Actually, I do understand your point. Why doesn't everybody get their prayers answered? It goes back to needing to be reconciled to God. People may want God to give them the things they want in life...safety, peace, money, friends, etc., but they aren't doing what God wants from them (reconciliation: repentance and salvation). Even for Christians, God answers prayers based on a mutually giving basis: Christians do what God wants from us and then God gives more rewards for praying....this doesn't mean "things" it's more like divine interventions....doing things so that the believer notices His working in their life and hearing their prayers. I'm not making this up, this is what happens with Christians that I know too. Overnight said, "He wants us to ask. So we ask. He does not answer our prayers in many circumstances. So what is the point of asking if He is going to be a selective God? What, God has firesales on certain kinds of prayers but not on others?" What parent gives their kid everything the kid asks for? It's really about the relationship. If I "need" something, God may choose to let me go through a difficulty and not supply the need, yet at the same time, bring along Bible verses across my path that answer my prayers to know Him better and might do it in such a way that I KNOW it was definitely not a coincidence and this is actually more exciting that getting "something." Material possessions don't compare with knowing that God has heard what you said and actually cares about you. I've heard many different pastors in many different churches finish their sermon and when the last song in the service is about to be sung, the director says He didn't know what the Pastor was going to be preaching on, but the song fit closely with the subject of the message and thanks God for His intervention in matching the song to the message. On a similar note: A pastor I know really well told me about a message he preached one service and afterward three different people came up to him, separately, and each asked if he had specifically directed part of his sermon to address them personally. He hadn't, and he assured each of them of that. The funny thing was, the parts of the message that each one felt like had been intended for them, was different for each person! The reason this pastor mentioned it was because the topic of the conversation was how God works in people's hearts when they come under the hearing of the Word of God. I wasn't there for the sermon, but I have heard that preacher's sermons enough to know that he sticks with just the Bible...doesn't try to apply it or do anything to make someone feel he is directing his message to them. Not sure that made the point. The point is, God is real. He works in my life and in lives of many others. That's all I know to say.
I KNEW you were going to answer with something like this, so here is another musical response. I had it queued up. You are so transparent.
The topic is ALL Atheists go to hell. You zealots are trying to sell the idea that merely having a different belief is enough to be considered "evil" and results in an eternity of punishment. That is ridiculous.
I don't know with absolute certainty whether a God exists or not, but this judgmental, vengeful, moody, and bipolar God that religion has fabricated is pure nonsense. This God of theirs has all the characteristics of human beings making it small and petty, not worthy of worship but contempt if such a being existed. Seeing that it's absurd to believe such a being does exist there is nothing to be contemptuous of other than the fanatics trying to push this lunacy.
Have you read the old testament? I haven't, but I've heard about some of the passages in it. Not the kind of deity you want to bump into in a back alley at night.
Right. He like to operate as though he wasn't even there. And he never shares his plan or intentions. Very stealthy. Ever heard of Occam's razor?
Exactly, thois thing is subject to violent mood swings. So lets say you make it to heaven and one day he's in a "mood". What then? A time out where everyone gets sent to hell for a day? I don't want to spend an eternity with someone/something who could go off the rails at any moment. Sounds too much like an old girlfriend I had. Of course, when it was good, it was very good, if you get my drift. So there could me make up sex day in heaven.
God is not subject to mood swings. He is very orderly and logical. Whatever He says He will do, He does. He doesn't change, He is the same today as He has always been. I think what you are referring to as mood swings is actually the response of perfect Righteousness to lawless behavior. Your eyes are too pure to look upon evil, and You cannot tolerate wrongdoing. So why do You tolerate the faithless? Why are You silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves? Habakkuk 1:13 BSB If God brings judgment to this earth for sinful behavior, as seen in the Old Testament, people say He is cruel. If God is silent and ignores sinful behavior, people say He must not be God or else He would do something about the injustices of this world. The Bible says that God is patient with sinners in hope that some will come to repentance. It also says that He won't allow this world to continue indefinitely, there will be an end....at least 1,007 years from now....possibly even longer than that!