Sorry I need to understand a couple of things from you, so 20 questions game.. Do you believe in free will? If you do, is free will good or bad? What is good and bad? What is evil? Does it exist? If there was not God, what authority is there to say what is good and what is bad? If we are in essence, star dust, no different than the dirt under or feet or an ant, we are just bags of a substance called meat, is murder and rape wrong? Why? If there is no ultimate meaning in what we are doing, why does any of it matter?
If this is in response to my post, then I would clarify that I have no problem accepting there is a higher power, that some higher power created us and may have influence over us. That's why I'm agnostic, not atheist. What I can't accept is the specifics of Christianity, relative to (eg) Hinduism or Buddhism or Islam. If a baby is born to a devout Hindu family in India, and never hears the Christian gospel (and again - go back 1,000 years if you want to argue that everyone can be reached today), then if that child dies early, then that child did not 'accept Jesus Christ as his savior, and ... according to the 'Christian' God / rules, cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.
Another issue - prayer. Similar concept; let's say there are two people, living today in America. One is popular, attends a church, has many friends in the church. The other is a loner, doesn't really have any friends, but is a Christian. They both get sick. In the case of the first person, all his friends rally round and pray for him (I can't tell you how many times I hear that we all need to pray to make something happen - the more, the merrier). In the case of the second person, no one prays for him as no one even realized he was sick. So for person 1, hundreds of prayers; for person 2, no prayers. The way Christians would have it, the more people who pray for something, the more likely it is that God will do something. This really sounds ridiculous to me - God is onmipresent, all-knowing, all-powerful. So why would God do something different based on whether humans ask him to do something or not? Now consider a similar man in, say, India. Devout Hindu. But does not pray to the Christian God. Does he get less attention from God?
Sorry I need to understand a couple of things from you, so 20 questions game.. Do you believe in free will? If you do, is free will good or bad? What is good and bad? What is evil? Does it exist? If there was not God, what authority is there to say what is good and what is bad? If we are in essence, star dust, no different than the dirt under or feet or an ant, we are just bags of a substance called meat, is murder and rape wrong? Why? If there is no ultimate meaning in what we are doing, why does any of it matter?
If this is in response to my post, then I would clarify that I have no problem accepting there is a higher power, that some higher power created us and may have influence over us. That's why I'm agnostic, not atheist. What I can't accept is the specifics of Christianity, relative to (eg) Hinduism or Buddhism or Islam. If a baby is born to a devout Hindu family in India, and never hears the Christian gospel (and again - go back 1,000 years if you want to argue that everyone can be reached today), then if that child dies early, then that child did not 'accept Jesus Christ as his savior, and ... according to the 'Christian' God / rules, cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.
Another issue - prayer. Similar concept; let's say there are two people, living today in America. One is popular, attends a church, has many friends in the church. The other is a loner, doesn't really have any friends, but is a Christian. They both get sick. In the case of the first person, all his friends rally round and pray for him (I can't tell you how many times I hear that we all need to pray to make something happen - the more, the merrier). In the case of the second person, no one prays for him as no one even realized he was sick. So for person 1, hundreds of prayers; for person 2, no prayers. The way Christians would have it, the more people who pray for something, the more likely it is that God will do something. This really sounds ridiculous to me - God is onmipresent, all-knowing, all-powerful. So why would God do something different based on whether humans ask him to do something or not? Now consider a similar man in, say, India. Devout Hindu. But does not pray to the Christian God. Does he get less attention from God?