steamer

You tell me, which is the important point to getting into heaven? Not doing evil or accepting Jesus? Accepting Jesus is as arbitrary to justice as jumping on one foot is. The god you despise and the one you love are the same. You can rape pillage murder and sodomize all you like. just don't die before accepting.


This is the huge lie. After accepting this one all the other lies will be easy. If you deserve hell then justice demands that you get what you deserve. the thing is though that you do not deserve to be tortured. Why do you believe this lie when obviously you do not believe it. Do you burn yourself with cigarettes if you currently deserve it? Why would you believe that you are such a low-life scum? Why should I not believe that when apparently your crimes are so horrendous that you should be immediatly tortured to death as slowly as humanly possible? I doubt you are as bad as you imagine. Do not worry though, the human laws of most countries are not so barbaric as your pretended god seems to be.

Bullshit. You do not deserve to be tortured under any circumstances. The Christian lie that you are scum is not something you should so willingly believe. Why do you believe it?

I am certainly better than you believe yourself to be. I haven't done anything to deserve torture. I'm sorry but even atheists can imagine god, and the god I can imagine is a great deal better than the scumbag you've accepted and are currently imagining. The fairy tale isn't real so there isn't any reason for you to continue to degrade yourself and others by imagining their torture.

When you come to believe that the Easter Bunny exists, I will accept that people can choose to believe imaginary things are real. You have no proof that an afterlife exists and you have nothing more than a perverted imagination to link you with your lowly scumbag idea of god and your own idea of what a scumbag you are.


No one deserves to be tortured eternally for any crime they could possibly commit. The evil of eternal torture is a worse crime than any a person can commit. Indeed only a god could be this evil. Luckily neither of us knows anything at all about any real gods, we both onbly know of gods invented and imagined by other men.

No one can erase your sins and none of your sins deserve torture, even though imaginary gods and men may be imagined to.

Stumpjumper

This is simply wrong. Grace is God's blessing:

Genesis 2:3
And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

Like any narrative story it gets built up through chapters. Fundamentalist Christians stop at the "fall" from Eden but the original allegory does not end there. You have to keep reading and come to the part about Noah and God's grace (blessing) upon all generations and the covenent with Abraham to "bless all the nations of the earth" (another statement about grace )...

Anyway, Genesis 1-11 is an allegory about the ontological origin of the universe, the origin of "evil" (freedom), and God's promise of grace and blessing.

I don't believe in a soul that is seperate from a body (matter) so there is no "origin of the soul" and I believe creation is an ongoing process in which we are all very much a part...

gwastad.prydydd

It's not really good theology to talk of God 'sending' people to Hell. 'Heaven' is where we experience God perfectly (certainly, we do not on Earth . . . yet); conversely, 'Hell' is where we can experience God not at all. God does not 'send' me to Hell.

I have been talking of 'salvation' and 'damnation' as matters of the will; and that is true. What some call 'salvation' is simply the submission of a human will to God; and so-called 'damnation' is the refusal, to God, of influence over a human's will.

Christians tell us that 'God would that all should be saved'. That seems to imply that He does not send people to Hell - rather, that they choose Hell instead of Him. After all, one can only have one of the two.

Consider another 'either . . . or' - the control of the human soul.

We would both, probably, agree that we are fairly insignificant in the overall scheme of things. In fact, one of the best descriptions of the human species as a whole can be appropriated from Paul's discussion of 'weak-willed women; who are easily led astray'.

I have very little control over myself - is it any wonder that self-control is recognised as such a virtue?

I am controlled by myself in far fewer things than in which I am controlled by one of two outside forces: either God or un-God (sin, one might say).

If I allow God to chiefly influence me, then, I might be said to be 'saved' - although I find it more useful to simply say that I am submitted (someday, entirely) to the complete authority of God.

If, however, I allow sin to chiefly influence me - if, even, I try to chiefly influence myself - I have just as little control over myself now as I should have had over myself had I submitted myself, instead, to God's will.

In the end, there will be perfect community with God or not-perfect-community-with-God: nothing else. If I allow God to prepare me for perfect community with Him, then I can be incorporated by Him into that community. If, however, I refuse Him that influence, I cannot so commune with Him.

