The Truth Is Poorly Punctuated

Dear Unbeliever:

HOW CAN YOU KNOW JESUS REALLY IS GOD???

there have been many people who have claimed to be a god and many who claimed they were this or they were that but there Has ONLY BEEN ONE ...that has ever PROVED He was and Is GOD

and of course...That would be Jesus

Well, whatever else belief might do for you, it certainly doesn't improve grammar. Or clarify thought in any way. "there Has ONLY BEEN ONE" had me looking around for a guy with a sword and a poor imitation of a Scottish accent. Then I wept at the use of ellipses.

but let's start with this

hokay.

Ya

Really? "Ya" was so much easier to type than "you" that you just had to go with it? Gah!

get up in the middle of night...You walk into Your Living Room....there is brand new furniture ...Tv, love seat, couch, end tables, carpet, paint ...all stylishly set in place..way beyond your skills

Okay. So I'm totally freaked out right now. I get up, in the middle of the night, to discover that a roving band of decorators has broken into my home and redecorated my living room. (It's the Gay Agenda!) Yeah, I'm calling 911.

would it not be logical to ask "Who did this?" Did all that EVOLVE in the room?

*headdesk* No, it would not be logical to question evolution at this moment. It would be logical to a) change the locks and enjoy your new living room, or b) call the police.

So you start to inquire...Who Put this here?

Yes, I would wonder that. I might also wonder, "Can I get them back here to do the bedroom?"

And so should it be that each and every day as you wake up and see this world, the sunrise, the grass the trees ..the many many gazillion things that are lined up shouting to You that SOMEONE put all those things Here AND shouts for You to ask this following question

who Put You and I here?

Who taught you capitalization and grammar? That's what I would like to know. Then I want that person shipped to Gitmo for crimes against humanity.

If you honestly ask that question? It will lead to want to Know The Answer

Is nothing safe from your misunderstanding of simple punctuation?

Jesus came to this earth ...born of a virgin...lived a sinless life ....peformed many many documented miracles....and testified to all who would Listen that He was and Is and Is to come..that He is The Way, The Truth and the Life and said listen to this...to prove or authenticate my message to You Unbeliever and all the World...

Okay, "documented" does not mean what you think it means. If documentation does mean that, then I would like to use this opportunity to document that I spent the weekend raising the dead.

I will take the Sins of all mankind upon Me...You will kill me BUT three days later I will be Alive Again and He that Believes upon Me will NEVER Perish but live eternally

I'm assuming this is no longer the "writer" talking. This thing has more perspective shifts than a Twilight fanfic. (Still better than the real thing.)

And that's exactly what happened...2,000 years ago, Jesus Christ was Hung on a Cross for the Sins of the Whole World, It was a brutal event and one of great documentation, But NOT Only did Jesus Christ die, He did something ELSE...

Documentation does not mean that! Stop it!

While an armed guard stood watch over his gravesite...Jesus walked out of that guarded area three days later, JUST AS HE SAID HE WOULD and that empty tomb shouts a message for the whole world to hear...JESUS IS LORD OF LORDS AND KING OF ALL KINGS AND HE IS YOUR CREATOR

I can has proof?

So there you have it Unbeliever...a very simple message..I could sit here and debate for hours but It all boils down to this....You are Alive!!! and Your life is a gift that was given to You by a Loving Creator...Who made you to wake up and ask "who put me Here? then through seeking to find the Answer You would realize that His Name is JESUS....all of Creation and an Empty Tomb Testify He is GOD"

No, you couldn't debate this for hours, unless by debate you mean "assault with bad grammar and punctuation."

Unbeliever, I pray you Hear these words and Believe them and I pray you take the next step....the Bible says If You believe in Your Heart that Jesus Christ died and then three days later rose from the Grave and You confess that Faith out loud to someone ..anyone ...You will be SAVED....WILL YOU????!"

No. No, I will not accept poorly punctuated and creatively capitalized assertions of fact as evidence of anything.

Good luck next time.

Omnipotence- The Pros and Cons

god, omnipotence, omnipotent, religion, christian, covenant, unbeliever, pagan, atheism, atheist,
One of the things that has always bothered me about the christian god is the supposed quality of omnipotence: almighty or infinite in power, as God.

What bothers me about Yhwh's supposed omnipotence is that every time you turn around you see an example of something that really needs to be fixed. People dying in floods or fires, children being raped, people being tortured, people starving to death, people dying slowly of terrible illnesses. Any reasonable person looking at that is going to experience some serious cognitive dissonance trying to reconcile an omnipotent, loving god with what actually happens here on earth. Some people resolve their cognitive dissonance by retreating into "god is ineffable", some people become atheists. However you do it, eventually you have to reconcile yourself to the inevitable conclusion that either Yhwh doesn't care or Yhwh isn't omnipotent, but he certainly isn't loving and omnipotent.

In my opinion, pagans have the best solution to this problem (without resorting to the "oh, fuck it, I can't believe this shit anymore" of the atheist): specialization rather than omnipotence. Pagan gods and goddesses are like modern day medical professionals. If I have a brain tumor, I want a neurosurgeon, but if I need my hip replaced, that's not the doctor I want in the room. Pagans have different gods and goddesses for every occasion, and they are clearly not omnipotent. Thus, if I ask a pagan why didn't Thor or Zeus or whoever save those people from drowning, I'm not going to create any cognitive dissonance. The answer is simple: it wasn't in their power.

Writers tend to deal with this problem in the same way: they remove the element of omnipotence. Either god is space aliens/humans from the future, vastly more powerful than our bronze age forebears, but not omnipotent, or god is limited in some way. For instance, Stephen R. Donaldson creates a god limited by his own creation in the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever. This of course brings up the issue of how does god create a rock so big he can't lift it, but at least we know why we're counting on an antihero to fix things.

Feel free to chime in with your favorite explanation of why god is the way god is. Book recommendations always welcome.