Would you like to know the benefits of being a Christian?

[frostwolf ex]

So, if they didn't believe in this God, were they not sent to hell because they did not worship him?

Where did they go? Just a plot in the earth?

Since I've heard of this God, I'm supposed to obey his 10 commandments,or I will go to hell because I have not done so? Meanwhile, the American Indian doesn't suffer such consequences, because he never recieved the word of God, until the white man brought it to him.

the catholic answer is purgatory, not the closeness of heaven nor the seperation of hell, of course what constitutes purgatory is as nebulous as heaven or hell. and essentially yes, you are held responsable for choices you make, if you choose to act a certian way you are held responsable for it, if you dont have the options to choose you cannot be held responsable can you? can a 2 year old steal? certialy, can a 2 year old be legitimatly considered a thief? not really, guilt comes from haveing the options to do something and not doing it.

I will say what I said as a child. If God loves us all, he would be more than welcome to wipe out pestilence, war, famine, death, etc for us and make life perfect. Heaven on Earth.

If he is up there, and he's not helping us, he's in violation of his own Commandments. I don't follow what I don't know of.

war is soemthign we create freely for ourselves, you couldnt do away with war withotu removing free will. Death is death, the human body dies, a religious individual of just about any creed would tell you thats not really that big of a deal, we are not just our bodies. and famine, famines are acts of nature, the funny thing is, we have the resources to wipe out famine in areas if we so chose, but we choose not to, again its free will. the truth is, the more you study it, the more you see that we bring about our own hells on earth and all god would have to do to stop it is just remove that pesky free will thing, is that what you wish for?


sadly, i think this thread is going to get quite long, hope veggie stops by soon too, so i can exunt.

[gamevet]

the catholic answer is purgatory, not the closeness of heaven nor the seperation of hell, of course what constitutes purgatory is as nebulous as heaven or hell. and essentially yes, you are held responsable for choices you make, if you choose to act a certian way you are held responsable for it, if you dont have the options to choose you cannot be held responsable can you? can a 2 year old steal? certialy, can a 2 year old be legitimatly considered a thief? not really, guilt comes from haveing the options to do something and not doing it.

Purgatory was created by the Catholic church of coarse. The Catholic church didn't exist until @ 500 A.D.

You can spin it however you want, but it still does not answer why God never came to that side of the globe.

So, everyone on that side of the world waited in Purgatory, for some person to pray for them to make it to heaven? What a crock of shit!

I guess the dinosaurs were a creation of the devil as well, because God created man on the 7th day.

[The_Meach]

I will say what I said as a child. If God loves us all, he would be more than welcome to wipe out pestilence, war, famine, death, etc for us and make life perfect. Heaven on Earth.

If he is up there, and he's not helping us, he's in violation of his own Commandments. I don't follow what I don't know of.

Okay, since we clearly don't have any theologians on the board (or anybody who took a religion class in college), let me break it down. Not a jab at Rocca

Believers in the Judeo-Christian God would say that God = Good and is the antithesis of Evil.

Evil entered the world thru original sin (see: Adam/Eve). God, being nothing but Good (and the antithesis of Evil) cannot abide sin. (ADDED) In which case, it would go against God's nature to just say, "You know all that sin you humans keep doing? Forget it! It doesn't need to be atoned for. I'll just pretend it didn't happen."

God has, for whatever reason (God being the...um, being...that created everything, he pretty much has the right to do things the way he wants without owing humanity an explanation), set up the world like this: Sin will have its time but one day God will fix it all.

This argument, of "Why doesn't God make everything perfect?" does not compute with the Judeo-Christian God. God isn't out to make everything perfect. God is out to fix things in the way God wants to when God wants to (and mortal man cannot hope to comprehend why the deity wants to do it that way; this is perfectly, absolutely logical and plausible...provided there is an omnipotent God and man is mortal and fallible).

Atheists will argue, "How convenient."

[AstroBlue]

How stupid.

[Tracer]

Even better, Sacred Feminism.

NO.

THERE WILL BE NO REFRENCES TO IDEAS IN THE DA VINCI CODE.

[AstroBlue]

NO.

THERE WILL BE NO REFRENCES TO IDEAS IN THE DA VINCI CODE.

IBTN.


I've always wondered, when Jesus turned water into wine, what was its vintage, style, and what aroma/flavours did it have?

[Error]

Jesus is considered both the son of God and a part of the holy trinity that constitutes God in Catholicism, so thats why so many people call Jesus God.

