[quzah]

Originally posted by cynthian.
here's where our logics divide from one another: you describe God as creating all these things because he (or HSI) was bored. i have trouble agreeing with that. a engineer/mechanic thinking person didn't create the first computer because he was bored-there was an ultimate purpose behind it. eli whitney didn't invent the cotton gin because he had nothing to do on the farm one day.

Flawed analogy. These items were created out of need. "I need to process more cotton." "I need to play a computer game.:P"

What exactly does an all powerful being NEED?

Ok, scratch need. These items were created out of a desire for efficiencty.

Well, that doesn't work either. How can an all powerful being be inefficient? Efficiency is a measure of work/time. Time has no meaning to something that always was and always will be. Said being created time.

Your analogy doesn't hold up here. Good effort though.

he had a reason. if we, as people-reasonably far lesser beings than a God-create and invent for a purpose, i would have to believe that God had a reason in making the world and all creation.

He declairs his purpose as to bring glory to Himself. How vain! How arrogant! but if He is God and there is NO higher, He has that right. working with clay on a potter's wheel, my clay has never said to me "why are you making me a bowl?!?!?! how dare you!" and after the bowl is fired and glazed and fired again, it doesn't sit in a show window complaining that i, the potter, am getting the compliments for it's beauty. i'm the potter, i'll do what i want with the clay. God compares himself to a potter-hence the example.

Sure he does. But did he give the clay the ability to first have comprehension? No. Clay is not alive. I've heard this parable used before, and it hardly holds water. Forgive the pun.

israeli history says God called this nation apart. you've got abraham way back there being told that God will make him the father of a chosen people-eventually this would become israel.

Well then, I guess you know who to blame for all of the trouble in the middle east huh? No such thing as tollerance here. "We are on the way to the Promise Land(TM). Kill everyone you can along the way, hide from those you can't. (Read the OT if in doubt. They killed everyone they could and ran from the rest.)

world? why only a fraction of the population? here's the pot complaining to the potter again.

Why indeed.

if i believed in God and believed that "right" path to heaven-i'd feel pretty priledged, i'd probably thank God every day for choosing me, i'd read His Bible, worship Him, bring Him glory. and that's His purpose. if i didn't believe in God or in that "right" way-because it's so narrow minded, i'd hate God-maybe i wouldn't voice that opinion but i'd be angry. why only some?

No you wouldn't. You'd have a superiority complex like everyone else like you, and you'd feel it your duity to go up to people and tell them they're fucked. "Hey guess what! You're fucked and I'm not!"

That is my problem with the Christian religion.

such is what i've learned of God's purpose and plan. why is it so offensive to have only one way to heaven?

Because it's evil. Might I ask a question: How did you come to believe this way? Were you raised that way? Say you weren't, because personally I don't care, I do know that a great many people get their belief systems from how they were raised.

That being said, if I tell you your entire life that X is the truth, and then out of the blue one day, some one else comes up to you and says everything you've understood about X is not true, and that you're going to be eternally punnished for believing the way you do, what would you do?

What if your belief in X was that X would be bringing you everlasting happieness? What if most of everyone you've ever come in contact with believed the same way.

See where I'm going with this?

Why in the hell should I give up belief X just because you say so? People always say "Well you're never truely happy if you don't know Christ!"

Yeah? You've never met people at peace with their beliefs I guess. I suppose all of the Hindu who practice their religion and find comfort in it aren't really finding comfort. All of the Buddists, all of every other fragment of every religion or belief out there is wrong, and you just happened to find The Right One(TM).

Well luck you. How about you go spend your afternoons outside a Buddist temple telling them they're all going to suffer eternally then. No? Why not? It's your duity. You shouldn't want people to suffer. Should you?

Well why shouldn't you? I mean seriously, why else would god only pick one set of people and fuck the rest over?

How about hundreds of years of Inca, "American Indian", African, Chinese, and a thousand other varieties of people who for thousands of years didn't "believe the right way". Well they're all fucked too. That's pretty loving isn't it?

is the why is it so hard to accept that one way?

See above. That is why it's so hard to accept that one way. Because I refuse to spend my eternity in the presence of that kind of being. That is blatantly heartless and cruel, and I see it no other way.

If it is the way you say it is, I want only one thing: To not be "awe struck" so bad that I cannot express the above to said being. Because it is blatently cruel and hateful.

One final thought, regarding freedom of choice:

Exodus 9:12
"But the Lord hardened Pharo's heart and he would not listen to Moses an Aaron, just as the Lord had said to Moses."

Quzah.