TheBigSwigg

Though there is the thought that children automatically go to heaven, there's no way to be sure.

Great, now this is going to become a "OMG Religion suxx doodz!" thread. Just because Benoit left Bibles does not mean that he's a religious freak. He could have been influenced by Eddie's conversion, and felt remorse after killing them, hoping they go to a better place. As far as Christianity goes, and that's relevant since it was a Bible left beside the family, just being good doesnt' get you into heaven. But I've already talked about that in the Religion thread in CE. Now lets give up the "religious freak" portion of the discussion and get back to the fact that a man and his family are dead

It's a fact that it's BELIEVED to be a double murder-suicide. And remember, two weeks ago WWE was reporting Vince McMahon's death

Did he write it himself?

Um, Jesus was a real person. Tax records & what-not of the period. Go ahead & continue to discuss the theological/divinical aspect of the guy, but historical Jesus isn't up for debate. As a dude with a degree in Ancient History, I can assure you there is no definitive proof of Jesus. We know about him through things people have said, but there is NOTHING that says that there was a man named Jesus(actually Yeshua), son of Joseph and Mary who was crucified. The closest thing that we have, outside of the many gospels, is Josephus' accounts that say there was a guy named Jesus who lived in Israel and claimed to be the Messiah. I know there's some guy who lives in front of the Safeway by my house and claims to be the Messiah as well. Should I crucify his ass too? Can he forgive sins, heal the sick and perform miracles? Has God claimed the man as His son? If yes, then crucify him. If no, then stop the man from drinking anymore

Um, Jesus was a real person. Tax records & what-not of the period. Go ahead & continue to discuss the theological/divinical aspect of the guy, but historical Jesus isn't up for debate. As a dude with a degree in Ancient History, I can assure you there is no definitive proof of Jesus. We know about him through things people have said, but there is NOTHING that says that there was a man named Jesus(actually Yeshua), son of Joseph and Mary who was crucified. The closest thing that we have, outside of the many gospels, is Josephus' accounts that say there was a guy named Jesus who lived in Israel and claimed to be the Messiah.

I understand, man. Part of the reason I know as much as I do is because I've sought to better understand what I see as sketchy in my own belief. I also agree that there are a large amount of people would believe differently if they were raised elsewhere. but I also know a lot of people who were raised away from Christianity that found it and have converted.

Okay, here's something I missed that I want to hit as well. The idea behind God expecting us to do what Christianity teaches is that the Bible is the message of how to live our life inspired by God through the Holy Spirit. Christianity isn't just one religion, it's the only one. Just like Judaism before it. The Bible was written by man, there's no doubt. But Christianity asks that you see the Bible as the work of God through man. That God in some way shape or form inspired and allowed every word in the book to be there. If you think about it, that's really gutsy on God's part, even though he knew how it would turn out. Also, there will never be absolute solid proof of Jesus, or His divinity. That's the nature of faith. If we could scientifically prove God, there would be no need for faith, as we'd all know for a fact that He was there. As it is, we have to humble ourselves enough to believe in a possibly ridiculous, possibly wrong idea. There's no way to absolutely know if there is a God, and there never will be.

Okay, so why do you have to believe he existed? There's no proof that he was our saviour, so believing he was is just a test of faith, I get that. But having faith in him is just as good as having faith in anything else... The only way people know about Jesus is through the church. So because christianity teaches of Jesus, God expects us to believe them in order to enter heaven? They're only human too, so why do we have to make a choice to believe what other humans have said? It's one thing if it was a proven fact that Jesus saved us, and God wanted us to thank him for it to enter heaven. It's another thing to ask us to believe what a group of people tell us. My point is, why should it matter if we choose to believe Jesus was real or not? I think the only thing that should(does) matter in God's eyes is how we treat each other. If you're full of love, and only did good in your life, God's going to say, "Sorry buddy, but you didn't believe my son existed, have fun in hell." ? On the same token someone else can be cruel and do only bad in their life but believe in Jesus and God would say, "Well, you weren't a very nice person, but you believe in my son and he took punishment for your sins so have fun in heaven" ? I just think that Jesus = Heaven is a twisted view that christians have developed over time. The idea of Jesus=Heaven didn't develop over time. He says Himself "I am the way, the Truth, and the Life. No man comes to the Father but by me." Paul later says that basically it's only by Jesus that man can be saved from eternal damnation. Christians have thought that believing in Jesus is the only way to heaven since Christ. According to the Bible what you say is good. Love each other and only do good in life. But Paul tells us that works alone do not save a man. It's the belief in Jesus. The works are great, because they strengthen the faith, but just being a good person does not lead you to salvation. As far as the Judgment goes, the Bible tells us that Jesus is the judge, not God. There are people who will claim to know Jesus, but don't live, as you say, "full of love, and only (do) good in your life" that will be rejected. It's not just believing in Jesus, it's believing that he died for your sins, confess your wrongdoing, and then accept that he forgives you. Following that, it's living a lifestyle that tries as best you can to follow the sinless example of Christ. If you just say "hey, I'm a Christian" and then not live like one, you'll be rejected as well.

