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As I said below, it really is...

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I was responding to a question on the Bible and Christianity. I gave my beliefs.
Relax, I was not trying to threaten your soapbox.

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show me where then. cuz just saying that it does doesn't prove anything

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That is true.
Seems indeed I was wrong. It makes a distinction. "Hell" is where sinners are sent after death.

Luke 16 (NIV)
22"The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23In hell,[Greek Hades] where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side.

2 Peter 2 (NIV)
4For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell,[1] putting them into gloomy dungeons[2] to be held for judgment;

Revelation 20 (NIV)
13The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. 14Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
(Italics mine)

If Hell is torment, it is not permanent but is a place to await judgement.

Agreed. Whose your favourite Norse god? Mine's Odin. Ooh, what about Indian? Kali-Ma is the best. I could go on.

Thoth is my favorite egyptian god to. He was also god of the moon.

http://www.imagehosting.us.com/showimage.php?id=1306&h=317208

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it does

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show me where then. cuz just saying that it does doesn't prove anything.

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Originally posted by thedraconic1:
God is forgiving. He gave everyone a conscience, so if one has never heard anything about God, and follows his conscience, he can either(can't remember) not go to Hell or be punished only a little for the sins he committed. (as he wasn't taught any better) If you refuse to believe in God until you stare him in the face (i.e. die), it is not much to say that it is too late because you heard the truth and refused to believe when given the chance in life (see previous sentence).

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As I said below, it really is amazing how some people have the audacity to connect love, life, and spirituality with petty threats of damnation.

You don't know God exists, and you don't know hell exists. It's really that simple.

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i don't know but i'm pretty sure, the bible doesn't accualy say hell is an inexapeable place where you suffer forever

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It does.

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god is forgiving right? so why is it as soon as you die you can't ever change or be forgiven? that doesn't sound very forgiving at all.

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God is forgiving. He gave everyone a conscience, so if one has never heard anything about God, and follows his conscience, he can either(can't remember) not go to Hell or be punished only a little for the sins he committed. (as he wasn't taught any better) If you refuse to believe in God until you stare him in the face (i.e. die), it is not much to say that it is too late because you heard the truth and refused to believe when given the chance in life (see previous sentence).

Evil, was that response to me?


Thoth is my favourite Egyptian god, the god of literature and poetry. (My computer crashed and I have to use my dad's computer. I also have to retype these words so many times, cause half the keys don't work. I love my computer. I want it back!)

what is Thoth?

don't diss Thoth

we didn't ignore them we just didn't dissagree. because they were pleaseable representations of the trueth.
oh yeah and i forgot, my religion doesn't believe in hell or at least not the hell christians do. we believe hell is farness from god. and i don't know but i'm pretty sure, the bible doesn't accualy say hell is an inexapeable place where you suffer forever. god is forgiving right? so why is it as soon as you die you can't ever change or be forgiven? that doesn't sound very forgiving at all. yet anouther reason i'm not christian.

I made a couple bold statements. Why're you all ignoring them?

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Just because He may be omnipresent and in everything does not mean that He is everything.

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Some religions believe that god is in everything.

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God is both omnipresent and in everything.

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Just because He may be omnipresent and in everything does not mean that He is everything.

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What about the polytheists?

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I was talking about the belief of the supreme God.

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That is true, if your definition of God is "whatever people hold value to." But, I was talking about a single being God. This being could only be one thing - no matter what you believed God was or not. It would just be terribly wrong to think that the being, "God", could be money (because one person thinks God is money) and a banana (because someone else thinks God is a banana) at the same time. God is one being or thing. So either one of those people was correct with their beliefs, or both of them were wrong.

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God is both omnipresent and in everything. (According to a seemingly popular belief.) Therefore, could he not be both a banana, and money?

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It would just be terribly wrong to think that the being, "God", could be money (because one person thinks God is money) and a banana (because someone else thinks God is a banana) at the same time. God is one being or thing.

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Not if you believe in the ominiscent god.

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But, I was talking about a single being God.

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What about the polytheists?

