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Team Captain [499]
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So many religions out there, this is what drives me crazy.
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May 3, 2023, 7:48 PM
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I generally find that religious people are better people than non-religious people. Some of my favorite people in the world are very religious. What frustrates me is they are so many different religions. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think Christians think that if you’re not a Christian, you will burn in hell. That bothers me in a big way, and it’s always kept me from becoming active in a Christian church. I just can’t believe that people born in primitive parts of the world that don’t have access to Christianity are going to hell. I also don’t believe that Asians who are Hindu and Buddhist are going to hell because they’re not Christians. Help me understand how this is a rational thought and not a mean spirited arrogant Christian Doctrine?
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Orange Blooded [2149]
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Re: So many religions out there, this is what drives me crazy.
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May 3, 2023, 8:12 PM
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"I generally find that religious people are better people than non-religious people."
I feel a mega thread coming on...
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Hall of Famer [24452]
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LOL. I think "been there done that" will reign here.
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May 3, 2023, 10:52 PM
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Good comments in OP, but I just got off that merry-go-round, and I'm still sort of dizzy. If I dont throw up my cotton candy I might try another ride.
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All-TigerNet [11626]
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In my experience, the more outspoken you are about your
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May 3, 2023, 8:18 PM
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religion, the more likely you are a backstabbing, immoral, sack of ####.
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Oculus Spirit [93608]
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Re: So many religions out there, this is what drives me crazy.
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May 3, 2023, 8:19 PM
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I believe what the Bible says, so from a Christian perspective your deliberation is that God is unjust for 'allowing,' people to go to hell.
Your limited perspective inhibits your understanding that God is eternal not bound by time as are we. He saw the end of this world before He created it. He created this temporal world, it is my belief, to resolve an eternal issue. One of His Holy Angels took it upon himself to proclaim he would be his own god: being that angels have free will you can see that as possible.
Some speculate that Lucifer tempted other angels, 1/3rd of them, to join him in his quest for godship. It is supposed that his challenge was related to God Almighty as being a selfish God who made unwarranted demands of His subjects. That is where you are right now.
God created this world to justify Himself in the eyes of both angels and man, all self willed creations. To ensure no further challenge to His righteousness He came in the flesh of man and took the sin of this world upon Himself and paid what He judges to be a fair price for sinning against Him.
Jesus' post resurrection glorified body carries the scars of our sin in hands and feet. He sits at the right hand of God the Father and reminds Him in eternity that our sin debt is paid but also quells any talk about God being unjustly selfish.
This being perhaps one of the millions or billions of the reasons God created man should never be considered more accurate or important that the possibly many other reasons God has for us being here.
I hope you do not take any of this as insulting due to the fact that it's a reader's digest type description of what I understand of the Bible. You are more than welcome to read it for yourself and seek the truth within it.
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CU Medallion [58376]
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Again, the problem I have with all of that is God knowingly
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May 3, 2023, 8:55 PM
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creating things he does not like or want, so that he will have to correct them or fix them.
Also again, I believe that God is beyond our comprehension, but you are offering an explanation as if there is a knowable answer, and your explanation makes no sense, or fails to answer the question in a way that makes sense.
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Oculus Spirit [93608]
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It's like you said, It's my explanation.
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May 4, 2023, 5:16 AM
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I can't tell you what it will take to satisfy your soul but just only what satisfies mine. Frankly, you question God's righteousness in judgement of those who are lost. A humble man knows that everyone deserves hell and would be so delighted that his soul was spared he wouldn't let any matter quell his joy.
Let's start with that this time. Who doesn't deserve hell? All the people I know who are saved from hell believe that they deserve it but God's grace and mercy shown on the cross saved them from a fate they fairly deserve.
So who do you know that doesn't deserve hell?
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CU Medallion [58376]
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Easy.
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May 4, 2023, 8:35 AM
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An infant who dies at the hands of an abusive parent does not deserve to spend the rest of eternity in hell. A child who is born in a muslim country, raised in that culture, and is killed, does not deserve to spend eternity burning in hell. I don't care what kind of convoluted, twisted reasoning you use, what kind of sermon-like language you use, or what book written by men you use to justify it. I know a loving God would not by choice create an existence/reality/universe where that is, by his design, the outcome.
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Orange Blooded [2053]
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Re: Easy.
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May 4, 2023, 10:12 AM
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> I know a loving God would not by choice create an existence/reality/universe where that is, by his design, the outcome.
