Off Topic Post

I can be friends with people who believe in God.  No problem.  In fact most of my friends, even most of my BEST friends are religious and believe in God. 

This doesn't mean, however, that I don't think that people who claim to believe in hell are lying their asses off.

Also, please note that while I personally don't believe in God, I think it is WAAAAYYYY more reasonable to believe in God than to believe in Hell (although neither seem very reasonable to me PERSONALLY... but even so, the idea of Hell is fucking absurd, and I have serious doubts that anyone who GENUINELY believed in it would be able to calmly wander around and be all chill and stuff.  Nah, they'd be totally tripping balls.)

imo 

See, that's the point. Even though he knows what people's choices are going to be (see my disclaimer above!!!), he still gives us free will. If he didn't, we'd all just be puppets. If you were God, would you rather have people trust you, love you and believe in you because you forced them to or created them to do everything you say when you say it, or because you gave them a choice and they chose to do it? Doesn't it mean that much more when it's a choice?

is it really free will if god know what your going to do before you do it?

first off, do you not understand you basically can be the worst person in the world and say sorry and God lets you in?

 Second do these friends believe in evolution, or do you need to find new friends?

Satan isn't working for God. If you had a kingdom or a realm, wouldn't you want to fill it with as many like-minded people as you could? What's the point in giving Satan a realm if he can't have souls to put there? You have to have subjects to be a true ruler, right? And it's not God's choice (read disclaimer above!) that anyone go to hell. It's the individual's choice where they go.

and if i were god i woulden't create a being that i know would be pure evil and cause nothing but despair and suffering for all of humanity.

and as long as god knew what his choice would be before he made it,  he still created evil.

Never met a gawd-boy (or -girl) that wasn't positive they were going to heaven, believers never think they are going to hells, or they'd be running around in circles for their entire lives thinking, "Oh the fuck no, this really sucks!"

bfactor, i can't wait to you become aware of the fact that there is more to life than a sperm fertilizing an egg, a baby being born, living and then it dying.

i am not sayin there is heaven and hell, or a religious god, but there is more than meets the eye so to speak. 

plus when you become aware of it, i get to be the sole benificiary of your last will and testament, as per our existing wager.  :-)

Oh, yeah, forgot to add that Hitler is in heaven and Gandhi is in hell, great system of rewards and punishments, well played gawd.

You're making an assumption that someone who believes in God is easily influenced. What influenced you to not believe in God? And couldn't I legitimately say that "I have a hard time taking a person serious when he\she doesn't believe in god...i just cant be friends with someone that is so easily influenced..."

I say live and let live. If you don't want to believe, then that is your choice. As rocksolid said, we'll all find out one day, won't we?

In response to tommpat2000:

Yes, my friends, my close friends at least, all believe in evolution (even though most of them are religious and believe in God.)

It doesn't bother me if someone is religious and believes in God.

It doesn't even really bother me if someone believes in Heaven and Hell.  I can be friends with a person who believes in Heaven and Hell (though I secretly think they are LYING about that one (I don't think they are lying about believing in God though, I think they actually believe in God when they say they believe in God))

I cannot however be friends with anyone who doesn't believe in evolution.  I've already very clearly stated my reason for that, and so we don't need to go there again (was the same reason I can't be friends with people that don't believe the earth is round or that the earth orbits the sun, or that 5+5 = 10 etc (it is simply too horrendously ignorant for me to be able to deal with.... sorry... I just can't be okay with the whole not believing in evolution thing, I just can't.  No can do.).

ecugirl93:

Satan isn't working for God. If you had a kingdom or a realm, wouldn't you want to fill it with as many like-minded people as you could? What's the point in giving Satan a realm if he can't have souls to put there? You have to have subjects to be a true ruler, right? And it's not God's choice (read disclaimer above!) that anyone go to hell. It's the individual's choice where they go.

why the fuck would god give satan a realm to tourture souls?????

and god wants heaven filled with like-minded people?  i thought you said he diden't want puppets.

to sum it up,  if god dosen't like you for whatever reason (maybe your bad guy, or you ate meat on a friday in march) god will ship you to hell where a being that he created will tourture you for the end of time.   yep,  that sounds like a truly loving god.

You would have to be a complete fool to 100% believe in Heaven and Hell when you can not know.  There are certian things things you just can never be sure of, and to blindly believe only one thing is just ignant.

That said, I think a lot of people do 98-100% believe in heaven and hell, just think that they wont go to it because of that faith. Kinda catch-22 i guess

Im going to mow the lawn, hard to get away, first interesting day in awhile

I'll concur with you on this... God created his beings with the capacity to do good or do evil. He didn't create evil as much as he allowed it to exist for the sake of free will.  

I wasn't talking about God when I said "filled with like minded people", I was referring to Satan. It's not about God not liking you at all. It's not even about being good or bad. He could honestly care less if you eat meat on Fridays. That's where people get it mixed up. It's not about religion, it's about relationship. Believing, trusting and having a relationship with him. That's really all you have to do. Simple, isn't it? (again, I'm speaking only from the Christian perspective, because that's what I know about)