Religion

[ordos45]

His point was that it wasn't CHristian sot hat while WIccans were sorta worshipping nature, they were actually Satan's Minions.  Anyhow I looked through my bible and found a few interesting verses under the index entry on the occult.

Exodus 22:18 "Do not allow a sorceress to live."

Deuteronomy 18:14 "...Disposses nations...listen to those who practice sorcery or divination....God has not permitted you to do so."

Deuteronomy 10-12 (Forgot CHapter) Let now on who be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interpret omens (I'll admit I'm guilty as sin here, no pun intended.  But occasionally my recurring nightmares come true), engage in witchcraft,  or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist, or who consults the dead.  Anyone who does these things is detestable in the eyes of the Lord."  

Now that's some zingers, I just look the stuff up, I don't write it, people told by God do.  

[Guest Axissillian Again!]

Well just to lighten the mood

Q. "What do you say to an angry witch?"

A. "Ribbit"

[Guest Raven]

Let now on who be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interpret omens (I'll admit I'm guilty as sin here, no pun intended.  But occasionally my recurring nightmares come true), engage in witchcraft,  or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist, or who consults the dead.  Anyone who does these things is detestable in the eyes of the Lord."  

*blinks* You know what this means, Galaxy? Well, I've practiced divination, I've interpreted omens since the Goddess-knows-how-long-ago, I've known without ANY PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE that my neighbor's cat died, my friends' friends and relatives that had died and what they looked like without knowing beforehand... (My friend Amanda's great aunt died... I knew it was in the aunt category, knew her favorite dress was a white dress with green and blue flowers on it, the color of her hair, the style, the color of her eyes, her glasses, and a gold heart locket with flowers on the front that she liked... And I've never met ANY of her relatives, at all.) So according to that, I'm pretty much a sorceress that should die and is, "detestable in the eyes of the Lord." *giggles* What fun!

[UsulSK]

OK Edric O.  

Lets talk about heaven again.  I somehow see that you already realized the weak point.  So on earth we have free will and may choose good or evil, but in heaven not.  So no free will in heaven.  Thats BORING.  And wheres the sense of that anyway?  Why doesnt god just put all humans in heaven forever?  They cant sin there anyway!  I think it would be a lot more fair if nonbelievers or sinners would just die in the sense of not existing anymore (like we atheist think it is) and the christians may go anyway they want.

Which remindes me of a joke I read somewhere:

A convinced Atheist, who just died, found himself in a dark pit. He discovers a sign: " to hell". He does not have another chance then to follow the course to hell. After some time he came to a door which is not locked.

The Atheist entered hell and couldnt trust his eyes. Bright sunshine, pleasant temperatures, palms, sea beach, all 100 meters a beach bar, happy humans are playing, in short, paradise like conditions. The just deceased Atheist walked along the beach, until he sees someone with horns and a tail sitting in a chair. He went to the person and asked whether he is the devil. He affirms this and welcomes the newcomer in hell. After some chitchat the devil sent the Atheist to a

bar, in order to buy himself a drink there. The Atheist got himself a drink and walks along the beach for further exploration.

Between  dunes he discovered a large, deep hole. He looked curiously into the depth and frightened himselves dreadfully. He sees crying, naked humans at the deep ground of this hole. There is a hot fire and wild beasts are beating the humans.

Immediately The Atheist ran to the devil and asked about that hole, puzzled.

Oh, said the devil, that is for the Christians, they want it like that.

[UsulSK]

OH, Edric O. i just thought of something.  You said that all sinless people go to heaven, no matter what faith they have (but I still think, that not believing is a sin in Christian faith, but thats not the point), and that nobody is sinless.  So whats the sense then of becoming a christian?  Just be good then, and thats all.  Would be unfair of god anyway to treat people of different believes differently.  And that way, we would even have to think about our morals and values and we would not just take them blindly from someone else (in your case:  god or the bible).   That way, every man would have morals, which are based on reason (or philosophy).  

What are the values in the bible worth anyway, if different christians have different values???  For example Death Sentence:  Many are in favour of it and many are against it and they all use argument from the bible!

