NationStates Jolt Archive

This thread is for people of any religion, but mainly Christians: how do you justify hell?

According to Christianity, God created every single person on this planet
According to Christianity, God gave me a brain, and the ability to reason
With the reasoning and judgement that God alledgedly gave me, according to Christianity, I have decided that Christianity cannot be right
So, I live my life with extremely high standards and high values, doing everything I can to improve society, being 100% responsible and accountable for every action I take, treating others as I would have them treat me, donating my time and money to charitable causes, in general, be as good a person as I can possibly be, while choosing to believe that Jesus Christ is not my saviour.
And I go to hell.
I go to hell, because with the reasoning that god gave me, I have determined that Christ is not my saviour.
Mahatma Gandhi goes to hell, because he was born and raised a Hindu, and despite all the good that came of his actions while he was alive, he is supposedly burning in hell.
4 billion of the people who are on this earth right now, either because they used their reasoning to determine that Christianity was not right, or more likely, because they were raised a different religion and possibly even taught that if they were any religion other than their own, they would go to hell.
Complete scumbags who live their life to make an extra buck on the backs of anyone else, who would slit their own mother's throat for a nickel if they could get away with it, who have no moral sense whatsoever, from the lowliest street thug to the corrupt businessman or politician, but just happen to be Christian, go to church every Sunday and ask god to forgive them for their sins go to heaven.
Adolf Hitler sits in heaven while Mahatma Gandhi burns in hell.
How do Christians justify this?
Frankly, if Christianity is right, then I would rather burn in hell than serve such an evil, merciless, uncaring god.
If God does exist, I should hope he is nothing whatsoever like he is portrayed in Christianity.

Incidentally, I will assume that you have never endured the misfortune of entering Brixton or Jaywick, truly apocalyptic and abhorrent locations wherin I am sure the devil can be found....

If God does exist, I should hope he is nothing whatsoever like he is portrayed in Christianity.

No worries there. God's not even close to what they think of as God.

justifying hell:

a)You have free will to choose to believe in God ... or not.

b)Based on your decision (and how it should affect your thoughts/actions), God will judge you.

Yahweh (Christian God... Jehovah) loves us very much... but he wants us to follow him. The punishment for not doing so... is hell.

(biblically speaking)

No worries there. God's not even close to what they think of as God.

what we think about God doesn't matter... the onus is not upon God to change for us; he calls the shots.

I'm a raised Catholic, and I cannot justify Hell. As such, I don't even try.

I view God as a benevolent entity, who would not have the capacity for such cruelty to create a "Hell".

If the fundamentalists are correct however, and God has no love (or vice-versa hatred) for those who do not believe in Him...I'd rather side with the Devil. But I say this hypotheticaly, because I do not believe it.

Hell is what you make it. :p

You have many good points, Bracadia.
Here are a few of my own:
if God is so great, why do we need to worship him/her/it? Is God insecure or something? If God is so great, shouldnt the fact that we live by the moral code set out for us, even if we dont follow the religious code? Ok, so i dont go to worship God (pretty much never) but if i live my life the way that they say i should (I.E. i'm not an asshole to everyone, and i am a good person) am i going to hell?
My theory is that christianity takes it way too far. Christ himself said before he died "Do not make a religion out of me". I think that all that really matters is that you live the right way and if you are greedy, evil, or whatever, you will get what's coming to you. If you live your life to help others or you at least do help others when they need it, you should also get what's coming to you.
Gandhi, for example, was a Hindu. But he wasn't a religious leader but rather a leader of a cause. He was as close to a god as one can get. He lived most of his life helping India get its freedom, and he sacrificed so much of himself that he nearly died...MANY times...as a result of his lifestyle.
Adolf Hitler, on the other hand, was actually an athiest. He had his book, Mein Kampf, replace all the bibles in the churches of Germany. He never personally killed anyone that we know of, but we do know that he was indeed the one who ordered the death camps and was resposible for the deaths of nearly 12 million people in death camps, and almost 20 million Russian civilians.

I'm a raised Catholic, and I cannot justify Hell. As such, I don't even try.

I view God as a benevolent entity, who would not have the capacity for such cruelty to create a "Hell".

If the fundamentalists are correct however, and God has no love (or vice-versa hatred) for those who do not believe in Him...I'd rather side with the Devil. But I say this hypotheticaly, because I do not believe it.

This is something that makes me smile. A Catholic who isn't afraid to think for himself. Although I disagree with your beliefs, I truly respect you because you appear to have decided to follow them on your own, and do not simply do so blindly.

So, if God creates people and they knowingly defy Him, He is still supposed to let them into heaven? :rolleyes:

That's all it sums up to.

My theory is that christianity takes it way too far. Christ himself said before he died "Do not make a religion out of me". I think that all that really matters is that you live the right way and if you are greedy, evil, or whatever, you will get what's coming to you. If you live your life to help others or you at least do help others when they need it, you should also get what's coming to you.

Yeah...You can blame St. Peter for that one...

<snip>

I've never believed this; I was raised as a Christian, but one of the many problems I have with it it is it's closed-mindedness towards other religions, exactly as you say. My personal beliefs are that I acknowledge the existance of God with no doubt in my mind, and I intend to try to live my life doing good, not bad, and I believe that's all that matters. That's pretty much the core philosophy of any major religion anyway; this way you at least don't get all the control and corruption leading such things as the Inquisition, the Crusades, and countless other wars and political posturing involving the church.

And you believe that people like hitler can simply end their lives by putting a bullet in their mouths without any justice in an afterlife. So the unfairness logic functions on both sides of the issue.

As a christian Hell can be justified. To an atheist or agnostic it can't be justified, because certain things that we theologically accept to be true you don't believe in. However, truth doesn't change depending on whether you believe it or not. Hell follows almost mathematical logic if you believe in the Christian God. We have sinned and have violated God's will. God is a loving God, but also a just God. The punishment for sin is Hell. Jesus Christ took our punishment on the cross. If someone does not accept what christ did they have to take the punishment upon their own shoulders. I don't know how God handles some guy who grew up with no contact with christianity or ever hearing the gospel. What I do know is that you have heard the gospel and continue to deny. Unlike some pagan on an isolated island somewhere, you have no excuse. So my recomendation is to stop worrying about what ghandi is doing right now and think about what is going to happen to you.

If you are so arrogant as to believe that you know better than God and you sincerely believe that you wouldn't like God even if he did exist then you are a perfect candidate for Hell. After all is what created for Satan, who believed the same as you. "I don't think God is fair, I don't like him out of the principle of the matter."

But anyways, I am rambling. And there was really no point in even responding to this thread. You can't argue something like religion using logic. I can't present you a mathematical equation that proves christianity and have you then be saved. Even if there were such a thing you would still not be convinced since you have already made up your mind. That is why I don't get into arguments about my religion any more, until someone's heart is ready they will continue to reject what I say no matter how good my arguments are.

Hell is just a myth, it is a metaphor for the illusion of separation from God.

This is something that makes me smile. A Catholic who isn't afraid to think for himself. Although I disagree with your beliefs, I truly respect you because you appear to have decided to follow them on your own, and do not simply do so blindly.

I believe in God, but I do not believe in being chained.

One poem at the Saint's Mausoleum reads:
If a man follows the path of sincerity,
Though he does not pray,
Will not the gods protect him?

Someone asked, "What is this path of sincerity?"

He was answered. "You seem to like poetry, so I shall answer you with a poem;
Since all of life is but a sham,
Death is the only Sincerity.

It is said that becoming as a dead man and followign thsi path of sincerity, one shall not err in all his endeavors.
Hagakure

I'm a raised Catholic, and I cannot justify Hell. As such, I don't even try.

I view God as a benevolent entity, who would not have the capacity for such cruelty to create a "Hell".

If the fundamentalists are correct however, and God has no love (or vice-versa hatred) for those who do not believe in Him...I'd rather side with the Devil. But I say this hypotheticaly, because I do not believe it.
What he said.

So, if God creates people and they knowingly defy Him, He is still supposed to let them into heaven? :rolleyes:

That's all it sums up to.
Well, assuming a god created everything, what bearing does that have on whether said god's own actions are morally right?

If I were to have children, would it not be wrong for me to set a ridiculous standard for them, and then abuse them when they didn't meet up to it? Yet didn't I(and my partner) create that child?

What if I were to program an artificial intelligence? Let's hypothetically say it was just like a human mind, with desires, and dreams, and a will, and all that.
Would I, as its creeator, have the right to do what I choose with it?

What gives God any more right to do evil than humans?

Hell is just a myth, it is a metaphor for the illusion of separation from God.
Yeah, I'm always amused when people immediately think of the 'fire and brimstone' version of hell. I don't think this is what it's like.

I've never believed this; I was raised as a Christian, but one of the many problems I have with it it is it's closed-mindedness towards other religions, exactly as you say. My personal beliefs are that I acknowledge the existance of God with no doubt in my mind, and I intend to try to live my life doing good, not bad, and I believe that's all that matters. That's pretty much the core philosophy of any major religion anyway; this way you at least don't get all the control and corruption leading such things as the Inquisition, the Crusades, and countless other wars and political posturing involving the church.

If there are other ways to get to heaven then why on earth would God send his son to die a painful death. As a christian such an idea is impossible to believe. There is only one way to get to heaven, and that is what crist di for us. If God knew that there were two ways to get forgiveness, live a good life or accept the death of christ, he would have simply not sent his sun to his death.

OK, a few points. First - God gave us free will, so we could be free. Unfortunately we choose to use that freedom to screw around and disobey his laws - don't tell me you've never done anything bad. Even lying, breaking rules and even swearing count as rebellion against God. So yes, we all sin (incidentally 'sin' is nothing more or less than rebellion against God) and yet, as you haven't accepted Jesus as the Christ, and haven't asked God for forgiveness for those sins, he can't (or won't) forgive you, so you can't be in Heaven because you haven't confessed of, and been forgiven for, your sins. That's what free will is about. He gave it to us to be free, and yet we use it to deny him - that wasn't what He intended it for, but He's not gonna stop us, because then it wouldn't be free would it?

Second, you say murderers etc and Hitler are sitting in Heaven because they are Christian; that's not how it works. Being Christian isn't like a magic golden ticket to Paradise, you actually have to really believe and really confess your sins, not just say you do, or you have. You have to seek God's forgiveness, and you have to repent. And repentance isn't just saying 'sorry' then going and doing it again, then repeating the proces. Repentance is a sinceere promise that you will not do that again, whatever it may have been. Sure you'll fail - it's human nature to fail, we'll all fail, but you have to try , that's the important thing, and when you fail you have to be genuinly sorry, and again you have to do your best not to do it again.

Thirdly you say Hell, and it seems to me think of it too, as some place of fire and smoke with a Devil with horns and goat legs and a trident. That's not what Hell is. Hell is an eternity without God - God is all that is good right? So a complete and total absence of God is an absence of all that is good. Hell isn't somewhere where you're burned up in fire, but somewhere where you have to suffer an eternity without anything good. Mahatma Ghandi isn't being burned for not believing in God, he's just getting what he asked for. He denied Christ (he knew about Christianity perfectly well, but he didn't accept it) so now Christ is denying him - leaving him in a place without God. That's the deal with all non-believers; they tell God to rack off and leave them alone, so God does - in the end completely. That seems harsh in the case of people like Ghandi perhaps, but then why should God let you be in his place of perfect rest and paradise when you've told him to bugger off?

Incidentally, it says in the Bible (somewhere in John I believe - the Gospel) that when Jesus died, he spent the three days he was dead preaching to those who hadn't had a chance to believe - basically everyone who'd gone before him and had died. We don't need that you see, because we've got His living Word to guide us. Ghandi and Hitler had their chances, and so does and did everyone else. As I said in the free will bit, it's all up to us from there.

And if this still seems wrong to you there's a perfectly simple explaination; my explaination is bad. I'm human, everyone else is human, and God is completely beyond our comprehension. How can we, who can't even create a single atom possibly hope to comprehend the mind and plan of someone who created the entire Universe? He is completely beyond our comprehension, so therefore any attempt we make to explain his design for us can never be anything more than the roughest of approximations, like if the average Joe tried to explain quantum physics, only much more so.

God gave us rules, we don't obey them, so by rights He can (as supreme being) do whatever He wants to punish us. By His unbelievable grace, He gives us a chance. How much more caring can you get? Added to that, who ever said we get a say in the matter? Take what you're given. When you realise there is a God (and I hope for your sake you don't find that out too late) then I hope you realise that he's nothing like the twisted conception of the Christian God you seem to think He is.

Well, assuming a god created everything, what bearing does that have on whether said god's own actions are morally right?

If I were to have children, would it not be wrong for me to set a ridiculous standard for them, and then abuse them when they didn't meet up to it? Yet didn't I(and my partner) create that child?

What if I were to program an artificial intelligence? Let's hypothetically say it was just like a human mind, with desires, and dreams, and a will, and all that.
Would I, as its creeator, have the right to do what I choose with it?

What gives God any more right to do evil than humans?

That's a good way of thinking about it.

From what I've seen, the best parents are nuturing, but let their kids mess up and make mistakes, without any need for severe punishment.

If there are other ways to get to heaven then why on earth would God send his son to die a painful death. As a christian such an idea is impossible to believe. There is only one way to get to heaven, and that is what crist di for us. If God knew that there were two ways to get forgiveness, live a good life or accept the death of christ, he would have simply not sent his sun to his death.
And what about all the other religions in the world? Islam has a heaven as far as I know, and as far as I know there is no mention of God's son dying in the Koran. How can you be so bloody certain that your religion is the one true one? every religion claims this!! if God would turn truly good people out of heaven simply because they followed another religion, then is heaven truly worth being in?

This thread is for people of any religion, but mainly Christians: how do you justify hell?

According to Christianity, God created every single person on this planet
According to Christianity, God gave me a brain, and the ability to reason
With the reasoning and judgement that God alledgedly gave me, according to Christianity, I have decided that Christianity cannot be right
So, I live my life with extremely high standards and high values, doing everything I can to improve society, being 100% responsible and accountable for every action I take, treating others as I would have them treat me, donating my time and money to charitable causes, in general, be as good a person as I can possibly be, while choosing to believe that Jesus Christ is not my saviour.
And I go to hell.
I go to hell, because with the reasoning that god gave me, I have determined that Christ is not my saviour.
Mahatma Gandhi goes to hell, because he was born and raised a Hindu, and despite all the good that came of his actions while he was alive, he is supposedly burning in hell.
4 billion of the people who are on this earth right now, either because they used their reasoning to determine that Christianity was not right, or more likely, because they were raised a different religion and possibly even taught that if they were any religion other than their own, they would go to hell.
Complete scumbags who live their life to make an extra buck on the backs of anyone else, who would slit their own mother's throat for a nickel if they could get away with it, who have no moral sense whatsoever, from the lowliest street thug to the corrupt businessman or politician, but just happen to be Christian, go to church every Sunday and ask god to forgive them for their sins go to heaven.
Adolf Hitler sits in heaven while Mahatma Gandhi burns in hell.
How do Christians justify this?
Frankly, if Christianity is right, then I would rather burn in hell than serve such an evil, merciless, uncaring god.
If God does exist, I should hope he is nothing whatsoever like he is portrayed in Christianity.
your problem doesnt seem to be with the concept of hell but of the criteria that will get someone sent there.

biblically speaking, you can believe in hell as the place of eternal torment where the evil go after they die, or you can believe in hell as the place that satan and his minions live but no people are ever sent there (the wages of sin are death).

only GOD knows who goes to hell. some people claim that you (personally) "qualify" some would say that non believers who live a good life will not be damned so you will never go to hell. the only way to know who is right is to die.

so rant at those who have odd notions of who god would send to hell. the concept of hell itself is defendable.

it's as simple as this...if something sounds right to you...believe in it....if it doesn't sound right to you...don't believe in it....that's what's so great about religion as a whole...you believe what you feel like you need to believe....and just to generalize and say Christians....in every Christian denomination you will find similarities yes...but also differences...IE...God, Jesus, and Holy Ghost being the same....or three different entities....two beliefs...but both Christian belief's....

I feel that there is good in every religion...and also bad....you can't say..."The Crusades were bad so are all Christians"...umm....that was the Pope and the Christian Rulers....not the entire Christian world....personally...being a Christian myself...people in other religions tend to be more religious than alot of Christians you meet....i respect the Muslims for their zealous belief in their religion...the Buddhists for their philosophies and tendency for peace...every religion has something good to offer...

still...what it comes down to is believing in what you think is right...period

justifying hell:

a)You have free will to choose to believe in God ... or not.

b)Based on your decision (and how it should affect your thoughts/actions), God will judge you.

Yahweh (Christian God... Jehovah) loves us very much... but he wants us to follow him. The punishment for not doing so... is hell.

(biblically speaking)

I love this one. Here you go:
I've used my reasoning to come to the conclusions I have made. At this point, very little will change my mind. You would need some pretty powerful evidence to do so.
I can say that I believe in God all I want, but that won't make it true
I can say that I believe that Jesus is my saviour all I want, but that will not make it true.
It would be the equivalent of me telling you that I believe that putting my hand in a pot of boiling water is good for me. No matter what I ever think or do or say, I will not believe that. When I die, I still will not believe that putting my hand in a pot of boiling water is good for me no matter what I ever do or think or say.
If I went to the pearly gates when I died and St Peter asked me if I believed that putting my hand in a pot of boiling water was good for me, and I said "yes" because I thought it would keep me from going to hell, I would be lying. There is nothing I can do to change that, and there is nothing that will change that belief until I get some good, hard evidence to show me otherwise.
In the same way, if I died and went to the pearly gates and St Peter asked me if I believed that Jesus Christ was my saviour and I said yes, I would be lying. I could sit there and tell him I believed Jesus Christ was my saviour until I was blue in the face, but because I in fact do not, I would be sent to hell, according to Christianity. I do not truly believe that Christ is my saviour, and there is nothing I can do to change that fundamental belief in myself. I can't just decide one day that I believe Christ is my saviour, just because I don't want to risk going to hell, the same way you can't just flip a switch one day and decide that you believe that putting your hand in a pot of boiling water is good for you. Because of that, according to Christianity, I go to hell. But like I said before, if Christianity were true, I would much, much rather be in hell than serving that kind of a tyrranical God who is so conceited that he decides to condemn every single person who either uses his own god-given reasoning to determine that god doesn't exist or that christianity is wrong, or was born into the wrong culture.

it's as simple as this...if something sounds right to you...believe in it....if it doesn't sound right to you...don't believe in it....that's what's so great about religion as a whole...you believe what you feel like you need to believe....and just to generalize and say Christians....in every Christian denomination you will find similarities yes...but also differences...IE...God, Jesus, and Holy Ghost being the same....or three different entities....two beliefs...but both Christian belief's....

I feel that there is good in every religion...and also bad....you can't say..."The Crusades were bad so are all Christians"...umm....that was the Pope and the Christian Rulers....not the entire Christian world....personally...being a Christian myself...people in other religions tend to be more religious than alot of Christians you meet....i respect the Muslims for their zealous belief in their religion...the Buddhists for their philosophies and tendency for peace...every religion has something good to offer...

still...what it comes down to is believing in what you think is right...period

Very well said.

your problem doesnt seem to be with the concept of hell but of the criteria that will get someone sent there.

biblically speaking, you can believe in hell as the place of eternal torment where the evil go after they die, or you can believe in hell as the place that satan and his minions live but no people are ever sent there (the wages of sin are death).

only GOD knows who goes to hell. some people claim that you (personally) "qualify" some would say that non believers who live a good life will not be damned so you will never go to hell. the only way to know who is right is to die.

so rant at those who have odd notions of who god would send to hell. the concept of hell itself is defendable.

I for one do not see the concept of Hell as defendable. Human life is mortal, finite, and very frail. We have roughly anywhere from 1-100 years to do something with ourselves.

Hell, supposedly, is infinite, eternal suffering. I do not see how anything commited in such a short time span (100 years is SQUAT in the grand scheme of things), could warrant ETERNAL torment.

<sarcasm>you don't justify hell you just believe what the priests say and life is easier</sarcasm>

Incidentally, I will assume that you have never endured the misfortune of entering Brixton or Jaywick, truly apocalyptic and abhorrent locations wherin I am sure the devil can be found....

No, I'm quite sure Hell is actually Fresno, California. And there is surely no justification for Fresno.

Greetings.
The idea of the afterlife, another eternal question presented time and time again in theological discussions. The most heatedly debated fate is that of the sinner in Christianity. What happens to him? Why is he there? Why is Ghandi roasting on a red hot spit for eternity?
The Christian idea of Hell is debated even within Christian circles. Some interpret Hell to be a place of fire and brimstone with demons raking their claws over the souls of the condemned. However, what must be realized is that, despite the vocal supporters of this idea, is that very few Christians actually subscribe to this philosophy. The more common theological position is that of Hell being a place that is not in the presence of God. The difference is that the people realize that fact and are internally tortured by it. No fire, no brimstone, just unbearable despair. Final theological idea, nonexistance. Sinners are simply blotted out of the existing world, they are nothing.
Out of these theological endings only the first involves immense pain.
Now as for Ghandi specifically being condemned. There is a common school of thought in Christianity that states that people are responsible for knowing God as much as is possible for them. For example, the native in Australia cannot know God almost at all, he is not able to learn of Him because he is in the middle of nowhere with no access to the outside. However, he realizes that there is a higher force and worships that unknown force. The idea maintains that the native has done all he can to understand God, and thus will be saved.
Just some clarifications.
- Rachel Stremp
Head of Philosophy, Tyslan

Before I say anything - please, if you disagree with me, simply disagree, and don't go off on me about my religion. I've gotten that a little too much.

I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and we have a somewhat different defintion of hell - it is, really, the absence of improvement. You're stuck where you are - for all eternity - never getting better or worse, while those who attain perfection through Christ's Atonement (repentance and forgiveness brings perfection, since your sins are washed away) can become better and will progress to higher planes of existence.

Here's how this hell is justified: everyone has the chance to accept or reject Christ based on perfect knowledge. Whereas many other churches believe that the Earth is the end and after it is the judgment, we believe that there is an intermediate step: the spirit world referred to in 1 Peter, where Christ ministered in those three days between his death and resurrection. Those who are righteous in life will also have the chance to minister after they die. Thus, everyone will be able to make the decision of whether to follow Christ or not based off a perfect knowledge given by Christ and not on the merits of the various churches on Earth.

In addition, I believe that good people - Mahatma Gandhi, for one - who accepted the message of Christ (especially the Sermon on the Mount) even if it was in a different form (maybe another religion) will recognize it in the spirit world and follow Christ for who he is and not what his "followers" say.

That's my belief.

The best justification I saw for hell was that there wasn't one. People who don't believe in God just cease, they die, they rot, and that is the end of it for them. If, however, you put yourself alongside him, he'll sweep you up for a quick cuddle/pat on the head and you get scooted along to heaven with everyone else. Hell was just put into play as a sort of visualization, it is easier for people to imagine getting the shit kicked out of them for all eternity than it is for them to imagine not being.

Finally, I think that people who say "I would rather go to hell than serve a Christian God because he is a big mean head" are among the stupidest sort that you can find.
Why do you think that the supreme being in the universe would need your approval? Why should someone who is superior to you care about you at all? What makes you worthy of judging a god?

:) Ok, now I have to clarify a few things. Most may not agree, but it should answer your question.

Before we were born, we were spirits. We are spirit sons and daughters of God. But God has a body. We did not. He created a plan whereby we could gain a body and be like him. We also needed to prove that we would remain faithful to him after recieving the gift of a body.

So God created the world. He created Adam and Eve. When he set them in Eden, he gave them two commandments- Eat not of the Tree of Knowledge, and multiply and replenish the earth, or have children. But they were not mortal at the time, and were innocent. They couldn't have children. When they ate the forbidden fruit, they became mortal, and could have children. But because they had broken a commandment, they could not return to God, because God does not allow sin in his kingdom.

But provision was made for made for that by God. He would send his oldest spirit son, Jesus, and because he would be, and was, sinless, he could pay the price for our sins, so that those who would believe on him, and repent of sin, and keep the commandments, could return to God. Part of this is constantly repenting of wrong, and always keeping commandments. But since we sometimes fail, Jesus made it possible to repent, and start anew. His atonement also repaired the death that separates our spirits from our bodies. When he was resurrected, he overcame death. His body and spirit were reunited in physical perfection. He cannot die. That part was an unconditional gift. All people will be resurrected.

When all are resurrected, we will stand before God on Judgment Day. Those who believed in Christ, repented, and diligently kept the commandments, Christ will claim, and they will return to live with God forever, in what is called the Celestial Kingdom, or the realm where God dwells, and become like him.

Those who were good people, but diligent, will still be blessed to live in the Terrestrial Kingdom. They cannot live with God or Jesus, but Jesus will visit them. They too will live forever.

Those who were wicked, but never accepted the Gospel, will be sent to a Telestial Kingdom. They will never see God or Jesus, but Angels and the Holy Ghost will visit them.

Only those who openly accept Christ, know of a surety the truth, and then turn on it, and come out in open rebellion against God after recieving the fullness of the gospel, will be cast down to Hell, known as Outer Darkness, where Satan and his minions reside. They will live in eternal torment.

There is also one other place referred to as Hell. That is in the spirit world, or where our spirits reside between death and resurrection and Judgment Day. It is divided into two, Spirit Paradise, and Spirit Prison. Those who were diligent in this life, reside in Paradise. Those who did not know the truth or who did not live worthy lives, live in Prison. It's not necessarily bad. Those who did not have a chance to accept Christ in this life, have a full chance in the Spirit world. The dead still have a chance. But those who knew, but did not live right, will not make it to the Celetial Kingdom, for they already had multiple chances. But God is the ultimate judge. He will lavish as much as he can on every one as he possibly can. But there are limits to rewards based on worthiness. All Kingdoms are infinitly more pleasant than this world, except for Outer Darkness.

I testify that this is true. In Jesus' name, Amen.

hahaha!

see...i feel like if you aren't thinking for yourself...then what is the point in being religious at all...the reason you are to be religious is because you THOUGHT about what kind of belief you believe in...you thought about what you wanted to believe...i also repeat myself...noone should be able to come up to you and say you are going to hell.....as a Christian are you not supposed to judge? if so...then what gives you the right to tell anyone that they are going to hell or their religion is a false one....now if it's like a Charlie Manson cult i guess i might understand...but if i went up to a Muslim and told him he is going to hell...that is not right...

there are great people and horrible people in every religion...it's the same no matter where you go...to say that God goes around damning people...if you practice what you preach...then you are one of the hipocrites you talk about...we can't decide who goes to hell...we do not have that authority...

but once again...you should believe in whatever sounds the best to you

The Plan Of Happiness!!!
Yes!!!

:) Ok, now I have to clarify a few things. Most may not agree, but it should answer your question. (etc...)
Very well said.

I'd just like to bring something up that has been bugging me. Some people have been saying that if one does not believe in God, then Hell is the result.

But honestly...Who is to say that we are the ones that have the correct religion. Civilization has existed for thousands of years before Christ, and it seemed to do fine. Who is to say that Christianity (which, in the begining started out as nothing more than a cult that just got lucky) is the correct religion. Who is to say that it isn't the Buddhists, or the Muslims, or the Pagans, or any of the other hundreds of religions?

And before any other Christian calls me an unbeliever, I see it as my duty to question.

:) Those who did not know the truth or who did not live worthy lives, live in Prison. It's not necessarily bad.


Soooo... my little sister is going to get locked up in a prison cause she's a daolist....


All I'm hearing is that god wants us to worship him...if I were seperated from my parents and they came back and found out that I had grown up to be a kind man who helped everyone as much as I could, I don't think they would care that I didn't know who my real parents were.

And you believe that people like hitler can simply end their lives by putting a bullet in their mouths without any justice in an afterlife. So the unfairness logic functions on both sides of the issue.
Even being responsible for 20 million deaths does not justify an eternity of damnation. So you can guess what I think about what a person who lives a good life but chooses not to believe in your religion deserves.

If you are so arrogant as to believe that you know better than God
Did I ever say that I know better than God? No, I said that I used my reasoning to determine my beliefs. I did not say my beliefs were correct, nor did I claim to know what god does not, if god does exist

and you sincerely believe that you wouldn't like God even if he did exist then you are a perfect candidate for Hell.
Again, I did not say that I wouldn't like God even if he did exist, I said that I wouldn't like the Christian version of God if he existed and that's what he turned out to be. Learn to read, you arrogant prick.

One thing I didn't mention was how contradictory the idea of hell actually makes the Christian definition of God, and how inconsistent that definition is.

Anyway, if God wants to send me to hell for being an agnostic, then that's where I would rather be than serving him, because if that were the case, then he truly would be more evil than good.

Well, assuming a god created everything, what bearing does that have on whether said god's own actions are morally right?

If I were to have children, would it not be wrong for me to set a ridiculous standard for them, and then abuse them when they didn't meet up to it? Yet didn't I(and my partner) create that child?

What if I were to program an artificial intelligence? Let's hypothetically say it was just like a human mind, with desires, and dreams, and a will, and all that.
Would I, as its creeator, have the right to do what I choose with it?

What gives God any more right to do evil than humans?

God is God... he is the judge, not us. Far be it from us to question him. (at least that's my take on it... we aren't the bosses)

Soooo... my little sister is going to get locked up in a prison cause she's a daolist....
Who knows? Besides, it's not a purgatory, and we believe that if she is a good person - a feat capable of anyone in any faith, really - she won't be there long at all (again, it's not a punishment, just a "waiting room" to be taught, basically). Everyone has a chance.


All I'm hearing is that god wants us to worship him...if I were seperated from my parents and they came back and found out that I had grown up to be a kind man who helped everyone as much as I could, I don't think they would care that I didn't know who my real parents were.
Exactly.

Originally Posted by Neo-Anarchists
Well, assuming a god created everything, what bearing does that have on whether said god's own actions are morally right?

If I were to have children, would it not be wrong for me to set a ridiculous standard for them, and then abuse them when they didn't meet up to it? Yet didn't I(and my partner) create that child?

What if I were to program an artificial intelligence? Let's hypothetically say it was just like a human mind, with desires, and dreams, and a will, and all that.
Would I, as its creeator, have the right to do what I choose with it?

What gives God any more right to do evil than humans?

God doesn't abuse us for not meeting His standards - He only gives us what we want. We decide we don't want Him in our lives, so He says 'ok' and leaves us there - in Hell. He doesn't punish us for doing wrong, He gives us what we deserve for consistently refusing to do right.

Originally posted by Brockadia

In the same way, if I died and went to the pearly gates and St Peter asked me if I believed that Jesus Christ was my saviour and I said yes, I would be lying. I could sit there and tell him I believed Jesus Christ was my saviour until I was blue in the face, but because I in fact do not, I would be sent to hell, according to Christianity. I do not truly believe that Christ is my saviour, and there is nothing I can do to change that fundamental belief in myself.
...
There is nothing I can do to change that, and there is nothing that will change that belief until I get some good, hard evidence to show me otherwise.

You've got all the evidence you could ever need to believe in Jesus - read the Bible. And on't just say 'oh I know it's all rubbish'. Have ever actually really read the Gospels? Or any of the epistles (New Testament)? It actually tells us in the Gospels that this is our evidence - they're eye witness accounts, what more evidence do you need. BTW, I know I quoted you out of order there, but it conveyed the meaning that I was arguing against more clearly.

Again, I did not say that I wouldn't like God even if he did exist, I said that I wouldn't like the Christian version of God if he existed and that's what he turned out to be.

How can you possibly say that? Everything you've posted so far has shown that you really - and I mean really - don't understand the Christian God. Do yourself a favour and make sure you know what the Christian God is actually like before you go claiming that He's evil.

