Atheos

I've read the bible thoroughly and never came up with that conclusion. Is the word "heavenlies" used in the bible? Never saw it myself. I'll thank you not to draw conclusions about me and say that I have already made up my mind. I am willing to be convinced.

Before dealing with your example I'd like to kindly ask you not to make assumptions about my intentions. If I misunderstood one or more statements you made I assure you it was not deliberate. I have a different point of view than you do, which means that my "take" on certain things might be considerably different from yours. This is not deliberate. I would also like to assure you that I have not "made up my mind" as you claim you have. I'm interested in finding TRUTH, not in vindicating my particular views.

You went on to say...I'm going to start at the end and work my way backwards. To begin with, there is absolutely no evidence that any god exists. There are only ancient superstitions rooted in the unknown. I'll begin by challenging you to provide me with one single example of evidence that your god exists that does not boil down to "We don't know how ____ happened, therefore god did it." I've been waiting a long time for this, and so far nobody has ever provided it. Please spare me the "God exists because the bible says so" circular argument, as the Koran is just as much evidence that Allah exists and the Vedas are just as much evidence that Shiva exists.

While I'm waiting I'll provide you with just a small smattering of the overwhelming evidence that gives me reason to conclude that the Judaeo/Christian bible and the god posited therin is completely mythical.

• The creation myth
  • Has the earth existing before the sun.
  • Has three "evenings and mornings" passing before the sun is ever created.
  • Has the moon "giving off light". The moon is no more a light than I am when the sun shines on me.
  • Has plants existing before the sun
  • Posits a laughable solid "firmament" (ceiling) that took an entire day to build, which separates the "waters above" from the "waters below" to explain rain.
  • Belies an unwarranted belief that somehow humans are the center of the universe because it took 5 days to finish creating the earth when it took less than one to create all the stars, galaxies, black holes, quazars, etc.
• Miracles that seemed reasonable to bronze aged goat herders that are obviously absurd with modern scientific knowledge.
  • The talking snake
  • The flaming sword that keeps people out of the garden (where is it)?
  • "Windows of Heaven" that have to be opened and closed in order to make it rain
  • The Flood Myth has every form of animal life on the planet encapsulated in an impossibly small area (the ark) along with food and latrine facilities. All their air comes from a window 1 cubit (approximately 15 inches) square.
  • The absurd "bow of god" myth about the rainbow.
  • The Tower of Babel is a ridiculous myth by todays standards, as we know that disparate human language evolved slowly over thousands of years and was the result of geographic isolation, not the cause of it.
  • Letting goats look at streaked rods doesn't cause them to have streaked babies.
  • God kills all the cattle in Egypt during the 5th plague, but during the seventh and tenth plague he kills the cattle in Egypt again and again.
  • Joshua's long day -- when people believed the sun and moon went through the sky it made sense that god could "stop" them for a time. Now that we know the earth's rotation would have to be stopped along with the moon's orbital trajectory this miracle does not make any sense.
  • The sun going "backwards" by 10 degrees -- same as above.
  • A dead body comes to life when it touches the bones of Elisha. You don't think everyone on the planet would start bringing their dead to that spot?
  • Nebuchadrezzar never spent 7 years living like a beast in the field. Didn't happen. Sorry.
  • Night of the living dead - There is not one note anywhere in any historical document of people rising from their graves and walking around as the mythical account in Matthew would have us believe
• Yahweh evolves in the J/C bible from a bloodthirsty, local tribal war-god into a more refined, noble spiritual being. Compare the flood myth, the 10 plagues, the bloody conquest of Canaan, the atrocious blood letting during the mythical reigns of Saul and David, where some people just couldn't seem to kill enough to satisfy Yahweh, with the more noble god depicted in Jonah, many of the Psalms, and later in the New Testament.
• Scientific Inquiry thankfully demonstrates that none of these atrocities ever actually happened.
  • Geology, archaeology and anthropology has proven with certainty that there never (ever) was a global flood, and that absolutely there could not have been one in the last 5,000 years as many civilizations (Chinese, Egyptian, etc) plodded merrily along through the time in question.
  • Modern human language did not originate from the mediterranean area (as indicated in the "tower of Babel" myth)
  • Most of the early "Israelite" history was simply "made up". There was never a mass exodus of nearly 2 million people from Egypt. Canaan was not conquered as chronicled in Joshua. There is no evidence to support the idea that there was ever a glorious unified kingdom of Israel, much less the idea that Solomon's kingdom was so magnificent that it dwarfed every other kingdom around. The Egyptian and Babylonian dynasties were much grander than any kingdom that ever existed among the Israelite people.
• This planet has existed for approximately 4.5 billion years, during the last 3.5 billion of which various lifeforms have existed and gone extinct through a an ongoing evolutionary process that is clearly documented, and for which considerable evidence exists. The J/C bible has homo-sapiens existing from the very beginning, which would entail man being contemporary with dinosaurs. This did not happen. Period.

