[luke warm]

[quote name='hrothgar' date='Aug 21 2007, 07:21 PM'][quote name='luke warm' date='Aug 22 2007, 03:02 AM'] that isn't true, or at least it isn't what we (i) believe... God has given man (all men, at all times) evidence that he exists... he has also stated many times that any who seek him will find him... but man hides from the truth, man deceives himself... or so the story goes [/quote]
Here's a hypothetical for you:

I'm an Aztec, born in the year 1300. What hope do I have of obtaining salvation? The "Good News" of Christ's resurrection won't hit the shores of South America for close to 200 years. Looks like I'm ***** out of Luck...[/quote]
as c.s. lewis wrote (paraphrasing), "while it's true that the only way to heaven is through Jesus, it doesn't follow of necessity that one must have heard of him to enter through him" ... we are told in the bible that all who call on the name of God will be saved... we are told that we have been given two bits of evidence that should cause us to know of God's existence and to seek him: creation and an inner voice... we have been told that man hides the truth of his senses from himself, that man hates the thought of a sovereign Creator so much that he sometimes denies his existence

your aztec has been given the same evidences as the rest of us... this evidence can lead to that aztec to seek God, in which case he will find him
[quote]Please recall:  You agreed with the following statement of Bebop's:

[quote]Since I was asked, I know that:

Jesus Christ taught that the only way to Heaven is to believe that Christ is the Son of God. [/quote][/quote]
actually, Jesus taught that he was the way, the truth, and the light and that no man comes to the Father but by him
[quote]So whats the story:

1. There are actually other ways to obtain salvation other than a personal relationship with Christ?[/quote]
i think i've answered this, let me know if this explains it... there is one God and he has given us evidence to know of his existence... this evidence causes us to seek him, to learn about him... one of these evidences, the inner voice (conscious? i don't know), witnesses to us in a general way the things God approves of and the things he doesn't... his existence has to be accepted on faith, and it is this faith that saves... the book of hebrews gives examples of this (abraham, rahab, etc)
[quote]2.  Many people have no hope of salvation?[/quote]
true... i've tried to explain some of my beliefs on this point and gave references for studies that do the concepts more justice than i'm able to give... in brief, there are some who, regardless of the time and place of their creation, will never believe in God... God created them anyway since there was some necessity to their existence in the time and place in which they were born... craig calls these the "trans-worldly damned"... in any case, a discussion of this should be held some other time, for those interested... search for 'molina God's middle knowledge' or 'counterfactuals of God's knowledge'
[quote name='mikeh' date='Aug 21 2007, 07:40 PM'][quote name='luke warm' date='Aug 21 2007, 07:02 PM'][quote name='mikeh' date='Aug 21 2007, 10:49 AM']~~Darwin pointed out that the evidence then available (which evidence has expanded vastly since his day) suggested that humanity was a contingent accident: merely one twig on the bush of life... and that we were descended, not from apes, but from a common ancestor of the apes.

This revolution in our view of ourselves has been accepted far more slowly than the Copernican revolution, perhaps because it strikes closer to home in terms of removing our ability to claim special status for ourselves.[/quote]
is it possible that this 'revolution' has been accepted far more slowly (if at all) because it isn't true?
[/quote]
So the Pope (the one before the present neanderthal) was wrong when (in 1996 I think, but I can readily check) he announced that the Roman Catholic Church accepted the truth of evolutionary theory? The only caveat he added was that God still infused souls into humans, but he accepted that humans were descended from non-humans by way of evolution mediated by natural selection.

And that guy is allegedly infallible [/quote]
yes, he was wrong and no he isn't infallible...
[quote name='Quantumcat' date='Aug 21 2007, 11:08 PM']~~Either we have free will, which makes us more powerful than God, this doesn't make sense. Or we don't have free will, and God chose for us to do the wrong things we do and "punishment" makes no sense either. Either we have free will or we don't (tautology) and both possibilities lead to contradiction.[/quote]
i don't follow you here... God created us in his image... i take that to mean, we were created with all attributes he possesses... the fact that God has free will, and created us with free will, doesn't make us more powerful than him, any more that the fact that God is a creator and we are creators makes us more powerful than him
[quote]Another thing. God knows us thoroughly, right? So he would know what kind of evidence each of us would require to realise he's there. He doesn't give us this evidence, thus choosing for us to not know or realise he's there.[/quote]
he says that he has given each of us sufficient evidence of his existence... therefore he has chosen that we know him

[the hog]

"he says that he has given each of us sufficient evidence of his existence... therefore he has chosen that we know him"

Not enough evidence for me to believe Jimmy, not enough evidence.

(Sorry, a stolen quote from George Bernard Shaw). Creation is no evidence at all; in fact its the opposite, and my inner voice tells me God doesn't exist.

