Sorry about your situation. What exactly are your skin issues now?

I know that laser surgeries are not an instant fix, so maybe just give it some time before you see the full results? Sometimes right after any facial treatment like lasers, chemical peels, etc. someone can look very worse for a few days/weeks until their skin adjusts. Also car mirrors can make things look 10x worse than it really is so I'd suggest not looking there when you want to inspect your skin. Avoid any harsh mirrors while under treatment honestly. Healing skin takes time and it won't do any good to your self esteem scrutinizing your face everyday. Maybe just inspect your progress every weekend.

What's your skincare regimen like? Hopefully you're using good products as a regular maintenance. Good luck.

hey guys,i just wanted to make this post to see if there is some1 out there going through what i am right now. if you are please reply.

Im 18 years old and have been suffering from acne since i was 14. up until i was 16 i was just getting alot of pimples,i mean alot! all over my forehead,nose,cheeks,and it sucked. it made me very self-conscious but i figured that it was just a teenage thing. whn i was 16 i got this massive red acne cist on my cheek. it really hurt at the time,and it made me feel really dirty and ugly. thats when my mother decided to bring me to a dermotologist,,and thts when i was put on ro-accutane for about 6 months. it worked like a charm,my face completely cleared up of all spots,but unfortunately i was left with these red marks on my cheeks..and a big shiny one on 1 cheek. but i heard about laser acne scarring removal and was delighted. i was willing to pay anything to get rid of my scars. we booked an appointment and i was counting down the days until my surgery. at this point in time,i was pretty depressed..i looked like shit,felt like shit,but i had hope. whnever i felt down i just reminded myself of the date of the surgery. it made me feel better. at least i had hope...i would be in class and literally be counting down the days,hours,minutes until all of this could be over. and i could be free,confident,finaly maybe have the confidence to approach a girl. i reminded myself that it would all be over soon and it made me feel alot better. Finally i had my surgery,weeks later no results. the dermatologist suggested i needed 2-3 more treaetments until full results. i remember vividly driving back home with my mum in the car and fighting the tears. i was devastated..after about a week of temporary depression i pulled myself together. just 3 months and it will all be over. i still had hope. i fought on through life,school,etc and it was tough. 3 and a half months later my final surgery was done( btw i also got filler injections)..i remember looking in the mirror in the hospital thinking my face looked awesome..i ws happy for a few days until i caught a glimpse of myself in the car mirror. i was still hideous.. depression kicked in temporarily..i would then look at myself in the mirror in my bedroom and think wtf was i thinking? ive got nothin....its weird coz my personality is either realy happy with how i look or distraut. the cycle started.. id think i look great for a few days,max a week...then change my mind and think to myself that i must have been stupid to believe that....then a few days later it would be the opposite!! id be sure of it!! but then of course my mind would change again!! and again...again...you get the point. this sounds absolutely insane..does any1 else go though this? to be totally honest..im not sure what i look like at the moment..if my scar is noticeable?? i just dont know anything anymore..i cant stop looking in the mirror...inspecting everything...i cant look people other than my family in the eye anymore.it just hurts too much.. i have no hope im just lost..nothing makes sense to me anymore. i dont know who i am,what my future is,i just cant take it.. it hurts so much..i cant remember the last time i havent cried going to sleep..im crying right now..there's something wrong with my head. i know it..i just want to be happy thats all!? and i know i never will be. this acne has fucked me up forever..im mentally scarred for life..its seriously come to the point where i dont go outside any more unless i have to..ive withdrawn from all social events. ..i cant bare having people looking at me. i have my tests in about 2-3 weeks,they determine if i get into college..and i havent studied in months..i just put my head down and sleep. i need to do well!! can some1please help? just if some1's going through the same thing i beg you just reply.

 

Jonathon, your story really touched me as i have and still go through the feelings you've described. It's called depression and it is not your fault. Your acne likely exasberates these feelings and thus makes you feel as if the four corners of the earth are closing on you.

Stop

Breathe

Now read on - depressions just doesn't go away on its own. Get help. I do CBT (cognitive behavior therapy) and it helps somewhat. I am now considering meds as i need an extra push (made this decision after months of CBT). I go through the crying spells too, the negative self talk, the obsessing over my skin. That won't go away by itself so please go see someone.

It does get better with time - i was successful with treatment in 2008 and believe i can beat it again.

Good Luck in school, keep visiting us and take care of your mental health

dont worry, youre not alone. i cant explain how sad and depressed i am everyday because of my acne and scars. im 17 and a senior in high school and literally no one in any one of my classes has acne like me. it has definitely changed me and ill never forget it untill i die how much acne has scarred me mentally. its crazy how such a little thing that everyone gets can effect someone. im just waiting for the day that my acne goes away, thats if it ever comes.

First off, thank you for having the courage to share such a personal struggle. You are definitely not alone. I've experienced my fair share of an up and down emotional rollercoaster due to my skin for the past 12 years now. Like you, I have good days and bad days. I go from thinking to myself "hey, my skin isn't too bad.." to "my skin is horribly scarred and downright awful, I feel sorry for anyone who has to look at me." And whether I'm feeling good or bad about my skin that day I am CONSTANTLY inspecting it. It's just...not right and it's totally compulsive. I just have to do it and most of the time I regret it because it looks even worse than I was expecting. Anyways, that's a whole other story. I just want you to know I feel your pain and my heart goes out to you. Like sasch12 suggested, it might be time to seek out some resources to help remedy the emotional distress/obsession you're experiencing. I will be doing the same thing myself, I'm so tired of the inner turmoil my skin has caused me. Good luck to you and don't hesitate to write me if you ever need someone to listen.

What I'm about to tell you can change your entire life if you want it to. When I gave my life to Christ and acted in faith to his most important commandments. Love the Lord your God with all your heart mind and soul and love your neighbor as yourself. My life has become filled with such love and compassion for humanity. He has given me new eyes to see and new ears to hear. I no longer critisize myself like I used to. I realized that you cannot trust your own perception because we are only human. Im sure you have felt the deception I speak of. Your eyes decieve you because one day you think eveythings great and the next your like wtf why do I feel so bad? Well, Jesus gave me new eyes to see. Not only do I have compassion for others, but for myself as well. Ive been trying my hardest to walk this straight and narrow path now and it's so beautiful. Dont let Satan tell you that your not good enough and dont belive his lies. Pray that Jesus gives you new eyes to see life, repent, and move along. God Bless you and your honesty with us. Counseling can help but Jesus can heal you. Get the sin out of your life because it can be a gateway for Satan to infiltrate your soul. Jesus healed me and he can heal you too.

What I'm about to tell you can change your entire life if you want it to. When I gave my life to Christ and acted in faith to his most important commandments. Love the Lord your God with all your heart mind and soul and love your neighbor as yourself. My life has become filled with such love and compassion for humanity. He has given me new eyes to see and new ears to hear. I no longer critisize myself like I used to. I realized that you cannot trust your own perception because we are only human. Im sure you have felt the deception I speak of. Your eyes decieve you because one day you think eveythings great and the next your like wtf why do I feel so bad? Well, Jesus gave me new eyes to see. Not only do I have compassion for others, but for myself as well. Ive been trying my hardest to walk this straight and narrow path now and it's so beautiful. Dont let Satan tell you that your not good enough and dont belive his lies. Pray that Jesus gives you new eyes to see life, repent, and move along. God Bless you and your honesty with us. Counseling can help but Jesus can heal you. Get the sin out of your life because it can be a gateway for Satan to infiltrate your soul. Jesus healed me and he can heal you too.

 

But also on a side note, we gotta find a way to clear the skin up. What are you using right now on your skin. I beat this myself. I will help you too.

yep....... it's a rollercoaster of emotion. a few days you're faring well, then next thing you know you're down in the dumps for a few days. it's really amazing how this pattern continues.

accepting yourself is key to staying positive. i know its harder said than done, but you really need to look deep down within yourself and say THIS IS ME, TAKE ME OR LEAVE ME, I HAVE A RIGHT TO AN EXISTENCE JUST LIKE ANYONE ELSE. I AM DIFFERENT IN MY WAY, AND OTHER PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT IN THEIR WAY. IF YOU CAN'T ACCEPT ME, THEN P!SS OFF.

learn to live with yourself even with the psychological pain you are experiencing. it's your only choice. but here is also where the key lies........ if you have severe acne or severe scarring, and combine this with a negative outlook and a sad or angry face which you cast to the world - that is a double negative. if you have the acne or scarring and portray a happy and vibrant face to the world - you have one negative and one positive - which to some extent can balance each other out. do your best to take the second option, it's not always easy, but it will do wonders over the long run with how you are able to deal with tough situations.

i know where you're coming from jonathanh, it's not easy, but you need to be strong.

all the best to you.

Hi Jonathan,

I know your one and only post was almost a year ago and it looks like you've never been back since. If you ever do then you're going to find that this is my first post as well and like you, it's doubtful I'll be making frequent visits.

You are (or were) 18 when you wrote your 'cry from the heart'. I am double your age, but know the agony only too well. In fact, I don't know of anyone, anywhere at any point in history to have suffered as completely as I have, but the point of my post is not for an immature battle of 'who's got it worse?'

The point of my responding at all is NOT to engender hope, but to deal with reality in the coldest, most cutting way possible. Everyone here has or still is suffering. Some may only have a few spots and shouldn't be here at all. Then there are others like myself who have full body acne, from head to foot. Yes, HEAD TO FOOT... at age 36.... having had it for 26 years of my life. In fact, I've probably had my acne longer than 90% of the people in this forum have been alive! And believe me, I have tried EVERYTHING to try and get rid of it, but in my case at least, it truly is hopeless.

Hopelessness - the crux of the matter.

As much as I am saddened by your plight and can empathise with you greatly, what actually caused me to respond was not your post but the one by Coppedsynergy999. I don't know his or her story when it comes to acne. The fact that they are here strongly suggests that they have had to deal with the scourge of spots like the rest of us, but unlike myself, he or she is cosseted by the fact that they are deluded and unable to deal with stark reality. I'm sure (s)he means well, but anyone who believes in a theistic version of God cannot possibly suffer to the extent of those of us who are not so retarde... excuse me, 'blind'.

Coppedsynergy999, there is no God. None. Your life is based on a lie and childish inability to see outside your own conditioning. Why should anyone believe in Jesus? If taken literally then the Bible trips itself up on the very first page. It is an archaic, evil and twisted manuscript which has no basis in truth. As it is completely unfounded, there are literally innumerable interpretations of it (some 10,000+ denominations) and that's just Christianity. Why are you a Christian and not a Muslim? A Jew? A Hindu? I'm not for a second trying to endorse any of these religions in place of your own, I have only brought them up to show you that your belief system is nothing but a childish, arbitrary, ill conceived way of looking at the world. 'Your' God is the image you have in your own mind and it is yourself that you worship, nothing else, for there is nothing else there. The Muslim with equal assurance - if he or she were reading poor Jonathan's heartache - would be advocating prayer to Allah and Muhammad, and with equal certainty would be trying to convince the lad how wonderful THESE fictitious entities were as well.

