God believers,  Are you playing the better safe than sorry game? Do you not believe in your own intellect?
822299
Either way it doesn't matter you ll never change my mind so give it up! You people always complain about Christians trying to force their beliefs on you but your doing the same thing. Hypocrite!
375329
LOL at the "me" who's not really me. \n\nAnd, dude, chill. You are doing far more damage to our faith than you are doing good.
944497
We are human and cannot possibly know what God knows.  Do I believe things he has done?  Yes.  Can I with certainty explain how it was done? No.  I don't necessarily think it's doubt, I just think it's being unaware.  The longer you have a relationship with God, the more you will come to understand.  He will make some things clearer so that His will can be done.  We are his servants.  So in some ways I agree with you but I don't like the use of the word doubt, that makes me think of being unfaithful.  I see it more as being in the dark, not able to understand.  He is God, our Creator.  We are merely human.
570031
If you don't believe in God, how can He be immoral?\n\nI'm not mad at you, I'm just mad.  Does that still work for you?  'Cause I'm happy to share.  Not happy, exactly.\n\nWell, I would be happy if I weren't so mad.
71044
gods not an idiot. humans have to sin. to fullfill gods word. dont question it. just beleive!
617064
I agree. Many times on this site, I'll see a good question, and then some well intentioned Christian say, "you just have to have faith," or "faith isn't about logic."  It's quite irritating.  I know I have so much to learn and am ignorant myself, but it seems like some people check their brains at the door when it comes to faith. God wants us to love him with all our minds as well.  \n\nRejecting worldy wisdom doesn't mean we're supposed to be ignorant.
890386
Finally a decent out of the box agnostic thinker.  I personally am atheist, because the creation of a creator is just as probable as us being created in the first place.  But the creation of the two are that much more improbable.  \n\nHowever, on your theory, why do you propose that we are mistakes rather than a side effect...
405656
I think you are on to something!\n\nYou will no doubt have those come in and sprat about "free will".. but if god knew everything and "has a plan".. then I am voting for YOUR thought here!
843465
I just cant make myself believe it...I tried, tried very hard indeed for years and still could not overcome doubt. I was raised christian but no matter how much I tried to force myself to believe, in my mind I knew it wasn't truth, wasn't reality and sounded more like a fairytale than anything else. I finally gave up and accepted myself for the Atheist I am whose mind was and is apparently not weak enough to throw logic and science out the window and buy into the god theory.
802869
Do you think you are God?  You're not.
668676
Now stop J Man, you're not looking at life from a "logical" view. Obviously those crazy Christians (like me) have got you brainwashed! The God we love and adore, why, we need to give all that up, because some dude on Yahoo showed me the error of my ways.
245896
I think that anyone who claims to know for sure is lying. We can't possibly know without a doubt what to believe and whoever said that has no way of knowing without any doubt that that is the truth. I believe the opposite of that.\n\nI think it's actions and not faith that would save someone if God exists. \n\nIf what that man said was true it would mean that a pedophile who spends their entire life harming innocent children that has faith in God would be saved but a truly great person, who is almost saintly in all ways but lacks faith wouldn't? \n\nIt just wouldn't make sense.
552451
I believe it is human nature to assume that someone who defies what you believe in, doesn't know what they're talking about. That doesn't make this assumption true however. I am a Christian and I know there are many people out there that are well versed in Christianity, even if they do not share the belief. Some of them probably even know more about it than I do. I know about other religions as well. I think it is important to know about and the different faiths and non-faiths of the world.
1187814
Excellent food for thought!\n\nConsidering the fact that I am more of a spiritual person than religious, I would just go on in life as it is.  My father always questioned the theory of evolution -vs- the teachings of the bible.  We would have long arguments about what was right.  I know what I believe in my heart.  There has never been any real proof of anything, either way, so I don't believe my life would change as I believe that there is a supreme being by which my choice to call is God.  I do believe that I will be rewarded for all the good that I do here on earth and I do have full faith that there is a better place waiting for me.  I also believe that in my heart, I am punished for all my wrong doings as I, like all ppl, am instilled with morals and values, of which for me, are very high. \n\nPerhaps in having morals and values, we have the ability to pass judgement upon ourselves, thereby passing on what we believe to be an acceptable punishment should we choose to do so.  This is through the guilt we feel for wrong doing and the happiness for the positive in life.
