Christianity and Suicide

[Jesster]

Please be listening for God's answer to this prayer, I expect Him to answer. 

Okay then. I'll be waiting (although I will add that this was already the case). If your god exists and wants me to know something, I'm sure he'll know what to do. I promise to react with honesty if anything actually does happen.

This is an important question for you now: are you now comfortable with me not believing until I'm shown a reason to believe?

[JackRussell]

Please be listening for God's answer to this prayer, I expect Him to answer. 

Okay then. I'll be waiting (although I will add that this was already the case). If your god exists and wants me to know something, I'm sure he'll know what to do. I promise to react with honesty if anything actually does happen.

This is an important question for you now: are you now comfortable with me not believing until I'm shown a reason to believe?

And when the silence descends, what will you say then? Your God has a strong habit of being silent to so many of us. Especially the it might be very useful to have a supreme being. At least the Marvel comic heroes make some good films these days, if you are in to that. God is omni-silent.

Could one infer non-existence, or just a basic lack of care?

[Godscreated]

Please be listening for God's answer to this prayer, I expect Him to answer. 

Okay then. I'll be waiting (although I will add that this was already the case). If your god exists and wants me to know something, I'm sure he'll know what to do. I promise to react with honesty if anything actually does happen.

This is an important question for you now: are you now comfortable with me not believing until I'm shown a reason to believe?

 Yes, but do I have a choice of being comfortable or not. Again, yes I'm comfortable with it as long as you are not expecting some kind of fireworks answer, it could be that God will do that, but in my experiences He doesn't work that way. Thank you for being positive and honest.
 Another question, do you believe that a person can be a Christian and not know Christ?

GC

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Okay then. I'll be waiting (although I will add that this was already the case). If your god exists and wants me to know something, I'm sure he'll know what to do. I promise to react with honesty if anything actually does happen.

This is an important question for you now: are you now comfortable with me not believing until I'm shown a reason to believe?

And when the silence descends, what will you say then? Your God has a strong habit of being silent to so many of us. Especially the it might be very useful to have a supreme being. At least the Marvel comic heroes make some good films these days, if you are in to that. God is omni-silent.

Could one infer non-existence, or just a basic lack of care?

 One can infer that God is not taking away you freedom of choice. If God were to physically speak or show himself to the world you would have no choice but to believe He is real. When Jesus returns there will be no choice because you will have the physical proof you want, not the faith it takes to be saved.

GC

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@ Luckie, I answered your post with a long reply and then the site wouldn't let me post nor save it as a draft and I've lost it. It's late tonight I will try and re-answer tomorrow.

GC

[Jesster]

Yes, but do I have a choice of being comfortable or not. Again, yes I'm comfortable with it as long as you are not expecting some kind of fireworks answer, it could be that God will do that, but in my experiences He doesn't work that way. Thank you for being positive and honest.

No fireworks needed. Anything will do. As I said, if there is a god who wants me to know him, he'll know what to do to convince me.

Another question, do you believe that a person can be a Christian and not know Christ?

I believe that there are plenty of people labeled Christians throughout the world. What they know or claim to know is on them. It's up to them to sort themselves out; it's not my job. The label itself isn't all too important to me. I just care what people believe and whether they can demonstrate that belief as truth or not. If they don't care to have that belief backed up in any way, then all I really care about is what that individual acts like and how they treat others.

[Astonished]

Okay then. I'll be waiting (although I will add that this was already the case). If your god exists and wants me to know something, I'm sure he'll know what to do. I promise to react with honesty if anything actually does happen.

This is an important question for you now: are you now comfortable with me not believing until I'm shown a reason to believe?

 Yes, but do I have a choice of being comfortable or not. Again, yes I'm comfortable with it as long as you are not expecting some kind of fireworks answer, it could be that God will do that, but in my experiences He doesn't work that way. Thank you for being positive and honest.
 Another question, do you believe that a person can be a Christian and not know Christ?

GC

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And when the silence descends, what will you say then? Your God has a strong habit of being silent to so many of us. Especially the it might be very useful to have a supreme being. At least the Marvel comic heroes make some good films these days, if you are in to that. God is omni-silent.

