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BleydIt's pretty obvious I wasn't comparing time travel to religion, just showing that your argument is illogical by using on a different subject.
I agree, radical groups like these give the whole of religion a bad name. They look at a few verses and ignore the rest, like the ones about being loving and understanding toward people rather than persecuting them.
To really understand these references, you have to know how things worked in those times. When most people hear the word slavery, images of lowly laborers being beaten and neglected come to mind, but the indentured servitude of Jewish law made this more akin to the relationship between a paid worker and an employee. Jesus even urged that both parties were to maintain mutual respect for one another.
The Bible is not 'anti-woman' in a chauvinistic sense. Most cultures throughout history - including the church - have not allowed women to hold positions of authority simply because it was not commonplace for them to be educated in such matter. Only in the past few centuries have women risen through the ranks in monumental numbers and become more empowered in every aspect of society.
You answer this question yourself by quoting three different books of the Bible. Each anecdote was written by a different man, so what they heard and which parts they found significant enough to write would have varied.
Show me the verses you are talking about then. Where is benevolence defined, and when is God being malevolent?
How does knowing the future stop one from changing the future? With complete control over both time and reality, an omnipotent being would be able to alter the course of events, thus creating a new future. It's just like writing a book - you know how you want it to end, but you can decide to make the story turn out different if you so choose.
That's because from a religious standpoint, God is not bad. He does allow unfortunate things to happen, yes, but that's a sign of neither malice of apathy. This appears to be yet another malevolence argument, as if to say that because God would not randomly prevent a person from dying, he must hate humanity.
Bleyd@gwinans Different interpretations of a religion are all based on human reasoning and prone to error and variation because of how every individual interprets it. These don't really effect core belief systems, however. For example, Christians from different denominations will argue amongst themselves about whether baptism means full water immersion or sprinkling, but they will always agree on what the act itself represents. Based on your logic, if one person thinks time travel is possible, and another does not, is that proof time does not exist?
Every 'contradiction' I've ever seen has long been proven wrong. Many people still use them without even understanding the context or meaning of the passages. For example, the one where pi is supposedly calculated to be an even 3 was shown to be a misreading because of the dimensions involved (taken from the diameter of the inside of the vessel in question, rather than the outside). As you say, go look some of these things up.
The lack of benevolence argument is, to be honest, just plain pathetic. It can all be boiled down to "good things happen to bad people, so there must not be a God." Our existence not being some overjoyous Disney movie with sunshine and roses doesn't prove or disprove anything. Life happens. Even from a religious point of view, man doesn't deserve anything good. He is a fallen and corrupt creature that waits only for death, and God's true benevolence comes in the form of forgiveness and a chance at redemption, not in giving out cookies during our short stint on this planet.
The omnipotence paradox itself is nonsensical because it demands the creation of something that can't exist. A "nontask" like this blatantly defies logic, rendering itself meaningless. It's like asking an artist to draw a square circle.
As for reason behind bad/good things happening, that too is left up to individual interpretation. Not every religious person blesses God when good things happen, or blames Him for the bad things. Finding out why we are here is the purpose of this thread, is really up to each person to decide. The meaning of life is something all people, religious or otherwise, have struggled to answer.
piemanjake97*snip* we are running 500gbram. */snip*
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