It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
It goes both ways, you need to move more toward the gray area, that's where the truth is. If you continue to completely discredit the bible then you will continue to not get it. The bible holds a wealth of truth and knowledge, you just have to know where to find it and how to pick out the lies. Just some friendly advice.
Originally posted by Akragon
Hell is described by most "religionists" as a place of eternal torment and torture... A place you will go after you die if you don't accept what these people believe and convert immediately...
Of course this ridiculous idea is nothing more then a fear tactic used to scare people into conversion... but there is a logical problem with the idea of Hell...
IF one is sent to "Hell" for said "eternal torture and torment"... That person would have to be alive to experience said firey torment...
Pain is purely phyiscal... it is experienced when the physical body goes through a trama of some sort
Eternal torture and torment isn't after you die, it is while living.
The torment and torture is not physical, it is mental.
Are you not tortured and tormented by thoughts? Can you ever truly relax or get any peace? The speaking mind will not allow you any peace and quiet, it is incessant.
When trying to sleep, it is there keeping you awake. It causes fear and anxiety in the body.
Most humans are in a living hell because the speaking mind will not leave them alone.
When the mind goes silent, and the world is seen without the speaking mind, the kingdom is revealed.
Originally posted by AfterInfinity
reply to post by 3NL1GHT3N3D1
I cannot help those who take the Bible literally. The moment you take it literally, your looking glass becomes opaque and all you see is what you imagine to be there. That is the point at which I declare the Bible to be false, because what you see IS false.
Otherwise, I would entirely agree. When it is universally acknowledged that the Bible is good for purely allegorical lessons, and nothing more, then I will concur. Because the difference between the Bible and science, contrary to your statement, is that I can pick up a rock and drop it and use scientific principles to calculate that rock's weight and speed from the hole it leaves in the ground. Bible relies purely on, "I believe it is real, so it is real."
Actually if you take it literally your looking glass is clearer than trying to look at it as an allegory. an allegory would be opaque and colored not the other way around.
Originally posted by AfterInfinity
reply to post by ChesterJohn
Eh, not really. An allegory enables you to take elements out and replace them with whatever gives you the most meaningful lesson, instead of being forced to take it at face value. And honestly, looking at this particular story as an allegory makes much more sense to me.
I don't understand why people find it easier to believe in a fantasy tale than think that it might just be metaphor. And I'm told I have a hard time separating fantasy and reality...
Originally posted by ChesterJohn
Eternal torture and torment isn't after you die, it is while living.
The torment and torture is not physical, it is mental.
Are you not tortured and tormented by thoughts? Can you ever truly relax or get any peace? The speaking mind will not allow you any peace and quiet, it is incessant.
When trying to sleep, it is there keeping you awake. It causes fear and anxiety in the body.
Most humans are in a living hell because the speaking mind will not leave them alone.
When the mind goes silent, and the world is seen without the speaking mind, the kingdom is revealed.
From what I have read what we experience on earth is not hell. That is your opinion Hell seems to be a real place that awaits all unbelievers in Christ. It was originally made for Satan and his angels not the SOULS of men.
I guess we will just have to wait and die to find out if it is real or not.
what is left is for all 'children' to learn in thier own time...
It enables you to create something that is not in the text. would you do that with Tolstoy, or Shakespeare?
and as far as fantasy tales that people believe have you not read about people taking star wars force teachings of yoda as a religion.
to approach the Bible with the the thinking it is ALL allegorical or metaphorical is totally illogical for someone professing to be using true logic.
When we took the verse alone it meant "drink water from thy own well." But when we take it with its context we learn that it was telling us not to have sex with any woman not our wife. For women it would mean not to have sex with anyone not her husband. This then shows that verse 15 meant something more than just drinking water from thy own well. Now we see that the cistern is the wife and it is his own and not to seek satisfaction form another woman or another cistern.
So the lesson is take the verse literally and you never go wrong. Take them in context to determine what type of literature and figure of speech it is. Then find the Literal application the text supports.
I have dozens of arguments supporting this assertion, and I don['t feel like repeating them every time I come across a new idiot who doesn't see th necessity to read my history of posts on the subject of Christianity.
Originally posted by adjensen
Originally posted by Akragon
Originally posted by micmerci
reply to post by Akragon
"HELL does not exist" is a very definitive statement. Can you provide a source of proof for this conclusion? The doctrine of heaven comes from the same source as the doctrine of hell as far as I remember
Hell is a loose translation of the word Gehenna.... which was a physical place outside the walls of Jerusalam... A litteral garbage dump where bodies of people who could not afford a proper burial were thrown... They used sulfer (brimstone) to destroy the material in the area which burned continuiously day and night... which is where they got the idea of "Hell" being a place of eternal torture and firey torment.
Ever read this? The Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man:
“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
“The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’
“But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’
“He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’
“Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’
“‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’
“He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’” (Luke 16:19-31 NIV)
So you're saying that Jesus was confused about the whole "garbage dump" bit, as well?
Originally posted by ChesterJohn
From what I have read what we experience on earth is not hell. That is your opinion Hell seems to be a real place that awaits all unbelievers in Christ. It was originally made for Satan and his angels not the SOULS of men.
I guess we will just have to wait and die to find out if it is real or not.