Too late .

More seriously, target is the wrong word I think as while there have been some people who said that believing was stupid, the bulk of the thread consist of my various discussions and while I do not shy away from criticising other's view point (and do not feel offended by other's criticism of mine or by their belief that I deserve to be tortured after death) I do try to explain why I find things to criticise rather than simply saying "that's stupid".

Argument from ignorance? "We don't know how it works therefore god did it". That argument for a god of the gaps is neither logical nor scientific but it is eminently religious.

Congratulation on at least realising that the explanation you believe in has its own gaps.

Assuming you are right of course. If atheists are right then we are stuck with whatever explanations fits the data until we die then there is no 'we' to do the asking. If another religion is right then you might have to ask the devil himself or other cows (reincarnation).

That's what's so great about science. If we kept with the explanations of the world in the bible we would be in a boring place that is pretty much how our common sense tells us it is. Science allows us to see that the world is much more wonderful than the writers of the bible ever imagined it to be.

Change that to 'In all probability, nobody will ever be able to understand how the Universe came to be' and I will agree. We already have a very good understanding of planetary formation and thus of how the earth came to be.

I don't believe in scientific theories.

I agree, even if only restricting ourselves to present scientific knowledge there is so much and it is so wondrously strange that one person cannot understand all of it in depth.

Savior works too.

But no, we don't believe in the so-called "holy trinity", nor do we atone to Jesus (or any prophet for that matter, as that's considered something called "shirk"). Shirk is basically the belief that there is more than one Entity with godly powers.

I understand that they're supposed to be One. But to me, the concept behind it raises a lot of questions, honestly.

However, I'm not really one to criticize other faiths...I'm just a guy who follows his own faith, and respects other's rights to their belief as long as mine is respected.

"Even if there are things in which we are not equal to god it would not follow that there are no things in which we are equal to him."
That`s the problem, we are not equal to God. It`s not just a question of wording, it`s our reality: we share something given that we are created in His image, but  we are ocean`s apart in what, for example, goodness actually means and feels like it. That`s why i said that it`s an impossibility to not look differently at God and men. And to me, that`s more then enough to not judge both the same way as that would be reducing God to humanity`s level.
Man and woman or X culture and Y culture is still humanity. The ground is still the same.

Death is God`s way of calling someone to judgment. And to me He does have the right to decides who keeps living and who doesn`t for the time has come - for some - to face their judgment, for good or bad.
My views on God`s actions rely on God as a whole, not on parts as when just looking through morality. Still, given our limited ways i do know that i don`t know everything but i do believe in God and trust Him. So, what some consider immoral i will say that given that it comes from God is not immoral as God is good.

Thing is, you did not invert everything as you did not invert your stance. The world changed but you.

The example that i gave "from point A to B" has 3 moments, not two as you read it.
It`s: 1: point A, 2: going, 3: point B.
When i tell someone about God (point A), they do something with it (going), then they put themselves on the path they choose as a consequence (point B).
You are claiming that telling someone about point A makes them automatically go to point B.
Me telling someone or presenting them with a choice, it`s just that point A, they do something about it and it`s because of that individual action that they reach their point B.
If i tell a sinner about God is not in the safe zone, he`s still in the start. Which means a sinner isn`t saved because i told him about God, as a good person isn`t damned because i told them about God.

The quotes aren`t contradictory.
It tells of people who had the "law" in them - those before Jesus - and those after Jesus who already knew about Him we then needed belief and baptism.
The other, complementary view is that, to those after Jesus who knew both realities can see how connected they are, how the source is the same.
Faith, like salvation, is given to those who open themselves to God. God gives them to those who want Him. You can`t claim that God is bad because He didn`t give someone faith  and he went to hell for it,because that`s forgetting  that you do have a say in this, a very important one.
"This means that while anyone has the potential for faith, not everyone will be given the opportunity to fulfill that potential by god and if they are not then they will be punished for not being given that opportunity"
No, everyone is given every second the opportunity to receive faith.

Mary wasn`t wrong. When did everything start? March 13th 1938 when Hitler invaded the first country, that`s when everything started.
The warning of another war was already revealed in 1917 during the first apparitions when Mary showed hell and warned about a new war. The part of the secret that was kept secret was about the evil done by Russia and it`s consequences, but even that one was known in due time for that evil to end.

Accepting love from the girl is no different from accepting the love from God. You have to open yourself, forget fears and lose yourself to find yourself.
It`s  not a question of morality, as heaven nor hell are a question of moraility.

