winstonjen

An inclination TO sin would also be a reduction of free will, by that logic.

That's a bit unfair. By doing nothing, god HAS imposed that on us - a crime of omission. We do not have the 'fair' chance that Adam and Eve supposedly had.

His self-contradictory word.

Tercel

Yes. Hence God imposes neither.

I don't see what difference it makes. What makes their chance fairer than ours? And "chance" of what I might ask? Salvation? -We've got as good a chance of them at that.

Tercel

Bingo!

Yup. They generally subscribe to the theory of Penal Substitution which is based on Anslem's 11th century theory of Satisfaction. Apart from having logical holes big enough to drive a bus through these theories essentially teach that God is either evil or subject to a higher power of Justice. A Protestant, R. Collins, has written a good article on the subject here if anyone would like to read a treatment of the subject in more detail.

You shouldn't fear God sending you to hell since He doesn't and we have nothing to fear from Love. You should fear yourself though, the possibility of what you could become, the possibility that you damn yourself.

If I may quote my favourite theologian on this subject, Dr Kalomiros:
"unhappily for us, paradise or hell does not depend on God. If it depended on God, we would have nothing to fear. We have nothing to fear from Love. But it does not depend on God. It depends entirely upon us, and this is the whole tragedy."

"Now if anyone is perplexed and does not understand how it is possible for God's love to render anyone pitifully wretched and miserable and even burning as it were in flames, let him consider the elder brother of the prodigal son. Was he not in his father's estate? Did not everything in it belong to him? Did he not have his father's love? Did his father not come himself to entreat and beseech him to come and take part in the joyous banquet? What rendered him miserable and burned him with inner bitterness and hate? Who refused him anything? Why was he not joyous at his brother's return? Why did he not have love either toward his father or toward his brother? Was it not because of his wicked, inner disposition? Did he not remain in hell because of that? And what was this hell? Was it any separate place? Were there any instruments of torture? Did he not continue to live in his father's house? What separated him from all the joyous people in the house if not his own hate and his own bitterness? Did his father, or even his brother, stop loving him? Was it not precisely this very love which hardened his heart more and more? Was it not the joy that made him sad? Was not hatred burning in his heart, hatred for his father and his brother, hatred for the love of his father toward his brother and for the love of his brother toward his father? This is hell: the negation of love; the return of hate for love; bitterness at seeing innocent joy; to be surrounded by love and to have hate in one's heart. This is the eternal condition of all the damned. They are all dearly loved. They are all invited to the joyous banquet. They are all living in God's Kingdom, in the New Earth and the New Heavens. No one expels them. Even if they wanted to go away they could not flee from God's New Creation, nor hide from God's tenderly loving omnipresence. Their only alternative would be, perhaps, to go away from their brothers and search for a bitter isolation from them, but they could never depart from God and His love." -Kalomiros again.

I'm not exactly sure what the relevance of the question is, but the answer is: Nothing.
What has evidence of the existence of God got to do with the price of fish? I suppose you're buying into the who "you have to believe to be saved" rubbish... may I remind you that the demons believe (James 2:19). Whether you believe or not is irrelevant to salvation - and anyway you'll believe for certain after you die.

In most examples given of hypothetical afterlifes which confirm to the paradigm I've been explaning here, the saved do what they can to help. I really really suggest you either read CS Lewis' The Great Divorce or Howard Storm's NDE or (preferably) both.

Okay: That particular portion of the Bible is untrue.

I suppose so. I call it "logic" and "critical-thinking" and possibly "free-thinking". I am always amused to see skeptics claim these are good things... until they see them in action... and these same skeptics turn into fundamentalists and say that either all the Bible is true or none of it is and that anything else is "salad-bar-ism". Personally, I sincerely hope you guys apply the same salad-bar-ism, aka critical thinking, in your everyday life as what I apply to the Bible.

Amusingly that verse doesn't even say half of what they seem to think it does. Just because Jesus is the only way to the Father doesn't mean we need to know about Him. If you don't breathe oxygen then you die. But an African tribesman who wouldn't have a clue what the words "Oxygen" and "Respiratory System" meant can still live. Jesus is the only way to the Father: sure, I've no problems with that, since everyone who comes to the Father can do so because of Jesus' incarnation whether they no about it or not. So how that verse equates to having to know about and believe in Jesus to be saved is something I've never quite fathomed...

