I must be really powerful and scary because it hasn't even tried coming anywhere near me, or sending me any messages.

(May 11, 2016 at 1:04 pm)robvalue Wrote: I must be really powerful and scary because it hasn't even tried coming anywhere near me, or sending me any messages.

Lose the iron chariot and see what happens.

(May 11, 2016 at 1:01 pm)drfuzzy Wrote: So - you're saying essentially the same thing that I said.  You're saying that that other guys are wrong.  They claim to be led by the Holy Spirit too, but either the Spirit's message is being blocked or warped, by their own preconceived notions or wrong teachers.  My point is if the Holy Spirit was capable of sending a clear and concise message, there would be no blockage, and no wrong teachers.   Everyone who was being led by the Holy Spirit would be in total agreement - no matter which church, which version of the Bible, which culture or language.

Wait, so you're saying they're just making this "inspired by the holy specter" interpretation stuff up?

Mind... blown...

Missing here is the idea that different people will have various and different responses to the Divine. Ironically anti-religious bigotry cannot tolerate dissent from their own rejection of the Divine.

(May 11, 2016 at 4:06 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Missing here is the idea that different people will have various and different responses to the Divine. Ironically anti-religious bigotry cannot tolerate dissent from their own rejection of the Divine.

You might have a point if these "different responses to the Divine" weren't equally as intolerant of each other. Liberal Christians and fundamentalists have historically spent as much energy attacking each other as they have attacking the non-believers.

(May 10, 2016 at 12:43 pm)Godschild Wrote:

(May 9, 2016 at 5:02 pm)fruyian Wrote:

---

I believe your post may be moot as I did imply in my post that I did study the bible and the Christian religion.. I was a Christian when I was young, went to a Christian school, not only was I told bout and read parts of the bible.. all of the children's version, went to church and re-read the bible when I was older. And I can honestly say I can and have the right to condemn all of it. So I will repeat, I am intellectually sophisticated in this area.

fruyian

 By the statements you made you must have been reading something besides the Bible, your statements do not reflect what the scriptures say about heaven, so it was correct for me to point out your lack of biblical understanding.

GC

Not really, I never said I was referring just to the bible only, did I, I was referring to the religion as a whole, Christianity. Assuming that salvation is necessary, and assuming that you have lived in a way to merit salvation, and/or assuming that anyone at all is saved, the final question becomes: saved for what? Just what is it that all those happily "saved" people are supposed to get, anyway?

The standard response is that saved people go to heaven. Just what "heaven" entails is always very murky. At one time, people seemed to think that saved souls would float around on clouds playing harps. Today, anyone asked this question will offer the more evasive "live in the presence of God" - as if that really explained anything.

Because this is supposed to be the ultimate goal, it's worth asking for more details. Just what is it we're supposed to be working for? What is it that I'm supposed to reshape my life for? The Bible offers some indications of what heaven is like, but predictably, most people trying to sell you on the idea of heaven don't want to be reminded of those passages. For the most part, they don't depict anything all that grand.

Wars in Heaven

Dennis McKinsey quotes 7 verses and a parable describing heaven in some fashion; unfortunately, some of the qualities described are downright awful.

Quote:And there was war in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels.
Rev. 12:7

Quote:And the armies of heaven, wearing fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses.
Rev. 19:14

Admittedly, these two passages seem to take place at The End and don't presume to describe the normal conditions in heaven. However, the fact of the matter is heaven is usually depicted as being a perfect place to be - yet if that is the case, how can it experience a war?

Violence in Heaven

Quote:From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.
Matt. 11:12

Here, we see that the "kingdom of heaven" can suffer violence. Is the "kingdom of heaven" the same as heaven? There is no reason to think otherwise - causing us to wonder why we should want to strive to reach a place where the "violent" can take over.

Class & Status in Heaven

The above passage from Matthew is in reference to John the Baptist, and is immediately preceded by the following description of him:

Quote:Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
Matt. 11:11

Clearly, the "kingdom of heaven" has levels of status: some are least while others are first. Although God can create any sort of class system it wants, does that really describe your idea of a "perfect" existence?

