[ironchef texmex]

Good Lord, I can't keep up with this thread. Okay, where are we?

Post #165 Scott -- "For instance, is there freedom of speech in the Kingdom of Heaven? Isn't hell simply a concentration camp and body-oven rolled into one?"
That's your example of a contradiction?

First off, no hell is not a torture chamber/spiritual microwave/whatever. The Biblical account is that it is the place reserved where all those who rejected God in life will be seperated from Him completely in death. C.S. Lewis' quote on it is that it's the place spirits go after God says to them "your will be done." Some theologans have even construed from that that it isn't going to be such a bad place for non-believers in comparison to if they were forced to stay in heaven as a kind of infinite hostage situation. I don't agree with that one, by the way. I don't think that takes into account the descriptions of people cast out of heaven as "gnashing their teeth", a sign that they will greatly regret the decision that they made in life.

Freedom of speech? I don't think it's applicable. The Bible tells us that a uniformity of thought will exist in heaven (ie: there won't be any disagreements with God), but so little of the words we use in this life can be properly applied to the next that it's hard for me to go much further than that. Think of it, whatever thoughts will be had will come through a different form than the current biochemical process (the brain is back on the mortician's slab), and voice (vocal chords are back with the brain).

I really don't have the vocabulary to go very far into a description of the afterlife, everything would have to come in the form of parable and metaphor.

Now, where is the contradiction?

Post #166 Gary -- "That' a bit too patronizing. Question your motives and question the satisfaction you get by making such comments. Then talk to me about humility. Faith shouldn't be a weapon now, should it? But unfortunately, way too often it is. True, it's often hard to debate without the benefit of tone of voice, but certain things, once said, reveal much more than the words anyway."

I agree, looking back at it that was a bit too flippant on my part. Sorry. The intent was to shed a little light on my POV and distinguish between pity in the sense of -- I know he's satisfied with his life, but I truly believe he'd know real joy if he knew his creator. As opposed to -- sheesh, what a sadsack. how will I even get to sleep to night knowing he out there, lost in the world.

What should my attitude be concerning non-believers? The perfect one, the attitude that God has concerning them. Unfortunately, I'm far from perfect. I'm not sure that that really works against my purpose too strongly though. No, christians are not perfect, but I sort of suspect that if we were that people would never come to the faith. I think they'd feel too different, too unclean by comparison.

Post #167 -- "I find this interesting, Tex, since last we crossed swords you were unwilling to acknowledge that your beliefs were debatable! Change of heart, maybe? Are you actually willing to admit that you could be wrong about God?"

No, I told you that I was not willing to give you a promise I would suspend my beliefs for the sake of discussion. Then I told you that I "always" try to do that, but that whether I do or not, my personal beliefs and attitudes are NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. This forum is a means for people to write down their opinions and have them read, then read the opinions of others. There's no room for you to attach rules about the attitude one must hold (something I could never proove to you anyway) in order to continue a debate.

Time and time again I've said that faith is core to religion. I'll say it again -- until I'm standing in front of God in His direct presence (heaven) some measure of faith will be a constant part of my life. But that's faith, not blind faith. It's faith applied to reason, faith that has grown through experience, faith that has been so tempered by knowledge that I consider it a certainty.

You continually assert that science disproves religion. I refute the argument and you come back by splashing on modifiers (it's painfully obvious, as obvious as the nose on our faces). No. It. Is. Not. And I think that if you had an argument to make apart from pure zeal you would have made it by now.

However, people from other religions disagree with me, you say. Fine. Get 'em on here. Let a Hindu tackle dozens upons dozens of posts that question his beliefs. Let's see what the Buddists have to say for themselves. Let's see how the Wiccans respond. Funny, I haven't seen any threads yet that question the Ti Pitakas. Nothing for the Vedas or the Koran, either. But bring them on, let their followers defend themselves, and I'll read the posts with interest.

[Gary Wassner]

There is an inherent negative perspective that 'believers' tend to assume. In its own way it is condescending; the juxtaposition of 'believers' against 'non-believers'. The non in this case connotes primitive and dark thinking, blasphemers and heretics. I am a believer, though I believe in different things than devout Christians do. Must one believe in God and nothing else?

[Scott Bakker]

Now, where is the contradiction?

As soon as the terms, like 'freedom of speech' threaten to become troubling, 'they no longer apply.' As soon as hell starts to seem unusually cruel for a God of love, it becomes some kind of holding cell. I hate to say this Tex, but it all seems to smack of rationalization. Your belief is so plastic, that no matter what reasons, counterarguments, evidence, anyone brings to bear, you'll be able to concoct a way for yourself out of it - no different than an Hindu, or a Muslim, or anyone else with religious views incompatible with your own.

