Do any Christian theists here still believe in Jesus' eminent arrival upon Earth ?

"When he [Elder Joachim] lived in America, he observed with sorrow the modern spirit which had begun to affect even ecclesiastical matters. He saw priests who thought they could function better in society if they departed from Orthodox tradition. In that worldly atmosphere, Fr. Joachim behaved courageously. He couldn't stand to see Orthodox priests taking off their precious riassas or cutting their hair and beard. It is worth noting that before being tonsured, he made the following prayer to the Mother of God:

"Most Holy Theotokos, when I become a priest, please give me long hair and beard, so that I will look like the priests in my country."

The Mother of God did not deny him his supplication, but fulfilled his desire abundantly. As we stated earlier, the American's wondered at his imposing appearance and his long, full beard. When he finally journeyed to Mount Athos, an astonishing thing happened. His beard grew and lenghtened all the way down to his legs --a phenomenon very rare even in his fatherland. We attributed this to the prayer he made to the Mother of God. In order to move freely and restrain the remarks of others, he was forced to carry his beard in a sack tied around his neck.

1.do we Really need a purpose from god? why not make our own purpose?

2.why did he give us the ability to reason beyond his existence?

3.if, knowing that this life is infinitely shorter than the after life, why would this life determine all of eternity? what is the purpose behind that? why not reincarnation of past and future lives to perpetuate god's purpose in this kind of fashion instead of one short purposeful life dictating our infinite purpose-less after-life?

4.why confess to god? he knows what you did (according to you, he's all-knowing, why does he need you to tell him your sins in the first place?). why not confess to the person(s) that you did wrong to instead?(and wouldn't confessing to god to avoid hell encourage more bad behavior?)

5. if god is omnipotent, and he created us in his image, then does that mean that we're all gods ourselves, able to override his words, his plans, his omnipotence?

6. if god plays dice (quantum mechanics), whats with the all-knowing factor, wouldn't those ideas cancel each other out?

7. why did Jesus (lord in flesh) have us eat his body and drink his blood, why not his Holy spirit be given to us instead of soon-to-be-discarded-meaningless-flesh? (flesh does not enter heaven, & why is his divine if flesh cannot enter into heaven? wasn't it discarded?)

8. what does god need us for? what do we need God for anyway? do we really need god for our purpose in life?

I probably have more, but i can't think of them right now.

I was looking through this thread and realized that both my parents and my brother are atheist.

So why should I respect them?

In discussing Paisley's criticism of the term "freethinker," (http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/13976) the question of how free will is affected by determinism has come up multiple times. Rather than further complicate the existing thread, I've deemed it better to create a new one.

Is it possible to have free will in a deterministic universe?

sapient, your a smart guy.  the sun, burns at the right temperature-perfect distance from from earth . earth, has right amount of spin. moon, pulls ocean currents to keep oceans from going stagnant.. gravity, exact amount. Q: What are the chance these set themselves up all on their own, on a first time go?     

1  in what?

what do most mainstream scholars make of christianities claim that it is unchanged from the early 1st century christians i.e. did early christians have any major differences in belief and worship than current christians?

I haven't posted for a long time. I lost interest in the argument months ago, however Fark isn't providing the distraction from work that it once did so I'm looking for an interesting discussion.
 
I'm not going to try to disprove the existence of God here, in fact most of the time I find that in all honesty I half-believe there is a God in some form. (Standard disclaimer: The opinion presented in the previous statement is that of myself alone and does not represent the views of atheists in general. If any attempt is made to use this as 'evidence' that atheists secretly do believe I'll be very upset, most probably due to real atheists coming around to break my legs. (Secondary disclaimer: For the fundamentalists, that last part was a joke and not intended to be taken literally. Atheists are not like that (please don't hurt me)))
 
Now to the point.
 
A significant part of the major religions (at least on paper) is that God wants us to be excellent to each other (Bill and Ted said it much better than any quote attributed to God or his spokespeople). That part makes sense. God cares how we treat each other. Even the punishment (eternal damnation) although severely disproportionate to the crime makes some sense. If you can't play nice with each other then you are sent to your room for eternity while the good kids get to keep playing together.
 
The part that makes no sense is the stuff the believers seem to obsess over. So here are my questions.
 

...So God basically wrote down a bunch of stuff on Moses's tablets and declared them 'sinful'. You can't break these laws and, if you do, you go to Hell.

Of course, us silly human beings break these laws all the time, so - thankfully for us - Jesus came down and got nailed to a chunk of wood so that we could be forgiven. All we have to do is ask.

This makes zero sense to me as an ethical philosophy. Never mind the scare tactic; how is it ethically reasonable that I can do whatever terrible things I want, but can get the ultimate reward (in the form of Heaven) by simply asking for Jesus's forgiveness? In what way does such a system propose to keep humans 'moral'?

At best, it seems like it's a superficial inconvenience. 'Oh, gee, Jesus - I'm real sorry about kicking-off the Holocaust like that. Can you forgive me?' 'Of course, Adolf. Come on in and pull-up a chair.'

Explain your moral mechanism to me, since I apparently can't figure-out the how and why behind it's operators.

Im in a debate with a catholic friend, his whole argument basically hinges on the catholic church is complete truth etc, so i was wondering can anyone help me find out how many people have actually been killed by the catholic church over the centuries? coz i know recently scholars agreed that the inquisition did not really kill millions and that was just protestant propaganda but it did kill thousands. Im having difficulty finding what i need coz a lot of the resources on the catholic church are from a protestant perspective i.e. saying its the whore of babylon etc. but i want secular resources, mainstream scholars that tell the true death toll of the catholic church. Also can anyone point me to resourcrs that tell me what mainstream scholars view on catholic claims such as popes going all the way back to Peter, peter being in rome etc, because my friend claims that mainstream secular scholars agree with alot of catholic claims and according to him that makes the catholic church true, can anyone help me?