I think that's game, set, and match. It doesn't mean that a god doesn't exist, but I see no way to call that "good".
If something good happens:
"I got the job", "Mom got a big return on her taxes", "I'm cancer free" people will say "God is good!"
If something bad happens:
"I got cancer", "there is a war in Ukraine", "the holocaust happened", "a billion of people are and will suffer eternity in hell". Well... that just means, "we don't understand! It's mysterious!"
I mean, it's not mysterious... what Hitler did was unequivocally evil. He killed millions of people for things that people had no control over. My understanding is that the holocaust has nothing on Hell...
If that exists... that's not loving or just. I can get on board with punishment, but brutal, unending hellfire and anguish for believing the wrong thing? Especially when you were given dubious evidence to believe it? Yeah... Nah. That doesn't sound like the work of a perfect, benevolent, loving creator to me.
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CU Medallion [58376]
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Just my own personal belief ...
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May 4, 2023, 11:07 AM
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God is real, and God created this universe and this reality. That alone makes God incomprehensible, in his totality, to the human mind. The universe and this reality are so vast that we can barely conceive them; most people are simply incapable. Based on that, its perfectly reasonable to asign words like "mysterious" and "magical" to describe certain aspects of God. I believe the spiritual realm is real, but fits into that category.
I can't explain the bad, and the evil in the world. We all can know this much, beyond any doubt: Either God wants it to exist, or he is powerless to prevent it. There are no other possibilities. That's what I mean when I say there's more to the story than our churches and theologians typically give us, and in that regard, they have failed. Im sure the reason for that is, just like me and everybody else, they don't know. If, like me, you believe in a loving creator, then that is indeed a mystery, and while I will be curious and seek the answer until I die, I accept that I will never get it here in this world.
Important: Just because we can't know everything, and just because it is unexplainable, that doesn't mean that we can or should believe anything and everything about God. It doesn't mean that we believe things that are nonsensical or contradictory, like "God, who created this reality and is supremely powerful, hates evil, but he has to allow it to exist. Even though he could have done it any way he chose, with unlimited possibilites and unrestrained power, he was somehow forced to allow evil; it was the only way he could accomplish what he wanted". To say that God had to do anything is unequivocally saying that he is not all powerful, and is limited by something other than himself or his own creation. Can't have it both ways.
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All-In [29823]
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Re: Just my own personal belief ...
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May 4, 2023, 1:17 PM
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>Can't have it both ways.
It is quite a dilemma. I suppose that's why the Question of Evil is so prevalent in those who ponder this kind of stuff. The morality issue of God is a huge one. And based on that dilemma, it would point me in the direction of a dispassionate god. The guy who creates and walks away.
Sort of like the guy at the fish hatchery who just keeps the tanks stocked. He doesn't bother himself with what they are doing, which fish is bullying which other fish, or who is stealing whose food, or any of that. Just keep the tanks full, and the operation going.
But there is a third option that was told to me when I was a church goer - the "we just don't understand what it means right now but in the big picture it will all make sense." And that may be true - or not, but it's certainly not palatable to our contemporary senses and morality.
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Oculus Spirit [93608]
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Infants share Jesus' innocents.
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May 6, 2023, 1:26 PM
[ in reply to Easy. ] |
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Who says they go to hell? Not I.
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Orange Blooded [2053]
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Re: Infants share Jesus' innocents.
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May 6, 2023, 1:51 PM
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So we aren’t born sick?
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Oculus Spirit [93608]
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Sickness and disease comes upon all man
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May 6, 2023, 4:59 PM
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The saved are not excluded from the sufferings of the flesh. Physical death is a part of life.
This subthread was about infants going to hell not being sick or having disease.
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Orange Blooded [2053]
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Re: Sickness and disease comes upon all man
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May 6, 2023, 5:54 PM
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Sorry, I wasn't referring to physical sickness, I mean "original sin" or that we are born sinners.
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Oculus Spirit [93608]
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Evidenly I never really understood an accurate definition...
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May 7, 2023, 11:36 AM
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of original sin. My concept of original sin is that we inherited a certain physical death from sin such that no man gets out of this world alive in the flesh. You don't need any special insight to comprehend and believe that.
This notion that babies are born destined for hell unless they get saved is nonsense straight from the bowels of men who usurped church power and used tradition and ritual to micro manipulate Christian who couldn't or wouldn't read the Bible.
