So not believing is evil? So you are telling me that hindus, muslims, buddhists... and possibly other christian denominations are evil for not believing?

Then why do you insist on applying a looser standard to god?

Saying we are not morality like him is circular as you state that morality is being defined by him so even if he commited the most immoral act you could imagine then it would still be moral in your eye because he was the one doing it.

Besides you keep saying "reading god" when we don't need to as all we need to do is read his actions.

No. Like I said earlier, if I gave you something and took it back it would be theft. In the case of a life it is murder. And how is seeing as moral something seen as immoral when done by somebody else (killing somebody) not having a looser moral standard ?

Special pleading again. You claim it is different but you don't support it except with more special pleading ("but god is different").

And that's the problem. You and/or your priest picks what he likes for his sermon and ignores what he doesn't like. How can you claim to perceive god if you do not read the parts that you do not like? You are not perceiving god so much as projecting your idea of what god should be onto him.

More special pleading. I am not reducing him to my standard, everybody starts at the same standard and thus there is no reduction needed. if you want to lower him to a lower moral standard then the onus is on you to support that assertion.

And pushing someone in front of a car also put them in the face of a choice and that's it too, no difference.

 The choice (to get off the road or not) 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.

It makes as little sense in both cases.

How is it an illusion? Does the person not have to do something after you taught them about god that they did not need to do before? How is that illusory?

It`s still a choice like any other (getting off the road) because they can act on it like in any other choice. The perception is that it`s way harder, when it`s not.

It makes as little sense in both cases.

The quote says "what may be known about god". If Jesus cannot be known before he was even born then that implies that he was not a part of god before he was conceived as if he was then he would be part of what may be known about god. I assumed that it was not your belief as you are a catholic and this belief is heretical (the arian heresy) as it contradict the nicene creed:

"And in Lord Jesus Christ, [...], begotten, not made..."

it is even more clear in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed:

"And in Lord Jesus Christ, [...], begotten of the Father before all worlds, [...], begotten, not made..."

So if Jesus existed before he was begotten by the holy spirit then he is part of what may be known about god.

How is that the point? I said the exact opposite of what you said and you say "that's the point"? 

Let me repeat: To open yourself to god you need to have faith. By opening your heart you are already displaying belief in god as if you did not believed him to exist you would have no particular reason to open your heart to something you do not believe in.

The only exception I can think of would be if you do not believe but wished you did, like the atheist for Jesus. But if it qualifies as opening himself then why does he not believe? If it doesn't qualify then my point that you need to believe first before you can open yourself stands.

And when was that sign made public? The earliest reference i can find is more than a week after the aurora which destroys any predictive part to it as though it was alleged to have been revealed two decades earlier there is no proof of that.

No it's not. The Anschluss was not an act of war and was not a war and thus cannot in any way, shape or form be regarded as the "breaking out" of the war. It was a political coup by Austrian nazis, not an act of war by Germany.

And you are definitely trying to fit things because you are narrowing WW2 geographically to exclude the second Sino-Japanese war to preserve the predictive part as you cannot seem to produce any supporting evidence of public knowledge of the prophecy prior to the start of it, whilst broadening WW2 temporally by including political happenings that led to WW2 but were not part of the war. You also conveniently ignore the part about "break out" as it rules out the Anschluss.

And the only war that was worse than WW1 after WW1 was WW2. It is also quite puzzling why she would mention persecution of the church (and there  indeed was some) but fail to mention persecution of god's chosen people which was much greater than the persecution of the church.

I think you mean "too late" or "so late" instead of "late enough", right?

It wouldn't make sense for god (either directly or in the form of Jesus or through Mary) to instruct Lucia to reveal it but not to instruct the successor of St Peter to do the same until is was very late given the importance of the message. 

Not necessarily pure but having an actual conversion as prophesized would support your case.

So why did WW2 finish about 40 years before said consecration that was supposed to grant a period of peace to the world? And if the lack of a world war was not said period of peace then why was there no period with no war (a period of peace) since the consecration? if the period of peace is less than a world war but more than a local war then how do you determine what amount of war is acceptable to fit the prediction in a non-arbitrary way?

So I am supposed to be impressed by a conversion that is not a conversion? Is your name Delio or Humpty Dumpty?

I did not mention all loving so that's a straw man. Mary through Lucia did mention peace given to the world and it was not given after the consecration if taken as peace everywhere in the world (peace does not imply all loving, only a lack of war) or it was given decades before the consecration if peace given to the world means a lack of world war.

The question is not whether it was a prophecy but whether you can support your claim that it was. If the oldest reference to the light is after the aurora then you cannot support the claim that it was a prophecy even if it was indeed one. If I told you that I had a prophecy from the FSM but was not allowed to reveal it yet and revealed it in 10 years and the prophecy mentioned events in the next 10 years then I could not use these events as evidence that it is a true prophecy even if I did indeed receive them before they happened.

You conflate lack of forgiveness and hate but you can hate without needing anything to forgive (like racism) and you can not forgive without hating a person. For example, if someone does me a great wrong I might not be willing to forgive him until he apologise for it (and redress it if necessary) and in doing so asks for forgiveness but even if a person slighted me doesn't mean that they are totally evil or bad enough to warrant such a thing as hate and thus I am not likely to hate them even if there is no love lost between us.

You seem to live in a very black and white world where people either have love or hate but there is a whole spectrum of emotions between love and hate and you are missing out on a lot of the subtelety of life if you label people and their interrelationship with such a broad brush.