Doesn't that worry you even in the slightest? The fact that you may very well be committing your life to a delusion. The fact that you feel certain, is meaningless, remember, since that feeling is the very thing that makes deception deception! There is no deception without conviction. Add to that the fact that billions of others have your conviction and then some, only for things you would likely find patently absurd. 'Listening to your heart,' simply can't mean anything in cases like this, simply because it's so obvious that people's hearts can say the most outlandish things - things that people believe unto death and even murder.

The fact is, you worship a deity who's going to hold me in detention for all eternity simply because I'm critical of his dogma! Wow! Who knows, maybe Lucifer had his reasons. History, after all, is written by the winners.

No, I told you that I was not willing to give you a promise I would suspend my beliefs for the sake of discussion. Then I told you that I "always" try to do that, but that whether I do or not, my personal beliefs and attitudes are NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. This forum is a means for people to write down their opinions and have them read, then read the opinions of others. There's no room for you to attach rules about the attitude one must hold (something I could never proove to you anyway) in order to continue a debate.

Huh? I thought our beliefs and attitudes were the very thing we were debating. C'mon. I'm not 'attaching rules.' I'm just stating the obvious: that open and honest debate, wherein conclusions are determined by reasons rather than by the 'desire to win,' is only possible where both parties admit they could be wrong. I'm not stipulating anything, I'm describing. If you can't admit that you might be wrong, then you're simply not capable of engaging in honest and open debate. I'll ask you again: how do you truly debate theses you regard to be beyond debate?

Why is this question so hard to answer?

You continually assert that science disproves religion. I refute the argument and you come back by splashing on modifiers (it's painfully obvious, as obvious as the nose on our faces). No. It. Is. Not. And I think that if you had an argument to make apart from pure zeal you would have made it by now.

Actually, no. I've not once asserted that science 'disproves' religion. I do think the strength of science's theoretical claims underscores, in a dramatic fashion, the weakness of religion's.

And yes, I do think its painfully obvious that we humans know next to nothing when it comes to transcendent claims. This is your opportunism at work again. You make it sound like all I've done is splash modifiers around, but if you take anything more than a cursory look at my posts, you'll see that those modifiers tend to follow lots and lots of arguments, observations, and questions. If you don't think it's painfully obvious, Tex, it behooves you to show me and everyone else where those arguments, observations, and questions go painfully wrong - as opposed to just splashing around assertions to the contrary.

And the lacking arguments aside from pure zeal... LOL! Again, I urge to revisit my posts.

If you want me to get into the hard questions, riddle me this:

Since God knows all and God created everything, that means God knew whether I'd be joining him in heaven or spending eternity in detention when he created me. So if God knew I'd be spending eternity in detention, why did he create me? Shouldn't I be happy with my damnation, knowing that I'm fullfilling God's purpose?

Trust me, that's just where the absurdities begin.

[ironchef texmex]

Post #168 Gary -- "So if so, is it strength that prevents us from accepting untruth or stupidity?"

I would argue that it's desire.

Post #169 Scott -- "Apparently there's a group of researchers who claim to have isolated neurological difference between those inclined to believe and those inclined to doubt."

I hope it's from somebody other than that "The God Gene" guy. I hate to see science done badly. Actually, I'd be very interested to read something informative on the issue. Then I'd like to be tested, see which category I fall into.

Isn't it neat that random processes in nature developed proteins that make humans tend to believe that something exists outside of the natural world? Will nature's wonders never cease. ;)

Post #174 Alison -- "As soon as someone knows they're "right", that means someone else is "wrong". Tolerance becomes a no no."

And yet christianized nations tend to be the ones that allow free expression of various other religions while other types of governments just tend to jail/kill everybody. Isn't that odd?

"But what can a religion be if it demands that its adherents forgo their intelligence?"

Are we still talking about christianity? With a total number of 2 billion people who check the christian box when polled, you can certainly expect that not everyone of the 2 billion is going to hold to the christian beliefs of mercy and love. But I've already posted answers to each one of your criticisms of the faith, so I won't repeat myself here. If, after reading them, you still question our (christians) intelligence or have some specific area that you think we won't respond to, then just let me know. Trust me, I'll respond.

