Heaven or Hell

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What is hell? What is heaven? Who goes there? The Bible answers these questions.

The condition of the dead is made clear at Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10, where we read: "The dead know nothing . . . In the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom." Scripturally, death is a state of nonexistence. The dead have no awareness, no feelings, no thoughts.

Since the dead have no conscious existence, hell cannot be a fiery place of torment where the wicked suffer after death. Examining what happened to Jesus after he died helps to explain what is hell.

“he saw beforehand and spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that neither was he forsaken in Ha´des (hell) nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God resurrected, of which fact we are all witnesses.”
Acts 2:31-32

“I handed on to you…that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried, yes, that he has been raised up the third day according to the Scriptures.”
1 Corinthians 15:3,4

So Jesus was in hell, the grave, but he was not abandoned there;he was raised up, or resurrected. The Bible hell is the common grave of mankind where good people as well as bad ones go.

The fire of hell is symbolic of all-consuming, or thorough, destruction. Separating fire from Hades, or hell, the Scriptures say: "Death and Hades were hurled into the lake of fire."
Revelation 20:14

"The lake" mentioned here is symbolic, since death and hell (Hades) that are thrown into it cannot literally be burned. Those in God's memory who are in hell—the common grave of mankind—have a marvelous future.

The Bible says hell will be emptied.

"The sea gave up those dead in it, and death and Hades gave up those dead in them."
Revelation 20:13

Jesus promised, "the hour is coming in which all those in the memorial tombs will hear [Jesus'] voice and come out."
John 5:28, 29
Although no longer presently existing in any form, millions of dead ones who are in Jehovah God's memory will be resurrected, or brought back to life, in a restored earthly paradise.
“And he said to him: “Truly I tell you today, You will be with me in Paradise.””
Luke 23:43
“and I have hope toward God, which hope these [men] themselves also entertain, that there is going to be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous.”
Acts 24:15.
The Bible teaches that God resides in heaven along with millions of spirit creatures called angels. (Matthew 18:10; Revelation 5:11)

the Bible states that only a limited number of faithful Christians—namely, 144,000 of them—are raised as spirit creatures to live in heaven. Why are they given this wonderful reward? Because they make up the group that John saw in a vision who "came to life and ruled as kings with the Christ for a thousand years." (Revelation 14:1, 3; 20:4-6) Compared with the billions on earth, the 144,000 truly are a "little flock." (Luke 12:32) Moreover, having experienced the problems common to humankind, like Jesus they will be able to "sympathize with our weaknesses" as they supervise the rehabilitation of mankind and of the earth.—Hebrews 4:15.

To Duckphup:
Your understanding of GE 3:1-7, 22-24 might benefit from this information: God gave Adam and Eve the gift of free will. Adam and Eve knew in advance the penalty for disobedience. God provided the means for the offspring of Adam and Eve to regain eternal life.
When God created Adam and Eve, he settled them in a beautiful garden that was filled with edible vegetation and fruit-bearing trees. Only one tree was out of bounds—“the tree of the knowledge of good and bad.” Being free moral agents, Adam and Eve could choose to obey God or disobey him. Adam was warned, however, that “in the day you eat from [the tree of knowledge] you will positively die.”—Genesis 1:29; 2:17.
This one restriction caused no hardship; Adam and Eve could eat from all the other trees in the garden. (Genesis 2:16) Moreover, the prohibition attributed nothing improper to the couple, nor did it rob them of dignity. Had God forbidden such vile things as bestiality or murder, some could claim that perfect humans had certain base inclinations that needed to be restrained. Eating, however, was natural and proper.
The tree of knowledge was a literal tree. However, it represented God’s right as Ruler to decide what is good and bad for his human creation. To eat from the tree, therefore, was not just an act of theft—taking that which belonged to God—but also a presumptuous grasp at moral independence, or self-determination. Note that after lyingly telling Eve that if she and her husband ate the fruit, they ‘positively would not die,’ Satan asserted: “For God knows that in the very day of your eating from it your eyes are bound to be opened and you are bound to be like God, knowing good and bad.”—Genesis 3:4, 5.
When they ate the fruit, however, Adam and Eve did not receive godlike enlightenment on good and bad. In fact, Eve said to God: “The serpent—it deceived me.” (Genesis 3:13) Still, she knew of God’s command, even restating it to the serpent, Satan’s mouthpiece. (Revelation 12:9) Hence, her act was one of willful disobedience. (Genesis 3:1-3) Adam, though, was not deceived. (1 Timothy 2:14) Instead of loyally obeying his Creator, he listened to his wife and followed her independent course.—Genesis 3:6, 17.
By asserting their independence, Adam and Eve irreparably damaged their relationship with Jehovah and inflicted sin’s imprint upon their organism, right to its genetic foundations. True, they lived for hundreds of years, but they began to die “in the day” of their sin, as a branch severed from a tree would. (Genesis 5:5) Moreover, for the first time, they sensed an internal disharmony. They felt naked and tried to hide from God. (Genesis 3:7, 8) They also felt guilt, insecurity, and shame. Their sin produced an upheaval within them, their consciences accusing them of wrongdoing.
To be true to himself and to his holy standards, God justly sentenced Adam and Eve to death and expelled them from the garden of Eden. (Genesis 3:19, 23, 24) Thus, Paradise, happiness, and everlasting life were lost, while sin, suffering, and death resulted. What a tragic development for the human race! However, immediately after sentencing the couple, God promised to undo all the harm resulting from their sin without compromising his own righteous standards.
Jehovah purposed to make it possible for the offspring of Adam and Eve to be freed from sin’s deadly grip. He accomplished this through Jesus Christ. (Genesis 3:15; Matthew 20:28; Galatians 3:16) Through him, God will eliminate sin and all its effects and will make the earth into a global paradise, just as he purposed in the beginning.—Luke 23:43; John 3:16.

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ALL KIND OF POSSIBLE QUESTIONS ASKED BY NON MUSLIMS ARE ANSWERED AT BELOW WEB SITE:

http://www.irf.net/irf/faqonislam/index.htm

Most Common Questions asked by Non-Muslims

HEREAFTER - LIFE AFTER DEATH

Question

How can you prove the existence of hereafter, i.e. life after death?

Answer

1. Belief in the hereafter is not based on blind faith?

Many people wonder as to how a person with a scientific and logical temperament, can lend any credence to the belief of life after death. People assume that anyone believing in the hereafter is doing so on the basis of blind belief.

My belief in the hereafter is based on a logical argument.

2. Hereafter a logical belief

There are more than a thousand verses in the Glorious Qur’an, containing scientific facts (refer my book "Qur’an and Modern Science-Compatible or Incompatible?"). Many facts mentioned in the Qur’an have been discovered in the last few centuries. But science has not advanced to a level where it can confirm every statement of the Qur’an.

Suppose 80% of all that is mentioned in the Qur’an has been proved 100% correct. About the remaining 20%, science makes no categorical statement, since it has not advanced to a level, where it can either prove or disprove these statements. With the limited knowledge that we have, we cannot say for sure whether even a single percentage or a single verse of the Qur’an from this 20% portion is wrong. Thus when 80% of the Qur’an is 100% correct and the remaining 20% is not disproved, logic says that even the 20% portion is correct. The existence of the hereafter, which is mentioned in the Qur’an, falls in the 20% ambiguous portion which my logic says is correct.

3. Concept of peace and human values is useless without the concept of hereafter

Is robbing a good or an evil act? A normal balanced person would say it is evil. How would a person who does not believe in the hereafter convince a powerful and influential criminal that robbing is evil?

Suppose I am the most powerful and influential criminal in the world. At the same time I am an Intelligent and a logical person. I say that robbing is good because it helps me lead a luxurious life. Thus robbing is good for me.

If anybody can put forward a single logical argument as to why it is evil for me, I will stop immediately. People usually put forward the following arguments:

a. The person who is robbed will face difficulties

Some may say that the person who is robbed will face difficulties. I certainly agree that it is bad for the person who is robbed. But it is good for me. If I rob a thousand dollars, I can enjoy a good meal at a 5 star restaurant.

b. Someone may rob you

Some people argue that someday I may be robbed. No one can rob me because I am a very powerful criminal and I have hundreds of bodyguards. I can rob anybody but nobody can rob me. Robbing may be a risky profession for a common man but not for an influential person like me.

c. The police may arrest you

Some may say, if you rob, you can be arrested by the police. The police cannot arrest me because I have the police on my payroll. I have the ministers on my payroll. I agree that if a common man robs, he will be arrested and it will be bad for him, but I am an extraordinarily influential and powerful criminal.

Give me one logical reason why it is bad for me and I will stop robbing.

d. Its easy money

Some may say its easy money and not hard-earned money. I agree completely that it is easy money, and that is one of the main reasons why I rob. If a person has the option of earning money the easy as well as the hard way, any logical person would choose the easy way.

e. It is against humanity

Some may say it is against humanity and that a person should care for other human beings. I counter argue by asking as to who wrote this law called ‘humanity’ and why should I follow it?

This law may be good for the emotional and sentimental people but I am a logical person and I see no benefit in caring for other human beings.

f. It is a selfish act

Some may say that robbing is being selfish. It is true that robbing is a selfish act; but then why should I not be selfish? It helps me enjoy life.

1. No logical reason for robbing being an evil act

Hence all arguments that attempt to prove that robbing is an evil act are futile. These arguments may satisfy a common man but not a powerful and influential criminal like me. None of the arguments can be defended on the strength of reason and logic. It is no surprise that there are so many criminals in this world.

Similarly raping, cheating etc. can be justified as good for a person like me and there is no logical argument that can convince me that these things are bad.

2. A Muslim can convince a powerful and influential criminal

Now let us switch sides. Suppose you are the most powerful and influential criminal in the world, who has the police and the ministers on his payroll. You have army of thugs to protect you. I am a Muslim who will convince you that robbing, raping, cheating, etc. are evil acts.

Even if I put forth the same arguments to prove that robbing is evil the criminal will respond the same way as he did earlier.

I agree that the criminal is being logical and all his arguments are true only when he is the most powerful and influential criminal.

3. Every human being wants justice

Each and every human being desires justice. Even if he does not want justice for others he wants justice for himself. Some people are intoxicated by power and influence and inflict pain and suffering on others. The same people, however, would surely object if some injustice was done to them. The reason such people become insensitive to the suffering of others is that they worship power and influence. Power and influence, they feel, not only allows them to inflict injustice on others but also prevents others from doing likewise to them.

4. God is Most Powerful and Just

As a Muslim I would convince the criminal about the existence of Almighty God (refer to answer proving the existence of God). This God is more powerful than you and at the same time is also just. The Glorious Qur’an says:

"Allah is never unjust
In the least degree"

[Al-Qur’an 4:40]

5. Why does God not punish me?

The criminal, being a logical and scientific person, agrees that God exists, after being presented with scientific facts from the Qur’an. He may argue as to why God, if He is Powerful and Just, does not punish him.

6. The people who do injustice should be punished

Every person who has suffered injustice, irrespective of financial or social status, almost certainly wants the perpetrator of injustice to be punished. Every normal person would like the robber or the rapist to be taught a lesson. Though a large number of criminals are punished, many even go scot-free. They lead a pleasant, luxurious life, and even enjoy a peaceful existence. If injustice is done to a powerful and influential person, by someone more powerful and more influential than he, even such a person would want that person perpetrators of injustice to be punished.

7. This life is a test for the hereafter

This life is a test for the hereafter. The Glorious Qur’an says:

"He who created Death
And life that He
May try which of you
Is best in deed;
And He is the Exalted
In Might, Oft-Forgiving"
[Al-Qur’an 67:2]

8. Final justice on day of judgement

The Glorious Qur’an says:

"Every soul shall have
A taste of death:
And only on the Day
Of Judgement shall you
Be paid your full recompense.
Only he who is saved
Far from the Fire
And admitted to the Garden
Will have attained
The object (of life):
For the life of this world
Is but goods and chattels
Of deception."
[Al-Qur’an 3:185]

Final justice will be meted out on the Day of Judgement. After a person dies, he will be resurrected on the Day of Judgement along with the rest of mankind. It is possible that a person receives part of his punishment in this world. The final reward and punishment will only be in the hereafter. God Almighty may not punish a robber or a rapist in this world but he will surely be held accountable on the Day of Judgement and will be punished in the hereafter i.e. life after death.

9. What punishment can the human law give Hitler?

Hitler incinerated six million Jews during his reign of terror. Even if the police had arrested him, what punishment can the human law give Hitler for justice to prevail? The most they can do is to send Hitler to the gas chamber. But that will only be punishment for the killing of one Jew. What about the remaining five million, nine hundred and ninety nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine Jews?

10. Allah can burn Hitler more than six million times in hellfire

Allah say in the Glorious Qur’an:

"Those who reject
Our signs, We shall soon
Cast into the Fire;
As often as their skins
Are roasted through,
We shall change them
For fresh skins,
That they may taste
The penalty: for Allah
Is Exalted in Power, Wise"
[Al-Qur’an 4:56]

If Allah wishes he can incinerate Hitler six million times in the hereafter in the hellfire.

11. No concept of human values or good and bad without concept of hereafter

It is clear that without convincing a person about the hereafter, i.e. life after death, the concept of human values and the good or evil nature of acts is impossible to prove to any person who is doing injustice especially when he is influential and powerful.

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What is hell? What is heaven? Who goes there? The Bible answers these questions.

The condition of the dead is made clear at Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10, where we read: "The dead know nothing . . . In the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom." Scripturally, death is a state of nonexistence. The dead have no awareness, no feelings, no thoughts.

Since the dead have no conscious existence, hell cannot be a fiery place of torment where the wicked suffer after death. Examining what happened to Jesus after he died helps to explain what is hell.

“he saw beforehand and spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that neither was he forsaken in Ha´des (hell) nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God resurrected, of which fact we are all witnesses.”
Acts 2:31-32

“I handed on to you…that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried, yes, that he has been raised up the third day according to the Scriptures.”
1 Corinthians 15:3,4

So Jesus was in hell, the grave, but he was not abandoned there;he was raised up, or resurrected. The Bible hell is the common grave of mankind where good people as well as bad ones go.

The fire of hell is symbolic of all-consuming, or thorough, destruction. Separating fire from Hades, or hell, the Scriptures say: "Death and Hades were hurled into the lake of fire."
Revelation 20:14

"The lake" mentioned here is symbolic, since death and hell (Hades) that are thrown into it cannot literally be burned. Those in God's memory who are in hell—the common grave of mankind—have a marvelous future.

The Bible says hell will be emptied.

"The sea gave up those dead in it, and death and Hades gave up those dead in them."
Revelation 20:13

Jesus promised, "the hour is coming in which all those in the memorial tombs will hear [Jesus'] voice and come out."
John 5:28, 29
Although no longer presently existing in any form, millions of dead ones who are in Jehovah God's memory will be resurrected, or brought back to life, in a restored earthly paradise.
“And he said to him: “Truly I tell you today, You will be with me in Paradise.””
Luke 23:43
“and I have hope toward God, which hope these [men] themselves also entertain, that there is going to be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous.”
Acts 24:15.
The Bible teaches that God resides in heaven along with millions of spirit creatures called angels. (Matthew 18:10; Revelation 5:11)

the Bible states that only a limited number of faithful Christians—namely, 144,000 of them—are raised as spirit creatures to live in heaven. Why are they given this wonderful reward? Because they make up the group that John saw in a vision who "came to life and ruled as kings with the Christ for a thousand years." (Revelation 14:1, 3; 20:4-6) Compared with the billions on earth, the 144,000 truly are a "little flock." (Luke 12:32) Moreover, having experienced the problems common to humankind, like Jesus they will be able to "sympathize with our weaknesses" as they supervise the rehabilitation of mankind and of the earth.—Hebrews 4:15.

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JEWISH MADE HELL!

HIPPOCRATIC BARBARIC CAPITALIST SECULAR ZIONIST WEST:

Look what they are doing to Palestinians?
Look at the news of Palestinians trying to flee at Egypt border. The whole nation is crushed by the Zionist Occupiers in every way, food, energy, medicine for the old, child and seriously ill. There army destroying there fields and homes, killing the infants, women and children EVERY DAY.

And then there is news of SHAMLESS ZIONIST ISRAELI wOmen with two small children giving an interview that they are terrorized by the Hamas rocket fires. There car was destroyed, house windows were shackled. There Media telling every day 200 to 300 rockets are fired in Israeli border areas and there businesses are badly effected…B.S.!!!!

Why don’t the ZIONEST SHAME OF THE HUMAN FACE show on media those 200 to 300 rocket attacked places?? INSTEAD showing there shameless alone wOmen and media jugglery as a counter news???

And when the WESTERN SECULAR ZIONEST CAPITALIST SHAME OF THE HUMAN FACE condemns AND STOP SUPPORTING such BARBARIC AND CRUEL actions????

And when does HIPPOCRATIC BARBARIC CAPALISTIST SECULAR ZIONIST WEST stop acting like Hippocratic Maniacs???

Does Washington Post DARE to make a link On Faith with heading “CAPALIST SECULAR ZIONIST WEST CRIME AND VIOLENCE”????

YOUR GOVERNMENTS SHAMELESS SUPPORT SHOWS THAT THEY ARE EQUALLY RESPONSIBLE… IN EVERY BARBARIC ACTIONS GOING ON ALL OVER THE WORLD!!!!!!!!!

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ED and Like wise,

By the way who are you? Does any body know you or verify you intelligence?

Below are the very few of the WORLD ACKNOWLEDGED references from where I quote in my simple words.

-www.islamicvoice.com/january.97/scie.htm
-www.jamaat.net/deedat.htm

-Keith L. Moore
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This article does not cite any references or sources. (March 2007)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

Keith L. Moore is a professor emeritus in the division of anatomy (department of surgery), former Chair of anatomy and associate dean for Basic Medical Sciences (Faculty of Medicine) at the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He has also worked at the King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He is most known for his textbooks on the subjects of anatomy and human embryology.

He has co-written (with professor Arthur F. Dalley II) Clinically Oriented Anatomy, which is the most popular English-language anatomy textbook in the world, used by scientists, doctors, physiotherapists and students worldwide. The book is especially popular because of its 'blue boxes' - passages of text on blue background that relate the classical anatomy to real-world concepts in the diagnosis and treatment of human patients. The book now exists in multiple versions - one with American English spelling and one with British English spelling, and also a shorter version that is more suitable as a reference or revision guide.

Contents [hide]
1 Embryology and the Qur'an
2 See also
3 Books
4 External links

[edit] Embryology and the Qur'an
Moore has written some articles on "references to embryology in the Qur'an".

[edit] See also
The relation between Islam and science#Embryology

Moody, you are so full of hockey puck it's unbelievable. All cultures have just about the same infor the kuran has, and since the Koran is jsut about a good a copy from the bible, and other religious books, no wonder it has those things.

Just some items:

And your numbered items are rubbish. The "Big Bang" in the koran,, lol... you don't even know what it is and think the koran has any even remote idea what it is.

Human embryos being perfect, all mammal embryos go thru the same thing. The Human body is far from perfect, that's why we have prostrate trouble.

All plants and fruits don't have male and female attributes.

You koran is nonsense and ther is nothing of any scientific value in it, it's mostly wrong.

My favorite is after the earthquake that produced the tidal wave in 2004 in the Pacific.. The Muslim scientific scholars did a TV interview and said the scientific reason was that god caused it to punish the people. What a bunch of jugheads.

Muslim is just another way of spelling moron.

Perhaps George Carlin has the correct answer:
"When we die our souls go to a car wash in Detroit." Depressing for those who have visited there.

all i can say is that all God's judgments are just and that all men will be judged according to their works and circumstances and that their rewards will be deserved. There is no clear cut division of heaven and hell as some would presume,our God is far too just to make it that simple.

all i can say is that all God's judgments are just and that all men will be judged according to their works and circumstances and that their rewards will be deserved. There is no clear cut division of heaven and hell as some would presume,our God is far too just to make it that simple.

all i can say is that all God's judgments are just and that all men will be judged according to their works and circumstances and that their rewards will be deserved. There is no clear cut division of heaven and hell as some would presume,our God is far too just to make it that simple.

I do believe in both heaven and hell. Since I'm Christian, I believe the Bible to be the Word of God, as long as it is translated correctly. I also take Jesus as my personal Saviour, and look to him as the greatest mentor. In the Bible, we find the words of Jesus Christ himself as Truth.
Jesus states in Matthew, "Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as a little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." From Matthew to Revelation, Heaven is mentioned many times.

Hell, on the other hand, exists as well. There is Good and there is Evil. Just as we reward good behavior and punish bad, God punishes those who ignore, forget, or act directly against his will. In the New Testament, Hell is used mostly when Christ teaches the Pharisees and Saducees that their teachings and examples were worthy of no reward.

May those who live in our day see the reality of black vs. white. There is responsibility for our actions in this life and the life to come.

The question of the existence of heaven and/or hell may be addressed as a matter of subjective perception (such as is arguably the case from the point of view of the religious), or as a matter of objective interest. When I was young, I was prone to "believe", and assume as objectively real, that which was later demonstrated to have been merely a matter of perception. Most of us do this at some point or other, I think, and so we learn to do at least some cursory examination of the relevant facts. It's unclear that any such examination has been made by the posters here so far.

As far as I know, the Torah indicates that the first individual investigation of Heaven was made by Enoch, who "walked with God, and was not". Subsequently, there were apparently rumors that Enoch had indeed returned for a time and left a recounting of his experiences, adding his advice. It was only in the 18th century that copies of such a document were found in Ethiopia. It turns out that this document had been known for centuries; there were other versions of the same material in eastern Europe and in Russia.

The question, naturally enough, was/is whether or not the documents are valid as presented. We may suppose that they are not the original documents if indeed any such ever existed. But we can inspect the material to see if any internal evidence supports its genuineness. What can we find that might indicate that Enoch (obviously not his original name) may have been an historical character, and that his descriptions of Heaven might have some validity?

There is a section in the Ethiopian material, called 1Enoch, that is a straightforward description of observational systemic astronomy. Systemic astronomy deals with the Solar System; observational astronomy is that done by direct visual contact. Which means we're talking about the direct witnessing of the function of the Solar System. In specific, we're talking about measuring the movement of the Sun and Moon using some terrestrial viewpoint as a standard. On the face of it, this would seem to be good science, but done long ago before science was even a concept.

This is the Astronomical section beginning at (verse) 72 in the R. H. Charles edition.

It would appear that Enoch was taken to heaven by the Angel Uriel and shown the workings of the sun and moon and some planets. The protocols were straightforward and could be accomplished by one man in a place where the horizons could be observed, with the aid of two poles. Appropriate markers would be used to indicate observation pole positions, etc, etc, etc.

And this writing appears in the same context as the "Fallen Angels" and other "heavenly" events. This would seem to indicate that the whole business was intended to be taken as a single piece. That said, the subsequent interpretations (presumably by Enoch himself) can be assumed to be additions and not integral descriptions.

The point to all this is that, according to the Enochian material, Heaven can be placed on earth at a latitude of about 49 degrees north, at least at the Solstice point. It also would appear that such "heavenly" observatories existed at slightly more southern latitudes; Enochian descriptions of the relative length of day and night do not satisfy a single point of observation.

Now, what can we make of all this?

We can take the area of the "Garden of Eden" as a center point at the southern end of the Tigris-Euphrates flow and assume that Enoch was probably not far distant from the Mesopotamian plains. The nearest access to the latitude of observation at the Solstice would have been in the area just north of the Black Sea. Other observation points could have been east or west of the Black Sea, and in the northern part of Asia Minor (now Turkey) near the southern shore of the Black Sea.

Thus, Enoch would have been taken to the north to witness Heaven. Heaven, then, would have been the areas around the shores of the Black Sea. This implies that "above" means "north".

Some reasonable conjecture supports this conclusion. If the sky was indeed seen as Heaven, then that part of the skies that did not touch earth (rise and set) would have been the northern skies, where the constellations remain visible year around. Those stars, if indeed they were seen to represent deities, would thus be regarded as heavenly and apart from the earth. Again, this is only conjecture.

So much for Heaven.

The concept of Hell (and the Devil, et al) did not exist before the Medieval Period, and was specifically a Christian construct. Some elements of Jewish thought serve as possible precedents, but are not specific. So Hell exists as a matter of Roman Catholic decree.

So much for Hell.

Finally, one can argue subjective beliefs based on religious dicta and dogma as long as a forum for doing so exists. And nothing at all will be resolved; nothing meaningful accomplished. What will happen is that the arguers will reveal themselves as critically deficient and intellectually challenged, and will be thus regarded by anyone with some common sense.

Perhaps, the question might be: Why in the world do these question continue to persist, especially in our time of advanced knowledge? The answer, of course, is that individual "reality" is held to be as important as objective knowledge. Such a case might be argued for any given individual, but it cannot succeed for the community, where one man's vision of utopia may well be another man's vision of an earthly nightmare.

But, of course, we all prefer to expend human life and hard-won wealth in constant violence and warfare, lest our collective nightmares be successfully challenged by other such nightmares. Those who believe in Heaven and Hell, such that Heaven is an impossible place of attainment, consign themselves to the Hell of their own creation.

William D. Tallman

Dave, Deb, BPC, CCNL, Kafir and all non believers you keep your commentary on all the time criticizing Islam BUT never answer a single direct question raised by any Muslim OR reply DIRECTLY on there comments to your posts.

IF YOU GUYS ARE REALLY HONEST, NOT WITH MUSLIMS BUT ATLEAST WITH YOUR OWN SELVES,

THEN DARE TO ANSWER BELOW:

You can close your eyes or do not accept for what ever reasons you have….twist or lie
BUT YOU CAN'T DENY THE TRUTH:
THAT EVERY RATIONAL INTELLIGENT LOGICAL KNOWLEDGE & SICENCE IS TESTIFYING FOR QURAN....AFTER EVERY NEXT DISCOVERY AND AWARENESS!

MODREN SCIENCE AND QURAN (ISLAMIC DIVINE BOOK)

Quran is not a book of science BUT a book of signs. It has more than 6000 verses out of which more than 1000 verses giving CLEAR signs about the modern scientific proven facts in recent couple of hundred years. (THIS BY ANY POSSIBLE MEANS CANNOT BE SAID BY US HUMANS 1400 YEARS BACK. THE ONLY LOGIC IS THAT IT’S FROM SOMEONE WHO IS COMMUNICATING TO A HUMAN AND KNOWS BETTER THAN HUMANS)

- For some people ONE sign is enough to believe.
- For some people 10 signs are enough.
- But some people don't come to believe even after more than 1000 miraculous signs.

Verses about:

1- Big bang theory (in a nut shell).
2- Geo spherical Ostrich egg shaped earth (spherical which is the exact shape)
3- Cosmic dust (referred more perfectly as smoke).
4- How water seep into the earth and rain cycle through AIR.
5- Sweet and salt water of oceans and barrier between them.
6-Expanding sun, solar system and universe for given period of time
7- Earth, sun and stars revolving on their axis and path (orbits).
8- Sun and moon have different paths (orbits).
9- Sun and stars consuming there energy.
10- Reflected sun light of moon. In Arabic mooneer (moon) it self means reflected light.
11- Upper thin layer of earth, which is hold by mountains as nails (bigger in size deep in earth) from shacking.
12- Perfect shape and stages of human embryo.
13- All living being made out of water.
14- All plants and even fruits have male and female attributes.
15- The exact way of plants and animal’s behavior and how they communicate.

AND MANY MORE............

THESE ARE ALL RECENT DISCOVERIES AND SIGN FOR THOSE SINCERELY SEEKING TRUTH!!!!!! AND REMEMBER THAT IS NOT WHAT QURAN IS ALL ABOUT... THESE ARE JUST TESTIFYING SIGNS WITHOUT ANY FLAW OR FAULT.

Mandy:

Amen, Amen, and AMEN!!!! Spread the faith sweetheart!!!

For me, it helps to remember that there's no necessary connection between God and an afterlife.

It is easy to imagine God creating a world where living things do not persist in any way after death.

It's also possible to imagine a world without God in which life continues in some form (e.g., as "information") after death.

well im not strong in the faith but i do believe that God will save us all and it is written that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess and if you are the kind of person that dosent believe and you try to find excuses on everything about the bible and try to prove it wrong maybe you should die already and get your sinful life over with i know that dosent sound christian but im not hear to be nice...
but Im hear to pray for you
and soon you will see the
truth
-seeker of knowledge

I believe that when we die, our soul, in its non-time-bound, soul-state, watches over "what happens next" in this world, that has anything to do with what we did when we lived here.

As long as people remember us, or our lives continue to directly effect the lives that came after ours, we hang around, and see what is.

Heaven is when we are remembered for good things, and when the deeds of our life was a cause for good over time. We get to enjoy the Heaven of seeing how our life helped the future, and how it worked out for the good.

Hell is when we are remembered with hatred, when the deeds (or lack of deeds) in life caused needless sorrow or pain over time. Hell is having to see how our self-centered choices hurt others, and the trouble we caused over time.

There is no reason for there to be some grand overseer to "send us to Heaven or Hell" because after we die, freed from the ego and appetites of our bodies, we see the good and bad we did with complete clarity. We are able to forgive ourselves and others what ought to be forgiven, and able to see our true sins as they are, without shying away from the truth.

Very few people will find this experience to be ALL Heaven or Hell. And when the experience of seeing our lives for what they truly were, is over, then we come back to earth for another chance to live it right.

Acting and being good really are their own reward, which doesn't mean that this life will be easy or comfortable--just that this life is a lesson, and both the goal and the prize are to be truly good, even in the face of desire and opportunity to be bad.

Thank you for sharing your deepest feelings and thoughts

INTELLIGENT !

u just dont get it do you? everything just is.

period.

its perfect. always has been, all our wars and fueds are all imaginary, we made em up.....

find a war that was made by any God in any religion, or by some greedy God

no, greedy MEN and foolish MEN that thought they had something to argue about

tell me, what is an arguement? il tell you what it is sunshine, its a sound

it sounds like this

arrgguuument...

so if we go back and forth brother there is no reason because this difference we see
these beliefs

are sounds

sounds are sounds....

thats it, you have ears and you hear them....
that is the only thing that makes them exist...

so what is everyone argueing about? illusions....

my sound is more right than your sound...hahah cmon people hahah

i had this, i will be that, no neither is true, you are, all of you and that is all

the founders of these great religions get it, there followers dont, that is why they argue semantics like fools

PING

Rahmani,
AOA,

I'm only replying to your raised questions, so please forgive my hard way of expression. And one more thing I personally know Iranians and Iran is very close to my heart.

"You said that if you understand Islam then you have no reason to preach".

First of all what do you understand by Preaching?
-Preach means to inform(strive) about(for) Truth and knowledge against falsehood to perish it.
-Preach means your life the way you spend or practice it. WHICH DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY INFLUENCE YOUR SURROUNDINGS (GOOD WAY OR BAD WAY?)
- And finally Armani IF YOU REALLY KNOW ISLAM, then the Hadith of the Prophet(PBUH)says pass on the TRUE KNOWLEGE even if you know just a single hadith as your duty being muslim.

AND FOR YOUR INFORMATION AS EVERY MUSLIM KNOW, ISLAM IS NOT JUST A PHILOSOPHY LIKE ALL OTHER RELIGIONS, IT IS A COMPLETE PRATICAL WAY OF LIFE.

"Now come to your another question, you said relinquish the need of critisize and demean whom you know nothing. And further question your motives".

Well here you are implying some serious accusations towards me ABOUT WHOM YOU KNOW NOTHING? If you read my mails carefully I never get personal to anyone AND ALWAYS SPEAKS THROUGH REFERENCE. Only couple of times to two guys I commented to take some treatment. And thats the maximum personal I got so far while replying them.

"Further you said, if a man not humble enough to first acknowledge his mistake, he will never see his mistake and never imporve".

I WILL SUGGEST YOU IT APPLIES TO EVERY ONE INCLUDING YOU. SO BETTER START PRACTISING!!!!

"And lastly you asked me to come to you when I have true understanding of my faith".

I may have many weaknesses in me BUT I'M CLEARLY SURE, that you are not the right person for the guidence of my or any muslims Faith that is Islam. After reading your incorrect psychology confused speech.
As every muslim know the true source of guidence in Quran and Sunnah of our beloved Prophet(PBUH)and recognized Scholars of Islam.

With good intensions,
Moody.

moody-

thank you friend, first let me make clear, that it is the clarity of my mind which understands and speaks, the full name is Rahmani, and i know the meaning well, it should be known that i am a proud iranien american who has been of the Muslim faith for 26 years and have studied it thoroughly,

what you my friend have not understood, is that
my point is that there is indeed no point arguing faith, much less killing over it, it is personal
and beautiful so long as it is used for its intended purpose which is to unite....

perhaps you should question your own motives? some introspection perhaps? because brother
words, nor violance will change a mans beliefs,
the true believer seeks to unify, not to divide
from the trillions of individual cells which work in unison within your own body a wise man would know that it is unity in which we move forward as humanity.....

no friend, if you understand Islam you would have no reason to preach, instead you would live by the loving and compassionate example in which the Quaran speaks....

this is precisely the reason my faith is kept private, it is one of the few things in which my relationship with God is my own and none others

to bring devisive talk, ghiba or any thing of that nature is far from the truth in which you speak of....perhaps you should follow the example of
The Prophet Muhammad and spend time in meditation as i have, for only then Moody when you search within will you have any true understanding of Allah, for the wondorous Quran will not be understood by a man who has never sought the depths of himself first......

when you do you will understand why the Prophet Muhammad did not call himself Muslim, indeed it was only the imperfect and unenlightened men who named and divided its beautiful message....
the teaching was universal, this is the same fate that has likewise befallen all of the great religions...

please contact me when you have a true understanding of your own faith, and you have relinquished the need to critisize and demean others of whom you know nothing about...

that is not the characteristics of a real Muslim,

similarly, if a man is not humble enough to first acknowledge when he is mistaken he will never see his mistakes, if he never sees them he will never see need for change thus he will never improve..

my warmest regards brother...

Rahmani

No Christian heaven, no Christian hell.

Some people need groups. Groups need stories and rules.

There are hundreds of religious groups with hundreds of stories and sets of rules. Christianity is only one of these.

Heaven and hell are part of a story. The story is not a problem unless people kill or hurt others in its name. Which Christians have done repeatedly throughout their bloody time.

I don't believe any of it. I'd rather confront the mystery in the present moment. The Bible said it: this is heaven.

You can close your eyes or do not accept for what ever reasons you have….twist or lie
BUT YOU CAN'T DENY THE TRUTH:
THAT EVERY RATIONAL INTELLIGENT LOGICAL KNOWLEDGE & SICENCE IS TESTIFYING FOR QURAN....AFTER EVERY NEXT DISCOVERY AND AWARENESS!

MODREN SCIENCE AND QURAN (ISLAMIC DIVINE BOOK)

Al-Qur’an is not a book of science BUT a book of signs. It has more than 6000 verses out of which more than 1000 verses giving CLEAR signs about the modern scientific proven facts in recent couple of hundred years. (WHICH BY ANY POSSIBLE MEANS CANNOT BE SAID BY US HUMANS 1400 YEARS BACK. THE ONLY LOGIC IS THAT ITS FROM SOME "ONE" WHO IS COMMUNICATING TO A HUMAN AND KNOWS BETTER THAN HUMANS)

- For some people ONE sign is enough to believe.
- For some people 10 signs are enough.
- But some people don't come to believe even after more than 1000 miraculous signs.

Verses about:

1- Big bang theory (in a nut shell).
2- Geo spherical Ostrich egg shaped earth (spherical which is the exact shape)
3- Cosmic dust (referred more perfectly as smoke).
4- How water seep into the earth and rain cycle through AIR.
5- Sweet and salt water of oceans and barrier between them.
6-Expanding sun, solar system and universe for given period of time
7- Earth, sun and stars revolving on their axis and path (orbits).
8- Sun and moon have different paths (orbits).
9- Sun and stars consuming there energy.
10- Reflected sun light of moon. In Arabic mooneer (moon) it self means reflected light.
11- Upper thin layer of earth, which is hold by mountains as nails (bigger in size deep in earth) from shacking.
12- Perfect shape and stages of human embryo.
13- All living being made out of water.
14- All plants and even fruits have male and female atributes.
15- The exact way of plants and animals behaviour and how they communicate.