One thing I didn't mention was how contradictory the idea of hell actually makes the Christian definition of God, and how inconsistent that definition is.

Anyway, if God wants to send me to hell for being an agnostic, then that's where I would rather be than serving him, because if that were the case, then he truly would be more evil than good.

How? How does any of that make sense? Please explain how the idea of Hell is contradictory, or how God granting your wish of Him leaving you alone makes Him evil and not you. And I don't mean that as a flame - I don't understand and would genuinly like you to explain.

All I'm hearing is that god wants us to worship him...if I were seperated from my parents and they came back and found out that I had grown up to be a kind man who helped everyone as much as I could, I don't think they would care that I didn't know who my real parents were.

Very well put.

I for one do not see the concept of Hell as defendable. Human life is mortal, finite, and very frail. We have roughly anywhere from 1-100 years to do something with ourselves.

Hell, supposedly, is infinite, eternal suffering. I do not see how anything commited in such a short time span (100 years is SQUAT in the grand scheme of things), could warrant ETERNAL torment.
that is why it is also biblically correct to believe that hell is ONLY the place where satan lives and that no person is ever sent there.

the jehova's witnessess, for example, believe that when you die YOU DIE, and that, as is written very clearly in the bible, on "judgement day" the righteous will rise from the grave to live in bliss on the earth for eternity. those who dont make the grade simply continue to be dead. no eternal torment.

Even being responsible for 20 million deaths does not justify an eternity of damnation. So you can guess what I think about what a person who lives a good life but chooses not to believe in your religion deserves.


Did I ever say that I know better than God? No, I said that I used my reasoning to determine my beliefs. I did not say my beliefs were correct, nor did I claim to know what god does not, if god does exist


Again, I did not say that I wouldn't like God even if he did exist, I said that I wouldn't like the Christian version of God if he existed and that's what he turned out to be. Learn to read, you arrogant prick.

One thing I didn't mention was how contradictory the idea of hell actually makes the Christian definition of God, and how inconsistent that definition is.

Anyway, if God wants to send me to hell for being an agnostic, then that's where I would rather be than serving him, because if that were the case, then he truly would be more evil than good.


couple things:

a)the idea of hell is not contradictory at all... it's made clear that denying Christ means that you will spend eternity in hell, where there will be "weeping and gnashing of teeth".

b)Hell is not going to be some nice vacation hot-spot... it's not something to look forward to. it was created for the sake of punishing those who do not follow Jesus' mandate to believe in him. I always chuckle when I hear somebody say they'd rather be in hell than heaven because they hate God. It's like wishing for an endless root canal without anesthesia/pain-killers.

Finally, I think that people who say "I would rather go to hell than serve a Christian God because he is a big mean head" are among the stupidest sort that you can find.
Why do you think that the supreme being in the universe would need your approval? Why should someone who is superior to you care about you at all? What makes you worthy of judging a god?

I assume you are refering to Moi.

I've read and heard many things about God. I have made up my own mind. I believe that God is a benevolent being who doesn't have the the cruelty neccessary to cast those who have commited wrongs in a finite, mortal life to an eternity of Hell.

But there are those who believe that God is capable of such hatred and cruelty. That He is a fickle, jealous and vengeful god who'd think nothing of tormenting the souls of the "unbelievers".

That doesn't seem right. As such, should I ever learn that that is the only God in heaven that exists, I'm saying I'd rather side along with the devil. What would be the difference?

But I think that'll be unneccessary, since if God truly is an all-encompassing being of good, I won't have to resort to that.

The biggest problem comes with what happens to those who don't even get a chance to join Christianity. What about the people who lived in, say, Japan 1900 years ago? They had their own beliefs and nobody knew about Christianity at all. For that matter, neither would Jeudaism have been heard of. So are they doomed to an afterlife without God through no fault of their own? And what about people living in Africa now who know only about their local customs? They don't know what Christianity is, so will they lose out as well? Is that fair?

Somebody mentioned that God is just. I disagree if we accept God at face value. There is no justice in denying people access to perhaps the greatest thing they can ever have due to circumstances beyond their control. Contrary to what some here seem to think, and on a different tangent to my last point, belief can not be chosen. If to be rewarded with God's presence in the afterlife you need to accept him in to your heart and mind, then I simply can not do it. I can no easier believe in Christianity than I can, say, change my sexuality or make myself enjoy the taste of coffee. So how can I be punished when I don't even get a choice over what I follow. You can argue that humans are given free will by their God to do with as they please, but the reality is that you just don't get much of a say over things. You believe what you do, and that's that.

Artur Koestler, in an audience with the Sanchakaracharya (?) of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam:
"There was a silence; only the nose-picking discipline kept up his activities. So I embarked on an anecdote - about the Jesuit priest who was asked how he would reconcile God's all-embracing love with the idea of eternal Hell, and who answered: 'Yes, Hell does exist, but it is always empty.' "

God is real, Jesus is real, the Holy Spirit is real, and sadly, Hell is real. I say sadly because not I nor does God want anyone to go to hell. Hell was a result of sin. When Adam and Eve sinned they brought sin into the world and everyone is a sinner at birth, but a baby will not go to hell. They don't know what is right from wrong. When you get older and learn what is right or wrong then, if you are not a Christian, you will go to hell. God loves all of us and he wants us to love him back. Christianity is not just a religion, it is a relationship with God. I pray that no one goes to hell, even the worst people, even though they deserve hell, they can go to heaven. That shows that he is a caring God. He doesn't want you to go to hell and he will forgive you for each and every sin no matter what it was. You just have to humble yourself and ask for forgiveness. It is as simple as that, but that doesn't mean you can go back to your sinful ways, you must obey his commandments and follow him. Hell is a horrible place, just think about: burnign forever and ever, not a million years and then you are done, forever! That should scare anyone. Then think about heaven: living with God forever and ever, that is great. The choice is up to you, you can be a sinner and go to hell, or become a Christian and go to heaven. This is not my opinion and everyone has there own opinion, this is fact. Whether you choose to believe it or not. Hell is real and those in it now would glady come back and tell you so, don't get caught as an unbeliever, become a Christian and follow God. If you want to become a Christian just ask God for forgiveness and mean it. Then go to a local church, a good Christian church that follows the Bible, and ask a minister how you can start your walk with God.

God is real, Jesus is real, the Holy Spirit is real, and sadly, Hell is real. I say sadly because not I nor does God want anyone to go to hell. Hell was a result of sin. When Adam and Eve sinned they brought sin into the world and everyone is a sinner at birth, but a baby will not go to hell. They don't know what is right from wrong. When you get older and learn what is right or wrong then, if you are not a Christian, you will go to hell. God loves all of us and he wants us to love him back. Christianity is not just a religion, it is a relationship with God. I pray that no one goes to hell, even the worst people, even though they deserve hell, they can go to heaven. That shows that he is a caring God. He doesn't want you to go to hell and he will forgive you for each and every sin no matter what it was. You just have to humble yourself and ask for forgiveness. It is as simple as that, but that doesn't mean you can go back to your sinful ways, you must obey his commandments and follow him. Hell is a horrible place, just think about: burnign forever and ever, not a million years and then you are done, forever! That should scare anyone. Then think about heaven: living with God forever and ever, that is great. The choice is up to you, you can be a sinner and go to hell, or become a Christian and go to heaven. This is not my opinion and everyone has there own opinion, this is fact. Whether you choose to believe it or not. Hell is real and those in it now would glady come back and tell you so, don't get caught as an unbeliever, become a Christian and follow God. If you want to become a Christian just ask God for forgiveness and mean it. Then go to a local church, a good Christian church that follows the Bible, and ask a minister how you can start your walk with God.

Thats what everyone its talking about why would God give a damn if we believed in him or not, I believe that as long as someone helps other people, you don't have to be a saint, you will go to heaven. If my long lost dad came into my house and said "I'm your dad". I don't think he would send me to burn for eternity because I thought someone else was.

my point is, you can believe in hell without believing the worst most ugly versions of it. you can believe that only the worst people go there IE hitler and pol pot or you can believe that no one goes there. you dont have to believe that because you slept in one sunday back in '89 that you never got around to confessing that you are doomed to eternal torment.

Originally posted by Heth
If to be rewarded with God's presence in the afterlife you need to accept him in to your heart and mind, then I simply can not do it. I can no easier believe in Christianity than I can, say, change my sexuality or make myself enjoy the taste of coffee. So how can I be punished when I don't even get a choice over what I follow. You can argue that humans are given free will by their God to do with as they please, but the reality is that you just don't get much of a say over things. You believe what you do, and that's that.

If that was the case then no religion would ever gain new converts. Since people convert to religions - not just Christianity but pretty much all the others as well - on a daily basis in huge numbers, then clearly you can affect and change what you believe. I expect that it's just a case of being presented with the evidence - preferably in a convincing manner :p

Originally posted by Karaska
Thats what everyone its talking about why would God give a damn if we believed in him or not, I believe that as long as someone helps other people, you don't have to be a saint, you will go to heaven.

God gives a damn because not believing in Him means rejecting Him - telling Him to leave you alone and not interfere with your life. So He does. He loves us, but He's also just, so he gives us what we deserve if He can't give us what He'd like to give us (eternal life) which He can't (or won't) if we don't believe in Him, since we need to ask His forgiveness to receive it. And He really does want us to go to Heaven - because He loves us, each and every one.

You've got all the evidence you could ever need to believe in Jesus - read the Bible. And on't just say 'oh I know it's all rubbish'. Have ever actually really read the Gospels? Or any of the epistles (New Testament)? It actually tells us in the Gospels that this is our evidence - they're eye witness accounts, what more evidence do you need. BTW, I know I quoted you out of order there, but it conveyed the meaning that I was arguing against more clearly.

Ah, yes. The Bible.

To be perfectly honest, a tome created centuries ago by individuals who can put...whatever...they want in it and call it the truth, does not seem like sufficient proof. At best I look upon the Bible as a guide.

I find my proof by other means.

justifying hell:

a)You have free will to choose to believe in God ... or not.




But does one really have free will when it comes to religious belief? I know from my personal experience that I do not, I believe only what I must believe, only what my experience, revelation and reason allow me to believe. Let me do my version of Pascal's Wager for you, just for one moment can you believe that Prometheus was chained to the rock with a raven eating his liver every day as punishment for helping us? If you can choose to believe this, for just one moment, I will give you $10,000. After that moment you can go back to being the religion you were before. You have nothing to loose and $10,000 to gain, can you do it? I know that I can not, no matter what bribes or threats are offered, I can not change my believes on a whim. I might go as far as saying that mature beliefs are forged in our lifes experiences and can't be discarded willy-nilly like a pair of old socks.

So I ask again, do you really have a choice when it comes to religious belief, my personal experience is that I do not. I can state I believe another religion, act like I believe another religion, but my beliefs would remain unchanged. So, for me at least, belief is not a choice.

I think the person who has so totally mislead you about Christianity should be shot.

Jesus in leaving Hell before his resurrection "led the Captives free". These were those who had led lives that were counted unto them as Righteous. So those like Gandhi who were righteous according to their religion while not outright turning their back on the True Path (Jesus himself).

You contend that just because someone has sinned throughout their life and have a deathbed change of heart that they should not go to Heaven. So where should the cutoff be? You already get a grace period as a child until the age of Knowledge (highly contented as to the exact age or Maturity age) so are you saying that there should be a cutoff point? It does not just require that you say the words but it MUST be a COMPLETE change of heart and convictions.

God has done everything he can to provide us a way to heaven but the final decision is up to us!

You can believe whatever you want to, but there is only one truth and that is God, like it or not. The Bible IS true.

Just because you did good things does not mean you are going to heaven. You have to believe in God. You have to believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross and gave his life for you so you can be saved. Works are not going to get you into heaven. Like I said before, God does not want anyone to go to hell and I don't want anyone to go to hell. There IS a hell and it is real and very, very, very bad. You will go there if you are not forgiven of your sins. That is a fact, not an opinion.

You can believe whatever you want to, but there is only one truth and that is God, like it or not. The Bible IS true.

Just because you did good things does not mean you are going to heaven. You have to believe in God. You have to believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross and gave his life for you so you can be saved. Works are not going to get you into heaven. Like I said before, God does not want anyone to go to hell and I don't want anyone to go to hell. There IS a hell and it is real and very, very, very bad. You will go there if you are not forgiven of your sins. That is a fact, not an opinion.

How did you come to this conclusion?

snip

I used to be Christian - I was for several years, I have read the bible in its entirety, although it was a long time ago and I do not remember most of the details, especially in the old testament.

I have also looked into the beliefs of various sects of Christianity, and have found a few similarities in all of them:

They all claim that God is an infinitely loving, infinitely caring, infinitely good, merciful, eternal entity who is responsible for the creation of the universe, earth, and man.

They all claim that God is incapable of sinning

They all claim that God is a jealous deity, and that he desires to be worshipped. Already there are contradictions. Jealousy is a sin, according to the tenth commandment. Therefore, according to Christianity, God is a sinner, yet he is supposedly incapable of sinning. He is also prideful, and goes so far as to condemn those who do not worship him to hell. This, I would call downright evil. If GWB decided that every american had to say that he is an intelligent man, that he is superior to all other presidents, that no other man is his equal, or his peer, and imprisoned everyone who did not, would that not make GWB evil, even if all of those things were true about him?

They all claim that Jesus Christ died for us, that we may repent for our sins and be saved as long as we accept him as our saviour. It is 2000 years later, and the only evidence we have that this is the case is a 2000 year old text of very questionable accuracy with "eye-witness accounts" describing that Christ alledgedly rose from the grave. If this were in fact true, I am certain there would be much more evidence than merely that in the bible. Surely it would appear elsewhere in history, but it does not. The only place it appears is in the Christian Bible, and saying that Christianity is true because the Christian Bible says so is a circular argument which I will not buy, and is not good enough evidence for me. There are thousands of other religions on this planet, all with exactly as much evidence as Christianity has, and Christianity deserves no more of my non-existent faith than any of those other ones.

Finally, many of them claim that if one does not accept Jesus Christ as his saviour, then that person goes to hell. Again, using the GWB example, if GWB told everybody that they had to believe that Dick Cheney was responsible for the biggest economic boom in the US's history or else they would be imprisonned, that would make him evil, regardless of whether or not it was in fact true. In the same way, God condemning someone to hell for an eternity because that person used their own reasoning and the facts presented to them to determine that Christianity is wrong is evil. Again, going back to the boiling water point, my belief that Christianity is wrong as unchangeable as my belief that boiling water will hurt me, and it doesn't matter what I say, until I have seen some evidence to the contrary, I will continue to believe both of those things. Thus, according to Christianity, it does not matter what I say or do, I am condemned to hell simply for being who I am and using my own, god-given reasoning.

Thats what everyone its talking about why would God give a damn if we believed in him or not, I believe that as long as someone helps other people, you don't have to be a saint, you will go to heaven. If my long lost dad came into my house and said "I'm your dad". I don't think he would send me to burn for eternity because I thought someone else was.
Yep. "When you are in the service of your fellow man, you are only in the service of your god."

"Whatsoever thou hast done unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done to me."

There is no Hell. The place in greek and hebrew rendered as hell is Gehenna or Hades, which is the common grave of mankind, and the bible speaks of no place of eternal torment. only that the 'wages sin pays is death.' Yes I am a Christian

You can believe whatever you want to,

Can you? Respond to my post above, and if belief is not a choice, what kind of Deity sends a person to Hell based on something they cannot control? It's like having a height limit: Above 6 foot 2 yes, below no.

Faith. Faith is why I KNOW Jesus was alive. Faith is why I KNOW that sinners will go to hell. I could use the very known response saying how do you know that there is wind, even though you can't see it, but I have a better one. This kind of is for an arguement against evolution, but I think it works here: If you saw a watch laying on the beach with all of its parts would you say that watch happened to get everything in order and work perfectly? There is no way the pieces could just fall into place. Someone made the watch, just like God made us and this whole earth. That is how you can know that God is real, you see his works all around us. It is impossible not to see his works.

There is no Hell. The place in greek and hebrew rendered as hell is Gehenna or Hades, which is the common grave of mankind, and the bible speaks of no place of eternal torment. only that the 'wages sin pays is death.' Yes I am a Christian
ive always how people reconcile the notion of eternal torment with "the wages of sin are death". how much more clear can the bible be. if you die an unrepentant sinner, your punishment is DEATH. you dont get into heaven for the eternal party. you dont get a nasty form of eternal life. that would not be death.

I think that if you do good things in life,even if you don't believe in god, you will go to heaven, or shangri-la or whatever.

Originally posted by Bolol
Civilization has existed for thousands of years before Christ, and it seemed to do fine. Who is to say that Christianity (which, in the begining started out as nothing more than a cult that just got lucky)

To be perfectly honest, a tome created centuries ago by individuals who can put...whatever...they want in it and call it the truth, does not seem like sufficient proof. At best I look upon the Bible as a guide.

Can I just clear something up here? Now I may be completely wrong, and trust me this isn't a flame at all. But some of the things you've been saying sound suspiciously Dan Brown-ish. I'd just like to clarify that his books are not true - it is not a fact that the early Church manipulated the Gospels to fit their own evil ends, or that Jesus had kids with Mary Magdalene, or that the Vatican eats babies, or pretty much any of the stuff in his books. They're good to read, but remember they're fiction .

But does one really have free will when it comes to religious belief? I know from my personal experience that I do not, I believe only what I must believe, only what my experience, revelation and reason allow me to believe.

So I ask again, do you really have a choice when it comes to religious belief, my personal experience is that I do not. I can state I believe another religion, act like I believe another religion, but my beliefs would remain unchanged. So, for me at least, belief is not a choice.
It is your choice to live your life as you choose. So if that is what determines your religion then it is still your choice. I have a close friend who is trying to find himself and his religious beliefs after living for 30 years as a Christian. How would you classify that?

I believe in Hell and I know alot of good people are in Hell because they did not have Jesus in there heart. As a Christain I have accepted the fact that it is envitable that certain people will deny God and Jesus and go to Hell. I know that some of the greatest historcal figures are in Hell,

So God created the world. He created Adam and Eve. When he set them in Eden, he gave them two commandments- Eat not of the Tree of Knowledge, and multiply and replenish the earth, or have children. But they were not mortal at the time, and were innocent. They couldn't have children. When they ate the forbidden fruit, they became mortal, and could have children. But because they had broken a commandment, they could not return to God, because God does not allow sin in his kingdom.

Boy, I love the whole Adam and Eve thing.

Ok, let's look at these logical arguments:

-According to Christians, God is omniscient and omnipotent.

-God created Adam and Eve innocent, thus without any knowledge of what was good or evil, without any knowledge of "sin" or whatever. This is confirmed by the fact that they gain this knowledge *after* eating the fruit (which is why they feel shame all of a sudden).

-God forbids them to eat the fruit. However, they are innocent and without knowledge of good or evil. So they can't possibly know if disobeying god is evil or not.

-So they eat the fruit.

-They gain knowledge of good and evil, but it is too late, and god, even though he's supposed to be so loving and forgiving and all (not to mention that *he's* the one who created them without knowledge of good and evil) kicks them out of heaven.

-God is omniscient, so he *knew* that this was going to happen, that's what omniscient means: he knows everything.

-Two possible conclusions:
1. This story is true and god, since it's by his own fault that it happened (since he created them without any knowledge that disobeying him would be bad and he was omniscient, which means he should have known about it) is an incredibly cruel monster, which makes Christianity pretty much useless (since the reason why we are supposed to be Christians is because it's so much about love and the like).
2. This story is false and thus cannot be used in any debate about sin, good and evil, free will, etc.

Have fun pondering on this.

EDIT: There's actually a third possible conclusion for this, which is: this story is true and god is in fact imperfact according to Christian morality: either he isn't omniscient and thus couldn't foresee this (which then means he might not be omnipotent either, since without omniscience, he's pretty much doing things without knowing if he couldn't actually do more), or he's omniscient and omnipotent and whatever, but used his powers carelessly (creating people in such a way that they'll be screwed sooner or later is pretty much careless), and thus is imperfect too.

Can you? Respond to my post above, and if belief is not a choice, what kind of Deity sends a person to Hell based on something they cannot control? It's like having a height limit: Above 6 foot 2 yes, below no.

You HAVE a choice, like right now, this very moment you can choose to repent of your sins. You do have a choice.

In the Bible it says something of weeping and nashing of teeth. That does not sound like a regular death. That sounds like hell.
"...when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit..."
Ezekiel 31:16
See, hell is real.

I believe in Hell and I know alot of good people are in Hell because they did not have Jesus in there heart. As a Christain I have accepted the fact that it is envitable that certain people will deny God and Jesus and go to Hell. I know that some of the greatest historcal figures are in Hell,
does this include people who believe the wrong kind of christianity?

the mormons? the catholics? the jehovas witnesses? the greek orthodox? the branch davidians? the moonies?

Faith. Faith is why I KNOW Jesus was alive. Faith is why I KNOW that sinners will go to hell. I could use the very known response saying how do you know that there is wind, even though you can't see it, but I have a better one. This kind of is for an arguement against evolution, but I think it works here: If you saw a watch laying on the beach with all of its parts would you say that watch happened to get everything in order and work perfectly? There is no way the pieces could just fall into place. Someone made the watch, just like God made us and this whole earth. That is how you can know that God is real, you see his works all around us. It is impossible not to see his works.


Just wondering, I see this reasoning all the time, we are too complex, we had to be made. So I'm just wondering, who made your god? If god just existed, why can't the universe just exist without any creating going on?

does this include people who believe the wrong kind of christianity?

the mormons? the catholics? the jehovas witnesses? the greek orthodox? the branch davidians? the moonies?


Yes, UNLESS, they believe that Jesus died for their sins and asked him for forgiveness. That is the only way to get to heaven or not go to hell. Plain and simple.

God has been there since the beginning and will always be there. He created everything. Again it goes down to faith. I have faith that the Bible is true and I know the Bible is true

It is your choice to live your life as you choose. So if that is what determines your religion then it is still your choice. I have a close friend who is trying to find himself and his religious beliefs after living for 30 years as a Christian. How would you classify that?

Yes I can choose to live my life however I want, but that does not change my beliefs at all. I can go to a Baptist Church, pray and take communion, but that does not make me a Baptist; I can go to a Mosque, pray and give alms, but that does not make me a Muslim; I can go to a Buddhist Temple, medditate and follow the Noble Eightfold Path but that does not make me a Buddhist. (actually it might since I think Buddhism might be an action not faith based religion but it doesn't apply when talking Christianity) Since I believe that infidelity does not consist of belief or disbelief but in proffesing to believe what you do not, I live my life in tune with my beliefs. However, if I were to live my life another way, my beliefs would not change, I would just be living life unfaithfully.

As for your friend, I would say he looking inside to discover what he believes. Honestly, can he deside, "I want to be a Pagan today, and a Hindu tommorrow"? I don't think so, you said it right that "he is trying to find himself and his religious beliefs." He is not trying to change his religious beliefs, he is trying to be true to himself and living out life in a faithful way.

There is no Hell. The place in greek and hebrew rendered as hell is Gehenna or Hades, which is the common grave of mankind, and the bible speaks of no place of eternal torment. only that the 'wages sin pays is death.' Yes I am a Christian
Actually Hades was a place split in two very much like both todays heaven and hell.

The best definition of darkness is the complete absence of light just like the best description of death is the complete absence of life and God is life.

You HAVE a choice, like right now, this very moment you can choose to repent of your sins. You do have a choice.



I do repent my sins, and I grapple every day with my guilt and the actions that I have done that hurt people. However, repenting whether to use the formulas of Christianity or the words I use now, did not change my beliefs.

In the Bible it says something of weeping and nashing of teeth. That does not sound like a regular death. That sounds like hell.
"...when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit..."
Ezekiel 31:16
See, hell is real.

Who's this Ezekiel guy? I mean, he's not Jesus, and unless I'm sorely mistaken (which is possible since I'm a francophone and these names usually change with the langage, so I might know him under another name), he's not one of the twelve followers.

So, a guy who hasn't that much to do with Jesus in the first place just adds something in the book and all of a sudden you believe him?

And what of the infinite love and forgiveness of god?

OK, While I can't say I KNOW.. noone can. I have a sneaking suspicion that some people need to think there is a Hell. Even if there isn't.
A perfectly loving god sending his creation to burn in hell forever and ever in endless torment just doesn't make sense.
Besides. Being a good person out of a fear of going to hell is just not what I'd call proper motivation. People should not steal... but not out of fear of punishment, but because the theft is wrong... in that it hurts another person.

Hell is, perhaps, a Myth to fill a need for justice. Whatever that is... I've heard SO many times that bad people getting the best of good people is tolerated because you "know" that someday they will be punished for it by this "just" god.
Well Justice, my friend.. is a human idea. Especially when people apply it to thier own experiance.
It can be said that here on earth.. there IS no justice. How can there BE? IF you return a stolen car.. .the insult of the theft is still there. No matter how harshly you punish the thief.
If someone is murdered... what true justice could you give to the family unless you could return thier loved one to them alive and well.. and that is impossible.
All the justice we could deal out upon a murderer can never achieve justice. It can only achieve vengeance.
And So.. .people need to think that somewhere.. someday... the person who did this will suffer for it. So... my own pain is justified because the person who caused this pain will be in torment.
Only... there's that all loving god who allegedly knows the murderer's sorrows in a long and twisted life. Hmmmm,. Tricky.
I give up, King Solomon. Just split the kid in two and kill everyone.
Let God sort 'em out.

That's all the thought I got on the subject.

and IF you don't like it. You can all burn in Hell. :)

does this include people who believe the wrong kind of christianity?

the mormons? the catholics? the jehovas witnesses? the greek orthodox? the branch davidians? the moonies?

who do you think you are to say that there is a wrong kind of christianity...if you were a true Christian...then you would know that you have no right or any authority in which to judge who is right and who is wrong...you know what...i am a Mormon/LDS and i don't know what they teach you about Christ...but i am taught at my church that i am to love and accept everyone despite their religion and i am not to say that anyones religions are wrong...if you are happy in your religion then by all means continue with it...whether you are Jehovah's Witness, Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Buddhist...whatever...so if you are a Christian sitting there judging my religion then you need to relook your belief's...practice what you preach...

Ezekiel was from the old testement. He knows this because God told him. Everything from the Bible is from God, written by men.

Even a murderer can go to heaven. They just have to repent. Everyone can go to heaven, if they ask for forgiveness, like I have been saying.

Originally posted by Bolol
They all claim that God is an infinitely loving, infinitely caring, infinitely good, merciful, eternal entity who is responsible for the creation of the universe, earth, and man.

They all claim that God is incapable of sinning

True so far.

They all claim that God is a jealous deity, and that he desires to be worshipped. Already there are contradictions. Jealousy is a sin, according to the tenth commandment. Therefore, according to Christianity, God is a sinner, yet he is supposedly incapable of sinning.

Nowhere does any Christian denomination (not counting the 'Christian' ones like the KKK) claim that God is jealous. They claim that God is worthy and deserving of our worship and adoration, and rightly so - He is perfect, and He created us and everything around us. You claim according to the Ten Commandments God is a sinner, I assume because He tells us to 'Worship no foreign idols'. You could claim that this stems from jealousy, but I'd like to claim that it stems from love - God is after all all-loving. So maybe he tells us to worship no foreign idols because to do so would mean rejecting him, which would in turn mean that we don't go to Heaven and aren't with him, so it's bad for us, and God, loving us as He does, doesn't want bad things to happen to us.

He is also prideful, and goes so far as to condemn those who do not worship him to hell.

How many times must I say this? God doesn't 'condemn us to Hell', He simply gives us what we ask for. We sin, and sin is rebellion against God. Rebellion against God is us telling Him to leave us alone, and that we don't want Him in our lives. So God does exactly that.

If GWB decided that every american had to say that he is an intelligent man, that he is superior to all other presidents, that no other man is his equal, or his peer, and imprisoned everyone who did not, would that not make GWB evil, even if all of those things were true about him?

This analogy is inadequate. GWB doesn't deserve to be called intelligent (harsh but true) whereas God deserves to be worshipped - very much so. And it'd be more accurate to say that if Ameircans didn't, GWB would simply leave them alone for ever.

They all claim that Jesus Christ died for us, that we may repent for our sins and be saved as long as we accept him as our saviour. It is 2000 years later, and the only evidence we have that this is the case is a 2000 year old text of very questionable accuracy with "eye-witness accounts" describing that Christ alledgedly rose from the grave.

So what if it's 2000 years old? The passage of time doesn't make it any less true - in 2000 years time from now, 1+1 will still = 2. Simply being later on doesn't change that at all. Unless you're talking about it being a less reliable source; there's more evidence for the existence of Jesus and the happenings in the Bible than there is for the existence of Julius Caeser, and do you doubt that he existed?

If this were in fact true, I am certain there would be much more evidence than merely that in the bible. Surely it would appear elsewhere in history, but it does not. The only place it appears is in the Christian Bible, and saying that Christianity is true because the Christian Bible says so is a circular argument which I will not buy, and is not good enough evidence for me. There are thousands of other religions on this planet, all with exactly as much evidence as Christianity has, and Christianity deserves no more of my non-existent faith than any of those other ones.

It does appear elsewhere - ever heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls? There's tons of exceptionally old evidence in there, and I'm pretty sure there's loads of others, although I can't remember them at the moment - it's like 1 in the morning here)

Finally, many of them claim that if one does not accept Jesus Christ as his saviour, then that person goes to hell. Again, using the GWB example, if GWB told everybody that they had to believe that Dick Cheney was responsible for the biggest economic boom in the US's history or else they would be imprisonned, that would make him evil, regardless of whether or not it was in fact true. In the same way, God condemning someone to hell for an eternity because that person used their own reasoning and the facts presented to them to determine that Christianity is wrong is evil. Again, going back to the boiling water point, my belief that Christianity is wrong as unchangeable as my belief that boiling water will hurt me, and it doesn't matter what I say, until I have seen some evidence to the contrary, I will continue to believe both of those things. Thus, according to Christianity, it does not matter what I say or do, I am condemned to hell simply for being who I am and using my own, god-given reasoning.

Of course you won't believe something without proof - all I'm saying is that the Bible is your proof. There's enough proof in there to have faith surely? And God leaving us alone is not evil - it's giving us what we want.

But in the end I can't force you to believe, I can only do my best to persuade you. And there's no point in asking me to stop - I'm obliged to. If you want me to stop trying to get you to believe, stop trying to get me to disbelieve.

Actually Hades was a place split in two very much like both todays heaven and hell.

The best definition of darkness is the complete absence of light just like the best description of death is the complete absence of life and God is life.

Well, IIRC, Jesus spoke of Gehenna once or twice, but he was actually referring to a real place, where human sacrifices took place, and which eventually became pretty much a garbage dump for Jerusalem.

So, knowing that Jesus always spoke through metaphors, this is quite a strong one: IMHO, it would mean that if you live a life of hatred, deceit, selfishness and the like, you'll eventually end up feeling pretty bad (I'm sure no one would like to live in the place where Jerusalem burned their garbage and where ritual immolations were practiced, so that gives an idea of how bad one would feel).

Who's this Ezekiel guy? I mean, he's not Jesus, and unless I'm sorely mistaken (which is possible since I'm a francophone and these names usually change with the langage, so I might know him under another name), he's not one of the twelve followers.

So, a guy who hasn't that much to do with Jesus in the first place just adds something in the book and all of a sudden you believe him?

And what of the infinite love and forgiveness of god?

Ezekiel is one of the ancient Hebrew prophets several hundred years before Jesus.