And we go back to the lack of clear guidance and punishment as a hindu is without god as he is with the wrong one but yet he doesn't seem to feel it as a punishment. A muslim is similarly without your god and yet he sees that state as such a lack of punishment that he feels that he is with your god (the god of Abraham that is, not your specific version of it) and feels the same reward of being with him that you do.

It is less important than faith as you can live an immoral life and as long as you find faith before you die, repent and accept Jesus you are saved. Maybe frivolous is too strong a word but your belief definitely lowers its importance with respect to faith which I view as a very bad thing.

It is not the necessity of assigning meaning to the events that make it ambiguous but that there are more than one interpretation that you can red in each event.

You don't understand. He has no moral right to forgive in my name. He can forgive in his own name but he can no more forgive in my name than I can forgive in your name. If somebody slights me they should ask me for forgiveness, not god. If it slights god at the same time then they need to ask god for the part that slights him but they also still need to ask me for your forgiveness because he has no power to forgive in my name.

The passage talks about false prophets. Jesus was not trialed by false prophets but by real priests. But even if that was the case the message is still applicable to the claims of the bible as a whole as Jesus said that you can recognise false prophets by their fruits and that a good tree cannot bear bad fruit but when you look at the old testament it is bad fruit after bad fruit (mass murders, wars, genocides...) and thus according to the standard given by Jesus o recognise bad trees the old testament is such a bad tree.

You might claim that it is not because god ordered it and thus they are not bad fruit but that then nullifies Jesus' way of recognising bad fruits as any fals prophet will claim the same thing about what you perceive to be bad fruit. For example you might see some of islam's teachings as bad fruits and reject Mohammed as a false prophet (If you didn't you would be a muslim) but if what you say about god defining morality is true then if god did indeed reveal himself to mohammed then what you see as bad fruit would be as good as the bad fruit of the old testament that you see as good fruits.

Thus, you cannot differentiate between bad fruits and good fruits and have to rely on faith that your religion is true to believe that its fruits are good and on your faith that islam is not true to see its fruit as bad.

But this contradict what Jesus said as he said that you can judge by judging the fruits but in reality you cannot judge by the fruit without faith or you would have to judge the various atrocities of the old testament as being bad fruits.

I didn't think it was but I wanted to point out the nonsensical nature of the statement. 

And that is another part of christianity that I totally disagree with. I understand that it is important to christianity but to me it is a strong indication that it is a false religion.

If christianity was a true religion it would not need to rely on faith but on truth only and if your god existed he would not feel the need to invoke your sense of gullibility but would simply say "seek the truth and you will find me".

While I do not believe in Buddhism either I find that I totally agree with that quote:

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”

The truth does not need belief because the truth just is, whether you believe in it or not, so if a religion is true one necessary (but not sufficient) element would be that it ask you not to believe but to seek the truth. Christianity does not do that, it asks you to believe and declares that jesus is the truth and tells you to accept that on faith.

But when you get to know the girl and get to see that she is a good person you can get to love her even if you didn't believe in her existence before meeting her. Same thing with god. If a good person dies without believing (even though they might have heard) then they would know that Jesus is god and thus belief is superfluous but they can get to understand god in a way that they might not have been able to understand before death (as their teachers were human and not god himself) and get to love him.

What about the atheist for Jesus? He loves Jesus, he just doesn't believe that he exists. When he dies then he will know that Jesus does exist and he will love him just as much so shouldn't he be saved as he will then have both love of Jesus and knowledge of his existence?

What about muslims? The love Jesus and believe that he is a prophet of god, they just don't believe that he is god himself. When they die they will know that Jesus is indeed god and they will love him just as much so shouldn't they be saved?

How can it be moral for god to send a good person who is a muslim to be tortured in hell when that person loves Jesus and by virtue of being dead now knows that he is not just a prophet but god and thus accepts him as such?

They have no remorse and thus can't repent. Do you know what happens to people who do not repent?

Going by that standard then fornication is definitely moral as it feels great, the girls react very well to it and the guys react to a retelling by giving high fives (and vice-versa for women though they would not express it through high-fives).

Does that make sense? Of course not because the bible declares a lot of things that feel good to those doing them and do not hurt others as immoral.

But they might shut it off and refuse to use it just like you do with respect to god's "fruits".

You make a barefaced assertion that those that do not follow your morality and/or your belief follow hate and silence the pain of others but that is just not true.

While there are who do that, sometimes for religious reasons like terrorists, it simply cannot be said of everybody that does not believe in your religion as if it was true you would have catholic countries be shining beacons of morality and non-catholic countries be total anarchies and yet few countries are total anarchies regardless of religion or lack thereof.

For example you might think that I am having this discussion with you out of hate but it is the opposite. I think that your religious beliefs have strong moral shortcomings and I think that you are a moral person not because of those beliefs but despite them and I would like you to see the immoralities of you beliefs so you could be a better person as you would not have to pervert your morality by glossing over the immoral parts of your beliefs and believing that they are moral but by exercising your moral judgement and saying "even if these teachings are true I, as a person striving towards morality, cannot accept them due to their lack of morality".

And you are doing the opposite. You believe that your position is moral and thus would like to convince me that they are both moral and true to save me.

We are both acting out of love, not hate, even though only one of us can be right about the morality of his position.

I probably won't have much time to devote to it starting in september so it probably will finish then.

Also I might one day articulate my position in book form so this could be a useful debate for me.

Oh my. Richard Dawkins II?

More like if Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens had a baby as Dawkins tends to emphasize the science/rational side and Hitchens tends to emphasize the moral side of the debate though I am neither as intelligent as Dawkins nor as erudite as Hitchens.

