dbarmstrong

If you read the verse in context you will see that Christ is speaking eschatologically thus this prediction applies only to the period after Christ reptures the Church so the gospel being preached to all nations will take place during the tribulation.

Noggin

wha? so the rest of the humans who don't hear your gospel... what happens to them? What is their purpose on earth?

and with respect to world religion, why are there hundreds of One and Only True God Approved religions? Each vying for top spot as God's One and Only Truth? Each sending annoying ministers or missionaries or book sales men to my doorstep to convince me to follow their god. Well? Which one would you have me choose?

The mormons? The Seventh Day Adventists? The Jehovah's Witnesses? If I choose one of them, I sign up for the doom of all the rest of them!

Please... I am tapping my foot here waiting your response.

Wow. Poor Muslims. All 2 billion of them. Such wasted creation. Lets dehumanize them further (like President Bush!... just blow them to kingdom come! After all, God doesn't even want them!)

Noggin

Ryzo

I'm not a christian, but I'd interpret it as referring to the end of the world/universe, not the end of an individual's life. So the armageddon won't happen until everyone has had a chance to accept Jesus.

ISVfan

Glad to see we're in such a good mood.

Noggin

...and? no commentary?

I am fine and in quite a pleasant mood, but when a christian displays such a perplexing world view for all to see such as in the quote by christianbeliever above... It requires effort to remain so.

This is what and why religion is nonsense to me.

Muslims don't have the answer as to why the entire world is not Muslim either. It really bothers them that the west rejects or at least does not embrace Islam. And Jews don't have a good answer for why all are not steeped in Judaism. Mormons scratch their heads... and send out 60,000 missionaries each year to convert the world (yet their growth numbers remain very static).

They all say something equally irrational. Something to the effect of "We are god's chosen, his elect...we are special... a peculiar people" and instead of sending the alarms of reason and logic off, the confusion only serves to galvanize their faith. If god was a perfect being he would display benevolence. Not revealing his gospel to a certain portion of his creation because they don't have salvation awaiting them is an annoying display of small mindedness.

I truly hope christianbeliever does not mean to present all nonchristians such as hindu and Muslims as disposables in god's eye. For surely it can be seen that they will not hear the christian god's message.

Noggin

Kosh

I actually think you might have misunderstood what he said.

My take on what he said (and it IS a little difficult to interpret the sentence because it looks like he was just spouting Dogma, is that he's saying it that the "out" they have for reasoning that not all are able to hear the message is to argue that those who didn't hear the message didn't need to hear the message. Ie, they somehow get a free buy into heaven.

Now that of course creates more problems than it solves, but when did Dogma ever make sense?

To all Christians: Perhaps we should elaborate on Dogma. Dogma is when we ask you to rationalize a religious belief, and you spout back some sort of canned response that makes no sense, and doesn't even explain the belief.

Example: Why does a car need gas to work?

Dogma answer: The car needs gas to sanctify the pushing of the gas pedal.

Please stop doing this.

Johnny Skeptic

That is ridiculous. A sizeable majority of the people who hear it reject it, so in their opinions they did not need to hear it. In addition, surely some of the hundreds of millions of people who died without ever having heard the Gospel message would have accepted it if they had heard it. Obviously God had no interest in letting those people know about the Gospel message, and in the Old Testament he had no interest in letting most of the people in the world know about his specific existance and will. In Kosmin and Lachman's 'One Nation Under God,' the authors cite a lot of documented evidence that proves that in the U.S., and by implication other places in the world as well, the chief factors that determine religious beliefs are geography, family, race, ethnicity, gender, and age. Those factors obviously exclude the Holy Spirit. A loving God would never choose to be limited by such factors.

Noggin

Hi Kosh. You may have a point about me misunderstanding christianbeliever's post. I do have my bullshit detector set on "blaringly loud", I admit.

I really wish the Christians would speak up and clarify this nonsense. But to address your point...

With the further enlightenment you have provided we can only deduce that those who never hear the Christian Gospel's Good News© are the truly holy ones since they need no refinement while alive here on earth via the christian god's trials and tribulation treadmill.

It's either that or they are just rejects, culls, dross, or perhaps stand ins to confuse the Christians (Hmmm why did god make so many non-christian religions... he must be testing me to see if I will be faithful to Jesus).

Good grief people read your history books. Jesus was just one of hundreds of his age claiming divine sonship of god, performing "miracles" or magic tricks and spouting new and improved radical ideology. He didn't even obtain godhood status until the Nicene Creed in the year 325... practically 300 years after his death! And that inaguration was done by a forced vote of imperfect humans who decided that jesus should be a god, not by a divine decree from god.

Fingernails on the chalkboard.

Noggin

Kosh

Actually, the whole thing is a reverse psychology test:

St. Peter: Welcome to the pearly gates, why should you get into Heavean

Christaian: Well you see, I've been a devout follower of Jesus all my life! I believe every word that was in the Bible!

St. Peter: Oh man, I can't believe you FELL for that! <looks to the side> We got another reject here!

achristianbeliever

Gee a Christian told their beliefs are rediculous how shocking.

That's not what I said. But yeahhhhhhhh. If a person rejects the Christian message then yes obviously they don't believe they needed to hear it. Doesn't mean they didn't. A person's "opinion" is irrelevant to my post.

prove it. Besides a person can hear it and can accept it. Doesn't mean they needed it.

Am I suppose to argue against this? I don't have a problem with this.

If that were true then sociologists in 1910 Edinburgh wouldn't have been so wrong when they said Africa it would be overrun by Islam. Guess what didn't happen and instead its one of the most receptive to Christianity. Now you may today say, "Well its obvious the race of Africans were receptive to it". But go back to the sociologists of the early 1900s and see how far it gets you. You'd be laughed at back then.

Besides even the Bible says certain people would be more receptive to Christianity. It talks about it being more hard for the rich to enter the kingdom of Heaven than the poor so what your saying is biblical anyway.

Why should I believe this of you because you gave a book reference? I can do that too. Harvey Cox, "Fire from Heaven".

To serve God? What do you think I'm saying? Oh ok I just read the next quote of yours....

Wow. That's what you think I'm saying? If that's what you think then I'm not gonna bother.

So what if I was? I'm not writing this post with any attempt to actually prove something. Johnny asked me a question and I answered it. I wasn't allowed to just use Dogma? Well then that should have been clarified now shouldn't it have been?

Then why don't you just pick a section of my post and ask me how I can clarify it rather than just complaining about Dogma?

Besides sometimes what more am I suppose to say? If someone asks me, "Who created the universe?" And I say God and then they say, "That's just dogma" what else am I suppose to do?

That might be exactly what I'm saying what makes you think its not.

yeahhhhhh I'm so sure. Where did you get that from the Davinci Code? If that were true then what exactly is John saying when he writes, "the word was God". Unless you believe the gospel of John was written in 325 AD.