Now then, I have to question whether Jesus really suffered for all humanity. I mean, what, he was born, lived fairly boring life until he turned 30 or so, then began his ministry. Fine. Then what happens, he gets killed. Where will he wind up? As if he's going to send himself to hell. Please. He never suffered.

[Vasteel]

[QUOTE=The_Meach]Okay, since we clearly don't have any theologians on the board (or anybody who took a religion class in college), let me break it down. Not a jab at Rocca

Umm, actually....
sounds to me like you need to learn some theology. The secular kind. The one with thinking instead of dogma.

[Kev]

Swift: You are right in that Jesus is called the Son of God, but in John 14:10-11, Jesus claims that He and the Father are one. I take it you've researched the concept of the Trinity, right? Yahweh, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are all three the same God. All three are all-seeing, all-knowing, and all-powerful. Jesus willingly submits to Yahweh (the Father), and the Holy Spirit submits to Jesus.

Sethsez: The argument isn't "God Did It" vs. "I don't understand"... There are many things about the Bible/God that I'll readily admit I don't understand. In fact, there are several things that God specifically doesn't tell us. And I'll be honest, I don't know why he does them. The argument is for intelligent design vs. random chance happening. Moreover, when I speak of evolution, I'm speaking about the religion of evolution. Like it or not, evolution in the broad sense (Macroevolution), is a religion. Microevolution is certainly scientifically valid, and a large amount of solid scientific data backs up microevolution. It's macroevolution that has no scientific bearing. Where are the transitional forms? Why doesn't human genetic code go back millions of years? Current scientific data puts it at around 6,500 years, and our genetic material has shown large evidence for coming from one man and one woman. As you said, genetics can be and have been altered for commercial benefit... however, these benefits have not been without consequences, like bigger, tougher strawberries that lose natural sweetness. Moreover, this manipulation is again a show of microevolution... farmers have not yet turned a carrot into an apple... and they've certainly not turned an apple into a mammal. Lastly it's taken a being with intelligence to affect life... if evolution was a natural, unaided process, why has it not simulated itself? Why do we need to simulate macroevolution, if macroevolution needs no simulation?

As for species dying off, the answer is that sin doesn't simply affect humans. Creation itself is decaying and dying off. Romans 20-22 back up the fact that all of creation, meaning the entire universe, is deteriorating. Sin really is universal.

True... Love does imbue us as a species with nurturing and defensive attributes. But since when does parental sacrifice such as saving for college and keeping in touch and in communication with offspring have any kind of survival quality? Christmas, birthdays... none of this is necessary for survival. Archival of memories (Pictures, family movies), desire to see children avoid our pitfalls and do better than we did... how's that survival? Since when does a mother bear care if her children get fatter than her? Do flies check up on maggots to see if they getting all their vitamins and minerals? Last time I checked, no. I'd be much easier on us guys just to nail some chick then leave her, and nail as many women as we can, with or without consent... that'd be in keeping with nature wouldn't it? But we don't. We don't call guys who just nail any woman, get her pregnant, then leave 'great producers'... eventually we call them 'deadbeats'. What of abortion? Certainly abortion flies SMACK in the face of survival, now doesn't it?

I don't understand how a combustion engine works... I don't understand how genetics can be 'engineered' by man... I don't understand how the C programming language operates, and how lines of code can create Sonic the Hedgehog... I don't understand how well below less than 1% of human genetic makeup can so VASTLY differenciate us (determination of melatonin, i.e. 'race', is but a small fraction of that one percent)...

However, just because I don't understand the above, I still believe in my Chevy truck; I still believe that those grocery store fruits, along with sheep, cats, medicines, and what have you are available for public consumption; I still play Sonic the Hedgehog on a fairly regular basis; and I have friends who are black, white, yellow, and brown...


-Nick

I respect your willingness to learn what the Bible has to say, and I'm sure you've read Ecclesiasties 1:18 "For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief". You are correct in that those without Christ spend an eternity without Him. However, Christ, being all God and all Human, was the first human to enter Heaven. All other humans that God had deemed worthy of entry preceding Him were within a 'holding cell' of sorts. These humans knew of God, and sought eagerly to follow in His footsteps. These were the ONLY humans that Christ post-death redeemed. For us now on Earth, well, you've said it yourself: You can choose to follow Him, or choose not to follow Him. And regarding people groups who haven't heard the Gospel, that's why we are commanded to go and preach the Gospel to everybody on Earth, so that there will be no excuse. We aren't called to 'modernize' or 'Westernize'... not only is that something put on us by outsiders, but Christianity is an Eastern worldview with origins in an Eastern culture.

