appolose said: Phendrana said: chriscox1121 said: Have you all forgotten what the Bible prophesied that the hearts of many would wax cold in the last days. Knowledge will be a big contributor to many peoples hearts waxing cold. Alot of people's God on this website is their "intelligence", which is deceiving them and they don't even realize it. We live in a world where the Devil is the prince of it. The Bible calls him the "Deceiver" Revelations refers to him as " the one who decieved the nations" Alot of you are following in your Father's footsteps (the devil). Why was he kicked out of heaven, because he rebelled against the authority of God and wanted to put His throne above God's. " I will ascend above the most high" And you here today are reflecting the same actions by putting yourself above God. Belittling Christians because you are "above our thinking". Because God is "beneath you", and it's only for the ignorant and unlearned and weak minded. But, he said in His Word the he uses the foolish things to confound the wise and the weak to overcome the strong. He his a revealer of secrets. No amount of this world's wisdom and understanding can obtain it. But it's only through the power of His spirit. For it is written "eye has not seen nor ear has heard nor has it entered into the heart of man, unless it be revealed by the spirit of God." (true wisdom and understanding) Paul said if you want to be wise, become a fool for Christ. Please seek him while it's still day, because night cometheth when no man shall be able to work. In Him So intelligence and knowledge are negative things? I'm not looking down on anyone for their beliefs, but when religion starts telling me to take blind faith over critical thinking, I have a problem. If I were trying to sell you a dog, but I said it was invisible and impossible to detect it in any known way, would you buy it? That's what organized religions seem like to people who don't follow them. It's hard to convey why you don't believe in something someone else does without sounding arrogant. I'm sorry if any of this sounds like belittling to you. It's not meant to. Unfortunately, this is where most of the misunderstanding comes from. The difference in faith and blind assumption. The Christian God does not demand that a potential convert take a blind leap into assumption. What He does want is that the person submit themselves to Him via the revelation they already have of Him. Christian theology does dictate that, in some form, all people have a knowledge of God which they cannot deny (an example of which would be the universal moral law, which is supported in Christian theology. I'll give an exegesis of it if wanted). Herein lies God's problem with above-mentioned empiricism ( secular evolution-science, effectively (to distinguish from just science in general, which doesn't contradict Him)). To rely on one's senses, one's own understanding, is to rebel against the inherent knowledge of Him, is to think that you could somehow trust yourself more than He. Therefore, when God accuses us of a lack of faith, he is not condemning those who do not assume His existence, but those who do no trust him. By the way, the scienctific method, by itself, can't actually prove anything. Need I mention The Matrix? Taking our senses as truth is just as assumptuous as the situation presented in the above post. Not that I'm saying science, from a Christian perspective, is useless, as it can be used to help others remove their other objections.

You can't claim everybody has pre-existing knowledge of God. Christian theology says they do because Christian theology is Christian. A Christian who follows the Christian religion would believe this to be 100% true because of what they feel from their personal faith. They have a feeling of connectedness to their God that nonbelievers don't have. But this feeling isn't wired into us from birth. It arises from faith itself. Think of it as a crush. You could believe that you're absolutely in love with someone only to realize later in life it wasn't really love you were feeling, but rather a misinterpretation of feelings. It's not like I've never had faith either, as I was Christian for a large portion of my life.

You can do the same thing with any other belief system. What if I told you all humans have a latent knowledge of the viking gods? Could you prove me wrong? It wouldn't matter what you argued because all I would have to say in defense is you aren't a believer and haven't felt it yet. Only believers can understand this, so it's impossible for you to know any different. Even if I fully believed this myself and honestly felt what I thought was this knowledge, you would never believe me. I guess we'll just have to respectfully disagree on this though, as I know arguing each side will never change anyone's opinion. But it's nice to hear the reasoning of the other side.

On a side note, I'm not arguing against the possibility of any type of creator whatsoever. I just don't think organized religion is correct. I totally agree that we can't possibly understand the whys of the universe, and that all "truths" are subjective. But where I chose agnosticism, other people choose religion.

appolose said: Revelation 20: 15 directly states "And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire". Jesus himself refers to the judgement of Hell, e.g., "... It is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell". There are many, many other verses that say the like. And furthermore, contrary to popular belief, the devil doesn't actually reign over hell. He is supposed to be sent there in the end as well.

