The argument which you continue to use is that I am unable to provide you with any factual information that the Bible is true. Then let me reverse your argument as if you say you have an open mind then prove to me that what the Bible teaches is false as you would be unable to do so. You take only a piece of the Bible here and a piece their and distort it to what you believe it to be say as many times in the Bible it is not speaking in the literal since but figuratively and not the whole book so you mock the Bible as if you would take the time to try to disprove it’s prophesies you would be unable to or the argument that you use is because man did what was promised in the Bible it is untrue and not worthy of mentioning.

Their is one major difference between the Bible and the Koran the Koran was written by ONE man who died and he wrote his personal beliefs as I don’t profess to be an expert on the Koran. The Koran is not a prophetic book but the belief of what a man thought God was saying to him. The Bible was written by many Godly men who were instructed by God what to write which included the prophets as well as his disciples who witnessed his life during his three years of ministry.

You are speaking on purely legal terms whereas my argument is of the spirit as it is impossible to convince as when I mentioned you were in the minority and lonely it was in the figurative since. Sure there always will people of like minds for people to associate with. When you mention Christian nation you are purely talking legally as not all people believe that Christ died for them just as Hitler or Stalin never did!.

Why would I want to take your little pearl that is worthless from your open hand when I will have a house of pure gold that will last forever in eternity? You can try with all your might to discredit Christ however like Hitler, Stalin, Nero, former communist leaders, present day Chinese leaders all have failed. The reason for there failure is something which you will never be able to comprehend as Christ through the Holy Spirit gives a person a sense of peace and joy which is indescribable. This my dear friend is something you can mock all you wish as if you look at history many have done so. Communist countries leaders did not believe in God and tried to stamp out peoples belief in God. The same with China however according to this article http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/01/20/christianity-china
There are well over 100 million Christians in China alone which kind of beats your 25 to 35 % of Australia as your nation is 24 million so roughly 4 million don’t think God exists. If you take it a step further and take the whole worlds billions of people your 4 million is in the minority.

You can be as intellectual as you wish to be as when God created me he did so with the ability to accept him and sense his spirit after I accepted him the more critical, angry, irate you get the more I sense his love and Holy Spirit which is why I continue to answer your hateful messages. The greater the storm within my life the more I sense the Holy Spirit and Gods presence. God created people as yourself who have hardened their hearts to create strife so others will draw closer to him like the clam the more people try to destroy Christians the more it grows. This is what gives you peace because life can appear to be pretty easy when you believe in nothing but oneself. YOU can yell,scream, hurl insults all you wish as in the scripture it says that all human beings will bow before him which includes me as well as you. What you will never ever be able to comprehend is the trinity and mostly the Holy Spirit as how can you tell someone who senses God’s Holy Spirit through Christ that he is wrong? YOU Can’t. The only argument that you have is that it is magic ok call it that if you wish as it does not offend me. I know from my own personal experience and the experience of others that the Holy Spirit exists. If you want factual proof seek it out yourself because for me personally and the millions of Christians around the world know he exists which is enough for me. I am unable to interpret the Holy Spirit for you as until a person believes in Christ they only see one part of the scriptures and interpret as per their way of thinking.

YOU have every right to not believe in God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit as that is what free will is so then don’t believe in God. The right which you don’t have is to mock someones belief as Christian bashing is becoming a popular sport in the media as people like myself who believe in Christ respect your views however many atheists try through legal means and brow beating to remove God from the public. That is wrong. God Bless,

You say I’m in the minority being an atheist and I must be lonely. Being in the minority doesn’t make me wrong. (Christianity was in the minority for a long time but it seems to have caught on a bit. So I can always hope that Freethinking and common sense will catch on too). As for being lonely, I simply don’t know anyone who believes in a Magical Sky God, so no, I’m not lonely so don’t feel bad for me.
Happily I live in Australia. Our current Prime Minister is an atheist.
According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_Australia) something like 25 – 30 % of Australians consider themselves atheist and the number rises every year. Here are some quotes from the article:

In a 2008 global Gallup poll, nearly 70% of Australians stated religion as having no importance,[19] much higher than their American counterparts, and on par with similarly secular countries such as Japan, the Netherlands, Finland, and France. Only a few Scandinavian countries (Norway, Sweden, Denmark) and post-Soviet states (Estonia) are markedly less religious.
The Sydney Morning Herald, an Australian newspaper, asked its readers “Would the world be better off without religion?”. 81% responded in the affirmative.[20][dead link]
A 2006 study by Monash University, the Australian Catholic University and the Christian Research Association found that 52 per cent of Australians born between 1976 and 1990 have no belief in a God.[21
So no, I’m not lonely.

