JESUS CHRIST IS THE LORD AND SAVIOR

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I know an answer to that, but I'm to tired to think and look it up at the moment. Basically it is about what C.S. Lewis calls "the law of nature as it applies to man" (or something very close to that effect) in his book Mere Chrisianity, which I highly recommend.

Vague reference to a Christian fantasist and vacuous indication that a response exists somewhere does not do the trick.

El, Elohim, Allah, Ayl.

ruveyn

Sand:

That an interesting concept.

You have no free will whatsoever, and that every last one of your actions are compelled by caused and effect. You are in effect completely aware of the prison you feel you are locked in. This doesn't bother you? That you are forced by cause and effect to view yourself in slavery to physics and at the same time you are forced to view this without emotion?

Sounds pretty depressing to me, especially considering you can't even choose to kill yourself to escape prison.

Just a thought.

It will take more than throwing a bunch of scripture verses at me to make me see things from a religionist's perspective again

It wasn't meant to do the trick, it was meant to say that I'll get back to you on that, It will have to wait another day.

Any decision I make is contingent on my experience and understanding of consequences. This is my "prison". I am locked into my ability to analyze and my capability to act. The other possibility is that I make totally random choices. I see nothing depressing about the former. Living by random choices leads to inevitable self destruction. I am not upset by my use of my intellect and my experience to deal with my circumstances and so is everyone else. Free will is a silly useless concept.

Words fail me.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/03/we_arent_going_to_kiss_and_mak.php

This does not shock me, I find it encouraging that people of faith acknowledge that the embrace of faith is insanity since that is the first step towards seeking a cure. I have had long frustrating discussions with a PhD professor named Paparella in a web magazine called OVI who is horrified by reason and embraces fully the insanity of faith. The enlightenment which freed much of the world from the idiocy of faith struck him as one of the prime errors of humanity. It is not an unusual attitude in even educated people.

for you...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztTd69C6YvI[/youtube]


Religion is the greatest enemy of faith!

Two thought experiments.

1. If you discovered that the government you supported was torturing dissidents purely for thought crime, would it not be your moral duty to turn against that government? If not, why not?

2. If you jumped into a river and rescued someone from drowning, and when you got them to the bank you recognized them as someone who's always mocked and doubted your lifesaving abilities, are they still drowning?

The Christians among you should answer these without any reference to books the rest of us don't believe in. The rest of you can perhaps see where I'm coming from here. Whatever you believe or don't believe, I share audioeyes' concern that there's a certain lack of both wisdom and compassion in some people's previous statements.

Yes, I would. As I would turn against my church if they did the same thing. I do not care about myself, I have nothing to leave behind me. I would fight, and die, for the weak, the helpless, the tortured. And I'd probably go to extreme lengths to do it, to the point of lethal force, regardless of the eternal consequences.

A man in my church who just came back from a mission trip to San Francisco talked this morning about watching a girl being savagely beaten by another girl and a large man. He described it all fairly graphically, and he described being scared for his life, and that when the man heard a car honking and thought it might be the church group, he talked about how scared he was.

I felt contempt. This man was scared for himself? What about the girl who was being beaten to a pulp? Why wasn't he overcome by his concern for her, and why didn't he stand up for her? I'd have been overcome with a bizarre combination of righteous fury and compassion. I've felt that combination before, it is terrifyingly awesome. I shouldn't have felt contempt, I was not there, but I know for a fact that if I were to consider the choices of A: dying to protect someone I've never met, and B: watching someone being beaten to death, I'd rather die trying to protect someone.



I'm not sure what you're getting at. I think you're asking that if Jesus died on the Cross for our sins, are we still sinners, and therefore damned? Biblically, yes. Our salvation has been paid for, but we must repent and ask for it in order to receive it.

The way you phrased it, I'm pretty sure you wanted a "no" in answer to that question. If I physically saved a person, then no, they would not be drowning. If that person immediately went back to swimming in icy waters, then they would soon resume drowning.

Spiritually, that's what I believe happens. Jesus came down and died for us, in essence pulling us out of the river and taking our place. But we as humans are pretty f***ing ret*d, and we got right back into the water. We aren't drowning when He pulls us out, no, but pretty soon we're back in the water, and He'll pull us out again if we want Him to.

You're a brave soul, given what you describe there. I'd like to think I'd do the same, except my courage has never, thankfully, been tested that way. But, point is, that's exactly the reason I can't believe in the kind of God you believe in. I have that same mixture of feelings at the idea of any human ending up eternally tormented, whatever logic you use for how or why they end up that way (and if you think it's their 'choice', you should maybe read Nineteen Eighty-Four sometime...there's a relevant scene in Part 3, Chapter 3). There comes a point when you have to turn from blaming the victim (however much they supposedly 'deserve it') and ask who set up the system and whether or not they deserve your support.

As for drowning...if we want him to? This is where I'm confused. Any compassionate person who saw someone drowning would rescue them whether or not they clearly wanted to be rescued or not. In fact, they'd assume that anyone who did what you describe (kept crawling back in the water and seemed to be actively trying to drown themselves) wasn't of sound mind and therefore couldn't be blamed for their actions. And to my mind, anything that has to be asked for isn't an act of pure compassion. And, you're right, I was getting at the dichotomy between everybody being saved once and for all, and each person being saved individually, which to me, doesn't add up - it must be one or the other.

I'm sure 'God is just God and that's the way it is, OK?' is the final answer to this, but if you create beings who are almost infinitely inferior to you, setting up a system that 99.9% recurring of them can't understand or accept (especially if you know that will be the case), and then blaming them for making the wrong choices, seems just a teensy bit unfair.

In a sensible system punishment teaches you something you have done is wrong so that you will not do it again. If you burn your finger in a fire it has taught you not to put your finger in a fire. If God punishes you eternally for something you have done it only teaches you that God is sadistic since whatever lesson you learn by being tortured in Hell forever cannot be applied to any subsequent situation. You have no future. It's like the atomic bomb. It's only good as a threat but useless if actually used. A kind of dynamic oxymoron.

God doesn't send anyone to Hell. They send themselves for rejecting belief.
You break one commandment you break them all so we need to be and accept forgiveness that is being offered for free to you. Its like a get out of jail free card.

Not in the Jewish tradition. The thought is that the balance between commandments followed and commandments violated determine the outcome.

Only gnostic Gentiles could come up with the notion that you put forth.

ruveyn