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Prominent Pastor Sparks Debate about Hell Rob Bell is one of my favorite Christian writers, but I'm gonna have to read this one before making any judgements.
Rob's latest book places some questions around Hell and/or the nature of it. It has created a debate in the Christian culture that has some uneasy.....
http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/27/what-is-hell-book-love-wins-stirs-debate-about-afterlife/
I think this kind of debate is healthy. As my Dad (a minister) taught us boys, "Faith that goes unquestioned is no faith at all."
Despite popular opinion, my screen name is pointing to this philosophy. Even though I disagree with many on this site, I have learned a lot by those disagreements. I have been flat out proven wrong while arguing passionately about my point of view; I'm stronger for it.
The church world needs to allow this debate to fire up.....it will only make us stronger.
[Edited 4/4/11 11:52am]
[Edited 4/4/11 11:52am] True genius is knowing how little
you really know. | |
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Your father was a smart man. "Let love be your perfect weapon..." ~~Andy Biersack | |
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Lots of different Hells, as it turns out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell
Who is right?
Hopefully not this:
Zoroastrianism has historically suggested several possible fates for the wicked, including annihilation, purgation in molten metal
* * *
Prince's Classic Finally Expanded The Deluxe 'Purple Rain' Reissue http://www.popmatters.com...n-reissue/ | |
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"purgation in molten metal" sounds distinctly uncomfortable.My favorite explanation of Heaven and Hell albeit a bit Euro-centric:
In Heaven,
You're greeted by the English The French do the cooking The Italians provide the entertainment and the Germans organize everything...
In Hell,
You're greeted by the French The English do the cooking The Italians organize everything and the Germans provide the entertainment... My wife? She's my keel, and I'm her pesky boulder in shallow water... http://kideuphrates.wordpress.com/ | |
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The fact that there are so many different interpretations of what the Bible meant by "hell" is (for me) just more evidence of its failing to the claim that it was God-inspired. Surely if it is the word of God, then there wouldn't be confusion! [Edited 4/4/11 14:02pm] Toejam @ Peach & Black Podcast: http://peachandblack.podbean.com
Toejam's band "Cheap Fakes": http://cheapfakes.com.au, http://www.facebook.com/cheapfakes Toejam the solo artist: http://www.youtube.com/scottbignell |
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There is an actual Hades where dead souls collect. There is also an Abyss within which Satan is to be sealed within. Then there is a Lake of Fire and Brimstone that will be used for Satan, the Dragon, and those whose name are not in the Book of Life. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Still it's nice to know, when our bodies wear out, we can get another -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- |
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An interesting conversation, indeed. But a perennial one that has already been sparked the past few years in evangelical circles by way of Carlton Pearson's work...
If Bell is extending the conversation to a younger set, good on him. [Edited 4/4/11 18:43pm] Ὅσον ζῇς φαίνου
μηδὲν ὅλως σὺ λυποῦ πρὸς ὀλίγον ἐστὶ τὸ ζῆν τὸ τέλος ὁ χρόνος ἀπαιτεῖ.” | |
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This statement does not add up. There are many interpretations, however the corruptability of man does not reflect any corruptability on God or His scripture.
Just because so many people misinterpret scripture does not mean that the scripture itself is false; it only means few do any due diligence in understanding it.
The truth is the truth, and it is available for everybody to find, but you have to do some homework for that to take place.
True genius is knowing how little
you really know. | |
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Agreed. This is a debate that has gone on for awhile, but this recent book release has fanned the flames.
I did not mean, at all, to ensenuate that this was birthplace of the debate. True genius is knowing how little
you really know. | |
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Homework won't get you to the truth. Only when we die we will find out the truth. Anything else is pure speculation and wishthinking. | |
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NDE Experience:
I said, "Oh, God, I did not know how beautiful we are." At any level, high or low, in whatever shape you are in, you are the most beautiful creation, you are. I was astonished to find that there was no evil in any soul. I said, "How can this be?"
The answer was that no soul was inherently evil. The terrible things that happened to people might make them do evil things, but their souls were not evil. What all people seek, what sustains them, is love, the light told me. What distorts people is a lack of love.
The revelations coming from the light seemed to go on and on, then I asked the light, "Does this mean that humankind will be saved?"
