And I agree that the churches can, and should, demand the government stop taxing people claiming a specific faith. It saddens me that European 'Christians' (I wonder if I can call them that, even) would allow such a thing to happen.

I'm not saying it's a government conspiracy to secretly destroy the churches. But that still doesn't change the fact that the European church is so far removed from a right relationship with God, and so given into greed, that it is a self-destructive cycle...No wonder Europe is far more atheist - their churches push them to that, by forcing people to give not of a cheerful heart (as the Bible says), but a demand from government, backed by the church.

I don't think you understand the concept of hell. Hell wasn't created as a means to torture the godless, but to separate them from God. A loving God didn't create a woeful hell. Sinful actions by Satan did. Evil, nor hell, existed before sin. Sin created a separation from a perfect God - the diometric opposite of heaven and holiness. 

But many bible texts tell about how hell involves burning in fire forever. That's much more than seperation from God, and it is in no way fair. One of the texts that were excluded from the bible at the council of nicea even had a full detailed explaination of hell full of fire, with specific punishments for different sins. It even said that believers from heaven could watch the people in hell... That's horrible. I understand why they didn't include it in the bible canon.

So, do you think it's seperation or infinite hell fire like the bible describes?

If you think it's hell fire, I don't think that's fair, no matter what someone has done, no one deserves infinite burning. They deserve equal retribution. Also, If you argue that evil didn't exist before sin you need to pick up your bible, god is the source of the light and the dark, good and evil. Doesn't really make sense to blame the devil when god made the devil. 

So how long of punishment does a madman that helped kill, rape, and destroy 100,000,000 lives deserve to be punished? 

He deserves to be killed, raped, and detroyed, 100,000,000 times in the exact same way as his victims. He deserves to receive the same amount of suffering he inflicted, nothing more, nothing less.

If you dive into the idea of heaven/hell from a Christian perspective, it is somewhat based on what you said - no 2 people get the same reward or punishment. There are tiers. Read up on 'A divine revelation of Heaven & Hell' by 2 different authors that claim to of visited both places...Each have different tiers based on what they did, and if they knew God or not.

Sounds interesting, but I doubt it will be interesting as some of the native americans, hindu, satanist, and other afterlife visits I've read about. No one seems to have the ability to come back after death and tell us what happens, and the fact that we have so many different conflicting afterlifes.. All afterlifes could be true, all afterlifes visuals could be delusions. Some afterlifes could be true, other could be delusions. How do we know? We don't.

The issue is that morality, although is part of God, is not the prequisite of being with God. Having a relationship with God gets you to heaven...Morality is the extention of that relationship with God, and godly living. Maybe it's just me, but it's illogical to expect for someone to go to a place that they deny exists, and have a relationship with a God they rejected during their life.

How do you know you have the relationship with the right god? You claim your god gives you morality, and while I do agree there's an objective standard of morality, it's not god, it's the simple concept of non-harm. You might tell me that non-harm can be subjective too, and I'd agree with you. Once we're born, none of us can be objective, as we start forming subjective human experiences. That's why believers and nonbelievers alike do not have a objective sense of morals, even though they may claim to. Only people who are not alive have objective morals because they do not have the ability to cause harm.

Anyways, our morals are affected by our DNA, hormones, brain structure, and culture. But if you do want to argue that your god somehow gives you special morals, please do tell your morals, so we can judge your god or your concept of god based on his effect on you.

Jesus' death on the cross bridged the gap between God and man. Before Jesus died, sacrifices had to be made, and superficial laws had to be kept to a T. Jesus did away with that.

I know all that blood sacrifice dogma, but I disagree with it and think all those people were superstitious. God does not require any materialistic sacrifice, how does that make sense? You still failed to answer my question, how does jesus dying on the cross make up for believers sin? Does it magically make god forget their sins of something? Why would you think your god would do that? I think believers deserve to pay for their sins as much as anyone else. Do you disagree? If so, why?

Argue as you like, but some of us think that the 1 in 250,000,000,000 chance that life randomly appeared is kind of illogical.

