Question For The Christians

[bornagainathiest]

 

The crime: x

 

The penalty: ∞

 

And besides, what is this "sin" that deserves such punishment? Born into this world as a human and it's all Adam's fault?

 

Remember - that people in hell remain eternally unrepentant,

How do you know? Have you asked them?

 

Put simply Ouroboros, Ray cannot know this and he cannot ask them anything.

 

So, either he's lying (no surprise there!) or he's completely mistaken about the fate of the dead, which indicates a poor grasp of the basics of Christian theology.

 

Scripture is quite clear that besides the few individuals (Enoch, Elijah and Moses, etc.) who have left this world and ascended into heaven, and besides those actually living when the Last Trumpet sounds, ALL the dead will sleep until Judgement Day.

So, nobody is in hell yet. Nobody has been judged yet, because the Book of Life is still sealed and will not be opened until that day. Nobody, except Jesus has been raised from the dead to face judgement.

Got that Ray?

 

they will forever refuse to acknowledge God as God,

How is that even possible? They are dead, know the afterlife exists, are punished by being sent to Hell by God, and yet are able to claim that God doesn't exist?

 

Ray cannot know this - the dead are still sleeping, awaiting resurrection and judgement.

 

eternally blaming God for their own sin and it's consequences.

Again, how is that possible? It would be obvious at that point that afterlife, God, penalty, and sin would be all real. You give stubbornness too much credit. People are not that stubborn.

 

Ray cannot know this either - the dead are still sleeping, awaiting resurrection and judgement.

 

 

Sometimes I think you're stuck in stupidville and short of money for the bus fare.

 

Eternally refusing to accept personal responsibility - as you have shown >> "It's all God's fault."

"It's all God's fault." Did I say that? When? Where?

 

Nor can Ray know this, for the reasons already given.

 

I believe it's humans' fault. It's your fault. It's all our fault for maintaining a destructive and evil religion and belief in some fantasy. I don't blame God. God doesn't exist!

 

But if you're talking about the hypothetical God that you have created in your mind, then yeah, your God supposedly created all things this way. It would be God's fault that humans go to Hell. He made it all such. He has all the control. He knows everything. He planned everything. And what's even funnier, it is all supposedly perfect! (Think about the argument for God's existence from a perfect world. It is perfect, or it is not. Which is it?) In this sense, absolutely, your God is the one who made it all this way, and it is his "thanks to him" (="it is his fault") that it is this way. So don't congratulate God for a perfect job, unless you're willing to also blame him for the mistakes he made.

 

...and for his next trick, Ray'll prove that the Kalam Cosmological Argument is irrefutable!

 

BAA.

[Guest end3]

A couple of things here.....the expression of non-duality via forms that constantly manifests a dual nature in their form???? If you are saying ONENESS as in inclusive, then you have to define the non-dual nature as a new definition OR deny part of the dual nature. Maybe death doesn't bother you, but even from an intellectual standpoint alone, the nature of something would be aspect, quality, etc......the nature of God being creating forms that are in relationship with each other.....And you currently describe this creative, sustaining nature as "infinite" nothingness?

 

I am starting to see mouse poop in the cookie jar.

And yet you have no problem with other seeming paradoxes such as god being one yet three. Christianity has its own mouse poop.

 

AM does a much better job of explaining this than I ever will and I don't know that I find it necessary to buy 100% of his thinking but I don't find any cognitive dissonance in the idea that as my awareness evolves I will have or need a different perspective, which might include for example the ability to see that everything has an essential unity even though also expressed in (seemingly) dualistic ways. That one could move between dual and nondual perspectives just as one can move between optimism and pessimism, between subjective and objective thinking, or any other polarity you care to think about. It is not that they are mutually exclusive, they are just different ways of approaching the same things.

 

I see nondual thought as a potential method of backing my way into understanding aspects of reality that are at or just beyond the bleeding edge of my evolving awareness, perception and comprehension.

 

As an infant, you did not make a distinction in what passed for thinking at that time, between yourself and your parents or other entities in your field of awareness. It was a huge (and scary) revelation that they and their will were distinct from you and did not necessarily or perfectly serve you. That some of your needs and desires could not be instantly met or be the responsibility always of others. Indeed, the concept that everything did not have to pass into your mouth and out your rectum was almost beyond you.

 

The adult reality you now inhabit was essentially incomprehensible to your mind back at the age of, say, nine months. But as the evidence accumulated over time that your model of reality was incomplete (or at least not meeting your needs), you made the transition to being a separate being and began to relate to the world in new ways, through language and higher concepts, through forms, through becoming skillful at tactical issues like delayed gratification.

 

Now AM comes along and says you've gone too far, that though it was necessary to gain a command of the symbols of language and commonly accepted forms in order to function in society, you have lost touch with the essential fact of your unity with all that is and become as a result overly attached to forms and outcomes and special relationships and overly detached from that which is behind and beyond all that. I don't know that I buy that this is so or, if true, that it actually matters in practice -- but I can see how it could be so. And how it could seem completely ridiculous to me, just as the idea of Mommy not being me or, later, of Mommy not being my personal slave, seemed completely ridiculous once upon a time.

 

You are right not to be uncritical or completely credulous about all this. How do you know that it's not all another load of well intentioned BS, some new time consuming rabbit trail that will produce more pain than pleasure? I think you discern what you need to pursue further the same way you did at earlier developmental levels. You figure out the limitations of your current model of reality, and you're sort of forced out of it because it's not working anyway. You find a new model that works, at least for the present, much better, and you go with that. Rinse and repeat. I seem to be getting more mileage right now out of just living simply and with minimal expectations, in sampling the possibilities that life presents to me and discarding things that don't seem to add value. I don't know that I will go the route of meditation, peak experiences, and the like ... at least not just yet, but who knows.

 

Well, I have considered it a little.....and the most meaningful answer to me, and I somewhat think to others, is that we value life. We value ours. We value others. We value animal and plant life. We find beauty in the Spring when new life appears. We find beauty in the Fall and Winter when life rests and regenerates. We value the individualism of each life mixed with other individuals and individualisms both in humanity and nature. The entire experience seems life and relationship relevant. I don't know that the emphasis on being one with the elusive creative Ground Being is in itself meaningful or even possible if it doesn't include the aforementioned values. I don't see that all oneness is necessarily good.

 

I acknowledge evolution, but I don't see that in a rigid competitive adaptive sense, it furthers the values to which we aspire. I truly believe that the mechanism of suffering to know and to be known more aptly manifests these values and promotes the Fuzzy Oneness that occasionally manifests itself within the dualistic presentation....if this makes sense.

 

I live for fuzzy more than anything.

[DesertBob]

Well, I have considered it a little.....and the most meaningful answer to me, and I somewhat think to others, is that we value life. We value ours. We value others. We value animal and plant life. We find beauty in the Spring when new life appears. We find beauty in the Fall and Winter when life rests and regenerates. We value the individualism of each life mixed with other individuals and individualisms both in humanity and nature.

I don't think anything I said is incompatible with valuing life -- ours and others -- or beauty or nature or diversity. Quite the opposite. The potential exists to appreciate these things on a whole new level. I don't think anyone is suggesting that we abandon duality entirely for a nondual existence; I'm not sure that's either possible or desirable anyway. Just that we see both for what they are and can use either perspective as appropriate.

I live for fuzzy more than anything.

