I hope there is a god

Originally posted by wolfgang59
Atheists: Before he snuffs you out for ever and ever ... he allows you ONE question!

Which god are you?

Originally posted by sonship
1.) Punishment without end is never right.

Yep, that about sums it up.

The point is that no-one here has ever articulated why it could ever be right, except by a load of waffle or along the lines of 'God can do whatever he goddamn pleases.' Which, even if its true, does not make it right.

Justice (as opposed to punishment) requires proportionality. It is even a Biblical concept. But apparently God makes rules for others which he is not required to observe himself. Which is what we normally call hypocritical.

Except, just as you argue we cannot call God evil, even when he does evil things, I suppose we can't call him hypocritical when he does hypocritical things either.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I think he was responding to this statement you made:

Now if I were you, which I am not, I would find an open field somewhere. And there where one could pour out his heart in private, I would cry out. "God I cannot believe. Help my unbelief."

Clearly you do not get it.
Nobody with a lack of belief would do any such thing.

You have the right to speak for yourself.

If there was no possible transition from not believing and experiencing Christ to believing and experiencing Christ, there would be no Christians in history.

While you say "You don't get it, we don't believe in God" I would respond with " You don't get it. Many of us didn't believe and now have fellowship with God. "

A transition is possible. Otherwise men like C.S. Lewis would never make a change from non-believer to believer.

If you argue for a gradualism in which it is hard to pen point exactly where the first human being came about, why can't you believe there could be a gradualism from Atheist to Theist ?

And that, even though it is hard to state the exact millisecond one crossed over.

" You don't understand. An atheist would never go out to a field and pour out to a God he doesn't believe in" you say. You have the right to speak for yourself.

But history records people who were atheist one day and Christians on another day. So the same undetectable line you maintain for non-human primate to human being you could also assume does occur from lack of belief to belief in God.

Originally posted by Rank outsider
Yep, that about sums it up.

The point is that no-one here has ever articulated why it could ever be right, except by a load of waffle or along the lines of 'God can do whatever he goddamn pleases.' Which, even if its true, does not make it right.

Justice (as opposed to punishment) requires proportionality. It is even a Biblical concept. But ap ...[text shortened]... s evil things, I suppose we can't call him hypocritical when he does hypocritical things either.

Yep, that about sums it up.

The point is that no-one here has ever articulated why it could ever be right, except by a load of waffle or along the lines of 'God can do whatever ... Which, even if its true, does not make it right.

There is here the suspicion that God is an arbitrary tyrant.
I don't believe this though.

I do believe that the same God can cause potentially the judgment of all sins from all mankind for all time to be punished on Calvary on the cross of the Son of God. And that redemptive death on our behalf is like a blank check into which ANY amount of funds may be written in to pay the dept.

But if the blank check is refused, the crushing dept falls upon the refuser and substitution does not take place.

I articulated it that the unbeliever goes into eternity a endless factory of transgressions against God. And the full hatred of sin from the Righteous God will be his lot forever.

That hatred fell on One righteous and innocent Man who alone was singularly pleasing to the Father. And that in His love to save us.
But rejecting the Son leaves your soul out of the realm of Justification before God.

Endless sinning will apparently call for endless punishing.

There is no explicit doctrine of the immortality of the human soul.
And it is correct to say "The Immortality of the Soul" is a Greek philosophical concept. However, though there is no explicit doctrine set forth of this in the Bible, apparently the soul is going on in existence beyond physical death.

'There cannot be eternal suffering," you say. Will there not be eternal sinning among the lost? Is God obligued to stay the endless flow of sin from the lips and acts of the lost? ... I count sin infinite." - Robert Govette

God's purpose is to take the fallen corrupted man and "metabolically" transform him into the image of the Son of God.

The rejector of Christ is frozen in his fallen state forever.
The sins of the past life on earth are one matter.
The continued hatred of his heart and mouth towards God from the enduring soul is added.

This possibly is the meaning of the words in the last chapter of the Bible that each person is remaining in the state he is -

"And he said to me, Do not seal the words of the prophecy of this scroll, for the time is near.

