How Much Do You Know About Christianity?

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
881

[quote]Oleena wrote:
Also, is anyone going to directly answer forlife?

In addition, no one addressed my question about animals having souls:

If animals have souls but not the spirit where do their souls go when they die?

And What makes the cut for getting a soul? Do amoebas have souls? When is something too much like a plant to have a soul, or do plants have souls?[/quote]

been there - done that

the soul is extinguished upon death since it was not given eternal life by the breathe of God - i do believe I mentioned that . . . oh wait - I mentioned an author that you would have had to go read -sorry -didn’t Sesame Street it for you . . . have you ever seen a book? - good things books - got stuff in them . . .

882

[quote]Oleena wrote:
EmilyQ wrote:
Oleena wrote:
would guess instead that they have some notion that the relationship is the more secure place for one reason or another, as do the Christians. Are they mistaken? I would be inclined to think so. But that is neither here nor there, unless I am discussing the issue with someone trying to make a personal decision of their own.

My point was simply that an atheist or an agnostic will only be able to offer their best advice regarding relationships, and they wont be able to back themselves up as an authority by saying “Well the Bible says this, so therefore the all powerful creator of the universe also thinks you should stay with so and so”. This makes it easier for the abused person to question them and seek a second opinion without questioning whether or not they are going against the creator of the universe’s will.
[/quote]

Instead they may say, “Dr. Phil said” or “my mother told me,” which are similarly appeals to authority. So? Your faith in the integrity of atheists and agnostics is naive. An adult woman unable to think for herself to the degree you seem to indicate is probably better off following a doctrine.

883

[quote]Oleena wrote:
Ah. More PC church propoganda.
[/quote]

Oleena’s PC secular propaganda is based on a culture of narcissism that can recognize no authority but its own subjectivity - the existence of which, ironically, they must deny in order to frantically maintain their undying & unprovable faith that neither free will nor He exists.

I’ll take the teachings of a 2,000 year-old Church - who’s doctrine has been shaped by the greatest philosophical minds the world has ever known - over ^^ that any day.

Of course, it takes a lifetime of reasoned & passionate inquiry to discover what this doctrine is. No Scratch n’ Sniff books and no posts on a BB site will provide this for you. But you may well discover, as I have, that “When you are arguing against Him you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all.”

884

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
forlife wrote:

And I keep bringing you guys back to the heart of that question - if the only reason you think God is not benevolent is because of the level of punishment applied to those who sin, your problem is not with the concept of God creating man knowing that he would have to punish some - but the actual punishment itself. For example - if all hell really is is a plainer version of heaven but just no presence of God - is that not benevolent?[/quote] What do you make of all the passages that describe hell as a burning lake with satan and all his angels nearby? I can see how you would want to believe in christianity more if you didn’t believe that hell was a burning lake with people screaming and gnashing their teeth. [quote]Giving those people exactly what they want - separation from him? After all - Christ on the cross experienced that very thing - and that was the true torment of the crucifixion for him!

But let’s deal with another aspect of your question that i tried to raise many pages back. Without a punishment for sin - moral choices would have no value.[/quote] This is a rather old idea. Moral choices actually do have value outside of the concept of god- and the value is life or death. All you have to do is read up a little on the social dynamics of any other social animal to see what the consequences of acting unethically can be. If you murder your cousin, someone might murder you back. That, of course, is not even scraping the surface of the complex study of social dynamics and how it relates to a code of ethics outside of any concept of god. [quote] If there was no punishment - choosing to kill, rape and murder and on and on - would be just as viable an option as not doing those things.[/quote] No, it wouldn’t. As I said, you need to read up on power dynamics. [quote] If there was no torment - then doing evil would be just as good as doing good - there has to be consequence to action. [/quote] There are tons of consequences outside the concept of god for not “doing evil”. The survival of our species is a good one. [quote] Everywhere you look in the physical universe this law plays out - jump off of a building and you can yell “God is love” all the way to the ground - but your choice to jump off of the roof will still result in you hitting the ground. [/quote] You’re right. You can scream “Don’t have sex before marrige” all you want, but those damned teenagers still breed!

885

[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
Oleena wrote:
Ah. More PC church propoganda.

Oleena’s PC secular propaganda is based on a culture of narcissism that can recognize no authority but its own subjectivity - the existence of which, ironically, they must deny in order to frantically maintain their undying & unprovable faith that neither free will nor He exists.

I’ll take the teachings of a 2,000 year-old Church - who’s doctrine has been shaped by the greatest philosophical minds the world has ever known - over ^^ that any day.

Of course, it takes a lifetime of reasoned & passionate inquiry to discover what this doctrine is. No Scratch n’ Sniff books and no posts on a BB site will provide this for you. But you may well discover, as I have, that “When you are arguing against Him you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all.”