930871
What better justification is there than to allude to a higher power having made you to do something instead of just taking responsibility for your own words and actions.  That burns me up.  Hiding behind a God or a Deity figure to conveniently absolve yourself so that you can "pretend" to yourself and the rest of the world that you're not culpable.
1003881
so...are you asking a question or what? sounds to me like you already have your answer either way.\nthe idea you're talking about (better safe than sorry) actually has a name-it's referred to as Pascal's Wager. Pascal was some sort of famous thinker, and he posed that as his reason for obeying God.\nbut please keep in mind, not all Christians have this as their motivation. I don't know for sure that all nonbelievers are going to burn in a lake of fire, and you'll never see me threaten that on Yahoo.\nbelieve it or not, I serve God in the here and now, with a willing heart, and in the end, if He says there is no heaven, it wasn't a waste of time.
894453
Dear Francis B:  It is not for me or anyone to press God and His Realm upon others who do not wish to know of it.  If you will bear with me, I would like to say a few things about this:\n\n1.   As one who pursued the Intellect of my human mind most of my life and looked at all things, and felt pride in my Intellect's comprehensive ability to learn and understand , I now present to you what I learned :  The Intellect is but an exercise of mind.   Scientific theories come and go each decade.  The Sciences get up close to God and then, sadly, have no ability to mathematically formulate His Reality and Truth. To prove Him.  I would offer:  Don't rely on just the Intellect to live by.\n\n2.    Later in life, I opened up to Spirit Mind.  Nothing denominational, nothing very traditional, no dogma , and  began receiving "experiences" of Spirit. \n\n "Temporal Lobes of the Brain" is a discussion of the illusionary-type reality we experience here in the physical world.  But, you know, we are much more than just physical.  Made of something much more powerful. . .and, sooner, or later, we all come to Know.  Our Creator is not dependent upon our "belief" in Him.  He exists  - whether we choose to deny Him or recognize Him.  He looks upon what He created and listens while it turns to other creations He created and yells, "There is no God." And, He MUST think to Himself. . .how strange that is; my creation is acting as if it doesn't know me !  Yet, I AM  - and certain of myself !  Even a human father might find it a bit disconcerting -  when a child of his denies him. Same thing, really.\n\nAnyhow, spiritual or religious experiences come not from the human Intellect - but, from the soul/spirit part of Mind.  That "thing" that certainly exists, but is not reflected by the physical matter of "brain."  In thinking upon ourselves, perhaps we need to consider ourselves more in terms of a totality - rather than just one part of us as "real" and that there is nothing MORE to us.  That may be something to contemplate. . .\n\nI would like to submit to you further these truths of spiritual experience (or religious experience), as I have learned of it:\n\n1.   Spiritual or religious experience "reverses physical laws."\n2.   These experiences are often experienced during prayer or study.\n3.   These experiences undo the past in the present and release the future.  They are outside the laws of the physical world.\n4.    Spiritual or religious experiences REFLECT, therefore, the laws of Eternity, not of time.\n5.    Through spiritual or religious experience you feel God's constant Forgiveness upon you and are impelled to extend it to others.\n6.    Spiritual experiences (or religious . . .let's now use the words interchangeably) are part of an interlocking chain of forgiveness and is at work in all the dimensions of Time.\n7.    Spiritual experiences are healing because they deny absolute body-identification and affirm spirit-identification.  This places spirit at the Center of Mind where it can communicate directly.\n8.    Spiritual experiences honor you.  They dispel illusions about yourself.  They help restore your sanity.  They restore the Mind to its fullness. . .. \n9.    Spirit's strength leaves no room for intrusions.  Nothing can take the experience and its effects away from you.\n10.  By perceiving the light IN the experience, darkness automatically disappears.\n11.    Whole-ness is the perceptual content of spiritual experience.  It corrects the faulty perceptions of lack, or being separated.\n\nBest regards, Lana