Originally posted by FMF
If there were "a mass propaganda effort" then you will be able to point me to supposed eye-witness testimony about Jesus' resurrection that appears in sources other than those written by people setting up a new religion. The supposed "propaganda" would appear everywhere and in multiple forms. You are claiming there were "five hundred witnesses"; where is their testimony?

Why do you think Christians of the early church would choose to be fed to the lions/crucified rather than renounce their faith?

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
Why do you think Christians of the early church would choose to be fed to the lions/crucified rather than renounce their faith?

I had no idea Christians chose to be fed to the lions crucified.

"Okay Christian, how would you like to be fed to the lions?"
"Hmm, crucified please."

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
Why do you think Christians of the early church would choose to be fed to the lions/crucified rather than renounce their faith?

Because they have been brainwashed by their priests or leaders or parents.

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
Why do you think Christians of the early church would choose to be fed to the lions/crucified rather than renounce their faith?

Because God is greater and of more worth to us than our very lives.

Originally posted by KellyJay
Because God is greater and of more worth to us than our very lives.

Would you say that to the families of the 200 million killed in WW2 and 1?

"Yes, god loved them so much he allowed infants to be shot in the head and adults to be tortured''.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Would you say that to the families of the 200 million killed in WW2 and 1?

"Yes, god loved them so much he allowed infants to be shot in the head and adults to be tortured''.

You say that as if there is some universal standard of right and wrong. Why would it be wrong for God to allow that?

Originally posted by sonhouse
Would you say that to the families of the 200 million killed in WW2 and 1?

"Yes, god loved them so much he allowed infants to be shot in the head and adults to be tortured''.

I'd say that to everyone, this life is short God and what is to come is eternal.

Originally posted by KellyJay
I'd say that to everyone, this life is short God and what is to come is eternal.

So your god doesn't give a rats ass whether people die from torture by the millions or die natural deaths by the millions. Good to know.

Originally posted by sonhouse
So your god doesn't give a rats ass whether people die from torture by the millions or die natural deaths by the millions. Good to know.

Can't see why you would give a rats ass if life has no intrinsic value and is not sacred. So tell me why do you pretend to give a rats ass?

Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
Can't see why you would give a rats ass if life has no intrinsic value and is not sacred. So tell me why do you pretend to give a rats ass?

I don't need a flipping god to tell me life is great and has intrinsic value. That intrinsic valuelessness of life without a god is strictly the religious POV.

I hate to bring you the bad news but there ARE different POV's sloshing around humanity.

It is only YOU and the religious set that persists on insisting only a god gives intrinsic value to life.

I value my life and my loved ones and don't need a god to refer to to get that value.

Love, companionship, empathy and that sort of thing are quite enough for me.

Humans build their own life values and there is no inherent need for a god to do that for us.

Especially since you look at the thousands of religions around the world and they all give different values on life.

So you only THINK you have THE religion or THE god.

That is YOUR burdon, not mine.

Originally posted by sonhouse
I don't need a flipping god to tell me life is great and has intrinsic value. That intrinsic valuelessness of life without a god is strictly the religious POV.

I hate to bring you the bad news but there ARE different POV's sloshing around humanity.

It is only YOU and the religious set that persists on insisting only a god gives intrinsic value to li ...[text shortened]... n life.

So you only THINK you have THE religion or THE god.

That is YOUR burdon, not mine.

You don't have intrinsic value because God says so, it's because God created you in his own image. That's what sets you apart from plants and animals. Why don't you complain about all the millions of plants and animals that are killed daily? From an atheistic point of view, what gives human lives any greater intrinsic value than plant or animal lives, since you all evolved from the same blob of goo? (Or any intrinsic value for that matter)

Originally posted by sonhouse
So your god doesn't give a rats ass whether people die from torture by the millions or die natural deaths by the millions. Good to know.

I never said that, you are the one that assumes such horrible things.
You must have a twisted mind to come up with such statements.
My point was that God is greater than all the good and bad in this life, nothing more.
I never hinted about that at all nothing about others being tortured, that is all you.
From my perspective, your opinion of human life has that as a natural part of the process.

