emotional

Magus, the trouble with you and other fundamentalist Christians is that you don't look at the end picture. The end picture is this:

The majority of humankind is going to be consigned to eternal torture.

And on this end picture I rest, and disbelieve your claim that Christianity is a loving religion.

I believe in God, I believe in the afterlife, I believe in God's justice in the afterlife, but I DON'T believe God's justice includes burning people in hell for eternity. Your beliefs - yours all, meaning all fundamentalist Christians - are nothing short of a horrendous blasphemy against God. And the day will come that you will stand before God and repent of this blasphemy. You'll say to yourself in the afterlife, "how could I ever believed such a horrific doctrine as eternal hell?". I'm sure of it.

Magus55

First of all, what is your definition of justice in reguard to God? Do you know what divine justice is? Do you know what God's definition of justice is, or are you only speculating because you don't like the definition in the Bible? What would be justice to you? Banishing sinners into non existence for eternity? How is that justice, thats what unsaved sinners want. Thats like sentencing a pedophile to jail time in a pre-school. Non-existence isn't an option, because its what those who don't give a crap about God want. That isn't justice, even in our corrupt system of government.

The concept of Hell is not a fundamentalist one. Most Christians believe in Hell because Jesus stated it exists. Now, you could say not all Christians take the Bible literally, but it makes me wonder, if a Christian doesn't believe what Jesus says about Hell, how could they believe Him about being God and dying for our sins and being ressurection, or performing miracles? Christians who deny Hell are doing so only because they dismiss anything in the Bible that they don't like. Yes, Hell is not a nice place, and God doesn't want anyone to go there. But by His divine righteousness and justice, He must punish sinners for what they deserve, and a lifetime of sinning against God, cannot be amended for on your own no matter how much time you have.

And why would i be repenting of that doctrine? Jesus Christ said it, not me, and His authority is final.

emotional

First of all, let us make it clear that the Bible is a lie. It is a lie from the very first chapter, from Genesis 1, when it says God created us using special creation instead of evolution. Since this is incorrect, the God described in the Bible is false as well.



I didn't say non-existence. The sinner is sent to hell to repent of his sins and to be purified, and then, having done the sentence, he gets out of there. There is justice, but eternal hell isn't it.



The Bible lies, and you lie. A lifetime of sinning cannot go unpunished, but eternal torture is not the punishment. Hell is a tortuous experience, certainly, but it is not eternal. Eternal hell has no remedial or corrective value, since the sinner cannot get out of there. For hell to effective against sin, it has to be truly a corrective punishment - one that ends upon repentance.

The Bible lies, Magus. The Bible is not the Word of God; it is the word of ignorant and evil men. The Bible is a lie from its very first chapter. When you get to stand before God, the question will not be "have you believed in Jesus?" but "what have you done with your life?" - meaning, have you been kind and loving towards other human beings. Faith counts for nothing, only works count.

Such is the testimony from channelled books and from those who have had a near-death experience. These tell the truth about God and the afterlife. They tell of a God of natural law, of evolution and of justification by works.

BadBadBad

Aagh, Emotional! I thought you had this religion nonsense licked! I can see you're having trouble throwing it into the trash altogether. You've got a good start though with what seems like a pretty firm belief that the Bible is a big lie. So that's good. I can see your mind is working. Let's just follow through with that though because you're veering back onto that God stuff again.

Now, if you believe the Bible is a big lie, we've got to find some other basis for some of your specific beliefs on religion. In that you've already posted that it's the Big Lie, you really have to be careful about using the Bible as a source for info about God. Not only is it all about the Big Lie, it's also full of regular lies on virtually every page. So what source are you using now for all this info you're posting about God? You post your NDE and Spirit Teachings URLs again, or have you come up with something new? I'll post my URLs on the Institute of IPU Research. Anyway what ever your source is, post it, and then we can go back to debating which URL is more authoritative.