Heaven is FAR from a secret club... 1 Timothy 2: 3-6 states that God wants ALL humanity to be saved. And I'm sure you've heard John 3:16. God isn't some prankster, or some sadist who delights in seeing people burn. God wants that everyone should be saved... however, God also gave us a free will, and knows that all those He created aren't gonna come to Him, because we love our freedom. Hell, there are some sins we actually like. I like cursing. I like drinking. I like porn... but I don't like the guilt of trangressing God associated with these things, and I don't like the fact that I like them. As for 'choosing the wrong password'... well, it's not quite that simple. Religion for most people in the First World isn't something that you are forced into believing... In the U.S., you have a choice of what you want to believe. I would submit to you that those who choose other religions choose them because Christianity exposes that 1) There is a Holy God who cannot tolerate Sin, 2) Man is God's Creation, and has made himself sinful of his own accord, and thus has separated himself from God, 3) God has bridged that gap that man on his own cannot cross with His Son, Jesus, and his work on the Cross, and 4) Those who do not choose undeserved grace receive justifiable, deserved separation from God.

Here's the thing: If you don't want God on earth, why would you want to be with Him for eternity? If you don't care for Him here, why would you be any different in eternity? If you don't want to be with God, then that's what he gives you... Hell is the absense of God's love and mercy, which is what one who rejects Jesus wants in the first place. For years, I just wanted both God and Satan to 'leave me alone'. I didn't want to go to Heaven or Hell, I just wanted to be left alone... But asking this is like saying "I don't want to be dead or alive"... You either have a pulse, or you don't. That simple. 2+2 either equals 4, or it doesn't... but both can't be right. Christianity, atheism, agnosticism, nihilism, hedonism, Buddhism (sp), Islam, Shintoism and every other 'ity' and 'ism' can be equally wrong, but not all of them can be equally right.

As I've said, what makes Christianity rational is that an intelligent designer engineered and manufactured an intelligent, ordered system, and engineered and manufactured an intelligent, autonomous being to oversee the habitat of this being that the entire system was designed for. However, a rouge agent corrupted the autonoumous beings programming, and that has affected the entire system. Jesus's coming here was like a patch that allows God to accept otherwise faulty mechanisms into Heaven, while all the others who wouldn't accept the patch, well, they get sent to the spam folder. Not a hard concept.

I find the engineering/manufacturing and communicating of an intelligent creator with the flawed creation that it loves fairly easy to accept, yes. Atoms are essentially 'nothing'... positive charge plus negative charge cancels out, and that's what the universe is made of.

Evolution claims that completely chance happenings from a heavily disputed amount of time ago occured... Supposedly some sort of pre-existing precursor to the atom collided with itself and a massive, ever expanding explosion occured, and in the heat of that explosion the first atoms formed, then they synthesized into amino acids, which begat proteins, which begat water (?) then 'primodial ooze', then single celled organisms which split into different invertebrates... you get the picture. No why, now 'how come'.

You're right in that this world is far from perfect, but as Romans says, the universe and all that is in it have been in a state of deterioration for quite some time... this seems far more in tune with the Second Law of Thermodynamics (Basically, everything is going from order to disorder, toward entrophy) than Evolution (everything is moving from disorder to order, away from entrophy).

As for Lucifer, Stalin, Hitler, my sinful friends, and hey, lets throw in perhaps Ghandi and Dimebag Darrell (Only God knows where any of those people after Lucifer are, we don't... Stalin, Hitler, my friends, Ghandi, and Dime could all be in Heaven right now for all we know, as could Judas and Pilate)... were they perfect? No. I'm not, I know that. I repeat: I. Am. Not. Perfect. However, Christ IS perfect. And God demands perfection within His presence.

God's desire is that people get saved. He's in the profession of Homebuilding and Disposal, and from what He says, He wishes He wasn't in the disposal business....

Don't take what I've said, though... Here's some sites for you who are interested.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/
http://www.probe.org/
http://www.erguncaner.com/

[Vasteel]

NO.

THERE WILL BE NO REFRENCES TO IDEAS IN THE DA VINCI CODE.

I haven't read the DaVinci code, but I assure you, it isn't where the idea of Sacred Feminism came from.