Originally posted by KellyJay
I never said that, you are the one that assumes such horrible things.
You must have a twisted mind to come up with such statements.
My point was that God is greater than all the good and bad in this life, nothing more.
I never hinted about that at all nothing about others being tortured, that is all you.
From my perspective, your opinion of human life has that as a natural part of the process.

There still is a problem there, the fact this loving god of yours allowed 200 million to die and MILLIONS of them through torture and ZERO from your god. It is clear therefore, 2 BILLION could die the exact same way and still ZERO from your god. Or 20 billion, god still zip lip.

That just says to me your god cares less about the deaths and the WAY they died. If there was some kind of compassion gene in your god it would never have allowed that. There would be many ways for such a god to intervene where it looked like accidents or something not attributable directly to a god, which seems to be its MO, keep separate from humans.

Which is why I say the whole concept of a god interacting with humanity is bogus, no such interaction has ever taken place, and people who say so are just eating the wrong mushrooms.

Mind you, that is not the same thing as saying point blank, there is no god.

I just am saying if there is a god, it is strictly hands off.

If we off ourselves, no big deal, it will just jump start some other life form on Earth to eventually become intelligent: spiders, bats, elephants, dolphins, turkeys, whatever. 50 million years down the road, intelligence appears again. New experiment starts. My guess would be a top predator.

Originally posted by sonhouse
There still is a problem there, the fact this loving god of yours allowed 200 million to die and MILLIONS of them through torture and ZERO from your god. It is clear therefore, 2 BILLION could die the exact same way and still ZERO from your god. Or 20 billion, god still zip lip.

That just says to me your god cares less about the deaths and the WAY they ...[text shortened]... n the road, intelligence appears again. New experiment starts. My guess would be a top predator.

You must have a bug up your butt, EVERYONE DIES, each and everyone one of us is
going to die. 200 million is a drop in the bucket, torture is a human on human crime...blame
them not God. This life is temporary, what comes next is forever, those that do torture you
can bet they will all end up in Hell except they repent and turn their lives over to God
through Jesus Christ who died for ALL of our sins.

We are living in a world filled with God's grace at the moment if we were not none of us
would survive the first crime against God and man we commit, which would put an end
to the whole human race since we all sin. God does intervene, it doesn't mean that He
is always going to stop us from doing the evil WE DO TO EACH OTHER. We will stand
before God with no excuse the for things we have done and said, then the great judgment
will follow and those outside of God's forgiveness will be cast out of God's Kingdom
forever. There will be no more lies, torture, or any other thing humans do that causes pain
and suffering.

Originally posted by KellyJay
You must have a bug up your butt, EVERYONE DIES, each and everyone one of us is
going to die. 200 million is a drop in the bucket, torture is a human on human crime...blame
them not God. This life is temporary, what comes next is forever, those that do torture you
can bet they will all end up in Hell except they repent and turn their lives over to God
t ...[text shortened]... ere will be no more lies, torture, or any other thing humans do that causes pain
and suffering.

I am saying your god cares less how many die from torture and murder. The entire human population could die at once and there would still be no peep from your god.

That's ALL I am saying.

But your so-called loving god is not so loving if it can clearly see torture by the millions and it does nothing about it.

It clearly shows this alleged god has a strict hands off policy.

You are worshiping a stay away landlord.

You can't on the one hand claim such and such a person got some special dispensation and got cured of cancer by a miracle and on the other this god ignores literally millions of deaths by torture.

It just goes like that for most of the stories in the bible, like the Noah myth where your loving god killed all the land animals on Earth to spite some bad humans.

A real god would never have spoiled its own work, that being creating the Earth and all life on it in order to kill humans. It would be inefficient when all it would have to do is raise its rhetorical hands and poof, no bad humans.

Then to keep on abusing the land animals by reducing the genetic diversity to practically zero with only one reproducing pair.

Our own studies of genetics proves that whole tale totally wrong but most christians don't think critically about that story or any other in the bible, it is in the bible therefore it is true.

Poster boy for circular reasoning.