If you are going to reduce God`s punishments to your father`s punishments, you really are not going to understand God. If a person decides to be bad and start robbing people, having the law punish his actions is his punishment.
Just because God doesn`t come here and say what you did wrong, doesn`t mean He doesn`t show you why you are wrong, punishes you or guides you. You have a concious to feel regret and sorrow too. God`s punishment is the consequence of your actions.

"Should a human judge release a criminal because some people supply him to do so or should said criminal be released on the merit of having paid for his crime and/or for good conduct (his actions). Why should it be different on the supernatural level?"
Do you really want God to not help? He does because He doesn`t act as human judges, because He doesn`t judge like a human judge does.

If life ends and eternity starts, both hell or heaven have to be forever. There`s no second life.

You are still using special pleading. You insist that he needs to be treated differently when it comes to morality because he is different but refuse to explain how and why that difference justifies applying a different moral standard.

Humans and god are still thinking beings capable of seeing the cause of their actions and reason as to whether a given action result in good things (moral actions), result in bad things (immoral actions) or is neutral (amoral actions).

No, death is a judgement in and of itself, regardless of whether it is followed by another judgement.

No he doesn't. nobody has the right to murder anybody else, especially when he has the capacity to eschew murder by waiting for them to die.

Those actions of god that do not intersect with morality are of no use to judge his morality. For example his descriptions of the physical world in various verses that do not make moral claims are totally useless to judge his morality. On the other hand, the things that do intersect morality allow us to judge his morality like when he decides to torture good people for not believing. That intersects morality and thus can be judged on moral grounds.

This is circular logic. You define god as defining good (which is what saying he defines morality means) therefore if god does something then it is good and god is good for doing it.

If god defines morality as you claim to believe then he cannot by definition be anything but good, even if he came to your bedroom tonight, tore your skin off your flesh and sodomised you violently. He wouldn't need any reason mind you, like for exampel saying that doing that to you will be good to you in the future for some weird and unfathomable reason, but just being god makes it moral even if he only did it because he fancied to do it.

You can't say "god would never do such a thing without a reason (even if we don't know what that reason is) because he is good" because this implies that there is a way to measure good that is independent of god, which is my position.

For example, if Jesus came back (second coming) and raptured no christians but only non-christian murderers and rapists and decided to send all christians to hell even though he said you would go to heaven if you believed in him then according to your belief him doing such a thing would be good as he is the one doing it.

The belief you express in that way is not your professed belief that:

"god defines morality"

but the belief that:

"morality exists independently from god but god being perfectly good he perfectly follows that independent morality and any perceived immorality on his part is merely us not understanding the factors that make those actions moral".

These two things are not the same at all and the second is a lot closer to my position than to the first one and you keep dancing from one position to another in this debate. 

Of course I did not invert everything. The whole point was to change only one thing (who god is) and see what the logical consequence of your belief is. If you change everything then you cannot draw any conclusions at all because there are too many variables that come into play and that could explain the results.

In this particular case however, given that you have already made a change yourself (me being in that world instead of you being in it) and given that you are asking me to invert my stance in that world, which, as my stance is the inverse of your stance, nullifies your change then we can now see this thought experiment as such:

I am in a world where Lucifer is the creator of that world (and thus god) and Yahweh is his adversary (and thus Satan). My stance is inverted and is thus now the same as your stance that god defines morality. Well, according to that stance that god(Lucifer in that world) defines morality then when Lucifer(god) defines murder as a good thing and thus a moral action then it is. Same with all other things that you think are immoral in the real world because they come from Lucifer; in that imaginary world they are moral because they come out of god(Lucifer). The teachings of Jesus Christ which you see as moral in this world are now the immoral teaching of Jesus the Antichrist given that they come from satan (Yahweh in that imaginary world). That is the meaning of that belief of yours.

Point A is either the sidewalk (road to heaven), where you are when you are born, or the street (road to hell). It is either because you do not know whether the person is in the road to heaven or on the road to hell (if you do, like proselytising to a confessed murderer then it doesn't apply either).

Point B is the street (road to hell).

Now the question is what happened to cause the person not to be in point A but in point B. That's what you label moment 2.

One thing that can happen is that the person commits immoral things (or even sins that are not related to morality) but in that case you bear no responsibility for it because it was their action, not yours.

But the case I was talking about is the case when you tell them about god. Before you told them they were in point A. After you told them they are now in point B with no action of their own because simply telling them about god is enough to put them on the road to hell as they now need to believe unlike before.