Bottom line: you do no good with your ridiculous fairytales. If one were to accept that such an omniscient entity DID in fact exist then one must ALSO accept that it's the same entity RESPONSIBLE for the pain and suffering that all people go through. If you don't accept that then you cannot possibly believe in God at all, because as the old Epicurean paradox so plainly points out:

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?

Then he is not omipotent.

Is he able, but not willing?

Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able, and willing?

Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing?

Then why call him God?"

Try as you may to squirm your way around this, there is no way to do so. Either your 'God' is impotent or a P.O.S. Thankfully, he is neither because 'he' doesn't exist.

Now that we've gone past the nursery school sky fairies, let us observe reality as it REALLY is...

What are we? Reduced to our simplest component parts, we're replicating DNA molecules. Nature doesn't give a damn about our happiness or sadness. It is a will-less force with a sole blueprint of throwing out myriad types of designs. If it survives then nature has done it's job. A slug is as evolved as a human being in that it can survive and reproduce. That is ALL nature is about - survival and reproduction. Repeat it with me: survival and reproduction.

Unfortunately, somewhere along the line, homosapiens came along and for the first time (as far as we know), this animal has evolved over the eons into a creature with higher thought capacities. So much so that we are actually able to observe and QUESTION our very existence. Knowing that there is no God and that from nature's point of view all we are here to do is to survive and reproduce, we have to ask ourselves the question (if we're at all serious), WHY?!?!?! And is it worth it?

Nature may not give a damn about our happiness, but that is all that we seek out of life. Every single person who has read this far, I ask you to ask yourself now: stripped down to the barest form, what do you and every other living being spend their days attempting to do? Reduce it to the simplest form and what are the two things which occupy your entire life? If you answered: 'pursuing pleasure and trying to avoid suffering', then give yourself a gold star because that my friends is the sum total of our existence. It doesn't matter the form it takes, we ALL want pleasure and we all want to avoid suffering. Some are lucky and manage a life that is virtually all pleasure with very little suffering, then there's us acne sufferers who know with brutal force what it means to have hearts that wail in despair.

But even those who predominantly live lives of happiness, is it worth it? They would no doubt say yes, but taken as a collective whole, is life itself - as a phenomenon - worth it? We all seek pleasure and happiness (which is why we want clear skin, i.e. clear skin = 'like everyone else' = attractive = wanted by others = pleasure), but if we had never been born then we could of course never have been DEPRIVED of it. Just as you do not shed tears over non-existent Martians missing out on life, so too you cannot cry over children that are not yet born. It sounds stupid to put it in such a way, but I am going somewhere with this that is a profound, yet no doubt disturbing philosophical truth...

Let's recap:

1. There is no God (at least, there is no THEISTIC God, i.e. a God of the so called holy books. There may be some pantheistic/deist/unknowable creative force, but such things are an absolute irrelevance for they cannot be proven or disproven.)

2. Nature doesn't care about your happiness. It is a crude force which is interested in creating neverending varities of species, nothing more, nothing less.

3. Sentient human life has a different agenda. What WE care about is achieving permanent happiness (the real reason we have invented all the silly gods in the first place) and avoiding pain at all costs.

4. We have also seen that babies as yet not born are not 'missing out' on pleasure due to the very state of their non-existence.

Now we come to point number 5 - the most important point of all and the most important thing that YOU, whoever you are reading this, will ever read in your life:

5. Whereas babies not yet born are not deprived of pleasure for the reason stated in the previous point, they can however be SPARED THE GUARANTEED PAIN THAT ALL LIFE UNDERGOES SIMPLY BY EXISTING, ergo no good person will ever have children because to do so is to commit the singlemost heinous act possible.

As you are all probably reeling from this or scoffing in haughty (but misplaced) contempt at the implications of my premises' conclusion, let me go over it again so that you can be in no doubt whatsoever that what I have said is true.

Had you not been born you wouldn't have had acne, right? You wouldn't have suffered, right? You wouldn't BE suffering right now if you're one of those still affected by the condition, right? Now, this is just acne. Replace 'acne' with, eczema, arthritis, deafness, cancer, toothache, hernia, gallstones, panic attacks, mumps, starvation, humiliation, defeat, squalor, bereavement, etc, etc, etc. The ways of suffering are endless. In fact, there are only two absolute ways to permanently end/cure all suffering (no, no, not Jesus or Superman or Gozilla worship - we're talking to the grown ups here)... the only two ways to ensure the end of suffering are:

1. Death.

2. Never being born in the first place.

As you are unfortunate enough to be reading this then I am sorry but number 2 is out for you and that leaves only death, be it so called 'natural' death, from old age, disease or falling in front of a bus, to suicide. I am not going to go into the moral implications for or against suicide. All I'm doing is stating matter of factly that when YOU die, YOU cease to exist and suffering can only occur to the living.

I can still hear the army of protests: "yeah, I'm suffering, but not THAT badly!" and "you're crazy and need help!" and "I love my child/I want to have a child." There will be hundreds more such comments to the contrary of what I've pointed out, but if you have read my words dispassionately you will see the logical truth in them and there really is no way to refute my conclusion. Seeing as not everyone is too bright and also because nature has made it so that we are biologically 'addicted' to life, even though the bulk of it IS misery, I will address the 'counter arguments' I've posed above before you can come out with them for yourselves...

1. "yeah, I'm suffering, but not THAT badly!" - Ok, good for you. I truly hope that you can find peace and happiness in YOUR life. I have capitalised 'YOUR' for the express reason that while for you think life is good over all, you still cannot deny what I have pointed out, i.e. you wouldn't have MISSED out had you not been born (you wouldn't have known anything due to your non-existence), but you WOULD have been SPARED the pain. Right? You can at least agree to that I expect. So, while you think (from your current perspective of being alive) that after weighing all the pros and cons, life = thumbs up, you must also realise that for other people that is NOT the case. People DO hate their lives. People DO commit suicide. And as we KNOW there is no 'meaning of life' other than what nature dictates, then the point to consider here is not YOUR life, but the prospective child that YOU have the power to bring or prevent from ever existing. YOU, despite the best of intentions, will not lead THEIR life. They will have their own pains and pleasures and as I keep saying, they are GUARANTEED pain merely by existing. Pain that you can 100% stop in advance by not bringing them into being. Given the choice, having lived the life I've had to endure, and if suddenly granted access to a time machine, then without hesitation I would go back and prevent my parents from SELFISHLY procreating. And yes, that is what it is - complete and utter selfishness. No child is asked if they are wanting to have life thrust upon them. I know that such things are impossible, but nevertheless, once you see the truth of what I have repeated here then you no longer have any excuses if you find yourself in the position of talking 'babies'. You won't live their lives and you have no right to impose that life upon them unless you can guarantee that they will neither experience pain nor inflict it upon others.

2. "you're crazy and need help!" - As the philosopher J. Krishnamurti once said, "it is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." No truer words were ever spoken. If you are thinking such things then please keep those thoughts to yourself. Just because what I am saying is radical, does not mean it's invalid. If you have a problem with what I have concluded then attack my argument, not me. I will (and already have!) admit that had I been born and lived never having developed a pimple, let alone being covered in them, then I too probably would have been as blissfully ignorant, selfish and uncaring as the great unwashed masses, but that is not what has happened and I, personally, am an irrelevance. It doesn't matter if I say it, you say it or a talking goldfish says it. The truth is the truth is the truth, and I contend that my argument is irrefutable. The only way you CAN argue against me (other than to shout me down with ad hominems and plain insults) is to invoke an imaginary being known generally as 'God'. By all means do so, because it is a very simple affair to deconstruct such puerile thought processes.

3. "I love my child/I want to have a child." - I essentially covered this one a couple of paragraphs ago, but as you'll have noticed (if you're still reading), I have a tendency towards verbal diarrhoea. You do NOT love your child, even if you think you do. By definition, there is no such thing as a 'good' parent, for the reasons I've outlined above. If you were capable of love then you would not inflict guaranteed pain on him/her, which is what you do by imposing life on them. Again, you don't know if they will have a life where the net pleasure surpasses the net pain, but you DO know that you prevent ALL pain by not having them in the first place, so if you actually were capable of this thing you call love then junior would not exist. Sorry.

And for the as yet childless couples out there, you now have no excuse to bring a life into existence. The desire to have a kid, while perhaps biologically motivated ('good' old nature at it's best again), is really no different to wanting a new car/house/TV. You wish to have it for YOUR sake, not for the child's. YOU want the joy of having a baby. YOU want to be needed by this helpless being. YOU want to keep up with the Joneses. There is no love in this other than self love. I know some of you will still argue (badly) that this ISN'T the case, but it is. There an easy litmus test to see if you are serious about the whole 'love' business and that's if you want a baby so badly and you claim NOT to be selfish, then adopt or foster EXISTING children, i.e. those who already exist in the world and who truly NEED to be cared for. In a world of 7+ billion and counting, there is absolutely no valid excuse for you to have a child.

So, there we have it. We have acne (I personally also have seborrhoeic dermatitis of the scalp and as a result receding hair, no facial hair, sebaceous cysts on both ear lobes, warts on my hands and a cherry hemangioma on my chest. I have never smoked, drank or taken drugs and in all other respects am cleaner, fitter and healthier than the majority of people. Fun bio, huh? Oh yeah, I forgot... Jesus loves me ). Others have AIDS and others are being electrocuted in some third world jail somewhere for stealing a loaf of bread. Suffering is the ultimate value of existence and it's prevention is more important than your having fun. Don't get me wrong, I am not a sadist. I truly hope you can have the happiest life you can, but just like all those useless doctors out there who swear by (and immediately go against) the Hippocratic oath, your overriding responsibility as a human being is to first do no harm. As a living being you have been harmed by your very existence and for that I am truly sorry. Your suffering (and my own) will one day cease, but please, I beg of you, do not continue this futile and evil game by procreating. Thank you for reading.

Trust me, things get better as time goes on, especially for skin. Our skin is a living organ, it repairs itself as time goes on.

And don't beat yourself up just because you are feeling down, everyone has their own insecurities.

I used to literally stay at home for weeks and never go out because I didn't want anyone to see me. But as time passes on, I am outgoing now even though my problems still are here, I don't care if I have breakouts anymore, every morning I just wash my face and put on sunblock, then wear my hoodie and head straight to school. And I look at people in the eyes when I talk with them even though I might be breaking out.

Trust me, the ones who look past your insecurities are the friends that you should keep, but not the ones who judge you.

@Decaying, that was a slightly disturbing first post

Coppedsynergy999 is right.

