Religion/Spirituality Theism Discussion (Abrahamic Religions, Religious Philosophy, etc.)

[NoMayo15]

Once again, we use common sense. Is hell literally a fire? I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not. But it doesn't matter. The point is hell is a miserable place, maybe unfathomable to us so simply described as a fire, a somewhat imaginable torture to us. The message is do right and be rewarded, do wrong and be punished. This is an easy choice, not a "selfish" one. You should want to do right over wrong anyway, so the choice should be extremely easy.

If I call your arguments do I literally mean your argument has gained a bunch of unhealthy weight and become ill with some disease?

So again, I ask, how do you ever know when to take anything literally or not?

If you don't know if hell is a place of fire, then what are we talking about when you say "common sense". If a lake of fire is anything other than literal fire, then common sense breaks down, doesn't it?

Personally, I don't see how "non-believers will burn in a lake of fire" and "an argument is flabby and sick" are similar at all. One is clearly just an expression, and one might actually be a place that exists in reality .... like you said, we don't know. So what is "common sense" when we're talking about shyt we have no proof of? I think this is the point you're missing.

 

[Jesus Shuttlesworth]

If you don't know if hell is a place of fire, then what are we talking about when you say "common sense". If a lake of fire is anything other than literal fire, then common sense breaks down, doesn't it?

Personally, I don't see how "non-believers will burn in a lake of fire" and "an argument is flabby and sick" are similar at all. One is clearly just an expression, and one might actually be a place that exists in reality .... like you said, we don't know. So what is "common sense" when we're talking about shyt we have no proof of? I think this is the point you're missing.

Again, the message is do right get rewarded, do wrong get punished. You'll find out if hell fire is real soon enough. Now is not the time to worry about that aspect, it's trivial. The point is virtue over vice. Why would anyone of understanding base their faith, in one direction or another, on something so frivolous?

And why is clearly an expression? There are people on this site who have proposed "new" smilies, clearly not knowing where the expression came from so why would they assume it's an expression? The answer is what I said earlier: common sense.

You may think hell fire isn't as obvious but to be honest, it's not something I think about because I don't plan on going. I know hell is "a place I don't want to go" and that's sufficient for me. That has no baring on my faith though. It's not important enough a detail. But if I had to think for you, I would say it's definitely not to be taken literal because even if it were a fire it'd be a fire like nothing you've seen so any "literal" sense you take it in would still be off base.

I find it interesting though how only non-believers seem to be stuck on hell.

 

[Dafunkdoc_Unlimited]

Yes there is. You are involved in one.

Debate involves there still being a decision to be reached. That decision was reached 90 years ago.​

You do realise there are lots and lots of evangelical Christians who claim it to be true and are trying to get creationism taught alongside evolution in schools as "opposing opinions".

Fundamentalist Christians comprise less than 1% of Christians in America and many of them want it taught in public schools. Evangelicals are modernists and, like 99% of American Christians, have no problem with evolution.
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Though admittedly I'm not sure what your stance is on all of it. If you understand and accept evolution why are you arguing?

My stance is this 'conflict' is just a mole hill many believe is a mountain.​

 

[noon]

Fundamentalist Christians comprise less than 1% of Christians in America and many of them want it taught in public schools. Evangelicals are modernists and, like 99% of American Christians, have no problem with evolution.
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Yeah, you're gonna need some statistics (like this) to back that up or I'm gonna assume you're pulling numbers out of your ass.

 

[noon]

Again, the message is do right get rewarded, do wrong get punished. You'll find out if hell fire is real soon enough. Now is not the time to worry about that aspect, it's trivial. The point is virtue over vice. Why would anyone of understanding base their faith, in one direction or another, on something so frivolous?

Common sense tells me that an eternity of punishment is not justice for even 90 years of doing bad things on earth so I can toss that out as made up for a start.

 

[Jesus Shuttlesworth]

Common sense tells me that an eternity of punishment is not justice for even 90 years of doing bad things on earth so I can toss that out as made up for a start.

I don't know of hell lasting forever. I don't believe that. I don't know where you got that from. Therefore whatever point you're trying to make doesn't pertain to me.

And I would also challenge your credentials for judging such things anyway.

 

[Berniewood Hogan]

Evangelicals are modernists and, like 99% of American Christians, have no problem with evolution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_...ion#Support_for_evolution_by_religious_bodies

LESS THAN A QUARTER OF EVANGELICALS BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION, BROTHER! CATHOLICS ARE THE HIGHEST GROUP OF CHRISTIANS ON THAT CHART AND EVEN THEY'RE HOVERING AT ABOUT HALF, DUDE! DO YOU GET YOUR STATISTICS FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF MADE UP NUMBERS, MEAN GENE?

 

[Dafunkdoc_Unlimited]

Yeah, you're gonna need some statistics (like this) to back that up or I'm gonna assume you're pulling numbers out of your ass.