AND MANY MORE............

THESE ARE ALL RECENT DISCOVERIES AND SIGN FOR THOSE SINCERELY SEEKING TRUTH!!!!!! AND REMEMBER THAT IS NOT WHAT QURAN IS ALL ABOUT... THESE ARE JUST TESTIFYING SIGNS WITHOUT ANY FLAW OR FAULT.

K Rahman:

Dum and donkies also look BUT can't see or understand! Keep trying one day you will get your head clear.

By the way this is one of the most beautiful Name of Alllah you have used!

Rahman : the most Gracious, the most Merciful

unus_supra@yahoo.com

ps what i have doesnt contradict any religion or
philosophy, in the end it supports all of them because in theyre own way they are all perfectly correct....

well thank you Gaby...

i hope it did something to make your day better?
that is the only reason i write...

i never knew i was doin it but i was systimatically searching for the truth behind existance, from the lates sciences, to the most ancient philosophies, to all of the religions...

im about as normal as you get to, thats the funny thing

I saw something you know, in my minds eye for about a half second, and it was so profound, and so beutiful and so pure,

i thought i was about to die, like i wasnt supposed to know it or something, then as i tried to explain it i lost it so i realized its true beauty,

and i was so HAPPY i wanted to wake up the neighbors and tell them hey its all just fine, everything is okay theres nothing to worry about or argue about, its okay!
ofcourse at that point i would have looked like a lunatic...so

since i cant put it in words i just try to get people to look back and see reason,

once a man looks outside, and i mean really looks outside for the truth, becomes truly skeptical and i mean skeptical of everything like myself, they realize the truth cannot be found outside
so eventually they look inside
and

WHAMMY

if people want to know all they need to do is look....and i mean really care and really look and they will find it... no joke...

heres a clue, late at night if your laying in bed and the back of your neck hurts and your depressed because your mind is overactive attempting to process all of the information
that you have garnered

your close....

im not special or any better or worse than anyone else, we are all the same...

but i can tell you what i know if anyone whants to know whats goin on in all this...

id be honored, so if anyone is interested please dont hesitate to contact me via email...

i promise im not crazy, and when im done it will all make perfect sense, because i can only give pointers, its the person that must do the searching..but i got a hell of a good map...

love, peace and chicken grease....

krahman :

WOW!!! That was one heck of a trip! But I know you are right!

First and foremost for all Christians is getting into heaven. Evangelicals believe that their god will let them into heaven if they suck up to him while persecuting their "sinful" neighbors. (Apparently their god is powerless to do any of his own dirty work, so he outsources it to the most willing.)

Actually, the three finger law applies here. The Evangelicals are quick to point out the sliver in someone else's eye while ignoring the log in their own eye. The heart of the "Bible Belt" is adorned with churches and porn shops in equal numbers. The reason Jimmy Swaggart is still in business is that his entire congregation had seen him in the porn shops long before he got caught with a hooker's pants down. Whoo whoo. Those Evangelicals have all the fun.

The Evangelicals insist that true believers must have a personal relationship with their savior. Then they insist that this relationship has to be demonstrated continually in public and that their quest for heaven has to involve condemning and punishing all non-believers. Ooooh. There's a whole lotta guilt driving these people.

Personally, I think we humans have got this creator thing all wrong. With the Hubble Telescope we now know that the universe is much more than just the patch of earth we can see along with a couple of big things in the sky and lots of twinkly little lights with occasional fireworks like comets and meteors etc. It's clearly more than 6 days work for anyone, especially if it's supposed to have been well thought out.

Evangelicals credit Jehovah with "Intelligent design". Any intelligent designer would have done something to prevent the nearly constant warfare within the human species. It doesn't have to be the way it is. We should admit that our religions are just an enabling mechanism for whatever it is we really want to do in the first place.

The ancient Mesopotamian/Greco/Roman pagans had a different church for everything from farming to war to sex. An alchoholic worshipped Bacchus. A sex addict worshipped Ishtar and visited her temple often. Whoo Whoo. Those Babylonians had ALL the fun.

Evangelicals insist that the last creative thing Jehovah did was to come to this planet and create us, a special species unrelated to all other species, and that we are all obligated to spend eternity, 24/7, mollifying him. Sorry, but that's just way too human of him. He didn't go to all the trouble of creating the universe just to have us pay lip service to him and money to his reps.

HUMANS want to be revered. Jehovah, The Creator of the universe doesn't need it. He created the universe for his own pleasure. I do not believe he holds the creation against us like the mother who says "I carried your for nine months!" Every kid who ever heard that replied "Yeah? Well I didn't ask to be born!"

I do believe in the historical Jesus. I can picture his blood soaked crucifixion. He has to fight for every breath, and every breath only prolongs his agony. At the very end his Divinity gives him a flash of 20/20 foresight and, unheard, he whispers "Boy, this is gonna sell a lot of T shirts."

Any intelligent designer would have made sure the priestly class never arose in the first place. They have brought us to what we are today as a species; God's warriors riding the ragged edge of mass extinction.

I believe that heaven and hell can be best defined as connection with God and separation from God (respectively). I do not believe that God is interested in torturing any person for all eternity, not in the sense that man seems to rely on (i.e., a physical place of eternal demonic torment). Merely being aware that one is cut off from god is enough to torture a soul. Those who do His will can be "in His presence," that is, in Heaven (whatever that turns out to be - I have a few ideas), while those who do not (unrepentant criminals, abusers of self and others, etc.) must perish. I think that before they go, they must realize their fate. And if there was ever torture, that is it. And the thing is, those people will have no one to blame but themselves, and they'll know it.
Then, as the writer says, they will be no more, and be remembered no more, and all pain and suffering will pass away. (that's the gist, I'm not a Bible scholar who can quote you chapter and verse)
If we cut ourselves off from God, we perish. THAT is hell. Thanks for asking the question.

heres the kicker folks

you couldnt die if you wanted to...

at the moment of death and the cessation of physical function, decomposition begins...

during the lengthy process, like elements assimilate with like elements of the surrounding environment

the solid substances of your body assimilate with the solid substances, liquids with liquids, gasses with gasses...

now if your up keeping up with what is considered SCIENCE, you would be keenly aware of the fact that a perfect copy of all sensory experience is kept in the deep in the subconcious....

the very fact that it is so difficult to ascertain its existance is due to its extremely low energetic value...

this is in direct relation to the electromagnetic spectrum which is infinite in dimension...

another words this cannot assimilate with the environment for the simple fact that the particular frequencey is devoid of counterpart...

think oil and water folks, and those are both liquids let alone....

so heres the thing you can imagine there is nothing beyond cessation of physical function, thats fine, youl be alright in the long run..

but it simply is not the case

you know as a squad leader in the Marines i used to tell my boys, hey its what you dont prepare for that catches you with your pants down

if you prepare for nothing, you will be prepared for nothing.....

i have no external religion, my religion is my own, and i know this for certain, God,

doesnt care what you practice, God knows whats in your heart, for simply God is part and parcel of every heart, every thought...it bring to light the Islamic definition

omnipotent
omniscient
and so on and so forth, this is not a function in and of itself, it is not human althougt humans are part of its entirety

it is the sum total of all functions that have ever occured because as you know, time does not exist it is only a Human frame of reference to put our lives of events in sequence into perspective...

everything is has and will be happening right now...

heres a fun little excericese

il bet you think you know who you are?

close your eyes and try to find yourself...
as you watch each and EVERY thought, and sensation pass alone your awareness and you identify it, eventually your come to question, alright well then who in fact is the one IDENTIFYING?

go ahead, what are you afraid of? what youl find is that what you term YOU is simply a reflective aparatus devoid of any semblance of what you had really considered you after all....guess what, EVERYONE IS PRECISELY THE SAME..

this aparatus is the same on dogs, cats, rats and worms...

the only difference is the capabality of the host organsim...

you see, a man smells touches hears can see and think for the simple reason that he has skin nerves, ears eyes and a well developed brain. hahah
it has nothing to do with the sensations reflected from phenomenon in our surrouding environment

go ahead and debate, its futile unless you actully try to find yourself...

that is who we really are, all of us,
from the formation of our first sense (hearing)
this aparatus reflects the sound.
at this point the illusion of duality and the ego begin its formation.

the object is apprehended as causing pleasure or suffering to one degree or another

from that point on from the way you stand in line, to the way you drink your coffee to the
the way your telling yourself not to believe what your reading even tho it rings true
represents an attempt to increase pleasure, and decrease suffering to a greater or lesser degree.

yes even the one who dedicates theyre life to helping others for the purpose of the pleasures of heaven.......

to the multimillionaire to the deranged murderer
the only difference is in the length of time one is willing to wait for gratification....

the thing is the more you associate happiness with external phenomenon the further you get to the truth....you see all things rise and fall

your heart beat, your breath, the days, the months, the seasons, the mountains, that new car you just bought, so if you base happiness on something external you will be relegated to suffering in the long or short term..

of all the things you buy, did you ever wonder who it was that actually experianced the happiness? only you friend, the car cant do it for you...it resides in you....

now that you are enlightened go ahead and look for the real you, the one that is has been and always will be sitting right there waiting to be refound...then friend you will know true happiness..

skeptical? Maybe you see the correlation with pyschiatric illness and increased income as a coincidence?

go ahead friend get lost in the illusion, youl find your way out, its a given

in this lifetime or the next

you see, you cant die, you never could, and never can...

so youve read it, you can accept the truth and start clearing away the debris that is hindering you...or you can wait as many eons as you need to..

ya i procrastinate to bro i know what your dealin with.....

its like one man who on the edge of the cliff is paralyzed in fear, the other casually admires the view,

the cliff is not fear, the cliff is a cliff
fear is fearful, anxiety is anxious, depression is depressed,
and happiness is happy and the only place these things can be found studied or experianced is within

so for all the "objective" science talk, it is wise to kindly remember that from birth unto "death" ever 4 some odd billion human biengs, all that have come and all that will pass
spend the ENTIRE life in subjective experiance....

keep ignoring it
go ahead yell at yourself in the mirror, argue with your reflection, tell it its not your reflection, doesnt change the angry lad staring right back at you...

there is no duality in anything whatsoever...
there no cold, nor is there such a thing as dark...
only the absence of heat and the absence of cold

by the way this is "scientific" fact....

or maybe you are fond of Darwin, you see, i was confused about 4 months ago and i was searching for answers....

so i studied evolution..and i realized something...
the only people that believe in evolution are people who dont know SH#$T about it....

i share DNA with a Dandilion...
hmm i must have come from the same thing...
what people fail to realize is the random evolutionary process is apparent in absolutely
everything that mankind has ever or ever will create
from chinese calculators to pentium processors, to the chair your sitting on...

would you call that random?

even Darwin didnt believe it (this is "historical" fact)

i prefer to regard it as more hysterical tho..

or let this sit for a minute

there is a CAUSE for absolutely every EFFECT
except for the cause of all causes and effects, you see withing this swirling mass of apparent
separte entities is the fact that all is contained within the entiretey of all actions an reactions

one big old chunk of nothing that looks and smells like a whole lot of somethins for the simple reason that you got eyes and a nose that
can percieve and imagine something "external" hahah

go ahead try to find yourself..

if you argue this and you havnt tried your not fooling anyone....

you wont find anyone...then whos lookin right?

IM HERE...oh wait no thats only an itch....HERE...
no thats only memory...shoot.....where am i...

im gettin angry...oh no, anger is only a sensation......

and your going to believe some astrogenticbioquantumnologist who cant even touch his toes? you mean your going to accept the explanation of existance from a human being who hasnt even begun to master the existance the aggreates whom he identifies as his?

that could be likened to betting your life on the racer who can only turn the ignition of his car, has barely driven it and hasnt a clue what the track even looks like because hes been too busy studying how to turn the key...

take that literally....

all your answers are within, all you have to do is look,

how much better can that get? you know the truth, you always have....
who better to tell you the truth than yourself? is that not appealing? what can possibly be the problem?

you dont have to study any other mans text, or perform his rituals if you so choose (although each one will lead you to the same place)

or you can write back angry, barking up a tree that doesnt exist....

good luck on your journey, i hope its starts sooner rather than later but i know itl be alright..

im in the middle of mine, and being mister Male Chauvanist Kung Fu Master Ego Supreme Marine
Corp Sniper boy that i am

my plate is full....

good bye

<a href="http://fake-lipitor.salemega.info/

THE WORST WAY OF CALLING NAME TO THE ALMIGHTY CREATOR:
When Christians say that Jesus(A.S) was the only BEGOTTEN and not MADE like Adam (A.S) or like all other creatures or creations?
What are you insinuating??? That God Almighty Him self came down to perform the lowest form of animal act like dog, donkey or monkey,i.e., sexual reproduction?
And on top of it Jesus(A.S) was His begotten son not ligitimate!!!!!!!!!!
THAT IS THE WORST KIND OF ABUSE AND NAMING ANY BODY COULD HAVE DIRECTED TOWARDS THE GOD ALMIGHTY!!
Well down CHRISTIAN believers??
You are getting your rewards in this world and will definitely get infinitely here after!!!!!!

Live by Faith, Not by Sight.

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I've often wondered if belief in an afterlife is some kind of psychological defense mechanism against our own mortality. It's a basic fact of nature that all living things will eventually die, from the most primitive one-celled organism to human beings. Like all other animals, we try to avoid death. Yet, because of our intelligence we realize that we WILL eventually die. Therefore, it seems reasonable that we would create stories to reassure ourselves that our lives will extend beyond the inevitability of physical death. Of course there's no escaping the reality that we are living things, made up of the same matter and subject to the same physical processes as other mammals. There's little reason to think we should live forever simply because of our complex intelligence, anymore than a gorilla is more likely to live forever than a cockroach. This doesn't necessarily mean life is meaningless, as some believers seem to think. Something doesn't have to last forever to be meaningful, and I would argue that our lives are meaningful precisely BECAUSE they are limited. It's that sense of time that gives people a motivation to seize the day, to cherish the little things, and to appreciate time spent with loved ones.

In my life today im not sure what to believe in heaven or hell. But i do beliee in a heaven where you meet Jesus and God and be welcomed to a new life. In life in hell im not 100% doubting that there is a hell but if you were to go there and it is as bad as people describe it that would be life threating from what the stuff they would do to you. I hope if there is a heaven or hell i would hope i bring my life into heaven.

In my life today im not sure what to believe in heaven or hell. But i do beliee in a heaven where you meet Jesus and God and be welcomed to a new life. In life in hell im not 100% doubting that there is a hell but if you were to go there and it is as bad as people describe it that would be life threating from what the stuff they would do to you. I hope if there is a heaven or hell i would hope i bring my life into heaven.

In my life today im not sure what to believe in heaven or hell. But i do beliee in a heaven where you meet Jesus and God and be welcomed to a new life. In life in hell im not 100% doubting that there is a hell but if you were to go there and it is as bad as people describe it that would be life threating from what the stuff they would do to you. I hope if there is a heaven or hell i would hope i bring my life into heaven.

In my life today im not sure what to believe in heaven or hell. But i do beliee in a heaven where you meet Jesus and God and be welcomed to a new life. In life in hell im not 100% doubting that there is a hell but if you were to go there and it is as bad as people describe it that would be life threating from what the stuff they would do to you. I hope if there is a heaven or hell i would hope i bring my life into heaven.

In my life today im not sure what to believe in heaven or hell. But i do beliee in a heaven where you meet Jesus and God and be welcomed to a new life. In life in hell im not 100% doubting that there is a hell but if you were to go there and it is as bad as people describe it that would be life threating from what the stuff they would do to you. I hope if there is a heaven or hell i would hope i bring my life into heaven.

Right now, I am tossed between believing in Heaven and Hell, and not believing. I was raised believing that after death you would go to heaven, but now that I have a better understanding and picture of what these places actually are I'm beginning to think they may not be there at all. There is no solid proof that God exists which means there's no proof of Heaven or Hell. Just because something is written does not mean that it's true. There is no way of proving Heaven or Hell is real, so how do you believe in something you can't see? Most of the time we only believe something because someone tells it's true or we read it somewhere, but we never know if somethings really true unless we have actual proof that we can see and touch. We cannot find anything to prove Heaven or Hell.

Right now, I am tossed between believing in Heaven and Hell, and not believing. I was raised believing that after death you would go to heaven, but now that I have a better understanding and picture of what these places actually are I'm beginning to think they may not be there at all. There is no solid proof that God exists which means there's no proof of Heaven or Hell. Just because something is written does not mean that it's true. There is no way of proving Heaven or Hell is real, so how do you believe in something you can't see? Most of the time we only believe something because someone tells it's true or we read it somewhere, but we never know if somethings really true unless we have actual proof that we can see and touch. We cannot find anything to prove Heaven or Hell.

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From another thread:

Kavon,

Thanks for your delightful and thoughtful post. I must gently disagree with only a couple of your comments:

1. You say: ‘God? proof of God is reading this text right now...
you already know, but you can deny it to yourself....’

I must respectfully disagree. There are only two possibilities: (1) god exists, and (2) it does not. I place this probability at 50/50, and believe me I do know my own mind. I don’t need you to tell me what I believe. There is absolutely zero evidence to support either contention.

It is obviously comforting to humans to believe that god does exist, as evidenced by the fact that the overwhelming majority of us (80-90 percent?) do believe this, or claim to. I have had supposedly devout believers tell me that you may as well believe in god. It costs nothing to do that. However, if you do not believe in god, you may (however unlikely) roast in hell, the river of fire. This hardly sounds like true belief to me.

I am glad at least that you are a Muslim who has given up faith in the hateful god of the OT/NT and Qur’an who wants to cast all nonbelievers who search for truth into hell, or the river of fire.

2. You say: ‘Great? how about dont bother wasting your time trying to understand it completely now and focus your efforts on improving humanity.’

Of course we should focus our efforts on improving humanity, but don’t ask us to give up our search for truth about the universe that we live in. This is futile, for there is no greater urge ingrained in the very fabric of our being, to strive mightily to discover who we are and what we are doing here.

From another thread:

Chip,

Thanks for the great link to Eternal Universe.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html

As you said, it is a great show. In Chapter 6 of 8 in hour 3 of 3, the eggheads get into discussing the Big Bang and origin of the universe. Their discussion parallels ours remarkably well.

David Gross, University of California Santa Barbara, notes that as we run the Big Bang backwards, we reach a point near time zero where the laws of physics completely break down.

Alan Guth says that ‘the classic Big Bang theory says nothing about what banged, what happened before it banged, or what caused it to bang’.

Ed Witten says that ‘most people come at this with the naïve notion that there was a beginning; that the universe emerged into somethingness from nothingness’.

Ed Ovrut, University of Pennsylvania, says ‘I don’t like nothing; do I really believe that the universe emerged from nothing? I’m not a philosopher, but I imagine that to a philosopher, that would be a problem. To a physicist, that also is a problem’.

Alan Guth says ‘I actually find it rather unattractive to think of a universe without a beginning. I find that a universe without a beginning is also a universe without an explanation’.

So we are in good company. No one has a clue how we got here.

However, one thing that we can be absolutely sure of, and take comfort from, is the fact that Maria’s hateful god of the OT and the Qur’an (sorry Victoria and Moody), that wants all of us nonbelievers who are honestly searching for truth, to roast in everlasting hell, the river of fire, does not exist. The likelihood of existence for this god is obviously vanishingly small.

ANON:

I was not created by any god. I was created by an act of unprotected sex between my parents. I know this because I have my mother's chin and my father's eyes.
I was not created for any specific purpose. Like most people, I was not even created ON purpose.
Likewise, my daughter was not created by any deity, but by an act of unprotected sex between her dad and myself. I know - I was there. When I realized that I was pregnant, and decided to carry the pregnancy, it wasn't to glorify myself. From that point on, until now, 17 years later, her needs come before my own. I will go without what I need in order to give her what she needs. I will do all I can to prevent harm being inflicted on her. I would never disown her or tell her that she could not enter my home.

If your god would create people for no other purpose than his own glorification, allow harm to come to them without intervening, and sentence them to eternal damnation because they didn't sufficiently glorify him and feed his ego, and dare to call such behavior love, then he is worthy of contempt, not worship.

Something beautiful, intelligently written and explained I'd like to share with you, it's awesome information:

1 Corinthians 10:31

"So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God."

The reason the following was written is that the Christian gospel is wonderfully good news. It is wonderful to know it and believe it! It is meant for everybody and everybody needs it, whether they know it or not. And if you care about people, you will want to tell them this good news.

Spontaneity Growing out of Deep Understanding

Our hope is that you receive a firmer grasp of biblical truth, and give you a possible way of making it clear to others. This is by no means the only way to share the gospel. The truth of God must be made plain to people in a thousand acts of love and in words that suit hundreds of different occasions. But many of us have learned that confident spontaneity with unbelievers grows out of firm, deep roots of understanding.

The most creative portrait artist is the one who has labored to master how you draw a chin and a nose and an ear. When the basics are second nature, then real creativity begins. So it is in evangelism. So please don't think we want you to parrot what's here. We want you to grasp it very deeply. We want it to become second nature in your own way of seeing life. And then we want you to speak the good news in love.

Truth #1, "God created us for his glory," based on Isaiah 43:7. In other words if we are going to make the gospel plain, people need to know something of God's power (he is Creator), something of God's greatness (he is glorious—stupendous, awesome, perfect in every way), and something of God's purpose (He aims to make his glory known and admired). So we begin by saying, "God created us for his glory."

Why It Is Important to Begin with God's Glory
Let me summarize why beginning here is so important.

1. The Centrality of God

God is the central reality in the universe. The Bible says that "All things are from him and through him and to him, to him be glory for ever" (Romans 11:36). It says that "all things exist for him and by him" (Hebrews 2:10). Man is not the center of all things. God is. If truth isn't at least on the table for consideration, the rest of the gospel message will be warped to fit our natural self-centeredness.

2. Romans 3:23

When we come to the third point in the gospel, Romans 3:23 will make no sense unless we have begun here with God's purpose to be glorified. Romans 3:23 says, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Now what would fall short of glory mean, and why would it be a problem unless you had shown that God made us to glorify him, and that we have failed in the very destiny for which we were made? In other words the essence of sin cannot be understood unless you begin with God and his glory. That's why people don't experience contrition like they used to. Sin is seen as what makes me miserable not what offends the glory of God. Our view of sin today is basically psychological not theological. To know what sin is we must begin with God and his great purposes.

3. The Rightness of God's God-Centeredness

It is crucial that we show it is right for God to be God-centered and not man-centered. Many people are happy to let God exist if God will make man the highest value in the universe. But it is crucial to say that God is the most valuable being in the universe. We are quite secondary. And since God is the ultimate value in the universe, it is only right and fitting that he be honest about that; that he tell us so and that for our own good he seek our love and admiration.

Sometimes people ask, why is it right for God to seek his glory, but wrong for us to seek our glory? Why would we be vain and God be righteous? The answer is that God's righteousness and our righteousness are exactly the same—God is righteous to esteem most highly what is most valuable in the universe, namely, God. And we are righteous to esteem most highly what is most valuable in the universe, namely, God. There is no inconsistency here.

Righteousness means having a right response to what is infinitely glorious and perfect. And that is God. For us to be righteous, we must love God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength. For God to be righteous, he too must love HIMSELF with all his heart and soul and mind and strength. Otherwise he would be an idolater. He would be giving supreme devotion to something that does not have supreme value.

What we will see is that the root problem of our human nature is that we do not want God to be God. We want to be God. And one clear piece of evidence for that is how rare the biblical God-centered vision of God is, and how widespread the unbiblical man-centered vision of God is. So I repeat, it is crucial that we lay the truth on the table that God created us for HIS glory and that this is reasonable and right for God to do.

4. Our Purpose for Existing

It is helpful to begin with God's purpose in creation because that tells us why we are here on the earth, and common sense says that if you know what something was made for, you can get more out of it. That's true for your life. If you know that a lawn mower is made for cutting grass and not for a window fan, your life will be happier. And if you know that you are made for God's glory, you will make better use of it and be happier.

That leads us to Truth #2.

Every Human Should Live for God's Glory
Of course Truth #1 and Truth #2 are very closely connected. But they are not the same. Truth #1 starts with God and describes his ultimate design in creating us. Truth #2 shifts from God's design to our duty. Let's read the text and the paragraph of explanation.

Appealing to Scripture and Reason

"So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31).

If God made us for his glory, it is clear that we should live for his glory. Our duty comes from his design. What does it mean to glorify God? It means that we love Him (Matthew 22:37), trust Him (Romans 4:20), are thankful to Him (Psalm 50:23), and obey Him (Matthew 5:16).

Now at this point you might appeal to Scripture (the verses are listed) or to reason (or common sense), depending on how much common ground you have with someone.

What If Someone Rejects Truth #1?

Let me encourage you not to get bogged down on any one of these truths if someone rejects the truth. Don't think that the only way a person can be persuaded of the truth of Christianity is by moving logically from premise to premise. That is not the way most people function.

Suppose a person says, after you share Truth #1, "I can't buy it. I don't even think there is a God. And the theory of evolution makes all that talk of divine design and divine purpose meaningless." What should you do? Should you give up because you can't even get them to agree to the first foundational truth?

NO! What you should say is something like this: "OK I understand that you don't agree with this first truth. But would you hear me out and let me try to give you the big picture so you can make your judgment based on how it all might fit together?" Then you go on to truths #2 and #3 and so on.

The reason for this is that most of us do not embrace an idea or a cause because we have sorted out all its premises and tested them logically one by one from the most basic on up. Most of us embrace an idea or a cause (or a person!) because the whole thing or some crucial part of it causes lights to go on for us. It gives a flash of insight. It clicks with things we know already. It makes sense out of things that had been confusing or troubling.

In other words if you can get the whole picture—all six truths—into a person's mind, it may be that something in the other five will hit home with such force that they would reconsider their rejection of the first one. Or it may be that later—sometimes much later—a devastating experience will open them to reconsider the truth of these things. If you have given them the whole picture, the Holy Spirit can then apply any part of it to their need. Never think you have spoken God's truth in vain. It does not go out in vain.

So you go on to explain Truth #2. Here's one way to go about it.

God's Command to Glorify Him and God's Love

Truth #1 said that God made us to reflect or display or manifest His glory. We are supposed to be like well-polished mirrors of God's truth to the world. Or like prisms that take the beams of God's greatness and break them up into lots of varied colors for the world to see in our actions and words (Ephesians 3:10; Matthew 5:16).

So that is what every man and woman and child should devote his or her life to. That is why we live. That is our duty. Or you could say, that is God's law.

But for some people—most people—the words "duty" and "law" are not happy words. They tend to sound oppressive and burdensome. So it doesn't sound, then, that God is very loving. That he doesn't have our best interest at heart. Maybe he is so interested in his glory that we don't really count except as slaves to work for him.

That kind of objection has to be met. And it is not hard to meet. You meet it by asking this question: If God is perfect, complete, all-sufficient, infinitely great and glorious, and didn't create us to meet his needs, because he doesn't have any needs, then how do you glorify a God like that?

Not by working for him like a slave. That would give the impression that he is weak or deficient. Not by cowering in uncertainty beneath His power. That would give the impression that he is unstable or capricious or cruel.

How Do You Glorify and All-Glorious God?

How do you bring glory to an all-sufficient, perfect, infinitely beautiful, infinitely wise, infinitely powerful, overflowing God? Here you can use illustrations from ordinary life.

For example, if you want to glorify a beautiful painting, you don't feel a burden to work to improve it. You simply enjoy it. You love it. You talk about it excitedly to your friends. Or if someone makes a wonderful meal and serves it up before you, how do you glorify the excellence of the meal? Not by putting on your apron and going out to the kitchen to make a few more dishes or add a few spices. No. You glorify a perfect meal by eating a lot and by feeling contented and saying, ahhh. In other words if it is your duty to glorify something infinitely beautiful and wonderful, that is no burden. It is a pleasure. In fact when you take from it pleasure, you show it's a treasure.

Or suppose it's your duty to glorify the strength of a new metal alloy that holds up a bridge. How do you glorify the strength of the metal? Not by working hard to provide some extra supports, but by getting in your car with all your family and trusting the bridge with your life as you peacefully drive across without any anxiety. You glorify strength by trusting it not by working to supplement it. So the duty to glorify power is not a burden. It's a restful pleasure.

Or suppose your duty was to glorify someone's generosity. Suppose someone was so rich and so generous that they just spilled over in love and generosity and grace and kindness to you. How would you glorify that quality in them? Not by trying to pay them back. That would turn their kindness into a business deal. It would treat their free gift like a trade. Tit for tat. That would not glorify the wealth of their generosity. No the way to glorify their generosity and their kindness is to be lavish and genuine in your gratitude and thanksgiving. And that is no burden. If you get a billion dollar gift, you do not groan under the duty to feel thankful. It is a pleasure not a hardship.

Finally, suppose it is your duty to glorify someone's great wisdom? Say the wisdom of your coach (if you're on some team) or your counselor (if you are in some kind of therapy)? The answer is that you don't glorify their wisdom by trying strenuously to help them figure out the answer to some problem. You glorify their wisdom by doing what they say. If you want to show that your coach is really wise, you run and do his drills without doubting or grumbling. If you want to glorify your counselor's wisdom, you do his assignments without doubt or grumbling. In other words, glad-hearted obedience glorifies great wisdom. And this is not a burden (1 John 5:3).

God Is Most Glorified in Us When We Are Most Satisfied in Him

Now do you see what all this means? It means that God is love. It means that when he created us for His glory, he also created us for our joy. How so? Because the way He seeks to be glorified in us is by making us satisfied in Him. The good news of Christianity is that God is the kind of God who is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.

In sharing the truth of Christianity, Truth #1 is that God created us for HIS glory. Truth #2 is that this is, therefore, the duty of every man and woman and child—to live for the glory of God. And the wonderful thing is that this duty is not a burden. It is freedom and joy. You glorify God's beauty and excellence by loving it and delighting in it. You glorify God's power by trusting him with all the hard and threatening things in your life. You glorify God's bounty and generosity and kindness and grace by overflowing with gratitude. And you glorify God's wisdom by obeying his counsel. And everybody knows that this is no burden. This is no heavy law. This is love.

God is a God of infinite love because he wills to share all that He is with us for our enjoyment and His glory.

This is the wonderful beginning of Truth and ties in with the beginning of God's Final Warning Message to mankind in Revelation 14:6-7.

Victoria, Moody,

Check out this thread, the Lou WMS post at 2:01 PM, 10/5/07.

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Hero,
If you don't understand New Testament doctrine in its entirety, you can be easily misled. It says "every tongue shall confess that Jesus is the Christ." So, by your prior citing, added to that, everyone would "go to heaven." I think there is more that needs to be understood on the subject. Happy reading and thinking.

Here is a question that I just posed to WP. Maybe you can help me with the answer; we have already lain some of the initial groundwork:

Atheists/agnostics believe that god does not exist, although they are very careful to leave open the possibility that it does exist. Most atheists put the likelihood of existence at near 0, or vanishingly small as they say. Agnostics (like myself) may tend to rate the likelihood of existence higher, say 50/50. Actually this is a fine distinction, and many consider there to be no difference between atheists and agnostics. Thus I say that I am atheist/agnostic.

If you are an atheist, please explain why you rate the likelihood of god’s existence as vanishingly small. Keep in mind that the only two alternatives are also not compelling: either (1) that the universe that we can all see around us sprang into existence from nothing, or (2) that it has existed forever, from negative infinity to the present. The negative infinity point on the timeline is also hard to get ones mind around. And if infinite time exists, the other dimensions of the space-time fabric are also probably infinite. These assertions of an eternal and infinite universe seem to be no more likely than the existence of god.

"God does not send anyone to hell. It is a choice of our own"

You deity does not give anyone a choice... if you refuse to believe, you are sentenced to hell... this is extortion..

Simply take a moment to think about the following statement (paraphrasing):

"Hello, my name is Jesus. I love you deeply. I have loved you since you were conceived in the womb and I will love you for all eternity. I died for you on the cross because I love you so much. I long to have a loving personal relationship with you. I will answer all of your prayers through my love. But if you do not get down on your knees and worship me, and if you do not EAT MY BODY and DRINK MY BLOOD, then I WILL INCINERATE YOU WITH UNIMAGINABLY TORTUOUS PAIN IN THE FIRES OF HELL FOR ALL ETERNITY BWAH HA HA HA HA HA!"

Yes, this is the central message of Christianity.

See John 6:53-54 and Mark 16:16.

Think about this message. We have a being who, according to the Standard Model of God, embodies love. Yet, if you do not get down on your knees and worship him, you will be physically tortured for all eternity.

What sort of love is that?

The utter silliness and contradiction of Jesus' core message should make it obvious to you: God is imaginary.

Vote Ron Paul Vote Ron Paul Vote Ron Paul Vote Ron Paul

From another thread:

Victoria said,

‘to me it beggars the question, well, if atheism is so intellectually superior, what alternatives, social solutions etc have they come up with?’

Speaking for myself, I don’t claim to be intellectually superior, and don’t think others have said that either.

As for social solutions, atheists are no better at this than anyone else. But I will offer a few suggestions at the risk of setting myself up for attack:

1. Get serious about energy independence from Mid East oil. This is the root cause of our disastrous invasions and occupations of Palestine and Iraq.

2. Get the Neo-Con Israeli lobbyists’ hands off the strings of power in our government. This is the 2nd root cause of our disastrous invasions and occupations of Palestine and Iraq.

3. Can you imagine how much better would be our economy and national security, if we had spent the trillion dollars squandered on Palestine and Iraq on infrastructure and alternate energy sources instead?

4. Get control of our worldwide population growth (I can hear the howls already). We are already overpopulated by about a factor of two.

I’m sure I can think of more, but that should be enough for now.

From another thread:

Daniel:

Rick

As a Christian, I have to say that I agree alot with you. You may be suprised, because many people assoicate "Christianity" with right-wing-born-again-Christian-evangelicals. They have very big and loud mouths and get all the press. But I am not one of them; I am just a "plain" Christian. As far as my faith and belief go, I have more in common with Mother Teresa than with them.

I agree with you, it is kinda scary. I also have a tip for you: most religious fantatics have a great deal of doubt, which they work feverishly to suppress, instead of allowing themselves to experience. That is what makes them so testy. So, don't think too bad of them.

October 3, 2007 10:13 AM | Report Offensive Comments

Posted on October 3, 2007 10:13
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rick:

Good Daniel,

I'm glad that we are able to reach a sort of meeting of the minds. I find that quite rare on these boards.

October 3, 2007 10:31 AM | Report Offensive Comments

From another thread:

Hi Victoria,

You said:

‘actually im not even one tiny bit interested in a definition of atheism- that seems elementary- but what do atheists believe in a more existential sense.’

Not speaking for all atheists of course, just for myself, existentially, I don’t have a clue what we are doing here if that’s what you mean, and neither does anyone else. Kind of scary isn’t it. I just want to get up in the morning, go to work, have three squares a day, enjoy life with my loved ones, etc, etc, etc...

From another thread:

Hi Victoria,

You said:

‘actually im not even one tiny bit interested in a definition of atheism- that seems elementary- but what do atheists believe in a more existential sense.’

Not speaking for all atheists of course, just for myself, existentially, I don’t have a clue what we are doing here if that’s what you mean, and neither does anyone else. Kind of scary isn’t it. I just want to get up in the morning, go to work, have three squares a day, enjoy life with my loved ones, etc, etc, etc...

From another thread:

Prof. Stone:

I would also ask believers this question: "if someone did prove to you today that God did not exist, would you behave any differently? Would you start to mug old ladies in the street? Would you walk along the corridor and shoot the colleague you have hated for the last 10 years? Would you begin a string of affairs with other men/women?" I think the answer would be no. There is something in the human psyche that gives us all a limit on what is reasonable behaviour, and what is excessive or inappropriate. And it does not depend on reward or fear.

October 3, 2007 2:32 AM | Report Offensive Comments

Posted on October 3, 2007 02:32
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rick:

Bravo Prof. Stone,

Well done. Of course the believers will say that ‘something in the human psyche that gives us all a limit on what is reasonable behavior, and what is excessive or inappropriate’ was placed there by God and is proof of God. Atheists (like me) will say that it was placed there by evolution.