Thanks, I feel things are actually back to normal now

I love that of all the things I've said, all he can see to ridicule is my member's title

I think you've got promise, but I'll give you an opinion or two: The best friend shouldn't be the neat freak. Usually neat freaks are the ones encouraging others to go to college. Make Kal the main character who gets stuck with the slob roommate jealous of Randal, who gets the hot chick after Kal had to convince him to come along. Make sure the chick is smart, and make sure Kal has the hots for her. Lots of situations will grow from this. Make sure you don't make it to much like "How I Met Your Mother." I think college is still a good idea. It's a hard sell, though, as college based sitcoms have never been successful. (Saved by the Bell says hello). Make sure that they're parents play a strong part early on, whether via phone or in person. Make sure Kal's mom calls during inappropriate situations.

I don't think it's so much that the world needs a balance of good and evil. God allows Lucifer to exist (or the idea of Lucifer) because God wants us to choose Him over anything else. The idea being that Lucifer tries to distract you and make you choose other things over God. If there was nothing to distract us, then there's really no choice to be made. Again, it's about choice. You don't have to worship Jesus, just accept and believe that he sacrificed his life so that you could go to heaven and live happily ever after. Also, it's not that God is so full of Himself. As I explained earlier, God created humanity because he wanted to love and be loved. He created angels, and they did it without choice. Lucifer's fall could be seen as his first experiment in Free Will. So he created man so that man could choose to love Him. The idea of husband and wife is symbolic towards the relationship between God and man. In the Old Testament, there are lots of examples of God calling the Hebrews harlot, whore, etc because the Hebrews worshipped other Gods or did something knowing it would displease God. He even told one of the prophets (Ezekiel, maybe?) to marry a prostitute so that he could understand the pain God felt. The idea of marriage being symbolic is continued in the New Testament when husbands are told to love their wives like Christ loved the Church. With this in mind, the Bible tells us to flee fornication, and to not dirty our marriage beds because to do so would inflict emotional pain on our significant other, and on God Himself. Anything else?

The basic reasoning is that The Lord of the Rings is an allegory written by a Christian. The same with the Chronicles of Narnia. As a matter of fact, J.R.R. Tolkien is one of the main reasons that C.S. Lewis became a Christian after being an atheist. Many, but not all, Christians will accept the Lord of the Rings because of that. There are still Christians, like my Mother-in-Law, who think it's just as bad as Harry Potter. The basic idea is that since the Lord of the Rings was written by a Christian with the intent of allegory, it's ok, while Harry Potter was written by someone who only sought to make money. (ok, if you add the fundamentalist view, it's someone who sought to make money and turn our kids into witches. But that's a bit loony.)

That's basically what I said, just with explanation of pantheism versus polytheism

I'd be careful in my use of pantheistic in that sentence. Judaism was never pantheistic in the sense that the "orthodox" believers worshipped multiple gods. When they say pantheistic, they mean that at one point in time, specifically before the book of Isaiah occured, the Hebrews believed that YHWH was just the god of Israel, the land and not the people. I can't remember where, but I seem to remember a passage in the Bible in which one of the Kings of Israel travels to Babylon and brings a mound of dirt with him so his prayers will be heard. This is also why you see so much "paganism" in the Old Testament, with the Isrealites always being admonished for worshipping other gods as they thought the Canaanite gods also had some authority over their land. Also, it's a possible explanation for the plural use of gods in several scriptures, specifically the Ten Commandments. The first chunk of Isaiah is a transcription of Isaiah's vision in which God declares his omnipotence to them. He announces that he is a "cosmic" God, and supreme ruler of the universe. Why he waits so long to do this is up for debate, but could have something to do with the free will argument I mentioned earlier.

Yes. That is what I said. And that makes sense to you? Why can't it just be as simple as "God is the guy running the show"? Maybe Judaism got it right the first time, and we've been doing too much tinkering. As I said before, God mentions Himself in the plural in the Old Testament. Several times. The idea of the Triune God is something that most protestant denominations believe in. Each part of God represents different parts of the personality of God. That's the logic involved in it. Here's some of the deeper theology behind it: It allows God to create the universe out of a desire to love and be loved. In Islam, Allah creates man because he is lonely. In Chrisitanity, that's not possible because God is triune. God just wanted to be loved by choice. The angels worship God because that's exactly what they were created to do. To do otherwise would make you fallen, as Lucifer was. Man was given the ability to choose whether or not to worship God because God wanted to be loved by choice, not by requirement. EDIT: Yes, Jesus did have brothers and sisters. At least how I was raised, the big deal about Mary being a virgin was BEFORE she gave birth. Afterwards, it didn't make a difference

You've got it wrong, It's not Father, Son and God. It's Father, Son and Holy Spirit. No, read more closely. The Father is God, the Son is God, the Father is not the Son. That doesn't make any sense. If you'll read my post again, I seperated them. I never said the Father is the Son. The Father is God, The Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. They are all God, but they are not each other.