There are many reasons to be skeptical of these mythical "scriptures" which originated through oral traditions around the campfires of nomadic herdsmen thousands of years ago. There are just as many reasons to be skeptical of other god-myths that evolved in different cultures. I'd also like to challenge you to present one single compelling reason why your god should be believed in while all the other thousands of gods should not.

You also claim that "Sin cannot exist in the presence of God, because He is holy." Do you also subscribe to the notion that god is "everywhere" (omnipresent)? Do you not see the contradiction here? Does your particular god have a physical form like a man?

Now for the most important question of all: How do you know that Yahweh is "good"? I have a friend who is a beef farmer. He raises cattle, takes care of them, provides for all their needs, gives them comfort when they're sick and helps make life easy for them. They come eagerly when they see him coming with a bucket of feed. Eventually he takes each one to a slaughterhouse.

How would you know the difference if that's what Yahweh was doing with you? I don't believe Yahweh (or any other god) exists, for many good reasons.

-Atheos

Luci

When I was still a kid (and a Christian), I always rather wanted Satan to be my friend than God - as Satan would not have sent his friend to hell for a mishap

No that I am an adult (and an atheist), I think the heaven christians so desire to be real, mut be like hell.

Carin Nel

Atheos,
Thank you for your kind and honest reply. I really appreciate replies like youre. This is what I thought discussion should be like :-)
You've given me lots of homework. Please give me time and I'll work throug everything and try to come up with as much as I can!

Your challenge: To provide me with one single example of evidence that your god exists that does not boil down to "We don't know how ____ happened, therefore god did it." I've been waiting a long time for this..


You can go to : http://www.reasons.org Dr. Hugh Ross's website

Atheos

My pleasure Carin Nel. I wish you the best in your quest for truth as well.
I'm more than a little bit disappointed at being directed to a website rather than having you present your proof firsthand, even if all you did was extract a point or two from the website and post it here along with a link to give credit where credit is due. Nevertheless I visited the website you suggested and looked it over. The arguments presented on this website are not impressive. More importantly every one of them fall into the category of arguments from incredulity.

Here are a few examples:

• Fine tuning for life on earth This argument from incredulity basically says, "Isn't it incredible that the earth is so hospitable to human life?" The answer is, "No, it's not". This planet is what it is and during much of its history was completely hostile to human life. Heck, for that matter less than 15% of the surface of this planet is habitable. It is extremely reasonable to believe (based on the vast evidence for evolution) that life today would be life that is acclimated to the environment in which it evolved. If another ice age began tomorrow we would reasonably expect only life that survives well in cold environments would thrive. Homo-sapiens might well go extinct under such circumstances.
• Probabilities for life on earth This argument from incredulity basically says, "The odds of life forming are so low as to be incredibly remote. It is much more reasonable to believe that life was created". The fact is that nobody knows what the odds are. Proponents of this argument might try to dazzle folks with meaningless illustrations founded in ignorance, but serious students of math will tell you that statistical odds mean nothing unless they are calculated from meaningful data and persued with rigor. Finally, and most damningly of all for this argument, extremely improbable events happen all the time. Think of seven folks gathered around a table playing poker. A hand consist of five cards is dealt to each player. What are the odds that each player, in order will end up with the very cards they ended up with? Literally trillions to one against. Yet it happened. Now look at one of a nearly infinite number of possible images from the hubble deep field instrument. This image was taken from "a speck of the sky only about the width of a dime located 75 feet away" With a few exceptions, nearly every object in this image is a galaxy containing millions of stars. There are billions of these galaxies. I don't care how vastly improbable it might be that life would form, if it could happen it would with that amount of opportunities.
• Fine tuning for life in the universe This argument from incredulity is based on the idea that somehow the universe is "fine tuned" for life. I find it laughably absurd. To the best of our knowledge, statistically 0.0000000000000000000 percent of the universe is hospitable to human life. Enough said.
• Fine tuning for life on earth This argument from incredulity asks, "what are the odds that the earth would be hospitable to human life?" Once again it falls under the fallacies of asserting odds that mean nothing and the fact that even if those odds could be calculated incredibly unlikely events happen all the time.
• Rare Sun This argument from incredulity posits that our sun is "rare" in the universe -- something the evidence does not indicate in any way. It's sort of like saying that I am the only guy in the universe with my exact DNA pattern. So what?

