This is probably the most active christian debater of our time

>To make such a statement with any sort of authority means the speaker must have infinite knowledge.

Why?

>People who had 400 years to repent, and never did.

And God had 400 years to save those people too. And he did nothing; he allowed indescribable pain to occur and he watched in indifference until 400 years later, and killing their descendents did a fat lot of good, not to mention hell doesn't even exist in the OT. If he had power to stop it, and did nothing, with absolutely no threat to himself. he is equally as guilty as whatever those cities did. Incidentally, I'd say killing everyone except the virgin women doesn't so much strike me as divine judgement, just a rape fest. Not to mention that God forgave the self-decribed worst man in the world, by the name of Saul, without any punishment. Mysterious ways, huh?

If you argue that killing children is alright because you thought God told you to do it, then what is there left that you wouldn't do? 9/11 is only wrong in your view because the wrong God was prayed to.

And here is the central flaw again. You go from arguing that Divine Command theory is justified to try and rationalise the atrocity, as if you feel the first option isn't strong enough. If baby killing is okay because "they go to heaven" then you are arguing that abortion is a great moral good, and if the greates duty to save souls, it is the duty of Christians to murder non-believers children to save them.

I was Christian once. I housed myself away from any competing evidence, until my terror of death was overridden by the fear of a tyrannical God who would mercilessly torture you forever for his own mistakes. I regret every second I listened to people like Craig.

are you being serious ?

It's clear when King David said he would die and meet his child in heaven; it is clear when Paul said he was blameless before the Law came, and it is clear from what Jesus said about having to enter the Kingdom as a child.

I have a feeling that most people in heaven do not have much life experience here on earth.

If Children aren't spared from earthy death why are they spared from eternal death?

Because you would have to know everything in order to declare that there is no God.

Otherwise you're just guessing.

God kept His people in captivity, and wandering in the wilderness, in order to let the judgment against those vile people come to fruition.

It's a pity Joshua did not follow God's instructions, for if he did, there would be no ISIS, no PLO, no Hamas, and no Hezbollah today.

I know you're an evil person, but even in your evil thinking killing the men and women and leaving the children to slowly starve is not a kindness.

also "authority" does not exist in any intellectual discourse

of course we cant disprove the existence of god with a 100% certainty but that does not rule out the possibility of arguments that show it to be plausible or nonplausible to a certain extent

>I was Christian once.

No, no you were not, a point I had to make painfully clear to you the last time you posted this nonsense.

Am I the only person who remembers what they read?

>meet his child in heaven
Nothing to do with God killing kids
>blameless before the Law came
So why were people that weren't under God's law killed if Paul was blameless? Why didn't God smite Paul for persecuting Christians?
>enter the kingdom as a child
With childlike faith. As in being receptive to all of it. Not as in being a literal child.

Why would you believe something that requires so much mental gymnastics?

How is that not obvious?

God is in your heart. When you consider God as the source, and you see all things come from God, all substances matter and energy are eternally linked because they stem from the same source.

Because the Law holds them blameless.

Then substitute "accuracy".

>It's a pity Joshua did not follow God's instructions

God's servants can deviate from his plans?

Only the good die young.

Why? Aren't all humans born wicked?

David's child died, and David stopped mourning. When asked why, David said there's nothing he can do to bring his son back, but he will go to his son when he dies. In heaven.

Paul was blameless as a child, as was everyone. Then everyone hits their own age of accountability, and a decision must be made. For Jesus, or Against Jesus.

Jesus gathered literal children to Himself and said "of such is the Kingdom of Heaven".

You're free to think God does not know what He's talking about, just as you're free to be a fool and pass up His plan of salvation.

Yes, but not without consequences. The only person to walk in God's will perfectly was Jesus. With everyone else, there were consequences.

It's a pity Titus and his legions weren't more thorough, for if he was, there would be no Zionism and no Communism today.

It was God's plan for them to deviate from His plan, obviously.

