“If God does not exist, then all things are permitted.”

[ChrisL]

It is not just Christians but all religions

Majority of religions have little room in their doctrine for differences in opinion

If you have a belief, and, the text you use (e.g. the Bible) sets out Godly standards and principles, and, if you turn you life over to God and vow to live a more Christ-like life (using my belief system as an example) there is not room for difference of opinion because God's word is the final word. Above and beyond any man-made, secular rule, law or belief.

ISIS feels the same way

True, but Christians are not asked to kill anyone. Remember, Grace and Truth.....
.... that does not include chopping people's heads off .... also, relationship with God is a personal calling, not something you demand of someone....

But in the OT they are . . . That's another thing. A lot of Christians want to completely ignore the OT. They say they only follow the NT. Well, are you saying that God was mistaken in the OT? What's up with that?

That is an effect of Paul's teachings. This is a bit simplistic and there are some nuances in Paul's philosophy that make it rather complicated, but the shorthand is that according to Paul, once one accepts Grace they are embracing the New Covenant with God and the Old Covenant is no longer applicable. It's important to realize that Paul didn't think he was helping to create a new religion. Paul, as well as the other apostles, thought they were taking Judaism into the next (and final) phase. That new phase abolished the old Law and created a new Law.

Since Paul is the primary influential force behind modern Christianity, it is not surprising that Christians feel the New Testament is the Law and the Old Testament (or Torah to be more specific) is no longer Law. Although it may still be good advice, we are not bound to it anymore....at least according to Paul

I'm sorry, but it makes absolutely no good sense. If it is included in your Bible, then obviously it plays a role.

 

[Slyhunter]

If you have a belief, and, the text you use (e.g. the Bible) sets out Godly standards and principles, and, if you turn you life over to God and vow to live a more Christ-like life (using my belief system as an example) there is not room for difference of opinion because God's word is the final word. Above and beyond any man-made, secular rule, law or belief.

ISIS feels the same way

True, but Christians are not asked to kill anyone. Remember, Grace and Truth.....
.... that does not include chopping people's heads off .... also, relationship with God is a personal calling, not something you demand of someone....

But in the OT they are . . . That's another thing. A lot of Christians want to completely ignore the OT. They say they only follow the NT. Well, are you saying that God was mistaken in the OT? What's up with that?

That is an effect of Paul's teachings. This is a bit simplistic and there are some nuances in Paul's philosophy that make it rather complicated, but the shorthand is that according to Paul, once one accepts Grace they are embracing the New Covenant with God and the Old Covenant is no longer applicable. It's important to realize that Paul didn't think he was helping to create a new religion. Paul, as well as the other apostles, thought they were taking Judaism into the next (and final) phase. That new phase abolished the old Law and created a new Law.

Since Paul is the primary influential force behind modern Christianity, it is not surprising that Christians feel the New Testament is the Law and the Old Testament (or Torah to be more specific) is no longer Law. Although it may still be good advice, we are not bound to it anymore....at least according to Paul

I'm sorry, but it makes absolutely no good sense. If it is included in your Bible, then obviously it plays a role.

Historical context.

 

[ChrisL]

Oh wait . . . they can just say "sorry" and all will be well!

No, it's not just saying sorry.
It's turning from your sinful ways and living for God.

No it is not. People repent on their death beds. They did NOT live their lives in a Godly manner.

there are those that do repent at death, yes. if it's genuine, it's honored by God. Only God knows the heart.

Yes, so the atheist says, "I'm sorry that I didn't worship you God, but I lived a good life. I donated to many charities, I helped those less fortunate than me, I was faithful to my spouse." God says, "too fucking bad, it's all about me." Meanwhile, the guy who murdered six kids who repents on his death bed gets a ticket to Heaven. Fuck that. Your religion is disgusting, IMO.

It really depends on who you ask, Chris. Personally, I do not believe in hell or Satan for a lot of reasons that I have explained in detail on other threads and don't wish to write out again. Let's just say that through my scholarly research (differentiating that from my faith based exploration of God) on the history of Judeo-Christianity I have concluded that hell and Satan are man made concepts designed to a) explain suffering, and b) terrify people into behaving the way the Church wanted them to behave.

But that does not mean I am not a Christian. Anyone who believes that Jesus was the Messiah is, by definition, a Christian. You could make an argument for a narrower interpretation based upon the Nicean Creed, but that's the one I go with.

Now there will be a lot of other Christians who say I am not a Christian because I don't in hell. Jeremiah recently called me evil and accused me of practicing witchcraft because of my disbelief in hell. Koshergrl has made some pretty harsh charges against me for such views, so there will always be those who have a really rigid and harsh interpretation of scripture (and I would argue that such interpretations are largely ignorant of the historical, cultural, and linguistic influences that were the context for what the authors of the Bible were actually saying). There is nothing that can be done about that because you can't talk reason to someone who is intent on being unreasonable. All you can do is shrug your shoulders and move on.