 Close. Very Close. However there is more to revelation 20 than just verse 15. Just go back one more verse to Rev. 20:14. Interestingly, we see other things being thrown into the lake of fire. Hades was thrown in, and death. You read that right. DEATH was thrown into the lake of fire. Does this mean that god plans on tormenting death forever? Ofcourse not, thats absurd. Verse 14 goes on to explain that the lake of fire means the second death. Second death means destruction or no longer existing at all. In other words, God intends on destroying satan, death, hades or grave, and satans followers. What you failed to do was show me where God mentions eternal suffering. That idea is nowhere to be found.

It could also be explained this way. The lake of fire is a reference to an actual place near Jerusalem. A place called Gehenna. It was a large landfill of garbage that was always on fire to burn the refuse. What God is saying at Revelation 20: 14 and 15 is simply. "I will take out the garbage" Further in Revelation and Rev 21: 4 and 5 it is written that after God takes out the garbage then there will be no more death, no more satan, and no more suffering.

And Jesus' references to hell are correct. However, when basing your religion on a book that has been translated from another language it is prudent to learn a little about the original language. In the bible Hell is translated from the words Sheol and Hades.Sheol is defined as the grave or mankinds grave. It is not defined as a place of eternal torment and fire. Hades is the greek word that means "the unseen place." It is used in the greek scriptures to render the hebrew word Sheol, again meaning grave and carrying not mention of torment.

Legend11 said: senseinobaka said: And, be careful. You are insinuateing that God is actually not a loving and benvolent being. But is instead vindictive and hate filled. If you go on teaching that... it could be slander. So you will need very concrete evidence. If this God is so loving and benevolent why did he/she/it set up an Animal Kingdom that is so incredibly cruel? Or do you think a system in which the meek and weak are viciously torn apart is the handiwork of a loving and benevolent being?

 This is a good question. I honestly never taught of it on those terms. I find the animal kingdom very fascinating, but never cruel. Animals instinctively dont exploit their enviroment. Lions dont hunt their prey to extinction, they hunt just for survival. I think your premise assigns some of mankind's own failings to the animal kingdom which jsut doesn't actually fit. The system has been going on for a very long time, millions of years and it has flourished. I think God knew what he was doing. Science has shown that his system allowed life to survive a meteor crash, ice age, and other disasters. Perhaps it would have been less loving to make a system that would ensure extinction.

senseinobaka said: Grey Acumen said: Phendrana said: I never understood why a loving and infinitely forgiving God would throw you into a pit of eternal suffering for something as simple as not believing in him during such a short time as your life (when compared to all of eternity). This also brings other things into question as well. Not all religious people are morally good, and not all non-religious people are morally bad. So would the religious person be allowed into Heaven over the non-religious person just for having faith? If life were a test of the goodness of a person, why would faith in the existence of God decide if you get into Heaven? Faith has nothing to do with how moral a person is. Or perhaps life is a test of devotion. In that case, wouldn't God make his existence a little more obvious? Look, i can forgive you for saying i don't exist, and I can invite you to my house, but if you keep insisting it doesn't exist, despite the numerous people that say "yeah, he's just head down that road, you can't miss him", how the hell are you ever going to get there? I have studied the bible for many, many years. Please show me where the bible teaches the doctrine of hellfire. Thats something I have never seen. And, be careful. You are insinuateing that God is actually not a loving and benvolent being. But is instead vindictive and hate filled. If you go on teaching that... it could be slander. So you will need very concrete evidence. Here's what I know from the bible. 1)The first thing wen need to ask is "Who Sins?" Well all people make mistakes and sin. No one is perfect. So everyone is in this "sin boat" 2)So then, what is the punishment for sin? Romans 6:23 states specifically that the cost of sin is death. So if one dies...then he is absolved of his sins, he paid his debt so to say. 3)Then we ask, what does this death punishment entail? Ecclesiastes 9:5 says that those who die are conscious of nothing at all. It fails to say the dead are sent to the devil to be tortured for their sins. 4)And finally, how long does this punishment last? Due to Jesus ransom, those who die have the gift of being brought back life. This ressurection according to bible prophecy happens after Armegeddon. So death is a temporary punihment for sins and it includes no torture... just being dead. Atleast, that is what the bible teaches.   Another thing about the hellfire idea. Satan rebelled against God for his own selfish ideals. Why would he willingly take employment or an assignment from God to torture sinners? Last time I checked, rebels don't decide to do as told.