I suppose I could go on and on, but I hope you've detected a theme here: Absolutely every argument here (and on that page) are "arguments from incredulity". Every one of them can be boiled down to "You can't tell me how _____ happened, therefore god did it."

The problem with these kinds of arguments is that time has demonstrated clearly that scientific investigation does eventually answer unanswerable questions. We do know where snow comes from now. When that question was (supposedly) asked of Job by Yahweh it was an unanswerable mystery. We now know what causes lightning and thunder, so nobody goes about today claiming that lightning is thrown down by god or that thunder is the voice of god.

I am no longer impressed by arguments from incredulity. They mean nothing to me. Many mysteries that were once the domain of superstition and ignorance are now understood today and ended up having a perfectly natural explanation. There is no reason to believe that this will not continue to be the case. And even if there remain mysteries that humans cannot solve this does not imply "god".

My friend, an unanswered question is not nearly so imprisoning as an unquestioned answer.

-Atheos

lee_merrill

Hi everyone,

Let's see...

I have prayed for healing, and the illness took off, several times. Now the objection may be that this is an "I don't know so God did it" argument, but you asked not for proof, but rather evidence, which this would be, I consider it improbable that I would recover from food poisoning upon praying, for example. More details available upon request...

God said that Babylon will never be rebuilt, yet Alexander the Great and Saddam Hussein both could have done so, and tried, and failed. Babylon will never be reinhabited! (re Isa. 13:19-20, Jer. 25:12, Jer. 51:26). That ought to be pretty easy to disprove.

There will always be Jewish people (Jer. 31:35-37; 33:24-26, and re the thread here on this topic). Let us note again the attempts to try this, and the failures, and a recent one with Hitler, who, with an atomic bomb, would probably have had his way with the world.

There's a lot here! Now Hugh Ross (who was just mentioned) holds that the sun became visible on the fourth day (so plants can grow before then), you are giving off reflected light (that is how we see you), the firmament would simply be the boundary between the earth and the clouds, I would say, and we read "God made the stars also," yet without any given time span (note here also that the making of the sun is in this description, which may indicate it had a creation process similar to the stars).

Why, may I ask, did they then consider them miracles?

“Belief in miracles, far from depending on an ignorance of the laws of nature, is only possible in and far as those laws are known…. If you have not yet noticed that the sun always rises in the East you will see nothing miraculous about his rising one morning in the West.” (C.S. Lewis)

And here are some comments on a selection of the other points...

Yet it seems this connection Jacob thought was there was not real at all, according to the account:

Genesis 31:12 And he said, 'Lift up your eyes and see, all the goats that mate with the flock are striped, spotted, and mottled, for I have seen all that Laban is doing to you.'

Mendel would be proud...

Exodus 9:4 But the Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and that of Egypt, so that no animal belonging to the Israelites will die.

This would be the source of the cattle? Surely Egyptians would think to buy cattle to replace the ones they lost.

Well, really now, God couldn't do this? To object to a miracle by saying it couldn't happen naturally is just to say it must have been a miracle.

This would then be guaranteed? But God is not into machinery magic.

Did too. Sorry! But each claim needs substantiation.

We have an account that it happened, now are you arguing by silence in archaeology? That would be quite chancy...

Why then was this published, may I ask? To say that many founding fathers rose and appeared to many people in Washington to make more splendid the Bicentennial celebration, well, this ought to be verifiable, if it was so public. And if it then was false, then whatever depends on this claim is discredited.

It seems Atheos is unacquainted with Revelation, or he finds he does not object?

Only every culture, it seems, remembers it. Does that strike you as odd? And our friend Hugh Ross concludes there are gaps in the genealogies, so we need not conclude that the flood happened on Bishop Ussher's timeframe.

Actually, there is good archeological evidence for cities there being conquered about that time (see "Cities of the Biblical World," by DeVries).

Time to check Hugh Ross, his view is different. Exclamation point! You are arguing against a view that neither Carin Nel nor I nor Hugh Ross seem to hold.