I wouldn't say you aren't a Christian. That isn't for me to say. I will say that everyone I know, who is a religious type person, does indeed believe in Hell, and I think you are in the minority here. I know that the Catholics certainly believe in a Hell.

As you are probably aware, Roman Catholicism is the OLDEST known organized Christian religious denomination.

 

[ChrisL]

everything you say here is based on what you have read in your silly book written by ignorant uneducated people who did not understand the world around them,

Whoa, whoa, whoa....hold on a sec. The authors of the Bible were FAR from ignorant and uneducated. Paul, just as an example, was HIGHLY educated and his arguments are absolutely ingenious in their structure, depth, and content. He wrote in excellent Greek using proper rhetoric for the manner of writing he was engaged in. Now we may or may not disagree with his philosophy or his conclusions, but make no mistake. These guys were not idiots by any means.

They were angry. Paul comes across in his letters as a very angry, egotistical, sarcastic prick. The prophets of the Old Testament were raging. People today read scripture and we have a tendency to read them with a reverent tone of voice because the language sounds old. In reality these guys were pissed as parakeets. Imagine a modern demonstration on the streets with a bunch of people marching and a guy with a bullhorn screaming about injustice and raising hell. Ok THAT is what Paul and the prophets were. They were radicals and they created a shit storm with their writings, but their arguments were very complex, extraordinarily deep in most cases, and they frequently used Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle as a basis for their arguments. The author of Hebrews used Plato's Allegory of the Cave, as a singular example, in a fantastically brilliant fashion in order to make, what I at least believe to be, a very misunderstood point.

You can correctly accuse the authors of the Bible of being a lot of things....stupid and uneducated aint among them.

We will definitely have to disagree on THAT one. I think OBVIOUSLY they were quite ignorant. That's not an insult. Most people back in those days were ignorant of how the world worked. I mean, things were certainly not comparable to today.

 

[ChrisL]

Sorry guys, your religious customs and beliefs are just very old fashioned and becoming more and more obsolete. The more we learn about our world, the less sense your religions make.

 

[ChrisL]

ISIS feels the same way

True, but Christians are not asked to kill anyone. Remember, Grace and Truth.....
.... that does not include chopping people's heads off .... also, relationship with God is a personal calling, not something you demand of someone....

But in the OT they are . . . That's another thing. A lot of Christians want to completely ignore the OT. They say they only follow the NT. Well, are you saying that God was mistaken in the OT? What's up with that?

That is an effect of Paul's teachings. This is a bit simplistic and there are some nuances in Paul's philosophy that make it rather complicated, but the shorthand is that according to Paul, once one accepts Grace they are embracing the New Covenant with God and the Old Covenant is no longer applicable. It's important to realize that Paul didn't think he was helping to create a new religion. Paul, as well as the other apostles, thought they were taking Judaism into the next (and final) phase. That new phase abolished the old Law and created a new Law.

Since Paul is the primary influential force behind modern Christianity, it is not surprising that Christians feel the New Testament is the Law and the Old Testament (or Torah to be more specific) is no longer Law. Although it may still be good advice, we are not bound to it anymore....at least according to Paul

I'm sorry, but it makes absolutely no good sense. If it is included in your Bible, then obviously it plays a role.

Historical context.

I'm not buying that for a second. Obviously, there were "lessons" in the OT. They delved quite deeply into these stories for a reason and that wasn't just for context purposes. I think you all are supposed to be following BOTH. You all are probably not going to Heaven on judgment day for ignoring an important part of your own book.

 

[ChrisL]

You know what is sad though? When the Catholics tell a person that if they get a divorce, they must spend the rest of their lives ALONE. Now that is a fucking terrible thing to do to someone. Really terrible.

 

[BluePhantom]

Personally, I do not believe in hell or Satan

What do you think the fiery furnace is referencing in Revelation 21:8?

But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death

'Hell' and 'Satan' are contrivances of man, myths and fables from our ancient past – completely unreal and false.

And quoting the bible fails as an appeal to authority fallacy.

I couldn't have said it better. Shit written by ancient mankind 500 years before paper was invented means two things....they believed in witches, shit on the ground and wiped on their hands.

I might add that they believed the earth was flat:

Actually they used sponges

 

[BluePhantom]

If you have a belief, and, the text you use (e.g. the Bible) sets out Godly standards and principles, and, if you turn you life over to God and vow to live a more Christ-like life (using my belief system as an example) there is not room for difference of opinion because God's word is the final word. Above and beyond any man-made, secular rule, law or belief.

ISIS feels the same way

True, but Christians are not asked to kill anyone. Remember, Grace and Truth.....
.... that does not include chopping people's heads off .... also, relationship with God is a personal calling, not something you demand of someone....

But in the OT they are . . . That's another thing. A lot of Christians want to completely ignore the OT. They say they only follow the NT. Well, are you saying that God was mistaken in the OT? What's up with that?