I believe that the Golden Rule is the driving force of evolution’s law of natural selection at the higher levels of development that is responsible for that ‘something in the human psyche’. The cave man learned early on that if he did harm to his neighbor, his neighbor was likely to do harm to him in return.

October 3, 2007 7:44 AM | Report Offensive Comments

From another thread:

Prof. Stone:

I would also ask believers this question: "if someone did prove to you today that God did not exist, would you behave any differently? Would you start to mug old ladies in the street? Would you walk along the corridor and shoot the colleague you have hated for the last 10 years? Would you begin a string of affairs with other men/women?" I think the answer would be no. There is something in the human psyche that gives us all a limit on what is reasonable behaviour, and what is excessive or inappropriate. And it does not depend on reward or fear.

October 3, 2007 2:32 AM | Report Offensive Comments

Posted on October 3, 2007 02:32
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rick:

Bravo Prof. Stone,

Well done. Of course the believers will say that ‘something in the human psyche that gives us all a limit on what is reasonable behavior, and what is excessive or inappropriate’ was placed there by God and is proof of God. Atheists (like me) will say that it was placed there by evolution.

I believe that the Golden Rule is the driving force of evolution’s law of natural selection at the higher levels of development that is responsible for that ‘something in the human psyche’. The cave man learned early on that if he did harm to his neighbor, his neighbor was likely to do harm to him in return.

October 3, 2007 7:44 AM | Report Offensive Comments

Dear Quinn and Jon Meacham, below note is for your review and every body else:

Rick,Gerry,Steve Holgate & many others with Reason, sensible questions and comments:

I liked your note Gerry its reason vs superstition and not Islam Vs Christianity or others. For you i advise to see below comments of mine.
Rick, you asked about Hell and Havens and told about population comparison. For you my dear, we are only responsible for our own actions. At the end good deeds and bad deeds were never rewarded equally and never will be(though in appearance you find injustice), logic tells! My believe tells i have the responsibility to seek KNOWLEDGE of world as well to reach the truth, other wise i will left ingorant and end up in hell. (If you are sincere enough you will find the answer of ALL the questions that hinders you and create doubts- ANSWERS ARE ALL OUT THERE!!)
Steve Holgate, dear you talk about lack of scientific proof, I suggest you to also read below comments carefully!!!

Opinions are made upon understanding and certain knowledge, which differ from person to person. For some God is a myth, for some they believe or want to believe according to their religion and for some He is as real as His creation. Below are few examples in the favor of their belief:

For Muslims Big Bang Theory is not something new, it is more than 1400 years old, revealed in their Holy Book along with more than 1000 other scientific facts which are happened to be established recently in couple of centuries. And the answers of so many confusing questions which keep us going astray throughout our lives. AND AS A FACT MUSLIMS KNOW THEY WERE REVEALED BEFORE DISCOVERED AND FURTHER ON TOP OF IT THAT NOT A SINGLE VERSE OF THEIR HOLY BOOK IS IN CONFLICT WITH ANY LOGICAL/SCIENTIFIC APPROACH (INFECT EVERY TIME SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES PROVIDING PROOF IN FAVOR OF THE LAST REVELATIONS), MAKE THEM MORE FOCUSED / PRACTICING /FUNDAMENTALIST OR WHAT EVER OTHERS THINK ABOUT THEM and made it very easy for them to reach to the conclusion...SIMPLY APPLY THE SCIENTIFIC RULE OF PROBABILITY....What if 80% of Qur’an is in conformation with 100% of Science and 20% of it is beyond humans comprehension then logic says it would be also correct, if not now then in future...IF YOU UNDERSTAND PORBABILITY RULE THEN ITS NOT A JOKE !!), very few examples out of All from the Holy book as proof,

I have created all the creatures from earth and all the living beings are made out of water (Chapter 21) (living being which are meant to die/perish)
Don’t you see the earth and sky was together and I separated them, still you don’t believe
(Chapter 21)
I have created sky upon earth for your protection and there is sign for you
(Chapter 21)
All the stars, moon and sun are floating in their skies
(Chapter 21)
All the skies are holding with out pillars and there is sign for you
(Chapter 21)

For Muslims God means (The One, Ultimate Creator, Who is Uncreated and above time always present before and after time and beyond our limited level of comprehension)

Below is the TOUCH STONE of God that He revealed in Holy Book, when the question about God was raised:
1- He is One and Only
2-the Eternal, Absolute;
, the eternally Besought of all! on Whom all depend.
3-He begets not, nor is He begotten.
4-And there is none comparable unto Him.
And none is like Him.

PLEASE COMMENTS ARE NOT NECESSARY WITHOUT VARIFICATION / RESEARCH OF THE ORIGINAL TEXT AND AUTHENTIC TRANSLATIONS BY ONLY MUSLIM SCHOLARS TO AVOID ANY TWISTING AND DECEPTIVE TECHNIQUES IN GENERAL PRACTICE!!

Jesus (Isa) A.S. in Islam, and his Second Coming
by Mufti A.H. Elias
I. Jesus (A.S.) In Islam
Muslims do believe that Isa (A.S.) was sent down as a Prophet of Allah (God), but he (Jesus) is not God or Lord, nor the son of God. Muslims do not believe that Isa (A.S.), also known as Jesus by Christians and others, is dead or was ever crucified. We believe that he was raised to heaven and is there, and will descend at the appointed time, end all wars, and bring peace to the world. Like Jesus (A.S.), Muhammad (Peace be upon him) is also a Prophet and Messenger. Muhammed (P.B.U.H.) is the last Prophet, though, and there is none after him. Hence, Islam is the last religion, complete, with the Holy Qur'an as the unchanged and perfect word of God for over 1400 years, AS GOD PROMISED TO PRESERVE IT TILL THE LAST DAY FOR ALL OF HUMANKIND, UNLIKE SACRED TEXTS OF OTHER RELIGIONS WHICH HAVE MULITPLE VERSIONS AND ARE "REVISED" PERIODICALLY BY MAN. God, or Allah in Arabic, is Divine and Supreme Being and Creator.
What the Holy Qur'an says about Jesus:
They slew him not, nor did they crucify him but it was made dubious to them.
(Holy Qur'an, Surah Nisaa, Verse 157)
Hadhrat Isa (A.S.) himself told of the coming of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him). In the Bible, Jesus (A.S.) says,
IF YOU LOVE ME, KEEP MY COMMANDMENTS. AND I WILL PRAY TO THE FATHER AND HE SHALL GIVE YOU ANOTHER COMFORTER THAT HE MAY ABIDE WITH YOU FOREVER.
(Bible, John 14-15/16)

BUT WHEN THE COMFORTER IS COME, WHOM I WILL SEND UNTO YOU FROM THE FATHER, EVEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH, WHICH PROCEEDETH FROM THE FATHER, HE SHALL TESTIFY OF ME, AND HE ALSO SHALL BEAR WITNESS, BECAUSE YE HAVE BEEN WITH ME FROM THE BEGINNING.
(Bible, John 15-26/27)

I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now. How be it when he, the spirit of Truth will come, he will guide you into all truth, FOR HE SHALL SPEAK NOT OF HIMSELF, BUT WHATSOEVER HE SHALL HEAR, that he shall speak, AND HE WILL SHOW YOU THINGS TO COME. He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine, and he shall show it unto you.
(Bible, John 16-12/14)
Ulema (learned scholars in Islam) have said that the person who is described by Hadhrat Isa (A.S.) to come after him - in the above verse - does not comply with any other person but Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him).
In this case, the "comforter" he mentions is none other than Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) and his laws and way of life (Shariah) and Book (Holy Qur'an) are those that Hadhrat Isa (A.S.) asks his followers to abide by.
THE "PERSON" WHOM JESUS (A.S.) PROPHECISED WILL COME AFTER HIM, IS CALLED PARGALEETA IN THE BIBLE . THIS WORD WAS DELETED BY INTERPRETERS AND TRANSLATORS AND CHANGED AT TIMES TO "SPIRIT OF TRUTH" AND AT OTHER TIMES, TO "COMFORTER" AND SOMETIMES "HOLY SPIRIT." THE ORIGINAL GREEK AND ITS MEANING IS "ONE WHOM PEOPLE PRAISE EXCEEDINGLY." THE SENSE OF THE WORD, THEN, IS APPLICABLE TO THE WORD MUHAMMAD IN ARABIC, SINCE MUHAMMAD MEANS "THE PRAISED ONE."
Jesus (A.S.) also says in the Bible,
... AND A LITTLE WHILE AND YOU SHALL NOT SEE ME; AND AGAIN A LITTLE WHILE, YOU SHALL SEE ME BECAUSE I GO TO THE FATHER.
(Bible, John 16:16)
... and the Holy Qur'an says,
And surely they slew him not. But Allah (God) raised him unto Himself.
(Holy Qur'an, Surah Nisaa, Verse 157-158)
As such, Muslims believe that Hadhrat Isa (A.S.) was raised to heaven. According to Hadith, he is on the second heaven. Rasulullah (Sallallaahu Alayhi Wasallam=Peace be upon him) mentioned, "During the Meraj (Ascension), I met Hadhrat Isa (A.S.) on the second heaven. I found him of medium stature, reddish white. His body was so clean and clear, that it appeared as though he had just performed ghusal (ablution, cleansing of the entire body) and come." In another Hadith, Rasulullah (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) mentioned to the Jews that, " Hadhrat Isa (A.S.) is not dead, he will most surely return to you before Qiyamat (the Day of Judgement)."
May Allah Guide all people to the Truth. Aameen.

God does not send anyone to hell. It is a choice of our own. When we allow God to renew our minds, then it makes perfect sense to do what He tells us to do in His Word. When we reject His Spirit and follow our own agendas, then we are subconsciously choosing to go to hell. But when we allow Him to renew our minds and our thinking, then our agenda becomes His agenda.

God does not just slap a list of rules on us before we become His family. Just as in your household growing up, when your parents set a standard and wanted you to live a certain way, so God does with us. But first, we become His children. We must be "born" into his family. (John 3) After you are born into His family, you automatically live in His house, or as some like to call heaven. Once you live in His house, his way of life becomes reasonable, or even better than you ever thought possible. You are cordially invited! God wants you to be in His family. He loves you and values you enough to be crucified for your sins. Please submit to His will for your life and I PROMISE you it will make a visible difference in your life.

God does not send anyone to hell. It is a choice of our own. When we allow God to renew our minds, then it makes perfect sense to do what He tells us to do in His Word. When we reject His Spirit and follow our own agendas, then we are subconsciously choosing to go to hell. But when we allow Him to renew our minds and our thinking, then our agenda becomes His agenda.

God does not just slap a list of rules on us before we become His family. Just as in your household growing up, when your parents set a standard and wanted you to live a certain way, so God does with us. But first, we become His children. We must be "born" into his family. (John 3) After you are born into His family, you automatically live in His house, or as some like to call heaven. Once you live in His house, his way of life becomes reasonable, or even better than you ever thought possible. You are cordially invited! God wants you to be in His family. He loves you and values you enough to be crucified for your sins. Please submit to His will for your life and I PROMISE you it will make a visible difference in your life.

God does not send anyone to hell. It is a choice of our own. When we allow God to renew our minds, then it makes perfect sense to do what He tells us to do in His Word. When we reject His Spirit and follow our own agendas, then we are subconsciously choosing to go to hell. But when we allow Him to renew our minds and our thinking, then our agenda becomes His agenda.

God does not just slap a list of rules on us before we become His family. Just as in your household growing up, when your parents set a standard and wanted you to live a certain way, so God does with us. But first, we become His children. We must be "born" into his family. (John 3) After you are born into His family, you automatically live in His house, or as some like to call heaven. Once you live in His house, his way of life becomes reasonable, or even better than you ever thought possible. You are cordially invited! God wants you to be in His family. He loves you and values you enough to be crucified for your sins. Please submit to His will for your life and I PROMISE you it will make a visible difference in your life.

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Sonsyrea,

Well put.

(Lovely name, by the way).

Hell is supressing your own thoughts and feelings to live by someone else's institutionalized inspiration and beliefs. Yep, it exists. Millions live there daily.

Hell is supressing your own thoughts and feelings to live by someone else's institutionalized inspiration and beliefs. Yep, it exists. Millions live there daily.

Hell is supressing your own thoughts and feelings to live by someone else's institutionalized inspiration and beliefs. Yep, it exists. Millions live there daily.

Marie: **I decided to become Wiccan to anger God and my parents. In making that decision I hurt many people, namely; God, my parents, but I caused myself the worst pain and heartache.**

If you chose Wicca solely as a ay to piss off and hurt other peopel, it's no wonder you had a negative experience. Surely during the time thst you sudied it, you learned about the Rule of Three - simply put, you get back threefold what you put out. The negative vibration you were emitting was simply being reflected back to you in triplicate. It's not a good path for those who approach with disharmonious intent.
Your own scriptures tell you the same thing - "As you sow, so shall you reap." and "He who sows the wind shall reap the whirlwind."

If there is only one creator -- one God -- then Jesus cannot be the only way. It is against logic and reason. Research of near death experiences where people come back from the dead and actually have something to say about the afterlife, tell us that heaven, or the Light, is the experience of God in a very broad sense -- as the structure of reality or being. The Light behind God (behind our images and concepts)is beyond human comprehension, and therefore people depending on their cultural background they use the religios figure and language they know to explain it. God would be a bad judge of character if he would let in J. Farwell and not the Dalai Lama.

I very strongly believe in Heaven and Hell, I also very strongly and firmly believe and support the Bible. I know that there are people out there who believe I'm crazy for believing in such absolutes, hell I used to be one of them. But because of my personal experience and my life story I have no choice but to believe the Bible. I used to be very angry at the Church and more importantly God because of some tragedies that took place in my life and misconceptions I had about God and Faith. I tried for so long to make my faith better under my own power, and failed so many times. And because of my failures and hurt my anger and bitterness grew so deep. I eventually turned to Wicca. I decided to become Wiccan to anger God and my parents. In making that decision I hurt many people, namely; God, my parents, but I caused myself the worst pain and heartache. It wasn't until everything I tried failed me that I could realize how much I needed God. I realized that I needed God to run my life not just be in the car. That is why I believe in the Bible, and Heaven and Hell.

I dont believe any false doctrine, so whatever.
Do I believe in heaven or hell? Yes, why? Because It's the realm of man condition and spirit karma, And The role of Human being to reflect the likeness of the creator meaning to play the force of the role of Light or Darkness?
Pure or Chaos?
Two Forces to play the roles as Light and Darkness in the universe.
Hell attack Heaven all the time and destory all good angel on the field and let them be dead!
BUT!
Heaven dont attack Hell at all.. Well Do you want to go to heaven? and get attack by demon defenceless?
But
If you want to go to hell, and go attack heaven above, have your fun killing and enjoys.

The choice is your?

mr mark-

no muslim will ever tell you that they KNOW who is going to heaven or hell.

and most will readily admit the possiblity that they may be one of the candidates for hell.

the qu'ran is pretty explicit about the concepts of heaven and hell.

europeans were sending their children to muslim universities (the first and only in the world at that time) and it laid the groundwork for the renaissance-

hundreds of years before dante came up with his inferno

Thank you, guys, for saying what I would have if I’d been here – and in the case of Duckphup, a lot more.

I wish my friend “Interested” the biblical scholar were here now. He’d defend the biblical quotes, I’m sure, saying that they were never meant to be taken literally. Great, that’s a relief, but how then are they supposed to be taken? What do we do about the many faithful Christians who “believe” this stuff and try to interpret it, justify it and apply it to their lives?

Bert wrote: "God is not cruel, nor unjust. God is the perfect essence of love and because of that love He went to the ultimate extreme to rescue us and to bring you into relationship with Himself."

Amazing. Either you know absolutely nothing about your god, or you are are exercising 'doublethink'... a concept from George Orwell's novel '1984'. Essentially, doublethink refers to the ability to believe that two opposing, contradictory facts are 'true', without experiencing any 'cognitive dissonance. I don't know whether there is a clinical diagnosis for that... or an effective medication. You ought to check into that, though.

But... assuming that you are sane... I guess that means that you are just totally ignorant of stuff like...

GE 3:1-7, 22-24 God allows Adam and Eve to be deceived by the Serpent (the craftiest of all of God's wild creatures). They eat of the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil," thereby incurring death for themselves and all of mankind for ever after. God prevents them from regaining eternal life, by placing a guard around the "Tree of Eternal Life." (Note: God could have done the same for the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil" in the first place and would thereby have prevented the Fall of man, the necessity for Salvation, the Crucifixion of Jesus, etc.)

GE 6:11-17, 7:11-24 God is unhappy with the wickedness of man and decides to do something about it. He kills every living thing on the face of the earth other than Noah's family and a few selected critters, and thereby makes himself the greatest mass murderer in history.

GE 19:26 God personally sees to it that Lot's wife is turned to a pillar of salt (for having looked behind her while fleeing the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah).

EX 7:1, 14, 9:14-16, 10:1-2, 11:7 The purpose of the devastation that God brings to the Egyptians is as follows:
to show that he is Lord;
to show that there is none like him in all the earth;
to show his great power;
to cause his name to be declared throughout the earth;
to give the Israelites something to talk about with their children;
to show that he makes a distinction between Israel and Egypt.

EX 9:22-25 A plague of hail from the Lord strikes down everything in the fields of Egypt both man and beast except in Goshen where the Israelites reside.

EX 12:29 The Lord kills all the first-born in the land of Egypt.

EX 17:13 With the Lord's approval, Joshua mows down Amalek and his people.

EX 21:20-21 With the Lord's approval, a slave may be beaten to death with no punishment for the perpetrator as long as the slave doesn't die too quickly.

EX 32:27 "Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor.

LE 26:7-8 The Lord promises the Israelites that, if they are obedient, their enemies will "fall before your sword."

LE 26:22 "I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children."

LE 26:29, DT 28:53, JE 19:9, EZ 5:8-10 As a punishment, the Lord will cause people to eat the flesh of their own sons and daughters and fathers and friends.

LE 27:29 Human sacrifice is condoned. (Note: An example is given in JG 11:30-39)

NU 15:32-36 A Sabbath breaker (who had gathered sticks for a fire) is stoned to death at the Lord's command.

NU 21:35 With the Lord's approval, the Israelites slay Og "... and his sons and all his people, until there was not one survivor left ...."

NU 25:4 (KJV) "And the Lord said unto Moses, take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun ...."

NU 25:9 24,000 people die in a plague from the Lord.

NU 31:17-18 Moses, following the Lord's command, orders the Israelites to kill all the Midianite male children and "... every woman who has known man ...." (How would it be determined which women had known men? One can only speculate.)

NU 31:31-40 32,000 virgins are taken by the Israelites as booty. Thirty-two are set aside (to be sacrificed?) as a tribute for the Lord.

DT 20:13-14 "When the Lord delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the males .... As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves."

DT 20:16 "In the cities of the nations the Lord is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes."

DT 21:10-13 With the Lord's approval, the Israelites are allowed to take "beautiful women" from the enemy camp to be their captive wives. If, after sexual relations, the husband has "no delight" in his wife, he can simply let her go.

DT 28:53 "You will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you."

JS 6:21-27 With the Lord's approval, Joshua destroys the city of Jericho men, women, and children with the edge of the sword.

JS 7:19-26 Achan, his children and his cattle are stoned to death because Achan had taken a taboo thing.

JS 8:22-25 With the Lord's approval, Joshua utterly smites the people of Ai, killing 12,000 men and women, so that there were none who escaped.

JS 10:40 (A summary statement.) "So Joshua defeated the whole land...; he left none remaining, but destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded."

JS 11:6 The Lord orders horses to be hamstrung. (Exceedingly cruel.)

JS 11:8-15 "And the lord gave them into the hand of Israel, ...utterly destroying them; there was none left that breathed ...."

JS 11:20 "For it was the Lord's doing to harden their hearts that they should come against Israel in battle, in order that they should be utterly destroyed, and should receive no mercy but be exterminated, as the Lord commanded Moses."

JG 1:6 With the Lord's approval, Judah pursues Adoni-bezek, catches him, and cuts off his thumbs and big toes.

JG 1:8 With the Lord's approval, Judah smites Jerusalem.

JG 1:17 With the Lord's approval, Judah and Simeon utterly destroy the Canaanites who inhabited Zephath.

JG 7:19-25 The Gideons defeat the Midianites, slay their princes, cut off their heads, and bring the heads back to Gideon.

JG 9:45 Abimalech and his men kill all the people in the city.

JG 11:29-39 Jepthah sacrifices his beloved daughter, his only child, according to a vow he has made with the Lord.

JG 14:19 The Spirit of the Lord comes upon a man and causes him to slay thirty men.

JG 18:27 The Danites slay the quiet and unsuspecting people of Laish.

JG 21:10-12 "... Go and smite the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead with the edge of the sword and; also the women and little ones.... every male and every woman that has lain with a male you shall utterly destroy." They do so and find four hundred young virgins whom they bring back for their own use.

1SA 6:19 God kills seventy men (or so) for looking into the Ark (at him?). (Note: The early Israelites apparently thought the Ark to be God's abode.)

1SA 15:3, 7-8 "This is what the Lord says: Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass ....' And Saul ... utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword."

1KI 13:15-24 A man is killed by a lion for eating bread and drinking water in a place where the Lord had previously told him not to. This is in spite of the fact that the man had subsequently been lied to by a prophet who told the man that an angel of the Lord said that it would be alright to eat and drink there.

2KI 2:23-24 Forty-two children are mauled and killed, presumably according to the will of God, for having jeered at a man of God.

2KI 6:29 "So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, 'Give up your son so we may eat him,' but she had hidden him."

2KI 10:17 "And when he came to Samaria, he slew all that remained to Ahab in Samaria, till he had wiped them out, according to the word of the Lord ...."

2KI 15:16 Menahem ripped open all the women who were pregnant.

2KI 19:35 An angel of the Lord kills 185,000 men.

PS 137:9 Happy will be the man who dashes your little ones against the stones.

IS 13:15 "Everyone who is captured will be thrust through; all who are caught will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their ... wives will be ravished."

IS 13:18 "Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children."

IS 14:21-22 "Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers."

JE 16:4 "They shall die grievous deaths; they shall not be lamented; neither shall they be buried; but they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth: and they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine; and their carcasses shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, and for the beasts of the earth."

EZ 6:12-13 The Lord says: "... they will fall by the sword, famine and plague. He that is far away will die of the plague, and he that is near will fall by the sword, and he that survives and is spared will die of famine. So will I spend my wrath upon them. And they will know I am the Lord, when the people lie slain among their idols around their altars, on every high hill and on all the mountaintops, under every spreading tree and every leafy oak ...."

EZ 9:4-6 The Lord commands: "... slay old men outright, young men and maidens, little children and women ...."

HO 13:16 "They shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up."

MI 3:2-3 "... who pluck off their skin ..., and their flesh from off their bones; Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron."

MT 3:12, 8:12, 10:21, 13:30, 42, 22:13, 24:51, 25:30, LK 13:28, JN 5:24 Some will spend eternity burning in Hell. There will be weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth.

MT 10:21 "... the brother shall deliver up his brother to death, and the father his child, ... children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death."

MT 10:35-36 "For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law a man's enemies will be the members of his own family."

MT 11:21-24 Jesus curses [the inhabitants of] three cities who were not sufficiently impressed with his great works.

"If you will honestly search for truth, you will find it."

Bert, I couldn't agree more. I searched honestly and found the truth. Christianity is just another religion. I found that in all honesty, no objective observer could say there's a preponderance of evidence in favor of a religion being right. The search for truth is called science. It's objective, and deals only in evidence. I suspect that Bert and the rest of the theists choose not to search for the truth, but instead to search for what they've already been told is the truth, and lo and behold, they find it in the only book they care about. And it says it's true. Therefore it must be. I'm afraid that's not an honest truth. It's an honest BELIEF. Nothing more. Beliefs can be in the truth or in religion, probably not both.

"It's like people who believe in reincarnation: in their previous lives, they were generals or other historic people. They were never a ditch digger or an outhouse cleaner. Why is that?"

And yet, those are the very people (along with hairdressers) who are always chosen for abduction by aliens. Funny coincidence that....;-)

The question is "who's going to hell, and how do you know it?"

Funny, but I have never seen a religionist answer that they know who is going to hell, and it is THEM. They all assume that there's a hell and that they're not going there. How can they possibly "know" that they're going to heaven and not to hell? I'd think that there's as much "evidence" to suggest they're going to hell as heaven.

It's like people who believe in reincarnation: in their previous lives, they were generals or other historic people. They were never a ditch digger or an outhouse cleaner. Why is that?

The Bible is true because it says it's true. Puh-leeze. Believers are believers not because the bible or anything in it is true. They believe because they want to. The fantasy of being forgiven for all your sins just for saying a few magic words has a powerful draw, but in the end it's just a fantasy. There's no hell so you don't have to say abracadabra to get out of it.

Bert :

"God loves you more than you can ever imagine. I pray that one day you will find that love."

"God is not cruel, nor unjust. God is the perfect essence of love and because of that love He went to the ultimate extreme to rescue us and to bring you into relationship with Himself....."

So this "loving" god is going to send billions of his loved ones to hell for eternity.....????....

Talk about tough love....

E Favourite wrote, "I don't believe in God, Bert, so I have no resistance to what I don't believe exists."

If you will honestly search for truth, you will find it.

God loves you more than you can ever imagine. I pray that one day you will find that love.

God is not cruel, nor unjust. God is the perfect essence of love and because of that love He went to the ultimate extreme to rescue us and to bring you into relationship with Himself. The fact is the ship all of us were born on is sinking. There is only one Door out. Will you allow yourself to find it?

Bert:
You wrote:
*God extends multiple windows of grace during a person's life, when salvation is possible. Jesus said "No one can come to me unless the Father draws them." This is a supernatural work of God; a window of grace.**

No offense, but this sounds like spiritual Wack-a-Mole with the "window of grace" thing. You're telling me that an "infinite god" doesn't have infinite patience? And I don't buy the whole "it's the person that turns from God, not God turning away the person" explanation - as if we poses and control some sort of spiritual trigger that can somehow overwhelm an all powerful, all loving, all knowing, all everything god- and short circuit 'him' into giving up on his precious creation that he loves so much- especially on the paltry time scale that defines our individual experience. BTW, I still maintain that if a god existed, that god would owe us no favor by giving us an eternal encore.

MR. MARK

The issue of free will hits at the core of religion and reward and punishment and even life itself.....

Here is a short expose I wrote awhile back....

"What is the most important philosophical question?"

Are we preordained? This is the most important philosophical question we can ask. If we are preordained then nothing else matters no matter how much the sound and fury.

The debate over preordination and freewill has woven its threads throughout human history.

There are two basic foundations for the discussion of preordination. One is the metaphysic associated with religion and the other is the physical associated with the physical universe.

The religious approach to the issue can be generally presented in the following manner. I will use the Christian approach since Christianity is the religion I am most familiar with. The Christians define their god as omnipotent and omniscient. That is, god is all powerful and all knowing. It is the all knowing part that relates to preordination. To be all knowing god must know all things past present and future. If god is all knowing then nothing can happen that would surprise it. Therefore, everything that has and will happen was cast in stone at the moment of creation.

The Christian church has always had a dilemma with preordination. How can someone be judged and sent to hell if they are “preordained”. You can certainly send them to hell if you are all powerful but you can not “judge” in any manner that could be considered as “justice”. To be judged a person would need to have the freedom to choose between alternatives.

The issue for the church is order verses chaos. If god is in control and running a tight ship in such a manner as not to allow surprises to pop up and disturb his grand plan then it is likely we are preordained.

However, this then complicates the introduction of evil into god’s perfect world.

Let us look closely at the dilemma of satan. If god is all knowing then it knew that Lucifer would rebel at the moment god created him. Thus god is responsible for evil and preordination is the foundation of the grand plan and god is in full control.

However, if god did not know that Lucifer would rebel then god is not all knowing and does not know what is going to happen and thus god’s grand plan is a “work-in-progress” and no one knows the final outcome not even god. This is pure chaos.

Take Jesus Christ for example. Lucifer was the angel of light. The title “angel of light” indicated that Lucifer was very smart with a head full of knowledge. Lucifer was the left-hand of god. Christ was the right-hand. Lucifer was intimately acquainted with god. Therefore, when Lucifer rebelled and took a third of the angels with him there must have been a major issue at stake.

Now, if god did not know Lucifer was going to rebel then god does not know if Christ will rebel eons from now. The possibility of Christ rebelling no matter how remote is a scary thought to the Christian faithful. The only way it can be assured Christ will not rebel is to know that god is firmly in control and will not allow it. This negates freewill.

If we do not have freewill we can not be judged and god can not be seen as a “just” god. If we have freewill then Christ has freewill and could realize someday that god is a nut case and rebel along with satan and take another third or more of the angels with him.

As I have pointed out, the church has a dilemma on its hands. I leave them with this dilemma since it is all based on the fantasy of there being a confused god that is a rational contradiction of itself.

I will now concentrate on the physical foundation of the question concerning preordination.

Here we have a little more solid ground to operate from.

As far as science can tell all things in the universe must adhere to the various physical “laws”. Every atom in the universe responds in a predictable manner as illustrated in the mathematics of the universe. Gravity is the macro demonstration of this as we can predict planetary positions thousand of years in the future and back into the past.

The planets are basically preordained.

I say “basically” because later I will try and show that this may not actually be the case on the scale of billions of years.

The atoms that make up our bodies operate at a smaller scale but they still interact with each other with-in predetermined “laws” of chemistry and physics. If there are no exceptions to these laws we are all preordained.

I think that there are exceptions. The area of quantum physics allows for a form of unpredictability. Chaos theory also adds some grounds for unpredictability.

The unpredictability at the quantum level is small compared to the macro level we experience. Over billions of years this element of unpredictability will cause events to occur that no computation could predict today.

So in a very small degree the universe has the mechanism to allow for unpredictability, freewill.

Most folks think of freewill as being related to human consciousness. But this could not happen if the laws in nature were solid and the human mind was strictly tied to the physical world.

This is why I discussed the physical world first. If the physical world has even a small chance factor as I feel it does then the door is open for the human mind to have some freedom of choice.

We will now look at the human factor. To do this I will quickly introduce my concept of the chaos theory. Large complex systems are often hard to predict and chaotic. They are controlled by things called attracters. These attracters limit the meets-and-bounds of the system.

Knowing the properties of an attractor we can predict that a complex chaotic system will not go above or below a certain set of numbers. However, we can not determine with certainty any point with-in the limits of the system.

Some systems have single known attractors and thus are well understood. However, some systems have multiple known attracters and are less understood. Some systems have multiple known and unknown attracters and are impossible to understand completely. The weather pattern is such a system.

The human mind is a complex system with many known and unknown attracters controlling its function. Our mental activity at the synapse level operates close to or at the quantum level of physics.

These two elements of unknown attracters and the quantum uncertainty principle make the mental process of humans and other animals totally unpredictable. This opens the door to the possibility of freewill.

Since as I suggest that our brains have the capability to function in a chaotic manner we have the ability to make off the wall decisions.

However, most humans seem to make well thought-out decisions and not just chaotic unpredictable decisions.

Freewill in the universe runs along a scale of opposing infinities, “Infinite preordination at one end and infinite freewill at the other end.”

One thing about infinities is that you can never reach either of the endpoints.

The planets and stars and other innate matter function toward the side of preordination. The human mental processes operate toward the side of freewill.

Any animal with a brain has a certain amount of freewill associated with its mental capabilities.

The graph below illustrates this.

A = Infinite Preordination
Z = Infinite Freewill

A----------- -------Z

Humans have a conscience level and brain size that allows for much more freewill than animals. Our consciousness and brain size give us a chance to expand our freewill. We do this through learning and analyzing our thoughts and beliefs. Some call our analyzing process meditation.

In short, the universe is not completely preordained and we humans do not have complete freewill. Our bodies drag us down toward the preordained well but our minds carry us up toward the joys of freewill. The more we learn and the more we think about what we think about the more freewill we have.

The answer the question of preordination is yes and no. Yes, at some level we are preordained. However, we do have some level of freewill. Use it wisely.

Bert says:

"All of us have freewill and with that freedom comes responsibility."

But true free will certainly doesn't extend to the "choice" offered by Xianity.

Xinaity's god says that when you go to the grocery store, you have the "free" choice to pick from forty different brands of corn flakes, but if you pick any brand besides Kelloggs, you'll burn in hell. On top of that, the Xian god demands that you pick Kelloggs even though you happen to know that Kelloggs is not only a substandard brand, but that it's a product that is rotten to its core.

Free will my a##!

I always get a laugh when Xians talk about "free choice." It's on par with their use of the words "proof" and "evidence."

Bert, you say, "I suspect that your response has less to do with God's fairness and is more about justifying your own resistance toward God."

I don't believe in God, Bert, so I have no resistance to what I don't believe exists.

I have resistence to Christians like you who seem to delight in a deity who justifies being cruel to people who ask for mercy.

I think you're the one with the hardened heart and I hope it's obvious to people reading through these comments.

Thanks for posting them here for all to see.

I suspect that your response has less to do with God's fairness and is more about justifying your own resistance toward God.

God extends multiple windows of grace during a person's life, when salvation is possible. Jesus said "No one can come to me unless the Father draws them." This is a supernatural work of God; a window of grace. However, there comes a time when after years of having stiff-armed God that a person has hardened their own heart beyond reproach. At that point, having seared their own conscience, even their prayers are inauthentic.

All of us have freewill and with that freedom comes responsibility.

The bottom line is that God loves you. If you will sincerely, honestly, and humbly seek Him with your whole heart, He will make Himself known to you.

Bert – I’ve read your “Testimony of Two witnesses” through now and it’s some of the worse Christian tripe I’ve ever heard. You should be ashamed to present your religion this way.
Voltaire supposedly asks for God’s grace before he dies, but --- it’s too late? God won’t respond and leaves V to die a horrible painful death? I thought God’s forgiveness was always available, but according to this, if you’re an atheist too long, God will shut you out. So much for God’s love.

Then Moody, the wonderful Christian, gives orders, apparently from the divine, as to exactly what the members of his family should do for the rest of their lives, after he dies. Who cares what they want for themselves, they have to follow the commands of God as delivered through the dying Moody. There’s real Christian compassion for you!

Christians – is this what your religion is all about? Please consider – many of you have much more in common with atheists than with Christians like Bert.

Bert:

For a man who was moribund as a result of a stroke, Voltaire was certainly eloquent. One would think that if a stroke had so badly damaged his brain that he was at death's door that the power of speech would have long ago left him.

Both of these stories are well documented. In fact, I have an original newspaper clipping from December 1899 which details the passing of DL Moody.

One resource you may want to look at is "Voices from the Edge of Eternity" compiled by John Myers, published by Barbour and Company, Uhrichvile, Ohio 44683, ISBN 1-55748-548-8.

Another book you may be interested in was written by former atheist and Cardiologist, Maurice S. Rawlings, MD. The book is "To Hell and Back", Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, ISBN 0-8407-6758-7. As a medical doctor, Rawlings personally witnessed many cases like Moody and Voltaire.

If you are honest and serious about finding truth, truth will be revealed to you. If you are just playing games, while simply trying to justify a position of unbelief, it won't.

God knows your heart and He loves you. When you mean business with God, he will mean business with you.

“And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.” -- Jeremiah 29:13

Bert - just exactly where did you get "The Death of French Atheist Voltair vs Christian Evangelist Dwight L. Moody" ??

I notice you don't reference it at all. And I can't find a thing on google about it, though I don't doubt it's somewhere on a "Christian" website.

This kind of death-bed recanting story is typical of Christians willing to lie or pass on unverified or untrue information to make their case for belief.

Richard Dawkins, fully aware of this old trick, has already made arrangements to have a tape recorder going as he's dying to be able to refute any such false claim.

THE TESTIMONY OF TWO WITNESSES: The Death of French Atheist Voltair vs Christian Evangelist Dwight L. Moody

When renowned French atheist Voltaire was dying the veil was removed and he saw into eterity. Bear in mind this was a man who did not believe in the supernatural. He neither believed in God, Heaven or Hell, nor in the redemptive work of Christ. As death approached, with pathetic effort he attempted to pray but could not. The hour of God's grace had passed. His destiny had been sealed.

