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

[gamevet]

The fact that believed in gods at all nullifies any "I didn't know". They believed in powers and deities beyond themselves and knew there was one "Great Spirit" without anyone having to tell them because the evidence was right in front of them. The whole of all creation.

Yeah, the Greeks called him Zeus.

[Master of 7s]

No, by my way of thinking Jesus isn't a god. Men aren't gods.

I agree, except that Jesus wasn't just a man.

However, like I said, do a little reading. You might learn that Easter is indeed a European god(dess).

Pffftt. Oh please, ALL Christian holidays are derived in some form or another from pagan celebrations. And the goddess' name was Eastre, not Easter.

You might also learn a little bit about the symbol of the cross and how it came to be a religious icon in a faith explicitly against such.

Wow Google is such a wonderful tool, thanks Constantine.

And the origins of that whole virgin birth thing.

News flash, bub. I am not Catholic so the whole "immaculate conception" and all the drama that surrounded it doesn't concern me.

So Christians CAN honor European gods, but Native Americans are damned for honoring their own?

Christians have commandeered other pagan rituals and festivals and made them their own. This is not the same as honoring foreign gods.

And just what makes you an authority on what is and isn't "excusable" to God?

*Hands Vasteel a Bible*

Read it you might learn something.

[AstroBlue]

And what's with this stupid focus on skin-color? You think Jesus is a white-man's god? Pull your head out of your ass.

So what do think about your heathen animist ancestors who are in hell right now? Thank God all those good white folks captured your ancestors, taught them theism, and then gave them a little bit of work to keep the busy; think about the trouble you'd be in now if those lovely white folks didn't save you?

So the point still is "Why would we be able to observe everything"?

Because anything that causes a change is obviously observable to some degree.

[Vasteel]

[QUOTE=Master of 7s]
Pffftt. Oh please, ALL Christian holidays are derived in some form or another from pagan celebrations. And the goddess' name was Eastre, not Easter.
O'ustre, actually.

Wow Google is such a wonderful tool, thanks Constantine.
I was thinking more along the lines of Celticism.

Isn't every Christian honoring a foreign god?
And here lies my problem with most Christians: they automatically assume that the clerics who wrote their canon are infallible. Morever, the interpretations of men taken as fact without basis in the Bible: At no point in the text does Jesus declare himself a deity. The use of iconography. The absolute disregard for dietary restrictions. Killing. The Sabbath. The list goes on, and on. But primarily, the assumption that other faiths cannot validly co-exist, which in my humble opinion, is the EXCLUSIVE PRIVILEGE of God in the Bible. You, nor any other person for that matter, has the authority to declare Native American or any other belief system invalid or wrong. Furthermore, you (read that Bible) lack the authority to declare God's judgement.
These books might be interesting for you:

The Zend Avesta , by Zarathustra
The Histories of Josephus Flavius (if you can read Latin, as the English translations are censored)
The Religion of the Ancient Celts by J.A. MacCulloch
The Book of Enoch and the other Dead Sea Scrolls
The Apochrypha
The Torah, Talmud, and Q'uran
A Field Guide to Demons, Devils, Fallen Angels, and Other Subversive Spirits by Carol and Diane Mack
and any histories of the Essene tribe that you can find.

[Drewbacca]

"There is however substantial scientific evidence to show that life and the universe could have been created without a "god"."

Not really. Our ideas about these origins are changing all the time and scientists can't even agree on one at any given moment. Hardly compelling evidence. I'm not saying there is a God (why would I know that?), but we know so little.

I took an astronomy class in high school. The teacher had us do this enormous mathematical equation regarding our own solar system to show us how vast and large and big the universe is, and then he told us to throw all our days work in the trashcan because it's all shit.

He said we're still the equivalent of cavemen looking through the telescope, developing hypothesis and certainties we have no clue about. Good advice.

If you could have the same thinking process and not have your senses, what would you think? Obviously a true hypothetical, but the point is that why stop at 5? Life didn't start with 5, why should it a) end there or b) be there right now on other planets far, far away?

Plus our 5 senses aren't the only five senses that exist. Bats, ants and other animals have different senses than our own, or modified ones.

[Fe 26]

You ever wonder about the smells, you can't smell, the colors you can't see, and the notes you can't hear?

[frostwolf ex]

So God loves us so much that He created us to commune with Him forever, but it took Him all that time to come up with a plan to make us worthy after the Fall? And there was a place that was neither in the presence of God nor the pit of eternal suffering where souls could just hang out? So, why does God feel the need to eternally torment souls He has a disagreement with? He's the Creator, so let Him put them in the holding cell forever or - better yet - destroy them or put them to sleep for eternity. Really, I'd rather kill a child with a shot to the head than know evil men will skin him alive.

