Originally posted by: O2bnVegas
I like 15:1 "A soft answer turns away wrath, but harsh words cause quarrels."
I also like: 13:10 "Pride leads to arguments; be humble, take advice, and become wise."
IMHO the Pope's reply to the little boy was spot on. The father raised four children, had all baptized for their souls to be saved, so there was belief, perhaps hope that the father made it to heaven. "He's a good man and God would never leave him behind." Excellent. And you are right that we cannot know, will not know until our own passing. Many really good people say they aren't believers. I always wonder why, what happened, like you being overchurched perhaps? One thing about it, I believe, is that God knows you and hasn't given up on you.
Candy
What happened to me was that I kept encountering logical contradictions, and every nun/priest/counselor/hot dog vendor would huff and puff and prevaricate rather than answer my questions.
The killer:
1. God is (supposedly) both omnipotent and omniscient. He knows the future, including what he will do.
2. Some (we aren't told what proportion) souls are going to hell, to suffer horribly for all eternity.
3. Given 1. and 2., God creates souls that he knows are doomed. But he loves them (I guess).
Therefore:
A. God deliberately creates entities/souls that will be horribly tortured for almost all of their existence. And he knows it.
B. Prayer is futile, because God already knows what he's going to do. If he "changes his mind," he was going to do whatever he winds up doing all along. And he knows it.
I couldn't get an explanation of even an acknowledgement of this paradox. I even suggested that maybe God was bluffing, there is no hell, and he told us there was so we would behave. Or maybe he doesn't know the future any more than we do??
So I got a lot of vague weaseling such as "It's a mystery" and "There are some things we aren't meant to understand." This from a bunch who spent several hours a week telling us exactly what God thinks and feels and why, his motivations, his likes and dislikes, his goals and objectives, down to and including whether he lines Flaming Hot or regular Cheetos (Satan likes the Flaming Hot, of course).
So I snorted, said "bullshit," and walked away. I wasn't expelled; I was allowed to graduate, after some rumbling.
I don't think there's even a vague correlation between goodness and belief. I certainly know a lot of good nonbelievers and evil believers.
Evel Believer--wasn't he a motorcyclist who jumped over church steeples? Gotta Google that.