[/quote]

Well said!

886

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
Oleena wrote:
Also, is anyone going to directly answer forlife?

In addition, no one addressed my question about animals having souls:

If animals have souls but not the spirit where do their souls go when they die?

And What makes the cut for getting a soul? Do amoebas have souls? When is something too much like a plant to have a soul, or do plants have souls?

been there - done that

the soul is extinguished upon death since it was not given eternal life by the breathe of God - i do believe I mentioned that . . . oh wait - I mentioned an author that you would have had to go read -sorry -didn’t Sesame Street it for you . . . have you ever seen a book? - good things books - got stuff in them . . .[/quote] You’re hillarious. Here you are making up a fairy tale about souls and telling me that I need to read a book. You tell me with authority that you honestly know what happens to souls after death as if you, or anyone has actually been able to observe a soul in life, much less seen what happens to it after death. What you have going on here is a case of stating a hypothesis as law.

But sticking with the story: So what makes the cut for getting a soul? Does a conjoined twin have one soul or two?

887

[quote]EmilyQ wrote:
Oleena wrote:
EmilyQ wrote:
Oleena wrote:
would guess instead that they have some notion that the relationship is the more secure place for one reason or another, as do the Christians. Are they mistaken? I would be inclined to think so. But that is neither here nor there, unless I am discussing the issue with someone trying to make a personal decision of their own.

My point was simply that an atheist or an agnostic will only be able to offer their best advice regarding relationships, and they wont be able to back themselves up as an authority by saying “Well the Bible says this, so therefore the all powerful creator of the universe also thinks you should stay with so and so”. This makes it easier for the abused person to question them and seek a second opinion without questioning whether or not they are going against the creator of the universe’s will.

Instead they may say, “Dr. Phil said” or “my mother told me,” which are similarly appeals to authority. So? Your faith in the integrity of atheists and agnostics is naive.[/quote] I never said anything about the integrity of atheists and agnostics. Infact, I implied the opposite, that they would tell someone else that they did know best and give them advice to stay in an abusive relationship. The difference between god-fearing religious subscribers and others is not integrity or anything else having to do with human nature. As for a woman like I described being unable to think for herself and therefore needing to follow a doctorine, I come from the standpoint that if she was raised in the church all her life, her inability to question authority may be a result of an incomplete thought-process. Just on this thread I have been told numerous times that you cannot question god, and therefore there are many things that “we just can’t know” or if they seem wrong to us that’s because we aren’t god.

888

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Makavali wrote:
pushharder wrote:
Makavali wrote:
IrishSteel wrote:
Jeffe wrote:
That’s how it’s an error to say the universe was created in 6 days.

So you can conceive of a deity that can create time, the universe and all living life, but can’t create the appearance of age in all things? He can create a mature man, but not a mature universe? LOL - that was as far as you thought that one out?

More “God did it” dogma. Absolutely retarded. Sorry if that offends, but it is.

More “Mak said it” dogma. Absolutely retarded. Sorry if that offends, but it is.

Keep up the insults all you want, but until creationist provide more than “God did it” then I’ll just sit back and laugh. Saying God did it is a cop-out and you know it.

I repeat EXACTLY what you said with the exception of one noun and NOW it’s an insult, huh? You tripped badly there, buddy. No insult intended.[/quote]

Mmkay. Still a cop out.

889

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
katzenjammer wrote:
Oleena wrote:
Ah. More PC church propoganda.

Oleena’s PC secular propaganda is based on a culture of narcissism that can recognize no authority but its own subjectivity - the existence of which, ironically, they must deny in order to frantically maintain their undying & unprovable faith that neither free will nor He exists.

I’ll take the teachings of a 2,000 year-old Church - who’s doctrine has been shaped by the greatest philosophical minds the world has ever known[/quote]Congradulations on making the most arrogant, unfounded statement to date on this thread. [quote]

  • over ^^ that any day. [/quote]
890

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Again, as I said earlier, an agnostic is a copout. A fence rider. A pussy. I mean I can see some “I don’t know”-in going on for awhile in someone’s life but hey, sooner or later it’s time to get your thumb out of your ass, climb off the fence and stand for something. What do you think?

Another reason I think agnosticism is all the rage is…well, it’s all the rage. It’s cool, in a bit of a twisted way, to appear sooooo intellectuuuuual that you get to say, “Duh, I don’t know…duh. I’m such an unbiased, tolerant, politically correct individual so I’m going to play it safe and say, ‘Duh, I don’t know.’”[/quote]

Or I could like, be honest and say I don’t know. The real cop out is saying “God did it”. Perhaps he set up the mechanisms that make the world what it is, but taking your facts from a single 2000 year old book written by like sixteen different people over several centuries doesn’t seem all that smart.