Fuzzy as in warm fuzzy feelings, or fuzzy thinking? ;-)

 

I prefer things to be pleasing and enjoyable but I am more interested in seeing things as they are without preconceptions -- to the extent I can handle it at any rate. I still harbor the belief that in the long run more things will be more pleasing and enjoyable if I can push past my blind spots, prejudices and preconceptions in the short run. On the other hand there are days when I feel like at the rate things seem to progress, I no longer have much of a "long run" to rationalize with. I wish I knew thirty years ago what I know now. Oh well.

[Ouroboros]

...and for his next trick, Ray'll prove that the Kalam Cosmological Argument is irrefutable!

 

BAA.

Which means that he has to prove that God is the First Cause of sin, Hell, Satan, and evil, which he refuse to believe. It's all got to the point of cognitive dissonance. He either has to accept one or the other. Both arguments can't be true. However, both can be false.

 

On another note, regarding Hell, Ray could argue that "Abraham's bosom" is the same as Hell, and that the final judgment is about Gehenna, the eternal fire, not Hell.

 

In our church, we considered those two places to be different. There's this story in the Gospels about the rich man and the poor man. The rich man went to "Abraham's bosom," which we considered to be Hell, and supposedly, that place would exist right now. (Of course I don't believe that anymore.)

[Thumbelina]

...and for his next trick, Ray'll prove that the Kalam Cosmological Argument is irrefutable!

 

BAA.

Which means that he has to prove that God is the First Cause of sin, Hell, Satan, and evil, which he refuse to believe. It's all got to the point of cognitive dissonance. He either has to accept one or the other. Both arguments can't be true. However, both can be false.

 

On another note, regarding Hell, Ray could argue that "Abraham's bosom" is the same as Hell, and that the final judgment is about Gehenna, the eternal fire, not Hell.

 

In our church, we considered those two places to be different. There's this story in the Gospels about the rich man and the poor man. The rich man went to "Abraham's bosom," which we considered to be Hell, and supposedly, that place would exist right now. (Of course I don't believe that anymore.)

 

 

 

Just putting my two cents in via quotes.

 

Doesn't the story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31 teach an eternal hell of torment? (Luke 16:19 )

No, indeed! It is simply a parable used to emphasize a point. Many facts make it clear that this is a parable. A few are as follows:

A. Abraham's bosom is not heaven (Hebrews 11:8-10, 16).

B. People in hell can't talk to those in heaven (Isaiah 65:17).

C. The dead are in their graves (Job 17:13; John 5:28, 29). The rich man was in bodily form with eyes, a tongue, etc., yet we know that the body does not go to hell at death. It is very obvious that the body remains in the grave, as the Bible says.

D. Men are rewarded at Christ's second coming, not at death (Revelation 22:11, 12).

E. The lost are punished in hell at the end of the world, not when they die (Matthew 13:40-42). The point of the story is found in verse 31 of Luke 16. Parables cannot be taken literally. If we took parables literally, then we must believe that trees talk! (See this parable in Judges 9:8-15.)

 

 

 

 

 

Mark 9:43,44

 

"And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: 44Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched"

 

 

In this verse the word "hell" is translated from the Greek word "gehenna" which is another name for the valley of Hinnom located just outside the walls of Jerusalem. There the refuse and bodies of animals were cast into an ever-smoldering fire to be consumed. What might escape the flames was constantly being destroyed by maggots which fed on dead bodies. Gehenna symbolized a place of total destruction.

 

Jesus taught in this verse that the fires of hell could not be quenched or put out by anyone. Isaiah said, "They shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame" Isaiah 47:14. Yet he hastened to say in the same verse that "there shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire to sit before it." So the unquenchable fire will go out after it has consumed the wicked as stubble. Jerusalem burned with unquenchable fire according to Jeremiah 17:27 when it was totally destroyed (2 Chronicles 36:19|).

 

The flames and worms of "gehenna" represented the total annihilation and obliteration of sin and sinners. Earlier apostasy and idol worship in the valley of Hinnom (Jeremiah 32:35), and God judgments on Israel as a consequence, marked it as a symbol of punishment and judgment. God warned in Jeremiah 7:31-33 that it would become the "valley of slaughter" where the "carcases of this people shall be meat for the fowls of the heaven." With the fires of "gehenna" burning before their eyes, Jesus could not have spoken in a more graphic word to the Pharisees to describe the final, total destruction of sinners.

 

Those who cite this text to support their doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul are thrown into a real dilemma. Why? Because the fire and worms are working not upon disembodied souls, but bodies! According to Jesus,those who are cast into the lake of fire will go in bodily form, and this text confirms that truth. The verses before and after this text speak of the hands, feet and bodies of those who suffer the Gehenna fire. In Matthew 5:30 Christ said, "the whole body" would be cast into hell.

 

In Isaiah 66:24, the same "gehenna" picture of hell is presented with the unquenchable flame and the destroying worms. But in this case the word "carcases" , revealing the fact that the fire consumes dead bodies,not disembodied souls. Speaking of the enemies of the Lord, Isaiah 51:8 says that "the worm shall eat them like wool" -- a picture of being put out of existence.

[Guest end3]

I don't think anything I said is incompatible with valuing life -- ours and others -- or beauty or nature or diversity. Quite the opposite. The potential exists to appreciate these things on a whole new level. I don't think anyone is suggesting that we abandon duality entirely for a nondual existence; I'm not sure that's either possible or desirable anyway. Just that we see both for what they are and can use either perspective as appropriate.

 

I don't find "life" in any acknowledgment or level of "what is" that leaves no room for hope....dual or non-dual. I find specifically today that changing my perspective within "what is" leaves me just as dead as accepting "what is".....I have been there by default and choose to aspire to a higher self by none of the above. The derivation of life for me is now based specifically on the transcendent, or Spiritual, or God, or whatever, that doesn't happen for me by only re-positioning "what is". I surely might be misunderstanding, but the reality of "what is" was, and sometimes still is. simply hurtful to me on the most primitive level. Enmity is about the best word I have found that decribes my contempt for "what is".

 

I prefer things to be pleasing and enjoyable but I am more interested in seeing things as they are without preconceptions -- to the extent I can handle it at any rate. I still harbor the belief that in the long run more things will be more pleasing and enjoyable if I can push past my blind spots, prejudices and preconceptions in the short run. On the other hand there are days when I feel like at the rate things seem to progress, I no longer have much of a "long run" to rationalize with. I wish I knew thirty years ago what I know now. Oh well.

 

Certainly our preconception is full of blind spots, but I know no other means for me to "see" without subscription to something that allows me to see.

 

The tone of my post is not directed at you and my apologies if it seems like that. I may have misinterpreted your meaning in several places. I just see AM's idea of god as a remix of atheism....seeing life in a fullness of my actualized yada yada doesn't do squat for the things I value as life. Don't get me wrong, I see some similarities, but think there are definite distinctions.

 

Please feel free to clarify. I was somewhat selfish in my response I am afraid.

[bornagainathiest]

...and for his next trick, Ray'll prove that the Kalam Cosmological Argument is irrefutable!

 

BAA.

Which means that he has to prove that God is the First Cause of sin, Hell, Satan, and evil, which he refuse to believe. It's all got to the point of cognitive dissonance. He either has to accept one or the other. Both arguments can't be true. However, both can be false.

 

On another note, regarding Hell, Ray could argue that "Abraham's bosom" is the same as Hell, and that the final judgment is about Gehenna, the eternal fire, not Hell.

