Sorry, but God doesn't kill people for not serving Him.  Where are you getting that?

The question is: Why do you believe that a choice between (a) loving your god and (b) eternal torture is a legitimate choice offered by a loving deity?

I don't.  Making up non-existent dilemmas isn't a legitimate argument.

To avoid hell, all you have to do is repent of your sins and accept Jesus as your savior.  If you do this, you're probably going to end up loving God, since it's difficult not to love someone who not only gave you life in the first place, but also given you eternal life on top of that.  Christians find God pretty darned lovable.  But nowhere in the Bible are we commanded to love or worship God in exchange for eternal life, nor does God ever threaten to kill anyone simply for not loving Him.  If you believe He does, show me where.

Indirectly, He did.  In 2 Samuel 12, David comments that he will again be with his son who has died, which only makes sense if his son is in Heaven.  Besides that, it makes no sense for a person to be held accountable for what they can't be held accountable for.

So why doesn't He say it directly?  I'm not sure.  One possibility is that parents might be tempted to kill their young children in order to assure that they go to Heaven, and God is trying to stop this from happening by leaving room for doubt.

Do you believe that a six-year-old who dies "without Christ" will be tortured in hell forever?

No.  I don't believe anyone will.

If you believe that he CAN get to heaven "without Christ," WHY do you believe this? It's not in your Bible.

Because it makes sense, and there is a precedent for this idea in the Bible, though an indirect one.  See Deuteronomy 1:39.  God forbids Israel from entering the promised land because of their unbelief, yet allows the children in since they don't know good from evil.  And Isaiah 7:15 says that there is a time "before the boy will know enough to refuse evil and choose good".

God didn't screw up and then change his mind about anything, but made judgments that He had to make, and judgments you had to make can be regretted, especially if love the one you must make the judgment against.  Also, judgments made can be lifted when the "judgee" turns away from his mistakes.

And speaking of omniscience/omnipotence ... if (a) God wants everything to be righteous and perfect and (b) God is truly omnipotent yet (c) everything is not righteous and perfect, at this very moment, even as we speak ... then there must be some other thing that God wants even more than for everything to be righteous and perfect. Any ideas on what that other thing might be?

It's good that you're thinking further into this than I see most non-believers do.  Most look at this, don't even consider that God might have other desires, and declare that God cannot possibly be omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent at the same time.  You're right that this is not a dilemma if there is something that God wants more than a totally righteous and perfect world.  So what is it that God wants more?

For mankind to have free will, of course.

And still speaking of omnipotence ... are you aware that the Bible itself records an incident when there was something that God COULD NOT DO? ? See Judges 1:19 (Biblegod can't overcome iron chariots).

No, that was Israel that couldn't overcome iron chariots, not God.  You're misreading it.

I honestly don't care one way or the other, but I don't see the need for them in public schools.  I do kind of see the point of putting them in the vicinity of court buildings, since it is law-related, but I do get the feeling that most of those fighting to keep them in court buildings aren't being honest about their motives, so I don't back them up on that.

If so, why? Why do you consider it to be important? Do you understand why people see a conflict between the First Amendment and the practice of displaying the Ten Commandments in tax-supported buildings? What if a second-grader read the Ten Commandments (on the monument in front of his school) and then asked his teacher to explain "adultery" to him? That's certainly a Biblical topic. How would you want your daughter's first-grade teacher to explain the sin of f***ing somebody else's wife?

Do you think there's a big problem in our grade schools these days with kids committing adultery and carving idols during school hours?

Since I didn't say yes, I'll skip this part.

And by the way ... did you know that the Biblically-prescribed punishment for disobedience of each of the first seven commandments is death?

Yes.

Would you support the death penalty for violation of these commandments?

No.

If not, why not?

Because we're not in ancient Israel.

Are you smarter than God?

No.

Would you agree that if we post the Ten Commandments on the courthouse lawn, we should also include a statement that God demands that any violators be killed?

Since I don't care one way or the other about the first issue, I don't care one way or the other about the second, either.

Would that be a good "moral lesson" for your children? Wouldn't you agree that ideological consistency requires that, if we acknowledge the legitimacy and power of the Ten Commandments in our society, we must also make known the punishments that God demands?