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Orange Blooded [2053]
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Re: It's like you said, It's my explanation.
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May 4, 2023, 9:06 AM
[ in reply to It's like you said, It's my explanation. ] |
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> I can't tell you what it will take to satisfy your soul but just only what satisfies mine. Frankly, you question God's righteousness in judgement of those who are lost. A humble man knows that everyone deserves hell and would be so delighted that his soul was spared he wouldn't let any matter quell his joy.
So, right now, if you knew 100% that your wife and kids were lost, you would still be so delighted that you were spared?
> So who do you know that doesn't deserve hell?
Not sure about you, but sane people don't light their progeny on fire when they disobey. So I would say, that nobody deserves eternal suffering for any temporal transgression.
Especially not when, as you say, you are chosen for this fate before you are even born. So no, I don't think anyone deserves hell. I think it's clearly a man-made concept that evolved over time.
Christianity evolved from Judaism, and they weren't really onboard with the hellfire and brimstone, so it sounds made-up.
Either way, it's neither good nor loving. It's the opposite of loving to torment people for eternity.
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Team Captain [499]
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No one addressed what I was asking for.
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May 5, 2023, 8:16 PM
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All these long winded responses. It’s quite simple. How do you rationalize that anyone who is not a Christian goes to hell? None of you would answer that question. You bounced around it with your long winded answers but you did not want to directly answer my question. Explain to me why you consider yourself a great person when you think that anyone is not a Christian burns in hell? You don’t wanna answer that directly that’s why you come up with your own BS responses. It’s wrong and you know it. If anyone can respond, then explain why non-Christians are evil bad people that go to hell. Please answer directly the question. Otherwise you have no credibility.
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Orange Blooded [2053]
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Re: No one addressed what I was asking for.
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May 5, 2023, 8:22 PM
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"You can only know if you like super really want to know"
"If you don't know that's because you haven't tried hard enough"
You won't get a direct answer. It's all a rationalization to say that god can kill and torture people at scale and it's still loving and just.
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Orange Blooded [2053]
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Re: No one addressed what I was asking for.
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May 5, 2023, 8:22 PM
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I forgot the most ridiculous one.
"If you end up in hell, it's because you chose to be in hell. You wanted it"
Like wow, ###!?
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Oculus Spirit [93608]
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The concept is based on the fact that one who rejects...
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May 7, 2023, 11:54 AM
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God now should not complain when God rejects him.
Ex: She wanted you to ask her to the prom but you waited and she made a date with another.
You think you're going to be upset? I don't think so. God will overwhelm you with His presence and you will accept His judgement without complaining. Hell won't be filled with people cursing God for judging them. It will be filled with those praising Him for being Holy, loving, full of grace and mercy along with the grief for not having been obedient to Him all along.
"Every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord.'
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Orange Blooded [2053]
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Re: The concept is based on the fact that one who rejects...
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May 7, 2023, 12:02 PM
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> The concept is based on the fact that one who rejects God now should not complain when God rejects him.
I have no idea how I'm rejecting something I don't know exists. I don't know that Zeus exists, am I rejecting him? Am I rejecting Santa Clause for thinking he probably doesn't exist?
If Zues or Santa Clause unequivocally made their presence known, I would then have the ability to "reject" them.
>Ex: She wanted you to ask her to the prom but you waited and she made a date with another.
> You think you're going to be upset? I don't think so.
This is actually an apt comparison, I think. Why? Because it would be entirely possible not to realize she was interested. You can say she left all the subtle clues you want, but in the end, if she didn't say "hey I'm interested", sounds like the blame is on her for not being direct.
> God will overwhelm you with His presence and you will accept His judgement without complaining.
.. but this is only a guarantee after I die? Where is it now? That seems liken nothing but a scare tactic.
It's easy to confidently say that because you can't be proven wrong. It's why religion works without evidence.
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Oculus Spirit [93608]
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"For all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God."
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May 7, 2023, 11:43 AM
[ in reply to No one addressed what I was asking for. ] |
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Every man who has reached the age that he knows right from wrong, accountability, is responsible for trespasses (sin) against God.
God is just, His judgements are true.
Man's problem is that we judge according to the spirit of man. A good man is our reference for judgement. Mother Terese, St Paul...but God's measuring stick is The Son He begot.
Here's the test condensed into three categories. Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and the pride of life. If you've never committed one of those sins I expect your wife to verify your claim.
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