 

In our church, we considered those two places to be different. There's this story in the Gospels about the rich man and the poor man. The rich man went to "Abraham's bosom," which we considered to be Hell, and supposedly, that place would exist right now. (Of course I don't believe that anymore.)

 

Hmmmm....but wouldn't that mean that Abraham was in 'hell' until Judgement Day?

 

Yet, didn't Jesus say that, "Abraham saw my day and was glad"? So which day was Jesus referring to?

 

The day of his crucifixion?

Possible, but doubtful. Jesus' completed work on the cross was finished, but no true believer could yet reap the full reward of their faith in Him until after the Book of Life is opened and they are judged. Has that happened yet?

The day of his resurrection?

Unlikely. That event was for the eyes of the Apostles and the circle of believers who would become Christ's Body - the Church.

The day of his ascension?

Improbable. Pretty much the same as His resurrection. An event for the gaze of a priveleged few.

The day of Pentecost?

Nope. That's the Holy Spirit's parade, what with Jesus now seated in heaven at the Father's right hand.

 

No.

Surely Jesus meant that Abraham saw the Day of Judgement, when everything that was promised to that patriarch was to be fulfilled and completed. God, the one who is faithful and true, making good on all of His promises, to all those He made covenants with and promises to, no matter when they lived. Noah, Abraham, Moses, the Apostles, everyone. Only Judgement Day has the absolute finality that rings true here.

 

Anyway, didn't the rich man look up and see Lazarus (far away) in Abraham's bosom?

Wasn't he looking up, from out of a fiery place of torment to another realm that was both far away, separate and wholly different? It seems to me that whole thrust of this parable is one of contrast and difference and therefore I just can't see how we can lump Abraham and Lazarus together with sinners in 'hell'. Well, that's my take on it, right or wrong.

 

But this temporary 'hell' can't be what Ray means. Look at the terminology he used in his post...

 

"Eternally unrepentant"

"Forever refusing..."

"Eternally blaming God..."

"Eternally refusing..."

 

No.

Of these two 'places' only Gehenna/The Lake of Fire is eternal and that's the 'place' Ray meant (wrongly).

This 'hell' where Abraham et al are located can only be a temporary holding area until Judgement Day.

 

That's why Ray can't use this dodge. He's plain wrong here. He spewing out un-Biblical nonsense. Probably some Creationist disinformation or propaganda that he's taken as Gospel. (Pardon the pun!)

 

Oh and btw Ouroboros, I don't believe in any of this crap either!

 

BAA.

[Ouroboros]

Just putting my two cents in via quotes.

So Jesus only talk about a hypothetical "Abraham's bosom," not a real place?

 

This is one of the problems of Christianity, so many different ideas about the afterlife, and no one really knows. Yet they want us to believe what they say. Anyone can conjure up some hypothetical idea about the afterlife, but it doesn't make it true. And it sure doesn't mean people have to believe it.

[Ouroboros]

Hmmmm....but wouldn't that mean that Abraham was in 'hell' until Judgement Day?

Perhaps I'm mixing up sheol with Abraham's bosom, not sure.

 

But supposedly, there is a place where the rich man went. Hell? Ok, not Hell. Abraham's bosom? Ok, not that one either. I think the word in the story is sheol, but I have to look it up.

 

Yet, didn't Jesus say that, "Abraham saw my day and was glad"? So which day was Jesus referring to?

I don't know.

 

Surely Jesus meant that Abraham saw the Day of Judgement, when everything that was promised to that patriarch was to be fulfilled and completed. God, the one who is faithful and true, making good on all of His promises, to all those He made covenants with and promises to, no matter when they lived. Noah, Abraham, Moses, the Apostles, everyone. Only Judgement Day has the absolute finality that rings true here.

The problem though is that the word "saw" is past tense. Would this suggest that Judgment day already happened?

 

Anyway, didn't the rich man look up and see Lazarus (far away) in Abraham's bosom?

Wasn't he looking up, from out of a fiery place of torment to another realm that was both far away, separate and wholly different? It seems to me that whole thrust of this parable is one of contrast and difference and therefore I just can't see how we can lump Abraham and Lazarus together with sinners in 'hell'. Well, that's my take on it, right or wrong.

Right. However, if I remember right, it's the same word used in the text, but I could be wrong. And if we're supposed to believe the story, the rich man asks about being able to send the message about the truth of this place to his relatives who were still alive, so it wouldn't be a place in the future after Judgment.

 

But this temporary 'hell' can't be what Ray means. Look at the terminology he used in his post...

 

"Eternally unrepentant"

"Forever refusing..."

"Eternally blaming God..."

"Eternally refusing..."

 

No.

Of these two 'places' only Gehenna/The Lake of Fire is eternal and that's the 'place' Ray meant (wrongly).

This 'hell' where Abraham et al are located can only be a temporary holding area until Judgement Day.

Right. A temporary holding place.

 

So this means that there are a holding place, which is a torment, but not Hell, and a future (after Judgment) torment place, which is Hell. What do we call this temporary torment place?

 

That's why Ray can't use this dodge. He's plain wrong here. He spewing out un-Biblical nonsense. Probably some Creationist disinformation or propaganda that he's taken as Gospel. (Pardon the pun!)

 

Oh and btw Ouroboros, I don't believe in any of this crap either!

 

BAA.

Yeah. I know you don't. It's all hypothetical speaking.

 

Christianity doesn't give clarity. Instead it creates confusion with all these contradictory opinions from the believers.

 

---edit---

 

Oh, I found it. The word is "hades" in Greek. Hades can be translated to Hell. But Gehenna is also translated to Hell. So both are Hell, Hades and Gehenna, but at two different locations and times.

 

I found this little tidbit on Wiki: "The term hades in Christian theology (and in New Testament Greek) is parallel to Hebrew sheol (שאול, grave or dirt-pit), and refers to the abode of the dead. The Christian concept of hell is more akin to (and communicated by) the Greek concept of Tartarus, a deep, gloomy part of hades used as a dungeon of torment and suffering."

 

Hades is translated Hell in King James Version, and kept as Hades in New International Version. So if KJV is the True Bible™, then Hell, Hades, Gehenna, Sheol, Tartarus... are all the same place. But not if we should trust NIV.

 

---

 

I found a cool document that tries to explain it (powerpoint): http://devotional.net/uploads/147/87044.ppt

[DesertBob]

Enmity is about the best word I have found that decribes my contempt for "what is".

I hear you. I don't much care for it some days either.

The tone of my post is not directed at you and my apologies if it seems like that. I may have misinterpreted your meaning in several places. I just see AM's idea of god as a remix of atheism....seeing life in a fullness of my actualized yada yada doesn't do squat for the things I value as life. Don't get me wrong, I see some similarities, but think there are definite distinctions.

 

Please feel free to clarify. I was somewhat selfish in my response I am afraid.

We're all entitled to have a Bad Day ™ now and then. I don't take your response personally.

 

I also don't begrudge you your illusions, if they work for you. My wife used to joke that she'd take a false sense of security if it's all she could get. It's just that I am no longer constitutionally capable of embracing or choosing beliefs simply because they make me feel better. More precisely they don't really make me feel better anymore because I know they are not real. Sometimes I wish I could take the easy way out, or at least effectively anesthetize myself with, I dunno, TV or booze or something ... I now understand why people do those sorts of things.

 

I have just learned to let all the constant BS pass through me -- how to hold on and push through -- and some days I even think I may be getting somewhere. I'm actually functioning very well today despite household drama and time pressures, neither of which I need or want. I'm also coping pretty well with changes in my work and leisure priorities which are almost entirely imposed by the needs and demands and priorities of others, my acquiescence to which is a condition of getting along with the people I care about but which also dilutes my enjoyment of them and tempts me to wonder if the life of a hermit isn't, on balance, less trouble. In other words same shit, different day, but at least I don't have that floating sense of pissing away precious time waiting for the stars to align. Because I have pretty much realized that trying to align them is a fool's errand.

 

In times past I might have reflexively prayed about these things, and told myself that god was somehow orchestrating it all for the greater good, and that maybe some inadequate percentage of my prayers might actually make a useful difference for the better. Basically, telling myself that seen from god's vantage point my life isn't really chaotic and my discomfort is or some day will be well worth it.

 

There used to be times I was a little wistful for that perspective, but these days I just accept the chaos and move along. It's all anyone can really do anyway, so why complicate it with prevarications? I don't need all that disappointment and frustration. If you can buy the dogma and your rationalizer still works well enough to feel that it's contributing to your sense of well being, who am I to tell you to stop? Go for it. Good for you. I just can't go there anymore. For me, it bites even more than reality does.

[Guest end3]

There used to be times I was a little wistful for that perspective, but these days I just accept the chaos and move along. It's all anyone can really do anyway, so why complicate it with prevarications? I don't need all that disappointment and frustration. If you can buy the dogma and your rationalizer still works well enough to feel that it's contributing to your sense of well being, who am I to tell you to stop? Go for it. Good for you. I just can't go there anymore. For me, it bites even more than reality does.

 

Lol...the prevarication doesn't outweigh the reality.....and additionally, the symbology is so accurate on occasion, that it promotes belief. You and I have talked about this before, but it feels like submission to "sin" or "evil" by accepting "what is". And that may be circumstantial in my case much like someone who has endured a bad experience with religion.....I can see this as a definate possibility. But again, the feelgoodness seems so overwhelmingly inherent, that I don't expect it to be only a function of evolution. Additionally, after a few years of trying to understand what AM was saying, that I am somewhat disappointed at my recent interpretation.

 

I can though, invision that humanity has ventured down the religious as some massive errant endeavor...not as taking symbology too far, but the entire endeavor.

 

I'm not a fence sitter, but I think I can see over. And that also feels correct as a balanced position seems to generate acceptance and equates to truth by many perspectives.

[DesertBob]

You and I have talked about this before, but it feels like submission to "sin" or "evil" by accepting "what is".

Yes, I fully understand. I think that my major malfunction with acceptance at first was that it seemed like capitulating to the unacceptable, accepting the unthinkable, and just generally lowering your standards. On the other hand, non-acceptance seldom if ever resulted in what Christians like to call "victory" or "victorious living". I never was an "overcomer". Christianity, particularly evangelical Christianity, likes to cast the believer in these romantic roles of conqueror (heck, "more than conquerors"), overcomers, soldiers marching as to war (and presumptively, to victory), etc. The dirty little secret is that no Christian reliably experiences life that way but everyone is afraid to admit it because everyone is subscribing to that particular fiction. Everyone is trying to outdo the next person at "testimony time".

I can, though, envision that humanity has ventured down the religious [path] as some massive errant endeavor...not as taking symbology too far, but the entire endeavor.

Faith as it was presented to me was a vehicle for "answers" -- the answers to everything. Sort of the flip side of that famous scene with Marlon Brando in -- what was it, Rebel Without a Cause I think -- someone asks, "What are you against?" and he replies, "Whaddaya got?". Well if you ask Christianity (as I experienced it), "What answers do you have to offer?" it pretty much replied, "Whaddaya got?" I think that set my expectations way too high. Not only for Christianity, but for life in general, because implicitly if Christianity's answers failed me, someone or something else must possess those answers. Yet, I have nothing to offer as an alternative to evangelical Christianity's alleged answers. Zip. Nada. Because the human condition is that we long for more than we're capable of grasping or maybe even experiencing -- it's inherent in being alive, and nothing really scratches that itch, as near as I can tell.

 

This is exactly why, for example, even a cultish group like the Jehovah's Witnesses that circulate around the 'hood every now and then can expect that behind at least one out of every 100 doors they knock on, they will find an easy mark, low hanging fruit. In one form or another all these belief systems peddle the concept that there is a silver bullet for the human condition, and they happen to have it. If you can just accept their particular premise everything suddenly Makes Sense.

 

I have simply accepted that there is no there, there. From the outside this looks like leaping into the pit of despair, but actually, it's not so bad as all that. The problem isn't that it's awful, it's more in that it's not terribly compelling, either. I like the freedom of thought, the freedom from having to force fit explanations for everything that doesn't fit some canned belief system, I just don't like the fact that there's nothing in particular to believe.

 

Well ... we're not going to solve this problem but at least it helps a little to speak of it.

[Thumbelina]

Hmmmm....but wouldn't that mean that Abraham was in 'hell' until Judgement Day?

Perhaps I'm mixing up sheol with Abraham's bosom, not sure.

 

But supposedly, there is a place where the rich man went. Hell? Ok, not Hell. Abraham's bosom? Ok, not that one either. I think the word in the story is sheol, but I have to look it up.

 

Yet, didn't Jesus say that, "Abraham saw my day and was glad"? So which day was Jesus referring to?

I don't know.

 

Surely Jesus meant that Abraham saw the Day of Judgement, when everything that was promised to that patriarch was to be fulfilled and completed. God, the one who is faithful and true, making good on all of His promises, to all those He made covenants with and promises to, no matter when they lived. Noah, Abraham, Moses, the Apostles, everyone. Only Judgement Day has the absolute finality that rings true here.

The problem though is that the word "saw" is past tense. Would this suggest that Judgment day already happened?

 

Anyway, didn't the rich man look up and see Lazarus (far away) in Abraham's bosom?

Wasn't he looking up, from out of a fiery place of torment to another realm that was both far away, separate and wholly different? It seems to me that whole thrust of this parable is one of contrast and difference and therefore I just can't see how we can lump Abraham and Lazarus together with sinners in 'hell'. Well, that's my take on it, right or wrong.

Right. However, if I remember right, it's the same word used in the text, but I could be wrong. And if we're supposed to believe the story, the rich man asks about being able to send the message about the truth of this place to his relatives who were still alive, so it wouldn't be a place in the future after Judgment.

 

But this temporary 'hell' can't be what Ray means. Look at the terminology he used in his post...

 

"Eternally unrepentant"

"Forever refusing..."

"Eternally blaming God..."

"Eternally refusing..."

 

No.

Of these two 'places' only Gehenna/The Lake of Fire is eternal and that's the 'place' Ray meant (wrongly).

This 'hell' where Abraham et al are located can only be a temporary holding area until Judgement Day.

Right. A temporary holding place.

 

So this means that there are a holding place, which is a torment, but not Hell, and a future (after Judgment) torment place, which is Hell. What do we call this temporary torment place?

 

That's why Ray can't use this dodge. He's plain wrong here. He spewing out un-Biblical nonsense. Probably some Creationist disinformation or propaganda that he's taken as Gospel. (Pardon the pun!)

 

Oh and btw Ouroboros, I don't believe in any of this crap either!

 

BAA.

Yeah. I know you don't. It's all hypothetical speaking.

 

Christianity doesn't give clarity. Instead it creates confusion with all these contradictory opinions from the believers.

 

---edit---

 

Oh, I found it. The word is "hades" in Greek. Hades can be translated to Hell. But Gehenna is also translated to Hell. So both are Hell, Hades and Gehenna, but at two different locations and times.

 

I found this little tidbit on Wiki: "The term hades in Christian theology (and in New Testament Greek) is parallel to Hebrew sheol (שאול, grave or dirt-pit), and refers to the abode of the dead. The Christian concept of hell is more akin to (and communicated by) the Greek concept of Tartarus, a deep, gloomy part of hades used as a dungeon of torment and suffering."

 

Hades is translated Hell in King James Version, and kept as Hades in New International Version. So if KJV is the True Bible, then Hell, Hades, Gehenna, Sheol, Tartarus... are all the same place. But not if we should trust NIV.

 

---

 

I found a cool document that tries to explain it (powerpoint): http://devotional.net/uploads/147/87044.ppt

 

 

 

Hell is ULTIMATELY the grave aka separation from God, which Jesus experienced BTW. Abraham saw, BY FAITH, the second coming where Jesus will come as Kng of kings and LORD of lords.

 

John 8:56-58 says:

56Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.

57Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?

 

58Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.

 

 

 

... and the bible explains itself so the cross reference for John 8:56 is Heb.11:13

 

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

 

Hey, us christians still have that concept, we sing a song with the words "This world is not my home, I'm just a passin' through ..."

[Guest end3]

The dirty little secret is that no Christian reliably experiences life that way but everyone is afraid to admit it because everyone is subscribing to that particular fiction. Everyone is trying to outdo the next person at "testimony time".

 

I would guess that there is a level of "development" where this is accurate, but would caution that it might have legitimate reasons as well as illegitimate. I think that sometimes for people, there is a need for that behavior to necessitate acceptance, or is real through experience, or is fake by some other intentions/motivations.

 

 

Faith as it was presented to me was a vehicle for "answers" -- the answers to everything. Sort of the flip side of that famous scene with Marlon Brando in -- what was it, Rebel Without a Cause I think -- someone asks, "What are you against?" and he replies, "Whaddaya got?". Well if you ask Christianity (as I experienced it), "What answers do you have to offer?" it pretty much replied, "Whaddaya got?" I think that set my expectations way too high. Not only for Christianity, but for life in general, because implicitly if Christianity's answers failed me, someone or something else must possess those answers. Yet, I have nothing to offer as an alternative to evangelical Christianity's alleged answers. Zip. Nada. Because the human condition is that we long for more than we're capable of grasping or maybe even experiencing -- it's inherent in being alive, and nothing really scratches that itch, as near as I can tell.

 

I think the first paragraph and the second go hand in hand, if I may. The itch seems to get scratched when we DO find the ablity or the time or place to make ourselves truthfully known to others. For example, as above, there might be those people who can only muster enough to come and pretend to be like the group as some representation of their need for acceptance....and then there are those that are at a point, that can say, "you know what, I was an adulterer and it hurt my wife". I think that many are afraid that if they were to confess their relative shortcomings that they would further be ridiculed. I think what really happens, when you get a group of people together that spend enough time with each other, that if enough trust builds up, then it is possible for the walls to come down and a mutual humanizing take place. In that, what happens, IMO, is a transcendent manifestation of trust and love...and a bond that is then more gracefilled and accepting. It's just so very hard to risk getting smacked down within a devulgence of one's own humanity.

 

This is exactly why, for example, even a cultish group like the Jehovah's Witnesses that circulate around the 'hood every now and then can expect that behind at least one out of every 100 doors they knock on, they will find an easy mark, low hanging fruit. In one form or another all these belief systems peddle the concept that there is a silver bullet for the human condition, and they happen to have it. If you can just accept their particular premise everything suddenly Makes Sense.

 

I think the need is there for many folks. And certainly our ego, pride, greed.....you name it, get in the way of legitimately reaching people to accept them in their place.....kind of like your "howareyoutodaywelcometodoughtland" guy. And I don't particularly like to consider dishonest motivations. I am sure that strategery/gambit is there.

 

I have simply accepted that there is no there, there. From the outside this looks like leaping into the pit of despair, but actually, it's not so bad as all that. The problem isn't that it's awful, it's more in that it's not terribly compelling, either. I like the freedom of thought, the freedom from having to force fit explanations for everything that doesn't fit some canned belief system, I just don't like the fact that there's nothing in particular to believe.

 

Lol....not laughing at you...but yeah, there is no competitive concept. I have thought that myself. And I don't know that I could do that at this point in my life. I just signed a note for many thousands of dollars attempting to establish a small laboratory .....in an effort to "try again". I can't see myself waking up to no theory. Lol, what do you do with that? Lol. You might have a new sitcom on your hands.

 

Well ... we're not going to solve this problem but at least it helps a little to speak of it.

Very much my point.

[agnosticator]

Based on what he said, it must be stubbornness. To be stubborn is the most horrendous sin of them all! Funny thing, Rayskidude is the quintessence of it.

 

Haha! His stubbornness is perversely unyielding, while ours is justified. So there!

 

It's funny that Ray accuses us as lacking in personal responsibility. The human sacrifice of Jesus irresponsibly blames an innocent in place of the biblegod's blaming humanity for what He created in the first place. Since the biblegod can't accept responsibility for his imperfect creation, he stubbornly continues to blame his imperfect creation, while allowing his perfect sibling to take the blame. But it's the biblegod's inability to create perfection that is really to blame. It's a comedy of errors!

[Crazy Donna]

The very fact that you DESIRE to CHANGE others is animosity. You should recognise that in yourself. Just because you've got something you think is fantastic does not mean that it is in other people's best interests to adopt your worldview. If you genuinely loved people and respected them, you'd quash your desire to convert them, because that desire does indeed come from a selfish place. You regard other beliefs as 'incorrect'. That is why you're driven to 'correct' them. This is a selfish urge.

 

Are you limiting this to religion? I mean, if someone in my family has an incorrect understanding about something - is it animosity on my part to correct them?

You ASSUME you are correcting them. In actual fact, you have no evidence to support your beliefs, but insist that a magical book that must be magical because it says it is, and some special happy feelings, are 'proof' that what you believe is reality. Until you can provide solid, Nobel Prize winning proof that god exists, hell exists, and that your interpretation of those things is reality (with undeniable evidence) then you're just a pompous git who likes to tell other people what to think. You can only 'correct' someone when what you're telling them is actually correct. All you've got is self important opinion and wishful thinking. Imposing that on other people is animosity. Keep your offensive ideologies to yourself.

 

I am simply stating what Muslims have told me and and from reading Muslim theology. Have you spoken to a Muslim who believes that they will one day see allah in paradise? Have you spoken to a Muslim who is confident they will even be in paradise? Cuz when I asked them, Muslims replied, "Insh allah" > 'God willing'; or "it was written on my forehead (at birth)." > this is their version of predestination.

 

If you'd actually spoken to some Muslims and read some Islamic theology, you'd know that Islam teaches that there are multiple levels of heaven. While all these levels are supposedly amazing, you can only see god from the seventh level. So when a muslim says that 'god willing' they will see god in heaven, THAT is what they are referring to.

 

You like to point the finger at muslims for 'their version of predestination', but you won't acknowledge that predestination is a core element of christianity. Your god supposedly created everyone, knowing before he created them exactly what would happen to them. Some people were predestined by your god to burn in hell, because he likes that. Otherwise he wouldn't have created people to burn in hell, or created hell either.

 

You automatically assume you are right, even when evidence contradicts that, or when no evidence exists.

 

Prove me wrong.

 

I did. Back when I told you to believe in Santa Claus for five minutes. But you didn't have the cobblers to try that. Failing to do so is your silent affirmation that I am correct. You KNOW deep down that god is a fiction, but you want to keep believing.

 

I don't have to prove you wrong. You have to prove what you say is the truth, because you are arguing in the affirmative. You can't prove something that doesn't exist. The onus is on you, because you're the one insisting god is real. So man up, and show us some proof. No proof = YOU'RE LYING.

[Crazy Donna]

If I don't believe in your god, and your god created me, KNOWING that I would not believe in him, and that as a result he would burn me for eternity in hell (because of my unbelief), then your god is a malevolent monster who created me for the EXPLICIT PURPOSE of BURNING ME IN HELL for ETERNITY. If you're too stupid to follow that causal chain, maybe you shouldn't turn on your computer.

 

1. You're not dead yet, so hope remains.

2. The Biblical God has graciously provided salvation from sin, self, Satan, death, and hell thru Jesus the Messiah.

3. You are responsible to either accept this offer of God's grace; or you may reject, ignore, remain indifferent, etc.

4. What would you think of a child who treated their faithful parent with disdain? Do you think there should be appropriate consequences to this rebellious child? Which consequences this rejection brought upon him/herself?

5. Is any form of punishment appropriate for such behaviour?

6. Are you able to decide this matter for yourself, or are you at the mercy of 'biochemical pre-determinism?

I cannot believe in your god. I have tried, harder than you could possibly imagine. But it is impossible to force yourself to believe a lie. Of course, if you had the balls to try believing in Santa Claus for five minutes, you'd realise this. But you choose to ignore it because it would undermine your bigoted worldview and you'd probably have a nervous breakdown.

 

The 'biblical god' has graciously created HELL for the explicit purpose of TORTURING people that he knew (before he created them) that HE WOULD SEND THERE. Please explain to me how creating something with the deliberate intention of torturing it for eternity is evidence of god's compassion.

 

I did not 'reject' 'ignore' or 'remain indifferent' to your sick twisted god's version of 'salvation'. Do not continue to vomit forth this slanderous untruth about my character. I have explained this to you countless times. I did not reject your god. I am unable to believe in your god. To continue to insist that this fabrication you have invented, for the specific purpose of insulting me so that you can sleep at night, constitutes a vicious lie and a malignant attack on my character. If you continue to spout this lie, with your obvious intent of insulting myself and other users, you will only demonstrate to myself and other users on this site that you are a dishonest, lying, offensive troll, and not a legitimate user who seeks dialogue with ex christians. See the first paragraph of my response for an explanation of the nature of belief. You cannot make yourself believe in something, no matter how hard you try. You cannot make yourself believe in Santa Claus, and you know it. It is exactly the same with your horrible, vindictive god. I can't make myself believe in that monster any more than you can make yourself believe in Santa Claus. Do not indirectly accuse me of lying on this matter again.

 

What would I think of a child who treated their faithful parent with distain? I CERTAINLY WOULD NOT BURN THEM IN HELL FOR AN ETERNITY, you sick bastard. If your god is some kind of parent, why would he burn someone in hell for eternity? If your god was a human being with kids, and he treated them that way, his kids would be saved by the Department of Human Services, and he'd be sitting in a jail cell, hopefully never to be released. How can you compare a god, who deliberately hardened the pharaoh's heart so he could kill all those firstborn children, for example, to a loving parent? How can you compare your sick god, who created human beings KNOWING ULTIMATELY THEY WOULD END UP IN HELL, with a parent?

 

There are appropriate punishments for bratty children who misbehave. Burning them for eternity is not an appropriate punishment.

 

WHY is INFINITE punishment (HELL) appropriate for FINITE (miniscule) sins?

 

Answer me this. Do you think the people who go to hell DESERVE to go to hell? Do you think it is fair that someone who lived an honest life goes to hell because of a sin their ancestors committed? Your answer to these questions will reveal how morally repugnant christianity actually is. You obviously believe that infinite punishment for some tiny insignificant infraction is quite okay. If you were a court judge, you'd be sending people to jail for twenty years for parking opposite double white lines. You don't understand that a punishment has to fit a crime, and that by punishing someone brutally for a tiny, insignificant infraction actually perpetrates a far greater injustice than the infraction you were seeking to sanction. We don't sentence people to 100 lashes for stealing a pack of chewing gum. We don't sentence people to life in jail for going 2 minutes over their parking meter. However, your god would say all these things are appropriate punishments. Your god would burn someone in hell for eternity (that's trillions of years and more, mate) for stealing a biro from work. Answer me HOW exactly is that fair? You're here to 'correct' us when we're wrong. How about you start 'correcting' us by explaining how burning someone in hell for a sin they didn't commit is exactly fair? Or are you talking out of your arse again? Failure to address these questions will be taken as admission that your god doesn't exist.

 

Not even Hitler deserved to be burned in hell for eternity.

 

You continue to insist that disbelief in god = rejection. Obviously your precious little brain is unable to get around the concept that these are two separate entities. Ignoring our constant explanations of this difference just makes you an arse. Either you refuse to acknowledge that they are two different things, or you're actually admitting you're too feeble minded to understand that they are two different things. Which is it? I'm going with feeble minded.

 

Are you saying that god is actually at the whim of 'biochemical predestination', and that he can't help but send people he created to hell because he is biochemically predestined to do that? Wow, that's the best excuse for god I've ever heard. Can you back that up with scripture?

[Crazy Donna]

I did not CHOOSE anything. If you HAD an intellect, you'd recognise that belief is not a choice.

 

Again, are you controlled by some kinda biochemical pre-determinsim? Is that why YOU did not choose?

 

You deliberately overlook all the material in your precious magical book that demonstrates that your god, if he exists, is in fact a malevolent monster, which was my point. If you had any integrity, you'd examine your precious book and recognise these failings in your god's character. You'd address THOSE things, rather than insulting people with your disgusting value judgements. But you can't address any of those things, so you deliberately try to brush over them. You are dishonest, and intellectually lazy. You don't want to address any of those issues, because you run the risk of finding that there IS no plausible explanation that reconciles the character of god as displayed in the bible with the feelgood christian character of god you are worshipping. If you could find a way to reconcile both of those things, you'd probably get a lot of converts. But you can't, because god is a human invention.

 

Are you referring to instances when God exercised His perfect holiness and justice upon sinful, wicked peoples? Or were the Canaanites and Amalekites just simple pastoral folk, minding their own business and treating all with loving fairness (kinda like the Hobbits in the Shire)- and then they were unjustly and unduly punished? Is that what we see in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah?

Your invention of 'biochemical pre determinism' as a reason for why you hypothesise that I may have 'chosen' something is fully dependent on the existence of a god. SInce there is no god, I could not be 'biochemically pre determined' to believe or not believe. I do not believe, because there is no god to believe in. If you were capable of perceiving what the world would be like without a magical skydaddy to look after you and send all the people you don't like to hell, you would understand that. You still believe in Santa Claus, by that argument, because Santa Claus engineered you to believe in him.

 

Hypothetically (my, that's a big word, isn't it. You'd better sound it out) if your god existed, then I would be one of the people he chose to burn in hell. I would have no control over it. Otherwise, you are admitting that your god is, in fact, NOT OMNIPOTENT. Your god could have every single one of his creations in heaven with him, if he wanted to. He obviously does not want to. Otherwise, you are saying that I am infact MORE POWERFUL THAN gOD. Either you're admitting that I am more powerful than your god, or you're admitting that god wants some people to burn in hell. Otherwise, he is not all powerful, and all knowing. I would, on those grounds, challenge you that is is not much of a god.

 

Do not take my hypothetical explanations of your imaginary god as implications that such a sick, vindictive monster actually exists.

 

Are you telling me that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah deserved their destruction? Are you, in fact, telling us that the people that supposedly died in the flood deserved to die in that flood? Are you telling us that simply not believing in your god (which is beyond conscious control) is grounds to be brutally killed? And you then expect us to want to worship a sick, malevolent monster who would do that? Are you high?

[Crazy Donna]

 

The crime: x

 

The penalty: ∞

 

And besides, what is this "sin" that deserves such punishment? Born into this world as a human and it's all Adam's fault?

 

Remember - that people in hell remain eternally unrepentant, they will forever refuse to acknowledge God as God, eternally blaming God for their own sin and it's consequences. Eternally refusing to accept personal responsibility - as you have shown >> "It's all God's fault."

You're really so morally bankrupt that you think that being unrepentant for something is justification to be tortured for eternity? Even if what you say is true, and that some of these people are 'unrepentant' rather than, far more likely, they just don't believe in your god, you honestly think that THAT is grounds for eternal torture?

 

How do you sleep at night? Seriously? I'd just kill myself if I was sick enough to believe that such people deserved eternal punishment. That is sick and depraved. You have no empathy for anyone, or a shred of humanity, if you can argue that these people deserve eternal torture because they don't repent. You sick fuck.

[Crazy Donna]

rayskidude- Do we sit around and condemn them for conducting some 'unlawful' sacrifice? Or do we laud them for their selfless service to us?

 

Isn't human sacrifice against USA law? Why do we allow the best & brightest of our citizens to die for us, sacrificing themselves?

 

This is more irrelevancy on your part.

You discard God’s law when it doesn’t conform to your subjective desires.

You mock God's rules and make special exemptions for things that please your senses.

USA law is not the HOLY LAW of God, which is quite specific on what is and isn’t allowed.

The issue is if God’s law allows humans to be used as sin sacrifices.

The issue is if Jesus could fulfill a law by breaking it.

The issue is if God was serious when he said not to add or subtract from his holy law.

You cannot claim that Jesus fulfilled the law or was a valid sacrifice while ignoring the very HOLY LAW that the Bible God set down as binding and eternal.

 

Here's the deal - you built yourself a nice little straw man and called it "God's Holy Law" - now you've painted yourself into a corner, and you can't get out. So you lash out.

Here’s the deal preacher.

Pointing out the obvious makes you squirm.

You completely ignore the point of God’s law because you’ve backed yourself into a corner.

God’s law isn’t a straw man, it’s the essence of the theology presented in the Bible.

You claim Jesus fulfilled the law when he didn’t.

You then engage in blatant special pleading to escape the dilemma you created for yourself.

Jesus is special and exempt from his Father's law, and therefore anything he did must be proper because you say so.

You preach on and on about a holy God but when it comes to walking the walk instead of only talking the talk, you collapse like a cheap tent.

You wave away the obvious problems and contradictions by falsely labeling them as a "straw man".

The so-called straw man rests firmly on the foundation of God's word, which you edit and revise as you see fit.

 

 

You're simply wrong about the sacrifice of God the Son on behalf of sinners - it's perfectly good & righteous. And it secures salvation for all who believe.

A human sin sacrifice is illegal according to God’s law, which was binding on Jesus.

In order to escape this dilemma, you “lash out” by claiming I’m wrong and in the process toss God’s law aside like an old shoe.

It’s utterly amazing how so-called believers like you will claim they believe the whole Bible and then deny and contradict it.

In doing this you’re directly contradicting what God told his people about sin sacrifices and engaging in revisionist theology as well.

Now, you can resolve this quite easily by showing from the Hebrew scriptures where the law of God states that humans are valid sacrifices for sin.

List some of the requirements for a sin sacrifice and show how Jesus complied with the law.

Show where the new covenant as defined in the Hebrew scriptures, states that obedience to the law would be replaced by faith in a vicarious human sacrifice.

God's word says that salvation comes from the law, not through a pagan human sacrifice.

Repenting and obeying the law are the recipe for salvation as Ezek 18:20-27 shows.

Also, there is no God the Son, as the Hebrew deity is not a three headed hydra.

I love it when you're right, Centauri!

[bornagainathiest]

Based on what he said, it must be stubbornness. To be stubborn is the most horrendous sin of them all! Funny thing, Rayskidude is the quintessence of it.

 

Haha! His stubbornness is perversely unyielding, while ours is justified. So there!

 

It's funny that Ray accuses us as lacking in personal responsibility. The human sacrifice of Jesus irresponsibly blames an innocent in place of the biblegod's blaming humanity for what He created in the first place. Since the biblegod can't accept responsibility for his imperfect creation, he stubbornly continues to blame his imperfect creation, while allowing his perfect sibling to take the blame. But it's the biblegod's inability to create perfection that is really to blame. It's a comedy of errors!

 

And there you have it!

 

"Perversely unyielding."

 

"The quintessence of stubbornness."

 

I wish I'd thought of those!

 

Yep. Ray's character tells us more about the 'True Christian Faith' than any Bible quote ever could.

 

Mister Pappy was on the right wavelength here when he commented on the sad, sick Christian tactic of never, ever, not ever, ever yielding in a debate - forcing a given thread to go on and on and on and on by denying where they've been shown to be lying, or mistaken or just wrong and then on some more, so that they 'win' by grinding their opposition down, making them give up out of disgust, boredom or lack of commitment. Somehow, in their out-of-kilter take on reality, this kind of 'winning' equals a triumphant display of true Christian faith and perseverance in the face of Satanic lies and persecution.

They wish!

 

So, given Ray's stubborn-to-the-core brand of unyielding perversity, is there really any doubt that we'll see him return?

 

I've got a... "Told you so!" ...ready and waiting.

 

BAA.

[DesertBob]

The itch seems to get scratched when we DO find the ablity or the time or place to make ourselves truthfully known to others ... I think what really happens, when you get a group of people together that spend enough time with each other, [is] that if enough trust builds up, then it is possible for the walls to come down and a mutual humanizing take place. In that, what happens, IMO, is a transcendent manifestation of trust and love...and a bond that is then more gracefilled and accepting.

I more or less agree. The only thing that makes my existence compelling is some kind of connection and intimacy with others, though not just random others, but people whose awareness I can respect. Even then, though, you have Kafka's problem that "hell is other people". It's all about perceptions. What is real to others is not what is actually true; the only thing that matters to them is what they perceive to be true. The fly in the ointment is other people's projections. You end up carrying them until you can't bear it anymore and in general they will not take them back, so you're forced to choose between lugging their projections around or lugging around the sadness of separation and loneliness. Having known both, I choose to bear people's illusions, with people whom I find it to be at least marginally worth the effort to do so.

 

Of course I have my own illusions and probably although I do my best not to burden others with them, to some degree I'm probably guilty of the same thing. That is what motivates me to aggressively deal in reality and let go of my hopes ... it's the only way I know to be a tolerable person to be around.

I can't see myself waking up to no theory. Lol, what do you do with that? Lol. You might have a new sitcom on your hands.

It is no accident that comedy springs from pain, that most comedians find comedy a defense against their own demons and help us to laugh at the absurdity of life. Yes, my life could make a great sitcom ... and so could yours or anyone else's.

[rayskidude]

Just putting my two cents in via quotes.

So Jesus only talk about a hypothetical "Abraham's bosom," not a real place?

 

This is one of the problems of Christianity, so many different ideas about the afterlife, and no one really knows. Yet they want us to believe what they say. Anyone can conjure up some hypothetical idea about the afterlife, but it doesn't make it true. And it sure doesn't mean people have to believe it.

 

I have never - no never - no never - heard of anyone ever referring to Abraham's bosom as 'hell.' Just read the passage, it's so obvious that Lazarus is in the place of blessing. And God says He's the God of Abraham - again, obvious reference to Abraham being in the place of blessing.

 

Abraham's bosom is obviously the place where you're in fellowship with Abraham, receiving the same blessed after-life as Abraham, 'the friend of God.'

 

I seriously don't know what kind of churches you guys attended prior to your de-conversions - but if this is an example of what you were taught (Abraham's bosom = hell) - well, no wonder you left. I would have left there as fast as I could.

[rayskidude]

rayskidude >>

Remember - that people in hell remain eternally unrepentant,

 

How do you know? Have you asked them?

 

I gave ample evidence from the Book of Revelation, and if anyone in this life repents and believes - they receive forgiveness. Why should this truth stop with this life on Planet Earth?

 

they will forever refuse to acknowledge God as God,

 

How is that even possible? They are dead, know the afterlife exists, are punished by being sent to Hell by God, and yet are able to claim that God doesn't exist?

 

You clearly didn't read my statement (which, in your case, doesn't surprise me). They will NOT ACKNOWLEDGE GOD AS GOD - this says nothing about not believing that God exists. It simply means they refuse His Godship over them, as does Satan. Satan knows God exists - he simply refuses to live under God's lordship.

 

And all your talk of 'sleep' is blather. Do you not understand 'metaphor?

 

28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

 

The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001 (Rom 1:28–32). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

 

Do you see the psychosis here? These unbelievers know God exists and they know His law and the just punishment- but they don't care! They don't acknowledge God in their lives. Ergo, they will receive what they have always desired - God's absence from their lives. The place of God's absence is Hell.

 

9 They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, 10 when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.

 

The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001 (2 Thess 1:8–10). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

[Antlerman]

You are saying that in man there is nothing beautiful, nothing good, and only death. And whatever life and beauty and love there is is of God. Correct? Let's go with that for a minute and say that all Life, Light, and Love comes from God. Humans are created by God? Then humans have that Nature. So even though in their imaginations they may become darkened, not seeing that Light, that Light is in them because they are created by God. In other words they have both the Spark of Light, and a loss of sight of that due to the fact that they are finite creatures. Would you agree with that?

 

Though men are sinners and capable of grievous sin; yet we are made in God's image & likeness - and thus possess many good qualities. And yes, God is the source of Life, Light, and Love. We are like God in that we are persons with intellect, emotions, and will. So yes, I agree.

If there is good in us, then we have that nature of God. I'm not sure where you concoct this notion of "imprint", or really how that makes sense to explain our movement towards good. Again, we are the ones doing good from within us, and if that nature of good is God, then we have the nature of the Divine. We are the unfolding of the Divine within us. The problem of 'sin' as you would call it not that we possess a 'bad' nature too, but that those are symptomatic of a dysfunction, like you wouldn't call a flu bug evil, or Satan - except in some ancient mythic past perhaps.

 

I agree that Man's struggle is to find God, and that not all men pursue this search - but that Man cannot find God on his own. God must initiate this relationship by revealing Himself to Man.

That's a mythological way to talk about it, anthropomorphizing Deity to be some person out there meddling in the daily affairs of the world. "God" would be 'initiating' this relationship simply by being, not by 'reaching down into Johnnies life and revealing himself to him'.

 

Human beings all the time have moments of opening within themselves to their greater nature, to higher mind, to higher being. It's a process of growing into that where we have come from, and where we are going to. Every now and then, as part of that normal growth process individuals may 'punch through' to much higher levels than they have actually attained in their present growth stage. These are peak experiences which expose someone to higher levels, and those levels, those potential are ever present, already within them waiting to be realized in their lives at a permanent stage of growth. That then becomes a process of growth, learning how to integrate that higher mind into ones present lives.

 

I don't accept that some deity 'decides' the moment of exposure for you. We decide that all on our own, initially through some form of existential crisis, a no-exit scenario, which leads to some form of peak experience breaking through into life out of death. It comes up from within us, not down to us from above, though in a dualistic mindset it could be perceived that way. The problem I have with that is all the ensuing confusing myth creations humans do with that, ergo "God sent me money just in time to pay my water bill". I don't find those views terribly progressive or helpful.

 

As has been said - there is a void, a 'God-shaped hole' in every human heart. Men seek for many things to fill this void - God reveals Himself as the only One who can righteously do so.

I would say unrealized nature we already possess.

 

To have the imprint of God's nature is different than having some level of divine nature. Human nature has that imprint, that attribute of 'personality.'

Imprint? What in the world does that mean? Something like a radioactive background signature? If that's all it is, then we would not be able to produce any sort of life-giving fruit whatsoever from within us, which is in fact what has been happening long before the theology of Christianity came along, and is happening every day of every moment everywhere without it.

 

A photograph of the sun produces no light, nor would some "imprint". This is an interesting, but poor work around answer to something which appears to shake the applecart of theology a bit for you, that we all have God already, even if not fully realized within us, not fully apprehended.

 

Sin occurs because we reject, ignore, etc God's will for us, and we set out to accomplish "My Will." Because of our sin nature and finiteness - My Will ends in My Destruction, My Ruin. Yet God can and will deliver Me from my path and pursuit toward self-destruction. What's called for is that I abandon "My Will" and return to seeking God's Will.

This is all an externalizing and mythologizing of an internal process of dying to ones own efforts to build an image of his own ideal for himself to becoming the greatest ideal of the potential of his own nature as one with the world. We abandon our efforts at self-preservation, immortality projects (money, power, etc) to realize the true power within us. The way up, is the way down, so to speak. You wish to know love, give love.

 

To you "God's will", is probably more about obeying scriptural doctrines and rules (like the Pharisees), whereas I would say it is about being true to your higher nature, to become God. All the rules bits and stuff, aren't an issue at that point, and nor can anyone's ideas about them be imposed upon you as your judge.

 

For any human or angel to say "I am God" is delusional.

Only if the mythologies created about God from a dualistic mind define the range of God itself. Sure, within your system that defines God, this would sound blasphemous. I'm talking about Godhead, the Divine. God's God, so to speak. That Nature is in all, in varying levels of realization. Fully realization is to become that.

 

When humans are fully realized in their God-given humanity, we become glorious beings fulfilling what God has designed and what we willfully and joyfully pursue. We are completely and utterly satiated and fulfilled. And yet, all the while acknowledging God as God, and ourselves as His loving children.

I'm curious how much of this is theology, how much of this is actually realized?

 

I can tell you in my experience it's more than just be some adoring child to a very large parent. It is full Union with. That's quite different.

 

No, it is never warranted. It is contrary to the nature of the Divine.

 

Are you saying that from your finite position and imperfect nature - that you for absolutely sure that such action is NEVER warranted? How can you be so sure?

I am saying it from the perspective of the perfected nature which I have experienced. How can I be sure? Through pure Gnosis, the mind of God.

 

None of that is there, no potential for that, no thought of that. It is simply nonexistent in God.