Regarding Hell.

[slimshdy425]

I believe in God because I think there has to be something more to life. I just find it hard to believe that the universe just exists...goes about its business...came from nothing- I just think that's strange. I'm not crazy like some people about studying the bible and believing everything it says is true, I just think there has got to be something more to our existence (like many people think).

I definetly don't believe that anyone who doesn't believe in God go straight to hell or something- that's just stupid.

[Layla-Day]

Originally Posted by Bahamut-X

Excuse me, I'm entitled to an opinion too, and that is the way I see it. Just because I don't study religion doesn't mean I don't know a little about it. And you think I'm hanging around with the wrong people? Well apparently you haven't noticed that I am not the only non-believer of god. I'm just going by facts. You're going by sheer belief that has pretty much nothing to back it up. I'm guessing you didn't choose to learn about religion, you were probably forced to. I can't name even one kid that enjoys going to church. You were probably forced. If it was your decision things may have turned out different.

i didnt mean to offend you. i apoligize for that...but there's a few things we must clear up...I'm not a kid and i love going to church. and...what i was trying to say is that you were stereo typing christians by saying we that we think we are the only ones going to heaven...im saying if you Do hang around christians...they arent them. And no i wasnt forced. actually i had the choice. Every sunday...my parents went to church without me. but one day...i went along one day...And that very day in 1991...I knew that that's what i wanted to do. Go to church. And theres some things that may seem impossible...but life is not ever what you expect it to be.

So i apoligize if i offended you in anyway...but if I did, it wasnt on purpose.

Anyway..now that I'm older...i see how different our opinions are..and im not going to shove mmy religious beliefs down your throat...im just just trying to share My beliefs.

[jazzmosis]

You believe "God" has always been - why does that make it so hard to believe that the Universe has "always been"?

[prayerbassist15]

I agree that there has to be something else out there after life on earth.I think no matter how you look at it religion and christianity are two totally diffrent things, religion is based off of tradition, on the the other hand christianity means to be "Christ like", my point being that I think this life is only the prequel, the pack before the actual journey so to speak. So thats why in this life time I think your not just living just to live but to prepare as well.



-prayerbassist15

[slimshdy425]

Originally Posted by jazzmosis

You believe "God" has always been - why does that make it so hard to believe that the Universe has "always been"?

I've thought of that myself before, and sort of figured tangible things in the universe probably came from something intangible that has 'always been'. Something has to be able to create matter, and obviously that something cannot be a tangible thing as we've learnt from the Law of Conservation of Matter, so I think a Greater Being has (or had) this ability.

[acurtiz]

Atleast in the new testament, God is full of compassion and mercy, so what about the people who live where they are not exposed to the Bible's teachings? They don't place their faith in Jesus, obviously, so will they go to hell as well? I once asked a youth group leader this question and he answered me with this statement. "Wherever you may be, you can see the work of God around you. Even though they do not live where Chrisitianity is practiced, they should assume that God and Jesus do exist and they should proceed to follow the teaching of the bible."

I am at a time in my life when it is not uncommon to question religion. His answer did not help Christianity's cause. I would consider myself agnostic at this point, but I believe if there is a heaven, good people who do not believe should be allowed intrance as well.

[xp_guardian]

"God is a being of immense power who would not/could not lead his kin astray". That's my one quote, but it's based on alot of Philosophical studies throughout my life and University courses, and that's the basic idea/definition of 'God'. If he creates imperfect things, that doesn't necessarily mean he's imperfect, but that he wanted to create something not perfect. But if he could never lead us astray, creating something imperfect would only prove an imperfection in himself - an imperfect thing is not all it could be, which reflects on the creator imperfection in oneself. How, then, can a perfect being create imperfect beings? However, if God is imperfect, then it's not God. And if it's not perfect, how can one trust anything it's ever done can be agreeable?

Go read genysis chapter 1. God did not creat Imperfect beings (humans). he created sinless humans with the freedom to choose for themselves. we chose a life of sin and theres nothing we can do about it now. Jesus (god son) came to earth and was born in a barn basically to show that he didnt come here just for rich, he came here for everyone. as he grew up he was dispised because of what he taught. almost all of the religeous leaders of that time hated him. go read Mathew, Mark, Luke, or John in the new testament of the bible and u will further understand what im talking about. after that read the book of Revelations (its the last book in the bible). it tells that christianity will come under attack in "the end times". what is happening now on the news and stuff? people are trying to take God out of America. these days that we are living in are the end times. Jesus will return ANY moment without warning and all of his followers will be taken to heaven. believing in Jesus and accepting him as your savior will change your life. believe me. if u choose not to believe in him u will surely go to Hell. Revelations also talks about "the 7 year tribulation". after all of Jesus' followers are taken to heaven a man claiming that he is God. will rise up and create world unity. but dont be fooled, this isnt world unity, he will require a mark or the back of the right hand or on the forehead. i warn you right now, DO NOT TAKE IT!!!!!.if you take this mark you will SURELY go to hell. you will not be able to buy or sell without this mark and all but 144,000 who dont take it will be killed.
i cant force you to believe what im saying. im just asking you to. but if u choose not to believe it and you are alive when thousand of people just disappear ( refered to in the bible as " the rapture") please remember this post on this forum. later

