I'm a pagan too

[1hole]

If you are in the military at 17 them your an adult. Been there done that, your responsible for all your actions and you can't blame others. You sound like a Baby Boomer it's everyone else's falt. That would explain your hang up about God.

Dan, I agree with a lot of things you say but I have to disagree about anyone being an "adult" at age 17; I don't think that's possible.

I went into the military at 18, barely out of high school as was also true of virtually all the youths I went in with. I, and the others, had the mental capacity to learn the things our schools taught us. Then, as a group, we had the skills to responsibly do serious work in the field but few - if any - of us had the life experience to vote wisely.

In general. our whole life experience had been living with and being fed by our parents, our every need had been provided by our parents.

So, the military could quickly prepare us to fight vicious battles but they could not make adults out of us by simply training us to operate flamethrowers or aim cannon. Truth is, we were still just 18 year old boys with deadly skills and weapons, we hadn't yet experienced the adult responsibilities that could foster reasoned political votes.

I believe 21 is the youngest reasonable voting age even for those in arms. (And maybe 25 for those with no honorable DD214! ???)

[.429&H110]

Repeatedly in this thread I read "If God..."
Let me help you out of the Epicurian problem.
There is no "if" about God.
"If I were God I wouldn't do that..."
You aren't God. He Is.

[JSnover]

Never will understand why me and my pagen/atheist freinds never have heated debates like this

Probably because they're not trolls, like the OP.
God didn't make this mess on Earth, we did. Why should He clean it up?
None of us can know what the Kingdom of Heaven actually is or what it's purpose might be, but it can't an easy place to get into: You can't let just anyone in.

[Good Cheer]

EDG,
I'm not going to bother reading through all the posts but just answer the query from post #3, "If god is really in control why did he permit the death and the horrors of the war to be inflicted on hundreds of millions of innocent people".
So OK, here goes, from the summer of 1983, who we are and what we're doing here.
No.1
This world is set up as a processing plant. The feed stock gets pumped in, a product gets shipped out and the dross gets tossed.
No.2
Physical death is part of the process until such time as the feed stock is used up and the plant gets shut down.

Available scripture tells about where the feed stock came from, how the plant was set up, the end product, all the way through to plant shut down. Scripture also explains that the feed stock was too precious to throw away so the plant was built.

[JSnover]

Good Cheer is right. We're here for a brief period before moving on to something far more important than anything that happens here.
I don't believe Heaven has much to do with singing God's praise and feelin' alright for the rest of eternity. There's a reason why only those with the bravest of souls and the strongest faith will end up there and this chaotic, dangerous, temptation-filled world is just part of the selection process.
We're being screened for something Big.

[Good Cheer]

Praise.
This morning I asked the wife what she understood about praise as opposed to worship.
We'd never discussed it before. I'd never really dug into it before and looked in the mirror.
Decided I needed to go back into the psalms.