That is, If you told a person "Jesus is the way the truth and the life and no one comes to god but through him" and they had a heart attack as soon as you finished saying 'him' they would still go to hell because they now know about god (because of what you just told them) but haven't had time to believe. That is, mereley telling them puts them in position B and thus merely telling them is moment 2 and as you are the one doing the telling then the moral consequences of it are on you. And if they do not die immediately does not lessen the problem because they are still on the road to hell until such time that they believe so it needs an action on their part (though an unconscious one) to get off the road.

Also, to come back to the other discussion on whether god defines morality (and thus what is good as one is defined in term of the other) or if there is a standard of morality independently of god, if we apply your standard (god defines morality) to the present discussion then why do you bother arguing that it is not like pushing somebody in front of a car? To be consistent with that belief you would have to say something like "even if it is like throwing someone in front of a car it is still good/moral because god told us to do it. Even if god told us to literally push someone in front of a car (or horsecart in Jesus' time) to save them then it would be moral to do it because god would then have told us to do it. Even if god had told us to cut unbeliever's ears off, gouge their eyes out and torture them then in such a case I would have to do it because god would have told us to do it and it would thus be good/moral."

But you don't. You argue that it is not the same as the immoral act of deliberately pushing someone in front of a car which is another indication that while you profess to believe that god defines morality, the way you go about trying to argue that this or that is moral not by relying on scripture telling you to do those things but by disputing the analogy is a good indication that you do not 'believe' that god defines morality but only 'believe that you believe' that god defines morality.

No, I am claiming that the logical conclusion of the first quote that started that part of our conversation* is that if a person knew about Jesus (by you telling them for isntance) then the goodness of their heart and of their works is not enough anymore for them to be on the road to heaven. Given that there are only two roads, one to hell and one to heaven then that means that if they are told about Jesus then they are now on the road to hell through no action of their own but from your action (or the action of whoever told them about Jesus).

That they can nullify this negative change in their spiritual condition by subsequently believing in Jesus does not change the fact that telling them about Jesus does have a detrimental effect on their spiritual life and puts them in great danger.

* which is here for reference:

No. Point A is before the telling and point B is after the telling. It is the telling that does the moving/pushing from point A to point B. They can then leave point B by making the "right" choice (believing in Jesus) but that choice does not put them in point B as they are already there after being told about god but can only potentially move them away from point B and back onto the sidewalk (path to heaven).

Yes they are, because telling them about god does not transform them from a good person to a bad person but even though they are still a good person they are now damned not because of their deeds or their heart but because they do not believe in Jesus yet. That that damnation brought upon them by you is reversible (by them believing) does not change the fact that you are damning them first.

They are contradictory. One says that you can be saved even if you don't know Jesus (by having the law in your heart) but the other says that you cannot not know god as all about him is obvious in nature. So if everybody knows god then everybody needs to believe in him to be saved which contradict the verse saying that you can be saved without knowing Jesus.

Contradictory might be the wrong word though, 'negating' might be better as it means that the pool of people who do not know god (and thus can be saved merely by having the law inscribed in their acts) is filled with zero people as all people know god as he is supposedly manifest in the world.

The result is still contradictory though as regardless of whether you cannot be saved without Jesus or whether you can theoretically be saved without him but practically can't because "what may be known about God is plain to them" (which would include knowing about Jesus as Jesus is God) the end result is the same: you need to believe in Jesus to be saved.

Even if it doesn it doesn't have any bearing on whether they are contradictory or not.

But opening yourself to god is not enough to give you faith, otherwise the guy from "Atheist for Jesus" (who by definition openend himself to god as he is for Jesus) would not be an atheist anymore but a christian.

So why has the atheist for jesus not received faith yet?

Sorry but you fail at history. The Anschluss was not a part of world war II but a cause of world war II. The prophecy specifically says "a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI". The Anschluss was not worse than world war I and it was over by the time the war broke out.

Even if we were to include military actions involving participants in World War II that happened before World War II itself then the prediction would still fail but for a different reason. It would then fail by not being a prediction any more as the Japanese were at war with China since 1937, before the 1938 letter of Lucia that is the earliest reference to the second secret I could find.

Redefining terms to make them fit a prophecy does not make a prophecy right and thus this prophecy fails just as much as Jesus's prophecy that his second coming would be before all of the people that were in the room with him when he made the prophecy would die. In that case Paul tried to salvage it by saying that 1 day is equal to 1000 years but it fails too as Jesus did not mention days or months or years but that some present with him would still be alive during his second coming. That prophecy is also thought as one of the possible origins of the legend of the wandering jew as for it to still be fulfillable you need at least one of those present when Jesus uttered these words to not have tasted death yet (but then it would contradict god saying that the length of man's days would be 120 years).