[UsulSK]

Oh, and about that baby which automatically goes to heaven when it dies:

Shouldnt real loving parents then kill their babies?  Think about it!  These babies would then never be tempted of sin and they would automatically go to heaven!  And if the parents really love their baby (which should be the case in an ideal stereotype christian familly), then these parents should sacrifce themselves and go to hell for their baby which should be thankfull to their parents for letting it straight to heaven!

[Edric O]

Ex, the reason God doesn't answer most prayers is that they contradict each other. In other words, if He answered prayer 1 He does the exact opposite of what prayer 2 asked Him to do. Another reason is that answering certain prayers can only be done by making miracles, and making miracles all the time would make His existence obvious, so no more free will.

Axissillian, please show me that "overwhelming evidence" you have of the forced conversion of pagans. Furthermore, it may be that my knowledge in history is lacking, but so is yours. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the Catholic Church had NOTHING. The Pope didn't even rule Rome, barbaric kings did. The Catholic Church got feudal possesions and an army thanks to Charlemagne, IN THE 9TH CENTURY!

Raven, that's a very sad story... :( :( :( Like I said, sometimes God just doesn't answer prayers. But that's not a reason to lose your faith. I give myself as an example. Few of my prayers have been answered, but I don't give up my faith. I know God is testing me. No matter how bad my life gets, I will never abandon Him. If I lose everything, I've still got my faith.

Raven, Ex... like Ordos45 said... remember the book of Job. Please remember...

Ordos45, that verse ( Exodus 22:18 ) is quite famous... because it's the one and only INTENTIONAL mistranslation. King James ordered it written like that because witches scared him to death. It should say "Do not allow an evil doer to live among you."

Yes UsulSK, free will in heaven is limited. Some might say that we have no free will there. However, we exercised our free will in deciding to follow God and end up in heaven. So we willingly sacrificed part of our free will in order to be happy for all eternity. You think heaven is boring? Wrong. Boredom is an unpleasant feeling. There are no unpleasant things in heaven. So you can't get bored.

Let me get this straight: YOU'D PREFER TO DIE (cease to exist) THAN TO GO TO HELL??? Are you crazy? If I had a choice between total death and hell, I'd pick hell any day!

You want every man to have his own morals? Well, look at Hitler! He had his own morals!

Do you understand what "sinless" means? If you ever refused to borrow a pen to someone or you ever annoyed anyone or you even THOUGHT something bad about someone, that's a sin! If you ever got mad at someone, that's a sin! You CAN'T be sinless. Besides, there's also the Original Sin, with which we are born. But that can be "washed away" by baptism.

You're right about killing babies to send them to heaven, but that would be total madness and it would lead to the end of humanity. That's why God gave us the instinct that the death of a loved one is bad. Even if we know he went to heaven, we still feel sad for his death. God gave us this to prevent the madness you just described.

[Usul]

Ordos, Axisillian is right the Holy Roman empire was still around after the fall of the Romans. And how can you say that you would rather go to hell than be totaly dead thats like saying you would rather have problems than none. It might sound cynicial but I dont belive in a meaning of life and that might be the reason that I say that. I am a comited atheist and think the following things disprove the existence of God:

1) If God is all good and all powerful then why is their evil (and don't say if there was no evil there would be no good because it wouldn't have to be as bad as it is to show good things).

2) If heaven's so good why did Lucifer and the other fallen angels leave.

3) If God created the universe were did God come from.

4) If Gods all good then he wouldn't send sinners to hell for ever would he.

BTW praying is pointless because if God knows everything then he knows the future meaning he knows if it will happen or not without you telling him to stop it

[UsulSK]

;D

Usul, my name-brother, you think just as I do!  And yes, I know that reading all the posts is boring, but most of what you have said was already said b4, though I totally agree to you!

[UsulSK]

>Lucifer/Satan and his legion did not leave Heaven,

>they were expelled for being rebellious angels among

>other things. He was God's accuser.

Weak.  That only leads to the next question:  Why should he rebell against god, if heaven is so perfect and if theres no sin in heaven?  He must have had reasons for accusing god, right?

[UsulSK]

> crazy? If I had a choice between total death and hell, > I'd pick hell any day!

If hell means constant pain forever without any chance of beeing freed from it (how unhumane, by the way) then everybody would prefer total death.

>You want every man to have his own morals? Well,

>look at Hitler! He had his own morals!

Well, so had Aristoteles, Satre and Karl Marx.  You are starting that "Atheist cant be good people" argument again.  How boring.  

You still didnt say something to the Christians who have total different values which contradict each other but still they think its gods will.  Example:  Death Sentence (by the way, USA is the only so called "civilized" country which still has this barbarian method of punishment).

[UsulSK]

Why should god send bad people to hell anyway?  Is he so fullfilled with hate emotions?  I think all "good" people in heaven and the almighty god should stand above such primitive fealings and they should forgive.  Even I cant be mad at one person for a longer then a day, and Im an just an Atheist!

[Acriku]

Ok I have a few things that do not make sense.

1. If there are no unpleasant feelings or the ability to commit a sin in heaven, how did Lucifer rebel? Going against God is a sin right?

2. People always say, well if there was a big bang, where did the first lifeform come from, or where did the first particle come from? Well let me ask you this: Where did God come from? He couldn't have just appeared, or have always been here, because that is impossible. Don't give me a blind faith answer, just an answer.

3. Good joke UsulSK.

4. Why does God taunt the people? He gives us just enough to suppose there is something there, but not enough to prove it.

5. There is so much evidense supporting evolution, why do Christians and others have so much blind faith that they ignore it? You see adaptation everyday, and millions of years from now, we will have adapted to the polution in the air, or maybe adapted to certain diseases. Adaptation happens people! And if that happens, then evolution happens!

Just some thoughts.

[exatreide]

Like they say Better to rule in hell then to surve in heaven.

If u had the choice of either being a free human or a pet human which would u pick.

And Who knows what hell is like. Maybe its just called Hell becouse its not as good as heaven. Just becouse some book says its true dose not mean that it is true. Come on the Big band theory atleast sounds more resinable. It atleast explains with a little more proof whare stuff has come from. But perhaps. Perhaps the bing bang created god. Or god created the big bang. Or The big bang happend or god just happend. We need a buhdist and a shindo in here. Were covering western relgions but are lacking in east.

1. We have all heard of about how the univere is expanding. But it will some day collapse and fall colapse into semi nothingness. But for some reason it expanded again I.E the big bang It will considder to expand untill it colappses again. And then it will expand and contract ect ect forever continueing. Who knows how many times it has happend and how many times it will happen.

[Guest Axissillian Again!]

Okie Dokie Edric, your wish is my command

Allow me to get the research materials in school tommorow... and tommorow night I will have all the proof you need.

BTW, I am not going to try and get into a deep philosophical debate like some of the others.  I personally do not care why god did something or why he doesn't answer... I am agnostic and pragmatic.  I only used that little anecdote to explain the insignificance of anecdotes in this forum

[quoudam72]

balance focus paradox.....................................

Religion is based apon what? The foundation is made from what? Looked towards the heavens and saw the stars what were in those stars? Were evolution.................of all things but few understand what they know or think they know. What are the answers to all these questions. And there maybe an answer for all the right questions.

[Acriku]

Are you saying something, answering something, or just plain high fed?

[quoudam72]

Saying something, answering something no.....not high. ::)

[ordos45]

". People always say, well if there was a big bang, where did the first lifeform come from, or where did the first particle come from? Well let me ask you this: Where did God come from? He couldn't have just appeared, or have always been here, because that is impossible. Don't give me a blind faith answer, just an answer. "

Acriku and Ex, please forgive me but your are saying that the universe either blew up out of nothing, which is scientifically impossible, or that it has always been around, in which case it would make just as much sense for God always having been around.