The Orthodox church. Obviously interpretations that are logically incoherent can be ruled out of court for starters. As most atheists here will testify (and indeed was part of the original purpose of this thread): That means most all Protestant denominations and Roman Catholics are out. That leaves the Orthodox and a few Protestants who agree with them... they thus seem to win by default.

The paradigm of Sin/Salvation of the Orthodox church, finds significant Biblical support. The part of this paradigm which covers the nature of hell is hence implicitly supported by the Bible, though the Bible has very little explicit to say about hell.

Of course it's a pick and choose version - would you prefer I placed by brain in the rubbish bin prior to walking in the church door? Of course if you really wanted to throw your brain out and subscribe entirely to one Church's teaching: Fine then you could convert to Orthodoxy. Personally, I don't think much too of their views on Mary, images, and ritualistic services - but that's probably because I was brought up a Protestant and in my heart of hearts still am one. As someone who used to be Catholic you shouldn't have so much of a problem with those things.

Demigawd

He only created it (Hell) to condemn his errant angels, you see, and since it was so conveniently located, He decided it was your eternal place as well. Also, don't you know, Christians are the only rational beings upon this planet (able to discern the pleasures of our Supreme Creator and all that), and the rest of us are doomed to this particular Oblivion (eternal, yet death-like; how very Zen-like).

Only if your believe in the paradigm of an specific mythology, and have a taste for sado-mascocism.

As opposed to that binary restriction of choice, there's always the understanding that our forebears (and their ancestors) only had a shadow of knowledge, and we as their inheritors can accept that and add to it our continious quest for understanding.

Ronin

I think that it is apparent, as I've implied by my handy Eco quote on credulity, that it is you that do not agree with the Bible with its full descriptions of 'everlasting fire' for the mere act of non-belief in the deity of that particular fable.

You assume incorrectly, as I would not agree with you that the Bible is a collection of works of what human writers have thought about "God and His actions in this world".

Rather, (and I point this out because this is an extremely important distinction not to be casually overlooked), the Bible is a collection of fallible and inconsistent works of what human writers have concocted regarding an imaginary being that conveniently reflects their own selfish and vain cravings for limited significance at the tragic cost of eviscerating reason and true compassion for the human condition.

That difference between us is quite true.

Which only serves to identify the credulity of theists, in this case christian, and the ability to attempt to justify their particular mythology as reality.

Which is a grand admission to be lauded.

Now compare the Christian fable with the sundry worldwide conflicting mythologies and it may become clear just how utterly ludicrous the whole business of religion really is.

If I only had a nickel...you really must meet some of the Southern Baptists around my parts.

90% is an ambitious number that will appear utterly arbitrary, Tercel, without specifically explaining where you go biblically astray among other things.

Just as much as the others are, Tercel, just as much.

"But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me." ~ Jesus Corleone (Luke 19:27)

MortalWombat

OK, here's the question: If belief is not required for salvation, then why do come here and argue with atheists? We don't hate God, we just don't believe in the existence of a god. I can't speak for other atheists, but I know I live by the axioms (which are universal and not unique to Christianity) of "treat others like you want to be treated, and don't treat others in ways you don't wish to be treated." So would I go to hell or heaven in your theology?

I ate Pascal's Wafer

Tercel, Ok, so why did Jesus come to Earth so that he could be crucified in the first place? If Jesus coming here was irrelevant to salvation, then what purpose would he have to come and die?

This may well be the case, but you have not shown where such a view in un-Biblical. That a particular interpretation of the Bible is logically unsound does not mean that the interpretation is somehow wrong or un-Biblical. If certain interpretations of the Bible are logically unsound, then the problem is not necessarily with the person holding the beliefs (even though they aren't rational people for holding them), but with the wording of the source of their beliefs.

How might I damn myself? I'm perfectly happy living my life without a deity watching over me. I can appreciate me for who I am, and I can appreciate other people without needing a deity to tell me how this should be done. My life is going just fine without the help of the supernatural, so why should I expect that things will change after death (supposing that you are right)?