God's ultimate respect to every human is just this: that He refrains from forcing any one to accept Him. He pleads; but he does not coerce (we grant this, of course, because we recognise that the Crusades and their ilk spoke as much for God as they did for any other decent thing on Earth: which is to say, not at all).

Maybe it will help to think of it this way: I need to fit exactly within a certain-shaped hole to be with God. I was created within that hole; therefore, I (originally) fit that hole perfectly.

Unfortunately, I (in my estimation) improved myself: I augmented or detracted from my shape as I saw fit. While I made this to please me more than I should have pleased myself by retaining both my original shape and position, I have (quite necessarily), in doing so, excluded myself from as close communion with God as I should have, otherwise, had.

Because we are, in some extent, ungodly (and have forgotten our original shape), God has offered to influence us toward His original design for us: to remove from - and add to - us those things that will award us our original shape and position.

If we accept His offer, He will have us back. Do not think that He ever sends anyone away; but He will not break human beings into a perverted parody of community with Him.

The moment we are shaped as we ought to be (and He must do this, because He alone knows our original shape and position), we are in community with Him.

If, however, we refuse Him this influence, we exclude ourselves from God: and this is "Hell", if we must give it a name - though we might, more properly, call it "not-God: absence of community with Him".

Humans do not so much deserve Hell as they have simply excluded themselves from Heaven.

After all: if I am told to stay in a boat and, instead, choose to jump into the raging sea, God has not pushed me from the boat. I jumped. He will catch my hand - if I will let Him. If I fight Him off, He may not rescue me: for He knows that, if He were to force me into the boat, I should go insane.

Just so, He will not force to submit to Him one who will not: for that, too, should break the mind of one who steels it against God. Neither death nor insanity may commune with God; so it is all one whether or not God forces an unwilling soul to submit to His influence - with this one caveat: that community with God is, by definition, the loving interaction of willing persons. God cannot commune with an unwilling conformist (i.e., one forced by God into submission) - indeed, the presence of such a one (if we can even ascribe individuality to one completely and entirely forced by God, rather than call her an automaton) is antithetical to community and could only detract from it. Similarly, a willing unconformist will not commune with God: so, God cannot.

This, then, is the quandary: either (1) a human may submit his will to God's influence and commune with God xor (2) a human may refuse to submit his will to God's influence and, therefore, not commune with God xor (3) a human may refuse to submit his will to God's influence, be forced, by God, to do so, anyway, and, therefore, become unable to commune with God.

I deserve "Hell" only if I choose to create Hell.

steamer

I don't believe you have anything to compare the god or the soul you imagine to. You cannot know that what you imagine has any correlation to any real thing. What you are trading your life for is something that you only imagine. for something that you were taught, for something without a counterpart in reality that you can determine the accuracy of your imaginings.

You are definately submitting yourself to the will of others, unfortunately none of these others is a god.

gwastad.prydydd

You're right - I can't 'know that what I imagine has any correlation to the real thing.' Of course, you know I believe this; and we both know that I can't prove a thing; but I /do believe that I have good reason to believe that which I believe.

I am not so wishful as to think that I can know anything certainly; to imagine this would be to claim myself as God (omniscient, &c): for how can I certainly know any thing unless I am also apprised of the falsehood of all other possibilities?

I simply align myself with the best evidence that I have found, granting that there may (for all I know) be much better evidence elsewhere.

I know you think that I am not submitting myself to God; and you, I know, know that I think I am. I am afraid neither of us (right now) has a sufficient basis to make universal truth claims. Whether I absolutely claim God without allowing that I could be wrong or you absolutely deny God without allowing that you could be wrong, we are simply claiming more than we can prove.

David Hume's attack on the certainty of the 'miraculous' works both ways. Assuming that I have his state of mind and his evidence, I might not be justified in believing in miracles; but I have neither. Based on the evidence available me, I believe in God. Remember that Hume did not attack the possibility of miracles; he simply attacked our certainty of them.

