(November 17, 2017 at 4:43 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: Seems like there are many things in Scripture that are indeterminate. Sometimes I think God is intentionally being unclear so people will puzzle over the Word and by doing so grow in wisdom.

Yep. As I often cite:

Prov 25
It is the glory of God to conceal a matter,
But the glory of kings is to search out a matter.

Hodge's Systematic Theology notes that the world is full of data. Science is the practice of organizing the data in meaningful ways and examining relationships among the data. Similarly, the Bible is full of data. Theology is the practice of organizing the data in meaningful ways and examining relationships among the data.

(November 17, 2017 at 12:34 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: In Catholicism we don't have anything about a loyalty/reward scheme.

With that being said, some protestant denominations believe that all you need to do to "go to Heaven" is to believe in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, and if you are not a Christian you go to Hell. They believe faith alone will get them to Heaven.

We believe it is much more involved/less simplistic than that, and we do acknowledge that a person who is Christian *may* go to Hell, and one who isn't *may not*.

Basically, it depends entirely on the state of your soul. If you are in a state of mortal sin, you go to Hell. That sounds simple enough, but the tricky part is that we have no way of knowing whether or not a person's soul is in a state of mortal sin. We can't even officially say that about Hitler, Stallin, or Mao, for example. Because in determining the state of someone's soul, every single thing about that person is taken into account. And since we can't read minds and see a person's entire life experiences, we can't make any judgements on their soul.

Hitler, Stalin, Mao in the same sentence, erm where have I heard that before, hang on CL I will be back

(November 17, 2017 at 12:34 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: In Catholicism we don't have anything about a loyalty/reward scheme.

With that being said, some protestant denominations believe that all you need to do to "go to Heaven" is to believe in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, and if you are not a Christian you go to Hell. They believe faith alone will get them to Heaven.

We believe it is much more involved/less simplistic than that, and we do acknowledge that a person who is Christian *may* go to Hell, and one who isn't *may not*.

Basically, it depends entirely on the state of your soul. If you are in a state of mortal sin, you go to Hell. That sounds simple enough, but the tricky part is that we have no way of knowing whether or not a person's soul is in a state of mortal sin. We can't even officially say that about Hitler, Stallin, or Mao, for example. Because in determining the state of someone's soul, every single thing about that person is taken into account. And since we can't read minds and see a person's entire life experiences, we can't make any judgements on their soul.

According to the biblical fairy tale when you kick the bucket you go to either death, the sea, or to hell.  The good news is that all three are temporary and everyone makes bail on Judgment Day.  And just because you spent time in hell it doesn't prevent you from advancing into the gaudy golden cube called "New Jerusalem" but you have to be able to enter through one of the twelve gates restricted to the tribes of Israel.  

And then death and hell are tossed into the lake of fire and the seas cease to exist.  

It seems that most people actually buy into the Islamic version in which on Judgment Day people get tossed into hell and are tortured forever.  In the Islamic version most of the people who are in hell are women.  

So it's important to know the details of one's favorite ancient ethnocentric Middle Eastern religious fairy tale if they want to believe in it.  There are major differences between all of them.  So a Christian shouldn't believe in the eternal punishment of the Islamic hell.  The Christian hell is temporary and ceases to exist after Judgment Day.  Then it's the lake of fire but that's not hell.

^^^ The certainty of some believers is no match for the certainty of some atheists. That's for sure.

(November 17, 2017 at 4:54 pm)Wyrd of Gawd Wrote: Then it's the lake of fire but that's not hell.

Close enough, considering we're dealing with people who tend to think that Satan has a tail and a pitchfork and such.

Wyrd is weird.

(November 17, 2017 at 5:42 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: Wyrd is weird.

Define weird, I think you are not a lost cause, I'm here for a chat anytime. I wish you would stop backing up people like Alpha mole and Neo the plastic,
you seem like a reasonable person.

(November 17, 2017 at 5:54 pm)Cod Wrote: ...I wish you would stop backing up people like Alpha mole and Neo the plastic,...

At the very least you could capitalize 'Plastic'.

(November 17, 2017 at 6:32 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:

(November 17, 2017 at 5:54 pm)Cod Wrote: ...I wish you would stop backing up people like Alpha mole and Neo the plastic,...

At the very least you could capitalize 'Plastic'.

Noted...

(November 17, 2017 at 5:54 pm)Cod Wrote:

(November 17, 2017 at 5:42 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: Wyrd is weird.

Define weird, I think you are not a lost cause, I'm here for a chat anytime. I wish you would stop backing up people like Alpha mole and Neo the plastic,
you seem like a reasonable person.

What do you mean by a lost cause? If they say something I agree, of course I'm going to "back it up" lol.