Regarding Hell.

[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]

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]

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]

There is no physical proof that god is real, therefore we can assume he doesn't exist. Humans made him up. People are just scared of death and are afraid to die, and they need the comfort of religion to assure them that after death they will be able to live again in an afterlife. I myself find it extremely amusing that people would choose to believe such a theory, that there is a god and he created all of humanity. These people choose to believe something that has no evidence to back it up. I just think that's stupid.

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.

[QreepyBORIS]

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.

Yeah, I was like:

"Wow."

When I first read that.

Also, stop double posting, you whore!

[alainbryden]

I'm used to CT where it is encouraged over post editing. I had forgotten how much people disliked it. Sorry eyespew. Great finish by the way, if everyone were subject to your kind of well thought out reasoning, there would be a much different standing on religion. It's considered to be a truth of life when all it is is a spirituality.

[maelzo]

First go read this article and consider all the experience this guy has http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...atheist10.html

Second I saw a few posts up there showing misunderstanding of Christian beliefs. First, God did create a perfect world. But it was made imperfect through our sins. See, God gave us free will. Look at it this way. You can write a program to have your computer tell you, "I love you." But the computer does not actually love you. It is only doing as it is told. However, if your significant other comes up to you says, "I love you." The same sentence know has meaning. God views us the same way. He could have made us without free will but then when worshipped him it would be hollow and meaningless. But if he gave us free will we know can actually choose to love him or not. It means more this way.

The common rebuttal to this though is that people will say, "But why does God allow bad things to happen in his perfect world?" To understand this is to understand God. Before God created us he sat and thought about it. I'm sure he thought something similar to this, "These people are going to turn their backs on me. They are going to hate and kill one another. Men will rape women, fathers will rape their daughters. People will lie, cheat, and steal from one another. They will create war. There will be a Holocaust that will claim the lives of 10 million people for no reason other than their ethnicity. But, when two of those people come together and express true, honest, knowing love towards one another that will make it worth while. When one of those people comes to me and tells me how much he loves me...it will be worth it." How do I justify that last paragraph? Think of it just like any human parent does. "If I have a child it will lie to me, it will cuss me, it will break my heart. It may go to prison, it may die of a horrible disease. But when that child tells me it loves me...I won't be able to imagine life without it." Just some food for thought.

[eyespewgreekfire]

Maelzo, this is still getting around the fact that since god created everything, he created sin. If god is all knowing and all powerful, how can he give us TRUE free will. Whatever happens, it is still his decision. Being perfect, he knows the future by definition. This is still getting around the fact that god must have created evil as well. This also implies that god is not an all loving being, since he creates harm. If he wanted, everyone could be in utter, total bliss. The idea of a god with a real personailty is possible but not a perfect god.

[GuidoHunter]

he knows the future by definition.

God is independent of time and space. There is no past, present, or future for Him.

And why does allowing sin to exist mean He's not loving? I find it more loving to have my own will to love Him, even if that means I can hate others.

--Guido

http://andy.mikee385.com