I also don't I share the strong hatred of religions that Hitchens has as my viewpoint tends to be more detached emotionally when considering them as a whole. I would rather get emotional over specific human beings, like for example when Dawkins related his story about one of his professors being wrong about the Golgi apparatus for 15 years and thanking the visiting lecturer that proved him wrong in a presentation it tends to make my eyes water with emotion, not quite tears but not far (a short retelling is in the first paragraph here).

It's also doubtful that it will ever go any further than thinking about it. 

"So not believing is evil? So you are telling me that hindus, muslims, buddhists... and possibly other christian denominations are evil for not believing?"
I only mentioned evil but i could have said God does not allow anything besides what He is, within Him - and that also implies evil, corruption, desbelief, etc.

"Then why do you insist on applying a looser standard to god?"
It`s not a looser standard and it`s not even special pleading as God does not need both. All i´m trying to show is that seeing the world only from morality and (only) actions gives you a partial/incomplete view of God.
Killing is immoral but in self-defense or in defense of others is not. Even for human justice things can be seen in a different light. Call it preservation of human life, with God is like preservation of grace and purity/calling for judgment.
"everybody starts at the same standard"
WE start at the same standard or same common ground, not God. God is not human to be put in the same level.

"And pushing someone in front of a car also put them in the face of a choice and that's it too, no difference"
Thing is, independently of where you stand in your life, everytime life presents you with a choice, whatever the way of that happening, you choose based on two outcomes. Before this choice is actively made/followed you did not move an inch from where you were. If you go left or right it`s because you went left or right, not because someone told you about left or right. It`s not how things happen. If only you choose your path, then a choice cannot do it for you. And that`s the illusion: you only attribute faith the pushing in front of a car, but not every single choice people go trough in their lives, because with faith it seems different than everything else.

""And in Lord Jesus Christ, [...], begotten of the Father before all worlds, [...], begotten, not made...""
Yes it is true. The problem is people can`t guess. God revealed Himself to humanity and in the same way, prophets revealed the coming of Christ. remember how John the Baptist welcomed Christ.
Jesus always existed but only from a  certain period of time, was His existance revealed.

"By opening your heart you are already displaying belief in god"
As much as it seems like that, it`s not exactly like that. When people open themselves it`s more in the sense of giving it a chance - as vague as this expression may seem.
To some it may mean putting their fears away first. Doesn`t necessarily mean faith because there is no true love, trust and belief.

"And when was that sign made public?"
The sign in the sky told by Mary, an "unknown light", as the beggining of a new war, was what Lucia understood as being the aurora in the night of Januray 25th 1938. Two monts before Hitler started his conquests.
The term break-out, i don`t find it fitting. In portuguese is written by Lucia as "começará" which means "will start".
And in fact it did. The birth of WW2 was there. Had not Hitler started his conquests and there would not be a WW2.
I can`t find explicit references to this action or others, i can only find references to a letter in 1929 where it`s described the request for the reparation. Which the Church only made it public in 1939, so i correct myself in saying it did so too late! Thank you.
But Mary did spoke about those who believed: the martyrs.
"It wouldn't make sense for god (either directly or in the form of Jesus or through Mary) to instruct Lucia to reveal"
No one understands God to be able to really explain it. Ony God really knows why exactly it chose Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco for receiving the message.

The consecration was for Russia, not for the world, and so, peace would only come after that. But only for a period of time.
And if you look back, the world was at peace after that, not complete peace because humanity won`t go away. Before the consecration you had the spread of communism with it`s hatred for religion, the cold war.
It all ended and Russia did convert by embracing religion once again, and with that, God.
As far as i know, the letter Lucia wrote predated 1960, it seems that it was she who asked for it to be opened at this date because she believed the world would better understand it at this time (the part of the secret about Russia).

"those who don`t forgive and hate bind themselves to a life without peace and hate."
Those who don`t forgive and hate is not the same person.
An actions always gets a reaction. If you don`t forgive, hate, not trust, etc., won`t live in harmony withing your self and with God. God`s punishment is also the same as saying: "So, you don`t want ME, so i`ll leave in your own troubles".
Different meanings doesn`t mean you can`t find the true one. If somebody does something against, why did this happen? It`s never random, so you got to read into it because sometime it actually has more than one interpretation.
When your father punished you it´s not only because of the action, but also because of the reason behind it.

"The passage talks about false prophets"
It is about prophets but not only. It`s showing how one can discover how someone is good by not just looking at what they say, but also at what they do. You can say you love God but if your heart and actions show something else, you know that that love isn´t honest. And actually the same applies at faith.
About false prophets and false Christs: "Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus, that spirit is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world"
And Matthew 24-25: "For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect—if that were possible. 25See, I have told you ahead of time"
Acts of the Apostles: Acts 13 4-12
"but your belief definitely lowers its importance with respect to faith"
It honestly doesn`t. You can`t just honor Jesus with your lips, your heart needs to do the same. The love for Jesus needs, absolutely, to be within as outside of you.
"but when you look at the old testament it is bad fruit after bad fruit (mass murders, wars, genocides...) and thus according to the standard given by Jesus o recognise bad trees the old testament is such a bad tree"
Depends on how you read God and prophets.
It`s the same as those who claim to love God, but they do it only with their lips, not their hearts and gestures. They speak one thing and show another.
With God, you always read and see the same thing. But you need to know how to read Him because he`s not human and He is the basis of everything good.
For example, it`s not because God punishes that He is less good. Our goodness comes from God, but it doesn`t mean it`s to be seen the same. Being goodness and experiencing it in a human form is really different.

"But when you get to know the girl and get to see that she is a good person you can get to love her even if you didn't believe in her existence before meeting her."
But the fact is, all this happens during your lifetime. Not after. And it is in this life that everything is decided.