I am not certain of God, as I am not certain that a tenth "planet" orbits beyond our Pluto: but I believe both.

And I do respect your position.

steamer

Then hell isn't so bad because I experience god "none at all" all the time and I'm quite happy most of the time.

Here's the thing. You only imagine god. What you imagine god to be is not god, it is your minds image of a god. What you know about the Christian god is what you've read or otherwise been taught and I suspect you have no more actual interaction with an actual god than anyone else. I agree that you are submitting your will to others or perhaps even to your own imagination. Is this really a good thing though?

Again, Christians do not know anything about any actual god, but they do have a good imaginations and a capacity to call evil good.

The human soul is aonther thing you know absoultely nothing about. It is an imaginary construct. It exists in the same way unicorns and fairies exist. This we know. What we imagine doesn't really matter.

Paul was right about that and he has led many to follow him, hasn't he?

I doubt you are much different than anyone else in this respect, but it does depend quite alot on whether you would act much differently if you had none.

One of these things you only imagine and the world outside your imagination will rap you on the knuckles if you ignore them. Your imagined god will do nothing, unless you imagine him to do something.

Yet the god you imagine is only what you yourself imagined. Since this imagined god is a thing less than yourself you have submitted yourself to something less than yourself. Doesn't sound very wise to me.

You do only influence yourself, who did you think it was imagining a god?

Your god seems to be arbitrarily constrained by his own edicts which require only this lifespan in which to become preprared. Sounds a bit contrived. Did you make this up or did someone else imagine this to be true?

It is a pity that the god you imagine will be eternally less happy by my disbelief. Luckily we have no reason to believe that what you imagine has any counterpart in reality.

If it helps you to force-fit your imagined god into the biblical description then I suppose it may be somehow helpful to think of yourself as a broken toy. I don't see how such imaginings are either useful or beneficial.

If I were you, I'd just imagine a better god that has power to fix whatever it is you think you've broken. Since there isn't an actual god for you to compare your imaginings to, how would you know you were wrong to imagine a better, more powerful god?

God has done nothing. You on the other hand have imagined quite many things concerning an inferior concept of ideal and have blindly accepted the imaginings of others as having some accuracy. Honestly, you have discoursed quite awhile now about a thing you only imagine as if you had some experience with an actual god. You probably do have experiences, but I fear you are no longer able to distinguish between what you imagine and what exists outside of what you imagine. So, I'm quite sure that you have imagined god into many real experiences. Pity. Your god and yopur imagination are the same entity.

You do realize that you've not the slightest idea of what an actual god could and could not do, don't you?

If god and I are in agreement about what shape I ought to be in, what is it you imagine that is so important about my life that prevents him from changing it?

I am only refusing the influence of your imagination and the imaginations of some Hebrew goat herders. Neither god not yourself has given me any real reason to think otherwise.

So you imagine, but I imagine it is the opposite and only Christians exclude themselves from god.

It matters little if one jumps from an imaginary boat into an imaginary sea, one can easily imagine that one can fly away to escape the water. Much like imagining a hell and then imagining a god to rescue one from it.

I can imagine a god that can fix any broken thing. The god I imagine is ,ore pwoerful than the one you imagine. But which of our imaginings is the more accurate? No one can know because no real god can be found to compare our imaginings to...we are left to compare them to each other and therefore my god is obviously more perfect than yours so mine must better approximate a perfect imaginary entity.

Do as you please and quit kidding yourself that you are doing something different already. You imagine god to be this or that and then imagine that doing this or that pleases the thing you imagine. The fact is that it pleases you to do things that allow you to pretend the imagined god is pleased.

Perhaps you should just imagine that god isn't as petty as the one handed to you in the bible as a written account of what goat-herders imagine.

steamer

Here's the thing though. Since you have nothing to compare your imaginings to, why not imagine the best possible outcomes for all concerned and the best possible god? Why do you bother to mash your imaginations so they will fit into a book? In your view is it a sin to think better of god than what the bible describes? I think the concept of god could be quite helpful to men in determining how an ideal man should be. The trouble is that we never get past these older concepts of god as that god is supposed to already be ideal.