That's all well and good, but it shows that the problem is with how the person feels about himself and his surroundings. It seems to suggest that if a person can be at peace with himself and others, then he would not end up in hell (even if he did not believe in God). Is this what you're trying to say?

In other words, belief in God or the acceptance of Jesus as your "personal savior" is not required for admittance into what would be considered heaven? In such a case, a nonbelieving person would have no problem getting into heaven so long as he strived to live a good life and is at peace with himself. This is a pleasing idea of the afterlife, but in reading the Bible I never got the impression that this is what was happening. God seemed to be pretty big about gaining converts and followers and harming those who went against him.

Alright, I'll check those out when I get some more time. It's finals week, so I have just enough time to post on the forum, but not so much that I can do much reading of anything else. I'll take a look at them when I get some more free time.

The example you are proposing suggests that the damned can be saved even after death. So long as the person is able to put an end to his self-pity and self-hatred, he would be able to enjoy bliss and love in heaven. It's a pleasant proposition, but it doesn't seem to be in line with the general spirit the Bible was written in.

Alright. What if we arbitrarily decided that all the stuff about love and forgiveness in the Bible was untrue, and that the only true parts of the Bible were the ones condemning the wicked to the lake of fire? What Biblical basis do we have for discarding portions of the Bible which contradict certain preconceived notions?

In my opinion, the Bible should be taken as a guide for how one ought to act, and that portions of the Bible which go against our cultural values should be discarded. However, doing this has no scriptural basis. I don't recall seeing any verses saying that one can pick and choose which parts to believe in depending on one's value systems. The Bible describes the beliefs and values of a particular people in a particular time, and it is meant to be taken as a whole. One can certainly pick and choose certain parts of the Bible to accept, but the very act of doing this is un-Biblical in the sense that you have to go against something else written in the Bible.

This is all well and good, but one who does this should consider refraining from declaring other people's interpretations of the Bible as un-Biblical (namely, some protestants and their doctrine of the hellfire and brimstone concept of hell). Their views are no more un-Biblical than yours, and at least they are attempting to take as much of the Bible as they can as truth. This may be illogical, but it is not un-Biblical.

Of course. However, I don't go around declaring that other people are wrong for picking different portions of the salad bar.

That's all well and good, but that's just a single interpretation of the verse. The protestants have yet another interpretation of the verse which states something else. Who is right? There really is no way to determine as we cannot assume that the authors of the Bible (or perhaps Jesus in this case) really meant what you say it means. We just can't assume that they shared the same rules of logic and rationality that we do. Perhaps your interpretation is more plausible to us now, but how can we be so sure that the verse was not talking about something more like what the protestants believe?

This assumes that the Bible must be logically coherent. What you are doing is assuming the truth of the Bible, and then trying to justify that assumption. If parts of the Bible are not logically coherent, then you assume that they are wrong or are misinterpreted. The difference between us is that I don't mind accepting that the Bible is a logically incoherent document. Sure, there may be interpretations and twistings to make it coherent, but this usually involves the deletion or distortion of portions of the Bible. This is all well and good, and Christianity may be better off if more people did that, but the case still stands that such a belief is fundamentally un-Biblical. You are taking the Bible and twisting it into what you want it to say rather than what it really says.

I'm not so sure about this. What verses suggest that your paradigm of salvation is implicitly supported by the Bible?

Of course not. Christianity would likely be better off if people stopped taking the Bible literally. However, one cannot declare that such literalistic interpretations are un-Biblical simply because they are logically incoherent. One can state that those beliefs are illogical and require the shutting down of portions of one's brain, but to state that their beliefs are not supported by the Bible is wrong. To do so requires the presupposition that the Bible is supposed to be a logically coherent document, and that any interpretation which is not logically sound is wrong.

-Nick

Tercel

Because I enjoy discussing the subject.

Some of you guys very clearly have serious issues on the subject. They might not hate "God", but they sure come close sometimes.

Heaven. (Though that's not a certainty)

Tercel

I thought someone might ask that, so I answered it in my very first post in this thread. If you want a more detailed answer, read Collin's article which I linked to in my previous post to you, that is an entire article explaining what are effectively my views on the subject.

If it's logically unsound, it cannot be true. Hence it must be wrong. What does it matter whether it is Biblical or not if it is untrue?