"If christianity was a true religion it would not need to rely on faith but on truth only"
Isn`t Jesus the truth, path, life? Faith is also love for the truth.
"seek the truth and you will find me" or in other words, open yourself to God - ask for the living water - and you shall receive it. Love and you shall receive God. That is the truth of life.

"They have no remorse and thus can't repent. Do you know what happens to people who do not repent?"
Do you think God is blind to that? God is fair.

"When people follow hate and silence the pain of others or morality, they "decided" to follow a path"
I was speaking only from a point of view.
When you follow hate in every action despite seeing the bad consequences, you do silence something.
"But they might shut it off and refuse to use it"
You see, it`s not really a question of religion. It`s seeing how people love their lives. Some do repent what they do, others don`t, but then again, in this case, they longer follow hate.

Both. God made the universe via the Big Bang! Science has proved the Big Bang! occurred some 13-14 billion years ago (though the fine details are yet to be ironed out). I believe in God. Hence logic dictates that God caused the Big Bang!

There's your intelligent design.

When you think about it the Universe is really quite young. Brown Dwarf stars are meant to have a life expectancy in the trillions of years. That means the first brown dwarf stars are barely out of diapers. There are also a large number of super-massive stars and very few black holes relative to the number of super massive stars. Given super massive stars become black holes when they die, and Super Massive stars have quite short lifespans this also shows that 13-14 billion years is very young for the age of the universe.

But he is still the one who chose to setup the system so that people who do not believe are punished in a similar manner to those that are evil. If what you do is not evil but you get punished in the same or very similar manner to those that are doing evil then there isn't that much difference is there?

He is the one who chose to be so restrictive in his acceptance and he is the one who chose to punish a finite crime with an infinite punishment, an odiously immoral and disproportionate thing to do that is much much worse than a lifetime imprisonment in guantanamo with hourly waterboarding as a punishment for Jaywalking.

Either disbelief is evil (including belief in other religions), which I disagree with or god is punishing with eternal torture something that is not evil, which is evil.

Let's see, in our standard murder is immoral; in the standard you apply to god murder is moral because he is god and everything he does is moral because he defines morality. How is that not a looser moral standard? It is in fact the loosest moral standard as no matter how ignoble an act god does it is still considered moral.

For it not to be special pleading you would need to properly justify the application of a different standard but all you managed to come up with is "but he is different" or "but he is god" which is as poor a justification as saying "When the President does it, that means it is not illegal".

If something is immoral then it is immoral even when done by god otherwise moral and immoral have no meaning.

You keep talking about taking a complete view of god but you do not do it yourself as you steadfastly refuse to consider the immoral acts of god. You say that it is because we cannot know his thought process and thus we cannot judge him when he does seemingly immoral things but if you cannot judge his seemingly immoral acts for that reason then we cannot judge his seemingly moral acts either as to do so we would need the kind of understanding of his mind that you say we lack to judge him negatively.

All you can say is that you trust that that entity who commited or ordered murder, mass murder, genocide... is a benevolent entity because they told you they were.

The difference is that the situation changes, not the actor. It is the different situation (self-defense) that makes it moral, not the person doing it. Saying god can do anything to preserve grace/purity is like saying that white people can murder black people marrying white people to conserve the purity of white people. Does that sound repulsive to you? Good, because that's what your assertion sounds to me.

Again, to apply a different standard you must first show good cause that such a different standard is warranted even if he is not human. I can do it with the non-humans that are animals and plants by virtue if their lack of mental ability ot reason about what is right and wrong but god has no such excuse.

Saying we cannot understand him doesn't help either as these acts of immorality are found in the bible which is supposed to be (possibly among other things) a moral guide which means that god should have explained in it why such actions where not immoral so we would be able to understand and not get the wrong idea that mass murder is moral. Simply saying that "Thou shall not kill" is not enough as it only sends mixed signals and confuses as to when murder is moral and when it is not.

This is a false premise as by telling them of god you are choosing their path to be that of going to hell. They may afterwards be able to go back to the path to heaven but it doesn't change that the simple telling puts them in a different path than they were prior to it.

You also are not addressing my point that if you really believed your claim that "god defines morality" then you would not need to argue that it is not like pushing someone in front of a car but you would be arguing that even if god asked you to literally throw unbelievers in front of vehicles then it would be moral as he would be the one ordering it.

This contradicts Romans 1:19 which says: "since what may be known about god is plain to them". If Jesus existed before his incarnation then he was always a part of god and thus is part of what may be known about god even before his birth.

You say people can't guess but Romans 1:19 says that it is plain to them.

Reread what you quoted, I only mentioned belief, not trust, love or faith. To give it a chance you need to believe first, maybe not as strongly as someone who also has love and trust (and thus faith) but you still need to believe. You wouldn't give a chance and put your fears away for the invisible pink unicorn because you don't believe in it. Putting your fears away and giving a god a chance proves that you believe he exists, even if that belief is not as strong as a believers' belief.

That doesn't answer the question of when it was made public, only the question of what Lucia took the sign to be. The earliest mention of the sign was after its appearance which means that barring further evidence it was made public after its appearance.

Thanks for that. That's one of the problems with translations (including with the bible). It is indeed less precise than "break out" which evokes visions of battles.

However...

... you insist on putting the start of the war before the war started. The Anschluss may have been Hitler's first conquest and thus one of the causes of WW2 but it wasn't itself part of WW2 any more than the assassination of archduke Ferdinand was part of WW1, instead both where causes of their respective WW.

