Another point of view.

Of course they can be thankful and be against it.

Your on a bus, someone tosses a grenade, someone dives on it and saves everyone else on the bus....

Are you telling me you wouldnt be thankful for that mans sacrifice to save your life and not abhor the actions of the one that threw the grenade?

Also... the part about Jesus asking for forgiveness for people.

There is power in the spoken word, dont forget that God was ready to forgive us.. hes the one that sent his son in the first place. Praying for it reflected on Jesus's state of mind, not on God's. Maybe Im not saying this clearly enough. Been a while since I talked religion.

Believe in god or not, the above two things make sense from a certain perspective, logically you cant dismiss it as not making sense. The two opposing points of view on the crucifixion has two different targets, just like the people that got saved on the bus...

I totally disagree with you analogy of the gernade on the bus.

There are many reasons that analogy doesn't hold true. First off, to dive on a gernade is a desperate act of someone who is incapable of coming up with a better plan.

So to even suggest that God sent his only begotten son in an act of desperation because he coudln't think of a better plan is to suggest that God is totally inept and powerless.

Moreover, who was God saving us from? Who threw the gernade?

If you take the entire bibilical story as a whole, then what we are supposedly being saved from is God's wrath. God is the same person who threw the gernade in the first place.

Supposedly God is the one who needs to be passified by blood sacrifices in the first place.

To me the whole story is totally senseless from the word go.

Besides, we know now beyond any shadow of a doubt that disease, imperfections and death had occurred long before mankind even appeared on the Earth. The idea that these things were brought into being by man's supposed fall from grace simply doesn't hold water.

The world was dog-eat-dog long before mankind ever existed. So the very foundational idea that mankind was somehow responsible for the imperfections in this world is a bogus idea to begin with.

To me this is paramount. Because the whole crux of the religion is based on the idea that mankind is GUILTY and needs to repent.

It's a guilt-trip religion. Yet today we now know that the accusations are false. Mankind cannot possible be responsible for bringing death, disease, and imperfections into the world because these things existed long before mankind ever even showed up.

The cruel dog-eat-dog nature of the world is inate to nature, not to man!

Take man out of the picture and you still have a dog-eat-dog world that is riddled with disease, hunger, natural disasters and animals eating other animals.

This whole idea that mankind is GUILTY and God is trying to offer us clemency by having his only begotten son nailed to a pole is simply nonsense.

This is a rather sick mythological story actually. And even the churches and clergy recognize that the Jesus story is not unique, nor was it first. There were many myths prior to Jesus along these very same lines of some guy being born of a virgin, healing the sick, and offering salvation from the wrath of God.

The Chruch's stance is that those previous stories were created by Satan to confuse the issue.

And the whole idea of Satan is yet another major FLAW in the religion.

Why? Because the religion is trying to hold mankind responsible for falling from grace.

So the whole idea that some Satan is even required implies that mankind would not have fallen from grace on his own!

If mankind is capable of evil on his own then why even bother making up a Satan who brings evil into this world?

The religion is flawed on so many levels, and when you make up analogies about gernades on busses you need to realize that God would have been the one who tossed the gernade in the first place.

In Christianity God is both the terrorist and the savior.

Mankind is a helpless victim in the game with no way out.

God is always RIGHT.

Man is always WRONG.

It's total bull crap.

It's just a religion invented by men to lay a guilt trip on people and make them feel like they must submit to the church or be guilting of rejecting God and be cast into an eternal hellfire.

I personally don't believe that any divine being would be so crude, rude, and totally ignorant.

Christians like to focus on Jesus. And it's no wonder! Even they don't like the God of Abraham. Jesus stood up to the God of Abraham by denouncing his commandments.

And YES that's precisely what he DID!

When the crowd was preparing to stone the woman at the well, Jesus said, "Let him without sin cast the first stone".

Well, if Jesus was without sin then why didn't he cast it if he was so anxious to OBEY his father's commandments?

