The Morality Of Saving People From Hell

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer

Originally posted by Ashira
You quote mined this out from the bottom of the post above:

I'm going to be blunt since despite my repeated inquiries you constantly avoid the question:

Why should I believe anything in the bible?

I asked the Lord: "Why do You say people have to believe in You in John 3:16 and not just know?" He said: "Because if they don't want to believe that that man I sent to save them is My Son and was unjustly crucified then they are not fit to enter into Heaven, they have no sympathy, they have no love, they would turn Heaven into hell."

oookaaay

I'll give you my opinion believe the 4 gospels, everything else should be questioned. Of course you can only believe if you are ready to

Originally posted by Ashira
I asked the Lord: "Why do You say people have to believe in You in John 3:16 and not just know?" He said: "Because if they don't want to believe that that man I sent to save them is My Son and was unjustly crucified then they are not fit to enter into Heaven, they have no sympathy, they have no love, they would turn Heaven into hell."

Okay, I ask you why I should believe the bible and you cite the bible. That is called circular reasoning and doesn't work.

So far I've asked you to demonstrate that the deity you believe in exists. You haven't. I've asked you why I should believe the bible. You won't answer. How am I to distinguish you from the insane?

Originally posted by contradictory
oookaaay

I'll give you my opinion believe the 4 gospels, everything else should be questioned. Of course you can only believe if you are ready to

Why should we question everything but the 4 gospels?

What reason do we have to assume that any of them are true?

Why do you have to be ready to believe them? Are they not true?

I've always wondered what is the reason behind these preachers standing in the corners of the street screaming and yelling at you the word of God. There's really no reason to be screaming at every passerby. True Story ---->

I was walking down the street once wearing a punk rock shirt, well this Christian lady got in my face about it and started going mad crazy. She started yelling at me and screaming saying im going to hell and then to top it off she starts beating me down with her purse. Now, I must have been 15 at the time and i could have easily had her arrested but i didnt. Instead I crouched and I ran away. There was NO reason for her actions and her behavior. Made me re-think twice what these people are willing to do to get their point across.

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer

Originally posted by contradictory
oookaaay

I'll give you my opinion believe the 4 gospels, everything else should be questioned. Of course you can only believe if you are ready to

Why should we question everything but the 4 gospels?

What reason do we have to assume that any of them are true?

Why do you have to be ready to believe them? Are they not true?

Because the 4 gospels are the life of Jesus, the whole bible was written by man who set their own ignorance and prejudice in to it, so that's the best we've got.

There are many things which did happen in the bible historically speaking, though not all entirely accurate since the books were either written later, or pieced together from first hand and third hand sources, plus a few filling in the blanks. Still from a non-religious point of view there is some proven history in it.

You must be ready to believe, or nothing anyone says to you will convince you otherwise - unless you know someone who can part the water today

Originally posted by contradictory


Because the 4 gospels are the life of Jesus, the whole bible was written by man who set their own ignorance and prejudice in to it, so that's the best we've got.

So what? D.C. Comics is all we have on the life of Spiderman. Does that mean we should believe it is true?

There are many things which did happen in the bible historically speaking, though not all entirely accurate since the books were either written later, or pieced together from first hand and third hand sources, plus a few filling in the blanks. Still from a non-religious point of view there is some proven history in it.

Historically, New York City exists. It's also where Spiderman operates. So we should believe the stories of Spiderman are true?

You must be ready to believe, or nothing anyone says to you will convince you otherwise - unless you know someone who can part the water today

I am always ready to believe, but that requires that a burden of proof has been satisfied for the claim. The bible makes claims that are beyond extraordinary yet have no evidence supporting any of them. Does "ready to believe" to you mean to throw out all standards that we would apply for everything else in the universe?

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer

So what? D.C. Comics is all we have on the life of Spiderman. Does that mean we should believe it is true?

Depends which version

Historically, New York City exists. It's also where Spiderman operates. So we should believe the stories of Spiderman are true?

