Ask a Christian

[Assassin]

No. I don’t want to say the Bible is wrong. I am saying your interpretation of the Bible is wrong. The Bible mentions several different things, all of them you’re labeling “Hell” even though they aren’t. Like Sheol or Gehenna.

I don’t remember every detail of bible so I can’t refer to every mention of “hell-like place” in Hell. Also please remember that

That is sending people to hell for what they believe

yes, no difference for me. but they will not go if they will change.

because you value the opinion of fellow Christians, but despise the opinion of people that disagree with you

I actually cant argue with both who support me and who don’t support me.
also I read think and answer only after that. also I see you request from me the 1000 word posts with sources and lot of other stuff. I would have gladly done that if you wanted to find truth and not prove that people who believe in god are blind idiots. also no one here understands that some things can be proved through life experience.

So you disagree with daniel because of what he is trying to prove, not because of his arguments.

no, not actually. I disagree with argument and with what he is trying to prove.

[gugamilare]

@Assassin

yes, no difference for me. but they will not go if they will change.

You can’t make someone believe in something just for his wish. You can’t choose to believe in something, either the arguments convince you or they don’t.

Of course I could fool everyone and pretend that I believe, but that is painful, pointless and wrong.

@Assassin

I actually cant argue with both who support me and who don’t support me.

That is not hard to do. It is actually simple to consider what the person is saying for what the one is saying, not for who one is or what one believes.

Here is the proof that even Christians can do that.

If you say I’m a hypocrite because I don’t value your opinion, well, that is because your opinion don’t sound reasonable to me. However, I value the opinions of the priest Fabio de Mello and the pastor Rob Bell (which doesn’t mean I agree with everything they say). Also, the Christian that talks in the video above seems to be a very reasonable person as well.

@Assassin

also I read think and answer only after that.

One more proof of bias.

@Assassin

also I see you request from me the 1000 word posts with sources and lot of other stuff. I would have gladly done that if you wanted to find truth and not prove that people who believe in god are blind idiots.

As I said above, I don’t think that “people who believe in god are blind idiots”. There are people (like you) that I consider to be blind, but that is not because they believe in some god. Fancy Pants is an example of someone who is atheist and that I consider to be blind.

All the proof that you might have that I don’t want to find the proof is that I disagree with you, as if you were the holder of the truth. Like I said, I don’t believe in what you say, that is all.

Finally, I did not request a 1000 word post from you, you were the one to request us to provide the whole context of the verses we quoted, which means, at least, the entire book (not the bible, just the book) we are quoting from. I just asked for you to show how one can do that.

@Assassin

also no one here understands that some things can be proved through life experience.

I don’t understand what you are trying to say here. Can you give examples?

@Assassin

no, not actually. I disagree with argument and with what he is trying to prove.

I know you disagree with his argument, but you disagree with it because of what he is trying to prove, and not because his argument is not consistent. I’m talking about the reason of disagreement.

[danielsangeo]

@Assassin

no, not actually. I disagree with argument and with what he is trying to prove.

Once more, I’m not trying to prove anything. I want YOU to provide a reason for why you believe in the Christian deity and the characteristics you ascribe to this deity versus the thousands of other deities out there. I am “ask(ing) a Christian”.

If you want me to discuss my atheism and want me to try to prove things, there’s a thread for that. This is your thread, Assassin; yours and any other Christian’s.

Like I said, I’m not trying to prove anything. I’m just asking questions. Your “disagreement” isn’t advancing the discussion but if, in the discussion, you say something like “2+2=5”, then I’m going to call you on that.

[The_Assassin47]

@CPU

Deuteronomy 7:6

“For thou [art] an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that [are] upon the face of the earth.”

Want to rethink your statement?

@CPU

He is telling the “children of Israel”. This statement is made just after the ten commandments are given in Deuteronomy 5. He isn’t speaking to just one person he’s is speaking to his chosen people!

He says “the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth”

That isn’t favoritism??

Haha, thats great. Good point. Yes God chose a certain people group as part of the Old Covenant. But now as the New Covenant God opened that up to Jews and Gentiles, which was a pretty big deal. No more is there a special people. So in this current age, it doesnt matter. But yes good point.

As a side note, salvation has always been through faith. There are examples of non-Jews being saved in the OT. The NT is not a new way to salvation.

[danielsangeo]

Jesus said in Matthew 5:17-18 that he did not come to abolish the Old Testament laws but to fulfill them and they wouldn’t be fulfilled until Heaven and Earth “disappear” (Judgment Day).