"We know very little about prehistoric man, for the excellent reason that he is prehistoric" (G.K. Chesterton)

Fulfilled prophecy! And most of the other creation stories are not at all so defensible as Genesis, with cows and ice giants and so forth.

Well, it's a conclusion, based on the best evidence we can find. Of course, no one can prove that God is not deceiving us, if he is real, nor can you prove that God does not, for sure, exist. So we try and estimate, and proceed from there...

Regards,
Lee

Bartender

In the beginning man created god and all hell broke loose.....

Carin Nel

1 To answer your first question:The word heaven or heavens (or heavenlies) means the air, clouds, sky, expanse, stars, and the planet on which God dwells. The word "heaven" is also used of that which is high. (Gen. 11:4) There are 3 heavens...i) Clouds Gen. 1:8-9, Job 26:8; ii) Gen. 1:14-19, iii) The planet heaven -where believers go when they die. Rev. 21:1+2. The present heavens will cease to exist. They will be renewed. I'll conclude with one important point and that is the heaven where believers go in this dispensation (NT) , is a completely different place where no sin can enter. We can discuss that later, seeing that this is Scripture and you want proof that Scripture is inspired by God?

(O yes, and I saw something very interesting for the first time, that there were 5 occasions where God permitted sin to enter His throne room - (remember I said sin cannot be in heaven?) 1 Kings 22:19-27; Job1:6, 2:1;Is. 14:12-14; Luk. 10:18;Rev. 12:7-12)

2) Your second question:

Can I ask you this question: if there was a proof that truly did prove God's existence, would you be able to accept it given that your presuppositions are in opposition to the existence of God? In other words, given that you have a presuppositional base that there is no God, in order for you to accept a proof for God's existence, you would have to change your presuppositional base. This is not easy to do and would involve a major paradigm shift in your belief structure. Therefore, you may be presuppositionally hostile to any proofs for God's existence and is less likely to be objective about such attempted proofs. Just be aware of that fact.
You assert that there is no proof that God exists. The only problem is that you cannot logically make that claim. In order to state that there is no proof for God's existence, you would have to know all alleged proofs that exist in order to then state that there is no proof for God's existence. But, since you cannot know all things, you cannot logically state there is no proof for God's existence. At best, you can only state that of all the alleged proofs you have seen thus far, none have worked. You could even say that you believe there are no proofs for God's existence. But then, this means that there is the possibility that there is a proof or proofs out there and that you simply have not yet encountered one.

A)To begin with, I'll give you an extract from an article from the The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest about a point that people seldom consider: "Consider the Jew".
(Archives of past issues of The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest plus many other Omega Letter member features can be found at: www.omegaletter.com
The Omega Letter is published daily by Jack Kinsella)


The continuing existence of the Jew is proof positive of God's existence, just as the existence of a Jewish State is proof positive that we are living in the last days of human government as foretold by the Bible prophets of antiquity.
Apart from the theoligical argument, a quick look at the last hundred years or so proves the promise isn't confined to religious blessings alone. (These blessings refer to those nations who bless Israel will be blessed themselves according to Scripture America is blessed because of her support to Israel.).

