Ok good example bad history. While God did created the table, someone else set it. You see there's another part to this whole Christianity thing that most people forget, and that part is Satan. What's his job? To decieve the masses into thinking, "I'm really good at heart so I'll get into heaven" or "God and the Devil don't exists".

See what God created Satan(sin) spoiled. Why? Satan was an angel, who wanted equal footing with God. By corrupting God's creation he was simply getting back at God.

Big question. Why doesn't God just come down here and show us he exists? I mean, it would be logical right? Well he did. He walked with Adam, who still managed to listen to Satan. He made himself known to the people of Israel. I mean he got them out of Egypt, parted a sea, and followed them around as a cloud, and they still managed to forget about him.

He has not been obscure, but has revealed himself several times through the prophets, and finally through Jesus. So why don't we listen? I believe it's because sin is viewed as fun. It's much more fun to have sex outside of marriage than it is to wait. It's so much more fun to eat drink and be merry, than to moderate our drink and not be drunkards.

The problem is that all sin has a price. All sin has consequences. The devil has done his job to convince the masses that not only is it fun to do as we please, but it doesn't have consequences. Unfortunatly for the masses sin has everlasting consequences.

So, according to the above argument, Satan is equal to God. Can can create, control the weather, etc. be all knowing, etc. and yet let the "Satan" do what he wishes anyway.

sounds like God isn't all that powerful then.

Perhaps Satan is just as strong as God.

Believer, you're still quoting the Bible. Everything that you just stated comes from what you've learned from the Bible.

Can't anyone tell me why the Christian Bible is the only logical, correct choice WITHOUT refering back to the Bible??? These circular arguements mean absolutely nothing to me.

Pushing the envelope a bit, but an interesting concept. Satan could not have control or influence over everyones lives (as many Christians suggest) unless he were omnipresent. We know from the Bible that only God is everywhere at once.

I'm sorry but I find it very hard to follow any argument that includes Satan.

Believer, what about those people who are not having promiscuous sex, not getting drunk, not killing or maiming or lying or stealing? And not going to Church or relying on Jesus to die for their sins? The ones who are just decent people, but who might be atheists, agnostics, Jews, Moslems, Hindus, Wiccans, etc, etc?

And I would like your thoughts on my question, as to whether it is equally sinful for a 2-yr-old to steal a toffee, as it is for a man to torture and murder two young girls.

Ok answer to your question 2yr old grabs candy but doesn't know it's wrong. While taking the candy constitutes theft, the child has no concept of that theft, so no I don't believe the child would be held liable in God's eyes. (Hey just a side note I'm not God and this is just my opinion)

As for the man torturing and murdering 2 young girls, well definetly held accountable for his sins. As for are they equal in God's eyes, I have no idea, but I couldn't see how because the child had no idea what it was doing.

Now as for Satan having equal power with God, No. What we know, again from the Bible, sorry skr, is that Satan is a created being. He's an angel, who fell, and took many others with him. His problem is that he knows he's inferior, and destined to end up in hell, so what better than to take as many of God's creations with him.

He doesn't have any power, except that allowed to him by God. The best example of this is Job. Job was a guy who followed God, and Satan bet God that Job would fall away if preasured enough. God allowed Satan to give Job his worst, and Job ended up proving God right.

Satan is not omnipresent, or all powerful. What he does have is a bunch of fellow fallen angels willing to help him. These demons, along with Satin have the ability to posses people, who are open to posession.

And finally skr. No I can't tell you anything that will convince you I have the magic answer. I can't prove God's existence, only he can. All I can do is tell you my experiences, tell you where to search for yourself, and hope that you search for yourself.

You mean he's not there already?

What if didn't know what he was doing? Could it be possible?

So God, our benefactor, endowed his enemy with enough power to torture his creations into believing in him.

Kind of like prisoners of war being indoctrinated into loving their captors. Good Cop, Bad Cop?

So we are God's playthings.

http://www.dummies.com/WileyCDA/DummiesArticle/id-2708.html

I went looking for Biblical references to Satan and came across this article.