LESS THAN A QUARTER OF EVANGELICALS BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION, BROTHER!

From your link:

Many creationists act as evangelists and their organizations are registered as tax-free religious organizations.

Acting like an Evangelist =/= being an Evangelist. Evangelists also don't represent the majority of Christian belief. Read the rest of what you linked.......​

The Clergy Letter Project is a signed statement by 12,808 (as of 28 May 2012) American Christian clergy of different denominations rejecting creationism organized in 2004. Molleen Matsumura of the National Center for Science Education found, of Americans in the twelve largest Christian denominations, at least 77% belong to churches that support evolution education (and that at one point, this figure was as high as 89.6%). These religious groups include the Catholic Church, as well as various denominations of Protestantism, including the United Methodist Church, National Baptist Convention, USA, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church (USA), National Baptist Convention of America, African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Episcopal Church, and others. A figure closer to about 71% is presented by the analysis of Walter B. Murfin and David F. Beck.

Also.......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clergy_Letter_Project
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The Clergy Letter - from American Christian clergy – An Open Letter Concerning Religion and Science

Within the community of Christian believers there are areas of dispute and disagreement, including the proper way to interpret Holy Scripture. While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook. Many of the beloved stories found in the Bible – the Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark – convey timeless truths about God, human beings, and the proper relationship between Creator and creation expressed in the only form capable of transmitting these truths from generation to generation. Religious truth is of a different order from scientific truth. Its purpose is not to convey scientific information but to transform hearts.

We the undersigned, Christian clergy from many different traditions, believe that the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a foundational scientific truth, one that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests. To reject this truth or to treat it as "one theory among others" is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God's good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator. To argue that God's loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is to attempt to limit God, an act of hubris. We urge school board members to preserve the integrity of the science curriculum by affirming the teaching of the theory of evolution as a core component of human knowledge. We ask that science remain science and that religion remain religion, two very different, but complementary, forms of truth.

There is no conflict.​

 

[Berniewood Hogan]

http://www.gallup.com/poll/155003/Hold-Creationist-View-Human-Origins.aspx

Forty-six percent of Americans believe in the creationist view that God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years. The prevalence of this creationist view of the origin of humans is essentially unchanged from 30 years ago, when Gallup first asked the question. About a third of Americans believe that humans evolved, but with God's guidance; 15% say humans evolved, but that God had no part in the process.

YOUR INCESSANT PEDANTRY IS NO MATCH FOR MY ABILITY TO GOOGLE STUFF, BROTHER!

 

[Dafunkdoc_Unlimited]

http://www.gallup.com/poll/155003/Hold-Creationist-View-Human-Origins.aspx

YOUR INCESSANT PEDANTRY IS NO MATCH FOR MY ABILITY TO GOOGLE STUFF, BROTHER!

Your ability to 'Google stuff' is vociferously rebutted by a lack of proper sampling size to draw ANY significant conclusions......

Results for this USA Today/Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted May 10-13, 2012, with a random sample of 1,012 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

In a nation of approx. 317 million, 1,012 adults = 3%

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[Berniewood Hogan]

IF YOU REALLY DON'T BELIEVE THERE'S A STRONG STRAIN OF YOUNG EARTH CREATIONISM IN AMERICAN CHRISTENDOM TODAY, WE MUST BE LIVING IN TWO DIFFERENT AMERICAS, BROTHER!

 

[Dafunkdoc_Unlimited]

The vast majority of Christians aren't 'Young Earth Creationists'.

That 'strong strain' is insignificant, dude.​

 

[noon]

I don't know of hell lasting forever. I don't believe that. I don't know where you got that from. Therefore whatever point you're trying to make doesn't pertain to me.

And I would also challenge your credentials for judging such things anyway.

Matthew 25:41 ESV
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

Matthew 25:46 ESV
And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

2 Thessalonians 1:9 ESV
They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might,

Mark 9:48 ESV
‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’

Jude 1:7 ESV
Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

2 Thessalonians 1:9 KJV
- Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;

Revelation 20:10 KJV
- And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet [are], and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

and so on.

 

[noon]

Your ability to 'Google stuff' is vociferously rebutted by a lack of proper sampling size to draw ANY significant conclusions......



In a nation of approx. 317 million, 1,012 adults = 3%

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So considering there is only 1% of Christians in all of America that are Fundamentalists they still managed to find 46% out of 1,012 people that believed in Creation. They must have been doing their survey in the only Fundamental megachurch in America I suppose. Like Hollywood Hogan said, You must be in a different America.

 

[Dafunkdoc_Unlimited]

So considering there is only 1% of Christians in all of America that are Fundamentalists they still managed to find 46% out of 1,012 people that believed in Creation. They must have been doing their survey in the only Fundamental megachurch in America I suppose. Like Hollywood Hogan said, You must be in a different America.

46% of 1,012 = 465 people.

LOL.

That's not even a molehill. More like an anthill and woefully insignificant to draw any conclusions.
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