[Layla-Day]

Originally Posted by xp_guardian

Go read genysis chapter 1. God did not creat Imperfect beings (humans). he created sinless humans with the freedom to choose for themselves. we chose a life of sin and theres nothing we can do about it now. Jesus (god son) came to earth and was born in a barn basically to show that he didnt come here just for rich, he came here for everyone. as he grew up he was dispised because of what he taught. almost all of the religeous leaders of that time hated him. go read Mathew, Mark, Luke, or John in the new testament of the bible and u will further understand what im talking about. after that read the book of Revelations (its the last book in the bible). it tells that christianity will come under attack in "the end times". what is happening now on the news and stuff? people are trying to take God out of America. these days that we are living in are the end times. Jesus will return ANY moment without warning and all of his followers will be taken to heaven. believing in Jesus and accepting him as your savior will change your life. believe me. if u choose not to believe in him u will surely go to Hell. Revelations also talks about "the 7 year tribulation". after all of Jesus' followers are taken to heaven a man claiming that he is God. will rise up and create world unity. but dont be fooled, this isnt world unity, he will require a mark or the back of the right hand or on the forehead. i warn you right now, DO NOT TAKE IT!!!!!.if you take this mark you will SURELY go to hell. you will not be able to buy or sell without this mark and all but 144,000 who dont take it will be killed.
i cant force you to believe what im saying. im just asking you to. but if u choose not to believe it and you are alive when thousand of people just disappear ( refered to in the bible as " the rapture") please remember this post on this forum. later

Thank you for informing them on that.

P.S. old thread so.....let it go.

[LostUserName]

I can't think of any sin so terrible as to warrent being cast into an eternity of pain. It is my personal belief that hell is more like prison. Reflect then rehabilitate into what God wants.

[Layla-Day]

Old Thread.

[eyespewgreekfire]

Layla, you need to work on this whole forum thing. The thread is simply 2 days old.
Another thing, if god created everything, god must have created sin. God must also have created satan. I think that the idea that god is totally good is at once bogus because of the simple existance of pain. If god wanted a perfect world, he could have made once. Also, I see much more evidence contradicting the bible than there is for it. Any intellectual can show you the reasonings for evolution, thus throwing genesis out the window, so Christians must now pick and choose secitions of the bible to believe so as not to seem like idiots. Man made god in his image, I would say.

[Layla-Day]

Actually, It was created on December 23, and it is now January 10. kthx.

[CypherToorima]

But the last post was on January 8. That's what counts.

[MuffinsarePiMp]

Well my prespective is that there is no hell at all. Only heaven. But that there are levels of heaven. Like for example, if you were a thug-g-gangnsta all of your life and killed lots of people and stuff like that then you might go hang out in the basement of heaven with hitler. Until you proved yourself worthy mabye you could move up the levels. I think this becuase the entire point of christianity is to love everyone and welcome everyone. This tells me that god would not reject someone from heaven and send the to hell becuase that is not what he taught in the first place.

[Layla-Day]

*no sense in arguing*
God didnt make bad people. god created sinless ppl. No one was imperfect. So muffins are pimp, you telling me if you worship satan, you are still worthy of heaven?

[QreepyBORIS]

If there is nothing other than heaven, yes.

[MonkeyFoo]

Originally Posted by Layla-Day

God didnt make bad people. god created sinless ppl. No one was imperfect.

Whoa, what about original sin and all that? I can't say I know much of anything about christianity, but I thought that the whole immaculate conception was important because Mary was born without original sin... Or are you not going with christianity? Anyway... I don't really believe in hell, nor do I in heaven. I think we all just die. Many would ask: what is the point in life then? That's what the idea of hell is all about. It's an incentive to get people to work hard, and be moral. Of course, christianity has a track record of being resistant to any change in its morals, or its beliefs. That's one reason why I don't believe in heaven, hell, or god. I want to make my own beliefs and my own motivations. Instead of the selfish goals of going to heaven and avoiding hell, I subscribe to goals of improving the social welfare of society as a whole. Wow... this topic will always be an endless well of discussion... I need to do something else for a while.