Indeed, the Anschluss was completed way before the start of the war and while it was one of the events that preceded the war it is not even as clearly a cause of the war as the assassination of archduke Ferdinand was, that would be the invasion of Poland that has this place. Had Hitler been satisfied with the Anschluss, the Sudetenland, the rest of Czekoslovakia and Memelland there would not have been a WW2 as the other nations did not declare war over those. Instead it was the invasion of Poland which was the straw that broke the camel's back and while the other straws (the Anschluss...) were necessary to have WW2 they were not sufficient.

Also, you want to include political events in the war on the basis of "Had not Hitler started his conquests and there would not be a WW2" but this can be said of other events too:

"Had not Hitler been elected in 1933 and there would not be a WW2"

"Had not Germany been imposed the Versailles treaty  and there would not be a WW2"

"Had not Germany been in WW1  and there would not be a WW2"

...

It obviously doesn't make sense to include all these events in WW2 jsut because they were events that lead to WW2 but the only reason not to include them while including the Anschluss and subsequent events is to make it fit with the Pius XI part of the prophecy, in other word the only reason to do so is to make the facts fit the prophecy.

But unless that letter also contained the relevant part of the prophecy then its predictive power rests on the belief that Lucia did not make it all up after the fact. If that letter did contain the prophecy then it is much stronger as you are not talking of possibly one person lying but about a conspiracy that would include many people in the church which, while not impossible, would be a lot less likely as it rests on none of the members of the conspiracy spilling the bean (which is also why conspiracy theories like the moon landing being a hoax and 9/11 being a government con job are not credible as they require dozens if not hundreds of people not spilling the beans, which is very unlikely).

She spoke in the context of Russia spreading her errors, which could possibly account for the Stalinist purges but cannot account for the murder of millions of Jews at the hands of the Nazis.

You are missing half of the sentence and thus the whole point. I don't have too much of a problem with him saying it to 3 kids instead of the pope, who is better able to spread the message. I have a problem with Jesus appearing to Lucia and authorising her to reveal the second secret but not doing the same or similar to the pope to make sure that the secret that Lucia could then reveal got wide distribution. Presumably the pope must be frequently praying to god and thus could have easily have had an inspiration to spread the message instead of waiting until it was too late. It is the juxtaposition of telling Lucia and not telling the pope that I find illogical.

Of course I am assuming that god did not tell the pope instead of having the pope not following god's instructions but if god told him to spread the second secret wide like he told Lucia to reveal it then why wouldn't he do it?

Maybe but there still hasn't been peace since said consecration. For the prophecy to have any value there needs to be a way to diferentiate between the promised peace and the lack of it and have it correspond with the consecration but none of them correspond as WW2 ended decades before, the cold war ended many years after and war in general did not end at all after the consecration either.

Except that the cold war ended more than half a decade after the consecration. If you want long enough any government will change so all you have to do is predict their fall following a given event, repeat the event once in a while (1942, 1952, 1984) and then say "well the one that didn't work were not done properly, only the one that worked counts". That seems too easy to me.

That letter concerned the third secret whereas the secret about Russia was the second secret.

I don't automatically give forgiveness to people because they need to ask for it first but that doesn't mean that I don't leave in harmony with myself as I do not go around spending my time thinking about people that did things to me that require my forgiveness.

As for living in harmony with god, I cannot say that I care to live in harmony with an unrepentant mass murderer just because he chose to forgive us for making us in a way that is unable to follow his laws and did so in a flashy way. Especially when the flashy way he chose was human sacrifice.

As for trust, it has to be earned, not given, tough when meeting a new person you need to give them a modicum of trust upon which to build further trust.

No it is quite literally: "So, you don`t want ME, so i`ll get you tortured" (except for those versions of christianity that do not believe in hell).

Sure, just like i could have found the true meaning when my dad punished me and said "you know why you are punished" but it does mean that it is not explicit, which is what I have a problem with.

But given that he wouldn't tell me the reason behind it (sometimes) then I couldn't improve on it. Same with god, given that he doesn't explicitely tell us the reason behind any given action that might be taken as punishment/guidance we cannot improve upon it unless we chance upon the correct reason.

I know, it is how I used it (except applying it directly to god and his actions). YOU are the one who said that it pertained to the people Jesus met after being arrested which I pointed out doesn't fit as those were not prophets.

But as you say and as I did "It`s showing how one can discover how someone is good by not just looking at what they say, but also at what they do" and when applied to god's actions it shows that god is not good as he is willing to have men, women and children killed for no reason other than to steal their land for the Israelites. It shows a god willing to torture people for eternity, which would be immoral even for the most heinous act imaginable as it is a cruel and infinite punishment for a finite crime but it is even more evil when applied to such actions as lack of belief or belief in the wrong god, which is determined more by birth in a given family than anything else. It is even more odious when he is perfectly willing to reduce that sentence from an eternity in hell for one's lifetime to just 3 days for the combined lifetimes of all those who accepted Jesus.

Indeed, if my lifetime of sins warrants an eternity in hell, don't the combined lifetimes of sins of all saved warrant the same punishment? And if Jesus paid that punishment for you then shouldn't Jesus be spending an eternity in hell instead of the three days between his crucifixion and his resurrection?

So Jesus did not so much pay for your sins as get a slap on the wrist for your sins, not exactly the selfless sacrifice that christianity claims it to be.

By that standard then Mohammed and Joseph Smith are true prophets as they acknowledge Jesus as the Christ. Does that mean that you are a muslim and a mormon as well as a catholic?

Of course the problem with such a definition is that it is circular "if they recognise our religion then they are true prophets, if they do not recognise it then they are not". Not exactly a useful definition.

