On the subject of Hell and Salvation

[possibletarian]

No. I'd say that God gives people common sense. Everything about us is determined by God, including our ability to make sense of things.

That's the question though, how do you know that ? So far as I can tell you are simply making declarations of what you believe to be true, you could just as easily be from any religion, creed, or school of thought.

For one, He is not man-created, but I understand you're just being deliberately condescending.

Again this is nothing more than a statement of men, how do you determine if it's any more than that? I'm not trying to be condescending, just asking how you have come to the determination that your statement is true, what your source for that is, and why you believe it.

Naturally, the Creator of physics isn't subject to its laws. That's not exactly a difficult thing to comprehend.

We have yet to determine a creator, how is it anything more than simply a statement of men if we have no means at all to test it.

Who says there were any laws preceding our universe?

I have no idea if there were any laws preceding our universe, that's the point, neither do you.

What evidence do you have to suggest there were?

I'm just suggesting it as one of along list of possibilities, really i have no evidence whatsoever, I'm happy to say i don't know.

And I tell you, if something cannot come from nothing, according to natural laws, then the source of existence must be supernatural.

We have yet to show that anything came from nothing, you have no idea if there was an anything or not before the universe any more than I do. It's certainly counter intuitive to think something can come from nothing but we have yet to establish there was ever a nothing, if nothing is even a plausible concept. The pre universe may have been very different and not like our universe at all, who knows ?

It still baffles me how this is such a difficult concept to grasp.

It still baffles me why religionist of all types insist that there was nothing, when they could not possibly have knowledge of that

And you'll cry "the burden of proof is on you!"

Actually no, i long since gave up that battle cry, all these years and I've never seen a religionist produce anything convincing.

No, it isn't. The burden of proof is on God, and He has provided it in many, many ways.

Can you name a few which you can show evidence are from a god, any type of god will do to make it easy for you.

Just because it isn't good enough for you doesn't mean it isn't good enough. You are not the arbiter of the standards of proof. He is, and He is very, very reasonable.

Well show me what convinced you, and why it convinced you then maybe we can understand.

I've spent plenty of time on forums getting into the nitty-gritty about things like DNA and the Higgs-Boson stuff. And one thing I'll say is that it never goes anywhere, and the people who cite these scientists as credible have a tenuous grasp on the subject matter themselves and are simply appealing to authority, which is a cheap tactic and very stupid.

Yes we get that you discard science because it does not agree with you, the thing is though it's very reliable i use it every day in fact writing to you I'm using scientific principles which work great. The Higgs-Boson was something that was predicted, it no longer exists in our universe but science suspected that it must have existed in the first few seconds of the big bang, they ran a test and were proved correct.

If you claim that these scientist have a very tenuous grasp on the subject matter, can you show me some 'true godly science' that is provable ?
Preferably from good accredited institutions.

Men lie about everything, including science. Take "Climategate" for instance. There have also been many hoaxes about evolution. Men are not infallible and certainly shouldn't be trusted,

They lie about gods too, including yours, which brings me back to the bible, also written by men, why do you quote it as truth ?

but people like you would much prefer to put your faith in men than God. You are receiving the due penalty for your error.

I would like to know the truth yes of course, I don't find anything but mythology in religions though, and yes till you can show me there is a god why put your trust in myth ?

I don't wave away science as of the devil, but nice try. Science has its uses. My problem with science is that it has filled men with hubris.
People respect scientists for some reason, even though they're probably responsible for just as much death as any religion.

Oh the products of science are responsible for many deaths of that there is no doubt at all, but science itself is not evil or good, it is simply a trusty methodology to come to a conclusion, that's a bit like saying maths is and responsible for death because someone was able to calculate a trajectory for an artillery piece, and just like religionist the good or bad is done by people. The difference with religion is you get people claiming the authority of a deity as a reason to go kill people. science does not do that.

We have virtually no understanding of things like biology,

What would you consider a good understanding, and why ?

yet we think it's okay to genetically modify our food.

Which has been done very successfully

Cancer kills millions when it's easily curable (if caught early enough) without radiation or chemotherapy,

which does happen, people even have regression. but like you say you have to catch it early enough. science has helped greatly in this, unfortunately your god (or any other deity) has failed to give us a good way of doing this, so any benefit is down to the science that finds it not wishful thinking. I think you are making my point here not yours.

treatments which actually CAUSE cancer.

So you are saying they do more harm overall than good, do you have any evidence for that ?

