Lisa Simpson
Unregistered
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- Mar 2, 2004
- Messages
- 21,960
Cosmo said:
I'd believe you Cosmo, but I'm already an Apathetic Agnostic Buddhist Tacoist. I can't keep adding to that with having to keep notes somewhere.
Operaider
Muse
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2004
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- 913
1inChrist said:
In order to get a huge following of people that will do anything they are told as long as it's the "will of god".
Why did David Koresh tell people he was jesus and could save your soul? He was given money and sex. It tends to work out fairly well for religious leaders.
DarkMagician
Graduate Poster
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2003
- Messages
- 1,532
My guess is delusion, though control is a solid #2.1inChrist said:
Z
Variable Constant
If GOD's message is so clear --- then why are there 34,000 "Christian" churches, each proclaiming a different 'Word of God'?
Cosmo
Radioactive Rationalist
- Joined
- Jul 23, 2004
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- 1,182
1inChrist said:
Because there were certain parts that didn't fit well with the rest?
Because there were some parts that they desired to include?
Because they wished to remove inconsistencies?
However you look at it, the bible you worship today is nothing like what was assembled in 200 AD.
Z
Variable Constant
Re: Re: Why don't you believe in Hell?
The rape of shellfish is a sin. However, the rape of various mollusks is condoned...
:urgh:
Marquis de Carabas said:
The rape of shellfish is a sin. However, the rape of various mollusks is condoned...
:urgh:
DarkMagician said:
Read this
Atheist doctor Maurice Rawlings scared straight after patients who were clinically dead come back to life screaming about the horrors of Hell.
One minute after death
From the above link:
Chattanooga cardiologist Maurice Rawlings, M.D., tells of a patient who had a cardiac arrest in Dr. Rawlings' office. Throughout the attempted resuscitation, the patient faded in and out. Each time the doctor interrupted the heart massage, the patient appeared to die again.
When the man came to, he screamed, "I am in hell!" A look of sheer terror clouded his face. "Don't stop!" he begged. "Don't you understand? I am in hell. Each time you quit I go back to hell! Don't let me go back to hell!" The patient survived and put his faith in Christ to take away his sins and secure his place in heaven.{8}The place the Bible calls hell, or hades, is the current home of those who do not accept Jesus' gift of forgiveness. It is a place of constant, conscious tortnent.{9}Hades is not the final dwelling place of those who die without a personal relationship with Christ. John says these will be judged at the "great white throne" judgment. Since no one's deeds are sufficient to earn eternal life, those without Christ's pardon will be cast into the "lake of fire."{10}Jesus said that "the eternal fire...has been prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matthew 25:41).
Not a pleasant subject. But remember, God does not want you to perish in hell. He loves you and wants you to spend eternity with Him. Not without Him.{11}Paul wrote that God our Savior wants all people to be saved (or made safe from the consequences of sin, which is separation from God). He wants us to know Him because He is truth.{12}God sent Jesus Christ, His Son, to pay the penalty for our sins (attitudes and actions that fall short of God's perfection). Jesus literally went through hell for us. We simply need to receive His free gift of forgiveness—we can never earn it—to be guaranteed eternal life. "Whoever hears my word, Jesus says, "and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life" (John 5:24).
Lisa Simpson
Unregistered
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2004
- Messages
- 21,960
Cosmo said:
Oh sure, I make an exception for you, then next thing I know I'm worshipping the IPU, Jimmy Buffett and James Randi. It's gotta stop somewhere.
1inChrist said:
Philosophical arguments regarding free will aside, does a newborn baby make a conscious decision to reject God? According to the doctrine of original sin, all humans are sinners by default. The one and only way to save ourselves from an eternity of torture is to accept Christ.
According to many fundamentalists, human life begins at conception. Therefore, if one believes this and the doctrine of original sin, you must believe that every blastocyst that fails to develop into a Christian adult is a soul doomed to eternal damnation.
A few years ago, my wife had a miscarriage. I simply cannot accept the notion of an all-powerful, all-good God that will torture my "child" for all eternity because that 6-week old fetus rejected God. Nor can I accept the notion that an all powerful, all-good God would create a good person, let that person live out his life without ever having the chance to hear about Jesus, and then torture that good person forever for rejecting a God he never heard of in his life.
Regarding the idea that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", I disagree. I believe that absence of evidence sometimes is evidence of absence. It all depends on how likely you think it is that the evidence would have been found if the phenomenon in question is real.
The absence of evidence for multicellular life on other planets is not evidence of absence, because there is no reason why we would expect to have found such evidence, given the premise that alien multicellular life is real.
On the other hand, the absence of evidence for living brontosauruses is, indeed, evidence of absence. Given that humans have poked around in virtually every corner of every land mass on this planet at one time or another, it is rather silly to propose that animals that size could have escaped notice is rather silly.
1inChrist said:
So did you just skim over this page?
http://www.near-death.com/experiences/triggers06.html