By contrast, nineteenth century evangelist Dwight L. Moody's passing into eternity was quite different. DL Moody was raised a Universalist but was converted to Christ as a young man. From that point forward he lived his life for Christ until his entrance into Heaven on December 22, 1899.

"Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he also will reap.
For he who sows to the flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life."
- Galatians 6:7-8

THE DEATH OF VOLTAIRE

When Voltaire felt the stroke which he realized must terminate in death, he was overpowered with remorse. He at once sent for the priest and wanted to be “reconciled to the church.” His infidel flatterers hastened to his chamber to prevent his recantation, but it was only to witness his ignominy and their own. He cursed them to their faces and, since his distress was increased by their presence, repeatedly and loudly exclaimed, “Begone! It is you that have brought me to my present condition. Leave me, I say --- begone! What a wretched glory is this which you have produced for me!”
Hoping to allay his anguish by a written recantation, he had it prepared, signed it, and saw it witnessed. But it was all unavailing. For two months he was tortured with such an agony as led him at times to gnash his teeth in impotent rage against God and man. At other times, in plaintive accents, he would plead, “0 Christ! 0 Lord Jesus!” Then, turning his face he would cry out, “I must die abandoned of God and of men!”
As his end drew near his condition became so frightful that his infidel associates were afraid to approach his bedside. Still they guarded the door, that others might not know how awfully an infidel was compelled to die. Even his nurse repeatedly said that for all the wealth of Europe she would never see another infidel die. It was a scene of horror that lies beyond all exaggeration.
Such is the well-attested end of this man who had a natural sovereignty of intellect, excellent education, great wealth and much earthly honor.
---The Contrast Between Infidelity and Christianity

THE DEATH OF DL MOODY

To the world, December 22, was the shortest day of the year. For D. L. Moody, its dawn in 1899 ushered in that day that knows no night. For forty-fout years he had been a partaker of the divine life, and the transition from the seen to the unseen, from the sphere of the temporal to the eternal, was no interruption in his life. In other realms he continued to serve the same Master whose cause he loved with devotion and served with tireless energy.
Until within a few hours of the end, Mr. Moody shared with the family the conviction that he was inIproving. The day before, he had seemed rather more nervous than usual, but spoke cheerfully about himself. In reply to an inquiry if he was comfortable, he said:
“Oh, yes! God is very good to me -- and so is my family.” No man loved his family and work more devotedly, and frequently he had been heard to say:
“Life is very sweet to me, and there is no position of power or wealth that could tempt me from the throne God has given me.” It was not being tired of life and wanting to be done with service that made him so ready to leave, for he knew the joy of Christian service as few have experienced it.
The final summons came unexpectedly. During the first half of the night his son-in-Iaw had been on duty at his bedside. Mr. Moody slept the greater part of the time. At three in the morning his son, W. R. Moody, came to his bedside. For several hours the patient was restless and unable to sleep, but about 6 a.m. he quieted down and soon fell into a natural sleep.
He awoke in about an hour. His son suddenly heard him speaking in slow and measured words, “Earth recedes -Heaven opens before me.”
His son’s first impulse was to try to arouse him from what he thought was a dream.
“No, this is no dream, Will,” he said. “It is beautiful! It is like a trance! If this is death, it is sweet! There is no valley here!
God is calling me, and I must go!”
Meanwhile the nurse was summoning the family and the physician, who had spent the night in the house. Mr. Moody continued to talk quietly on and seemed to speak from another world his last messages to the loved ones he was leaving.
“I have always been an ambitious man,” he said, “ambitious not to leave wealth or possessions, but to leave lots of work for you to do. You will carry on Mount Hermon -- Paul will take up the Seminary when he is older -- Fitt will look after the Institute -and Ambert (his nephew) will help you all in the business details.”
Then it seemed as though he saw beyond the veil, for he
exclaimed:
“This is my triumph; this is my coronation day' I have been looking forward to it for years.”
Then his face lit up, and he said in a voice of joyful rapture, “Dwight! Irene! I see the children's faces," (referring to his two little grandchildren, whom God had taken home within the past year).
With this he became unconscious. Up to this time no drugs whatever had been administered. In half an hour, however, he revived under the effect of heart stimulants, and as he regained consciousness he feebly uttered these words:
“No pain! No valley!”
Presently, as he rallied further, he added:
“If this is death, it's not bad at all! It's sweet!”
A little later, suddenly raising himself on his elbow, he
exclaimed:
“What does all this mean? What are you all doing here?"
His wife explained that he had not been well, and immediately it all seemed to be clear to him, and he said:
"This is a strange thing! I've been beyond the gates of death to the very portals of Heaven, and here I am back again. It is very strange!”
A little later he again said: “This is my coronation day! It's glorious!”, and talked about the work he was leaving behind, assigning to his two sons the Northfield schools and to his daughter and her husband the Chicago Bible Institute. Asked what his wife's charge would be, he said:
“Oh, mamma is like Eve, the mother of us all!” To the urgent plea that he remain longer with his family, he said:
“I'm not going to throw my life away. I'll stay as long as God wants me to; but if my time is come, I'm ready.”
Something was soon said that showed how clear his mind was, for he remarked, with deliberation, “This is the twenty - second of December, isn't it? Five months ago today Irene died...and in this room.” It was actually but four months, but anyone might make such a mistake.
To the very last he was thinking of those about him and considering them. Turning to his wife, only a little while before he left, he said, “This is terrible on you, mamma; it's such a shock. I'm sorry to distress you in this way. Brace yourself. It is hard to be kept in such anxiety.”
A few minutes before noon he was evidently sinking once again, and as the doctor approached to administer another hypodermic injection of nitroglycerine, Mr. Moody looked at him in a questioning and undecided way, and said, perfectly naturally, “Doctor, I don't know about this. Do you think it wise?” The doctor said he thought it would be all right.
“Well,” Mr. Moody said, “it's prolonging the agony for the family!” The doctor turned away, seeing that the patient’s life could not be saved. In a few moments more another sinking turn came on, and from it Mr. Moody awoke in the presence of Him whom he loved and had served so long and faithfully.
It was not like death, for he fell asleep quietly and peacefully, and it was not hard to imagine his reception in that other world among the host of loved ones awaiting his coming. The whole occurrence was such, in the mercy of God, that the substance as well as the sting of death was removed.
-- Shorter Life of D. L. Moody by A. P. Fitt (Moody Press)

DUCKPHUP :

"Well... Anonymous has apologized for posting as 'Anonymous'."

"Thanks. That really clears things up. LOL"

That be me DaveF…

I have two young boys who were getting excited about going to the movies… We saw the Fantastic 4 the silver surfer…..

JOE:

You say;

“So it is faith, not deduction, that enables
one to believe in Heaven and Hell”

I can see your point but…..

To use “faith” as the foundation for any belief is scary…………

E Favourite

I'm sorry if I gave the impression that I excluded the atheists when I mentioned ALL American brothers and sisters. You know only too well that I believe God created all human beings in His image and likeness, even the atheists, whether an atheist believes in God or not.

I must admit that I have had a great time interacting with atheists on this forum. I know and have known some really great atheists. I am a great admirer of all that is good, no matter where I find it.

So I wish the American dream to be fulfilled for ALL HUMAN and all sentient Americans (animals, birds, butterflies etc) Americans!

Best wishes
Soja

Well... Anonymous has apologized for posting as 'Anonymous'.

Thanks. That really clears things up. LOL

Our inability to grasp the concept of God
prevents us from believing in Heaven or Hell.

I think we get confused when we hear that "man was made in the image of god". It leads us to think that God is similar to our human form.

If we look at our image as a reflection in a window we know that our physical self is a million times more complex than our reflection.

We can think, create and destroy. However, our image can not do any of the above. Correlate that to us being made in the image of God and God appears a million times more complex than us.

So we can not truly understand God any better
than our image can understand ourselves.

So it is faith, not deduction, that enables
one to believe in Heaven and Hell.

Forgive me, I posted this in hast as ANONYMOUS…. I feel if I am going to make a statement I want face the criticism as me and hide behind an ANONYMOUS screen.

My excuse is I have two you boys who are getting ready to go to the movies and it is a little confusing here right now….

Religion in general is closed minded and dogmatic and at its worse militaristic in its demand of exclusivity denying the possibility that any rival religion or other belief structure can accepted by the faithful.

The current family feud between the Judeo-Christian-Muslim worlds, the Muslim-Hindu confrontations and the current religious assault on science and reason bode ill for the future of mankind.

At best these conflicts will be like a festering sore the animosity between the conflicting parties preventing any real progress toward peace and cooperation among the various peoples throughout the world.

At worse these conflicts could possibly lead to a true war of Armageddon resulting in many millions dead and much suffering. But sadly no god will be there to pick up the pieces.

If religious organizations do not step back from the brink then I see only suffering for mankind and possibly, in a worse case scenario, a destroyed earth and human extension.

This may sound alarmist but religion is in our genes. Religion is not going away. The only hope is that it can evolve into a more accommodating belief structure or its hell for all of use right here on earth.

If religion can change for the better then we could actually create a heaven on earth for all.

Oh how to chose, the way of the Jedi or the way of the dark side??????????????

Religion in general is closed minded and dogmatic and at its worse militaristic in its demand of exclusivity denying the possibility that any rival religion or other belief structure can be accepted by the faithful.

The current family feud between the Judeo-Christian-Muslim worlds, the Muslim-Hindu confrontations and the current religious assault on science and reason bode ill for the future of mankind.

At best these conflicts will be like a festering sore the animosity between the conflicting parties preventing any real progress toward peace and cooperation among the various peoples throughout the world.

At worse these conflicts could possibly lead to a true war of Armageddon resulting in many millions dead and much suffering. But sadly no god will be there to pick up the pieces.

If religious organizations do not step back from the brink then I see only suffering for mankind and possibly, in a worse case scenario, a destroyed earth and human extension.

This may sound alarmist but religion is in our genes. Religion is not going away. The only hope is that it can evolve into a more accommodating belief structure or its hell for all of use right here on earth.

If religion can change for the better then we could actually create a heaven on earth for all.

Oh how to chose, the way of the Jedi or the way of the dark side??????????????

Regarding DaveFs idealized view of the future of religion, it’s time to pull out my favorite Dan Dennett quote. It’s not good for a laugh, like Hank, but it’s just as provocative. In his book, “Breaking the Spell – Religion as a Natural Phenomenon” (p33), Dennett suggests an alternative to Christianity in which:

“Religions transform themselves into institutions unlike anything seen before on the planet: basically creedless associations selling self-help and enabling moral teamwork, using ceremony and tradition to cement relationships and build ‘long-term fan loyalty.’ In this scenario, being a member of a religion becomes more and more like being a Boston Red Sox fan or a Dallas Cowboys fan. Different colors, difference songs and cheers, difference symbols, and vigorous competition – would you want your daughter to marry a Yankees fan? – but aside from a rabid few, everybody appreciates the importance of peaceful coexistence in a Global League of Religions. Religious art and music flourish, and friendly rivalry leads to a degree of specialization, with one religion priding itself on its environmental stewardship, providing clean water for the world’s billions, while another becomes duly famous for its concerted defense of social justice and economic equality.”

DUCKPHUP:

Touché

But evolution does occure albit at a very slow pace.....

So there is hope if ever so remote....

DaveF wrote: "Just imagine what great benefit an open minded and free thinking religious tradition could be to a human race craving to understand the essence of life and to know if there is a “why”."

Hi, Dave,

I liked your post... but I fear that in the end, you created an 'oxymoron'. Religion is the anithesis of what you describe. If religion were to 'evolve' as you suggest... well, then it wouldn't be 'religion' anymore... would it? I think it would have become something else.

Many folks confuse belief with knowledge. Beliefs may or may not be true but knowledge is the rock on wish we can build our understanding of reality.

However, in reality there is very little that we “know”.

Sure we know trivial things like our names and who our family and acquaintances are etc and some simple things that science has been able to tweak out of the chaos the shrouds the reality around us.

We know that we exist in some form as the phrase, “I think therefore I am….” indicates just based on the act of thinking.

While Descartes can show some form of existence he can not explain the true “essence” of existence.

It may even be impossible for us to ever truly “know” the real state of existence. But even if so this should not keep us from forging ahead in our efforts to acquire knowledge.

The leaders in this effort should be science and philosophy since they both have a logical structure that at least has a chance of filtering out the facts from the noise.

Religion on the other hand has no chance of fathoming the depths of the unknown for knowledge since it is based on beliefs that often have no foundation in reason or logic. Another problem with religion is its closed logical structure. Once a belief is accepted it can not be challenged. This closed logical structure makes it impossible to verify its beliefs and almost impossible for fresh ideas to enter the inner sanctum.

Religion has made an effort in recent times to subvert both science and philosophy. The intelligent design folks attempt to cloak science with pseudo science and many theists attempt to use twisted philosophy to “prove” the tenets of their beliefs. This is a travesty and I hope it does not succeed.

In our search for knowledge we should not be afraid to ask any question even if it threatens our current beliefs and we should not reject the answers just because they call into question our beliefs.

Science can research the physics and mechanics of reality and add greatly to our knowledge base but it can not provide the essence of our existence or the “meaning”, if there is any, to reality.

Currently we have no real way to address the essence of our existence or to explore if there is any meaning to reality. Science can not do it and even philosophy is a poor vehicle.

There is one outside possibility and I mean way outside. Religion has the potential to ask the off the wall questions and to go where science and philosophy can not tread in contemplating wide and crazy ideas.

But to do this religion would have to cast aside its dogmas and open the door to the many possible avenues that can be explored in search of “what it all means”.

This I do not think it will ever happen and it is such a shame. Just imagine what great benefit an open minded and free thinking religious tradition could be to a human race craving to understand the essence of life and to know if there is a “why”.

I am not holding my breath.

With that said I bid all a fond fell well…..

DaveF signing off………………

lepidopteryx wrote (July 4, 2007 12:07 PM): "They taught that every event described in the Bible literally happened just as it was described, and that any apparent contradictions were not contradictions at all, but merely the result of the reader's lack of comprehension of the nature of God. The thing to do was to believe it whether or not it made sense to you. In fact, it was especially important to believe the things that did not make sense to you, because that meant that you were putting your faith in God, and not in your own mind."

************

Yes, indeed. All of you boneheads who think that the bible means exactly what it says are obviously misinterpreting it, since you are not possessed of the 'Secret Magical Decoder Ring'.... er... excuse me... scratch that... I mean you are not possessed of the 'Holy Spirit'.

You live, you die, end of story. And I have been close enough to know.
No lights at the end of tunnels,
no skinny guys in white kaftans,
and Elvis didn't show either.

Follow my link if you are curious...

Jihadist:
You may well be right in your speculation regarding primitive people's explanations of events as found in the Bible.
But the Baptist churches I grew up in taught that a snake literally spoke to Eve in exactly the words quoted in the Bible - not that a primitive woman ate a hallucinogenic plant and thought that a vocalizing Komodo dragon was speaking to her in her own language. And no one was ever able to satisfactorily explain to me how they got exact quotes when no one alive at the time that it supposedly happened could read or write.
They taught that the sun literally stood still - i.e. stopped its normal movement - even though it had been established centuries before that the sun does not move around the earth. And if they were referring to a normal daily event, then it would not have been seen as a sign from God, would it?
They did not teach that a herd of pigs with a parasitic infection that affected brain function ran off a cliff. They taught that literal demons were physically transferred from a human being into the pigs and that the demons drove the pigs to commit mass suicide lemming style. No one was ever able to tell me what happened to the demons when the pigs died. Were they destroyed? Or did they, being supernatural beings, simply jump out of the pigs' bodies and into some other poor sap? I could go on, but I think you get the picture. They taught that every event described in the Bible literally happened just as it was described, and that any apparent contradictions were not contradictions at all, but merely the result of the reader's lack of comprehension of the nature of God. The thing to do was to believe it whether or not it made sense to you. In fact, it was especially important to believe the things that did not make sense to you, because that meant that you were putting your faith in God, and not in your own mind. I never mastered the art of believing things that didn't make sense to me.

Anonymous wrote:

"It is somewhat like darkness is the absence of light."

You wouldn't know what darkness is if you never saw light. Bad analogy. Darkness only has meaning because there is light.

Anonymous wrote:

BEN,

You write;

“…Christians believe the Bible is true and infallible BECAUSE they believe its God's Word....”

So two beliefs make a fact…. I always thought that such a statement as above was called a circular argument where A is true because of B and B is true because of A.
But what do I know being a heathen an all?

Of course, you're right Anonymous....(its like people believe "evolution" because they believe "the Origin of Species"...how many ordinary people have gone and figured out "why"?)thats why you have to go to "why" Christians believe the Bible is the Word of God...and thats a real lesson in history....(and theology...)...

:) Anonymous, I sympathize with you on the last point. I'm a biologist and I can't fathom the mind of a woman either....they're from Venus...thats why...:}

Oops...

I just noticed an error of omission.

In my post to RichAugustus (July 4, 2007 10:57 AM), in the last paragraph, I wrote:

"Also, consulting or citing an authority is one method of obtaining 'propositional knowledge', but it is a logical fallacy..."

That should say:

"Also, consulting or citing an authority is one method of obtaining 'propositional knowledge', but it is ***NOT*** a logical fallacy..."

Sorry... I am not usually so sloppy.

DUCHPHUP: (Originally posted as ANONYMOUS, forgot to insert my handle)

I enjoy reading your post on the subject of religion. You are like an attack dog going after the throat of your opponents.

What makes your rebuttals so devastating are their logical structure and your quick wit.

I feel that you enjoy the sport and I feel little sorry for the ones who fall into your trap.

I get a feeling that many of the theists on this blog are desperate and to paraphrase W. Shakespeare, Me thinks (they) dost protest too loudly

You are correct about atheism. Atheism is not a belief structure that there is no god. Atheism is the absence of a belief in god. It is somewhat like darkness is the absence of light.

RICH AUGUSTUS... thank you for your exposition (JULY 1, 2007 10:51 PM)... it illustrates and exemplifies the very brand of sloppy thinking that I have been trying to call attention to.

RICH AUGUSTUS wrote: "First of all, you seem to be quite concerned with Christian’s logic. They somehow ‘suspend disbelief,’ when they believe in God. How is it that we are an insignificant little planet, in an insignificant solar system, in an insignificant galaxy of the universe? I say that WE are the center of the universe because of the life forms here (proven)! If the onus is on others to prove their positive, then do so (your other life forms and ‘prove’ insignificance on our part). Just because you say this planet is insignificant etc., doesn’t make it so. We have life; I think therefore I am; there is no other planet with life found at this time (future maybe?). Yes, I know your “faith’ in finding it, but it still is faith, because YOU will never know for sure ( :) I have faith in that)."

OK... you said: "...WE are the center of the universe because of the life forms here (proven)!"

The only thing that the fact that there are life forms here on earth PROVES is that the earth is capable of supporting life. There is nothing to even SUGGEST that that makes are the center of anything. There are around 100 billion galaxies in the VISIBLE universe, each containing, on average, about 200 billion stars. If you do the math, that works out to around 20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars. Within the past 5 years or so, astronomers have determined that planetary systems are the RULE, rather than the exception. Further, current thinking is that there are undoubtedly MILLIONS (more likely HUNDREDS of millions, or even BILLIONS) of earth-like planets (rocky planets in the 'habitable' zone of solar systems) within our galaxy ALONE. Multiply THAT by 100 billion galaxies. That should give you an idea of why an assertion such as yours sounds so downright silly.

Personally, I think that life is as common as dirt in the cosmos. Stay tuned... it is very likely that this will be confirmed within the next 10 to 20 years. Yet you insist that this ordinary little dirt-ball is the center of all creation... and you think that an imaginary place called 'hell' exists at the center of the earth... just for people like me... well, people like me and, of course, people who have never even heard of Jesus.

Amazing.

Oh... by the way... you are mischaracterizing this as 'faith' (wishful, magical thinking). 'Faith' is a lame and pathetic SUBSTITUTE for 'evidence'. What I have just described is a 'reasonable expectation', based upon the availability of ACTUAL evidence. I have not asserted it to be 'truth'' it is, rather, an 'informed opinion', whose prospects of being confirmed (or dispelled) in the near future is MUCH higher than the 'god hypothesis'.

DUCKPHUP: “Our 'belief' in the Big Bang (or anything else) isn't really a 'belief'... it is more properly a 'paradigm'... a useful way of looking at something, or thinking about something. It is an expression which conveys the sense that we have confidence that the idea is reasonable, based upon the current state of knowledge.”

RICH AUGUSTUS wrote: "This is exactly the way I feel about God!! How can I know an infinite God finitely? I am always looking at something with confidence and reasonableness with my current state of knowledge."

I doubt that very much... but I will let that go, for now, and come back to it later. I would just like to point out here, though, that you have exhibited no sign of actual 'knowledge' so far... only the ILLUSION of knowledge.

RICH AUGUSTUS wrote: "What do YOU know for sure? If all is in a state of uncertainty (due to your paradigm), how is it you can speak with so much authority?"

You need to back up a little bit, and take note of what it is that I am SAYING when I '... speak with so much authority'. I am saying that we should not claim knowledge that we do not possess. 'Knowledge' depends from facts. Faith-based 'belief' only begets the ILLUSION of knowledge. 'Belief' is a real show-stopper... an insidious mind-killer. Once you 'believe' that you know the 'truth' of something, then the incentive to keep looking is gone.

RICH AUGUSTUS wrote: "Your current knowledge may be feeble at best. For instance, scientists have said vitamins are great for you; use them diligently; it will help fight many diseases. Now they come out after another study and say too much will cause cancer (they didn’t specify an amount in the beginning)! Global warming et al., that have conflicting theories with the same set of data. We listen to their ‘certainty’ until it is disproved. Where does that leave us? You cannot just say we didn’t know enough, this is an inexact science, because it was in the name of ‘science’ that we followed those ‘theories’ into oblivion."

My current knowledge IS feeble, at best. So is everyone else's. But the DIFFERENCE is that I KNOW that my knowledge is feeble. Likewise, scientists KNOW that their knowledge is feeble... but it is growing every day. Unfortunately, MOST people do NOT know that their knowledge is feeble... they mistake the ILLUSION of knowledge (faith-based belief) for ACTUAL knowledge.

Exactly what 'theory' is it that we have "... followed into oblivion?" I'd be very interested in knowing that.

I see your point about science, though. Rather than continuing to revise, update and improve our understanding about vitamins, disease and climate, we should instead be calling upon clergymen to cast out evil spirits and sacrificing sheep and goats in an effort to bribe god in an effort to make sure that the weather stays nice.

RICH AUGUSTUS wrote: "Science has its place, but do not lecture me on their ‘truth.’ If you wish to follow science as an end in itself, so be it, but science will be skewed because man lays claim. Where will that leave you then? In fact, all science is not reproducible under the exact set of circumstances (how are you going to replicate the beginning of the universe?) You simply will have to rely on cause and effect for that one. I do not claim to know all things but trust God who does."

Scientists do not purport to be presenting 'truth'. Science produces 'approximations'. Scientists know this. Scientifically literate people know this. The only people who claim that scientists 'claim' to be presenting truth are 'apologists' (professional liars and distorters), who really know better... and their scientifically ignorant minions, who are the target of their deceptions. I leave it to the reader to figure out which category you occupy.

Ordinarily, when someone says something like "In fact, all science is not reproducible under the exact set of circumstances (how are you going to replicate the beginning of the universe?)", it is my inclination to say something like "Your ability to perceive the obvious is truly astounding... you are to be commended." However, your ability to perceive the obvious is seriously in doubt, at this point, so I don't want to mislead anyone just by jumping on an opportunity to be gratuitously snotty and condescending, for a laugh. It is not necessary for science to "replicate the beginning of the universe" in order to gain knowledge about the beginning of the universe. In fact, we are able to see, by direct observation, what the early universe was like. From there, mathematics, quantum physics and accelerator experiments have taken us back to within a fraction of a second of the Big Bang. Additionally, we have been able to map the 'fingerprints' of the Big Bang through imaging and analysis of the cosmic background radiation. (Google: COBE) But, even so... within the next few years, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at Cern should be recreating (in miniature) the conditions that existed within nanoseconds of the initiation of the Big Bang.

You said: "I do not claim to know all things but trust God who does."

Yep... there's that 'Argument from Incredulity' again.

RICH AUGUSTUS wrote: "My answer to the question at hand: if there is a God (and there is) then there is a heaven and hell. God is just. Therefore, all who haven’t paid for their sins (hell) will. All who have accepted Christ to pay for those sins will receive eternal life (heaven). God, who is just, knows the circumstances and situations in which people reside, and will judge accordingly (for those who ask who will go to heaven if they didn’t believe or believed wrongly)."

Meaningless assertions with absolutely no basis in fact or credible evidence. But here is where it gets interesting... you rail against people citing quotations of some other person's opinion, saying that opinions are an 'appeal to authority' (in another post)... Yet they are CLEARLY opinions. And here YOU are, presenting your UN-credible assertions, based upon the myths, superstitions, fairy tales and fantastical delusions of an ignorant gaggle of Bronze Age fishermen and peripatetic goat herders (appeal to authority? LOL) as some sort of cosmic 'TRUTH' about the nature and purpose of existence and reality. Now that's a REAL hoot.

RICH AUGUSTUS wrote: "If I see things from a different vantage point, does this make me wrong? You cannot see the spiritual, because by definition this is supernatural (which atheists deny). How am I to explain heaven and hell to you?"

You don't see things at all. You stuff your metaphorical fingers in your metaphorical ears and metaphorically chant "La-la-la-la-la... I can't hear you... god did it... la-la-la-la-la..."

You are right about one thing, though... I do not 'see the spiritual'. But guess what?... neither do YOU. You IMAGINE the spiritual... and the supernatural.

I regard you (and all of the religiose) as an intellectual inheritor of Moronicus... the most obscure and least respected of the ancient Greek philosophers.

I regard 'supernatural' to be a cop-out concept... where we cannot readily find an answer in nature, we make up an answer based in the 'supernatural', and accept it as a matter of faith. This brings us right back to the 'Argument From Incredulity' again: "I cannot conceive (or imagine) how this might have come to be; therefore, God did it."

I think that anything that can exist in the universe, or occur in the universe is, BY DEFINITION, 'natural'. People want to slap the 'supernatural' label onto things that they do not understand, for no other reason than the ILLUSION that they DO understand gives them a warm fuzzy feeling, as opposed to the cold prickly feeling that they get when they acknowledge that things can happen or exist that are beyond their understanding. It is a form of fear and cowardice. So, what do they do? They decline to acknowledge that they do not understand and, instead, employ self-delusion to create the comfortable illusion that they DO understand.

*** "When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion." ~ Robert M. Pirsig ***

Knowledge cures 'cognitive dissonance'... but so does self-delusion... and self-delusion is MUCH easier to achieve than 'knowledge'.

Personally, I don't get a cold prickly feeling when I encounter something strange that I don't understand. "I don't know" is a perfectly reasonable and intellectually honest stance to take. Rather than fear the unknown, embrace it... and the idea that there is a whole universe full of wonderful things that we have yet to discover. Don't try to hide your ignorance behind wishful, magical thinking and delusions of all-powerful sky-fairies... EMBRACE cognitive dissonance... that is what tells us that there is work yet to be done, and shows us where we need to look.

Listen well, Grasshopper... ignorance is merely a lack of knowledge. Ignorance is a problem that can be remedied, in part, by study, learning, reading. The problem is that after years of study, learning, reading, we are STILL ignorant... because there is still so much that we do not know... far more than what we DO know.

The first step on the path to wisdom is KNOWING that we DO NOT know.

It is not ignorance (the lack of knowledge) that is the impediment to progress... it is the ILLUSION of knowledge... the erroneous and misguided perception that we KNOW the TRUTH, when (in fact) we don't know squat.

Now... think about religion... in particular, the Abrahamic death cults of desert monotheism... Judaism, Christianity, Islam... and more particularly, the latter two. These are 'evolved' religions... evolved in the sense that they have learned to use the concepts of 'faith' and 'belief' to refine their mind-control techniques to the point where they are able to CREATE the ILLUSION of knowledge in the minds of billions of people... to the point where their VICTIMS are utterly incapable of even recognizing (forget about 'acknowledging') their own ignorance.

'Faith' (wishful, magical thinking) serves the religiose as a lame and pathetic substitute for knowledge.

'Belief' (the internalized certainty that one's indoctrinations and ideations are congruent with reality) is a lame and pathetic substitute for knowledge... in fact, it is the ILLUSION of knowledge.

Faith + belief ---> WILLFUL ignorance and self-delusion

Ignorance is not a bad thing, so long as we acknowledge it, and take it into account; after all, it is the natural state of affairs. Unfortunately, most people DO NOT KNOW that they are ignorant... that they have been deceived, by religious puppet-masters, into thinking that they are privy to some kind of cosmic 'truth'.

Christianity is not the 'hope of mankind'... it is a travesty. It is the longest-running and most successful criminal business enterprise of all time. It plays with our fear of death and the unknown, and the our innate desire to have a 'purpose',by convincing people that death is not the 'end' and we all HAVE a 'divine' purpose. It seduces us with the promise of 'salvation'. Salvation from what? An eternity of hideous torture resulting from the wrath of the kind, loving and benevolent deity who created us? Created us for what purpose? To worship and adore him... or else your entrails get fried as a snack for horrific demons in the underqorld?

So, in our infinite gatitude for having been deceived and lied to, we're supposed to give them money.

What is wrong with this picture?

By the way, Rich... this response is not for your benefit... it is for the benefit of vulnerable minds who are genuinely seeking answers. I am not try ing to 'convert' you... I am trying to protect people FROM you.

Soja, when you say, “Happy 4th of July to all my American brothers and sisters in God, our Heavenly Father!” it sounds like your holiday wishes do not extend to atheist Americans, is that right?

But you hope the “American dream come[s] true for ALL Americans,” – I assume that means religious or not, correct?

David – nice to see you back. Hope you had a good break. In my comment about Christians being more eager to expedite their arrival in Heaven, I was thinking more about people who are terminally ill and in great pain (or brain dead, like Terry Schiavo) who prolong their lives just a few months at great expense to those left behind. Or of people who go to great lengths to avoid dangerous military service. I was also thinking of the early Christian martyrs who supposedly were eager to die for Christ, knowing they’d go straight to heaven. You don’t see much of that anymore.

David, I know you mean well when you say “God Bless” at the end of a message. I just want you to consider that to me, it’s like offering a nice juicy steak to someone you know is a vegetarian.

DUCHPHUP:

I enjoy reading your post on the subject of religion. You are like an attack dog going after the throat of your opponents.

What makes your rebuttals so devastating are their logical structure and your quick wit.

I feel that you enjoy the sport and I feel a little sorry for the ones who fall into your trap.

I get a feeling that many of the theists on this blog are desperate and to paraphrase W. Shakespeare, Me thinks (they) dost protest too loudly

You are correct about atheism. Atheism is not a belief structure that there is no god. Atheism is the absence of a belief in god. It is somewhat like darkness is the absence of light.

To Lepidopteryx:
Thank you for your interest in the theoretical physics approach to the question of an afterlife. Other than Albert Einstein, Brian Greene and Amit Gowswami, other interesting theoretical physicists who have postulated another order (or orders) of reality (including different orders of time) include David Bohm, Stephen Hawking and Gevin Giorbran. Dr. Giorbran has an amazing website at
http://everythingforever.com
If you juxtapose these theories of physics with the modern theories of consciousness evolution you may find another approach to the question of an "afterlife".
Peace in every moment.

Thanks DaveF; and thanks for this:

"One thing us non-believers should keep in mind is reason not faith is the path to enlightenment and not to harbor disdain for the believer but to be patient and nudge along the path to enlightenment those “lazy believers” that are out there by the millions."

Reason is a slow process requiring lots of patience and little steps; it rarely progresses by sudden revelatory epiphanies. We have to remember that. My own "enlightenment", if I can call it that, was a gradual process. Anyone trying to hit me over the head with an absolute rejection of faith would have met with stiff resistance. I try to remember that when I talk to believers; contempt for their deeply held beliefs will not convince anyone to take a second reasoned look at things. I just hope to gain some acceptance for the idea that atheists aren't horned devils and that there are pry open some minds a little to the idea that "there are more things in heaven and Earth" than they may have dreamed of...

While I appreciate the work of Dawkins and Harris I think they fail to appreciate this sometimes, and so come across a little hysterical and overwrought for my tastes.

Baby steps, always baby steps.

Regards

A Hermit

Ahhh... this is a real hoot... priceless.

RICH AUGUSTUS: To the Atheists:

RICH AUGUSTUS wrote: "Your condescending and patronizing remarks concerning people’s IQ, critical thinking ability, and insistence of their irrational belief is really tiring. If my skills of critical thinking are less than yours, how much less before you consider me in that 80% that do not have any skills at all?"

Actually, I ALREADY consider you to be "... in that 80% that do not have any skills at all."

1. Most of the 80% have never even heard of critical thinking... and they can't do it.

2. Some of the 80% THINK that that know what critical thinking is... but they are wrong... and they can't do it.

3. Some of the 80% ACTUALLY know what critical thinking is... and they THINK they can do it... but not being able to make the subtle distinctions in nuances of meaning that are necessary, their results are not valid conclusions but, rather, only end up as logical fallacies.

4. A VERY SMALL percentage of people (NOT part of the 80%) actually CAN think critically... but they also seem to be able to effectively 'compartmentalise'... i.e., they can successfully manage to employ critical thinking in their profesional endeavors, but then they check their brains at the church door and go into 'self-delusion mode'.

I don't have enough information, yet, to decide whether you are a 2 or a 3... maybe I'll be able to decide that by the time I get done with this response, at which point I will modify this paragraph. (EDIT: OK... having gone through this and another Rich Agustus post, I have decided that he is a '2'.)

RICH AUGUSTUS wrote: "Let me see if I understand atheism. It is a belief that there is no God. Why won’t people believe what I believe, says the atheist? Sounds like your analogy of the theists. You have 0% chance of proving God does not exist (you cannot prove a negative and that is not my problem that it didn’t work out your way) but want people to believe as you do. If there is no proof that God does not exist (I believe God designed logic that way, to allow for faith), then there is 0-100% chance that He does. I can really see why you whine so much about proof! LOL!! The theists can’t prove God exists, atheists can’t prove he doesn’t, but somehow your BELIEF is better, more reasonable? I have faith in your faith, keep trying."

Well... not surprisingly, the very first thing of substance that you say reveals that everything that depends from it is based on a misconception... i.e., everything that you derive from this statement is fatally flawed. Why? Because you do not even have a CLUE what atheism IS.

Atheism is NOT a "... belief that there is no god." Atheism is defined as the ABSENSE of a belief in god. Atheists simply find that the so-called 'evidence' that purports to support the idea that magical, all-powerful, invisible sky-fairies (gods) actually exist is not compelling, and is therefore insufficient to initiate and/or sustain a mental state of 'belief'... for EXACTLY the same reasons that you do not believe in Thor, Garden Gnomes, Bridge Trolls, monsters under your bed or an invisible herd of pink unicorns that cavort in your back yard under the light of the full moon, atheists do not believe in god.

*** "I contend that we are both atheists.  I just believe in one fewer god than you do.  When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." ~ Stephen Roberts ***

*** "Atheism can be considered to be a 'belief', or a 'religion', only in the same sense that one might regard NOT collecting stamps to be a 'hobby'." ~ Unknown ***

*** "If you claim that something is true, I will examine the evidence which supports your claim; if you have no evidence, I will not accept that what you say is true and I will think you a foolish and gullible person for believing it so." ~ Richard Dawkins ***

Admittedly, there are some people who 'believe' that gods do not exist... and since that ALSO means that they do NOT believe that gods exist (the definition of 'atheist'), then it is obvious that such people are captured under the 'atheist' umbrella. However, their position (BELIEVING that gods DO NOT exist) does not DEFINE atheism... and it is just as logically untenable as BELIEVING that gods DO exist.... and for the same reasons. (Such people are sometimes referred to as 'strong atheists.)

