Theological debate.

[taranaki]

I have deemed it neccesary to close 4 threads in this forum for breach of the user guidelines.All of them had a common theme,and all of them could have been interesting exchanges of beliefs,and who knows,some of us could have come away with a broader understanding of the different ways in which others think.

Instead,all of the threads turned to nonsense and e-thuggery.

This forum used to be one of AF's premier boards for the more thoughtful auto enthusiast. Such a shame to see it become a shouting-room for people who think that ridicule,volume and vitriol are adequate substitutes for logic and listening.

If anyone wishes to discuss matters of religion further,please feel free to start afresh.BE WARNED,however,that if any flaming occurs from this point onwards,the perpetrator will be suspended for at least a week,possibly longer if the mod forum considers it appropriate.The user guidelines are here if you need to refresh your memories.

Let's please keep this board to a more tolerant and adult level.

[Oz]

Here's some questions I'm still interested in hearing replies/answered to.

Originally Posted by Oz

MBTN - I will add to that. What the hell happened between the old and new testaments? Old testament = people being killed and sacrificed and God raining down punishment and plagues.

Then there's the New Testament where he's all lovey dovey "I'll forgive you no matter what"

And don't try to feed me the BS line - "God realised it wasn't working so decided to change". That is admitting fallability on a so called "perfect" God's part.

Originally Posted by Oz

Damn right MBTN. I don't think God created Hell - but he ALLOWED it to be created. Why would he allow that when he supposedly loves us all so much?

Originally Posted by Oz

1. Porn creates serial killers, or serial killers view porn? It's the same argument as Asians are bad drivers VS bad drivers are commonly Asian. See the HUGE and IMPORTANT difference in the statements?

2. "God Fearing" You're supposed to be afraid of him exactly WHY?

[DayDreaM BelieveR]

Agreed. However, I doubt it's going to be as smooth as hoped, the general level of intelligence and substance to topics may increase just that little bit.

Keep up the good work. ^_^

Edit: This refers to Naki's post... damn you oz, got there just before me...

[DGB454]

I would like this one answered please. Where did the universe come from?

[DGB454]

I can take one of the questions. I don't want to take all of them unless they go too long without being answered by others.

Hell.
Hell was created by God for Satan(Lucifer) and his followers. He created heaven for his followers. That may seem cruel but God does tell us in the Bible.(I know you guys hate it when we bring the Bible into it but there really isn't much choice on this subject)
Sin cannot enter into Heaven. If sin cannot enter into heaven then where should it(the people who sin)enter? That's not to say that as a Christian we don't sin. "All sin and fall short". But we have accept Christ as our Savior(or representative if you will) before God. Does that give us a liscense to sin and get away with it? No. (That's a different subject though)

Why does God send us to Hell if he supposedly loves us so much?

God doesn't send anyone to Hell. You send yourself there. God has done everything He possibly can to keep you out of Hell and still leave you as a person with free will and not just a robot. That's the way He made us--after His image, after His likeness, the power to say "yes" or the power to say "no," the power to reject our own Creator, and of course to take the consequences.

A bit long I admit but hopefully that helps.

I will try and answer to the best of my knowledge any other follow up questions on this.

I won't be on the rest of the day however because I have a meeting on the other side of the state with a few clients. I'll check back tomorrow.

Later.

[MBTN]

Originally Posted by DGB454

I would like this one answered please. Where did the universe come from?

Please, we did that a million times.

I can do a "right back at you" and say where did god come from? Or: where did god get all the materials to make the universe?

[MBTN]

And one more time!

"You are close minded to indisputible evidence if it contradicts anything in the Bible. Carbon dating, dinosaurs, meteorites from space containing primitive bacteria the list goes on. All proven and 100% valid. Bring this to the table and it's merely "god testing us".

Crapmaster4000 does it best. He says thing like alcohol and homosexuality is wrong. Didn't Jesus turn water into wine? Wine contains alcohol. A contradiction no? I think he mentioned something like god destroying the city of Sodom (I appoligize if I got the name wrong) because of the homosexual sinners. Then why oh why, if we are all his children, would he destroy his own children that he created? Heck it's been said multiple times he's a vengeful and jealous god. Those are indisputible flaws found in a supposedly flawless, perfect if you will, being.

"6: 'You shall not murder."

Sounds to me that's exactly what god does when he gets angry.

Why even create us if we are going to sin and be sent to Hell? Why would such a perfect being, who created EVERYTHING, create a Hell. A terrible place where all the sinners go. Why create man and let him sin and send him to eternal damnation? That is undeniably evil in nature. Why give him the free will and ability to think when there is the chance that his thought will be wrong, causing him to suffer eternally in Hell because he has sinned in his thoughts? Why create a child and test him to the point where he will sin, resulting in being sent to hell?

It's not right.

Final thought:
When science at this point in time enables us to grow a human being in a lab (morally I think this is wrong but that's another story), why would there be a god? Man creates man."

That came from the other thread.

[Oz]

Thanks for the time to answer that Q, DGB454. As previously stated, I am not here to be argumentative, and I think that is the best explanation I've heard to date.

[crapmaster4000]

Originally Posted by taranaki

I have deemed it neccesary to close 4 threads in this forum for breach of the user guidelines.All of them had a common theme,and all of them could have been interesting exchanges of beliefs,and who knows,some of us could have come away with a broader understanding of the different ways in which others think.

Instead,all of the threads turned to nonsense and e-thuggery.

This forum used to be one of AF's premier boards for the more thoughtful auto enthusiast. Such a shame to see it become a shouting-room for people who think that ridicule,volume and vitriol are adequate substitutes for logic and listening.