As far as I know, the Earth has not yet “disappeared” so the Law has not yet been fulfilled. Or am I reading it wrong?

[gugamilare]

This is how you perform credible miracles to a Christian audience for them to give you their money:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYjgeayfYPI

That video shows how to “cure” deafness, blindness and even how to make the shorter leg of a person to grow.

The most upsetting thing in the video is what one of the founders of Trinity Foundation said:

She had a thirteen year old daughter who had multiple sclerosis, and there was a testimonial...where a woman had made a thousand dollar vow of faith and, supposedly, was healed of multiple sclerosis. Of course it was an actor that did it. And so she, unbeknownst to her mother over the course of the year, paid off the thousand dollars - mostly from her grandmother.

So at the end of that year when she'd finally paid it all off, she wasn't healed - she was far worse. She called the man of God that told her she would be healed, and he told her that... the reason she wasn't healed was that she had secret sin in her life. And this little girl, now fourteen, went to the back yard and poured a can of gas over herself and lit herself, and committed suicide. And the mother just begged me to do something about this.

Source: https://atheistzoo.blogspot.com/2011/04/miracles-for-sale-derren-brown-exposes.html

Just thought I should share.

[bur]

fuck
that kind of shit almost makes me cry

[CPU]

Thread has been too quiet for too long so, I’ll ask a question again that I never received a response to.

Assassin:

I have a guy that I’d like your daughter to meet. I know you have high expectations for her happiness and I didn’t want you to think I was just trying to fix her up with just some big loser so, let me tell you a little bit about him.

He has a temper and has been known to throw fits of rage.
He is jealous.
He has slaughtered men women and children.
He has ordered his armies to rape and pillage.
He has a son that he killed
and he really likes the smell of burning flesh.

Isn’t he just the perfect kind of guy you would want your 16 year old daughter to meet? When should I have him drop by?

[Actonide]

@CPU

He has a temper and has been known to throw fits of rage.

“Hey, you guys, you remember how I got you out of slavery and rescued you from hordes of poisonous snakes after you said i couldn’t? And how I threw bread to you from the sky, and that wasn’t good enough for you so I sent you quail too? And how I let you WALK through that sea and then let the people who were trying to KILL you drown in it? And i guided you through the desert with a pillar of cloud and fire?
And now I tell you that you can have this little piece of land called Canaan, and you refuse to walk in and take it? Honestly, I cannot believe you people…”

So, his children turn their backs on him dozens of times, and THEN he gets mad. I doubt you would be that patient.

[Comrade_Tiki]

Patience is a virtue, among the others.

Funny a deity would have none of them.

[CPU]

@Actonide

“Hey, you guys, you remember how I got you out of slavery and rescued you from hordes of poisonous snakes after you said i couldn’t? And how I threw bread to you from the sky, and that wasn’t good enough for you so I sent you quail too? And how I let you WALK through that sea and then let the people who were trying to KILL you drown in it? And i guided you through the desert with a pillar of cloud and fire?
And now I tell you that you can have this little piece of land called Canaan, and you refuse to walk in and take it? Honestly, I cannot believe you people…”

So, his children turn their backs on him dozens of times, and THEN he gets mad. I doubt you would be that patient.

Yeah! He should have made them wander 40 years in the wilderness too!!

Oh, wait…never mind.

[xalener]

@Actonide

“Hey, you guys, you remember how I got you out of slavery and rescued you from hordes of poisonous snakes after you said i couldn’t? And how I threw bread to you from the sky, and that wasn’t good enough for you so I sent you quail too? And how I let you WALK through that sea and then let the people who were trying to KILL you drown in it? And i guided you through the desert with a pillar of cloud and fire?
And now I tell you that you can have this little piece of land called Canaan, and you refuse to walk in and take it? Honestly, I cannot believe you people…”

So, his children turn their backs on him dozens of times, and THEN he gets mad. I doubt you would be that patient.

He’s/ It’s “God”. That’s no fucking excuse.

[DansonDelta40]

also no one here understands that some things can be proved through life experience.

Because they can’t. There is nothing to understand about it. Individual life experience proves nothing. Maybe you do not understand what “proving something” actually means.

[ManlyStump]

[quote=“CPU”]
Thread has been too quiet for too long…

[QUOTE]
No! This thread should fucking die!!!

