ljoey02

Apparently, according to the Bible, any person who has not been "saved" and does not accept God as their personal savior (or those who have heard the "good news" and not accepted it) are damned to hell for all eternity. (John 3:16 is one passage, out of many I've heard of or found...) However, the Catholic Church teaches that, more or less, the eternal salvation or otherwise is determined by God only and judged on their hearts and intentions. Of course, in my experience, no matter what the Church teaches (especially in this area) the people believe whatever they want anyways and teach their children to pray for their friends and relatives who are not "saved" in order that their souls might be spared from eternal damnation. Is it just me or does this all just not fit at all??? If people could please lend some philosophical advice to help me clarify this at least a little, that would be greatly appreciated. (I'm trying to think about this in any manner possible... be that from an atheist or theist perspective... it's still confusing to me. I'm young and naive, please enlighten me! ) Thanks

Mageth

Originally posted by ljoey02
Apparently, according to the Bible, any person who has not been "saved" and does not accept God as their personal savior (or those who have heard the "good news" and not accepted it) are damned to hell for all eternity.

Well, that's according to some people's interpretation of the Bible, though I personally (as an atheist) and, indeed, many Christians, don't interpret it that way.

(John 3:16 is one passage, out of many I've heard of or found...)

John 3:16 does not really support eternal damnation to hell: it merely says (quoting from memory) "that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish." No mention of eternal damnation to hell there.

However, the Catholic Church teaches that, more or less, the eternal salvation or otherwise is determined by God only and judged on their hearts and intentions.

At least some other Protestant Christian denominations teach more or less the same thing.

Of course, in my experience, no matter what the Church teaches (especially in this area) the people believe whatever they want anyways and teach their children to pray for their friends and relatives who are not "saved" in order that their souls might be spared from eternal damnation. Is it just me or does this all just not fit at all???

I'm a bit confused: does what not fit with what?

If people could please lend some philosophical advice to help me clarify this at least a little, that would be greatly appreciated. (I'm trying to think about this in any manner possible... be that from an atheist or theist perspective... it's still confusing to me. I'm young and naive, please enlighten me! ) Thanks

Well, as an atheist, of course I think it's all a myth. IMO, the concept of Hell (and eternal damnation) has been engineered by the Church, and in the minds of many individuals, into something that it's not very clear that the Bible actually teaches. In any case, it makes an excellent stick to go with the carrot of Heaven in Christian mythology.

Magus55

The Bible teaches about Hell and the Lake of Fire where sinners go for eternity. I don't believe the Catholic church teaches that people are only judged by their intentions. The RCC teaches that we are saved based on faith in Jesus, and good works, and those who aren't saved go to purgatory ( a completely unbiblical concept I might add).

Baidarka

In 1898 Dr. Fridtjof Nansen published his book Eskimo Life. Chapter XIV is titled The Introduction of Christianity.

Here is a quote from that Chapter. The story is quoted from another book by a Christian Missionary named Paul Egede

“A girl was beaten by her priest, ‘because she could not believe that God was so cruel as he represented him to be; he had said that all her forefathers were with Tornarssuk, and were to be tortured for eternity, because they did not know God.’ She tried to defend them by suggesting that they knew no better, whereupon he lost his temper; and when she at last said ‘ that it was horrible for her to learn that God was so terribly angry with those who sinned that he could never forgive them, as even wicked men will sometimes do,’ he gave her a beating.”

I posted this little story before but I thought it was relevant to this discussion.

Godless Wonder

It has always struck me that God "constantly monitoring for Jesus-belief" (as one witty poster here described it) and dispensing salvation based on the dead persons last monitored position on Jesus-belief is absurd.

If I grant for the sake of argument the (to me) extremely unlikely possibility that a god did exist, and that immortal souls exist, and that this god dispensed either salvation or damnation to those immortal souls upon the death of the earthly body -- even granting all those -- it seems to me extremely unlikely that such a god would:

a) Never conclusively show his existence to humans.
b) Demand "worship" from those humans
c) Condemn those who use their rational minds which he gave them to conclude on the basis of complete lack of evidence that no gods exist to eternal punishment.

My thoughts on the above:
a) Why not?
b) What benefit does god get from worship? Seriously. Worship appears to consist mainly of constant pestering for various miracles to be granted. And when not that, it's little more than obsequious toadying.
c) Injustice for all.

The argument that God must hide his existence like Mr. Snuffle-upagus in order to preserve "free-will" doesn't hold water. As a materialist, I think that free will does not exist anyway. But, supposing I'm wrong about that. The way my mind is wired up, I am really completely incapable of believing in the existence of something as fantastic as a god without some solid evidence to back it up. So by playing Mr. Snuffle-upagus, this god deprives me of the very free will which he is allegedly trying to preserve.

Let's suppose I were the Christian God for a moment, and everything in the Bible were true, except that I am able to assume God's powers, and I desire everything that the God of the Bible desires. In particular, I love human beings and want to maximize the number of them who are able to get in to heaven and avoid hell.

Should I continue to hide my existence?

Maybe I should show myself to exist. I could move the stars around in the sky to provide messages in all the languages of earth. Astronomers would be astounded to look up into the night sky and see, drawn with stars, a very detailed picture of, say, a unicorn. The next night, maybe it's something else.

