Religion. The evolution, creation and everything in between megathread

[Hannibal4life]

thats another problem with religion. different churches preach different messages. Your church obviously preaches tolerance, while bergs ex gf church preaches vengeance

This is interesting. Good statement Kill3r, as there are three "strands" of Christians in New Zealand - for the Christian guys please bare with me; There are the Liberal Christians (which tend to have a very "liberal" approach to the bible, in other words - where the bible disagrees with them they come up with awesome excuses to de-contextualise it), these guys are at one end of the spectrum. At the other end are the extremist literals - who also take the bible out of context to support their distorted values. In the middle are the vast majority of Christians - bible believing and practising. Probably approx 90%.

I want to make a clarification for the Christians in the forum... This is not in any way related to the denominational forms e.g Baptist etc, but is related to individual Christians.


The thing is in reality, the members of a church, and the leadership (be that pastors, ministers, or elders) have a responsibility to know what God says to us through the bible. That message very clearly is love... not love the fact they'll burn. In fact, the whole ROFL cos they'll burn in hell is rather unchrist like... For the non-Christians in the forum bare with me, but in the bible it clearly states, "Love your neighbour as yourself." As well as, "For Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom i am the worst." Clearly some Christians don't get that fact, mainly cos many Christians have neglected to read their bibles for quite some time.

And its a sad reflection on Christians that people remember these guys the best.

But then on the topic of hell... if it were real(Non-Christians) wouldn't you want to be 100% sure you were right... I mean a simple cost benefit analysis would show you that you have more to lose if you're wrong than we Christians do.

[Hannibal4life]

Just because they call it a church is it really a church? If you call a dog a duck is it? lets just say that a large number of churches all disagree with each other and at which one is right and which one is wrong? comes down to personal beliefs and choices.

I am just glad I live in a country that we can all have our own beliefs unlike say China. Lets not slag each other for having those different beliefs or we may as well bring in a dictatorship.

We have a dictator, She's called Helen...  :rnr:

[BerG]

Hannibal...

I'm a nice guy.

I'm strongly against cruelty to animals.

I feel sorry for old people when I see them walking down the street.

I dont litter.

I mow my lawns.

I take out the trash, and am generally a pretty nice fulla.




Yet god is going to send me to hell to burn in pain for all eternity, just because I dont believe in him. FFS. He could have left a little more evidence. What did he give us??? A fucking book!!! A book from thousands of years ago, a time when NO ONE can confirm he was actually what the book says he is.

WHAT A WANK.

Another thing that pisses me off is these bumber stickers, saying shit like "Jesus came when the world needed him most".

LOL. The world needs him TWO HUNDRED TIMES more now than it did back then. War, mass poverty and starvation, you name it we've got it.

BUT THERES NO JESUS

[Hannibal4life]

He cant explain it(yet). I gave him a loaded gun type question.

Its like asking Atheists what happens when one of them becomes God. Or its like lighting a bonfire in a fireworks factory.

As for me: I suffer from Benford's law of controversy so cant answer.

"Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available."

No im just seeking clarrification from you, like i said, and man dude i'm gone for a day and you claim victory... lol, are you losing so bad??? Clarify your question and you'll see my reply relatively soon.

Oh and NB: Some of us Christians hear the same trick questions more than once, and know the traps people use to try to slow the debate down. Please be more inventive, there are easier verses and "apparent flaws" to attempt to exploit.

[Hannibal4life]

Hannibal...

I'm a nice guy.

I'm strongly against cruelty to animals.

I feel sorry for old people when I see them walking down the street.

I dont litter.

I mow my lawns.

I take out the trash, and am generally a pretty nice fulla.




Yet god is going to send me to hell to burn in pain for all eternity, just because I dont believe in him. FFS. He could have left a little more evidence. What did he give us??? A fucking book!!! A book from thousands of years ago, a time when NO ONE can confirm he was actually what the book says he is.

WHAT A WANK.

Another thing that pisses me off is these bumber stickers, saying shit like "Jesus came when the world needed him most".

LOL. The world needs him TWO HUNDRED TIMES more now than it did back then. War, mass poverty and starvation, you name it we've got it.