While atheism has to do with 'belief', agnosticism has to do with 'knowledge'... i.e., they conclude that the do not have access to sufficient knowledge to make an informed judgement pertaining to the existence/non-existence of gods. So, they do not BELIEVE that gods DO NOT exist... AND... they do not BELIEVE that gods DO exist. You might notice that the latter phrase satisfies the definition of 'atheist'. So, it follows that all agnostics are atheists... but not all atheists are agnostic.

RICH AUGUSTUS wrote: "Argumentum ad ignorantiam means "argument from ignorance." The fallacy occurs when it's argued that something must be true, simply because it hasn't been proved false.

OR EQUIVALENTLY,

when it is argued that something must be false because it hasn't been proved true."

Oh, good... you know how to copy and paste. Now, let's see where this leads. (This is fun.) Too bad you cannot copy-and-paste 'understanding'. You are applying the 'Argument from Ignorance' to your defective understanding of what 'atheism' is, thereby creating a 'Red Herring', or a "Strawman Argument'. You make the false assertion that atheism is "... a belief that there is no God," and then say that it is invalid because it depends from the logical fallacy 'Argumentum ad ignorantiam'.

I leave it to the reader to decide whether this travesty of logic arises from stupidity or deviousness.

RICH AUGUSTUS wrote: "This brings me to belief in the Tooth Fairy. There is nothing wrong with a child’s deduction of finding money under their pillow after having put the tooth there the night before. Empirically, by observation and experience, they reasoned so. It wasn’t their reasoning ability (obviously they showed some), but their incomplete knowledge (if they had more knowledge about the process they would have come closer to the truth) by ‘appealing to authority,’ which in this case is their parents."

Well... it seems that you do not understand what 'appeal to authority' is... but never mind... do go on.

RICH AUGUSTUS wrote: "There is more truth to the Tooth Fairy than the ability to disprove it (someone did something at sometime and something happened)! Incidentally, when I stopped believing is when the money stopped. O to be in that fanciful financial bliss again! :)"

If there is a point there, I must confess that it escapes me. It seems that you are setting yourself up for a fall... that you are saying, in essence, that there is much more justification for believing in the Tooth Fairy than there is justification for believing in god. IF that is indeed what you are saying (note the ABSENSE of a 'Red Herring'), then I am led to wonder why you are able to toss of belief in the Tooth Fairy with such alacrity, yet still cling to much more bizarre beliefs associated with the Abrahamic death cults of desert monotheism.

Since you are into logical fallacies, though, I feel obliged to mention that all religious belief seems to orbit around a strange confluence of two logical fallacies... the 'God of the Gaps' fallacy, and the 'Argument from Incredudlity' (aka the 'Divine Fallacy'). I'll let you look up 'God of the Gaps' on your own... but since the 'Argument from Incredudlity' is a subset of the 'argument from ignorance', I will elaborate here; it goes something like this: "I cannot concieve (or imagine) how this might have come to be; therefore, God did it." This fallacy is the epitome of arrogance on the part of those who commit it because, in a way, it presumes the superiority and infallibility of their own intellect. In other words, it says this: "If this were understandable, then I would be able to understand it. Since I cannot understand it (or imagine it), then it must be beyond human understanding. Therefore, it must be an act of god, and I can just quit fretting about it."

It never even occurs to you that what is really behind your not being able to 'concieve (or imagine)' is ignorance, a lack of intellect, inability to think critically, intellectual laziness, intellectual dishonesty... or some combination of those... or maybe even some other 'lacks' that I didn't happen to think of at the moment.

*** “Belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence.” ~ Robert Anton Wilson ***

*** "The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance... it is the illusion of knowledge." ~ Daniel Boorstin ***

There is nothing wrong with 'ignorance'... it merely means 'lack of knowledge'. Ignorance can be cured... but in order to DO that, you must first acknowledge and accept the fact that you ARE ignorant. For the religiose, questions pertaining to existence and reality are dangerous things that are to be buried in the ground... cover it up, and stick a sign in it that says "Danger. Do not dig here. God did it."

Science, on the other hand, EMBRACES ignorance... it is the things that science is ignorant of that defines the 'work-scope'.

RICH AUGUSTUS wrote: "Consequently, this leads to your reasoning hypocrisy. Will you stop with the websites and quotes from other authors!! “Most NT scholars…blah, blah, blah.” Please, no more argumentum ad nauseam! Just because they have an opinion, doesn’t make it empirical evidence as you so desperately plead, it is ‘appealing to authority’ O reasoned ones. Try to think outside of their box."

Reasoning hypocrisy? LOL. Interesting choice of words... words that I find to be a little bit hypocritical, coming from someone who exhibits so little capacity for reason (more on that in another response to RICH AUGUSTUS that I started a few days ago, and did not finish... until now.)

Anyway... I happen to like quotes from people who know how to think. I try to select quotes that are terse, pithy, and likely to stimulate reflection and introspection. The thing is... I attribute quotes, giving credit where credit is due, and I do not take them out of context. They do not represent an 'appeal to authority' (a logical fallacy... one good example of that is the constant qouting of scripture that we see around here), since they are not asserting 'truths' (like scripture-quoters do)... they represent an 'appeal' for people to THINK. You ought to try it some time.

Citing a third-party's opinion is NOT an 'Appeal to Authority' (a logical fallacy)... it is merely someone elses opinion. If that person happens to be highly respected, then it is natural to give that opinion a higher degree of weight than the opinion of someone who you're never even heard of... but it is STILL just an opinion, and it has no value in establishing the logical 'truth' of a proposition. Also, consulting or citing an authority is one method of obtaining 'propositional knowledge', but it is a logical fallacy, because the validity of a claim does not depend from the credibility of the source. An 'Appeal to Authority' fallacy is committed when you say something like "The bible (or Jesus, or Moses, or Einstein) said THIS... therefore it is TRUE."

BEN,

You write;

“…Christians believe the Bible is true and infallible BECAUSE they believe its God's Word....”

So two beliefs make a fact…. I always thought that such a statement as above was called a circular argument where A is true because of B and B is true because of A.

But what do I know being a heathen an all?

You are obviously very intelligent person as cam be seen by the depth and length of your responses and by the research required to come with your lists of names and dates etc.

However, it is the logic of an argument that is more important than the volume of the words.

Also, just because a person is a great thinker and contributor in one field does not then lead that he/she is in all fields.

I am a pretty good systems engineer but I do not have a clue how to fathom the mind of a woman.

A HERMIT,

Thanks for the link…… I have added it to my favorites just incase I want to use a technical term when replying to a fallacious argument in the future.

I feel that you are correct when you write that:

“I don't think atheists care that much if you believe (or don't) what we do. We just want believers to stop insisting that your beliefs are the absolute, reliable, irrefutable truth and please stop telling us that we're awful bad people with no morals who deserve to be tortured for all eternity.”

I really do not care what any given person believes but I do get my defenses up when someone tells me that their bible is the infallible word of god and that if I do not repent and believe I will burn in hell for eternity.

If there were such a god who sends us to hell for any reason I would have rebel against it just as many have rebelled against tyranny throughout human history.

However, I am secure in the high probability that there is no such god and therefore I do not need to sacrifice like those who have rebelled against real human tyranny.

Sorry for crediting the wrong "original" source with wrong words, DaveF, but are you telling me Duckphup didn't agree with it? Oh yes, he agreed wholeheartedly! Enter, lets prove it: the "quote"

Duckphup wrote:
DuckPhup :

DaveF wrote: "The “true believer” is one who has ego invested in their belief. Once a person has identified themselves with a belief at the ego level they must protect that belief no matter how outlandish. The more untenable the belief the more defensive the believer must act when confronted with overwhelming logic that shows their beliefs to be only myths.

The true believer truly fears reasoned discourse. The only way to defend the un-defendable is to shout down the opposition or to make statements as facts without proof or to try and force the other side to prove a negative."

************

"The church hates a thinker precisely for the same reason a robber dislikes a sheriff, or a thief despises the prosecuting witness." ~ Robert G. Ingersoll

July 3, 2007 10:19 PM

(Yeah, yeah, I know saying that )DAVEF wrote: the Bible is true is because its the infallible Word of God is not reasoned discourse and all that....

Yeah, yeah, yeah...
And the "Origin of Species" is true because its the infallible word of a scientist....
Or "atheism" is true because its the infallible word of Dawkins and Mr. Mark and Duckphup...

No thanks....I have a brain....(I'll come back to that)

So Steve Weinberg is a Noble Laureate. Great! Good for him! Edison (agnostic who never denied the existence of God) was the discoverer of electricity, and Newton was the discoverer of gravity. Oh yeah, Michael Faraday discovered magnetism, and Einstein gave us relativity....

Let me think, all the above (except Weinberg or whoever, maybe)were humble enough to at least admit that there was a God....Some like Newton and Faraday even preached it...

So let me think...how many Nobel Laureates believd in God....? maybe its only 80%, oh thats a bad guess, maybe its 50....Forget it....Either way some people think if you got a Nobel prize, you got it from God! Like Henry Kissinger and Jimmy Carter for bringing peace to the world....!

MR. Mark wrote: Er, that's called a non-sequitur, Ben. Duckphup is saying that you're best off getting your history from real historians, not religionists, even (especially?) when the history is religious history

So religious historians are biased! Ah, ah...just like Richard Dawkins is...or evolutionists are...or perhaps you...

The straw man is BACK! Unfortunately, the straw is missing! So N.T.Wright and Ben Witherington are not real historians, yet thought to be among the best NT scholars in the field...(at least top 5 for N.T. Wright...). And yeah, when you want to add that there were other versions of Christianity or whatever, you can also add Elaine Pagels...

Yeah right, the evolutionist proves evolution but must we really listen to him? After all, he believes it himself....

Of course all educated Christians of whatever caliber are idiots and don't have a brain, at least according to Dawkins and Mr. Mark and Duckphup.... So we can include in this list:
Nicholas Copernicus, Sir Francis Bacon, Sir Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, Robert Boyle, Michael Faraday, Gregor Mendel, Charles Babbage, Galileo Galilei (never abandoned Chrsitianity until his death bed), William kelvin ("Overwhelmingly strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie around us...the atheistic idea is so non-sensical that I cannot put it into words."), Louis Pasteur, Blaise Pascal, Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Neils Bohr, Arthur Eddington, Enrico Fermi, Anton van Leeuwenhoek, John Dalton, Alexander Fleming, Christiaan Huygens (the wave theory of Light), Georges Lemaître (a Roman Catholic priest, proposed the Big Bang theory), Francis S. Collins (director of the Human Genome Project, discoverer of genes for Huntington's disease, cystic fibrosis; positional cloning), Rustom Roy, William Phillips, Sir William Herschel [1738-1822]
(Astronomist. Discovered Uranus, several nebulae, and binary stars), Samuel Morse, Sir Joseph Lister ("I am a believer in the fundamental doctrines of Christianity"),Pope Silvester II (scientist and book collector), Pope John XXI (wrote the medical text Thesaurus pauperum), Albertus Magnus (patron saint), John Wallis, Joseph Priestley, Adam Sedgwick, Allan Sandage, John Polkinghorne, .... .

If anyone doesn't know any of these names back to the Library....

...should I even mention the non-scientists...Saint Augustine, G.K.Chesterton, C.S. Lewis....that list may not even fit...

Anyways hope that list of names proved that all Christians are idiots and don't have a brain....some like modern-day Francis Collins even go about preaching about Christ...well so did Newton (he wrote books on Bible prophecy...what a weirdo....)

And finally back to,DAVEF wrote: the Bible is true is because its the infallible Word of God is not reasoned discourse and all that....

DaveF, you really have a very limited view of Christianity. You should read more of the early church fathers, and not "some" (not all) modern-day evangelical junk that passes for Christianity...Christians believe the Bible is true and infallible BECAUSE they believe its God's Word....but they don't need the Bible to believe in Jesus of Nazareth or His death and Resurrection. the Bible records it, supports it and confirms it....The Bible should not be the stumbling block for you....

It should be: Jesus of Nazareth...
You need to still answer the question: "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?" (Jesus in Matthew 16:15)

And really be honest, (if you did it in the next post, no one would believe you...it would at least mean going through the gospels and reading them as the original writers meant it to be understood...or really assessing what his disciples had to say....)

"but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God". (1 Corinthians 1: 23-24)

Rich Augustus;

You have it wrong. I don't think atheists care that much if you believe (or don't) what we do. We just want believers to stop insisting that your beliefs are the absolute, reliable, irrefutable truth and please stop telling us that we're awful bad people with no morals who deserve to be tortured for all eternity.

By the way, referring to people who authorities in a subject is not a logical fallacy. The "appeal to authority" fallacy only occurs if the person refered to is not an authority in the subject under discussion. ie it is not a fallacy to refer to Einstein's work in a discussion of physics, but it is if you're arguing about morals or winetasting or some other subject on which Einstein was not an authority.

But I'm glad you brought that up. Here is a handy list of common fallacies; many of which you will encounter many times on the internet...everyone should take some time and study them:

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/

Regards

A (pedantic) Hermit

Sorry for all the repeats. Kept getting a "no response from server" I'm sorry about my bad thoughts about others with repeated posts. LOL

Hank: The video :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDp7pkEcJVQ

Thanks Bobd...that's even funnier than just reading it. But somehow that's just not how I pictured the Mary character...

Hank: The video :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDp7pkEcJVQ

Hank: The video :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDp7pkEcJVQ

Hank: The video :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDp7pkEcJVQ

Hank: The video :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDp7pkEcJVQ

MR. MARK,

You state:

“This delightful tidbit is on par with the Xian myth of "free will," as in, "you have free will to follow me slavishly or I'll kill you."”

Great, love it…. It hit right to the core of man’s relationship to so many of his/her gods…..

Too bad the true believers can not appreciate the irony of such a statement……

E FAVORITE: You make a good point when you write;

“I think there are probably a lot of people out there like me who could flip from lazy believer to non-believer pretty easily. Still, it was a shock – to realize that so much I thought I knew simply isn’t so; that I’d been duped, deceived, misled, by people in positions of trust; that the whole society is set up to respect belief in the supernatural and to sneer at reason. It’s hard to fathom. But it’s an incredible relief, and exhilarating to live the rest of my life with a full appreciation of it. At some level, I think believers know this life is their only one – otherwise they’d be a lot more eager to expedite their arrival in Heaven.”

Most non-religious folks like you and me went through a religious phase before breaking out into the sunshine of reason.

After all, it is very difficult to be born into a non-religious environment on planet earth.

One thing us non-believers should keep in mind is reason not faith is the path to enlightenment and not to harbor distain for the believer but to be patient and nudge along the path to enlightenment those “lazy believers” that are out there by the millions.

Ben,

I am amazed at how meticulous you are at carving out the facts.

In one of your posts you dig out a quote from Duckphup,

Duckphup wrote: The true believer truly fears reasoned discourse. The only way to defend the un-defendable is to shout down the opposition or to make statements as facts without proof or to try and force the other side to prove a negative."

Are you charging Duckphup with plagiarism? You see, I am the person who originally wrote those lines.

They were not only aimed at religious “true believers” but all “true believers” who have accepted a belief structure on faith alone and who can not justify their beliefs with reasoned discourse.

Saying that the bible is true because it is the infallible word of god is not reasoned discourse.(I am not quoting you here just throwing out an example.)

You also point out in you lengthy critic of Duckphup:

Duckphup does not have an answer. So he quotes: The best way to answer that is simply to quote Stephen Weinberg:

"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things... that takes religion." ~ Steven Weinberg, Freethought Today, April, 2000

Then you ask,

Who is Steven Weinberg? Somebody important to Duckphup....

Well, Steven Weinberg is a Nobel Laureate.

Here is a link that can help answer your question:

http://ffrf.org/fttoday/2000/april2000/weinberg.html

I see a lot of “shouting” on this post from all sides intermingled with some reasoned arguments.

You make a valiant attempt but in my opinion you fall a little short, however, bravo for the effort.

From an Indian-Australian woman:

Happy 4th of July to all my American brothers and sisters in God, our Heavenly Father!

Have a wonderful day, lots of fun and may the American dream come true for ALL Americans!

Soja John Thaikattil
Sydney, Australia

Dear Rich -

Your flights of fancy are quite remarkable.

You say: "In 120 years or so, everyone, from this moment on, will KNOW one way or the other if Heaven or Hell exists. It is an afterlife question."

Er, if there's no afterlife and nothing after death, how will anyone "know" anything? If death is the end, then you don't know anything from the moment you're...dead. Golly, Rich.

It seems that what you meant was there really is no, "one way or the other." To you, there is only "one way." There is no "other" way, so why do you bother making such a statement? What your statement really says is that there is a heaven and hell, and everyone's going to find out that you're right and they're wrong.

This delightful tidbit is on par with the Xian myth of "free will," as in, "you have free will to follow me slavishly or I'll kill you."

Further - I can have no argument with god as there is no god, I have no argument with you because you have yet to post an actual argument. The "question" you posed to me is on par with, "aren't you afraid Santa won't come this year?"

As far as your not "being the one who proclaimed this to you." You're right. It was other delusional humans who proclaimed the myth to me as if it were fact. I outgrew that childishness years ago, so your words of supposed admonishment have no more effect on me than schoolyard taunts. "Nyarny, nyarny nah nah...my god's gonna GIT ya, and I get to watch!" sez Rich.

Yawn.

Why do you get so worked up when people dismiss Jesus and the Biblical god? Of the thousands of gods that man has invented for himself, you dismiss all of them but one. You're basically a 99.99999% atheist when it comes to believing in gods, even though the Bible clearly states that other gods do exist.

You dismiss Islam's god, yet Islam promises horror and punishment to those infidels who don't follow Islam's god. Aren't you frightened of that? People have "proclaimed" it to you. Why do you mock Islam's god by not dedicating your life to following him? Don't you know the punishment is even more severe for a person like you who dismisses this god as being false? Aren't you afraid that after you die, you will face not the Biblical god and Jesus but Allah who will condemn you to eternal suffering? What PROOF can you offer that your Middle Eastern god isn't a false or imaginary god? What PROOF can you offer that Islam's god isn't the one true god?

Like the good religionist you are, you're tiresome. Tiresome to read, and tiresome to debate and educate. Your faith blinds you and binds you, and not in the "good" way.

Mr. Mark,

I see you have posted a complete rebuttal of ALL of my statements. NOT! The one I posted for you specifically, is not meant to scare. It is a question, scared one. If others scoffed at your sacrifice, what would your response be? Since you claimed to have been a Christian, you should already know this answer, whether it scares you or not. Remember, I am not the one who has proclaimed this to you.

As to the other things I have posted, you are decidedly silent. It is easy to posture as if you are something you claim to be, but, as you know, the Bible tells you differently when it is before God. Your argument is not with me but God.

In 120 years or so, everyone, from this moment on, will KNOW one way or the other if Heaven or Hell exists. It is an afterlife question. People conjecture in many ways, but this does not equate to empirical truth. Intellectual honesty requires this of you and me.

BEN writes:
"Duckphup wrote: And do not go to religious sources for information about history... even 'religious' history"

So,
Do not learn evolution from evolutionists
Do not go for atheism to Richard Dawkins..."

Er, that's called a non-sequitur, Ben. Duckphup is saying that you're best off getting your history from real historians, not religionists, even (especially?) when the history is religious history. That's the opposite of what your laundry list of non sequiturs proposes, ie: DO get your history from a historian; DO learn of evolution from what you call evolutionists; DO learn law at law schools.

Duckphup is correct - religionists are not the people to learn history from, anymore than they are via their religious beliefs the best people to teach one about evolution or law or any of the other disciplines you mention in your laundry list.

You then scrawled: "I'm sure Duckphup is also one of those who sees...blah, blah." You're sure? Having read Duckphup's posts, I wouldn't be so sure. Why are you Xians so obsessed with hoisting your straw men? Are you incapable of honest debate? Maybe you just feel more comfortable debating in a fantasy world of your own creation, like that of your religious beliefs.

Rich asks:

"Mr. Mark: How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace (Heb 10:29)?"

Judging from how EASY it is to trample the SOG underfoot through reason and logic, I'd say there's no punishment at all.

My, but you worship a puny and weak god! Why would anyone imagine that a god who depends on the illogical rants of Rich for its defense in this life would have any power to punish anyone in a non-existent afterlife? I may as well fear the wrath of the Easter Bunny.

BTW - your obsession with blood atonement - especially the shedding of innocent blood to redeem the non-innocent - is both barbaric and creepy.

Enjoy your delusion, but your imaginary heavenly bogeymen don't scare me. :)

Duckphup wrote: And do not go to religious sources for information about history... even 'religious' history

So,
Do not learn evolution from evolutionists
Do not go for atheism to Richard Dawkins
Do not get weather reports from weathermen
Do not go to be cured to doctors
Do not learn flying from pilots
Do not learn Law at Law Schools
Do not learn science from scientists
Definitely be careful about getting junk info on the web
And of course do not go for peace, salvation, forgiveness or love to God...

Instead for all the above go to the historian, theologian, scholar, textual critic, scientist Duckphup...or you can go to Dan Brown if you prefer...

Duckphup's take on history: By the way... interesting footnote... the so-called 'barbarian' tribes which led to the ultimate demise of the Roman Empire were, in fact, Christians.

I'm sure Duckphup is also one of those who sees America's War on Terror as "Christians against Muslims" ....or colonialism as "Christianity ruling the world...." or globalism as the "rich Christians taking over the world...". Poor American Christians or British Christians or Irish Christians or Lebanese Christians or Nigerian Christians....whatever their governments do, they'll always be blamed by Duckphups'.
The poor Arian Visigoths who invaded Rome...little did they know what would come of their invasion...

Duckphup's take on history: Happily, though, Moslems had preserved a lot of the 'pagan' knowledge that been destroyed by the christ-cultists. Ultimately, this knowledge began to leak back into Europe, and get translated. This lead DIRECTLY to 'humanist' ideas, such as personal freedoms and the rights of man... ideas that were ultimately enshrined in the Constitution of the USA. None of this BECAUSE of christianity... it was done IN SPITE OF christianity.

No wonder the Muslims hate America....!

Duckphup does not have an answer. So he quotes: The best way to answer that is simply to quote Stephen Weinberg:
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things... that takes religion." ~ Steven Weinberg, Freethought Today, April, 2000
Who is Steven Weinberg? Somebody important to Duckphup....

Duckphup is a great mathematician and predictor of the future: Oh, twaddle. Were it not for christianity dragging humanity into the Dark Ages, I would deem it a certainty that someone would have developed moveable type 800 - to - 1000 years BEFORE Gutenberg did.

Did Duckphup mess up?: First of all, I did not mention the Crusades at all... but never mind that. The point is that the kind of thinking that led to the 'Dark Ages' (which I DID mention)... and the crusades... WAS the standard.

Also Duckphup says: No... I made it quite clear that it is systemic problem... and that the 'system' is christianism.

So Duckphup is quite confused. In his mind, If Bush and America go to war, it proves that Democracy is evil...since its Democracy that led to that kind of thinking....

One thing Duckphup is right about: Yet, in the intervening years, the christian lie-machine has managed to convince its gullible minions that it is RESPONSIBLE for the human values which we enjoy today... never admitting that the values of today represent an ESCAPE from the 'christian values' of the past.

....Abortion, euthanasia, gay marriage, pornography, individualism, stem-cell research, fornication, living together, disrespect for parents/elders, lying, narcissm, war are not orthodox Christian values....

Duckphup does not want to admit: Now that's a bunch of absolute hooey. You obviously don't know very much about history... particularly about the history of your own religion. What you regard as 'christian' values are primarily the secular humanist values that arose from the 'Enlightenment', and the 'Age of Reason'.

The Reformation was a direct precursor of the so-called Enlightenment....(unfortunately...)

Duckphup wrote: The true believer truly fears reasoned discourse. The only way to defend the un-defendable is to shout down the opposition or to make statements as facts without proof or to try and force the other side to prove a negative."

Then he added another quote which proves the point about shouting down the opposition by making a statement as fact without proof:

"The church hates a thinker precisely for the same reason a robber dislikes a sheriff, or a thief despises the prosecuting witness." ~ Robert G. Ingersoll

Because Duckphup is so smart, he makes multiple mistakes here...

OK then... I can see that you're going with the belief that a cosmic Jewish zombie, who is his own father, can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...

and...

* a universe in which all that exists are the earth and heaven
* solid 'firmament' structure (the sky) separating the earth from heaven (terrarium earth)
* talking snakes (with legs) and donkeys
* shepherd staff turning into an asp
* demons chased out of people and into pigs
* woman turning into a pillar of salt
* friendly spirits
* evil spirits
* walking on water
* multiplying loaves and fishes
* food falling from the sky
* conception by a child-molesting ghost
* people raising from the dead
* the sun stopping in its tracks
* parting the sea
* people being bodily sucked up into heaven (which, by the way, lies on the 'other side' of the sky)
* world-wide flood that drowned the earth to a depth of 40 feet above the tallest mountain
* creating people from dust bunnies and ribs
* magical tree of knowledge
* god speaking from a burning bush
* ritual cannibalism, by eating god in the form of a cracker (thank you Sam)

No wonder he keeps shouting. He really does not understand what Christians believe. Earlier he was confused about what Satan does too..

Either way, if its ok to believe in one kind of magic ( I mean a man came from an ape which came from a bird which came from a reptile which came from a ...or however the fairy tale goes...which all came from nothing), why can't others believe in whatever magic they want?

Duckphup, I think if you would just stop and consider for a moment: God really loves you!
And honestly, with all said above so you don't go around deceiving minions...you really are an amazing person (made in His image). May you find His strength and peace, His love and joy and know His amazing love for you!

To the Atheists:

Your condescending and patronizing remarks concerning people’s IQ, critical thinking ability, and insistence of their irrational belief is really tiring. If my skills of critical thinking are less than yours, how much less before you consider me in that 80% that do not have any skills at all?

Let me see if I understand atheism. It is a belief that there is no God. Why won’t people believe what I believe, says the atheist? Sounds like your analogy of the theists. You have 0% chance of proving God does not exist (you cannot prove a negative and that is not my problem that it didn’t work out your way) but want people to believe as you do. If there is no proof that God does not exist (I believe God designed logic that way, to allow for faith), then there is 0-100% chance that He does. I can really see why you whine so much about proof! LOL!! The theists can’t prove God exists, atheists can’t prove he doesn’t, but somehow your BELIEF is better, more reasonable? I have faith in your faith, keep trying.

Argumentum ad ignorantiam:
Argumentum ad ignorantiam means "argument from ignorance." The fallacy occurs when it's argued that something must be true, simply because it hasn't been proved false.

OR EQUIVALENTLY,

when it is argued that something must be false because it hasn't been proved true.

This brings me to belief in the Tooth Fairy. There is nothing wrong with a child’s deduction of finding money under their pillow after having put the tooth there the night before. Empirically, by observation and experience, they reasoned so. It wasn’t their reasoning ability (obviously they showed some), but their incomplete knowledge (if they had more knowledge about the process they would have come closer to the truth) by ‘appealing to authority,’ which in this case is their parents.

There is more truth to the Tooth Fairy than the ability to disprove it (someone did something at sometime and something happened)! Incidentally, when I stopped believing is when the money stopped. O to be in that fanciful financial bliss again! :)

Consequently, this leads to your reasoning hypocrisy. Will you stop with the websites and quotes from other authors!! “Most NT scholars…blah, blah, blah.” Please, no more argumentum ad nauseam! Just because they have an opinion, doesn’t make it empirical evidence as you so desperately plead, it is ‘appealing to authority’ O reasoned ones. Try to think outside of their box.

Now, back to the Authority you can count on.

Mr. Mark: How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace (Heb 10:29)?

I guess you Ducked PHUP...

Keep the faith!

Heaven & hell. What are they FOR? Justice?

You don't know whether Hitler accepted Jeebus before he croaked. You don't know whether Stalin or Mao accepted Jeebus before they croaked. You don't know whether Jeff Dahmer -- oh, wait, Jeff was a Jeebus guy before he got his head caved in. David Berkowitz is a Jeebus guy even as we speak.

I, on the other hand, think that Jeebus was an itinerant rabbi who was croaked by the Romans for being a potential troublemaker (the Romans didn't LIKE potential troublemakers) and stayed croaked.

I get to spend eternity in agony just 'cuz of this, let alone my paltry humdrum sins.

OK, that ain't justice. So what the hell are heaven and hell FOR?

Believers & unbelievers. Beauty, eh. Some "free will." What a load.

Dave says:

"Secularists have been trying to disprove the historical facts of the Bible for 2,000 years and HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO DO IT."

Here's a list of 384 contradictions in the Bible:

http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/by_name.html

As far as historical inaccuracies, for starters:

• Star of Bethlehem” - No record of such a celestial event outside the Gospel of Matthew.
• Roman census in Jesus birth story – No record of any census that matches this description.
• Massacre of the Innocents” - No record of this event outside the Gospel of Matthew.
• John the Baptist – Killed early in the Gospels, died in 36 CE according to Josephus.
• Birth date of Jesus - the Gospels give two dates 10 years apart
• Death of Jesus – Accompanied by blackout of sun,
earthquakes, and raising of the dead in the Gospels, no record of this by others.

Have fun reading, Dave. Then get back to me.

Sherlock writes:

"Eternity with God or suffering forever! You have a choice."

How does that in any way qualify as a choice? It amounts to "do what I say or I'll kill you."

I'm not surprised. Totalitarianism finds its roots in religion.

David:

I'm glad that you feel your faith has set you free. and that you have a life that is rich and full. But you're right that we all have our different paths to follow. For me it was letting go of faith that set me free. Faith for me was a burden, an obstacle, an anchor that weighed me down and held me back from being everything I could have been. I feel now like I've awoken from a long, restless sleep and have started to really appreciate life and all that it has to offer more fully.

I know it's hard for believers to understand how the thing that brings them so much comfort and joy could be a barrier to someone like me, and I appreciate your "live and let live" attitude; we need more of that.

Regards

A Hermit

Farrel Till has a good review of Biblical prophecies here:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/farrell_till/prophecy.html

E Favorite,

Hi E Fav. I'm not sure if you asked me any other questions a couple of days ago. I went on a little vacation for two days with my family. But I wanted to respond to one thing you just posted.

you said,

At some level, I think believers know this life is their only one – otherwise they’d be a lot more eager to expedite their arrival in Heaven

From a believers standpoint on this, I would have to disagree. I must say that I do have hope in being with God one day and look forward to that, but I do love my life here on earth as well. I feel very blessed to be where I'm at in this point of my life. I have a great family a new baby...these are the things I cherish in this life. I'm not quite ready to give them up yet for my own selfish purpose (to live in complete happiness with God). But to say that I would want to "expediate" this life, no way! I live my life as full as I possibly can. I feel that my faith allows me to live fully. Trust me I've tried without God, didn't work out so well. But, to each is own. We all have different experiences. Mine just so happens to be that my faith is what gave me a great life to live. So, I can't say I want to "expediate" this life whatsoever. I merely look forward to one day being with God, but that doesn't mean that He gave me this life so that I would want to end it sooner.

I do wish we all could share the same faith, but I know that's impossible. I know my circumstances are different than anyone elses. But my circumstances in life are what led me to accept Christ. And for me, it was only then that I felt free.

Have a great evening
God bless

Had you ever heard of "born again"? That is the greatest miracle that God makes everyday,every second in this planet and operates only when a person repents of all his sins and accepts Jesus as his savior.But it is very difficult to explain because the Holy Spirit works in a way that He only knows. So to those people that say that there is not hell or heaven after death, in the Bible is written for all mankind: Eternity with God or suffering forever! You have a choice.

DaveF, You say, “The “true believer” is one who has ego invested in their belief. Once a person has identified themselves with a belief at the ego level they must protect that belief no matter how outlandish.”

This sounds right to me, but doesn’t describe my own experience. I wasn’t a “true believer;” I was a “lazy believer.” I didn’t think about my faith much. It wasn’t challenged much and I didn’t care about it much. It was just there. I think if I had found this forum when I was still a believer (just 2 years ago) I would have responded to the atheist point of view immediately. It just makes so much sense – and I had never bothered to take the time to think about it – and certainly had not heard about it. Until recently, atheists were pretty quite.

I think there are probably a lot of people out there like me who could flip from lazy believer to non-believer pretty easily. Still, it was a shock – to realize that so much I thought I knew simply isn’t so; that I’d been duped, deceived, misled, by people in positions of trust; that the whole society is set up to respect belief in the supernatural and to sneer at reason. It’s hard to fathom. But it’s an incredible relief, and exhilarating to live the rest of my life with a full appreciation of it. At some level, I think believers know this life is their only one – otherwise they’d be a lot more eager to expedite their arrival in Heaven.

Dave,

Thanks for the post. I've been studying Biblical eschotology for about a year now. I see exactly what your seeing. The only difference I can tell is that I'm not too convinced that Islam is the "false religion" that dominates the world. I haven't studied the Koran too well so I can't say for sure that it's not, but when I read about the "woman on the beast", the description of it seems more to me like the Roman Catholic Church. City on seven hills, "fornicates herself with the nations", etc..The description fits, but I may be wrong, which I am a lot of the time. I'm curious to know if you have any thoughts on that.

Oh by the way, in about 10 minutes your gonna get some major atheistic responses. I see a lot of things on your post that the atheists are just gonna love trying to trample on. Don't worry, it can't happen. Just like what happened to Voltaire. In his time he thought that Christianity would become desolate and then vanish. What happens when he died? They made his house into a Bible printing shop. I love how God has a sense of humor sometimes.

"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my Words will never pass away."

God sure has kept His promise. Take care and God bless.

Just like everything in the world, 90% of the population doesn't "get it". It doesn't matter what the topic. For instance, 90% of people don;t "get" that they need to invest when young, hence 90% of people are dependant on Social Security when they retire. It's pretty much the same for all things, including Christianity. 90% of "Christians" don't really understand their faith because they don't study it.

Here's what you (the 90% bracket) don't realize about the "proof" of the Bible. Instead of wrapping yourself around Hollywood interpretations of Heaven and Hell; and making that your pivotal determination point on this site for your beliefs, why not pick up the Bible and read it yourselves. Here are a few things to consider when you do so:

- Every prophecy Jesus and other prophets like Daniel, Paul and Ezekiel predicted have come true or are poised to come true. Most of them are related to the second coming of Christ and indicate the End Times. Need a few examples? OKAY:
- The astounding increase in knowledge during the last days. (horse and buggy from forever ago until about 1900, now we're sending probes to Mars all in the last 100 years)
- Global travel
- The rise of a false (Satanic) religion: i.e. Islam
- The reestablishment of the Nation of Isreal (1948)
- The spread of the Gospel to all nations
- Wars and rumors of wars (always had war but have you ever heard of it so bad as now?)

There are plenty of books that list a myriad more, but here's something else to chew on. Secularists have been trying to disprove the historical facts of the Bible for 2,000 years and HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO DO IT. Not one... I see some posts on here that talk about the "contradictions in the Bible". Okay, which ones? I hear that "argument" all the time but have yet to get an actual example that holds up after about 2 minutes of scrutiny. Here's a book written over the course of about 3,000 years by 40 different authors, most of which are confirming other portions of scripture yet, NOT ONE of them contradicts something or someone else in scripture. Not one... Doesn't anyone else find that a little hard to explain if this isn't inspired words from God? I mean, the Koran is littered with literally hundreds of contradictions (studied it too), yet the Bible has none. That's pretty remarkable for people without the benefit of computers and technology writing on a piece of parchment. Heck, ONE history author these days with the aid of technology and the Internet can't keep his own story straight, yet 40 different guys 2,000+ years ago pulled it off and gave us a remarkable legacy of hope and salvation. I call that proof enough.