You're confusing present tense and past tense again.

And if your answer is "no," why are you proud of one part of the Word of God, but ashamed of another part?

I'm not ashamed of any of it, just of people who confuse past and present.

Suppose there's a county in California where the majority religion is Islam. Would there be anything wrong with them erecting a monument on the courthouse lawn that reads, "There is only one God, and Allah is his name, and Mohammed is his only prophet"?

Yes, since that's not a statement of law, ancient or otherwise.  Don't get me wrong, though, I wouldn't get all up in arms and protest.  Like with the ten commandments issue, I have more important things to worry about.

Of course, they'd set it up in some prominent place, where everybody would have to look at it.

Yeah, since Muslims have mind control powers making it impossible for anyone to look away...

No, and nothing in that commandment says that the things listed are "property".  It's just a list of things which can be coveted.  You're reading the word "property" in when it's not stated or even suggested.  Why is that?

If your answer is "yes," does your wife know about your attitude? Are you aware that many women are deeply offended that your God includes them in a property list along with domesticated animals and servants ("servants" being humans that are owned as slaves, with God's blessing)?

So these women are also seeing the word "property" in there?  What word are they misreading as "property"?

Doesn't this betray God's crummy attitude toward women in general?

No, the fact that men have wives and that their neighbors shouldn't covet them doesn't display a crummy attitude towards women.  But assuming that God is calling them "property", when He's not, displays a crummy attitude towards God.

Some Christians want to display the Ten Commandments in public schools. Do you think it's a good idea for a modern-day third-grader to grow up thinking that one's wife is property?

No, and nothing in the Ten Commandments says they are.  I think even a third-grader would know that, don't you?

And speaking of God's attitude toward women ... did you know that he created Eve as an afterthought? Take a look at Genesis 2:18-22 (which may be one of my all-time favorite Bible passages): God first decides that man (Adam) should not be alone. God decides that Adam needs a "suitable helper." So what God does next is to parade all the animals and birds before Adam, "But for Adam no suitable helper was found." (Genesis 2:20b). THAT'S when God decides to create woman!

One pictures the Infinite Mind of Creation pondering, "Hmmm, let's see ... dog? ... ox? ... whooping crane? ... Latrodectus mactans?? No, no, none of them seems quite right. What Adam needs is something with tits and a nice tight ... hey! All the OTHER creatures are represented by TWO sexes! Give me a minute ... I'm getting an idea here ..."

Speaking of reading things in that aren't there...

No.

The sacrifice consisted of what happened on the cross itself, the suffering and taking sins upon himself.

"Israel" here refers to the body of believers, not to the modern country which didn't exist when this was written.

I'm not sure.  There is definitely room for doubt as to whether Mark wrote it.

Why or why not? When you engage in textual criticism to determine which "doubtful" passages should be included (such as the Pericope Adulterae, John 7:53-8:11), what specific criteria do you use?

It's the most likely ending for the book, and even if Mark didn't write it, it was probably written by followers, and it doesn't contain anything that conflicts with other books.  Unlike most of the Bible, this part is definitely borderline as to whether it should be included.  When considering "doubtful" passages, the history of when and where it was included or not included needs to be considered.

I don't really care.  It's one of those issues that doesn't concern me much.

Are you aware that the original version of the pledge (which had been around for more than a half a century before the McCarthyites, in the 1950's, demanded the insertion of a reference to a deity) did NOT contain the expression "under God" ... that American school children recited The Pledge for more than 50 years without making any reference at all to a deity (and America seemed to get along just fine)?

Yes.

Would you object if the pledge contained the expression "one nation under Allah" or "one nation under Isis?"

Yes, since the vast majority of the country doesn't believe in Allah or Isis.  Though if people who believe in Allah or Isis want to say it that way, that's their business.

Are you aware that America has no "official god?"

Yes.  Countries that are primarily Christian tend to have better freedom of religion than countries that are primarily atheist or primarily of some other faith.

No one's really sure.  It's the only book of the NT where the authorship is really in doubt.  It appears to have been written under Paul's authority, but (as you point out below) it's not really Paul's style of writing.  My guess is that Luke wrote it, or someone else who was close to Paul.  It's even possible that Paul wrote it despite the different writing style, which many scholars argue.