Could one infer non-existence, or just a basic lack of care?

 One can infer that God is not taking away you freedom of choice. If God were to physically speak or show himself to the world you would have no choice but to believe He is real. When Jesus returns there will be no choice because you will have the physical proof you want, not the faith it takes to be saved.

GC

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@ Luckie, I answered your post with a long reply and then the site wouldn't let me post nor save it as a draft and I've lost it. It's late tonight I will try and re-answer tomorrow.

GC

I cannot for the life of me understand how you can say that and yet still defend a god that is absolutely silent to everyone in the world but you (and also how you can make the assumption you're right and it's the rest of the world that's wrong, given what we know about mental illness). Are you saying your god is that inept at communicating it can't do this? It's outside of that god's power? What a puny bitch god.

Or are you saying that this god doesn't care enough about us to spare us an eternity of hellfire by making his existence plain to those of us who use the skeptical brains he supposedly created us with?

You don't get to have it both ways. Pick one and stick with it or shut the fuck up.

[Godscreated]

Another question, do you believe that a person can be a Christian and not know Christ?

I believe that there are plenty of people labeled Christians throughout the world. What they know or claim to know is on them. It's up to them to sort themselves out; it's not my job. The label itself isn't all too important to me. I just care what people believe and whether they can demonstrate that belief as truth or not. If they don't care to have that belief backed up in any way, then all I really care about is what that individual acts like and how they treat others.

 You are avoiding the question. I'm not asking you to judge anyone. I'm curious about your opinion, what you believe. i know answering the question could mean you will have to look back on you church years, but is that a bad thing.

GC

[Jesster]

I believe that there are plenty of people labeled Christians throughout the world. What they know or claim to know is on them. It's up to them to sort themselves out; it's not my job. The label itself isn't all too important to me. I just care what people believe and whether they can demonstrate that belief as truth or not. If they don't care to have that belief backed up in any way, then all I really care about is what that individual acts like and how they treat others.

 You are avoiding the question. I'm not asking you to judge anyone. I'm curious about your opinion, what you believe. i know answering the question could mean you will have to look back on you church years, but is that a bad thing.

GC

Yes, I am avoiding the question. It's not my place to make that call. Why should it be? This isn't about judging people anyway; It's about judging labels and categories, which I don't care about in this instance.

This is the best I can do for you here: I don't believe in the Christian god, so I don't believe that anyone knows him anyway. I don't have any reason to believe that anyone has anything more than strong belief in this god. If you want to classify Christians this way, then I have no reason to believe anyone is that kind of Christian. This is why I just let people describe their beliefs to me instead. That avoids us wasting time in a conversation squabbling over categories.

[Godscreated]

@GC I'd like to ask again of you since Lek tapped out. What if your wife lost all reason to live after your death, and did the unthinkable? Additionally what if against your baseless beliefs god actually went through with his promise to toss her in hell for eternity ?
You good with that?

First, I know my wife and she is stronger than that so in reality I do not see  such a thing happening. you're asking to play the what if game and as I have said many times I do not play that game, there's to much in life to worry about what ifs. However I will play along this one time. If she did take her life God would not send her to hell, Christians are forgiven all their sins. If you're trying to play the she can't ask for forgiveness because she died, what's to stop here from saying, "God forgive me for what I'm going to do." Now here's the reality of this, Christians are all the time sinning because they do not work within God's will and we do not even know we've sinned in this way. Christ died for the forgiveness of all our sins even those we do not know we committed to ask forgiveness for.

So here's where we left off last we talked about hell and eternity. Got any new zingers now that your wife's soul is on the line?

I continue to believe as I have for years and I gave you the reasons above why she is not in danger. Now to address the verses you have brought to the discussion and thanks for doing so, I'll try to define my belief as I answer these verses.

GC,
Please provide referebce for your claim of your version of hell. This is the hell Ive found biblical reference for :

Romans 1
20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

God is saying when the judgement comes He will point out that He put signs in nature that left no doubt there was a creator. Those being judged will be without an excuse and they will understand and even agree with God they were wrong.