Now before anyone starts calling me a hate monger for dissing Islam, read the revelations in the Bible and the prophecies of the Koran. One character in particular stands out. It's the "Madhi". If you compare the descriptions of the Madhi with the descriptions in Revelation of the AntiChrist (in as much as what that person will do and say) they are identical. The problem is, the MADHI (in Islam) is a GOOD GUY... and his persecution of Jews and Christians is supported by Allah. That's not a good thing. I would recommend picking up a book called "Antichrist: Islam's Awaited Messiah" on Amazon if you are interested. Regardless, Heaven and Hell do exist and your belief or disbelief in them doesn't matter. Hell's temperature won't decrease 1 degree just because you choose to live in denial. The next question you have to ask yourself is, what motive does Islam have for singling out Judaism and Christianity? I mean, they don't attack Buddhism or Hinduism directly in their "scriptures". What other religion specifically singles out another religion for attack? None... The Bible certainly doesn't. Heck, even the dome on the rock (the Islam mosque built on top of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem) has inscriptions on the wall inside that say "Jesus, son of Mary, is not the Son of God." I'll tell you why; because the Devil has a plan. He can't predict the future, but he sure as heck can read God's play book (the Bible) and use it against us. I mean, prophecy is really nothing more than the future mapped out. If you want to try and alter the future (and you're Satan) what's the best approach? How about inventing a competing religion that promises sexual rewards for killing the followers of the true God and blowing yourself up in the process? The Bible even has predictions (prophesies) that the "false prophets" will use sexual rewards as an enticement to get people to follow their false doctrines (2 Peter). Islam claims that the Bible is corrupted, hence Mohamed had to come along and set the record straight. The thing is, Mohamed spent most of his time murdering non-believers to spread his version of events. He also directly challenges the key parts of salvation; specifically that Jesus died on the cross and was the son of God. Oh, in the Koran, Jesus is a swell cat, its just missing all the details that will actually save your soul. In fact it directly calls those New Testament claims that Jesus is the Son of God blasphemy and "death worthy" claims. Lots of death and killing in the Koran, despite what "moderate Islam" claims. Why all this negativity? Because Satan doesn't care what you believe, so long as its anything but what will save your soul. You can go worship trees if you want. That's fine by him, so long as you don't actually follow Christ.

What you will see in the coming years is the rise of Islam as the dominant religion on this planet. Why? Because that's what prophecy says (a one world religion opposed to Christ as Lord and Savior). You will then see a global persecution of Christians. Don't be fooled though. Most of humanity will be deceived and just because Islam will have "the most followers" doesn't mean its right. Keep the faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll persevere and avoid the Hell that many of you may not believe exists.

Jihadist:
You wrote:

"Ritual cannibalism? A cracker is a cracker. Ritual eating of crackers is not cannibalism. Real cannibals will tell you that the best part of humans are the nose and the ear. And we humans taste like chicken or pigs but not crackers."

You don't know too much about Catholicism. They believe that once the elements have been sanctified, the wine and wafer turn into the body and blood of Christ. Any Catholics, please correct me if I'm wrong- but that's one of the reasons that Protestants can't partake of Catholic Mass- the reformation spoiled it for them.

DaveF wrote: "The “true believer” is one who has ego invested in their belief. Once a person has identified themselves with a belief at the ego level they must protect that belief no matter how outlandish. The more untenable the belief the more defensive the believer must act when confronted with overwhelming logic that shows their beliefs to be only myths.

The true believer truly fears reasoned discourse. The only way to defend the un-defendable is to shout down the opposition or to make statements as facts without proof or to try and force the other side to prove a negative."

************

"The church hates a thinker precisely for the same reason a robber dislikes a sheriff, or a thief despises the prosecuting witness." ~ Robert G. Ingersoll

SCOTT,

Your observation…….

“No, they keep coming, wave after wave- responding and not even thinking. Actually, by now I think it's a reflex- one borne of fear, but a reflex all the same”

………is spot on.

The “true believer” is one who has ego invested in their belief. Once a person has identified themselves with a belief at the ego level they must protect that belief no matter how outlandish. The more untenable the belief the more defensive the believer must act when confronted with overwhelming logic that shows their beliefs to be only myths.

The true believer truly fears reasoned discourse. The only way to defend the un-defendable is to shout down the opposition or to make statements as facts without proof or to try and force the other side to prove a negative.

There is some danger in confronting a “true believer” who fears having their myths exposed. The ultimate defense of a “true believer” may be violence. Sadly, there are many examples of this in the world today.

Cheers,,,,,,,,

Duckphup

Ah yes, thanks for the list of supernatural things believers believe in.

Now let me see and have pointless fun with all the things you quoted and I have abasolutely no idea in what context or the full context and where they came from :

"a universe in which all that exists are the earth and heaven"

Yes of course, emanating from the notion that man is the centre of the universe. Called individualism methinks, and "me" mindset - "I am the master of the universe". So said many Wall Street honchos, even when it is only one small niche. Same for some scientists to state there can be no other lifeforms as developed in other galaxies.

* "solid 'firmament' structure (the sky)"

Is there not a layer earth atmosphere, while not solid as in a wall of concrete (but then again can be demolished), that is somewhat solid in keeping earth breathable?

* "separating the earth from heaven (terrarium earth)"

Is there not "space", that vast emptiness, between earth and planets seperating earth from the heavens and is solid in distance to prevent man at this stage, to even go beyond the Solar System? By the way, the heavens means space/cosmos.

* talking snakes (with legs) and donkeys"

Talking snakes (with legs) sounds like descriptions of dinosaurs or the komodo dragons chattering among themselves. Donkey talking? Everyone with pets imagine themselves to understand what their cats, dogs or monkeys are "saying". And animals trained, such as dogs and cats and monkeys, do understand human words.

* "shepherd staff turning into an asp"

Magicians have done it to impress people. Was the asp sleeping and/or drugged looking like a shepherd staff before coming awake?

* "demons chased out of people and into pigs"

Is that why Muslims are not allowed to eat pigs as there may be demons they are eating? I don't know, the said "demons" sounds like diseases to me. The JE is one such disease/demon chased/transfered from pigs to humans in Southeast Asia a few years back. Can we say, "demons" chased out of chickens into humans now as bird flu? Sometimes "demons"/diseases passed on another as the transmitter got over it, like the common cold.

* "woman turning into a pillar of salt"

How nice for woman to be turned into a pillar of salt and to be the salt of the world. Sounds like a compliment to me. Salt of the earth. Pillar of society.

* "friendly spirits" * "evil spirits"

Are you referring to alcohol or firewater? "Friendly spirits" if taken in moderation and makes you feel warm and good and loose? "Evil spirits" if taken in excess and you can't handle them and led you to rape, pillage and regretable remarks, and to plead being drunk afterwards?

* "walking on water"

I've walked on shallow waters. What's the fuss.

* "multiplying loaves and fishes"

Are you talking about dividing the loaves and fishes into smaller portions and thus multiplying them in effect?

* "food falling from the sky"

Yes, fruits have fallen on my head from trees and seem like from the sky, especially coconuts. And food do fell from the sky as parachuted cargos from planes.

* "conception by a child-molesting ghost"
So, we don't know who is the father, and he is the "ghost" then, the phantom father, the unknown father of the child. No DNA testing then to determine that. Man mostly used DNA testing to prove they are not the father of a child.

* "people raising from the dead"

Have you ever seen anyone getting out of a coma?

* "the sun stopping in its tracks"

Everyday, it seems, at midday. In the North and South Pole in summer, the sun seems to stop forever.

* "parting the sea"

Must be a tsunami.

* "people being bodily sucked up into heaven (which, by the way, lies on the 'other side' of the sky)

Perhaps humans one day will all be sucked up into a Black Hole bodily and go into another universe -the other side of hte sky/space we are in.

* "world-wide flood that drowned the earth to a depth of 40 feet above the tallest mountain"

The ancients don't know metric system or global rising ins sea levels due to the warming of the earth. How the ancients use calendars and dates must be understood. Even up to the 17th century England, the calendar year starts on 25 March.

* "creating people from dust bunnies and ribs"

Dust bunnies? Ribs? I had thought man is created or formed from a sperm, a germ, a seed. Dust bunnies and ribs? Sounds deliciously interesting in making sure man is not too pompous of himself.

* "magical tree of knowledge"

Are you talking about the fields of studies and branch of knowledge that come from one tree - to understand who we are, what we are, why we are here, where we came from, and to use knowledge to make life better for us all? What a magical notion!

* "god speaking from a burning bush"

How interesting to have God to speak from a burning bush - don't get too close, don't touch, don't see for we are mere mortals, but to hear what is said. A lesson in content over form? A lesson in the importance of the message instead of the method the message is passed?

* "ritual cannibalism, by eating god in the form of a cracker (thank you Sam)"

Ritual cannibalism? A cracker is a cracker. Ritual eating of crackers is not cannibalism. Real cannibals will tell you that the best part of humans are the nose and the ear. And we humans taste like chicken or pigs but not crackers.

Regards
J

Here's one for you. A child goddess, stripped of her title.
I didn't know you could do that. So man does have a say in all of this.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11710170&ft=1&f=1004

A Hermit:
That was wonderful! :-)

Do you have more?

Seriously, reading this board has been entertaining, but a little depressing- in a 'groundhog day' sort of way. I'll see some post where I think to myself "this person lives in the 21st century, right?". Then I'll read a brilliant rebuttal from you, Mr. Mark, Duckphup, Lepidopteryx, or any number of people and I'll think "there, all sewn up- surely if someone has gotten this far in life to understand the 2007 world enough to figure out a wireless network to even post on this board-and the consequences of the science that enables that- surely, surely they'll come to their senses to at least not thump the bible quite so hard"

No, they keep coming, wave after wave- responding and not even thinking. Actually, by now I think it's a reflex- one borne of fear, but a reflex all the same.

Anyway- thank you for your posts.

Is it time to post this again?

http://www.jhuger.com/kisshank.php

Why yes; I think it is....>;-}

"...a cosmic Jewish zombie, who is his own father, can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree..."

You know, Duckphup when you put it that way it all makes sense. I may have to reconsider my whole deconversion now....

Seriously, that made my day. Thanks...

A Hermit

ANONYMOUS;

You say,

“More people believe in some kind of God than none at all. The odds are in their favor. The chances of the minority being right are slim to none.”

When you make statements like the above you must be ready to defend them with facts.

Now, I can give you that more folks believe in some kind of god than none at all. There have been many surveys that indicate this.

However, it does not follow that the “odds are in their favor”. What empirical evidence can you provide for this conclusion?

Again, what collaborating evidence can you provide to show your statement “The chances of the minority being right are slim to none.” has any merit?

By making conclusions and statements like this without supportive evidence is misleading at best and down right manipulative at worse.

Anonymous wrote (to Mr. Mark): "Grow up. Your the childish one. The reason you dont believe is because you dont think outside the box. The thought of a higher power, the thought that one spirit, one being is responsible for us being here today, for this magnificent and wonderul world.

You people ( not necessarily you) believe it is all science. That, my friends, is the easy way out of it. Thats the "logical" way of thinking about it. That is thinking inside the box. You can't wrap you head around the idea that something much more powerful, something much more wonderful is responsible. Try thinking outside the box for once."

OK then... I can see that you're going with the belief that a cosmic Jewish zombie, who is his own father, can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...

and...

*  a universe in which all that exists are the earth and heaven
*  solid 'firmament' structure (the sky) separating the earth from heaven (terrarium earth)
*  talking snakes (with legs) and donkeys
*  shepherd staff turning into an asp
*  demons chased out of people and into pigs
* woman turning into a pillar of salt
*  friendly spirits
*  evil spirits
*  walking on water
*  multiplying loaves and fishes
*  food falling from the sky
*  conception by a child-molesting ghost
*  people raising from the dead
*  the sun stopping in its tracks
*  parting the sea
*  people being bodily sucked up into heaven (which, by the way, lies on the 'other side' of the sky)
*  world-wide flood that drowned the earth to a depth of 40 feet above the tallest mountain
*  creating people from dust bunnies and ribs
*  magical tree of knowledge
*  god speaking from a burning bush
*  ritual cannibalism, by eating god in the form of a cracker (thank you Sam)

... and you think that there's something wrong with people who DON'T believe such nonsense.

BWaaaaahahahaha....

I sure hope that you are not in a position that allows you to influence the vulnerable minds of impressionable young children.

"When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion." ~ Robert M. Pirsig

Dear Anon -

There are 6 billion people on this planet. Only 2 billion are Xians. Ergo, 4 billion people don't believe the same way as do Xians. Xians are in the minority.

16% of people in the world are self-identified non-believers. That's roughly one billion people. Ergo, there are half as many non-believers in the world as there are Xians. Who woulda thunk it?

The next-largest group of religionists are Muslims who account for 21% of the world's population. Islam is the world's fastest-growing religion. By your logic, once Islam surpasses Xianity in sheer numbers, it will be the "correct" religion and Xianity will be just another minority status false religion.

Of course, all of this is quite meaningless. Being in the majority hardly means that you're "right." Most Americans thought Saddam had WMD because bush and powell told their lies. Most Americans thought slavery was A-OK. Same with denying women the vote.

Majority status is fluid. I wouldn't be hooking religion's star to majority status if I were you.

Ben wrote: "Duckphup, So you're a historian, speech reader, mind reader and scientist now! Excellent! Kudos! After I read your original response to C_MAT and saw all the atrocities you listed committed by Christians, it appears you seem to want to take it all back in your second! Great!"

So, Ben... it seems like you've got a problem with reading comprehension. Anything else we should be aware of? Gullibility, maybe?

Ben wrote: "Duckphup, So you're a historian, speech reader, mind reader and scientist now! Excellent! Kudos! After I read your original response to C_MAT and saw all the atrocities you listed committed by Christians, it appears you seem to want to take it all back in your second! Great!"

So, Ben... it seems like you've got a problem with reading comprehension. Anything else we should be aware of? Gullibility, maybe?

Anonymous :

Most people used to believe the world was flat. didn't make it true.

It's funny that on the one hand you say Mr. Mark must be wrong because he doesn't conform to majority opinion, then turn around and mock him for not "thinking outside the box." Well, which do you want?

And, having once been a believer myself I have to tell you,be careful about calling people liars. I don't know Mr. Mark, but I can assure you that my faith at one time was most sincere. I know it's hard, and perhaps a bit frightening, for someone who believes as you do to accept that honest, sincere faith can fade away but it can. Getting angry and calling people liars won't change that either.

Regards

A Hermit

Mr.Mark:
You just said it. Ha!
"the majority of the world's adults"

The majority.
Which means you, the anti-theist (i believe thats what you called yourself), are the minority.

More people believe in some kind of God than none at all. The odds are in their favor. The chances of the minority being right are slim to none.

You are a self righteous, ignorant, sad little person. You say you use to believe. Ha! You never believed. You may have said you believed, but you were just lying to yourself and everyone else you told.

Grow up. Your the childish one. The reason you dont believe is because you dont think outside the box. The thought of a higher power, the thought that one spirit, one being is responsible for us being here today, for this magnificent and wonderul world.
You people ( not necessarily you) believe it is all science. That, my friends, is the easy way out of it. Thats the "logical" way of thinking about it. That is thinking inside the box. You can't wrap you head around the idea that something much more powerful, something much more wonderful is responsible. Try thinking outside the box for once.

"Mr. Mark && Lep:
Just a question.
Have you guys ever tried to think out of the box?
Seriously?
It might help you out a little.

You people can't wrap your tiny little minds around anything except what you already *think* you know."

The second the religionists present a box that's worth considering, I'll consider it.

Look, I have two young kids, so I'm well acquainted with the kind of "arguments" and "proofs" you religionists present on this board. As we use to say in NYC, "that and a subway token will get you downtown."

Now, if you're talking about philosophical boxes, there are far more-interesting and compelling philosophies to consider than the trite and barbarous philosophies offered by Xianity and the world's other major religions. I would only mention the philosophy of democracy, which is no where to be found in the servile, kingdom-and-caste-system-based religions like Xianity, where man has no freedom and no voice in his life or his future.

I'll be happy when the majority of the world's adults finally grow up and chuck the childishness that is belief in god in any and all its forms. That's something my tiny mind can wrap itself around any day of the week.

Justin, good question, but I think you should ask someone who actually responds, rather than a god. So, I will send a good response to it in place of gods because, after all, I am a human and we created gods as we saw fit. Here you go:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB040.html

But the man is living in the senseful universe at least during his so called earthly life. Idealism was unable to explain it in detail specially because for them it was not real but unreal, imperfect and sinful. Materialism and Empirism -the father of the scientific method-, on the other hand, were more wise. Materialism calling specially for an unique universe and Empirism limiting the concept of existence to that senseful sinful universe. Still today the Xian religion is in hands of the idealist influence while materialism and emprirism are growing. Error.

It is not known with certainty that on The Day of Judgment, I will be selected, for no man can know for sure. If I fail then my prayer is that the next soul in line succeed.

Today my question for God, is why left handed amino acids and not right handed amino acids?

Isaiah 30:18 And therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the LORD [is] a God of judgment: blessed [are] all they that wait for him.

Third. After Saint Agustine the Xian Religion received the influence of Saint Tomas de Aquino. He was aristotelian. The thing in itself being unique is not already inmutable. Things change because there are different causes governing such movement. A cause becomes an effect and the effect another possible cause. In order to postulate this dynamic idealism, Arsitotele imposed a condition. There had to exist the first cause which was not caused by any other. The motionless motor. This was God for Saint Thomas and he tried to show how he can break any infinite sequence cause-effect.

To be continued.

I have heard it said that faith can move mountains. However, I have never seen or heard of a mountain being moved through faith.

Faith in heaven or hell does not make it so. If a heaven or hell truly existed then we might expect some empirical evidence to have surfaced by now.

If there is a god out there that has to cajole its followers with a heaven to love it or a hell to fear it then that is an insecure pathetic being.

Any god worth its salt would have no need of a carrot and stick approach to get its creation to respect and love it. Any real god would just come forward in a rational manner and interact with its creation in a rational and straight forward manner.

All of the gods that history has presented for our approval so far have been aloft and mysterious. Each one hiding behind myths and potentates who claim to speak in its name.

How can anyone have any respect for a god that is afraid to directly confront its creation or one that threatens its creation with hell?

The anonymous person with the sneaky daughter was me.

First. Xian religion was built along centuries based on external influences but wanting to show inmutability. Second. For those asking for facts. Religion is at the level of the metaphysics and not the scientific method. Metaphysics deals with the definition of fact itself. Which is a fact? Which is really the first reality? The Being? The dynamism? Is real what our senses show us? At the level of metaphysics there are several different approachs. Basicly Idealism, Materialism and Empirism. Idealism speaks about an only real universe out of the reach of our senses where Ideas -the thing in itself being unique and inmutable- reside. Ideas are facts. Senseful perceptions are deceit and unreality. This was the main external influence Xian Religion suffered on hands of Saint Augustine of Hyppo. ...

To be continued.

Duckphup,

So you're a historian, speech reader, mind reader and scientist now! Excellent! Kudos! After I read your original response to C_MAT and saw all the atrocities you listed committed by Christians, it appears you seem to want to take it all back in your second! Great!

Everyone, can we please have some real discussion here instead of just hurling nasty personal insults at each other?

Bert: "The intellectually proud refuse to believe that which they cannot understand."

For me to beleive something, it must make sense to me. It must stand to reason. For example, when my daughter was grounded from using the computer, and my husband got up during hte night to find her sitting at his desk, she swore that she was not using his computer, that she had been looking for his stapler. It made no sense for her to be at his desk in the middle of the night to find a stapler. Because her story did not make sense, I did not believe it. And a minute later, when the printer spit out a photograph of her boyfriend, she was busted.

The Christian religion as a whole does not makes sense to me. So I cannot believe it.
There are parts that do - the whole "feed the hungry, clothe the naked, don't murder, perjure, or steal" bit makes sense, and I practice that. It's also not uniquely Christian.
The idea of atonement theology makes no sense to me. Punishing the innocent for the sins of the guilty accomplishe nothing except harming an innocent, thereby creating another guilty person.
The Fall makes no sense to me - why should I be held responsible for something that supposedly happened millenia befgore I was born? I didn't eat the fekking apple.

Anon: What box would that be? Logic? Reason? Darn good boxes, those.

Hell - I do not. Good heavens - what a question.

Hell - I do not. Good heavens - what a question.

Hell - I do not. Good heavens - what a question.

Hell - I do not. Good heavens - what a question.

Bert- You took a long time to say what you said, but it's broken down in your first paragraph. It's a simple matter to prove that there's error in the bible. Nobody that's read the whole thing and has full comprehension of geology can believe everything is literally true. Don't assume to know things when in fact the question was about belief, not knowledge.

To understand the truths of Heaven and Hell, one must first begin with the knowledge that the Holy Bible, from Genesis through Revelation, is true. The paradox is that it is impossible to fully believe this until one has come into a personal knowledge of God, through His Son (John 3:1-8). As Frank Constantino, former gangster turned pastor, once said “Believing the Bible is easy after one has encountered the resurrected Christ.” The truth of his words are simple yet profound, and are understood by all who have fully surrendered to and encountered “the Word [Who] became human” (John 1:14).

Transcendent truth does not come through intellectual accent. It comes through Divine revelation.
We see this in Christ's response to Peter's confession in Matthew 16:16-17, “Simon Peter answered, 'You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.' Jesus answered, You are blessed, Simon son of John, because my Father in Heaven has revealed this to you. You did not learn this from any human being.'”

The Bible is a sealed book to the unconverted. It is akin to a man blind from birth vainly trying to understand and describe the beauty and majesty of the Swiss Alps. It is like attempting to understand the meals of a gourmet menu, when one has never tasted the recipes, ingredients, nor anything remotely similar. Having no experiential knowledge of the Living Word, Who is Christ Jesus Himself, their knowledge of the written Word is at best limited to certain rudimentary truths and perhaps to what others have have told them. 1 Corinthians 2:14 (NKJ) declares, “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

I have learned that truth is not relative. Truth is truth and it is absolute. Those who deny, and attempt to suppress the truth, will often be offended by it.

I have learned that Heaven and Hell are real. Our decisions now, regarding Christ, not only affect how we live today, they will determine where we spend eternity. No one can truly appreciate what God has saved them for, until they first truly understand what God has saved them from.

God deeply loves people. It is for this reason that He went to the ultimate extreme, to purchase eternal salvation for all who would humbly and willingly receive it. The most well know verses in the Bible state this clearly, “For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.”

“For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge (to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on) the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him”

“He who believes in Him [who clings to, trusts in, relies on] is not judged [he who trust in Him never comes up for judgment; for him there is no rejection, no condemnation – he incurs no damnation]; but he who does not believe (cleave to, rely on, trust in Him) is judged already [he has already been convicted and has already received his sentence] because he has not believed in and trusted in the name of the only begotten Son of God. [He is condemned for refusing to trust in Christ's name].”

“The [basis of the] judgment (indictment, the test by which men are judged, the ground for the sentence) lies in this: the Light has come into the world, and the people have loved the darkness rather than and more than the Light , for their works (deeds) were evil [Isaiah 5:20].” -- John 3:16-19 AMP

Romans 3:23 (NKJ) tells us that, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,..” Isaiah 64:6 tells us that even our attempts at good deeds, in comparison with God’s Holiness, are as filthy rags in His sight. Attempting to save ourselves is an affront to God’s Holiness.

While good deeds are repeatedly emphasized, in Scripture, they are never mentioned as a means of salvation. Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” The Bible tells us that if we could be saved through self effort then Christ died in vain.

Jesus Christ and His completed work on the Cross is God’s sole, and unique provision, of salvation for all of humanity. The Bible tells us that, “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12 NKJ)

The Bible teaches that Christ is the razors edge Who will, one day, separate all of humanity, for all of eternity. He will separate those who have dismissed Him from those who have wholeheartedly trusted in Him alone. In John 14:6 (NKJ), Jesus Himself declares, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

Hebrews 2:3-4 (NLT) offers a solemn warning; “What makes us think that we can escape if we are indifferent to this great salvation that was announced by the Lord Jesus himself? It was passed on to us by those who heard him speak, and God verified the message by signs and wonders and various miracles and by giving gifts of the Holy Spirit whenever he chose to do so.”

The way of Salvation is not easy, but the rewards, now and throughout eternity, of walking with and serving Christ, far out way the difficulties. Those who have come to Christ are like salmon swimming up river, going against the current, resisting the easy way, and overcoming difficulties, as they journey Home. Those who do not know Christ are like the fish who are carried by the currents downstream, away from Home. They have chosen the easy way, the way of the world, the broad way, the way of the majority. In Matthew 7:13-14, Jesus gives a solemn warning; “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

I have seen the reconfirmation that, although men have freewill, no one can become a follower of Christ unless the Father draws that person to Christ. This is a totally supernatural work of God, without which salvation is not possible.

I personally believe that God tugs on the hearts of all people, at various times during their lives. If they follow the lead of the Holy Spirit’s promptings, then the Biblical Jesus of Nazareth will somehow be revealed to them. This is in spite of the fact as to whether or not they have ever heard of Jesus. The Bible tells of a Roman soldier named Cornelius, who sought God with his whole heart and God’s only provision of salvation, through Christ Jesus, was revealed to him. Salvations like this have occurred throughout history, into the present. God says in Jeremiah 29:13, “And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.”

I have learned that the primary thing that keeps those, who have heard the Gospel, from coming to a saving knowledge of Christ is pride. For many it is the pride of self sufficiency, and independence. It is the smug feeling that that they are a good person and for this reason they feel that they deserve Heaven.
It is the self righteous belief that God's requirement of perfect righteousness, can be achieved through self effort.

The Bible clearly teaches that, with regard to our eternal destiny, God does not grade on a bell curve. He does not weigh our good deeds against our bad. The Scriptures teach that His standard, and requirement, for salvation is absolute perfection.

None of us can say that we have lived a perfect life. What man is there who has flawlessly kept the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:11-17). Who can honestly say that, at some point in their life, they have never told a lie, never stolen anything, never coveted something that was not theirs, or broken any of the other commandments. The Bible teaches that even if we were able to keep the entire Ten Commandments yet fail at just one point, in God’s eyes, we would be guilty of breaking all of them. (James 2:10).

Jesus taught that when measured with God’s standard of perfection, there is none good but God (Luke 18:19). For this reason, eternal redemption can only come through One Who is perfect, and that by God Himself.

Some are more concerned with what others will think, than they are of what God thinks, and of what He has plainly declared in His Holy Word. They fear the words and the opinions of those who are outside of Christ. They fear being labeled a “religious fanatic”, a “Jesus freak”, or any of a host of other labels that some might place on them.

Proverbs 29:29 (NKJ) declares that, “The fear of man brings a snare, But whoever trusts in the LORD shall be safe.” Proverbs 14:27 (NKJ) tells us that, “The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, to turn one away from the snares of death.”

True wisdom and life begins when one is more concerned with what God thinks and has revealed, than the opinions of others, which are not in accordance with God’s will and His Word.

The fear of God is not a sense of dread concerning God, as a frightened child might feel toward an abusive parent. Rather, it is a, deep, reverential sense of awe and respect toward God, Who has been revealed as a loving and just Father.

In his classic hymn, “Amazing Grace”, John Newton writes “It was grace that taught my heart to fear...” It is a true fear of God that brings one into a authentic knowledge of God. Proverbs 1:7, (NKJ) tells us that “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge.”

For others, the barrier that prevents them from coming to Christ is intellectual pride. This includes those who know about Christ, but they do not know Him, personally and intimately. They know about Him, as one might know about Abraham Lincoln, or about George Washington. They know about Him because they have heard of Him and they have read about Him, yet because of their pride, they cannot truly know Him. The Bible teaches that God resists the proud, yet gives His grace to the humble (1 Peter 5:5).

The intellectually proud refuse to believe that which they cannot understand. They fail to realize that finite man cannot fully understand God, Who is infinite. It has been said that a god who can be understood, can be controlled. And if he can be controlled, then he is not God.

They fail to understand Biblical truths and patterns that are often times, paradoxical. The Scripture is filled with paradoxes, such as “...the last will be first, and the first last....” (Matthew 20:16, NKJ) and “If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and the servant of all.” (Mark 9:35, NKJ).

The attitude of the intellectually proud is, “Unless I see, I will not believe.” They fail to realize that unless they believe, they will never see. It is simple childlike faith that brings one into a saving knowledge of Christ, and that only by God’s grace.

The primary characteristic of God is love. God's love arrests. And until one has been arrested by the love of God, one cannot fully know God.

The great 15th century mathematical genius, inventor, and physicist Blaise Pascal was converted to Christ in his mid thirties. In his writings he made several profound statements concerning these things. Pascal writes “The heart has it’s reasons, that reason does not know.”

Pascal goes on to write, “Do not be surprised at the sight of simple people who believe without argument. God makes them love Him and hate themselves [their sinful nature]. He inclines their hearts to believe. We shall never believe with a vigorous unquestioning faith unless God touches our hearts; and we shall believe as soon as He does so.” (The History of Christianity, Editor: Tim Dowley, Lion Publishing, 1977)

Mr. Mark && Lep:
Just a question.
Have you guys ever tried to think out of the box?
Seriously?
It might help you out a little.

You people can't wrap your tiny little minds around anything except what you already *think* you know.

But Mr. X is right, let's get back to the real topic. Other people who've not yet posted, please share your ideas and beliefs. Don't say what you know, because that has nothing to do with afterlife belief. Be safe and courteous and try not to look too dumb.

In fact, if you look at the root word for religion, it derives from Christian monks. I'm surprised that any theist is scared of that word. It's just the truth. Atheism though obviously does not involve an inherent obligation or reverence. Atheism is a belief, not a religion. Evolution is a scientific theory, not just a belief or a religion, just to further counter the guy who was claiming that earlier. You don't need to believe evolution, you can get evidence for it. You don't rely on atheism or revere atheism, nor do you have obligations to it, like you do in religion. I wonder if anon wasn't just some guy trying to make theists look bad, because it totally worked to do so.

It's sad to hear that, in the 21st century, this question even needs to be asked. In the age of science and knowledge, it ought to be intellectually embarrassing to admit that one believes in such obviously man-made and self-centered myths, when an alternative worldview is available and is much more likely to be true.

It is about time for humanity to grow up and drop the infantile and self-serving fantasy that the universe is designed with you and me in mind, when all evidence are suggesting the otherwise.

On the up side, the comments posted here suggest there may be more rational and sane people than the mainstream media dares to represent.

Keep up the good fight, my fellow humans.

Sorry, that rebuttal to anonymous was me. Usually this page keeps my name/email field the same.

Anon: **Christiantity has been around a lot longer than dictionaries.
So the definition of religion came AFTER christianity, so no religion is the defition of christianity.**

Let's try that with some word substitutions and see how it flies, shall we? Substituting various specifics for Christinaity and their corresponding general terms for religion:

Boots have been around a lot longer than dictionaries. So the definition of footwear came AFTER boots, so no footwear is the definition of boots.

Houses have been around a lot longer than dictionaries. So the definition of shelter came AFTER houses, so no shelter is the definition of houses.

Children have been around a lot longer than dictionaries. So the definition of person came AFTER children, so no person is the definition of child.

Just as boots are a specific form of footwear, houses are a specific form of shelter, and children are a specific form of person, Christianity is a specific form of religion.

anonymous-

It is beyond clear you don't know anything about words. I'm not sure what defitions are, but I just looked up 9 defINitions of religion:

1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
2. a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion.
3. the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices: a world council of religions.

Those are the top 3 for dictionary.com

Here's what Oxford says:

the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods. 2 a particular system of faith and worship. 3 a pursuit or interest followed with devotion.

— ORIGIN originally in the sense life under monastic vows: from Latin religio ‘obligation, reverence’.

Do any of these NOT apply to Christians, especially the one that cites it as an example of religion? In fact only one has to apply for it to be true, but they all do apply.

Christiantity has been around a lot longer than dictionaries.
So the definition of religion came AFTER christianity, so no religion is the defition of christianity.
There are more than one defitions for religion. You just happen to choose that particular one. Try some of the others. See if they fit in what you just said. they wont.

I wonder how many Xians on this board would subscribe to the following description I found to describe their faith:

" the service and worship of God or the supernatural; commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance; a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith."

Sounds like a pretty good description of what the Xians on this board profess.

It also happens to be the dictionary definition of the word, "Religion."

I've asked this question before on this blog, but I'll ask it again: why are religionists - particularly Xians - running away from the word "religion?" Every Xian I know has some version of the saying, "religion was invented by man. Xianity isn't religion." Yet if one looks at the dictionary definition, Xian belief is the very definition of religion.

Time to embrace the horror, kids. Your claiming that Xianity isn't a religion is akin to a scientist saying that the development of the A-bomb didn't involve science (or saying that the scientists who developed a destructive device like the A-Bomb "weren't real scientists.")

Enough with the special pleading and the rank excuses for your religion and its adherents. Learn to embrace the good along with the bad. It might give you some credibility - ANY credibility - with the non-religious posters on this blog.

TONIO:

Great post.......

No loving god could possible threaten anyone with damnation in hell.

People who use hell as a threat or a curse against the non-believer are hypocrites with black hearts.

E FAVORITE wrote: "Meanwhile, please check out the Jesus article - I'd like your feedback on it."

I did. What it brings to mind is Orwell's classic 1984... in particular, 'newspeak' and 'doublethink'. It is worth Googling for those terms.

It has been a very long time since I read 1984... I read it long before I had a deep understanding of the true nature of religious 'belief' (willful ignorance and self-delusion), and the genuinely frightening implications of it. I think it may be time for me to read 1984 again, and see if any additinal insights might be gained from it, considering my matured perspective.

I am beginning to wonder whether religion was what Orwell had in mind when he wrote it... and whether the 'government' angle was just a metaphor. We may soon find out for real, if the 'dominionists' succeed... and they sure seem to have been successful so-far.

E FAVORITE wrote: "Meanwhile, please check out the Jesus article - I'd like your feedback on it."

I did. What it brings to mind is Orwell's classic 1984... in particular, 'newspeak' and 'doublethink'. It is worth Googling for those terms.

It has been a very long time since I read 1984... I read it long before I had a deep understanding of the true nature of religious 'belief' (willful ignorance and self-delusion), and the genuinely frightening implications of it. I think it may be time for me to read 1984 again, and see if any additinal insights might be gained from it, considering my matured perspective.

I am beginning to wonder whether religion was what Orwell had in mind when he wrote it... and whether the 'government' angle was just a metaphor. We may soon find out for real, if the 'dominionists' succeed... and they sure seem to have been successful so-far.

Belief does not make anything fact. Just because one may believe in heaven and/or hell does not make it so.

I can not concern myself with heaven or hell until someone can provide verifiable proof of their existence. I suspect this will never happen.

And then again, if heaven or hell does exist then this would show god to be a daemon in disguise.

No loving creature could send anyone to an everlasting hell fire. Such a punishment is way out of line for any crime that could be committed by any human being in the short time we each have on this rock. Even imperfect human justice holds that the punishment should fit the crime.

If the good are sent to heaven, then what? The good will praise some egomaniac god for eternity?

While it may be a relief to dodge the fires of hell, singing the praises of a high and mighty god it will get very boring after a few millennia. Boredom for an eternity can be a hell onto itself.

So with heaven and hell and an arrogant self-righteous god making the call it is a loose-loose proposition no matter which way you go. In heaven it would just take a little longer to reach the realization that you have been had.

I just sent a email to David Waters, the producer of this site. His email link can be found at the bottom of this page. For anyone who might be motivated to send along an endorsement... it probably wouldn't hurt.

***************

I would like to submit a humble suggestion... start up a NEW web site titled 'On Reason', as a counterweight to 'On Faith'. There are several luminaries who might be interested in participating by fulfilling the functions of Jon Meacham and Sally Quinn... for example, you might ask:

Sam Harris
Christopher Hitchins
Richard Dawkins
Daniel Dennett
James Randi
Penn and Teller
Michael Shermer

I am sure that they would have no trouble filling-out a list of suitable panelists.

To the person who suggested that non-Christians read Josh McDowell's books, because McDowell set out to disprove Chistiianity and ended up converting:

At the request of a well-meaning, if slightly over-zealous Christian friend of mine, I read a couple of McDowell's books, and he uses the same circular logic I see being used here.
In "Evidence that Demands a Verdict" he quotes one scripture to prove another. In other words, he claims that the Bible is true because the Bible says it is true.

Early on in "More than a Carpenter," he basically makes the claim that Jesus must have been the Messiah, because he said he was and Jesus wouldn't lie. And how do we "know" that he said he was? Because we read it in the Bible.

