Prove your god's existence.

Mixcoatl, I believe you are mistaken on God's nature.

God does not control our actions, he merely guides them. Being Omniscient he knows what our choices will be and "prepares" accordingly.

Why does God allow evil to exist? He only permits evil to exist in this world. In the afterlife (the only aspect of life that christians should be concerned with) there is no evil, in fact it's even deeper than that in the afterlife we are all incapable of error, and thus perfectly good.

If God is really omnipotent, he could have given us both free will and incapable of doing evil/believe in him. Of course one could argue that it isn't possible to have both things together, because they exclude each other, but that would mean God is not omnipotent.

Just because God is omnipotent doesn't mean that his creations have to be. The angels have free will and are incapable of doing evil by their very nature. So God has chosen to exercise the ability, however, he chose to create man how we exist for reasons we don't fully know. Because of his omniscience, he created us so that we would be able to survive through our period as beasts. This required us to exhibit traits in society that would lead to evil acts. God knew this would happen and thus gave us a method to redeem ourselves, so that we could be perfectly good, even if we committed evil acts in life.

2.) there are many people who aren't Christian.

What does this have to do with God's omnipotence? There are people who will deny anything, it's human nature to not accept everything at face value. If we did we'd make terrible merchants. However God is all-merciful and understands that he made us a certain way. One of the things that had to be done was to allow his religion to evolve into a united church. Do I believe that all the world will one day be christian. Sure, maybe it won't be called that, but sometime in the future all men will worship the true Godhead.*

*Sorry if that last sentence is a bit schizofrenic I was thinking on how to best respond.

haha I remember that Hellios - History of Animals 

Originally posted by Mixcoatl The Christian god is supposedly omnipotent and omnibenvolent. He is able to do everything, and does nothing but good. I'm saying that his is not possible because: 1.) a lot of bad things happen/humans do evil

The second thing you mentioned, 'humans do evil' - this is exactly what I am trying to say. It is humans -through our very nature- that we 'do evil'. It is humans, not God doing this 'evil'. The first thing, 'a lot of bad things happen' - of course they do. This is caused by the second thing you said, remember, 'Humans do evil'. You probably want me to explain why Natural disasters occur. Many are brought upon humans by themselves, due to are selfishness regarding the environment. Many are just definitions of their very names - natural disasters.

Originally posted by Mixcoatl 2.) there are many people who aren't Christian.

Good, let them be. I have no problem with that, if that is their 'belief' and choice so be it. Their choice is only possible through the free will God has given us.

Originally posted by Mixcoatl Now, if there really exists an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God, he wouldn't have made humans capable of doing evil, and he would made every human believe in him. You try to rebut this by saying God has gave us free will, but that is an imperfect solution.

Why not? What is the point of creating a series of robots to worship you? I mean some 'humans' might get satisfaction out of it, but it's not true devotion and belief in you - the creator. God wanted us to make our own decisions and choices so as not to make us mere robots to him and his glory.

Originally posted by Mixcoatl If God is really omnipotent, he could have given us both free will and incapable of doing evil/believe in him. Of course one could argue that it isn't possible to have both things together, because they exclude each other, but that would mean God is not omnipotent.

If he makes us incapable of doing evil and only able to believe in him, that is not free-will. So he could not 'have given us both free will and uncapability to do evil and belief in Him'. Also, you can do evil and believe in God - sin. Do you think that anyone is without evil? No one is, yet there are still people that believe in a God.

- Knights -

Originally posted by Mixcoatl That's dodging the evidence. Every religion and non-religion can say that: "God does not exist, and that truth is there for those who wish to see it."

Vulkan

Originally posted by JanusRook I don't know I'd say the primary motivation is reproduction, although survival does help with that.

Which is sort of a means to escape death by passing on part of yourself  to a new inborn.

Praetor I believe my previous post is clear enough in expressing my opinion. There is no need to play with the meaning of certain fatalistic terms I used to prove your point so Im not going to answer back except for one.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. A group of Hyenas tearing up the corpse of one of their own deceased  so they can survive may be beautiful to someone but to me is utterly disgusting. Same goes for human cannibalism.

Bulldog said: A biologist may today but won't tomorrow as Science is not a belief and is not fixed.

Still regardless of our accumulation of knowledge life was and will remain the same for a long long time.

Bulldog said: We've always known about the "creating power" and always had faith regarding this matter.

How do you know that?
Even if we did we could have just created this belief ourselves for not being able to come up with the answers to arising questions.

Bulldog said: What I meant for my last two questions was, today we like to take this amazing gift we have for granted, there is this perception that what is "rare" is special and to be admired and awed at. This ideal that only "some" people can have while others "can't". However, the whole purpose of God is equality in that all humans were given this gift, as a result of this in today's understanding of the world commongly this isn't regarded as being anything special.

Originally posted by Praetor As we have established from these definitions (note doctrine), Atheism is actually a religion, or rather the religious belief underlying several religions, such as Buddhism. Consequently, secular and atheism are not interchangeable terms. There is no way to determine concrete right and wrong without a divine being, otherwise it is relative.If man is the highest being, he determines what is right and wrong. Nothing needs to be justified beyond the desire of the individual. Atheism removes this divine objectivity, and consequently endorses any code of morality an individual may adopt. According to atheist doctrine, the holocaust was simply a difference of opinion. You say to call God good, good must exist before God. This is not true if God exists as, and therefore defines, the concept of good.