That is an effect of Paul's teachings. This is a bit simplistic and there are some nuances in Paul's philosophy that make it rather complicated, but the shorthand is that according to Paul, once one accepts Grace they are embracing the New Covenant with God and the Old Covenant is no longer applicable. It's important to realize that Paul didn't think he was helping to create a new religion. Paul, as well as the other apostles, thought they were taking Judaism into the next (and final) phase. That new phase abolished the old Law and created a new Law.

Since Paul is the primary influential force behind modern Christianity, it is not surprising that Christians feel the New Testament is the Law and the Old Testament (or Torah to be more specific) is no longer Law. Although it may still be good advice, we are not bound to it anymore....at least according to Paul

I'm sorry, but it makes absolutely no good sense. If it is included in your Bible, then obviously it plays a role.

It plays a role as far as being good advice, but Christians are not bound to it. Let's just focus in on Torah for a second. As I have mentioned before, Torah is a legal contract (written in legal language) between God and the Jews. The Jews part of the contract is to follow the Law and in return God provides peace and prosperity to the Jews while living in the Holy Land. If you are not a Jew and/or you don't live in the Holy Land, Torah doesn't apply to you. The terms of the contract are very specific. It covers only the Jews and is limited to life in the Holy Land. So how does that apply to me, a Christian living in Portland, Oregon? It doesn't. How does it apply to anyone else not covered by the contract? It doesn't. This is why when people quote Leviticus to me, my standard answer is "well we live in the United States and we are not Jewish so Leviticus is null and void".

So why is it still in there? Tradition mostly but there are some very interesting historical arguments that happened in early Christianity regarding what we consider the Old Testament. The Marcionites, for example argued that the Old Testament should be completely ignored for the reason I stated before. The Ebionites, on the other hand, argued that those books actually didn't belong to the Jews at all but were exclusively Christian. They argued that once the Jews broke the covenant when Moses came down from Mt. Sinai, that the covenant was never restored. They argued that the Jews broke the deal and God said "well so much for that" and God did not renew any covenant with man until He sent Jesus.

So why is the Old Testament still in the Bible? One reason is because when the Bible was getting standardized they hadn't settled the debate on who owned the Old Testament and who it applied to. But mostly it's just simple tradition

 

[BluePhantom]

No, it's not just saying sorry.
It's turning from your sinful ways and living for God.

No it is not. People repent on their death beds. They did NOT live their lives in a Godly manner.

there are those that do repent at death, yes. if it's genuine, it's honored by God. Only God knows the heart.

Yes, so the atheist says, "I'm sorry that I didn't worship you God, but I lived a good life. I donated to many charities, I helped those less fortunate than me, I was faithful to my spouse." God says, "too fucking bad, it's all about me." Meanwhile, the guy who murdered six kids who repents on his death bed gets a ticket to Heaven. Fuck that. Your religion is disgusting, IMO.

It really depends on who you ask, Chris. Personally, I do not believe in hell or Satan for a lot of reasons that I have explained in detail on other threads and don't wish to write out again. Let's just say that through my scholarly research (differentiating that from my faith based exploration of God) on the history of Judeo-Christianity I have concluded that hell and Satan are man made concepts designed to a) explain suffering, and b) terrify people into behaving the way the Church wanted them to behave.

But that does not mean I am not a Christian. Anyone who believes that Jesus was the Messiah is, by definition, a Christian. You could make an argument for a narrower interpretation based upon the Nicean Creed, but that's the one I go with.

Now there will be a lot of other Christians who say I am not a Christian because I don't in hell. Jeremiah recently called me evil and accused me of practicing witchcraft because of my disbelief in hell. Koshergrl has made some pretty harsh charges against me for such views, so there will always be those who have a really rigid and harsh interpretation of scripture (and I would argue that such interpretations are largely ignorant of the historical, cultural, and linguistic influences that were the context for what the authors of the Bible were actually saying). There is nothing that can be done about that because you can't talk reason to someone who is intent on being unreasonable. All you can do is shrug your shoulders and move on.

I wouldn't say you aren't a Christian. That isn't for me to say. I will say that everyone I know, who is a religious type person, does indeed believe in Hell, and I think you are in the minority here. I know that the Catholics certainly believe in a Hell.

As you are probably aware, Roman Catholicism is the OLDEST known organized Christian religious denomination.

Oh I am in the extreme minority, but that is because Christian Churches today use English versions of the Bible where the traditions of the Church in the Middle Ages have been preserved instead of the actual words and concepts used in the Greek and Hebrew languages and the culture of the Jews and early Christians at the time they wrote their books. As I mentioned earlier, there is a cycle in the evolution of the Bible where an issue is not covered by scripture so a tradition is created to solve that problem. That tradition becomes set in the culture and hundreds of years later it gets written down in new scripture. So the Christian concept of hell has been around for 1,800 - 1,900 years or so and it was just pounded into society by the Church in the Middle Ages. It has become so ingrained in Christian thought that it is very hard to get rid of, even though it is tradition and not actual scripture.