BUT THERES NO JESUS

Hi Berg,

I appreciate that you're a nice guy - hell dude we're all nice guys. I'm never attacking anyone's personal credibility - although someone is accusing me of neg repping- but its ok i forgive that person because i can't really be bothered with trivia. Hell you could neg rep me all day and i wouldn't care cos there is a life outside my PC (like from 3am to 6am when i sleep - jj), but seriously dont neg rep me - life would be meaningless then... :bounce:

[BerG]

I didn't even neg rep you, I said it was probably you ffs.

Dont change the subject. Why is god (asshole) going to punish me???

[Arnifix]

Yet god is going to send me to hell to burn in pain for all eternity, just because I dont believe in him. FFS. He could have left a little more evidence. What did he give us??? A fucking book!!! A book from thousands of years ago, a time when NO ONE can confirm he was actually what the book says he is.

That is one of my biggest disagreements also. Quite frankly, anyone who believes that what is written in the bible is "God's word" is the biggest moron alive. Do you have any idea how many languages that book has been translated into and through? I doubt the bible was more than 200 pages in 1000AD.

[Hannibal4life]

I didn't even neg rep you, I said it was probably you ffs.

Dont change the subject. Why is god (asshole) going to punish me???

An insinuation is the same as an accusation in here, but i'll end it there if you can too.


Why is God going to punish you?

Here's the reason. For everything we do there is a consequence. For instance, as bad and extreme as it is; recently Graham Burton murdered a man - horiffic for the family, and everyone who heard about it really. The inevitable consequence for that action is most likely life in prison with no opportunity for parole - thats personally what i would like to see.

At the end of a person's life there will either be a) an endless void to which we will simply no longer exist.
b)Some other explanation
c)death and an afterlife.

I want you to please assume one thing for this post only, and seriously ponder it.
Assume that the bible is in fact accurate and true.

If it is true then it teaches one thing among others, in order to enter Heaven a man must be blameless.
However God has a standard from which he will decide if someone is blameless. This standard was originally perfection. In other words the only way to obtain entry into heaven was by being perfect.
So what was perfection? It meant that there had been no sin in your life (please accept what im sayiong for the post). It didn't mean getting 100% in everything yuou ever did.

So what's sin?
Simply put Sin is our selfish independent nature or desire to go our own way. To point out another set of guidelines to maintaining a blameless lifestyle later in history God gave the Isrealites 10 Commandments.. (if you were in chch i would make a bet that you could name more brands of beer than commandments but such a shame... winner gets a six pack), but seeing as how you ain't here goes:
1) You shall have no other Gods before you
2) Don't make and bw down to idols
3) Do not blaspheme
4) Honour the sabbath
5) Honour your parents
6) Do not commit murder
7) Do not commit adultery
Do not steal
9) Do not lie
10) Do not covet (or be jealous - for those who don't wanna look at a dictionary)

These were guidelines to the nation of Israel. When someone breaks these commandments then they are biblically sinning. This is where they become blameless. Take a quick look at the list. YOu need not reply, but think how many you have broken just this week.

YOu say you're a good person - i believe you cos u havent actually made any personal attacks against me - so on that i say u must be alright....

Initially if you want you could pm me the ones you think you've slipped on. I'd say conservatively u probably only lied maybe twice this week.

If that was all you've done even this decade, then its the same as if you were to have done it every day for your whole life.

According to the bible even if you made a lie on one occasion you have lied, making you a liar right? So having lied once you are no longer perfect or blamless and have  blame, you can therefore no longer get into heaven.


Congradulations if you read this far. It was a mere to have to type....


Continued....

Originally, if you broke any command you had to go to the priest and perform a sacrifice.Which depending on the offense varied from a grain offerring to a live sacrifice.
This was required because the consequence of sin is death. Originally with Adam and Eve, the intention of God was for them to live in fellowship with him. (and in answer to my previous post, hidden deep in this one, is the purpose of the bible was to illistrate God's desire to have fellowship (or relationship) with us. I use fellowship here as its the term used in the bible and also many are familiar with it from the Lord of the Rings.


fast forward to Jesus... Jesus arrived as the sacrifice to end all sacrifces. When he died and rose 3 days later, he showed a new way for us to obtain entry to heaven because in dying he paid the blood sacrifice for our sin. This is why you will hear people profess they are "born again" although it is rarely heard now.
It meant that as a Christian if i sin because of my humanistic nature i am forgiven, based on one premise that i dont deliberately sin, with full knowledge that im gunna deliberately do it again... and ask for forgiveness so i can feel better and do it again (Christians i cite pauls epistles as evidence of this).


