Materialists
- Thread starter ShoeshineBoy
- Start date
I have very little time here but will return.
There are near endless possibilities here of course, but I'm not sure there is a biblical requirement that the fire itself destroy the spirit -- the deity can make that happen any way he chooses in a blink. The only stated intention of the fire that I can find is destruction and the only "side effect" I can find is pain.
JB
There are near endless possibilities here of course, but I'm not sure there is a biblical requirement that the fire itself destroy the spirit -- the deity can make that happen any way he chooses in a blink. The only stated intention of the fire that I can find is destruction and the only "side effect" I can find is pain.
JB
I would agree with you , there is little in the Bible that is obvious. It is full of
contrariety, contradiction and dubiety. You have adequately demonstrated this by arguing, in
Bible terms Fire is a figurative description of something else.
The upshot being misi-interpretation, multitudinous translation and re-interpretation.
The whole thing becomes allegorical. God is not a creator but is a big daddy of the universe who
huffs and puffs all over everywhere until the people of the earth place do his bidding.
But just what were the writers of the Bible attempting to convey, if the meaning was intended to be so
variable and inconsistent?
Apparently what started out as nothing other than an entertaining folktale, a story, a
fictional composition to while away the cold nights of a nomadic tribes people, became awash with
descriptive narrative, but from what you say, it all amounts to something of a rough outline for people to build their own personal storyline of the unknown upon.
From its beginnings, with no more than a couple of chapters, the tale is transformed over
thousands of years into the teachings of multifarious churches, but based only upon
a fairy tale, it is transformed - for the consciousnesses of people to re-write in any way they
see fit. So it's turned into a story game of dungeons and dragons, with plots and endings being
added or taken away by yet more writers and varying widely in its content, depending upon how the
reader decides things will be.
But under these circumstances the framework disappears too. Doubter's 'Christ died for mans' sins' does
not mean any such thing. Christ is now a metaphor for either a son of man or son of God or the same giant of the skies, whose name is not really God but rather G_d, or something else with different connotations called Yahweh and Christ is ,or isn't, an offspring of Elohim, but is, or isn't, El Shaddai, or not, depending upon one's own personal preferences. Sins aren't sins as known on earth, but some other sort of sins, or not, as the case maybe.
And so it transpires by the writings in....
Matthew 13:41-42, "The Son of man shall send forth his
angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."
......there is no bearing upon furnaces, fire, pain and torture .....
...and the the words from....
Mark 9:44 "Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."
And also in Matthew 25:46 "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment
.....is meant to give no meaning of any such thing as burn forever, but is open to an interpretation of a kind of garbage disposal service, which dispatches those who cannot fathom sense from any of this stuff to eternal oblivion (thanks a bunch)
....BUT not as described in
Revelation 20:10 "And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever".
.... fire/torment doesn't mean burning pain but the rubbish dump has now become a lake of fire. The Church authority is the false prophet - the antichrist - and anyone who wonders about the irrationality, or misunderstands any or all of this stuff, is also included as a false prophet and beast worshipper, which in turn carries the harlot (don't ask !). Geeez Puleeeeze.
Under these circumstances, there is no significance in - or reason to assume - any real revelation, no real understanding, no words of divine truth.... just an irrelevancy of abstract hypothetical fantasies emanating from incredible imagination gone berserk.
Now it seems that with a continuous dogged and blind insistence and given a long enough period of time and with enough interpretation, Darth Vader is truly the Creator of the universe. Or not.....whatever!
Inspired by shoeshine, perhaps like many before have been inspired but probably in a different way for different reasons ! ....here is the - translation of scripture translating itself - which I understand shoeshine states is valid as interpretation of what is meant by God's Word....
.....here sin is a disobedience by not using the God given talents which were allotted to you. One of these being the ability to attempt reasoning and logical deduction.
Mark9:47 And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire:
And thereby, from interpretation of the scriptures by the scriptures (itâs a plan shoeshine !)... the eye referred to is the mind... the mind's eye... aka understanding, reasoning and logical deduction... given by God.