Heaven is Not Eternal

Quote:Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
Matt 24:34-35

Heaven will eventually pass away? Well, so much for the claim that heaven is a state of eternal bliss or eternal communion with God. Heaven may last a really, really long time, but according to Jesus, it is temporary like the earth is temporary.
All in all, McKinsey cites some interesting passages which do not in any way support the general impression among Christians that heaven is a great place to go. So what is the basis for the idea that heaven is really a place worth striving for? That's something worth asking the next evangelist who accosts you. If they cannot find any biblical basis for a wonderful heaven, be sure to question where the more commonly-held conception of heaven comes from, because conservative evangelicals are opposed to "adding" anything to the biblical text.

Hey according to some theists who want to split away from their fundamentalists counterparts who say don't take the bible literally, take it metaphorically and get what you can get from it. I thought it was ones interpretation/perception of the bible is what theist say is their religion.. well that is my interpretation. And I can say without a doubt my perception/interpretation is the more correct one, it seems to me, be it taking a critical analytical view of it or and being less biased than say a Christian. It seems correct to me but maybe not to you. Maybe we can agree to disagree and leave it there but I think that is not going to occur, not anytime soon. It looks to me that you think there is only one way the bible can be interpreted and that miraculously just happens to be your way.. which makes your side, I would have to say, less valid. Like I said before, I know the bible, Christianity and Religion. I know it as I was once IT, so to speak. Religion is essentially totalitarian in nature, servility and most extraordinary solipsism, people desiring an eternal figure bossing them around with rules. Go by these rules and you will not have to worry and go to an imaginary afterlife for it. The bible is the rule book. People think it's all true and unerring, can only be taken a certain way. Spend hours and hours every day and a whole day of the week praising this totalitarian tyrannical dictatorial mythical leader is a form of servility. Slave like mentality.. someone controlling every aspect of their life.. but this is in ones mind which brings it to a form of mind forgery. Many of this came from the bible be it intentionally or unintentionally, but throughout history, the bible itself was intentionally used to gain a level of certain authority of the masses aka credulity and servility of sorts. One would also have to be very arrogant to think the bible wasn't manipulated in some way for this. Abide by the bible and by what it says or bad things will happen. Simply phrased but the point is still valid. I know this.. you may not like it, but saying that I am wrong because you don't like what I say or it's different than your what interpretation is, does not make you right. You can suggest I am wrong but that does not make you right. Me being an atheist and once a Christian, allows me to be able to think critically and freely on this matter without constantly looking over my shoulder out of guilt to a celestial  supernatural unproven person. Me, after reading the footnotes of both the Quran and the Torah (Halfway through the Quran), makes my position slight, I am sorry to say, slightly advantageous. Well I think so. This plus the added fact that myself of no religion allows for the most part able to view and criticise all religious the same with little to no bias. You can disagree all you want, of which I am sure you will do but again does not make you right. Heaven sits back and watches around 98.8 species on this planet to go extinct and for roughly about 95 thousand years watches the human species die horrible and cruel deaths at around age of 25-30, children and often mothers die in childbirth, people die-ing agonisingly of poor dental make-up, diseases, earthquakes and so on. Thousands and thousands of generations, miserable, illiterate, starving, hungry. Not knowing whats going on and we nearly became extinct and joining the 98.8 percent. But heaven said around 4-5 thousand years ago, no, this should not be allowed to go on. A place that not only allowed this to happen then demands people to follow them and go by rules set out, take a day off for me, kneel before me and then, you will have a chance of an everlasting life of admiring me, and if not be destroyed in hellfire. That to me is very tyrannical indeed. Master and slave relation right there. As Hitch said, this is a doctrine that cannot be believed by anyone who studied anything scientific, anything historical, anything archaeological, anything paleological, anything biological. No, can’t be believed by anyone. It can be only be believed by someone who wants to be a play thing and a slave of a pitiless, totalitarian power. One may if they want find the odd few religious people who are scientists and believe this but the consensus holds true. Nearly every major religion has described heaven to be praising their dear leader from dawn till dusk. I didn't even go in to the validity claims of an after life or a god as well. There is no evidence to suggest they exist and if there was, where is the nobel prize for it? Who was the magnificent person who won that prize and a million dollars? So my account of this is based on a more critical and logical, analysis, my interpretation and most importantly evidence.  In conclusion, I think the idea of the afterlife is nonsensical, but in addition to being nonsensical, it is also often used to manipulate people. The fact that an idea is used to manipulate and control people does not make it wrong necessarily, but I do think we ought to subject it to heightened scrutiny Religion is totalitarian in it's practice and in it's theory.  It claims to know things it can't know.  It claims to have powers it cannot have. It says if you make the right propitiations and the right donations, you may get paradise, and if you don't you may get an eternity of pain, that includes by the way the souls of all unbaptised children. If you really think about it eternity in the afterlife doesn't really seem that great at all. Even if your'e not in hell, external existence seems like it would be rather tedious. Some people say when one gets a bad life in this life they will get a better in another.. I don't get this nor is there any evidence for this but I also do think it's horrible. If suffering is part of the plan, it makes us all pawns in some weird game Yahweh/God is playing. And if it's the result of free will (despite the fact he commands us to have it a follow his rules), then free will is a horrible thing to allow. How can heaven be that great if the whole time you're there you would know that there are people (perhaps people who were close to you) suffering eternal torment in hell? and if somehow again cannot be proven but somehow one doesn't feel this remorse due to some set requirements, how can that person be the real you? So many questions. One can never be certain of an afterlife, as it is essentially not proven rather not testable.. so if someone doesn't really know what the afterlife is and still claims it's possibility makes no sense. If you don't know what the afterlife is, then how can you evaluate its possibility? I don't believe in the afterlife nor do I believe in the afterlife is possible because I don't understand what it would even mean for the process of experience to continue after the processor (i.e the brain) is destroyed. Until we, as a species, moe specific, science can establish what that even means, I don't know how we can speculate about the possibility of an afterlife.