Boohoo. I can tell you there will be another war and a worse one than WWII with more deaths. Am I a prophet? No. I just know that humans are a bunch of idiots that keep killing each others over stupid things and that it means that there eventually will be another war. Advances in science means that not only it will be fought with more destructive weapons than what we have today (let alone WWII) but also that the population of the earth will be higher than it is now (let alone WWII) thus making more potential targets for an inflated bodycount.

Where the specific parts (Pius XI, the aurora borealis...) revealed by Lucia  right after 1917? Were they revealed in 1938 like the earliest date I could find? If 1917 or in between could you point me to a resource saying when those revelations where made public by Lucia or the Vatican accompanied by which details where made public when?

Yeah, for it to end... 45 years after WWII, with Russia still not converted (they are still majoritarily Orthodox, not Catholic, not even eastern rites).

Only if the girl threatens to torture you if you don't accept her.

Which is why hell is immoral as you are torturing people based on a non-moral criteria.

It is an analogy that not supposed to make me understand god but make you understand the stupidity of god's approach to child rearing (with us being his children).

Yes, by us, but it is not a divine punishment. If it is then when the law mistakenly imprisons or execute somebody who is later proven innocent then those are god's mistake too. It would be intellectually dishonest to attribute punishments issued from the process of human justice to god without also attributing errors in the same process to god too.

Reread what I wrote in my earlier posts. My problem is not only that he doesn't punish or guide us but that he doesn't do it in an obvious way. He only does it in ways that are at best ambiguous: Is the Lisbon earthquake punishment for not praying enough, hence the destruction of the churches or a punishment for praying too much (or the wrong god) and not fornicating enough, hence the destruction of the churches and the sparing of the whorehouses? It's not very clear and thus is a totally and utterly worthless punishment and piece of guidance.

You keep repeating that he punishes and guides us when the standard of usefulness is punishing and guiding us in an obvious way.

You actually bring to mind an excellent point. There are people who have absolutely zero conscience. None, Zilch, nada, nil... we used to call them psychopaths but now say they suffer from ASPD. If god exists then he made them with no remorse, how does that square off with an all-loving god?

So if I go rock climbing, slip, fall and break my leg (or worse) that is god's punishment? So if a murderer manages to escape punishment then it means that he is not punished (the corollary of what you said earlier about sentences by human justice being god's judgement).

I want him to be just, not to capriciously grant everlasting bliss to murderous monsters that tried to replicate hell on earth during their life merely because they confessed to a priest and regretted (= repented) to a person that was not the primary party of the offenses they commited (god) on one hand while on the other condemning good people to eternal torture because they believed in the wrong god (or no god).

Which is the problem. He does not judge upon moral values and a concept of justice but largely upon the capricious criteria of belief.

No they don't. If god created the system and he is omnipotent then he could have created it in a different way where people would have clear indications not only of what is wrong (immoral) but also why it is wrong and with clear indications of what you are being punished for so you know to improve in that area. He also doesn't need to send good people to be tortured for believing the wrong thing as that belief is cured when they die and see the reality of god and thus the only difference between those good people and believers (at least the good ones that go to heaven) doesn't exist anymore. You might try to claim that it wouldn't be fair to treat them the same as they only believed (well, "knew" rather) after death unlike the christians but it would be imfinitely more fair than torturing them for eternity for the same thing.

"You are still using special pleading. You insist that he needs to be treated differently when it comes to morality because he is different but refuse to explain how and why that difference justifies applying a different moral standard."
How is God different? Well, He did create life, He is love and all the things associated with love.
I always said that to understand God you need to seem Him as a whole to better understand the parts. If i said that God created morality it`s not in the sense that it exists independently from Him but He is that aswell. And, ince again, aswell means that it is connected within Him to other aspects of Him.
"No he doesn't. nobody has the right to murder anybody else, especially when he has the capacity to eschew murder by waiting for them to die."
As before, God takes back what He gave: Life. For whatever reason He does. Do you know why it isn´t or wasn`t like you wanted? Cause i can`t read God`s mind.
The verses might not indicate a relation with morality, but the reason why He created the world might.
If you read a chapter from a book and decide what the book is you will probably be far off and that`s what i am trying to say.