If you believe it was Paul, why do you believe this? Are you aware that the writing style of Hebrews is very different from the style of Paul's other writings?

I don't believe it was Paul, so I'll skip this part.

Yes.

Would it offend you in any way if God abolished hell, thereby letting the unrepentant "bad guys" get away with their sin?

Yes, just as it would offend me if they closed all the prisons and let all the criminals wander the streets and commit crimes without fear of prosecution.  But that doesn't mean I'd become one of them.

Look deep into your heart for just a moment. Honestly now ... doesn't it give you just a bit of a thrill when you imagine a sarcastic Bible-hating bastard like me screaming in pain as I roast in the flames of hell for eons and eons?

Not even a little bit.

About four or five billion years old, and the universe to be about fourteen or fifteen billion years old.

The original-language texts are the most reliable, obviously.  But being unable to read those languages, I usually stick with the King James which I consider the most reliable English translation, though I don't consider it perfect.

Why do you believe this? How much Hebrew and/or Greek do you know?

Shockingly little.

If you can't read even one word of Hebrew or Greek, how can you make any assessment of the accuracy of any Bible translation?

By looking at what the scholars have to say.

And how do you know that all the translators (of all the English translations) haven't been lying to you all along?

Because they'd be called on their lies almost immediately.  It's not just Christians who understand those languages.

Haven't you made a pretty big leap of faith, considering that your eternal future is involved?

No, following common sense isn't a leap of faith.

Unlikely.  For one thing, how do they know what Mary and Jesus look like?  Maybe it's a couple of other Middle-Eastern Jews they're seeing?

Would you agree with me that a lot of people who call themselves Christians are blithering idiots?

Undoubtedly, as are many, many non-Christians.  Christianity doesn't cause it.  A blithering idiot who becomes a Christian just ends up being a blithering Christian idiot, just as a blithering idiot who becomes a Muslim ends up being a blithering Muslim idiot.  Yes, our religion lets anyone join, even blithering idiots.

And can you explain to me how any sane person could believe that the Infinite Creator of the Universe would reveal Himself through an image on a tortilla? And if He did so ... what is He trying to SAY? Please translate into plain English the Message of the Holy Tortilla.

And God said, let there be salsa.  And there was salsa.  And God tasted the salsa, that it was spicy.  And God divided the beans from the guacamole.

Yes, Catholics are saved if they've really received Jesus and been born again.

Same for the rest.

And if your answer is, "Yes, Catholics are saved if they've really received Jesus and been born again," please describe in detail (for the benefit of our Catholic friends) the exact process whereby one receives Jesus and is born again.   And please be very, very specific, because if even one small ingredient is misstated, then a person may needlessly end up in hell. Thank you.

Here ya' go...

1)  Get down on your knees.
If you don't have knees due to, say, having lost your legs in a freak Stairmaster accident (hey, at least you lost the fifty pounds you were hoping to lose!), then have a friend get down on his knees and then you cling to his back so that the two of you look sorta like one person.  No, it won't fool God, but He'll be amused enough that He'll let it slide.  And He might even forgive your friend just for the heck of it!

2)  Put your hands together with your fingers pointed straight up.
Use a level if necessary.

3)  Say that you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior.
IMPORTANT!  You must clarify which Jesus you are referring to, or you might end up accepting some Puerto Rican dude as your Lord and Savior.  Be sure to say "Jesus of Nazareth", "Jesus H. Christ" or "That Jesus guy from the Mel Gibson Movie".  It also is recommended that you picture Jesus' face while doing this.  If you're unsure of what He looks like, just go buy an extra-large bag of potato chips and sort through them.  Chances are very good that one of the chips will bear an uncanny resemblance to Him.

4)  Oh, yeah.  You might want to say all this stuff in Aramaic.
I'm not saying Jesus doesn't know the language that you normally speak, but why take the chance?  Besides, even if Jesus does know your language fluently, He'll find it kinda cool that you're speaking to Him in His own language, and then He'd be more likely to want to be your savior.

