Also that sounds like a load of bs. Why would I put off great temptations just because somebody says there's a place with lots of flames where I'll eat and dance with hitler and talking snakes...

Your here on earth to learn how to be truly happy. True happiness comes through obedience to god's commandments.

I'm here on earth because I'm here on earth. You don't know my purpose any more than you know the purpose of a chicken on a slab. I'm no more lucky than the terrestrial I don't know about.

I do know why we are all here. I could tell you about gods plan if you wish to hear it. It seems so far that you don't care to hear it. Faith isn't given to all men automatically. It's a gift from god. As long as you are hard hearted and bitter towards god, you will be keeping yourself from feeling his love or learning from him. Has anything happened in your life that has caused you to feel this way toward god?

All men? So what about women you sexist -blam!-? Off to hell with you. Your god doesn't exist you flat headed tool. Also, the very association with your god as a male is on a failing side. You would expect that a god would have a pussy too. What's he do all day with only a dick? Gee I would really like to create some stuff. Too bad I only have a dick. Oh wait! I can just use a beef rib and a puddle of mud. Tada! And the first woman is born.

God is a male just as Jesus is a male, but you shouldn't assume that he loves women any less than men. Everyone on earth is his spiritual son and daughter. Also women have every access to the power of the spirit that men do. You are making crude things that are very sacred. We don't know but we may have a heavenly mother in addition to a Heavenly Father, but we aren't told about her because god would get angry that we take her name in vain. Things on earth are a similitude for things in heaven. The way we live now as a mortal is a preparation for our eternal life after death.

You're -blam!-ing crazy dude. I hope you don't have kids to spread your ignorance of reality to.

No it doesn't. Every day you do bad things. Every day you think bad thoughts. We are all human. Just because you say you have a sky daddy, it doesn't make what you're going to do with that pie later on in your life any more wrong. True happiness is a bucket of chicken wings and a beer. That's murder, AND hurting the environment. You do it too. Happiness isn't talking to your guidance councillor about your pedo pastor.

Happiness is constantly seeking to improve yourself. What you just described sounds awful. Why would I want to live my life in obscure mediocrity? The definition of damnation is when your progress has stopped and you remain the same. Happiness is gaining relationships and having a family. Becoming a teacher for your children and a role model they can look up to since they see that you always seek to do the right thing even though it's hard and you sometimes fail. Happiness is being a positive force in your community and giving service to others, just because you want to and it makes you happy that they are happy. Every man chooses for himself. Do you want the passing pleasure for a moment or the lasting joy forever?

Happiness is contentment dumbass. Not constantly improving yourself, or you'd always be left with a feeling of emptiness. Maybe you should clear up on your personal philosophy before you go telling everybody what to believe in. Learn to cope with the fact we die. We know 1 life. It's no more special or insignificant than we can imagine because this life is truly the only thing we will ever know. You can't even assure to anyone there is a heaven, and right now people are being murdered in the name of your very idea. Something you cannot prove. The very fact you believe preconceived notions from the past are still correct and somehow the backbone of pure character just boggles my mind. Believe it or not you're living without God just as I am right now. "He abandoned you" just as much as he did me. But guess what? He will never exist in my mind because the very idea isn't sound.

You are confusing happiness with passing pleasure again. True happiness is feeling as Christ did when his work was complete. He suffered the pain of everyone's sins, including yours and mine. Then after his work was done he was glorified by his father and the happiness that he feels is infinitely greater than any passing feeling of contentment you can feel in this life. This life is a test to see if we will obey all of the commandments that god gives us. He has a job for us to do in heaven doing his work, but we have to qualify ourselves first by doing well here in earth. Teaching people that there is no life after death is exactly how the devil persuades people to fail the test. If there's no life after death and no god, then there's no sin and no punishment, no blessings, no reward, no happiness, no pain, no pleasure, nothing matters. You are right, I can't prove heaven exists. But I CAN obey gods commandments and take notice of the blessings that he gives me as i try to do so. if you do the same I promise you that you will find that he will bless you too. Can I prove that I receive those blessing because I try and obey god? No again I can't. But still the blessings keep coming anyway and I keep getting those feelings that god is real and that he cares about my well being. You say that god has abandoned me but i feel that at times he is right next to me guiding me every day.