Ex, at least get the saying right," It is better to serve in heaven than rule in hell" not the opposite.  Axis, I look forward to your info, just because I have a faith doesn't mean I'm not willing to listen.  Now if I am correct it would also mean that Wiccans believe that the Goddess created the universe?

As pointed out before, everyone has morals, even if they are twisted.  

Now for the Lucifer rebllion.  I believe that someone here said God most likely can't create perfect beings?  Not all angels are perfect.  

I'm looking at this as a way to challenge and strengthen my faith as much as I look to it as an arguement, also my youth group says that I don't do enough evangelism aka trying to convert people, mwhahahahahaha.  

Well that's all for now, my parents are restricting my online time during this week due to exams.   :)

[quoudam72]

The universe is older than mankind itself how can you measure time? A clock, a watch an hourglass filled with sand? If the hourglass is broken, the clock stop ticking and the watch does not work, time still goes on without these measuremants. Religion is but an explantion and there are many this you truly have to understand. The separation of mankind comes from his own making which is the separation of himself. Mankind is divided and so is the world but we only have one this that we call Earth. That vaccum above our atmostphere leads to space what no one in mankind can create.

[Alia_of_the_Knife]

I have just spent the last hour and a half reading through all you "evidence."  I have quite a lot of things to say.

I am sorry about all the bad things that happen to us all.  I could go into a long list, but that would take a VERY VERY long time.

As for the Lucifer thing he was kicked out for trying to take over heaven.  He wanted God's job, and God wouldn't take any of it, so he was kicked down where the sun don't shine.

As for the Wicca thing:  I have researched it very thouroly in my atempt to understand other religions.  From what I can tell, it is all about taking what you want.  You use the power of Satan to your advantage and you use that incredible force to get what you want.

As for the Atheist thing:  I think that even though you say that you don't believe in anything, you are just saying that you don't want anyone to be higher up than you.  You don't want to believe that there is a God that helps people out (aka governing them, as you may think).  You want to think that you are supreme, that there is no one who has the right to govern, so in sense you are just like Satan.  (Not literally)

As for the sin thing:  The creation of Lucifer brought temtation over the world.  All angels have power, just smaller power than God.  He didn't lose all of it, so he made himself a world of fire and brimstone and uses what is left of his power to make people worship him.  

Raven: Disgusting.

On the prayer issue: God always answers prayers.  Sometimes he just says no.  You have to accept it.

More on heaven:  How can we be sure what heaven is like?  Has any one of us been there and come back?  I don't think I have, though you never know, I guess.....

Even if you are "blameless", like it is impossible to be, if you don't ask Jesus to take the burden for you, you are screwed.  Jesus died so that we wouldn't have to.  If you ask him to, he will take all of your sins and make you clean.  That is a wonderful feeling.  Try it some time!

On the Exodus verse: doesn't 'evil' include witches?

On Usul's #4:  God doesn't want us to go to hell.  We make ourselves go there by not accepting.

Hell means pain forever.  If I had to, which I never will, chose between total death and hell, I would chose total death.

On Acriku's number 4: He wants us to make the decision for ourselves.  Note the parable of the lost son: More blessed are those who have gone astray and returned than those who have never tested the waters and have stayed faithful.

Fed, the basis of religion is faith.

God wants us to chose eternal life out of our own free will.  How much you wanna bet that he would have gotton a ton of rebellions if he had made us mindless cronies?  We would want the free will we have now.  

'For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to sabe the world through him.  Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the mane of God's on and only Son.  This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved dearkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.  Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be expsed.  But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.' John 3:16-20

Pan

[quoudam72]

Yes and your maturity should grow well if you nuture it.

[Gobalopper]

Fed the philosopher. :)

[quoudam72]

lol not quite.

[Acriku]

Is it me or are you people contradicting yourselves? Pan says Lucifer wanted to rule Heaven, which means he had greed. But greed is a sin, and someone else said no one can sin in heaven? And the way I see it is, is that atheism isn't about no one can govern me, it is about loving earth and it's life. Not about some God that says we go to hell if we are not good, or we do not believe in someone. How would you know how athiests are Pan? You have studied everyone and everyone is the same? Not likely...