But quoting the Bible doesn't have much affect an those who view it as a Human response to the Divine and probably even less on those who don't believe it at all.

Just wondering, I see this reasoning all the time, we are too complex, we had to be made. So I'm just wondering, who made your god? If god just existed, why can't the universe just exist without any creating going on?
I love it when Darwinists try this line of debate! God can't be real because how did he come into being? My counter-question is simple from whence did the universe come? Your arguement is intended to prove God can't be but instead proves that God MUST be!

I totally agree with you Mooseica. You said it very well.

who do you think you are to say that there is a wrong kind of christianity...if you were a true Christian...then you would know that you have no right or any authority in which to judge who is right and who is wrong...you know what...i am a Mormon/LDS and i don't know what they teach you about Christ...but i am taught at my church that i am to love and accept everyone despite their religion and i am not to say that anyones religions are wrong...if you are happy in your religion then by all means continue with it...whether you are Jehovah's Witness, Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Buddhist...whatever...so if you are a Christian sitting there judging my religion then you need to relook your belief's...practice what you preach...
sweetheart, go read the quoted post i was responding to

i was just trying to trap that poster into revealing that in addition to damning "good but nonchristian" people to hell he would also damn those who dont subscribe to the same rules of christianity that he does.

he didnt quite fall into the trap but i still suspect he thinks that those on the other branches of christianity dont qualify for salvation.

Even a murderer can go to heaven. They just have to repent. Everyone can go to heaven, if they ask for forgiveness, like I have been saying.

Do you just have to repent, or repent and believe a rather specific number of things (mainly that Jesus was the only begotten son of the One and only God, and his death and resurection washed away our sins)

Nowhere does any Christian denomination (not counting the 'Christian' ones like the KKK) claim that God is jealous. They claim that God is worthy and deserving of our worship and adoration, and rightly so - He is perfect, and He created us and everything around us. You claim according to the Ten Commandments God is a sinner, I assume because He tells us to 'Worship no foreign idols'. You could claim that this stems from jealousy, but I'd like to claim that it stems from love - God is after all all-loving. So maybe he tells us to worship no foreign idols because to do so would mean rejecting him, which would in turn mean that we don't go to Heaven and aren't with him, so it's bad for us, and God, loving us as He does, doesn't want bad things to happen to us.

"I punish you if you don't worship me, because I love you."

Isn't this *exactly* the same argument jealous husbands who beat up their wives use?

God: "But I love you! If you understood that, I wouldn't have to punish you!"
Husband:"But I love her! If she understood that, I wouldn't have to beat her!"

:rolleyes:

I love it when Darwinists try this line of debate! God can't be real because how did he come into being? My counter-question is simple from whence did the universe come? Your arguement is intended to prove God can't be but instead proves that God MUST be!
you have still dodged the rather obvious question "if everything must have an origin and a creator, who created god and where did he come from?"

Yes I can choose to live my life however I want, but that does not change my beliefs at all. I can go to a Baptist Church, pray and take communion, but that does not make me a Baptist; I can go to a Mosque, pray and give alms, but that does not make me a Muslim; I can go to a Buddhist Temple, medditate and follow the Noble Eightfold Path but that does not make me a Buddhist. (actually it might since I think Buddhism might be an action not faith based religion but it doesn't apply when talking Christianity) Since I believe that infidelity does not consist of belief or disbelief but in proffesing to believe what you do not, I live my life in tune with my beliefs. However, if I were to live my life another way, my beliefs would not change, I would just be living life unfaithfully.

As for your friend, I would say he looking inside to discover what he believes. Honestly, can he deside, "I want to be a Pagan today, and a Hindu tommorrow"? I don't think so, you said it right that "he is trying to find himself and his religious beliefs." He is not trying to change his religious beliefs, he is trying to be true to himself and living out life in a faithful way.
Well I may not believe your philosophy but your arguements are well-thought out and you can reason them out to fit any arguement. I offer my congrats most people can not say the same about their beliefs.

Do you just have to repent, or repent and believe a rather specific number of things (mainly that Jesus was the only begotten son of the One and only God, and his death and resurection washed away our sins)

You can't repent if you don't believe that Jesus was God's one and only son. And once you repent you must obey the rules that God set up. Just because you repented doesn't mean that you can't go back to your sinful ways and then eventually to hell.

Ezekiel is one of the ancient Hebrew prophets several hundred years before Jesus.

But quoting the Bible doesn't have much affect an those who view it as a Human response to the Divine and probably even less on those who don't believe it at all.

Ok, but aren't Christians supposed to rely on the *NEW* Testament? That's the whole point for the new religion, no? The Old Testament was what Jews followed and still follow.

If Jesus died to create a new religion which was more about fun and love and happiness and so on, why are Christians *still* quoting the Old Testament, which came *before* their prophet?

I love it when Darwinists try this line of debate! God can't be real because how did he come into being? My counter-question is simple from whence did the universe come? Your arguement is intended to prove God can't be but instead proves that God MUST be!


The thing is, I don't have this huge need to know where the universe came from. I know that we don't know and probably won't ever know. The people that need some sort of god to explain things they don't know are the ones who created religion in the first place. Problem with that is, we are learning things now and we don't need the gods for most things anymore but people still are religious. I just can't understand that.

sweetheart, go read the quoted post i was responding to

i was just trying to trap that poster into revealing that in addition to damning "good but nonchristian" people to hell he would also damn those who dont subscribe to the same rules of christianity that he does.

he didnt quite fall into the trap but i still suspect he thinks that those on the other branches of christianity dont qualify for salvation.

I put yes, but then changed it. If you don't believe that Jesus died on the cross and your sins can be forgiven, then it doesn't matter what type of Christian you are. You will not go to heaven if your sins are not forgiven. I will not say that all Mormons, Catholics, and any other type of Christianity wil all go to hell, it just depends on if there sins are forgiven because they believe that Jesus died on the cross.

I put yes, but then changed it. If you don't believe that Jesus died on the cross and your sins can be forgiven, then it doesn't matter what type of Christian you are. You will not go to heaven if your sins are not forgiven. I will not say that all Mormons, Catholics, and any other type of Christianity wil all go to hell, it just depends on if there sins are forgiven because they believe that Jesus died on the cross.
are there christians who dont believe that jesus died on the cross for their sins? i thought that was a key part of the story

You can't repent if you don't believe that Jesus was God's one and only son. And once you repent you must obey the rules that God set up. Just because you repented doesn't mean that you can't go back to your sinful ways and then eventually to hell.

Fine, but that belief isn't a choice (at least for me, is it for you? Can you stop believing for a second if I offer you $10,000?). Thus, by your arguement I am probably consigned to Hell for something that is not a choice, even though I feel like a very powerful and passionate relationship with the Divine (I know that I can trust my Daddy, with everything, even my soul, even at the moment of my death)

This thread is for people of any religion, but mainly Christians: how do you justify hell?

According to Christianity, God created every single person on this planet
According to Christianity, God gave me a brain, and the ability to reason
With the reasoning and judgement that God alledgedly gave me, according to Christianity, I have decided that Christianity cannot be right
So, I live my life with extremely high standards and high values, doing everything I can to improve society, being 100% responsible and accountable for every action I take, treating others as I would have them treat me, donating my time and money to charitable causes, in general, be as good a person as I can possibly be, while choosing to believe that Jesus Christ is not my saviour.
And I go to hell.
I go to hell, because with the reasoning that god gave me, I have determined that Christ is not my saviour.
Mahatma Gandhi goes to hell, because he was born and raised a Hindu, and despite all the good that came of his actions while he was alive, he is supposedly burning in hell.
4 billion of the people who are on this earth right now, either because they used their reasoning to determine that Christianity was not right, or more likely, because they were raised a different religion and possibly even taught that if they were any religion other than their own, they would go to hell.
Complete scumbags who live their life to make an extra buck on the backs of anyone else, who would slit their own mother's throat for a nickel if they could get away with it, who have no moral sense whatsoever, from the lowliest street thug to the corrupt businessman or politician, but just happen to be Christian, go to church every Sunday and ask god to forgive them for their sins go to heaven.
Adolf Hitler sits in heaven while Mahatma Gandhi burns in hell.
How do Christians justify this?
Frankly, if Christianity is right, then I would rather burn in hell than serve such an evil, merciless, uncaring god.
If God does exist, I should hope he is nothing whatsoever like he is portrayed in Christianity.


pretty simple really,

you have a free will,and choose to be an evil peice of shit...then oh well.

all the ridiculous silly church rules and crap aside,pretty simple concept...free will,do what you want,good or evil,but be prepared to pay the price..if you believe in that sorta thing.

really,why would someone one dezine a law/religion thousands of years ago?
1.to control the ignorant people from being out of control,and of coarse something to be afraid of.
2.they realized that men left unchecked would end up like gwb..lol...or if there are no repercussions for your actions,people would revert to law of the jungle(better hope you aint born a girl..or at least not,some ugly girl...no flames please...we all know that back in the day..men went for the pick of the litter,the strong men did,went for the strong women..ie...pretty or most attractive mates)not saying women were dumb or weak..just saying,women had zero influence unless they were like cleopatra.treated like property,unless they had something a caveman couldnt just take from brute strength...i doubt they had our sensibilities back then.
3.maybe there is something to the underlying truth or idea,just that thru the years has been perverted to benefit a few(sound familiar)and we all know the old joke...tell so and so some one said this,by the end of the day it is totally different! :fluffle:



as for your statement,ghandi believed alot of what christianity believes...well the true turn the other cheek crowd at least.
it is ludicrous to think a loving god would condemn you to hell because you were born in india instead of ireland,or where ever.
my best friends dad was a major mob figure in nyc,probably killed lots of people,but i saw him in church every sunday..lol..then they found him in a trunk of a car..i doubt he's hanging in heaven,however...i know people..buddists/hindus/animists..that i'm sure would be partying with "god"

i plan on it,i guess my point is men pervert religion for there own gain..all religions..but the idea of religion is not neccassarily bad.

p.s.my dad was a deacon in the catholic church,i stopped going when i was 14,never said nothing to me.
he was the most loving,caring,generous person i have ever met..shit i thought he was a chump when i was young.
he use to pray for my friends mob dad(who i idolized,money/power/women/fear)and i actually asked him trying to trip him up on his faith...he's a killer yet he's going to heaven and some peasant in vietnam aint..lol
his responce was...god will judge you on your actions,so obviously the kid in nam that has a good heart is a good person regardless of his god,and even my friends mob dad,if in his heart,felt bad for his evil deeds would also be forgiven.
and i aint talkin about confession...truly in your heart regretting your past misdeeds to your fellow man.

if there was never some type of belief in a higher power of some type,we would have never devoloped as a society of rules and fairness.perverted as it is now and has been for a millenia,the basic idea is good is my point.

even if you are a devout atheist..you cant argue the influence of religion in every aspect of our lives...laws/cultures..etc...good or bad,depending on how perverted it has become.
you can be angry at this religion or that,but i think the basic idea was sound.

i dont believe in any god in particular,but i like to believe i aint just dirt when i die...if you can prove it..i know a few women i want to molest/a few banks i want to rob...and quite a few people i would love to kill....lol

then aagain..we can get into the whole yin/yang thing...kharma..etc...same basic idea though...what goes around comes around.

sorry for the novel,was thinking of my dad today.

I love it when Darwinists try this line of debate! God can't be real because how did he come into being? My counter-question is simple from whence did the universe come? Your arguement is intended to prove God can't be but instead proves that God MUST be!

You didn't answer. The point is, if you think god just appeared out of nowhere, why is it that you think that the universe couldn't just appear out of nowhere too?

Nowhere does any Christian denomination (not counting the 'Christian' ones like the KKK) claim that God is jealous.
for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,
for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land.
Straight from the bible. Like I told you, I used to be christian, and "I, the lord your god, am a jealous god" is not a line I will easily forget.

How many times must I say this? God doesn't 'condemn us to Hell', He simply gives us what we ask for. We sin, and sin is rebellion against God. Rebellion against God is us telling Him to leave us alone, and that we don't want Him in our lives. So God does exactly that.
That is quite the line of logic there. By reading this paragraph and disagreeing with it, you are rebelling against me. Rebellion gainst me is telling me to leave you alone, and that you don't want me in your life. So I do exactly that. And by exactly that, I mean sending you to hell.

The fact is, according to christianity, and according to you, if I don't believe in your religion, I face eternal damnation in hell. Call it "God leaving you alone" if you want, that doesn't change what it is, and it doesn't change the fact that it is god who is condemning you to that eternal damnation because of your beliefs.

This analogy is inadequate. GWB doesn't deserve to be called intelligent (harsh but true) whereas God deserves to be worshipped - very much so. And it'd be more accurate to say that if Ameircans didn't, GWB would simply leave them alone for ever. Reread what I said, specifically the part that said "even if all of that about GWB were true."

Ok, but aren't Christians supposed to rely on the *NEW* Testament? That's the whole point for the new religion, no? The Old Testament was what Jews followed and still follow.

If Jesus died to create a new religion which was more about fun and love and happiness and so on, why are Christians *still* quoting the Old Testament, which came *before* their prophet?
Jesus did not come to start a new religion in the way you describe. Think of it more as a contract. God made a contract with the Jews but the conditions were impossible to attain so he sent his ONLY son to pay the contract out and setup a new contract for ALL humanity. There are still penalties for not living up to the terms and great rewards if you do. So we still need to pay attention to the historical references to those who have lead lives in both acceptable and unacceptable manners in relation to the contracts. I certainly hope that I have explained in an understandable method.
The thing is, I don't have this huge need to know where the universe came from. I know that we don't know and probably won't ever know. The people that need some sort of god to explain things they don't know are the ones who created religion in the first place. Problem with that is, we are learning things now and we don't need the gods for most things anymore but people still are religious. I just can't understand that.
Well wether you choose to go with a mainstream "religion", a Faith or a cult OR you choose to believe the "sceince based" religion of Darwinism you are still filling that need of Humanity to believe in something greater than themselves. The only people I have met that truely do not believe in anything and choose not toget involved are the only people that aare subject to random bouts of depression, connection?

God is a word people! As simple as that. There is no heaven and there is no Hell. I am a Catholic and have been raised as such and have been to catholic school since the beginning of my life. And only one conclusion came from all the blabering of both christian and catholic churches. God does not exist.

We use the word God to believe in something, something magical or just something or someone who looks at us from above and sees our every action, and makes us do what he wants calling it destiny. Nobody knows what comes after death and as such nobody ever will. We die for our beliefs, or don't give our belliefs importance, but the truth is every single aspect of each religion in existence was created by a normal human being.

Theoretically each bible is completely and utterly wrong. Lets just say and quote one specific part of the bible "GOD CREATED EVERYTHING" something that only comes to bear without our religions, he took 7 days to create it all. Well in order for God to had been created, he must of spontaneously combusted. And the only way that he could of done that there should of been time. In other words time existed before God giving the reasoning that God was created by time. Now lets go into the next point dinosaurs are a proven fact. Where in hecks blazes is Noah's arc, the fact that we are all brothers and sisters, and that we are all actually having sex with family members, which is a MAJOR SIN! in IDK every religion. We are all brothers and sister if adam and eva where the beginners of it all. -_-! from 2 people to over 8 billion I guess there was a lot of fucking since the beginning of humanity leaving out the animals the climate, and of course the good old faithfull Ice age.

It is simple none-sense to actually stop to try and defend a religion against another since every single one of them portray that if you do not believe in them hence the phrase used before "NON-BELIEVER" used a lot by the arabs, death punishment and crimes against other people WHO WHERE ALL CREATED EQUALLY, where done just to keep their religion as the main if not only one in existence. The Roman Catholic Church back in the old days of its power, used the roman empire to convert entire nations into their religion trying to make catholicism the only religion in existence. their plan failed, due to the atheism or beliefs in mundane gods of the era.

If you people havent figured it out yet, the word God is portrayed during the existence of human knowledge and belief. We all call our god or gods. If we all use the same word, and we all believe that there is a being with all of the power or that moves your life and chooses what you will do for the rest of your life, and how you will die, why do you hate each other so freaking much. You all believe in the same all powerfull being but since the rules of what happened and what happens and what will happen are different, there is such a superior hatred towards all of them.

And before any single one of you start asking me why I say that I am a catholic if I sound atheist, its because I would like to honestly believe that there is something awaiting me after death. The rest I know is none-sense.

Its a proven fact that all bibles where written by human hands, and also that among the oldest of the written bibles, during the medieval ages there was a lot of adding on to the bibles. The truest of all bibles and oldest is completely unkown. Many fake bibles where created trying to portray different things and as always greed came upon the beliefs and the religion. The catholic church used to forgive kings for their merciless sins for gold. Others would pay, and even in todays world some people specially in the christian religion, have to give a percentage of their income to the church. Do you really know how much of that money will be used outside of the church?

In the roman catholic church, most of the money that could of been made and that they could ever want has been taken. But still some of the clergy men in the highest posts of the church, except for the pope, are driven around by choffers in mercedez benz and such. And in a lot of other religions, there is always someone who is filthy rich, who has all the power or a lot of power. Its all about politics within each church, except the buddhist religion.

They are actually the most spiritual religious followers in the world. And I am talking about the monks. We know that they still kill over in china, and some buddhist believers and what not, but buddhism is believing in enlightenment. Which is basically a greater understanding of life, and knowledge.

So in order to talk about the devil, if God doesn't exist, neither does the devil, and yet at some point in our lives, we hear of people who say that they have seen Maria's face (we dont even know what she looks like, but they say they saw her) or angels, and of course demons and spiritual possessions.

We don't know what any if not all our gods look like, we only have an image of a man once drew or said that he or she looked like. We don't even know if they have physical bodies or if they exist. We only know that some people deside to belive in a specific god and set of rules set by the churches, and that some people just question it all.

The existance of god is irrelevant. We all choose our destiny's, and we all live our own little hell's on earth while still alive. We don't have to die to go to hell, we can pretty much be in hell while alive. and sometimes u could of send urself to hell, or been born into it. God would have nothing to do with the sending of you to hell in those cases.

But, now that I think about it, the god in the Old Testament was a militant god, destroying all that would stand in his path or the path of his people, while the one in the New Testament is supposed to be full of an love and forgiveness. How can you possibly quote the Old Testament, which is about a god which destroy in a rather violent way those who oppose him, to support an argument about Christianity, which is based on the New Testament, which in turn speaks of a kind and benevolent god?

Seems weird to me:
God: "Well, I've decided to change our contract, I love and forgive each and everyone of you, but you must still do everything that was said when I was ready to send everyone who spoke against me to hell."

Really weird. Was the contract changed or not? If it was, how come everything in the Old Testament is still applicable? This is getting a bit too convenient. "Oh sure, there's this new contract thing, but everyone must still obey what I said in the old contract too."

So God created the world. He created Adam and Eve. When he set them in Eden, he gave them two commandments- Eat not of the Tree of Knowledge, and multiply and replenish the earth, or have children. But they were not mortal at the time, and were innocent. They couldn't have children. When they ate the forbidden fruit, they became mortal, and could have children. But because they had broken a commandment, they could not return to God, because God does not allow sin in his kingdom.Boy, I love the whole Adam and Eve thing.

Ok, let's look at these logical arguments:

-According to Christians, God is omniscient and omnipotent.

-God created Adam and Eve innocent, thus without any knowledge of what was good or evil, without any knowledge of "sin" or whatever. This is confirmed by the fact that they gain this knowledge *after* eating the fruit (which is why they feel shame all of a sudden).

-God forbids them to eat the fruit. However, they are innocent and without knowledge of good or evil. So they can't possibly know if disobeying god is evil or not.

-So they eat the fruit.

-They gain knowledge of good and evil, but it is too late, and god, even though he's supposed to be so loving and forgiving and all (not to mention that *he's* the one who created them without knowledge of good and evil) kicks them out of heaven.

-God is omniscient, so he *knew* that this was going to happen, that's what omniscient means: he knows everything.

-Two possible conclusions:
1. This story is true and god, since it's by his own fault that it happened (since he created them without any knowledge that disobeying him would be bad and he was omniscient, which means he should have known about it) is an incredibly cruel monster, which makes Christianity pretty much useless (since the reason why we are supposed to be Christians is because it's so much about love and the like).
2. This story is false and thus cannot be used in any debate about sin, good and evil, free will, etc.

Have fun pondering on this.

EDIT: There's actually a third possible conclusion for this, which is: this story is true and god is in fact imperfact according to Christian morality: either he isn't omniscient and thus couldn't foresee this (which then means he might not be omnipotent either, since without omniscience, he's pretty much doing things without knowing if he couldn't actually do more), or he's omniscient and omnipotent and whatever, but used his powers carelessly (creating people in such a way that they'll be screwed sooner or later is pretty much careless), and thus is imperfect too.

I really would like some thoughts on that. I think it is strange that so many people have tried to use the argument of the original sin (not just in this thread), yet they'll just ignore any challenge to this argument.

Or is it that I'm right, so it's better to just not answer?

Well wether you choose to go with a mainstream "religion", a Faith or a cult OR you choose to believe the "sceince based" religion of Darwinism you are still filling that need of Humanity to believe in something greater than themselves. The only people I have met that truely do not believe in anything and choose not toget involved are the only people that aare subject to random bouts of depression, connection?

Erm, you do know that people can believe in something else that religion or divity? Have you heard of this little thing called "humanism", which says that *we* have the power to shape our future the way we see fit? Doesn't seem much like believing in some *superior being* or something. And science isn't a religion, since it doesn't explain why, but how. There is no morality in science, it only studies the laws which seem to rule our universe.

I really would like some thoughts on that. I think it is strange that so many people have tried to use the argument of the original sin (not just in this thread), yet they'll just ignore any challenge to this argument.

Or is it that I'm right, so it's better to just not answer?

dude its easy non of it happened. Its all to make reference that temptation subdued one of the people and the other one just followed suit seeing that eva had eaten the fruit and nothing happened. The most important part of adam and eve is that if they are the only 2 humans in existence we are all family of each other and we all have been having sex with our sisters and what not.

besides the bible portrayes rules and teaching not actual facts of the time. Even if it did mention times and places and kings and what not, we dont know any of them, and those who are historically corect, there is no evidence that portrayes what the bible says as true.

dude its easy non of it happened. Its all to make reference that temptation subdued one of the people and the other one just followed suit seeing that eva had eaten the fruit and nothing happened. The most important part of adam and eve is that if they are the only 2 humans in existence we are all family of each other and we all have been having sex with our sisters and what not.

besides the bible portrayes rules and teaching not actual facts of the time. Even if it did mention times and places and kings and what not, we dont know any of them, and those who are historically corect, there is no evidence that portrayes what the bible says as true.

Yeah, I know, I was rather asking those who use the "It's in the Bible!" master-like argument. I have often seen the original sin being used as a factual argument.

Jesus did not come to start a new religion in the way you describe. Think of it more as a contract. God made a contract with the Jews but the conditions were impossible to attain so he sent his ONLY son to pay the contract out and setup a new contract for ALL humanity. There are still penalties for not living up to the terms and great rewards if you do. So we still need to pay attention to the historical references to those who have lead lives in both acceptable and unacceptable manners in relation to the contracts. I certainly hope that I have explained in an understandable method.

Hmm...

God makes a contract with Jews. Jews accept. Contract suddenly applies to all mankind. Am I the only one who feels there is something wrong there?

God is supposed to be omnipotent. Why is it then, that people are arguing so much on the "It was his ONLY son, so he must really love us" thing? If he's omnipotent, it's not like he can't have any other children...

Here is an explanation to all the arguements that have come up in this thread. You can agree, you can disagree, you can slam your forehead on the keyboard and yell at me through the monitor all you want, but if you don't want to here this, don't post your arguements as questions.

Translation: I'm offering something that makes sense, not telling you what to believe. Feel free to discuss the points I make. This is a subject that is frankly beyond a human's capacity to undrestand. Ergo, were all wrong. Don't waste screen space to tell us that. It's obvious.

Regarding the origional topic of the thread:

There is hell. Hell is not a place, per se, but a lack of a place. The only way to explain this viewpoint is to give you an over-simplified cosmology (is that a word a lot of people know, or just me?). Imagine a campfire. The fire itself is heaven or God (I'll explain this next). Now if you see a campfire at night, there is always a definite yellowish-orangish circle surrounded by vibrant shadow. This halo is the "area" (but not in a 4-D sense, don't worry about that) in which things are blessed. Our world exists bathed in this halo's protection, like a camper huddled against the cold. Our world has a bright side and a dark side, just like someone facing a campfire has a back bathed in shadow. Our choices let us be on either side of our world as we live on it. When we die, we can move independantly around this little cosmology. If we decide the light is warm and inviting and go to it (no burning bug jokes, please), or we can decide it is harsh and glaring and leave the halo.

The area of shadow, the infinite voind around the halo, as you have probably guessed, is Hell. Light is a reall property, shadow is not. There is a light particle (photon) but there is no shadow particle. Likewise, there is God's halo, and the absence of God's halo. This shadow space sure isn't empty, though. Anything, from this world or before (or after, even) that chose to leave God is out here. A few are jelous, circling the halo like a starved cat, envying the camper's goods but scared back by the fire (lucky us), others are merely lying to themselves and really think they're happy out there. One of the most well known outsider is a former Angel: Lucifer the Light Bringer. He decided that God wasn't reallu his cup of tea, so he packed up and left. Mysteriously, he is getting exactly what he thinks he wants: he's in charge of punishing evil humans. Yet he still isn't happy. Hmmm... (hint, hint).
Angels aren't the only ones who can go though; humans were blessed/given the responcibility of/ cursed with free will. If you want to, you can go there any time you want. Obviously, the train of thought is more "I don't really like the idea of this God stuff, so I'm going to take an eternity and say He ain't there" then "I'm just going to go and be tourchured for eternity by a psychotic angel," but it's still a choice.
Interesting note: The halo is visable from everywhere in or out of it, so no excuses.

Sorry, I can't post the rest of what I have to say (cliffhanger!) cause I gotta go.

I love debating with people that only believe that there are only the 4 dimensions; Width, Length, Height and Time. The Laws of Mortality does not apply to the Spirit realm. Even sceince is finding evidence of the immortal spirit within all of us. If God create us with immortal spirits why would you doubt that he is also one? Who amongst us can even say that this is the first time he has created a Universe or that he has hasn't created life on millions of planets?

Okay I am getting tired and rambling now but the point is if all life comes from God then there is nothing to say that he could not have always exsisted in the Spirit realm and "spoke all things in to being by the word". Whereas Darwinism can not exsist with out something to create the matter needed for exsistance of life.

So God knew what would happen if he created life and gave us free will and that he would have to send trillions to hell for their use of their free will. Does that mean he should not have made us for the chance to have trillions of us to spend eternity with?

Erm, you do know that people can believe in something else that religion or divity? Have you heard of this little thing called "humanism", which says that *we* have the power to shape our future the way we see fit? Doesn't seem much like believing in some *superior being* or something. And science isn't a religion, since it doesn't explain why, but how. There is no morality in science, it only studies the laws which seem to rule our universe.
Humanism is better know as the New Age movement and is classified as botha religion and a cult (depending on who you ask). Main stream sceince does just look at how things work but Darwinism must be taken on faith so much that it does fail to be classed as sceince and is a religion.

Q: How do you justify hell?

A: You don't. It's a relative truth.

Q: How do you justify hell?

A: You don't. It's a relative truth.
Nice, simple and straight to the truth!!!!

Hmm...

God makes a contract with Jews. Jews accept. Contract suddenly applies to all mankind. Am I the only one who feels there is something wrong there?

God is supposed to be omnipotent. Why is it then, that people are arguing so much on the "It was his ONLY son, so he must really love us" thing? If he's omnipotent, it's not like he can't have any other children...
Try re-reading that! Paid out the old contract and opened a new contract that can include all people not just exclusive to the jews. He chose to have only one son.

Here is an explanation to all the arguements that have come up in this thread. You can agree, you can disagree, you can slam your forehead on the keyboard and yell at me through the monitor all you want, but if you don't want to here this, don't post your arguements as questions.

Translation: I'm offering something that makes sense, not telling you what to believe. Feel free to discuss the points I make. This is a subject that is frankly beyond a human's capacity to undrestand. Ergo, were all wrong. Don't waste screen space to tell us that. It's obvious.

Regarding the origional topic of the thread:

There is hell. Hell is not a place, per se, but a lack of a place. The only way to explain this viewpoint is to give you an over-simplified cosmology (is that a word a lot of people know, or just me?). Imagine a campfire. The fire itself is heaven or God (I'll explain this next). Now if you see a campfire at night, there is always a definite yellowish-orangish circle surrounded by vibrant shadow. This halo is the "area" (but not in a 4-D sense, don't worry about that) in which things are blessed. Our world exists bathed in this halo's protection, like a camper huddled against the cold. Our world has a bright side and a dark side, just like someone facing a campfire has a back bathed in shadow. Our choices let us be on either side of our world as we live on it. When we die, we can move independantly around this little cosmology. If we decide the light is warm and inviting and go to it (no burning bug jokes, please), or we can decide it is harsh and glaring and leave the halo.

The area of shadow, the infinite voind around the halo, as you have probably guessed, is Hell. Light is a reall property, shadow is not. There is a light particle (photon) but there is no shadow particle. Likewise, there is God's halo, and the absence of God's halo. This shadow space sure isn't empty, though. Anything, from this world or before (or after, even) that chose to leave God is out here. A few are jelous, circling the halo like a starved cat, envying the camper's goods but scared back by the fire (lucky us), others are merely lying to themselves and really think they're happy out there. One of the most well known outsider is a former Angel: Lucifer the Light Bringer. He decided that God wasn't reallu his cup of tea, so he packed up and left. Mysteriously, he is getting exactly what he thinks he wants: he's in charge of punishing evil humans. Yet he still isn't happy. Hmmm... (hint, hint).
Angels aren't the only ones who can go though; humans were blessed/given the responcibility of/ cursed with free will. If you want to, you can go there any time you want. Obviously, the train of thought is more "I don't really like the idea of this God stuff, so I'm going to take an eternity and say He ain't there" then "I'm just going to go and be tourchured for eternity by a psychotic angel," but it's still a choice.
Interesting note: The halo is visable from everywhere in or out of it, so no excuses.

Sorry, I can't post the rest of what I have to say (cliffhanger!) cause I gotta go.


very interesting analogy...thank you.

i can relate to that quite well...because i have been in the shadows for far too long,and i thought it was what i wanted.now i know i like the warmth of the fire and the light to see my friends.

sounds corny,but i dont care....i have been in very bad/dark places and thought i was happy...and i guess i was,to some extent.
but it sure gets old after you get older and realize you have noone to trust,noone that cares if your dead or alive.well my close friends and family always did...but i didn't want to be around them or was embarressed by my behaviour,so i stayed away(light?)
oh well...interesting topic...i have been to some bad places...really bad places,and will never go back.call me what you want,hell,i dont go to church or anything,i just know i like to be loved and be around good people rather then "having fun in the hood"...not to say religous people aint good,i am not "religous"..i just like the ideal of love and trust.

corny eh...now forgive me my tresspesses...lol...my neighbor is here for some fun.

Ah, yes. The Bible.

To be perfectly honest, a tome created centuries ago by individuals who can put...whatever...they want in it and call it the truth, does not seem like sufficient proof. At best I look upon the Bible as a guide.

I find my proof by other means.

Bingo! This is why I can not accept christianity as a belief. If anyone studies the bible they will find that it was written at different times by different people. These range from monks to roman emporers. Not to mention it has been translated over and over and over again. After a few translations words, sentences and phrases have changed meanings, thus degrading the messages. It is a human work of humans trying to understand or in some cases dominate thier surroundings. Even after realizing that I still stand by beleave what you want to and to each thier own. Just make sure you do not cause others or yourself harm over your beliefs.

