“But Xenu says…”

I want theists to understand that I fee as incredulous about their fictional friends and appeals to mystery as they feel about other myths, cults, and so forth.

My Mormon friends would tell me that I couldn’t go to the highest heaven because I heard the word (Mormonism) and rejected it… I’d respond, “that’s okay, I missed the Heaven’s Gate Spaceship too”–

I also point out that everybody is going to hell according to somebody’s religion.

The best response I’ve heard to, “I’ll pray for you” is, “thanks, and I’ll think for you.”

When I refused literature from a proselytizer, I was told, “God loves you anyhow…” I responded, “I’m sure she does.”

I don’t generally get into god conversations with theists because I hate feeling like I’m enabling their delusions (they aren’t trying to convince me; they are really trying to convince themselves); instead, I try to let them know that I find them as wacked out as they find believers in faiths they don’t share e.g. (Scientologists, Moonies, etc.) and they ought be as private in their beliefs as they want those cults to be.

God so far surpasses our comprehension that we cannot even reason how it is that God does not even exist — so we have to take God’s non-existence faith.

For example:

God’s “word” tells us the following:
“I create EVIL” (Isa. 45:7)
So a child could not be molested if God didn’t create evil. But there is more.

“…an experience of EVIL has God given to the sons of man…” (Ecc. 1:13, Concordant Liter Old Testament).

“…I [God] will raise up EVIL against thee…” (II Sam. 12:11).

It is just a matter of using the “word” of their God to prove that NOTHING can happen unless it is of their God.

“Yet ALL is of God” (II Cor. 5:18)

I would say that word “ALL” kind of includes …..umm….ALL?

Or

“God is operating ALL in all” (I Cor. 12:6)

Do operate means to control the function. If God is controlling the function, all in all then yes, he is the one controlling the wicked that actually molests a child. As a matter of FACT, according to his “word” he created the wicked for the evil day.

“The Lord has made…the WICKED for the day of EVIL” (Prov. 16:4).

When we start using this God’s “word” then they really have not defense or excuse.

“…shall there be EVIL in a city, and the Lord has not done it?” (Amos 3:6).

Apparently, there is no evil in a city unless it is done by their God. Their God takes complete responsibility for evil, creating evil people, doing evil things, instructing evil….etc.

“What? Shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive EVIL” (Job 2:10).

Give me a break, it is clear, right from scripture that God does evil. Think about it, God sees, hears and knows all. So, if a child is molested, God hears it, watches it and decides to do NOTHING about it.

If a child is molested, it is God that appointed the exact time for it to happen….according to scripture.

“To every thing there is a season [appointed time],and a time to every purpose [matter or event] under the heaven” (Ecc. 3:1).

“…for He has appointed a time for every matter, and for every work…” (The New Revised Standard Version).

“For He has set a season for every event and for every deed…” (The Concordant Literal Old Testament).

We can go on and on with scriptural proof and even examples of what evils their God will do. Look, their God promises to burn billions, including children in a fire of never ending torture. Is that moral? of course not.

Their God drowned most all life on earth, to include babies and the unborn child in the womb of the mother (abortion). is that moral? don’t be absurd!

what one will find if they argue the logic and provide scriptural support is that Christian run away.

there are numerous other scriptures to support what I have stated or to just destroy the majority of the lies they tell.

Make it personal: “You seem like a pretty nice person, if you were all powerful, would you let children die gasping in pain from horrible diseases?”

What kind of “plan” is worth letting infants die?

Was Hitler really necessary? Couldn’t there have been a “plan” without Hitler?

What about a child that died of cholera in the 1400s? What is a possible role could the child play in the “plan”?

What are some other discussion-killers you have encountered?

Just very recently, I had a regular reader (and Christian) comment on a post of mine about various apologetics arguments. She mentioned a child that she lost: God didn’t cause the child’s death, but will bring positive things as a result. Knowing that she will see her child again one day helps her a lot in coping… I could have back-pedaled on my positions, dismantled her presumptions, or let the discussion die. I just let it die.

Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett included a story like this in their book “The Mind’s I”. It’s about a computer simulation of small human-like civilizations, used to study the interactions between people more scientifically.

Trying to look it up in my own copy…”Non Serviam” by Stanislaw Lem?

I usually ask them who’s god is “right.” This doesn’t necessarily shut them up, but it get’s ‘em all flustered for a while.