All organized religions have one thing in common that destroys them

I was worried that you had abandoned the debate! I will put your statements in bold to reply. Each of the 72 books of the Bible have been inspired by God. Since this debate is about every prophet in history who spoke for God saying "God told me to tell you" (GTMTTY), I fail to understand your first sentence. You are repeating what we already know people have told us. We have been told that the Bible is inspired by God as was the Koran and the book of Mormon and many other writings. The point is, how do we know this? We only know what someone has said. We have no proof at all of such amazing revelation. In fact, it is worse than lack of proof. There is no evidence whatsoever that any of these people heard from God. The Catholic church did not just randomly choose 72 manuscripts, they in fact research thousands of manuscripts and said these 72 books were inspired by God. Well sure, they said they were. The question is, how do you know they were? Did God tell you this like God was speaking to Jim Jones? If you do not know Jim Jones, Google him. Now where does God come into this equation? Each of the writers were inspired by God in their writing and in their research and so was the Popes and the Church when they did there own research into the 72 books of the Bible. Again, you are not debating the problem with this. You are repeating what the problem is. They said GTMTTY. Why would so many different people have such a different message from God if God really did reveal things to them? Why do we have all of these different religions spawned by the very words of someone saying GTMTTY? Let's get serious. Do you have any idea how many millions of people have died through the years because of differences in whom they believed when someone supposedly said GTMTTY? It is still going on right now in the Middle East. There cannot be peace between Israel and the Muslim nations because Israelis believe just Moses and the other OT prophets while the Muslims believe Muhammed. Each said GTMTTY. Both reject the divinity of Jesus who also said GTMTTY. On a side note, there were more than 72 books that could have easily gone in the Bible but the Roman church voted for the 72. They do not even imply that God told them which books to put in. Now the Old Testament is a little more complicated ...Anyway, all the Prophets, that existed, were all inspired by God. Is it because they said so or because God told you this? Some prophets told the people that God said to invade certain cities and: Slay utterly old and young, both maids and little children, and women.... (Ezekiel 9:6) ...slay both man and woman, infant and suckling (1 Samuel 15:3). My friend, are you absolutely certain that a God, who claimed to be a God of love and righteousness really told them to kill babies and totally sweet 7 year olds? Think about your answer because I have another question for you later that will relate to this. Now my opponent asked what makes more sense: 1. You send a prophet, one at a time to convey this message. 2. You reveal to each man, woman and child who ever lived supernaturally in an unmistakeable way so that the message would be completely impossible to misinterpret. No one could possibly claim ignorance or unbelief because it would be plainer than 2 + 2 =4. It would be more obvious than fire being hot or ice being cold. There would not be different religions preaching different messages. There would be no learning process at all. Everyone would know everything there was to know about God and the only responsibility left would be to obey it. Belief would not even be an issue. God could regularly write his message across the sky in every language just to remind everyone that the message was actually coming from him. The problem with the second senario is that it does not allow human beings to have free will. What? What does God's delivery method for mankind's instructions have to do with free will? Nothing. Free will is man's ability to make decisions about what he is told...to be able to make his own decisions. Are you suggesting that God should be so mysterious that we really should not know the plain truth? What if our laws of this land were like this? What if one day I got a ticket for driving a blue car when I had never heard of such a violation. The police officer tells me that it is not an actual written law but if it were, it would interfere with my decision to break it or not (free will). Does that make any sense? I am saying that if God wants to talk to you and has a message for you and he is almighty and can do anything, he does not need a mediator. According to mankind's history of contradictory and destructive religions beliefs, a mediator or prophet is God's only method of contact with us and guess what? A mediator can lie and you have no way to know if and when he is telling you the truth. I would think that God would know that and skip the mediator method and focus on my skywriting plan. Better yet, just write his laws and requirements on the left and right side of our brains and be done with it. Wouldn't that be simple to do for an unlimited almighty God? We would not ever need to debate religion if everyone knew the truth as easy as everyone know fire is hot. So no GTMTTY actually happens in the Bible. You said the Bible is inspired but God did not do any GTMTTY? That is exactly what the Bible is in most of it! It is replete with "Thus says the Lord..." from the prophets over and over again. Have you read the Bible or have you just been told this? I have read all of it. Christianity views every word of it as the "word of God." So do Catholics. Let me give you a demonstration of the fallacy of GTMTTY. Highwayman, God told me to tell you this and I am going to quote as it came from the mouth of God so this is from God to you: "All written documents that pretend to be inspired by God are made up. All religions are wrong. I have decided to reveal the truth to you, Highwayman. My message to you in full will come later but I have one asssignment first for you to prove your loyalty to me. I want you to go and find a gun. I want you to go to the largest daycare center in your area on Wednesday morning and kill three children there including one under six months of age. It is a test of your faith. I want you to leave and go home and I will instruct you further. Thus says the Lord." Now, I want to ask you a very serious question. Do you believe God told me to tell you this? Here is the problem with your answer. If you answer "Yes," you are about to go and commit murder just like the "Godly" Israelites supposedly did except they killed a lot more than three. If you answer "No, I don't believe God told you to tell me that", we have a problem. If you don't believe me, why do you believe other people could get away with GTMTTY? Why, when someone tells you something that is unspeakably horrible, is it wrong for YOU to do but when you read it in a book written thousands of years ago, it is okay? Did they really hear from God but I did not? How would you know? Did God reveal to you which of is being truthful?