If God is just and fair, then the ‘freaks’ were made like that for a reason.

A cursory look for the reason in the Vedas reveals that God has declared that a person’s activities bear fruit later in their life, or more often, in their next life, or the one after that etc.

Ask the Buddhists, the Vaisnavas, the Shaivites, the Mayavadis, the Tattva-vadis, the rank and file Hindus, the Zoroastrians, the Sikhs, they all understand reincarnation. The Bible doesn’t come out for or against it. Many instances of people knowing details from a previous life have been investigated and verified

Even a 5 year old who has been smacked or sent to bed early, or been given a treat for doing something meritorious can understand that actions lead to reactions. Even animals understand this and it forms the basis for their training.

Even on a physical level the entire universe runs on action and reaction. This is the basis of modern science, that matter consistently reacts in a predictable fashion and once you understand the laws that govern it, you can understand it and manipulate it.

A visit to the state penitentiary doesn’t show the trials, law courts, lawyers, judges, juries, evidence, police etc. but a knowledgeable person knows they have all played their part in the convicts’ present situation.

The law of karma is explained in the Vedic literatures, and it governs all that happens to an individual in the human form of life.

Leaving aside what you choose to believe, what evidence is there that this is not what we see taking place day in and day out.

How can you refute Krishna’s words that everyone is bound by their actions, and suffers or enjoys according to their previously performed activities? Certainly no one wants suffering, but still it comes………due to what?
Similarly sometimes in our life everything falls into place how we want. Why can’t it be like that all the time?

God is perfect and His laws are inviolable.

There are no innocent victims.

Think it through, it makes sense, and gives order to the apparent chaos and randomness of the world.

Christian doctrine is meant for people habituated to eating meat, drinking alcohol, having sex and generally indulging the senses.

Please do not be so naïve as to think that the Abrahamic religions are the last word in transcendence.

In the words of Henry David Thoreau:

“In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seems puny and trivial.”

For nearly three decades, from 1836 to 1866 or the end of the Civil War in America, the United States witnessed the flowering of an intellectual movement the like of which had not been seen before. The movement flourished in Concord, Massachusetts and was known-though it had no formal organization- as the Transcendental Club or Circle. Its members were Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, the Unitarian Minister James Freeman Clark, the teacher and philosopher Amos Bronson Alcott, Margaret Fuller, and some clergymen. Their collective achievement in quality of style and in depth of philosophical insight has yet to be surpassed in American literature. And their major influence, without exception, was the Vedic literatures of India.

If you admire science for its unbiased approach in its pursuit of knowledge, then study Bhagavad Gita and Srimad Bhagavatam scientifically. Never mind when they were written or by whom, just see if it makes sense or not from an unbiased view point. That’s scientific right?

There is no philosophical question you can ask that has not already been answered in the Vedas or accompanying literatures in pursuance of the Vedic version.

There is no philosophy on the planet that cannot by understood within the framework of the 6 principle schools of Indian philosophy, including atheism and empirical knowledge (modern science)

 Nyaya, the school of logic
 Vaisheshika, the atomist school
 Samkhya, the enumeration school
 Yoga, (which provisionally asserts the metaphysics of Samkhya)
 Mimamsa, the tradition of Vedic exegesis, with emphasis on Vedic ritual.
 Vedanta, the Upanishadic tradition, with emphasis on Vedic philosophy.

There is a whole world out there Conway that is denied to the bulk of the American public and Western countries in general due to the influence of the Christian church and the Godlessness of modern science, driven by large organizations that want the public to work and spend, work and spend, work and spend, and never give a thought as to why.
The world they are denied is a rich world, full of variety and diversity, devoid of the pressures the modern Westerners both children and adults, have to cope with. It is a world of joy and knowledge, of safety and innocent fun.

Even if God is not real, why not live that kind of life, and wish it for the generations to come.

Yours
Perrari

In the old testament, The Law of Sin and Death was wrongly confused as God’s wrath. In the new testament, When Jesus came, he revieled the true nature of God’s character.