891

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Oleeme, you take off on a lot of rabbit trails, sugar. Leave this Islam - Christianity comparison thing alone or you are going to look awfully silly. This is truly the most ineffective weapon in your arsenal.[/quote]

Yeah, Islam and Christianity have nothing in common.

892

[quote]pat wrote:
Well your pissed off at It. How can you be pissed off at something that does not exist.[/quote]

Being pissed off at a religion isn’t the same as being pissed off at God.

893

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
forlife wrote:
IrishSteel, I’m curious if you can provide a nutshell summary of why you believe there is incontrovertible evidence for the Christian god? I’m not looking for specifics at this point, but the 2-3 most compelling reasons you chose to believe in this god. For example, “Prophecies in the old testament were fulfilled in the new testament, and couldn’t possibly be explained in any other way.”

well of all the bullshit questions . . . you want me to give to you the personal rationale that I needed (and worked incredibly hard for) to accept the Christian God as my own? And do all of your work for you? I don’t think so . . . as you know - i did not arrive at my faith by an easy road -if you want to follow the same path - you’ll have to do the same work . . .

besides - the evidence I needed is probably not be the evidence that you would need and I would not want to cloud an opportunity for salvation by giving you a false reason to reject him . .

tell you what - i’ll give you the basics . … . easy stuff . . . I’ll even do it in rational order for you - I’ll even give you the secret to my faith . . .

here’s the basics:

The perfection of mathematics . . .
The design of the universe . . .
the nature of man . . .
the historical record . . .
the validity of scripture . . .

Here’s the secret - I started from absolute zero - started discovering what was true/what was false - found evidence of God and kept tracking him down - starting from the base of mathematics through many fields and disciplines and theories and faiths and then finally to scripture where the God I saw evidence for throughout my other studies was waiting with loving arms to welcome me. You see, I didn’t start with the Bible - that was where I ended. And oh what an incredible day when I found Him - I cannot describe for you the joy of that journey or the amazing overwhelming wonder when i stepped through from seeking to knowing who God really is . . .[/quote]
You know what’s interesting about this? You spend most of the post speaking of logic, and then ended it with an amazing emotional discovery.

You said something a while back that I also found interesting, but never commented on. Do you believe in buddhism and taoism?

894

[quote]Makavali wrote:
pushharder wrote:
Oleeme, you take off on a lot of rabbit trails, sugar. Leave this Islam - Christianity comparison thing alone or you are going to look awfully silly. This is truly the most ineffective weapon in your arsenal.

Yeah, Islam and Christianity have nothing in common.[/quote]

I actually did lol.

895

[quote]Oleena wrote:
IrishSteel wrote:
forlife wrote:

And I keep bringing you guys back to the heart of that question - if the only reason you think God is not benevolent is because of the level of punishment applied to those who sin, your problem is not with the concept of God creating man knowing that he would have to punish some - but the actual punishment itself. For example - if all hell really is is a plainer version of heaven but just no presence of God - is that not benevolent? What do you make of all the passages that describe hell as a burning lake with satan and all his angels nearby? I can see how you would want to believe in christianity more if you didn’t believe that hell was a burning lake with people screaming and gnashing their teeth. Giving those people exactly what they want - separation from him? After all - Christ on the cross experienced that very thing - and that was the true torment of the crucifixion for him!

But let’s deal with another aspect of your question that i tried to raise many pages back. Without a punishment for sin - moral choices would have no value. This is a rather old idea. Moral choices actually do have value outside of the concept of god- and the value is life or death. All you have to do is read up a little on the social dynamics of any other social animal to see what the consequences of acting unethically can be. If you murder your cousin, someone might murder you back. That, of course, is not even scraping the surface of the complex study of social dynamics and how it relates to a code of ethics outside of any concept of god. If there was no punishment - choosing to kill, rape and murder and on and on - would be just as viable an option as not doing those things. No, it wouldn’t. As I said, you need to read up on power dynamics. If there was no torment - then doing evil would be just as good as doing good - there has to be consequence to action. There are tons of consequences outside the concept of god for not “doing evil”. The survival of our species is a good one. Everywhere you look in the physical universe this law plays out - jump off of a building and you can yell “God is love” all the way to the ground - but your choice to jump off of the roof will still result in you hitting the ground. You’re right. You can scream “Don’t have sex before marrige” all you want, but those damned teenagers still breed!

You say that a loving God would not have created you if he knew you were going to sin and be punished for it . . . but that is not a choice at all because if he had not created you there would be no choice to make since there would have been no you to love enough to not create. . .how can I dumb this down for you . . . . You are asking why God did not love something that did not exist enough to not make it . . . it is illogical on its face . . . He could not have loved you if you did not exist, so the choice to not make you because he loved you when you did not exist is patently absurd! He could not love you until you existed Interesting. So there is something god can’t do. He can’t imagine ahead of time what he is going to create and see that he is going to love it. I’ve met unpregnant women who have better forethought than that. , now that you exist - he loves you unconditionally and is trying to save you from the consequences of the decisions you made of your own free will!