No, point A is always the presence of a choice and it happens everyday since your birth. You have a choice in front of you which could result in a bad or good outcome, you do something about it, you get the reaction of your actions.
"you are damning them first." I don`t choose, accept, etc for people. The damnation or salvation of someone, be it by being good or having a good heart or believing, or just the inverse situation, is a person`s life, not anyone else`s.
Putting me or anyone else in the shoes of someone is overlooking how a person`t life is lived. No one decides for you but you.
Me arguing about this has only one reason, the same reason that motivates people to explain something: to make others understand. I could resume this entire conversation to the fact that God is good and that was the end of it.

"...One says that you can be saved even if you don't know Jesus (by having the law in your heart) but the other says that you cannot not know god as all about him is obvious in nature. So if everybody knows god then everybody needs to believe in him to be saved which contradict the verse saying that you can be saved without knowing Jesus."
One clearly says that you need to believe, but this only has Jesus in mind.
The other talks about what will happen to those who sin and deny God when they know in their hearts the truth but choose sin and those who knew Him but still lived in sin. In both ways, God was always known to men.

"So why has the atheist for jesus not received faith yet?"
I don`t have an answer for that as much as i could have for your lack of faith.
Remember the samaritan woman situation: "Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."

"but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night illuminated by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God "
The aurora borealis was the sign, according to Lúcia.
Not to forget there`s an IF there. And honestly WW2 was centered around Hitler`s actions, which started in 1938. So you were right, the Anschluss was the start of something.
No, i don`t have a link that i can share, but what i know is in 1926 Jesus appeared to her insisting that she should do more to spread the word. Suppose that asking for more is admiting that the word was shared.
The point in consecrating Russia was for it to not propagate it`s mistakes, which did happen and only in 1984 did that happen with John Paul II. Which Mary requested in 1929.
In essence, humanity failed, but fortunately it wasn`t a complete failure.

"having the law punish his actions is his punishment."
Which means, live by the sword, die by the sword.

"Which is why hell is immoral as you are torturing people based on a non-moral criteria"
But that`s it: it`s more than morality, so if you keep seeing through morality alone it won`t seem right. The problem is you finding faith frivolous.
For those with ASPD, God will judge them accordingly.
"So if I go rock climbing, slip, fall and break my leg (or worse) that is god's punishment? So if a murderer manages to escape punishment then it means that he is not punished"
Not everything bad is punishment and not everything good is great. There`s a lot to read into it and mostly, we don`t know the day of tomorrow.

"I want him to be just, not to capriciously grant everlasting bliss to murderous monsters that tried to replicate hell on earth during their life merely because they confessed to a priest and regretted (= repented) to a person that was not the primary party of the offenses they commited (god) on one hand while on the other condemning good people to eternal torture because they believed in the wrong god (or no god)."
See, with all due respect, this is the result of seeing God from an angle and not as a whole. I explain: You forget that all offenses to other are also offenses to God. And God is just by forgiving those who actually repented. God gives Himself (love) to those who want Him by this reason or another. If people reject Him then, as i said before, they decide that the truth, path and life resides on someone else, something else or themselves.

The clear indication you want, you already possess it: it`s your conscious and your heart, your ability to know when you were did right or wrong and knowing what made you follow the path you followed.
Seeing God after for the sake of redemption is not a question of fairness to me, it`s that it makes no sense. Who would love when He`s in front of you? People have a lifetime to love and they do or don`t.
People are aware of their actions, if not, things would be different. It`s not like i don`t care. I do, a lot.

I'll voted for the bing bang theory,because there is no god and religion is something that people follow to make themselves feel better. I've stated this several times,because seem to talk about this subject an awful lot on vgchartz. I'm an atheist,because god,religon,ghosts,angels,the devil,heaven,hell are nothing but fantasy. When you die,you die and that's it. Nothing magical are amazing happens,some think it does,because it makes them feel better about dying,but I on the other hand don't care either way.

None of which are relevant to the question of why we should apply a different moral standard to him. Indeed, if he is love and all things associated with love then we should have no need to apply a looser standard that allows him to sanction mass murder.

Of course not as those position are opposite with you arguing that god created morality and me arguing that it must exists independently of him otherwise it makes it possible for murder to be potentially moral (or any other action currently deemed immoral). 

But if god creates morality (whether by dictating it or by having morality be a part of god doesn't matter) then my objection that murder and other acts deemed immoral can be a moral acts as you cannot say "god wouldn't do that because he is good" as it implies a standard of goodness external to god to which you can measure god. That standard is what I am claiming exists.

