@Thorn:
Ooh, ooh, I know this one!
Amply to thee is opened now the cavern / Which has concealed from thee the living justice / Of which thou mad'st such frequent questioning.
For saidst thou: 'Born a man is on the shore / Of Indus, and is none who there can speak / Of Christ, nor who can read, nor who can write;
And all his inclinations and his actions / Are good, so far as human reason sees, / Without a sin in life or in discourse:
He dieth unbaptised and without faith; / Where is this justice that condemneth him? / Where is his fault, if he do not believe?'
(The answer is "I'm a giant eagle made of souls and there are virtuous pagans in my eye.")
“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. BernardThorn@I know that for a fact I have been to Christian schools where you find some obnoxious kids although then again kids in middle school and high schools are immature.I don't deny that people have done hypocritcal things but the thing is you act like I don't realize it or talk to me like I am naive about the world.
x8 part of love is unconditional forgiveness
^^ this applys
edited 14th Sep '11 1:49:26 PM by vanthebaron
Untitled Power Rangers StorySpending eternity in an eagle's eye doesn't sound like my idea of a great time.
Also I'm pretty sure Dante's Inferno is just a cool Fan Fiction.
@Joy :I'm not talking about snot nosed children. I'm talking about so called loving Christians condemning homosexuals to death.
edited 14th Sep '11 1:50:56 PM by Thorn14
^ It was a pretty damn cool fan fiction.
The main character was a bit too much of a Self Insert Sue though.
edited 14th Sep '11 1:51:07 PM by Pentadragon
If that's the case, then we're in Hell already. *looks around* Doesn't seem too bad.
I didn't ignore it. I just couldn't make heads nor tails of it; the words morphed inside my head into [Insert Rottweiler's Personal Dictionary Here]. Something about being invited into God's presence. Very funny.
edited 14th Sep '11 1:53:03 PM by Karalora
This was going to be a pre-emptive warning, but it looks like I took too long typing it, and it's going to be an after-the-fact warning instead.
Trying to paint all of Christianity with the broad brush of a single denomination of sect will be treated as flamebaiting. This means that if you are speaking about what some versions but not all Christianity believes, identify the parts you are talking about.
Strawmanning will also be regarded as flamebaiting.
And I'll clue you in: There's very little that all Christian denominations or all Christians believe. "Jesus is God" is about it.
edited 14th Sep '11 1:53:00 PM by Madrugada
actually it was repentance forced on him for speaking out again the church;'s control of the economy
Untitled Power Rangers StoryWell yes. As Satan says in Paradise Lost, "which way
I fly
is
Hell
."
@However far back, Hell isn't all fire and brimstone. Like someone else said, the absence of God is enough to make it Hell. Whoever said that the Earth now doesn't look too bad, God is still around, working miracles and stuff. We have no idea what would happen if he withdrew from the world. Could be nothing, or the entire planet falls into the sun. We can't know.
Anyway, I've heard it said that some parts of Hell are just wide open fields, full of green grass and nothing else. Anyone who wasn't a bad person, but didn't believe in God/get baptized/whatever would just chill out there forever.
Still Sheepin'
Depends on how much you believe God is involved in things I guess.
And an entire empty field sounds like a case of And I Must Scream
edited 14th Sep '11 1:59:38 PM by Thorn14
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I'd watch it with the strawmen. Not everybody believes that hell is a form of limbo. In fact that's probably a minority position.
Edit: But back on topic, the big problem with sin is that it tends to result in us discussing morality in terms of theology and belief instead of practical terms that might do a better job of advancing the debate.
Even when I agree with a moral someone is saying in theological terms, often there's no hook there to move to the next step.
What's better? To feed the poor or to find them a job?
That sort of thing.
edited 14th Sep '11 2:01:50 PM by Karmakin
Democracy is the process in which we determine the government that we deserveArgumentum ad Fanfiction?
Point being, you're not going to horrify this relatively privileged and content gal by saying Hell is just like Earth. It's not a choice between Paradise and Auschwitz; there are whole ranges of conditions inbetween.
Tell you what. If it turns out Hell is just like Earth, dictators and all, and I wind up there for being insufficiently Christian, I promise to fight the bad guys. It's not like they or anything else would be able to kill me at that point, right?
Then God can be in the presence of sin, and there is no excuse for not taking absolutely everyone to Heaven.
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The ancient greeks were weird
Me, I'd love an afterlife where you are a sort of Reality Warper of your own world. You can do whatever you want (within reason), and then you can leave your own personal ream to go into the main "hub" of heaven to meet with others, chill with angels, etc.
edited 14th Sep '11 2:10:47 PM by Thorn14
My apologies. I was not intending to try and get anybody in trouble. I just happen to think that a pro-strawman (that is a strawman pretending something universally has a positive component) is just as damaging to a discussion as a negative strawman, which is what you usually see.
One of the problems is that pro-strawmen (I like the term Ironman, or Jelloman myself, depending on the circumstances) arguments are rarely seen outside of religion.
Again, I apologize to Earth.
Democracy is the process in which we determine the government that we deserve

@Van: And that's the basic principle of Universalism (Part 2 of that post, that is).
edited 14th Sep '11 1:48:03 PM by Balmung