I love debating with people that only believe that there are only the 4 dimensions; Width, Length, Height and Time. The Laws of Mortality does not apply to the Spirit realm. Even sceince is finding evidence of the immortal spirit within all of us.

How so? Please, don't come with something like "well, we can't explain it, so there must be something special to it". Centuries ago, people thought that the Earth was flat, and that everything revolved around it. Is Earth flat? Nope. Does everything revolves around it? Nope.

If God create us with immortal spirits why would you doubt that he is also one? Who amongst us can even say that this is the first time he has created a Universe or that he has hasn't created life on millions of planets?

Well, that's assuming a lot of things. Like the fact that there was a god in the first place. If it's so easy to assume that god just popped out of nowhere and created the whole universe, why is it so hard to consider the possibility that the universe just popped out of nowhere all by itself?

"But the universe is so complex, it can't just come from out of nowhere!"

But if there is a god, he's even more complex that the universe, since he was able to create it. He's so even more complex and hard to understand than the universe, he can't just come from out of nowhere!

We're running in circles here. That's why there's this little thing called "factual evidence" which people usually try to base their debates on.

Okay I am getting tired and rambling now but the point is if all life comes from God then there is nothing to say that he could not have always exsisted in the Spirit realm and "spoke all things in to being by the word". Whereas Darwinism can not exsist with out something to create the matter needed for exsistance of life.

Well, according to you, god *can* indeed exist without something to create whatever he's composed of. Double standard, someone?

You believe in a Spirit Realm? Good for you. Well, I actually believe that spring is in fact caused by the green little elf who waves his magical wand and that all of a sudden all flowers pops open overnight and nobody will turn me away from the truth because I believe so much it's what happens.

Really sorry for the sarcasm, but I hope you begin to see what's so annoying when people try to base their argumentation on sheer *belief*. You *can't* argue on belief!

So God knew what would happen if he created life and gave us free will and that he would have to send trillions to hell for their use of their free will. Does that mean he should not have made us for the chance to have trillions of us to spend eternity with?

Oh yeah, he's so full of love for everyone, he's so forgiving, everyone is so much equal in his view... What kind of god is that? If things are so, then he's no better than the old gods from polytheists religion: "Believe in me, you'll be happy and go to heaven. If you don't, well, screw you and go to hell." Oh yeah, so much love he willingly sacrifices to eternal torments an infinity of people.



Listen, I don't care whether there is a god or not, since it is simply impossible to prove or disprove there is a god. I don't even have a problem with religion by itself, after all, it's *supposed* to teach people about love, forgiveness, peace, and so on. Nothing wrong with this. What sickens me is what people have made of this. "You're different from me! You'll burn in hell!" I'm sure Jesus would be proud of this attitude. People seem to have forgotten the values which were the basis of the Christian religion. I don't care if people believe or not. If that's make them happy, good for them. However, some people are only driven by blind faith, try to impose their blind faith on other people just because they believe they're right without any evidence, and that's a problem. "But I believe!!!" Surprise surprise, believing in something doesn't make it true. If I close my eyes and start believing that I hold a million dollars in my hands, will a million dollars magically appear? No. Trying to push pure subjectivism on other people can hardly bring anything good. I respect those who do not just follow faith blindly. It's funny to think that since they base their belief on experience and the like, it's not so much faith anymore.

I guess what I hate so much about religions (organised religions, mind you) nowadays is that they're just so full of blatent contradictions, that they don't care to explain them or further their views, that all organised, institutionalised religions are just fighting for one thing: political power, all the while trying to push on you their beliefs based on pure subjectivity.

I know, I know, it's not everybody, but it's still frustrating when people tell me "you'll go to hell because your beliefs are different than mine", while saying that their religion preaches tolerance and not to judge others.

Try re-reading that! Paid out the old contract and opened a new contract that can include all people not just exclusive to the jews.

Well, if you think the Old Testament is still entirely relevant to Christianity, I would like to have your opinion on what I said earlier about the whole Adam and Eve/original sin story.

Well, if you think the Old Testament is still entirely relevant to Christianity, I would like to have your opinion on what I said earlier about the whole Adam and Eve/original sin story.

I agree with Da Wolverines, in most of his aspects, he has put some thought into what is the basis and the reality of things. Most of the uncoherent babbling religious masses are automatons WHO ONLY BELIEVE IN WHAT THEY ARE TOLD. there is no swaying them, and no making them understand that there are many truth to only one aspect of reality. If God created us, then someone or something must of had created him, cuz thats the circle of life. Nothing could of been created from nowhere. Something had to come before it. Evolution was never mentioned in any text of any religion for people back then didn't have a clue about dinosaurs or DNA or how close we are to monkeys.

If you talk phylosophically to me, you wouldn't stop babbling about the phylosophy of how god is kind to us all and equal to all. But this is the non-sensible babble FROM EVERY RELIGIONS GOD.

My god is kind and honest and peacefull says the christian, and the catholic next to him as well, and so does the guy who believes in the qoran and so does the buddhist and we can just keep on going with this.

Read my post the LONG ASS post i wrote on a page before this one and read it all before starting to talk about what ur religion says or what ur bible says.

think of it this way. if there is a god and a heaven and a hell, and god is all knowing and so great, why not make everyone christian? Why can only christians go to heaven? Jews, muslims, hindus, buddhists, all of those people, even if they live their lives decently and help others, or sacrifice everything to help even just one other person, but they arent christian because they were taught to obey their religion, they're going to hell? Mahatma Ghandi is a perfect example of this. Is he "rotting in hell"?

Basically what the church says is this: If you are proud of who you are and believe in your faith, you wont go to heaven unless your christian, because you're a heaten or a pagan or barbarian or something that is evil. But if you are christian, it doesnt matter how you live your life, because you're going to heaven! you could be as extreme as Al Quaeda, but if you do it in the name of God and Christ, you're going to heaven right?
That makes you just as bad as the terrorists. they mis-understand their religion. As do many christians. Christ, as someone else said, DO NOT MAKE A MARTYR OR RELIGION OUT OF ME WHEN I DIE. JUST FOLLOW MY TEACHINGS AND LIVE THE RIGHT WAY. Where do you get "worship me or burn in hell" from that? Can anyone try not sidestepping that question? I'm jewish. does that mean i'm going to hell? I WORSHIP THE SAME GOD AS ANY CHRISTIAN DOES. THE SAME GOD THAT ANY MUSLIM DOES. ALL THREE RELIGIONS WORSHIP THE SAME GOD. PERIOD. Dont give me all the crap about "that's not true" or whatever, because it is.

Can anyone mount an argument against that?

think of it this way. if there is a god and a heaven and a hell, and god is all knowing and so great, why not make everyone christian? Why can only christians go to heaven? Jews, muslims, hindus, buddhists, all of those people, even if they live their lives decently and help others, or sacrifice everything to help even just one other person, but they arent christian because they were taught to obey their religion, they're going to hell? Mahatma Ghandi is a perfect example of this. Is he "rotting in hell"?

Basically what the church says is this: If you are proud of who you are and believe in your faith, you wont go to heaven unless your christian, because you're a heaten or a pagan or barbarian or something that is evil. But if you are christian, it doesnt matter how you live your life, because you're going to heaven! you could be as extreme as Al Quaeda, but if you do it in the name of God and Christ, you're going to heaven right?
That makes you just as bad as the terrorists. they mis-understand their religion. As do many christians. Christ, as someone else said, DO NOT MAKE A MARTYR OR RELIGION OUT OF ME WHEN I DIE. JUST FOLLOW MY TEACHINGS AND LIVE THE RIGHT WAY. Where do you get "worship me or burn in hell" from that? Can anyone try not sidestepping that question? I'm jewish. does that mean i'm going to hell? I WORSHIP THE SAME GOD AS ANY CHRISTIAN DOES. THE SAME GOD THAT ANY MUSLIM DOES. ALL THREE RELIGIONS WORSHIP THE SAME GOD. PERIOD. Dont give me all the crap about "that's not true" or whatever, because it is.

Can anyone mount an argument against that?

Of course they can sheesh its simple. They dont even have to tell you that you dont believe in another god. They just have to say you follow different rules and beliefs, even though its the same guy you people are worshiping and begging for help and forgiveness daily.

Besides in the present and modern world, NON OF US ARE SAFE FROM SOME SORT OF SIN. If we all are sinners since young how in hecks blazes will we not end up in hell even if we follow the religions basis? I mean we all commit sins since young, your teacher/mom/priest/w/e tells you ask god for forgivness as if u where asking santa clauss (or someone else) for presents. okay, so when u r basically a domesticated religion animal, someone goes against ur religions rules not even agasint your god, you as a domesticated religion animal will fight back with all ur knowledge if not short tempered and going physical. Thats the world we live. You either are trained to do w/e or you think for yourself and are a sinner and by standards will got o hell no matter what, or just dont care about the religions.

Holy hell batman! There's more hot air here than in the white house.

I don't post much, so bear with me, also, if I missed someone's argument, I forgot it, I've just finished reading all 8 pages. So let's get started here shall we?

First off to the guy who said this:

And before any single one of you start asking me why I say that I am a catholic if I sound atheist, its because I would like to honestly believe that there is something awaiting me after death. The rest I know is none-sense

You are not catholic. It doesn't matter what you say, or how much you insist that you are, if you do not follow the teachings of the catholic church. You are not catholic. It is as simple as that. there is no excuse, no argument that can make you catholic. How do I know? I am catholic, not very devout, but I follow the rules to the best of my ability.

Next up. The Bible.
My teacher once told me,"Everything in the bible is true, and some of it might have actually happened." The Bible, despite what many, many, many protestants would have you believe, is not, and was never intended to be, a history book. There are certain events in the Bible which can be verified and are true, among them are the life and death of jesus, the fact that he resurrected(or if you don't buy this, I'll explain a bit later so just hold on and read all of my post please), the fact that the Israelites were indeed a nation who had the crud kicked out of them for many years, the fact that the Apostles continued the ministry of Jesus, and established the church, not the baptist, mormon, or unitarian church, THE church. The line of bishops of rome, who by tradition(and fact) are the heads of the church and follow the line of peter, who was apponted the head by jesus.The facts I have stated here can be verified by a whole host of sources, from the historian josefus to official records and letters. So please people, stop arguing with the bible alone, in the catholic church there is a belief, spelled out in latin that, roughly translated means "Not with scripture alone", there are things besides the bible, use them.

Now, about Hell. It is there, it most definitely exists, it is referred to many times, both in the bible and in church doctrine. The way it has been explained to me(this is the actual church teaching by the way), is this:

God loves us always, regardless of what we do. Our actions can have us face toward God and love him back, or we can turn our backs on him and not love him. Regardless God loves us, so why is there a hell then? Because we choose to go there. When a person dies, they run to hell, rather than face the benevolent loving God who made them and offered them every chance to go to heaven. Why? because of the guilt, the guilt of knowing that they have denied his free gift, the guilt of knowing that they turned their backs on him is so great, that they would rather be in hell than stand up before the all mighty creator to repent.

Now about the fact that Jesus resurrected, it is something that can be easily deduced. I'll use the following analogy.
Suppose you are a follower of Jesus, you believe in him, and then all of a sudden, the romans, back then the greatest ass kickers of their day, kill him, not only that, but the chief priests of your own people demanded his death, and all over you see that his other believers are scattering away because he's dead. The promise he gave is gone, over, he's obviously not the messiah because he DIED. Then three days later, you hear people saying something impossible, that Jesus has come back to life. You don't believe it but everyone around you is excited and is believing it, but you are skeptical. Then you are in Jerusalem, and you hear a commotion. Proceeding to see what it is, you find the twelve apostles outside of a house, which flames on their heads, speaking in tongues that no one heard them speak before, converting everyone who hears them. And mind you, these aren't highly educated people, they are simpletons. The other followers of Jesus are a big mix of poor uneducated non-influential people, the type who would scatter like so many others upon losing their leader. But instead of them scattering, they come together and preach, going to their deaths to be able to preach the Good News about their Messiah, that he is risen! not only is he risen, but he will come back to earth, and will give everyone a chance at eternal life! Sounds fantastical, but think about it. why would a bunch of simple fishermen go out and risk their lives to preach for a dead guy? why would someone who would change his name to Paul, who never met Jesus, who is actually a KILLER OF CHRISTIANS, suddenly convert and begin preaching too? why would they all go so far out of their way to convert people all over the world, not just in the roman empire, but in persia and india, as well as ethiopia? It makes no sense, unless you think that maybe, just maybe, they're telling the truth, if you follow this line of reasoning, then Jesus' ressurection is a veritable fact, that even simpleminded fishermen could see.


Wasn't that fun? well onto the next thing, the whole catholics protestants guff. I challenge any protestant to tell me truthfully that the first leader of their religion was one of the apostles. I challenge any protestant to tell me truthfully that there was no bible in existence before the founding of their religion. And I challenge any protestant to say that their bible and the catholic bible don't come from the same source. There are so many verifiable facts that the Catholic church is indeed THE church founded by the apostles of Jesus, it isn't funny. The thing is, you cannot pick and choose what you like. God isn't what you want him to be, what you believe he is, God is GOD, and he didn't come down to Martin Luther, or John Calvin, or anyone in america (EVER) and tell them to start a new religion. Luther for one NEVER wanted to start a new religion, and died professing he was a catholic. So for all those protestants out there who say you're the hotshots that have the rules and you're the only ones to get into heaven, I've got news for you, you're not.

Lastly,(I know you all are getting tired of me) who goes to heaven? Well i can sit here and tell you that Gandhi is most likely in heaven, so are the aborigines of australia, and the Native Americans/Indians. It's not about "You don't know about christ"/"You don't believe in christ"/"You don't want to confess all your sins" and because of this you are doomed to hell. That's making heaven exclusively for christians, which screws just about everyone else. heaven is for EVERYONE christian or NOT! The thing is this, if you don't know about God, you can't honestly say that you denied him, because you never got a chance to know him. If you were raised to believe differently, you can't honestly say you denied God, because you were not taught that he was the true God. If you question God and were never approached to be converted by someone who didn't condemn you to hell the moment you said you weren't interested, then you can't say you denied God, because no one took the time to tell you all the facts. God wants belief, but he doesn't have an exclusivity clause to get into heaven. Good People can get into heaven. People who have shown their belief in God, not through words or knowledge, but through living rightly, according to their own beliefs. If you are ignorant of God, yet live rightly, you will go to heaven, period.

If anyone questions my Catholicism, I currently go to catholic school, and am blessed with knowledgable people around me, as well as the inquisitiveness to go out and research these things on my own.

Thank you for your time, God bless.

I hear ya SeeD, but there is a few thing's I'd like to say.

Originally posted by Garden SeeD Nations
well onto the next thing, the whole catholics protestants guff. I challenge any protestant to tell me truthfully that the first leader of their religion was one of the apostles. I challenge any protestant to tell me truthfully that there was no bible in existence before the founding of their religion. And I challenge any protestant to say that their bible and the catholic bible don't come from the same source. There are so many verifiable facts that the Catholic church is indeed THE church founded by the apostles of Jesus, it isn't funny. The thing is, you cannot pick and choose what you like. God isn't what you want him to be, what you believe he is, God is GOD, and he didn't come down to Martin Luther, or John Calvin, or anyone in america (EVER) and tell them to start a new religion. Luther for one NEVER wanted to start a new religion, and died professing he was a catholic. So for all those protestants out there who say you're the hotshots that have the rules and you're the only ones to get into heaven, I've got news for you, you're not.

Now I'll start out by saying that I am most definitely a Christian. I'm trying on a daily basis to surrender my life to Jesus (only trying because none of us can say we truly do ) However, unlike you, I am CoE (Church of England for those that don't know, it's part of the Anglican Church).

Now don't get me wrong, I'm no 'Catholics must die' Anglican, in fact I'm all for ecumenism - after all, how can we really preach about the message of God when we can't decide what it is? However you make it seem like the Protestant Church as a whole has completely rejected Catholicism, but I for one, and doubtless millions of other Protestants around the world don't think like that at all.

It is certainly true that the R.C. Church began the CHristain religion as it is, and it's also true that it's the largest denomination, however, off-shoots aren't claiming that the Catholic Church is wrong. All we're saying is that some parts of Catholic dogma - which is after all, human derived and therefore fallible by it's very nature - is misinterpreted.

For example, take The Assumption of Mary. Now I asked the chaplain at my school what the reasoning behind that was, and it's basically based on the fact that early Christians couldn't find Mary's body, and from that sprung the Assumption. Surely it's natural to question that?

Also, the heavy Catholic emphasis on Mary herself - never mind that you (by you I mean teh Catholic Church as a whole) insist that she was a virgin even after she birthed Jesus, even though it says in the Bible that He had brothers and sisters - but I mean more the almost-worship of her. Certainly she is worthy of honou, as are all the saints, but to that extent? It's almost like idolatry in a way, as you pray to and worship Mary almost as much a God himself - a breach of both the first commandment and the golden rule.

Just my thoughts - other denominations don't think the Catholic Church is completely wrong - we have way too much in common for that - but we do think you aren't infallible. Surely we have a right to question? After all, by questioning and improving we make progress towards God.

Your brother in Christ.

I appreciate the comments.

I question why there are differences in the first place. I see protestantism as a bunch of people who for one reason or another didn't like the original church that can trace itself back to Peter. Didn't Peter recieve the power to guide the church as it's very first leader? Then why shouldn't his successors, guided by the same holy spirit that guided him, have the same claim? Sure, not all the popes were perfect, and a good handful were driven by material gain. But for every pope who did evil, there were many more who made the church strong and helped everyone. It doesn't click why you have to go out and make your own church instead of changing things from within, God guides his flock you know? so it wouldn't be good to have all the gray sheep in their own flock and the white ones in their own etc.

As to mary, contrary to belief, we don't believe that mary remained a virgin. It does say in the bible that Jesus had brothers, and the catholic church let that get into the bible, so how can we disagree if we didn't cross it out? Mary is not idolized, she is not God, she is the mother of God, and a very special human being. She has appeared to a number of people, and has been active around the world, people pray to her for her intercession on their behalf to God, we don't pray to her as though she were a God. Also, the assumption of mary is a tradition, it's not in the Bible as far as I know, but it's part of the tradition. Keep in mind that the New testament was written far after Jesus lived, and they would have used oral tradition to keep his story alive, ergo, the New Testament is just written tradition, the difference is that we acknowledge that some things weren't written down.

Thank you.

According to Christianity, God created every single person on this planet
According to Christianity, God gave me a brain, and the ability to reason
With the reasoning and judgement that God alledgedly gave me, according to Christianity, I have decided that Christianity cannot be right
So, I live my life with extremely high standards and high values, doing everything I can to improve society, being 100% responsible and accountable for every action I take, treating others as I would have them treat me, donating my time and money to charitable causes, in general, be as good a person as I can possibly be, while choosing to believe that Jesus Christ is not my saviour.
And I go to hell.
I go to hell, because with the reasoning that god gave me, I have determined that Christ is not my saviour.
Mahatma Gandhi goes to hell, because he was born and raised a Hindu, and despite all the good that came of his actions while he was alive, he is supposedly burning in hell.
4 billion of the people who are on this earth right now, either because they used their reasoning to determine that Christianity was not right, or more likely, because they were raised a different religion and possibly even taught that if they were any religion other than their own, they would go to hell.
Complete scumbags who live their life to make an extra buck on the backs of anyone else, who would slit their own mother's throat for a nickel if they could get away with it, who have no moral sense whatsoever, from the lowliest street thug to the corrupt businessman or politician, but just happen to be Christian, go to church every Sunday and ask god to forgive them for their sins go to heaven.
Adolf Hitler sits in heaven while Mahatma Gandhi burns in hell.
How do Christians justify this?
Frankly, if Christianity is right, then I would rather burn in hell than serve such an evil, merciless, uncaring god.
If God does exist, I should hope he is nothing whatsoever like he is portrayed in Christianity.

Brockadia

You use the phrase "christianity says" many times but many christians interpret scripture in different ways. I suggest you read and quote a Bible in the passages that it talks about judgement then we could debate on what the scipture is saying, then maybe you might see a justification for hell.
(on a personal note i consider hell and the lake of fire to be different places)

If anything, I would think that Heaven and Hell exist in the same place. I mean, if you're a Catholic, what could be more heavenly than spending eternity having fellowship with countless numbers of other Catholics basking in the glory of God?

If you're not, what could be more hellish than being surrounded by Catholics for all eternity that do nothing but sit around and bask in the glory of God?

Some Catholic scholar studied this problem a while back, his answer:

Hell exists so that the people in heaven can fully appreciate what they got (something to that extent)

In essence, heaven was watching hell.

"Man is the cruelest animal. At tragedies, bullfights, and crucifixions he has so far felt best on earth; and when he invented hell for himself, behold, that was his very heaven."

-Nietzsche

Why do Christians have to justify hell or the criteria by which people are sent there? They didn't create hell and didn't establish the rules.

No but remeber you choose if you want to go there it's no one elses but yours that is the most major gift God gave us. He gave us Freedom of Choice so we can chose to believe what we want to believe. But remeber for every choice there is always a concenquence.

God has to have somewhere to send "Good Christians".

"these people will go to hell,but we are the chosen few."

its just man justifying his us vs them mentality.

any god who loves his children and gives them free will has no reason to destroy them or torture them. after all,why would he destroy his perfect creation when he created us the way we are? why would he call certain groups of his perfect creation "heathens?"

anyone who has ever taken the time to read the bible can easily spot all the hypocracy and inconsistencies. faith cant explain or excuse things like a "merciful" god who destroyed the whole world(his perfect creation)with a flood in which innocent children were also drowned.

think about it. even if god does exists in some form,im sure he thinks christianity is a very sad human invention.

if god gives you free will to do as you please then punishes you because you didnt do what he wanted you to...thats not really free will is it? i wouldnt kill my kid because he got an F on his report card...i like to think that god is at least as understanding as i am.....

i suggest you read the story of the flood again. God saw that humanity had become extremely corrupt. Children raised in a corrupt society will also be corrupted. By wiping out this society he gave future children a chance. As to the children That died during the flood if they are "innocent" then they will not be punished. Only the quilty are punished.

I suggest you all read people's posts because pretty much all of your issues have been covered.

Believing in an "afterlife" is the most egotistical thought a person can have.

The afterlife (heaven, hell, reincarnation etc) is the human psyche's way of denying that they are mortal and that there existence and effect on there environment is only temporary.

Religions of all type promote peace and love etc but religion is responsible for more disaster and suffering than all other causes combined (including money).

Take a look at history and how many millions, if not billions have fallen on the sword of religion's righteousness.

-The Crusades
-Witch Hunts
-Israel/Palestine
-Iraq
-Bosnia/Serbia/Kosovo
-Recent Islamic Fundamentalist Activity (New York, Bali, London)

All the above examples are situations where innocent people have fallen victim to religion.

You should also notice that these examples account for all major religions (Christian, Catholic, Muslim, Jew etc) So all are guilty.

If everyone abandoned these false beliefs and instead lived a life of general compassion and respect for humanity then this world would be a far better place to exist.

Please feel free to disagree with me and submit valid arguments. I am keen to hear a religious persons challenge to the above points.

i hope i can assist in clearing this matter up a bit heven and hell are stated to exist in various religious text and or theroys worldwide and are depicted in both pictures written text and oral language however there is one massive mistake...
GOD NEVER CAME DOWN AN FRAGGIN SAID THEY EXIST PERIOD!!!
the heven -hell theroy is to scare peeps int beliveing a book or ideal formed by religions who would have them kill in the name of the various deity
so easily is the first commandment of each religion cast away 1: thou shat not kill

end result : god/he/she/it whatever name it so chooses an whatever guize it chooses to appear in made us this way to be free in both spirit and body its up to the person what they do as for rewards and punishment make ur own darn minds up and for all our skaes stop beliving in a book penned by man to serve man an start following what if u truly belive there is a god ur darn HEART! the world would be a much better place if you do

to those who say he did come down its in the bible/other religous text i refer you to my past answer it was written by man and man being man LIES if he were perfect ''he woulnt have been thrown out of eden for eatin that apple now would he (he= adam for non bible followers)

Woah Dark-Dragon. I hate to make this personal but, is English your first language? Because if it is, I want to find your school English teacher and slap him/her.

I could barely read your email because of atrocious spelling and almost complete lack of punctuation.

Or is that some type of uber-L33T, new-age, superspeak?

P.S Here you go. You may need these ...........,,,,,,,,,,,

"i suggest you read the story of the flood again. God saw that humanity had become extremely corrupt. Children raised in a corrupt society will also be corrupted. By wiping out this society he gave future children a chance. As to the children That died during the flood if they are "innocent" then they will not be punished. Only the quilty are punished."

how could humanity become corrupt if it was a perfect creation? perfection indicates a state with no flaws or weaknesses. so,either creation is inheirently flawed,or...god ALLOWED us to become corrupt because evil and suffering is part of his perfect creation. following me so far? now,if he allows evil to exist as part of his perfect divine plan as some have suggested,then he was disrupting his own plan by killing the corrupted! maybe god realized he made a mistake and was just erasing it? no? hmmmmm....

and if you want to blame the introduction of sin and corruption on the devils temptations,then you need to explain to me why god would allow man to be corrupted by satan. free choice you say? then why are we punished for free choice? you see,it is an idiotic arguement. god created the angels,so he created evil,therefore,evil must be part of his great plan right? so gods plan is to punish us weak gullible humans for using free will and choosing evil?
sorry....i wont follow a god like that. he sounds a little too neurotic for me.

as for the children being punished,i cant believe that 3 year olds were guilty and needed to be punished. god could have sent the good angels to spirit the kids away to a safe haven,but he didnt. he killed them and looked down from heaven on their bloated bodies. nice.....

the bible was written by scared,angry,greedy,dark men who wanted to control the masses for their own selfish reasons. it has nothing to do with creation or the real god.....

We're all screwed anyway.

Every single religion tells you, if you don't believe in the 'right' god, you're going to hell (or the suitable equivalent, depending on the religion). Since all those religions also have a mutual exclusion clause (i.e. you believe in ONE of them but can't believe in all of them), you invariably believe in the wrong god.

You're going to hell. So party and enjoy your life while it lasts.

Woah Dark-Dragon. I hate to make this personal but, is English your first language? Because if it is, I want to find your school English teacher and slap him/her.

I could barely read your email because of atrocious spelling and almost complete lack of punctuation.

Or is that some type of uber-L33T, new-age, superspeak?

P.S Here you go. You may need these ...........,,,,,,,,,,, hmm id rather you'd answer and make a point rather than try to make a person look stupid the lack of punctuation and grammer in those messages was owing to the fact i was tired and peeved off

First off to the guy who said this:

Before you start questioning if I am a Catholic when I sound atheist just know that I have seen and learned and studied most of the point where the church lies and there are missconceptions.

You are not catholic. It doesn't matter what you say, or how much you insist that you are, if you do not follow the teachings of the catholic church. You are not catholic. It is as simple as that. there is no excuse, no argument that can make you catholic. How do I know? I am catholic, not very devout, but I follow the rules to the best of my ability.
.


Who said I didn't follow the rules? You should learn to speak in matters you know and not go assuming anything. Second I also went to Catholic school and I was also in an environment where the priests try to brainwash you. They want to make you believe and try to make you think that the only true religion and that everything in the bible is correct. But there is irrefutable proof that there are many fake copies and added pages as well as destroyed copies of the original bible. The one that was written by human hands, depicting what jesus had said and the teachings of the religion.

Second GOD will "punish" those who believe in other gods. There is no running away from that, for in the bible since u depict as everything or partially truthfull, depicts the punishment of his people when they started to believe in the golden cow. Tell me one thing, if the omnipotent being of the entire universe knows everything, WHY DOES HE GET MAD WHEN HE KNOWS WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN?" I mean wouldn't that be rather childish? You know what will happen and even so you prefer to enjoy the punishment of lesser beings just so they learn their lesson? Which in most cases just death and fear came out of those situation, BUT its in the bible so they all loved him afterwards for killing their siblings?

You still didn't answer my first and irrefutable question. I honestly know u won't be able to answer it for no priest neither in all the churches I have been to as well as the priests in my school where able to answer it.
If God spontaneously combusted out of space meaning nothing, and he needed time to create earth and the rest of the planets as well as dinosaurs (which u dont mention either), who the hell created time?
Because if u tell me that time has always been around we can infer again the time created god and that time is the creator of all. Which would make a bit more sense in the scietifical area but not in the religious area now wouldn't it?

And last but not least, The bible was written by human hands and human beings. Humans as GOD created us and depicted us, we are perfect. We where perfectly inperfect beings as simple as that. Since the first 2 beings ADAM AND EVA curiosity has existed, as well as human misinterpretation of things. Angels are GODS slaves/messengers. They protect heaven and follow his every command, but slavery in human society is a sin ... wow what a GOD. The bible was written by human hands you have to understand that whatever we create is bound to have flaws. We are the most imperfect beings on the planet. We have thought and interpretation, as well as will to create. But we are the destroyers of our planet, in order to eat we kill millions of other animals for our own self preservation taking their environments to their limits. We multiply like rabbits, but rabbits get eaten when they overpopulate their ecosystem ... meaning? someone higher in the food chain eats them making a balance for food to be there for everyone. But if you are human, there is no higher in the food chain being except GOD, and GOD wont kill us in order to not destroy his planet. We melt the ice caps, global warming AND WE HAVE A LOT MORE SHIT. GOD gave us the choice, but he also has the choice to kill greedy men who help destroy our environment or change OUR will at his command. He plays chess with ur, and we are his pawns. The devil is the dark side and GOD is the light's side. That really doesn't make sense since GOD is the all powerfull being ... he could kill/destroy/stop the devil from ever creating anything besides flowers on ur graves. The devil is a fallen angel who just didnt want to be GOD's bitch anymore more or less. He got punished and he created hell ... and then he spread his anger to humans on earth without god doing anything abt it ... anyone smell bullshit? cuz I do.

[

how could humanity become corrupt if it was a perfect creation? perfection indicates a state with no flaws or weaknesses. so,either creation is inheirently flawed,or...god ALLOWED us to become corrupt because evil and suffering is part of his perfect creation. following me so far? now,if he allows evil to exist as part of his perfect divine plan as some have suggested,then he was disrupting his own plan by killing the corrupted! maybe god realized he made a mistake and was just erasing it? no? hmmmmm....

the word perfection is not used in the story of creation. The word is good as in unspoiled by evil.



and if you want to blame the introduction of sin and corruption on the devils temptations,then you need to explain to me why god would allow man to be corrupted by satan. free choice you say? then why are we punished for free choice? you see,it is an idiotic arguement. god created the angels,so he created evil,therefore,evil must be part of his great plan right? so gods plan is to punish us weak gullible humans for using free will and choosing evil?
sorry....i wont follow a god like that. he sounds a little too neurotic for me.

having free choice (the ability to choose) does not absolve you of the consequeces of that choice. you may choose to do good things or bad things both have consequeces. if you choose to jump off a bridge then you will probably get hurt (unless it is small)

the creation of satan is not specifically (sp) written in the Bible. Since I am not a prophet i cant tell you but many people beleive that satan chose to rebel against God


as for the children being punished,i cant believe that 3 year olds were guilty and needed to be punished. god could have sent the good angels to spirit the kids away to a safe haven,but he didnt. he killed them and looked down from heaven on their bloated bodies. nice.....

Rev 20:12 And i saw the dead great and small standing before the throne, and the books were opened. another book was opened which is the book of life. the dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.

How do you know God did not spirit away the innocent children?? The body is mortal God can easily give you another if he so desires. Life was detroyed not their spiritual bodies.