Quetzalcoatl

You still insist on misquoting the Torah. This is the reasons why Jews keep the Sabbath. This has nothing to do with the Christian concept of grace.


You keep taking snippets out of context to make you theological point.

I get the part about the origin of the universe. All creation myths are about creation:huh: .

You yet to explain to me the origin of evil. At what point in mankinds history did they fall?

Stumpjumper

Grace is defined as "God's blessing" and the Torah frequently mentions God blessing people...

Abraham was "blessed to be a blessing" to others... It's in there Q...

achristianbeliever

Your still not answering the question I can't believe it. Your the one who says, "God does exactly this" meaning you know the answer. So either answer the question or retract this statement. As to your question you wouldn't need to do number if you didn't fail at number 1. If the Hebrews were able to keep their commandments no problem Jesus wouldn't have had any reason to come. But what make the Old Testament so interesting is that nobody gets it quite right.

whatever

says who? People get pardons all the time even if they confess to the crime. Why is God not allowed to give pardons?

huh? why do I believe a lie when I don't believe it? Am I suppose to take this seriously?

The laws on this planet are so unbelievably inconsistent it drives me bonkers. At least God is consistent. You sin you go to Hell if you accept Jesus you get pardoned. You consider it barbaric fine but I think its the greatest justice system in the world.

What authority gives you the right to say what justice humanity deserves? Don't give me an answer based on human created laws. Why do you personally have the authority to say who deserves what punishment for crimes?

If you rejected God that I believe in then you deserve torture. (And yes unbelief is rejection in my opinion) So once again this is based on human perception yet somehow you personally get to decide what people do or don't deserve.

But I find that God disgusting. How you perceive him means nothing. The only way your position means anything is if it convinces me. Otherwise our perceptions of God are equal because neither you or I are more authoritative over the other. Now if you convince me then your perception of God is more authoritative for me then mine but just be careful because the moment a third party comes in with another perception of God then we are right back where we started.

so? Prove to me your nothing but a figment of my imagination right now. Maybe I'm dreaming this conversation with you. Prove your real and not a dream. I'm not trying to prove anything to you. I'm just trying to show that your perception of justice is no more authoritative than anyone else's.

And actually your entire post here is proof to me of an afterlife. I don't care if anyone else thinks so but your entire post here is proof to me of an afterlife. I'll explain later.

Can you show me the authoritative law that says, "any God that sends someone to Hell is a scumbag God" otherwise your perception of God is meaningless.

says who? You can't answer with people because not everyone thinks this. I'm proof of that. If I think rejection or unbelief of God is the worst possible crime out there above being tortured eternally why am I wrong?

and people's minds and personalities do not just dissapear in the grave when they die even though atheists may imagine it. Somehow the non-believer always thinks they have such authority over morality and what is right and wrong and acceptable punishment. And yet if there is no God then an atheist's perception of morality is meaningless. And don't just say, "No its not meaningless" you have to prove that your perception of morality means something. You have to show what law (not a human law) says that your perception of punishment and right and wrong is the most authoritative of all.

For your morality to mean anything it has to be shown to be something higher than human perception. If instead you do believe morality is subjective then you have to accept that right and wrong is merely up to the individual and their own personal conclusions. In other words you can say, "In my personal conclusion torture for eternity is wrong" because that simply shows human perception but if you say, "torture for eternity is wrong" you can't do that because it would mean your morality is based on something higher than human perception. But a non-believer would not dare say that because it would mean going into the metaphysical realm.

This is why your entire post where you say, "torture for eternity is wrong" "God sending people to Hell is wrong" and whatever else is proof to me of an afterlife. Because you know that morality is above human perception. Your just in denial. If morality was merely human perception you would have just said, "I personally believe torture for eternity is wrong". But I know you won't because your afraid to. I feel for you your in a hard place. You want to say human perception is all right and wrong is based on but the moment you do that then my perception becomes just as valid and you don't want to accept that. But by saying with great bravado something is wrong your admitting the existence of the metaphysical realm and in the meatphysical realm theism has the advantage over the atheist.