*Furthermore...* Oh, and that goal of mine... I don't mean to say that I'm a radicalist and want to do something like, for example, kill everyone but the aryans so that we can eliminate racism and be closer to world peace. That would perhaps improve the status quo, but I believe in Kantian justice. Basically what Kant's philosophy say is, it is immoral to use another person as a means to an end that is not their own. More basically, you can't hurt somebody for personal gain unless they benefit from it too. There are a bunch of other philosophers whose morals I believe in, and it is their long and carefully thought out writings that convince me, not some sob story about a guy who supposedly died so that I could be saved from the horrible sins that were, uh, bad news for me even back in year 1 AD. That's crazy talk, as far as I'm concerned. I don't mean to say that the Bible doesn't teach a lot of good morals, it's just that it is extremely archaeic now, and we should think before we keep believing in something that a bunch of guys wrote up and arranged over a millenium ago. (I don't know how old the Bible is, but I think that's more than broad enough to be accurate.) I need to pull myself away from this thread before I am smitten again, and forced to endure eternal damnation. Gee, that would really suck, wouldn't it?

One last note about God: If He is everwhere and in everything... then He's in your mom every night. Give that one some thought. And er... if rape/adultery is bad, why can God impregnate Mary if they're not married? Then Jesus is a bastard, right? And God is also a bad role model... I dunno, I must go wrong somewhere there. But if I did... prove it.

*And I forgot...* Is that, by chance, an actual pic of you, Layla-Day? If so, yuz hawt ^^

[alainbryden]

Originally Posted by eyespew

Man made god in his image.

Wow, did you invent that, because that is the most brilliant and insightful use of proverb reversal I've ever seen. Powerful Statement.

[alainbryden]

Originally Posted by Layla-Day

well.....say you are studying for a test,and three bonus questions are worth 50 pts each, and youre kinda slippin in that class. and you dont know whether economics is going to be on the test or not. wouldnt you rather study for it anyway....and the next day..you look on the test and its there than to not study and miss the oppurtunity...and so far...it the only thing that makes so far. im sure that one day a man and woman didnt just decide to sprout out of the earth's surface.

And...at least learn about religion before you criticize it. You have to read a book to find whether is sucks or(excluding reading the summary on the back), so actually gather information about something before you criticize it, because im a christian and no christian I know has a mind like that. either you dont have a clue what you're talking about....or maybe youre hanging around the wrong people.

If I had the choice to study economics for a math test, just in case through some illogical impossiblity, it was on there, or I had the choice to sleep in on sundays, have sex, and think for myself, I would choose the latter.

[eyespewgreekfire]

1. Yes I did come up with it, Alain, but it is kinda sorta similar to a quote from a book called Inherit the Wind but in a different context.
2. Nice double post
3. Back on topic:

First off, Layla, if god created sinless people, then how can there be sin at all? If sin was created by some other supernatural force, that contradicts the idea that there is only one god. I think this shows that if Christians are right about there being a god, he must have created hate, sin, anger, pain, and mid morning talk shows. If god is so loving, how can he harm his creations? I think this is an elemental sort of philisophical contradiction, thus proving christianity's story of creation wrong. QED.

My theory of how the idea of hell was created is simple: self interest. Without the existance of hell, a priest cannot scare people into following his will. Heaven and hell became a great economic boon for the church when indulgences became widespread in the Renaissance and Medieval Periods. These sorts of people work very well when they can scare people into submission. As Machiavelli said "It is better to be feared than to be loved." This here could be totally wrong, it is mere speculation since there is no hard evidence that I know of in this issue, but it makes sense to me.

Also, Layla, you show a deep misunderstanding of how evolution works. Evolution has nothing to do with a man and a woman sprouting out of the earth, geological evidence shows that the Australopithicus, the first Hominid, did not exist until a few million years ago. The first living creatures were single celled organisms, and the mechanism of natural selection led to some species to grow into multicellular beings. Single celled organisms were the only life until the Cambrian Explosion, which I personally find to be much more amazing than the emergence of life itself. At this time, Domains Archaea and Eubacteria were joined by Domain Eukarya, which includes Protists, Plants, and Animals. It is also not hard to grasp at all that living organisms could develop from unliving matter. In the Miller-Urey experiment, conducted around the middle of the 20th century (I forget exactly when), conditions similar to Earth before life were created. The materials which were abundant at that time, when surrounded by much lightning, as was common then, formed organic material. Some of this organic material was able to reproduce (although it was missing other criteria required to be considered living) in a manner similar to asexual reproduction practiced by all single celled organisms. I think that this shows a logical sequence of events leading to the creation of humans, rather than the logically unattractive idea of some supreme being creating earth on a whim, for which there is no evidence other than word of mouth.