Seriously narrow it down, there are like a dozen or so different versions, it's not as if the bible has translated into a hundred..nvm

I am always ready to believe, but that requires that a burden of proof has been satisfied for the claim. The bible makes claims that are beyond extraordinary yet have no evidence supporting any of them. Does "ready to believe" to you mean to throw out all standards that we would apply for everything else in the universe?

um yes faith is faith, most people just feel something in their hearts, others believe after a specific event, like a near death experience, or something miraculous, which most may consider coincidental

Originally posted by contradictory
um yes

faith is faith, most people just feel something in their hearts, others believe after a specific event, like a near death experience, or something miraculous, which most may consider coincidental

Okay, but subjective experiences are not demonstrable and should be suspect. A person may take hallucinogenic mushrooms and believe they see god. Maybe they did, but they had a subjective experience that is useless to anyone else. They cannot demonstrate it as having actually happened and we would be right to conclude that the account is unbelievable.

The bible in particular has left no corroborating evidence of any of its particularly extraordinary claims. Many of its claims we now know are patently false. At some point we must have a rational basis for believing that the bible should be consumed as truthful. Faith (belief with no good reason) and subjective experiences are not rational reasons.

Very true, but if faith was entirely rational there would be no splits of religion and denomination, people using their 'faith' to incite hatred, segregation, subjugation, violence and genocide. Hence why I only accept a small part of the bible. Might not be rational to others, especially within christianity, but that's just crazy ole me

reply to post by contradictory


Spider man is from marvel comics not dc. Please do not drag a real hero into all this Jesus talk unless you have your facts straight!!!!!

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer

Originally posted by sacgamer25
reply to post by traditionaldrummer

 

I have proof. The bible, Jesus and the resurrection are all real and Jesus and his resurrection have been recorded by non biblical sources as well. Only God could perform the miracles he preformed, also documented by non biblical sources. But that proves nothing to you.

That does prove nothing to me, because that proves nothing to anyone. The bible is only a book which makes claims. No miracle has ever been observed.

Stanford on the subject:

A common approach is to define a miracle as an interruption of the order or course of nature. (Sherlock 1843: 57)

1.2 Miracles as violations of the laws of nature

1.3 The relevance of religious context

Follows with arguments for and against, and points to the weakness in any argument. And, yes, there's holes in both sides of the debate, big ones, you could drive a Semi through.

Again: to prove your creationist hypothesis you must both produce the deity that does it and catch the deity in the act of creating that which you say it creates.

The problem with this argument is that if the Creator was presented, at any given time in history, there would be documentation of Him. But people like to throw out the books that are set up as such a witness. Basically, this is circular thinking:
1. Prove God exists. / Ok, here's a book of eyewitnesses.
2. Prove the book. / Ok, here's the evidence. (Assumption of it being factual, for the moment.)
3. Ok, those facts mean nothing, as you haven't proven that He exists. / Wait, whaaa? We just gave you a book and then gave you evidence of the facts in the book.

It goes in a circle, over and over. Circular thinking is of little or no merit, which is why I detest the: "I think, therefore I am." arguments. And this is by far not the only argument in this area of evidence that does it.

Well, as far as whether or not Christ existed:
Debunking Christianity: I Believe Jesus Was a Historical Person

I could be wrong. But here is why I think I’m right. Passionate cult-like religious groups are always started by a cult figure, not an author, and not a committee. It’s always a single charismatic leader that gathers passionate religious people together. So who is the most likely candidate for starting the Jesus cult? Jesus himself is, although Paul certainly was the man most responsible for spreading what he believed about his story. And even though Paul never met Jesus and only had a vision of him on the Damascus Road (Acts 26:19), his testimony is that there were already Christians whom he was persecuting in Palestine in the first century.

I don't agree with the guy wholeheartedly, but he has a point. Even further, if there were not SEVERAL strong characters throughout the life of Christendom, it would have fizzled, just like most modern cults and religions die after the instigator.

Originally posted by CynicalDrivel
Basically, this is circular thinking:
1. Prove God exists. / Ok, here's a book of eyewitnesses.
2. Prove the book. / Ok, here's the evidence. (Assumption of it being factual, for the moment.)
3. Ok, those facts mean nothing, as you haven't proven that He exists. / Wait, whaaa? We just gave you a book and then gave you evidence of the facts in the book.

That is not circular thinking.

1. A book that claims there were eyewitnesses is not proof of god. We can find more alleged eyewitnesses to alien abductions than we can eyewitnesses of gods. Their stories basically corroborate each other. Yet this is not evidence of aliens or that they abduct people.

2. What evidence has proven any of the claims in the bible? In fact, we now know that many of the claims in the bible are patently untrue.