You've got it wrong, It's not Father, Son and God. It's Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There are several places in the Old Testament which lead some to believe that the Trinity has always been. For example, God says "Let US make man in OUR image" in Genesis. The idea is furthered when Jesus calls God His father, and when Jesus is baptized, and a dove (representing the Holy Spirit) lands on His head and God calls Jesus His beloved son. The Holy Spirit is seen, at least in evangelical churches , as a figure somewhat like a conscience. It "guides" you and helps you to follow the Will of God The Bible itself doesn't put as much emphasis on the devil as the people who read it do. That's mostly, in my opinion, because people need someone to place the blame on, ridicule, and because people want an example of evil.

Gah Lak Tus is from the Marvel Ultimates comics. There was a huge swarm of those things. That may be what they use in the movie, but keep that in mind.

And with that, I feel like I've made the longest post on the board since Milky's thread proving the Bible

If the intelligent design supporters just wanted science teachers to mention "and some people think that the universe was created by some sort of sentient higher power, though there's not much proof for that", I'd have no trouble with it. My contempt starts when they demand "and many people know that the universe was created by Jehova because the infallible Bible says so". If they took the Yahweh-centric monotheism out of the intelligent demand stuff, it might almost sound reasonable; lord knows our universe's laws of physics are so screwy that sometimes it does seem like someone created them on purpose. A someone with a strange sense of humor who was drunk at the time. I agree with that, Jingus. It's not like Christians are the only ones who believe in divine influence in creation. Muslims do, as do several other religions. Oh yeah, it's the original debate that does not end. I love it. As for the SAB, it's just my easy go-to link whenever this arguement pops up. Sure, a lot of the stuff they mention can be explained away, but I've yet to meet anyone (except maybe Milky, oddly enough) who can refute every one of 'em. I could try. But that would take forever and a day, really. Frankly, I don't want to do that. Except I don't think they were inspired by God at all. Looking at the books they chose vs. the ones they didn't, it seemed like they had a fairly rigid political agenda to me. Enoch doesn't make any sense, you're right, but it seems like they kicked out Mary Magdeline just because, well, she lacked a penis. (And no, Dan Brown didn't teach me these beliefs, I knew this stuff long before I ever read DaVinci Code.) That's what I meant when I said you'd have to be open to the Christian point of view. I haven't read all of the Apocryphal books, but most of the ones I have read were left out with good reason. If you believed in the inspired by God thing, you could say that some of them, like Enoch, were left out because they would obviously be proven false by science in our modern day. Unless someone thinks they can find angels holding bags of wind at the four corners of the Earth. If so, I've got great beachfront property here in Tennessee to sell them. To me, the Bible has two distinct themes. The Old Testament is showing you what lead to the need for a Saviour, and the New Testament is showing you who the saviour is and what He believed. Even I get irritated with some of the books, especially with some of Paul's writing. Which is ironic, as he writes the majority of the New Testament. Also, remember that Leviticus is actually Jewish law. It's like reading legal briefings. I'm sure that lawyers sometimes get the same feeling. That's because they're ALL the Bible. Most of the Biblical scholars I've talked to, and I've talked to a lot since I went to a Christian college, agree that the New Revised Standard is the most accurate translation available. Mostly because it's based off of the oldest manuscripts you could find. Most of the difference comes in how things are worded. Unless you have something that's based of the Byzantine texts, then there's lots of "Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ" instead of just "Jesus." Thank some monks for that. There are those out there that claim that the King James is the only true version, but that's ridiculous. It's a translation. That's like me saying that my printing of The Count of Monte Cristo is the only real version, even though it's in English. I would just look into the people doing the translation. There are some who've done the translation with a political agenda instead of going for accuracy. I myself can't remember exactly which ones, though.

I agree. Religion asks you to believe in things you can't see or prove. Science asks you to prove things you can or can't see. The two don't mix well. Jingus, the fallibility of the Bible can be argued forever. When it comes to Apocryphal books, remember that they were editing. Just like with any other book. Except they were inspired by God in their editing. Even if you don't believe that, you have to agree that the Bible forms a pretty clear message, Revelations being the exception. If you read some of the Apocryphal books, like the books of Enoch for example, you see pretty clearly why they weren't included. As for the Skeptics Annotated Bible stuff, PM me one or two things and I can give you explanations for it. (no need to muck up the thread further)