The God of the Bible is real and Jesus is on the throne now. The Bible does NOT trip itself up on the first page, it is NOT outdated or full of lies, and it is the more culturally relevent today than ever before. The Bible has not been "disproven" by real science and can be taken literally. It doesn't trip itself up on the first page, it offers answers to questions that science, which I would argue has in fact become the god of so many, is even unable to answer logically. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" is the first line of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. Science has yet to explain rationally how everything came into existance from nothing. That contradicts the first law of thermodynamics, which states that matter can neither be created (especially from nothing!) nor destroyed. There is a God who opperates outside of scientific laws who created and sustains the universe. We haven't just always existed, or how would we get to where we are now if there was no time? Also, it takes more faith to believe that we evolved over millions and millions of years from monkeys without any evidance to back it up.

There is nothing evil or twisted about the Bible - it is God's pure word. Read it longer than just the first few verses, and you will find a remarkable consistancy in all 66 books that were written over the course of hundreds of years by men who didn't ever meet each other. It proves itself true, because it is God-breathed. The Holy Spirit guided these men as they wrote. Isaiah wasn't around 400 + years after he wrote his prophecies when the virgin Mary conceived and gave birth to the Son of God. Read Isaiah 54, and you will find a remarkable prediction about the birth and life, even the death, of Jesus. It seems miraculous because it is. It was impossible for Jesus as a regular man to plan out fulfilling the 600 plus prophecies in the Old Testament regarding his birth, life, ministry, nature, death and resurrection.

God also did not create evil...evil was a result of the fall. God gave us free will - the power to make choices - and we made the wrong choice, letting sin, death, and suffering loose on the world. It was not God's fault, so don't play the blame game. If anything it was OUR fault. But even now God doesn't just ditch us and say, "I'm done with you stupid humans that mess everything up." He keeps pursuing us; you can see this throughout scripture and in the lives of those who personally know him. He isn't a figment of imagination that silly people called Christians make up to make themselves feel better.

The interesting thing is, reports are lacking where Christian apologists become atheists the more they research matters of science and the Bible. Its the other way around. Antony Flew, A. N. Wilson, Matthew Parris, and Peter Hitchens, to name a few prominent ones that have made the switch. As Parris notes in his article for The Sunday Times, "The rebirth is real; the change is good."

If you want to pretend that the God of the Bible doesn't exist, you have to ask yourself some logical questions:

Why am I angry at a God I believe doesn't exist? I don't believe in unicorns, so why would I be angry at God any more than them? Shouldn't I be sympathetic towards these deluded Christians rather than hostile?

Why is Israel, a nation no bigger than the state of New Jersey, the center of global tension to this day if the Bible is so irrelevant?

Is the unravelling of end-time prophesy in an accurate way simply coincidental? (I would suggest studying this matter further.)

How is the complexity, order and beauty of creation explained by random chance?

If we simply evolved from monkeys, shouldn't we look more like puzzles of random chance than being as patterned and symetrical as we are?

Why were so many people willing to die terrible deaths for their beliefs in Jesus if they knew it was all a lie?

I would encourage those who doubt the Bible to read it and see for yourself whether it is true or not. Not in tiny snippets, but in depth. Try it! Try to prove it isn't true, but you can only attempt to do that if you know it inside and out. Before you give up all hope, try it. You have nothing to lose. The Bible offers hope because Jesus is our hope!

"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness..." 2 Timothy 3:16

"For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse." http://www.esvapi.org/assets/play.swf?myUrl=hw%252F45001019-45001020%22%20width=%2240%22%20height=%2212%22%20class=%22audio%22%3E%3Cparam%20name=%22movie%22%20value=%22http://www.esvapi.org/assets/play.swf?myUrl=hw%252F45001019-45001020%22%20/%3E%3Cparam%20name=%22wmode%22%20value=%22transparent%22%20/%3E%3C/object%3 E" rel="external nofollow">Romans 1:19-20

"The fool hath said in his heart, 'There is no God'" Psalm 14:1

Decaying, you asked why anyone should believe in Jesus. I will tell you. Because without Jesus you have no hope, as you have already stated. Your only solution to suffering is suicide because everything is futile. If I were an atheist, I would agree with you. You are right, without Jesus everything is pointless and ends without justice or accomplishment. We are sick. We have a heart disease called sin. It corrupts our minds, our flesh, our lives, our beings. It results in suffering, agony and death.

But because of Jesus, God in the flesh, we can have the free gift of eternal life because he died on the cross willingly to pay the price of sin. Because we have all sinned we will be separated from God forever in a place called Hell. To go to Heaven you must be perfect, as righteous as God, and none of us are perfect, all of us have done things that make God sad. But if you believe that Jesus died it for you he says you can have eternal life forever in heaven and he will put his payment to your account. He didn't have to do it, but he did because he loves you.

That's right folks,

GOD

LOVES

YOU.

All of you. Physical imperfections, quirks, mistakes and all. To the point of pain, to the point of death. His life for yours, his body and blood for yours, his ransom for your redemption, his sacrifice for your sins.

Then why does he let us suffer? How could a loving God allow such terrible things to happen?

Atheists are mad at God because they can't understand him and are angry at him. The very fact that we don't have answers to all the specific questions leads me to believe there must be something higher out there I don't understand. God is infinitely smart - it is like the relationship between a parent and a child. The child does not always understand why the parent does what it does, but it has the choice to trust and put themselves under its protection and care even if it doesn't always make sence. Good can come of suffering, though we don't always know how or when. But one day suffering and death will be defeated when Jesus returns and restores this broken world into a place of peace and joy. "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." And, "The last enemy to be destroyed is death." Justice will be done, and is being done. This is a living hope. Why did God allow himself to suffer? It wasn't fair, it wasn't right. But he did it for something greater: his love for you. God is NOT malevolent if he chooses to allow someone to suffer for a greater good. Otherwise you could say Jesus was malevolent by allowing HIMSELF to suffer on your behalf. Sometimes it takes suffering to bring us to our knees before him.

We are more than complex DNA parts. That only gives us the body. There is a soul in your body that Jesus died and rose again to save, a fact that is the most documented event ever recorded in human history by hundreds of multiple eyewitnesses. There is no question about it, only a choice. Will you choose Jesus? You don't have to do anything, join anything, be anybody. Let go of your anger, it will only lead you to your destruction. It really is a matter of life or death. Believe on Jesus, your hope, and you will have everlasting life and peace that passes all understanding.

Everybody looks terrible in the car side mirrors, especially on a clear sky days. It's nothing to be concerned about. It's impossible to look good in every mirror in every situation, even with a flawless complexion.

The worst has got to be either looking in a mirror in a fluorescently lit room, or with a light directly above one's head.

These factors make "everybody" look terrible.

Also, if you've just had any sort of invasive surgery, its important to keep your skin moisturized as much as possible and to avoid daylight as much as possible. The sun doesn't doesn't have to be shinning in order for the UV's to reach the skin, it can go straight through the clouds as well.

Coppedsynergy999 is right.

The God of the Bible is real and Jesus is on the throne now. The Bible does NOT trip itself up on the first page, it is NOT outdated or full of lies, and it is the more culturally relevent today than ever before. The Bible has not been "disproven" by real science and can be taken literally. It doesn't trip itself up on the first page, it offers answers to questions that science, which I would argue has in fact become the god of so many, is even unable to answer logically. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" is the first line of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. Science has yet to explain rationally how everything came into existance from nothing. That contradicts the first law of thermodynamics, which states that matter can neither be created (especially from nothing!) nor destroyed. There is a God who opperates outside of scientific laws who created and sustains the universe. We haven't just always existed, or how would we get to where we are now if there was no time? Also, it takes more faith to believe that we evolved over millions and millions of years from monkeys without any evidance to back it up.

There is nothing evil or twisted about the Bible - it is God's pure word. Read it longer than just the first few verses, and you will find a remarkable consistancy in all 66 books that were written over the course of hundreds of years by men who didn't ever meet each other. It proves itself true, because it is God-breathed. The Holy Spirit guided these men as they wrote. Isaiah wasn't around 400 + years after he wrote his prophecies when the virgin Mary conceived and gave birth to the Son of God. Read Isaiah 54, and you will find a remarkable prediction about the birth and life, even the death, of Jesus. It seems miraculous because it is. It was impossible for Jesus as a regular man to plan out fulfilling the 600 plus prophecies in the Old Testament regarding his birth, life, ministry, nature, death and resurrection.

God also did not create evil...evil was a result of the fall. God gave us free will - the power to make choices - and we made the wrong choice, letting sin, death, and suffering loose on the world. It was not God's fault, so don't play the blame game. If anything it was OUR fault. But even now God doesn't just ditch us and say, "I'm done with you stupid humans that mess everything up." He keeps pursuing us; you can see this throughout scripture and in the lives of those who personally know him. He isn't a figment of imagination that silly people called Christians make up to make themselves feel better.

The interesting thing is, reports are lacking where Christian apologists become atheists the more they research matters of science and the Bible. Its the other way around. Antony Flew, A. N. Wilson, Matthew Parris, and Peter Hitchens, to name a few prominent ones that have made the switch. As Parris notes in his article for The Sunday Times, "The rebirth is real; the change is good."

If you want to pretend that the God of the Bible doesn't exist, you have to ask yourself some logical questions:

Why am I angry at a God I believe doesn't exist? I don't believe in unicorns, so why would I be angry at God any more than them? Shouldn't I be sympathetic towards these deluded Christians rather than hostile?

Why is Israel, a nation no bigger than the state of New Jersey, the center of global tension to this day if the Bible is so irrelevant?

Is the unravelling of end-time prophesy in an accurate way simply coincidental? (I would suggest studying this matter further.)

How is the complexity, order and beauty of creation explained by random chance?

 

If we simply evolved from monkeys, shouldn't we look more like puzzles of random chance than being as patterned and symetrical as we are?

Why were so many people willing to die terrible deaths for their beliefs in Jesus if they knew it was all a lie?

I would encourage those who doubt the Bible to read it and see for yourself whether it is true or not. Not in tiny snippets, but in depth. Try it! Try to prove it isn't true, but you can only attempt to do that if you know it inside and out. Before you give up all hope, try it. You have nothing to lose. The Bible offers hope because Jesus is our hope!

"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness..." 2 Timothy 3:16

"For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse." http://www.esvapi.org/assets/play.swf?myUrl=hw%252F45001019-45001020%22%20width=%2240%22%20height=%2212%22%20class=%22audio%22%3E%3Cparam%20name=%22movie%22%20value=%22http://www.esvapi.org/assets/play.swf?myUrl=hw%252F45001019-45001020%22%20/%3E%3Cparam%20name=%22wmode%22%20value=%22transparent%22%20/%3E%3C/object%3 E" rel="external nofollow">Romans 1:19-20

"The fool hath said in his heart, 'There is no God'" Psalm 14:1

Decaying, you asked why anyone should believe in Jesus. I will tell you. Because without Jesus you have no hope, as you have already stated. Your only solution to suffering is suicide because everything is futile. If I were an atheist, I would agree with you. You are right, without Jesus everything is pointless and ends without justice or accomplishment. We are sick. We have a heart disease called sin. It corrupts our minds, our flesh, our lives, our beings. It results in suffering, agony and death.

