http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/business/media/18elson.html

Thanks for the movie review. I will (reluctantly) go and see it; just like I reluctantly forced myself to watch Schlinder’s List (mandatory viewing for the politically apathetic.)

It is precisely your sense of grim realisation of this evil committed by men the world over (and throughout history) that led me to doubt. Although obviously I do not attribute this evil to an other-worldly source, (for lack of supporting evidence.)

The history of the world is rife with violence and terrible injustices, and I am skeptical God has even once intervened – as He supposedly did in the original Gomorrah. Or why He intervenes whimsically, and predominantly in ancient times. I note that in your final sentence, where you hope crime fighters and judges will do something, that you also doubt God will intervene.

Some will say God will subtly influence these crime fighters to act. But of course it is difficult to know if the Abrahamic God was responsible, another god did it, or if they were just people of conscience and humanity acting on their own. God was not subtle in the original Gomorrah.

In the Bible’s account, God killed the bad men and saved the upright individual, Lot; a man who offered his young daughters to be raped by a mob, then later raped them himself whilst drunk. He either abandoned his wife, or killed her… then lied about it.

Yes, terrible attrocities and Biblical absurdities perhaps contributed the most to my doubt. And when my contract finishs at Melb Uni toiling away at lowly and mundane administrative tasks, I will submit my police application, because I would like a career that contributes more to helping people; and I feel that in the absence of a loving governing creator it is up to us to stop evil. I hope that no one cheapens my decision and attributes to the Almighty; or, if they do, to give the nod to Thor, whose antics I much preferred reading, and who also meets the criteria of an intangible, elusive, unprovable deity.

I know that last part seems silly… but as my Christian, Muslim and Hindu friends tell me, it is a matter of faith. I don’t understand however how their beliefs contradict each other, nor why the Abrahamic religions war against each other. I attribute it to irrationality of the followers, and of course, evil unscrupulous men leading them for personal gain.

[Note - This post was a long way to ask you why God permits the suffering of innocents, as in the movie 'Gomorrah', when He personally intervenes so frequently throughout the Bible? You may also like to mention why He only intervened in Jewish affairs, and left regional deities to intervene in primitive societies throughout the world. Why didn't He alert the native American indians to His existance until the late 1700s? They had to be later converted by emotional argument, or, as is most frequent throughout history, by violence.]

I cannot believe someone flew upon a winged horse up to Heaven, that a man lived inside a fish, a talking snake, a talking donkey, a god with an elephant head, that the rainbow serpent carved our state’s river system. All of these beliefs require faith, many do believe them, and there are invariably terrible penalties for disbelief. Some of these events are allegorical, but eventually you must accept some supernatural events, such as the resurrection. And I find I have no reason to, based upon the rejection of everything else! (and no modern day equivalents.) I’m having trouble separating my own culture’s One Divine Truth from the fanciful campfire stories other superstitious cultures.

“The easy confidence with which I know another man’s religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” – Mark Twain

All I have is the Bible to know the truth, and after reading it found it horrifying, particularly the behaviour of its most beloved heroes. (If anyone deserved fiery bombardment, it was Lot.)

You have avoided ‘3′ on rape and slavery, as I find many Christians do. I suspect it is necessary to, given it led to my own disbelief on moral grounds; the 10th commandment, particularly. I have read several unsatisfactory explanations for why God permits slavery in his codex, but like the conclusions of Stephen Amos, I find they have an answer and then devise a question to suit.

This I see is the basis of apologetics, this reverse reasoning; “I KNOW that God created the universe, THEREFORE-”

But I do NOT know. And ultimately slavery does not befit a god. Nor jealousy, wrath, deception, pride.

It is not enough (for me) to accept Belief and It Just Is; particularly in the face of contradictions, science and cruelties. The only way I can do this is to ignore the very book that is put forward as evidence for God’s existance!

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is God both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
– Epicurus (341-371 BC)

“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.”
– Seneca the Younger (4 BC – 65 AD)

What brought me comfort was discovering that others had doubts, and had held them for centuries. You mentioned God’s enemies, Maureen; and perhaps I am one of them (I suspect I have no enemy.) But I don’t seek to lie; believe me, it is a search for Truth that got me this far. I only read from God’s book. But I have to reconcile myself with the attrocities in the Bible commanded by God Himself, or quietly brush over them and remind myself that God is real (the Christian version presumably), He knows best, and everything will be okay.

If wars are fought in the name of God, if scientific politicy is decided, if climate change is left unaddressed and human rights ignored, because of a faith that selectively chooses fragments of its own book, then what hope have we? I cannot appease multiple faiths with opposing claims, I cannot, in conscience, follow any religion as it is written. I cannot decide on faith alone, for that puts me against another who does likewise, but for another god. I must appeal to Reason, but that is something you ask me to put aside. As all faiths do.

I mean no disrespect, these are just my thoughts. I am just trying to understand people and why they believe. Thank you for Wes for the lectures I attended.

1. This is why that is called faith. God has given you the opportunity to choose which God to believe in (yet no man can define what is right or wrong). Whether or not to believe in the Christian God, is your choice. God attempts to reveal his existence in our daily lives, and what it takes to realise this, is faith. God has warned his unbelievers, and God has sent his messengers (and this could be whoever) to convince his unbelievers. But one could not be ‘saved’ if one is not willing to(quotation for, if you think this is too much of a radical term).

All it takes is faith

2. Unbelief is not the foremost sin. It is only so if one was preached about God but chose to reject/ignore it, and this process goes on until the end of your human life. One being raised in a different culture is not necessary a sinner and unbeliever. There are Muslim, Buddhist or people from another religious background, who are converted into Christian, and vice versa. This goes back to your question about faith, its all about believing without evidence.

3. I do not have a strong stance regarding this statement. But based on my little understanding about God, all I would say now is, it always takes something or someone to convince the humanity to realise God. This could be seen as the ‘sacrifice’. Also we have to keep in mind that God’s enemies are always there to challenge the God and his believers.

Or you might argue those who have been through the traumas you mentioned, are simply desperate and emotionally vacuumed to believe in God ( if you would like to analyse this in a psychological manner).

* My responses to your post are only based on my understanding of God in the past years. So I understand if you thought this is not evidenced-based.

God bless you.

2. Why is unbelief the foremost sin when people naturally choose the religion of their culture/parents? Most of the world’s population will be sinners for no other reason than God sent them to be born into a different culture.

3. Why is unbelief such a great sin when genocide, slavery, infanticide, pestilence, and rape are rife throughout the Bible, including by God! (2 Samuel 12:11)?

That this God is a merciful, loving God is at the very heart of my disbelief. The god in 2 Samuel 12 arranges the rape of innocent women and the death of a newborn baby to punish David; it is particularly vile that it was rape to punish adultery! But that’s Our Lord, an eye for an eye.

This ancient figure of literature is neither benevolent or advanced morally. I do not know how people can argue that the God of the Bible is superior in any way. Therefore, how does this Bronze Age creation create the universe and fashion our morality when even in the tenth commandment He condones slavery? (You can own a slave, just don’t covet your neighbour’s slave.) The answer is clearly because Man made God in his own image (violent, territorial, jealous, misogynistic).

Skepticism may be a sin; but there are worse sins. Just ask Moses, Lot, or God Himself. They are no better than primitive man, well those primitive men that committed rape. And belief that they are anything but can only be met by ‘belief without evidence’ (which, at a university, is a terrible sin.)