You say my intellect prevents me from having faith. I agree, just as my intellect prevents me believing 2 and 2 makes 5.

To continue your analogy, I am not a dog trying to pry open a clam. I am the man with the open clam, trying to offer you the oyster inside. You just don’t want to see it.

You have offered no “factual information” that proves the bible correct.

All the best.
.

You say I’m in the minority being an atheist and I must be lonely. Being in the minority doesn’t make me wrong. (Christianity was in the minority for a long time but it seems to have caught on a bit. So I can always hope that Freethinking and common sense will catch on too). As for being lonely, I simply don’t know anyone who believes in a Magical Sky God, so no, I’m not lonely, so don’t feel bad for me.
Happily I live in Australia. Our current Prime Minister is an atheist.
According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_Australia) something like 25 – 30 % of Australians consider themselves atheist and the number rises every year. Here are some quotes from the article:

In a 2008 global Gallup poll, nearly 70% of Australians stated religion as having no importance,[19] much higher than their American counterparts, and on par with similarly secular countries such as Japan, the Netherlands, Finland, and France. Only a few Scandinavian countries (Norway, Sweden, Denmark) and post-Soviet states (Estonia) are markedly less religious.
The Sydney Morning Herald, an Australian newspaper, asked its readers “Would the world be better off without religion?”. 81% responded in the affirmative.[20]
A 2006 study by Monash University, the Australian Catholic University and the Christian Research Association found that 52 per cent of Australians born between 1976 and 1990 have no belief in a God.[21
So no, I’m not lonely.

You say my intellect prevents me from having faith. I agree, just as my intellect prevents me believing 2 and 2 makes 5.

To continue your analogy, I am not a dog trying to pry open a clam. I am the man with the open clam, trying to offer you the oyster inside. You just don’t want to see it.

You have offered no “factual information” that proves the bible correct.

All the best.
.

Their is one fairly significant difference between your belief & mine when it comes to religion. All other religions were created and designed by man as a blue print to follow their teachings of what they believed to be true for them to have eternal life. You mentioned Muslims as some believe that committing suicide and taking others with them is a method to receive glory however this method was designed by man as to what his interpenetration is. If I am not mistaken the Koran was written by one man who was the prophet Mohammad and he wrote his interpretation of what man needs to do as a guide and I fairly certain some of the Koran is misinterpreted. However I do find that a certain percentage of their faith are radical as these are the Muslims that are violent and their numbers are increasing. How many Christians do you hear of that do terrorists acts to destroy life as you do have the odd nut case who kills abortion doctors and you would think the World would come to an end from the media attention. However the Muslim at one of the army basis that murdered people in the name of his religion lost his way! The Koran was written by one person and same with the Buddist religion it was written by man for man to decide how to become pure.

You have the audacity to state that the Bible is “gullibility, a willingness to suspend reason, a complete lack of critical thinking.The only confusing thing about the bible is that any modern, educated, intelligent person could possibly take it seriously.” It must be fairly lonely for you to stand on an island trying to preach your belief that God does not exist when the very book you are critical of proves that he does from the many promises have been delivered.

The Bible was written by hundreds of authors over thousands of years as their are over 2500 prophesies which of well over 2000 have been fulfilled as I only mentioned a few. The very nature of Christianity is peaceful as if you would state this about the Koran your life would be very much in danger. This may be news to you but you are in the minority of the belief that God does not exist and are to blind to see the truth.

I quoted a number of verses in the Bible of the miracles that took place when Christ was alive and the religious leaders of its time like you scoffed at these however if you do notice the harder a religious leader scoffs at Christianity the greater the growth. You are mistaken their have been countless people who have been Christians who have been clinically dead that have been brought back to life. The few that do tell others about there experience are often mocked as what they seen was just a dream. Their have been many documented death experiences of Christians who have died and lived again. Muslims who try to take others lives and fail often are critically injured for life or if they completely fail will spend the remaining of their lives in prison if the event occurs in North America. Like the raising of the dead that Christ did in the Bible their will always be Pharisees like yourself who try to discredit God.

