Amie

Hi Copernic

What do you mean by "the truth"? I am not intending to be antagonistic here but it just seems to me whether someone believes there is a God or believes there is not a God is not "the truth" but merely a personal belief...

well as I said Hell being an eternal pit of fire has been my greatest problem with hebrew scriptures...
I don't believe in Hell being a place at all...

you are not suggesting that in order to believe in god I would also have to believe in hell? since they are very seperate concepts I do not need to maintain a belief in one without the other...

well I don't think there really is such a thing as "correct" christian theology. The bible was written by man and only those men "know" what was divinely inspired and what was not...as far as "correct" and "incorrect" I think it all comes down to personal perceptions and subjective interpretations...

I don't know the actual percentage. However I do know that I believe God is forgiving and understanding...dems da breaks...

Answerer

Wow, here is another christian who reject the bible. Things are getting weird as I have seldom meet christians like that.

doodad

One's belief in a supernatural being is not motivated by rational factors, but as a matter of choice or wanting to. Granted, people develop desires that are nonsensical, but if the result is beneficial then it's acceptable behavior.
I like the taste of beer, and as long as I don't overindulge and hurt myself or someone else my little fetish is harmless. In fact I find it quite pleasurable, or emotionally beneficial to taste a cold beer. The same can be said for the satisfaction that comes from the practice of religion.

When I fell in love with a woman and took her for a life mate did I know all the answers or what lay ahead? Nope. Nothing ventured nothing gained. Was Columbus sure there was an America?
Nope, but he dared to find it. It was a calculated risk, and he won.


Let's suppose you are a fan of a particular sports team and am absolutely convinced they'll become the champions this year. Stats say different, but does that deter you from playing it out with them until the very end? Faith in God is somewhat the same, in that it is in part
based upon a fervent desire to benefit from such a belief, and the risk of disappointment is usually discounted. It' like having the hot's so bad for that babe on the bus that you simply ignore that wedding band on her finger. Forget the consequences, you say, and you go for it.

I for one am a believer, and there are aspects of Christianity that don't make sense to me, so I discount them. I'm not totally dense, and it's a fair bet that the average Christian also has some doubts about parts of scripture. Fundies say such an attitude means one is not a true Christian. It's all or nothing for them, but experience tells me there are relatively few perfect believers.

Religion is very much a mind game, and the trick is to find a way to believe that serves your needs and to not worry about other people's beliefs or about their opinion of your beliefs.
If you don't want to believe then that's an option you can exercise, but just stay out of my face because I didn't exercise the same option.

Consider this. If people didn't practice religion they'd find some other way to satisfy their emotional needs, be it superstition, fantasy, or some form of personal vanity. Might you be fighting a losing battle by fighting religion? Unless you are actually being harrassed or abused in some way by believers then get over it and move on to something more productive. If you like to bash believers just for kicks there's probably more fun things to do. I'm not trying to be testy or insulting, but I do think you might be spinning your wheels.

[ December 01, 2002: Message edited by: doodad ]</p>

doodad

Web site <a href="http://www.jewfaq.org" target="_blank">www.jewfaq.org</a> speaks of the different beliefs held by the modern day Jew. I claim to be a moderate Christian, and I love to throw this one at the zealots. It seems there are those practicing Jews who have no concept of sin, meaning to them there isn't such a thing. They also discount the idea of salvation as it is unneeded if there is no sin.

I practice religion primarily for the benefits of the behavioural guidance it offers. That's not to say it's the only way to develop a sense of right and wrong, but that is a benefit of practicing religion. To me the idea of sin and damnation and the idea of Heavenly rewards for staying in line are scare tactics designed to intimidate people in hopes they will yield to the wishes of the one promoting the practice of religion. The idea of there being an absolute power (God will getcha for that!) helps to bully people into believing who might otherwise say "buzz off".

Sin appears to be a symbolic expression of mis-behavior and I think of it as such in my belief system, but I prefer the secular concept such as the atheist community holds. In other words, if I screw up John Law will come down on me, not God above. My sect, which is the UMC, is a very supportive sect and doesn't dwell on the consequences of sin. It puts a positive spin on things and tries to show me how to apply Christian principles, or biblical principles to my day to day decisions and activities in order to have a better life. We don't sit around bad mouthing other sects or non-believers for that matter because we have found better things to do. The UMC is not particularly evangelical but instead places emphasis on service to humanity, or the keeping of the flock.

