This statement is objectively false.

No, the peasant in the famine-stricken fields of the prison state of North Korea does not have this chance. Ever. They know nothing except eating tree bark or clay, having no outside information giving to them – EVER – other than the information fed to them from their totalitarian government, which treaches worship of the Dear Leader and his dead father and the Korean Worker’s Party as the “god,” and they do not know what the Bible is, who Jesus is, who the Western version of God is, or anything else except for a combination of propaganda and starvation pains. Then they die after their likely short, brutal lives.

And as such, they’re probably facing eternal damnation from the God who can do all things but somehow or other can’t save “sinners” who didn’t know who he/she/it even was from everlasting “hellfire.”

Good Lt on December 23, 2008 at 3:08 PM

I am Jewish, so I can’t speak to the issue of souls in famine stricken areas where Christianity has not reached. But my understanding is that one would have to choose Christ to be “saved” so that would be true. I have always had issues with that idea. That is what led me to Judaism. I personally believe that not accepting Christ as your personal savior is a reason to turn your soul away from God. As a mere mortal, I don’t have the answer to your arguement about people in North Korea, but it doesn’t provide enough of an arguement for me to deny the existence of God. *shrug*

ihasurnominashun on December 23, 2008 at 3:30 PM

I appreciate your comments.

It isn’t so much about denying the existence of God as it is recognizing that some don’t even get the chance to frame their existence to grapple with such a choice or spiritual journey. I just used the average North Korean peasant suffering in a squalid, isolated existence as an example, to demonstrate that it isn’t true that all are even given the choice here.

I’m glad you recognized this. I was raised Catholic but probably have more in common with Jews theologically than I do with Christians. I must admit, thought, that I struggle with the evidence question. Stories handed down through the ages from ancient peoples who didn’t even have running toilets and other assorted legends and tales are not hard evidence of anything, and that’s what I often see as offered as “proof” of the existence of divinity.

Good Lt on December 23, 2008 at 3:38 PM

Thanks, I appreciate your comments as well. And the question you poses is one my husband and I discuss often. He’s a Baha’i so he has an even different perspective on that issue. I guess to me, the evidence for God’s existence has always been greater to me than any evidence against it. Even in instances where a person does not have access to knowledge and understanding of God and survives horrific circumstances, there are those cases where you hear that the person had strength throughout the ordeal because of some unknown understanding of a “higher power” or “guardian” they felt with them. Is that a soul open to the sound of God’s voice? Who knows. Those are definitely issues that someone who doesn’t have all the answers grapples with.

ihasurnominashun on December 23, 2008 at 3:51 PM

Just how do I make you understand? Look, atheists see your religious faith as you would probably see scientology. When you write about how you look upon atheists as anti-war moonbats for saying your deity does not exit, we see what is akin to a Scientologist call us moonbats for dismissing his belief that the extraterrestrial dictator of the Galactic Confederacy, Xenu, flew down in his spacecraft planting human populations around volcanoes, bombed them, with the few remaining survivors becoming the ancient ancestors to Earth’s populations. After all, it is about ~relgious~ ~faith~. Ahura Mazda is as likely as Lord Vishnu who is as likely as Allah who is as likely as Jehovah who is as likely as Xenu which is because religious faith is all the same epistemologically, useless as an instrument for leaning stuff, specious and an anti-value, which is the reason I never bothered with it.

FierceGuppy on December 23, 2008 at 3:58 PM

I didn’t compare Athiests to anti-war moonbats for not believing, I based the comparison on the attendant behavior. The left’s hatred of the war doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It’s more about the proactive desire for their position to be right, so they take it that next step and actively belittle believers…just as antiwar activists worked to make the war a failure so they could say “told you so”. I don’t care that you don’t believe in God. I really don’t. I care that YOU care that I (meaning the collective I) do. That the majority of people on the face of the earth believes in God really peeves Atheists, from my perspective and I really don’t understand why. I don’t think the fact that a relatively small group of people believe in Scientology or don’t believe in God peeves Christians or Jews or even most Muslims to the extent that Atheists are peeved by our belief in God. That is all that I am saying. I don’t think Atheists are moonbats, just that their peevishness against “belief in God” is similar to the far left’s peevishness against the war.

ihasurnominashun on December 23, 2008 at 4:07 PM