My question: Is God a monster?

God indeed knew you before you were born; and thus gave you an opportunity to explore good an evil to make the ultimate decision on where YOU want to spend eternity. Your life isn't over, and you are not facing "Judgment" with God ... so anything can happen and is possible with God ... should you still say God doesn't exist when u'r in that final Judgment ... well, then we can only pray that God will be merciful to those who don't accept pure charity/love (because that's what God is pure charity/love).

Of course god is a monster. Ever hear of the holocaust? Natural disasters such as the ones that struck in Haiti and Chili? Religious nuts always claim god has a higher plan by letting these natural disasters happen; that his plan goes beyond our understanding. Absolutely b/s. To me god sounds like a murderer. What do you mean his plans go beyond our understanding. Letting people suffer in Haiti, New Orleans, Africa, etc. And do not give me that bull **** that god is simply cleansing the earth. Those religious freaks who claim this are judgmental, and Christianity speaks against being judgmental.

God is a monster because it keeps humans down. We go our whole lives worshiping a false ghost in the sky, trying to please him, yet many scientific advances have come to a halt because of him. Individual enlightenment comes to a halt for those religious freaks out there. Lets take stem cell research as an example. For those of you who have kids, or siblings, lets say a loved one gets in a terrible accident where he or she is paralyzed from the waist down, or he or she is a cancer victim. Wouldn't you do anything in your power to save this person? Including stemcell transplants? If the answer is no, then brand the sign murderer on your forehead. You religious freaks could have saved a life. Evolution and the power of the mind exist. We have so much potential, do not let that freak in the sky keep you down, because it does not exist. The hands you see in front of your face do!

Yes. God is creating humans with the puprose of burning in hell.

The complicated thing is, you can't have good without evil. You cannot have happiness, if you don't also have sadness. You cannot have Heaven, if you don't also have Hell.

Think about it.... in order to understand what happiness is... you also have to experience sadness. Experiencing sadness... you would never know what happiness is. How can you be "happy" if don't have anything to compare "happiness" too.

Here's another way to think about it.... If you had a million dollars... it would feel pretty good right? Well that only feels good because not everybody has a million dollars. If everybody had a million dollars... .then a million dollars wouldn't mean anything. In order to be "rich" you have to have something to compare "rich" too... and that would be "poor". You wouldn't be rich, if everybody had the same amount of money as you.

What this all means to your question.....In order for some people to enjoy the pleasures of Heaven... some people must also go to Hell. If EVERYBODY went to heaven.... heaven wouldn't be so special would it?

So now that we understand that in order for Heaven to be a great place, there has to be Hell.... it should be understod that God could have decided who went to Heaven and who went to Hell... He could have forced it.... but he didn't. He gave us free will. We get to choose for ourselves where we want to go.

He made all of us knowing that some would follow the right path, and some will follow the wrong path. Its the people who follow the wrong path that make it better for the people who do not.

So yes, he did create people with the purpose of going to Hell. He had to.... if he didn't, people would have no reason to want to go to Heaven.

At least some of us who do believe in God also refuse to believe in such a monster.

That does, of course, mean that there's some point at which we diverge from your chain of logical reasoning. For many, that might be the notion that God is somehow to blame for your nonbelief: you have free will, and it is your choice, and therefore your moral responsibility, not to believe.

Personally, I find this line of reasoning unsatisfying; I prefer to challenge the assumption that just because you don't convert to Christianity, you will go to hell. (The fact that the "pit of fire" you describe is a Roman pagan concept rather than a fundamentally Christian one is another point of divergence, but since vast numbers of modern Christians seem to get their notions from Dante and Milton rather than scripture, we'll leave that undiscussed.)

But I simply don't accept the notion that failure to believe in God necessarily sends you to hell. Since there are plenty of Christians around who maintain it does, I will invoke my usual defense of that position:

Is it not frightfully unfair that this new life should be confined to people who have heard of Christ and been able to believe in Him? But the truth is God has not told us what His arrangements about the other people are. We do know that no man can be saved except through Christ; we do not know that only those who know Him can be saved through Him.

-- C. S. Lewis, "Mere Christianity"

1. MAN is the one who says GOD will send you to hell... NOT GOD. MAN also invented the concept of HELL and SATAN so he could have control over all of us, making us sheep. Too bad for man that many of us are free thinkers!

2. There are many possible things we can do with Freewill, in the end GOD leave it up to us which way we go.

All you have to do is read the bible itself...

My favorite story is when some poor slob made a deal with God, that if He let him win against his enemies, that he'd sacrifice the first thing that walked thru his door.

He won.

The first thing thru his door was his only daughter.

Yup, she got toasted.

Now, notice here..... in this case, it was fine to toast a FEMALE... but when Abraham was going to murder his SON, well, uh, no..... god let him off the hook.

Some, god, huh???

It's in Judges, Ch 11.

There are endless stories like this of the cruelty of the Abrahamic god...endless.

A Flying Spaghetti Monster, yes. But only in the sense that He doesn't look human.

Don't worry, you will go to Heaven and enjoy the beer volcanoes and the stripper factory just like everyone else. Hell doesn't really exist.

My comment is no God is not a monster God is about love, forgiveness, and understanding.

I do not think that because you require more proof that you will burn in Hell.

I feel Hell should be reserved for the truly evil.. murders, rapists, child/animal abusers. That is my belief and I'm sticking to it.

If I am wrong and God wants to send me to Hell then so be it.

Have a happy day!!

Cinn =)

That is a great point. I agree that god is a monster, and my claim is backed up by the old testament, and wars caused by him.

The god of the OT is certainly described as a monster.