Rev 21:4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

(and now a joke, you cant believe a three year old needs to be punished then apparently you have not experienced the "terrible two's" ;)

the bible was written by scared,angry,greedy,dark men who wanted to control the masses for their own selfish reasons. it has nothing to do with creation or the real god.....[/QUOTE]\]

well the Bible was written by many people some of them unknown, so how can you judge them if you dont even know their name.

And please tell me how the Selfish "paul" profitted from his writtings??

"these people will go to hell,but we are the chosen few."

its just man justifying his us vs them mentality.

any god who loves his children and gives them free will has no reason to destroy them or torture them. after all,why would he destroy his perfect creation when he created us the way we are? why would he call certain groups of his perfect creation "heathens?"

so if you had children and you let them go out saturday night and they choose to use their freedom to do something wrong then you have no right to punish them??????

anyone who has ever taken the time to read the bible can easily spot all the hypocracy and inconsistencies. faith cant explain or excuse things like a "merciful" god who destroyed the whole world(his perfect creation)with a flood in which innocent children were also drowned.

ok point them out and we will talk about them. I read the NIV but if you want to use another translation let me know. we may get into translation arguments but that is ok with me.

think about it. even if god does exists in some form,im sure he thinks christianity is a very sad human invention.

have you talked to him????

if god gives you free will to do as you please then punishes you because you didnt do what he wanted you to...thats not really free will is it? i wouldnt kill my kid because he got an F on his report card...i like to think that god is at least as understanding as i am.....

I' am glad you wont kill your kid for getting an "f" but i sure hope you punish him at least a little if he is capable of better.

God is forgiving (that means he wont punish you for everything you do wrong or that he might "lighten the punishment" under certain circumstances)

"the word perfection is not used in the story of creation. The word is good as in unspoiled by evil."

yes, i know. "...and the Lord saw that it was good,and he was pleased"

but there are several other places in the bible where god,jesus,man,spirit,and creation are all described as being in a state of perfection. then we were corrupted by sin. how could a perfect creature be corrupted? how can a child be innocent and a sinner at the same time?

"having free choice (the ability to choose) does not absolve you of the consequeces of that choice. you may choose to do good things or bad things both have consequeces. if you choose to jump off a bridge then you will probably get hurt (unless it is small)"

true,but if i jump off a bridge and break my leg,i dont go to hell. if i blow up a government building i go to jail,i dont go "poof" and appear in hell. hell is not a naturally occuring consequence. it is a consequence imposed by god,even though we were exercising our supposed free will. and a forgiving god would not feel a need to punish us. it would be beneath him. priests try to assign human emotions and prejudices to god. its silly.

"the creation of satan is not specifically (sp) written in the Bible. Since I am not a prophet i cant tell you but many people beleive that satan chose to rebel against God"

i have heard both that god created the angels and also that lucifer was like god...always there without a creator who made him. if god did create him,then he created evil as well. if god didnt create him,then he is not all powerful and all knowing since he couldnt prevent lucifers interference in his great plan.




"Rev 20:12 And i saw the dead great and small standing before the throne, and the books were opened. another book was opened which is the book of life. the dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books."

again,here we have an example of humans judging other humans. we want those that hurt us to be punished and tormented,so this was written into the bible. if rev 20:12 is true,how do you know you are safe then? if he knows what is in the hearts and minds of all people,he knows what you have done or thought about doing. you might be sure you are going to heaven and end up in hell because you unknowingly did something that offended god. and the guy who you think is such a scumbag might actually be part of gods plan and doing gods work. maybe that is why it says "judge not lest ye be judged."

"How do you know God did not spirit away the innocent children?? The body is mortal God can easily give you another if he so desires. Life was detroyed not their spiritual bodies."

a terrifying physical death is still not necissary even if they went to heaven. besides,you said the kids were punished too. which is it?

"(and now a joke, you cant believe a three year old needs to be punished then apparently you have not experienced the "terrible two's"

a 2 year old doesnt deserve hell,and since we are still very much like children ourselves in gods eyes,i cant see him giving an ignorant child that kind of punishment...

"well the Bible was written by many people some of them unknown, so how can you judge them if you dont even know their name."

its easy. the same way that christians can judge me and others...

"And please tell me how the Selfish "paul" profitted from his writtings??"

no human on earth does anything unless it benefits himself,but i wasnt refering to paul. i was refering to the ones who came later...

Ok, here we go again with this original sin and free will thing:

-According to Christians, God is omniscient and omnipotent.

-God created Adam and Eve innocent, thus without any knowledge of what was good or evil, without any knowledge of "sin" or whatever. This is confirmed by the fact that they gain this knowledge *after* eating the fruit (which is why they feel shame all of a sudden).

-God forbids them to eat the fruit. However, they are innocent and without knowledge of good or evil. So they can't possibly know if disobeying god is evil or not.

-So they eat the fruit.

-They gain knowledge of good and evil, but it is too late, and god, even though he's supposed to be so loving and forgiving and all (not to mention that *he's* the one who created them without knowledge of good and evil) kicks them out of heaven.

-God is omniscient, so he *knew* that this was going to happen, that's what omniscient means: he knows everything.

-Three possible conclusions:
1. This story is true and god, since it's by his own fault that it happened (since he created them without any knowledge that disobeying him would be bad and he was omniscient, which means he should have known about it) is an incredibly uncaring jerk or a cruel monster, which makes Christianity pretty much useless (since the reason why we are supposed to be Christians is because it's so much about love and the like).
2. This story is false and thus cannot be used in any debate about sin, good and evil, free will, etc.
3. This story is true and god is in fact imperfect according to Christian teachings: either he isn't omniscient and thus couldn't foresee this (which then means he might not be omnipotent either, since without omniscience, he's pretty much doing things without knowing if he couldn't actually do more, or what effect his actions have, etc.), or he's omniscient and omnipotent and whatever, but used his powers carelessly (creating people in such a way that they'll be screwed sooner or later is pretty much careless), and thus is imperfect too.

I want an answer from all you christians out there. It's funny how nobody has yet bothered answering this.

"the word perfection is not used in the story of creation. The word is good as in unspoiled by evil."

yes, i know. "...and the Lord saw that it was good,and he was pleased"

but there are several other places in the bible where god,jesus,man,spirit,and creation are all described as being in a state of perfection. then we were corrupted by sin. how could a perfect creature be corrupted? how can a child be innocent and a sinner at the same time?

so can you quote a book, chapter and verse?

"having free choice (the ability to choose) does not absolve you of the consequeces of that choice. you may choose to do good things or bad things both have consequeces. if you choose to jump off a bridge then you will probably get hurt (unless it is small)"

true,but if i jump off a bridge and break my leg,i dont go to hell. if i blow up a government building i go to jail,i dont go "poof" and appear in hell. hell is not a naturally occuring consequence. it is a consequence imposed by god,even though we were exercising our supposed free will. and a forgiving god would not feel a need to punish us. it would be beneath him. priests try to assign human emotions and prejudices to god. its silly.

God wont send you to hell for breaking your leg either. If God is the creator then breaking your leg is a consequece imposed by God

"the creation of satan is not specifically (sp) written in the Bible. Since I am not a prophet i cant tell you but many people beleive that satan chose to rebel against God"

i have heard both that god created the angels and also that lucifer was like god...always there without a creator who made him. if god did create him,then he created evil as well. if god didnt create him,then he is not all powerful and all knowing since he couldnt prevent lucifers interference in his great plan.

Yes according to the Bible God made the angels, it does not say when or exactly what transpired in satan's rebellion. God did prevent Lucifers interference. Jesus died so all could be forgivin. That means all people can go to heavan.


"Rev 20:12 And i saw the dead great and small standing before the throne, and the books were opened. another book was opened which is the book of life. the dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books."

again,here we have an example of humans judging other humans. we want those that hurt us to be punished and tormented,so this was written into the bible. if rev 20:12 is true,how do you know you are safe then? if he knows what is in the hearts and minds of all people,he knows what you have done or thought about doing. you might be sure you are going to heaven and end up in hell because you unknowingly did something that offended god. and the guy who you think is such a scumbag might actually be part of gods plan and doing gods work. maybe that is why it says "judge not lest ye be judged."

people are not doing the judging God is. (he is the one on the throne).
I accepted Christ sacrifice for my sins. That writes my name in the book of life. I am forgiven of the evil deeds i have done that are recorded in the other books.

"How do you know God did not spirit away the innocent children?? The body is mortal God can easily give you another if he so desires. Life was detroyed not their spiritual bodies."

a terrifying physical death is still not necissary even if they went to heaven. besides,you said the kids were punished too. which is it?

It may be neither you are assuming that there were children of an "innocent" age. I could give you several rationalizations but done would be Biblically supported but neither is you terrifing death.

"(and now a joke, you cant believe a three year old needs to be punished then apparently you have not experienced the "terrible two's"

a 2 year old doesnt deserve hell,and since we are still very much like children ourselves in gods eyes,i cant see him giving an ignorant child that kind of punishment...

hmm did you miss the joke part or did you dont "get it"?

"well the Bible was written by many people some of them unknown, so how can you judge them if you dont even know their name."

its easy. the same way that christians can judge me and others...

I have not condemed you but have only tried to debate you in a forum that you freely (by your own choice) participate in. I dont know if you are deserving of hell but I know that I am.

"And please tell me how the Selfish "paul" profitted from his writtings??"

no human on earth does anything unless it benefits himself,but i wasnt refering to paul. i was refering to the ones who came later...

you said those things of the people who wrote the Bible. Much of the new testament was written by him and other apostles. If you are refering to the people who cannonized books of the Bible then you are free to read those books that are called the apochryfa (sp) and judge them for your self.

To the argument of free will:

There is no free will in Christianity. Christianity's God does not give us free will.

We have the free will to choose eternal happiness by God's side (heaven), or emptyness, nothingness (hell). Now, which one is the clear choice? You can't say we have free will, technically.

You have free will to raise your hand, but if you do, I will shoot you.
You have free will to believe what you want, but if you do, you will not get eternal happiness. Great, so I have little choice. So where does the free will come from?

To the argument of us rejecting God's help:

I never said I reject God and heaven. If I find out he exists when I die, I'll gladly accept him. For now, he'll have to realize that I use logic and reasoning to found my beliefs, and with the lacking evidence of his existance, I cannot blindly believe he exists.

What if I think Religion is a scam? What if I believe that people are trying to earn power, money, and influence by taking advantage of those willing to believe? What if I believe Religion is a bad thing?
Thus, in believe, I would think that it would be best if I didn't partake in it. I am doing what I think is best, and am being as good as I can be. Yet I go to hell. Rather, I "reject" God. I'll accept God if I realize he exists when I die. For now, I'd rather do what I think is best for everyone and make everyone as happy as I can, instead of simply accepting God and that's that.

If God cannot see that I try to make life better for everyone, and instead banishes me to hell, then it is not a perfect God. I believe that if God exists, he is a perfect God.

God will look down upon me, and will see that I see greed and corruption in Religion, and as such do not partake in it, he will not banish me. That is, if he is perfect.

To any argument involving belief and faith:

Why did God make us intelligent so that we could ponder the universe, if he didn't want us to do that? God wants you to have faith and then he'll accept you into heaven. Pretty much give up your intelligence and accept something without any proof. So why did he give us this intelligence?

Logic deducts that taking a *perfect* God, a heaven, and a hell, all good people will go to heaven and all bad people will go to hell. Praying is unnecessary, because God looks at your actions, not at your prayers. He cannot be bribed with prayers. You must prove you are a good person with your actions.
God does not discriminate on religion. He's perfect. He's beyond banishing those who don't believe in him. After all, it was he who gave them the ability to reason.

In fact, I don't think God would be happy with this whole "faith" thing. Faith is believing something blindly without any proof, which is what Christians claim is needed to get into heaven and be one with God. It means closing your mind and believing something regardless of proof. Basically throwing out your intelligence. God gave you intelligence and you're squandering it like that? That will make him mad. But he is perfect, so he does not get mad. In fact, he still won't judge you in bad light. He'll judge you by your actions.

I think God is perfect. As long as you live a good life, and do good deeds, you are worthy to be at his side, in heaven.

Ok, here we go again with this original sin and free will thing:

-According to Christians, God is omniscient and omnipotent.
This cristian believes that God is undefinable in human terms. Being undefined should not be a problem with you logical/scientific people unless you found a way to divide by zero. Also your argument here only applies to those christians that take this story a literal history in the strictest sense.
Also ignoring the etemology of "Adam and Eve"

-God created Adam and Eve innocent, thus without any knowledge of what was good or evil, without any knowledge of "sin" or whatever. This is confirmed by the fact that they gain this knowledge *after* eating the fruit (which is why they feel shame all of a sudden).

Adam and Eve were told what they could do and what they could not do. They were also given a consequence. They made a choice. (btw if you are strictly reading the Bible God told Adam not to eat the forbidden fruit but Eve is apparently told by Adam or God cause she knows about it when the serpent talks with her)

-God forbids them to eat the fruit. However, they are innocent and without knowledge of good or evil. So they can't possibly know if disobeying god is evil or not.
They were told the consequence. and what not to do.

-So they eat the fruit. Willingly

-They gain knowledge of good and evil, but it is too late, and god, even though he's supposed to be so loving and forgiving and all (not to mention that *he's* the one who created them without knowledge of good and evil) kicks them out of heaven.

They were kicked out of Eden,not heaven, God is loving (he cloths them before banishment) and forgiving. It is believed that the first messianic (prophecy of christ) is given so that people can be redeemed.

-God is omniscient, so he *knew* that this was going to happen, that's what omniscient means: he knows everything.
I know that my children will do foolish things but I still will let them make choices.

-Three possible conclusions:
1. This story is true and god, since it's by his own fault that it happened (since he created them without any knowledge that disobeying him would be bad and he was omniscient, which means he should have known about it) is an incredibly uncaring jerk or a cruel monster, which makes Christianity pretty much useless (since the reason why we are supposed to be Christians is because it's so much about love and the like).

No it is not God's fault. Adam and Eve made the choice.

2. This story is false and thus cannot be used in any debate about sin, good and evil, free will, etc.
Perhaps its a story told by more primitive and unsophisticated people to explain how things are the way they are.

3. This story is true and god is in fact imperfect according to Christian teachings: either he isn't omniscient and thus couldn't foresee this (which then means he might not be omnipotent either, since without omniscience, he's pretty much doing things without knowing if he couldn't actually do more, or what effect his actions have, etc.), or he's omniscient and omnipotent and whatever, but used his powers carelessly (creating people in such a way that they'll be screwed sooner or later is pretty much careless), and thus is imperfect too.

With this reasoning nobody anywhere should ever breed because eventually their kids will screwed sooner or later. God could forsee that Adam and Eve would have a choice and he could see what would happen no matter which choice they made. Your arguement relies on pre-destiny. pre-destiny contradicts free will. So do you have free will or are you merely a organic robot? if you are what point is there in debating, you will only follow your program and i will follow mine.

I want an answer from all you christians out there. It's funny how nobody has yet bothered answering this.

there you have been "answered"

i suggest you read the story of the flood again. God saw that humanity had become extremely corrupt. Children raised in a corrupt society will also be corrupted. By wiping out this society he gave future children a chance. As to the children That died during the flood if they are "innocent" then they will not be punished. Only the quilty are punished.

Lovely. Of course, god being the omnipotent and omniscient he's supposed to be, he just couldn't do anything to prevent it, nor to take back people to the "right" path... :rolleyes:

Same thing for the devil.

I'm amazed at how people can't see the contradictions in their own beliefs. Free will? An ogre choice isn't quite a choice. You see, it goes pretty much like the argument of the jealous husband beating up his wife:

Husband: "But I love her! Why can't she understand that I'm doing that for her? If she did like I wanted her to, I wouldn't have to beat her!"
God: "But I love them! Why can't they understand that I'm doing that for them? If they did like I told them, I wouldn't have to send them to hell!"

Oh yeah, god is so loving and forgiving. And so much for free will. It's like taking someone hostage at gunpoint, except that it's at "hellpoint". Yup, god loves us. :rolleyes:

And I'm not even going into the fact that the message can't possibly have stayed the same since 2000 years ago. Hell, look at the different editions of the Bible, each representing their *authors* interpretation, not necessarily the original meaning, but whatever people feel is convenient. And in each edition, there are many words that can have different meanings, because of translation issues. And much of the stuff in there hasn't *anything* to do with what Jesus taught, it was added much later, by people who had their own motivations. And people are still quoting the Old Testament, even though only the Jews should follow this one, since Jesus arrival was to "create a new contract" with mankind (which I think is quite funny since it goes like this: God makes new contract for Jews. Some Jews accept new contract. New contract suddenly applies to all of mankind and whoever goes against it will -- at least according to many Christians -- suffer god's wrath, even though they didn't agree with it in the first place). That's the whole point of the New Testament: it takes the place of the Old one. Else, it's like god says: "Well, I propose this new contract, but even if you accept it, you have to agree with everything the old said too."



While I'm at it, why so many people say nothing good can be done without god? "We're too weak, only god can help us", I often heard. So, god, an omnipotent being, actually created us weak on purpose, then? Or maybe it's just a convenient excuse? Admitting one's weakness isn't a problem, but reveling in that weakness, to the point where you must always rely on some "superior power" to overcome, is certainly one to me.

I often wonder why so many Christians act like they're slaves. "But I chose to follow god!", you might say. For all of you who think this, I'll ask you this: if you've chosen to follow "god", it's because you thought it was a good thing. To decide whether "god" and his message was a good thing, you had to compare him with your experience, not follow him blindly. E.g.: "god" teaches that love is a good thing. You experienced that love is a good thing. Therefore, you've decided "god" was a good thing. Right? Well, I hope you find my example pertinent, since it's the whole point of this religion: a loving and forgiving god, rather than a warmongering one. Here's the question: why do you need god? You've been able to answer all by yourself, judging by your own experience, that love is a good thing. Why do you need god? Why would we need god, if only through their own experiences and judgment, people can decide whether love, respect, politeness, forgiveness, and so on and so forth is a good thing? You were able to question it once and came to your own valid, logical conclusions. Why would you still follow blindly? Why don't you say you believe in love, respect, politeness, etc., rather than god?

Is the world so scary that one actually need to believe in some hypothetical higher power which is always on their side, even though people can use their own judgment and still come to good results? It's funny too that according to some (hopefully a minority), everything bad we do is our own responsibility, it's "free will", but everything good we do comes from god, it was "god's will". That's some twisted logic.

And for those who say you want a future "under god's rule" or something, I beg you, use your logic once more. What is god? Why do you follow god? What seems so good to you in god? If you are a Christian, logically, it's about love (else, why are you not following one of the ancient gods, who just cared about power, blood and glory?). You've been able to decide god was a good thing because of love and the rest. Why would "god" or whatever you might call it matter? Isn't it love and the rest that truly matters? That's why you're a Christian in the first place! By hiding "love, respect, forgiveness" behind "god", our weaknesses behind "god granted free will" and our strengths behind "god's will", religion has become corrupt. It has lost its true meaning. It has become a political tool used so that the masses follow blindly. It has kept people from developping to their full potential. It has created discord by hiding a very simple thing, love, behind loads and loads of mystical stuff, effectively dividing religious people from non-religious, when they're trying to build the very same thing: a better world. What's the use for a belief that separates the people from everyone else who don't believe the same thing? We don't need "god". And organised religion even less. "But without god, life is meaningless", is the last line of defense of religion. No, life is not meaningless. You *create* your goals in life, to the best of your capacity. If people have judgment enough to decide whether values taught by religion are good or not, I'm sure they can decide what's good or not for them too. And, above all, following your own quest brings the greatest thing of all: a sense of accomplishment, knowing that it was through your own strengths that you achieved your own goals, and not just doing what someone else told you to, using the strength of someone else.

Doesn't that make sense to you?

thank goodness!!! another person who realised the bible was made by man an shouldnt be taken as full truth!!!,

*stands in awe of the final relisation*

now hopefully we can get on and resolve the true matters of man like the ''hell'' we are putting humanity thrugh with this entire religious im better than you crusade.

Wow, none of you read through all of my previous post. It's amazing how much people will ignore in order to keep spouting their rants about how wrong christians are and how right they are.

But I have read all of your posts since, and I'll respond in kind to each subject of contention.

thank goodness!!! another person who realised the bible was made by man an shouldnt be taken as full truth!!!,

*stands in awe of the final relisation*

now hopefully we can get on and resolve the true matters of man like the ''hell'' we are putting humanity thrugh with this entire religious im better than you crusade.

Officially, man made the Bible, with divine inspiration. That is the way it is really. If you look at who wrote the Bible, a majority of the authors are unknown at all. Who wrote Genesis? I don't know, but traditionally it's moses. Now, of those that we know something about, we know that most of them were either in prison or going through much stress at the time they wrote things. The ones who didn't suffer too much, and we do know of, such as Paul (who was under house arrest during part of the time, and was later crucified) and Luke in the New testament, did not get rich, did not become powerful, or gain any benefit from it. No Jew ever became fabulously wealthy, powerful, or famous for authoring the Bible and selling it, neither did any Christian. Now, as to the truth of the Bible, it isn't a history book. Not everything said in the Bible is historically true, but it is all true in that it all sends a message. Before you go calling it a work of fiction, the parts about Jesus, they're true, the parts about the history of Israel from the prophets through the maccabees are 90% true. These can be proven by the fact that other peoples write about them.

Lovely. Of course, god being the omnipotent and omniscient he's supposed to be, he just couldn't do anything to prevent it, nor to take back people to the "right" path...

Same thing for the devil.

I'm amazed at how people can't see the contradictions in their own beliefs. Free will? An ogre choice isn't quite a choice. You see, it goes pretty much like the argument of the jealous husband beating up his wife:

Husband: "But I love her! Why can't she understand that I'm doing that for her? If she did like I wanted her to, I wouldn't have to beat her!"
God: "But I love them! Why can't they understand that I'm doing that for them? If they did like I told them, I wouldn't have to send them to hell!"

Oh yeah, god is so loving and forgiving. And so much for free will. It's like taking someone hostage at gunpoint, except that it's at "hellpoint". Yup, god loves us.

And I'm not even going into the fact that the message can't possibly have stayed the same since 2000 years ago. Hell, look at the different editions of the Bible, each representing their *authors* interpretation, not necessarily the original meaning, but whatever people feel is convenient. And in each edition, there are many words that can have different meanings, because of translation issues. And much of the stuff in there hasn't *anything* to do with what Jesus taught, it was added much later, by people who had their own motivations. And people are still quoting the Old Testament, even though only the Jews should follow this one, since Jesus arrival was to "create a new contract" with mankind (which I think is quite funny since it goes like this: God makes new contract for Jews. Some Jews accept new contract. New contract suddenly applies to all of mankind and whoever goes against it will -- at least according to many Christians -- suffer god's wrath, even though they didn't agree with it in the first place). That's the whole point of the New Testament: it takes the place of the Old one. Else, it's like god says: "Well, I propose this new contract, but even if you accept it, you have to agree with everything the old said too."



While I'm at it, why so many people say nothing good can be done without god? "We're too weak, only god can help us", I often heard. So, god, an omnipotent being, actually created us weak on purpose, then? Or maybe it's just a convenient excuse? Admitting one's weakness isn't a problem, but reveling in that weakness, to the point where you must always rely on some "superior power" to overcome, is certainly one to me.

I often wonder why so many Christians act like they're slaves. "But I chose to follow god!", you might say. For all of you who think this, I'll ask you this: if you've chosen to follow "god", it's because you thought it was a good thing. To decide whether "god" and his message was a good thing, you had to compare him with your experience, not follow him blindly. E.g.: "god" teaches that love is a good thing. You experienced that love is a good thing. Therefore, you've decided "god" was a good thing. Right? Well, I hope you find my example pertinent, since it's the whole point of this religion: a loving and forgiving god, rather than a warmongering one. Here's the question: why do you need god? You've been able to answer all by yourself, judging by your own experience, that love is a good thing. Why do you need god? Why would we need god, if only through their own experiences and judgment, people can decide whether love, respect, politeness, forgiveness, and so on and so forth is a good thing? You were able to question it once and came to your own valid, logical conclusions. Why would you still follow blindly? Why don't you say you believe in love, respect, politeness, etc., rather than god?

Is the world so scary that one actually need to believe in some hypothetical higher power which is always on their side, even though people can use their own judgment and still come to good results? It's funny too that according to some (hopefully a minority), everything bad we do is our own responsibility, it's "free will", but everything good we do comes from god, it was "god's will". That's some twisted logic.

And for those who say you want a future "under god's rule" or something, I beg you, use your logic once more. What is god? Why do you follow god? What seems so good to you in god? If you are a Christian, logically, it's about love (else, why are you not following one of the ancient gods, who just cared about power, blood and glory?). You've been able to decide god was a good thing because of love and the rest. Why would "god" or whatever you might call it matter? Isn't it love and the rest that truly matters? That's why you're a Christian in the first place! By hiding "love, respect, forgiveness" behind "god", our weaknesses behind "god granted free will" and our strengths behind "god's will", religion has become corrupt. It has lost its true meaning. It has become a political tool used so that the masses follow blindly. It has kept people from developping to their full potential. It has created discord by hiding a very simple thing, love, behind loads and loads of mystical stuff, effectively dividing religious people from non-religious, when they're trying to build the very same thing: a better world. What's the use for a belief that separates the people from everyone else who don't believe the same thing? We don't need "god". And organised religion even less. "But without god, life is meaningless", is the last line of defense of religion. No, life is not meaningless. You *create* your goals in life, to the best of your capacity. If people have judgment enough to decide whether values taught by religion are good or not, I'm sure they can decide what's good or not for them too. And, above all, following your own quest brings the greatest thing of all: a sense of accomplishment, knowing that it was through your own strengths that you achieved your own goals, and not just doing what someone else told you to, using the strength of someone else.

Doesn't that make sense to you?

Nope makes no sense to me. God made everything and there are a lot of people out there who converted because they felt without purpose or fulfillment in what they were doing and found it in God. These people come from many backgrounds from Jimmy Carter to a Nixon white house official, from rich to poor, american to chinese.
God does give free will, but there are consequences to everything. You can choose to run a red light, but that doesn't mean you won't get hit. You can choose to love God or not to love him, but there will be a consequence. Jesus himself said that we will suffer and be persecuted for our belief in him, we will go through trials and tribulations and times when our faith is tested, it's not all heavenly delights. Just because you want to be able to say no to God and get into his heaven and cant is no reason to blame it on an unfair God. You can't go into Disneyland cursing Walt Disney and expect to stay there long, nor can you go into the white house saying you're gonna kill George Bush and expect to have a fun stay. Add to this that people go to hell voluntarily, they are not "sent" they go there rather than face an infinitely powerful creator whom they have denied, cursed, and defiled.
The message has stayed reasonably the same over 2000 years, whether you're a fan or not. A group of scholars has gone and studied old manuscripts of the bible and compared them to the present day translations. They're pretty much the same when you translate them back and forth, remarkably the same really, for what book written over many centuries by many authors and translated into hundreds of languages has stayed so true to it's message as the Bible?
As to the contracts, they're covenants. The old covenant was made between God and Abraham, for Abraham was a good man and deemed worthy to become the father of a people who are still around today. God vowed that he would make Abraham's descendants "as numerous as the stars in the sky". and he would guide and protect them. But he also said that he would have a savior come from Israel who would save the world. That savior was Jesus. Jesus came to save everyone, and offer salvation to anyone who wanted to be saved. But he didn't get to travel around the world, so those who he didn't preach to go to hell right? well no, they don't. People who live good lives and follow their own consciences even though they've been raised or taught in a way that doesnt allow them to believe in christ can make it into heaven, from Gandhi to Socrates.
I've chosen to follow God because it is a good thing, but there are rules, there are things that I have to do if I want to follow him. I can't join a club without following it's rules, why then am I supposed to be able to join a religion and do whatever I please? It doesn't work the way you want it, and thus you bash it, that's what I see here. Why do I need God? he's my creator, my savior, I cannot exist without him. But you know, if you can believe you rose out of the cosmic goop without any godly interference that's your problem. Love, respect, kindness, they are not God, they flow from God.
We all do things that we want to do, whether we follow the guidelines or not. Our good acts and our bad acts are our own. God gives us opportunities to do good, but I've never heard anything about God being totally responsible for everyone's good actions, where have you heard this?
Oh you have it wrong my friend. God is perfect, a future with a perfect loving God, that's a good future in my book. And we don't hide love behind God, God IS Love. God is loving us always, whether we believe in him or love him he is still there loving us. You say that christianity's last line of defense is weak, that "life is meaningless without God" isn't true, but it is. You don't *Create* your goals in life, you *discover* them. You discover your natural god-given talents and use those to discover what you can do and what you want to do and what you should do with what time you have on this earth. It is not using the strength of someone else, but using the strength you are given.

there you have been "answered"
Nice, but I'll give him an answer.

Originally Posted by Da Wolverines
Ok, here we go again with this original sin and free will thing:

-According to Christians, God is omniscient and omnipotent.
This cristian believes that God is undefinable in human terms. Being undefined should not be a problem with you logical/scientific people unless you found a way to divide by zero. Also your argument here only applies to those christians that take this story a literal history in the strictest sense.
Also ignoring the etemology of "Adam and Eve"

-God created Adam and Eve innocent, thus without any knowledge of what was good or evil, without any knowledge of "sin" or whatever. This is confirmed by the fact that they gain this knowledge *after* eating the fruit (which is why they feel shame all of a sudden).

Adam and Eve were told what they could do and what they could not do. They were also given a consequence. They made a choice. (btw if you are strictly reading the Bible God told Adam not to eat the forbidden fruit but Eve is apparently told by Adam or God cause she knows about it when the serpent talks with her)

-God forbids them to eat the fruit. However, they are innocent and without knowledge of good or evil. So they can't possibly know if disobeying god is evil or not.
They were told the consequence. and what not to do.

-So they eat the fruit. Willingly

-They gain knowledge of good and evil, but it is too late, and god, even though he's supposed to be so loving and forgiving and all (not to mention that *he's* the one who created them without knowledge of good and evil) kicks them out of heaven.

They were kicked out of Eden,not heaven, God is loving (he cloths them before banishment) and forgiving. It is believed that the first messianic (prophecy of christ) is given so that people can be redeemed.

-God is omniscient, so he *knew* that this was going to happen, that's what omniscient means: he knows everything.
I know that my children will do foolish things but I still will let them make choices.

-Three possible conclusions:
1. This story is true and god, since it's by his own fault that it happened (since he created them without any knowledge that disobeying him would be bad and he was omniscient, which means he should have known about it) is an incredibly uncaring jerk or a cruel monster, which makes Christianity pretty much useless (since the reason why we are supposed to be Christians is because it's so much about love and the like).

No it is not God's fault. Adam and Eve made the choice.

2. This story is false and thus cannot be used in any debate about sin, good and evil, free will, etc.
Perhaps its a story told by more primitive and unsophisticated people to explain how things are the way they are.

3. This story is true and god is in fact imperfect according to Christian teachings: either he isn't omniscient and thus couldn't foresee this (which then means he might not be omnipotent either, since without omniscience, he's pretty much doing things without knowing if he couldn't actually do more, or what effect his actions have, etc.), or he's omniscient and omnipotent and whatever, but used his powers carelessly (creating people in such a way that they'll be screwed sooner or later is pretty much careless), and thus is imperfect too.

With this reasoning nobody anywhere should ever breed because eventually their kids will screwed sooner or later. God could forsee that Adam and Eve would have a choice and he could see what would happen no matter which choice they made. Your arguement relies on pre-destiny. pre-destiny contradicts free will. So do you have free will or are you merely a organic robot? if you are what point is there in debating, you will only follow your program and i will follow mine.