5)  Ask Jesus to forgive your sins.
Be sure to list each and every sin you've ever committed in your life.  It's better to do this when you're younger, because your memory is better and you've committed fewer sins, especially if you haven't gone to college yet.  If you think you committed a sin but you can't remember because you were really, really drunk at the time but you know your friends were chuckling about SOMETHING the next day, then as long as you give Jesus the date and approximate time of the sin, He can look it up for you and you should be okay. I think.

6)  Let everyone know that you're a Christian.
A bunch of well-placed bumper-stickers from you local "Family Christian" store should do nicely.  Put them on your car, though, not on your forehead.

7)  Refrain from listening to any music by Def Leppard.
Not because they're satanic or anything, but because their music sucks.  Big time.

But seriously, becoming saved isn't like following a recipe.  Repent of your sins and accept Jesus as your savior.  God will know if you're sincere or not.

Yes.

If not, (a) why not, and (b) what is the scriptural basis [if any] for your answer?

The simple fact that if you're saved, you can't lose your salvation unless you throw it away.  Adding one more sin to the pile isn't going to change that.  However, I will say that suicide, like any sin, should be abhorrent to anyone who is saved.

Yes.  There is no "sin quota" that once you cross it, you can't be saved.  Though the further you go into sin, the harder your heart becomes and the less likely you are to come to repentence.  Hitler's repentence would have involved him actually coming to realize that all of those things he done were WRONG, and can you imagine someone who'd done that much wrong suddenly realizing the gravity of it all?  Assuming it was sincere and not just "uh-oh, I'm about to die so I'd better pretend to be sorry" (which wouldn't fool God for a second), it would actually probably be the most amazing repentence of all time.

Have you noticed that Biblegod has quite a few policies that are offensive to the average person's instinctive sense of morality?

I can see how people who don't credit God with creating the universe, and thus having dominion over it and all life within, think that He doesn't have the right to do many of the things He does.  But if you take God's actions within context, there's nothing immoral about them.

It's a little like when pornographer Larry Flynt commented that if freedom of speech applies to someone like him, then we know it applies to all of us.  The fact that salvation was even available to people like Hitler, just goes to show that salvation is available to all of us.

Considering that Matthew quotes Isaiah before telling us that He was named Jesus, he clearly didn't considered it a problem at the time.  If Matthew knew that Isaiah's prophecy wasn't coming true, he wouldn't have brought it up, would he?  Immanuel was a descriptive name, meaning "God With Us".  And people do still call Him that today (stop by a church and check the hymnals)

How did Peter know who they were? From photographs?

Jesus probably told him, or it was divine revelation.

No, you've claimed it, but you haven't shown anything conclusively, except that you have problems with context and that you look so hard for contradictions and problems that you read things in that aren't there, or ignore surrounding passages, in order to pretend they've happened.

How do you know you're not really worshipping Satan?

Because satan would be killing people for behaving, not for misbehaving.  Satan would never have sent someone like Jesus.

I'm not asking you to hold God accountable, or to judge him (he's opposed to that, of course); I'm just asking you if there is any minimum standard of decency that you'd hold him to.

Of course.  There are plenty of things that God could do that I would consider evil, such as killing people without it being of any benefit to the world, breaking promises, or forcing people to worship Him against their will.

Have you decided in advance to worship God no matter what kind of a violent, twisted, sick son of a bitch he is shown to be in his own book?

No, I worship God because of the goodness that I recognize in the book about Him.

In other words ... the Bible contains instructions on how to avoid the eternal fires of hell. God (1) made the rules, (2) created an imperfect human race that he knew in advance would break his rules, (3) created a horrible place where the rule-breakers would be tortured forever, and then (4) provided us with information (albeit confusing and contradictory) on how to escape the hell that he himself created.

(3) and (4) are incorrect, and the only way to offset (2) would be to not give man free will, and, personally, I prefer the free will.  Considering how much you dislike God, would you like to be forced to worship Him?  Wouldn't you consider God's forcing you to worship Him against your will to be an act of evil?

Wouldn't it have been a hell of a lot simpler if the all-powerful God, by a snapping of his fingers, had just eliminated all of the problems we humans must endure ... instead of giving us this complicated book and just hoping we could figure it out?