This also undermines Lucia Santos' prophecy as it recognises that false prophets can perform great miracles so if she is a false prophets, as other denominations of christianity that do not accept that prophecy as true would see her, then she still could make miracles (though not much of one as it necessitate fitting a lot of square pegs in round holes as I have argued earlier).

So the proconsul believed because of the miracle Paul did even though the bible says that false prophets can perform great miracles? The only thing that remains is the requirement of accepting Jesus as Christ which muslims and mormons do. 

It does because immorality can be washed away by faith through the sacrifice of Jesus whereas unbelief cannot be washed away by morality through the sacrifice of Jesus, which shows that god puts faith front and center and you can live a life of immorality as long as in your heart you are really sorry that you did.

You are beggin the question. you start with "god is good" and unsurprisingly you finish with "god is good" even when there are mass murders, wars and genocides on the way. To use the standard set by Jesus you must first stop to beg the question "x is good" as if you do then that standard is meaningless:

"But you need to know how to read allah because he`s not human and He is the basis of everything good."

Would you accept that or would you read the koran critically and decide if it is a moral book or not on its own merit? If not then why do you do it for your god (beside having been indoctrinated to do so by your parents and your priests).

And what exactly were Job's children punished for? The bible is quite clear that the reason they were killed was because god authorised satan to do so in order to win a bet.

The bible also says that: "God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden" Romans 9:16-18

So his punishment is indeed arbitrary and thus not due to him being good but capricious.

No it doesn't. It comes from the fact that any society that is full of murder and violence against other members of that society is self destructive so that after a time only those societies without those attributes being dominant survive.

If our goodness came from god then god would not have ordered the Israelites to wipe out so many different peoples as that has nothing to do with goodness and everything to do with conquest.

Again, I am not claiming that it is not so in you system of belief, I am claiming that it is stupid and immoral.

No he is not. He claims to be but his reliance on faith proves otherwise.

First, the bible claiming that Jesus is the truth doesn't make it so any more than islam claiming to be a religion of peace makes it so. You also have to look at what they do, not just what they claim and in the case of the history of islam and its many conquest we can say that having the name of the religion sharing a root with the arabic word for peace does not necessarily make it so*.

Second, just looking at the verse saying that Jesus is "the way and the truth and the life" you see that it also says "No one comes to the Father except through me" which means that belief in Jesus is what matters, not the truth, and tries to link himself to the truth by claiming that he is it. If he really was the truth he would say something like "I am the truth but do not take my word for it but search for the truth yourself for in doing so you will find me". He doesn't rely on truth but tries to dictate what he claims to be the truth through faith.

The fact is that truth does not need faith for truth is regardless of anybody's faith in it andwhen you look for it and find it you do not need to have faith in the truth for you then have evidence of it.

* on the other hand I know at least one muslim that I can say if all muslim were like him it would be reasonably close to be as much a religion of peace as jainism is.

That's not seeking truth but seeking belief. The truth would not need belief to be sought as it would be just as true even without belief. That one must first believe in a certain "truth" to find it is actually a good hint that it is not a truth but a lie that some try to pass off as truth by using your gullibility.

If someone tried to sell you a pig in a poke he would need to rely on your faith in his righteousness in order to sell it to you but if he really had such a great pig in his poke then he would not need to rely on your faith but would show the pig to you without any need to ask you to believe and/or trust him.

This is why I see religions with claims of rewards after death as the ultimate pig in the ultimate poke.

It is the ultimate pig in that it is the most wonderful pig you can think of (heaven) and it is in the ultimate poke in that you cannot open it and see the pig until you are dead and by then it is too late to ask for a refund.

It is actually doubly so in that it threatens you with the ultimate punishment in the same poke if you do not buy the pig.

No he is not: "God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden" Romans 9:16-18

That is anything but fair.

Like when the Israelites followed god's hate for the various inhabitants of the middle east despite seeing the bad consequences of their genocides?

Like when god sends good people to be tortured because they do not believe in him? An action that is claimed to be in in accord with his perfect love.

What is silenced in those cases are justice, morality and compassion, things that your god claims to be full of but seems always to come up short with, except for his followers.

It is a question of religion as if it wasn't for your religion why would you shut off your mind to the atrocities committed by your god?

I wish nobody would let their religion shut their mind off and rationally assess the moral worth of their religion; it would result in a much better world overall.

========================================================================================================

I'm afraid this will be my last response to you as life is intruding more strongly upon my time now.

To summarise you hold the rather strange belief that an entity that ordered mass murders, genocides (with the occasional exception of the virgins that were to be divided as spoils of war between the Israelites), human sacrifices (even if he recanted on at least one occasion)... an entity that calls eternal punishment by torture for a finite crime just, no matter how big or small the crime is. An entity that believes that blasphemy and fornications are the worst possible crimes, which means that they are worse than murder or slavery (which said entity condones); an entity that believes in punishing a whole species for the crime of their great great great... granparents (Adam and Eve). You hold the belief that such an entity is the best source of moral guidance we can ever have and is worthy of worship.

I am afraid that I must strongly disagree with such an absurd assessment, regardless of whether said entity exists or not and I can only hope that you will one day open your eyes to the lack of morality inherent in your religious beliefs.

