Atheists?

[KenWittlief]

Originally Posted by BurningQuestion

"If I were God, I would never EVER let people have to suffer, or die unjustly, or allow the preconditions to exist in the FIRST PLACE to let those things happen!"

Why does he banish people to hell for acting in the way that he created them to act? None of this is fair!

How can God send good people to hell? Again, this does not seem remotely fair to me, especially because God is claimed to be just and forgiving.

-- Jaine

Wow Jaine - you hit on a couple of the most often raised issues of religion

you sorta brushed over the answer to all these questions - freewill, or freedom. As humans our freedom is our most cherished right, and it is also the thing that gets us into the most trouble.

When you have children the hardest thing of all is knowing when to stand in their way, and when to let them go

but at some point you have to let them go completely, or there is something seriously wrong with you as a parent. Imagine if your parents went with you to summer camp? If your parents went with you to your prom? On your honeymoon?

The old adage: if you love something, let it go.... if its comes back to you...

I think there must be some aspect of our character that God cherishes above all the pain and suffering we experience in our lives, and that our personal freedom and freewill to choose is somehow inter-twined with it

if Adam had no way to sin, no way to rebel againts God, then he was not free. If I flip a coin a hundred times and everytime it comes up heads, you can be sure that coin has two heads, it is not free to come up tails.

As for God sending people to hell, it sounds like most of the situations you have listed are things other people have told you, not something God told you. Go back and read the ten commandments. There were specific punishments for people who broke them, and in many cases specific ways people could repent and make offerings to have their crimes forgiven

but none of those punishments say "though shall not kill, or God will send you to hell" - seriously, look it up yourself.

I think part of the problem young people have with understanding religion in our time is that so many people interpret or simply make-up their own version of what it means to be a christain, or how other religions are followed - its a real mess.

A genuine spiritual search takes many years, research and study, compairing many religions and sources of information - its not something that can be left to someone else, not something you can trust to someone else to figure out for you - its a path we all have to explore on our own.