I want an answer from all you christians out there. It's funny how nobody has yet bothered answering this.

I like that, you present it as a slick air tight argument, wish you were debating on my side. But, here's option four for you, thats your answer.

4. The story is a metaphor to show that God didn't want to created robots, and that he did know that there would be problems caused by this. But he did it anyway and told the humans not to sin knowing they would because he gave them free choice to sin or not to sin. Humans weren't made perfect, they were never supposed to be. It's not a historically accurate story, but it sends a message.

To the argument of free will:

There is no free will in Christianity. Christianity's God does not give us free will.

We have the free will to choose eternal happiness by God's side (heaven), or emptyness, nothingness (hell). Now, which one is the clear choice? You can't say we have free will, technically.

You have free will to raise your hand, but if you do, I will shoot you.
You have free will to believe what you want, but if you do, you will not get eternal happiness. Great, so I have little choice. So where does the free will come from?

To the argument of us rejecting God's help:

I never said I reject God and heaven. If I find out he exists when I die, I'll gladly accept him. For now, he'll have to realize that I use logic and reasoning to found my beliefs, and with the lacking evidence of his existance, I cannot blindly believe he exists.

What if I think Religion is a scam? What if I believe that people are trying to earn power, money, and influence by taking advantage of those willing to believe? What if I believe Religion is a bad thing?
Thus, in believe, I would think that it would be best if I didn't partake in it. I am doing what I think is best, and am being as good as I can be. Yet I go to hell. Rather, I "reject" God. I'll accept God if I realize he exists when I die. For now, I'd rather do what I think is best for everyone and make everyone as happy as I can, instead of simply accepting God and that's that.

If God cannot see that I try to make life better for everyone, and instead banishes me to hell, then it is not a perfect God. I believe that if God exists, he is a perfect God.

God will look down upon me, and will see that I see greed and corruption in Religion, and as such do not partake in it, he will not banish me. That is, if he is perfect.

To any argument involving belief and faith:

Why did God make us intelligent so that we could ponder the universe, if he didn't want us to do that? God wants you to have faith and then he'll accept you into heaven. Pretty much give up your intelligence and accept something without any proof. So why did he give us this intelligence?

Logic deducts that taking a *perfect* God, a heaven, and a hell, all good people will go to heaven and all bad people will go to hell. Praying is unnecessary, because God looks at your actions, not at your prayers. He cannot be bribed with prayers. You must prove you are a good person with your actions.
God does not discriminate on religion. He's perfect. He's beyond banishing those who don't believe in him. After all, it was he who gave them the ability to reason.

In fact, I don't think God would be happy with this whole "faith" thing. Faith is believing something blindly without any proof, which is what Christians claim is needed to get into heaven and be one with God. It means closing your mind and believing something regardless of proof. Basically throwing out your intelligence. God gave you intelligence and you're squandering it like that? That will make him mad. But he is perfect, so he does not get mad. In fact, he still won't judge you in bad light. He'll judge you by your actions.

I think God is perfect. As long as you live a good life, and do good deeds, you are worthy to be at his side, in heaven.

To the argument against free will:
There is free will in Christianity. God does indeed give us choices, but there are consequences.
We can choose to be bad, do whatever pleases us, and then face hell as a consequence. Or we can choose to be good, and do what God tells us to do, and face heaven as a consequence.
You have the free will to drive past the speed limit, but you'll get a ticket for doing so.
You have the free will to believe in God or not, but if you've been taught and told about christianity and reject it you also reject heaven and God.

To the argument against us rejecting God's help:
Do you win in a gameshow if you say the answer after it has been given? do you get the prize after you've seen someone show you how to get it? No you don't, you need to have the knowledge of how to get it. God reveals himself, but not to everyone in obvious ways. If you have no faith in God now, then what have you done in this life to promote him? you deny and detract him, and thusly you reject him.
You can believe religion is a scam, but be prepared to face the consequences. You can sit there and talk about people being corrupt in religion, or you can call them out on their religion, how many people would call Pope John Paul II corrupt?
God will see the good in your life, and will wonder why you, who probably have all the knowledge in the world about him, reject him. Are you raised to not believe in him? or are you in a spot where you cannot accept him? if you are, then you may well need to be informed, but if you're not, then you may well be in heaven someday.
God will ask why you don't believe in him despite your ability to see him and his word. Hopefully you'll be able to give him a good answer other than, "I thought religion was a bunch of hooey, but now that you're here I believe!"

To the argument against any argument involving belief and faith:

How about keeping your intelligent brain and using it to probe the questions of belief and faith. Check out if there's any evidence to support the faith, and belief. The pope said to all scientists and archaeologists that they should go out and find if there is any evidence to support what the faith says, and so far they keep finding records of how many things actually did happen.

Praying is good for 2 things. Firstly it is a dialogue with God, and secondly it helps people feel better and petition to God for help. It's not just showing you're a good person, it's also believing in God too.
God would probably let a person who didn't have a chance to hear or understand or accept his word into heaven. But for a person who has heard, understood, and refused to accept of their own free will, they chose their fate.
Faith is something that you have to have. You cannot just wait until you die and then believe, now is the time to believe, when you die it will be over, there won't be anymore chances. God instructed his followers here on earth to preach the good news, and those who've been preached to have every opportunity to believe it, I think he's rather pleased with it.

You do have a point though, but you missed something. I think God is perfect, as long as you live a good life, try to believe in him, and do good deeds, you are worthy to be at his side in heaven.

Thats all the time I have for now, but if there's anything that someone wants me to address, I will, just post it here, and address it to me.

im not sayin people made csh out of the bible the point im making is the way religion is now and has been over generations is HAS been an im better than you campain the message(if there was one) has been lost in people spouting off threatning hell or violence to persuade others to join them (not only in the bible but almost ALL other religions qu'ran is essentialy the bible by the way...),
the actual thread isnt on wether the religion is correct but wether hell is justifyed an i like many others cannot see how an all loving god can justify hell afterall would YOU throw your own child into a pit of eternal fire and pain for fuggin up a lil ? and if not in the same kind can u expect god to do it to you?.
It is my thought that there is a power out there but it is far too advanced for us to even dream of writing it down in a book let alone understand an entity that created the entire universe as we comprehend it, it would be akin to giving a baby an abucus an expecting it to program a pc from scratch with full intenet acces an no components!.
We as a race have to stop and realise that if there is something outthere (in my heart i hope there is) that it would be highly unlikely to speak to individuals who would warp its message for the sake of being rightchus(<hope is spelled that correctly),and if it did/does see fit im sure that it would speak with 1 voice not thrugh the writings of may people who mess up and corrupt the very individuals the being seeks to ''save''

Wow, none of you read through all of my previous post. It's amazing how much people will ignore in order to keep spouting their rants about how wrong christians are and how right they are.

But I have read all of your posts since, and I'll respond in kind to each subject of contention.

You do have a point though, but you missed something. I think God is perfect, as long as you live a good life, try to believe in him, and do good deeds, you are worthy to be at his side in heaven.

Thats all the time I have for now, but if there's anything that someone wants me to address, I will, just post it here, and address it to me.

You didn't answer mine ... as nobody else has been able to do buddy.

Second and most important part of your message IS!: "I think"
The truth is the entire human race thinks differently. And the truth of matter is that no matter how bad your deed in life has been the religion says that if you truelly repent what you have done in your life (even kill people) that he will accept you in heaven. Wow I can go on a massive rampage, kill rape murder, get caught or not, and then say everything i did was wrong I am sorry, and god forgives you and lets you into heaven ... WOW! meanwhile the innocent who dont know god the devil good or evil "KIDS!" will not be directly accepted into heaven. If they did any wrong deeds willingly, when young you dont understand good or evil, and neither do we nowadays. We have a VERY BASIC! understanding of good and evil dude.

It is the same as: plane crashes in a mountain 18 people survive 30 people died. They are waiting for someone to rescue them, they eat the corpses. They run out of food, and someone is willing to give up their life in order to save the kids who survived. Now suicide means a go straight to hell card, but self-sacrifice means a straight to heaven card. Anyone see something wrong with the picture? There is a very thin line between good and evil we all know that. It depends upon the human race to make a god forsaken choice to believe what it wants. If it wants a god that kills all of its enemies or rewards committing suicide (the quran) they can have it. Just have some old guy or young guy grab a made up book and proclaim its a religion.

NOW HERE COMES THE PUNCH BREAKER FOR YOU SEED!
You read my posts but you don't get anything in that microparticle of a functioning neuron that you have in your head dude. The only reason why the history in the bible keeps up with history (even if related to the religion alone) its only because the monks had been adding pages of stuff untill a certain period of time. The OLD TESTAMENT as it is called the original bible, was an incomplete version. You can say the bible is more of a religious diary of fairy tails and magic then an actual book of facts of history. Mythology is not real and the bible proves to be more of a mythology related subject (all bibles to be more precise) then actual historic documentation.
As I told you before and I do mean you seed specifically, the bible is somethiing written by normal true to god (dont take it literal about true to god) human beings, who only produced it to spread the word ... that it existed and it wanted people to serve it nothing more or less.

If the bible is true, then so is the quran, then all of the greek,egyptian,roman, and god knows how many other gods that have been said with time exist.

You talk a lot about facts and proof that PROVE the religion that your currently in, BUT! how about the oh so many other facts and many more proofs about the lies that the church tells, and what nots. I mean ... I thought humans where the only creatures that where created at first, besides animals of course. But nobody ever told me there where dinosaurs (hint the reason of why they arent in the bible might be because nobody knew about their existence before we discovered what they where ... but just maybe). But hey I didnt know OUR UTOPIA was covered by ICE when we lived on this planet AFTER the dinosaurs died.

hehe

You know now that I am mentioning about the historic FACTS! why dont we ask you OH MIGHTY ONE KEEPER OF THE KNOWLEDGE (I want to keep making fun of you but I have to finish this fast) why didn't god go to the other people of old age? I mean we worshipped from the sun to lightning, what could he of possibly lost from spreading his words when the IQ level of the human race was below average : / ? I mean HE JUST CAME ON THE NICK OF TIME TO SAVE US ... seconds before we destroyed ourselves or millions of years before? or is it just plain stupid to think about history and time on a A.D. B.C. reference as a standard point of view? If we weren't smart enough in the old ages, we sure where smart enough for his arrival ... oh wait the village that was following his word following moses was it? :) started praying to a golden cow ... funny! and the guys who where there to see him die/ return from heaven (weird isnt it) didnt see the 2 other guys being crucified who where criminals or so history tells. He told them they would go to heaven anyways ... now isnt that nice a murderer goes to heaven ... hehe.

And now to drop my atom bomb on you ... we have gone this over a million times already. DID TIME CREATE GOD? I mean come on if you dont answer the question and give me irrefutable proof, let alone somewhere where it is written, I will say you are right, and I will never question the bible/religion ever again. But likely hood of you actually giving me an answer when not even 27 priests and I am talking about church priests havent answer it without trying to go through some mumbo jumbo about spontaneous combustion, nad not needing time, when he needed it to combust, as well as create the universe AND! everything else including his proof of existing.

In other words we should be praying to time ... which does not exist ... HAHAHA. Its hilarious how somethings are created by humans, and just get disturbed. And when someone tries to create something pretty (believing in something is pretty or just plain nice for people who are depressed or need to believe someone is watching overthem 24/7 and that loves them) and just gets turned into something more evil then allowed to speak, or just plain greedy. But then again how can I be right? Well I only speak of that which exists and can be proven like the failure of the existance of time, which is made direct reference to on the bible BUDDY.

I kind of made my fast ending rather long, but no biggie you wont read through it all, or just wont understand what I mean or not know what I am talking about. Either way, good for you, that you believe so blindly in a ficticious character who you could say is your imaginary friend.

But then again this wasnt about religion but the relevance of the existence of hell. I say if hell exists, then I am going to enjoy my time up there. Probability of it existing though, is -200% in my opinion and belief.

BTW if you kids need more relevance about the theory of time ... either read a book about space time continiuom or just plain ask here. I will be more then happy to tell you the why it does not exist :).

almost forgot... if this is a lets bash the christians only thread i would have posted in support christians made blood sacrifies >eg:
Father Kevin Reynolds, who argues that animal sacrifice is "foreign to traditional Catholic theology regarding the Mass," the archbishop has offered a compromise. Although Catholic theology does say that since the sacrificial death of Jesus 2,000 years ago, there is no longer any need to offer animal sacrifices to God, the killing can still be carried out. But instead of offering the blood of the victims to God, it can be offered in honor of the African ancestors of participating Catholics. (Ancestor worship is seen by the archbishop, and others, as the native equivalent of the Catholic practice of honoring its canonized saints.) Archbishop Buti proposes that the blood of the slain animal--be it goat, chicken, sheep or cow--can be presented during the Mass as "a gift to the ancestors, not to God."
now who said blood sacrifiecs were the doings of heathens ANYONE ??

if i wanted to bash the christians I would do so directly, and with historical facts, but I just want him to answer the proof about his religion and god and hell or w/e he is trying to protect/prove. I mean seed thinks that we are all against the religion, when we said sometime ago that we all believe in different aspects even if we do so in different ways. I mean catholics can offer the sacrifice (like you said) but its not a doctrine for the religion. as the christians MUST! give a percentage of you income to the church ... LIKE WTF!? its belief not money giving. You are basically working for their church and their objectives and you follow blindly ... like seed has proven time and time again. If I wanted to bash any religion I would aim at those who are in the head of it (not talking abt the spiritual leaders but the leaders of the churches/religions who are 2 different types of beings in most religions).

if i wanted to bash the christians I would do so directly, and with historical facts, but I just want him to answer the proof about his religion and god and hell or w/e he is trying to protect/prove. I mean seed thinks that we are all against the religion, when we said sometime ago that we all believe in different aspects even if we do so in different ways. I mean catholics can offer the sacrifice (like you said) but its not a doctrine for the religion. as the christians MUST! give a percentage of you income to the church ... LIKE WTF!? its belief not money giving. You are basically working for their church and their objectives and you follow blindly ... like seed has proven time and time again. If I wanted to bash any religion I would aim at those who are in the head of it (not talking abt the spiritual leaders but the leaders of the churches/religions who are 2 different types of beings in most religions).
no probs bud my bad just thought id add to the melting pot with another fact about religion just making sure it stays an open, i myself as i have stated time and again belive in something but what its name is ive no idea an wether it gives a dammn about me ive no clue..

According to Christianity, God created every single person on this planet.

To be pedantic, its more accurate to say that he created the human race seing as how he did not personally create me for example. He created the means by which I was created however. But thats just me being pedantic and has no influence on your points


According to Christianity, God gave me a brain, and the ability to reason.

Yes


With the reasoning and judgement that God alledgedly gave me, according to Christianity, I have decided that Christianity cannot be right.

This is where your structure begins to break down. If Christianity is actually right then your detemination is somewhere flawed. There are two possible causes for said flaw. One is that there is not enough or good enough evidence to support it. The other is that at some point you have made a decision not to believe or have been influnced by others who have made a decison not to believe. This influnce may not be direct, it could be the prevailing view of the Bible being inaccurae has influenced you for example. I think its more likley to be the second one, seing as how there are mountains of evidence, and certainly if God is involved, enough to prove to his standards (which are the only ones that matter)


So, I live my life with extremely high standards and high values, doing everything I can to improve society, being 100% responsible and accountable for every action I take, treating others as I would have them treat me, donating my time and money to charitable causes, in general, be as good a person as I can possibly be, while choosing to believe that Jesus Christ is not my saviour.
And I go to hell.

Again this is a standards issue, and partly a logical one too. In terms of logic, no matter how much good you do, it cannot 'undo' what you have done that is sinful. It just physically doesnt work. Good works cannot travel back in time and undo bad things. And on a standards issue, you are talking about human standards of non Christians, these are not the ones that matter. Gods standards are the ones that matter and because of the nature of God and the nature of sin, God cannot let people with sin into heaven. Fortunetly he did devise a way to deal with sin. Jesus.


I go to hell, because with the reasoning that god gave me, I have determined that Christ is not my saviour.

Well lets be clear about a few things here. The reason you go to hell is directly sin, its indirectly because you dont accept Jesus. Only indirectly of course. In the same way that if you couldnt swim and were drowning but were offered a rope the reason that you drowned (if you did) would be because you could not swim and were in water. The indirect reason however being that you didnt grab the rope. Sin is what sends you to heaven, not God. In the same way its not gravity that kills you if you have a heavy weight strapped to your back when you jump into some water with no swimming or lifejacket type equipment and drown. Hell was orignally created not for humans, but for Lucifer and his consorts who tried to overthrow God in heaven. God designed hell in such a way that it was the punishment for all that would rebel against God. Now humans rebeled against God to. God loved humans and didnt want them to go to hell so he sent his son to deal with sin.


Mahatma Gandhi goes to hell, because he was born and raised a Hindu, and despite all the good that came of his actions while he was alive, he is supposedly burning in hell.
4 billion of the people who are on this earth right now, either because they used their reasoning to determine that Christianity was not right, or more likely, because they were raised a different religion and possibly even taught that if they were any religion other than their own, they would go to hell.
Complete scumbags who live their life to make an extra buck on the backs of anyone else, who would slit their own mother's throat for a nickel if they could get away with it, who have no moral sense whatsoever, from the lowliest street thug to the corrupt businessman or politician, but just happen to be Christian, go to church every Sunday and ask god to forgive them for their sins go to heaven.
Adolf Hitler sits in heaven while Mahatma Gandhi burns in hell.
How do Christians justify this?
Frankly, if Christianity is right, then I would rather burn in hell than serve such an evil, merciless, uncaring god.
If God does exist, I should hope he is nothing whatsoever like he is portrayed in Christianity.

In this last part, your making your case rather over-emotionally, which does not help you. Let me offer you a few more points to explain the justifcation. Firstly, a key element to Christian salvation is sincertity. In other words, to be saved by Christ you must be sincere in two things. Firstly in your apology to God for what you have done in your rebellion against him in this life, and secondly in your commitment to him that you will try and lead a life that is as true to the life he wants you to lead as you can be. Now many people fail to lead the life God wants them to, but most Christians will sincerly fail. Meaning that they are trying. Hitler for example did not sincerely fail because he made no such attempt to lead a Christian life. As such he was not saved, as far as I can see. As for Mahatma Ghandi, he may have lead a brilliant and great life, but ultimately like all of us he has sinned. And of ourselves we have no power to deal with sin ultimately ourselves. I dont know for certianity whether he's in hell or not. I believe its likely that he is. However, its important to realise that hell is not a one size fits all thing. If you read Matthew 11 verses 20-24 those verses demonstrate that there is some kind of system of diffrensation between levels of hell (maybe/maybe not Dante style, I dont know). Knowing God, it will ultimately be a fair and just system.

"How do you justify hell?"

I don't. I don't believe there is one. But if I did, I wouldn't feel the need to "justify" it because if God truly is GOD, then nothing I could say or do would make a damned bit of difference so it wouldn't be my place to "justify" anything He did.

If there is a heaven, I don't think they let old soldiers in, but since we've spent our time in hell, they don't want us either. I hope there's some place like Valhalla where I can see all my bros, where we can tip back a few and tell lies to each other. :D

All I'm hearing is that god wants us to worship him

God doesnt want us to worship him. Worship is not the basis of Salvation. Christians worship God out a response to his love and grace to humans, in the same way they display love back to him. Salvation is acceping you are wrong in God's eyes, asking to be put right in God's eyes (through Jesus), and attempting to the life that God wants us all to and to do all three of those things with sincerity. Worship is just a function of thanking God for what he did for us. He would like us to worship him out of love, but he doesnt "need" it.

I assume you are refering to Moi.

I've read and heard many things about God. I have made up my own mind. I believe that God is a benevolent being who doesn't have the the cruelty neccessary to cast those who have commited wrongs in a finite, mortal life to an eternity of Hell.

But there are those who believe that God is capable of such hatred and cruelty. That He is a fickle, jealous and vengeful god who'd think nothing of tormenting the souls of the "unbelievers".

That doesn't seem right. As such, should I ever learn that that is the only God in heaven that exists, I'm saying I'd rather side along with the devil. What would be the difference?


God is not fickle or vengeful, and does not torment the souls of unbelievers. What he has created is a place for all those who rebel against God. That place is in complete absence of him. Because of who he is, that place will be absolutely terrible to be in because he supports creation as it is. God loves us all and he wants us to be with him in heaven, which is why he sent Jesus to us. But ultimately he will not force us to love him because he gave us free will. Because of that it is up to us. We choose where we want to go. Its that simple

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/meorburn.html

A good article on the subject

Bump

You don't have to believe in an afterlife, or believe there's a place with fire and devils to know about Hell.

You don't even have to be a Christian. You can be an atheist, and know Hell.

And you can go there by making the wrong choices, and doing the wrong things - and not any of the ones listed in any religious text.

Go get married. Then get real selfish and stop paying attention to your wife.

You'll be in Hell in no time. And once she divorces you, gets half your stuff, and takes the kids, you'll be in the lower depths of Hell.

Living wrong has a way of f*cking you hard.

God doesnt want us to worship him. Worship is not the basis of Salvation. Christians worship God out a response to his love and grace to humans, in the same way they display love back to him. Salvation is acceping you are wrong in God's eyes, asking to be put right in God's eyes (through Jesus), and attempting to the life that God wants us all to and to do all three of those things with sincerity. Worship is just a function of thanking God for what he did for us. He would like us to worship him out of love, but he doesnt "need" it.
Fine then right now sense worship is not nessiary

I proclaim of my free will that if there is a heaven he can take me there

See I freely chose heaven ... there is no reason for him to deny me

Fine then right now sense worship is not nessiary

I proclaim of my free will that if there is a heaven he can take me there

See I freely chose heaven ... there is no reason for him to deny me

You miss the point

Worship is not what salvation is about, nor is about accepting God exists. The Devil believes God exists (and laments it greatly) but he is not saved. To be saved (and thereby become a Christian) You have to do three things

Accept that in God's eyes you've done wrong

Ask for him to forgive what you've done wrong through Jesus

Try to do you best to live the life that God asks us to

Of course a great many people have said 'yes but if your saved that means you can do what you want because God forgives you' and of course no it doesnt. You have to be sincere about all those three things, and it is the sincerity which is the important part. You can say those things but to actually mean them is they key. You choose heaven by the actions you do, not by just "wanting" it.

Fine then right now sense worship is not nessiary

I proclaim of my free will that if there is a heaven he can take me there

See I freely chose heaven ... there is no reason for him to deny me

Technically, you're almost there. The point in Jesus making a "personal" appearance is that he wants a "personal" relationship with you. Not so much worship as an ongoing, give and take relationship.

So if you accept heaven, then by contemporary Christian standards you are accepting a relationship with Jesus (or God). Hell isn't a punishment - anymore than making stupid mistakes in your marriage gets you divorced (or living in Hell). Maybe I'm not pushing the traditional Christian viewpoint, but I get the impression that the message is, "have a relationship with me, get to know me, and things will go smoother".

Well, it's working for me. Your mileage may vary.

You miss the point

Worship is not what salvation is about, nor is about accepting God exists. The Devil believes God exists (and laments it greatly) but he is not saved. To be saved (and thereby become a Christian) You have to do three things

Accept that in God's eyes you've done wrong

Ask for him to forgive what you've done wrong through Jesus

Try to do you best to live the life that God asks us to

Of course a great many people have said 'yes but if your saved that means you can do what you want because God forgives you' and of course no it doesnt. You have to be sincere about all those three things, and it is the sincerity which is the important part. You can say those things but to actually mean them is they key. You choose heaven by the actions you do, not by just "wanting" it.


Then god asks what is beyond my ability with the input I have right now

His fucking loss

Then god asks what is beyond my ability with the input I have right now

His fucking loss

He doesnt ask what is beyond any of us. We are all perfectly cappable of doing it. You just dont 'want' to and are incapable at present of changing your desire.

He doesnt ask what is beyond any of us. We are all perfectly cappable of doing it. You just dont 'want' to and are incapable at present of changing your desire.
Bullshit if you think belief is a concious choice you are deluding yourself

If God does exist, I should hope he is nothing whatsoever like he is portrayed in Christianity.

First of all, your idea of how Christianity protrays God may be (probably is, judging by your comments) wrong, and secondly, if God exists we can't change what he is simply because we don't like him as he is. In other words, he ain't gonna change just to fit our idea of what God should be like. If so, there would have to be 10 billion gods, and there are probably 10 billion different people in the world, each with his/her opinion of what God should be like.

On a completely different subject, is Nation States acting weird? I have to actually log OUT of the main nation states game in order to log into the forums, otherwise all I get is some cryptic message. Have tried from several computers, same thing happens on all of them.

First of all, your idea of how Christianity protrays God may be (probably is, judging by your comments) wrong, and secondly, if God exists we can't change what he is simply because we don't like him as he is. In other words, he ain't gonna change just to fit our idea of what God should be like. If so, there would have to be 10 billion gods, and there are probably 10 billion different people in the world, each with his/her opinion of what God should be like.
.
And of course you believe god fits what your idea of what god should be like:rolleyes:

And of course you believe god fits what your idea of what god should be like:rolleyes:

Sorry, but I'm incapable of inventing a god. If I were to do so, he'd be pretty boring, as I am. But I have learned to accept God as he is, and not to try to conform him to my image. Should I do so, however, he still wouldn't change just to please me.

Actually, from what I do know of him, he's a lot neater than anything I could imagine, and a lot more forgiving than I am.

Hell is just a myth, it is a metaphor for the illusion of separation from God.
What he said.

I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and we have a somewhat different defintion of hell - it is, really, the absence of improvement. You're stuck where you are - for all eternity - never getting better or worse, while those who attain perfection through Christ's Atonement (repentance and forgiveness brings perfection, since your sins are washed away) can become better and will progress to higher planes of existence.
Cool. Reincarnation.

Originally Posted by UpwardThrust
And of course you believe god fits what your idea of what god should be like
Sorry, but I'm incapable of inventing a god. If I were to do so, he'd be pretty boring, as I am. But I have learned to accept God as he is, and not to try to conform him to my image. Should I do so, however, he still wouldn't change just to please me.

Actually, from what I do know of him, he's a lot neater than anything I could imagine, and a lot more forgiving than I am.
It sounds like you have a poorer mental image of yourself than you actually are; perhaps your image of god reflects who you actually are.

He doesnt ask what is beyond any of us. We are all perfectly cappable of doing it. You just dont 'want' to and are incapable at present of changing your desire.
This is objectifying the "god of magic", the one who has wonderful, magical-like abilities to know what is in our hearts. Turn it around and we have an image of god as someone who knows us intimately, in our hearts, and who represents what we are capable of.

Why will people not recognize that objectification is a process that takes place in the imagination?

My understanding was that Hell was for the demons who followed Lucifer, and human sprits started showing up there wanting to be punished for there sins. I don't believe in heaven or hell, but that sounds like something humans would do, doesn't it?

This is objectifying the "god of magic", the one who has wonderful, magical-like abilities to know what is in our hearts. Turn it around and we have an image of god as someone who knows us intimately, in our hearts, and who represents what we are capable of.

Why will people not recognize that objectification is a process that takes place in the imagination?
Recursion, self-reference, and reiteration
Bootstrapping consciousness without Creation
Nothing in this world is quite what it seems
These are a few of my favorite memes

Ideas infect us and we infect others
What we don't get from TV we catch from our mothers
Complexifying to elaborate schemes
These are a few of my favorite memes

You can find happiness, fame, sex, and power
Action with Purpose makes you Man of the Hour
Self-affirmation, fulfilling your dreams
These are a few of my favorite memes

When the angst bites
When the doubts squeeze
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite memes
And then I don't feel...so bad!

--Richard Brodie

First off, for all the “devout” bible lovers out there, you need to understand something. It is not true. Granted, it has some nice stories that contain good lessons, but it is still make believe. For those that point out all the verifiably true parts, tell me which of the following two statements seems to be more true:

1) After WWII, Hitler was elected as world leader for his humanitarian views and self sacrifice as was evidenced by his actions.

Or

2) In the final days of WWII, while hiding in his bunker, Hitler went mad at the thought of his own demise and ordered 20 virgins to come to him so he could spread his seed to the future generations.

Hmm, while neither is true, statement 2 has just enough fact to make some people wonder as to whether or not it is true. The only reason they would really doubt it is because in today’s society and with how easy information is to attain, most would doubt it because they haven’t heard of anything like it before. Now, the same goes for the bible. Would people have really believed if it was JUST talking about bushes on fire that talk, sea’s that just part down the middle and what not? I doubt it. But, to give it credence, they attributed things that couldn’t be explained to god as well as throwing just enough widely known knowledge into it as to give it credence.

Now, about god. Lets start off with the assumption most religious types make. God is perfect and god omniscient. Lets get into this. If god is perfect, and god created us, then we too are perfect. Imperfection CANNOT come from perfection. If said being that is deemed perfect creates something imperfect, then said being is not perfect. You can’t have both.
Omniscient means we do not have free will. If god knows all and sees all, god knows what is and will happen. If god already knows what is going to happen, then in reality our actions make no difference as it is already preordained. Once again, you cannot have both.

Lets say neither of the above arguments were right. Why would god give us free will? Basically, it goes like this: “Hi! I’m god! I love you guys with everything I am, you know that? To prove this, I am going to give you the greatest gift I can give you- Free will!! Oh, by the way, if you use the gift I gave you, I’m gonna take it that you are rejecting me so I’m gonna have to send you to hell for eternity, so lets just put it in the closet for a bit and forget about it, alright?”
How can that be? If it is true, why did he give it to us? Basically according to christianity, you can only do what the bible and other “sources” say you can do and you are not allowed to go outside of that or you go to hell. In order to go outside of that, we are using our “gift”. If we just follow what the bible and the other “sources” tell us to, then we are not using free will but rather just doing what we are told. So, if we use the “gift” god gave us (The greatest gift of all!!!) we go to hell. Again, explain this to me?

Now, heaven and hell. There is no hell. Who would be there? Not Hitler. Not Ghandi. No one. Where do I come up with this ridiculous notion? Well, once again, let me explain. Are you (the person reading this) a mass murderer? If you are, well done sir! Now answer correctly. Since the answer is pretty much an overwhelming no, why aren’t you? What inside you prevents you from doing such things? Could it be that the person that IS a mass murderer has something lacking inside himself? It’s like saying a retarded person is going to hell. How could any just god send a retarded person to jail? That’s just it, god wouldn’t. Just as he wouldn’t send the most notorious killer to hell either. The thing is, something inside the mass murderer is broken. Something just isn’t right. He’s not like us. I really doubt he was raised that way so it can only point something inside him that is different. Now, last time I checked, I did not have a choice in my DNA nor in the physical make up of my brain and how it functions. I am positing that how can we hold these people up to the same standards we hold ourselves to if they are not equipped to deal with it? It’s like taking someone from a third world country, dropping him off in the middle of NYC and expecting them to become a normal citizen with a job and a place to live. I do understand that those that murder others do need to be taken out of society, don’t get me wrong. But I still contend that they are “broke” humans, and for all of us other normal functioning humans to judge them is wrong. Just I don’t think god would judge them like that either. So, if no one is going to hell, I don’t really think it would exist (not to mention that hell is not mentioned anywhere except in christian propoganda).

The bible says your born with sin. The bible also says the only way to dance under the giant disco ball in heaven is through Jesus. Unless your a jew, then your spossed to do some things on weird holladays.