3. Correct. Rejection of insufficient or improper evidence is inevitable when it fails to satisfy any reasonable burden of proof. This is in no way circular reasoning.

Originally posted by contradictory

There are many things which did happen in the bible historically speaking, though not all entirely accurate since the books were either written later, or pieced together from first hand and third hand sources, plus a few filling in the blanks. Still from a non-religious point of view there is some proven history in it.

No different then a fictional historical novel. Or a compilation - like an Anthology.

Just because it has some historical facts - - - does not in anyway make the stories fact.

As I say: There is truth in the bible - - but the bible is not truth.

Originally posted by AnneeI refer to "mystical" bible Jesus. Because there were actually (I read) about 18 men named Jesus at that time.

Did you manage to get in those documents why there were 18 of them during the time Christ was supposed to have lived?

Beside, to me, the fact that the name Jesus was popular, and was being used by men who were in rebellion against Rome, speaks more to there being a real Historical Jesus than not. I'd be less inclined to believe if there were NO outside documents that ever had His human name on it.

Seriously, why does there have to be only 1 guy with the name? That's like saying I don't exist because there's someone else out there with my name. (And there is someone else out there who has a doctorate, with my name. And my name is pretty rare.)

Originally posted by Pixiefyre
To sacgamer25:
Bacteria and Virii are actually 2 areas where evolution can be shown. Some bacteria have evolved into what are called extremephiles, they have evolved to adapt to their environments to extremes in temperature that we would normally consider uninhabitable, they have evolved to survive in highly toxic environments, and on a more personal level they have evolved to resist medications that we were once able to depend upon to kill them such as MSRA and Tuberculosis. As for virii, one need only look to HIV/AIDS and see how it has evolved fairly rapidly to resist drugs that are found to combat it.

Mutation in bacteria is fast
A creationist explains the difference in Bacterial Adaptation and Evolution Based upon the following 2 links:
Public Assertion that these are evolutionary changes
Paper from soneone who did the geneitc sequencing
A more open source that has nothing to do with the Creationistic response paper
The issue, with all of this is, when the adaptation that leads to survivability is in a lab, how do you overcome the following:

Adaptation is the result of the processes of mutation and natural selection leading to a loss of genetic information—but an organism more suited for a particular environment. Evolution requires the gain of genetic information to go from molecules-to-man. Adaptation and evolution are not the same thing. Bacteria are not evolving.

And, yes, looking at the information in these studies, there was damage to the code to make it more viable in it's new home environment, that is still needed outside that environment. So, what is this argument supposed to prove?

(This is why I want the data, and not someone's conclusions, even if they have to explain the data to me. I can check the explanation.)

And finally your egg question. If you are referring to the old which came first the chicken or the egg mystery. Recent genetic evidence indicates that our average domestic chickens were a hybrid of red and grey jungle fowl. Which would put the egg as coming before the chicken.

Picture of a Red Jungle fowl:

This is a red jungle fowl.

This is a grey jungle fowl.

There is no real leap or change between a Chicken and a Jungle Fowl. You're talking about the approximate difference between a Zebra and Donkey, or a Pit Bull to a Wolf (well, genetically, these 2 are far closer to each other than the rest, supposedly). This goes back to an adaptation vs. evolution debate, yet again. *sigh*

So sure, a Chicken could come from a Jungle fowl, yet you could still not have answered the age-old question of Chicken and Egg. Which is why I bought this for my nephew's last birthday party:



I swear, on both sides, people, you're conclusions are irrelevant, give me the data, explain to me what I'm looking at, and I'll be able to figure it out.

(And no, this isn't about attacking anyone's conclusions. )

reply to post by IAMIAM


Jesus laid down His perfect life for us.

Originally posted by CynicalDrivel
I swear, on both sides, people, you're conclusions are irrelevant, give me the data, explain to me what I'm looking at, and I'll be able to figure it out.

How are our conclusions irrelevant? It seems you're stating that your conclusions are that you believe Jesus actually existed despite a conspicuous lack of evidence, and that the theory of evolution is profoundly incorrect despite the heap of evidence confirming it.

Originally posted by Annee

Originally posted by CynicalDrivel
It's not that it IS crisis. It's what it's called.

NO. Crises is very explicit. You don't get a pass on that

You don't have to like it, or even pass me. It wasn't about you. Never was.

It has to do with coming up against something that doesn't fit into your presumptions, . . .

I had no presumptions.