Post #176 Maus -- "Therefore I question everything. I question why a God from the middle east is right and the Hindu are not right. They'e been around just as long. Why aren't the Budhists right? They live in greater peace than our warring bretheren. Why aren't the mormons right? Just because God said he wasn't talking to us anymore, does that mean he really didn't talk to Smith?"

I question everything too. That's why I have answers. Now, for your question: Why christianity as opposed to some other faith. Remember how I said it comes down to a 'you show me yours, I'll show you mine' kind of thing. Here's a thumbnail version of mine:

1) The archaeological evidence -- Everytime the Bible gives us enough that we can find a spot and dig there, we find exactly what the Bible told us we were going to find, no matter how preposterous it looks (people covered under volcanic ash where there is no volcano).

2) The prophetic evidence -- 2,000 and counting. Nostradamus gets a third of his (vaguely) right and people still can't stop scouring over his words. The Bible isn't one out of three, it's a perfect 2,000 for 2,000, and that with specific events that were verifiably written down long before they ever took place.

3) The metaphysical evidence -- People have been resuscitated after several minutes of flatline and told us things that occurred while they were clinically dead: words spoken, physical descriptions of people that came and went, even people, words, and events, from elsewhere as they claimed to "float" around, that were later verified accurate. They have given us this picture of the first events after death-

"There is a buzz or ring at the moment of death, followed by rapid progression through an enclosure, or tunnel, toward light. There is a surprise at being outside the body. Next comes a panoramic review of ones life."
By Dr. Raymond Moody and Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross.

This came from the descriptions of over 500 near death experiences. And after floating out of their bodies and seeing the tunnel and light, each one, religious and non, reported seeing, usually at a distance, a person that many of them described simply as a "religious" figure.

4) The historical evidence -- Back in college I did a research paper on the Jesuses. That's right. Plural. From a period of around 50 BC to 70 AD a total of 27 different people claimed to be the long awaited messiah with enough clamor to at least merit a footnote in history. 26 were practically carbon copies of one another "Here I am, I'm the warrior messiah that's going to lead you in conquest over the Romans". 26 dead. 26 forgotten. Somewhere in the middle of the pack chronologically, Jesus of Nazerith made the claim as well. But his message was 180 degrees different from the rest. He said that the eternal kingdom prophecied back in Isaiah was a kingdom of the spirit, not anything as petty as a revolt against Rome. He said he was God Himself come down to die physically, so that they would never have to die spiritually. Then, after he died, rather than scattering like the rest of the followers of so-called messiahs, Jesus' followers said that he was back from the dead, that they'd seen him, that he had proved he was God, and that they were willing to die themselves to spread that message to others.

Jesus was an anomoly. Jesus' followers were anomolies. Try and explain it any other way than as fact you wind up sounding silly (sure he was a good person, he just, uh, thought he was God. Well, sure his disciples said he came back from the dead when they knew he hadn't; they liked... uh... getting beatings and being killed... for nothing)

5) The experiential evidence -- My father, my sister, me. And for me, that's the big one.

[JRMurdock]

Good Lord, I can't keep up with this thread. Okay, where are we?

Aren't you glad I invited you to the fray. :)

[ironchef texmex]

Post #177 Gary -- "And where were the church fathers then? Where was the church Father?"

You mean what happened to Catholic policy? See my next reply (178). You mean what happened to the people who pointed out that what the tyrannical governments were doing was wrong? They died. The tyrannical governments killed them along with every other dissenting voice.

Where was the church Father, capital F? He was on the throne, in control, same as always. Why didn't he step in and zap Stalin and the boys? It has to do with free will. God allows mankind to make its own choices (like setting up a form of government predicated on atheism), then he lets them examine the consequences.

Post #178 Maus -- "Why would the church change to the will of men if God was right the first time around?"

Obviously because the church leaders at the time were more afraid of men that would hurt them than a God who disapproved of their actions. Yes, the Catholic church colluded with the Nazis. Some of the Protestant leaders did too. What happened to the Protestant leaders who spoke out against Hitler? They died. What happened to the christians who hid Jews in their attics? If they were found out, they died. That's the thing with faith. I've already said it. Some believe more than others. You know what? You get to find out who believes what when the answer to standing up for Biblical doctrine is followed by those words -- "they died".

"Why does the Vatacin hide so many documents?"

If the Vatican is trying to conceal all of the Gnostic books of the third and fourth centuries then they need to get on the ball, they missed about three hundred of them. But those were written hundreds of years after the fact. The eyewitness accounts are in the Bible. The dispatches from Roman governors of the era corroborate that christians believed Jesus had risen from the dead and that he was God in the flesh.