(and i hope you know, nick, i find you personally responsable for me not having time to level my defender to level 20 in city of heroes tonight )
god is not tormenting souls he had a disagreement with, god is allowing those with the free will to reject him to have their wish. those who are subject to hell are those who have had the choice to follow god and have used their free will to reject that. beyond that your post got very odd, care to repost that without the killing a child and evil men skinning them, , i can tell you have passion, but dont let that totally overshadow clarity.

Relax a little, Yahweh. Bend Your rules a little. You don't like us? Kill us. But the failure to make one instantaneous choice should not be punished by eternal damnation. The math does not add up for us. If it does in God's head, well good for Him, but we are talking about our souls and He has to accommodate that. I don't hold my child to the same standards I hold myself while she is a child.

ah some clarity, how is the choice instantaneous? one lives and learns over time, if one remains hardened against god and decides to ignore gods word, its hardly a split second question, its one brought about by a lifetime of experience.why does God have to accomidate anything? we have free will, we can use it to seek the truth, or we can reinforce our pride and continue to dwell in ignorance, both are our own choices.


spare me the talk of your child, i am talking of grown men and women who choose their own beleifs, and accept the results of their choices. If you choose to follow Jesus you have faith that he exists, that he is the correct God to follow out of the options that are out there, and that His words ring true to your ears, then you accept the results of that. If these do not ring true to you, then go forth and beleive that, but you were offered jesus, it was your choice to not accept.

No, they still needed faith in God, but it was a more general faith and a simpler, much more intuitive plan.

Leviticus 17:11 - "For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh atonement by reason of the life."

And from Numbers 15 - "And if any soul sin through ignorance, then he shall bring a she goat of the first year for a sin offering. And the priest shall make an atonement for the soul that sinneth ignorantly, when he sinneth by ignorance before the LORD, to make an atonement for him; and it shall be forgiven him."

Now, you have to accept one particular sacrifice that happened two thousand years ago. In Psalms it says that along with the Word, nature testifies to the greatness of the LORD. I see people much more likely to accept a great God and have faith in that than believe that a guy that lived in the Middle East twenty centuries ago was divine power made flesh.

It's just a bad system, and if God truly desires to save the greater part of humanity, He's doing a terrible job of it.

having read of the old testament and new testament i challenge you to really show me why a carpainter who talked of nonviolence, loveing neighbors and giving comfort to the sick is harder to follow than a God who randomly asks for people to sacrifce their kids as tests of faith. nor some nebulous God that nobody actually understands anything about.

furthermore,in both cases you bring me quotes saying that the sacrifices would have atoned for sins it says nothing about any admission into the fullness of heaven in either example. I repeat that before jesus came, no one entered the fullness of heaven. the cleansing of sins was important as a ritual washing but it did not grant any truer insight into the will an nature of God, that came only following the teachings of Christ.

so no, there was no easier access into heaven before the coming of Jesus, just placeholders and rituals.

You are trying to explain a complicated system by introducing an infinitely more complicated one. God is infinitely more amazing than any of His creations or all of His creations taken together. To make an absurd example: if I eat out an entire week and all the food is good, I can theorize that my mom is secretly following me, running from restaurant to restaurant and cooking the meals I order. But why the hell would I? We explain more and more through science as our technology evolves and as we begin to shed the shackles of restrictive religious thought. Why do we need to keep clinging to the Mighty Ghost theory?

Ah, i love this one, the faith of every athiest, that we will shed more light on reality and magically banish God through sicentific inquiry. I always find this one funny because it is an admission that you really dont have the evidence yet, but gosh darn it, you know that one day science will give it to you, all i have to say is, brother you shame me with your faith, i dont have that much . Its also a silly argument, the concept of God is not one that will ever be scientificly proven or disproven, those who wish to disbeleive in god already have enough "evidence" to give them solice, and those who beleive will continue to come up with new adaptations of faith to work with the newest sceince, but both are wasting their time, until we get a full operational definition of god, i mean a full, absolute and irrefutable operational definition, then its all just posturing for both sides to try to puff up their chests and say nothing.

God will say to the unsaved, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." That's pretty heavy stuff, and it sounds like He's using the same punishment for your cousin that only believes in smoking pot as He is for Jeffrey Dahmer and Ivan the Terrible. Oh, and for Satan.

My take on the Bible doesn't matter that much. The more we learn, the more ridiculous the Bible looks and the more fanciful. non-literal interpretations come up. If "God is not the Author of confusion" and "holy men spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," how are we not to take it a little literally?

for one thing, when did smoking pot become a sin? for another, it describes only where the unsaved are sent to, a place that god forsakes and one with fire, which seems to be used more as a description of the undesireableness of the place then its actual physical constitution. as i asked before, do heaven or hell actually have physical locations beign that theya re places of spiritual location. what would fire do to a nonphysical being? answer me these before we can get into the size and practices of hell. it gives no other information on it, you assume its one size fits all punishment, but that is an assumption that you come to yourself, you dont really have backing on that one from this quote.

and furthermore, who said i belived that God was not the author of confusion, perhaps sometimes we are challenged to figure things out ourselves, i beleive that the bible holds the guide for spiritual truth, not that its one hundred percent as it is written, humans use allegory and metaphore, i dont see why god is prohibited.

And by introducing the Cross, God narrowed the window you can use to get into Heaven. He damned more people than homosexuality or murder or sexual deviance ever could. Not bad for an eternity's work.

as stated before it was not stated that people pre-jesus got into heaven. God has not sent a single person into hell, he sent a way for people to come into the fullness of his presence in heaven. those who chose not to claim it, chose their own path.

We have invented tools to detect things that were not observable before such tools existed.

and if the only way of observing said phenomena is through said tool, how do you know it works? It reminds me of the old joke of the guy who buys a useless trinket that he calls a giraffe repellent, his friend reminds him that there are no giraffes in the area, so the guy takes it as proof that the trinket works.

So what do think about your heathen animist ancestors who are in hell right now? Thank God all those good white folks captured your ancestors, taught them theism, and then gave them a little bit of work to keep the busy; think about the trouble you'd be in now if those lovely white folks didn't save you?

Because anything that causes a change is obviously observable to some degree.

secnd vers same as the first, if you dont have the oppertinity to learn of jesus, you are not held responsable for rejecting him, hell is for those who have actively rejected the salvation of jesus, not those who have never had the oppertunity ot learn of him in the first place.


and, here we go again, youc an observe a change without correctly guessing what causes said change, plus, if the change is subtle enough, or foreign enough to current scientific paradigms, if may be wholely mislabled. you woudl do well to recall that after a succesful experiment, you do not say that you have proven this or that, just that the experiment failed to disprove the null hypothesis, that there was no effect. You seem to beleive in a more flashy and dynamic science than actually exists, rather than the gradual compiliation of experiments that gives us our current knowledge base.

So what do think about your heathen animist ancestors who are in hell right now? Thank God all those good white folks captured your ancestors, taught them theism, and then gave them a little bit of work to keep the busy; think about the trouble you'd be in now if those lovely white folks didn't save you?

Because anything that causes a change is obviously observable to some degree.

secnd vers same as the first, if you dont have the oppertinity to learn of jesus, you are not held responsable for rejecting him, hell is for those who have actively rejected the salvation of jesus, not those who have never had the oppertunity ot learn of him in the first place.


and, here we go again, you can observe a change without correctly guessing what causes said change, plus, if the change is subtle enough, or foreign enough to current scientific paradigms, if may be wholely mislabled. you would do well to recall that after a succesful experiment, you do not say that you have proven this or that, just that the experiment failed to disprove the null hypothesis, that there was no effect. You seem to beleive in a more flashy and dynamic science than actually exists, rather than the gradual compiliation of experiments that gives us our current knowledge base.

[Opaque]

*Hands Vasteel a Bible*

Read it you might learn something.

If you enjoy that, I have a Mother Goose book you should read.

[frostwolf ex]

It's impossible for something to have an impact on the physical world and not leave a footprint; there will always be one way of detecting it. It will be beyond our technology, not senses.

again, thats quite a bold statement, i wonder how many actual scientists would agree with that statement. I would add that it might be more than just beyond our technology, but also our knowlege base, you have to have a pretty good idea what to look for before you can look for it in any valid way,and the progression of our knowlege is less a straight and linear progression than one of slow, gradual refinement of theory with occasional fortunate leaps of theory that allow us to expand our knowlege base and sometimes entirely collapse the gradual theory we were looking at and make us start from square one in a new direction. but our knowlege base can only expand after someone has the intital thought outside of the box.

[Fe 26]

If these do not ring true to you, then go forth and beleive that, but you were offered jesus, it was your choice to not accept.

is it really that simple? I don't think anyone who believes in jesus chooses to not fallow him. People that don't belive have simply not been given enough reason to do so. And since they do not belive, they won't have faith in, and fallow jesus.

You say they were offered, but how can they be offered something they don't believe exist?

Can you accept something you don't consider real in the first place?

How can people make a choice, when they don't believe in the things the choice is about?