And from our old friend Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satan

b]skr[/b] on May 19 in response to my post. There were many questions and I wish I had the time and the ability to answer them all. Here is my attempt to answer some of them. I do not see God as obscure, however that is me. I find the scriptures to be His word and that they spell out who He is and what He wants from me. There are many religions and it is not easy to choose which one is the correct one. However when I considered the mere possibility that God may exist, who better to ask then Him. It was not easy to choose for even after I started attending church, (RC), I still believed that one could come to Him through any belief and or religion. Others trying to persuade me differently made it worse and I adamantly refused to believe them. The more I researched, the more complicated some things became, and the more questions I had. I realized that if the God I serve is all knowing and all powerful, why not go to him, simply ask and expect an answer. I do this regularly and it never fails. Whenever I have a problem or a question such as was Jesus just a man or is He also God, I take it to Him. Please don’t misunderstand me, He does not give me a verbal answer, but I can say that normally within a week I will be inundated with information coming from various sources on whatever subject I asked Him about. At first I considered the possibility of these being coincidences. However, I soon realized that they went beyond the probability of being coincidences. This however is not why I believe in Him. I believe in Him because of how He has made a change in me and has affected my whole life. I do not believe because of what people have told me but because of what I have experienced. Who I was inside I could not change, but He did. He took out the anger, hurt, hate, and feelings of revenge. These he replaced with joy, love, forgiveness and peace. Some of the people I hated the most are some of the people I now love the most. God also saved my marriage which I wanted to give up after seven years of marriage. My wife and I have celebrated our 36th marriage anniversary. I still research and I still read materials from other churches, religions or opinions, these cannot shake my foundation. God is not a religion or church. He is who He is.....God. He does not want us to be religious. He wants us to have a relationship with Him. In the scriptures He states “Come now and let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18) and I simply took him up on it. Don’t take my word, ask Him for yourself. You have nothing to lose if I am wrong, but if I am right…………

[b]PDM[/b] [quote]Based on your comments, I can only assume that you think that it was as bad for a 2-yr-old to take a toffee, as it was for that man to torture and kill those two young girls[/quote]In the examples you gave, the act of the child is typical child behavior. I do not want to get into a debate on the age of accountability. I will simply say that I did similar things and these are things that one can expect from children. Let us take it into the adult realm. Let us assume that an adult is downloading illegal music from the internet which is considered a crime in the US and therefore a sin. Let us now compare this act with the act of the man who abused, tortured and killed the two girls. The acts are relative and cannot or better yet should not be compared to each other. The 2nd act was horrendous. However, both acts were also a sin (not relative). The scriptures state that if one commits one sin, he is guilty of committing all. [i]“You will do all right, if you obey the most important law in the Scriptures. “It is the law that commands us to love others as much as we love ourselves. But if you treat some people better than others, you have done wrong, and the Scriptures teach that you have sinned. If you obey every law except one, you are still guilty of breaking them all. The same God who told us to be faithful in marriage also told us not to murder. So even if you are faithful in marriage, but murder someone, you still have broken God's Law. (James 2:8-11)”[/i] Sin brings death (separation from God and ultimately physical death) and it does not matter if it was a small sin or a large sin that caused the separation from God. The fact of the matter is that one is dead or separated from God. To better illustrate this, assume that a man dies, without experiencing pain or trauma, quietly in his sleep. Another man suffered a slow painful death caused by a horrible event such as a bombing, car accident or torture. If I had a choice in how I wanted to die, I would choose the first one and not the second one. However, it does not change the fact that both men are dead. How each one died is relative, the fact that both events led to death is not. The scriptures tell us that salvation is offered to us for free, but do not misunderstand, our salvation was not free or cheap, it was purchased with the blood of Jesus. He paid the price for our sins (past, present and future). The only requirement is to accept it by believing in Him. It is our choice. As I mentioned before, don’t take my word, go directly to the main source….Him.