But because of Jesus, God in the flesh, we can have the free gift of eternal life because he died on the cross willingly to pay the price of sin. Because we have all sinned we will be separated from God forever in a place called Hell. To go to Heaven you must be perfect, as righteous as God, and none of us are perfect, all of us have done things that make God sad. But if you believe that Jesus died it for you he says you can have eternal life forever in heaven and he will put his payment to your account. He didn't have to do it, but he did because he loves you.

That's right folks,

GOD

LOVES

YOU.

All of you. Physical imperfections, quirks, mistakes and all. To the point of pain, to the point of death. His life for yours, his body and blood for yours, his ransom for your redemption, his sacrifice for your sins.

Then why does he let us suffer? How could a loving God allow such terrible things to happen?

Atheists are mad at God because they can't understand him and are angry at him. The very fact that we don't have answers to all the specific questions leads me to believe there must be something higher out there I don't understand. God is infinitely smart - it is like the relationship between a parent and a child. The child does not always understand why the parent does what it does, but it has the choice to trust and put themselves under its protection and care even if it doesn't always make sence. Good can come of suffering, though we don't always know how or when. But one day suffering and death will be defeated when Jesus returns and restores this broken world into a place of peace and joy. "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." And, "The last enemy to be destroyed is death." Justice will be done, and is being done. This is a living hope. Why did God allow himself to suffer? It wasn't fair, it wasn't right. But he did it for something greater: his love for you. God is NOT malevolent if he chooses to allow someone to suffer for a greater good. Otherwise you could say Jesus was malevolent by allowing HIMSELF to suffer on your behalf. Sometimes it takes suffering to bring us to our knees before him.

We are more than complex DNA parts. That only gives us the body. There is a soul in your body that Jesus died and rose again to save, a fact that is the most documented event ever recorded in human history by hundreds of multiple eyewitnesses. There is no question about it, only a choice. Will you choose Jesus? You don't have to do anything, join anything, be anybody. Let go of your anger, it will only lead you to your destruction. It really is a matter of life or death. Believe on Jesus, your hope, and you will have everlasting life and peace that passes all understanding.

How did this become a question of God's existence, or lack thereof? Acne is human just as suffering is human. Do we really need an atheist to map this out for us, or a Christian to testify to the God almighty's existence for this to be apparent? Also, this guy only made one post A YEAR AGO. Perhaps his acne has cleared and he is now living a full and happy life...or perhaps not. My question has never been "why God allows us to suffer", but rather why it takes so long for human beings to GET OVER their suffering and think of another's instead? At least that would be more fulfilling and productive.

Livvie, be prepared, for you asked for this. Your comments are in bold and quotes:

"Coppedsynergy999 is right." - No, he or she is not and neither are you. The onus is always on the one making the boldest claim and you are trying to tell us that the a magical, unseen being who happens to author books to dark age peasants is in fact responsible for all of existence. This is the most absurd claim anyone can make and as stated, requires EVIDENCE. You have none.

"The God of the Bible is real and Jesus is on the throne now." - Prove it.

"The Bible does NOT trip itself up on the first page" - Your retarded, non-existent 'God' makes the earth before the sun and the stars. Sorry, but it DOES trip itself up. We KNOW this to be false. Not 'believe'. We KNOW this to be false. Science, unlike brainwashed fairytales from the days of old, shows this to be archaic gibberish if taken literally.

"it is NOT outdated or full of lies" - It absolutely IS. I have just shown you in my paragraph above how nonsensical it is if taken literally. Man created God in his own image, not the other way around. That is why he is an evil, idiotic, genocidal, petty P.O.S. Also, it is why we invented so many others as well. Remember, there are around 10,000 denominations of Christianity alone, so none of you Einsteins can make up your, ahem, 'minds' about the correct 'interpretation'. As shown, the Bible cannot be taken literally, so you have to make up for this glaring deficit by 'interpretation'. The whole thing is nothing but a very interesting psycho-sociological study about arrogance, ignorance, power-hungriness and fear.

"and it is the more culturally relevent today than ever before." - Ha ha. Nice one. Oh, you were serious...

"The Bible has not been "disproven" by real science and can be taken literally. It doesn't trip itself up on the first page, it offers answers to questions that science, which I would argue has in fact become the god of so many, is even unable to answer logically. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" is the first line of Genesis, the first book of the Bible." - I've already shown you how you are mistaken here. Read back and then return with your apology.

"Science has yet to explain rationally how everything came into existance from nothing. That contradicts the first law of thermodynamics, which states that matter can neither be created (especially from nothing!) nor destroyed." - So what you have done is try to USE SCIENCE to DISPROVE SCIENCE! Do you see how retarded this is? You are correct in that science doesn't try to explain how everything came into existence from nothing. And for those who are unfamiliar with the first law of thermodynamics you will find that it posits the following LAW: matter cannot be created or destroyed. Let me repeat, matter cannot be CREATED. So all this scientific law shows, which YOU have just quoted, is that matter was not created. If it wasn't created then where does that leave your silly little God?

"There is a God who opperates outside of scientific laws who created and sustains the universe." - Again, the onus is on you to prove such a radical claim. So far you've failed at every turn.

"We haven't just always existed, or how would we get to where we are now if there was no time?" - Who argued against this? Of course we haven't always existed. LIFE has evolved over TIME, for sure. This in no way contradicts the first law of thermodynamics, so you still haven't made any progress in your contention.

"Also, it takes more faith to believe that we evolved over millions and millions of years from monkeys without any evidance to back it up." - No, it takes NO FAITH whatsoever. We have more evidence for evolution than we do for virtually anything else in science. Just because you are too dumb and/or too lazy to read up the FACT of evolution (and it IS a fact) in no way dents it's credibility.

Also, we did not evolve from monkeys. We shared a common ancestor. Again, you have shown you know nothing about the subject you are trying to put down. Furthermore, I should point out to anyone reading (that include you, Livvie), before you all jump in with the 'it's just a theory' cliche, that evolution is both a theory AND a fact. Scientific theory is different from what we call a 'theory' in the common vernacular. The latter is little more than an opinion, guess or hunch. Whereas the former has gone through a huge battery of tests designed to disprove it from sceptically minded scientists. It has had to pass through the stages of

hypothesis and model before reaching the stage of 'theory'. There is only one stage beyond theory in science and that is 'law'. Unlike the arrogant idiots who have 'faith', science is a humble undertaking and does not jump to conclusions straight off the bat. The reason evolution is not a law is because we do not claim to know every single iota about how it works. That does not diminish it in any way, shape or form. It is still a fact, regardless. If you are still sceptical (ironically so, considering your ability to swallow baseless stories about people walking on water, talking serpents and big boats with every species of animal on earth on it) regarding it being 'only' a theory, then consider that GRAVITY is only a theory too. Feel free to walk off the top of the Empire State Building with your 'belief' that you will sore upwards towards the angels. You'd be more likely to do so than find a flaw in evolution because we have more scientific evidence for it than we do gravity.

"There is nothing evil or twisted about the Bible - it is God's pure word. Read it longer than just the first few verses, and you will find a remarkable consistancy in all 66 books that were written over the course of hundreds of years by men who didn't ever meet each other." - Some humorous evidence to the contrary:

"It proves itself true" - Ha ha ha. This is what is known as circular logic, my friend, i.e. the Bible is true because the Bible says it's true. No intelligent person gives such argumentation any respect whatsoever.

"The Holy Spirit guided these men as they wrote. Isaiah wasn't around 400 + years after he wrote his prophecies when the virgin Mary conceived and gave birth to the Son of God. Read Isaiah 54, and you will find a remarkable prediction about the birth and life, even the death, of Jesus. It seems miraculous because it is. It was impossible for Jesus as a regular man to plan out fulfilling the 600 plus prophecies in the Old Testament regarding his birth, life, ministry, nature, death and resurrection." - No, but the writers of the New Testament were. They knew all the old stories and guess what, they wrote the New Testament AFTER the Old Testament! Wow! Isn't that amazing! Also, Jesus was not mentioned by any contemporary writers at the time of the events depicted in the New Testament. The entire historicity of the man is even called into question by many scholars.

"God also did not create evil...evil was a result of the fall." - Again, you show an inability to follow a logical argument through from A, to B, all the way to Z. If God created EVERYTHING from NOTHING, as you contend (and then unwittingly contradict with your citation of the first law of thermodynamics) then whatever the 'result' was, it was initially CAUSED by God's creation in the first place. You cannot escape this fact. Sorry. If God created everything then the buck starts and stops with him. You cannot slither your way out of this. Either God is responsible or he isn't. Also, as shown in my passage by Epicurus, there is no way to escape the logic that either God ISN'T all powerful or ISN'T all loving. He is of course neither because he doesn't exist... except in the messed up heads of ignoramuses like you.

"God gave us free will - the power to make choices" - Free will is a contradiction in terms. 'Will' by definition cannot be 'free'. Will = motivation to do something and the motivation cannot come out of thin air. It is dictated to by your past experience. Your experience, like everyone else's, is a limited thing. Therefore your will to do something is a motivation based on prior limited experience and is therefore not 'free' at all. It is very much the opposite.

"and we made the wrong choice" - 1. You contend that God is all knowing, all powerful and all loving. If those are true and if we could 'supernaturally' bypass the fact that free will does not really exist and cannot exist for the reasons I've just shown, then it would still be God's fault. If he's all knowing then he would KNOW that free will was a mistake, for through his omniscience he would see the consequences of it in the future. If he could see this and was all loving then he would not let this occur, and with his omnipotence he would prevent it before he 'bestowed it upon us'. What we can gather from this is that if your God did exist then he is either impotent, callous or an idiot. There, I've added another trait that Epicurus missed.

"It was not God's fault, so don't play the blame game." - By definition, EVERYTHING is God's fault. If I make a faulty car then I cannot blame the driver when the brakes don't work. Sorry, but I AM playing the blame game and your God, much like your intelligence, is imaginary.

"The interesting thing is, reports are lacking where Christian apologists become atheists the more they research matters of science and the Bible. Its the other way around. Antony Flew, A. N. Wilson, Matthew Parris, and Peter Hitchens, to name a few prominent ones that have made the switch. As Parris notes in his article for The Sunday Times, "The rebirth is real; the change is good." " - And? What does this prove? How in any way does this change something being true or untrue? You are appealing to authority which is a desperate move. If you want to go down the road of quoting statistics then you'll find that there are more atheists amongst the world's greatest thinkers than there are theists and I said 'theists', not just Christians. For not only do you need to prove first of all that *a* God is true, you then have the even bigger task of proving that your particular God is the correct one. Good luck with that, because like everyone else in history, you've failed miserably.