Chasing your own tail is amusing when a dog does it, but when a person does it, it's just pathetic.

If you read the Bible carefully from beginning to end you will find that everybody goes to "Hell" when they die and nobody goes to "Heaven". In the King James Version of the bible, the Hebrew word “sheol” is translated into "hell" 31 times. The Greek word "Hades" is used in the New Testament 11 times and in all but one place it is translated into "hell". The problem is that both sheol and hades mean "the grave". You go to the grave when you die. The bible itself says that the dead know nothing. No pain, no torture. The dead are awaiting a resurrection.

Unfortunately, our concept of Heaven and Hell comes the same way many of us learn history - from novels, plays, and movies where fiction is added for "dramatic effect". The bible's “hell” is nothing like Dante's "Divine Comedy".

If you want to read about the real truth about Heaven and Hell I suggest you read the following short booklets at the web site below. They are short and easy to read and will answer such as questions as "What will we do for the first trillion years? Or the second...?".

http://www.ucg.org/booklets/

The booklets to read are:

What Happens After Death?
Heaven And Hell: What Does the Bible Really Teach?

Just kidding, I'm actually E FAVORITE, seeing if it's possible to post in Meacham's name.

Duckphup - I saw that earlier post and figured it was a hoax. I doubt a responsible journalist would pose such a question under his own name.

Meanwhile, please check out the Jesus article - I'd like your feedback on it.

I don't know if there is a heaven or hell, or even if god exists, but if he does, he has a number of things to answer for when I get up there...

To begin with,

1. Why couldn't broccoli taste like pizza?
2. People should get out of shape if they work out, not the other way round ... (people that enjoy working out should pay a price....:-)

I have a number of other issues as well....

Chuck

Oops - my power blinked, and I didn't think the first post had gone thru.

BOB:

Interesting angle. I'm calling my friendly neighborhood literary purveyor to order those books for me. Thanks.

Bob:

Interesting angle. I'm calling my friendly neighborhood literary purveyor to order those titles. Thanks.

The central question to the inquiry into an "afterlife" is the determination of the nature of eternity. It appears that most people who are discussing this topic are presuming a "Newtonian" view of absolute time and excluding from the discussion the theory of absolute space-time as espoused by Einstein and Minkowski. While I will not attempt to explain the intricacies of the theories of relativity, suffice it to say that Einstein thought that past, present and future are illusions. Every moment of spacetime is a timeless entity in and of itself.
Eternity may not be endless time as many commentors have expressed. Instead, eternity may be the timelessness of each moment which never "passes away" from the overall existence within absolute spacetime. Therefore, if eternity is timelessness and our conscious experiences are eternal, then our actions and thoughts exist in this timeless eternity.
We have evolved to psychologically misinterpret much of "true" physical reality as Einstein and his progeny have expressed in not only the theories of relativity but also in quantum mechanics. (Suggested reading: The Fabric of the Cosmos by physicist Brian Greene; The Self Aware Universe by physicist Amit Goswami)
If all of our conscious moments are timeless and, therefore, part of the great timeless whole or oneness, then how do our thoughts and actions affect our own "heaven" or "hell"? Do our selfish thoughts and actions "send" us to "hell" for that eternal timeless moment? Do our selfless, altruistic thoughts and actions "send" us to "heaven" for that eternal timeless moment?
These questions cannot be fully answered in this lifetime by someone like me. However, if you look at the essence of the teachings of all of the great spiritual teachers throughout history, you will find the answer to the question of how to act and think in every moment of your life.

Sabrina:**Every organized religion claims that theirs is the One True God.**

Actaully, that's not true. The UU church I attend takes the position that all faiths are valid paths to the divine, and that the experience o f god is a highly subjective one. In other words, all gods are the One True God and no god is the One True God.

**I do feel badly for those who have posted that there is no God. I just turned 30 and I can't imagine life without a miracle or an unbelieveable coincidence that can't be explained.**

Where do you get the idea that atheists have no sense of awe and wonder? Scroll down and read some of the posts by GhostBuster and A Hermit.

E favorite wrote: "Duckphup, Mr Mark, et al -- While googling for something else, I found this: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6653842/site/newsweek/ - an article about the historical Jesus written by Jon Meacham (our forum co-host) for the December 13th edition of Newsweek, 2004."

Jon Meacham also popped up in here a few days ago, asking (snidely and sarcastically) "Atheist Posters: Please use your critical thinking to; Tell me why the Muslim panelists have (up to this point) not posted to explain Islam's take on Heaven and Hell."

Well, I answered him (July 2, 2007 8:05 AM)... yet he deigned not to even acknowledge the response. What's the matter, Jon? Cat got your tongue?

I'm not very much impressed with Meacham.

Justin: " God creates all things even people like we are who must choose between good and evil."

God did not create me. My parents did. I know this because I have my dad's eyes and nose, and my mom's cheekbones as well as her maxillary diastema.

God did not create my daughter. Her dad and I did. I know this because I was present at the conception, I saw my abdomen expand as she grew in my uterus, and I have vivid memories of the labor and delivery.

Duckphup, Mr Mark, et al -- While googling for something else, I found this: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6653842/site/newsweek/ - an article about the historical Jesus written by Jon Meacham (our forum co-host) for the December 13th edition of Newsweek, 2004. It’s called “The Birth of Jesus - From Mary to the manger, how the Gospels mix faith and history to tell the Christmas story and make the case for Christ.” A better title would have been “how the Gospels mix faith and MYTH….” but then there probably would have been many fewer readers. As it is, it only got a rating of 2 out of 5 from the 22 online readers who rated it. I can see why. Assuming a typical bunch of Christians expecting a heartwarming Christmas story, this piece must have come as quite a shock. It actually discusses what all biblical scholars and mainline seminary-trained clergy know about Jesus – the birth story was added after the really big story (resurrection), and is taken from earlier pagan myths.

The big question in my mind is how clergy can know this and still preach the Christmas story as if it actually happened, chapter and verse. All you church-goers out there – I suggest you down load the article, read it, then discuss it the your priest or minister. I’d love to hear their spin.

Another question – how can clergy (and Meacham) know all this and still “believe” in Christ as their savior?

That explanation, which I trust they have, will involve a lot of fancy footwork - which I also trust they have.

PS - Thanks Jon Meacham, for writing and publishing this piece - whatever your motives.

Quintin: **We have but one purpose... to serve, praise, and exalt God. Our feelings, our beliefs, our wantings to be happy, are all secondary to our service to God. We were "put" here. We were put here to praise God, everyday, without fail.**

Is your god really so egotistical and self-centered as to create an entire universe, populate it with intelligent beings, just so they could dedicate their entire lives to telling him how wonderful her is, even at the cost of their own happiness?

When I decided to have a baby, I didn't do it so that she could tell me how wonderful I was. I did it because I wanted to share my love and my life with this child. Parents put their children's needs and their children's happiness at a higher priority than their own. Sounds like your heavenly father could use some parenting classes.

I believe that after we die, there is indeed something. Other people. Plants, animals, and perhaps beings on other planets. They will still be here after any individual is gone (unless we do in our planet.)

So we owe it to the others, so far as we are able, to try to make it a better place. Some of us believe in the worth of others.

Morality based upon fear of punishment is appropriate for 2-year-olds. In fact, much of religion would not be believed if only we didn't drill it into 2-year-olds with no critical thinking skills.

Duckphup - terrific - as usual.

I hope you also detected the onslaught of skeptics. They seem to have come out of the woodwork too.

If school were still in session, I'd suspect a contest between between believing and non-believing students to see who was best at making their point.

C_MAT wrote: "My comment about pre-Christian times was only to look at the influence that "Christianity" had on Europe and to address the issue of "religious" inspiration. Of course Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism have also had positive values, and I never questioned that. So I'm sorry about the confusion there (Duckphup too)."

There was no confusion. The 'influence' that you referred to was not the ACTUAL influence it had... it was the apologist misrepresentation of the actual influence it had upon history. It was REVISIONIST history.

C_MAT wrote: "Lastly, Duckphup thanks for your huge update on the history. I see the point you are trying to make and I agree with you that individual Christians have not always been the best examples of Christianity."

Now, C_MAT... this gives me pause. Before, I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, granting you the compliment of presuming that you were merely ignorant (lacking in knowledge), rather than stupid, insane or wicked (Richard Dawkins' list of alternatives). I made the presumption that you had merely come under the influence of the professional liars and spinmeisters in the service of christianism (apologists), and been mislead by them, as so many have... now, it occurs to me that you might actually BE one of them.

You see... I DID NOT SAY that "... individual Christians have not always been the best examples of Christianity." Yet, here you are, attributing something to me that I DID NOT SAY, and then 'agreeing' with it. Classic 'straw man'. From what I have seen of your writing, you seem to have some experience with spontaneously spinning of logical fallacies to advance your arguments in the face of intellectually unsophisticated readers, but... well... you need more practice.

No... I made it quite clear that it is systemic problem... and that the 'system' is christianism.

C_MAT wrote: "The Crusades are only one example. But why judge everyone else by the same standard?"

First of all, I did not mention the Crusades at all... but never mind that. The point is that the kind of thinking that led to the 'Dark Ages' (which I DID mention)... and the crusades... WAS the standard. The positive accomplishments of some christians during this period were the EXCEPTIONS... not the rule. Yet apologists insist upon focusing on these outlyers... abberations... exceptions... and declaring them to be shining examples of what christianity was all about.

C_MAT wrote: "Some parts of what you said are nonsensical. A big reason why we're flying planes today and reaching the stars is because of the printing press, not suppression by the Catholic church. Because we could accumulate information much faster and better and compare much more ease, we could enhance our ability to study and examine our world by several proportions."

Oh, twaddle. Were it not for christianity dragging humanity into the Dark Ages, I would deem it a certainty that someone would have developed moveable type 800 - to - 1000 years BEFORE Gutenberg did.

C_MAT wrote: "And regarding Muslims...may medieval Muslims were hospitable and sophisticated. And they still are! So were many Christians! Christians ... blah... disease... Wilberforce... Ben Franklin... Hitler... blah...food.. clothing... shelter... blah... Iraq... blah...Too many questions, but I personally believe that the cumulative good done by Christians will far outweigh the bad that only you can see in a few lines."

The best way to answer that is simply to quote Stephen Weinberg:

"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things... that takes religion." ~ Steven Weinberg, Freethought Today, April, 2000

Here's some advice: Do not go to scientific sources for information about religion. Do not go to religious sources for information about science.

And do not go to religious sources for information about history... even 'religious' history. Where religious institutions have archival information pertaining to their 'actual' history, it is generally inaccessible to 'real' historians, and to their 'flock'. Why? Because it is incompatible with and conflicts with the 'pseudo-history' that they have disseminated to the world.

Wow. Step away for a while, and look what happens. I can imagine an emergency email message going out to the 'fanatical rabid believer' network:

"Hey, brothers and sisters in Christ... this is a Call To Arms. Satan has taken over the response board for the current 'On Faith' question. There is great danger, because it looks like the most effective tools of our demonic enemy... knowledge and reason... are prevailing. Quickly... quickly... before it's too late... we must all rise up and bury this up-tick of sanity in a seething morass of mindless drivel, dogmatic slogans, irrelevant scriptural quotes and our own naive and childish testimonies. Hurry. This is a real emergency... we must intervene before someone accidently learns what 'critical thinking' is.

WARNING: Be careful that you don't actually READ anything that is written there... you don't want to give Satan a foothold in your mind. No... our mission is to simply bury this stuff in an ocean of vacuous nonsense, so that it becomes too much trouble for anyone to root out the individual messages which contain dreaded 'reason'.

A compilation of selected stories, the bible was written by men (or women), decades after Jezus lived. Do you recall what happened thirty or more years ago, even if you had met the person in the first place?
Religion is made up by man to control people. (Make sure you don't believe in any other God than myself.) Give them something to believe in and at the same time give them rules to live by (otherwise you'll burn in hell for eternity). What would you do?
Why do people still believe and follow those who spread these stories? Is it a way of feeling good about what you do, being saved and avoiding hell and damnation.
People act the way they do to avoid hell and not necessarily to be "good".

What a sad comment on the progress of human civilization that this question is being considered for discussion.

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky

Imagine all the people
Living for today

One cannot believe in heaven and not believe in hell. I believe in neither. Religion is man made, and I am a better, more open minded person for having abandoned it. I respect other people's beliefs and generally do not mention that I am an atheist because the religious are intolerant and will hold something like that against you. Religion is the biggest problem the world faces today. Without it, terrorists would have nothing to blow themselves up for, women would not be held down, and human rights would be less of an issue.

One cannot believe in heaven and not believe in hell. I believe in neither. Religion is man made, and I am a better, more open minded person for having abandoned it. I respect other people's beliefs and generally do not mention that I am an atheist because the religious are intolerant and will hold something like that against you. Religion is the biggest problem the world faces today. Without it, terrorists would have nothing to blow themselves up for, women would not be held down, and human rights would be less of an issue.

One cannot believe in heaven and not believe in hell. I believe in neither. Religion is man made, and I am a better, more open minded person for having abandoned it. I respect other people's beliefs and generally do not mention that I am an atheist because the religious are intolerant and will hold something like that against you. Religion is the biggest problem the world faces today. Without it, terrorists would have nothing to blow themselves up for, women would not be held down, and human rights would be less of an issue.

One cannot believe in heaven and not believe in hell. I believe in neither. Religion is man made, and I am a better, more open minded person for having abandoned it. I respect other people's beliefs and generally do not mention that I am an atheist because the religious are intolerant and will hold something like that against you. Religion is the biggest problem the world faces today. Without it, terrorists would have nothing to blow themselves up for, women would not be held down, and human rights would be less of an issue.

One cannot believe in heaven and not believe in hell. I believe in neither. Religion is man made, and I am a better, more open minded person for having abandoned it. I respect other people's beliefs and generally do not mention that I am an atheist because the religious are intolerant and will hold something like that against you. Religion is the biggest problem the world faces today. Without it, terrorists would have nothing to blow themselves up for, women would not be held down, and human rights would be less of an issue.

One cannot believe in heaven and not believe in hell. I believe in neither. Religion is man made, and I am a better, more open minded person for having abandoned it. I respect other people's beliefs and generally do not mention that I am an atheist because the religious are intolerant and will hold something like that against you. Religion is the biggest problem the world faces today. Without it, terrorists would have nothing to blow themselves up for, women would not be held down, and human rights would be less of an issue.

I don't believe in either as a real "place", but more a state of mind or being. When you die, you're dead...the only end peace is knowing you lived life well, and did the best you could, and WERE the best you could be.

One cannot believe in heaven and not believe in hell. I believe in neither. Religion is man made, and I am a better, more open minded person for having abandoned it. I respect other people's beliefs and generally do not mention that I am an atheist because the religious are intolerant and will hold something like that against you. Religion is the biggest problem the world faces today. Without it, terrorists would have nothing to blow themselves up for, women would not be held down, and human rights would be less of an issue.

One cannot believe in heaven and not believe in hell. I believe in neither. Religion is man made, and I am a better, more open minded person for having abandoned it. I respect other people's beliefs and generally do not mention that I am an atheist because the religious are intolerant and will hold something like that against you. Religion is the biggest problem the world faces today. Without it, terrorists would have nothing to blow themselves up for, women would not be held down, and human rights would be less of an issue.

I don't believe in either as a real "place", but more a state of mind or being. When you die, you're dead...the only end peace is knowing you lived it well, and did the best you could.

I don't believe in either as a real "place", but more a state of mind or being. When you die, you're dead...the only end peace is knowing you lived it well, and did the best you could.

I don't believe in either as a real "place", but more a state of mind or being. When you die, you're dead...the only end peace is knowing you lived it well.

One cannot believe in heaven and not believe in hell. I believe in neither. Religion is man made, and I am a better, more open minded person for having abandoned it. I respect other people's beliefs and generally do not mention that I am an atheist because the religious are intolerant and will hold something like that against you. Religion is the biggest problem the world faces today. Without it, terrorists would have nothing to blow themselves up for, women would not be held down, and human rights would be less of an issue.

One cannot believe in heaven and not believe in hell. I believe in neither. Religion is man made, and I am a better, more open minded person for having abandoned it. I respect other people's beliefs and generally do not mention that I am an atheist because the religious are intolerant and will hold something like that against you. Religion is the biggest problem the world faces today. Without it, terrorists would have nothing to blow themselves up for, women would not be held down, and human rights would be less of an issue.

Heaven or Hell?

Anyon who believes in Jesus, the bible, or any other prophet is either insane or hasn't researched their "faith" enough. Orrrrr isn't intelligent enough to realize that the bible and many other religious books were concocted centuries ago by superstitious, unenlightened men.

Think about this, what would you do in heaven after your first trillion years?
What about the second trillion?

3rd?

Would get kind of boring.....

Heaven or Hell?

Anyon who believes in Jesus, the bible, or any other prophet is either insane or hasn't researched their "faith" enough. Orrrrr isn't intelligent enough to realize that the bible and many other religious books were concocted centuries ago by superstitious, unenlightened men.

Think about this, what would you do in heaven after your first trillion years?
What about the second trillion?

3rd?

Would get kind of boring.....

Heaven or Hell?

Anyon who believes in Jesus, the bible, or any other prophet is either insane or hasn't researched their "faith" enough. Orrrrr isn't intelligent enough to realize that the bible and many other religious books were concocted centuries ago by superstitious, unenlightened men.

Think about this, what would you do in heaven after your first trillion years?
What about the second trillion?

3rd?

Would get kind of boring.....

whether there is a heaven or hell we won't know until we die so why worry about it when you are ALIVE!!!!....as for me, I'll take whatever comes because while I'm still alive on this Earth, I will live life to the fullest and not regret a thing....you might get by this posting that I am agnostic

Last post directed in direction of Stoney. Also, I've seen just as bad if not worse examples of zealots from england and australia. In fact, the news a day or so ago interviewed an englishman that believed all westerners should die. We must look beyond nation politics to unite against universal lack of knowledge. So no more America bashing. WE WON THE WAR! : P

Also everyone be patient and only hit the button once, and work on your grammar. Thanks!

I would rather live like there was a God and find out there wasn't--than to live like there wasn't and find out there was !!!

I feel sorry for anyone that does not my God--he is help me so much in life and with my Cancer. All you have to do is prayer and ask him to live in your heart and admit you are a sinner and he is there always----Cost is NOTHING the ONE thing on earth that is really free and is worth our lives
God Bless you all and I love ya
Robin Williams---Dayton,tx

I would rather live like there was a God and find out there wasn't--than to live like there wasn't and find out there was !!!

I feel sorry for anyone that does not my God--he is help me so much in life and with my Cancer. All you have to do is prayer and ask him to live in your heart and admit you are a sinner and he is there always----Cost is NOTHING the ONE thing on earth that is really free and is worth our lives
God Bless you all and I love ya
Robin Williams---Dayton,tx

I would rather live like there was a God and find out there wasn't--than to live like there wasn't and find out there was !!!

I feel sorry for anyone that does not my God--he is help me so much in life and with my Cancer. All you have to do is prayer and ask him to live in your heart and admit you are a sinner and he is there always----Cost is NOTHING the ONE thing on earth that is really free and is worth our lives
God Bless you all and I love ya
Robin Williams---Dayton,tx

Hey.... I'm an American. Yes we all live under a veil of shame due to the fact that our president isn't fluent in English or common sense, but I'm proud to be american, an atheist, and a scholar. I live in a blue (democrat) state. There's a distinction. Blues are more like Canada, Reds are more like....Texas. Hell is in Michigan. It's a nice place. Look it up. They have a buzzard festival. But that's the closest thing to hell or heaven that actually exists, I believe.

>Mike :

>To think that this universe just spontaneously >created itself is just ridicoulus.

'Amazing' how Christians come up with ignorant strawmen that can be dismissed with a handwave
but 'thinking' some magic critter mumbled a special bunch of words and manufactured the universe is the highest level of logic and reason.

>Doesn't the first law of Thermodynamics state >that energy can neither be created nor destroyed >and is in a constant state of equilibrium.

My understanding is the 'laws' of physics don't come into play until some 10 -47 seconds *after* an 'event.' {Language hasn't the concepts to deal with this as neither time nor casualty (such as it is) didn't exist until them}

>Whether you trust in evolution or the Bible >(which is historicly accurate)it takes Faith to >believe in either one.

Pig ignorance as well as bearing false witness. Please, Mike, get an education. Evolution occurs, that's a common fact seen on a daily basis. The theories try to explain the common observations.
There's nothing to 'trust.'

Every birth is objective supporting evidence for evolution as is the increasing ineffectiveness of antibiotics.

As for that wretched heap of stolen bronze age rubbish called "The Bible;" at best its a look into a barbarous ignorant bronze age culture.

Trust a Christian to proudly show his abject ignorance to the world. The 'Bible' is anything but accurate, historically, or otherwise.

Heck, a Superman[tm]/Wonder Woman[tm] comic book is a lot closer to reality. It's internal consistency 'runs rings' around the Babble and those characters are moral *and* lead by example.

>I bet all of those who don't believe in Heaven or >Hell have never truly studied the Bible.

Laughing at you, oh ignorant and casual bearer of false witness! And, yes, I did see the weasel word 'truely.'

>How can you discount something you have never >read?

Another casual and unrepentant bearing of false witness by a 'moral' Christian.

>We will never have all the answers we are looking >for but God has given us enough to know that He >created us and that the Bible is true.

Well, child, we've vastly answered past questions. More questions have been thought of and answered or are in the process of being answered. More information generates more questions and, sometimes, can be applied to other areas. But, yes, there are questions which no one currently alive will ever hear an answer for. "I don't know, but currently we think this based on..." That's an honest answer which doesn't bother adults. Mental toddlers have to create 'answers' to calm their fears.

Yeah, the Bible is 'true lies[tm]. As for your fantasy figure; well, it's *your* imaginary buddy, *your* book of rules (which you don't follow},
*you* go to Hell. And, yes, I am laughing and ridiculing you. Such is as you deserve. I see you continue to parade your invincible ignorance and casual bearing of false witness in your words below.

>So yes I believe that there is a Heaven and a >Hell,the Bible describes them both very well and >it is in your hands which one you chose.It takes >more Faith to believe in evolution than it does >the Bible.

{heavy sigh} Mental toddlers. And so many Americans can't figure out why they're a hefty laughing stock in the world. Michael's a perfect example.

[pats Michael on the head] That's nice child. Now run along and play in your sandbox and quit bothering the adults. Take your imaginary friend with you. That's a good lad.

>July 3, 2007 2:35 AM

I don't believe in a heaven or a hell or a god for that matter. The whole idea is very distasteful and irrational.

I don't believe in a heaven or a hell or a god for that matter. The whole idea is very distasteful and irrational.

I don't believe in a heaven or a hell or a god for that matter. The whole idea is very distasteful and irrational.

Good posting here so far.
Just a note on mechanics here

Quintin and Stoney, and potential posters too--

Push the button once. You don't need to post 5 copies of something, or even 2 copies of a really long thing.

Otherwise, people here seem to be relatively behaving themselves, few outright insults (try to keep it closer to none), a *few* people like I was when I first saw the board, confused by the fact that posts are added at the top and mandy, I don't think she has been watching this for days.

I just realized something.... The question is beyond bad. It asks for how you know something of what is distinctly a faith/belief question... Can't be done. Knowledge has to have proof, proof is not belief or faith. And how someone feels after death would definitely fall in the belief, rather than knowledge category. Aw sad, you'd think that professional questioners would be better at making non-false questions.

Oh well, life goes on

Not to pass too much judgement here, and the people I may be trying to talk to have probably gone to bed, but has it occurred to those that have "definitely felt" spirits of the dead, or have had near death experiences, that it could all be in your head. In fact, if something is seen by you but not the others around you, it in fact has to be in your head. Maybe it's a spirit, but maybe it's the fact that you have preconceived ideas in your brain before a traumatic event, and wishful memories for those you've lost. There's no feeling that you can have that your brain is incapable of manufacturing for you.

Personally I have many reasons to doubt any supernatural soul existing and living on. Life makes just as much sense without the afterlife.

Mike, your post will take a few paragraphs to correct here:

You're very very confused about science, and I'm sorry that you are. The big bang theory, not to dumb it down too much, but sufficed to say it relies on properties of the universe discovered after those laws of thermodynamics, and frankly, your belief that evolution has anything to do with the beginning of the universe is just wrong. And btw, there's no law of thermodynamics that says everything exists in equilibrium at all times. If that were true, nothing would move.

I get the feeling you're probably confused with the whole 2nd law too, as you think that it means evolution can't happen. Let me point out that if you take that law to mean what creationists think it means, grass is impossible to grow, computers are impossible to build, and crystals could never form.

To proclaim that the bible is historically accurate is a half truth. Almost all mythologies have part that is historical and part that is not. Take the norse eddas, there was an actual norse king in a battle fighting beside the gods. What's more, it doesn't take any faith at all to believe in evolution. You can test all parts of it, from genetic mutation, to whether our genes look like they would if evolution took place, to looking for and finding fossil links between evolutionary branches. This board isn't about evolution. It's not even about the big bang. It's about whether we believe there is a part of us not in the physical world, but which is part of who we are somehow, and which will or will not live on in some heaven or hell.

As to your bet that we atheists don't read the bible, wrong again, I'm afraid. It may surprise you to know that I actually have read many passages of the bible, know the history behind many of them, as well as the history of the bible as a whole. Probably a bit more than you do. I know of some of the cultures it derived from. I know some of the influences that have shaped it. Let me tell you, there's a huge pile of politics involved. I bet you don't even know who wrote it, who edited it, and what was changed in it to make it politically viable as well as to erase the obvious errors inherent in some of its passages. At one point there was even a babylonian mother goddess involved.

Finally, no no no, stop using the word know to describe a belief that has no evidence. And again, evolution takes only the amount of faith it takes to believe that the pictures used in scientific journals weren't made up. Even then, you could test by going into the same formations to find the fossils for yourself.

If your faith works for you, that's fine, but don't promote it as a knowledge, and don't decry science as a religion. Religion consists of 2 parts: mythology and ritual. Its rules vary from tradition to tradition.

Science consists of one part: experimentation, which has a given set of sub-parts. It only has one rule: that your hypothesis has to be testable/ falsifyable/ supportable. It has also only one untestable unprovable postulate: that things are repeatable. This is necessary in order to have experiments mean something. Hope this clears up the differences of science and religion for you and gets you on the path to not being so confused about what science is.

This board is for your beliefs, and why you believe them, not knowledge, not proof.

John! Good ideas, well presented. It appears you do understand what the question was about. I don't share them, but when you present them this way, they're more respectable.

I believe in both heaven and hell. I don't know the specifics of either. However, God is love and thus it makes sense that hell is an eternal existance without love. Heaven is thus an eternal existance with love and without suffering.

In the Bible it is written: Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6

I believe the only way to heaven is through Jesus, however I don't claim to fully understand what exactly this means. I realize there are billions of people who never hear of Jesus or for other reasons do not believe him to be the Lord. I know that God is a merciful and gracious god, and so I don't claim to understand how the finally judgement as to who must face hell will work. I do believe that any who accept Christ as Lord and Savior will be saved and experience everlasting life in heaven.

Also I realize that I will likely be mocked or my intelligance insulted for believing in what some non-believers have called silly cultural beliefs spawned from cavemen. There is not much I can say to you. I understand how people can interpret science as reason to not believe in God, but I know its possible to view science as a reinforcement for God. I believe God created the laws of physics (thus is not bound by them). I believe it's very possible that God used evolution as a way of creating man. I believe God is just that amazing that he created such a complex mindbending universe.

I'm not trying to convince you because you can't argue people into religion. I'm simply stating my beliefs and providing support as to why I hold them. It made me sad to read all of the posts insulting the belief in something bigger than ourselfs, something that's not fully explainable or cannot be solved by equations. I felt I had to post to represent those that do believe.

What all this leads to is why? Why do I believe. Why do I believe when it is so easy to cast off religion? I believe because God has impacted my life. My family didn't attend church, God brought a church into my life. God brought a loving community of supportive people who were nothing close to the negative sterotype Chrisitians. I grew with them, so many things became clear. I saw God working through people and through me. Jesus became real to me, I went from never hearing of the guy to accepting Him as my Lord. I'm a skeptical person, I study facts, I don't like getting involved with things in the first place and especially not if I don't know what I'm getting into. I did research, I read, I listened, I learned. I was blessed to have God present himself so clearly to me. I feel it is my duty to share my experience with others.

I could continue writing for a long time. This is not the place for it however. I recomend the book: The Case for Christ. Thank you for reading my somewhat of a rant response. I'm sorry for spelling and grammar errors. I will try to remember to check up on this site and respond to comments. I pray that you all get to the Lord who has so effected my life.

Heaven: no reasonable evidence
Hell: still no reasonable evidence
What is the evidence? The Bible? A collection of confused stories from a long line of plagiarized confused stories. Nothing original, nothing of supernatural origins.

Show me some empirical evidence. Anecdotal evidence it's not. Something like Carl Sagan's PI would be a great start.

To think that this universe just spontaneously created itself is just ridicoulus.Doesn't the first law of Thermodynamics state that energy can neither be created nor destroyed and is in a constant state of equilibrium.Whether you trust in evolution or the Bible (which is historicly accurate)it takes Faith to believe in either one.I bet all of those who don't believe in Heaven or Hell have never truly studied the Bible.How can you discount something you have never read?We will never have all the answers we are looking for but God has given us enough to know that He created us and that the Bible is true.So yes I believe that there is a Heaven and a Hell,the Bible describes them both very well and it is in your hands which one you chose.It takes more Faith to believe in evolution than it does the Bible.

Service to God... this is the reason for Heaven and Hell. They are our rewards for our service to God. We have but one purpose... to serve, praise, and exalt God. Our feelings, our beliefs, our wantings to be happy, are all secondary to our service to God. We were "put" here. We were put here to praise God, everyday, without fail. God is so worthy of our every attentive moment that we cannot fathom it. Yet all we cry for is more and more for ourselves, and we grow farther and farther from him. That's why Hell exists. A lot of people believe that the Muslim faith is fanatical because they always have their belief in God in all aspects of their lives, even politically, where we separate church and state. We should take a lesson, Heaven would be a lot fuller place.

It's extremely difficult for me to believe in anything that is based on an old book that a bunch of guys wrote a long long time ago. And, I would feel very foolish if I did. I also don't waste much time pondering this. However, I do pray, but, I pray to a collective consciousness that I do hope exists. And, I have the hope that the soul, or the life energy of my body, doesn't just go away after I die. I would like to think that it goes outward and into everything that surrounds it to offer any strength it has left. The thought of a Heaven or a Hell in the afterlife just doesn't make sense to me. A place to go for those who have done good deeds and for those that have done bad deeds.... sounds silly really. Good and Evil, Heaven and Hell, black & white (as in races), all religions, up & down, are all mankinds made up beliefs. Personally, I think it's time we, mankind, let go of these childish thoughts. So, that we may evolve to the next level.

Service to God... this is the reason for Heaven and Hell. They are our rewards for our service to God. We have but one purpose... to serve, praise, and exalt God. Our feelings, our beliefs, our wantings to be happy, are all secondary to our service to God. We were "put" here. We were put here to praise God, everyday, without fail. God is so worthy of our every attentive moment that we cannot fathom it. Yet all we cry for is more and more for ourselves, and we grow farther and farther from him. That's why Hell exists. A lot of people believe that the Muslim faith is fanatical because they always have their belief in God in all aspects of their lives, even politically, where we separate church and state. We should take a lesson, Heaven would be a lot fuller place.

Service to God... this is the reason for Heaven and Hell. They are our rewards for our service to God. We have but one purpose... to serve, praise, and exalt God. Our feelings, our beliefs, our wantings to be happy, are all secondary to our service to God. We were "put" here. We were put here to praise God, everyday, without fail. God is so worthy of our every attentive moment that we cannot fathom it. Yet all we cry for is more and more for ourselves, and we grow farther and farther from him. That's why Hell exists. A lot of people believe that the Muslim faith is fanatical because they always have their belief in God in all aspects of their lives, even politically, where we separate church and state. We should take a lesson, Heaven would be a lot fuller place.

Service to God... this is the reason for Heaven and Hell. They are our rewards for our service to God. We have but one purpose... to serve, praise, and exalt God. Our feelings, our beliefs, our wantings to be happy, are all secondary to our service to God. We were "put" here. We were put here to praise God, everyday, without fail. God is so worthy of our every attentive moment that we cannot fathom it. Yet all we cry for is more and more for ourselves, and we grow farther and farther from him. That's why Hell exists. A lot of people believe that the Muslim faith is fanatical because they always have their belief in God in all aspects of their lives, even politically, where we separate church and state. We should take a lesson, Heaven would be a lot fuller place.

Service to God... this is the reason for Heaven and Hell. They are our rewards for our service to God. We have but one purpose... to serve, praise, and exalt God. Our feelings, our beliefs, our wantings to be happy, are all secondary to our service to God. We were "put" here. We were put here to praise God, everyday, without fail. God is so worthy of our every attentive moment that we cannot fathom it. Yet all we cry for is more and more for ourselves, and we grow farther and farther from him. That's why Hell exists. A lot of people believe that the Muslim faith is fanatical because they always have their belief in God in all aspects of their lives, even politically, where we separate church and state. We should take a lesson, Heaven would be a lot fuller place.

Service to God... this is the reason for Heaven and Hell. They are our rewards for our service to God. We have but one purpose... to serve, praise, and exalt God. Our feelings, our beliefs, our wantings to be happy, are all secondary to our service to God. We were "put" here. We were put here to praise God, everyday, without fail. God is so worthy of our every attentive moment that we cannot fathom it. Yet all we cry for is more and more for ourselves, and we grow farther and farther from him. That's why Hell exists. A lot of people believe that the Muslim faith is fanatical because they always have their belief in God in all aspects of their lives, even politically, where we separate church and state. We should take a lesson, Heaven would be a lot fuller place.

Do you believe in heaven or hell?
/quote

No more than Christians believe in Valhalla or any other mythos other than theirs. In short, not at all.

If not, why not?
/quote

Probably for the same reasons Christians don't believe in the eternal consequenses of superstitions older than theirs.

In short, no reason to.

BTW, ya'll might find this tidbit of interest;

/quote
But some recent research on the temperature of Hell yields surprising
results:

"The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our authority is Isaiah 30:26:

"Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days."

Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition 7 x 7 (49) times as much as the Earth does from the
Sun, or 50 times in all. The light we receive from the Moon is one 1/10,000 of the light we receive from the Sun, so we can ignore that.
The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation, i.e.,
Heaven loses 50 times as much heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation, (H/E)^4 = 50, where E is the
absolute temperature of the earth (-300ºK), gives H as 798ºK (525ºC).

The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed. However, Revelation 21:8 says:

"But the fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone."

A lake of molten brimstone [sulphur] means that its temperature must be at or below its boiling point, 444.6ºC.We have, then, that Heaven, at
525ºC is hotter than Hell at 445ºC."

From: Applied Optics (1972, 11 A14)

/end quote

Do you believe in heaven or hell?
/quote

No more than Christians believe in Valhalla or any other mythos other than theirs. In short, not at all.

If not, why not?
/quote

Probably for the same reasons Christians don't believe in the eternal consequenses of superstitions older than theirs.

In short, no reason to.

BTW, ya'll might find this tidbit of interest;

/quote
But some recent research on the temperature of Hell yields surprising
results:

"The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our authority is Isaiah 30:26:

"Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days."

Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition 7 x 7 (49) times as much as the Earth does from the
Sun, or 50 times in all. The light we receive from the Moon is one 1/10,000 of the light we receive from the Sun, so we can ignore that.
The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation, i.e.,
Heaven loses 50 times as much heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation, (H/E)^4 = 50, where E is the
absolute temperature of the earth (-300ºK), gives H as 798ºK (525ºC).

The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed. However, Revelation 21:8 says:

"But the fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone."

A lake of molten brimstone [sulphur] means that its temperature must be at or below its boiling point, 444.6ºC.We have, then, that Heaven, at
525ºC is hotter than Hell at 445ºC."

From: Applied Optics (1972, 11 A14)

/end quote

Do you believe in heaven or hell?
/quote

No more than Christians believe in Valhalla or any other mythos other than theirs. In short, not at all.