Matthew 25:46 NIV
"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

Agreed, those who have accepted Christ as their savior will enter eternal life and those who rejected Him will go away into eternal punishment as the previous verse says there will be no legitimate excuse. Notice what I bold in the previous sentence, does this mean anything to you?

... And Hell is a sulfery fiery torment for eternity.

Revelations 21
8 But for the cowardly and [d]unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and [e]brimstone, which is the second death.”

I could have put this verses with some of those below but, there is a point I want to address in this verse. The "second death," this is what is meant by the second death, it's like the first death, both are spiritual the separation from God. God told Adam and Eve if the disobeyed Him they would surely die and they did they first died the spiritual death of separation from God and then later the physical death came. The difference between the first death and the second is Christ. We can be redeemed from the first death through Christ, there is no redemption from the second death, it is an eternal separation from God.

Revelations 14 (NEW TESTAMENT)
9 A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives its mark on their forehead or on their hand, 10 they, too, will drink the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. They will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. 11 And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever. There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name.”

You should have placed the verses 6-15 here because they are all tied together.  Verses 6 and 7 are about the gospel of Christ bringing salvation, the God of creation in verse 7 refers to Christ. You can go back to John chapter 1 to see the relationship. 
Verse 8 shows us Christ's defeat of sin and death.
Verse 9 tells us is the judgement of those who rejected Christ and the punishment they face. I see the fire and brimstone as God explaining how terrible it will be to be separated from Him, man for the most part can't imagine a worse thing to happen than to burn to death, let lone to suffer that pain for eternity. Man can not understand what it's like to be separated from God and His love not even the lost up to this point has suffered the separation from God. The smoke of the doomed is their cry of agony of living without God and in their sin and hate. This is why God made Adam and Eve leave the Garden of Eden, if they had eaten of the Tree of Life they would have lived in their sin forever. This is found in Genesis 3. 

Revelations 19
“Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for true and just are his judgments. He has condemned the great prostitute who corrupted the earth by her adulteries. He has avenged on her the blood of his servants.”

And again they shouted: “Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up for ever and ever.”

The rejoicing is for God staying true to His word and also for the defeat of sin, death and Lucifer. These three are the great prostitute. They're not rejoicing because the lost are condemned to an eternal punishment, but that God over came the prostitute to give eternal life to those who chose Christ.

Revelations 20:10
And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beastu and the false prophetv had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

John 3:36
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him.

The wrath of God has been on all of us at one point, when we believe in Christ the Son of God that wrath is removed, this is the simplicity of salvation so that even the least can understand and be saved. God's wrath is His judgement, the lake of burning sulfur is the punishment the lost chose for their eternal destination. Like I said above I believe the lake of burning sulfur is complete separation from God, not an actual lake of fire.
 

(Rev. 19:19-21)

But the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who had performed the miraculous signs on his behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped his image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur.

1 John 5:12
He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

Acts 4:12
12 "And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved."

1 John 5:10-12
The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning His Son. And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.

Matthew 10:33
33 "But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.

Revelation 19 above is the promised punishment for Lucifer and his henchmen. The verses from 1st John, Acts and Matthew are about the salvation for man from that punishment if we will accept Christ as the One who brings that freedom through what He did on the cross. This is referenced in Revelation 14:6 as I stated earlier. Salvation is a simple plan, it is painful for the spirit of man to admit his own fallen nature, that short lived pain is nothing compared to the eternal pain of living with the sin we can be freed from.

Revelations 14
9 For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.

Jeremiah states,

"`How can you say, "We [the Jews] are wise, for we have the law of the LORD," when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely?' (From the NIV Bible, Jeremiah 8:8)

The verse above isn't from Revelation 14, it sounds like it comes from Paul's writings not sure where though.
The Jeremiah verse is not saying that the scriptures were corrupted by these scribes, these are false prophets who miss interpret the scripture to mislead the people of God. These scribes are doing the same things Christ accused the Pharisees of in His day. 