It would be simpler if God had made us mindless robots incapable of thinking for ourselves, and thus incapable of disobedience, or not to have made us at all.  Which of those would you prefer?

Biblegod is omniscient; he knows everything. This means that when he created the universe, he saw the suffering that humans would eventually endure (in hell) as a result of their sins.

Again, hell isn't a place of eternal torture.

He actually heard, in advance, the screams of the damned. Surely he knew that it would have been better for those humans never to have been born (in fact, the Bible says this very thing about one particular sinner ... Mark 14:21), and surely an all-compassionate deity would have foregone the creation of a sinful human who was (a) destined to imperfection and therefore (b) predestined to suffer forever. I contend that it is not logical that a perfectly compassionate God would create beings whom he knows are doomed to suffer forever and ever, and that this is the most obvious contradiction in your belief system (and the most shocking, outrageous flaw in God's character). What do you think?

I think that hell is not a place of eternal physical torture, but a place where the punishment, that is the sense of shame, fits the crime and no more.  So, no, I don't believe that someone who isn't going to Heaven should have not existed in the first place.  You will certainly admit that if the Bible is correct, that you're probably not going to Heaven, right?  So would you prefer it if God hadn't made you at all?  That you didn't get the time on Earth that you have?

Not only that, but even supposing the whole purpose of our existence here on Earth is to increase the population of Heaven, and thus someone not going to Heaven is of no direct value to the human race (which I don't believe, by the way - a lot of non-Christians have done great things for the world), non-believers could grow up to give birth to believers, thus not creating that non-believer would lower the population of Heaven.

Also, not creating non-believers is, if you think about it, a violation of free will.  What's the difference between creating us pre-programmed to believe in Him, and only creating those who believe and not those who don't believe?

Did you hear that just now? It's the crying of a newborn baby. The young mother, her hair wet with sweat, cradles him gently, as tears of happiness fill her own eyes. And up in heaven, your God looks down on this tender scene, on this tiny infant, knowing that it will spend countless eons being tortured in hell. How does God feel right now? How do YOU feel about this?

I feel that your claim that he will spend countless eons being tortured in hell is wrong.

The best way to explain this is to take God out of the equation for a minute.  We know the universe began to exist about 14-15 billion years ago.  We also know that time does not exist unless matter exists and is moving, meaning that time (at least time as we know it) could only have been created when the universe was created.  Since nothing can begin to exist without a cause, then some force caused the universe to exist. And since time began to exist when the universe began to exist, this force is outside of time.  Therefore, whatever force created the universe is a timeless force, and a timeless force would almost certainly NOT have a beginning.  So IF it was God who created the universe, then God logically does not have a beginning.  Or if God did not create the universe, then whatever force created the universe does not have a beginning.

When did he have HIS beginning?

He didn't, since God is logically a timeless being.

Who created HIM?

No one.

How can God exist without having a beginning?

Anything can exist without having a beginning, as long as it was something which, unlike the universe, wasn't created.

And if GOD can exist without having a beginning ... why can't the universe itself do that?

It hypothetically could, but we know it didn't.  In fact, secular science believed that the universe had no beginning until about 100 years ago...when they discovered that the universe was about 14-15 billion years old.

She's confusing complexity with design.  They're not the same thing.  Design implies a designer, but complexity does not.  Something can be naturally complex without having been designed.

If the universe (and life) is complex, then the Designer who thought it up must be much MORE complex, right? So who designed God?

Nobody.  While there is evidence that the universe is designed, there is no evidence that God, or whatever force created the universe, is designed - just that it is complex.

The universe shows evidence of both complexity and design, but God only shows evidence of complexity, not design.

They weren't useless.  It was the act of sacrificing, not the blood itself, that took away sins.

Because satan wouldn't have created someone like Jesus and wouldn't be urging us NOT to sin.

Do you believe in the Bible just because you were raised on it, just because "everybody always told me it's the real thing?"

Considering that I wasn't, no.  My mom, who raised me, is an atheist, as was I until I was about twenty.  And I didn't really discover the Bible until I was 27. I've had very few people tell me it's the real thing.