As before, if I give you a car and then take it back it is theft. If you mom took back your life it is murder. If god took back your life it is just as much murder.

Again, you don't need to know his mind to know that his actions are immoral any more than you need to know a criminal's mind to know his actions are immoral.

What is this in response to? I ask because your quoting is very sparse and often makes it hard to know what you are responding to.

So you have read the bible from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21 or at least tried to? If not then are you not preaching what you don't practice (reading the book, not specific chapters or verses) ?

I have not read the bible from cover to cover myself. I tried but got lost in the mindnumbing boringness of the book of numbers. I have however read extensively the new testament, though that was about fifteen years ago now and big parts of the old one too so while I might not have read it in its entirety I can confidently say that the only way you can come to the conclusion you came earlier that "He is love" is to only read those verses that claim that or support that and ignore the vast number of verses where he acts no better than humans or the gods of the greek pantheon.

So have you yourself read the bible? If not how do you know that I am the one who is far off in looking at god in his entirety?

But telling them about god forces the choice for them as it puts them in the same position as if they had made the choice to do a bad action. In both cases they are on the road to hell and need to believe in Jesus to go back to the road to heaven but in one case it is due to their action and in the other due to yours and is thus your responsibility. You keep talking of choice and of good and bad outcome but you keep trying to dodge the consequence of your action.

It is if they need to do an action (believe) to be saved that they did not need to do before. You raised the bar to them getting to heaven by your action so if they fail to clear that bar then you bear a responsibility for it.

I am not putting you in their shoes, if I did you would be the victim.

But if you tell them about god you decided to make it so that if they don't believe in god they go to hell even if they are good people. That is your decision and thus your responsibility.

That's what I explained you should have done in the first place in my last post: "God is good therefore if he wanted me to cut people's ears and pour boiling oild down their throat to save them then that would be a good thing". It is in my view a deeply immoral view (hence why I see saying that god defines/is morality as being an immoral statement) but it is what you profess to believe.

Reread the verse: since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.

One of your beliefs is that Jesus is god which means that Jesus is part of what may be known about god as if it wasn't then Jesus would not be god so it includes jesus too.

And Jesus is god and thus is always known to men too.

My lack of faith is simple. The part about trust and love that you include in it went following reading big parts of the bible while exercising my judgement; something the writers of the bible did not want us to do (whether they were simple men or god writing through men) as it would then appear obvious that the god of love is as much a god of love as islam is a religion of peace.

The part about believing in his existence took longer as it included not only reading the bible but also learning more about the world through science and seeing how the world didn't match with how it was described in the bible. Eventually there was so much cognitive dissonance that I decided that it was more likely that the bible was wrong rather than the world being wrong.

And with the bible being so wrong (but not completely) on both morality and its descriptions of this world, things that we can exert our judgement and experiences upon, I had zero reason to believe that its description of an invisible world that cannot be experienced in our lifetime (and its inhabitants) is any better than its description of this world or than its moral system.

But to ask you need first to believe. Do you ask allah to give you faith in him? Of course not, because you don't believe in him. Do you ask ganesha for belief?...

And when was that part of the prophecy revealed to the public?

You are still trying to fit the square peg of the prophecy in the round hole of history by not only adding things that are not part of WWII (the Anschluss) but trying to ignore things that most definitely were part of it (the pacific theater, including the second Sino-Japanese war). Hell, the Anschluss wasn't even a bloody war, it was a coup d'etat by the Austrian Nazi party who seized power and then unified with Germany, yet you want to stretch this non-war event that was over well before the war started (and thus not a part of it) and want to ignore that the prophecy specifically applied to when the war will break out. It cannot be said in any way shape or form that it broke out during the anschluss. It's like saying that World War One started on 28 June 1914, when archduke Ferdinand was assassinated instead of when it really started a month later on 28 July 1914, when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. 

Yeah, Lucia (or Mary) messed up by making the prophecy too specific. That's prophecy 101, make them vague enough so that it is easy to interpret them in different way so it is never possible to say it is not realised or realisable. Jesus messed up just as much when he said he would come back in the lifetime of those present then didn't show up for nearly 2000 years.

