Re:Open your mind (Score 1)

"Biological life is not a car. Biological life makes sense within the chemical context of our universe." I was speaking about the universe, and that it makes more sense to believe the universe had a creator than to believe 'poof' it just came into being. It seems like a more reasonable explanation than 'it just exploded, we don't know why.' "If I could discount it, then chances are they didn't really defy the odds all that much. Human beings are demonstrably terrible at calculating the odds or finding meanings in coincidences." I've always been very good at math, I wouldn't miscalculate that badly. Certainly some of the things that have happened to me are unlikely enough that they'll never happen to me again. So why did they happen at a critical junction in my life, causing me to say "I get the point God, I'll go down that path, instead of the one I'm on?." Just a few days earlier or a few days later and it wouldn't have had the same effect. In some cases had the timing been just a couple hours or even 10 minutes off, it would have been too late. Life would be drastically different for me without those so called 'coincidences'. Actually, truth be told, it would be drastically worse. If there is no God, trusting him has sure had a strong positive impact in my life, not bad for a figment of my imagination. In the face of everything that's happened to me, the arguments people like you put forward seem awfully weak. "How _hedonism_ a good motivation to believe anything? If there exists a God who would destroy or damn or let be destroyed a person because they didn't play some elaborate head game or try to force their beliefs one way or another because someone threatened them, then I'm not sure I'd care for such a tyrant anyway. Any human being that acted like that and demanded it of other people would rightly be condemned as a bigot." I don't claim to understand or to know on what grounds God may or may not grant eternal life. But let's look at it this way. If you're a father you'll understand better, but imagine your son died to save a person. This person spends his whole life, despite the selfless actions of your son, disrespecting and ignoring both yourself and your son. Now this person gets kicked out of his house, and comes knocking on your door wanting to stay with you. What would you say? I'd say go to hell. We may well be individuals who screwed up badly in heaven, and God certainly has no obligation to let any of us back into his house. How he would make that decision we don't know, we have only the Bible to go on, which is clearly written by mortals, and so is pretty badly flawed. Ironically the words of Jesus in the New Testament as recorded by his disciples are very solid, even when viewed from today's context. Not much of the bible looks like that, so when he says all that you need to go to heaven is to believe, I'm tempted to believe him.