Add:

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I don't know about that. I think God would be whatever you worship. Sex, Money, a person, an imagined supreme being... If someone wanted to worship a banana that would be their God. People used to worship the Sun as an example.

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That is true, if your definition of God is "whatever people hold value to." But, I was talking about a single being God. This being could only be one thing - no matter what you believed God was or not. It would just be terribly wrong to think that the being, "God", could be money (because one person thinks God is money) and a banana (because someone else thinks God is a banana) at the same time. God is one being or thing. So either one of those people was correct with their beliefs, or both of them were wrong.

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Originally posted by Bogey:
Either everybody has it wrong, or one belief is correct.

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Objectively, that is true. However, from my point of view, everybody can be right, as well. What religion is all about is attempting to answer unanswered questions in ways that makes us feel uplifted and spiritually "in tune". But again, I'm an Agnsotic, and this line of reasoning probably won't bode well with those who have firmly decided on one religion, and I can understand that. If you've made the decision that your religion is inarguably the right one, allowing room and thought for conflicting opinions does sort of de-value the one you've decided on. I think, for that reason, that it is perfectly acceptable for people to hold strong, passionate beliefs, just as long as they remember that others around them are doing the exact same thing.

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This being could only be one thing - no matter what you believed God was or not.

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Even if you've decided God is a single being, there is still room for questioning exactly what he is. Is he the creator of love? The creator of mankind? The creator of everything? And if he is the creator of everything, what created him? These are all questions worth talking about and exploring.

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Originally posted by Ikki14Reed:
Aguagon, before I start to read your super-long post, I would like to say I both love and hate your really long posts...

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I can identify. I love and hate writing them.

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I don't know about that. I think God would be whatever you worship. Sex, Money, a person, an imagined supreme being... If someone wanted to worship a banana that would be their God. People used to worship the Sun as an example.

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That is true, if your definition of God is "whatever people hold value to." But, I was talking about a single being God. This being could only be one thing - no matter what you believed God was or not.

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That's true, but if you've reached the conclusion that God is, without a doubt, the Big Man in the Sky who created us and is watching over us, you're not being terribly objective yourself. As jazzey said, different people hold different views on the matter, and since no one view can be proven correct, all of them are valid.

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Nobody is being terribly objective with their beliefs of God. My point was that it wouldn't be logical or objective to believe that God is everything people believe at once. Either everybody has it wrong, or one belief is correct.

Aguagon, before I start to read your super-long post, I would like to say I both love and hate your really long posts...

Alright, it's time for a long and probably redundant speech from an Agnostic. Brace yourselves.

Since there has been man, there has been religion. I think it is human nature to believe in something more than what you see, although whether that reflects that there actually is more than what we see, I don't know. Christianity is a relatively new thing, and like all religions, we will eventually see it end. I think it is imperative that more people realize this, and remember that Christianity is but one take on an age-old question that we will never properly be able to answer. The danger of a religion is directly proportional to the inflexibility of those pracitcing it.

It is my honest belief that even the most devout religious person will occasionally doubt God's existance, just as the most stubborn Atheist will have moments when taking everything at face value seems foolhardy. Open contemplation of such matters needs to always be welcome, and it is my belief that imposing a collective spiritual belief on someone (or on a society) is not only morally dispicable but stifling to sprituality itself.

If you've ever been swept up by the beauty of nature, or if you've ever gone for a long walk at sunset and gotten that peculiar yet welcome feeling that something magnificent was bubbling just below the surface of our grasp, you have had a spiritual experience. And whether you attributed that spiritual experience to God or nature or just simply the right brain chemistry at the right time, you've been caught up in a powerful and enjoyable feeling. I think the key thing religious people possess that Agnostics lack in this regard is a burning desire to explain what they've just felt. A religious person will find (or invent) the theory that suits them best as to why these inexplicable feelings exist, while an Agnsotic will just accept that such feelings exist without ever bothering to ask why (this can stem from either a lack of curiosity or just general contentness and an understanding that a definite answer will never be reached). As a third option, an Atheist will look to science to provide all the answers, arguing that these so-called "spritual moments" are nothing more than the chemicals that always affect our bodies aligning in a specific way. I realize these are very broad and quite possibly incorrect definitions of these three terms, but they are the the schools of thought as I understand and have witnessed them. If you consider my discription of one of the above offensive, I am truly sorry.