"If you want to pretend that the God of the Bible doesn't exist, you have to ask yourself some logical questions:" - Ha ha ha. I'm laughing immediately at the absurd irony of YOU saying that to me. Review everything I've written and see who is the one who needs to ask themselves some 'logical' questions. I'll play along though for now...

"Why am I angry at a God I believe doesn't exist?" - I'm not. I'm angry that there are pious idiots like you who preach about a fictitious being for which there is not a shred of evidence; who when confronted with truly logical questions, either ignore, avoid, or answer them poorly, without stopping for a second to realise that their entire world view is nothing but an arbitrary, parroted position, most likely adopted from birth, i.e. if you'd been born in Pakistan then it is almost beyond dispute that you would be arguing in favour of Allah and the glory that is Islam instead of your favourite comic book hero. What is interesting is that the egotistical psychology of our hypothetical Muslim and people like you, are exactly the same, yet none of you see it and all of you still try to tell us - the sane minority that it is US who are mistaken. THAT is what we're angry at, not your pathetic story book creations.

"Shouldn't I be sympathetic towards these deluded Christians rather than hostile?" - Because of my own personal suffering in life, I will admit that my powers of sympathy for others are not what they should be, however I am certainly sympathetic on the individual level, i.e. if someone sincerely believes in a God, but (unlike yourself here) is quiet and doesn't try to slam down our throats how Jesus died for our sins and all that utter malarky, then YES, I AM sympathetic towards them. My own late grandmother was such a lady. She was a far nicer person than I am, but mentally she was not very smart. I was sympathetic to her childish belief system because she wasn't forthright about it. Others, such as yourself, who try to tell me that I'm wrong when I am in fact 100% right, I have no sympathy for. Annoyances, that's what you are. In fact, to give you an insight into my own personal psychology, I'll tell you now that when I said I suffer more than anyone I know, it's not just the physical symptoms that I have to deal with which disturb me so, it's also that someone with my powers of reasoning has to endure such hardship while there are so many complete and utter retards out there who cannot possibly suffer as much due to their retardation. I'm assuming you have acne, but just like CoppedSynergy (remember him?), you cannot suffer as badly as I do simply because your brain allows you to believe in B.S. I am not so, ahem, 'blessed'.

"Why is Israel, a nation no bigger than the state of New Jersey, the center of global tension to this day if the Bible is so irrelevant?" - Ooh, ooh, you got me there! There's geo-political unrest in a part of the world, so that definitely means the Bible is true and you are right. Gee, here's me thinking I had all this logic and sense and stuff, but you blew me out of the water there. In case you didn't realise (a distinct possibility in your case), I was being sarcastic.

"Is the unravelling of end-time prophesy in an accurate way simply coincidental? (I would suggest studying this matter further.)" - I would suggest rather than patronising me with more airy-fairy fluff, that you tell me EXACTLY what you mean. You won't because you're hollow and more than that, you can't. Every tinpot idiot from time immemorial has been predicting the end of the world. A great many of which are Christians. Harold Camping, anyone? All so called holy books talk about the 'end times' and yet here we are. The world keeps on turning, but again, the arrogance of human beings is such that every generation is convinced that the particular events in THEIR time is of such relevance, such importance, as to mark the end of the world. I suggest YOU study this matter further, my would-be Nostradamus.

"How is the complexity, order and beauty of creation explained by random chance?" - Complexity comes about from simplicity, i.e. it is evidence of evolution. We started as single celled life and EVOLVED to more complex creatures. According to you, God just poofed us into complex existence from the get go, so it is your philosophy which needs some re-evaluation, not mine. As for 'order', are we ordered? Clearly chaos is the 'order' of the day. There is only a thin veneer of order and it is for selfish reasons that it exists. The usual analogy is that there is order until something goes wrong then watch everyone knocking the women and children over as they make for the lifeboats. 'Beauty' is in the eye of the beholder, as they say. There is great beauty, but there is also a hell of a lot of ugliness. It is my contention (see my first post again for a reminder) that ugliness actually supercedes beauty in nature and why life itself should come to an end. Also, so that we are clear, there is a difference between chaos and random chance. There IS an orderliness in nature, e.g. mathematically speaking I can point to the golden ratio of Fibonacci as but one example. However, as planets revolve around the sun, you cannot escape that the sun will one day expand and destroy said orderliness. Everything you hold dear will end, whether you 'believe' it or not.

"If we simply evolved from monkeys, shouldn't we look more like puzzles of random chance than being as patterned and symetrical as we are?" - I've already addressed this fallacy earlier, so I'll refer you back to it again. Please do not strawman my position either. We did NOT evolve from monkeys, we shared a common ancestor.

"Why were so many people willing to die terrible deaths for their beliefs in Jesus if they knew it was all a lie?" - To quote Oscar Wilde, "a thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it." Keep in mind that I'm not calling into question their (or your!) belief. I am sure they believed implicitly in Jesus or X or whatever the object of their fascination may be. That does not prove a thing though, does it? You'll have seen the Buddhist monk who performed self-immolation in protest, right? The 9/11 hijackers, evil as they were, clearly 'believed' implicitly in what they were doing. So please don't think I am decrying the sincerity of the people in question. You can believe the piece of rope you see on the ground is in fact a snake, so much so that you sweat and your heart races, but does that change the fact that your belief was wrong and that it was only a rope?

"I would encourage those who doubt the Bible to read it and see for yourself whether it is true or not. Not in tiny snippets, but in depth. Try it! Try to prove it isn't true, but you can only attempt to do that if you know it inside and out. Before you give up all hope, try it. You have nothing to lose. The Bible offers hope because Jesus is our hope!" - I've shown you that it isn't true and that hope itself is an outcome of despair. They're two sides of the same coin. It is your dissatisfaction with life which has necessitated the wish for an everlasting afterlife. Such is the sorrow of existence.

You then quote some random passages from your chosen book as if they have any meaning whatsoever, other than the meaning that you yourself give them. This is mere mental masturbation. The Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Zoroastrians, Jains, Scientologists and all the rest can quote merrily too. I've quoted as well, but if the quote does not stand on any foundation then it's worthless. I'm sorry, but such is the case with you right here.

"Decaying, you asked why anyone should believe in Jesus. I will tell you. Because without Jesus you have no hope, as you have already stated. Your only solution to suffering is suicide because everything is futile." - Again (and I'm getting tired of repeating myself here), the question was meant to provoke self enquiry. Substitute Jesus with Muhammad, Buddha, Vishnu, Moses, Stalin, Gandhi, etc, etc. Real or imagined, there is no need to believe in anyone. There is no hope. It is the tragedy of mankind that you believe there is.

"If I were an atheist, I would agree with you. You are right, without Jesus everything is pointless and ends without justice or accomplishment. We are sick. We have a heart disease called sin. It corrupts our minds, our flesh, our lives, our beings. It results in suffering, agony and death." - Sin is imagined and again, if it did exist then it's God's fault for allowing it to be. An 'all loving' and 'all powerful' being cannot, by definition, allow ANYTHING which is harmful to take place. These are absolute statements about the being's nature. There is no room for compromise. If God exists and possesses those qualities ascribed to him then WE could not exist. Because we do, it proves that the God as described in the Bible does not. It is either one or the other, you cannot logically have both. Now that I have dispelled all notions of God from your head (ha ha. Of course I haven't. You'll read what I say and blindly dismiss it all), I am glad to see that if you remove your fantasy image from the equation then we're on the same page about reality. Good, there IS hope for your salvation after all! Again, I'm being ironic. I shouldn't have to spell out my wit like this, but needs must...

"But because of Jesus, God in the flesh, we can have the free gift of eternal life because he died on the cross willingly to pay the price of sin." - So, God creates us. He creates the angels, which Satan belongs to initially. Somehow or other Satan 'falls' (effed up again, huh, God? I thought you were perfect?!), but then, despite God being all powerful and all seeing, he allows Satan to infiltrate the Garden of Eden and to convince the totally innocent (she hasn't eaten from the tree of knowledge yet, so does not 'KNOW' any better) Eve to eat from the tree that HE (God!) put there! Where was God during this? Why did he put the tree there? Why did he create an angel which could fall and then be in the same place as the tree AND the people who didn't know any better? So, even if we bash ourselves on the head with a hammer a hundred times and convince ourselves that, "heeeey, this could happen.... right?", we then have to fast forward to the sequel (that's the New Testament, boys and girls), in which Jesus comes along to save us from *OUR* wrongdoing! Ha ha ha. Okaaay then. Even that is full of holes. Jesus IS God... as well as being his son (scratch scratch of our collective heads), so he then sacrifices himself... to himself for something HE is responsible for in the first place. Oh yeah, and being 'God', it's not really a sacrifice at all, is it? For he knows from the outset that he's divine and will live forever. A sacrifice infers a loss on the part of the one making it. Jesus wasn't losing in this at all. The whole thing is a con! Ha ha. It is truly inconceivable to me that so called adults can truly believe this as ACTUALLY TRUE. Wake up, people. For crying out loud...

"Because we have all sinned we will be separated from God forever in a place called Hell." - PARP! <-- That's my B.S. horn going off. An 'all loving' being cannot create a place like Hell. It is a contradiction in terms.

"To go to Heaven you must be perfect, as righteous as God, and none of us are perfect, all of us have done things that make God sad. But if you believe that Jesus died it for you he says you can have eternal life forever in heaven and he will put his payment to your account. He didn't have to do it, but he did because he loves you." - Sure, that's nice. Here, let me pat you on the head and give you a biscuit. If you're good you can go out and play in the sandbox later. Just be careful with the crayons.

"That's right folks,

GOD

LOVES

YOU.

" - It's funny, but I read this in Porky Pig's voice from the end of all those Looney Tunes cartoons. How fitting.

"Then why does he let us suffer? How could a loving God allow such terrible things to happen?" - Oh, this I just have to hear...

"Atheists are mad at God because they can't understand him and are angry at him." - I thought you were about to answer your self-posed question about how God can allow terrible things to happen? Seems you've forgotten already about that, huh? Anyway, unlike you, I WILL answer your points right away: how can we be mad at something we attest doesn't exist? You said it yourself about unicorns earlier. YOU are the one making this contention, not us. We are angry at religion and the idiotic religious, but not at fictional characters said people have invented.

"The very fact that we don't have answers to all the specific questions leads me to believe there must be something higher out there I don't understand." - Aha! So you have inadvertently admitted a profound psychological truth, i.e. you DON'T know all there is to know. Neither did your desert dwelling forebears. They knew less than you did (hard to believe, I know) and being ignorant of the facts, combined with being scared of death, desperately needing 'meaning' and arrogantly assuming that the universe revolves around human kind, they INVENTED the mental pacifier and controller that we now commonly refer to as God. Of course, just as now, people are people and prone to egotism and clashing with one another - we are living proof of this fact. And because they had different ideas, different Gods were born. You have yours and others have theirs; all of you convinced that you are right with not one iota of evidence to back up any of it and certainly no logical foundation with which to argue the possibility.