Sorry but that doesn't cut it. If I was gonna accept an apparition by Jesus in 1926 then I might as well accept the 1917 apparition by Mary. That some part of the prophecy might have been revealed does not mean that the salient part (the parts describing events yet to come when they are revealed to more than just Lucia) was revealed then. The best I can get is Lucia writing a letter two weeks after the aurora borealis, which is no prediction at all unless you want to believe that I am a prophet because a couple months ago the FSM appeared to me and told me Google would buy out Motorola Mobility and Steve Jobs would resign and that these are signs that there will be a recession in Europe. The former cannot be seen as prophetic as they are revealed to the public after they happened and the latter cannot be seen as prophetic as it is as bloody obvious as it was that a guy who wanted to create a German empire would eventually start a war.

And to stop a war that was stopped either years after the consecration of the world by Pius XII in 1942 (which includes Russia) or years before the consecration of russia by Pius XII in 1952 or decades before the consecration of John Paul II in 1984.

If the part of the prophecy about the consecration was correct then either the war AND communism in Russia should have ended sooner (1942) or later (1952) or much later (1984).

Instead, after the first consecration both the war and the spread of communism continued. The war ended before the second consecration but the spread of communism continued and didn't stop until either 1978 (afghanistan) or 1987 (ethiopia, though debatable as it was a communist junta instead of a communist republic). Either way, neither correspond to the 1984 consecration and not everyone even agrees that any of the consecrations fulfilled the prophecy.

And that is not talking about the lack of fulfilment of the prophecy if the consecration worked as not only did Russia not convert to catholicism but the period of peace accorded to the world either occured decades earlier ("peace granted to the world" meaning no world war) or not at all ("peace granted to the world" meaning not even local conflicts).

Given that Russia didn't convert to catholicism and that there wasn't a moment where the world was a peace since 1984 it is more that Mary failed in her prophecy.

That doesn't address the point I made in answer to your quote you quoted so let me repeat it:

Yes, by us, but it is not a divine punishment. If it is then when the law mistakenly imprisons or execute somebody who is later proven innocent then those are god's mistake too. It would be intellectually dishonest to attribute punishments issued from the process of human justice to god without also attributing errors in the same process to god too.

No. It doesn't seem right because it isn't right to torture good people.

The problem is that you are finding morality frivolous.

That's my point. It is not moral for god to judge them for not having a conscience that god did not give them in the first place. He made them evil and then will punish them for being evil, sorry but that's evil.

And so we come back to the lack of unambiguous punishment and guidance and how this proves how lousy a father god is.

And god can forgive the offense done to him but he cannot forgive the offense done to others. 

Or nowhere because either god doesn't exist or if the god of the bible exist he is immoral and thus cannot be the truth or any kind of path a moral person should follow (don't believe me, read whole books of the bible, not just the verses that your priest likes to quote on sundays).

Matthew 7:15-19 when applied to the bible itself is very revealing.

Except that the bible is a clear indication that god is a deeply immoral being closer to your conception of satan than your conception of god. This is the same ability to see right from wrong that tells me that when I read from the depravity of the bible.

WTF? That makes no sense at all. Does that mean that you love no girl that is in front of you?

And again, requesting love and torturing if it is not given is an abusive relationship and anybody offering such a deal (love me or you will suffer horribly) is immoral.

They might be aware of their actions but they are not necessarily aware of the morality of them as their morality is often corrupted by religion with some religions saying that blowing yourself up to kill others is moral*, other religions saying that mass murder is moral and others saying that torture can be moral.

As for you caring, if you really do, instead of contesting the "pushing in front of a car" analogy you should say something like "I don't agree with your analogy but to be on the safe side in the future I will warn people of the dangers if they listen to me before teaching them about god".

* note for any muslim reading: I am not claiming that it is part of every muslim's religious belief but it is part of some muslims religious beliefs and thus is valid (and please don't bother to invoke the "no true scotsman fallacy").

Oh my, I cannot believe this thread is still going...

"None of which are relevant to the question of why we should apply a different moral standard to him. Indeed, if he is love and all things associated with love then we should have no need to apply a looser standard that allows him to sanction mass murder."
In God`s purity and grace there is no room for evil. That`s why some people even go through purgatory before entering heaven and why others who reject God (who reject what God is in It`s essence) will go to hell.
There`s no need for a looser standard. What i have been trying to say is, we can`t read God like we are reading another human because, even if we share something with Him, we are not purity and grace and morality like He is. The result of this is what makes in our eyes something like punishing with death immoral, but to God, who reclaimed the gift He gave first, as acceptable.
And no, it`s not the same as a mother taking back a son`s life. JUst because you see the same actions doesn`t mean one judgment fits all.