[luke warm]

The_Hog, on Aug 22 2007, 05:50 PM, said:

"he says that he has given each of us sufficient evidence of his existence... therefore he has chosen that we know him"

Not enough evidence for me to believe Jimmy, not enough evidence.

(Sorry, a stolen quote from George Bernard Shaw). Creation is no evidence at all; in fact its the opposite, and my inner voice tells me God doesn't exist.

ok ron, you were given the same things i was given, we both examined those things, and we come to different conclusions... i'd still have a beer (or 6) with you

[mike777]

IF you are quite sure God does not exist then I assume this is a non issue for you.
If your think he might but think his Nature is evil or at the very least uninvolved then I urge you to read or google for more information.



The questions raised here including "salvation for those who never heard of Christ" are very common questions raised over a thousand or more years ago. There are numerous books and commentary on this issue alone and the other common questions for those who wish to learn more.

I just googled this one subject and came up with almost 2 million references.

I will let those who are more knowledgable reply or refer you to the numerous books on the subject.

The very short answer for me regarding the whole question of salvation for some but not all is that of the Nature of the Christian God. He is fully the God of Justice and the God of Grace. He gives Grace onto who he chooses.

As I said this is an incomplete answer for more information there are books or stuff on the internet that run 1000 pages or more.

[pbleighton]

Quote

The very short answer for me regarding the whole question of salvation for some but not all is that of the Nature of the Christian God. He is fully the God of Justice and the God of Grace. He gives Grace onto who he chooses.

If he exists and is as advertised, he sends people to Hell.

Many people.

Including people like me.

Now being an atheist, I'm not worried, myself, but I don't like the scare tactics and intimidation of what is supposedly a benign religion.

Mike, if you weren't a Christian, you wouldn't either.

Peter

[mike777]

I certainly agree religion is far from benign.

As I mentioned in another post long ago there is widespread disagreement on how many are saved or not in mainline Christianity.

The numbers range from a significant minority up to all or almost all.
As I said there are almost 2 million google cites on this one issue alone.

[Winstonm]

Quote

his existence has to be accepted on faith, and it is this faith that saves

So, Jimmy, what happens to those who don't accept on faith this existence and are therefore not saved?

[mike777]

Winston Relax.

Again back to the Nature of God. If you assume God is fully Just and you have never done an action or inaction that was not Just in your lifetime or deserves to be condemned you will be fine in God's Justness.

OTOH if you or some other reader of this post feels there was some action or inaction that you feel condemned there is Grace. God's nature is full of Grace.

If you really seek answers visit some clergy or rabbi in your area. Seek out a professor of religion at your University.

[cherdano]

mikeh, on Aug 22 2007, 12:37 PM, said:

Fluffy, on Aug 22 2007, 11:49 AM, said:

Don't take as insults thing on BBO forums, but you wrote loads of lines wich helped me on nothing .

Telling me real data is a bit disapointing, I don't have it, nor wanna know it. I just enjoy discussion.

That's the only fun thing, since actually this discussion is like which football or (put your favourite sport here) team is best. No matter how many truth you, me or whoever is actually right says. I know nobody is gonna change his mind.

What I mean is: the discusion of prove me god exists, and prove me god doesn't exist is futile, nobody can demostrate one nor the other, but it can be fun and challenging at least.

If I read your posts correctly, you don't accept evolutionary theory; you want to 'discuss' your opinions, but you have zero interest in actually learning anything.

If this is correct, then I feel sorry for you, and sorry for wasting my time posting in response to you.

Someone who says: I don't believe you: 'I am admittedly ignorant on the topic, and I want to discuss it with you, but I am not prepared to learn anything about the topic either while discussing it or in order that my contributions mean anything' is wasting everyone's time.

It's like saying that 'I think that Precision is a bad bidding method, but I have never learned to play Bridge, and I'm entitled to my opinion anyway'. You are entitled to your opinion, but that opinion is worthless.

Mike, while Fluffy's post wasn't exactly constructive we all know that this is a debate, not a discussion, i.e. I would be shocked if anyone would change his opinion on the existence of god due to a discussion on BBF...
The only thing this debate might achieve is to try to help everyone understand the viewpoint of some on the other side of the spectrum, provided that those "others" try to explain their viewpoint in a manner that shows respect for other viewpoints.
(I am not sure I have seen many posts in this thread that I would qualify as respectful in that sense... Of course this isn't easy, for example I really fail to understand why the believe that god created the universe leads so many to believe that evolution can't be true...)

[Al_U_Card]

Hmmmmn.

Saved from what and to where?

[the hog]

" But humans born with no eyes, or four arms? Why don't hear about them? Admittedly, humans have a lot fewer kids than cats or mice, so in absolute numbers you shouldn't expect to see them much. But we ought to see *some*.

