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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 08/12/2004 : 03:44:56 [Permalink]
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Hi Tavion, and welcome to SFN.
A small criticsm, if I may; would you please write using paragraphs? Your previous post is very difficult for old eyes to read.
Thanks.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 08/12/2004 : 15:33:29 [Permalink]
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Indeed...
When I'm stealing moments here and there at work, it's a pain in the butt trying to locate where I quit last time. Points are not easily accessed either.
All in all, such posts are not worth reading , and my great wisdom is unfortunatly lost on you...  |
Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
Posted - 08/12/2004 : 15:58:13 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dude
Well, the Jesus myth is just an adaptation of the Mithra myths...
Also of note is the birthday of Invuctus Sol (the sungod worshiped by Emperor Constantine), December 25th...
Yeah. Also Christian mythology adapted some earlier Greek mythologies. Dionysius, among other things, was the god of wine. He dies (the wine branch goes dormant) in the winter, and is resurrected in the summer. The Greeks had a big celebration over this which is one plus over most modern forms of some Christianity, in that the Greeks got to put on plays, make music, have games and drink all the wine. |
Diversity, independence, innovation and imagination are progressive concepts ultimately alien to the conservative mind.
"TAX AND SPEND" IS GOOD! (TAX: Wealthy corporations who won't go poor even after taxes. SPEND: On public works programs, education, the environment, improvements.) |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 08/12/2004 : 17:46:14 [Permalink]
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Tavion wrote:quote:
first of all, he did make us perfect
Then why is it that we breathe through the same pipes which carry food? Why is it that our retinas can fall off of their own accord? Why are we so fragile?quote:
what if you where for all practical purposes a flesh and blood robot?
Can you demonstrate to me that you are not "a flesh and blood robot?"quote:
but still you believe, and yet you havent seen even that proof...
There's a big difference between simple beliefs and religious faith. Just believing that Jesus was a saviour isn't enough to get into Heaven. You need to have faith that He died for your sins. I believe that one could make a pile of $50 million, but I really don't care if in reality there's only $49,999,999 in greenbacks floating around the world. I have no need to have faith in that number. And I trust the U.S. Mint to keep halfway-decent statistics, but I won't bet my life on it the way the faithful die for God.
In other words, your analogies compare apples to oranges.quote:
...ill end with this a man once said: "I would rather spend my life believing in God, and accepting Christ, only to die and find that he isnt real, than to live my life rejecting him, dying and finding that he is real
Pascal's wager. This is old stuff, indeed.
According to Adherents.com, the latest edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia includes data on "10,000 distinct religious groups." If we assume that each feels the others are going to Hell - much like the Protestants feel of the Catholics, in general - then you've got, at best, a one-in-10,000 chance of picking the "correct" set of beliefs to get your ticket to Paradise. Faith in some sort of god isn't enough. You need to have faith in the right god (or gods).
As I said in this email:Instead, my personal wager is that if there is a god (or gods), they are not so petty as to require worship from me. Any god that demands worship from me, an imperfect being, is far from perfect itself. And so, my bet is that if there is an afterlife and judgement, I won't be faulted for not believing in a deity which leaves no trace of itself, but instead I will be judged upon how I lived my life. I'm still comfortable with that.
And if the Protestants are correct, and I wind up in Hell, it'll just confirm my suspicions that their God is petty, mean and vindictive. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/12/2004 : 18:09:55 [Permalink]
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quote:
Let me ask you an honest and serious question: have you ever read any substantive scholarship on Mithraism or early Christian history?
No... nothing more than a couple of general classes to cover liberal arts requirements. The majority of my info on early christianity and mithraism comes from those courses, and a little bit from various other reading.
.... since your obviously the expert, why don't you do something other than tell me to get off my dumb ass and go read a book?
Maybe something like....
Get off your pedantic ass and correct my bad info. I'm not going to be offended by being corrected. I'm not a historian, never claimed to be. But if my interpretation of events is inacurate with regard to Nicea, Constantine, Invictus Sol, ect... and if I'm just imagining the similarities between Mithraism and Christianity.... please, tell me where I'm fucking up. If you want to do anything besides insult people, then you should provide accurate information when you tell them they are wrong.