"But he is still the one who chose to setup the system so that people who do not believe are punished in a similar manner to those that are evil"
Remember the premise that those who don`t believe in Him reject that He is the truth, life and the path. Which is to say that people reject the fabric of all existence, the Being itself. He said to Moses: "I am He who is". Do you know what it means to reject something like this? There´s nothing bigger or close a thing to reject after this.
This means you can reject Him in various ways, but it´s still rejection. We feel it`s ok to have evil in our lives - yin and yang - but God is perfect, holy and pure. There`s no room for evil.
From that you can go to moraility. God`s morality is perfect as He is. We just can`t imagine or feel because we aren`t God. There is a difference and it´s really, really substantial. You just don`t agree or accept that either that difference exists or it has no such impact.
What seems to us immoral, doesn`t need - and isn´t - to be necessarily immoral to God.
"something is immoral then it is immoral even when done by god otherwise moral and immoral have no meaning."
How can you, who doesn`t know God´s being, know and define what is moral and immoral? He created that, not us. We have a very limited understanding on that.
I do consider everything done by God, but i do it according to what God is. That`s like me deciding what is the universe in every sense of the word... me who was also created like the universe.
I am able to know what God is? No. As Jesus said: only the father knows the sun and only the sun knows the father". If you think i should only believe based on what has been told is true. But that`s what makes all the difference, isn`t it? Besides what God and Jesus told us and what we experience through our faith, there are no other ways.
" like saying that white people can murder black people marrying white people to conserve the purity of white people"
A sentence that obeys the same criteria of thought doesn`t make it the same in real life.
It changed the situation in the same way as knowing why God does what He does would change the situation for God aswell.
"god should have explained in it why such actions where not immoral"
Haven´t read the Bible so i can`t say exactly if there`s something there that explains it in a way or another. Still, the answer can be found through what God is: holy and giver and taker of life.

"This is a false premise as by telling them of god you are choosing their path"
In no way is that what happens. So, i put them in front of a choice and that`s the same as choosing their path? Either they have a choice or they don`t. Because if they do, it`s not me choosing a path.
Everything that comes out of God is good. I already said this before.

"since what may be known about god is plain to them"
What may be known could also incorporate our limitations, that being, limitations of knowing God. The proof is that no one but Jesus and God know one other in a perfect way - as i said above.

"Putting your fears away and giving a god a chance proves that you believe he exists"
What if what exists is doubt? Belief is a certainty that not everyone possesses. There is something, but if it would be belief than no one would have to open their hearts in the way i speak of.
That`s why people talk about a leap of faith: it´s not faith like belief, trust and love, but is a will of some sort that pushes them to give it a try. Their conception of God helps them to turn to God in a way they wouldn`t otherwise.

"That doesn't answer the question of when it was made public"
That answer i am not able to respond with clarity.
Still, Mary revealed herself to those who couldn`t see her by doing the miracle. The events (told to be part of what mary told lucia) about Russia were told before they happened. Even if i can`t show exactly when it was made public, why would it not be true or proof when the rest was known?
What is not clear is just a part of the whole apparition.

"you insist on putting the start of the war before the war started"
Mary also said that WW1 would end when she appeared in 1917. Did she say when? No, she didn`t, yet she was right.
She said a new would start in the reign of Pius XI and the fact is, the new war had it`s start in 1938, even if the actual war didn`t took place years after.
No will will deny that Hitler and his desires were what lead up to a new war - and Mary knew this the same way she knew about what would happen to Russia and the pope.
Will start isn`t the same as break-out.
The role of the church since the very beggining was probably less than good (several priests, i believe, even tried make Lucia take back her words). Actually, long before it happened (1925-1929) Mary warned Lucia that whe wasn`t listened to and that it would be too late., but still her Heart would triumph.

"She spoke in the context of Russia spreading her errors,"
Even if it`s not there, there`s no reason to believe that those aren`t included. Jews or not.

"It is the juxtaposition of telling Lucia and not telling the pope that I find illogical."
I did understand it. I also said that no one understands God absolutely, so we may see some things that seem odd, but doesn`t mean it`s illogical. It`s just that we don`t know.
For all i have read, the pope never knew by revelation, none of them.
There have been several apparitions and i don`t remember reading anything about the pope knowing about it.
God has its way of doing things.

"Maybe but there still hasn't been peace since said consecration"
True if we try to see the end of all evil. Call it a return to a normal state.

"Except that the cold war ended more than half a decade after the consecration"
That was my mistake. For some reason i thought it ended way sooner.
The worse war did end and the mistakes of Russia saw an end.

"That letter concerned the third secret whereas the secret about Russia was the second secret."
No. The 1st secret is the vision of hell. The 2nd was about the devotion to the Immaculate heart of Mart and the third was about Russia.

"I don't automatically give forgiveness to people because they need to ask for it"
Actually, that`s something Jesus tells us to do even if the person doesn`t ask for it. Forgive to be forgiven has no restraints. In the same way, Jesus forgave even if people didn`t ask for it, He opened the way.
You are in harmony but you are a case. What i meant is that people who are able to forgive despite the other one asking or not gives the one who forgave a sense of freedom has he is no longer stranded by anger, hate, etc.
"human sacrifice"
You are talking about Jesus, right?
When you break a window, you ask for forgiveness and pay the reparation or just say you are sorry? Not only repent is needed but also reparation, that`s why He sacrificided His son.
He made you unable to fulfill His law is only a part of what happens. Yes, you are not perfect and God knows that. He doesn`t ask for perfection. What He wants is that when you choose to apply your freedom the wrong way you repent what you did.

"So, you don`t want ME, so i`ll get you tortured"
I`ll read it as your personnal interpretation of what happens. In life and after it, you get and live by the path you choose. Punishing us doesn`t mean He doesn`t care or wouldn`t wish for it to be different.

"you know why you are punished"
Just because God doesn`t explicitly tell you in your faith doesn´t mean you don`t have what it takes to find the true meaning of your actions or that He doesn`t try to guide you to the good path.
When i do something bad, even if i am not punished, doesn`t mean i don`t know what i did was wrong.