"Ok, I'm a conspiracy theorist."

I know, I know, the catholics and there priest/ninjas going around fomenting coverups and killing the one guy who can proove that Jesus was the mass hallucination of a bunch of drunk Jews. First off, I trust you can tell the difference between reality and fiction. Second, if you ever find out that there really are 'priest/ninjas', tell me. I want to be one. I mean how cool would that be? :D


Okay, the wife is getting mad. More tomorrow.

[JRMurdock]

I love all of your evidence Chefie, but the same can be said for a large number of other religions. Just because a book (the Bible, the Koran, Aztec writings, etc) Claims a palce is where they said it would be does not support a God. It supports that the author of the book stated a fact, but many facts have been exagerated over time.

Was Brian one of those Jesuses?

I'd be interested to see the 'prophecies' that are reported truths from the Bible. Nostrodamus could be 100% accurate if you don't take what was said literally. Anyone could claim to predict the future if you're vague enough and leave it up to the person looking back to see if you were right and twisting the data to support the prediction. That's how Nostradamus works.

As for 'my father believes therefore I believe' isn't a seller for me. My father didn't believe, but he also didn't have any desire to seek answers. His parents and grandparents and for generations beyond back to the begining of time never believed in 'God'. They were Native Americans and belived in communing with Nature and an abundance of spiritual entities. God fearing Christians tried to convert them, failed, killed most of them off, felt bad for killing them and shoved the remainder of the heathens onto reservations. Does that make them more right just because they were able to win a war and destory the history of their religon?

Same with the Aztec, Tolmecs, and all other Mexican and South American Indians. The religion of Christianity was spread to the heathens by force. Belive in our God or Die. Then, oh, we're sorry about that. Too bad your history was lost and we destoryed all your idols. You can have our God. Suddenly you have a new following by force.

SO my question is this, If all Chatholics were killed off by the Hindu, the Vatacin destroyed and all evidence of the 'Bible' lost forever, would your childern start to believe in Shiva, et al because their religion lost? How can one religion win out by force? The Hindu never forced anyone new into their religion. They never forced a 'spreading' of the word like Christians. How can a God imposed on others by force be taken seriously?

[JRMurdock]

"Why does the Vatacin hide so many documents?"

If the Vatican is trying to conceal all of the Gnostic books of the third and fourth centuries then they need to get on the ball, they missed about three hundred of them. But those were written hundreds of years after the fact. The eyewitness accounts are in the Bible. The dispatches from Roman governors of the era corroborate that christians believed Jesus had risen from the dead and that he was God in the flesh.


It's been reported that over 100 books for the Bible were written during the time of Jesus. Only those 'most Godly' were included in the Bible. The 'other' books were intentionally left out. Why? Jesus was a man. That much I believe. He existed. He died. I question why he died though as many of the 'other' books were after his supposed death.

Here's another question. If the 'Word' of God has evolved over time without input from 'God', doesn't that make the Bible man's word and not God's? Man did, after all, put the words down into the Bible and they've been translated and retranslated many times over. Even the 'word of mouth' translations would have grown over time as many stories do.

Simple example. I push a coworker and say 'loser'. By the end of the day I assulted the coworker, put him in the hospital, and insulted his mother, his family, even his dog.

Is it not possible that with each retelling of the 'Word of God' his Word went from simple explantion of how nature works through God and got greater and greater until it was an omnipotent God who was everywhere and everything? We're talking about 4-5 thousand years ago when man was at the mercy of nature and everything was 'God'. With advances in science, medicine, and quality of life, God/nature doesn't dictate our lives anymore. The 'Word' has lost its potency for many, even those who attend Church regularly.

[Gary Wassner]

You sound so learned, Ironchef. But honestly, it does totally amaze me that you believe all of this.

I was actually referring to the Pope during WWII. Free will? That's is a sad excuse for not opposing genocide. I believe that the recently deceased Pope recognized that. But it seems to me that if the Pope truly has God's ear, he would have heard that 6 million jews among the millions of other innocents were being gased. Or was God on vacation? Maybe he was helping another group on some other planet in the universe and he just couldn't get back on time to save the children as they were shoved into the ovens?

[JRMurdock]

God was busy with a sportings event.

Ok, I'm kidding!

I can believe that Ironchef has so much conviction. When you're raised in the church and all research is done from that slant, the research is sought to prove rather than disprove.

What happens is people like us pop up and force difficult questions and persinally, chefie, I'm impressed with your ability to answer with such volumns of information. Truly amazed!

I'm still glad I invited you over here. :D