Consider it a request even.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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| Edited by - Dude on 08/12/2004 20:36:27 |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
Posted - 08/12/2004 : 20:36:46 [Permalink]
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quote:
Pascal's wager. This is old stuff, indeed.
According to Adherents.com, the latest edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia includes data on "10,000 distinct religious groups." If we assume that each feels the others are going to Hell - much like the Protestants feel of the Catholics, in general - then you've got, at best, a one-in-10,000 chance of picking the "correct" set of beliefs to get your ticket to Paradise. Faith in some sort of god isn't enough. You need to have faith in the right god (or gods).
Besides what you have said, I feel the wager is invalid mostly because a life spent worshiping something that doesn't exist is a waste of time in our very finite lives. To spend a large percentage of your time "just in case" is well, to put it plainly, stupid.
Also, I feel that people who believe "just in case" should be looked upon worse than those who don't believe at all. |
Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov |
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Tavion
New Member
9 Posts |
Posted - 08/12/2004 : 20:48:46 [Permalink]
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| sorry bout the lack of paragraphs, how do you believe the world was created? |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/12/2004 : 21:07:01 [Permalink]
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quote:
Posted by Tavion
how do you believe the world was created?
Leading question.
But, in a sentence, the earth and the rest of the planets are a byproduct of solar formation. The leftovers. |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Starman
SFN Regular
Sweden
1613 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2004 : 01:14:03 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Tavion
how do you believe the world was created?
If you are talking about stars, planets and life, I see no reason to doubt the explanations and hypotheses offered by science.
If you are talking about the whole universe, I dont' know.
I would like to know, but not knowing doesnt make me uncomfortable.
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2004 : 06:16:23 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
According to Adherents.com, the latest edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia includes data on "10,000 distinct religious groups." If we assume that each feels the others are going to Hell - much like the Protestants feel of the Catholics, in general - then you've got, at best, a one-in-10,000 chance of picking the "correct" set of beliefs to get your ticket to Paradise. Faith in some sort of god isn't enough. You need to have faith in the right god (or gods).
Not all religions believe in Hell or non-believers are condemned to it. Some religions (like my own) believe that you are judged on your actions, not mere adherence to a divinity. Although my own religion believes in consciousness after death, that consciousness is attached to another body after a period of rest and renewal to learn the next lesson (or re-learn the lesson you were supposed to the last incarnation). In the Baglavad Gita, I believe, there is a passage which an adherent is complianing to his God that others are bowing before other Gods and why isn't He angry. The God responds to the adherent to not be upset for the others worship another aspect of Him.
Depending on which religion is correct (if any), you could have a one in 9,999 chance of picking the right religion or a 100% chance of picking the right religion. |
Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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SciFi Chick
Skeptic Friend
USA
99 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2004 : 06:22:19 [Permalink]
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Free will? Let's see. My choice is, choose God, or burn eternally.
That's kind of like someone holding a gun to my head. Where's the freedom in that? |
"There is no 'I' in TEAM, but there is an 'M' and an 'E'." -Carson
"Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud."
-Sophocles |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2004 : 07:44:31 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Tavion
sorry bout the lack of paragraphs, how do you believe the world was created?
How? I believe that over billions of years and periods of star formation, the world as we know it coalessed(sp) as a byproduct of the formation of Sol. Science has made this theory through observation of other stars and the process of star formation. They have evidence to support their theory, so I'll go with that until something better is shown with corresponding evidence.
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Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2004 : 08:31:50 [Permalink]
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Hi, Tavion.
Before I address your comments below, let me say a few words about posting on the internet. Others have already noted that paragraphs make for much easier reading. In addition, thoughts and ideas are much easier to follow if they flow in a logical coherent way. Your post was very much a jumble of different arguments and propositions and thus difficult to sort out. (BTW I am a horrible speller and therefore do not consider that to be a problem  )Now...
You begin by discussing "free will" and how it is that we're all going to go to hell. However, assuming that you're attempting to address the question I initially proposed at the beginning of this thread, you fail to actually provide a satisfactory answer.