Then, like a trumpet blast with a shower of spiraling lights, the Great Light spoke, saying, "Remember this and never forget; you save, redeem and heal yourself. You always have. You always will. You were created with the power to do so from before the beginning of the world." -Mellan Thomas Benedict The hell is a void created from the lack of love and compassion for ourselves and others around us. "Hell" is the void of love in our souls...however..we are never without it. Religions will never get it correct, and none ever has in the past. The only thing we have is to keep experiencing life for what it is. Now supposedly there is a 'place' where people who are so humanly self absorbed in their own selves, forgetting that they are a spiritual being in a place called the darkness. Download all the shit hop that you can for your kids, neices, nephews, and their friends also. That will prevent them from going out and buying it and will prevent some shit hop sales. Every little bit helps - Andy
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemus |
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Hell is a figment of the human imagination. | |
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You are correct sir. [Edited 4/7/11 9:54am] | |
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and in hell the americans provide your healthcare | |
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[Edited 4/8/11 1:17am] Toejam @ Peach & Black Podcast: http://peachandblack.podbean.com
Toejam's band "Cheap Fakes": http://cheapfakes.com.au, http://www.facebook.com/cheapfakes Toejam the solo artist: http://www.youtube.com/scottbignell |
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Thankfully, we have also developed a method for determining truth - it's called the SCIENTIFIC METHOD. The only way to determine anyone's claim of 'truth' is to put that claim to the test. So far when it comes to determining the validity of more outrageous truth claims in the Bible (the virgin birth, the resurrection etc.), the evidence just doesn't stack up. As the believer, that is your homework - not the unbelievers. Prove to us with evidence those claims in the Bible and surely you would be a worthy recipient of a Nobel Prize or something!! [Edited 4/8/11 1:33am] Toejam @ Peach & Black Podcast: http://peachandblack.podbean.com
Toejam's band "Cheap Fakes": http://cheapfakes.com.au, http://www.facebook.com/cheapfakes Toejam the solo artist: http://www.youtube.com/scottbignell |
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toejam said:
Thankfully, we have also developed a method for determining truth - it's called the SCIENTIFIC METHOD. The only way to determine anyone's claim of 'truth' is to put that claim to the test. So far when it comes to determining the validity of more outrageous truth claims in the Bible (the virgin birth, the resurrection etc.), the evidence just doesn't stack up. As the believer, that is your homework - not the unbelievers. Prove to us with evidence those claims in the Bible and surely you would be a worthy recipient of a Nobel Prize or something!! [Edited 4/8/11 1:33am] There is no scientific method to explain Near Death Experiences...and from the hundreds I read about and seen on tv, 90% have been just about the same, and some validates scientific studies of the past and reflect historical accuracies I looked up. I don't know for sure myself, however this is more than what I can ask for...we should be concerned with loving ourselves and others is always the same message on every nde experience. Download all the shit hop that you can for your kids, neices, nephews, and their friends also. That will prevent them from going out and buying it and will prevent some shit hop sales. Every little bit helps - Andy
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemus |
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To some degree, I agree with you. Jesus was asked what was the most important commandment, and He said "love the Lord your God with all you are (paraphrased), and love your neighbor as yourself."
Any christian that focuses on "religious practice" as a means of salvation, but excludes the practice of love is completely ignoring this point that Jesus made.
We agree, but from different perspectives. I think that God created us to be something, and our life is going to be a long journey of constant growth to be reconciled to that....but I'm not so much a humanist. True genius is knowing how little
you really know. | |
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There are many explanations for NDE. Type 'near death experience explanation' into your search engine and you'll find heaps of rational and logical explanations for it without the need for a God. It's nothing more than a hallucination of a dying brain. The reason people have similar experiences (eg. the infamous 'tunnel of light' etc.) is no different from the reason why people have similar dreams (I'm sure if you did a survey, 90% of people would also say they have experienced the sensation of 'flying' in a dream, yet most if not all would realise that it was just a trick of the mind). Interestingly, when it comes to claims of religious experiences in a NDE, the vast majority of cases claim to have experienced the religion they already believed in. Convenient.
And of course we should be "concerned with loving ourselves and others" - that makes sense to me. Maybe it takes a NDE for some people to realise that... But one can also come to that conclusion without the belief in a God. Toejam @ Peach & Black Podcast: http://peachandblack.podbean.com
Toejam's band "Cheap Fakes": http://cheapfakes.com.au, http://www.facebook.com/cheapfakes Toejam the solo artist: http://www.youtube.com/scottbignell |
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There are indeed a host of explanations for NDEs as a neurological event. It should but apparently does not go without saying that these offer far more plausible explanations for NDE than the notion that people are getting a preview of eternity in heaven with sky-dad.
