[Martyn*]

(Original post by butthead7)
the christian god is supposed to be all forgiving and loving. If an atheist, who led a good life, but strongly disbelieved in his existence because he was a rational person, died would he be sent to hell? Wouldn't god understand that the atheist had perfectly good reasons for not believing in him? If not god sounds kind of unreasonable. I think this is a big flaw in religion. Does anyone agree?

The Christian god (of the New Testament) was a correction on the god of the Old Testament. Church Fathers like Marcion believed that the god of the OT was cruel and violent.

The biggest flaw in religion (that is the Semitic varities which came after the original pagan mystery cults) is that it is all just a big scam designed to control the plebs.

[GottaLovePhysics! :)]

(Original post by butthead7)
the christian god is supposed to be all forgiving and loving. If an atheist, who led a good life, but strongly disbelieved in his existence because he was a rational person, died would he be sent to hell? Wouldn't god understand that the atheist had perfectly good reasons for not believing in him? If not god sounds kind of unreasonable. I think this is a big flaw in religion. Does anyone agree?

Very true.
Heres another point for you. If you are sane and ratonal you will belive in evolution. So therfore when does the common ansestor become "human". Is there a early primate in heaven?
Or if you are talking to a christian who belive only those who belive in jesus wil go to heaven. So what about all the people who lived before jesuses birth? Go to hell, do not pass go, do not collect 200?

Christians (and all religions for that matter) are kidding themselve if they belive they are the chosen people of "God"

As for weither "God" exists, ehh?

[Aeolus]

To put it simply....yes.

[Casse]

(Original post by jmj)
the reason I'm a Christian is because the Christian faith stands apart from every other faith system. Every other faith system holds that we must be the ones searching for God or other supernatural being, or lack of- that we must do good deeds to get into heaven or to get to a higher plane. I'm not meaning to be disrespectful to other religions when I'm saying that, but every other religious system, from what I've researched, seems to hold that the onus is on us as humanity to live good lives, and perform good deeds, and if we're good enough then we'll get to that particular place that those different beliefs hold we will get to.

May I ask what you believe is the purpose of your existance in this world. Do you believe Christianity has given you any reason/aim for the 70 or 80 years you will live on this Earth?

As a Muslim, I believe that this life is a test that a human must go through; and if he passes then he is granted heaven and failure leads to hellfire.

[Diaz89]

No you can't reject that deity all your life and when push comes to shove he should acknowledge you. You've been forewarned about judgment day and you consciously dismissed it, hence, you should suffer the consequences.

[Lord Hysteria]

(Original post by Diaz89)
No you can't reject that deity all your life and when push comes to shove he should acknowledge you. You've been forewarned about judgment day and you consciously dismissed it, hence, you should suffer the consequences.

What consequences? Being burnt in agony by an all-loving God because I refused to get on my knees and beg and pray, for something I never asked him?
That, in itself, is such a human quality that proves there is no God.

[Diaz89]

(Original post by Lord Hysteria)
What consequences? Being burnt in agony by an all-loving God because I refused to get on my knees and beg and pray, for something I never asked him?
That, in itself, is such a human quality that proves there is no God.

God is not all loving , God is merciful TO the people whom believe and worship him.

[DJkG.1]

(Original post by Lord Hysteria)
What consequences? Being burnt in agony by an all-loving God because I refused to get on my knees and beg and pray, for something I never asked him?
That, in itself, is such a human quality that proves there is no God.

That common criticism isn't quite accurate. All over the Torah, Bible and Qur'an is the over-arching message that God is perfectly fair and abides by only his own objectively true standard of justice.

Therefore, you can't say an Abrahamic theist will accurately think you are going to hell for eternity as God's judgement cannot be made by a mortal human with our very limited access to knowledge. Hence why all Abrahamic faiths preach the message of avoiding moral judgement upon fellow humans.

Of course you can say that this is just another de post facto rationalisation of faith with no evidence to support it, and therefore dismiss a belief in God, but that relies upon hugely different reasoning.

[Lord Hysteria]

(Original post by Diaz89)
God is not all loving , God is merciful TO the people whom believe and worship him.

He is a bit of sadomasochist too? He made us to beg and pray to him everyday (despite not having asked him to make us) and if we don't, he'll burn us in hell forever.
Is that rather accurate?

[123450]

(Original post by jmj)
Why does the fact that it is prescientific automatically mean that it is therefore unreliable? Julius Ceasar is before a prescientific age- and there only 10 documents supporting his existence compared with 24,000 of the New Testament- and yet we are all content to accept the realibility of those 10 documents and not 24,000. F.F. Bruce, a Biblical scholar, once said (this is a paaphrase) that to doubt the accuracy of the New Testament is to throw away any other document from the age of antiquity.

I'm sorry, what?!

This is complete and utter garbage. Ceasar was a head of state, the Emporer of the Roman empire for years; 'there only 10 documents supporting his existence' is a completely misguided statement, and probably just one that you've been indoctrinated to say.

Don't take it the wrong way; this isn't a personal attack on you. But this is simply wrong. There are thousands of first-hand accounts of Caesar - Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (born in Italy just a couple of decades after Caesar) in fact was a historian and biographer of the first eleven Roman emporers.

There are also hand written, dated texts from other countries and leaders which talk expicitly about the man.

(Original post by jmj)
Why Christianity instead of the Quran? Well, the best thing you can do to answer that question is to read both and weigh up the evidence for yourself. However, the reason I'm a Christian is because the Christian faith stands apart from every other faith system. Every other faith system holds that we must be the ones searching for God or other supernatural being, or lack of- that we must do good deeds to get into heaven or to get to a higher plane. I'm not meaning to be disrespectful to other religions when I'm saying that, but every other religious system, from what I've researched, seems to hold that the onus is on us as humanity to live good lives, and perform good deeds, and if we're good enough then we'll get to that particular place that those different beliefs hold we will get to.

Christianity on the other hand, is based on revelation. Of course, Islam is based upon the revelations of the prophet Muhammad- but Christianity is based upon the revelation from God, God appearing in human form and in the flesh, to tell us what He is like and reveal the way that we can know Him. Christianity holds that nobody can be good enough for God because of our sin (our rebellion against God) and so our relationship with God is based upon Him making Himself known to us, and making Himself known through His sacrifice in the form of Jesus Christ upon the Cross who took the punishment for our rebellion in our place that we might become a relationship with God.

So how does this take away the onus from humans? In Christianity, you still 'must' do good deeds to get into heaven. And whilst I kind of see what you're getting at (humans aren't good enough to get in by God's standards, and that they must accept Jesus as their saviour), I think you're missing the point - The Bible, and OT especially still states that a good life is compulsary to get into heaven.

(Original post by jmj)
What's more, the Bible says in the New Testament that our entire faith can either be verified true or false, because if the Resurrection didn't happen, then the whole of the Christian faith is falsified. Therefore the Christian faith is reliant on something happening in our own human history 2,000 years ago, and Christianity is empirically verifiable based on whether that event happened or not, and people have died at the time for claiming that it did (and so if it didn't, they were dying knowingly for a lie). As far as I'm aware, no other faith system is based upon revelation of God Himself appearing to man and and being verifiable upon whether a particular event in history- namely the crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ-happened again. Once again, I would simply challenge you to read the evidence of the eyewitness accounts and weigh it up for yourself.

There are no eyewitness accounts.

Sorry to break it to you, but there really aren't. The most we have are tax records which indicate that a Jesus existed at the time, but there are no contemporary accounts of the things that are said in the NT, including the resurrection.

Please, look for yourself. From your post it seems evident to me that you're simply spouting what other Christians have told you, and no doubt this is what you say to others. If you can find a contemporary account of the resurrection, or even any of the miracles that were apparently performed, please let me know.

[jmj]

(Original post by 123450)
I'm sorry, what?!

This is complete and utter garbage. Ceasar was a head of state, the Emporer of the Roman empire for years; 'there only 10 documents supporting his existence' is a completely misguided statement, and probably just one that you've been indoctrinated to say.

Don't take it the wrong way; this isn't a personal attack on you. But this is simply wrong. There are thousands of first-hand accounts of Caesar - Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (born in Italy just a couple of decades after Caesar) in fact was a historian and biographer of the first eleven Roman emporers.

There are also hand written, dated texts from other countries and leaders which talk expicitly about the man.

Sorry, obviously that's false. What I meant was that there are only 10 manuscripts of the 'Gallic Wars' where we get a lot of information about Caesar and what he did- compared to the 24,000 manuscripts we have of the New Testament. It's not that I've been 'indoctrinated' in any way- Christianity strongly advocates free will and we're not about brainwashing people or trying to make people Christians- we just tell people what we believe and invite them to investigate Christianity for themselves. That mistake was due to writing a post inaccurately and thank you for bringing it to my attention so I can correct it.

