The big question is if god is allmighty, allknowing and all loving why is there so much pain in the world. Either he is allmighty or he is allknowing.

And dont give me the shit like "god acts in mysterious ways" do you really believe that all these people in africa have to die? Do you really?

There has to be sadness for there to be happiness. Honestly, i think that he chooses not to butt in much in this world. You know, keeping our free will and stuff.

>devout Atheist
>capitalizing "A" in "atheist"

get out.

Well, what I'd say is free will. We choose not to support them, sure, we'll send them care packages, but 9 times out of 10 some militiaman will grab the goodies and make people work for them. Maybe if people actually got off their ass to help, like many missionaries, then it'd be a better place.

In reference to missionaries.

When a person decides top do something harmful, it is free will, but what about the suffering in the world that has noting to do with free will?
Birth defects, hurricanes, disease, assorted natural disasters, and such?
Also, missionaries would be helping alot more if they just spend all their resources on food, water and medical aid, rather than building churches, giving out bibles, and injecting religion into the poor and vulnerable, In some cases, they can be directly harmful, like when they tell people in aids ridden countries not to wear condoms.

well, it's how the world works. it's not perfect, it's not meant to be. they do hand out food and water, and they do preach their religion. it's their job. they seem to be the ones doing the riskiest things and going to the riskiest places, so I honestly think people should stop giving them crap until they actually go to Ethiopia or Haiti and help.

Risk, really?
If the missionaries got not vaccination shots, wore tatterd rags, starved themselves, and lived in mud huts along with the etheopians, then that might be risky, their in about as much risk as going on a holiday, and I think people should give them shit for wasteing so much money bolstering their religion, It would help far more if we gave to charities that don't carry a strong religion such as the humanist schools project in Uganda, or any other secular charitie, The reason that all we hear about is christian chartiys, is becaue they have become so popularised, with so many christians in the world, christians are more likely to give to a christian charity.

At least they're giving. And, there's also militia and bandits to worry about, those places have no laws. They'll kidnap anyone if they can get a ransom

I'm not objecting to them giving, I'm objecting tom them prosteltising, because its fucking things up pretty bad in a lot of places, It's not only a waste of time and money, but its harmful, (http://www.cobourgatheist.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=220: christian-missionaries-more-harm-than-good&catid=68:proseltyzing-missionaries&It emid=72) A few examples, I'm just saying, that if people were giving to secular charities instead, we could vastly reduce the harm, and we would increase the benifit.

first of all, cobourgathiest.com. that's like me using mormon.org to show you why missionaries are the best. 2nd, a lot of those examples were from the 17th and 18th centuries, when every european had been raised ethnocentrically, so everyone thought they were better than the indians.

about the mother theresa thing, her and her nuns were some of the only people trying to help. they weren't doing a good job, but they were still helping people, even though they made quite a few mistakes.

getting rid of missionaries will do way more harm than good. until 'freethinkers' or whatever you call yourselves hop on a plane to africa and start helping, i suggest everyone leave the missionaries be.

Again, I know that they are giving, I'm objecting to them proseltizing, I'm not saying to get rid of them all together, but people should be giving money to the secular charities that aren't wasting resources and, and as for the freethinkers comment, there are plenty of secular charity's that give too the poor and go to different countries to help out, but they can't do much when all the moneys going to the missionaries.

As a Christian, I don't really think God has a "plan" per se, because we do have free will, so it's not like He's controlling us. I think the closest thing to Him having a plan is that He plans for us to rejoin Him in heaven one day. But He certainly doesn't want us doing terrible things. Those people are indeed straying from the path. Of course, God knows they will stray, and that's why He sent Jesus to redeem us. So that even though we do terrible things, we can still be saved.

So, in a sense, committing atrocities is okay because Jesus has us covered?
I hope I'm not coming across as a dick, I'm just not good at making my points in an eloquent manner.

Well, it depends what you mean by "okay". Jesus said He would forgive any and all sins if we put our faith in Him and sought forgiveness. But if you commit atrocities without remorse and don't really care whether or not you're forgiven, then you won't be, and thus won't get into heaven. So, it's not so much whether or not the sins are "okay", as much as it is what you feel and do after you commit them. But regardless, they're still sins, so you shouldn't be doing them anyway.

This is what I don't get. I can go on a Viking pillage, burn all the houses, rape all the women and kill all the men. As long as I wholeheartedly repent before death, I essentially get away with it.

Basically. But as Reliant K says, "the beauty of grace is it makes life not fair." God's greatest gift to mankind was that all of us have an equal opportunity to go to heaven. We just have to choose to join Christ. A lot of people seem to have a problem with that, but I say it's a pretty nice trade-off.

DISCLAIMER: I am not advocating raping and pillaging. These things are very wrong and should be avoided for obvious reasons.