[color=’#141414’]And so should Assassin

[danielsangeo]

Individual life experience:
I was going through a citizenship test (it was one of those required tests you had to take to graduate). The test was in a different portion of the school which I had never been to before, so I saw something completely different out the windows. In the distance, above the treetops, I saw a silver sphere. It seemed to be completely stationary. I didn’t (and still don’t) know what it was but the test was starting so I had to concentrate on that.

I glanced up a couple times throughout the test and it hadn’t moved. Maybe it was a water tower. Maybe it was an advertising balloon. I don’t know.

But, when I was done with the test and I had turned it in, I returned to my seat waiting to be dismissed (you had to stay until the 2 hours was over), and looked out the window.

The sphere wasn’t there anymore.

Now, I don’t know what happened to it and still don’t.

However, let’s now say that I believed in space aliens and that they visit Earth. I would probably take this “life experience” as evidence that aliens are visiting Earth and insist that “I know what I saw”.

But I don’t.

It could’ve been an advertising balloon that was brought down or floated away. The point is, I don’t know…but I’d insist that I would know what it was if I already “pre-believed” in it.

[gugamilare]

^ Well said.

Personal life experience can teach you a lot of things. It can help you understand the people around you, how they behave, what they think. But you have to take care about the conclusions that you make about other people, don’t you? You can’t jump into conclusions about people, you have to talk to them, ask their opinion and only then you can form an opinion yourself. Am I right?

If you have to take care about making conclusions about natural things, shouldn’t you care ten times more about the conclusions that you make about supernatural things? Imagine how much presumption it is to tell everyone that you know what God thinks, what he approves and what he doesn’t approve, what he is angry at and what he isn’t, why he created us, what he created us for, how and when he created us…

Would it be a big shame for you if that “voice” that talks to you in your mind isn’t God’s voice, but your own voice? Or if what you think to be God’s opinion is only your opinion, which you deify to make it more believable? Which would be worse: to die and tell God: “I’m sorry, but I didn’t know it was you saying that” or face God for having used his name to promote you own ideology in pretty much the same way that those people who tell everyone that they are “the return of Christ”?

If you don’t have enough knowledge to argue with a Physician about how atoms work, do you find yourself in the place to tell them how the universe was created? Doesn’t that require even more knowledge then the knowledge necessary to understand quantum physics?

@Actonide

So, his children turn their backs on him dozens of times, and THEN he gets mad. I doubt you would be that patient.

I certainly wouldn’t get mad to the point of promoting war and tell “my people” to kill everyone in the countries they invade, including children. If you were in one of those wars and liked a woman in the country that you invaded, I also wouldn’t tell you that you could rape her after capturing her as a property and letting her mourn her parents for one month, and then authorize you to make her your own wife and leaving her after you get tired of her.

Yes, theoretically God should be patient enough to stand anything without losing his temper, but the god of the bible is bad even in (today’s) humans terms.

[Actonide]

^Well said, yourself.
I actually agree with you completely.
But, let’s remember; if God is actually God, he has the right to determine the fates of the humans that he created, even if we don’t agree with him. Even if it is death-by-war-with-predetermined-victors or something of the sort. He doesn’t have to submit to “humans terms” of good or bad.

BTW, I especially like the entire first two-thirds of your post.

[danielsangeo]

But the problem I have with that is, are you okay with a deity wherein “the ends justify the means”?

[gugamilare]

@Actonide

^Well said, yourself.
I actually agree with you completely.
But, let’s remember; if God is actually God, he has the right to determine the fates of the humans that he created, even if we don’t agree with him. Even if it is death-by-war-with-predetermined-victors or something of the sort. He doesn’t have to submit to “humans terms” of good or bad.

The thing is: even if there is a God, I highly doubt he did those things that the bible says. I find it much more probable that the men who wrote the bible were trying to justify their own actions, just like other nations justified sacrificing kids saying it was their gods’ wishes.

According to Deuteronomy, some nation neighbor to Israel was sacrificing their own children to Baal, because Baal wanted them to, then Israel found that out and invaded that country sacrificing everyone to Yahweh, because Yahweh wanted them to. If Yahweh really wanted them to do that, then he is either a hypocrite or he doesn’t give a shit to the other nation, don’t you think? Because the other nation was just sacrificing some of their own kids, and Israel killed every single one of them.

I’m not sure if you are going to like to watch the following video, but it clarifies the context in which Deuteronomy and Leviticus were written:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlnnWbkMlbg