[pilliwinks]

In 'most people' I include those that are not particularly skeptical. Whis is most people, in my experience.

Plenty of skeptics seem to be unable to believe anything (including that they are unable to believe anything [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]).

I would be interested to know what things you know are true but are unable to believe.

If I had reasons to believe that 2+2=5, I would definitely consider what might have led to the contradiction rather than dismissing it out of hand.

I understand that you feel that there are contradictions in the descriptions that Christianity gives for God. Fine. All that means is that either you haven't understood what the conflicting statements were intended to convey, or one or more of them was mistaken. God does not vanish just because we attribute foolish attitudes or qualities to him.

In science we are accustomed to our descriptions of objects changing as we get to understand them better. The objects do not change, we do. Consequently I have no problem with the old testament describing a jealous God of wrath, while the new testament focusses on the God of love. All the bleeding hearts should note that we are also told that the new covenant supercedes the old.

I am not saying that there is no such thing as punishment for evil, but I am saying that it comes from a loving father, who takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. You say it is contradictory for God to love someone and to punish them, but I say we simply do not know the constraints. If it were possible for God to give people the freedom to reject him, and yet still somehow live eternally in harmony with him, I guess he would have done that. Since that's not how the bible tells it, I'm guessing that there are constraints that eternity, holiness and truth put on what can happen.

This is not 2+2=5. It is more like saying black holes can't exist because of what happens on the inside. We have such poor data (and even theory), that such an attitude is more rash than skeptical.