The reason he didn't cast it is because he was AGAINST that teachings!

Jesus didn't even agree with what the God of Abraham supposedly commanded people to do!

Jesus was not the son of the horrific viscious God of Abraham.

Jesus denounced the teachings of those old testaments, and that's why he was crucified. Not because some ficticious jealous God who had commanded people to murder heathen and stone sinners to death suddenly hand a change of heart and wanted to give his only begotten son as a sacrifice to appease himself.

The whole religion makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

And like I say, we now KNOW that mankind could not possibly be responsible for having introduced imperfections into this world. Death, disease, natural disasters and a dog-eat-dog world existed long before mankind even came onto the scene.

We are NOT GUILTY for the world being a dog-eat-dog world.

That's a religous LIE created to lay a guilt-trip on men and try to get them to convert to a religion that will ultimately have them supporting selective bigotries in the name of Jesus.

If Jesus did exist and he taught the brotherly love that he is said to have taught, then I am certain that he would be totally appalled by the churches and religions that today lay claim to his name.

And there is no way that he could have been a sacrifical lamb sent as a self-appeasement by the jealous God of Abraham. That scenario doesn't even make any sense at all.

Of course all of this is just my view. But if I didn't feel strongly about it I woudln't bother to share it.

Chrisitanity is a disgrace to Jesus.

And the God of Abraham is a disgrace to all that's divine.

There's no way that the religion even begins to make any sense at all. It's based entirely on a jealous male-chauvinistic God who is more egotistical than a teenager on steroids.

It claims to blame mankind for things that mankind could not have possibly been repsonsible for. (i.e. introducing imperfections into this world) That's simply not true, and now we know the whole religion was a scam from the word go.

don't mince words. tell us how you really feel about it...

Hey, I figure if there is a God, then honesty is the best policy.

Gotta say what you TRULY FEEL.

Anything less would be dishonest.

Don't want to be dishonest with God now do we?

Reading the posts bantering the idea of prayer and the analogy of man and the granade made me stop and consider -

"Do those who pray for others do so out of altruism?" If so, why would they pray for the change in someone elses' situation, why not simply pray altuistically? In other words why doesn't the person offering up the prayer just offer thier own soul, their own chance for heaven if God will only 'save' the person they are praying for??????

That could be kind of a catch 22, you know? Like do you REALLY BELIEVE, you're prayer might be answered? And on the flip side, if your prayer isn't answered and the one you pray for is never any different, than maybe YOU weren't worthy of having your prayer answered. Yep- that could be a catch 22 situation, don chya think?

Dam'd if ya win and dam'd if ya loose

I don't know if you saw Smiless' post a few days ago, but he said, "I will be the last one in heaven. I refuse to go until everyone else has entered".

Talk about love.

I believe in God, it's just that most people have a very different vision of God than I do.

i will pray for them

All the people who have posted to this thread may be right ... or they may be wrong, regardless of belief.

However, when someone offers to pray for others, he/she is merely wishing for something good that has come into their life to come into the life of others.

This situation is somewhat like offering someone outside on a hot day a drink of water. One could always say, "No Thanks, I'm not thirsty".

It is perhaps more alike throwing a life preserver to someone swimming in the ocean. The person doing the throwing is making an offer that may, to them, save a life. Instead of saving "Why would someone do such a silly thing?" it might be more human to say "No Thanks, I need the exercise."

The whole idea that God needs people to point out who needs help is absurd to begin with.

It implies that either God isn't bright enough to figure it out on his own, or that God isn't compassionate enough to give a hoot unless some more compassionate human asks him to care.

The whole idea that a human needs to instruct God on what to do is nothing more than a blatant display of complete lack of faith that God even has a clue.

It's like saying to someone, "Well, with your attitude I'm sure God would send you to hell, but I'll put in a good word for you!"

Wtf?

Isn't that like the epitome of arrogance?