"So have you yourself read the bible? If not how do you know that I am the one who is far off in looking at god in his entirety?"
No i haven`t. But i have been read in church for years, both old and new testament. It`s not a question of how much one has read, it`s a question of perception of God. What you do is forget that you and God are different and reduce Him to your standards.

"But telling them about god forces the choice for them as it puts them in the same position as if they had made the choice to do a bad action."
What i do does put Him in the face of a choice - as i always agreed with - but that`s just it. The choice is in neutral ground, it does not put them in a position of a bad choice, it just puts them in a position and nothing more.
But as i said before, it`s no diffferent than your every day life. You say i raised the bar, but that`s an "illusion". It`s still a choice like any other because they can act on it like in any other choice. The perception is that it`s way harder, when it`s not.

Both quotes you gave me were after Jesus but only one specifically referred to the belief part - which was the shortest quote. The other not only referes to that but to the fact that God - your concious of good and right - is now seen in it`s full light.
In your view, how then could people know Jesus before He was even born? Because it`s not to be read that way.

"But to ask you need first to believe. Do you ask allah to give you faith in him? Of course not, because you don't believe in him. Do you ask ganesha for belief?..."
That`s the point, to have faith you need to open yourself to God. And with that you`ll get the living water (God`s endless love).
What Jesus did was explain to her and the world what He offers you and how you can get it.

"The aurora borealis was the sign, according to Lúcia."
Mary spoke of a sign in the sky as the sign where the world would receive punishment. Lucia read that sign as the sign of God.

First, the center of WW2 was Hitler. He was the one who triggered it beggining 1938. It`s not me trying to fit anything, it`s how it happened.
Mary didn`t speak of a world war, she spoke of a bigger and worser war, fammin, martyrs and the pope.
From what i read, it was the church who came out late enough to spread Mary`s warnings (only in 1939). The consecration and convertion didn`t mean that Russia would become pure, as not any country is. And Mary was very specific on the consacration, which only happened with John Paul II.
It was given to Mary for her protection and love. So, it`s not a question of converting to catolicism as i pointed out.
The time of peace was only given and promised after the consecration of Russia. Not before. Does that mean that the world in its entirety would be all loving? It`s not what was promised.

"having the law punish his actions is his punishment."
Which means, live by the sword, die by the sword."
You are being to literal about this example. I could give you another: those who don`t forgive and hate bind themselves to a life without peace and hate.
The whole point is to see that the punishment of God is not smacking you in the head when you do something God, it`s His lack of love.
When people reject Him they get a life without Him. That`s the punishment i was talking about.

"The problem is that you are finding morality frivolous."
No i`not. With God everything that He asks of us is to be taken into consideration. Morality is as important because it reflects on others our faith and God Himself.
Jesus did ask us to love those who loves and those who don`t, and it`s not just a question of doing it in your heart, but actually showing it.

"And so we come back to the lack of unambiguous punishment and guidance and how this proves how lousy a father god is."
Why does it make it ambiguous? Because you have to read every single event in your life? Don`t you already do that?

"And god can forgive the offense done to him but he cannot forgive the offense done to others"
God forgives everything if people truly repent.

 "Matthew 7:15-19"
Yes it is. Jesus met them in His lifetime and was even trialed by them before going to Pontious Pilate.

"Does that mean that you love no girl that is in front of you?"
That`s not the point i was trying to pass. But i admit i did not explain well. Think of S. Thomas and how it`s important to believe without seeing.
After seeing God, it`s not so much how you will love Him but how you will believe in Him.
The girl is already in front of you all the time. There`s no believing first.

Even if Lucia wrote the letter after the aurora doesn`t mean the prediction was less of a prophecy. If anything, the Church came out too late to do anything in time - as Mary already foretold it would happen.

"That's my point. It is not moral for god to judge them for not having a conscience that god did not give them in the first place. He made them evil and then will punish them for being evil, sorry but that's evil"
Do you know how or in what way God will judge these people who have ASPD?

"They might be aware of their actions but they are not necessarily aware of the morality of them as their morality is often corrupted by religion with some religions saying that blowing yourself up to kill others is moral*, other religions saying that mass murder is moral and others saying that torture can be moral."
Not only are people aware of their actions, but they are aware of it feels when doing them and how people react to them. That`s a lot of information in your hand.
Not to forget that people have a mind of their own to judge things.
When people follow hate and silence the pain of others or morality, they "decided" to follow a path, to adhere to a way willingly.
But as before, only God knows exactly well why people decide this or that way of life.