 

[ChrisL]

No it is not. People repent on their death beds. They did NOT live their lives in a Godly manner.

there are those that do repent at death, yes. if it's genuine, it's honored by God. Only God knows the heart.

Yes, so the atheist says, "I'm sorry that I didn't worship you God, but I lived a good life. I donated to many charities, I helped those less fortunate than me, I was faithful to my spouse." God says, "too fucking bad, it's all about me." Meanwhile, the guy who murdered six kids who repents on his death bed gets a ticket to Heaven. Fuck that. Your religion is disgusting, IMO.

It really depends on who you ask, Chris. Personally, I do not believe in hell or Satan for a lot of reasons that I have explained in detail on other threads and don't wish to write out again. Let's just say that through my scholarly research (differentiating that from my faith based exploration of God) on the history of Judeo-Christianity I have concluded that hell and Satan are man made concepts designed to a) explain suffering, and b) terrify people into behaving the way the Church wanted them to behave.

But that does not mean I am not a Christian. Anyone who believes that Jesus was the Messiah is, by definition, a Christian. You could make an argument for a narrower interpretation based upon the Nicean Creed, but that's the one I go with.

Now there will be a lot of other Christians who say I am not a Christian because I don't in hell. Jeremiah recently called me evil and accused me of practicing witchcraft because of my disbelief in hell. Koshergrl has made some pretty harsh charges against me for such views, so there will always be those who have a really rigid and harsh interpretation of scripture (and I would argue that such interpretations are largely ignorant of the historical, cultural, and linguistic influences that were the context for what the authors of the Bible were actually saying). There is nothing that can be done about that because you can't talk reason to someone who is intent on being unreasonable. All you can do is shrug your shoulders and move on.

I wouldn't say you aren't a Christian. That isn't for me to say. I will say that everyone I know, who is a religious type person, does indeed believe in Hell, and I think you are in the minority here. I know that the Catholics certainly believe in a Hell.

As you are probably aware, Roman Catholicism is the OLDEST known organized Christian religious denomination.

Oh I am in the extreme minority, but that is because Christian Churches today use English versions of the Bible where the traditions of the Church in the Middle Ages have been preserved instead of the actual words and concepts used in the Greek and Hebrew languages and the culture of the Jews and early Christians at the time they wrote their books. As I mentioned earlier, there is a cycle in the evolution of the Bible where an issue is not covered by scripture so a tradition is created to solve that problem. That tradition becomes set in the culture and hundreds of years later it gets written down in new scripture. So the Christian concept of hell has been around for 1,800 - 1,900 years or so and it was just pounded into society by the Church in the Middle Ages. It has become so ingrained in Christian thought that it is very hard to get rid of, even though it is tradition and not actual scripture.

Well, regardless of all of that, the whole concept is just too far fetched for me. Like another poster stated, I started questioning these things VERY early in my life. The same as I questioned Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy.

 

[BluePhantom]

everything you say here is based on what you have read in your silly book written by ignorant uneducated people who did not understand the world around them,

Whoa, whoa, whoa....hold on a sec. The authors of the Bible were FAR from ignorant and uneducated. Paul, just as an example, was HIGHLY educated and his arguments are absolutely ingenious in their structure, depth, and content. He wrote in excellent Greek using proper rhetoric for the manner of writing he was engaged in. Now we may or may not disagree with his philosophy or his conclusions, but make no mistake. These guys were not idiots by any means.

They were angry. Paul comes across in his letters as a very angry, egotistical, sarcastic prick. The prophets of the Old Testament were raging. People today read scripture and we have a tendency to read them with a reverent tone of voice because the language sounds old. In reality these guys were pissed as parakeets. Imagine a modern demonstration on the streets with a bunch of people marching and a guy with a bullhorn screaming about injustice and raising hell. Ok THAT is what Paul and the prophets were. They were radicals and they created a shit storm with their writings, but their arguments were very complex, extraordinarily deep in most cases, and they frequently used Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle as a basis for their arguments. The author of Hebrews used Plato's Allegory of the Cave, as a singular example, in a fantastically brilliant fashion in order to make, what I at least believe to be, a very misunderstood point.

You can correctly accuse the authors of the Bible of being a lot of things....stupid and uneducated aint among them.

We will definitely have to disagree on THAT one. I think OBVIOUSLY they were quite ignorant. That's not an insult. Most people back in those days were ignorant of how the world worked. I mean, things were certainly not comparable to today.

Well ignorant in what way? If you are talking about being ignorant of science I would generally agree. We certainly understand a lot more about the universe today than they did, we are more scientifically and technologically advanced, but that is not what the Bible is addressing. A lot of the Bible deals with moral lessons about life. Was Socrates ignorant? Was Plato? Aristotle? Hardly. Same concept.