(Original post by 123450)
So how does this take away the onus from humans? In Christianity, you still 'must' do good deeds to get into heaven. And whilst I kind of see what you're getting at (humans aren't good enough to get in by God's standards, and that they must accept Jesus as their saviour), I think you're missing the point - The Bible, and OT especially still states that a good life is compulsary to get into heaven.

Actually, in Christianity, that's not the way salvation works. The whole point of the Old Testament- which does advocate living out the law in order to be right with God- is to show us how we can never do that, that we are never able to be right with God through our own deeds or works. We have to be counted as 'good' in order to get into heaven, but that's what happens on the cross.

Please allow me to explain. On the cross, a substitute is made. Jesus pays the punishment we deserve to pay for our sin (our rebellion against God). Our sin is taken away and put onto Jesus, and is punished on the cross. At the same time, Jesus imputes (gives) to us His righteousness (the quality of being right with God). We are also justified, which means we are declared innocent and perfect by God. So, when God sees Christians on judgment day, He'll see all of our sin and how on our own we can never be good enough to get into heaven. However, Jesus is interceding for us, and God sees the punishment of the Christian's sin as paid because Jesus has paid it for us. So God sees all our sin but because of Jesus, we are declared 'good'. That's what makes Christianity different- it's not about what we do, but what Jesus has done on the cross.

(Original post by 123450)
There are no eyewitness accounts.

Sorry to break it to you, but there really aren't. The most we have are tax records which indicate that a Jesus existed at the time, but there are no contemporary accounts of the things that are said in the NT, including the resurrection.

Please, look for yourself. From your post it seems evident to me that you're simply spouting what other Christians have told you, and no doubt this is what you say to others. If you can find a contemporary account of the resurrection, or even any of the miracles that were apparently performed, please let me know.

There are contemporary accounts- the New Testament. The Gospel of Mark is dated around 70 AD, Matthew and Luke around 80 AD and the Gospel of John is dated to around 90 AD. This is only 50-70 years after Jesus' death, Resurrection and Ascension and well within the original lifespan of the original witnesses. In his first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 15, Paul talks about how Christianity stands or falls on the Resurrection of Christ. He then challenges the Corinthians, if they don't believe him, to go and ask the people who saw it- meaning that there were people around the time Paul wrote 1 Corinthians who had seen the Risen Jesus.

There are also many historians (many non-Christian) who corroborate the events the disciples talk about including Josphus, Tacitus, Irenaus and Pliny the Younger.

You seem very sure that there are no contemporary accounts. With every respect, and I ask this as a genuine question- have you researched the Bible for yourself? If not, I challenge you to do so.

[jmj]

(Original post by Casse)
May I ask what you believe is the purpose of your existance in this world. Do you believe Christianity has given you any reason/aim for the 70 or 80 years you will live on this Earth?

As a Muslim, I believe that this life is a test that a human must go through; and if he passes then he is granted heaven and failure leads to hellfire.

Of course, that's a great question!

I believe my purpose in life is to serve God. I've just been away at a conference with my church, and the teaching subject was ministry- which means serving God for His purposes and for His glory.

We learned from Ephesians 1 that God's purpose is that the whole universe is united together under the Lordship and authority of Christ, and that the whole Body of Christ (which means the universal church that all Christians belong to) is responsible for telling others about Jesus, and to help in the growth of the church- so that as we learn more about Jesus, we can be transformed to be more like Jesus and be better enabled to serve Him.

Therefore, this is my purpose- to tell other people about Jesus so they can make the decision to accept or reject Him, and to help grow the church so that Christians can become more like Jesus (not through anything we can do, but the works God does in us).

Hope all that made sense! As a Christian, I believe God has revealed to us in the Bible that we will all fail His standards on the last day, and that the only way to be saved is through trusting in Jesus' death on the Cross that pays the punishment I deserve.

[cheese-lemming]

Why wouldn't anyone wanna worship God? He's your loving father who sent his own son to die on a cross (the most awful type of punishment EVER) and made you so that you could live a life of free will on an amazing earth (that we screwed up, not him) and then go to heaven or hell, whichever you choose... if you wanna go to hell, then that's your choice!
There's so many great things about Christianity. Want some proof? ask the big guy for it... you never know what might happen...

[Retrodiction]

(Original post by yawn)
I agree that there is room in heaven for atheists who have lived a life according to the wishes of God.

Now where do you go with this thread?

Waiting for other responses might be a good idea. Your word is not all that this forum has to offer, believe it or not.

[tazarooni89]

No need to bump old threads, I think I'll be closing this one