If not, why not?
/quote

Probably for the same reasons Christians don't believe in the eternal consequenses of superstitions older than theirs.

In short, no reason to.

BTW, ya'll might find this tidbit of interest;

/quote
But some recent research on the temperature of Hell yields surprising
results:

"The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our authority is Isaiah 30:26:

"Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days."

Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition 7 x 7 (49) times as much as the Earth does from the
Sun, or 50 times in all. The light we receive from the Moon is one 1/10,000 of the light we receive from the Sun, so we can ignore that.
The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation, i.e.,
Heaven loses 50 times as much heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation, (H/E)^4 = 50, where E is the
absolute temperature of the earth (-300ºK), gives H as 798ºK (525ºC).

The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed. However, Revelation 21:8 says:

"But the fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone."

A lake of molten brimstone [sulphur] means that its temperature must be at or below its boiling point, 444.6ºC.We have, then, that Heaven, at
525ºC is hotter than Hell at 445ºC."

From: Applied Optics (1972, 11 A14)

/end quote

Heaven and hell are what we make for ourselves here on earth. When we die, we die. Kind of refreshing I think, to know that when you die there is absolutely nothing. You can either be in hell or heaven right now, its all about attitude. So lighten up folks and live for today. Enjoy your time now, be kind and compassionate, act decently and with honor. What you leave is the only 'reward' you can have.

Maybe in ten years or so, silly questions like this one - and even sillier forums like On Faith dedicated to perpetuating society's harmful religious myths - will be a thing of our past.

For billions of years, the cosmos and eventually the Earth existed. Man came on the scene a brief 100,000 years ago. The world's "mainstream" religions came into existence a scant 4,000 years ago, tops! Those religions held man in fearful sway until a mere 150 years ago when the scientific method showed man a better way to examine and explain his existence.

Religion is now passe. It holds no answers, no mysteries, no inspiration and no hope. All religion has left to it is the fear of hell and the self-centered delusion of a heaven - and a non-existent eternity spent with a bunch of equally frightened and self-centered people for whom reality holds no ultimate sway.

I may not live to see religion's overdue end, but it will happen...god willing!

No. It's manmade nonsense.

There is no heaven, or hell. In my opinion. Life is what we make it. When it is over, we are reincarnated into another being, as a test as to where we fit in.

Death ... what will it be like?

Although no one knows including myself, I would like to posit a thought.

It is an experience we have all experienced. Non-existence. The experience we all have had before we were born.

Heaven and Hell sounds like a myth.

BUT, although we all may have a theory, why can't we be absolutely honest and just say ... I DON'T KNOW.

Mandy, I used to say no, there is no heaven, and there is no hell. I'm sorry to say I was wrong. As long as Bible-thumping 'Truth'-spewers like you exist on this Earth, I am most certainly in Hell.

The scientific method has taken us to the moon, why is it useless when examining religion? Because then the religion (and that religion's authority) has no more power.

If it cannot be scientifically tested, it should not be accepted as fact, no matter how 'powerful' or 'supernatural' something may be, it exists in our universe, and is subject to it's laws. Point out one real, undebunked, unquestioned example of exidence of God's existence. Or does your religion forbid you from examining it too closely, as 'faith' is the key to your religion? When someone offers you the Brooklyn Bridge for one dollar, you quesion it, why would you not question something asking for your 'immortal soul'? Wouldn't that be the MOST coveted thing you have, if it existed?

I didn't used to believe in Hell - but then W was elected.

Just throwing this out there:

Here's a book to read that may fire up some of your neurons...

'The Origin of Consciousness in the
Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.'

Julian Jaynes Society: Exploring Consciousness and the Bicameral Mind.

Do I believe in heaven and hell? The key question here is "what does BELIEF have to do with it"?

How about "is there any real evidence demonstrating the existence of heaven and hell"?

Wouldn't that be a better question? One that could help us make sound decisions.

Of course, there isn't any evidence for heaven and hell. They are just made up ideas that people use to help make sense of the world and to help them feel better about themselves.

It's quite silly really, but people do silly things to help them get by.

The tragedy is that religious beliefs have been, and continue to be, the cause of so much suffering and hatred.

The Bible was written 2000 years ago by a variety of people who we can't identify who thought the earth was flat. Jesus, if he ever lived which there is no proof of, never wrote one word of the bible. God did not write the Bible, people did. If you want to base your life on what anonymous people thought 2000 year ago that's your business. Just don't try to shove it off on people like me who think it's silly and in many cases dangerous.

Death is the same for everyone and everything. No one has ever died and returned to tell us what it's like. Jesus has not come back because he's dead. He can't come back. Nobody comes back from death. You will not survive your death. Pray all you want and you will still die just the same.

Religion is ignorant at best and anyone who believes that some other person, no matter when they lived knows anything about what happens after death is a fool. It will always be a mystery and a 2000 year old book can not explain it.

Jane-
You cant believe in one and not the other.
Well I guess you can, but you would be wrong.
There is both a heaven and hell.
But please tell me why you "sort of" believe in one and not the other

Religion was created by Neanderthals to explain the everyday occurrences such as lightening, and rain, the stars, and the sun. As society grew and became more enlightened, those with wealth were more able to study and learn about the world around them. Religion was changed over the centuries as a means for the wealthy to control the poor. Remember the wealthy learned in a formal environment, the poor learned from their parents and family.

Most importantly, the poor looked to the wealthy for guidance. The wealthy took advantage of the poor’s gullibility and told them half-truths to control them. In the Old Testament, the antichrist is not mentioned until more than ½ way through.

If there really was a supreme being that cared, he’d be making an appearance every other day or so to the human hordes in line.

There has been a saying that goes like this, " God said it,I believe it, and that's good enough for me.
Well that saying us wrong. It dosn't matter if we believe it or not it is still true.
God said in his word that heaven and hell were real and it is so if we believe it or not.

Laroy

There has been a saying that goes like this, " God said it,I believe it, and that's good enough for me.
Well that saying us wrong. It dosn't matter if we believe it or not it is still true.
God said in his word that heaven and hell were real and it is so if we believe it or not.

Laroy

Oh for crying out loud GROW UP! When are we going to start acting like adults and stop perpetuating these ridiculously silly cultural myths. When will we quit killing each other over our ideas about the gods we believe in. Whichever gods they may be. If there were a supreme being, do you really think that supreme being cares one way or another what humans eat, how they dress and whether or not they dance? Please, you flatter and delude yourselves.

heaven: sort of
hell: no

I believe in God, and I believe in Jesus. but I do not believe that non-christians are going to hell.

hell, to me, is a state non-existence. there's a short story called "the jilting of granny weatherall" where granny waits for the proverbial light at the end of her life, and when she doesn't see it, and she knows she's been abandoned. that's my vision of hell. if, as I die, I feel abandoned, then I will have that as my last thought.

however, I'm past the halos and wings part too. I don't really think that'll happen. I think maybe there will be some really cool energy that will envelop my soul and make my spirit feel welcome.

I KNOW that when people die, the energy is still there. I've had too many thoughts, dreams, and random feelings from people in my life who have died...particularly from my dad. if I wanted to manufacture these "visits," they'd occur much more frequently. I really feel as if there is a way for the dead to reach out. so, they're probably not in heaven or in hell.

and I do not believe at all that a person's religion guarantees them a reserved seat. that's just dumb. my jewish friends are NOT going to hell just because they were born jewish. my pakistani students are NOT going to hell just because their lives are so much different than mine. christianity is supposed to be such an accepting religion, yet so much violence has been done in its name.

according to MY religion, mine is not the place to judge.

Sorry, that was "Ghost Hunters" on the Sci Fi channel on Wednesdays.

sabrina; why do you feel badly for those who have posted that there is no God?

My life has been so much better since I let go of my faith. You should be happy for me...;-)

Regards

A Hermit

I know of no other place where people such as we are could come into being. God creates all things even people like we are who must choose between good and evil. It is the choices that we make that shape our spirit. It is we who determine whether our spirit is good or not.

When the universe was created, time was also created. Without time, there is only infinity. We will enter into infinity in whatever shape we are in at the end of our lives.

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Genesis 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness [was] upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

Genesis 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

Watch "TAPS" on SciFi channel. The show might make you a believer after a while.

I don't believe in the paranormal.

I am not a "MORON" for believing in God.

I do believe that any human that possesses the infinate "certainty" that we are as we are and we do as we do without a higher power as being the most arrogant form of life that breathes air and drinks water.

As I believe that the people that persecute other religions as being the most ignorant and destructive of all.

Every organized religion claims that theirs is the One True God. As it has been since the beginning of time. The reason that God has existed through human history is that God is REAL!. God was real to the aztecs. God was real to the egyptians. God was real to the crusaders and the ancient greeks. God was real to the druids and to the vikings. There was God in the stone age, the bronze age and the ice age. No matter what, there was always God.

The bottom line is that there is a God. We may not all agree on who or what he or she truly is, but as soon as we agree that there is someone, something, out there that is more omniscient than ourselves, there will never be peace on this earth.

I do feel badly for those who have posted that there is no God. I just turned 30 and I can't imagine life without a miracle or an unbelieveable coincidence that can't be explained.

Whoever your God is, peace be with you and GOD BLESS.

I know one thing.....this board is driving me nuts with the multiple postings....could be my very own hell.

I think it's about time that the WP hired a more experienced webmaster. The one working on this blog needs to go back to school.

Or maybe pray to Jesus to give him a free pass....cause s/he won't get one from me.

Sorry, it's late and I'm a little irked trying to find my way through this maze of questions and answers.

I believe in life but cannot say what life really is. This also applies to feelings, such as love or hate, they exist but why?

If perfection of our spirit (life?) exists, then defining where it resides amounts to Heaven and defining an absence of a perfected spirit's residence would be hellish.

It makes no difference what religion addresses the concept of perfecting the human spirit, they all attempt to say such a perfection process somehow exists.

My Heaven and/or Hell are NOT products of organized religion but of a belief that is not based on logical proof, rather on my unproved faith. It works for me.

Doug

first, the old testament of the bible was written by middle eastern, not "white" men. Secondly, to believe in a heaven and hell means you believe in an afterlife, thus you have a belief in something. As some have stated, hell can mean different things, eternal torture, eternal darkness separated from all things, forever alone. Some belief that since "God" has all eternity to work with, all will end up in heaven. it is your personal belief that counts, and what you feel toward your fellow man or person (PC).

Yes, there is a Heaven AND a Hell. Those souls who are of the light (good) and grey (neutral) will go to Heaven. Those souls who are of the completely dark (evil) will go to Hell. After a person dies, the soul is judged by the Creator as to how many of the 12 sections are light, grey and dark. The life just lived by the soul is reviewed and discussed between the Creator and the soul. Decisions are then made and goals are set for the next life in the effort to resolve karma, soul growth, and sometimes to do a "special project" for the Creator. Those who do these "special projects" for the Creator are the ones who stand out in our society like beacons of light, changing society for the better and touching many lives. Remember, we are all works in progress. We all need to strive everyday to lovingly better ourselves, our loved ones, our communities and our countries. This way, we affect the world hopefully in a positive way, one person at a time.

I grow bored with these conversations. I don't discuss my views any more because it has become, rather pointless. All religous people in the face of overwhelming proof, fall back on old faithful, their faith. Eh, excuse my pun. However it doesn't mean I don't enjoy "stirring the pot." So ignore me, hate me, or listen to me. I don't care. Enjoy my answer and my question.

1. Do I believe in Heaven/Hell? No. When I was a child I was told a story in sunday school. The story is that a small boy whose family had very little money, lost his tithing. He looked and looked for the tithing but could find it no where. He knelt on the grass in front of his house and prayed. He asked the lord, please help me find my tithing so I may help the church. When he opened his eyes, there on the ground before him was a dime, his tithing. At that moment, I was only mabye 8 or 9 but alarm bells shot through my head. Something was very wrong with this story. In my head I thought that this story was too perfect. The poor family, the lost money that was so important and precious, the grief, and finally the perfect salvation. It was fake. I learned then that for whatever might have occured 2000 years ago, since then it has been mankind who told the stories, changes small bits to make them dramatic or less depending on their preference, to the point where you don't know what is real or not in the teachings.

2. Answer me this question as it is a favorite of mine. Do you like giant water bug for dinner? They are the size of your hand or larger, would you eat it if it was covered in chocalate? Probably not. My point is that in another part of the world, giant water bug is quite the main course and no one there has a second thought about it being gross? So I ask you, if your parents had not been religous, you grew up in a small village who had never heard of Jesus, woould you be a follower today? Or would you make jokes about the Christian who came to the village to talk about Jesus while you eat your giant water bug for dinner?

Wow, take a day of and look what happens...

gotta make just a couple of comments;

c-mat says:

"Even today its mostly countries informed by Christianity that place a value on "human" life."

Not true at all. It's actually the most secular countries; those which have largely done away with the influence of religion as anything more than a personal matter, which are most humane.

Rwanda, after all, used to be known as "the most Christian country in Africa..." Google it...

---------------

Tim; lack of belief in God is a religion like bald is hair colour. Trust me on this; I know all about bald...:-(

---------------

And, to the moron who said:

"There are no atheists in foxholes."

Tell it to the marines (and soldiers and sailors and airmen...:

http://www.atheistfoxholes.org/

Regards

A Hermit

What really frightens me is that some fundamentalist Christians will actually try to do us in, bring disasters on us all so that they can usher in their "end times". They don't care about global warming, not an issue since they'll be floating away... Crises in the Middle East are actually a good sign for them. Another war? Great!

They never learn even when their "rapture" never seems to come, even though dozens of preachers have predicted it over centuries, again and again. Their religion is based on not learning from evidence. Just get a charismatic alpha male to proclaim the Truth!

These people should be kept far, far away from control over policy. They are dangerous to our children, our species and our planet.

(This is a subset of Christians but a very dangerous one.)

Heaven and Hell are human ideas that have no evidence to support them. Just because we'd like to think that we can live forever, or that the good are rewarded and the bad are punished, doesn't make it so.

It's high time that humanity realizes that our life here is all that we have, and that we need to work together to make it as happy as possible.

Like another poster here, I too (as a pre-teen) was severely disillusioned by the idea that so many people of foreign cultures were being sent to Hell because they had taken their family's faith as their own. I had heard different religions' messages and they sounded strange compared to mine; just as I'm sure mine sounded strange to them. But since they "chose poorly" they were sentenced to eternal hellfire...

Upon further reflection as I got older, I began to wonder why such an all-knowing, all-powerful, benevolent God made so many mistakes! If God truly wanted Adam and Eve to frolic and live care-free, why not zap that damn apple tree? Oops, things are out-of-control, Noah get in your boat; I've got some cleanin'/killin' to do. That didn't last long. Jesus, get your butt down there and see if you can straighten them out -- I give up.

Why get so elaborate to begin with? Fossils, Earth, Solar System, Galaxies, Universe... Why not just create heaven if it's such a wonderful place and put all Your creations there?! Hey God, there's an idea! Mulligan! Something, Anything! What's with all this elaborate good-old-boys club where everyone's got to play Simon-Says to gain admittance to the clubhouse?

Why on Earth, did You decide to let it all go to Hell.

So there are 2 possibilities:
1.) God does not exist
2.) Alpha and Omega exists, but He's just currently in Beta testing...

Empiricism is the idea that one does not accept anything as true without evidence. Ink on a piece of paper is evidence that someone can put ink on a piece of paper. What words are on the piece of paper are not proof of anything else, unless support ed by other evidence. I have not observed one scintilla of evidence, independent of ink on paper, that heaven or hell exist. Ergo, as an empiricist, I do not believe in either.

Carl Jung: "There is nothing out there."

Your world is the product of your imagination, period.
If you can imagine hell, it's there for your amusement. Imagine heaven, it shall be just as you say, for at least awhile.
There as many heavens and hells available as there are individual souls upon this earth.
I'm certain all have some attributes in common, due to upbringing, ethnicity, organized religion and so forth.
It is the peculiarity of each that escapes society, because each is unique in at least one characteristic, and most likely in many characteristics.
Do not bother to ask if there is...
simply ask someone to describe their personal vision of hell or heaven. Here my friend,is where diversity beyond your imaginings will rise and lead you to the conclusion noted above...
no, don't look up, I mean the quote noted above.

Bless yourselves and others will benefit.

Ray Mellas

Reading all of these comments saddens me. Yes, tragic things do happen, but that is the sin of the world that causes the tragedies, not God. Yes, He is a loving God, but He is also a God of Justice. Funny, when tragedy hits our schools (Columbine, VA Tech, etc) everybody is quick to ask "Where was God?" The answer is you kicked Him out years ago, remember? In Hosea 4:2 it says "By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out (violence) and blood toucheth blood (murders)." He was speaking of Israel, but does this sound familiar?? Sounds like the USA in the present time. Because of all of these things, Hosea 4:3 states "Therefore shall the land mourn, and everyone that dwelleth therein shall languish..." This is why the world is the way it is today. We as a society have chosen to turn our backs on God (obvious on most of these postings I have read)and then wonder why the world is the way it is.
Yes, there is a Heaven and yes, there is a Hell. The Lord Jesus Christ is my Saviour and He died for every one of us (even those who choose to talk about Him in such a way as you have in your posts). I feel sorry for all of you who turn your backs on Him. You don't know what you're missing by not having Him in your heart. Is my life a piece of cake, sunshine and roses? The answer is No. But, having Him as my Saviour gives me peace that none of you unbelievers will ever experience and that is sad. I feel sorry for any unbeliever that will have to live during the 7 year tribulation after Jesus comes to take His believers to Heaven with him. If you wonder what it will be like - feel free to read Revelations. I wonder where your god will be then to help you or your "scientific evidence"??
You are all free to believe how you want, as am I. It just saddens me to read so many posts from so many lost people.

God bless - and as much as some of you don't like it - I pray for all of you unbelievers every day.

Is it bothering anybody else that people are answering the question about the existence of heaven and hell with an answer to the question, "Is there a God?". People assuming that because there is a God, there must be a heaven and hell is starting to give me a rash. Also, where in this question is there anything about evolutionary goo?

There's a god faq on the internet around here somewhere that clears a lot of this up.

Is there a God?

No.

I find it kind of odd that people keep using their circular logic to make a point. Namely, you can not use the bible as source evidence. Quote the bible all you want, but no matter how you spin it, the bible did not drop out of the sky by some divine hand. Guess what? A bunch of white guys wrote it. Along comes King James, who decides that the Bible as it was written didn't quite fit his needs, so he changed it. Flash foward to a recent news story, the Pope declares "limbo" doesn't really exist, because he (the pope, not the GOD for whom he is supposedly speaking) feels that Jesus would love all the little children. So to use this man made construct as evidence of heaven and hell is spurious at best. Why not quote J.R.R. Tolkien. He has some great creation myths about the universe coming to life through song. What makes some yokels from pre-history soooo special? Or even some Jew carpenter, for that matter?

If you want to have an informed debate based on OBJECTIVE evidence, do your best to convince me. Until then, I'll hold on to my thought that heaven and hell are in one's own heart and mind, and when you die, that's all that happens: your're dead.

p.s. I've always been perplexed about people's obsession with what to do with a dead body. It's a lump of dead tissue. Bury it, burn it, sink it, what is really the difference? (or does my answer just come from more circular logic like: because)

How can people continue to profess the Flying Spaghetti Monster heresy???

No one has ever proven that eternity will not be spent with cats in charge, so worship of the Goddess Bastet makes more sense. Be sure to provide treats to her minions, by the way. Including fresh salmon.

-- the cat

Yes I believe in heaven and hell and I believe Jesus Christ is OUR LORD and SAVIOR. I believe in everything that the bible says 100% from Genesis to Revelation. That comment made by that person early is just wrong that Jesus was just a great philosipher. He's the spirit of the Lord. I didnt just sprout out of the ground like a potato. I have a creator and thanks to his son I have a savior. And everyday I have a divine spirit flowing through my body and Im proud of It. Nothing will ever change that not any other religion, not a million dollars. Jesus is Lord and he will return and all who disbelieve will see thank God that he is a loving and forgiving God that gives second chances even to those who dont believe what they cant see or hear. Maybe you should clean the cement out of your eyes and ears and listen to the Lord.

I truly believe you grade yourself when it's time for you to go. After all, who else knows what sins you committed but yourself. A person cannot have eternity of piece of mind, bad or good, without admitted it the first place.

As my final posting, I would like to say; outside of my personal opinions I understand that we are all religious. Even the lack of belief in God is still a religion. Religion is simply a belief and we all have beliefs.
I agree with the very wise (neutral) writings of "Dorothy" and "Spiritual but not Christian". People should be comfortable in there beliefs because it is part of what make them who they are. But we should not try to make others different. All of the problems that come out of our multiple religions do not come from our differences in beliefs, but from our attempt to change each others beliefs. We all think we are right, and we are. We are right for us, but what's right for you may not be right for me and that IS OK.
The FACT is, knowledge can only come from experience. So only until we have died and had the experience, can we have the knowledge. We can not claim to KNOW the truth. We can not confuse BELIEF with KNOWLEDGE. That's where the problem lies. Too many of us claim to KNOW.
With that said, I wish every a happy life in their personal religion. Maybe we will meet again in a healthy debate on colors of the rainbow...

As my final posting, I would like to say; outside of my personal opinions I understand that we are all religious. Even the lack of belief in God is still a religion. Religion is simply a belief and we all have beliefs.
I agree with the very wise (neutral) writings of "Dorothy" and "Spiritual but not Christian". People should be comfortable in there beliefs because it is part of what make them who they are. But we should not try to make others different. All of the problems that come out of our multiple religions do not come from our differences in beliefs, but from our attempt to change each others beliefs. We all think we are right, and we are. We are right for us, but what's right for you may not be right for me and that IS OK.
The FACT is, knowledge can only come from experience. So only until we have died and had the experience, can we have the knowledge. We can not claim to KNOW the truth. We can not confuse BELIEF with KNOWLEDGE. That's where the problem lies. Too many of us claim to KNOW.
With that said, I wish every a happy life in their personal religion. Maybe we will meet again in a healthy debate on colors of the rainbow...

As my final posting, I would like to say; outside of my personal opinions I understand that we are all religious. Even the lack of belief in God is still a religion. Religion is simply a belief and we all have beliefs.
I agree with the very wise (neutral) writings of "Dorothy" and "Spiritual but not Christian". People should be comfortable in there beliefs because it is part of what make them who they are. But we should not try to make others different. All of the problems that come out of our multiple religions do not come from our differences in beliefs, but from our attempt to change each others beliefs. We all think we are right, and we are. We are right for us, but what's right for you may not be right for me and that IS OK.
The FACT is, knowledge can only come from experience. So only until we have died and had the experience, can we have the knowledge. We can not claim to KNOW the truth. We can not confuse BELIEF with KNOWLEDGE. That's where the problem lies. Too many of us claim to KNOW.
With that said, I wish every a happy life in their personal religion. Maybe we will meet again in a healthy debate on colors of the rainbow...

Yes I believe in heaven and hell and I believe Jesus Christ is OUR LORD and SAVIOR. I believe in everything that the bible says 100% from Genesis to Revelation. That comment made by that person early is just wrong that Jesus was just a great philosipher. He's the spirit of the Lord. I didnt just sprout out of the ground like a potato. I have a creator and thanks to his son I have a savior. And everyday I have a divine spirit flowing through my body and Im proud of It. Nothing will ever change that not any other religion, not a million dollars. Jesus is Lord and he will return and all who disbelieve will see thank God that he is a loving and forgiving God that gives second chances even to those who dont believe what they cant see or hear. Maybe you should clean the cement out of your eyes and ears and listen to the Lord.

Yes I believe in heaven and hell and I believe Jesus Christ is OUR LORD and SAVIOR. I believe in everything that the bible says 100% from Genesis to Revelation. That comment made by that person early is just wrong that Jesus was just a great philosipher. He's the spirit of the Lord. I didnt just sprout out of the ground like a potato. I have a creator and thanks to his son I have a savior. And everyday I have a divine spirit flowing through my body and Im proud of It. Nothing will ever change that not any other religion, not a million dollars. Jesus is Lord and he will return and all who disbelieve will see thank God that he is a loving and forgiving God that gives second chances even to those who dont believe what they cant see or hear. Maybe you should clean the cement out of your eyes and ears and listen to the Lord.

Yes I believe in heaven and hell and I believe Jesus Christ is OUR LORD and SAVIOR. I believe in everything that the bible says 100% from Genesis to Revelation. That comment made by that person early is just wrong that Jesus was just a great philosipher. He's the spirit of the Lord. I didnt just sprout out of the ground like a potato. I have a creator and thanks to his son I have a savior. And everyday I have a divine spirit flowing through my body and Im proud of It. Nothing will ever change that not any other religion, not a million dollars. Jesus is Lord and he will return and all who disbelieve will see thank God that he is a loving and forgiving God that gives second chances even to those who dont believe what they cant see or hear. Maybe you should clean the cement out of your eyes and ears and listen to the Lord.

I don't believe in a heaven or hell because they are ridiculous myths that were meant to explain the world and enforce a rudimentary ethical system. Unfortunately the human mind has not changed with the over all human culture and science, and so we're left endlessly debating such ridiculous questions.

I believe a man named Jesus was born and lived and there is wisdom in his teachings. I studied the Bible for years with elders of the church I attended and deeply believed in Christianity. However, coming to my own conclusion, not drawn due to the hypocrisy of man, I believe now that this man, and this book, are both one of many that teach about the rewards of living a full and loving life free of violence and non-judgment. I align myself most directly with Taoism though I first came to that realization after having simply concluding that the laws of nature, some of which we understand, many of which we think we do but do not, and many more of which we are not even aware, rule existence. I believe heaven and hell and states of existence we experience while on earth, and we choose them when we choose our actions and attitudes. I don't believe in living this life to either be rewarded or punished; I believe we live this life to grow and contribute to that which goes on forever and in doing so we enrich or impoverish; the choice is ours. I do believe in karma but I don't believe we always understand the form it takes. I'd love to get feedback from open-minded folks who would like to share for the purpose of learning and growing. I could talk with you forever. :)

This is a good discussion! -- Everyone has differences of opinion, and that is exactly what I believe should be remembered when discussing religious issues: No single person or religion has all the answers. We all have our perceptions of the big picture that contribute to our understanding of the whole. I think we do well to take the best from each to form our own concepts.

In my opinion, "Heaven" and "Hell," if you want to call them that, are one and the same. But rather than denoting a place, they refer to being states that are out of earth's realm. I believe in a spiritual dimension that we ALL enter after death -- like another plane, or fourth or fifth dimension. In that dimension, we ALL continue our spiritual evolution, until we reach a level of true self-actualization -- becoming all we were meant to be. For some of us, there is much work to do to reach that level, and it may seem like "hell," but it's also "heaven," because in this dimension, there is acceptance, and encouragement for continued growth. Criticism, ridicule, jealousy, and malice are not present.

If we believe in a Creator or a Supreme Being as the Source of all creation, I don't see how we can conceive of that Being as sending any of its own to a place of eternal damnation. There's no forgiveness in that, and no growth. Rather, that's vengeance -- a projected human reaction -- not a reaction of a spiritual realm. I, too, have had difficulty with that notion since childhood. Most people agree with a notion of their "God" as loving. If that is the case, it must be a perfect love, with no room for prejudice or ill will toward anyone.

I believe that no matter what we choose to call "God" -- or "Allah," or "the Great Mother" or whatever -- we're all looking for truth and guidance from the same source. Maybe we need to look beyond the semantics that make us seem so different, and try to recognize our similarities. Some cultures see that Source as a collection of many Sources (gods); some see it as only One -- but that collection of many Sources is no different from the many facets of the One. It's just in our perception, which inherently is never complete, because we are human.

Again, by accepting and exploring differing perceptions, we often find the information we need that contributes to a fuller understanding of such issues as what the purpose of life is, what "God" is, and what happens after we die.

don't believe in either heaven or hell, myself. nor do i believe that this lack of faith is bad. i've seen people do some pretty terrible things in the name of their faith, and use their faith to justify it. i would rather live my life without this false faith in a reward of heaven, or punishment in hell. life is what we make of it. all this b.s. about souls and saviors and faith... i really just can't wrap my head around it. and for those who would argue that religion is not something you're supposed to be ABLE to wrap your head around, that's fine. that may work for you. as for me, i happen to know that everything has a rational, scientific reason for happening. i have never seen any proof of either heaven or hell. until otherwise, i shall just continue to live my life the way i feel is right. but boy, oh, boy, if there IS a god, and he judges me based squarely on the fact that i do not believe in him, not on my actions while i was alive... so be it. my not believing in god doesn't make a bad person, and i would not worship the deity that says it does. give me hell.

I'm amazed at how much we "know" about things we have never experienced and how little we know about the world we live in, of which we have first hand experience. Nobody knows if there is a heaven or a hell. Many people believe they exist, as they used to believe in the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus. Heaven is a comforting thought and hell is a scary one. But does something exist because many people believe it exists or because you can imagine it? I think the most one can do is ask an honest question: Is is likely? What seems likely is that we humans crave explanations for all the things we don't understand and religion happily provides them. But don't bother looking for evidence that they are true.

Hemingway:

I'll tell you what. You give me a billion dollars and I'll (revert) back to Christianity. Imagine; together we can try to win more people over to believe the same way as us. And we can charge them membership fees. Something like 10%, unless we call ourselves mormons, then it’s 20%. It will be the ultimate network marketing scheme. Then we can start implementing different beliefs by claiming God has spoken to us. Hell, we could even write a book about it and people can quote the book to affirm our power. Come on man… It’ll be the greatest conspiracy in human history.

Infinite punishment for finite sin? Hell no!

I agree with John Lennon: "No Hell below us; Above us only sky."

If you investigate the ideas of Heaven and Hell, you will find them to be uniquely Christian, although Muslims later also adopted the Christian view. Christianity was founded as a religion for the slaves of Rome. Lacking any meaningful way to gain power in their capacity as slaves, the Christians gained solace for believing that after death, they would go to Heaven while the Romans would roast in unimaginable torture in Hell.

Modern governments and religious leaders still exploit this mindset by getting believers to sacrifice great gobs of freedom in return for some future "pie in the sky by-and-by" as the old song goes.

If you really want to live in Heaven, the only possible path is to try to make "Heaven right here on Earth." And you won't do that by wasting your money on wealthy preachers who always have their hand out for more!

Superstition. Since I have a brain, I MUST answer no and no.

If folks really believed in heaven or hell, would they really do the things that they do ? Would they say things like, "we are the culture of life", all the while going around the world and killing innocents ? Culture of life means we care for the unborn, but once you're here then all bets are off. If we really believed in heaven or hell, would we cheat on our spouses, would we hate another person just because of race, creed, or religion ? If we really believed that Jesus was a God of Peace, why do we commit troops to wars that do not need to be fought ? Are we really the "culture of life and of God" or are we just like any athlete or politician, believe our own press clippings and those that hero-worship us. We can't really believe in heaven or hell if we condone torture or let people sit on roofs after a hurricane in our own country can we ? I think we say we believe in heaven or hell, but to most that go to a building with a steeple on it, that's just their "get out of jail free" card for everything they have done wrong the previous week.

If folks really believed in heaven or hell, would they really do the things that they do ? Would they say things like, "we are the culture of life", all the while going around the world and killing innocents ? Culture of life means we care for the unborn, but once you're here then all bets are off. If we really believed in heaven or hell, would we cheat on our spouses, would we hate another person just because of race, creed, or religion ? If we really believed that Jesus was a God of Peace, why do we commit troops to wars that do not need to be fought ? Are we really the "culture of life and of God" or are we just like any athlete or politician, believe our own press clippings and those that hero-worship us. We can't really believe in heaven or hell if we condone torture or let people sit on roofs after a hurricane in our own country can we ? I think we say we believe in heaven or hell, but to most that go to a building with a steeple on it, that's just their "get out of jail free" card for everything they have done wrong the previous week.

No and no. Next question please...

All who know Jesus should become aware of the type of folks you are likely to be meeting in heaven. Here's one of the more direct examples from your rich religious tradition and history, if you dare to gaze upon it...simply a brief excerpt from the word of God, the Bible, the Book of Numbers, documenting the infinite wisdom and guidance of the loving father of Jesus to his chosen ones, who have been selected to deliver some of the Lord's famous brand of justice:

Numbers 31:1 Then the Lord said to Moses,
Num 31:2 Give the Midianites punishment for the wrong they did to the children of Israel: and after that you will go to rest with your people.
Num 31:3 So Moses said to the people, Let men from among you be armed for war to put into effect against Midian the Lord's punishment on them.
Num 31:4 From every tribe of Israel send a thousand to the war.
Num 31:5 So from the thousands of Israel a thousand were taken from every tribe, twelve thousand men armed for war.
Num 31:6 And Moses sent them out to war, a thousand from every tribe, and with them Phinehas, the son of Eleazar the priest, taking in his hands the vessels of the holy place and the horns for sounding the note of war.
Num 31:7 And they made war on Midian, as the Lord gave orders to Moses; and they put to death every male.
Num 31:8 They put the kings of Midian to death with the rest, Evi and Reken and Zur and Hur and Reba, the five kings of Midian: and Balaam, the son of Beor, they put to death with the sword.
Num 31:9 The women of Midian with their little ones the children of Israel took prisoner; and all their cattle and flocks and all their goods they took for themselves;
Num 31:10 And after burning all their towns and all their tent-circles,
Num 31:11 They went away with the goods they had taken, man and beast.
Num 31:12 And the prisoners and the goods and everything they had taken, they took to Moses and Eleazar the priest and the people of Israel, to the tent-circle in the lowlands of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho.
Num 31:13 Then Moses and Eleazar the priest and the chiefs of the people went out to them before they had come into the tent-circle.
Num 31:14 And Moses was angry with the chiefs of the army, the captains of thousands and the captains of hundreds who had come back from the war.
Num 31:15 And Moses said to them, Why have you kept all the women safe?
Num 31:16 It was these who, moved by Balaam, were the cause of Israel's sin against the Lord in the question of Peor, because of which disease came on the people of the Lord.
Num 31:17 So now put every male child to death, and every woman who has had sex relations with a man.
Num 31:18 But all the female children who have had no sex relations with men, you may keep for yourselves.
Num 31:19 You yourselves will have to keep outside the tent-circle for seven days, anyone of you who has put any person to death or come near a dead body; and on the third day and on the seventh day make yourselves and your prisoners clean.

I do not believe in heaven or hell. I simply have not seen any evidence of either. There seems to be a lot of Pascal's Wager being brought up, which to me is a rather faulty premise. Clearly if I was believing in god/jesus/heaven (depending on the poster), just for the sake of getting into heaven, which some of you have suggested is all that it takes, then this god would also know that it wasnt sincere, and it would mean nothing anyway. As for trying to believe, I certianly have, but faking it just doesnt work, im inquisitive by nature, and religions give hollow answers to things like life after death that sound good on paper, but have no evidence backing them up. I can't just decide to believe something that seems to make no sense at all.

According to Einstein, free will is determined by not only the culture in which we sprang but also by the whole genetic make up of the individal. Most people embrace the religion of the families from which they were born into regardless of all other factors. However, Einstein was a strict determinist and did not believe anyone really has a free will.

Heaven and Hell. Interesting little topic. Personally I don't believe in fairy tails because I am no longer a child ruled by illogical illusions involving socially reinforced concepts of good and evil. I am not totally closed to the idea of there being an eternal force or even a god, but the Judeo-Christian concept of a man-like god who is ruled by human characteristics such as emotion seems proposterous. The quick arguement against this is that god created man in his image so our skills in logic and morality are simply a reflection of "his will." To this I argue that there are very few universal constants when it comes morality and beliefs. If there were a god and his word was the rule of the universe, then it would be likely that a great portion of humanity is damned to hell simply because of culturally reinforced beliefs. It's good to know that god designated Europe and America for his chosen religion of Christianity while damning the rest of the world with differing religions................come on people, use your heads and stop being ruled by your emotional need to feel secure in your world by believing in a fairy tail

I saw a bumper sticker the other day and it read as follows:

"If you're going to live like there isn't a GOD you had better be right!"

10 seconds after we die, we will all know the truth.