But who are we too argue with god, he can do what he likes. he is god after all.

 

yes, I mentioned this odd logic on a religious thread a few months/years??? ago

when speaking about my experiences chatting to an old work colleague over our lunch break

it was my first real introduction the Evangelical Christianity

he simply stated that you "cannot get to the kingdom of heaven unless carried on the back of Jesus Christ" - full stop

you don't get a "free pass" for living a good and moral life, and likewise, Hitler, Himmler Stalin and Fred West would all get in if carried on the back of Jesus Christ

essentially it is that in a nutshell - obviously the sooner you let Jesus in the better, but fundamentally the original point stands

you can sort of see the "logic" in it - all clubs have entry rules, otherwise they are not really clubs

 

It is indeed odd logic, but Christians have a built in answer which is "who are we to judge, only god can judge"

Well if there is such a thing as heaven then even I can see you shouldn't be letting in all the evil people whether they believe in jesus / god or not.

Wonder why god cannot see this?

The reason being that Religion wants everyone to believe. If they start saying "well actually if you have done x,y, or z then you wont be getting into heaven" then they limit the potential followers. What's the point if you are going to hell anyway? And limiting the potential followers is something they do not want to do under any circumstances, therefore the importance of believing is placed above everything else and is the No 1 priority of religion.

I can see why this is the case, it is perfectly understandable, but it is also quite easy to see through.

Strange that so many seemingly intelligent people cannot see this though, it does truly astound me.

 

Apparently the heaven or hell is purely a binary decision, based upon simplistic criteria, god has no truck with complexity, or nuance.


If hell exists, is it one place, or are there lots of different levels?


Did Ghandi go to the same hell as Hitler for example? If he did that seems like an incredible injustice, and how could god allow such an injustice to exist?

 

I agree entirely, it is as simple as this:

Believe= Going up
Don't believe = Going down

It is down to what I said before which is Religion cannot afford to exclude anyone from being a potential follower the only thing that matters is that you believe no matter how evil you are as a person, when that collection plate comes round, Fred Wests money is as good as anyone's

 

According to Christianity simply believing in god doesn't get you in, you have to go via Christ.


Oh btw your post was number 666 on this thread, now you're surely going to hell

 

According to my Screen Martin, your post is no 666, this post is no 667.

Maybe we are both going to hell, who knows



God does of course


Jesus got a pretty poor deal if you ask me, carting people to heaven all day doesn't sound like fun.

 

Could you join monastic order James ?

 

All Christians I know dehumanise other non-Christian / atheist / agnostic humans with the same crap.

 

Not really sure why this would dehumanise non Christians / atheists or agnostics, if that is what Christians believe then fine, if you don't believe in Jesus then how is he going to take you anywhere anyway?

I am fine with not going to heaven, it doesn't sound like such a nice place to be honest, seems to be full of evil people that god let in for some bizarre reason.

If I were god there would be a much stricter criteria to get past my pearly gates. Although I cant help thinking of Jim Carrey in Bruce Almightly, Maybe he lets all these evil people slip past as he is too busy trying to deal with all the prayers to monitor the gates?

 

Beam me up!

 

It gets better, lads. We haven't touched on predestination yet.

 

Sorry, I should have said -"try to...".

Of course they don't succeed in dehumanising others. But they certainly and openly believe that they are something special to deserve their imaginary heaven.

They're all going to their imaginary hell imo.

 

This is something I agree with. Hell, as I and others see it, is the absence of God. I see God as love, and so His eternal absence would be Hell. If people don't believe in God, then why should they get so hot under the collar about Hell (if you'll forgive the pun)?

 

And by the way, it's only Protestants that subscribe to the doctrine of sola fide; Catholics believe in salvation by works as opposed to grace. There's a lot to learn.

 

Forgot to add, one evil person I know gave emotional breakdown to his wife by having an affair with his sisterhood evil 'sister'. Wife remained indoors for two years on anti-depressants. He was a tyrant to his kids as well. His kids hated him for as long as he lived. Now as adults, they won't go to any Church and bash Bible, even if you pay them!