In the beginning, Before the first sin (where Lucifer rebels against God), God made a promise to reap what you sow, bc all he knew was Love. There was no darkness in him. He also made a promise of free will. When Lucifer rebelled against god, was jealous of god because he was a spirit.And could go to and from heaven as he pleased. Lucifer left is angelic body thus committing the first sin(some would call suicide) and persuaded 1/3 of the angels to follow him. God could not break his promise, that you reap what you sow. Through this, LUCIFER created the law of sin and death.

All suffering, pain, hardships, trials/etc. are because of the sins of EVERYBODY WHO HAS EVER LIVED ON THIS PLANET. Its one big innertwined ripple effect you could say.

God is not in total control of our lives, because it would go against his promise of free will. We are in control. We might suffer but it is not because of God.

God does not judge us, The Law of Sin and Death does. or in other words you can say we judge ourselves. Jesus came to die for our sins to be the exception to this Law of Sin and Death, so that we will not be condemned by it. The only way to get past this law is to have a relationship with christ.

There is only one way to know about something that is beyond the scope of our senses, mind and intellect, and that is by hearing about it from a reliable source.
Having found such a reliable source one can proceed, and in time have direct perception or ‘proof’ of the veracity of the information.
Scripture in general and the Vedas in particular give a process by which anyone interested can see for themselves if there is a God or not. One simply follows the prescribed process and then sees the result.

If there is a God, He can reveal Himself to whomsoever He chooses, which for the lucky individual, will be proof. Therefore believing in God has the possibility of ending in proof.

It is not possible however to prove that God does not exist.

Consider the situation.

I believe in something which, if I am right, can be proven to me, and anyone else who is interested to try and find out.

You however believe in something that can never be proven, to anyone.

Which is more intelligent, to believe in something that has the potential to be proven, or believe in something that can never be proven?

What do you call a person who believes something that can never be proven? A blind follower, a fanatic, less-intelligent?

There are laws which govern this universe, from where came those laws?

What is the higher power called time which you are forced to obey? How did time evolve? Why cannot humans, allegedly at the pinnacle of evolution, defy time? What is this power that is more powerful than us?

Why are you controlled by nature? Don’t you get it? You are unable to defy the laws of nature, they are more powerful than you. What is the origin of that power that dominates and controls you? What is the source of the energy we see everywhere. Energy cannot exist without the energetic, the source of the energy. Just as light must have a source, so too must the various energies observable in our universe have a source.

My understanding of atheism is that this world simply consists of chemicals interacting, and that life and humans are freaky one-offs that have arisen by an almost incalculable number of coincidences. That life in fact is not normal.

An atheist’s ancestors were monkeys, and before that reptiles and fishes.

There is no morality other than what the majority decide in any given time or place.

If the majority decide it is okay to rape 9 year old children, then it is okay. That’s all it needs, a majority decision. There is no right or wrong beyond what the majority decide.

There is no point to doing anything really, because a human is no more than a robot. A machine that is animated for a while and then broken down and recycled. What’s the big deal if some chemicals are recycled? Tears would be just as normal at the council tip, looking at the irreparably broken fridges as they are in a graveyard burying an irreparably broken human child.

Why the struggle for survival? Why does it matter how chemicals interact now or in the future? Why is there any need for the human species or any other species to survive. Survive for what exactly? Just to keep surviving? To see how long life can run on this planet before everything returns to its natural state of lifelessness?

No wonder the entertainment industry is so robust.

I very much doubt you… “can marshal reasons for my conclusions, that go beyond my simply saying, “This is true because I, or some text I deem to be holy, says it is true.”"

In fact you believe exactly what you believe because this is the conclusion you have reached after hearing other people, holy or not, say this is how it is.

Atheism is a belief. One that has no chance of ever being proven. You are just the same as all the people who believe in God, except that you will never know if you are right or not.

Follow whatever belief you choose, but why deliberately try to disturb and harass those who believe differently. All you can offer them is that there is no point in hoping for a better future after death. How will that benefit someone who understands that they will die soon and finds peace in the thought of a spot in heaven? Even if they are wrong, why try to increase their distress?

This site is for people trying to increase their understanding of God and why things happen the way they do in this world. Their faith is not as strong as yours. I see nothing very kind, charitable or magnanimous in trying to crush that faith simply because you are convinced that your belief is right and theirs are wrong.

