Dad links son's suicide to 'The God Delusion'

A New York man is linking the suicide of his 22-year-old son, a military veteran who had bright prospects in college, to the anti-Christian book "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins after a college professor challenged the son to read it.

"Three people told us he had taken a biology class and was doing well in it, but other students and the professor were really challenging my son, his faith. They didn't like him as a Republican, as a Christian, and as a conservative who believed in intelligent design," the grief-stricken father, Keith Kilgore, told WND about his son, Jesse.

"This professor either assigned him to read or challenged him to read a book, 'The God Delusion,' by Richard Dawkins," he said.

“There is no justice in finite sin being punished with infinite judgement, and it would take nothing short of a spiritual lobotomy to love a God that would send even the likes of Adolf Hitler to a place like Hell for the rest of eternity, never mind those who simply died ‘without Jesus’.....”

What you are failing to comprehend is that God doesn’t send anyone to hell. Humans make the choice....it’s called “free will”. God doesn’t do it, they do it.

Er, no not really. That’s a bit like saying a woman who walked down a dark ally in a short skirt made a free choice to get raped. It might be the consequence of their choice, but they still didn’t choose to get raped.
It also doesn’t solve the problem of a hefty chunk of just about everyone’s loved ones ending up in Hell for being insuffiently pious in word and deed. What kind of tool would live the rest of eternity in the bliss of paradise knowing that their unbelieving son/daughter/mother/father/brother/sister/etc. was burning to a crisp in Hell?
There is also the scenario of a child molestor who turns to Jesus later in life and genuinely repents of his sins, thus ending up in Heaven, whilst his victims, who have been damaged by his actions to the point were they have died ‘in rebellion against god’ and end up in Hell. That isn’t what I would call natural justice.
The only way to reconcile the idea of an omnibenevolent, omniscient and omnipotent God is either that A) Hell is temporary and redemptive, as universalists tend to believe, B) The souls of the wicked are Annihilated, as the Jehovah’s Witnesses and 7th Day Adventists believe or C) It doesn’t exist.
Otherwise, this God isn’t worth praising or worshiping at all except out of fear, which can only be insincere. Fortunately for christianity, the Bible itself suggests in Collosians 1:16 that all things will be reconciled to himself.
It is interesting to note that most schools of early christianity, with the exception of the Carthagian/Roman school, believed in Universalism, but the former, being closer to the centre of power in the known world, got the upper hand over theologians such as Origen, who preached in universalism and whose writings on Christianity predate the earliest known surviving gospels, which were mistranslated by ignorant and bitter scholars like St Augustine who mistranslated the greek and aramaic gospels were words like ‘Aion’ (which roughly means ‘a indefinite period of time’ to the Latin ‘aeternum’ which means ‘forever’.
Some of these scholars just seemed a bit too keen on the idea of ‘heaven’ as an exclusive club for the few who met their own particular standards of piety and correct theological interpretation to be considered ‘christian’ by anyone’s standards....

“Some of these scholars just seemed a bit too keen on the idea of ‘heaven’ as an exclusive club for the few who met their own particular standards of piety and correct theological interpretation to be considered ‘christian’ by anyone’s standards....”

I’m not too clear on what you’re trying to convey. Did Christ lie when He said, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life”? Or “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father but by Me?

“Er, no not really. That’s a bit like saying a woman who walked down a dark ally in a short skirt made a free choice to get raped. It might be the consequence of their choice, but they still didn’t choose to get raped.”

Your analogy escapes me. Are you implying that there’s an alternate route to God? Yes, one could assume that that woman’s choice walking down that dark alley could get her in a heap of trouble, likewise denying Christ as your saviour is going to have consequences....dire consequences, it’s a choice everyone is going to make sometime in their lives.

“Why is that choice confined to sometime in your lifetime?”

Because there’s only one physical death, after that your soul lives on, and then it’s too late to say “can I have another chance?”

We don’t rely on piety for our salvation. No one is “good enough” to get to heaven. I don’t believe out of fear of hell, I believe because God loved us enough to send His Son to die in our place. All we have to do is believe that He is our Saviour. It’s not rocket science or having to be good enough. I’m far from perfect but am forgiven.

Its not about having another chance at life, but accepting God. It says quite clearly in the Bible that all things will be reconciled to him. The concept of eternal damnation has been moulded through mistranslation and pagan concepts of spiritual justice, which seem at odds with the rest of the Christian teaching about God’s limitless capacity for love and forgiveness. It also isn’t much of a victory if Satan, whose aim is to turn people away from God, succeeds in corrupting the vast majority of mankind so that they spend eternity in Hell whilst only a handful make it to heaven. The Bible Christ is the saviour of all men (1 Timothy 4:10) and that all things will eventually proclaim him as lord, it doesn’t say anything about this having to take place neccessarily within a person’s lifetime.
Let me put it another way, God tells us to look out and be concerned for others. Does he expect us to stop caring about anyone but ourselves once our own souls have gotten into heaven? Frankly, I cannot imagine my own soul being at peace unless I know my loved ones are also at peace, and this will come when all things are reconciled to him....

The arguments in support of atheism are not always so easily dismissed.

Very easy indeed.

You need to read “The Real Face of Atheism” by Ravi Zacharias

http://www.amazon.com/Real-Face-Atheism-Ravi-Zacharias/dp/0801065119

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