Recursion, self-reference, and reiteration
Bootstrapping consciousness without Creation
Nothing in this world is quite what it seems
These are a few of my favorite memes

Ideas infect us and we infect others
What we don't get from TV we catch from our mothers
Complexifying to elaborate schemes
These are a few of my favorite memes

You can find happiness, fame, sex, and power
Action with Purpose makes you Man of the Hour
Self-affirmation, fulfilling your dreams
These are a few of my favorite memes

When the angst bites
When the doubts squeeze
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite memes
And then I don't feel...so bad!

--Richard Brodie
That's brilliant! :D

That's brilliant! :D
You'll notice that Richard Brodie wrote it, not me.

He doesnt ask what is beyond any of us. We are all perfectly cappable of doing it. You just dont 'want' to and are incapable at present of changing your desire.

It is easier for some than for others, those who have not awoken to the voice of God may have circumstances beyond their control to blame for this, and it is exceptionally un-Christian for people like you declaring that it their failing.

First off, for all the “devout” bible lovers out there, you need to understand something. It is not true. Granted, it has some nice stories that contain good lessons, but it is still make believe. For those that point out all the verifiably true parts, tell me which of the following two statements seems to be more true:

1) After WWII, Hitler was elected as world leader for his humanitarian views and self sacrifice as was evidenced by his actions.

Or

2) In the final days of WWII, while hiding in his bunker, Hitler went mad at the thought of his own demise and ordered 20 virgins to come to him so he could spread his seed to the future generations.

Hmm, while neither is true, statement 2 has just enough fact to make some people wonder as to whether or not it is true. The only reason they would really doubt it is because in today’s society and with how easy information is to attain, most would doubt it because they haven’t heard of anything like it before. Now, the same goes for the bible. Would people have really believed if it was JUST talking about bushes on fire that talk, sea’s that just part down the middle and what not? I doubt it. But, to give it credence, they attributed things that couldn’t be explained to god as well as throwing just enough widely known knowledge into it as to give it credence.

Now, about god. Lets start off with the assumption most religious types make. God is perfect and god omniscient. Lets get into this. If god is perfect, and god created us, then we too are perfect. Imperfection CANNOT come from perfection. If said being that is deemed perfect creates something imperfect, then said being is not perfect. You can’t have both.
Omniscient means we do not have free will. If god knows all and sees all, god knows what is and will happen. If god already knows what is going to happen, then in reality our actions make no difference as it is already preordained. Once again, you cannot have both.

Lets say neither of the above arguments were right. Why would god give us free will? Basically, it goes like this: “Hi! I’m god! I love you guys with everything I am, you know that? To prove this, I am going to give you the greatest gift I can give you- Free will!! Oh, by the way, if you use the gift I gave you, I’m gonna take it that you are rejecting me so I’m gonna have to send you to hell for eternity, so lets just put it in the closet for a bit and forget about it, alright?”
How can that be? If it is true, why did he give it to us? Basically according to christianity, you can only do what the bible and other “sources” say you can do and you are not allowed to go outside of that or you go to hell. In order to go outside of that, we are using our “gift”. If we just follow what the bible and the other “sources” tell us to, then we are not using free will but rather just doing what we are told. So, if we use the “gift” god gave us (The greatest gift of all!!!) we go to hell. Again, explain this to me?

Now, heaven and hell. There is no hell. Who would be there? Not Hitler. Not Ghandi. No one. Where do I come up with this ridiculous notion? Well, once again, let me explain. Are you (the person reading this) a mass murderer? If you are, well done sir! Now answer correctly. Since the answer is pretty much an overwhelming no, why aren’t you? What inside you prevents you from doing such things? Could it be that the person that IS a mass murderer has something lacking inside himself? It’s like saying a retarded person is going to hell. How could any just god send a retarded person to jail? That’s just it, god wouldn’t. Just as he wouldn’t send the most notorious killer to hell either. The thing is, something inside the mass murderer is broken. Something just isn’t right. He’s not like us. I really doubt he was raised that way so it can only point something inside him that is different. Now, last time I checked, I did not have a choice in my DNA nor in the physical make up of my brain and how it functions. I am positing that how can we hold these people up to the same standards we hold ourselves to if they are not equipped to deal with it? It’s like taking someone from a third world country, dropping him off in the middle of NYC and expecting them to become a normal citizen with a job and a place to live. I do understand that those that murder others do need to be taken out of society, don’t get me wrong. But I still contend that they are “broke” humans, and for all of us other normal functioning humans to judge them is wrong. Just I don’t think god would judge them like that either. So, if no one is going to hell, I don’t really think it would exist (not to mention that hell is not mentioned anywhere except in christian propoganda).

Is there any particular reason why you seem to harbour such dislike for Christianity?

*Snippage*

This really is an excellent post. Well done.

Is there any particular reason why you seem to harbour such dislike for Christianity?

This, however, is a pointless and all too typical post. Instead of answering any real points in the post, you go after the poster and accuse him of hating the religion. It's much the same strategy as über-patriots use against anyone who would dare criticize their wonderful country, and equally inane.

This, however, is a pointless and all too typical post. Instead of answering any real points in the post, you go after the poster and accuse him of hating the religion. It's much the same strategy as über-patriots use against anyone who would dare criticize their wonderful country, and equally inane.

Wow.

I intentionally used the words dislike and appear in order not to accuse anyone of anything.

I'm just trying to help.

I hate this sort of topic, it so typically results in posts like El Goliath's, which essentially amount to rants saying "ZOMG U R WRONZ!", which just results in people getting angry at each other, while a bunch of other people line up to stand behind the aformentioned post and say "Yeah, right! What he said!", regardless of the actual quality of the post in question.
THEN some horrible, inconsiderate person has the audacity to ARGUE with the post, whereupon the Yeah-Righters pounce on all the minor spelling errors they can find and indicate that because of these, the post in its entirity is flawed and can, therefore be summarized like so:
Blahblahbalh Wow, that was stupid.
Then people get even more angry and so forth.
Isnt NS lovely?

If you do not believe in the Christian God why does it matter if they believe in a Hell or not? Or are you just unsure of your beliefs?

Regards,

JMayo

If you do not believe in the Christian God why does it matter if they believe in a Hell or not? Or are you just unsure of your beliefs?

Regards,

JMayo
it matters quite a bit when you have an athiest interlectual ego to maintain and christians to bait..

I'm going to say the most obvious and correct answer. GOD DOESN'T CARE IF WE WORSHIP HIM. If you do whats right your going to heaven. Humans gave us the bible (If you still think god wrote it your completely dumb) and god gave us morals and values. The bible has been changed to fit the purposes of corrupted priests no matter what everyone says, the bible is pretty much nothing more then a corrupted piece of trash that corrupted men used to fit there purposes.


My cousin's a christian and this is what he believes. He helps people, he doesn't discriminate against gays, and he gladly talks with people of other religions and is happy to volunteer to help any church in the region. He says that god gave him morals and values to do whats right, humans gave us the bible to keep us under the palm of some individuals. He said that the reason the bible says your going to hell if you don't worship god is because a pope was smart and thought of the pychological effects. If all these religions are good yet one says your going to hell if you don't worship it, obviously you'll go to that one just in case, since the other religions are peaceful and say you'll go to heaven if your good. You'll pick the one that says you'll burn in hell no matter what, unless you worship god.

THAT IS MY BELIEF

If you do not believe in the Christian God why does it matter if they believe in a Hell or not? Or are you just unsure of your beliefs?

Regards,

JMayo

Well, I do believe that would be because that is what this topic is about. The OP asked a question, I answered with my reasons. You can definately tell by my post that I am unsure, right?

Dontgonearthere- If you dislike these topics, why post here? You just basically became what you ridiculed by ranting against those of us that do enjoy these topics.

/snip


I agree almost whole heartedly with that post. Most Christians I know honestly try to live out Christ's teachings, "Love the Divine above all and Love your neighbor as yourself." What I don't agree with is the description of the Bible as a peice of trash. In my oppinion the Bible is a great piece of work, it is a record of a group of godly men (and maybe women) that took very seriously the question, "What does it mean to live a good life." Like every human creation it is imperfect: it has many parts that preach racism, sexism, homophobia, prejudice against religions, etc (espeically when taken out of context) However, when we acknowledge the imperfections we are still left with a great collection of books about how various people attempted to put their experience with the Divine into words.

The major problem with the Bible is many people commit what I would describe as Idolitry: placing that limited, human written book above the Divine.

I don't understand how the peolpe that wrote the bible, supposedly being so close to god and jesus that they talked to them, can still have all the racism, sexism and just general hate for others. You would think that if they truly were that close to the divine that all those moral issues would have been overwritten by the sheer closeness of god. More than likely, the ones that wrote the bible were either a) really good story tellers or b) on some really good mind bending drugs. Now, I am talking about the people that originally wrote the bible, not the numerous people that have come behind and made "adjustments."

Well, I do believe that would be because that is what this topic is about. The OP asked a question, I answered with my reasons. You can definately tell by my post that I am unsure, right?

Dontgonearthere- If you dislike these topics, why post here? You just basically became what you ridiculed by ranting against those of us that do enjoy these topics.

I don't remember ridiculing anyone. I also did not rant.
You took my questions in a way they were not intended.
Is this not a conversation or debate? If it is then how are my questions invalid? Who knows the OP may wish to answer them.

Regards,

JMayo

I don't remember ridiculing anyone. I also did not rant.
You took my questions in a way they were not intended.
Is this not a conversation or debate? If it is then how are my questions invalid? Who knows the OP may wish to answer them.

Regards,

JMayo

I didn't say you were ridiculing. Dontgonearthere is who I was referring that second part to which is why I put his name in front of it. And while I don't really agree with your question, it is a valid thing to ask imo.

If you want to know what Hell is, just marry the wrong spouse.

it matters quite a bit when you have an athiest interlectual ego to maintain and christians to bait..

Do you even take yourself seriously cause I don't think anyone else will if you continue statements such as that. This has nothing to do with atheism if you had not realized that. You do realize that you can NOT believe in the christian god and the christian version of heaven and hell and still not be an atheist, right?

The OP was in regards to how do you justify hell, not "Hey christians, come tell us poor atheists why we should believe we are going to hell so we can verbally abuse you!" I do believe that you are the one that needs to stop baiting.

First off, for all the “devout” bible lovers out there, you need to understand something. It is not true. Granted, it has some nice stories that contain good lessons, but it is still make believe

I sincerely doubt you can objectively prove it


Now, about god. Lets start off with the assumption most religious types make. God is perfect and god omniscient. Lets get into this. If god is perfect, and god created us, then we too are perfect. Imperfection CANNOT come from perfection. If said being that is deemed perfect creates something imperfect, then said being is not perfect. You can’t have both.

Of course it depends on what "perfection" is. Perfection for God was what we were before we ate the fruit. We were perfect then, perfect in free will and the way God wanted us. God did not create us imprefect, we made ourselves imperfect


Omniscient means we do not have free will. If god knows all and sees all, god knows what is and will happen. If god already knows what is going to happen, then in reality our actions make no difference as it is already preordained. Once again, you cannot have both.

As Stephen Hawking said "Are we predestined? Yes. But since we dont know it makes no diffrence". God did not force us to make the choices we do. Just because God is aware of our choices does not mean that he forced us to make them.


Lets say neither of the above arguments were right. Why would god give us free will? Basically, it goes like this: “Hi! I’m god! I love you guys with everything I am, you know that? To prove this, I am going to give you the greatest gift I can give you- Free will!! Oh, by the way, if you use the gift I gave you, I’m gonna take it that you are rejecting me so I’m gonna have to send you to hell for eternity, so lets just put it in the closet for a bit and forget about it, alright?”
How can that be? If it is true, why did he give it to us? Basically according to christianity, you can only do what the bible and other “sources” say you can do and you are not allowed to go outside of that or you go to hell. In order to go outside of that, we are using our “gift”. If we just follow what the bible and the other “sources” tell us to, then we are not using free will but rather just doing what we are told. So, if we use the “gift” god gave us (The greatest gift of all!!!) we go to hell. Again, explain this to me?

He gave us free will for one simple reason. He wanted us to love him. Love, by definition cannot be forced from people. You cant force someone to love you, becuase that is not what love is. The way we show that we love God is the same way that a child displays its love for its parents. It obeys them. Now people have said to me before "Yeah but God seems a bit of a nasty parent if he just sends us all to hell for disobeying him" but my answer to that is that we do not know the nature of God and the nature of sin. Its like a father who all he wanted was for his children to love him, but they ignore his commands, are rebellious agaist him the whole time and just ask for his help when there in trouble (see all those people who ask where God was on September 11th ect). God put the apple in the garden and gave us free will because he wanted us to love him. With no apple, they would have been living in a prison, and with no free will, they would not love him.


Now, heaven and hell. There is no hell. Who would be there? Not Hitler. Not Ghandi. No one. Where do I come up with this ridiculous notion? Well, once again, let me explain. Are you (the person reading this) a mass murderer? If you are, well done sir! Now answer correctly. Since the answer is pretty much an overwhelming no, why aren’t you? What inside you prevents you from doing such things? Could it be that the person that IS a mass murderer has something lacking inside himself? It’s like saying a retarded person is going to hell. How could any just god send a retarded person to jail? That’s just it, god wouldn’t. Just as he wouldn’t send the most notorious killer to hell either. The thing is, something inside the mass murderer is broken. Something just isn’t right. He’s not like us. I really doubt he was raised that way so it can only point something inside him that is different. Now, last time I checked, I did not have a choice in my DNA nor in the physical make up of my brain and how it functions. I am positing that how can we hold these people up to the same standards we hold ourselves to if they are not equipped to deal with it? It’s like taking someone from a third world country, dropping him off in the middle of NYC and expecting them to become a normal citizen with a job and a place to live. I do understand that those that murder others do need to be taken out of society, don’t get me wrong. But I still contend that they are “broke” humans, and for all of us other normal functioning humans to judge them is wrong. Just I don’t think god would judge them like that either. So, if no one is going to hell, I don’t really think it would exist (not to mention that hell is not mentioned anywhere except in christian propoganda).

Firstly, hell does exist in the Bible. Secondly, God is just. And he is aware of each and every persons situation, and will judge supremely fairly. Ultimatley however the Bible does say this

1 Corinthans 10:13
No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear

So God has ensured it that if we are in situations they are not beyond what we can withstand, thus we are cappable of leaving them, so there is no excuse in most cases.

Anyone going to discuss what I say in 156, or will we all just ignore it?

Anyone going to discuss what I say in 156, or will we all just ignore it?
Not only were you responding to a specific poster but it is WAY off the page … by this point it is less about active attempt to ignore it then it is just old news and the topic has moved on

Sheesh

Not only were you responding to a specific poster but it is WAY off the page … by this point it is less about active attempt to ignore it then it is just old news and the topic has moved on

Sheesh

No one has responded to it. It justifies and explains hell in a way that I believe makes perfect sense. The topic has far from moved on

This is where your structure begins to break down. If Christianity is actually right then your detemination is somewhere flawed. There are two possible causes for said flaw. One is that there is not enough or good enough evidence to support it. The other is that at some point you have made a decision not to believe or have been influnced by others who have made a decison not to believe. This influnce may not be direct, it could be the prevailing view of the Bible being inaccurae has influenced you for example. I think its more likley to be the second one, seing as how there are mountains of evidence, and certainly if God is involved, enough to prove to his standards (which are the only ones that matter)

1. You give no evidence that Christianity is actually right, and I'm a Christian. Your argument is weak and baseless.

2. Therefore, pending your mountains of evidence, his determination is not flawed in any way.

There are better ways to convince somebody. Obviously, you have no idea how.

No one has responded to it. It justifies and explains hell in a way that I believe makes perfect sense. The topic has far from moved on
Ill work on it when I have time but that was 50 posts ago ... you make it sound like we purposfully ignore it rather then just had not seen it

Back off some of us have lives other then this I dont have time to browse every topic three pages back from where it is now

1. You give no evidence that Christianity is actually right, and I'm a Christian. Your argument is weak and baseless.

2. Therefore, pending your mountains of evidence, his determination is not flawed in any way.

There are better ways to convince somebody. Obviously, you have no idea how.

I said IF. This whole thread works on the basis that Christianity is right on the grounds of hell's existance. I'm arguing how the system of Christian belief is fair or not. I am not argueing as to whether or not God exists. I am describing how God and us relate according to the Bible. The thread itself starts with the line "according to Christianity". I am saying what is the idea, according to Christianity. Christianity, acording to itself is true.

I said IF. This whole thread works on the basis that Christianity is right on the grounds of hell's existance. I'm arguing how the system of Christian belief is fair or not. I am not argueing as to whether or not God exists. I am describing how God and us relate according to the Bible

You're using a postulate.

You need to first prove that Christianity is right about Hell in the first place.

You're using a postulate.

You need to first prove that Christianity is right about Hell in the first place.

Can you elaborate. I am discussing within the framework of the original poster. He does say that he wants to know what the ideas are "According to Christianity". Thats what I am saying

... Gods standards are the ones that matter and because of the nature of God and the nature of sin, God cannot let people with sin into heaven. Fortunetly he did devise a way to deal with sin. Jesus.

Why can't God allow people with sin into Heaven? Doesn't God make the rules?



Well lets be clear about a few things here. The reason you go to hell is directly sin, its indirectly because you dont accept Jesus. Only indirectly of course. In the same way that if you couldnt swim and were drowning but were offered a rope the reason that you drowned (if you did) would be because you could not swim and were in water. The indirect reason however being that you didnt grab the rope. Sin is what sends you to heaven, not God. In the same way its not gravity that kills you if you have a heavy weight strapped to your back when you jump into some water with no swimming or lifejacket type equipment and drown. Hell was orignally created not for humans, but for Lucifer and his consorts who tried to overthrow God in heaven. God designed hell in such a way that it was the punishment for all that would rebel against God. Now humans rebeled against God to. God loved humans and didnt want them to go to hell so he sent his son to deal with sin.

Ok but you have a choice whether to grab the rope or not. As I've stated numerous times, you don't have a choice in what you believe (at least I don't) I believe only what I must believe, only what my experience, reason and revelation allow me to believe. What kind of God allows soeone to go to Hell for something they can't control. It would be like sending all black people to Hell.



In this last part, your making your case rather over-emotionally, which does not help you. Let me offer you a few more points to explain the justifcation. Firstly, a key element to Christian salvation is sincertity. In other words, to be saved by Christ you must be sincere in two things. Firstly in your apology to God for what you have done in your rebellion against him in this life, and secondly in your commitment to him that you will try and lead a life that is as true to the life he wants you to lead as you can be.

And I do this, hourly if not every minute. However, I do not accept that Jesus died for my sins (the punishment of the guilty can not be taken by the innocent, I can not take the death penalty or go to prison on behalf of my wife or father), and thus, by your reasoning I am destined to Hell. Christianity is not the only religion which sincerly asks God for forgiveness, many of us do guilt, we wrestle with it, we try and make peace with those we have wronged, with God and with ourselves. Forgiveness is a gift, freely given, not bartered for belief. What kind of person would I be if I said, I forgive you, but only if you believe in Quantumn Mechanics?


Now many people fail to lead the life God wants them to, but most Christians will sincerly fail. Meaning that they are trying. Hitler for example did not sincerely fail because he made no such attempt to lead a Christian life. As such he was not saved, as far as I can see. As for Mahatma Ghandi, he may have lead a brilliant and great life, but ultimately like all of us he has sinned. And of ourselves we have no power to deal with sin ultimately ourselves. I dont know for certianity whether he's in hell or not. I believe its likely that he is. However, its important to realise that hell is not a one size fits all thing. If you read Matthew 11 verses 20-24 those verses demonstrate that there is some kind of system of diffrensation between levels of hell (maybe/maybe not Dante style, I dont know). Knowing God, it will ultimately be a fair and just system.

Again, I say, God makes the rules. Like I said before Forgiveness is a gift, freely given, not bartered for believe. In addition, it is deffinately something that should not be based on something that one has no control over like belief.

Accept that in God's eyes you've done wrong

Ask for him to forgive what you've done wrong through Jesus

Try to do you best to live the life that God asks us to

Man this is practically out of the AA handbook. Do you want me to worship god or stop drinking?:rolleyes:

Can you elaborate. I am discussing within the framework of the original poster. He does say that he wants to know what the ideas are "According to Christianity". Thats what I am saying

Without using the Bible, and using only examples that others can experience directly in their own lives and by their own independent observations, prove that the Christian version of Hell (as you see it) exists.

Then we can proceed.

Man this is practically out of the AA handbook. Do you want me to worship god or stop drinking?:rolleyes:
lol maybe both :)

Without using the Bible, and using only examples that others can experience directly in their own lives and by their own independent observations, prove that the Christian version of Hell (as you see it) exists.

Then we can proceed.

Look, of course I am proceeding from a postulate. That is what the person who started this thread asked for. From a postion that the Christian idea of hell exists, he wanted me to justify why it was right and fair.

lol maybe both :)
Its practically the same things from AA. For once Penn and Tellers show actually gave me some usefull information.

Why can't God allow people with sin into Heaven? Doesn't God make the rules?.

God is a just God as well as a loving God. He cannot betray his nature by not being just. He has the power to but he will not. It would not be just

Ok but you have a choice whether to grab the rope or not. As I've stated numerous times, you don't have a choice in what you believe (at least I don't) I believe only what I must believe, only what my experience, reason and revelation allow me to believe. What kind of God allows soeone to go to Hell for something they can't control. It would be like sending all black people to Hell.

They can control it. People are quite capable of turning to God and sincerly doing the things I have explained. Most of the time what they find hard is the actuall wanting to. Now God wont force you to come to that change of desire. Again everyone is capable, but they have to try.

And I do this, hourly if not every minute. However, I do not accept that Jesus died for my sins (the punishment of the guilty can not be taken by the innocent, I can not take the death penalty or go to prison on behalf of my wife or father), and thus, by your reasoning I am destined to Hell.

You think God wants you to go to hell. Obviously he doesnt. I dont want you to either. But my point is that if you are unwilling to accept what was given to you given the cost at which it was given, then you are effectively turning your back on God


Christianity is not the only religion which sincerly asks God for forgiveness, many of us do guilt, we wrestle with it, we try and make peace with those we have wronged, with God and with ourselves. Forgiveness is a gift, freely given, not bartered for belief. What kind of person would I be if I said, I forgive you, but only if you believe in Quantumn Mechanics.

Forgiveness from God is not bartered for belief either. For me to forgive my brother for something requires him to believe that I exist, and that I am offering him forgiveness. If you dont, then obviously he cant accept my forgiveness.


Again, I say, God makes the rules. Like I said before Forgiveness is a gift, freely given, not bartered for believe. In addition, it is deffinately something that should not be based on something that one has no control over like belief.

All you have to 'believe' is that he is there offering you forgiveness. I say it again, if you trip me up and then say sorry and to ask for my forgiveness means you have to believe certian things
- That I exist
- That you have done something to me wrong
- That I can and will fogive you

I sincerely doubt you can objectively prove it

I can just look at all the innaccuracies in the bible as my proof. If so much of it IS verifiable as factually incorrect, why would I believe the rest of it?

Of course it depends on what "perfection" is. Perfection for God was what we were before we ate the fruit. We were perfect then, perfect in free will and the way God wanted us. God did not create us imprefect, we made ourselves imperfect

If we were perfect, we would not have eaten the fruit in the first place. Do you understand the definition of perfect?

As Stephen Hawking said "Are we predestined? Yes. But since we dont know it makes no diffrence". God did not force us to make the choices we do. Just because God is aware of our choices does not mean that he forced us to make them.

If we are predestined, how can it not matter? Your logic there seems faulty at best. Just because we don't know means it doesn't exist? I never said god forced us into our decisions. I said that since he already knows the outcome, we didn't really have a choice to begin with.

He gave us free will for one simple reason. He wanted us to love him. Love, by definition cannot be forced from people. You cant force someone to love you, becuase that is not what love is. The way we show that we love God is the same way that a child displays its love for its parents. It obeys them. Now people have said to me before "Yeah but God seems a bit of a nasty parent if he just sends us all to hell for disobeying him" but my answer to that is that we do not know the nature of God and the nature of sin. Its like a father who all he wanted was for his children to love him, but they ignore his commands, are rebellious agaist him the whole time and just ask for his help when there in trouble (see all those people who ask where God was on September 11th ect). God put the apple in the garden and gave us free will because he wanted us to love him. With no apple, they would have been living in a prison, and with no free will, they would not love him.

This is just messed up IMO. You show your love by obeying? Hmm, sounds more like servitude to me. It seems to me that using my head and not blindly following an obviously faulty book and not exhibiting the pure hatred of others as the church has in the past and continues as a much better way of showing my love.

Firstly, hell does exist in the Bible. Secondly, God is just. And he is aware of each and every persons situation, and will judge supremely fairly. Ultimatley however the Bible does say this

1 Corinthans 10:13
No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear

So God has ensured it that if we are in situations they are not beyond what we can withstand, thus we are cappable of leaving them, so there is no excuse in most cases.

Can you do anyting other than quote a 2000 year old faulty text as your reason/proof? Quoting something that is so obviously up for debate as reason, well, I find it kinda funny actually.:headbang: :rolleyes:

I'm not sure if anyone's mentioned this, but since Vatican II, the Church (Capitalized when referring to the Catholic Church) has taught that you don't need to be Christian, or religious, to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. If you lead a righteous life: Being kind, respectful to your fellow man, etc., you can be saved. So, maybe in about 90 years, views will be different.

Be well!:D

I can just look at all the innaccuracies in the bible as my proof. If so much of it IS verifiable as factually incorrect, why would I believe the rest of it?

Care to offer some so I can discuss them


If we were perfect, we would not have eaten the fruit in the first place. Do you understand the definition of perfect?

Do you. I dont think you do. Let me give you an example. Suppose there was a craftsmen who had made the perfect hammer. It was absolutely brilliant, could hammer a nail in with one stroke, perfect ballance and weight of design. He had also developed the perfect hacksaw, which could cut through metal like a hot knife through butter. Yet despite being both perfect, the hammer would be unable to cut through wood, and the hacksaw had a tough time hitting a nail in. So they are perfect insofar as what they are designed to do. Which leads to the question, humans were perfect but for what? My answer is this. Love. Humans were the perfect beings for love because they had free will. However love itself instigates free choice. Thus we are not the perfect beings for slavish obediance. Hence we can chose not to obey.


If we are predestined, how can it not matter? Your logic there seems faulty at best. Just because we don't know means it doesn't exist? I never said god forced us into our decisions. I said that since he already knows the outcome, we didn't really have a choice to begin with.

Yes we did. We already made the choices however. Say in the future I have to make a choice about which country I want to study a year abroad in. Now according to your idea, its already determined which country I go to so how can I make a choice. But my answer is that part of that pre-destined future is the choice I made. I have already made the choice. I had the choice, I made it.


This is just messed up IMO. You show your love by obeying? Hmm, sounds more like servitude to me. It seems to me that using my head and not blindly following an obviously faulty book and not exhibiting the pure hatred of others as the church has in the past and continues as a much better way of showing my love. ]

A child shows love to its father by obedience. I dont show any pure hatered of anyone. The Bible teaches us not to. Just because others have made mistakes in the past does not mean that I should be judged by them.


Can you do anyting other than quote a 2000 year old faulty text as your reason/proof? Quoting something that is so obviously up for debate as reason, well, I find it kinda funny actually.:headbang: :rolleyes:

The whole debate started from the idea of Christianity. We are debating about Christianity, so how else do you think I am going to explain about what Christianity has to say about an issue? The Qu'ran?

K, lets give it a stab shall we.


This is where your structure begins to break down. If Christianity is actually right then your detemination is somewhere flawed. There are two possible causes for said flaw. One is that there is not enough or good enough evidence to support it. The other is that at some point you have made a decision not to believe or have been influnced by others who have made a decison not to believe. This influnce may not be direct, it could be the prevailing view of the Bible being inaccurae has influenced you for example. I think its more likley to be the second one, seing as how there are mountains of evidence, and certainly if God is involved, enough to prove to his standards (which are the only ones that matter)

His structure breaks down? Even you concede the biggest point: "If Christianity is actually right." Funny word, that 'if'. By using if, you've pretty much said even you aren't sure? But once again, it is not up to us to prove christianity wrong because there is no evidence for it. It is in the hands of the christian to prove that christianity is right without using "christian facts." By christian facts, I mean quoting the bible (which shows to be wrong) or faith or whatever other unverifiable facts you can come up with.

Again this is a standards issue, and partly a logical one too. In terms of logic, no matter how much good you do, it cannot 'undo' what you have done that is sinful. It just physically doesnt work. Good works cannot travel back in time and undo bad things. And on a standards issue, you are talking about human standards of non Christians, these are not the ones that matter. Gods standards are the ones that matter and because of the nature of God and the nature of sin, God cannot let people with sin into heaven. Fortunetly he did devise a way to deal with sin. Jesus.

You're right. You cannot undo something you have done in the past. Where I think you stumble is your insistance that you know god's standards. How do you know what god is thinking? Fact is, you don't. You know what the bible tells you (lets not go there again). You are expecting us to take your "because I said so" as a fact and a reason. I know I and others will not take that as any kind of proof at all. The thing is, you can't correct what you have done in the past, but you can become a better person and try your hardest to try and equal the slate out.

Well lets be clear about a few things here. The reason you go to hell is directly sin, its indirectly because you dont accept Jesus. Only indirectly of course. In the same way that if you couldnt swim and were drowning but were offered a rope the reason that you drowned (if you did) would be because you could not swim and were in water. The indirect reason however being that you didnt grab the rope. Sin is what sends you to heaven, not God. In the same way its not gravity that kills you if you have a heavy weight strapped to your back when you jump into some water with no swimming or lifejacket type equipment and drown. Hell was orignally created not for humans, but for Lucifer and his consorts who tried to overthrow God in heaven. God designed hell in such a way that it was the punishment for all that would rebel against God. Now humans rebeled against God to. God loved humans and didnt want them to go to hell so he sent his son to deal with sin.

Hmm, more thumping on that 2000 year old text I see. Can we get something else as proof please? Something that is actually believable?

In this last part, your making your case rather over-emotionally, which does not help you. Let me offer you a few more points to explain the justifcation. Firstly, a key element to Christian salvation is sincertity. In other words, to be saved by Christ you must be sincere in two things. Firstly in your apology to God for what you have done in your rebellion against him in this life, and secondly in your commitment to him that you will try and lead a life that is as true to the life he wants you to lead as you can be. Now many people fail to lead the life God wants them to, but most Christians will sincerly fail. Meaning that they are trying. Hitler for example did not sincerely fail because he made no such attempt to lead a Christian life. As such he was not saved, as far as I can see. As for Mahatma Ghandi, he may have lead a brilliant and great life, but ultimately like all of us he has sinned. And of ourselves we have no power to deal with sin ultimately ourselves. I dont know for certianity whether he's in hell or not. I believe its likely that he is. However, its important to realise that hell is not a one size fits all thing. If you read Matthew 11 verses 20-24 those verses demonstrate that there is some kind of system of diffrensation between levels of hell (maybe/maybe not Dante style, I dont know). Knowing God, it will ultimately be a fair and just system.


Again with the bible quoting. Get some new material!!! BTW, the fact that you believe that Ghandi is in hell just reitterates why christianity is so screwed up i the first place. The fact that you think your god would put Ghandi in hell speaks volumes for how far gone you really are.

God is a just God as well as a loving God. He cannot betray his nature by not being just. He has the power to but he will not. It would not be just

Like you said, God is just, none of us deserve Heaven. As I have said, the crimes of the guilty can not be paid for by the suffering of the innocent, that is not justice but revenge. God is also loving, Forgiveness is not just, it is Forgiveness.