It may help those who don't understand how I can claim to be a Christian and yet view sin as I do.
Much of the Christian concepts of behavior were adapted or brought forward from Judaism, or the OT concepts of behavior. Judaism is a rather practical religion in comparison to Chrisianity and much of the mitzvoth has been derived from life experiences rather than idealistic dreams of what life should be. The ancient Jews codified their concepts of acceptable behavior, and it became canon law, or religious doctrine. Whether it was divinely inspired or not is not an issue to me. I tend to look at the merit of a principle of behavior and not its source.

How could I be a Christian and not believe that God exists? I didn't say that God did not exist.
I said God exists in conceptual form, and I challenge any other Christian to prove otherwise.

[ December 02, 2002: Message edited by: doodad ]</p>

Tercel

Hi xeren,
Ironically, me and a group of about 10 of my friends spent an hour or so arguing about this issue just the other night. (We're all Christians) This is an issue which has existed for a long time within the Christian Church - it goes at least as far back as St Augustine in the fourth century AD.

As a liberal, I don't believe that your refusal to become a Christian (before you die at least ) means you are going to hell. But the question "Essentially, isn't god creating a person just to send them to hell?" is still relevant for me since I do believe that almost certainly some people will go to hell.

Personally I think the best solution to the problem is to accept that God lacked knowledge of our future prior to creating us. If God really willed that we truly have power over our own eternal destiny then it would seem to follow that He would be forced to limit his forknowledge as regards our eternal destiny until after the event of creation.
You see, the argument of many of my Calvinist friends were making the other evening (Calvinists place God's "Soverignty" above all else and thus insist that it is purely God's choice as to who is to be saved and who isn't - and thus would agree that God does create people with a will to sending them to hell - personally I think such a God would be a pretty evil God) was that God's foreknowledge of the future (and of all possible futures that might occur if he acted differently) allows him to manipulate the present in such a way so that every single thing in the future turns out as he wants.

Hmph...
We not only do not believe that any are foreordained to evil by the power of God, but even state with utter abhorrence that if there are those who want to believe so evil a thing, they are anathema. - From the Conclusion of the Canons of the Council of Orange (529AD)
While I'd hardly pronounce anathema on my friends, I can only agree with the feeling behind the statement!

Anyway, back to the point...
In such a scenario, it is rather debateable about the quality of the "free will" involved. While it is true that we are acting as we choose, effectively God is forcing us to choose to act in the way he wants. True power is to be able to have the final decision on something for oneself, and that we should "choose" to do something only because God decided he wanted us to choose to do it hardly counts IMO. If God really has Omnipotence or something reasonably close to it, a fairly basic thing He should be able to do is bestow on others real true power - especially if we are supposed to be made in the image of God and all. As I see it, the bestowal of such power means necessarily putting limits on His own power. ie. He would have needed to restrict his knowledge of our ultimate destinies until after the world had been created. (Although I think given the complexities involved in the creation of the world, I can see no contradiction between God having Omnipotence (defined as "God at this moment having knowledge of everything that will occur in this space-time universe") and the previously mentioned limitation. It is only when you start insisting that God has knowledge about something which doesn't yet exist (ie us before we've been created) that you start running into Calvinistic difficulties. Thus although I'm supposedly reducing God's Omniscience here, it's only trivially so.)

A completely alternative solution to the problem which I'm seen is Robert Koon's argument is that if God's goal is to love someone then it will be necessary for them to exist (whatever happens to them and whether they love God in return).
Whether that idea has any merit, I'm not entirely sure. But I don't see the two solutions as being incompatible.

doodad

Let me muddy the issue a little more than it is.
First of all, I don't believe that only a few will make it to Heaven, which is the view of those who have misconstrued a part of NT scripture that talks of there only being one path to Heaven and the gates being narrow. To me this is a throwback to the Judaic concept of the chosen few, which were God's people in ancient Israel.

Are we predestined to Hell? Will we go there if we don't practice religion? Are we inherently evil, i.e., were we born as sinners?

Each of us has the opportunity to avoid Hell by keeping our noses clean. It's like avoiding the needle by avoiding the commission of a capital crime. It's our call IMO.