 I haven't answered your question because it took me many years of study, prayer and coming to an understanding of God to come to my belief of hell, I've stated many times it's not what most believe but for me it's the one that makes sense. I believe that the way I see hell makes it far worse than a hell of fire, physical pain can be far less painful than the mental anguish people bring upon their lives and to have eternity to do so, well I can't think of a worse way to live. Also the one doing the punishing isn't God, God is giving people a place to live their self made punishment. Man can not understand what it's like to be without any love, especially God's love. Even though many do not believe in Him that doesn't mean they do not receive His love, I believe that's why hell is described as a place of fire and brimstone, man's limited mind can not understand anything worse. For me this ties all the verses about the judgement and punishment together and shows that those who reject Christ are responsible for their punishment and how bad that punishment is. There are different levels of punishment, those levels are made by the individuals who have no redemption of their sins through Christ. I still stand behind this earlier statement though I've made some changes that are in the bold, hopefully to make it clearer.

GC

[/quote]

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 You are avoiding the question. I'm not asking you to judge anyone. I'm curious about your opinion, what you believe. i know answering the question could mean you will have to look back on you church years, but is that a bad thing.

GC

Yes, I am avoiding the question. It's not my place to make that call. Why should it be? This isn't about judging people anyway; It's about judging labels and categories, which I don't care about in this instance.

This is the best I can do for you here: I don't believe in the Christian god, so I don't believe that anyone knows him anyway. I don't have any reason to believe that anyone has anything more than strong belief in this god. If you want to classify Christians this way, then I have no reason to believe anyone is that kind of Christian. This is why I just let people describe their beliefs to me instead. That avoids us wasting time in a conversation squabbling over categories.

 
 I do not see this as a category or a label, what I'm asking is this, according to the Bible can a person be a Christian without knowing Christ. This is more like a partial book analysis, just looking for an opinion on what the scriptures say about being a Christian. There will be no judgement from me on this I'm curious about what you believe the bible says on this point.

GC

[Jesster]

 I do not see this as a category or a label, what I'm asking is this, according to the Bible can a person be a Christian without knowing Christ. This is more like a partial book analysis, just looking for an opinion on what the scriptures say about being a Christian. There will be no judgement from me on this I'm curious about what you believe the bible says on this point.

GC

Again, you're fishing for an answer from me where there is none. How can I believe in the knowledge of a god if I don't believe in the god? The bible doesn't mean anything to me at this point. I don't keep one handy and I'm not about to go fishing one out now either. It's a waste of time for me because I don't believe in any of it. It's a far better use of my time while dealing with religious people to talk to them about what they believe. I have no beliefs here, so why don't you tell me yours instead so we can actually accomplish something?

This is the best I can give you here, GC. This isn't about judgement to me. It's about following a line of logic.

[Astonished]

 I do not see this as a category or a label, what I'm asking is this, according to the Bible can a person be a Christian without knowing Christ. This is more like a partial book analysis, just looking for an opinion on what the scriptures say about being a Christian. There will be no judgement from me on this I'm curious about what you believe the bible says on this point.

GC

Again, you're fishing for an answer from me where there is none. How can I believe in the knowledge of a god if I don't believe in the god? The bible doesn't mean anything to me at this point. I don't keep one handy and I'm not about to go fishing one out now either. It's a waste of time for me because I don't believe in any of it. It's a far better use of my time while dealing with religious people to talk to them about what they believe. I have no beliefs here, so why don't you tell me yours instead so we can actually accomplish something?

This is the best I can give you here, GC. This isn't about judgement to me. It's about following a line of logic.

Cracks me the fuck up that this cowardly punk-ass is basically asking you to play the what-if game but won't do it himself. What a little bitch! Fucking hilarious. But I suppose if he thinks he's made in god's image, that speaks a lot about what he thinks about god's nature...cowardly little bitches both of 'em. Won't even answer any of my questions anymore even when I'm the mood not to call him on his bullshit and be civil. You have more patience than his god, to be sure, Jess, putting up with his nonsense.