 

[ChrisL]

everything you say here is based on what you have read in your silly book written by ignorant uneducated people who did not understand the world around them,

Whoa, whoa, whoa....hold on a sec. The authors of the Bible were FAR from ignorant and uneducated. Paul, just as an example, was HIGHLY educated and his arguments are absolutely ingenious in their structure, depth, and content. He wrote in excellent Greek using proper rhetoric for the manner of writing he was engaged in. Now we may or may not disagree with his philosophy or his conclusions, but make no mistake. These guys were not idiots by any means.

They were angry. Paul comes across in his letters as a very angry, egotistical, sarcastic prick. The prophets of the Old Testament were raging. People today read scripture and we have a tendency to read them with a reverent tone of voice because the language sounds old. In reality these guys were pissed as parakeets. Imagine a modern demonstration on the streets with a bunch of people marching and a guy with a bullhorn screaming about injustice and raising hell. Ok THAT is what Paul and the prophets were. They were radicals and they created a shit storm with their writings, but their arguments were very complex, extraordinarily deep in most cases, and they frequently used Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle as a basis for their arguments. The author of Hebrews used Plato's Allegory of the Cave, as a singular example, in a fantastically brilliant fashion in order to make, what I at least believe to be, a very misunderstood point.

You can correctly accuse the authors of the Bible of being a lot of things....stupid and uneducated aint among them.

We will definitely have to disagree on THAT one. I think OBVIOUSLY they were quite ignorant. That's not an insult. Most people back in those days were ignorant of how the world worked. I mean, things were certainly not comparable to today.

Well ignorant in what way? If you are talking about being ignorant of science I would generally agree. We certainly understand a lot more about the universe today than they did, we are more scientifically and technologically advanced, but that is not what the Bible is addressing. A lot of the Bible deals with moral lessons about life. Was Socrates ignorant? Was Plato? Aristotle? Hardly. Same concept.

Like I said, ignorant of the world around them and how it worked. Everything back then was attributed to "gods." Lol. SOME (few) were intelligent for their time and perhaps had an inkling of how and why things really occurred, but they were few and far between, and the church would shut them up ASAP.

 

[Bonzi]

there are those that do repent at death, yes. if it's genuine, it's honored by God. Only God knows the heart.

Yes, so the atheist says, "I'm sorry that I didn't worship you God, but I lived a good life. I donated to many charities, I helped those less fortunate than me, I was faithful to my spouse." God says, "too fucking bad, it's all about me." Meanwhile, the guy who murdered six kids who repents on his death bed gets a ticket to Heaven. Fuck that. Your religion is disgusting, IMO.

It really depends on who you ask, Chris. Personally, I do not believe in hell or Satan for a lot of reasons that I have explained in detail on other threads and don't wish to write out again. Let's just say that through my scholarly research (differentiating that from my faith based exploration of God) on the history of Judeo-Christianity I have concluded that hell and Satan are man made concepts designed to a) explain suffering, and b) terrify people into behaving the way the Church wanted them to behave.

But that does not mean I am not a Christian. Anyone who believes that Jesus was the Messiah is, by definition, a Christian. You could make an argument for a narrower interpretation based upon the Nicean Creed, but that's the one I go with.

Now there will be a lot of other Christians who say I am not a Christian because I don't in hell. Jeremiah recently called me evil and accused me of practicing witchcraft because of my disbelief in hell. Koshergrl has made some pretty harsh charges against me for such views, so there will always be those who have a really rigid and harsh interpretation of scripture (and I would argue that such interpretations are largely ignorant of the historical, cultural, and linguistic influences that were the context for what the authors of the Bible were actually saying). There is nothing that can be done about that because you can't talk reason to someone who is intent on being unreasonable. All you can do is shrug your shoulders and move on.

I wouldn't say you aren't a Christian. That isn't for me to say. I will say that everyone I know, who is a religious type person, does indeed believe in Hell, and I think you are in the minority here. I know that the Catholics certainly believe in a Hell.

As you are probably aware, Roman Catholicism is the OLDEST known organized Christian religious denomination.

Oh I am in the extreme minority, but that is because Christian Churches today use English versions of the Bible where the traditions of the Church in the Middle Ages have been preserved instead of the actual words and concepts used in the Greek and Hebrew languages and the culture of the Jews and early Christians at the time they wrote their books. As I mentioned earlier, there is a cycle in the evolution of the Bible where an issue is not covered by scripture so a tradition is created to solve that problem. That tradition becomes set in the culture and hundreds of years later it gets written down in new scripture. So the Christian concept of hell has been around for 1,800 - 1,900 years or so and it was just pounded into society by the Church in the Middle Ages. It has become so ingrained in Christian thought that it is very hard to get rid of, even though it is tradition and not actual scripture.

Well, regardless of all of that, the whole concept is just too far fetched for me. Like another poster stated, I started questioning these things VERY early in my life. The same as I questioned Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy.

I did too, but then something changed.
We all have different life experiences, it's nice that they can be shared, hopefully without too much dissension.

 

[ChrisL]

Yes, so the atheist says, "I'm sorry that I didn't worship you God, but I lived a good life. I donated to many charities, I helped those less fortunate than me, I was faithful to my spouse." God says, "too fucking bad, it's all about me." Meanwhile, the guy who murdered six kids who repents on his death bed gets a ticket to Heaven. Fuck that. Your religion is disgusting, IMO.

It really depends on who you ask, Chris. Personally, I do not believe in hell or Satan for a lot of reasons that I have explained in detail on other threads and don't wish to write out again. Let's just say that through my scholarly research (differentiating that from my faith based exploration of God) on the history of Judeo-Christianity I have concluded that hell and Satan are man made concepts designed to a) explain suffering, and b) terrify people into behaving the way the Church wanted them to behave.

But that does not mean I am not a Christian. Anyone who believes that Jesus was the Messiah is, by definition, a Christian. You could make an argument for a narrower interpretation based upon the Nicean Creed, but that's the one I go with.

Now there will be a lot of other Christians who say I am not a Christian because I don't in hell. Jeremiah recently called me evil and accused me of practicing witchcraft because of my disbelief in hell. Koshergrl has made some pretty harsh charges against me for such views, so there will always be those who have a really rigid and harsh interpretation of scripture (and I would argue that such interpretations are largely ignorant of the historical, cultural, and linguistic influences that were the context for what the authors of the Bible were actually saying). There is nothing that can be done about that because you can't talk reason to someone who is intent on being unreasonable. All you can do is shrug your shoulders and move on.

I wouldn't say you aren't a Christian. That isn't for me to say. I will say that everyone I know, who is a religious type person, does indeed believe in Hell, and I think you are in the minority here. I know that the Catholics certainly believe in a Hell.

As you are probably aware, Roman Catholicism is the OLDEST known organized Christian religious denomination.

Oh I am in the extreme minority, but that is because Christian Churches today use English versions of the Bible where the traditions of the Church in the Middle Ages have been preserved instead of the actual words and concepts used in the Greek and Hebrew languages and the culture of the Jews and early Christians at the time they wrote their books. As I mentioned earlier, there is a cycle in the evolution of the Bible where an issue is not covered by scripture so a tradition is created to solve that problem. That tradition becomes set in the culture and hundreds of years later it gets written down in new scripture. So the Christian concept of hell has been around for 1,800 - 1,900 years or so and it was just pounded into society by the Church in the Middle Ages. It has become so ingrained in Christian thought that it is very hard to get rid of, even though it is tradition and not actual scripture.

Well, regardless of all of that, the whole concept is just too far fetched for me. Like another poster stated, I started questioning these things VERY early in my life. The same as I questioned Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy.

I did too, but then something changed.
We all have different life experiences, it's nice that they can be shared, hopefully without too much dissension.

Yes, well sometimes a person may experience a traumatic experience and NEED something like that to cling to. I can completely understand that. I wouldn't want to take that away from anyone. That is the reason why I almost feel "guilty" sometimes when I reveal how I really feel about religious beliefs. I understand that some people really do NEED it in their lives. Not all of us do though.

 

[Bonzi]

It really depends on who you ask, Chris. Personally, I do not believe in hell or Satan for a lot of reasons that I have explained in detail on other threads and don't wish to write out again. Let's just say that through my scholarly research (differentiating that from my faith based exploration of God) on the history of Judeo-Christianity I have concluded that hell and Satan are man made concepts designed to a) explain suffering, and b) terrify people into behaving the way the Church wanted them to behave.

But that does not mean I am not a Christian. Anyone who believes that Jesus was the Messiah is, by definition, a Christian. You could make an argument for a narrower interpretation based upon the Nicean Creed, but that's the one I go with.

Now there will be a lot of other Christians who say I am not a Christian because I don't in hell. Jeremiah recently called me evil and accused me of practicing witchcraft because of my disbelief in hell. Koshergrl has made some pretty harsh charges against me for such views, so there will always be those who have a really rigid and harsh interpretation of scripture (and I would argue that such interpretations are largely ignorant of the historical, cultural, and linguistic influences that were the context for what the authors of the Bible were actually saying). There is nothing that can be done about that because you can't talk reason to someone who is intent on being unreasonable. All you can do is shrug your shoulders and move on.

I wouldn't say you aren't a Christian. That isn't for me to say. I will say that everyone I know, who is a religious type person, does indeed believe in Hell, and I think you are in the minority here. I know that the Catholics certainly believe in a Hell.

As you are probably aware, Roman Catholicism is the OLDEST known organized Christian religious denomination.