You guide yourself. It's a nice habit you've tricked yourself into. It's a common feeling, even more so than contemplating their existence. Do I believe a "god" could have created all of what we know? Maybe. But certainly not the god you know. Not the gods anyone knows. But one of complete infinity or nothingness. It's either the birth or eater of the galaxy we can understand, and in that volume of chaos, nothing we have ever done on earth would be significant. Here is my truth, since you gave me yours. We live in absolute, repetitive chaos. In a span of time in which the beginning is so far and the end is so questionable, we are without question left with a feeling of curiosity. It's through thousands, possibly even billions of years of challenge and failed trials that we have reached a point in which we can contemplate our significance. Species come and go. No matter how dominant. But in the recent thousands of years we've had an incredible advancement in thought, enabling us to portray and symbolize thought into action. We've been able to record the environment and what we see, and learn from it through trial. This ability had pushed us so far into our evolution that now we are left with just our curiosity. Those curiosities lead to ideas. Ideas like yours. And we continue to advance. We build instruments to aid us with our understanding and all of a sudden, past truths arnt so true. All of a sudden the earth isn't flat. The earth isn't the Centre of the universe. There isn't one sun. There's uncountable possible places that could host life. Not just life like we know it. Not like the Centre of attention like we are in the bible. My truth is that we've come so far, that we need to make a purpose for ourselves if we are to find contentment. We have a craving for an understanding because... why? Why do family pets die, why are schools bombed, why do planets explode evaporating all trace of life? Because it just does. If we should have learned anything by now, it's that nothing stops. Your churches will one day crumble and there will be another world. Maybe it'll be life like we know it. No one knows. It's the sad truth we are left with, so we may as will live out the incredibly short period of time that is our individual lifetimes. We may as well try to leave something that'll live long past us. Maybe it'll be a family. Maybe It'll be through architecture. Maybe it'll be through literature or through a philosophy? That is how we cope with chaos. That's my truth and so far your religion has only mislead and spoken of false hopes.

I don't think it's fair for you to say that my religion has mislead people and spoken false hopes when you have just laid out your own beliefs which have the same potential to be just as false and misleading.

They arnt concrete. Of course they can be under scrutiny. But your belief requires churches. It requires paid preachers. In the name of your belief, people or "sinners" such as myself were nailed to crosses or posts, sometimes strapped with gun powder and burnt alive. Want to talk about what's fair now? Also, I don't justify my belief with "well it works anyway, because my idea involves a weird thing/non-thing that isn't bound by laws" or talking snakes, rib ladies or thousand year old (and very edited) claims.

ACTUALLY my church doesn't have a paid ministry. Don't assume. When you laid out your beliefs I thought you made it clear that we all have one life to live? Under that philosophy do you think it's fair to blame me for something that happened several lifetimes ago? I don't intend to defend the witch burnings for example. That was a horrible atrocity that people committed. PEOPLE committed that act with some greedy evil guy who just wanted to hold onto his power and oppress women. My religion didn't do that and Christ certainly didn't do that. Your beliefs don't do much to improve the human situation. Just a little while ago you were talking about eating chicken wings and drinking beer and that's true happiness to you. How does that stop violence in the Middle East? How does that stop the hate crimes against gays in Russia? All it serves is to put your own mind at ease. It's a very selfish outlook.

I don't blame you. That's what you don't understand. I blame the flag you carry. Also religion has had an extremely negative effect on freedom of sexuality so don't say my outlook isn't do any good. It's not doing any harm and that is the point. And that example was actually ironic symbolism. I was hoping you were going to catch that. Because many Christians would call that "happy" as well. My beliefs suggest expansion of new ideas. New discovery. To exploit our own evolution. Something much of your community would like to deter for the sake of conservatism. Of keeping it all the same, how you know it and how you live it in your churches. Thanking god for miracles instead of accepting things for what they are: for treatments as scientific development, for surviving catastrophes because of miniscule details, etc.

My religion doesn't dismiss new ideas nor new discoveries. It just relies on both mankind's ingenuity and the wisdom of an all knowing and loving creator. Not all new ideas are wholesome and good. Men are imperfect and some men are downright despicable. Hitler had ideas about what mankind should do didn't he? He though his idea was good too didn't he? What if you could see into the future and find out that a decision you are going to make today will ruin your life, your family, your country? God is smarter than all of us and it takes humility on our part to accept his guidance.

Hitler also said he was acting on behalf of his lord and creator. I can quote it from mein kampf if you want. Your so off base about this. You're forgetting about many people in the past who were forced to repent if they had an idea that didn't completely go in line with what the church would condone. Galileo is an example. He was exiled for his discovery. 10 years prior another philosopher suggested the stars were suns. And that the universe was much larger than originally thought. He was exiled. Then burned alive.

I personally don't think the Catholic Church is a very good representation of Christ's teachings, especially in the dark ages and when Galileo lived. You were right about us living in a different age. We do and people are smarter. This is a good thing for the world and for religions since people can use their intelligence as they seek for gods true path. They can read the scriptures for themselves instead of have it read to them like in galileo's time.

It's a double edged sword. For example when Martin Luther translated the bible, it was printed in mass scale by Johanne Guttenberg. Which led to the protestant faith, as well as the exposure to the claim "you're doing a bad job if you're not killing jews".

Where the heck did that claim from? Jesus was a Jew. The bible is full of references saying that the Jews are gods chosen people. That's when people say "oh hitler killed Jews in the name of god" i don't count that as evidence that religion is evil. No where in the scriptures does it say that we should just kill the Jews.

Yeah and he will be judged for his crimes. Again that doesn't mean religion is wrong, it just means hitler took advantage of peoples faith to justify his own sinful actions.