Let him who does unrighteousness do unrighteousness still; and let him who is filthy be filthy still; and let him who is righteous do righteousness still; and let him who is holy be holy still." (Rev. 22:10,11)

For the saved there is transformation and conformation to be presented without fault and without blemish before God in eternity.

"But to Him who is able to guard you from stumbling and to set you before His glory without blemish in exultation, to the only wise God our Savior through Jesus Christ ..." (Jude 24,25a)

God through His salvation is ABLE to make us like the sinless One before Him positionally and dispositionally.

God has predestinated all those in Christ to be presented before Him holy as sons for sonship -

"Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blemish before Him in love, predestinating us unto sonship through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will ..." (Eph. 1:4,5)

If you are on a Jumbo Jet from NY to LA your destiny is pre-determined. You will arrive in LA. If you come into Christ your destiny to be eventually presented before God without blemish, holy in sonship with God's life and nature is guarantied in Him.

We cannot change ourselves. We need to be saved in His life.
He is able to save us to the uttermost.

But those who reject Christ are outside of this realm Living Person.
Maybe they will become more and more like Satan.
I don't know.
But I am pretty sure that endless offending the law of God will bring down upon their self chosen frozen state eternal punishing.

I have applied or interpreted Revelation

Justice (as opposed to punishment) requires proportionality.

I personally do not rule out that there would be different levels of punishment in eternal punishment.

In the parable of the tares and the wheat, Jesus said the tares, representing false believers, would be gathered into bundles to be burned. The plural use of "bundles" may mean different categories.

Maybe Adolf Hitler would be in a different category than someone else.
I don't know.
Maybe in eternity the sinner gets worse and worse until all become like Satan.

This I do not know either.


But in the Matthew passage from chapter 13, if there are bundles or categories, it is clear that the unpleasantness of being burned up is common to all. There may be different categories. We do not have in the Bible such imagined details as Dante wrote about in his Divine Comedy.

I take the former - the Bible, as the word of God. The latter, The Divine Comedy, as man's imagination based somewhat on the Bible. I said "somewhat."

In Luke 16 the rich man in Hell carried on some conversation with Abraham while he as being tormented. I would think anyone in that condition would be too hysterical to converse any coherent sentences.

I suddenly have to stop writing and tend to something around the house.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Wolfgang, if I were an atheist, the one question would be: "God, if you're actually a supernatural being, how can human beings possibly have a relationship with you in time and eternity?" Footnote: God is a gentleman who doesn't force Himself on anyone. He respects the decisions of those who reject His grace gift [of salvation and personal ...[text shortened]... rom Him and alone with the "worm that never dies [memory]" as their sole companion for eternity.

"God is a gentleman who doesn't force Himself on anyone."


try telling that to the 'virgin' mary!

Originally posted by wolfgang59
Of course I do. Fantastic! (Wouldn't leprechauns and faeries be
something too!) But the best bit would be god casting bodies into
the eternal lake of fire. A place reserved only for those that believe
in it and threatened others with it. Payback for spiritual bullies.

Atheists he can snuff out (fair do's) but pontificating stuffed
shirts should ...[text shortened]... en.

PS - Atheists: Before he snuffs you out for ever and ever ... he allows you ONE question!

"Atheists: Before he snuffs you out for ever and ever ... he allows you ONE question!"


why did you have to be such a dick?

Originally posted by stellspalfie
"God is a gentleman who doesn't force Himself on anyone."


try telling that to the 'virgin' mary!

Go back and read it - Luke 1:26-56.

The virgin Mary said "Let it be to me according to Your word" or something equivalent.

The impression I get is that she was willing.
This was not the utterance of one who had no choice or was a rape victim.
This was the utterance of one whom God knew beforehand was pious, believing, and willing to cooperate in God's will.

Since she found favor with the Lord, God knew that she would be willing.

Originally posted by josephw
Why do you hope there is a God?

Read my OP.

Originally posted by sonship
Go back and read it - [b]Matthew or Luke.

The virgin Mary said "Let it be to me according to Your word" or something equivalent.