One other thing, since God makes the rules, God can decide what is just and what is not.



They can control it. People are quite capable of turning to God and sincerly doing the things I have explained. Most of the time what they find hard is the actuall wanting to. Now God wont force you to come to that change of desire. Again everyone is capable, but they have to try.

I have tried, and I feel I have turned to God sincerly. Again, I say belief is not a choice and I offer you a chalange: I offer you $10,000 if you can honestly change you beliefs for 1 milli-second. All you need to believe is that Prometheus was chained to a rock for helping humanity. Can you do it? After that milli-second, you can go back to being Christian so you have nothing to lose and $10,000 to gain, can you do it? I know I can not. I can not change my beliefs through force of will, whether you say I can or can not.

You think God wants you to go to hell. Obviously he doesnt. I dont want you to either. But my point is that if you are unwilling to accept what was given to you given the cost at which it was given, then you are effectively turning your back on God

No, I have said you think God want me to go to Hell and odviously He doesn't. I will accept what he has given to me, but if it is given (and not brought) I do not have a price to pay.


Forgiveness from God is not bartered for belief either. For me to forgive my brother for something requires him to believe that I exist, and that I am offering him forgiveness. If you dont, then obviously he cant accept my forgiveness.

1) But I do believe God exists.
2) I can forgive someone just as well who does not acknoweledge my existance as someone who does. For instance, I might decided that someone need to be punched in the nose. I can forgive them and forgo that punishment even if he says, "You aren't real, so it doesn't matter if you want to hit me anyway."


All you have to 'believe' is that he is there offering you forgiveness. I say it again, if you trip me up and then say sorry and to ask for my forgiveness means you have to believe certian things
- That I exist
- That you have done something to me wrong
- That I can and will fogive you

1) And I believe all three things about God.
2) Forgiveness can be given even if not asked for. For instance I have forgiven my father for abusing me even though he has never asked for it.

K, lets give it a stab shall we.

His structure breaks down? Even you concede the biggest point: "If Christianity is actually right." Funny word, that 'if'. By using if, you've pretty much said even you aren't sure? But once again, it is not up to us to prove christianity wrong because there is no evidence for it. It is in the hands of the christian to prove that christianity is right without using "christian facts." By christian facts, I mean quoting the bible (which shows to be wrong) or faith or whatever other unverifiable facts you can come up with.

You're right. You cannot undo something you have done in the past. Where I think you stumble is your insistance that you know god's standards. How do you know what god is thinking? Fact is, you don't. You know what the bible tells you (lets not go there again). You are expecting us to take your "because I said so" as a fact and a reason. I know I and others will not take that as any kind of proof at all. The thing is, you can't correct what you have done in the past, but you can become a better person and try your hardest to try and equal the slate out.

Hmm, more thumping on that 2000 year old text I see. Can we get something else as proof please? Something that is actually believable?

Again with the bible quoting. Get some new material!!! BTW, the fact that you believe that Ghandi is in hell just reitterates why christianity is so screwed up i the first place. The fact that you think your god would put Ghandi in hell speaks volumes for how far gone you really are.

LISTEN TO ME

We are arguing from WITHIN the pre-defined postulate of CHRISTIANITY. Of course I am using the Bible to back up my points. Because the original poster asked me for how exactly the CHRISTIAN world justifys hell to itself. I am not being asked to prove hell exists, or that Christianity is in any way right. I have simpley been asked to explain how Christians consider hell to work

Like you said, God is just, none of us deserve Heaven. As I have said, the crimes of the guilty can not be paid for by the suffering of the innocent, that is not justice but revenge. God is also loving, Forgiveness is not just, it is Forgiveness.

None of us would deserve heaven under the standard system. But fortunetly God came up with a way round that which was an act of love. While the crimes of the guilty cannot be taken by the innocnet in a court on this world, God clearly is capable of that. Within the system he has created as a result of Jesus's death, it is now possible for humans to enter heaven.


One other thing, since God makes the rules, God can decide what is just and what is not.

Justice is part of what God is. God cannot re-define himself in that fashion.


I have tried, and I feel I have turned to God sincerly. Again, I say belief is not a choice and I offer you a chalange: I offer you $10,000 if you can honestly change you beliefs for 1 milli-second. All you need to believe is that Prometheus was chained to a rock for helping humanity. Can you do it? After that milli-second, you can go back to being Christian so you have nothing to lose and $10,000 to gain, can you do it? I know I can not. I can not change my beliefs through force of will, whether you say I can or can not.

Then you need God to help you, clearly. Which I believe he can and will if you want him to.


No, I have said you think God want me to go to Hell and odviously He doesn't. I will accept what he has given to me, but if it is given (and not brought) I do not have a price to pay.

Salvation is given and you do not have a 'price' to pay. You just have to accept that salvation


1) But I do believe God exists.

Belif in God's existance is not enough. Seing as how the Devil believes in God too


2) I can forgive someone just as well who does not acknoweledge my existance as someone who does. For instance, I might decided that someone need to be punched in the nose. I can forgive them and forgo that punishment even if he says, "You aren't real, so it doesn't matter if you want to hit me anyway."

I'm not sure I fully understand what your saying here, but from what I can see of it, whats being described is not true forgiveness, and indeed arogence on the part of the person claiming that you dont exist. If you dont exist then how would he have done anything to you in the first place


1) And I believe all three things about God.
2) Forgiveness can be given even if not asked for. For instance I have forgiven my father for abusing me even though he has never asked for it.

I agree forgiveness can be given even if not asked for but to deny what Jesus did means that you are denying that that forgivenss has been offered in the first place. And if you do not apologise then how can God justly forgive your sin, seing as you dont accept its there. If God did that, then it means that everyone, regardless of what they had done in this life would be in heaven. Hitler, Pol pot etc would be in hevan.

Of course it depends on what "perfection" is. Perfection for God was what we were before we ate the fruit. We were perfect then, perfect in free will and the way God wanted us. God did not create us imprefect, we made ourselves imperfect
If you were so perfect then .... why'd you eat the fruit?

My answer is this. Love. Humans were the perfect beings for love because they had free will. However love itself instigates free choice. Thus we are not the perfect beings for slavish obediance. Hence we can chose not to obey.
But what is it modern man lacks that these perfect people had? Modern man loves, modern man loves god, modern man does gain salvation. Hopefully, or all this Christianity is nonsense. If modern man is "flawed", what is it modern man lacks that perfect man had? And if disobedience is equated to lack of love, then perfect man had it too, because he disobeyed.

God is not fickle or vengeful, and does not torment the souls of unbelievers. What he has created is a place for all those who rebel against God. That place is in complete absence of him. Because of who he is, that place will be absolutely terrible to be in because he supports creation as it is. God loves us all and he wants us to be with him in heaven, which is why he sent Jesus to us. But ultimately he will not force us to love him because he gave us free will. Because of that it is up to us. We choose where we want to go. Its that simple

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/meorburn.html

A good article on the subject
But "unbeleivers" already have an absence of him. So hell is no different than life, which is pretty darned okay with me.

Originally Posted by Brockadia
With the reasoning and judgement that God alledgedly gave me, according to Christianity, I have decided that Christianity cannot be right.
This is where your structure begins to break down. If Christianity is actually right then your detemination is somewhere flawed. There are two possible causes for said flaw. One is that there is not enough or good enough evidence to support it. The other is that at some point you have made a decision not to believe or have been influnced by others who have made a decison not to believe. This influnce may not be direct, it could be the prevailing view of the Bible being inaccurae has influenced you for example. I think its more likley to be the second one, seing as how there are mountains of evidence, and certainly if God is involved, enough to prove to his standards (which are the only ones that matter)
So any conclusion that contradicts the "rightness" of Christianity is automatically wrong, or at best suspect? You are using the conclusion as the axiom, and forcing all arguments to fit the axiom. This is not deductive reasoning.

Originally Posted by Brockadia
So, I live my life with extremely high standards and high values, doing everything I can to improve society, being 100% responsible and accountable for every action I take, treating others as I would have them treat me, donating my time and money to charitable causes, in general, be as good a person as I can possibly be, while choosing to believe that Jesus Christ is not my saviour.
And I go to hell.
Again this is a standards issue, and partly a logical one too. In terms of logic, no matter how much good you do, it cannot 'undo' what you have done that is sinful. It just physically doesnt work. Good works cannot travel back in time and undo bad things. And on a standards issue, you are talking about human standards of non Christians, these are not the ones that matter. Gods standards are the ones that matter and because of the nature of God and the nature of sin, God cannot let people with sin into heaven. Fortunetly he did devise a way to deal with sin. Jesus.
If there is no undoing the wrong, then there is no redemption, hence no need for Jesus. Jesus offers salvation for those who redeem themselves, he helps those who help themselves –he’s not going to it for you. Redemption effectively undoes a sin, and in that we take responsibility for our 'wrong' actions.

Originally Posted by Brockadia
I go to hell, because with the reasoning that god gave me, I have determined that Christ is not my saviour.
Well lets be clear about a few things here. The reason you go to hell is directly sin, its indirectly because you dont accept Jesus. Only indirectly of course. In the same way that if you couldnt swim and were drowning but were offered a rope the reason that you drowned (if you did) would be because you could not swim and were in water. The indirect reason however being that you didnt grab the rope.
Good analogy. If sin is the water, and Jesus is the rope, and drowning is the consequence of rejecting the help offered, then if they can swim, there is simply no need for the rope. Atheists are those who have learned to swim, who do not accept Christ because they don’t need it.

*snip*
Let me offer you a few more points to explain the justifcation. Firstly, a key element to Christian salvation is sincertity. In other words, to be saved by Christ you must be sincere in two things. Firstly in your apology to God for what you have done in your rebellion against him in this life, and secondly in your commitment to him that you will try and lead a life that is as true to the life he wants you to lead as you can be.*snip*
There is no rebellion, just simply no need for Christ.

Good analogy. If sin is the water, and Jesus is the rope, and drowning is the consequence of rejecting the help offered, then if they can swim, there is simply no need for the rope. Atheists are those who have learned to swim, who do not accept Christ because they don’t need it.


:p

Even swimmers drown if they stay in the water (sin) long enough ;)

:p

Even swimmers drown if they stay in the water (sin) long enough ;)

Some maybe, but most atheist find the ladder real quick and simply climb out of the swimming pool.;)

That's sounds like something Noah's neighbors might have said 'before' they saw the flood waters :eek:

So any conclusion that contradicts the "rightness" of Christianity is automatically wrong, or at best suspect? You are using the conclusion as the axiom, and forcing all arguments to fit the axiom. This is not deductive reasoning.

Again, we are arguing within the confines of Christianity, IE assuming Christianity is true in the first place and thus trying to justify it


If there is no undoing the wrong, then there is no redemption, hence no need for Jesus. Jesus offers salvation for those who redeem themselves, he helps those who help themselves –he’s not going to it for you. Redemption effectively undoes a sin, and in that we take responsibility for our 'wrong' actions.

You misunderstand me. What I said was that you cant use a good action to cancel out a bad action. That's not how Christianity works. You cant kill one hundrud people and then save a diffrent one hundurd peoples lives and think that that somehow absolves you of the people you killed. Of ourselves we can do nothing about our sins, only God can do that but only if we ask him


Good analogy. If sin is the water, and Jesus is the rope, and drowning is the consequence of rejecting the help offered, then if they can swim, there is simply no need for the rope. Atheists are those who have learned to swim, who do not accept Christ because they don’t need it.

There is no rebellion, just simply no need for Christ.

I said (I believe) that the people cant swim. Everyone has rebelled against God. You may see no immidate physical need for God but I can tell you now there is a deep spiritual need.

But "unbeleivers" already have an absence of him. So hell is no different than life, which is pretty darned okay with me.

No, you dont understand. The world as it is now is sustained by God. Kept in order because of his power. Without him the world decays into something exceptionally horibble and nasty. AKA Hell

No, you dont understand. The world as it is now is sustained by God. Kept in order because of his power. Without him the world decays into something exceptionally horibble and nasty. AKA Hell

Ah, so you're a Calvinist, and believe that there's no such thing as free will?

That's sounds like something Noah's neighbors might have said 'before' they saw the flood waters :eek:

They surely didn't see Jesus with a rope anywhere...

Ah, so you're a Calvinist, and believe that there's no such thing as free will?

What? No! I didnt say that. I meant nature and the way things are kept nicly in balacne

What? No! I didnt say that. I meant nature and the way things are kept nicly in balacne
So you're saying that god, from time to time, needs to miraculously alter the universe to keep it in balance? Since we don't percieve such a thing, wouldn't that be evidence for the non-existence of god? It's at least evidence that the universe is in balance all by itself without any intervention by god, and kinda disproves your vision of hell, no?

What? No! I didnt say that. I meant nature and the way things are kept nicly in balacne

Well, obviously, mistakes were made with Katrina, the tsunami, and the Kashmir earthquakes - none of that strikes me as "nicely in balance".

None of us would deserve heaven under the standard system. But fortunetly God came up with a way round that which was an act of love. While the crimes of the guilty cannot be taken by the innocnet in a court on this world, God clearly is capable of that. Within the system he has created as a result of Jesus's death, it is now possible for humans to enter heaven.

1) None of us deserve Hell either. Infite punishment is only just for infinite evil, and humans as finite beings can't do infinite evil, thus Hell is an unjust punishment.
2) I disagree with you, Justice is absolute, it is not justice for the crimes of the guilty to be punished by the suffering of the innocent.



Justice is part of what God is. God cannot re-define himself in that fashion.

You just said it was Just for God to punish the innocent for the sins of the guilty. That is a DEFFINATE re-defining of THE fundamental tenant Justice. If the innocent can be punished for the guilty, how do you define Justice?


Then you need God to help you, clearly. Which I believe he can and will if you want him to.

I have SINCERLY wanted to accept Jesus as my savior, I HAVE wanted Him to help me. Yet, I believe only what I must believe. I only believe what my reason, experience and Revelation allow me to believe.

Salvation is given and you do not have a 'price' to pay. You just have to accept that salvation

And I accept the Salvation God has told me He has given to me. Why would God tell something that wasn't true?


I'm not sure I fully understand what your saying here, but from what I can see of it, whats being described is not true forgiveness, and indeed arogence on the part of the person claiming that you dont exist. If you dont exist then how would he have done anything to you in the first place

It is true forgiveness if I forgive them. That person is arogant in denying my existance, but I can STILL forgive him.

I agree forgiveness can be given even if not asked for but to deny what Jesus did means that you are denying that that forgivenss has been offered in the first place. And if you do not apologise then how can God justly forgive your sin, seing as you dont accept its there. If God did that, then it means that everyone, regardless of what they had done in this life would be in heaven. Hitler, Pol pot etc would be in hevan.

But I have accept the forgiveness God has offerned me. I have appologized to God, I just don't believe God needed a blood sacrifice in the form of Jesus to offer me that forgiveness.

I believe everyone eventually enters heaven, there might be a "cleaning of the soul" time, but infinte torment is only Just for infite evil that, even in the case of Hitler, does not exist

They surely didn't see Jesus with a rope anywhere...

Perhaps they did not... But Isaiah saw that the rope would be thrown.

Isaiah 53
1 Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.

8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken.

9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.

10 Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.

11 After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.

12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

1) None of us deserve Hell either. Infite punishment is only just for infinite evil, and humans as finite beings can't do infinite evil, thus Hell is an unjust punishment.
-snip-

I believe everyone eventually enters heaven, there might be a "cleaning of the soul" time, but infinte torment is only Just for infite evil that, even in the case of Hitler, does not exist

The problem is that humans have a beginning, but no ending, that is, once we are born, we will exist for all time. God could destroy us at some point, but without definite scriptural reference, that would be pure speculation/wishful thinking.

So therefore, once we leave our bodies (die), we can either spend the rest of eternity with God, or without God.

Hell is for the punishment of demons, not for the punishment of humans. But it is the only place where God is not. So anyone who rejects spending their eternity with God, goes where God is not.

As far as punishment, one can infer that since there are degrees of reward in heaven ("crowns", as in Olympic crowns, what they gave before they had medals), there must be degrees of punishment for different degrees of sins. So Hitler and Stalin and child molesters are punished differently than the guy who was good and volunteered to take care of seniors and wasn't too bad but chose not to believe in God.

But the real bottom line is, that we humans do not have to justify Hell, because we did not create the concept or the reality. God did. And he gave us the Bible to find out why you don't want to go there.

If everyone eventually makes it into heaven, that means in heaven you will eventually bump into Hitler, Stalin, and every vile child molester. And that seems like justice to you???:confused:

LISTEN TO ME

We are arguing from WITHIN the pre-defined postulate of CHRISTIANITY. Of course I am using the Bible to back up my points. Because the original poster asked me for how exactly the CHRISTIAN world justifys hell to itself. I am not being asked to prove hell exists, or that Christianity is in any way right. I have simpley been asked to explain how Christians consider hell to work


I guess we can go 'round and 'round, but if the bible is the only way a christian can justify hell, then thank god I'm not a chritian anymore. Second, the OP said this was not specifically about christianity, but rather all religions that have a similar place that 'bad' people go. Maybe I am wrong, but my impressions are that the OP was asking about how you can morally justify hell, not how it works. Pretty much everyone that has met a christian has a workable idea as to how hell works. I'm asking how you can justify (heres the definition as it applies here in case you were wondering: a : to prove or show to be just, right, or reasonable) hell, and no I don't take a 'because he said so (i.e. bible)' or 'just because' as JUSTIFICATION for hell. How is ETERNAL damnation justified over a few mortal years? If we were to apply that thinking to normal every day life, people would be locked up for the rest of their lives for ANY infraction. Spit gum on the side walk- go to jail forever. J walk- go to jail forever. And no, don't say we have many chances to make up for it through out our lives. We have one life and according to you, we are judged at the end of that life as a whole.

As far as christianity goes, if they have nothing other than the bible to 'justify' everything they do, IMO it's a testament to the gullibility of humans and that makes for a very sad panda.

So you're saying that god, from time to time, needs to miraculously alter the universe to keep it in balance? Since we don't percieve such a thing, wouldn't that be evidence for the non-existence of god? It's at least evidence that the universe is in balance all by itself without any intervention by god, and kinda disproves your vision of hell, no?

Actually, according to the Bible, Jesus/God is keeping everything from disintegrating, keeping everything in existence.

It's not about balance.

And the disasters that occur are because our original parents rejected God's authority.

And the fact that we do not perceive the power of God exerting itself on every particle, atom, molecule, etc., is a probably a blessing.

It would be like seeing all the forces around you, continually being aware of the nuclear, magnetic, gravitic fields, seeing the particles raining down from the sun, watching the neutrinos whizzing through you, every second of every minute of every day. Very distracting that would be, no?

And what about seeing the solar photons hitting your skin, interacting with each molecule, creating vitamin D, changing your melanin, drying out your skin, evaporating water molecules, etc, etc, etc??? So much goes on continually, you really wouldn't want to be aware of it all. You would probably go crazy with watching the show.

Actually, according to the Bible, Jesus/God is keeping everything from disintegrating, keeping everything in existence.

It's not about balance.

And the disasters that occur are because our original parents rejected God's authority.

And the fact that we do not perceive the power of God exerting itself on every particle, atom, molecule, etc., is a probably a blessing.

It would be like seeing all the forces around you, continually being aware of the nuclear, magnetic, gravitic fields, seeing the particles raining down from the sun, watching the neutrinos whizzing through you, every second of every minute of every day. Very distracting that would be, no?

And what about seeing the solar photons hitting your skin, interacting with each molecule, creating vitamin D, changing your melanin, drying out your skin, evaporating water molecules, etc, etc, etc??? So much goes on continually, you really wouldn't want to be aware of it all. You would probably go crazy with watching the show.
No, we can percieve the "particles raining down from the sun" though in some cases indirectly. Unless you're saying that the natural universe in it's entirity is god, then I'm not sure what you're getting at.

Oh, and If god's a big enough asshole to punish me because some **** ate a fruit over a hundred thousand years ago, then he should be glad I can't perceive him. I'd try to kick the crap out of him.

The problem is that humans have a beginning, but no ending, that is, once we are born, we will exist for all time. God could destroy us at some point, but without definite scriptural reference, that would be pure speculation/wishful thinking.

You just admited God could. Wouldn't that be the moral and kind thing to do rather than allow people to spend eternity in Hell?

So therefore, once we leave our bodies (die), we can either spend the rest of eternity with God, or without God.

Hell is for the punishment of demons, not for the punishment of humans. But it is the only place where God is not. So anyone who rejects spending their eternity with God, goes where God is not.

But God, since He does not go into Hell could also create a place that is not Hell that He does not go.

As far as punishment, one can infer that since there are degrees of reward in heaven ("crowns", as in Olympic crowns, what they gave before they had medals), there must be degrees of punishment for different degrees of sins. So Hitler and Stalin and child molesters are punished differently than the guy who was good and volunteered to take care of seniors and wasn't too bad but chose not to believe in God.

Yes but people are there for an infite time. We know from math that infinity times anything is infitity. Therefore, the punishment is infinite no matter what the degree is.

But the real bottom line is, that we humans do not have to justify Hell, because we did not create the concept or the reality. God did. And he gave us the Bible to find out why you don't want to go there.

1) In my oppinion, the Bible is about how to live a good life.
2) You are right God has to justify Hell. There are two possibilities:
a) God says things are good for a reason, therefore it is the reason that makes things good, not the fact that God said it.
b) Things are good because God said so, therefore if God can make raping children moral if He said so which I can not accept.

Thus I am left with choice a) and I ask what are the reasons for Hell?


If everyone eventually makes it into heaven, that means in heaven you will eventually bump into Hitler, Stalin, and every vile child molester. And that seems like justice to you???:confused:

No it is not justice, it is forgivness. Again, I believe there probably is a time where the souls will be "cleansed", the process might be long and hard, but I do not believe there is a person who can not be saved.

The problem is that humans have a beginning, but no ending, that is, once we are born, we will exist for all time. God could destroy us at some point, but without definite scriptural reference, that would be pure speculation/wishful thinking.

So therefore, once we leave our bodies (die), we can either spend the rest of eternity with God, or without God.

Hell is for the punishment of demons, not for the punishment of humans. But it is the only place where God is not. So anyone who rejects spending their eternity with God, goes where God is not.

As far as punishment, one can infer that since there are degrees of reward in heaven ("crowns", as in Olympic crowns, what they gave before they had medals), there must be degrees of punishment for different degrees of sins. So Hitler and Stalin and child molesters are punished differently than the guy who was good and volunteered to take care of seniors and wasn't too bad but chose not to believe in God.

But the real bottom line is, that we humans do not have to justify Hell, because we did not create the concept or the reality. God did. And he gave us the Bible to find out why you don't want to go there.

If everyone eventually makes it into heaven, that means in heaven you will eventually bump into Hitler, Stalin, and every vile child molester. And that seems like justice to you???:confused:


I don't think anyone is rejecting god as you are so ready to assume. Just because they don't accept your conditions that you took from a book written by mortals theyare condemned to hell? What if I were to tell you that you were the one that is in fact going to hell because you are worshipping a false idol? When you open the bible, does it list god as the author? NO. They *say* god told them to write what they did or that they witnessed his acts, but why don't you believe me if I say that god is telling me to come write these things in this forum? It's amazing that people will trust other people they never met and that have been dead for a long, long time over fellow current human beings. Why was god so active during the time of the bible, but yet, amazingly enough, he is no where around nowadays (like it is written in the bible)? What if in two thousand years, people are worshipping Stephen King's "The Stand" ? It too is a quasi religious book with good moral stories in which god actually does take an active role in humanity. Sounds kinda familiar to me.

The thing I don't think any of the self serving christians understand is this: Why on earth would someone risk eternal damnation if they could just believe what you do and go on their ways? If I could believe that there was even a remote possibility that christianity's viewpoints were in fact correct, I would be in church every sunday. No one in their right mind would risk that. It's of my opinion that those of us that 'reject' your religion (i.e. think for ourselves) are being much more true to ourselves than those that are just blindly following. It takes more courage to willingly put yourself in the minority. As you have said, god gave us what we have, from our brains to our inquisitive nature, and by damn I know I am showing my love in a much better way by actually using those gifts than by letting them be beaten down in the name of religion.

:mp5:
You can't argue something like religion using logic. .


The only smart thing you said.

Persoanally I see hell no more as a little story, no different than sata claus and other old fables used to scare/control people to behave in a certain way. Seriously I've done a Philosophy A level, and I've come to the conclusion (if a god might exist) it would no way be within our time, interacting with events such as Jesus and parting the red sea.

Surely if you think God would intervene to show people the 10 commandments or let Moses cross a river he would stop Hitler doing the genocide ect..

If an actual God existed he wouldn't come down and tell people to behave (convieniantly before we had means of documenting such events). Religion is a chice if people want to devote their lives to worship a God that they can only ever have faith in. Things like Adam and Eve, Hell and I'd say almost all other religious stories are nothing more than stories to pursuade people to display this "faith"

I don't think anyone is rejecting god as you are so ready to assume. Just because they don't accept your conditions that you took from a book written by mortals theyare condemned to hell? What if I were to tell you that you were the one that is in fact going to hell because you are worshipping a false idol? When you open the bible, does it list god as the author? NO. They *say* god told them to write what they did or that they witnessed his acts, but why don't you believe me if I say that god is telling me to come write these things in this forum? It's amazing that people will trust other people they never met and that have been dead for a long, long time over fellow current human beings. Why was god so active during the time of the bible, but yet, amazingly enough, he is no where around nowadays (like it is written in the bible)? What if in two thousand years, people are worshipping Stephen King's "The Stand" ? It too is a quasi religious book with good moral stories in which god actually does take an active role in humanity. Sounds kinda familiar to me.

The thing I don't think any of the self serving christians understand is this: Why on earth would someone risk eternal damnation if they could just believe what you do and go on their ways? If I could believe that there was even a remote possibility that christianity's viewpoints were in fact correct, I would be in church every sunday. No one in their right mind would risk that. It's of my opinion that those of us that 'reject' your religion (i.e. think for ourselves) are being much more true to ourselves than those that are just blindly following. It takes more courage to willingly put yourself in the minority. As you have said, god gave us what we have, from our brains to our inquisitive nature, and by damn I know I am showing my love in a much better way by actually using those gifts than by letting them be beaten down in the name of religion.
hear, hear!

far be it from me, an agnostic, to make assumptions on the true nature of god based on my preconceptions and opinions but you christians do it so... ah hell.. what's the point?

Hell is for the punishment of demons, not for the punishment of humans. But it is the only place where God is not. So anyone who rejects spending their eternity with God, goes where God is not.

As far as punishment, one can infer that since there are degrees of reward in heaven ("crowns", as in Olympic crowns, what they gave before they had medals), there must be degrees of punishment for different degrees of sins. So Hitler and Stalin and child molesters are punished differently than the guy who was good and volunteered to take care of seniors and wasn't too bad but chose not to believe in God.

You should decide wether hell is for punishment of humans or not.

Also, how do those different levels of punishment work? Are there several degrees of this omnipresent God's non-presence?

You should decide wether hell is for punishment of humans or not.

Also, how do those different levels of punishment work? Are there several degrees of this omnipresent God's non-presence?

To be quite honest, I don't really believe in hell. Purgatory, sure, because there are probably quite frequently people who need to be purified, or convinced of the fact that their actions were unvirtuous in life, before they can accept entrance into Heaven. But the idea of a place where you are eternally punished for you actions is simply incompatible with the notion of an all-good God.

So, this conversation is done? And I was just starting to have some fun to! :(

You should decide wether hell is for punishment of humans or not.

Also, how do those different levels of punishment work? Are there several degrees of this omnipresent God's non-presence?

Hell was originally punishment for Lucifer and his consorts who were trying to overthrow God in heaven. Naturally they failed, and God sent them to a place for all those who rebelled against God. AKA hell. Of course Humans then rebelled against God too, which meant that without help, all humans would end up in hell as well. So God sent Jesus to deal with this problem, through his death, humans can be made right in God's eyes and thus can enter heaven. All that is needed to do is to

- Accept they are wrong in Gods eyes
- Ask God to fogive them for what they have done wrong, through Jesus
- Try their best to live the life that Jesus set out for them

To be quite honest, I don't really believe in hell. Purgatory, sure, because there are probably quite frequently people who need to be purified, or convinced of the fact that their actions were unvirtuous in life, before they can accept entrance into Heaven. But the idea of a place where you are eternally punished for you actions is simply incompatible with the notion of an all-good God.

God is not only all good, but also all just.

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/evilgod.html

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/qrashi.html

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/whyjust.html

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/meorburn.html

A few good articles

No, you dont understand. The world as it is now is sustained by God. Kept in order because of his power. Without him the world decays into something exceptionally horibble and nasty. AKA Hell
Well, you're dead, so you don't really care.

You just admited God could. Wouldn't that be the moral and kind thing to do rather than allow people to spend eternity in Hell?


Let me put it to you this way. A judge could let all his criminals off the hook, and give them either an extremely limited sentance if they were found giulty, or just let them go free somehow. Would that be the good & moral thing to do? Well it certianly would be kind and nice but not nessecarly moral. Would it be the just thing to do? Yes. And thats exactly the case with sin and hell. In your opinion sin may not warrant hell but its not your opinion that counts, its Gods. And God has made his opinion known very clearly, in the Bible, and in Jesus's life. Its not directly not being a Christian that sends you to hell. Its sin that sends you to hell. Being a Christian means that God has dealt with your sins so you can be in heaven with God. Sin is a little like Gravity. It works on everything equally unless something stops it. If the floor wasnt exerting enough upward force on you, then you would just fall through it into the earth's core. In the same way sin, if God's salvation doesnt have a firm grasp upon you, will make you fall straight into hell. God isnt sending you there, sin sends you there.

I really don't believe in a physical hell. To removed from the presence of the one you seek more than anything else is hell enough. To improve one's character in this life allows our soul to be closer to the Creator of us all. Heaven is to be close to the light of Creation and hell is to be further removed from that light.

The root cause of wrongdoing is ignorance, and we must therefore hold fast to the tools of perception and knowledge. Good character must be taught. Light must be spread afar, so that, in the school of humanity, all may acquire the heavenly characteristics of the spirit, and see for themselves beyond any doubt that there is no fiercer hell, no more fiery abyss, than to possess a character that is evil and unsound; no more darksome pit nor loathsome torment than to show forth qualities which deserve to be condemned.

(Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, p. 136)

Let me put it to you this way. A judge could let all his criminals off the hook, and give them either an extremely limited sentance if they were found giulty, or just let them go free somehow. Would that be the good & moral thing to do? Well it certianly would be kind and nice but not nessecarly moral. Would it be the just thing to do? Yes. And thats exactly the case with sin and hell. In your opinion sin may not warrant hell but its not your opinion that counts, its Gods. And God has made his opinion known very clearly, in the Bible, and in Jesus's life.

1) Hell is infinite punishment (since you are sent their for eternity), finite sins can not be justly punished by infinite punishment. If they can, there is no justice

2) God has the ability to punish limited sins in a limited sense, and redeem everyone.

3) God has made it known his opinion to me: "God is Love and there is no Hell." We can argue Revelation if you want, but we probably won't get very far.

Its not directly not being a Christian that sends you to hell. Its sin that sends you to hell. Being a Christian means that God has dealt with your sins so you can be in heaven with God. Sin is a little like Gravity. It works on everything equally unless something stops it. If the floor wasnt exerting enough upward force on you, then you would just fall through it into the earth's core. In the same way sin, if God's salvation doesnt have a firm grasp upon you, will make you fall straight into hell. God isnt sending you there, sin sends you there.

But God controls the rules. God's salvatoin does have a firm grasp on me and you and everyone.