One of my favourite bloggers, Steven Novella (neurologist at Yale), wrote a very good article on this from which I've copied and pasted sections below. All I have to add is, for all those who like to use NDEs as proof for their particular brand of religion, the plural of anecdote is not evidence.
http://theness.com/neurol...log/?p=381
Neuroscientists are piecing together plausible explanations for each of the components of the NDE. The sensation of floating outside one’s body can be reliably induced by suppressing that part of the brain that makes us feel as if we possess our bodies. The experience is identical to that reported by those who have had an NDE. This experience can be replicated by drugs or magnetic stimulation. There are even reports (I have had one such patient) of people who have a typical NDE experience during seizures. The bright light can be explained as a function of hypoxia (relative lack of oxygen) either to the retina or the visual cortex. Any everything else is simply the culturally appropriate hallucinations of a hypoxic brain.
Critics of such explanation try to argue that during the experience the brain is not active, therefore the brain cannot be the source of the experiences. There are two problems with this argument. First, it has not been established that the brain is not sufficiently active to generate experiences. In all cases people survived the experience (by definition) to report what they remember. That means the brain did not go entirely without oxygen for very long or otherwise it would have been catastrophically damaged. During cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) the cardiac output is about 20-25% normal – enough to delay damage to tissues. So the brain is getting some oxygen. Not enough to be conscious, but enough to have some function – perhaps generate a dream-like hallucination or out-of-body experience.
Second, the argument assumes without justification that the memories reported by those who survive CPR and have an NDE were formed during the CPR or when they were unconscious. It is more likely that some or all of those memories formed when the person was waking up adn their sense of time is as distorted as all their brain function. Unlike in the movies, people do not wake up fully conscious and lucid after having their heart restarted. After minutes of CPR the brain has taken a hit due to the hypoxia. People typically wake from this event slowly – taking hours or even days, depending on the duration and quality of the CPR. They will necessarily pass through a phase where they are what is called encephalopathic (their brain is functioning but not well), which is a type of delirium. It is common to have bizarre thoughts and perceptions, hallucination, and illusions during this period.
When patients then fully wake up to report their experiences, all they have is their memories, which includes the memories of the transition period from unconscious, through a delirious period, and to fully conscious. They have no way of knowing when those memories formed. The only way to definitively distinguish between memories formed during CPR and those formed during the period of encephalopathy is for the memories to contain specific details that could only have been obtained during the CPR. This claim is often made, but either there is a lack of compelling documentation, or the details are too vague to be definitive. People describing a typical CPR experience, for example, is not specific. Sometimes people after a NDE will claim to recognize the nurse or doctor who worked on them, but they may just be attaching those memories to people they encountered before or after the experience. [Edited 4/9/11 8:57am] | |
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The Jesus represented in the Bible said some good stuff, and there's nothing wrong with drawing inspiration from the stuff he said - provided you understand that there's not a shred of evidence for any of the miracles he supposedly performed. You have to take Jesus for what he most likely is: a fictional, mythical character (maybe based on a real person, but that's irrelevant if there's no proof for the miracles).
And besides, Jesus was not the only one, nor the first to preach 'good'. Throughout all of human history, most cultures have fictional characters that represent absolute good and demonstrate pacifist values, many that pre-date Jesus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacifism
I know it may sound hard if you've been brought up in a particular religion, but all I'll say is... give it a try. You'll find it's just as easy to love yourself, love others, and do good deeds without a literal belief in Jesus or God. [Edited 4/9/11 18:19pm] Toejam @ Peach & Black Podcast: http://peachandblack.podbean.com
Toejam's band "Cheap Fakes": http://cheapfakes.com.au, http://www.facebook.com/cheapfakes Toejam the solo artist: http://www.youtube.com/scottbignell |
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[Edited 4/9/11 18:29pm]  | |
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[Edited 4/9/11 19:55pm] Toejam @ Peach & Black Podcast: http://peachandblack.podbean.com
Toejam's band "Cheap Fakes": http://cheapfakes.com.au, http://www.facebook.com/cheapfakes Toejam the solo artist: http://www.youtube.com/scottbignell |
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^^^^ WOW dude, we agree to disagree I guess... | |
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Toejam @ Peach & Black Podcast: http://peachandblack.podbean.com
Toejam's band "Cheap Fakes": http://cheapfakes.com.au, http://www.facebook.com/cheapfakes Toejam the solo artist: http://www.youtube.com/scottbignell |
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When someone like me who has had contact with spirits in the past; I cant take that as my truth. Some of the research that I have seen also did not even believe in religion. The vast majority that you have researched on is alot different than my study. How do you explain children that remembers their past in another time? My partners mother told me that he used to talk to his deceased grandfather when he was 3; although he does not remember any of it..it is pretty facinating. You dont see any science that can explain that...its because our science on Earth is not good enough to explain this...we cannot even figure out vibrations to reach Earth's psychosphere...because it has nothing to do with science...reading auras have nothing to do with science..and past spitirual contacts have nothing to do with science. This is probably the one subject science will fail at all the time. The Egyptians were more connected spiritually than us; which in turn made them smart mathematically and scientificlly. We sit here and try to be scientific without being spiritual because of the negativity religion has put on us.
Near death experience is not a "realization of god" but at least my reason to say that life goes on and does not just end as atheists say. It cannot..especially with my hauntings when I was young I know for a FACT that there is more than this realm. There IS something else and I have already lived through it. You don't have to believe in a 'sky man made god' because 'god' is not that. It is the experience of life and everything contained into it. From the different universes to different life forms..its all one. Download all the shit hop that you can for your kids, neices, nephews, and their friends also. That will prevent them from going out and buying it and will prevent some shit hop sales. Every little bit helps - Andy
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemus |
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Please also show me the evidence (or a link) for the child that "remembered their past in another time". Again... baseless claim without anything for me to specifically read up on.
Look, I'm not saying there aren't forces out there that we don't know about - there are probably heaps of things science hasn't discovered yet that influence our lives. Science doesn't claim to know everything. However, there needs to be evidence for such things before they can have any relevance to our lives. Toejam @ Peach & Black Podcast: http://peachandblack.podbean.com
Toejam's band "Cheap Fakes": http://cheapfakes.com.au, http://www.facebook.com/cheapfakes Toejam the solo artist: http://www.youtube.com/scottbignell |
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He just made toast of your argument and ate it. You come up with this.
I wonder if it's true after all. A higher level of intelligence would question religious belief, whereas lower intelligence would blindly accept it. Just something I read somewhere, I liked. Don't be offended.
Evidence is all that it takes to make an atheïst believe. So come up with some. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." - Carl Sagan |
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Your argument is irrelevant. You compared a talking purple elephant to my haunting experience as a kid...as if it didnt happen ebcause i dont have any scientific evidence. Like I already told you, your scientific evidence cannot prove that a ghost walked in my kitchen ..or raised the shower curtains to the ceiling...or the random voices in the closet my mom and brother heard at different times. Not to mention the tv dial spinning in a circle at 4am...science cannot prove that experience I had. Weather YOU believe me is irrelevant because it happened to me and my family and I know damn well I am not the only person in the world who lived in a house with spirits.
You need for 'evidence' clearly shows that you rely on what is in front of you rather than what is all around you. That's ok; however dont blast others for having a spiritual experience that cannot be seen. People have eyes..but do they see? That heaven and hell bullshit is for the birds, and this topic has been going on for decades...finally people are starting to think more rationally about the myths brought down long ago. I said, if anything the occurance will be what most nde's experience..and that is "tunnel" "life shown to them" "answers to all their questions solved" "remembering loved ones they never seen on Earth" and "overwelming amount of love"..some of these were not even nde's but meditations and out of body experiences.
Here is one of the thousands of stories about child past life rememberances; however this was the last most relevant story:
Download all the shit hop that you can for your kids, neices, nephews, and their friends also. That will prevent them from going out and buying it and will prevent some shit hop sales. Every little bit helps - Andy
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemus |
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Exactly. You can't prove I am not a Purple Elephant anymore than I can't disprove your claim. Without evidence, your claim is meaningful only to you. Everyone else has full right to be sceptical and call you on it - just as you have with my Elephant claim!
Again, without evidence, each of these explanations are plausible and people have full right to be sceptical. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence if they are to be accepted outside of your own personal experience. If everyone believed everything that people claimed, society could not function.
There are roughly 6 billion people in the world. Let's say everyone has 2 nightmares a year (it's been a pretty stress-less year Toejam @ Peach & Black Podcast: http://peachandblack.podbean.com
Toejam's band "Cheap Fakes": http://cheapfakes.com.au, http://www.facebook.com/cheapfakes Toejam the solo artist: http://www.youtube.com/scottbignell |
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