You have the right to believe that their is no God but you will never have the ability or strength to convince me that God does not exist for the simple reason that you don’t know him. The idea which you fail to understand is that concept of the trinity which is the Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. You can be as critical as you wish and as demeaning as you must and be intellectual superior as if your intellect prevents you from having faith to believe then that is your right but like the religious leaders of Jesus day they were successful in crucifying Christ as was foretold in the scriptures but they were unable to stamp out their belief in Christ. Your methods and means to discredit the Bible is nothing new as they were the same methods that the religious leaders of the day used to try to stamp out their beliefs. You will discover that the harder you attempt to discredit the Bible for weak minded feeble minded crippled people the more peoples belief will only become stronger. Like a dog trying to open a clam shell the harder it tries the tighter the shell becomes. You can belittle people who believe in God all you wish but like the person who throws water on a grease fire the fire only gets greater as your desperation of discrediting God is having the exact opposite effect as many non Christians and Christians read my posts and as a result due to the factual information that I provide within the posts it proves that the Bible is correct as it is only a select minority which you belong to that don’t believe God exists. God Bless

I didn’t say this “doesn’t count because Hitler was evil.”
I said this doesn’t count because it was brought about by men. God was not involved.
You said that Hitler was created by your god to do all the evil things that he did. I simply expressed my surprise that any compassionate human being could want to have anything to do with such a god.

You say:
“…for you reading the Bible is confusing for the simple reason that you don’t have the most important tool for you to interpret the Bible which is …”gullibility, a willingness to suspend reason, a complete lack of critical thinking.

The only confusing thing about the bible is that any modern, educated, intelligent person could possibly take it seriously.

Throughout history people have created after life stories to assuage their fear of death. Since mankind evolved the high level of consciousness that we have, we’ve invented stories about living forever after we die. Unfortunately no one has ever come back to say that there is an afterlife. Wanting it to be true, believing it to be true doesn’t make it true. Believing in an afterlife may make death an easier thing to take, but it still doesn’t make it true.

Muslim terrorists believe in their scriptures so much, they’re willing to die and kill to receive their reward. Can you imagine the strength of faith that would allow someone to strap a bomb to their body and blow themselves and a crowd of innocent people to smithereens? Their faith in their holy scriptures is so strong and yet you don’t believe their scriptures. Are you blind? Or just sensible enough to realise that it isn’t true?

Many Buddhists have the easiest of deaths. After years of meditation and the teachings of the Buddha that they will pass on to a new life, death is just a simple door, nothing to be feared. Yet you don’t believe in reincarnation. Are you blind or just sensible?

Until you can open your eyes to the fact that your religious beliefs are no different to all the other beliefs, then you will truly remain blind.

Yes, when I die, that’s it. Sad but true. And the same is true for you.
You have one life to live. Don’t waste it hoping for a better one when you die.

All the best,
Richard

The difference between you and I is I believe that I will live forever and your belief is that your time on earth is finite my time is infinite. I believe that after I die my spirit will enter the kingdom of heaven. Your belief is that you are born you live perhaps 85 years and if your lucky maybe till your 90 years old. You die and you believe that you will no longer exist.

Your belief is such that IF God exists then he would not allow evil to occur in the world and we would have no evil people in the World. Like the Pharisees in the New Testament Christ did many miracles that they saw such as raising of the dead. Healing the blind, crippled, feeding people, and even after all these proofs they did not believe in him. In that aspect you are similar as their are many promises that were fulfilled in the Bible. The one that I did mention of creating of Israel and that Gods chosen people the Jews will never be wiped off the face of the earth don’t count because Hitler was evil! That God would allow children, gypsies,Christians, and many others to die is beyond comprehension for you. The bible promises that he will return and the time of his return will happen on his choosing. I am unable to open your eyes as your blind like the Pharisees who would have seen Lazereth buried and wrapped in burial clothes and when Christ raised him from the dead like you they made excuses and refused to believe.

Through out history Christ has used people to do his will to fulfill prophecy to prove to people that the Bible is truth. The very thing you continually whine about that the world is evil so their is no God as God would NEVER allow evil if he was God. The concept that you are unable to phantom is that the world was pure however it was as a result of sin that people are evil and evil is getting worse. The Old Covenant such as many of the verses you quote regarding slaves and such no longer exist as this law was abolished when Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead.