What makes children blameless when all humans are born in sin?

You can't logically disobey an omnipotent and omniscient God. That doesn't make any sense.

And you'd have to do the same to declare that there is one.....

Your argument is weak.

All humans are born dead, not wicked. We're all born with a fallen nature, a nature lacking the presence of the Holy Spirit of God.

I'm having a difficult time believing people think God will throw innocent children into hellfire. I guess that just comes from not knowing God at all.

He's not dishonest, but when he gets into areas he has no expertise in (like physics), he often doesn't know what he's talking about.

>Only a true scotsman.

The existence of the Jews is proof of God; I know Jews think they have something to do with their continued existence, but it's God preserving them so that He can keep His promises to Abraham.

So no, no Titus, no Hitler, no Haman could ever have killed all the Jews.

All humans are born spiritually dead, and have a fallen sin nature.

The Law does not hold people accountable before they are accountable.

But He's ok with innocent children being slaughtered in the Bible?

You have to grasp that God gave us the sovereignty over ourselves to do just that, in order to make us true free will moral agents.

God is not a slave to His own attributes; that He can do everything does not mean that He has to do everything.

come on you could dismiss anything in any scientific discipline by repeating that epistemological fundamentalist slogan " you cant know nuffin"

God revealed Himself.

It's not a matter of debate anymore, but of belief.

No caterpillar used to be a butterfly.

Free will is not in the Bible.

Define "okay".

Because this is the being Who made an eternally burning Lake of Fire.

You can't have free will when you're punished for exercising it eternally....

Not to mention that violates Omnipotence and Omniscience

Yes, and Socrates did.

The Jews of today have no more resemblance to the ancient Hebrews than modern Germans do to the people the Romans fought.

God says "choose".

>If you don't want to murder children you are evil

Toppest of lels.

"It's a pity Joshua did not follow God's instructions, for if he did, there would be no ISIS, no PLO, no Hamas, and no Hezbollah today."

If God had not been a psychopath or completely indifferent, we wouldn't have any suffering whatsoever today.

>I know you're an evil person, but even in your evil thinking killing the men and women and leaving the children to slowly starve is not a kindness.

Here's an incredible idea: God clicks his fingers and none of the atrocities committed by these cities ever happens. God shows up, tells them who he is, rather than the luck of a screaming prophet who or may not be believed, or maybe he just gives out a lot of food and supplies to Israelites to ensure they can successfully accommodate these children if for some bizarre reason they absolutely positively have to have a universe where these atrocities were committed and people had to be punished. Christians always seem to forget that God is God, and there is literally no such thing as a dilemma, given his sovereignty over everything.

When I was 12, I was suffering loneliness and depression. Despite being Catholic, I found a few videos online by evangelical Protestants espousing Creationism, and Biblical Fundamentalism. I became a fundamentalist, and shoved away all ideology that disagreed with the Bible. I rationalised the suffering of the world with "You wouldn't hold the mayor responsible for every crime in the city?" Eventually, I cooled, but when my Depression ached again, I went back to it. This time however, I had been exposed to Christian Universalists, whose condemnation of eternal damnation was so strong that I couldn't ignore it. I was so confused that I couldn't square how God would allow his church to believe that about him, if the Universalists were right, or that God could be so evil, if they weren't. Finally, I broke, read atheist material, and here I am.

But what is an answer to this?

Caterpillars ARE butterflies. Or Moths.

You can have free will to choose from among your available options; you do not have free will to escape the consequences of your choices.

They're still pretty well inbred.

You can blame God for the evil that men and demons created; I'm not so foolish.

"accuracy" does not mean rocksolid 100% everytime what would be a better translation of your argument

Demons can't create shit.

Why can't he be blamed when he, despite being omnipotent, allowed them to create that evil?

>Finally, I broke, read atheist material, and here I am.

Thanks for proving me right, I guess. I'd rather had you break and appeal to the Lord directly, so that you could become one of His, and know the peace that passes all understanding.