I suppose a theory that doctors deliberately abort kids with obvious and terrible mutations wouldn't go over well... "

Hmm JT, you should live over here, as I see it quite a lot. Mind you, this is due to genetic damage caused by the spraying of Agent Orange during the 60's and 70's.

[Quantumcat]

One or two people quoted my post but I don't think they understood what I meant at all.

God being all-powerful means he knows everything in the future, the past, every subatomic particle at every position at every time etc.

This means he knows all of our future actions and decisions. He chose the starting point for the universe, so knew all that would be around us as experience at every single nanosecond of our lives.

He would know what will cause us to make different decisions, he knew how the starting point for the universe would become different experiences for us, so chose what our decisions would be.

If we were to be able to choose different things than God planned for the the environment that surrounded us during our lives, that would mean we would be more powerful than God, because then he would not know what was going to happen every nanosecond, the world would not be as he created it in the beginning (he is outside of time, he created it for all time) so, do you see?

Either we have no free will and he chose for some of us to be damned. Or, we do, and God is not all-powerful which doesn't make any sense with the Bible and we may as well throw out this God idea.

And another thing. God needing to violate physics makes no sense whatsoever. He chose the starting point for the universe, he knew how it would unfold. If he wanted to save 500 people because of a collapsing bridge, he could choose for it to not happen at all or for it to be reasonable that the broken bridge flew to land by itself. He chose for everything to be the way it is: him needing to violate physics is saying he made a mistake.

And again, if it was God's choice for man to never sin and for everyone to believe in him and for adam and eve to never have chosen the apple, he could have just made the world that way when he created the universe. Either he chose for everything to happen the way it did, or he doesn't have control over the universe And is not truly all-powerful.

[Winstonm]

mike777, on Aug 22 2007, 07:45 PM, said:

Winston Relax.

Again back to the Nature of God. If you assume God is fully Just and you have never done an action or inaction that was not Just in your lifetime or deserves to be condemned you will be fine in God's Justness.

OTOH if you or some other reader of this post feels there was some action or inaction that you feel condemned there is Grace. God's nature is full of Grace.

If you really seek answers visit some clergy or rabbi in your area. Seek out a professor of religion at your University.

I didn't make the statement about being saved. I only wondered what "rest of the story" was. Saved from what?

Deserves to be condemned? Condemned to what?

Who ever said that god is just? Why make a that presumption?

My brother happens to hold a Ph.D. in religion, is an CHPL Col. U.S. Army, , so I can always call him - here's a thought for you - he has no disagreement with my views.

[mike777]

"And again, if it was God's choice for man to never sin and for everyone to believe in him and for adam and eve to never have chosen the apple, he could have just made the world that way when he created the universe. Either he chose for everything to happen the way it did, or he doesn't have control over the universe And is not truly all-powerful."

Lets back up...first you can be all powerful and choose to not have total 100% control over any and all events.
btw for those who may be confused....all powerful does not mean God has the power or ability to create himself out of nothingness.....
Out of nothingness comes nothing.

Now if someone wants to write or cite an article why God choose to breath man and then allow free will that would be interesting. For some reason he choose to not make us all robots with no free will or real choice.
If someone wants to write or cite some article why God choose to simple not start over with some other plan, that would be interesting.

2) Winston, it is mainline christian belief that the nature of God is fully Just and equally full of Grace. Are you saying your Prof. brother disagrees with this opinion?
If so what does he say is the nature of the Christian/Hebrew God?

3) Ya I believe in evolution, some version of the bigbang, multiuniverse, other....

[Quantumcat]

I'm not very good at explaining my thoughts.

God created the world. He had the final say in everything. Yet we can do things that change how he created the world, since God didn't just create the matter, but created the entire timespan too. God has be somehow outside of time in a way we can't understand, or else he can't have come into being. It's like a little 2D man on a piece of paper, and time is a huge stack of these papers, each with the man changing slightly in between, time is one paper per paper (like our time is one second per second). We decide on some rules (laws of physics) that determine how things change from paper to paper. We stack all the papers up, draw on the first one and all the other ones get written on too (like writing a function of x, you determine the first point and the rest of the curve is determined from it). So our little man believes he experiences one paper after another even though really they are all stacked up from our point of view, we can see them all but he can only see the one he's in at the moment. 2D men can't see outside their paper. If he had free will, that would be changing everything we'd made.

[mike777]

Quantumcat, on Aug 22 2007, 11:34 PM, said:

I'm not very good at explaining my thoughts.

