The likes of Kirkstaller aren't 'slammed' for their belief in imaginary beings, they're 'slammed' for the vile, reprehensible views they espouse as a result of their interpretation of that belief. If you can't see the difference between the two, then I'd suggest that your grounding in psychology isn't all that strong.

As for their religion being ridiculed (rather than slammed) rational people will ridicule any belief that is not only unsupported by evidence, but which actually flies in the face of all the available evidence. Religion is not exempt from this rule, and nor should it be. Do you 'respect' the views of, for example, members of the [url=http://theflatearthsociety.org/cms/Flat Earth Society[/url?

With which I don't disagree.

However, in terms of the [iSin Bin[/i, the people who come out to argue from a religious perspective show no interest in that. You only need to see Kirkstaller's thread from the other day on "BBC sinks to a new low". What the BBC has apparently planned is precisely such a discussion (or the opportunity to start one), yet not only was that damned in the OP, the same post also said: "***Please can we avoid the usual mud-slinging?***" Which would be fine – if the OP himself hadn't started the "mud-slinging" himself with the snide post that followed.

And to top it off, it's the entire thing about being offended ('should Christians be expected to pay for this immoral stuff/') when most of the rest of the population simply switched off what it doesn't like or doesn't even switch on in the first place.



But this is where you can come across as trolling – or 'taking sides'. You don't appeal to Kirkstaller to be a little less "aggressive" with their bigoted views, only to those condemning the bigotry.



These are not contradictions.



Have I called every religious believer a 'loon' – or the fundamentalists? Because if memory serves me reasonably well, I'm pretty careful to use words like 'some' and not to come out with statements such as 'all' in terms of religious believers.



As do we all within the confines of such a forum.

Probably the majority of people I know adhere to some extent to some religion or other. I respect their rights to believe what they like. I'm not rude to them about it.

On those rare occasions when a theological discussion takes place I do try to explain to them how utterly irrational beliefs in a deity are, and I must say that I find it increasingly incredible how so much of the world's population is seduced and brainwashed by such irrational beliefs. Not least that of the hundreds of religions and cults, each one would dismiss the millions who support other deities as misguided and wrong, yet vainly assume that the accident of birth (or, occasionally, adult brainwashing) that caused them to be of their particular religion happily meant they were in "the one true faith".

Why do they glibly believe that hundreds of millions around the world are misguided in their beliefs of their deity, while simultaneously being somehow able to miss the irony that it's just what they themselves do?

Anyway back to the point. I would start of any debate with all due respect and I use the word "due" literally. Kirkstaller has told me that i am Satan and that unfortunately means all politeness bets are off, he deserves no respect from me. I do believe he may however have some mental health issues principally if he actually believes he personally met Jesus by his rabbit hutch, as this would be a worrying level of delusion, and probably not a million miles from the same kind of delusions that convince people like Peter Sutcliffe (if you believe him) that his god was directing his murderous actions, or may have driven the appalling killing of this innocent schoolgirl.

Which brings me to another question or two that i think are pertinent?

1. Where was her god, and her family's god, when all this was going on, and why didn't he stop it?

2. If he couldn't, then he's not god. If he could but didn't, then he's an utter asshole who is worthy of nothing but the deepest contempt. The same contempt that I would feel for any human who had been in the perfect position to prevent the killing at no risk to themselves but chose to do nothing and let her die. Why anyone would want to "worship" and "praise" such a piece of work is the question that I can only assume all religious adherents somehow manage to fail to ask themselves.

I see you're channeling Epicurus.



"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"

Don't think it was him who actually said that, but whoever it was, had a point that the kirkstallers can't answer.

Epicurus didn't deny the existence of "gods" per se, IIRC, just felt that if there were any anywhere, they just did their own thing whatever it is that gods do, wherever they do it, and had feck all to do with humans.

Which if by some quirk of fate we do have a local god, is certainly the attitude he she or it took to this tragedy unfolding.

In order to answer your question you need to understand the concept or sin.

The Bible tells us that the wages (punishment) of sin is death. Therefore we deserve to die as soon as we disobey God. This doesn’t happen – obviously – so we see here the patience and love of God. The fact that he lets us live at all is testament to his glory.

We should also remember that God planned the outcome of everything before he created the world. Every single electron on this planet is moving in accordance with God’s appointment. Therefore it is clear that God means everything to happen. God planned the Holocaust. God planned Dunblane. God planned 9/11.

And God planned this teenager’s tragic death.

You may find it hard to get your head around this - don’t worry, you’re not the first. However, this is reality.

So why do bad things happen? Because it is God’s righteous wrath on a disobedient people. It is not malevolent, it is just. An omnibenevolent God must be just, and God cannot simply ignore sin.

By your own logic – even that within this latest post – the 'disobedience' was created by your god. There is no 'choice' except that of god to kill people for doing what he decided they would do.

Your acquaintance with which is tenuous at best.


Here we go again...

God made man in his own image.
God planned everything.
Man did what God programmed him to do
God punishes man for doing what God programmed man to do

All so clear and logical, utterly [iproves[/i how benevolent God is, I can't imagine why the rest of us just don't go along with it ...

God's a 2@ then.

Just read the preceding "the wages of sin is death" bollox, then consider the innocents who die or are in pain, all in God's plan ... then tell me that utter contempt for the notion of a benevolent god (as described by St Kirkstall) is "aggressive".

