What are your reasons for believing whatever you may believe about Christianity?

[Maxwell.]

it's not really genuine faith though lol

I don't think it's a really stuffty reason though

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[Machaty]

Guess I might as well address disasters. God created the world, but as you know the weather, earthquakes etc. all happen naturally over time, without intervention. In Bible he often played an active role in controlling weather/ocean activity, but that's because the Bible documents remarkable times.

Not to mention, if he did decide to save people, where would he draw the line? When more than 100 people will be affected? Why should someone about to get hit by a car by treated differently than people in a hotel about to be hit by a tsunami?

Lol how is this an explanation? Someone getting hit by a car shouldn't be treated differently. God could have easily made a world with free will without any suffering. I've thought about it long and hard myself, but again, it just comes back to this: any God that would allow this degree of suffering to exist in the scale that it does can either do nothing to stop it, or doesn't care to. So he is therefore either impotent or evil. 

[Ipquarx]

i'm afraid of dying and then finding out that god is real and that i'll go to hell. so i choose to be christian just in case

I think in the bible they only accept you if you truly believe of your own volition, not just because you're afraid you'll go to hell (If I'm wrong someone please correct me)

[otto-san]

technically the whole suffering thing can be explained by Stan the Man down in Heckland but i don't like the idea that everything wrong in the world is the fault of someone's failure to stay TrueToJesus.com

[hillkill]

I think in the bible they only accept you if you truly believe of your own volition, not just because you're afraid you'll go to hell (If I'm wrong someone please correct me)

nah, you just say you're sorry to jesus and boom you're good.

[hodot]

I agree with the moral ideas and jesus's teachings of "hey don't be a rooster" and i believe that jesus existed as a person but i don't believe there is a god, that jesus rose again 3 days later, or anything like that.

[SeventhSandwich]

This is just the same thing we've been discussing put a number of different ways.

I'm not religious, to say the least, but I'm pretty sure the Bible is clear about this debate.

John 3:36
"Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on them."

None of the passages in the link you sent seem to definitively amend that.

Biblical inerrancy or fancy extended metaphors. Choose one.

[Zloff]

So you're saying that the entity that created the world, universe and everything can't multi-task?

God created the world, but as you know the weather, earthquakes etc. all happen naturally over time, without intervention.

God limits how much he intervenes

We as a race with our free will continue to gradually destroy this earth and life on it, and as such we all suffer indiscriminately from the consequences of our own actions at nature's hand, whether it be natural disasters linked to climate change or starvation/inhabitability due to the destruction of an ecosystem/environment or whatever you can come up with. A second reason is that in the prophecies, as the end of times emerges, God will allow(not cause) more natural disasters to occur in an attempt to draw more to him. He understands that in desperation people are more willing to seek Him. We have science to back up how and why all of these crazy natural disasters happen, and it aligns with the prophecies. If we can't explain them, well, then it still lines up with the prophecies.

as for any possible questions on people who "haven't had a chance to be saved" or anything of the like, read up on the second resurrection. God loves man enough to allow a true chance at salvation even after physical death
http://www.cgg.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Library.sr/CT/BS/k/7/Basic-Doctrines-Second-Resurrection.htm

"cool, so even if I end up wrong and I'm screwed, I'm not really screwed!"
yes and no; for one, you will still suffer until the second resurrection

Lol how is this an explanation? Someone getting hit by a car shouldn't be treated differently. God could have easily made a world with free will without any suffering. I've thought about it long and hard myself, but again, it just comes back to this: any God that would allow this degree of suffering to exist in the scale that it does can either do nothing to stop it, or doesn't care to. So he is therefore either impotent or evil. 

and they aren't treated differently. God gave us this world to roam and rule as a blank slate; it is through our misuse of free will that we cause each other to suffer, and it is through sin that we may give the devil/demons legal right to bring suffering upon us

if you then wonder "how does the devil exist then?" then search it, his origins are clear. If you wonder "why does God allow satan to exist?" I don't have a great answer. All I know is that completely annihilating lucifer wouldn't have given God the best image among his angels after what lucifer had been telling them, and that God did not want his angels to serve under fear, but under love

[Darryl McKoy]

God limits how much he intervenes

God also enjoys long walks on the beach and the colour purple

My statement is as supported as yours

[Machaty]

i still fail to see how an all powerful being cant just stop the devil from being an starfish. If he can't then he's not all powerful. The logical inconsistencies formed when people try to justify suffering in the world are pretty silly.

[XR-7]

i still fail to see how an all powerful being cant just stop the devil from being an starfish. If he can't then he's not all powerful. The logical inconsistencies formed when people try to justify suffering in the world are pretty silly.

If he made it so that we could have "free will" yet not harm something or someone, we wouldn't truly have free will since that would count as a limitation.

[Zloff]

i still fail to see how an all powerful being cant just stop the devil from being an starfish. If he can't then he's not all powerful. The logical inconsistencies formed when people try to justify suffering in the world are pretty silly.

just un-richardifying the devil would've had the same effect among the angels as annihilating him, but regardless I myself still wonder about alternatives that could've potentially had better results and why the devil is even allowed legal rights to affect us

God also enjoys long walks on the beach and the colour purple

My statement is as supported as yours

im sorry i can't take you seriously unless you didn't even read the long paragraph preceding my statement. your sarcasm makes it apparent that you refuse to see what I've said from an unbiased viewpoint, and I doubt you could have put a worthy amount of critical thought into what I'd said in at or under 2 minutes

it's as if you've declared your own set of ideas immune to criticism and contempt. If that's the case, why even ask these questions if your mind is not open to learn? By all means believe in what you wish, but I think this often when I try to explain Christianity to atheists who ask, because they're more often than not so dismissive and emotional

[Darryl McKoy]

it's as if you've declared your own set of ideas immune to criticism and contempt.

I'm just trying to follow the Christian ideals best I can 

[Ipquarx]

im sorry i can't take you seriously unless you didn't even read the long paragraph preceding my statement. your sarcasm makes it apparent that you refuse to see what I've said from an unbiased viewpoint, and I doubt you could have put a worthy amount of critical thought into what I'd said in at or under 2 minutes

it's as if you've declared your own set of ideas immune to criticism and contempt. If that's the case, why even ask these questions if your mind is not open to learn? By all means believe in what you wish, but I think this often when I try to explain Christianity to atheists who ask, because they're more often than not so dismissive and emotional

Literally every response to criticism towards god boils down to "God knows what's best and I don't know what his reasons are but I trust him." There are long-winded ways of saying that, like you have, and there are short ways of saying that. The problem that so many people have with this is that the christian faith has literally gotten themselves into a position that both cannot be falsified and cannot be proven at the same time. People ask "Why do you trust god?" and you say "Because he's trustworthy." people say "Why is god trustworthy?" The answer is "Because he's all knowing." If people ask "How do you know he's all knowing?" you say something along the lines of either "The bible says so" or "Because he's a god." Eventually the entire thing just comes full circle and you get right back to the start, with absolutely nothing being proven along the way. From a completely unbiased, logical point of view, that's heavily flawed.

Also, no, the bible has not predicted natural disasters, it has made vague sweeping statements that can be interpreted that way but whether or not it was originally intended to be that way is completely ambiguous. And every attempt at finding the date of the second coming or judgement day has come and passed without event.

[ABlockOfCheese]

On the point of Pascal's wager, it isn't the reason I believe, but it's merely a perk that comes along with believing