On the subject of Hell and Salvation

[possibletarian]

"You crave what you do not have. You kill and covet, but are unable to obtain it. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask. And when you do ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may squander it on your pleasures." (James 4:2-3)

Well that's christians for you, the indwelling of the holy spirit making them, well just like everyone else really, but with nutjob style beliefs. It of course could be also that the god they were asking simply did not exist.

"Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish, saying, “I called out to the LORD, out of my distress, and He answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and You heard my voice." (Jonah 2:1-2)

And here we go again, a guy living inside a fish for a few days ? You really take any of this seriously ?

"But I say to you that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." (Matthew 12:36)

Actually i doubt it very much, why do you believe the bible, was it not simply written by men who later then claimed the inspiration of a god ?
if you do actually believed it was inspired by a god, what reason(s) do you have to say so? Stop being so gullible for goodness sake.

Yes i know you are going to hide behind the 'we are blind' or 'blinded by god' or 'god is hiding the truth from us' but we can get claims like that from every religion and nutjob creed we don't ascribe to, frankly the thought of a supreme being of the whole universe who 'hides' because we are who the sum total of how he made is ridiculous beyond words.

[MilesAbbott81]

I'm replying now to some apparent edits you've made, with your new comments addressed afterward.

You're the one who told us that there were stories in new magic book that were the bastard child of christianity and paganism, though...remember?"

Actually, I never said that, either. I said there were concepts (and in the case of eternal torment, some apparently deliberately misleading translations) that were pagan. The book of Revelation hasn't been tampered with at all, as far as I know. That's not to say there aren't corruptions in the New Testament. There are. In any case, you are clearly not giving what I've written proper consideration. You've repeatedly put words in my mouth. Read more carefully, please.

The idea of a soul improvement machine is not novel, you are not bearing nuanced arguments as-yet unseen on these boards.  You know what I do?  Every time my son misses a c key, I slam his fingers under the piano cover.  You haven't yet seen the end result, you're in no position to judge.  It can't be evil because I'm doing it, and I never do evil things.  You simply lack the required perspective.

Why should the idea of a "soul improvement machine" be novel? Human beings are inherently evil, as demonstrated continually and indisputably throughout history. It's only natural that one might be inclined to look for a solution or create a solution to this very serious problem. The idea of Superman is similarly no surprise. Who wouldn't fantasize about a Savior in such a horrible world? But you throw out the baby with the bathwater.


EDIT: It's also silly to equate cruel punishments which result in a superficial benefit with the justice of God, which results in everlasting life. You're writing nothing but propaganda.

Pagan fiction.  

Calling the life of Jesus Christ pagan fiction without a shred of proof is just about what I've come to expect from you atheists. You can argue the merits of the source material if you like, but dogmatic declarations concerning the veracity of these things is something you simply can't prove, and that burden is certainly yours to bear.

Good to know that you think everyone deserves to die.  That's a great way to establish that you understand peoples objections to hell.

I understand that the flesh seeks to preserve itself, therefore the idea of hell is repugnant to it. And while I wish everyone could understand that I don't say this with contempt or condemnation, I realize that some will take it that way absent God's grace. But the idea that everyone will accept the words of a prophet is not at all realistic. Even those Israelis who had witnessed the sacking of Jerusalem in Jeremiah's day (who had prophesied it) refused to listen to Jeremiah afterwards. The flesh is extremely, extremely stubborn.

---

I'm not going to get dragged into another argument with you, possibletarian, because we'll never get past the premise of God's existence, which is sort of required if we're to discuss aspects of Christianity (which is the purpose of this thread). If you're willing to suspend your disbelief in that premise in order to argue about other things, then fine. Otherwise I'm just not going to bother.

[possibletarian]

I'm not going to get dragged into another argument with you, possibletarian, because we'll never get past the premise of God's existence, which is sort of required if we're to discuss aspects of Christianity (which is the purpose of this thread). If you're willing to suspend your disbelief in that premise in order to argue about other things, then fine. Otherwise I'm just not going to bother.