The impression I get is that she was willing.
This was not the utterance of one who had no choice or was a rape victim.
This was the utterance of one whom God knew beforehand was pious, believing, and willin ...[text shortened]... ate in God's will.

Since she found favor with the Lord, God knew that she would be willing.[/b]

she was a child.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Wolfgang, if I were an atheist, the one question would be: "God, if you're actually a supernatural being, how can human beings possibly have a relationship with you in time and eternity?" Footnote: God is a gentleman who doesn't force Himself on anyone. He respects the decisions of those who reject His grace gift [of salvation and personal ...[text shortened]... rom Him and alone with the "worm that never dies [memory]" as their sole companion for eternity.

GrampyBobby, If I were god , the one deed I would do - throw you in the
lake for being such a pompous ass.

Footnote: Alternatively I could make all the sinners listen to you for eternity.

Originally posted by sonship
You have the right to speak for yourself.

Yes, that is the point. It is people like myself that you claimed to 'get' which you clearly do not 'get'.

While you say "You don't get it, we don't believe in God" I would respond with " You don't get it. Many of us didn't believe and now have fellowship with God. "
And that is relevant why?

A transition is possible. Otherwise men like C.S. Lewis would never make a change from non-believer to believer.
And I have not claimed otherwise.

" You don't understand. An atheist would never go out to a field and pour out to a God he doesn't believe in" you say. You have the right to speak for yourself.
Yes, I can and I did. And you apparently failed totally to understand me.

But history records people who were atheist one day and Christians on another day. So the same undetectable line you maintain for non-human primate to human being you could also assume does occur from lack of belief to belief in God.
Do you have a point? I am totally failing to 'get' what you are trying to say here.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
she was a child.

She was old enough to be married.

She was a young woman.

The angel tells her that she has been favored and that she will give birth to a Son of God.

"He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High ..." (v.32)

"But Mary said to the angel, How will this be, since I have not known a man?"

She did not say "Since I am a child". She was a grown young woman who had not known a man.

The angel explains what will happen to her -

"The Holy Spirit WILL come upon you, and the power of the Most High WILL overshadow you; therefore also the holy thing which is born will be called the Son of God." (v.35)

I think the future tense infers that the Holy Spirit had not YET come upon her and the power of the Most High in the future would come upon her.

She responded with submission and cooperation.

"And Mary said, Behold, the slave of the Lord. May it happen to me according to your word. And the angel departed." (v.38)

Conceivably she might have refused in unbelief or responded with arguments.

So I don't go along with your insinuation that she was usurped in her human will or forced to conceive.

"May it happen to me according to your word."

Originally posted by sonship
She was old enough to be married.

She was a young woman.

The angel tells her that she has been favored and that she will give birth to a Son of God.

[b]"He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High ..." (v.32)

"But Mary said to the angel, How will this be, since I have not known a man?"

She did not say "Since ...[text shortened]... r human will or forced to conceive.

"May it happen to me according to your word." [/b]

she was a child....would you marry and impregnate a child?

Originally posted by stellspalfie
she was a child....would you marry and impregnate a child?

She was a young women of the marriageable age.

I never heard any objection that Mary the mother of Jesus was a child.
This must be a new scraping of the bottom of the barrel argument from Internet Infidels or something.

Even the Hebrew language experts that object to the prophecy of Isaiah 14 refering to a virgin in the sense of having no sexual relations, have usually argued that "young woman" is the proper translation of the Hebrew there in Isaiah 7:14.

I recall that Jewish scholars that strenuously object to the Gospel's reference to a virgin giving birth in fulfillment of an OT prophecy insist that only a "young woman" can be inferred in the Old Testament.

"Mary had to be a child" is an argument I never heard before. And I have heard plenty of arguments.

Originally posted by sonship
She was a young women of the marriageable age.

I never heard any objection that Mary the mother of Jesus was a child.
This must be a new scraping of the bottom of the barrel argument from Internet Infidels or something.

Even the Hebrew language experts that object to the prophecy of Isaiah 14 refering to a [b]virgin in the sense of having n ...[text shortened]... ry had to be a child" is an argument I never heard before. And I have heard plenty of arguments.[/b]

what age do you draw the line?