I believe this is the second covenant described earlier. But if someone wants to challenge me to it by clarrifying the question i'm open... :bounce:


So in answer to your question Berg, Everything has consequences. there are always options. In teaching there are 4 methods described regarding behaviour modification. They are:
Positive reinforcement
Negative reinforcement
positive punishment
negative punishment

To sum them up the reinforcement part means that the behaviour is increasing, and in punishment that the behaviour is decreasing. Negative and positive related to what the modifier is doing eg giving away or adding. An example of this negative punishment is when u put a mine down the titan corridor in a dumb spot where ur team is gunna walk over it (like in front of one of the entry points to the corr in the titan (you're end not the back end of titan fyi), and someone walks over it. KABOOM!!! he dies and u get punished. You lose 3 points - literally, "you were punished"! The other side is POsitive reinforcement - this is where you are gievn access to something you like in battlefield for instance when u get an unlock - positve reinforcement - "Well done soldier you deserve an award" or "Congradulations on you promotion soldier"


Similiarily is in life. Follow Christ or not when we die we find out who was right...

base my belief minuitly on this reality:

Im a christian - if im right i go to heaven
                     - if im wrong phar nothing happens (big deal)
If i'm not        - if im right and theres no heaven/hell - phar nothing happens (but i was right at least)
                     - if i'm wrong, oops havent accepted Christ - only place left is hell


Cost benefit - worth taking a year to seriously consider it... out of my 80 on each and infinte years below...

So anyway, the consequences for your actions are if you're found blameless you go to heaven, if you're not its unfortunate really unfortunate. See for me i have friends who don't accept Christianity, that really hurts mainly cos they won't make it there with me. A true Christain sees the urgency of sharing with others as no one knows when they will die.. that man Burton killed i bet he never would have thought it.. Food for thought anyway.

God isn't really making it hard for anyone to find the answers if they search for him sincerely. He is rather explicit in Jeremiah 29:12 "and you will find me when you search for me with all of your heart"


berg in conclusion, i wish you the best. I am not here to judge, nor offend. I will say this, most people leave the church not because they decide God is a fraud, but because the  people don't follow their leader (Jesus) and what he teaches. They leave over offense, or in your case what happened to you was called culture shock. happened to me when i left an all guys high school and went into T College.

[Hannibal4life]

That is one of my biggest disagreements also. Quite frankly, anyone who believes that what is written in the bible is "God's word" is the biggest moron alive. Do you have any idea how many languages that book has been translated into and through? I doubt the bible was more than 200 pages in 1000BC.

Lol arnifix how many manuscripts of plato's teachings are there in the word today?

Answer 6!

Total number of manuscripts from the bible...
6000 aramaic
4000 hebrew
2000 slavic

Also the bible has been around before Christ since the dawn of the Isreali nation. It was then referred to as the talmud and torah - the written and oral forms of the Jewish faith.
Facts people facts not opinion please  :bounce:

and oh i think befoer i might have hit the anger smilie... i thot it was a smilie smilie lol

[Hannibal4life]

Gotta go to bed - meeting bank manager for home loan tomorrow i mean today, night/morning all.

[KiLL3r]

big long explantion to confuse people further

so in short believe on god or goto hell right?

Yes thats right. YOu can murder as many people as you like as long as you ask for forgiveness before you die?


what about pre forgiveness? say i said "god please forgive every sin i will commit in my life" would i be safe then?

[Wandarah]

Lol arnifix how many manuscripts of plato's teachings are there in the word today?

Answer 6!