"people Jesus met after being arrested which I pointed out doesn't fit as those were not prophets."
Actually, from what i read prophets were also considered teachers in the sense they spread and explained the word of God - which priests do.
"It is even more odious when he is perfectly willing to reduce that sentence from an eternity in hell for one's lifetime to just 3 days for the combined lifetimes of all those who accepted Jesus."
I honestly don`t know what you are talking about. Are you talking about the time where Jesus descended into Hades or House of the dead? Does this quote help? "The rich man was on the torment side and Lazarus was in Abraham's Bosom, which was called "paradise" by the LORD Jesus Christ when He addressed the thief who found faith the day Jesus was crucified"
"not exactly the selfless sacrifice that christianity claims it to be."
Who died for the sins of mankind if not Jesus? Who was the sacrificed lamb? Don`t those who die in Christ, ressurrect with Him? Opening the path through love was His mission.

"but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus, that spirit is not from God."
What is acknowlidging but to live it?
Actually, the quote, if i am not confusing with another one, went on saying that the false profhets will also attempt to deviate you from God.

"This also undermines Lucia Santos' prophecy as it recognises that false prophets can perform great miracles so if she is a false prophets"
She didn`t perform miracles... i think. I can only remembering Jacinta doing it. Still, undermines only to those who wish to see it that way. John Paul II is credited to being able to perform miracles. Is he undermined? Not to me.
The false prophets also try to keep you away from God. Lucia did the opposite of a false prophet.
They believed Paul because of what He did and what he spoke of God. I might be forgetting, but i don`t remember reading the one making miracles.
All, in what is done, is what will make you a honest or a false prophet.

"which shows that god puts faith front and center and you can live a life of immorality as long as in your heart you are really sorry that you did."
Now you are mixing things. God wants faith, but He wants it true and burning in your heart. People make mistakes and ask for honest forgiveness and therefore get it.
Which means, your bad ways can be corrected by accepting God in your heart once again. Faith necessarily means, morality, Inversion doesn`t add faith. So in this sense it can`t wash away anything, since God isn`t in your heart.

"then that standard is meaningless"
A possibility looked only by reason is no different than another, and another - given the same context. It`s not meaningless because there is a basis for it, that is God is good - the truth, path and life.
If you assume this, than the bad fruit applies to everything but Him.
God and Allah are the same. It`s the same God.

"And what exactly were Job's children punished for"
That`s not the context of the Book of Job, at least for what i read.
Killed, yes. Punished? Not told.
What bet? Does it say it`s a bet or are you reading it like a bet? Do you think what happened to Job is in any way different from us or even Jesus?
There was no bet. What the book shows is how the devil will try to separate us from God. Does God allow? Yes. Why? Because you are free even to deny Him.
Making a bet really means not caring. And why would even God make a bet with satan? Prove what point? Who was ever in control?
The only point that is proven in this book is that people who hold on to their faith are rewarded and that the devil has no real power over no one.

"God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden"
So, you don`t question why He has mercy in one but not another? Aren`t those who live in sin cast in hell and those who live in faith sent to heaven? Why do you think God decided to have no mercy on them? It also goes back to that idea where sinners are left on their path of sin.

"Our goodness comes from God"
If you don`t believe i believe.
Not being a war doesn`t mean we a re fully exploiting goodness. Goodness is not lack of evil. It exists per se.
What society doesn`t have evil?

"If he really was the truth he would say something like "I am the truth but do not take my word for it but search for the truth yourself for in doing so you will find me". "
That wouldn`t change a single thing. He doesn`t need to say it when God already gave you free will and freedom do choose.
And Jesus didn`t just rely on words, He showed it through actions like miracles and the transfiguration. And in the case of marian apparitions He was there aswell and revealed Himself.
"you look for it and find it you do not need to have faith in the truth for you then have evidence of it"
But you have your proof don`t you? isn`t the bible proof? Aren`t miracles proof? Aren`t apparitions proof? Are do you expect, being finite, able to find an absolute proof? Could you even tell that it was the absolute proof?

"That's not seeking truth but seeking belief"
Belief happens when people achieve something. People all over the world seek for the truth. Some find it, some don`t. Those who do, gain faith because they opened their hearts first and tried to find something that would answer their questions.
Even if my quote spoke essencially of belief, it still applies - more when you believe in Jesus when He says He is the truth.

"What is silenced in those cases are justice, morality and compassion, things that your god claims to be full of but seems always to come up short with, except for his followers."
Love is given to those who want it and keep it in their hearts, making them worthy. Don`t ask for what your heart has no place for.

"I wish nobody would let their religion shut their mind off and rationally assess the moral worth of their religion"
Don`t take this the wrong way but, i too could wish for people who don`t know/or are finite to not judge God`s perfection or just reasons, since their minds can`t read other`s minds nor begin to understand something infinite. More, when the birth and sacrifice of Jesus point to a loving God that also punishes you not for the sake of punishing but for you to learn. Love one another like He loved us would do wonders to the world.

Ok, i understand.

I too wish you can one day realise that a lot comes from actually knowing (or at least starting with giving the benefit of doubt), like the chained man in the allegory of the cave. He was only looking at what he had in front of him... guess he was wrong. Not everything is what it seems. You want to find some reasons, but with God you care not. Don`t even accept the existing difference.
Our actions are the same as Adam and Eve`s: we choose as they chose.
"Love one another like I loved you" and i am the truth, life and the path, speaks for what you can understand and what you can`t understand.

Big Bang will always be a theory

And "God did it!" will always be less than a theory...