Kek

Then making people accountable by spreading the faith is literally the worst thing you can possibly do to them. Better if Jesus had died anonymously in the desert than to spread his filthy idea of inherent sickness and eternal punishment for finite crimes.

Not so much, no. If you eat a caterpillar, you have not eaten a butterfly.

Caterpillars die and are transformed into butterflies.

Human beings die and are transformed into new creations in Christ Jesus.

Both are permanent transformations, not philosophies or belief systems.

>Caterpillars die and are transformed into butterflies.

I don't think that's how it works.

They can create lies, and do. They can create evil, and do. They can create havoc, and do. They can create death, and do.

So would this be true? Are we really in this unclean horror scenario? Normally if it is, it gets a special treatment.

Are you to blame for the acts of others that you could have prevented?

>Caterpillars die and are transformed into butterflies.

I prayed every night for a year. I pleaded with God to let me know what was going on. I sincerely believed in him, and I didn't want a universe where he didn't exist. I lambasted others for not believing in him. I controlled my thoughts as best I could. And yet, in all that time, I never felt any connection to anything. I never felt divine knowledge or wisdom, or caring.

I didn't break and say "that's it! No God! I simply broke my aversion to reading atheist material. Once I did, I realised just how much stuff I didn't even know about (the massive historical errors of the NT, the flaws in Biblical science being even worse than I thought, the moral implications I hadn't considered.)

God made those demons. He had full knowledge of what they would do,and he made them anyway. He is equally as culpable as those demons, and if those demons do evil in their nature, he is the only one who is responsible.

Yeah, great plan. Have people born dead, stay dead, and suffer the second death, which is eternal torment in a lake of fire.

Don't tell them that Jesus paid for a way out for them; let them burn.

That's a great plan you have there, user.

If I could stop a horrible act without any danger, cost, or even slight inconvenience to myself and chose not to, I'd say I hold some blame in that situation.

It is, actually.

He didn't have to create the lake of fire in the first place. He could have just fixed everything with a thought.

Not the guy you're replying to, but I was a Christian for years and years, studied apologetics, prayed nightly, read the Bible, and studied Christianity deeply.

I cannot justify it no matter how hard I try.

This is like 8th grade science level info. Are you old enough to post on Veeky Forums?

Any links to good debates?

But it isn't compelling enough to get someone to obey you unless you threaten them with eternal agony and punishment

I'm not even a Christian but I can justify it pretty easy. If Yahweh isn't omnipotent, then yeah, he's just a murdering psychopath (though to be fair by the standards of the Bronze age killing children isn't really beyond the pale), but if he is, then he by definition has the power to define good and evil. Therefore, if he wants to define killing children as good, it's good.

Well, I'm sorry nobody told you how to get in touch with God.

1. Confess with your tongue that Jesus is Lord; and

2. Believe in your heart God raised Him from the dead.

So, now you know. You can read about it in Romans 10:9-11.

Don't think you can do it, or assume you did it; actually do it.

It's the actually doing it part that matters.

You need to step your trolling game up son.

Let's say that you spend your life on death row and are executed for that person's crime.

Would that be taking responsibility?

That's not how reality works. In reality, when you create eternal angelic beings, and need to confine 1/3 of them, you need a Lake of Fire.

It doesn't need to be justified.

Jesus really is God.
God really did raise Jesus from the dead.

That's Christianity.

No, I don't. You need to google "do caterpillars die when they turn into butterflies" and read for like 20 seconds.

Yeah except I don't get to come back after three days and resume my post as all-powerful lord of creation.

I never understood Jesus sacrifice. Logically, if he's going to take people's punishment for them, shouldn't he have to burn in hell for all eternity?

And we're not talking about Jesus' sacrifice anyway, we're talking about God allowing evil to exist in the first place.

Those two claims require proof. Visions are not proof. Faith is not proof.