"God is infinitely smart - it is like the relationship between a parent and a child." - Or like my relationship with you? Just kidding. Seriously now, are all parents smart? My contention (if you go back to my initial post) is that NO parents are smart, otherwise they wouldn't be parents at all! They are older however and have amassed a little more knowledge (knowledge and intelligence are different qualities) than their defecating noise machines.

"Good can come of suffering" - Instrumentally, yes, but not intrinsically - an important distinction which I am sure will go traight over your head. Again, if there was a God then there is no need for suffering to take place at all. Infinite power, remember? Infinte love?

"But one day suffering and death will be defeated when Jesus returns and restores this broken world into a place of peace and joy." - It's not going to happen. You are a deluded fool and this is why I lament humankind.

"We are more than complex DNA parts." - So you contend, but you have yet to offer up any credible proof to the contrary.

"That only gives us the body. There is a soul in your body" - Now that we're almost at the end of your mindless diatribe, I should take you back to the first law of thermodynamics again. Matter cannot be created or destroyed, only TRANSFORMED. The irony is that it is the body and not the soul which is immortal, i.e. there is no soul, obviously. All 'you' are is a thought. Thought creates the illusion of a permanent thinker, but no such entity (like God himself) exists. The 'you' at 5 years old is not the you at 15 or at 50. Hell, the you of 5 minutes ago isn't the you right now. One 'you' makes a resolution to go on a diet and half an hour later another 'you' is raiding the fridge. You, just like God, are not really real. It is a neurological error which has caused this idea of 'self' to exist at all. Bottom line: when 'you' physically die, 'you' end. Your body however will be recycled by nature, hence my saying that it is this which is immortal.

"Jesus died and rose again to save, a fact that is the most documented event ever recorded in human history by hundreds of multiple eyewitnesses." - Ha ha ha. No.

"There is no question about it, only a choice." You are right in the first part of your sentence, wrong in the second. 'Seeing' the truth of something has nothing to do with choice. 2 + 2 = 4. You do not 'choose' to believe this. It is either so or not so. Once seen, the only 'choice' you have is whether to keep up the egotistical pretence that it equals 5 or submit to the truth.

"Will you choose Jesus?" - Of course not!

"You don't have to do anything, join anything, be anybody." You little liar! You've just told us to read the Bible, accept Jesus, do this, that and the next thing, and now you have the bold faced cheek to say this? The real question is why the hell am I wasting my time with someone who clearly has NO intelligence whatsoever? The answer is 'the ego'. Again, I am human too and possessed of no little arrogance. Such is my tragedy.

"Let go of your anger, it will only lead you to your destruction." - Angry or happy, destruction is our birthright.

"It really is a matter of life or death. Believe on Jesus, your hope, and you will have everlasting life and peace that passes all understanding." - And with that, you finally stopped writing. Hallelujah! I knew it was a mistake to look back and see if there were any replies. You've 'won' this argument solely because I have wasted a morning stooping to your level by responding to you. I know that you'll probably respond to my reponse, but believe me, I will not make this mistake again. Thank the non-existent God that the oblivion of death DOES lie at the end of all of this crap known as life. Goodbye and Amen!

Just a quick post script for the other people to have commented...

Helton, you said: "Trust me, things get better as time goes on, especially for skin. Our skin is a living organ, it repairs itself as time goes on." - Over quarter of a century has elapsed and I am still covered in acne and have NEVER got better. I understand if you didn't read my initial post fully, but for some people your words are simply false.

veiledxbeauty, you asked how this became a question of God's existence or not. Did you read the posts in a chronological order? If so then you know the answer, if you were too lazy then here is the breakdown:

1. Jonathan hates his acne and what it has done to his life.

2. Coppedsynergy chimed in with well meaning, but ultimately false hope about God.

3. I saw the posts a year later and being in a crappy mood decided to tell it how it really is.

4. Here we are. Any other questions? Oh, I see that you do...

"Acne is human just as suffering is human. Do we really need an atheist to map this out for us" - You needed an atheist to put paid to the falsehoods of the misguided believer, just in case Jonathan actually believed it and then went on to perpetuate the misery of existence.

"Also, this guy only made one post A YEAR AGO." - Which I just saw a couple of days ago. I've noted this already. Sorry, is there a time limit on the internet for human suffering and for pointing out others are wrong? I didn't get the memo.

"Perhaps his acne has cleared and he is now living a full and happy life...or perhaps not. " - I truly hope he has.

"My question has never been "why God allows us to suffer", but rather why it takes so long for human beings to GET OVER their suffering and think of another's instead?" - Are the two distinct? Suffering is suffering. You have yours and I have mine, but they still come under the same umbrella known as 'pain'. The whole point of my post to PREVENT ALL POSSIBLE FUTURE SUFFERING and I did so with what I think is irrefutable logic. No life = no suffering.

Ok, I'm out of here and won't be back. If any of you truly care about others like you purport you do then do NOT ever have children, for if you do then we will know that you were lying. Take care and may your death be quick and painless.

Decaying, I am sorry you are so angry (though you deny it, your comments betray you), and that your opinions are not based on logic but emotions. You are clearly angry at God. You can be angry, yes, and that is your right - free will. The Bible tells us that those who are in darkness hate the light because they cannot overcome it. Ultimately, you will find out the truth. I just hope you do before it is too late. You have never died and so cannot know that death leads only to oblivion, as you seem to hold with such certainty. There have been people, however, who have had these experiences all around the world and have a remarkably consistent report, despite the fact that they have never met each other: they have ended up in one of two places, either one of joy and light, or darkness and pain.

1) The claims I made were bold, but far from false. God revealed his word to more than just dark age peasants. Was King Soloman, a man who has a historical record as well as a Biblical one, a peasant? No, he was the wisest and perhaps the wealthiest that the world has ever seen.

2) Do you think I keep God in my pocket, that I might produce him and say, "Here he is, all you atheists! Better guess again!" No. Because then you would have no reason to trust him, if he was on display for all the world to see.

3) Science has not proved that the earth could not be formed before the sun, moon and stars. You lack evidence here.

4) Now you are mixing man's fallen nature with the innerancy of scripture - two separate issues. God did not initially make man fallen, in fact, he was without sin (until the fall) and had complete fellowship with him. But like I said earlier - there was free will and a choice, and that choice resulted in man's mind, heart, and soul being handed over to the power of sin. That explains why mankind is so evil today...it is corrupted and under Satan's power.

The next two ones aren't worth answering, since I am not going to apologize on God's behalf.

5) As I said earlier, God can opperate outside of natural laws, creating something from nothing; he is the one who made them to control the universe, not himself!

6) Again, I don't have God in my pocket. I would add that science has never been able to prove there isn't a god...and if you are going to say, "well that would be like trying to prove a negative, something you can't do," I would say, yes you can. I can prove that I can't fly by logical deductions and tests.

7) I wasn't sure which view you held; I will address something: for us to have evolved from nothing, we had to have something to evolve FROM. It would have to come from SOMEWHERE if it hadn't already existed.

8) Evolution is not a FACT because you cannot PROVE it. It is a THEORY. You know that a fact is, ahum, "an observation that has been confirmed repeatedly and is accepted as true." No body has EVER observed or tested evolution and therefore it cannot be a proven fact. I can hypothesize and form a model that there is a monster living on the dark side of the moon but that cannot make it jump to the "fact" level. There is microevolution, yes, that has been observed, (i.e. the changing shape of bird beaks to fit into rock holes to find food) but never macro-evolution, changing of species (i.e. bird changing into a hampster). And feel free to see the idea of God like the concept of gravity - you cannot directly prove it, but you see its effects on others and in the world around you.

9) If you want to go into all the so-called "errors" of the Bible, I would suggest researching the matter extensively rather than displaying some innacurate youtube cartoon. There are many false misconceptions about certain passages that can be explained, if you will address something specific.

10) It does prove itself true, but science, logic, history and evidence also do as well.

11) "Jesus was not mentioned by any contemporary writers at the time of the events depicted in the New Testament. The entire historicity of the man is even called into question by many scholars." Sorry, but he was. Flavius Josephus, a Jewish priest in AD 66, wrote the following in his Arabic version of his work, Antiquities:

"At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them after his crucifixion and that he was alive; accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders."

12) Yes, the fall was caused by God's creation, but not by God directly.

13) There have been times when all of us have made decisions without previous experience. Do you think that an alchoholic had previous experience when he tried his first drink? There are countless other examples. God gave us free will, but ultimately the choice was ours: to obey him or not. He didn't make us all robots and puppets (which is what we would be without free will).

14) God knew that the fall would happen, but he chose to create anyway. This is a hard concept for some to grasp, but thinking of it from God's perspective, there is a much greater good that will result in the end. He was able to demonstrate his love for us by dying on a cross. He also knew he would have to do that and he could just say, "forget it. I'm not gonna fool with this." But he loves us...that's why he made us. He also knew us before the beginning of the world. "For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight." - Eph 4:1

15) Again, God did not make creation and man faulty. They made a choice. If you have a kid, and give that kid a brand-new car, and that kid decides to wreck the car, it wasn't directly your fault.

16) I didn't say these quotes proved anything - I simply brought up some facts that cannot be refuted. Back to the whole "proving God" thing again...I addressed that.

17) I would argue that you ARE in fact, angry, though you won't admit it directly. Also, I believe that God for that very reason did not place me in a Muslim family, though Muslims, Hindus, and other religious followers do convert to Christianity every day.

18) You are content if we Christians shut our mouths, keep our religion in church where you think it belongs (or maybe you don't even want that, I don't know) and basically refuse to obey the commands of our Lord, to take the gospel to the end of the world. I am not cramming my religion down your throat; I am voicing my beliefs, which is what we are entitled - nay, as Christians, OBLIGATED - to do. I am not responsible for your reaction, only for my end.

19) "I am 100% right." This is much more dogmatic than ANYTHING I've said. And I have experienced my share of hardships, way, way worse than acne. I have known incredible pain, sorrow, loneliness, rejection, self-image, and depression. I have struggled with myself, others, and in my relationship with God. I have been saved from death miraculously many times and will not be silent. Just because I am a Christian doesn't mean I don't still have problems - those do not leave until Satan is finally subdued. Maybe if you allowed your brain to believe, you would not suffer so badly. I would argue that belief is a much better alternative to death.

20) You didn't address the issue at all.

21) There are heretics that claim to be Christians. If this man had really studied prophecy, he would know that "no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows." He claimed exact dates and times, showing his Biblical illiteracy.