All right, first of all, you are actually correct on there being a difference between atheist and secularist (which I have pointed out in other threads). I can here argue that there are many theistic secularists here in America that are strong Christians, but they do believe in a government worrying about wordly things rather than the unkown.

However, you are completely wrong on there being no morality in atheism. Sure, there is no moral code in atheism, but that does not at all mean an atheist cannot be moral. Morality is not confined to a belief higher being. Humans have always had some moral code, some concept of right and wrong, dating back before its first religion, animism. Theism acts as if it has some sort of monopoly on morality and moral codes because it has a moral code (which though good at times, can be very scary at times also), but this is just not true. An atheist or an agnostic can believe in what is known as the natural laws, or, to put it simply, to be good to your fellow man. Though there are some immoral atheists and agnostics, the vast majority are moral. Without a higher being, any human being can believe in morality. I one quote sums it up best "A Christian does good because he fears God; an atheist does good for the sake of doing good." If we look at it this way, the atheist in a way is more moral than the Christian, because he or she does moral acts because they are good, not for some perceived reward after death, or safety from eternal damnation. It does not take a belief in a higher being to have morals, rather a belief in right and wrong. The concepts of right and wrong are not confined by religion, however, they are used by religion to advance its agenda that non-believers are immoral. By making its opponents look immoral, it makes itself look as the moral choice, and thus, retains its popularity. Just as what is has done with the very word atheism (which, in its broadest sense, it just not a belief in higher powers, which includes agnostics like myself) and expanded the dogmatic form of atheism (there is no creator because there cannot be a creator) to mean all of atheism. Hence, Christianity looks like the more logical choice. As shown here, religion has taken something that is true (moral codes) and tried to own it exclusively (if you are not religious, you cannot be moral).

Originally posted by Bulldog Vulkan How do you know that? Where there are humans, there is a belief in "God" the creating power, this is shared across humanity.

But your statement still in no way can be used as an evidence for "God". Myths have been made by every culture to try to explain the unknowable, but they in the end explain nothing. To say that these illogical explanations for a higher power prove that higher power exists is nonsense. Any man who thinks he knows that there was "this creator" or "that creator" at the beginning of the earth is fooling himself. Just as many civilizations have in the past. These civilizations did not know anything, they were simply constructing explanations for the beginning of the earth. Many of these are varied. For example, how does the first beginnings of religion, in the animistic and pagan varieties (which almost every primitive culture had), equate proof for the newer monotheistic religions? They clearly show no proof for a completely different belief system.

Which is sort of a means to escape death by passing on part of yourself  to a new inborn.

Reproduction is not a means to escape death. Most if not all animals have only a vague concept of death, and therefore do not fear it. If anything they fear suffering more than death. Anyway as humans have the same instincts as animals, then our biological urge to reproduce should be based on the same thing. We reproduce because reproduction creates more things that reproduce. That might sound illogical but it is what it is. If a creature for some reason has an instinct to not reproduce and not to aid their relatives in reproducing then that instinct is lost because it has no means of multiplying itself. Sorry I went off topic there guys.

Atheism removes this divine objectivity, and consequently endorses any code of morality an individual may adopt. According to atheist doctrine, the holocaust was simply a difference of opinion. You say to call God good, good must exist before God. This is not true if God exists as, and therefore defines, the concept of good.

No that is satanism, Satanism is a belief that you determine your own code of conduct to follow. Atheism meanwhile is the disbelief in a God, but that does not exclude a belief in a system of moral laws. Like satanism the moral code is tuned to the individuals own preferences, however unlike satanism the atheist usually bases their own moral code on that of the prevailing religious culture ironically. For example many atheists and christians can agree that rape, torture and murder are dispicable acts.
Sorry Barbarossa if I just condensed your words, but I do agree with you on most counts.

They clearly show no proof for a completely different belief system.

This is where I disagree with you though, I believe that our "newer" monotheistic religions are merely extensions of the primitive animistic religions. I mean the Christian God, Jesus Christ is the incarnation of the Jewish God Yahweh, who was also worshiped by ancient Levantine peoples as the God El in a pantheon of major deities. Who was probably worshiped as a sky/earth/water spirit by neolithic peoples of the area. Therefore religion is a continuation of the experiences of the supernatural that have existed since the beginning of humanity.

To say that these illogical explanations for a higher power prove that higher power exists is nonsense.

Yet scientists can use the illogical explanation for say the big bang to prove that exists and is not nonsense. The problem is many atheists turn to an unquestioning scientific power to explain their world without question. Which is just as stupid as a christian who unquestioningly uses God to explain the world. Just because something seems illogical doesn't mean it is, and sometimes religions are very logical once you take into account their preset standard.

The human brain has remained the same since human's were created, we don't even use 50% of it yet.

Ugggh.....of course we use 50% of our brain, heck we use 100% of our brain or close to it. If we didn't evolution would've turned that portion of our brain into mush, I mean the brain is an expensive organ to upkeep and what would be the point of having it if we didn't use it. Granted we don't use all of our brain all the time, just like we don't use all of our muscles all the time, or all of our lung capacity all the time, but we do use all of our brain, sorry to go off topic again, I just hate that 10% statement.

"Barbarossa, I'd like to see your proof that religion developed after morality, and could you possibly explain, from an atheist perspective, why we ever developed religion or possessed a sense of morality? It is also hardly appropriate to lump atheism and agnostic beliefs together."