Well don't you think the existence of god is kind of important to everything else you say ? If we can't even establish the existence of god then saying things like 'hidden by god' and 'blinded by god' and all your other excuses are a moot point. You the further claim to have revelation from this god, so I'm a bit surprised that the existence of where you get your inspiration from is a point that you don't feel able to discuss.

Of course it's more easily explained by a 'no god' scenario. If you have no justification for what you believe in the first place then why do you treat any of it as real ?

But for now I'm particularly interested in why you believe the bible, can you fill me in on that ?

[MilesAbbott81]

I'm not going to get dragged into another argument with you, possibletarian, because we'll never get past the premise of God's existence, which is sort of required if we're to discuss aspects of Christianity (which is the purpose of this thread). If you're willing to suspend your disbelief in that premise in order to argue about other things, then fine. Otherwise I'm just not going to bother.

Well don't you think the existence of god is kind of important to everything else you say ?  If we can't even establish the existence of god then  saying things like 'hidden by god' and 'blinded by god' and all your other excuses are a moot point.  You the further claim to have revelation from this god, so I'm a bit surprised that the existence of where you get your inspiration from is a point that you don't feel able to discuss.

Of course it's more easily explained by a 'no god' scenario.

But for now I'm particularly interested in why you believe the bible, can you fill me in on that  ?

If you can't get past the existence of God as a premise, then there's no point in having a section on this forum titled "Christianity." Why bother discussing anything at all that's predicated on the existence of God?

Of course, much of the problem atheists have is with doctrine, which is understandable to a degree. The doctrine often makes no sense, which is no wonder, considering the pagan influences on interpretation and translation (in nominal Christendom, that is). Then you have pagan practices such as Christmas and Easter further complicating things.

To answer your question, it isn't so much that I trust the Bible, but that I trust what the Lord has shown me about the Bible. As the Scriptures say, "For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little." (Isaiah 28:10) When the Lord gave me understanding, I discovered this verse to be very true. There is no contradiction in the Bible when one is given the proper understanding of its contents, and one doesn't receive this understanding by figuring it out on his or her own, neither can it come from the Bible itself. It comes from God and only from Him.

[possibletarian]

Well don't you think the existence of god is kind of important to everything else you say ?  If we can't even establish the existence of god then  saying things like 'hidden by god' and 'blinded by god' and all your other excuses are a moot point.  You the further claim to have revelation from this god, so I'm a bit surprised that the existence of where you get your inspiration from is a point that you don't feel able to discuss.

Of course it's more easily explained by a 'no god' scenario.

But for now I'm particularly interested in why you believe the bible, can you fill me in on that  ?

If you can't get past the existence of God as a premise, then there's no point in having a section on this forum titled "Christianity." Why bother discussing anything at all that's predicated on the existence of God?

Of course, much of the problem atheists have is with doctrine, which is understandable to a degree. The doctrine often makes no sense, which is no wonder, considering the pagan influences on interpretation and translation (in nominal Christendom, that is). Then you have pagan practices such as Christmas and Easter further complicating things.

To answer your question, it isn't so much that I trust the Bible, but that I trust what the Lord has shown me about the Bible. As the Scriptures say, "For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little." (Isaiah 28:10) When the Lord gave me understanding, I discovered this verse to be very true. There is no contradiction in the Bible when one is given the proper understanding of its contents, and one doesn't receive this understanding by figuring it out on his or her own, neither can it come from the Bible itself. It comes from God and only from Him.

Oh I'm fine with god as a 'something that you believe is true' but wouldn't you agree to give it any authority beyond that means establishing that this god exists as a fact.

To quote scripture, or claim that a god showed you the truth of, or revealed to you the meaning of anything in scripture require that you provide reasonable proof, otherwise how can anyone tell the difference between what you simply believe is revelation, and what is in fact revelation. ?

For instance lets take your above reply 'neither can it come from the Bible itself. It comes from God and only from Him.' How do we tell the difference ?  This is meaningless as an authoritative statement unless we can first establish there is a god outside of a persons faith.

[MilesAbbott81]

Oh I'm fine with god as a 'something that you believe is true' but wouldn't you agree to give it any authority beyond that means establishing that this god exists as a fact.