Gods cannot be proven nor disproven. If I had proof, I would return to the faith in a second. God has the power to provide proof, so what's with the cryptic nature. Why isn't proof available?

Well, that's because you're not God, right?

See, Jesus could lay down His life and pick it back up again because He's God. That's the difference between you and Him.

Another difference is that He actually did pay the penalty for your crimes against God, suffered the wrath of God, and died for them so you wouldn't have to.

Another difference between you and God is that God gets to define what is real and what is not, and having a universe full of free will moral agents sovereign over their own choices, with love as the ideal, cannot happen if evil is not a possible outcome.

They're not claims. They're the way things are. And faith is the human ability to believe without seeing; and Jesus said blessed are they who believe without seeing.

How fucking stupid do you think I am? I read that shit for years, from every Evangelical site I could find. I did it endlessly. I never stopped. I really did confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, and I offered my life to him. I thought he was the greatest being in all history. I prayed to reject all thoughts that contradicted this. I don't care what you think I believed; I believed it. I read the entirety of the NT in the ride to school over the course of the year with my Gideon Bible.

I didn't leave because of selfishness; I left because the thought of my family that had died being mercilessly tortured for being Catholic, a favourite trope of the Evangelicals I read, was so indescribably painful. If the most loving being in the universe could apparently be in charge of this, then I was more loving than him. In that realisation, I knew I could never believe the fully Gospel again, but I accepted it for years.

Do it now.

Say out loud that Jesus is Lord, believing in your heart God raised Him from the dead.

>Another difference is that He actually did pay the penalty for your crimes against God, suffered the wrath of God, and died for them so you wouldn't have to.

If the penalty for my crimes is eternal torment, and Jesus wasn't subject to eternal torment, then he did not pay the penalty for my crimes, by definition.

>Another difference between you and God is that God gets to define what is real and what is not, and having a universe full of free will moral agents sovereign over their own choices, with love as the ideal, cannot happen if evil is not a possible outcome.

First of all, free will isn't even in the Bible. And in God's omnipotence, he could have somehow found a way to preserve free will without the consequence of evil.

>I prayed every night for a year. I pleaded with God to let me know what was going on. I sincerely believed in him, and I didn't want a universe where he didn't exist. I lambasted others for not believing in him. I controlled my thoughts as best I could. And yet, in all that time, I never felt any connection to anything. I never felt divine knowledge or wisdom, or caring.

This is not the way to this connection. And it is. There is no official statement by churches how to act, which will lead to typical divine knowledge. there absolutely IS this space to say you did the above but didn't. Double cross this sort of matters and book your place in hell.

How do you make yourself believe something?

>They're the way things are
You haven't backed up your claim yet.

That's like saying the Bible is proof of God, and proof the Bible's truthfulness is found in the Bible.

>there absolutely IS this space to say you did the above but didn't.
I mean look at questionable churches and mistakes of other ones.

I can't believe something on command when all the evidence says it's untrue, but when I didn't have the evidence that contradicted it, and I sincerely believed every word, it did absolutely nothing to remove that fear for my family.

No, it was death. The eternal torment is the consequences of being born dead, staying dead, and suffering the second death (due to your unbelief).

In this unique case, it requires God's assistance.

The Holy Spirit is near any person who wants to say that Jesus is Lord out loud, and the Holy Spirit is near a person's heart to believe that God raised Him from the dead.

Without the Holy Spirit's assistance, nobody could be saved.

>Those Jack Chick comics where the Vatican had a computer base in the basement detailing every Protestant in the world so they could kill them when they took over.

You're mistaking my claims for me telling you what God revealed to mankind.

They're not my claims.

They predate me by millennia. I have just benefited from knowing them, and recommend them to everybody.

Friend, if you did not say it earlier, and cannot say it now, you were never saved.

You are dancing on the edge of the supernatural.

To me, as a saved person with the Holy Spirit living in me, to declare out loud that Jesus is Lord knowing in my heart God raised Him from the dead is trivial. But it required God's assistance to get me here.