Bet you can't show me any verse in the Bible that talks about people being tortured. People reject the existence of hell and talk about how it doesn't make sense in relation to God but it appears that few people really understand what the Bible really says about hell. Most people's idea of hell comes from TV, things they've heard here and there, etc. There's lots of discussion about how people reject evolution, for example, and don't really understand what evolution is. The same is true about the doctrine of hell, and many other things, too. We don't have to be experts on everything, but we could at least consult the source or next best thing(s) for accurate information.
Thats a tough question. I guess I would have to say I feel sorry for atheists. Faith is something that exists outside of the senses. One who has faith does not seek to prove it true in the historical sense. I am not so much concerned with the past and where I came from as where I will go. Although I cannot definitely say that a man named Jesus lived, died and arose from the dead, I choose to belive that he did basedon the actions of those who purported to live with him. A few people dying torturous deaths in the name of a fiction they say they lived with is understandable but countless people doing so, while not direct proof, makes the case very compelling. The scholarly work that exiosts tip in favor oif a man naed Jesus living,, dying and rising from the dead.
The scholarly work that exiosts tip in favor oif a man naed Jesus living,, dying and rising from the dead.
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Hmm.....what scholarly work exists that supports Jesus rising from the dead? By the way, the bible doesn't count as a scholarly work.
And people wonder why I tell them "happy Sol Invictus!" at 'christmas' time...perhaps they should learn about their 'original' religion.
The Romans held a festival on December 25 called Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, "the birthday of the unconquered sun." The use of the title Sol Invictus allowed several solar deities to be worshipped collectively, including Elah-Gabal, a Syrian sun god; Sol, the patron god of Emperor Aurelian (AD 270-274); and Mithras, a soldiers' god of Persian origin. Emperor Elagabalus(218-222) introduced the festival, and it reached the height of its popularity under Aurelian, who promoted it as an empire-wide holiday.
December 25 was also considered to be the date of the winter solstice, which the Romans called bruma. It was therefore the day the Sun proved itself to be "unconquered" despite the shortening of daylight hours. (When Julius Caesar introduced the Julian Calendar in 45 BC, December 25 was approximately the date of the solstice. In modern times, the solstice falls on December 21 or 22.) The Sol Invictus festival has a "strong claim on the responsibility" for the date of Christmas, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia. Solar symbolism was popular with early Christian writers as Jesus was considered to be the "sun of righteousness.". More recent, but speculative, sources ] suggest that Christian celebration of Christmas pre-dates the Sol Invictus festival
Examples of a not-so-loving god?
How about drowning everyone in the world, INCLUDING animals that could not DO wrong?
How about telling Saul to commit genocide. And then WHEN HE DIDN'T, killing him?
How about ordering a father to kill his SON?
How about having a father burn up his daughter as a sacrifice?
Just to name a few.
First, your logic is nothing more than an argumentum ad consequentiam. Do you still believe in Santa because presents will be left under the tree? Of course not, yet that's what your words boil down to on the issue of God. You believe because the consequences offers eternal bliss or eternal damnation, which has absolutely zero baring on if God is real or not.
Secondly, to live a life without God is not to live a life of sin. Let me guess, your another Christian who believes you get your morals from a form of media? Yes, the bible is nothing more than a book and if my assumption about you is correct and your line of thinking is correct then I should be swayed by the words of Moby Dick in regards to morality just as much as I would reading your bible. But let's think it through even further, your God would let a moral atheist burn for all eternity because he lacked belief? I usually don't like asking such questions because we first have to assume God is real, but it says a lot of the type of God you worship and it's fair to say that if such a God does exist, I wouldn't want to worship him anyway.
Third, if there is a God, you're in the same pit as we atheists. There are over three thousand man made Gods in this world. Most are jealous like your Jesus Christ and given how you think God came into fruition no doubt all those other Gods could have came into being as well through such a non-scientific understanding of our universe of, "He/She/It just exists". You better start worshiping all of them or, gasp, "You'll pay for all eternity!" Honestly, how silly.
Fourth, and this goes to all the posters who refer to "faith" as a reason for believing in God. Do you realize what "faith" means. To believe without evidence. That's a rather useless quality to hold on to.
It seems hard for those who believe in God to try and comprehend what will happen when you die. To give an alternate perspective, do you remember what it was like before you were born? Of course not, and why would it be any different in death?
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Great post. The irony about all this is that it appears religious believers/spiritualists apply this system of belief without evidence only when it comes to gods/spirits. Millions of people claim to have been abducted by aliens. Do these same people believe this claim without evidence? It just boggles the mind!
I can only answer for myself but I don't believe there is anything inherently valuable about faith itself. The object of one's faith is what is important. For me faith is not a reason itself for believing in and following God. There are reasons I have for having faith in God that are rooted in evidence showing who God is. Now, I disagree with your definition of faith. It may be believing without proof but it's not believing without evidence. There is no evidence to you b/c you're presupposition is that there is no evidence. Or, maybe you could share what evidence you would expect to see. But anyway, in reference to the alien comparison, people who make the claims to have been abducted usually present evidence. It may only be their story, or a picture, or whatever, but most people reject the evidence and/or point to another explanation.
You posted: " I guess I would have to say I feel sorry for atheists"
Why in the world would you feel sorry for us. We are most often better educated, greater disposable income, happier, freer, and far far far more spiritual.
You posted: "One who has faith does not seek to prove it true in the historical sense. "
Which is the primary reason that every single claim you make to support your faith is shown to be historically untrue.
You posted: "I am not so much concerned with the past and where I came from as where I will go. "
Your belief of where you will go in the future is based entirely upon complete ignorance of your own historical Christianity.
You posted: "Although I cannot definitely say that a man named Jesus lived, died and arose from the dead, I choose to belive that he did basedon the actions of those who purported to live with him. "
One of the actions they took (or rather didn't take) was to write down anything at all about the time they spent with Jesus. Don't you find that the least bit odd? I mean, Appolonius's followers thought enough of him to write about him.
You posted: "A few people dying torturous deaths in the name of a fiction they say they lived with is understandable but countless people doing so, while not direct proof, makes the case very compelling. The scholarly work that exiosts tip in favor oif a man naed Jesus living,, dying and rising from the dead. "
The scholarly work that exists shows that there is no record of him arising from the dead. There is no evidence that he was crucified. We know that Jesus, if he lived, being human, died.
A few people died, according to some accounts, who were Jesus' followers. Countless people did not die on his account. However, countless people did die over the existence of the Jewish state. So many were crucified because of Jewish insurrection that the governor ran out of wood to make crosses.
Something that is measable, testable, repeatable and something in which the results will always be the same regardless of who is doing the testing.
God in a test tube, huh? Interesting. Do you use this kind of criteria to verify everything before you know it to be true?