PhoenixFlare500
Diamond Membership
I like chocolate[ss:LostPeon's Gray][ss:LostPeon's Gray]
Posts: 896
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Post by PhoenixFlare500 on Apr 26, 2006 12:44:16 GMT -8
I wanted to see what people here though about it. I want this to be a real debate, where people can share their actual opinions instead of pointless bashing.
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Post by LostPeon™ on Apr 26, 2006 14:31:16 GMT -8
But I like pointless bashing. It is fun and entertaining.
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Post by grayfox7 on Apr 26, 2006 15:05:17 GMT -8
Jesus Christ is not the son of God. Marx is! And not only is he the son of God, he is God Himself!
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Post by navyceals on Apr 26, 2006 17:16:13 GMT -8
Jesus Christ is the son of God.
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Post by technohawk on Apr 27, 2006 0:25:24 GMT -8
Hehe so far no real debate eh. Well then I shall add my two cents worth.
Yes, I believe Jesus is the Son of God, but in a broader spectrum than the average christian.
If you believe that God created everything(through a twirl of the hand or through evolution) then he created Jesus and created us. Therefore everyone would be a child of God, not just Jesus.
So a more interesting question perhaps is Do you believe that Jesus is THE ONLY child of God.
I have tons more to say on the topic of this and of christianity in general but I will wait until we get a good discussion going on in here.
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Post by LostPeon™ on Apr 27, 2006 10:08:11 GMT -8
I believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Yarr...
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Post by defectivegnome on Apr 27, 2006 16:40:36 GMT -8
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Post by technohawk on Apr 27, 2006 22:34:37 GMT -8
*sigh* guess not
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PhoenixFlare500
Diamond Membership
I like chocolate[ss:LostPeon's Gray][ss:LostPeon's Gray]
Posts: 896
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Post by PhoenixFlare500 on Apr 28, 2006 10:28:54 GMT -8
Do you believe that Jesus is THE ONLY child of God. This is kind of what I meant. I believe that we can all be called God's children, what I meant was, is Jesus our one and only savior? Were we forgiven when he died on the cross? Or was he just a fake and a sham?
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Post by technohawk on Apr 28, 2006 13:43:26 GMT -8
My opinion on that question changed about a year ago when I began to believing that there probably Is not a Hell(Despite Kevin Spacey's warning that that's what the devil's greatest trick is).
I will say that 1) Jesus is authentic and not a sham. 2) He is a saviour, but not the only one AND not for the reasons that christianity teaches.
I've come to a realization that the whole God vs Satan thing doesn't make sense. If you believe in God and believe that he is a loving God, then why would he create an evil asshole to torment us.
My answer is that God wouldn't do that. Thus, no Satan. Of course without an evil lord of darkness to tempt us to do bad things we would be forced to take responsability for the bad things that we do. We'd have no excuses to fall back on (The Devil made me do it).
We'd also have less reason to kill people of other religions since we could no longer think of them as under the influence of Satan.
The thing I remember most about Satan when I learned about him from Sunday School was that he was unforgivable. He went bad when everything was good(which to me doesn't make sense, kind of a paradox. God creates only good, but the ONLY good stuff turns evil, but how can it be evil if God created only good)
The unforgivable aspect of the Satan story leads many to believe that there are others who cannot be forgiven and will go to hell no matter what. Thus its ok if we kill them or do bad things to them because they can't be saved.
But if humans can forgive bad people and bad people can truly reform, then why can't God forgive and why can't Devils and demons turn good? They should be able to, but in our stories they don't. Thus one more reason not to believe in them at all.
Now as to my stuff about Jesus he did "save" us but not by his death/ressurection. He showed people a path of peace and love instead of hatred and violence. It was his life that saved people, not the death.
The way I would put it is that Jesus was probably one of the first, if not THE first person to reach true "enlightenment." Since he reached that stage he figured the best way to help out the world was to teach. But just like modern times, many people don't like change. So they killed him. Just like modern "christian" politicians would probably execute Jesus today for his crazy idea of peace and love.
There we go.
Discuss or go silly again.
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PhoenixFlare500
Diamond Membership
I like chocolate[ss:LostPeon's Gray][ss:LostPeon's Gray]
Posts: 896
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Post by PhoenixFlare500 on Apr 28, 2006 21:07:08 GMT -8
My opinion on that question changed about a year ago when I began to believing that there probably Is not a Hell(Despite Kevin Spacey's warning that that's what the devil's greatest trick is). Why do you think there is no hell? Do you believe there's a heaven? This comes up so much when you debate Christianity. I believe that only God is perfect. Everything that God created was good and all, but when he created life, sentient beings, that is when evil came in. Evil comes from our free will (our being us, angels, demons, Satan), and from our selfish desires. With free will it's impossible not to be selfish. If there was no selfishness or free will, we would just be mindless automatons working for our master. God doesn't want mindless minions, he wants thinking people to love him. He created us with free will, and so sin entered the world (through one man). I was confused about this point. Do you think that general Christianity says killing people of other religions is the right thing to do? You know, even if I knew somebody would not be forgiven and would go to hell, I would still not do bad things to them. First, Jesus said, "Love your neighbor as yourself". Second, nobody but God would know if they would go to hell, and now you open up a whole new debate about predestination, which is really confusing. Also, in my opinion, debating predestination doesn't really do anything, 'cause nobody really understands it and only God knows.[/quote] The thing about this is that God only forgives when people ask for it. Those bad people that reform, they ask God for their forgiveness and thus begin to follow him. I'm sure demons had their chance to repent, and maybe they still have a chance to repent and follow God again. I'm likin' this discussion, but so far it's just me and techno. I'm sure there's many people out there who have thought about this sometime in their lives.
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Post by Chalupa! on Apr 28, 2006 21:10:20 GMT -8
Well Techno, I think I can explain a bit of the confusion about why a loving God would create evil (Yes, I attended Christian school until Jr. High). According to the Bible, Satan was God's top Angel and his second in command. God allowed Satan to make his own decisions unlike the other Angels. Although I can't remember all of the details, I remember learning that God wanted man to have the choice to make their own decisions which meant that they could choose evil. Satan wanted to compete with God and that was why he or she turned evil.
I also believe that God tells man not to judge others but that he would be the judge. The analogy I would use it that a judge could be a loving husband, father, or just a loving person but could still sentence a man to death for his crimes. It doesn't make the man evil. Just the same, God can sentence someone to hell but still be a loving God. I don't think you have to believe that God created evil by allowing Satan to have choices rather than being programmed todo whatever God wanted. I'm sure that would get boring.
I don't think man is capable of understanding (actually, I know we are not) why things are the way they are,how things started and all the reasonings behind the universe (if you believe there is one). We used to be sure that the earth was flat at one point. I'm sure we are wrong about alot of other things. Anyone that thinks they know, is religious and is living on faith because there is no scientific proof of how life began. It's all based on faith, and evolution is a religion just as Christianity is.
A person will say if God is real, show me the proof. But that same person will believe that the big bang theory started life without any proof. I think that's pretty funny.
Chalupa
Edit: And Phoenix and I posted at the same time, so although we made some of the same points, we wrote these at the same time!
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Post by defectivegnome on Apr 28, 2006 23:14:56 GMT -8
"Evolution is JUST a theory!" And I just find this kind of funny considering Christianity is all blind faith. I was feeling a bit bad about my pictures (Even though they're high-larious), but that quickly passed and I'm ready to post a couple more.
