Oh dear.

So we should keep religion, because we get some chart hits and football anthems out of it.

Great plan. I'm convinced. Perhaps we should also keep burning at the stake, I love bonfire night.

Very true.

All diseases?

I wouldn't bother, he's done his usual runner. If and when he comes back it will be with some other meaningless waffling metaphysical bullshhit, the MO is to ignore points he finds too difficult, in the hope they'll go away.

When Adam and Eve sinned (Genesis 3), they brought evil, sickness, disease, and death into the world. Sin has been wreaking havoc on the human race ever since. Consequently, we are all faced with the inevitability of death, and many of us are made to endure years of pain before meeting our maker. Even sadder is the fact that our rebellion was so serious that even some young children and babies do not survive for long in this fallen creation.

Often things happen to us that we simply cannot understand. However, instead of doubting God's goodness, our reaction should be to trust Him. We will never be able to fully understand God and His ways. It is wrong for us to question why God allows something to occur. We simply have to trust that He is loving, good, and merciful – just like Job did – even when the evidence seems to indicate the opposite. Sickness and disease are the result of sin. God provided the “cure” for sin in sending Jesus Christ to die for us (Romans 5:icon_cool.gif. Once we are in heaven, we will be free from sickness, disease, and death. Until that day, we will have to deal with sin, its effects, and its consequences.

Leaving aside the fact that this is just a childish scary-fairy story-

No, they didn't. They were seemingly two brand new model creatures, who had the capacity to do no such thing. Their boss (god) was the only person with the capacity to bring anything into the world.

Second, you breathtakingly assume the perfect reasonableness of condemning untold billions of future people to some of the most grim and most evil things imaginable, because your god's prototype ate a fscking apple. I accept, though find it amazing and pathetic in equal measure, that you do not see any degree of overkill in that.

Third, as you have previously explained, when god created the prototypes, he already knew what they would do, and so what he would do in retaliation, to the billions who had nothing whatsoever to do with the original "offence". So he nevertheless made them that way, and thus by doing so HE deliberately inflicted these things, not they.



and all because humans 1 and 2 ate one lousy apple? And you are a fan of this guy?


Serious? One apple? Are YOU serious?


I wondered how long it would be before the usual vicars' cop-out was trundled out - "It may seem inexplicable to you, my dear, but god works in ways you cannot understand, ergo he must have a good reason for X and Y and Z, because, why, er, because well, he just does."


What is good about what he did to all mankind as a result of some guy biting into an apple? Name one thing.


No, it is the archetypal fair question. What could be wrong about it? And surely, as Captain, at least the Pope should be told, so he could explain it to his team?


No. We really, really don't. We simply have to make a judgment on what such a god must be like, if he existed, based on the evidence of what we see and what we find.


How come? What sin did Gary Barlow's baby commit that caused its sickness and death? or did it die because of the apple? If so, can you explain the procedure for baby apple-related death sentence because clearly most babies aren't picked, and I don't get it.


What rot. As an omnipotent being, why not just wave a finger and correct the original design fault? If this was true, how did and how does it cure any stillborn baby?

So the original design plan was to make humans live for ever with no death option, but also to breed (hence Adam and Eve having two sons who then re-bred with their mother etc etc).

Thats a bit like putting two rabbits in a box and coming back three years later and NOT expecting the box to be full to bursting with rabbits.

Its one dumb master plan.

God gave mankind free will. Adam and Eve chose to ignore the only commandment they were given. They had everything they could ever have wanted, but yet they wanted more - they wanted to be God. Satan tempted them into doing the one thing God had forbidden.

Adam and Eve falling into sin does not mean that God is the author of sin, nor that he tempted Adam and Eve to sin. The fall serves the purpose of God’s sovereign plan for creation and mankind. This must be the case, or else the fall of mankind would never have happened.



Eating an apple from the tree of knowledge was the original sin - we have since learned a plethora of new ways to break the commandments given to us from God. Sin continues to thrive and thus disease and death thrives.



God did not make us "this way". We used our own free will chose to rebel against him. God, being all powerful and all knowing, knew that this would happen, but it is part of his soveriegn plan.



This is where faith comes in.



He gave us his son, so that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3No, it is the archetypal fair question. What could be wrong about it? And surely, as Captain, at least the Pope should be told, so he could explain it to his team?'"

This is mental.

Is it going to happen every fortnight?

Crap plan by god though really, he knew it was all going to go tits up before he even started, but he still did it. Reminds me of the time I decided to go diving down to the bottom of a lake after two bottles of cheap Israeli vodka.

What's this "sovereign plan" business? Don't think I've heard about that before.

Can you explain to me how biting into an apple equals "wanting to be god"? You fail to consider my question, which is what was so bad about eating an apple? It may have been against the rules, but WHAT IS SO BAD ABOUT IT? You don't address the question at all of why all descendants should be condemned to death and to suffer diseases etc for something that was not their doing.


Who created Satan? You also overlook that god [iknew[/i that if Satan was allowed to tempt his creations, they would succumb, yet you weirdly still blame them.


To any rational person reading this fairy story, indeed it does. In any meaningful sense. A reasonable analogy would be giving a kid in a garage full of petrol some matches and some lighters to play with, and telling it not to touch them, then blaming the kid for the explosion.


WTF is "the fall of mankind"? But at least you admit that in the fairy story, it was all planned by god. This makes it weird that you do not blame god when his plans come to fruition, but I understand that logic isn't your strong suit.


No, it mustn't. The fall of mankind [imay[/i have happened because this was the case; or alternatively this might [inot[/i be the case at all, because the whole fairy story is a load of bunkum. The latter is the obvious choice.


If it was, why do you not think that god's infinitely disproportionate over-reaction to it is as utterly absurd as it sounds to us non-believers?


According to your tall tale, he wrote the script, he designed the model, he knew exactly what it would do, so he is 100% responsible. I'm surprised even you can't see that one.


That only counts for brainwashed believers. As god does not exist, there is no such thing to me as "his word". People who do not believe the fairy stories by definition aren't going to accept the fairy story as being evidence of itself, but the question would be why do believers so uncritically swallow every single thing however ludicrous, just because it is in some collection of old texts? Especially given some of the ramblings (Mintball is the expert on them) contained in the same works which even you would surely dismiss as lunatic?

It's like claiming that because the fairy story about Red Riding Hood says there was a talking wolf, this is evidence that there was a talking wolf. Even people convinced that Red Riding Hood is literally a true account, and not a fairy tale, would concede that it is not evidence of its own truthfulness.


This is unacceptable. A new born baby cannot be a "sinner". What sin can it commit?

Why just some babies, why not all of them?

Please try to use logic and reason if you try to answer. Throwing in more random quotes from your particular book is as useless as it is self-fulfilling. This stuff just the [iproposition[/i; it is not, and never can be, [ievidence[/i of its own "truth", for the reason I have set out.

I'm just interested in how mankind could create life (bacteria and viruses) when this is supposedly the sole province of God. Doubt I'll get any kind of sensible answer, mind.

depends who you listen to LRR - according to the Witnesses the ONLY God is called Jehovah - there is no other God according to :


Isaiah 43:10-12

Common English Bible (CEB)

10 You are my witnesses, says the Lord,
my servant, whom I chose,
so that you would know and believe me
and understand that I am the one
Before me no god was formed;
after me there has been no other.
11 I, I am the Lord,
and there is no savior besides me.
12 I announced, I saved, I proclaimed,
not some stranger among you.
You are my witnesses, says the Lord,
and I am God.

Personally, I don't have a clue - I was a believer for nearly 50 years but became an agnostic - I, like most people respect anyones views but don't have to agree with them