Anyway, it is my belief that all of us have experienced "spiritual" moments, regardless of what we consider ourselves. And my question to those of you who so adamantly believe in the concepts of sin and hell is this: when you have experienced one of these wonderful moments that brought a smile to your face and made you think God is up there, were you thinking of sins and of hell? I sincerely doubt you were; in fact, I'm willing to bet sins and hell were just about the furthest things from your mind. If you're like me, even thinking about the concept of eternal damnation at one of those special moments seems both ridiculous and somehow sacrilegious.

So while it is human nature to be spiritual and to believe in something more than what you see, I submit that it is not human nature to believe in hell. The concept of sin is nothing more than the manipulation of natural human desires to make society run more smoothly. I'm willing to bet preachers rambling on about sin, damnation, and the promise of an afterlife really have impacted society positively in some ways, but it's disturbing to think that the only thing keeping some people from committing atrocious acts is a fear of God.

The problem nowadays is that the ones preaching about sin and hell are not doing so only for society's well-being; they're doing so because they believe if you commit sins you go to hell. The idea has become so ingrained in our society that nobody is even willing to consider that sins were established to maintain social control. And now, exactly which "atrocities" are sins and which aren't are under heavy debate. Many believe that both homosexuality and murder are sins. This is why we can't rely on sins to be our guiding light, and we must look at things rationally. In this example, murder is bad for society, while homosexuality is not, and it's about that simple. Unfortunately, we won't be able to convince people to be rational about such things for some time, as eternal damnation is one hell of a scary threat (pun intended).

So who is God? God is one of the answers on the timeless multiple-choice question: Why?

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Originally posted by andria13:
God is just God..We people should not say bad things about God at all,becoz he's the one who created us,n we people should never go against him at all.He's the only person who can rescue us at times of difficulties..we say bad stuff n we will pay for it one day or the other.....

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As I said, I don't believe sins are anything more than an ever-more-dangerous means of social control, but even if there is a Supreme Being up in the sky watching us, I doubt blasphemy would offend him. I started a thread on this matter a while back, but it was only in the past month that I realized how I could best articulate my feelings of the matter: by using someone else's words. With that, I give you a quote from Yann Martel's novel The Life of Pi:

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After devouring half the liver, it started tugging on the whitish, balloon-like stomach bag. But it was heavy, and with the zebra's haunches being higher than its belly--and blood being slippery--the hyena started to slide into its victim. It plunged head and shoulders into the zebra's guts, up to the knees of its front legs. It pushed itself out, only to slide back down. It finally settled in this position, half in, half out. The zebra was being eaten alive from the inside.

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Oops, my mistake! That's the quote I use to gross people out, not the one I use to back up my feelings on the concept that blasphemy is a ridiculous sin. Here's the right one:

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There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God, as if Ultimate Reality, as if the sustaining frame of existence, were something weak and helpless. These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy begging for a few paise, walk by children dressed in rags living in the street, and they think, "Business as usual." But if they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story. Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words. Their degree of indignation is astonishing. Their resolve is frightening.

These people fail to realize that it is on the inside God must be defended, not on the outside. They should direct their anger at themselves. For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart. Meanwhile, the lot of widows and homeless children is very hard, and it is to their defence, not God's, that the self-righteous should rush.

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Doesn't that sum things up nicely? At the risk of instigating another pointless argument, those are words jamaica could really take to heart.

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Originally posted by Bogey:
Not in an objective world. God cannot be a banana for one person and then a tree for another. That is just simply illogical. I can say, "I am anything you want me to be," but that would be totally false, as well.

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That's true, but if you've reached the conclusion that God is, without a doubt, the Big Man in the Sky who created us and is watching over us, you're not being terribly objective yourself. As jazzey said, different people hold different views on the matter, and since no one view can be proven correct, all of them are valid.

Of course, these are all just my opinions (except for the parts that are Yann Martel and Pi Patel's opinions).