He definitely does love us because we are alive instead of being dead. You ought to thank him for every second he keeps you alive for.

... should I also thank him for the teenager's death and for the pain and anguish her relatives will have been and probably still are suffering?

Did he not love her then?
Is he punishing her family?

I don’t know what the girl’s religious beliefs were and so it is deeply unwise to speculate on how she is feeling at the moment. Her parents, on the other hand, are probably heartbroken. I only can imagine their anguish.



God loves everyone, which is why we are not immediately killed as soon as we transgress his law.



Punishment happens after death. He may be meting out his wrath in this world, though.

What a load of utter bulldust.

He'sa fooking headbanger.
But his posts make me laugh.

I really do need to follow your example because, at present, I am becoming increasingly more irritated by his brand of pious, sermonising, fruitcakery.


Good word that ... fruitcakery.

That's lucky, it'd be a bit rough being killed for doing what he pre-ordained, wouldn't it?

I see. God personally controls every single subatomic particle. No wonder he's too busy to stop innocent schoolgirls being knifed to death.


This is my point. Anyone who planned that death is really, truly, unambiguously and definitely not worth "following", let alone worshipping. If god had indeed planned her death then he is a murderer too.


No, it couldn't be more straightforward. You worship a murdering scumbag with no thought for the immense grief and pain which his quixotic psychopathic tendencies brings to his "creations".


So god thought, "I'll vent my righteous wrath on a disobedient people" by arranging for a lunatic to stab an innocent schoolgirl to death. Just that one. None of her mates, or the rest of the school population. If you cannot see the lunacy of this proposition, then you really are beyond help. Your logic circuits are FUBAR. Your head isn't working any more.


Well, yes, and your is seemingly anything but just. So what does that tell you?


Yes, he can, since (by defintion) he ignores at least 99.9% of all sin, if we are all sinners, yet none of us apart from a tiny percentage meet this righteous wrath. He ignores it all. Yet serendipitously picks on a random young girl and her family and friends, and plans her death in the most sensless and cruel way. Even if you accepted the proposition that he "cannot ignore sin", why would he not start by exercising his righteous wrath on those rather more deserving?

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm!

What you're talking about is being a coward.

'I 'love' god because if I didn't he might do nasty things to me'.

Pity he didn't do the odd nasty thing to murderers and child abusers – a little heart attack here, a stroke there. Nobody'd need to know: wouldn't ruin your need for 'faith'.

Instead, however, by your logic, your god created those things: every single murder of act of child rape that has happened since the beginning of time, according you [iyour[/i logic, your god created that. He sat down in his big design studio and decided that, on X day in X place, that child would be raped.

That, by your own terms, is the reality: that the god [iyou[/i worship in such cowardly fashion is himself, by your own words and logic, a bully, a murderer, a rapist, a child abuser, a genocidal maniac, a warmonger, a coward – and much, much more.

That's the god that you choose to worship – although according to your own logic, you didn't choose that at all: he chose it when he created the world. It didn't matter what you did – you didn't have any choice in the matter. He'd already decided the year, the day, the hour, the minute at which you'd 'decide' to worship him. He chose that you'd worship him – and that a 16-year-old girl would be murdered on a bus in Birmingham by a mentally ill individual.

He decided every one of the sins you'd commit before you made your 'choice' to worship him' – and every one of the sins you'd commit after. He'd decided exactly what degree of guilt you'd feel. He'd decided the entire content of this thread – right down to every crossed t and dotted i.

And that's by your logic.

And still you claim, with the logic of your own belief system, that you – and everybody else – has a choice.

He's never 'too busy'. He controls everything and obviously had no interest in stopping the girl's death because she deserved it. We all do, we all deserve to die.



Murder can only be committed by human beings. Therefore, God, who is all good and righteous, cannot commit a human sin.



No, I worship a God who righteously punishes evil and who loves me so much he made it possible for me to escape his judgement.



God has planned everyone's demise. Why single out this girl's?



You simply cannot accept that God HAS to punish sin, including yours. You are trying to escape judgement. This is not possible.



No, we all meet his wrath. Me might not all be stabbed on a bus but we get what is coming - death.



There's nothing random about it, God planned it before the beginning of time.

Death is cruel.



Every sinner will truly get what is coming to them in Hell, according to their works.

That's it. You've gone too far.

Almost every thread that you start or get involved with degenerates into this.

I or one of the mods will either have to clean up after this explosion of shît or let it go. Because what you've said is pretty much beyond the pale. There's little between you and the Taliban and their ilk.

And I am not having the victim of an appalling case such as this abused by you, whether you're mentally ill yourself or whether you're just trolling.

You're on a week's ban from this place. Try and learn something from it.

The rest of you – stick to the case itself, please. This part of the conversation is over.

Interesting that the OP hasn't been seen for an age but is posting on his central heating comfort zone thread

Biblical literalists are very similar to Islamists. There is a really interesting book called A Fury For God, written post 9/11 which highlights just how similar the two extremes are in their approach to religious belief and the way in which they express it (although the book is written more for an American context and there are a lot of Biblical literalists in the States of course). However, not all Christians are Biblical literalists just as not all Muslims are the Taliban.

Indeed. Unfortunately, those that are tend to shout the loudest.