Total number of manuscripts from the bible...
6000 aramaic
4000 hebrew
2000 slavic

Also the bible has been around before Christ since the dawn of the Isreali nation. It was then referred to as the talmud and torah - the written and oral forms of the Jewish faith.
Facts people facts not opinion please  :bounce:

and oh i think befoer i might have hit the anger smilie... i thot it was a smilie smilie lol

Um the Bible and the Torah/Talmud are entirely different things. Facts people.

[frog.]

Also the bible has been around before Christ since the dawn of the Isreali nation. It was then referred to as the talmud and torah - the written and oral forms of the Jewish faith.
Facts people facts not opinion please  :bounce:

the Israelites were a Pharaonic dynasty called the Hyksos.

Hannibal, since you brought it up somewhere back there..... what is your view on Hell.

this is the most sensible/realistic view i can come up with..... "to be outside of Gods presence" could this be considered Hell and not the "Burn for eternity in pain with gnashing of teeth" that the bible tells us.

edit spelling

[Arnifix]

Lol arnifix how many manuscripts of plato's teachings are there in the word today?

Answer 6!

Total number of manuscripts from the bible...
6000 aramaic
4000 hebrew
2000 slavic

Also the bible has been around before Christ since the dawn of the Isreali nation. It was then referred to as the talmud and torah - the written and oral forms of the Jewish faith.
Facts people facts not opinion please  :bounce:

Where does what you say XOR from what I said?

Care to provide a link to a reputable (non-christian) website that shows there were this many manuscripts, of which I assume you in fact mean fragments of manuscripts, as the idea of 12000 fully intact manuscripts is ridiculous.

[gray_man]

so in short believe on god or goto hell right?

Yes thats right. YOu can murder as many people as you like as long as you ask for forgiveness before you die?


what about pre forgiveness? say i said "god please forgive every sin i will commit in my life" would i be safe then?

Yeah id like god to post a you tube video of a dirty boy molesting priest arriving at the gates of heaven and speaking to St Peter (it is St. Peter right?)

"i know i have sinned but i have repented, and prayed every day"....
"um... yeah i dont think so, fuk off"
"but please"
"let me think on that one.............................no bye"
*priest gets sent to hell

Im indicisive about whether there is a god or not, but what i am sure about is that if there is a god he is NOTHING like what human religeon lends us to believe. This dude is the all knowing wisest creator of the universe!!!  :rnr: , he is not gonna enforce sex before marriage, he is not gonna send a little singaporean child who got killed by a tsunami to hell because he isnt christian cause he has never even heard of God.

[ThaFleastyler]

Yes thats right. YOu can murder as many people as you like as long as you ask for forgiveness before you die?

In terms of forgiveness, if you were 100% genuine and honest with God, why wouldn't He forgive? It says alot about his mercy and grace that this is the case.

In fact, there are people all over the world (and probably some in these forums right now) who would forgive you for murdering their loved ones if you were sincere and genuine in asking for their forgiveness - even forgiving you for a lifetime of murder and sin. Thus, if its possible for man to do it, how much MORE possible is it for God?

I'm staying out of the pre-forgiveness discussion.

[Steady]

for fucks sake I come in here and I find this place is full of nubs.

ALL YOU NUBS GET OUTTA MY ICONZ

[Arnifix]

In terms of forgiveness, if you were 100% genuine and honest with God, why wouldn't He forgive? It says alot about his mercy and grace that this is the case.

In fact, there are people all over the world (and probably some in these forums right now) who would forgive you for murdering their loved ones if you were sincere and genuine in asking for their forgiveness - even forgiving you for a lifetime of murder and sin. Thus, if its possible for man to do it, how much MORE possible is it for God?

I'm staying out of the pre-forgiveness discussion.

When I die, if I end up in front of heaven being judged, despite being a "sinner" (for not believing in god) all my life, I can just say, "Awww yeah, you do exist. Sweet, cheers for all the shit aye!" and that's that?

PS. That bit about murdering peoples loved ones is fucked up dude. Forgiving somebody who brutally murders somebody is bizarre and in no way healthy.

[Black Heart]

WHY!?

religious types spout "God is mysterious and his ways are not for man to know"

then they turn around and bleat and drool pathetically attempting to explain god, and what how why things work beyond life, that they are only imagining even exist.

