And P.S., Do you realize that the christian God is the same as the Islamic God and the Hebrew God? All Monotheistic religions believe in the exact same GOD!

Unfortunately, the ur-gonna-burn folks tend to shout the loudest!

Nothing makes me “so special.” I’m not. I would never suggest that God functions on a “quid pro quo” basis wherein only Christians or monotheists are protected from pain and anguish. If I implied such a thing, I’d be insane.

All I’m saying is this: there is a God, there is another plane of existence beyond this one, and I’ve seen evidence (I don’t use the word lightly) of both in my life. I also believe this God is the source of all love in the world — and, as such, bestows it universally and indiscriminately on everyone, be they Christian or Jew or Muslim or atheist. You needn’t be a person of faith to feel the warmth of the sun. It shines on all of us.

Why this same, loving God allows pedophilia and earthquakes and Hitlers I have no idea, none. All I know is we are each individually called upon (or “called,” in the religious sense) to choose good over evil, to choose love over hate, to choose peace over war. You could call this “free will,” if you were so inclined.

If all of us, all of the time, successfully employed our free will to choose good and love over evil and hate, would there be pedophilia in the world? Would there have been a Holocaust? I don’t know.

Of course free will can never explain a natural catastrophe. Again, I have no explanation for you at all. I can’t wrap my brain around any kind of suffering.

I have no idea why some people (like my extraordinary sister) suffer for years with disease and then die at a young age, when other dumb lumps (like me) go on to rewarding lives. You needn’t lecture me about pain.

And yet I believe in a merciful and loving God. I accept that my brain is too small to understand everything, but that someday, perhaps, I’ll escape the bounds of human existence and comprehend the incomprehensible.

You seem to think that this god is answering your prayers, but this same god doesn’t give a shit about people with REAL pain and REAL needs. The people of Kenya are highly Christian, but they are starving to death and losing their animals, which are their livelihood. There are children trapped in dungeons made by pedophiles, and those children are probably praying pretty hard for their god to come help them, but it’s not happening. Christian American soldiers are praying for their lives and for their comrades, but are still coming back in body bags. An earthquake has trashed one of the most Christian countries on Earth, and the Christian god doesn’t seem to care. Thousands were slaughtered while praying in churches during the Rwandan genocide. But what did you ask for? What was so important, and what is so spceial about you, that this god ignored poverty, murder, rape, child abuse, starvation, disease, etc., but helped you?

The story about the blind person not believing in oxygen — if that’s what you mean, yeah, I obviously made that up. No argument there.