By using Godâs gifts of rationality, reason or logical inference of the mind, leads one to conclude that God does not want people to fall for irrational badly thought out fairy stories like the one HE (God) inspired people to write and eventually publish as the Bible.
If they do believe in its ridiculousness, they may as well throw their mind , or the portion of it which is unable to make some sense out of the unknown, onto the rubbish heap (The Gehenna fire) to burn up, for all the use it would be.
He wants people to look beyond imagination only and establish what is actually happening. The reasoning being that ,..if God is present in any form at all, it has no idea either and would like to know as much as humankind, what the Hell is going on in the universe.
Ah Ha!!
.....here sin is a disobedience by not using the God given talents which were allotted to you. One of these being the ability to attempt reasoning and logical deduction.
Mark9:47 And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire:
And thereby, from interpretation of the scriptures by the scriptures (itâs a plan shoeshine !)... the eye referred to is the mind... the mind's eye... aka understanding, reasoning and logical deduction... given by God.
By using Godâs gifts of rationality, reason or logical inference of the mind, leads one to conclude that God does not want people to fall for irrational badly thought out fairy stories like the one HE (God) inspired people to write and eventually publish as the Bible.
If they do believe in its ridiculousness, they may as well throw their mind , or the portion of it which is unable to make some sense out of the unknown, onto the rubbish heap (The Gehenna fire) to burn up, for all the use it would be.
He wants people to look beyond imagination only and establish what is actually happening. The reasoning being that ,..if God is present in any form at all, it has no idea either and would like to know as much as humankind, what the Hell is going on in the universe.
Ah Ha!!
When you want to have a civil exchange about all this without the trash-talking, just let me know...I enjoy discussing with Turok and Damir who are both non-Christians because they have learned how to post w/o insulting the person every other sentence. I'm not that good at nor do I enjoy the constant "alpha dog" repartee that is the core of your and axe's methodology...
I can tell, for example, that Turok agrees with your interpretation and probably shares some of your same feelings, yet he has the maturity to bite his tongue and keep discussing the issues. So, again, when you want to discuss issues without all the peanut gallery comments, let me know - I'll be there for you as I truly enjoy it.
But I'm not a WWF guy like yourself. I like the PGA...
Huh??? What was uncivil about stus post?
It was brilliant.
It clearly pointed out the fact that a book
so ambiguous, that it takes PAGES to agree on something
as obvious as hell being mentioned, is worthless as
any kind of guide if you cant find TWO people to agree
on anything, INCLUDING theologians.
Let's face it.... if im allowed the SAME creative license you
demonstrated in the hell/fire/torture thread, then why CANT
Darth Vader be god?
peace
axeman
It was brilliant.
It clearly pointed out the fact that a book
so ambiguous, that it takes PAGES to agree on something
as obvious as hell being mentioned, is worthless as
any kind of guide if you cant find TWO people to agree
on anything, INCLUDING theologians.
Let's face it.... if im allowed the SAME creative license you
demonstrated in the hell/fire/torture thread, then why CANT
Darth Vader be god?
peace
axeman
Read stu's posts. He brings up one or two good points and then fills it with paragraphs and paragraphs of trash-talking. I would love to discuss the one or two good points that he brought up, but I don't have the time, energy or desire for abuse to deal with the rest of it...
Look at Turok and Damir's posts for good examples. They came from two widely different viewpoints from mine, yet they in a few sentences - without needless, playground trash talking - were able to convey where they agreed/disagreed. That's all I'm asking for.
I remember one time I went to a restaurant and there was some sort of humanists' or infidels club going on at the table next to me. For an hour I listened to just one insult of Christians after another. That's why I started this thread - to me it appears most materialists cannot engage in a civil conversation.
So all I'm asking is: prove me wrong. Show me that Turok is not the rare exception in the Land of Disbelief...