Ok, this interpretation sits a little better with me than the eternal pain and suffering stuff. I'm not familiar with the Bible enough to really argue with your interpretation, but I looked up a few passages I think go against it. A few of the ones I found are:

Matthew 13:49-13:50 It will be this way at the end of the age. Angels will come and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Mark 9:47-9:49 If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out! It is better to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where their worm never die and the fire is never quenched. Everyone will be salted with fire.

Matthew 25:46 Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.

If I'm mistaking, please let me know. Like I said, I'm not 100% on the exact interpretations from the Bible. I'm only going by my teachings from when I was younger and the limited parts of the Bible I have read. Oh, and I don't think the devil rules over Hell. I was always under the impression he will be sent there to be punished along with everyone else.

You know what another big problem with christianity is? It's intolerant. Now you might say, well all religions are intolerant. Not true in the far east dozens of religions live side by side with no conflict, in ancient Rome, before christianity took over ,there where dozens of religions living toghether without conflict, ironically, christianity plagearised them to death as to become popular, the virgin marry, christ's ressurection and many other pillars of christian faith were blatantly copied from other religions in that period around the 3-4 century AD.
Also, recently I've made an analogy comparing christianity with bolshevic comunism, and what i've found out is christinity is exactly like comunism, the most extreme one at that ( mind you when making the analogy I will be rffering to medieval christianity which was the most extreme, and stalinist comunism)
First off how does a comunist goverment come to be?
Well one is by democratic elections, onther is by war and having a big power impose it on the people, and another is through rebels during times of instability.
Christianity coming to power in Rome was a democratic proces, more people starting beliving in christanity till they became large enough that even the king belived it and thats how the church was founded( mind you the majority was still non-christian).

Christianity in africa and south america on the other hand was imposed through slaughter,fear, torture, slavery etc, by a larger power, so the analogy is clear.
And another way christianity imposes its self is throgh local sects who infect a comunity and have foreign funding during times of poeverty and instability, i know this first hand since after my country got out of comunism dozens of foreign sects started appearing, promisimg money and support for those who joined, thankfully the country got back up on tis feet before any of these sects started replacing the old faith.

What does comunism do after coming to power? it liquidates all other parties, it abolshes all signs of the former rule, it imposes a reign of fear and eliminates early opossers, it starts indoctrinating the populace, and saps the lifeblood of the people to strenghten ints gripp on everthing and genraly brings the living standars of evereone way down, tehy also form a secret police to eliminate anyone who might dear speak out and quitly eliminate them.

First off when a chritian faith seizes power it eliminates all other religions, it destroyes the temples and culture and traditions of the old religions, and imposes a reign of fear and terror, creating enmies and threats which do not exist or arent reeally threts, like demonizing the old faith, it starts indoctrinating the populace in their fatith, starting with the children by making them recite religious texts over and over, and rounding them up in buildings whre they are breainwashed, torturing and imprisonong those who do not agree, after having a firm fotthold they start requesting money, land, suplies and making people even poorer and making the mlive in miserable conditions, they start building even more centers for indoctrination, and further impose themselves by having hteir own army and start controling the economy and the rule of everything. After it has firmly planted itself it created an inquizition, who wathches everyone, and whome so ever si seen as being against the system is locked up, tortured and if his lucky brainwashed, if not he rots in jail for the rest of his life.

That sounds like comunism to me. But how is comunism removed, by either a libarating army or by revolution.
Well in the case of a liberating army we could say the otoman empire which tolerated other religions, then again in the middle ages an invading army was rarely libarating. But the other analogy, of a revolution is exactly how europe freed its se;f from chritian opression, the french revolution and many other revolions where the kings and their corupt clergy were deposed, the protestant movements were also revolutions and so on.

And what happened after the fundamenatalist christion church was removed? people's lives starting improving since they didnt need to pay taxes to the church, the economy flourioshed since the farmers had more land taken from the church, in the case of my country over a thinrd of the farm land was in the hands of the church, land which was worked basically by slaves, and treade with otyher countries was more permasive, scientifical advancemnts started apperaing everywhere since the church wa no longer there to ban any form of resesrch, freedom of speech appeard since the church didnt censor anything anymore,etc etc. Get my point?