Sounds pretty much right.

Yup.

Yup.

Glad you like it. I'm sorry you don't think it's Biblical.

Er, technically the "damned" can't be saved by definition, but the "would be damned" could be saved, yes.

Yup.

Okay, we agree it's a pleasant proposition.
I think it is in line with the general spirit the Bible was written in. If you take a look at the New Testament epistles, it's really quite astonishing how much time the writers spend exhorting the receipiants to greater love for each other, to put off their old nature, to put on the loving nature of Christ, to allow Christ to transform their minds, to strive for good virtues, that if they have love they can know they are in union with Christ, that if they hate then they can know they are not in union with Christ etc.

Now the writers might well have been very nice people, but do you really think they spent all this time on the subject exhorting the recepiants to this just because they were nice people and when they knew it wasn't actually important? Yeah right. The first epistle of John is pretty blunt: Whoever loves his brother is in union with God, for God is Love, but whoever hates his brother is in darkness and if he says he is in union with God he is a liar.
Paul in one of his letters gives his reason for trying so hard as an apostle - and it's not that he's trying to save people, but that he wants people to grow as mature individuals in union with Christ.

There's heaps of stuff along these lines in the Bible, I and the theologians of the Orthodox church over the centuries didn't magic it out of nowhere.

Do you need a Biblical basis for choosing certain beliefs? This strikes me as curiously protestant. It is the Church that chooses the Bible remember. The Church could have arbitrarily chosen different Bible books entirely which taught something entirely different, had it so desired. Whatever the Church wants to teach, it can.
Your only come-back is that "that Church doctrine disagrees with what the early Christians believed as recorded in the New Testament". That's something extremely hard for you to prove in this case. Very much of what the New Testament epistle writers say, as well as many statements in the Gospels, agree strongly with what the Orthodox teach. And yes, some statements do disagree.
Personally, I think that most all of the New Testament writers would very largely agree with the Orthodox paradigm of salvation.
One of the most famous Bible scholars today, NT Wright, (an Anglican) has done an analysis of Paul’s writings in light of Paul’s Jewish background, What Saint Paul Really Said (which I have unfortunately yet to get my hands on) and apparently come to basically the Orthodox conclusions. (Which understandably upset many Protestants)

They are unbiblical to the extent that their beliefs are based on taking the Bible by the letter rather than by the spirit. They get to their beliefs by grabbing a couple of verses, saying "nothing can possibly disagree with these" and basically construct their whole theology around a few passages. It is far more Biblical to take in the spirit of the ideas being conveyed throughout the Bible and understand those than to do proof-texting based on individual random passages which would allow you to prove anything depending on which one you chose to use.

I was assuming that reality is logically coherent, and saying that if someone’s theology isn’t logically coherent, then it can’t be true. I didn’t have the Bible in mind at all. Since the Orthodox view is virtually the only logically coherent Christian theology, it seems to win by default.

I suggest you start with 1 John, James, Ephesians, Phillipians, Colossians. Every time you see the words “faith in Jesus/God” mentally re-interpret that as “union with Jesus/God” (rather than “belief in Jesus/God”) and as referring to a mystical-type union where the more loving we are the more in union with God we are, and ask yourself how well this fits.

Just remind me why I am trying to convince you my interpretation was Biblical again? Wasn’t I just trying to establish that it is not necessarily the case that hell/the Christian God is evil? I think I’m done that, since you agreed a couple of times that the view I presented wasn’t evil. Your only complaint seems to be that it isn’t Biblical. That seems irrelevant to the question at hand since the Orthodox are certainly Christians whether or not you think they are sufficiently Biblical in their teachings.

Opera Nut

BTW, Tercel, if you want to go back even further in history, read the OT and the five conditions necessary for the True Messiah to show up. Jesus has not met ANY of those conditions. Such as being born of normal parents, named Immanuel, and reunifying all the parts of Israel and restoring the temple at Jerusalem, etc. ......


And to quote Lin Yutang: "If I don't have a body, how can God torture me in Hell?"

To quote Lin Yutang again: "All I know is that if God loves me HALF as much as my mother does, He will not send me to Hell."

That is just so difficult for some people to understand......
:banghead: