GunnerJ

Just a thouhgt: she's shifting the burden of proof here. You don't have to prove any negative statement, it is her job to prove that everyone has, in fact, felt god's presense or whatever. You are correct by default until she backs her statement up.

Kosh

There's actually an article about that *somewhere* in the lib here (don't ask me where). It points out that roughly 90% of those witnessed to don't believe. So in essence, yes, Xians would be doing the world a favor by shutting up.

Notice that this means that Xians would be responsible for sending 90% of the evangelized to Hell....

[ September 20, 2002: Message edited by: Kosh ]</p>

lpetrich

The traditional belief is that all non-Xians will go to hell, because they are tainted with Original Sin.

However, some, like Dante, have pictured virtuous pagans as being in some relatively mild corner of hell.

Evil Milkman

So if in fact each non-Christian doesn't get some direct message from God or the message of the Gospels from another human, then they're just flat out of luck? In all fairness, he's no responsible for his judgement. He had no idea...

The only explanation I have in this case is that Christianity is just another silly cult (assuming the other religions are false, too). I can't believe in a supreme power that would send innocents to hell because of utter lack of knowlege. That god is impossible.

By the way, I'm still waiting on Biblical back up from St. Robert. You know who you are.

St. Robert

The entire Bible is about God perfectly and justly keeping his covenant promises with the nation of Israel and the Jews. The final and everlasting convenant or Gospel, which was extended to the entire Gentile world is no different.

A person obviously can't enter into a convenant relationship that they don't know exists.

Why would a person who has heard the Gospel and rejects it as true be concerned about the fate of people who haven't heard the Gospel?

Do you have greater concern for someone elses eternal destiny than your own? If so, why?

[ September 22, 2002: Message edited by: St. Robert ]

[ September 22, 2002: Message edited by: St. Robert ]</p>

Icky

"Why would a person who has heard the Gospel and rejects it as true be concerned about the fate of people who haven't heard the Gospel?"

This must be the thousandth time I've seen this "argument" used to avoid this question. Is the concept of empathy foreign to you?
=============================
John 3:16
For God so loved the world that He sacrificed Himself to Himself to appease Himself, and if any hairless apes believe this story He won't be forced to torture them, in His mercy, for all eternity.

[ September 22, 2002: Message edited by: Icky ]</p>

Waning Moon Conrad

THAT sums up Christianity's stupidity in a most elegant nutshell.

Waning Moon Conrad

One might be curious about the depths of depravity of the god that Christians believe in. One might be curious about why they believe in such a cruel and twisted deity.

I ask patients at work why they believe certain stuff all the time. It's handy to know just how mad or demented they really are.

Waning Moon Conrad

If God lets people into heaven who never heard the gospels - providing that they were decent people - then there is no need for Christ in the first place because decency earns grace.

It really is that simple.

Why bother doing a Christ and then finding oneself bound to burn some people for eternity, even though they were decent because one said one would?

GunnerJ

There's an even deeper problem for Xianity in this argument than has been touched on. The reason for all these objections is that we assume, provisionally, that Xianity and the Gospels are true and the work of an all-knowing god. If we assume, though, that Xianity is a false, human-made cult invented by disenfranchised peasants in a backwater province of the Roman Empire who saw the borders of the Roman Empire as the extent of the world and who assumed that the worlds would end in a metter of months, then all the problems cited dissapear, and the claims of the Gospels actually make sense.

The evidence and logic better fit a theory other than that which assumes Xianity is true.