You might as well explain the graviton deflector dish on star trek.

Arnifix, you're not going to get a rational explanation about his personal delusions on afterlife.

[ThaFleastyler]

When I die, if I end up in front of heaven being judged, despite being a "sinner" (for not believing in god) all my life, I can just say, "Awww yeah, you do exist. Sweet, cheers for all the shit aye!" and that's that?

PS. That bit about murdering peoples loved ones is fucked up dude. Forgiving somebody who brutally murders somebody is bizarre and in no way healthy.

WHY!?

religious types spout "God is mysterious and his ways are not for man to know"

then they turn around and bleat and drool pathetically attempting to explain god, and what how why things work beyond life, that they are only imagining even exist.

You might as well explain the graviton deflector dish on star trek.

Arnifix, you're not going to get a rational explanation about his personal delusions on afterlife.

First of all, I'm not trying to explain God, just explaining how I see things. It cracks me up how those of us here who believe in God get skewered for our beliefs AND get skewered for taking part in this discussion - like above, where you have had a go at me for simply being involved. What I believe may not line up with what you believe, so get over the whole "his personal delusions" bullshit. If you have a problem with what I say, focus on what I said. Don't just turn this into personal attacks man. And I don't just mean you, Black Heart, I mean all the nublets in here who have the "I'm right/God doesn't exist/Fuck off" attitude.

Back to the topic at hand, why is it so damn hard to believe that someone might forgive someone for something so horrendous as murder? Lets consider humans here: holding onto a grudge is far more unhealthy than forgiving someone. The key word is sincerity - for example, if Arnifix killed my daughter, I would be upset and probably want to kill him for it. But if he came to me and he was totally sincere, I could probably bring myself to forgive him ("probably" as in, I think I could do it in theory).

God wants people with him in heaven, no exceptions, and it is never too late to ask forgiveness for mistakes in life.

Edit: I don't give a flying rats ass if I get neg rep for this post, but at least have the guts to leave your name, unlike the dipshit who already negged me.

[Black Heart]

I call it your personal delusion because the more detailed the descriptions of how god thinks, the more religious people diverge from each others 'perception' making the concept even less acceptable.

There are thousands of christians who in very vague terms all agree 100% with each other but once you drill down to specifics and they will willingly tell you exactly what they think of god's plans who goes to heaven/hell explanations about how geography decides whose christian not whose good or bad. Every one of them will disagree with the other on some aspect of religion, making a mockery of an inerrant bible, and any thought of their religion being consolidated in its message and direction.

So unless god made a seperate message for each and every human, because they each have their own take on how it all comes together, then once again face met floor.

[Hannibal4life]

so in short believe on god or goto hell right?

Yes thats right. YOu can murder as many people as you like as long as you ask for forgiveness before you die?


what about pre forgiveness? say i said "god please forgive every sin i will commit in my life" would i be safe then?

Hi Killer,

Thanks for the reply. It shows you are looking at the issue. Pre-forgiveness... Good concept. As far as i see it, asking for forgiveness really requires a person to be repentant (which means you're going to actively turn from doing it). In my life i sin from time to time - but were i to ask for forgiveness in advance i wouldn't know whether i'm serious about not doing it again, so for me i personally i dont think that a person could ask for forgiveness before they did something because there's no way they could know how they feel about what they did.

[Hannibal4life]

Um the Bible and the Torah/Talmud are entirely different things. Facts people.

Torah is the first half of the bible. It is a well known and undisputed fact among theologicans among both the Christian and Jewish persausions.

Pers. Comm from Shane Williard Aug 2006, "The old testiment consists of books which Jesus studied when he went to Temple."

Shane Williard was trained by a Rabbi in the USA

[Apostrophe Spacemonkey]

So unless god made a seperate message for each and every human, because they each have their own take on how it all comes together,

Thats the whole point of religion, everyone sees God in their own way, it's a personal thing. God does have a separate message for everyone, because they all have a personal relationship with God.

[Black Heart]

Thats the whole point of religion, everyone sees God in their own way, it's a personal thing. God does have a separate message for everyone, because they all have a personal relationship with God.

well there goes equality for starters.