Another newly converted one became one after receiving an anti-Islam book of a colleague. Now he just cries over his sins of having affairs, letting his kids and wife down etc. and talks irrational bollox. I'm pleased that Chritianity is at least keeping him alive for his new wife (who he was double crossing his previous wife with) and new kid; by making him believe that it's washing away his guilt.

They're both going to their imaginary heaven, in their own little heads.

 

Despite our obvious opposite beliefs we can still agree on some things, can I just clarify a point you made earlier in response to me asking if you would go to hospital if u were ill.

You responded that God put medicine on earth, to reject it would be folly.

Did God put all the wacky medicine that didn't work from times gone by on earth also? Cruel trick if so cos none of it worked

So why did he wait so many thousands of years and deny so many people access to medicine for so many years?

And why is he trying to now make it all not work again (antibiotic resistant bacteria) he seems quite mixed up in his aims to me, would love to hear your thoughts, please, your thoughts not a quote from the Bible if you could do that for me?

 

Dante's The Divine Comedy explores this, but there's nothing biblical to support the idea.

By the way, perhaps Hitler facilitated the return of the Jews to Jerusalem and Gahndi screwed up God's plan for British dominance across the globe. If there's no moral arbiter, then who's to decide what is good and what is bad? Humans don't have a God's eye view.

 

I don't know. If you're an atheist, why are you so angry at Him?

 

Come on now Jt, you are really grasping at straws, under no definition of anything can you say that Hitler was a nicer person than grand, do you really believe that is the case

And if God believes that then you're OK with that?

Here's a dilemma for you:

Someone murders your child (who didn't believe in God)

When you go to heaven you are greeted by the person who killed your child whilst your non believing child is forced to live in hell for eternity, u ok with this cos it's gods will, truly?

If you are OK with this then there really is no hope as you give God a free pass to do whatever no matter how screwed up it seems to any logical person, and no offence intended, I feel sorry for you.

 

As ever, none taken. As above, why are you so concerned about God and my faith? If you're an atheist, it doesn't matter, does it?

 

Have you looked up predestination yet?

 

I am in no way concerned, you are free to believe whatever you like,

You did totally avoid the question though which leads me to believe even you can see how screwed up the totally plausible situation i cited is,

So would you be OK with it just because it's gods will because in my mind if your "God" would even consider putting u in that situation he is so far from loving you it is scary, I would go so far as to say he actually enjoyed putting u in a torturous situation, and one that lasts for eternity at that, loving God my eye

 

A temporal agent (Ethan Hawke) embarks on a final time-traveling assignment to prevent an elusive criminal from launching an attack that kills thousands of people.

Sounds pretty good to me, u going to watch it?

Was the first result that came up on Google

 

You've avoided the question.

You seem to think God and therefore Jesus, is evil. Is that correct?

 

OK, I will answer the question, if you do the same

I don't believe in God therefore he cannot be evil, however I will throw you a bone, IF God does exist and he makes you endure an eternity in heaven with the person who killed your child whilst said child is sent straight to hell. God is at the very least unspeakably cruel, suppose it depends on whether he took pleasure from the situation as to whether he would be classed as evil

Your turn

 

And for the record I did actually answer your question, I did look up predestination, so the answer would be yes, it returned results about an Ethan Hawke film, which as a side note sounds.quite entertaining

I was just trying to inject a little humour in what can be a quite serious debate

 

Not got the guts to say it, eh? Can't quite go the whole hog!

I think the author of the Sermon on the Mount is perfection and I'd die for Him.

 

Absolutely hilarious.

You need to get this before you waste any more time with your silly scenarios:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination

 

Wow Just wow, I am speechless (good Job I can still type though hey)

I have just thought of a scenario that does not involve my knowledge of God's feelings, God let's innocent children die in horribly painful ways, sometimes enduring months of agony and suffering so yes God is evil, I am surprised you would even imply It takes guts to claim something about a god that I don't even believe exists!!

And u still haven't answered my question, The only answer you can give to the scenario I posed is that you are OK with it, it's gods will after all, and we both know that scenario is not ok, tell me I'm wrong, or are u scared of looking silly?