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Post by technohawk on Apr 28, 2006 23:25:27 GMT -8
Well I'm glad an actual discussion actually broke out. By the looks of it people are at least starting to read this thread, if not respond to it. I will try to clarify some of my positions now and answer the questions that came up. Why do you think there is no hell? Do you believe there's a heaven? Yes I believe there is a heaven. I Do not believe there is a hell though. I have come to believe in a God that is nothing but love. From that stems the belief that a God that is pure love would not condemn anyone to an eternity of damnation. Instead, like a good parent, he(and for all these posts I shall just use the he instead of he/she because it gets tedious) allows us to f**k up royally and still be forgiven. The thing about this is that God only forgives when people ask for it. Like I said before if a human can forgive someone, shouldn't God be able to. If indeed God is perfect(which I do believe) than he should be able to forgive someone even if they don't want to be forgiven. I mean people forgive other's misdeeds even when they don't want it. Case in point Pope John Paul II was shot by Mehmet Ali Ağca in 1981. The Pope forgave Mehmet when he talked to him in 1983 at his prison(although I admit I don't know if the guy asked for forgiveness or not I assume the Pope gave it regardless). I think that forgiveness is one of the highest levels of kindness/love that can be attained. Wouldn't make much sense to me if God followed a platform of vengeance instead. Mostly because that could mean that an average human could have more compassion than God, which doesn't sound right. With free will it's impossible not to be selfish This I disagree with. While it is sometimes easy to think of the inherent "evil" nature of people, it does not mean that free will causes acts such as selfishness. Since Free will denotes choice, then such a belief comes with the ability to CHOOSE to be unselfish. Wanting/desiring the ability to choose does not make us selfish, it makes us human. It allows us to grow and to learn from our choices. Many of us may start out using our choices to be selfish, but we can eventually learn to be self-less and do things for a greater good, even if we get little out of the action. I also believe that God tells man not to judge others but that he would be the judge. Like my statement about forgiveness talks about a loving God, so will this. I remember being taught to be like Jesus and be like God. Well, if God judges people, then let's all be judgemental so that we can be like him. Kinda feels like the parent saying "Do as I say not as I do." If God is a forgiving being then he wouldn't be judging people for everything they did. He would instead give them the freedom to learn from those mistakes on their own. He would also be infinitely patient with us. Now one thing I didn't say in my first post is another belief that at least to me makes more sense now, even though I thought it to be blasphemous before. That thing is Reincarnation and probably better left for either another thread or for later after the Jesus topic has been finished. I'll just make a small statement on it in the context of this post. If we did get born into other bodies after the death of our current one, then it would make sense about the patience of God. The reason why I think the whole "last judgement" concept has such popularity is that it is a way to explain how people could die even if they had not asked for forgiveness. Yet reincarnation could allow you to believe that even if we die with "sin" on our hearts, we get another chance and even more chances until we get it right. Kinda like that movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray. He did the same day over and over until he got it right. Well, why not entire lifetimes. Another analogy would be going to school. If you learn something in this life you get to go up another grade for more advanced teachings. If you fail you get to redo the class. Thus the judgement side would be akin to the principal expelling you forever from all schools in the world just because you failed grade 6 english. So, hmm, guess that's it for now. But I gotta say this is a great discussion so far. Props to Chalupa and Phoenix for good replies to my post(and for acutally reading all of it).
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Post by Chalupa! on Apr 29, 2006 7:13:06 GMT -8
My point. It's blind faith, just like Christianity. What's the difference?
But to move on to whether there is a hell or not, I'm not sure how you could believe the Bible is correct, but then choose not to believe all of it.
The Bible speaks of hell as a literal place, in the Old Testament the common word for hell is “sheol” which means “the grave” – the place where people go when they die. Sheol is translated “hell” 31 times and 3 times as “pit” in the King James Version.
The Hebrew word “sheol” was translated into the Greek word “hades” in the New Testament.
The New Testament also contains the word “Gehenna” (12 times) and it is usually translated “hell” or the “lake of fire.” In eleven of the twelve occurrences Jesus himself is speaking. The word is probably related to the dumping ground used to burn garbage, describing the filth and stench of smoke, pain, fire and death. (Matt. 5:22; 18:8-9; 23:33; Jn. 3:36)
- John the Baptist spoke of “unquenchable fire.” (Matt. 3:12)
- Jesus taught that when the end comes, people will be separated like sheep from goats, the sheep experience eternal life and the goats go away to eternal punishment. (Matt. 25:46)
- Revelation tells us that the beast and the false prophet and the devil himself will be thrown into the lake of burning sulfur where they will be tormented day and night forever. (Rev. 20:10)
- Revelation continues with the dead being judged, and anyone whose name is not found written in the lamb’s book of life is thrown into the lake of fire. (Rev. 20:15)
I do admit that Universalism is appealing. There is something inside of us that wants to see everybody make it to heaven and no one doomed to eternity in hell.
one reason to reject universalism is that freedom always requires an alternative – you can’t have heaven without a hell. What about people who don't want to go to heaven? Plus, God does does not want to force people to love him, they have a choice.
And I think I found an article that best describes the question of how a loving God could send someone to hell:
As a kind and loving God, He has desperately tried to help mankind repent, but as a just God, He cannot allow willfully, disobedient, and unrepentant people to populate His holy abode. Eventually, His mercy reaches a limit, and there is no longer a remedy - by man's choice.
And then on to the subject of judging others. In Matthew 7:2-5, Jesus warns against judging someone else for their sin when you yourself are sinning even worse. God does not sin, and may Judge others. You can't compare man to God.
Chalupa
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