On the subject of Hell and Salvation

[fredd bear]

I'm going to confess that I've made a mistake here, and that is that I never should've mentioned thermodynamics.

However, the criticisms against my very simple claims can all be very adequately rebutted. Some of you are completely off the mark, and are putting words in my mouth, but that kind of behavior is par for the course here and I'm tired of combing through mountains of text to correct your mistakes. EDIT: Upon further investigation, there may not have been any mistakes. In any case I should not be making scientific arguments given my poor understanding of these things. My apologies.

The rest is debatable science, which merely brings us back to the same argument I originally posed. Apparently none of us here are experts on the subject matter, and it ultimately comes down to "who do you believe?" Sounds like you believe men; I believe God. What more is there to say?

You believe men as well, just men who believed or at least wrote that they were in touch with God.  Thus your distinction is moot, but well worth remarking upon.  Many people claim to believe God or to know the truth of the bible and its morals, when what they are really doing is choosing to believe the bible, theologians, or Christian morality for their own personal reasons.  Many times those personal reasons reduce to believing the bible, or "God" (as expressed by the writers of the bible) because it is what they have already chosen to believe for whatever reason.  Those reasons are ultimately impeachable even if God himself is not.  Many times, if not all times, these are simply examples of what psychologists term "motivated reasoning."  Reasoning to a conclusion you already hold because you hold it.  You claim to believe God, but the simple fact is that you do not know any God directly, and have simply adopted conclusions to fit your prejudices.  That's not believing "men" at all, but simply believing one person, yourself, and whatever reasons or lack thereof which led you to those conclusions.  You were previously asked, "How can you show what you believe (and I believe that you believe) is anything more than a belief ?" and rather than answer that question, you chose to deflect and reassert a prior assertion instead.  I'd like an answer to that question, or a link to where you've answered it in the past.  How can you show that what you believe is true?  Why do you believe the bible?  And how do you "know" anything about God and what God has to say on anything in order to claim that you believe Him?

 Excellent post.

The words 'brick" and 'wall' have just popped into my head, I don't know why.   

Pretty confronting stuff. Miles simply cannot afford to accept your reasoning; it challenges his entire world view. Same with the rest of them.
Personal beliefs, and attitudes are inculcated well before the age of reason . The child simply accepts anything it is told by an adult. In my opinion , very few people ever question their world view. Atheists are atypical.

Not sure about adult  conversions. I can only surmise such people tend to be lost, perhaps having been deeply wounded by abuse or rejection. Certainly has nothing to do with reason.

In coming here to arrogantly confront heathen atheists, and 'tell them the news" [about Jesus and the gospel] such people run the risk of being deconverted by relentless reason. Of course with perhaps one exception, I think that's unlikely. Our christians are too thick skinned ,too wilfully ignorant , and too unaware to be in any danger of accepting reason and science as valid..