PS Another thing that fundamentalist christians have in common with comunist is that they always talk about theory rather than reality. Comunist always say how the comunist system is the best and how everything is smoothed out and  start quoting from marx and then start phlipsophing aboout how comunism is the only way bla bla bla, ignoring the reality where comunism is pure evil and simply does not work. The same with christians, they all talk about god this god that they start quoting from the bible, and start talking about god as this abstract concept, and start inter[pereting texts and start advancing all sots of philosophical concepts, and even smart epoplestart falling for it since tehy talk about like the real world didnt even exist, all you need to do to disprove the christian fundametalis is simplly look out the windou ,read anespaper whatch the news, go out with some friends, and see reality for you self, its that easy.

Kasz216 said: veiam said: I don't know why I have to prove to you the non-existence of god. Every time a person comes up with a new idea he changes the status quo. He then has to prove his idea to everyone so that his idea becomes part of the status quo. Everyone else doesn't have to prove him wrong, he has to prove himself right. Same thing with religion. God and religion, even though they have been around a lot, are NOT the status quo. Each god and religion has been introduced by different people (Jesus, Mohamed, Buddha, w/e) but they, or their followers, have yet to prove that god DOES exist. Atheists/Agnostics/etc. don't have to prove shit. The burden is on the religious people to prove the existence of a god. So far the evidence provided is weak and full of holes. Therefore, I am nowhere near being convinced god exists, nor should any person with enough intellectual capacity (there are smart people who believe in God, but I blame their parents not them). Another thing that annoys me about religion and god is the way it spreads. I can go ahead and tell you about my friend Joe. He's a great guy, amazing personality, always nice, etc. I can also get 100 more people to tell you the same thing. I'm sure you'd believe this Joe person exists and is a great guy and really nice and all that. But just because i told you so doesn't make him any more real, the fact is Joe does not exist, even if I had 1 billion people tell you he was real. Religion works the same way, based on trust. Children get their minds corrupted by the people they trust the most, their parents, and are shown to their church leaders and get their mind corrupted even more. I find this the lowliest possible way of spreading any idea and/or opinion, targetting the children who will believe anything a person tells them. Because of this I view religion as a cancer on our world, only causing great division and wars (crusades, 30 years war, jihads, etc.) and also hindering VERY beneficial technologies( Stem Cells, Cloning to some extend too). I bet you that if from this point on no one ever told anything about a god to their children and let's say this lasts 150 years. Then I bet that religion and god will be non-existent and the human race will STILL progress forward. Meanwhile if you do the same thing with science, I foresee billions of people will dying. But it would be fine because we would still have God, right? Isn't the status quo set by what most people believe? Most people believe there is some sort of god, though disagree which one is the case. Therefore you in fact would have to prove it as such. There is also no proof that the existance of belief in a god didn't originate itself with consious thought.

Status Quo - the existing state of affairs; specifically : the last actual and uncontested state of affairs that preceded a controversy and that is to be preserved by preliminary injunction In other words, the status quo was the time before religion was introduced. Number of believers doesn't mean anything. If I get everyone in the world to state that fire doesn't burn, would that make it the status quo and therefore true? Also, I was raised without the mention of anything relating to a god or religion (meaning there wa neither "god is great" nor "there is no god" in my house at all) until I was 8-ish. And then I remember my grandmother teaching me how to pray and my mom being pissy about it. I couldn't understand why my mother was so angry about it back then, but right now it makes perfect sense. In an environment where the person is not introduced to god he will simply not believe just because he has never been brainwashed into believing in something purely based on faith.

senseinobaka said: fkusumot said: senseinobaka said: I'd like to comment on the topic and remain above the bitter fray between the believers and non-believers. I feel there is plenty of evidence of God. Even the evidence that many would like to believe disproves God, I believe confirms his existence, like Science. I can never understand why scientist feel that their knowledge means god doesn't exist. It's an illogical leap. Evolution is a good example. The theory is an idea extrapolated from basically 1 fact, natural selection. The ability for organisms to adapt, change, and survive in changing circumstances doesn't mean god doesn't exist, it means he's a genius. Well, since you're not a stupid teacher I feel compelled to ask you two questions. Would you live your life any differently if you knew for certain there was a god? And conversely, would you live your life any differently if you knew for certain there wasn't a god? There's no trap that I'm trying to imply in these questions, i.e., the epistemological considerations implied are absolute. Just wondering where you're coming from.  It's a difficult hypothetical to answer. I live my life with certainty that God does exist. I enjoy studying many things, including science. And, like many scientist in the world, I believe there is undeniable evidence of design in almost every naturally occuring system (biology, chemistry, astronomy, geology). I also enjoy studying the bible and the history related to it. With what I have learned I am sure of god's existence, and live my life according to to the teachings in the bible. (as a side note, following the bible stringently is vastly different than what "mainstream christianity" is now) However, if all my research led me to the opposite assurance, I would have felt no compulsion to change my lifestyle. It's also important to note that I do not worship God out of some morbid fear of eternal damnation that mainstream christianity preaches. I have taken the time to study the God of the bible and understand God in a matter that compels me to worship him out of love. There are many things about mainstream christianity I take extreme offense to. I feel that they have done God a great diservice at least and more than likely blasphemed his name by painting him as a vindictive tyrant that wants you to fear him or he will throw you in hell. Or when a tragedy happens, it's always Gods fault or desire. That's not the person Jesus spent 3 years traveling all over the middle east talking about. Modern day christianity has done such a poor job about actually teaching people about god that I am willing to bet that here in this thread there are more atheist and non-belivers that have researched enough to now god's personal name than professed christians.