22) This is another area where you are wrong. Everything in nature shows evidence of DETERIORATION, not getting better, smarter, and more complex. Time proves this on a small-scale level as well as a large scale. Only advancements in technology can temporarily thwart these effects in our everyday lives. "The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever." But there is still beauty amid the ugliness, and order among the chaos. The world is not pure, and nothing endures save God's Word. I would agree with you - everything will eventually be destroyed (save the Lord himself and his word), "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away." But the Lord will create a new heaven and a new earth that is pure and undefiled - another hope and promise to cling to. "See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind."

23) We did share a "common ancestor" - Adam and Eve - but not the one you are referring to, likely some primitive, ape-like human that evolved from acid combinations, bacteria and slime. Again, there is no proof of this. For macro-evolution to occur, you would need the evolving animal to produce NEW, ADDITIONAL GENETIC INFORMATION (which has never been observed or proven in all of scientific studies). Interesting how, after all the millions and millions of years of animals multiplying from amoebas in the oceans all through the food chains, today when we have technology to document this there is no more action. It would only take one day for an animal to be born with new, additional genetic information.

24) It proves that they saw something that made them willing to die terrible deaths that would NOT BE TO THEIR ADVANTAGE at all for the Lord they loved. It also proves that the whole "Jesus thing" wasn't a hoax either. Even today there are hundreds that are killed for their beliefs because they refuse to deny the truth. There was a massive movement that spread (and is still spreading) so you can't tell me it was all over nothing.

25) I double-dog-dare you.

26) You are right - a world without Jesus is a world without hope. I do not mean to sound condescending, but I pity you and those like you who have no hope, and still would encourage you to reach out to him.

27) Sin and its effects can be seen today - look around and you won't have to look far.

28) Jesus did incur loss. He was stripped, beaten to a pulp, whipped, forced to carry his cross, mocked and despised by all around him, separated from the Father, and tortured to the max.

I will have to answer the rest tomorrow because I am out of time.

Why the f*ck is there a religious discussion in this topic???

veiledxbeauty, you asked how this became a question of God's existence or not. Did you read the posts in a chronological order? If so then you know the answer, if you were too lazy then here is the breakdown:1. Jonathan hates his acne and what it has done to his life.2. Coppedsynergy chimed in with well meaning, but ultimately false hope about God.3. I saw the posts a year later and being in a crappy mood decided to tell it how it really is.4. Here we are. Any other questions? Oh, I see that you do...

"Acne is human just as suffering is human. Do we really need an atheist to map this out for us" - You needed an atheist to put paid to the falsehoods of the misguided believer, just in case Jonathan actually believed it and then went on to perpetuate the misery of existence.

"Also, this guy only made one post A YEAR AGO." - Which I just saw a couple of days ago. I've noted this already. Sorry, is there a time limit on the internet for human suffering and for pointing out others are wrong? I didn't get the memo.

"Perhaps his acne has cleared and he is now living a full and happy life...or perhaps not. " - I truly hope he has.

"My question has never been "why God allows us to suffer", but rather why it takes so long for human beings to GET OVER their suffering and think of another's instead?" - Are the two distinct? Suffering is suffering. You have yours and I have mine, but they still come under the same umbrella known as 'pain'. The whole point of my post to PREVENT ALL POSSIBLE FUTURE SUFFERING and I did so with what I think is irrefutable logic. No life = no suffering.

Ok, I'm out of here and won't be back. If any of you truly care about others like you purport you do then do NOT ever have children, for if you do then we will know that you were lying. Take care and may your death be quick and painless.

How can you claim to be looking out for the well-being of Johnathan if you yourself have given up on life entirely? By the way, this is a rhetorical question, meant to irritate you and satiate my need to be heard, as I presume has been your motivation in writing this load of jibberish. I mean seriously, what is the point in trying to dissuade someone from believing out of faith in something greater than themselves? Answer: there is no point, only arrogance and cold resolve on your part. Sure, talk yourself into your miserable little hole of hopelessness, but leave the rest of us who are suffering out of it. You are a prime example of Misery loving it's company. Your so called logic is no more than your own lack of worth projecting itself into the emptiness you've carved around you. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean other's cannot. I think what irritates you the most is that people can be happy despite their suffering and find solace in something that no human mind can possibly wrap it's head around (and yes, it actually projects that in the bible, so it's not misleading people). I would pity you were it not for your efforts to drag other's down with you, but being arrogant in persuasion I'm sure you'd scoff at any attempt to love you as you are. You must be a sad creature to behold.

[bTW, the two types of suffering are distinct because they can be dealt with from different perspectives. We have a choice in the matter. For instance, I can choose to suffer within the reality I've been dealt OR I can choose to think of another's suffering and alleviate it by giving of my time and resources and compassion, therefore no longer focusing all of my thoughts on my own dire needs, instead allowing someone else to do the same for me. People are prone to love those who let themselves be loved; suffering opens a door through which many find common ground.

So, the answer isn't "no life=no suffering", but rather suffering=humility=understanding=compassion=love=life. Obviously you never worked past the suffering bit oh-wise-and-mighty think-tank. Now who's lazy..]

Alexander J86, to answer your question: because Coppedsynergy999's post suggesting spiritual help for Johnathan's emotional problems was attacked by Decaying.

Veiledxbeauty, couldn't agree with you more...goes back to my point about how atheists strangely aren't satisfied to reject God and Christianity and pity us "unenlightened ones," but they feel the need to try to demolish our thinking and cast down our God. This displays something underlying that might slip by - atheists are showing themselves to feel threatened. And the side that tries to squelch the other through mockery and intimidation is almost always the weaker one. They grow angry, irritated, and jump to the belittling and name-calling instead of patiently addressing our claims. A pit is never content to swallow just one person if it can get hold of everyone else who walks in the light. According to them, the "tragedy of mankind" is that we have hope as believers...seems a bit contradictory.

I've been on vacation, sorry for not finishing more promptly.

Back to question 28, I want to add something. Jesus did win the victory ultimately, however. But he did suffer temporary loss. God put the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden because He had already thought ahead. Nobody would be able to blame Him for allowing mindless robots to worship him without giving them the choice. That would be unfair, and God is a God of fairness and justice. He does not approve of compulsory worship, giving, or service. So what was Satan doing in the Garden? The tango? No...again, God had thought ahead. Satan could accuse God of not giving him a chance and therefore sheltering his humans from the power of temptation. A similar thing happened in the book of Job. Job was a wonderful man and walked a blameless life. Satan went before God scoffed, "Job wouldn't be so good and faithful if you didn't put your hedge of protection around him. He would turn his back on you." Job's service to God would not be compulsory if he had a difficult choice before him and was able to prove his love for his maker.

The Godhead is something infinite that humans, with finite minds, cannot grasp. It is something like a triple-braided rope: three separate parts, but all the same thing woven together. We will when we get to heaven, because right now we see "as through a glass darkly, but later, face to face."

29) Why did God make Hell? Whether He directly made it or not is debatable (some hold that it was not directly made by him but a result of sin), but assuming He did...let's understand something. God is a loving God, yes. But God is also a just God. Love without justice is not pure love. And God is a pure God. There is punishment for those who reject His offering, and hell can motivate people to accept Jesus. Think about people who have committed terrible attrocities: Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin...a just God does not let them slip away into oblivion after they die because then justice would not be enforced. I think most people agree that these individuals deserve the fires of everlasting punishment for the inconceivable suffering they inflicted on others, and what matters is God thinks they do.

30) The belittling statements do not alter the truth.

31) There is nothing humorous about God's love, or even about your deflections of it. When you understand what you deserve and then understand that God put it upon himself instead of you, you may be crying tears of joy instead of mocking Him.

32) Your words are laced with venom when directed at God...you lie to yourself when you say you aren't angry at him. Admit it! You are angry! You are angry because you suffer, and you put all the blame for that suffering on Him for making you and giving you free will. You hurt, you dont understand why, and you need a scapegoat. And religion in general isnt that scapegoat, deny it as you might. It will free you when you admit this. God can take your anger! And God can take you. He can pick you up out of your mound of ashes and dust you off and make you a vessel of light instead of a vessel of the hatred of the Enemy. He can mend your broken life, mend your broken heart, give you eternity and beyond, give you love and comfort, give you truth and joy.

33) I never claimed I knew all there is to know. I have been saying the opposite...only God is omniscient. There comes into play an element of trust. Even knowledge of him will only take you so far. Different gods (small "g") were born because PEOPLE KNEW by looking at creation THAT THERE WAS A HIGHER POWER. They just didn't know exactly who it was. Interesting that you bring that up. That there is "not one iota" of reason for belief is utterly false.

34) Ha, ha, very funny. I am making a comparison, not saying that God is fallen like human parents. And I think you would agree that the knowledge of a child is much smaller than that of the parent.

Children are not something to be despised either; they are precious in the sight of God and a blessing to their parents (see the book of Proverbs). A society that views children and the weaker members of it as a burden has forgotten why it exists and turned to self-destruction. The demonic thinking that children are something that needs to be eliminated is a byproduct of evolution: the weaker ones die, and only the fittest survive and perpetuate the human race with their strong genes. Make it a punishment to be born different. By this logic, people with special needs, mental disabilities, handicaps, or aged bodies should be eliminated. Heck, why stop there? Lets get rid of the people in society who arent productive or useful. Why not eliminate everyone with SKIN PROBLEMS while were at it? Then our kids will all look great and be free of emotional trauma that comes withhmm, acne shall we say? Its the survival of those who are the most perfect.

Thats what this mindset boils down to folks, and thats scary. It isnt for man to cull the human race. All people are special and important because God made them, and life is sacred. Thats the plain and simple truth.

35) There was not a need for suffering - there was a need for a choice. Suffering came about as a result of that choice. But God displays His power in working through that suffering and producing beauty, even in the midst of ashes.

36) I am the deluded fool? "The fool hath said in his heart, 'There is no God." By the way, I didn't make that one up, God did. It is sad that you lament humankind because there might actually be people who have hope and contribute good to society instead of negativity.

37) The soul and the conscience are not created out of DNA. When we die the DNA stays here, but not the soul. How do I even know that I exist? A sense of self-awareness points to more than just strands of DNA. Why do I feel guilty when I do something wrong? It definitely ain't DNA bothering me then.

38) You may change as you mature, but that isn't your true identity. You still have the same you, but that you is being pruned and altered, like a tree...same roots, different shapes as it grows. And it is real.

39) Yes it is.

Lets look at the two sides of our argument objectively. Lets suppose, theoretically, Im wrong. What then? If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. Pulled that one straight from the Bible, by the way. We foolish Christians have been suckered, and we deserve only pity and scorn for our gullibility. Guess that whole evolution-thing and godless world thinking was right after all. Darn, we busted our tails so many years sacrificing our time, health, money, and even our lives to win people to Jesus. We spent our lives denying our animal instincts to try to please our Savior and store up rewards for the next life when we could have been having a party doing whatever we want in a world without a moral law.

So, here we are. We get the pity of mankind here on earth, and a black nothingness (according to you) after death instead of what we thought we were getting eternal joy and fellowship with the Lord our Savior, who is now reduced to a figment of our imaginations, an electrical nerve pulse malfunction, a lie. But hey, at least we get the privilege of having our bodies be recycled into the dirt as our legacy, and we can only hope nobody decides to build some construction project on top of us and our legacy might be squashed.

Sounds like we got the short end of the stick if were wrong, but at least we thought the whole God-thing was real and thought we were living for a good cause and maybe did some good for the human race, between helping the poor and whatnot.

Now, suppose youre wrong. Theoretically. Make-believe it, if you want. Stretch your imagination.

Suppose there really IS a God of justice,

A Jesus who died,

a heaven,

and a hell.

As the Bible teaches.

Suppose that salvation isnt earned by living right or by not being as bad as so-and-so.

Suppose that you had the chance to accept Jesuss payment for your sins, his death on the cross here on earth.

Suppose you tasted of the truth, the living water, had the chance to eat the bread of everlasting life and grace, heard the words that could secure you forever in His presence, all a free gift, a one way ticket to eternity in paradise,

And

You didnt.

You rejected it.

So fast-forward now to the not-so-distant future when you have passed on. Kicked the bucket, shall we say. It might be years from now, when Jesus returns in all of his power and glory to judge the living and the dead. It might be tomorrow, if you get in a car accident or he comes sooner.

If it is the former, you are standing before a great white throne, a throne of judgment. There are books open, and one of them is the Book of Life. Because you have not believed in the one God sent, Himself, your name is not in there. There is no record of you there that would guarantee your affiliation with Jesus, whose blood would have covered you from head to toe with protection and mercy. You would get the same feeling youd have if you went to the airport and realized youd left your passport at home and its too late to go back. That feeling, only a million times stronger.

Your future now lies in the Lake of Everlasting Fire you and those like you who spurned Jesuss painful sacrifice intentionally and chose to rely on yourself instead of God. And now it is too late to go back and undo what you did.

The story I told isnt something I made up. Its Gods truth.

But you would you rather die by your religion of death, despair, mindless living, futile suffering, suicide and pride. Yes, you would have to surrender your pride, admit you arent perfect and fall short of Gods standard! Still, isnt that a small price to pay in comparison with eternal punishment? If I you were wrong, of course.

The good news is - it isnt too late! You dont have to continue this crash course! Listen, I appeal to you, while you still have the chance! I say all of this because I care about you and those like you. Yes, I care about you because God does, and I would want you to do the same for me if our positions in life were switched. Im not on here answering all of your questions because it amuses my whims.

Now, which of us has it worse off? Wouldnt it be the smart thing to weigh the two alternatives and play it safe? Because you cant know for certain what happens after death. You dont have anything to lose, long-term, in your world of oblivion either way.

Ok, lets flip the equation around and do pros and cons. Suppose youre right. Suppose death is the end, that life is a tiny burst of existence that launches us into perpetual nonexistence. What are your benefits?

1) You can live your life without worry about accountability to a higher power.

2) There wouldnt be rules, after all, morality, like God is a figment of the imagination, an evolutionary blip, right?

3) There is no reason to do anything you dont want to do unless it benefits yourself.

4) You can laugh at all of us unenlightened Christians for being the deceived fools we are in your sight and be right, if doing so pleases you.

5) You can spend your life trying to make some sort of impact that lives on after you die to perpetuate your memory. A monument? A contribution to the arts or sciences? An organization? Take your pick. Maybe science after all, it makes sense of how we got here better than any other explanation setting aside that crazy one about creation anyhow. Guess you owe it something.

What are your drawbacks?

1) Though you are almost certain you ARE right, you can never BE certain with 100% certainty. Even IF you ARE right, you wouldnt know because you have no evidence either one way or the other. And in that case, your existence here on earth would never be completely enjoyable because youd still have nagging doubts and fears, seeing you have nothing to base your view of death on. Miscalculation would be fatal, and that thought would torment you all of your days. So, you try to escape it in pleasure. But the thought remains.

2) You will never find complete fulfillment in your life, as living for yourself does not constitute as meaningful in a healthy way.

3) Your success (or failure) is measured by your money and your contributions to the good of society.

4) You have no future promise to look forward to in the next life because there wont be one. Death ends all, and that goes for everyone you know who has died, regardless of their religion. Suffering is futile and there is no reason for it.

5) There wouldnt be ruleshmm. This one could be a blessing, but also a curse. A life governed without restrictions may bring temporary joy, but eventually leads to ruin and often suicide. Look at all the Hollywood movie-stars that end up killing themselves even though they have everything they want at their fingertips. Beauty, wealth, fame, romance, right? They arent happy. So they turn to drugs, alcohol, sex, crime, and spiral downward. No rules means you can do whatever you want, even if it makes you ultimately unhappy and destroys you.

Alright, my turn. Blessings, then curses, of being a Christian. IF I am right. And IF this whole Christian-thing is real and NOT made up.

1) I have certainty based on the Bible and personal experience in my walk with God that I will not suffer judgment in Hell or be snuffed into nothingness, that I am washed pure from my sins, that I am going to heaven when I die and it isnt up to me to work my way there. I dont have to live my life in fear and uncertainty. I am free from this terror.

2) I have the promise of Heaven before me, a place where there is no suffering, pain or crying. In heaven I will see my deceased family members who have died in the Lord; maybe even my pets, if God wants it to be so! In Heaven I will have a brand-new body without skin problems or health issues. It will not be limited like my earthly one was. I will have the joy of Heaven, a place of beauty and light, forever, and best of all I will get to be with Jesus forever too! Therefore, I live my life with a pure hope here on earth and do not sorrow as unbelievers do when someone who knows God dies.

3) I have the Holy Spirit within me, the Comforter, who directs my walk in this life and brings me peace. He allows me to pray effectively and testifies of my freedom from the kingdom of Darkness. He lends me confidence.

4) I have the ability to earn future rewards for Heaven while I am here on earth that rust and moth will not destroy. I have the privilege of leading others to the Lord and sharing what He has done for me.

5) I know that everything that comes to me in this life is controlled and allowed by God for a greater good (Romans 8:28) and that God will not allow me to be tested beyond what I can bear. I have a hedge of divine protection around me, and if God removes part of that hedge, it is for a reason, though I may not understand right away. Suffering has a reason with God in the equation.

I could think of many more, but Ill keep the number of reasons the same for now.

The Drawbacks of being a Christian:

1) I cannot live life like the devil and get away with it. God chastens (punishes) those who disobey him repeatedly because he loves them. Though for an ultimate good, punishment is never pleasant. So, I have rules to follow (though not to be saved by) if I want to please God.

2) I will be persecuted by the world. The world hates Christians and all they stand for, and will stop at nothing to silence them. I may have to endure mental or physical anguish for my faith, though there will be rewards for doing so. Blessed are the persecuted

3) I will be persecuted by the devil. Satan is ever trying to attack Gods children and draw them after his way.

4) I will be pursued by the desires of my sinful nature, which will not die until I die. I will face temptation to do evil and sometimes do it, though I am forgiven of God, I will still have to face (and overcome) guilt. I will have to put up a spiritual struggle against my flesh nature.

5) My life will be on display to those around me, and I wont ever have everything all together. I will sometimes be a poor witness because I still have a sinful nature, though God can work through my infirmities.

Listen, the truth is neither one of us know with 100% scientific certainty that we are right. Why? Because neither one of us has died! We dont know whats on the other side from personal experience! I have a pretty good guess based on what Gods Word says, and from that point I had to take a step of trust. Still, my logic and certainty could only get me so far. At some point I have to make a choice. But you really dont have any idea of what lies across the river, only a projection of what you HOPE death is like.

In a twisted sort of way, you arent without a hope, of a kind. You have faith in something you cant see. You are holding out your arms for death, eager to be pulled out of this world of pain and misery into a state of oblivion and tranquility where your problems would be erased. So I know you can do it I know you can have faith! So why not have faith in something WORTH having faith in? Why not have faith in THE TRUTH? Not just some pointless, imagined state of nothingness, (I say imagined because you have absolutely no reason to believe anything about the nature of death, having never experienced it or heard of it from anyone.) but in a wonderful future of promise. What makes you think you will experience ANYTHING in death if you are non-existent? Oblivion is a state, and for you to have a state you have to exist. It isnt mere unconsciousness. According to your view, your death would not be a release from the cares of life it would be a door shutting forever. Non-existence is not a state it isnt anything, either good or bad!

So, there you have it. I hope you give everything Ive said some thought.

Why is this topic still open? It has completely derailed.

Decaying, read:

The Problem of Pain

by C.S. Lewis

It will change your whole perspective!!!!

There is absolutely no need to and no it won't - not one iota, for I am unfortunately completely right. C.S. Lewis was a Christian and as I already pointed out so long ago with impeccable logic, Christianity - just like every other religion out there - is a terribly flawed, archaic and outmoded way of trying to make sense out of this business we call living. While I appreciate your intention, the fact is that you and every other religious person out there are totally wrong and have no true understanding of this business we call living. There is no God. Go back to my original posts and actually try to refute the points I made. You won't be able to do it, I assure you. If you do so coldly and seriously then you will see the truth of what I said.

It is a sad reality that life is an evil that has been visited upon you by your dimwitted, selfish parents. This is irrefutable fact whether you (and the rest of the world) like it or not. Sure, idiots like Livvie and Veiledxbeauty tried to debunk my points, but it is clear to anyone with even a minor grasp of logic that they failed. When I wrote my original spiel I did so when I was feeling particularly low and had had my fill of retards. Unfortunately, I live in a world full of them, and when the mouth breathers started their responses to me I simply gave up. The saying, which is attributed to Einstein, goes that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. As such I decided it simply wasn't worth the time trying to remove a lifetime of religious indoctrination from the minds of the aforementioned acne.org members. Would you try and debate a rock? They have shown that they are either wilfully ignorant or simply unable to deal with cold hard reality as it is. Excuse me for presuming the same about yourself, but given the fact that you have directed me to a Christian apologist's text, I doubt that philosophy, psychology or science are strong suits. If they were then you wouldn't have written your post. Go back and look at the Epicurean Paradox. These few lines totally annihilate any possibility of an all loving, all powerful God. You can present me with books written by any number of erudite people from days gone by and it won't matter a damn. Reduced to the simplest equation it is a logical impossibility to have an all loving and all powerful being AND a world of evil and suffering. Your God - and all others - DO NOT EXIST. If you're still scratching you head, look at this flowchart. Meditate upon this.

I want to see pictures of the scarring you are talking about, there is still hope to keep working on them, there are a lot of other treatments that can be performed. There are a couple people on here getting some good improvements with a multiple treatment approach.

Why the f*ck is there a religious discussion in this topic???

Amen.