[/quote]

that was your answer? really?

So you cannot understand a hypothetical, eh? All you have done is proven my point by your response that you care more about the punishment than you do the love. You could care less whether or not God loves anyone- it is the idea of being punished that bothers you. That was my point - you do not care about the issue of God’s love, that is merely a tool for you to attack the idea of punishment for sin.

As for your juvenile assessment of right and wrong in a societal context - you know that in any scenario without an ultimate moral authority- all pretext of right and wrong are merely subjective to the person with the power to enforce their view. You argument was that natural consequences of choices would define something as right or wrong - but with enough power - or a majority opinion -that can disappear. Again- your concept of right and wrong is SUBJECTIVE -and consequently loses all value and meaning . . .

So you’re reasoning goes like this . . .(I’m God for the sake of argument) I could create man or not create man - If I create man, I will love him. If i create man I will give him free will to choose to love me or not. I know that some will deny me and sin and I will then have to punish them. OK - I will make no one so that I do not have to punish the ones that I love that choose to do wrong . . . that is so absurd - how can I make you see that . . .

I know - you gave me the perfect example - - - -Let’s flip this around to your example of the potential mother - if you are going to have a child, you will love him right? Will you punish him for being disobedient? Will you then choose to not get pregnant since you would have to punish them and you could not punish someone you love? See how absurd that is?

You see - it all comes down - not to whether or not God loves you enough not to create you if he has to punish you - but whether or not you think his punishment is too harsh for the sins committed. We have no problem with the idea of someone loving someone that they have to punish for doing wrong - it is the punishment itself that you have a problem with - which has been my point all along.

And which you have proven true yourself again and again . . .

The two things that people hate about Christianity is personal responsibility (free will) and the possibility of punishment for sin (consequence of action) - take those two things out of Christianity and it would be as popular as Eastern Philosophies and just as ignored . . .

896

[quote]Oleena wrote:
IrishSteel wrote:
katzenjammer wrote:
Oleena wrote:
Ah. More PC church propoganda.

Oleena’s PC secular propaganda is based on a culture of narcissism that can recognize no authority but its own subjectivity - the existence of which, ironically, they must deny in order to frantically maintain their undying & unprovable faith that neither free will nor He exists.

I’ll take the teachings of a 2,000 year-old Church - who’s doctrine has been shaped by the greatest philosophical minds the world has ever knownCongradulations on making the most arrogant, unfounded statement to date on this thread.

  • over ^^ that any day.

[/quote]

What’s arrogant and unfounded about it? Nearly every great thinker, artist, scientist in history (of which the last hundred years is but a heartbeat) was working for the glory of God. What’s breathtakingly arrogant is to dismiss all of that because you’ve read a few Scratch 'n Sniff books that flatter your own subjectivity.

897

[quote]THE_CLAMP_DOWN wrote:

Can’t we all just have faith?[/quote]

You have to, with out it you are paralyzed. Most things we depend on require faith.

898

[quote]Oleena wrote:
THE_CLAMP_DOWN wrote:
Oleena wrote:

Oh my god.

Whose your god?

I haven’t decided yet. I think I’m going to go with the spagetti monster because he’s the coolest, hippest thing around, but I might go with myself afteral. We’ll see.[/quote]

Worship Colonel Sanders or burn in eternal hellfire.

899

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
monotheistic religions . . .

. . . Hindus[/quote]

LOL

900

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
And I keep bringing you guys back to the heart of that question - if the only reason you think God is not benevolent is because of the level of punishment applied to those who sin, your problem is not with the concept of God creating man knowing that he would have to punish some - but the actual punishment itself.[/quote]

Not applicable, since that isn’t the reason I see your god as lacking benevolence. It’s not the punishment per se, but the fact that your god KNOWINGLY creates people that are going to suffer horribly for all eternity, when he could have chosen NOT to create these people in the first place. Wouldn’t you agree it is far better not to exist, than to exist forever in horrible pain and agony?

Is that really how you see hell? If so, it is diametrically different from numerous biblical passages, which make it perfectly clear that hell is endless, horrible suffering.

Fair enough, but it begs the question. Why wouldn’t god simply create those people that he KNOWS are going to make good moral choices, and choose not to create those people that he KNOWS are going to suffer in hell forever? He could do so, without violating the law that moral choices lead to consequences. Not creating people who make poor moral choices in no way breaks the connection between moral choices and consequences.

That notion is contradicted by the definition of omniscience. If god were truly omniscient, he would know everything, irrespective of when it comes into existence.

It is also contradicted by your own scripture, for example:

Jeremiah 1:5