Maybe it's the text of the first few verses of Genesis, in whatever language I choose. Maybe the next night, it's the next few verses of Genesis. And so on, until the whole bible is spelled out in starlight over the period of some years, in each language, and after some time, it repeats. And maybe I throw in some extra messages besides the Bible just to show that it's a "live" show, not just a recording. Now that would be some seriously convincing evidence. Then, using my free will, I could make a rational decision. If the threat of hellfire is deemed to damaging to free will, too much of a coercion, then I could leave out the bit about hell. Just say, in the form of starlight, "Hey, I'm God, worship me, or don't, your choice." Keep hell a secret if hell must exist for some reason.

The fact that hell is not a secret, is spelled out in the Bible, to me is evidence of that Christianity is nothing more than cultish brainwashing techniques.

I can't abide by any of this crap about "just reading the Bible, you can see that is' the work of God, not man." and so on. Let's see some real godly deeds to support this assertion.

That's just the way my brain is wired up. If the Christian God exists . . . what a bastard, seriously. But, looking at the information my senses provide me, I find the probability that the Christian God exists to be so nearly zero as to be unspecifiable with the paucity of electrons I have at my disposal to express such a number.

Paul5204

First item - hell. But is it hell or that outer darkness? I don't think that there will be a literal lake of fire. I imagine that the use of fire is to convey to us how unpleasant we may find our circumstance [can you think of anything more painful than being burnt alive?]. I think that God will give each one of us exactly what we asked for. And by that I mean to say that judging by the things we aspire to here, we will get them there as well. Only difference will be that there we will know what we are missing, and we won't be all that happy about it. That outer darkness my Lord spoke of, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. That is usually the way it is when someone finds themself on the outside looking in.

Second item - absurd. Hardly. All Christianity asks is that you believe that God has the power to raise the dead and that Yeshua was the first of us that such has happened to. Abraham understood, since after all, had he gone ahead and killed Isaac, just how was God to keep his promise, you know, the one about Abraham's seed being called through Isaac? So if Isaac dies childless, a little hard for that to happen, so God will have to raise him from the dead, which as both I and the author of Hebrews understand is indeed from where, in a parable, Abraham gained Isaac. And if you don't believe that God raises the dead and has already done so, on what basis will you have to complain when he chooses a different course for you? After all, you will only be given what you asked for, which in this circumstance is/was nothing.

Scotsmanmatt

MB
Strawmen are often absurd and always irrelevant. Think omniscience and you might get an inkling of why informed theists simply smile to themselves at remarks such as the above.

MB
Of course this assumes as true the very subject under dispute between the theist and the atheist, i.e. whether or not God has conclusively shown his existence humans.

Quote:

b) Demand "worship" from those humans

MB
This again begs the question which for your information is a logical fallacy warranting dismissal of the intended argument until such time as the assumption being made is substantiated.

I've snipped the rest because it's basically more of the same.

Thanks
M.Bell

Godless Wonder

How is it a strawman? Isn't faith in God a requirement to be a Christian? (Not sufficient by itself, but a requirement nonetheless, right?) Of course there isn't conclusive evidence, if there was, I'd believe it. Good grief. If there were conclusive evidence, there would be no people saying "you just need to have faith." There would also be widespread agreement about what God is, what he wants, etc. instead of hundreds of sects with wildly different ideas who all claim to know "the truth."
Not sure what you're getting at here. Is faith a requirement of being a Christian or not? I was under the assumption that it was. (It may not be sufficient, but I thought it was one of the requirements.

Lanakila

It depends on the brand of xianity you are speaking about, but for evangelical protestant xianity, faith in Jesus as savior is required. This faith is evidenced by a born again type experience. Some believe you also speak in tongues, but most all think you have to be born again to be saved, and being born again isn't baptism according to evangelicals.

The thing is, the born again experience is an emotional experience. Just because others have a similar experience, the proof that its anything besides emotion, is severely lacking. My born again experience was life changing, but only because it brought me into a group of people that now accepted me, and helped me along in the belief system. This group of people accepted my past, as just that past, but taught me how to change it, after of course feeling guilty, and being sorry about it.

Does any of this prove Christianity to be true? Not IMO anymore. Because other religions have similar experiences. Christianity isn't exclusive. The Mormons (we thought of them as a cult) have a burning in the bosom experience, and its quite similar to what happened to me.

ljoey02

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Lanakila
[B]It depends on the brand of xianity you are speaking about, but for evangelical protestant xianity, faith in Jesus as savior is required.

Does that mean that you believe the Jews in the Holocost had no hope of salvation?? I don't understand how a God that is so "loving and merciful" can be so selfish as to not accept people into his kindgom if they do not possess the "right" religion. That kind of thing makes me seriously doubt if the Christian God is out there at all, or at least in the way I was taught. If all this is true: The Christian God is real and He only allows people who have accepted him as his personal savior into heaven, then I would rather spend eternity in hell with the people who tried their best but were prejudiced against because they did not "open their eyes and accept the truth" than in a heaven with a God who is that selfish. I mean, I understand in a way... if I was God and I created a whole world like this, I would want worship and I would want people to acknowledge my existence. But if I gave them a brain and free-will, (as Christians believe God did) I would understand if some people were "led astray from the truth"... I would understand that they are just searching for something that makes sense because I would know all and see all and I could read their hearts and see their good intentions. This part of it does not fit with the personality of the God that I thought was out there.