Oh I am in the extreme minority, but that is because Christian Churches today use English versions of the Bible where the traditions of the Church in the Middle Ages have been preserved instead of the actual words and concepts used in the Greek and Hebrew languages and the culture of the Jews and early Christians at the time they wrote their books. As I mentioned earlier, there is a cycle in the evolution of the Bible where an issue is not covered by scripture so a tradition is created to solve that problem. That tradition becomes set in the culture and hundreds of years later it gets written down in new scripture. So the Christian concept of hell has been around for 1,800 - 1,900 years or so and it was just pounded into society by the Church in the Middle Ages. It has become so ingrained in Christian thought that it is very hard to get rid of, even though it is tradition and not actual scripture.

Well, regardless of all of that, the whole concept is just too far fetched for me. Like another poster stated, I started questioning these things VERY early in my life. The same as I questioned Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy.

I did too, but then something changed.
We all have different life experiences, it's nice that they can be shared, hopefully without too much dissension.

Yes, well sometimes a person may experience a traumatic experience and NEED something like that to cling to. I can completely understand that. I wouldn't want to take that away from anyone. That is the reason why I almost feel "guilty" sometimes when I reveal how I really feel about religious beliefs. I understand that some people really do NEED it in their lives. Not all of us do though.

Nothing traumatic happened in my life. I actually 1st went to church to "use" them in helping me with my kids... they were not in trouble, but, I felt that it might be good for them to learn about morals, being good etc. Dunno, but not crisis. I certainly didn't go for myself - in fact, I had to give up a lot of stuff and lot of crisis situations happened AFTER I gave my life to Christ. So, it was really the opposite. But everyone is different.

 

[TrinityPower]

A few things to remember...The bible talks about 3 groups of peoples, the Jews, the Nations, and the Church. All of the bible is FOR the church but not all of the bible is ABOUT the church. The bible must be rightly divided when reading meaning who is the book/chapter/passage addressing? Is it talking to a Jew, a nation (a king/people from other lands) or the church (gentiles). This factor needs close attention which goes back to Blue's explanation about the Jewish customs in the Torah

 

[TrinityPower]

To address the OP asking if all things are permitted I have gleaned some wonderful info from the same person who taught the lesson about rightly dividing the bible and the three groups of peoples. There is a perfect will of God and a permissible will of God. If one walks in the perfect will then there is much blessing, nothing negative that happens has effect, one is in the zone so to speak. There is also a permissible will of God where something may not be the best way to go but it isn't in the ten commandments type of order. I will use smoking as an example. It isn't the best idea given that it has health consequences but does the word say absolutely do not do this? No. It gives guidelines of how to treat ones body. If one smokes there are negative consequences for it but did God bring those on you as punishment? No. A person made the choice to do this and believe in God or no there are natural consequences for every action be it good or bad. It works this way for most everything. If you stay up late and have to work in the morning and you are tired were you in the perfect will of God or were you in the permissible will of God? If you stand under a tree and cut off the branch and it falls on you were you in the perfect will of God or permissible will of God?

 

[BluePhantom]

everything you say here is based on what you have read in your silly book written by ignorant uneducated people who did not understand the world around them,

Whoa, whoa, whoa....hold on a sec. The authors of the Bible were FAR from ignorant and uneducated. Paul, just as an example, was HIGHLY educated and his arguments are absolutely ingenious in their structure, depth, and content. He wrote in excellent Greek using proper rhetoric for the manner of writing he was engaged in. Now we may or may not disagree with his philosophy or his conclusions, but make no mistake. These guys were not idiots by any means.

They were angry. Paul comes across in his letters as a very angry, egotistical, sarcastic prick. The prophets of the Old Testament were raging. People today read scripture and we have a tendency to read them with a reverent tone of voice because the language sounds old. In reality these guys were pissed as parakeets. Imagine a modern demonstration on the streets with a bunch of people marching and a guy with a bullhorn screaming about injustice and raising hell. Ok THAT is what Paul and the prophets were. They were radicals and they created a shit storm with their writings, but their arguments were very complex, extraordinarily deep in most cases, and they frequently used Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle as a basis for their arguments. The author of Hebrews used Plato's Allegory of the Cave, as a singular example, in a fantastically brilliant fashion in order to make, what I at least believe to be, a very misunderstood point.

You can correctly accuse the authors of the Bible of being a lot of things....stupid and uneducated aint among them.

We will definitely have to disagree on THAT one. I think OBVIOUSLY they were quite ignorant. That's not an insult. Most people back in those days were ignorant of how the world worked. I mean, things were certainly not comparable to today.

Well ignorant in what way? If you are talking about being ignorant of science I would generally agree. We certainly understand a lot more about the universe today than they did, we are more scientifically and technologically advanced, but that is not what the Bible is addressing. A lot of the Bible deals with moral lessons about life. Was Socrates ignorant? Was Plato? Aristotle? Hardly. Same concept.