My initial question was as follows. According to my understanding of Christianity, people who die without accepting Jesus/Yahweh into their heart blahblahblah go to hell. There they suffer all sorts of awful pain and torture for all eternity. You say as much below:
quote:
we have all made a bad choice, all have sinned, and thus we cannot enter <heaven> without accepting the sacrifice that was Jesus.
But if this is true, then what happened to all those people who died without ever hearing about Yahweh and his wonderful son Jesus? For instance, ca. AD 35 we can assume that Jesus' exposure was limited largely to that area around the eastern Mediterranean. Only these people had the option of "accepting the sacrifice" and avoiding hell. However, what about those people living, say, in the rest of the world?
Indeed, before ca. AD 1500, North and South America were filled with people who eventually died without awareness of Jesus.
Are they all in hell? If so, why? If not, how do you know? Also, why would Yahweh wait for thousands of years-- when presumably countless millions died and, ostensibly, went straight to hell-- before sending down ol' Jesus to die? And why opt to have him die at such a time in history when the "message" of getting to heaven would spread so slowly? Why not wait just two thousand more years (and honestly, what's a few thousand years to a god?) and have Jesus die on satellite TV before the whole world? That would get the word out!
But that's all neither here nor there. I'm really just wondering how, if Yahweh's supposed to be fair and all, so many people are rotting in hell because they happened to be born at the wrong time in history, or in the wrong place?
Finally, some comments of mine to your post:
quote:
and no matter what you sarcastic people say, that would get dull, and boring, now imagine doing it for eternity instead of only 70 years, and you wonder why God didnt make it where we had no choice but to follow him?
So without free will, God would get bored? Amazing! We're sent to hell for sport! Do you think Yahweh has bets with the Holy Ghost and Jesus? Like "Hey son, I've got $50 that says that the guy over there won't accept your sacrifice even if I give him cancer and two months to live. You want in?"
quote:
honestly, what is gained if people have no choice but to follow you? no, God loved us enough to give us a choice, we chose wrong...
As has already been observed, if the choice is between burning in hell forever, or singing in paradise, is it really much of a choice? If your god really wanted to see how many people love him, the choice would be between a fucking cool paradise over here and another cool paradise over there with Yahweh in it.
quote:
he loved/loves us that much, yes Jesus went through alot of pain, but he came back to life, he did that for us, i cant imagine how God must have felt, at the moment Christ died...
Right, except that both of them were in on the fact that Jesus was going to come back. Not really such a sacrifice, is it?
quote:
now then, for those of you who absolutely say God does not exist, well, sorry to say it, but it is impossible for you to know that, have you been all over the universe? have you traveled every inch of it and found nothing? how do you know God isnt out there?
Ugh. What a tired argument. There are a few simple ways one can address this. First, one might ask you the same thing about, say, Zeus. Or Marduk. How do you know that at this very moment, there isn't a fire-breathing clown in your closet? Don't look-- just think about it.
One could also simply expose the fallacy in asking why one needs to know everything about the universe to deny that a thing exists. Do you mean to say that if I've been everywhere in the universe except, say, your closet, would I still have to consider the possibility that there is such a thing as a fire-breathing clown?
quote:
lack of evidence is not evidence of lack, how many of you have actually seen lets say, 50 million dollars all in a nice pile all at once? and yet, you still believe it is there becasue other people say it is
Foolish. I've seen money-- I even have some! And I'm also aware of how much things cost. So the notion that $50 million exists is not even a possibility but a fact. Else the entire world is conspiring against me. Indeed, as Dave W has noted, our government publishes numbers on such things. And while they aren't honest about everything (witness this site), it is in the Treasury Department's best interest to be as accurate as possible when it reports figure on how much currency is out there.
And your final point about the wager about one's afterlife has been refuted a thousand times, both in this thread and elsewhere.
(edited to fix spelling errors and make it a bit neater) |
| Edited by - Cuneiformist on 08/13/2004 08:46:00 |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 08/13/2004 : 08:33:00 [Permalink]
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For the original question there are many answers as there are many types of christians.
Many believe in purgatory, the etenal waiting room. Those who never got the chance to hear gods word get an afterlife second chance to accept the true path. Some believe you never get out of purgatory. Some believe you are just plain screwed.
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"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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