The Kingdom that Christ was referring to was the destruction of the Jewish nation and religion as stated in the article below:

Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible:

“There be some – which shall not taste of death – This verse seems to confirm the above explanation, as our Lord evidently speaks of the establishment of the Christian Church after the day of pentecost, and its final triumph after the destruction of the Jewish polity; as if he had said, “Some of you, my disciples, shall continue to live until these things take place.” The destruction of Jerusalem, and the Jewish economy, which our Lord here predicts, took place about forty-three years after this: and some of the persons now with him doubtless survived that period, and witnessed the extension of the Messiah’s kingdom; and our Lord told them these things before, that when they came to pass they might be confirmed in the faith, and expect an exact fulfillment of all the other promises and prophecies which concerned the extension and support of the kingdom of Christ.

To his kingdom, or in his kingdom. Instead of ????????, kingdom, four MSS., later Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, Saxon, and one copy of the Itala, with several of the primitive fathers, read ????, glory: and to this is added, ??? ?????? ?????, of his Father, by three MSS. and the versions mentioned before. This makes the passage a little more conformable to the passage already quoted from Daniel; and it must appear, very clearly, that the whole passage speaks not of a future judgment, but of the destruction of the Jewish polity, and the glorious spread of Christianity in the earth, by the preaching of Christ crucified by the apostles and their immediate successors in the Christian Church.”

You will never be able to understand scripture in the true meanings as you are reading in in the literal interpenetration so for you it is contradicting. When a Christian allows the Holy Spirit to run there lives then he will reveal many truths and interpretations of the Bible when I read. You can continue to not believe which is your choice as I am sure for you reading the Bible is confusing for the simple reason that you don’t have the most important tool for you to interpret the Bible which is the Holy Spirit. Some of the Bible is not meant to interpreted literately but figuratively. I am unable to explain something that you do not believe in however my own personal experience is that I know without a shadow of a doubt that God exists. For me God is the Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Many Christians accept Christ believe in Jesus however they don’t truly live a spirit filled life for various reasons. When a person finally does allow the Holy Spirit to completely fill their lives then the fear of death subsides as your living in another level that few people will ever understand. Which is why many Christians in Hitlers day, Nero’s time willing went to their death so others would see that death has no power which resulted in the growth of Christianity. Like I mentioned when a person believes that their shelf life is 85 maybe 90 years and they hear of the evil that ends life it is truly tragic for you. I know my spirit will live forever and when Christ returns I will receive a new body. Your choice is to remain blind.

God Bless

So, you are actually saying that God created Hitler so that the prophecy of Israel could come true?!
Let’s get this straight, I don’t believe in God/s, and it’s unlikely that I ever will. No amount of quoting from the bible is going to change that, as I don’t believe the bible is a reliable text.
But, even if I did suddenly decide to believe (even with the complete lack of evidence) why would I choose the God you describe?

This is what you describe: A God who is so powerless to bring about his own prophecies that he must create a man evil enough to mastermind the killing of millions of innocent men, women and children (not only Jews, but gays, Gypsies, political opponents, good Christians who tried to help those being murdered and anyone else in who got in the way). He does this so that people who don’t believe Jesus is his son can have a special country to live in.

Picture for a moment a little girl. She has been separated from the rest of her family who have either been killed or are working as slaves or are being experimented on without anaesthetic. She is naked with a shaven head. She is being lead in to a room full of other naked, panicking people. Soon she will be gassed to death.
As there is no God, He can’t be either evil or good. But I think a God, who you say not only didn’t prevent the above but actually brought it about for his own selfish purposes, could not be described as good.

You say: “Their is no mention of him suggesting that he will return in their lifetime”
Well, what do you make of:
Matt 16:28 There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.

That’s pretty clearly saying that he’ll be back before they die. I’m sure you’ll have some “out of context” excuse, or “he didn’t really mean that” story. That’s the great thing about the bible, it’s so full of contradictions and open to interpretation. It almost makes it hard to believe, don’t you think?

All the best,
Richard

In reference to Hitler God created him for a purpose and it was as a result of Hitler that we have Israel. Evil people still exist today however you choose not to believe in God for the evil that is occurring as to your way of belief is because God allowed Hitler to exist or evil people to exist God is evil. However Hitlers purpose was to fulfill the prophecy. Even you would have to admit that Israel was created after WW2 because of the Holocaust.

History records the deaths of all 11 of his remaining disciples and not one died a normal death as they all died horrific deaths. The early Christians were fed to the lions as sport to entertain the Romans and Nero being the worst tyrant it was as the result of his persecution that we have the church today as you would think that ending ones life would erase Christianity however it has always had the opposite effect. Even today their are millions of Christians that are being persecuted and often killed. The difference between you and me is that I know that when I die I will spend eternity in heaven with Christ however your belief is that when you die that is all their is. You base that on your misinterpretations of what is in the scripture or outright not believing what the scripture says. Leaving things to chance as the creation of Israel is just thing that happened. If you watch and read the news the Arab nation is preparing to wipe them off the face of the earth and have been trying too since the creation of Israel. This is a pipe dream to believe that the creation of Israel just happened it took some dramatic circumstances that was created by God. If you choose to believe this then like Christ said in the scripture which I have posted below you are blind.

You are sadly mistaken if you believe that that Christ said he will return the same day.
In John 16: 19
19 Jesus realized they wanted to ask him about it, so he said, “Are you asking yourselves what I meant? I said in a little while you won’t see me, but a little while after that you will see me again.” Their is no mention of him suggesting that he will return in their lifetime

Their are many miracles that others seen Christ perform in the Bible and where witnessed by many people as the following miracle:

John 11:

17 When Jesus arrived at Bethany, he was told that Lazarus had already been in his grave for four days. 18 Bethany was only a few miles[d] down the road from Jerusalem, 19 and many of the people had come to console Martha and Mary in their loss. 20 When Martha got word that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him. But Mary stayed in the house. 21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask.”

23 Jesus told her, “Your brother will rise again.”

24 “Yes,” Martha said, “he will rise when everyone else rises, at the last day.”

25 Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life.[e] Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. 26 Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha?”

27 “Yes, Lord,” she told him. “I have always believed you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who has come into the world from God.” 28 Then she returned to Mary. She called Mary aside from the mourners and told her, “The Teacher is here and wants to see you.” 29 So Mary immediately went to him.

30 Jesus had stayed outside the village, at the place where Martha met him. 31 When the people who were at the house consoling Mary saw her leave so hastily, they assumed she was going to Lazarus’s grave to weep. So they followed her there. 32 When Mary arrived and saw Jesus, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

33 When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him,[f] and he was deeply troubled. 34 “Where have you put him?” he asked them.

They told him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Then Jesus wept. 36 The people who were standing nearby said, “See how much he loved him!” 37 But some said, “This man healed a blind man. Couldn’t he have kept Lazarus from dying?”

38 Jesus was still angry as he arrived at the tomb, a cave with a stone rolled across its entrance. 39 “Roll the stone aside,” Jesus told them.

But Martha, the dead man’s sister, protested, “Lord, he has been dead for four days. The smell will be terrible.”

40 Jesus responded, “Didn’t I tell you that you would see God’s glory if you believe?” 41 So they rolled the stone aside. Then Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, thank you for hearing me. 42 You always hear me, but I said it out loud for the sake of all these people standing here, so that they will believe you sent me.” 43 Then Jesus shouted, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound in graveclothes, his face wrapped in a headcloth. Jesus told them, “Unwrap him and let him go!”

You would think that raising someone from the dead would cause people to believe however many did not even after all the miracles that he did as is described in John 12:

37 But despite all the miraculous signs Jesus had done, most of the people still did not believe in him. 38 This is exactly what Isaiah the prophet had predicted:

“LORD, who has believed our message?
To whom has the LORD revealed his powerful arm?”[n]

39 But the people couldn’t believe, for as Isaiah also said,

40 “The Lord has blinded their eyes
and hardened their hearts—
so that their eyes cannot see,
and their hearts cannot understand,
and they cannot turn to me
and have me heal them.”[o]

41 Isaiah was referring to Jesus when he said this, because he saw the future and spoke of the Messiah’s glory. 42 Many people did believe in him, however, including some of the Jewish leaders. But they wouldn’t admit it for fear that the Pharisees would expel them from the synagogue. 43 For they loved human praise more than the praise of God.

44 Jesus shouted to the crowds, “If you trust me, you are trusting not only me, but also God who sent me. 45 For when you see me, you are seeing the one who sent me. 46 I have come as a light to shine in this dark world, so that all who put their trust in me will no longer remain in the dark. 47 I will not judge those who hear me but don’t obey me, for I have come to save the world and not to judge it. 48 But all who reject me and my message will be judged on the day of judgment by the truth I have spoken. 49 I don’t speak on my own authority. The Father who sent me has commanded me what to say and how to say it. 50 And I know his commands lead to eternal life; so I say whatever the Father tells me to say.”

Yes we can agree to disagree however like the Pharisees in the Bible even with all the miracles such as feeding the 5000 and raising someone from the dead they still did not believe as their eyes were blind like yours. So you we can disagree yes but one day you will wish you had believed. God Bless