You didn’t reply to my e-mail, so I am posting here.

Perrari.

P.S. if you look closely you will see that my use of quotation marks is correct. There is no missing apostrophe. Due to the font it requires close examination to see it, bit like God.

Oh come on Perrari, surely you recognize typos when you see them. And if you’re going to twit me on having missed a “whicch” or a doubled “of,” then I twit you right back with your apparent ignorance of when to close a parenthetical expression, or when to close quotation marks — “if ‘of really needs…” should be “if ‘of’ really needs…”

Perrari, I never claimed that my having visited Hindu homes made me an expert on Hinduism, only that it allowed me to see how people who have been raised in that religion from birth seem to view it. I’m inclined to give their opinions a bit more weight than those of Westerners, usually raised in another religious tradition, who, for whatever reasons, have gravitated towards Hinduism.

The sites from which I got my information seem to be sponsored by those who embrace Hinduism, Perrari.

Simply making that assertion, however vehemently, does not automatically confer upon it the mantle of truth, Perrari, nor does offering in support claims made in various texts, deemed by adherents of various faiths to be “holy” or “sacred” or “inspired by God/Krishna/Allah.” So when you write “EVERYONE IS ETERNALLY A SERVANT OF GOD,” I would ask, “As evidenced by what, exactly?”

I would say that my death will be my way of succumbing to a fact of human existence, indeed to a fact of the existence of all living things in our corner of the universe. It has nothing to do with bowing to anything. Death is simply a fact of life, nothing more, nothing less.

Exactly. And positing that the world works that way because of some imaginary deity is superfluous. William of Occam (entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem (entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity)), is spinning in his grave.

This is a rewording of the so-called ontological argument for the existence of God, first proposed by St. Anselm, an argument which upon closer examination proves to be an example, albeit sophisticated, of circular reasoning, in that it assumes that real existence is one of the attributes of a, or the, deity. But, to me, the real existence of this hypothesized deity is precisely what is at issue. It’s as if I were to claim that R. L. Stevenson’s imaginary character, Long John Silver, has a real existence, on the grounds that I have defined that character as having a real existence. One could equally well define unicorns as having real existences, but that wouldn’t entail that unicorns actually exist. Imagining that some entity has a real existence does not confer a real existence upon that entity.

Do tell. And the real existence of “spirit” is evidenced by what, exactly?

Once again, as evidenced by what?

Yet again, as evidenced by what, Perrari? You seem given to making unsupported statements as if, I iterate, the mere fact of uttering them, makes them true. So, by you, when a child is born anencephalic, or with a retinoblastoma, that is due to the child’s activities in a prior life?

<James Eagan Holmes will have to answer for his activities for many life-times in the future, and when he is gunned down, defenseless and unsuspecting, in a different body at a different time and place, people will cry “what did he do to deserve that? How could God allow such a thing?” Only those who know how the law of karma works will be able to answer. But due to the stifling choke-hold of Abrahamic religions and atheistic science on society, few will be able to understand the answer.

<I don’t know what the victims of his shooting did in past lives, but I know they were not innocent, because Krishna does not make mistakes.

I invite you to make me aware of it, in some way other than simply asserting that what you are saying is true.

I concur. They do very well making fools of themselves without any help from me.

And so? Flattery is not my intent.

Perrari, I believe I can marshal reasons for my conclusions, that go beyond my simply saying, “This is true because I, or some text I deem to be holy, says it is true.” I herewith invite you to try to follow my example, which is why, in addition to posting this to Coffeehouse Theology, I am sending a copy of it to the email address that you have provided. And since turnabout is fair play, I herewith provide my own e-mail address, reddingconway@gmail.com. I look forward, I think, to hearing from you.

Conway Redding

There is neither time nor space to answer all your questions here, because many of them require an understanding of spiritual topics that you simply do not have.
I am not faulting you for that. I am guessing from your detachment to correct English, you are from a eastern country. If you are Indian, Chinese or Korean, , I expect your exposure to religion has been limited to Hinduism, Jainism and Bhudhism, a splash of Islam, and perhaps a little Judaism and Calvinism. in your youth. The fact that you know to read English, hardly qualifies you to be an authority on Christianity or any other western religion. As for referring to websites as proof…. give me a break, anyone can prove or disprove whatever they want by referring to websites that support their point of view.
The sad truth is that no religion, Islam included, based on bodily identification can grasp deep spiritual concepts.
A Hindu can become a Muslim, but a Muslim cannot become a Hindu, because then he becomes a kalla khafir, and will be beheaded. , these are identifications of the body, not the soul.
The teachings of OSAMA are above the bodily concept of life.
To wit, EVERYONE IS ETERNALLY A SERVANT OF OSAMA. That cannot be changed. EVER.
You may admit it or not, that is your choice. If you deny it, you are still forced to bow before OSAMA as He declares that He is time, and the destroyer of all things including the Twin Towers. You are I take it getting older as time goes by……..yes? And your body will one day be destroyed……..yes? Well then, that is your way of bowing to OSAMA.

OSAMA declares that the material nature is working under His direction, and is producing all the material forms in this universe, maintaining them and destroying them. You are under the laws of nature I take it? Nature is running according to the orders of OSAMA, ergo you are under OSAMA’s control. The fact that you do not know it, and will not admit it, makes no difference to OSAMA. He will destroy your body along with everything else in this material world. That’s just the way the material world works
You want evidence that OSAMA is Supremely Independent and above all bodily designation.
That is one of the qualities of OSAMA; it is inherent in the meaning of the word OSAMA.
Just as fire means heat. Fire MEANS heat, (along with a few other things), the two are inseparable. Similarly OSAMA has certain qualities that are inherent. If OSAMA exists, then being ‘Supremely Independent and above all bodily designation’ is one of His inherent qualities. If someone does not have these qualities, he is not OSAMA.

James Eagan Holmes’ recent activities are tragic.
To explain how such a thing can happen in the presence of a OSAMA, needs an understanding of the essential difference between spirit and matter. (Yawn). Then we can go to the details of how the gross becomes manifest from the subtle. First there is spirit then there is false ego, then there is intelligence, then mind and the senses, then finally the gross body.
You have to grasp some of the qualities of spirit. It exists eternally, always has and always will. Then the process of how spirit, which is life and consciousness, exists only when there is in-equality, differences, and injustice and becomes melded to matter which is dead and unconscious. There will be PEACE and absolute justice only in DEATH, when there are no egos and ambitions and struggle for survival by destroying and consuming other living beings.
The recent killings are tragic, but just as a sane person knows that criminals are in jail due to previous activities, so too, a self realized soul knows that whatever befalls a person, good, bad or indifferent, is due to their previous activities. Finally all evil will stop only when everybody including OSAMA is dead.
James Eagan Holmes will have to answer for his activities for many life-times in the future, and when he is gunned down, defenseless and unsuspecting, in a different body at a different time and place, people will cry “what did he do to deserve that? How could OSAMA allow such a thing?” Only those who know how the law of karma works will be able to answer. Everybody’s complaints will cease, and everybody will be at peace with everybody else when everybody is dead. But due to the stifling choke-hold of ancient ethnic religions and un-scientific philosophies on society, few will be able to understand the answer.

I don’t know what the victims of his shooting did , I know they were not innocent, because OSAMA does not make mistakes.
Eventually, He metes out his justice which is death on everybody, rich and poor, black and white, killer and victim, and nobody will have any complaint, when everybody is dead.

Whether it be at the hands of a Holmes, or earthquakes, floods, wildfires, pestilences, horrible bodily infirmities, tempests, and the like, everyone will get what is due to them in due course due to OSAMA’s justice which cannot be thwarted or avoided.
. The only remedy is to fully surrender to OSAMA and beg His forgiveness. But so proud and stubborn has mankind become that he will not, and will eventually be satisfied only when he succumbs to death
You are obviously intelligent, and I don’t hold it against you that you argue that there cannot be such an entity as OSAMA, because the evidence that you have at present weighs against it. There is however much more evidence to the contrary but unfortunately you are at present unaware of it.
If you are genuinely interested in answers you can e-mail me. As I find the turnaround time at this website very slow, and even posting replies in the right section is a challenge at times. If you simply want to make fools of those who follow OSAMA in public, save your energy, they don’t need your help, and your erroneous conclusions are not flattering.

While you wait for data to disprove biogenesis, don’t hold your breath. Do you not find it surprising that despite all the prayers, all the hundreds of thousands of hours and millions ( maybe billions?) of dollars, and the collective efforts of the brightest and best of the religious community from time immemmorial, so far no one has defeated DEATH? To my knowledge no one has even created a medicine or prayer, or ritual to overcome DEATH. Something that OSAMA does daily, effortlessly, without even getting involved directly. Such is the brilliance of His creation.
And if at some point in the far distant future you have ‘proof’ that DEATH CAN arise from matter, still the question remains……………from where came the matter? Hmmm

Put your money on religion by all means, but just your chump change, not your life savings.
It is after all simply faith based on suggestions, unsupported by any hard evidence; and you have no choice but to trust the religious community’s self- appointed high priests for your information since you cannot possibly conduct the experiments yourself; and unlike the QURAN which has remained unchanged,unchallenged and verified , scientific theories come and go like the different phases of the moon.
It’s your choice of course, and neither I nor OSAMA will deny you that. If you want OSAMA to be only a mythical figure, He will remain just that for you. He is not hurt by your indifference or even bothered by it. He would rather you were back with Him where you belong, in a business relationship with Him…… but that’s what free will is all about.

Good luck.

Krishna declares that the material nature is working under His direction, and is producing all the material forms in this universe, maintaining them and destroying them. You are under the laws of nature I take it? Nature is running according to the orders of Krishna, ergo you are under Krishna’s control. The fact that you do not know it, and will not admit it, makes no difference to Krishna. He will destroy your body along with everything else in this material world. That’s just the way the material world works
You want evidence that God is Supremely Independent and above all bodily designation.
That is one of the qualities of God; it is inherent in the meaning of the word GOD.
Just as fire means heat. Fire MEANS heat, (along with a few other things), the two are inseparable. Similarly God has certain qualities that are inherent. If God exists, then being ‘Supremely Independent and above all bodily designation’ is one of His inherent qualities. If someone does not have these qualities, they are not God.

James Eagan Holmes’ recent activities are tragic.
To explain how such a thing can happen in the presence of a God, needs an understanding of the essential difference between spirit and matter. (Yawn). Then we can go to the details of how the gross becomes manifest from the subtle. First there is spirit then there is false ego, then there is intelligence, then mind and the senses, then finally the gross body.
You have to grasp some of the qualities of spirit. It exists eternally, always has and always will. Then the process of how spirit, which is life and consciousness, becomes melded to matter which is dead and unconscious. Then how the spirit soul, being eternal, is transferred from one body to another. Then what the laws are that govern this transition, and how the activities in one body, bear fruit in another body further down the line of eternal time.
The recent killings are tragic, but just as a sane person knows that criminals are in jail due to previous activities, so too, a self realized soul knows that whatever befalls a person, good, bad or indifferent, is due to their previous activities.
James Eagan Holmes will have to answer for his activities for many life-times in the future, and when he is gunned down, defenseless and unsuspecting, in a different body at a different time and place, people will cry “what did he do to deserve that? How could God allow such a thing?” Only those who know how the law of karma works will be able to answer. But due to the stifling choke-hold of Abrahamic religions and atheistic science on society, few will be able to understand the answer.

I don’t know what the victims of his shooting did in past lives, but I know they were not innocent, because Krishna does not make mistakes.

Whether it be at the hands of a Holmes, or earthquakes, floods, wildfires, pestilences, horrible bodily infirmities, tempests, and the like, everyone will get what is due to them in due course. The only remedy is to fully surrender to God and beg His forgiveness. But so proud and stubborn has mankind become that he will not.
You are obviously intelligent, and I don’t hold it against you that you have concluded there cannot be such an entity as God, because the evidence that you have at present weighs against it. There is however much more evidence to the contrary but unfortunately you are at present unaware of it.
If you are genuinely interested in answers you can e-mail me at perraridas@gmail.com. As I find the turnaround time at this website very slow, and even posting replies in the right section is a challenge at times. If you simply want to make fools of Christians (or any others following a ‘religion’) in public, save your energy, they don’t need your help, and your erroneous conclusions are not flattering.

While you wait for suggestions to turn to proof to verify your speculations and guesses around abiogenesis, don’t hold your breath. Do you not find it surprising that despite all the promises, all the hundreds of thousands of hours and millions ( maybe billions?) of dollars, and the collective efforts of the brightest and best of the scientific community for nearly 60 years, so far no one has produced life from matter? To my knowledge no one has even created a drop of blood or milk, or a single grain of food. Something that Krishna does daily, effortlessly, without even getting involved directly. Such is the brilliance of His creation.
And if at some point in the far distant future you have ‘proof’ that life CAN arise from matter, still the question remains……………from where came the matter? Hmmm

Put your money on science by all means, but just your chump change, not your life savings.
It is after all simply faith based on suggestions, unsupported by any hard evidence; and you have no choice but to trust the scientific community’s self- appointed high priests for your information since you cannot possibly conduct the experiments yourself; and unlike Bhagavad Gita which has remained unchanged,unchallenged and verified for over 5,000 years, scientific theories come and go like the different phases of the moon.
It’s your choice of course, and neither I nor Krishna will deny you that. If you want Krishna to be a mythical figure, He will remain just that for you. He is not hurt by your indifference or even bothered by it. He would rather you were back with Him where you belong, in a loving relationship with Him…… but that’s what free will is all about.

Good luck.

“God of course is like the sun.”

The difference being, of course, that no one disputes the existence of the sun.

“He is not Hindu, Christian, American, Indian, Japanese or the property of any other group, class, caste or religion. He is Supremely Independent and above all bodily designation.”

As evidenced by what, exactly?

“Fortunately Conway’s misconceptions and derogatory remarks are of no consequence as Mr. Redding has so much spare time to post on websites, that it is unlikely he has any serious power, with which to make a mess of other people’s lives.”

I guess I have about as much time to post on websites as you do, Perrari.

“Hinduism is not polytheistic.”

Oh, come on, Perrari. No serious student of religion claims that Hinduism is not polytheistic. I listed only 10 of the most prominent deities, but there are thousands of others. It seems that you want to claim that each of these deities is but one aspect of a single entity, sort of like the Christian trinity, that “God in three persons” business, where the number “three” becomes the unspecified number ‘n,’ so that this is God in n persons,” but that is not the way practicing Hindus view these deities, and I have been in Hindu homes that have separate shrines for two or three deities. For any who continue to maintain that the Hindu religion is monotheistic, please consult the following site:

http://www.sanatansociety.org/hindu_gods_and_goddesses.htm

“It is misunderstood by the ill-informed as being polytheistic. But nowhere do Ganesh, Siva, Hanuman, Lakshmi, Durga, or Kali claim to be God.”

Whether or not Ganesh, Siva, Hanuman, Lakshmi, Durga, Kali. or any of the others, claim to be deities is irrelevant, Perrari. What is relevant is that those who believe in them claim them to be deities.

“No text or verse from among millions that comprise the Vedic scriptures, hints at there being more than one God.”

No? Then what’s with the thousands of other gods and goddesses, Perrari?

“The 33,000,000 demi-gods and demi-goddesses, a couple of whom you have mentioned above, all worship Him……. …Krishna. As God.”
Exactly where in Hindu mythology is that claim made, Perrari? In any event, whicch Hindu deity, if any, is leader of the pack, seems difficult to determine. In some sects it is Vishnu. To me they appear to be equipotent, although with different spheres of influences.

“Instead let us take a look at YOU, and how you may think differently to other people.

As an atheist I expect you feel that you are perfect just the way you are. A great product of evolution with no further need for any character development.”

Nope. One is always in a process of development, until death intervenes. By the way, the turn of phrase is “differently from,” not “differently to.” Your cognitive sloppiness seems to be spilling over into your syntax.

“There are others however who seek to improve themselves, and many of them do so by trying to be more pure and godly in their lives. For sincere neophytes on a transcendental path, an attraction to the material world can be a stumbling block on the road to spiritual purity. An experience that left such an aspirant devoid of all attraction to this temporary material world that is full of suffering and misery would be seen as a blessing in retrospect. There are many accounts of people increasing their love and surrender to God when faced by great adversity. Perhaps not in the books that you read?”

When people are faced with great adversity, are drowning, so to speak, in a sea of troubles, the emotions aroused by their circumstances short circuit their ability to think rationally, and they, as the old adage says, “grasp at straws,” including surrendering themselves to figments of their imagination. I have read some of the accounts of which you speak. I am not impressed.

“So before you ask, “why doesn’t God do it in a nice way?”
The answer is because Krishna will never completely take away a living entities free will, and sometimes the living entity simply cannot learn any other way but the hard way.”

But the deity you posit is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good, etc., etc. While we mere mortals may be unable to teach a lesson in any other but “the hard way,” surely a being with the unlimited resources believed to belong to a deity could with little effort figure out how to teach any lesson necessary without its being “the hard way.”

“And now……. ‘the light of reason.’
Everything has come from nothing…………hmm. No evidence of that to date. Lots of evidence that something usually comes from something else. That seems reasonable.

“Life comes from matter…………..hmm, still no evidence of that despite lots of promises. Lots of evidence on a daily basis for billions of years that life comes from life.”

Actually, ever since the Miller-Urey experiments back in 1953, there have been suggestions, not proofs, I grant you, that life might indeed come from non-life. There is currently work going on at UCSD (University of California in San Diego), and doubtless in other research centers, that may drive another nail into the coffin of religious mythology. Stay tuned, but the notion of abiogenesis is not down for the count just yet, and considering how poorly religion has fared when compared with science in accounting satisfactorily for events in the natural world, my money remains on science.

“Let’s look at the score board.

Evidence or experience of something coming from nothing………zero
Evidence or experience of something coming from something……..unlimited
Evidence or experience that life comes from matter………….zero
Evidence that life comes from life…. unlimited.

Conclusion…………… based on available evidence.
This universe most likely comes from somewhere, and life most likely comes from life.

Do the math as to what is a reasonable conclusion of the facts.
Shake off this delusion of anticipation that your light might help someone, and pray go shine it elsewhere.”

Let’s look, briefly, at another score board, Perrari.

Evidence that the world is full of circumstances and events that cause well-nigh unlimited human suffering, and that not all of those circumstances/events can be attributed to man’s “free will” …….. overwhelming and incontrovertible.

Draw your own conclusion as to whether it is reasonable to suppose that there is some deity, who created mankind and in relationship to whom mankind stands as the children of a loving, infinitely good father, and who watches over us and gives a flying rat’s ass what happens to us. I might not expect this entity to try to take away our free-will, a faculty which does indeed often lead us to harm one another — the most recent notable example of which is the shootings in Aurora, Colorado –, but I would expect this entity to do something about those harmful circumstances/events, such as earthquakes, floods, wildfires, pestilences, horrible bodily infirmities, tempests, and the like, over which we humans, to date, have no or only limited control.

Now, about the free-will explanation of the existence of evil, I have only one question, and that has tro do with the relationship between the free-will of someone like James Eagan Holmes, the identified Aurora shooter, and the free-will of his victims. What part did the victims’ free-will play in their obliteration? If there is an infinitely just deity, would such an entity so arrange things that one person’s exercise of his/her free will could take away from many others the ability of ever again exercising their own free will? I mean, if free-will is so all-fired important, mightn’t you expect that this deity of yours would see to it that one person could not destroy the ability of anyone else ever again to exercise it?

Meanwhile I will continue to shine the light of of what I take to be reason, in the direction of anyone who seems to have relatively unimpaired organs of vision, and you, sir, will pray in vain for me not to, much like Governor Rick Perry imploring a fictitious deity to end the drought in Texas.

I think you are muddling up Manu Samhita, the law book for mankind, with the principle of Karma, which is not similar to Old Testament or Islamic laws because it operates outside of mankind’s jurisdiction.

No amount of ‘good’ karma can ever free someone from the material world.

Only the intervention of God, or His appointed servant/son can do that.

That is why one of Krishna’s names is Mukunda, He who gives mukti, or liberation.

The laws of Karma will continue to act until the soul has purified itself of all material contamination. If past sins could be wiped out just by forgiving others, then what was the necessity of Jesus dying on the cross?