The speed of light changed several times in the 20th century,

Certainly they think it's possible it isn't a constant, that's the beauty of science as new evidence emerges treatments, cures get much better people live longer and are healthier, no thanks to holy texts though.

here' a good article https://www.livescience.com/29111-speed-...stant.html

along with the supposed age of the universe. Astronomy is just as big a mystery to us as anything else,

Well astronomy isn't a mystery, the universe may well be, but again science ah given us more information about the universe than anything in scripture

yet you and others cry that you have the answers

Actually I've repeatedly said there is much I don't know, as will most scientists

or that your stupid and ineffective methods of determining the truth of a matter are the only valid ones.

They are reliable in everyday life and trustworthy yes.

You say to hell with God because your opinion of yourself is so high that you think you don't need Him.

I never tell beings I have no reason to believe exist to go to hell, i assume though that if such a being existed he would know what would convince me.  

By the grace of God, but it's also in the Bible.

Which you believe why ?

Well if you're fine with your own explanation about the purpose/nature of evil, then I won't try to change your mind.

Well do you have another that's more evident ?

I certainly do believe it to be true. Of course, the one who is wrong won't be able to see the difference,

Isn't that just a variation on I'm right you are wrong, but without any reason to declare it so ?

just as you can't see the sense in what I'm saying. And that's partly why faith is required.

So just believing without proof is a good thing, even needed , but how do you then distinguish that from no god at all ?

The world will scream at you that you're wrong when you speak the Truth, because the world hates the Truth. It only matters for the one who can see it. I realize that's not a satisfactory answer to you, but if so then it was never supposed to be satisfactory to you.

Again all religionists say the same, along with conspiracy theorists and cults, how are we to tell the difference ?

No. The idea of subjective reality is a big problem in the world today. Moral relativism is destroying everything. To call it "my truth" would be like saying water doesn't exist. It just isn't true.

Great, now we are getting somewhere I'm so glad you agree, so you will be happy to answer the question I've been asking the last few posts .. how do you determine that what you believe to be true, is actually true ? If you say 'partly faith' then lets be clear that faith can get you to literally any idea, crackpot or otherwise, hell it may even be true, but you would need something significantly better than faith at determining that truth.

What you really need is to be brought to a place where you actually want God to exist.

I'm not even sure what that means, I don't want to be deluded just out of a phycological need to have something exists.. do you ?

You have no idea whether or not you'd run from it.

well i was actually responding to you telling us atheists ran from it !!

How would you respond to someone telling you that you needed to be crucified? Assuming you believed it, you would probably run.

Of course, but i wouldn't run from the truth of something i would still like to know if it was true or not, even if i later lied to save my own skin.

Your equating God with superman is the kind of condescension that typifies the arrogant people on forums such as these. No wonder you've been blinded.

I wasn't equating god with anything, just that saying that IF a certain proposition is true, does not make what what follows true. For example i might say 'IF Allah exists, then Islam is true'. that does not make Islam true, it would have to be true on it's own merits. The same with god, pre-supposing a god does not make what follows true, first we have to establish a god.

Again with the presumption and arrogance! That's not repentance. That's regret, or feeling bad. While repentance wouldn't be complete without that,

Well okay we agree, lets start with that

it's not even close to the whole package. How about restitution? How about confession? How about turning from ever behaving that way again?

Yup done all that, what makes you think people don't ?

All necessary to be repentant, and that's why it's impossible to do without God's grace.

And yet i see it every day without god.
You have to remember that the concept of sin as it is commonly understood is almost an exclusively religious concept.

Many people don't care about the evil things they've done. Some thrive on it, actually. And you know what?

Oh some do, thrive on it, reading an article about a bishop just today. Truth is people do care, they care a lot. Maybe you just live in a rough neighbourhood.

You don't really care. If you really cared,

I care very much about the wrongs i do people, have you any evidence otherwise ?

you'd be repentant, and if you were repentant, that would mean you knew God, which you obviously don't. You don't care because you're evil. And that's the Truth.

Again yes i do wrong, but so do you.

I've not responded to several of your points, because it's clear to me that certain things just aren't getting through to you and I'm not going to repeat myself ad nauseam. I'm also having a little bit of trouble understanding precisely what you're asking because your writing is sometimes incoherent.

Well you wouldn't need to repeat yourself if you had a convincing argument now would you ?
I do understand you are a believer and that as part of that you have 'faith' or belief that certain things are simply true no matter whether you can show proof or not.

If I've written something incoherent, then please ask me to clarify the questions or bits you don't understand, i would hate you to give it just because of lack of understanding either on my part, or yours.

Lets start then perhaps with something really simple, why do you believe the bible to be a good measure of god's revelation to you (if indeed you do) ? then we will go on from there.