Let's say for instance (in an example I brought up earlier) that all things you see and hear and smell today are derived from one simple rule.  Let's call this rule "gravity" for argument sake.  You have these particles, and gravity.  This particle is tiny.  It's smaller than what we know as an atom.  It's composed of one part.  One part that has a given mass.  Let's say that it's attracted to another particle.  When it "combines" with this particle (not collide and bounce, but orbits, maybe even settles to form a heavier object) it slightly changes characteristic.  If enough of these particles work together you have something on one end that looks like a grouping of matter (clumping), something that looks like energy (orbiting) and something that causes reactions form other groupings (collision, reflection... light).

If you take a million specks of sand, you can form a lot of unique and interesting things.  No two would be alike, no two would do the same thing.  Let's say you have other particles colliding with these groups and some break apart.  Some stay intact.

Now, if these two sand particles collide and push against each other, they create what is perceived as energy... motion.  This is how I see the world.  Everything is created and composed of the most simple object that we have yet to see.  You have the table of elements, but they are simple composed of elements derives from what I assume is our building block material.  Through resilience, these elements either remain intact and resist the collision of other micronic particles or they break apart like billiard balls.  Those most resilient combinations are what we see most commonly found (Iron, Oxygen, etc.)  The unstable minerals are those that usually contain what we perceive as energy, but in fact, they could simply be incompatible groupings of these tiny particles bouncing off each other.

The rule governing these particles (move toward each other) is the simplest, yet most stringent rule.  In order to change something in someone's life without them witnessing such a change, you'd have to change this one basic rule, and the entire universe would destroy itself because you'd upset the entire relationship structure that all these tiny particles base their structures on.

So, where did these particles come from?  They've always existed, happily bouncing and colliding about. (IMHO)

veiam said: Status Quo - the existing state of affairs; specifically : the last actual and uncontested state of affairs that preceded a controversy and that is to be preserved by preliminary injunction In other words, the status quo was the time before religion was introduced. Number of believers doesn't mean anything. If I get everyone in the world to state that fire doesn't burn, would that make it the status quo and therefore true? Also, I was raised without the mention of anything relating to a god or religion (meaning there wa neither "god is great" nor "there is no god" in my house at all) until I was 8-ish. And then I remember my grandmother teaching me how to pray and my mom being pissy about it. I couldn't understand why my mother was so angry about it back then, but right now it makes perfect sense. In an environment where the person is not introduced to god he will simply not believe just because he has never been brainwashed into believing in something purely based on faith.

Actually, this is a self contradicting statement, as it implies that the only way you can conceive of god is if someone else gives you teh idea, so.... where did the idea come from originally? If the idea can only come from another person, then it must have been able to be conceived of without having been given teh idea by someone else, which makes there very same statement you made false, and if it didn't originally start out being conceived by a human, then it must have been taught by "something else" initially. Which lends credibility to the idea that there is some higher power that guides humanity.

 

Isn't the very existance of evil proof of that a God can't be 'All Good'

Something that is absolutely good can't take an action, or inaction, or create something that will result in evil. Its not possible. IF god is all knowing he knew he was creating evil when he created man, and that acceptance is as much evil as any action of man.

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/

Here's really all you need to know. And make sure to get a kick out of the "justifications" or disproving of self-contradicting in the answers sections.
This is reall the bible I'd wanna be taught at school, it makes more sense as an analysis...