How is this different from a little Muslim child who is 100% sure about the validity of his Koran just because he was raised on it?

Because truth isn't dependent upon belief.  If the Muslim child is right about the Koran and I'm wrong about the Bible, then my own faith doesn't change that.

1 Corinthians 7:2 "Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband."  God considered polygamy to be fornication.

Only bishops ("overseers") are prohibited from having multiple wives (I Timothy 3:2). Do you agree with this? If you and your husband (who isn't a bishop, let's assume) lived in a country where polygamy was legal, do you realize that he could take multiple wives (he'd probably invite you to the weddings, but not the honeymoons), and it wouldn't violate any Biblical commandments?

God never endorsed polygamy.  He allowed it at times as essentially the lesser of two evils, just as he allowed Rahab to lie while protecting the Israelite messengers (or allowed people hiding Jews from the Nazis to lie about what was in their attics).  Lying is a sin, but sometimes it's necessary for the overall good.

I think that, as a wise man once said, "no matter how thin you slice it, it's still baloney".

Without the same historical context that the modern form of Christianity has, it would probably be quite different.

Or, in the alternative, is it perhaps more likely that they'd spot the same contradictions, inconsistencies, and outright horrors that I did, and simply reject the Bible out of hand?

Among some, perhaps.  But I think most of the would be willing to consider the context of what's going on.  And it's true that for some of the apparent "contradictions", you have to go back to the original language to understand the actual wording of the original texts, which, since you stated they only have the NIV, they won't have the ability to do.  But they would realize that these are texts translated from another language, and thus realize that they don't have the full context and give such passages the benefit of the doubt, considering how relatively few there are.

Yes.

Or is it obvious that most people who "surrender to Christ" do so at a time of crisis and emotional turmoil in their lives, and are simply grabbing an emotional life saver?

No.  In fact, of everyone I know who converted to Christianity (myself included), I can't think of even one who did so at a time of crisis and emotional turmoil.  And even among those that do, I wouldn't say that having such an experience is contrary to becoming convinced that it is valid.  It could be that they've become convinced of its validity, but refrained from coming to Christ because they want to have a few more years of sinning, and then finally take that "emotional life saver" when their sins have finally caught up with them, or some other event convinces them that now is the time.

Have you ever noticed that nobody "comes to Christ" on the afternoon before prom night?

I don't see why the afternoon before prom night would be an unlikely time to come to Christ, except to say that it is only one single day in a life out of which most people have tens of thousands.

Nobody "repents" as he's walking into the Pleasure Den whorehouse in Reno after winning $8000 at the roulette wheel

Yeah, I can see why that would be.  When sin temporarily appears to be paying off, I can see why one wouldn't want to repent of their sins at that exact moment.

... it's always after he's landed on death row, and all his appeals have been exhausted (like Carla Faye Tucker ... she COULD have "found Jesus" just before she grabbed the pickaxe. Why didn't she? Guess it would have been just too damn inconvenient). Aren't you a little bit skeptical about the "jailhouse conversions?"

I'm skeptical about the ones that come just before the parole board hearing, to be sure.  But I think that while most people think a fake conversion might fool a parole board, you'd have to be pretty darned stupid to think a fake conversion will fool God, that an omniscient being would be unable to tell the difference.  Yes, I can see why people facing death are tempted to convert since they know their time is very limited.  But I think most of them are actual conversions.

Do you think Jesus is a bit disappointed that he gets so much of the dregs of society ... no Donald Trumps or Bill Gateses?

Dregs of society?  He's had practically every U.S. President.  Okay, maybe that isn't a good example...

And by the way ... why would any sane person believe that the answer to every problem on earth is the torture-murder of an innocent man?

Jesus self-sacrifice on the cross, a voluntary action by the way, doesn't answer "every problem" on Earth, just the one of getting sinners to be forgiven.  So your question really doesn't make much sense.

I once saw a magician put a woman in a basket and drive swords through it, yet the woman came out of the basket unharmed.  What do you think would happen if you tried to replicate this event under controlled conditions?  Same result?  In the Genesis passage, the story tells us at the end that trickery was involved.  Clearly, the sticks did not cause the calves to be born speckled.  If you don't understand why, read it again.