Those who harp on salvation conveniently forget to tell the whole story, so we get half truths, so to speak. Even those who have been granted forgiveness of sins (under Christianity by believing in Jesus and under Judaism by believing in God) supposedly will stand to account for their transgressions someday. I don't know just when this is suppose to happen in Christianity, but in Judaism the judgement suppoosedly takes place as part of the sanctification process after death. Those who have few sins or minor sins pass on to Heaven after a brief phase of punishment, but the bad guys take longer, perhaps a few months. Those who are doomed are cut loose to float in the ether of space, which is to say they are separated from their people and from their God. What's the punishment consist of. Blush! Thirty lashes with a wet noodle maybe?

Christians don't see condemnation in the same light, but to a Jew the worst fate is to be drifting aimlessly without a sprirtual home. Sounds familiar to their real life experiences doesn't it.

I don't know if we will be condemned for not practicing religion, i.e., believing in God, or not, but apparently the bible says we can be.
It seems that one could be a good guy without believing in God and still have a fair chance of making it to Heaven, but perhaps not. Something tells me this threat was used to intimidate people or to scare them into submission.

Are we inherently evil or born sinners? Nope. I think this is a misconception that got started long ago before people understood the principle of motivation. It seems that people, and lower animals such as dogs and cats for that matter, have a tendency to test their limits of freedom or limits of acceptable behavior. We see that especially in small children. That's how creatures determine their limits, by testing them. It's a trial and error process for dogs and cats and for small children before they develop reasoning power, which is at about the age of 7. The ancients saw this going on, and out of ignorance concluded that we must be born evil doers. Then some enterprising faith peddler came along, put a new spin on it to support his claim, and said we were born sinners.

This is the frosting on the cake. In spite of being born sinners and being cleansed of our sins, we can still sin and make atonement for it after converting to Christ. So what the point of attaining salvation? Is it for my benefit or for the local pastor's benefit? Maybe he has a quota to make. In other words, it's ok to sin just as long as you tell us you did, otherwise we'll nail you for it. You guys figure that one out.

Fiach

Wackyboy

This is a very complicated topic and one that I think you would need a book to explain correctly but to put it shortly, God did not create you to send you to Hell.
First for a disclaimer, I am a Christian, I do believe in Hell, and I do believe that anyone who ultimately rejects God will spend eternity in Hell.
Secondly, I believe that Hell is total separation from God. I do not know if it will literally involve fire or if that is allegorical. But according to Christian doctine just as all truth flows from God (and in fact is defined in who God is) so does all goodness. So apart from God there is no goodness. Hell, by virtue of being total separation from God, is a total absence of goodness.
Thirdly I do belive in free will and I do believe in an all knowing God. I also believe that if I am not all knowing then I can not presume to think that I can think of a better way to do things than an all knowing God does them. While I'm not trying to do the whole cop out thing,it's a simple matter of logic that if God knows everything and I don't then God's right is right and mine is not if I disagree with God.
Fourth, Christianity is not about rules, it is about relationship. In human relations we hang out with people that we like (usually). Both parties to a friendship sent the bounds of acceptable behavior in the relationship. If I smack my wife then I am stepping beyond the bounds of acceptable behavior and am probably jeprodizing the relationship. The same can be said for a relationship with God, except that God as the superior determines the acceptable behavior not us. We can not be good enough for God because God is all good, but he has said that he will view us as good if we accept Christ. According to Christian theology Christ can live for us. Christianity is ultimately about faith because all we *HAVE* to do is repent of our sins and believe in Christ for the forgivness of those sins. So we can not be good enough for God, but if you believe in God, then you will want to always try to do good. True Christianity (and actually the Holy Spirit) develops in you a desire to do good knowing that it's never good enough but that a merciful God will love us anyway.
Fifth, if there is free will, and if Christianity is about relationship, then Hell is ultimately an expression of God's love in that those who reject relationship with God during this life will not be forced to enter into relationship with Him in the next.

Just my opinion,

Wackyboy

LoopHooligan

Ah...now I see, hell is an expression of god's love. Now it all makes perfect sense!! And I suppose all the horror we put up with on earth is also an expression of his love is it?

thebeave

You have chosen your username quite well, Grasshoppa!