That's fine.

and having to honestly look at it and doubt what you assumed.

I did not doubt - nor assume.

Still fine.

It can be so gentle, that no one ever notices the change or it can be cataclysmic enough to shatter homes. For most people it is emotional. My break with the faith was very emotional, while my decision to stay and submit was rational and calm.

*snort* I didn't say it was Exactly the same for the both of us, I just can see similarities. I can identify with you, whether or not you can identify or even understand me. You changed, I almost did. This is why I wind up agreeing with you on so many things about Christians and Christianity, yet am very divergent on what I believe. If you cannot see this, it becomes a "whatever" moment.

And I can throw the words right back at you

Apparently not. Describing your own experience - - has nothing to do with me.

This has to do with rewriting your words that follow, which I did. You start a new paragraph when there's a change in thought. You're "arguing the wrong point" right here.

There is EVERYTHING that substantiates the mythical Christ story.

Please provide.

Considering that I've not asked you to provide, why should I provide you? Besides, you're the one that stated it first. I was merely pointing out that it's an empty game of semantics when you don't bring the data, yet assert the things you state. Besides, how many years did it take you to come to your conclusion? I doubt that could be "undone" in 1 sitting. So, yes, changing you is a waste of effort on both our parts. Which brings us back to the subject of the OP.

Originally posted by Annee

Originally posted by CynicalDrivel

Just because you're an Atheist who has a lack of belief in a God, doesn't mean that atheists as a whole define themselves this way

Atheist means lack of belief in a deity. That is all it means.

I am not going to go into archaic descriptions that no longer matter.

Oh, I was staying out of the Archaic this time. I'm using Merriam Webster's modern translation from the web. It has 3 definitions and just because one is your hobby-horse or axiom (you pick a word, don't really care), doesn't mean that all Atheists meet under that umbrella with you. Didn't you say that each person is individual? Some Atheists have an outright belief system that they teach to others. Generalising behind an umbrella term of a "lack of belief" does not change the fact some people do not believe in God, firmly. When you state such things, the way that you do, without allowing for other's deviation, it doesn't paint a whole picture, now does it?

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer

Originally posted by CynicalDrivel
See, the tax-free thing isn't in place for a lot of churches, and it comes with restrictions:
The Restriction of Political Campaign Intervention by Section 501(c)(3) Tax-Exempt Organizations

This is exactly as it should be and I'm delighted by this principle. Surely you're not claiming this as a form of persecution.

Why the hell would I be? That was a change in subject by that point. I just hate posting 12 different posts when I can fit them in 1 reply.

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer

Originally posted by CynicalDrivel
...other than calling it fiery, there's little else to go on.

If we're being completely honest, there's really nothing to go on.
All we have are claims about a Hell.

lol. Little else as in, "the text itself only backs up this much of it". I mean, even if we're talking about Cthulu, we've got to go to Lovecraft for a definition, and to do anything less is not treating the subject seriously enough.

"But why do we treat it seriously in the first place?" Intellectual honesty? If you don't believe in God, or Christianity as a whole, that's about the only reason I can think of.

Originally posted by CynicalDrivel

Originally posted by AnneeI refer to "mystical" bible Jesus. Because there were actually (I read) about 18 men named Jesus at that time.

Did you manage to get in those documents why there were 18 of them during the time Christ was supposed to have lived?

There are other threads on ATS discussing the history of Jesus. That is not the subject of this discussion - - which keeps getting derailed.

Do I believe there was a Jesus - - that the myths are based on? Yes.

As there was a Johnny Appleseed - - and his myths based on real history.

Do I believe the myths of "mystical biblical" Jesus? No.

EDIT: The story of Johnny Appleseed - - if anyone is interested: www.straightdope.com...

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer

Originally posted by zerimar65
Okay. But getting back to your original question, I don't think it's supposed to be a moral action, but it's not an unethical one.

I think it's done with ethical intentions though often isn't perceived as such.

when I say "people", I'm talking about people I know personally who are in my life. Not politicians. I know about politicians and I have no faith or trust in any of them. I won't be in a grave waiting for anything other than Christ's return. That is, if I happen to go before he comes back, but it doesn't seem like it.

You know Jesus personally?

Well you're supposed to have a personal relationship with Him. So, for me, yes I know Him. How anybody else knows Him is probably the same, but different. Only we know our own relationship with God and Jesus Christ.