Emotional, you're not a source of info about God. The Bible can't be relied on since, as you've admitted it's one big lie starting in the first chapter. Anything else you post as a source of info on God is going to have the same two problems. So, I think I've told you this before, if you want to believe in God, recognize you don't know squat about God. Once you come to that conclusion, realize your belief in "God" is meaningless since you don't know squat about God. Once you realize that, you'll be back on firm ground showing Magus the ills of christianity as an atheist or at least agnostic. That way you won't find yourself in the silly position of defending silly christian based concepts like hell, purgatory, free will, the christian definition of god, salvation, sin, etc etc.

emotional

The fact that the Bible is false doesn't mean I have to become an agnostic.

Hedwig

I meant what's the point of doing the whole born-again thing if you're always going to fall short of your deity's expectations? And what's the point of doing the whole born-again thing if it doesn't do you any good in this life? I'm actually curious about both these things.

BadBadBad

Christianity isn't hateful or inhumane? It's the most loving thing on Earth? Are you kidding? Are you completely blind to history?
We can debate whether God is loving in a minute, but Christianity? No, I think history is pretty clear on that. Christianity represents hate and inhumanity. It always has and always will. You can't get away from that. You and you're elite group can call yourselves True Christians TM, but you can't re-write history.

God isn't hateful and inhumane? You do have a copy of the Bible don't you Magus? Ok, let's read together now from Genesis, and when we reach a part where God is hateful or inhumane, we'll stop. Ok, I get to chapter 3:14 where god curses the serpent. That's not hateful enough? Then two verses later he zaps Eve, then Adam, and you know as well as I do it gets worse from there. So, why don't you just give up on that one and admit that God may be a nice guy to some people he likes, but he's pretty much a mean callous bastard to everyone else.

Yes Biff, nice catch. Question answered.

BadBadBad

No, but if you want to come here and tell us and even Magus with pious authority about God, then you should be prepared to site your sources.

Hedwig

Do you?

Do you?

Aren't you?

How about you? And for funsies, why don't you tell me what justice looks like to...not god. Tell me what your limited, imperfect opinion is without referencing a deity. I'm curious.

Well, speaking as a so-called "unsaved sinner" (though I was born again and baptized as such before leaving the church), I would prefer almost anything over nonexistance. Almost anything.

How?

How do you know this?

In our corrupt system of government, we try to see to it that the punishment fits the crime. The punishment you claim god prescribes for unrepentant sinners is unending torture in hell forever. Try to imagine being bitten by a little ant and then spending all day every day for the rest of your life stomping and burning and torturing the little ant...and then having your children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren continuing the tradition...and then multiply it by infinity...that's your god's sense of justice.

I don't know. I suppose I could get my mom to come on here and give her opinion, but she's more interested in chatting about Buffy the Vampire Slayer than the concept of hell.

You move goalposts. What's the difference?

So why does he choose to send people there?

Why? If god's all powerful then he can do whatever the hell he wants. He doesn't have to punish anyone.

Tell that to the poor little ant you're torturing, burning, ripping the legs off of every day for the rest of your life. And chances are, considering your superior intelligence and the ant's rather basic thought processes, it could never even begin to understand why it is being tortured forever.

You might need to prove that assertion, Magus.

EstherRose

Yet we see it differently. The trouble with you is that you don’t look at the whole picture. The whole picture is this:

All of humanity will be punished for their sins and go to hell except for those who have accepted God’s precious gift of eternal salvation.

On what do you base your belief? My belief comes from the bible. This is what the bible tells us as unpleasant as it may be. If you have a biblically based reason (or even if you don’t) for your belief, I’m interested in it. Please elaborate.

Ah, see here is where you went wrong. You don’t believe in the bible as the Word of God so you’ve made hell up to where it is palatable to you. You also feel hell is a corrective measure. Tell me then, do you believe that multiple life sentences in our judicial system with no possibility of parole is also a corrective measure? Or a way of keeping the irredeemable off the streets? That is what hell is. It is a place for those who have refused God’s gift to spend their eternal lives.

The bible tells us otherwise. On what do you base this belief? On a personal bias? On these channeled books? How can you be sure these are true? We have the assurance of the Holy Spirit as God’s living testimony inside us. On what basis can you claim these things are real?