To quote scripture, or claim that a god showed you the truth of, or revealed to you the meaning of anything in scripture require that you provide reasonable proof, otherwise how can anyone tell the difference between what you simply believe is revelation, and what is in fact revelation. ?

For instance lets take your above reply 'neither can it come from the Bible itself. It comes from God and only from Him.' How do we tell the difference ?  This is meaningless as an authoritative statement unless we can first establish there is a god outside of a persons faith.

Well, I can answer you but you're not going to like the answer:

"We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error." (1 John 4:6)

If you're the Lord's, you'll hear me. If not, then you don't have ears to hear. That doesn't mean seeds can't be planted, or that you won't eventually hear. That's all up to God.

But again, we're sort of back discussing this premise. If you can't believe in the existence of God, then how can you possibly have ears to hear? And the problem remains the same: you. You're the problem, not God, assuming you truly don't believe He exists and aren't simply in denial. Denial is, after all, usually involuntary, difficult to see (when you're the one in denial), and much easier than facing reality.

The bottom line is that those who accept the existence of God and have been given ears to hear will hear what I say and it will resonate with them as true; you'll know it instinctively. It may take some time to fully develop into conviction, but people know when they hear the Truth.

[The Grand Nudger]

This is one of the more tedious brands of lying for christ.

[possibletarian]

[quote='possibletarian' pid='1886621' dateline='1550770142']
Oh I'm fine with god as a 'something that you believe is true' but wouldn't you agree to give it any authority beyond that means establishing that this god exists as a fact.

To quote scripture, or claim that a god showed you the truth of, or revealed to you the meaning of anything in scripture require that you provide reasonable proof, otherwise how can anyone tell the difference between what you simply believe is revelation, and what is in fact revelation. ?

For instance lets take your above reply 'neither can it come from the Bible itself. It comes from God and only from Him.' How do we tell the difference ?  This is meaningless as an authoritative statement unless we can first establish there is a god outside of a persons faith.

Well, I can answer you but you're not going to like the answer:

Let's see

"We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error." (1 John 4:6)

How do you know this to be true, as opposed to something someone just wrote ?

If you're the Lord's, you'll hear me. If not, then you don't have ears to hear. That doesn't mean seeds can't be planted, or that you won't eventually hear. That's all up to God.

Okay, so how do we test the truth of this ?

But again, we're sort of back discussing this premise. If you can't believe in the existence of God, then how can you possibly have ears to hear?

That's just gobbledygook, I'm convinced of the existence of lots of things, what do you mean by 'can't believe in' ?
I would be happy to believe in any god where the proof matched the claims.
 

And the problem remains the same: you. You're the problem, not God,

This is typical of what i mean, how can you claim a person is the problem, and not god, without first establishing a god ?

assuming you truly don't believe He exists and aren't simply in denial. Denial is, after all, usually involuntary, difficult to see (when you're the one in denial), and much easier than facing reality.

What reality,  can you show me one I am not familiar with ?  

The bottom line is that those who accept the existence of God and have been given ears to hear will hear what I say and it will resonate with them as true; you'll know it instinctively. It may take some time to fully develop into conviction, but people know when they hear the Truth.

And all religions, creeds, nutjobs, conspiracy theorists would say exactly the same, how do we know what you believe exists anywhere but in your head ?
How do you asses your claim to be correct .. faith ?

[MilesAbbott81]

And all religions, creeds, nutjobs, conspiracy theorists would say exactly the same, how do we know what you believe exists anywhere but in your head ?
How do you asses your claim to be correct .. faith ?

And so we come to the end of our discussion. I'm not going to keep repeating myself. The answers to this question and practically every question you've asked me are in this very thread already.

[possibletarian]

And all religions, creeds, nutjobs, conspiracy theorists would say exactly the same, how do we know what you believe exists anywhere but in your head ?
How do you asses your claim to be correct .. faith ?

And so we come to the end of our discussion. I'm not going to keep repeating myself. The answers to this question and practically every question you've asked me are in this very thread already.

An answer as in a reply yes, but no real answer to the question. We still have no way of determining whether all this is simply in your head or not.