(May 11, 2016 at 4:06 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Missing here is the idea that different people will have various and different responses to the Divine. Ironically anti-religious bigotry cannot tolerate dissent from their own rejection of the Divine.

And "the Divine" is, exactly?  Are you using this as a synonym for the "Holy Spirit"?  Is it a synonym for "Transcendence"?  People in the middle of a voodoo ceremony feel transcendence.  People fall into trances, it's group-think influencing the brain.  

GC was asserting that his interpretation of the scriptures were guided by the "Holy Spirit", and therefore HIS interpretation was correct and conflicting interpretations - from others who also believe that they are guided by the "Holy Spirit" - are wrong.  
     So, either the "Holy Spirit" is telling a whole bunch of preachers wildly different and often highly contradictory interpretations, or the preachers are pulling their interpretations out of their own imagination, and appealing to the authority of the nonexistent "Holy Spirit" to make themselves seem credible.  If the assertion is that ALL the interpretations are correct, (or even that only a few are correct and many are wrong, because of _____ ) then the your vague and contradictory "Holy Spirit" is the direct cause for all the schisms in Christianity.  


It's much more plausible that someone claiming to be guided by the "Holy Spirit" in correct interpretation of the scriptures is pulling their interpretation out of their own mind, and the claim of guidance is just another appeal to the authority of an imaginary friend. And this assertion of guidance is frequently made by someone who has not studied the original languages, the history and culture of the authors, or any other real scholarly examination of the text.  No, it's much more fun to use the bible as a ouija board.

(May 11, 2016 at 9:08 am)ChadWooters Wrote: Atheist obsessions with theological purity reveals the noninclusive scrupulousness of their mindset. The vast majority of Christians are very ecumenical. We agree on the widely accepted essentials, like the Lordship of Jesis Christ,  but can amicably disagree over lesser issues like infant baptism. The atheistic critic that somehow thinks varieties of religious expression are a sign of incoherence is one that cannot differentiate between things that matter and those that do not.

Then why don't all of the sects drop "those that do not" matter?

I've got an idea on that, to the sect, they actually do matter.

(is it a sin to misspell it/their name?)

Ref. Post #66: That comment has to be the longest-assed paragraph ever posted on this forum. I doubt if anyone read it.

(May 11, 2016 at 2:13 am)Wyrd of Gawd Wrote:

(May 11, 2016 at 1:56 am)Godschild Wrote: [hide]

The Southern Baptists = the church for the slave owners.  If there's a lake of fire they need to be tossed into it for eternity.

 
 You're about stupid you know that, why can't atheist let go of something that happened 150 years ago. You do know atheist are responsible for the present sex slave trade don't you. 

GC