From 1901 to 2001, the world's six billion people competed for the scarce 844 Nobel Prizes that have been awarded. Among those six billion people are nearly two billion Muslims -- roughly 20 percent of the global population.
Of those two billion Muslims, 8 have been singled out to receive the Nobel Prize - (seven if you consider that one of them was a politically-motivated award mistakenly given unrepentant terrorist Yasser Arafat)
In any case, Muslims account for less than one percent of the total Nobel Prizes awarded in the last hundred years.
In the middle of the 20th century, the Nazis exterminated some six million Jews, more than half the world's Jewish population. There are today about fourteen million Jews left.
Even with half their number exterminated at the century's midpoint, 159 of the remaining 836 Nobel Prizes were awarded to Jews, or roughly 18.8% of all the Nobel Prizes awarded in Nobel's history.
Historically, wherever the Jews were welcomed, that nation flourished and prospered. Where the Jew was persecuted, those nations floundered.
It is more than just coincidence, it is an identifiable historical pattern that has continued, without deviation, since the days of the Babylonian captivity.
Babylon prospered when its Jews prospered, it fell to Persia when Neboplasser turned against them. Persia prospered until it turned on the Jews, whereupon it fell to Alexander's Greece. And so on, throughout history, up to and including the impending collapse of the rabidly anti-Semitic United Nations.
God's Word is true, and Bible prophecy is always 100% accurate. Jesus said that, before He returned, ALL Bible prophecy would be fulfilled -- to the tiniest 'jot and tittle' -- (the two most insignificant characters in the Hebrew alphabet)
In tracing Israel's history from Babylon to the present, we see the incredible detail with which God keeps His Word. Although America continues to be Israel's principle protector, and continues to enjoy the comcomitant blessings that come with it, America's good fortunes began to wane about the same time the White House forced Israeli into the Oslo Agreement.
The 'land for peace' formula called for Israel to give up some of the land of Promise in exchange for peace. In other words, it was a form of blackmail whose terms were drawn up in Washington and forced upon Israel for the express purpose of undoing what God had already done, including dividing Jerusalem and taking part of it from the Jews.
"And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it." (Zechariah 12:3)
People can certainly deny any Biblical connection but the hard reality marches on with the growing shadow now falling across global society. Now it is America's turn to discover just how serious God was about the whole 'blessing and cursing' thing.
And by the time circumstances force America to recognize the danger it faces, it will be too late to do anything to affect the outcome.
"So shall My Word be that goeth forth out of My Mouth: it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. " (Isaiah 55:11)

B) Sorry, but I'm giving you another link to a website to look at for yourself. It is the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry website. I'm not going to do all the work for you! You can go to the articles that you find interesting. http://www.carm.org/index.html It also has a Discussion Board if you're interested! There you can bombard all the christians with everything you’ve always wanted to know!

I already believe and the proof I've found a long time ago was quite satisfactory for me. After I've made my choice to believe, God started revealing Himself to me more and more up to what we now have-an intimate, loving, personal relationship. So to believe is much more than just to gather some evidence. Some people believe withut any evidence, just by revelation from God . Have you read "The heavenly man", "I dared to call Him Father", "Sundar Singh", "The torn Veil" or "Like a Mighty Wind"? They are a few examples of modern day, ordinary people who have found God without having to look for evidence that He existed. The heavenly man is a modern day Paul for whom prison doors opened.
Besides them, he did miracles for me as well, and who can argue that?
You see, modern man finds it difficult to believe, because of the emphasis on intellect. Jesus says in His Word:"Blessed is the man who believes eventhough he has not seen"

I'll come back to you with the rest, because this post is already too long!:wave:

Atheos

This is an interesting interpretation. I'm going to go ahead and lay my cards on the table (although I was never holding them close to begin with as all this information has been available for nearly as long as I've been a member of this discussion board.) Sometimes it helps to know a little bit about who you're having a discussion with, as you're still making assumptions about me that are not warranted.

For over 36 years of my life I was about as dedicated a fundamentalist christian as you'll find anywhere. For over 16 years I labored as a preacher, working as the full time pulpit minister in a series of 6 congregations throughout the Southeastern United States. I prayed fervently and sincerely. I trusted God with all my heart.

Over a period of about 4 years my "faith" boiled away. All it took was rational and objective seeking for truth. It was a lengthy process, which is of no importance in this discussion. It doesn't matter what I believe. I only bring this up because you keep insisting (from ignorance) that I am predisposed to be an atheist. Nothing is further from the truth. I clung with all my might to the various apologetics arguments you keep trying to redirect me to in an effort to cling to the faith I once had. I slowly realized that each one of them was not a rock, but rather a crumbling, empty facade.

See above. It doesn't matter what I believed or believe now. I still try to be objective as the lack of objectivity is precisely what kept me in what I'm now certain was ignorance and superstition for far too many years.

Where exactly did I say this? IIRC I only asked you to provide one single, compelling piece of evidence for your god that was not an argument from incredulity. If I made such an assertion I hereby retract it.

This isn't proof of anything, it's speculation based on ignorance, superstition and propaganda. I might be willing to concede that it was evidence if there was a direct one-to-one correlation between acceptance of jews and "doing well" and rejection of jews and "doing poorly". Have you ever read one of the old fashioned "chain letters"? You know, the ones where they describe all kinds of terrible things that happened to people who broke the chain and then they describe all kinds of good things to people who forwarded the letter? It's the same thing. Even given the veracity of every piece of information contained therein, it's worthless, because it's selective history. The author is not objective. The author is selecting pieces of history that seem to support his target conclusion and assembling them into what appears to be a singular, comprehensive history. Add all the contradictory evidence back in and you're back where you began. There have been many jew haters who prospered and died happy. There always will be.

That's fine with me. I believed for many years and the evidence demonstrated to my satisfaction that I was wrong. You still haven't shown any evidence for your belief.

Interesting that you should bring that up. Why is it so important to God that we believe without evidence? Why is this a virtue? Have you ever thought about it? Consider the implications of this: It doesn't really matter if I'm a good person or not, so long as I believe without evidence. I could be a really decent member of society. I could be a giving person who goes out of his way to help others. I could donate time, energy, activity to make the world a better place. But then I die with a secular worldview (or simply believed in the wrong god) and spend eternity in torment.

On the other hand I could be Adolph Hitler, and orchestrate the murder of millions. I could live my life in wanton destruction and power-mad fanaticism. I could prosper wildly and live a life of ease and luxury while millions of lives were ruined by my atrocities. Yet all the while my ears would be immune to the horrific cries of the tormented people, suffering because of my actions. But as a believer in god (he claimed to be) I might in the end decide that I was wrong, repent, and ask god for forgiveness and spend eternity in heaven.

Doesn't matter what you do, so long as you believe.

This would be a great slogan for a racket that was nothing more than a con job, calculated to separate people from their money. But there is absolutely no vindication, no justification for why a noble god would choose "belief without evidence" as the one, singular virtue that determines whether a person would spend all eternity in paradise or torment.

Christianity is a protection racket. Nothing more.

-Atheos

lee_merrill

Well, Hitler thought the Ayran spirit was god, Goebbles was commissioned to concoct a new religion, before being rather rudely interrupted with bombs upon his head. Heaven? Well, we don't know what they were thinking up, so I would call that doubtful.

As far as Christianity, asking for forgiveness does not bring salvation, obeying the Lord, however, does, "Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say?" You may read the rest of this account to see whether they got in.

Atheos is apparently ignoring my previous post. A solid case can be made for Christianity, I would say, now would Atheos be the one who is reluctant to examine evidence?

Regards,
Lee

Carin Nel

Wow! You could have posted your reply as a private message to me! I wish I could spend some prayer time with you, but that is not what you want to hear right now!?. My sincerest apologies. I really ask for your forgiveness.
My heart goes out to you.
Prompted by your story, may I please ask some honest questions?
What do you mean by fundamentalist christian?
What do you mean by you labored as a preacher?
Disd you preach 3 services every Sunday without a break, or did you have help?
Were you the organist and the Sunday School teacher at the same time?
Can you see where my questions are leading to?

I know a pastor called Rob Bell who was 23 when the Lord called him to start his own church. It is called Mars Hill. His story sounds like a pastor's dream, untill after 2 years and 10,000 members, he suddenly could not get up in the mornings to preach. With the help of some wise friends an a pshycologist, he realised he was totaly burned out and realised that there is no such thing as a "super pastor. The congregation may think there is one, and you may think you should be one, but nobody can do all these things all the time and still function normally and hear God's voice to know what to do.
He tells his story in his book "Velvet Elvis". I have all his DVD's called Nooma's and they are 14 minutes long and cover on life topic like love, or forgiveness etc. I have never met anyone who has impacted my life like this young man and he is about 36 years old. His knowledge of the history of the Bible is mind-boggling and when he teaches, everything just becomes so obvious.
If you have heard of Brian MacClaren (a good friend of Jim Henderson who won the ebay bid with Hehmant), well Brian was his teacher.



I'm not sarcastic now, by NO means, but after 16 years as a pastor, studying the Word and "knowing" God you still come up with the issue of the "good" non-believer going to hell while the evil Hitler type , at the end of hisl life becomes a believer and dies and goes to heaven? Incredible!
Which church did you belong to and where did you get your traing as a pastor. Did you have wise leaders with whom you could discuss your questions and with whom you could pray with? I'm just trying to figure out how it came about that you just gave up your faith within 4 years after knowing God for 16 years. Was it the fact that you could not see Him? Is that why you are struggeling with that verse?

Please hang in there, I know your heart's desires will be met by God who can see what's in the heart.

Are you interested in prophecies that were given in the Bible and that have been fulfilled in our time, or won't that be evidence enough of the Divine inspiration of the Scriptures? You probably know them all!


I have to go now, but I hope to hear from you soon!

Love in Christ
Carin