If anyone wishes to discuss matters of religion further,please feel free to start afresh.BE WARNED,however,that if any flaming occurs from this point onwards,the perpetrator will be suspended for at least a week,possibly longer if the mod forum considers it appropriate.The user guidelines are here if you need to refresh your memories.

Let's please keep this board to a more tolerant and adult level.

Ok now just to make sure nobody gets banned, I have a couple questions to ask. How long will you let the theological thread go on if it gets pretty popular? How mad do you think people were getting? What really gets you mad about these threads? What makes people so interested in them? And I have a couple other questions I forgot.

[crapmaster4000]

Im sorry to everyone that ive offended in the past couple days. I just wanted to discuss the differences between christians and athiests, thats really it. But people are very passionate about these things and they get a little out of control and I just want to apoligize to everybody ive offended.

[Oz]

Dón't worry about apologising. Read and understand Naki's message and on with the debate!

[DGB454]

Originally Posted by MBTN

Please, we did that a million times.

I can do a "right back at you" and say where did god come from? Or: where did god get all the materials to make the universe?

Answering a question with a question still isn't an answer.

However, I will answer your questions to the best of my ability.
Where did God come from?

He didn't. We think in terms of beginning and ending. The reason we do is because (IMO) God created time (see Genisis). In the realm of time everything naturally has to have a beginning and everything has to have an ending. Time is a place where we exist but he exist outside that restriction. It's a hard concept to grasp because we have a hard time looking beyond what we see as the natural order of things(Natural laws).
I have a hard time seeing it as well because I think in terms of beginnings and endings as well. Where did God come from? He always was. Confusing no?

If you take God completly out of the picture and look at the universe to try and figure out how it all began then to me that's just as confusing.
The reason is because naturally everything we know has a beginning and an end. How then can the universe always just have existed? If it did then it is in itself a type of God. A creator. All life sprang up from it. If it didn't always exist then where did it come from?

Where did God get the materials to make the universe? God is the creator. He has the ability to create matter. His nature is to create.
If he is God then there is no limitation to his ability. That's what a God is.

[DGB454]

Originally Posted by MBTN

And one more time!

"You are close minded to indisputible evidence if it contradicts anything in the Bible. Carbon dating, dinosaurs, meteorites from space containing primitive bacteria the list goes on. All proven and 100% valid. Bring this to the table and it's merely "god testing us".

I'm not at all closed minded to those things at all. I don't see any evidence as to where any of those things contradict the Bible.
I think carbon dating is a very usefull tool to determine the age of things up to a point. I do know that it has been wrong and has a certain margin of error though. I believe dinosaurs existed.
I have never heard of these meteorites you are talking about though. I'm not saying they don't exist. I'm just saying I never heard of them. Also if they do exist I can't see where they contradict the Bible.

Crapmaster4000 does it best. He says thing like alcohol and homosexuality is wrong. Didn't Jesus turn water into wine? Wine contains alcohol. A contradiction no? I think he mentioned something like god destroying the city of Sodom (I appoligize if I got the name wrong) because of the homosexual sinners. Then why oh why, if we are all his children, would he destroy his own children that he created? Heck it's been said multiple times he's a vengeful and jealous god. Those are indisputible flaws found in a supposedly flawless, perfect if you will, being.

"6: 'You shall not murder."

Sounds to me that's exactly what god does when he gets angry.

Why even create us if we are going to sin and be sent to Hell? Why would such a perfect being, who created EVERYTHING, create a Hell. A terrible place where all the sinners go. Why create man and let him sin and send him to eternal damnation? That is undeniably evil in nature. Why give him the free will and ability to think when there is the chance that his thought will be wrong, causing him to suffer eternally in Hell because he has sinned in his thoughts? Why create a child and test him to the point where he will sin, resulting in being sent to hell?

It's not right.

See my post above on hell.

Final thought:
When science at this point in time enables us to grow a human being in a lab (morally I think this is wrong but that's another story), why would there be a god? Man creates man."

That came from the other thread.

I can't say I think that's wrong to create a human in a lab. I see nothing morally wrong with that unless it cost another human being his or her life.

Man doesn't create man. Man is given the ability to multiply by God.(IMO)

[replicant_008]

In response to the old testament and new testament question... for those interested in an answer.

The current contents and format of the book we call the Bible has actually varied quite a bit during history in its content and translation. The old testament effectively contains the history of the Israelites and was probably written around 1400-400 BC. The New Testament was written by the disciples of Jesus around 50 AD or so - reflecting changes in values, ethics and philosophies compared to when the Old Testament was put together. Literary-wise it's like comparing Shakespeare to Tarantino in terms of timing.

There are also several books called the Apocrypha which are not included in the current version of the Bible including Dragon, Maccabees 1&2, Judith amoug others. These are the books 'between the Testaments' - I think there are 13 of them.

It also has to be noted that we don't have any of the original hebrew texts available and there were times in history that the attempted translation of the bible particularly into English resulted in persecution and punishment.

The final thing to remember is zeitgeist - consider that the Old Testament was written by an enslaved people who gained for their freedom, settled in a place where their neighbours were unfriendly, were without laws or governance and needed structure, unswerving compliance to maintain order and survival. Whatever your feelings about the true source of the gospel, it's likely that the scribes were influenced.

The later New Testament was written by disciples who were not part of the legislative and regulatory structure and were effectively 'rebels.' They also came from varying walks of life rather than being scholars or pharisees...

[crapmaster4000]

Are you a christian?