists often ask why something should exist rather than nothing. By invoking a deity, it seems to me you are just pushing the question back a step.

If you have had a personal religious or spiritual experience in which you saw, heard, or otherwise felt the presence of God, please describe what it was you felt/heard/saw. What were the circumstances during which you had this experience? What were you doing at the time? How did you know it was God?

In Leviticus 18:26, it states "But you shall keep my statutes and my ordinances and do none of these abominations...". Is this verse saying that all of the laws mentioned previously in chapter 18 are abominations?

Judges 11:30-31 And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, "If thou wilt give the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes forth from the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord's, and I will offer him up for a burnt offering".

So, Jephthah defeated the Ammonites and his daughter is the first to come out of the house when he returns. (Judges 11:32-34)

Judges 11:39 And at the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had made.

So, His vow was to kill the first to come out of his home if God helped him defeat the Ammonites. God did help Jephthah defeat the Ammonites and he fulfilled the vow, which means that Jephthah burned his daughter as a sacrifice to the Lord. Why did he not stop this like in the story of Abraham and Isaac?

Some say it is impossible for man to live without sin. If that is the case, then weren't Adam and Eve screwed from the start?

In Genesis 3:8-9, it says God was walking through the garden of Eden and said to Adam "Where art thou?", because Adam was hiding due to the shame of his nakedness. If God is all-knowing, shouldn't He have known where Adam was and known when Adam and Eve had eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil?

For those that don't know, the Bob and Tom Show is a nationally syndicated morning radio comedy show.

I used to love the show when it first came on, but the show is so repetitive. I'm forced to listen to it by my co-workers most mornings.

Bob and Tom play the same songs that they played 10 years ago. How many times can you hear "Prison *****" and think it is funny? Also, I hate how they laugh at every joke as if it was the funniest thing they have ever heard in their entire life and a lot of the laughter is obviously from a laugh track.

I do like their take on the news of the day and some of their guests are entertaining.

So, what is your opinion?

Think about this. God could have just put everybody into Heaven without freewill and everyone would have been happy. Instead, He creates the universe and puts us on a relatively small planet and gives us freewill so that He can test us.

Let's say you die and go to Heaven. Can you sin in Heaven? If not, that means you don't have freewill in Heaven.

Now, according to Revelations, the Earth will be destroyed after Jesus returns. According to some Christian Creationists, the Earth is 6000 years old and a 1000 years is like a day to God. Now let's say Jesus comes back soon. That would mean that God created the world and gave us freewill for one week (one week to Him) and then destroyed the world and took away our freewill.

If that's the case, why create the world at all? Why not just send everyone to Heaven and be done with it?

I remember seeing a lot of questions last year like this one:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AhTRu...

Now that proposition 8 has passed in California and they are having more wildfires, what do those who said God was punishing California for allowing gays to marry have to say?

I've seen a few questions asked such as "how can we burn in Hell if we are just a soul and not a physical body?". Some Christians responded saying that there isn't a physical burning, but rather the pain of "being separated from God".

If God exists, aren't atheists already separated from Him? Why don't they feel the pain of Hell already?

I often complain about Fox News being biased, but I had to laugh at how "unbalanced" CNN was last night. They were discussing the impact of the hurricane on the Republican Convention and out of all the people getting ready at the convention center, who did they talk to? A Democrat who they mistakenly said was a superdelegate. lol

Do you think CNN is biased?

I can hear it now..."I thought he was a moose". lol

In other words, before Jesus was born to Mary, was God just the Father and the Holy Spirit or was God always a trinity?

Don't say marriage is between a man and woman, that isn't what I'm asking. I don't mean who can get married. What I mean is what constitutes marriage from a religious perspective? Does God care if about the legal aspect of marriage or only about the vows and the union of souls?