Did I say I believed it that? You know I'm a very open minded agnostic and you assuming I believe that shades my view of you. I'm really into philosophy and reading all the various religious views of different people, is really fun for me... Do you think I don't consider your world view a possibility? I do, I wasn't there to see the past. But I also think the materialist, naturalist, evolutionist, mormon, muslim, satanist, hindu, buddhist, and every other religion's world view could be correct.

But only the one with proof needs to be considered.

The materialistic/evolutionist/naturalist world view seems to be correct from everything we have from science. But from everything we've gathered from the human experience, and various spiritual teachers(for example Buddha or Christ), conciousness is a very interesting thing. It would suck if our conciousness was just an illusion within our brain and we ceased to experience anything once we died.

As Buddha taught "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" 

Also, there's no such thing as random. Random is a useless concept. Everything is predetermined, life was no accident, it was a result of cause and effect, no luck or chance involved. Luck, chance, and randomness are concepts us earthly beings created because we don't know everything thus can't see how everything pans out. The view that 1/250000000000 chance that life appeared randomly is illogical, I'd agree with you. There was no other possibility unless the beggining factors of the universe and physics we different, it was 100% chance that life would form in our universe. But where does 'God' come into this? The creation? If so, why do you think your god is the same as the one who created the universe? Also, if you do think your god, or the god of the universe is all powerful, where your base for that assumtion? 

Infinite separation of from God. You assume that all hell is, is a magical lake of fire for eternity...Not quite the way some that have claimed to be there, have described it.

How is it fair?

Infinite life with a God they accepted. Why should someone go to a place they rejected, and not believe in?

I don't think any humans are going to 'heaven', the highest spiritual plane where the source of all conciousness resides, just for putting faith in a man made story. Putting faith in a book should not earn someone heaven.

That's your opinion. Not neccesarily the views of an almighty God. There are some things we cannot assume to assertain in this life. But the base issue is that you either accept God, or reject God in life. Regardless of what you say, your rejecting God. How is it logical that you can have communion with him because you hated the idea of him in this life? All I've seen you spew on the forum is wrath and anger toward God. Why is it, then, that your other actions should give you a free pass?

At the green text, I don't think god is something you accept or reject, only your christian version of god is like that. I don't think God cares if you accept or reject the silly human interpretations of god. If there is a god it's something that's inherent from birth. You assume I'm rejecting god, that saddens me. You know nothing about me...

Once again shading my view of you poorly. How is it possible that I have communion with the actual god? IT's possible because we're all connected to the source of everything, aka god, from birth. Or do you mean your christian god? I'm definatly not connected to the christian god anymore. I was a hardcore bible thumping christian for two years. You know this right? But in retrospect I wasn't in connection with a god. I was tricking myself based on mundane coincidences. At the time though I did think I was in connection with god.

I have no anger toward god. Only flawed concepts of god. Do you think the true god would not understand my views? I'm not in anger or wrath, this is the internet, how do you know my attitude at the time of writing what I do? I'm usually having a good time because I enjoy thinking about this kind of stuff. You don't think god values good heartedness(being a moral and decent person), happiness, and logic? Why not?

My actions shouldn't be given a free pass. I deserve all the suffering I cause on this earth. But I don't think hell is the only other alternative afterlife to heaven. For example, this earth is a realm seperate from heaven or hell. From what I've read, according to different religions, there are many spiritual and physical planes. Why do you think there is only heaven and hell? There's could be many many planes of existance.

I'll end on a nice quote:

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must approve the homage of reason rather than of blind-folded fear.
-- Thomas Jefferson

[/quote]

All religion threads are, its because they're easy to debate and impossible to win.

The problem with the whole offending religious people is that they act within constaints that they believe in because they feel they have to.

Normally when christians are trying to convert you they genuinely believe that they are saving you. I do not think that any religion is restricting to be peoples lives who choose to be part of it.

Athiests normally start an arguement just for the sake of it.

If someone wants to have faith, let them, unless it causes harm.

Fixed. I agree with your overall sentiment, but faith is bad if it causes harm that could be avoided.