Like I said, ignorant of the world around them and how it worked. Everything back then was attributed to "gods." Lol. SOME (few) were intelligent for their time and perhaps had an inkling of how and why things really occurred, but they were few and far between, and the church would shut them up ASAP.

Well to a large degree it depends on which Biblical author you are talking about too. Keeping in mind that the Bible was written over the course of a couple thousand years, those earliest books are going to be far more....oh...."primitive" perhaps. I am not sure that is the right word, but things are going to be a lot more mythical in nature. Take for example Genesis which has a LOT of ancient Jewish myths that were borrowed from other cultures. Later we get Exodus which is more legendary than mythological. Then a few centuries later we get Numbers and Leviticus and those are legal books. Deuteronomy wasn't added until after the Babylonian exile ended (although it existed before it wasn't added to Torah until then). So from the origins of Genesis in oral tradition to the addition of Deuteronomy, depending on who you ask and how you define it, you are talking anywhere from 1,000 - 2,000 years. Well science, technology, and critical thinking develop quite a bit in that amount of time. The rest of the Bible, by comparison, was written rather quickly...over roughly 500-600 years, and the New Testament was written quite fast over a period of....oh 80 years or so. So it's not surprising to see a very large range of understanding about the environment around them. The mistake, I think, is failing to recognize the vast amount of time that passed between the authorship of Genesis (which is really mythological and to us seems like a bunch of fairy tales) and the later books and assuming that the later authors were just as "ignorant", as you put it, as the very first ones.

 

[ChrisL]

everything you say here is based on what you have read in your silly book written by ignorant uneducated people who did not understand the world around them,

Whoa, whoa, whoa....hold on a sec. The authors of the Bible were FAR from ignorant and uneducated. Paul, just as an example, was HIGHLY educated and his arguments are absolutely ingenious in their structure, depth, and content. He wrote in excellent Greek using proper rhetoric for the manner of writing he was engaged in. Now we may or may not disagree with his philosophy or his conclusions, but make no mistake. These guys were not idiots by any means.

They were angry. Paul comes across in his letters as a very angry, egotistical, sarcastic prick. The prophets of the Old Testament were raging. People today read scripture and we have a tendency to read them with a reverent tone of voice because the language sounds old. In reality these guys were pissed as parakeets. Imagine a modern demonstration on the streets with a bunch of people marching and a guy with a bullhorn screaming about injustice and raising hell. Ok THAT is what Paul and the prophets were. They were radicals and they created a shit storm with their writings, but their arguments were very complex, extraordinarily deep in most cases, and they frequently used Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle as a basis for their arguments. The author of Hebrews used Plato's Allegory of the Cave, as a singular example, in a fantastically brilliant fashion in order to make, what I at least believe to be, a very misunderstood point.

You can correctly accuse the authors of the Bible of being a lot of things....stupid and uneducated aint among them.

We will definitely have to disagree on THAT one. I think OBVIOUSLY they were quite ignorant. That's not an insult. Most people back in those days were ignorant of how the world worked. I mean, things were certainly not comparable to today.

Well ignorant in what way? If you are talking about being ignorant of science I would generally agree. We certainly understand a lot more about the universe today than they did, we are more scientifically and technologically advanced, but that is not what the Bible is addressing. A lot of the Bible deals with moral lessons about life. Was Socrates ignorant? Was Plato? Aristotle? Hardly. Same concept.

Like I said, ignorant of the world around them and how it worked. Everything back then was attributed to "gods." Lol. SOME (few) were intelligent for their time and perhaps had an inkling of how and why things really occurred, but they were few and far between, and the church would shut them up ASAP.

Well to a large degree it depends on which Biblical author you are talking about too. Keeping in mind that the Bible was written over the course of a couple thousand years, those earliest books are going to be far more....oh...."primitive" perhaps. I am not sure that is the right word, but things are going to be a lot more mythical in nature. Take for example Genesis which has a LOT of ancient Jewish myths that were borrowed from other cultures. Later we get Exodus which is more legendary than mythological. Then a few centuries later we get Numbers and Leviticus and those are legal books. Deuteronomy wasn't added until after the Babylonian exile ended (although it existed before it wasn't added to Torah until then). So from the origins of Genesis in oral tradition to the addition of Deuteronomy, depending on who you ask and how you define it, you are talking anywhere from 1,000 - 2,000 years. Well science, technology, and critical thinking develop quite a bit in that amount of time. The rest of the Bible, by comparison, was written rather quickly...over roughly 500-600 years, and the New Testament was written quite fast over a period of....oh 80 years or so. So it's not surprising to see a very large range of understanding about the environment around them. The mistake, I think, is failing to recognize the vast amount of time that passed between the authorship of Genesis (which is really mythological and to us seems like a bunch of fairy tales) and the later books and assuming that the later authors were just as "ignorant", as you put it, as the very first ones.

Lol. Look, you can believe in your Bible if you want. I do not.