God created the world. He had the final say in everything. Yet we can do things that change how he created the world, since God didn't just create the matter, but created the entire timespan too. God has be somehow outside of time in a way we can't understand, or else he can't have come into being. It's like a little 2D man on a piece of paper, and time is a huge stack of these papers, each with the man changing slightly in between, time is one paper per paper (like our time is one second per second). We decide on some rules (laws of physics) that determine how things change from paper to paper. We stack all the papers up, draw on the first one and all the other ones get written on too (like writing a function of x, you determine the first point and the rest of the curve is determined from it). So our little man believes he experiences one paper after another even though really they are all stacked up from our point of view, we can see them all but he can only see the one he's in at the moment. 2D men can't see outside their paper. If he had free will, that would be changing everything we'd made.

no double check your logic but no. We can have free will and not change everything God made. I repeat God can choose to not control everything, that is not the same thing as saying free will changes, EVERYTHING or ANYTHING. EVEN FREE WIll has limits in a rational world of Christianity.

Let me rephrase using your words. God has the final say....does not mean he chooses to have the final or any say. He chooses.

As I said if someone wishes to discuss or cite articles why he choose togive us free will that would be interesting.

As I said even an all powerful God cannot create Self out of nothing.....
Even an all powerful God cannot go against his nature.
Now if you want to discuss why invent humans at all..why bother..ok...interesting.


btw If your point your are trying to make is that the Christian God is rational/logical..yes..but that is what started a huge uproar..see the Pope's speach on Muslim God.

[Fluffy]

Quantumcat, on Aug 23 2007, 02:55 AM, said:

God being all-powerful means he knows everything in the future, the past, every subatomic particle at every position at every time etc.

Means he can know it, but he is free to choose not to know.

Quote

God created the world. He had the final say in everything.

Maybe the world was creted by Microsoft, and God is just a 12 year old boy who is running 'world simulator' on his 32nd century computer

Anyone who has seen 'sims' will know what 'made you with my appearence' would then mean (maybe wrong translation there)

BTW, he can stop time if he wills and break physic laws as much as he wants too.

[Codo]

Quantumcat, on Aug 23 2007, 11:55 AM, said:

God being all-powerful means he knows everything in the future, the past, every subatomic particle at every position at every time etc.

This means he knows all of our future actions and decisions. He chose the starting point for the universe, so knew all that would be around us as experience at every single nanosecond of our lives.

So you claim, if he knows that someone is going to make a mistake, he should top him from doing it?
Why should he and where in the bible or elsewhere did you find it, that he will?

The picture could be: He is allmighty, he could have made us different. But he decided to give us the power to decide a lot of things ourselves. He gave us different tasks and different abilities but we are still responsible for our live.
If god is able to make all descissions does not meant that he must make all descissions.
Maybe he is able to see where I will fail and where I will succeed. But maybe he gave me -allpowerful that he is- some power to find my own way.

Quote

If we were to be able to choose different things than God planned for the the environment that surrounded us during our lives, that would mean we would be more powerful than God, because then he would not know what was going to happen every nanosecond, the world would not be as he created it in the beginning (he is outside of time, he created it for all time) so, do you see?

Sorry I don´t get your point. Why do you believe that if a god exists that he must control everything? I know that there are religions who believe that your complete live is written down in a golden book and it impossible to change anything. But this is not true for christians f.e. If someone believes that everything is pre-determined, I would think that this is an quite boring and not fullfilling live.

Quote

And another thing. God needing to violate physics makes no sense whatsoever. He chose the starting point for the universe, he knew how it would unfold. If he wanted to save 500 people because of a collapsing bridge, he could choose for it to not happen at all or for it to be reasonable that the broken bridge flew to land by itself. He chose for everything to be the way it is: him needing to violate physics is saying he made a mistake.

Or it does mean that he decided to give a miracle/a wonder to show his power to some disbelievers. If you believe that you can judge why and what god is doing, you do believe that your brain is much bigger then mine. I am not at all capable to understand HIS descissions.

Quote

And again, if it was God's choice for man to never sin and for everyone to believe in him and for adam and eve to never have chosen the apple, he could have just made the world that way when he created the universe. Either he chose for everything to happen the way it did, or he doesn't have control over the universe And is not truly all-powerful.

And again and again. He decided to make it this way. To have the complete control does not mean that you must use the complete control.
As an example without god: I am able to control a lot of things my kids do. And I do this, this is my responsibility in their education. But I will always try to let them make their own mistakes, I see no sense in telling them everything. They must make their own experiences, I have to give control to them. This is not easy and sometimes it hurts. But it is the only way to enable them to decide for themselves what is right or wrong.
And in my view god is doing the same with us. He has the possibility to control anything. But luckily he does not use this power always.

[Fluffy]

reaching the 4000th post, water cooler is nice hehe, specially when I can talk about soemthing that isn't politics (sorry mike, I am truly ignorant on politics, and there I really do it on purpose, with a purpose: being happier).

[mike777]

Fluffy, on Aug 23 2007, 03:48 AM, said:

reaching the 4000th post, water cooler is nice hehe, specially when I can talk about soemthing that isn't politics (sorry mike, I am truly ignorant on politics, and there I really do it on purpose, with a purpose: being happier).

well religion =politics....by any definition.