Sin is what separates people from God. Sin is what sends people to hell.
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23 NIV
Without Jesus Christ, there is no forgiveness of sins.
“For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Colossians 1:13-14 NIV
Mike, you know that's bs. You can't possibly believe that.
What's weird is how Christians can't buy Aliens, Big Foot, Nessie but will buy into Samson kickin' butt on not 10, not 50, not a 100 but 1000 soldiers, David vs Goliath, Daneil in the Lions den, Noahs Arc and on and on, Moses parting the Red Sea, really?
Not only that!
We believe Jesus Christ was crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered death and was buried, and rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end.
The majority of earth's population is not Christian and is going to hell according to Christian logic.
Yes, that is what Christians believe.
Why do they believe it though? Its a tenant of their faith that mankind is guilty in the eyes of God. Their God sees things as kind of binary - good - heaven, bad - hell. The standard is impossible for humans to meet, even the littlest indulgence of a bad thought = hell. But they teach God is actually a three part being, one part of which is Jesus, who accepted guilt for all of mankind's sins. He died and this burden of guilt for all sins died with him, but rose from the dead having conquered sin (physics doesn't explain this, you just have to believe it or not). Here is the catch - those who believe this story and feel remorse for the bad things they have done to the point where they will try to behave righteously can accept forgiveness and their guilt is considered to be absolved by Jesus' death with the burden of all man's sins and those who do not have to be punished for the sins' themselves.
How do the metaphysics of this all work? I read fantasy novels for fun, but this is something the human mind probably just can't understand other than the general concepts.
Why do people have to accept Jesus' resurrection to be absolved of sin? The resurrection is part of overcoming the sin - basically Jesus is so good that it outweighs all the bad everyone has ever done in a way that the deeds of the best saint on earth can't even do. And because otherwise there would be no need for adherents of the Christian faith to proselytize and the religion would die out quickly.
the original Christians had no concept of a Hell. That's the Norse goddess Hel. The Norse believed nearly everyone went to Hel's underworld, though that wasn't necessarily a bad place, if you read the stories of Baldur.
A select number of dead went to Valhalla, but only temporarily until they fight and are killed at Rägnarök. According to the Christian Snorri, that already happened and after the battle the Adam and Eve thing started.
My theory is that while the Christians were infiltrating the Norse peoples, which took centuries, they would tell people who didn't want to be Christian, okay, go to Hel. Cause that's where the Norse go.
The early Christian belief is that the punishment for dying a non Christian was a total separation from God. Combine that with the imagery of Revelation - lake of fire and all that and you get hell. Supposedly this separation is constant agony, as much agony as a soul can feel. Of course they may have built on other myths and beliefs as many religions do.
This post was edited 21 seconds after it was posted.
According to atheist logic who cares about anything?
You're defending your belief in supernatural miracles by using a whataboutyou strawman.
Atheist/agnostic/science logic is that it makes no sense to believe supernatural stories that violate the known laws of the universe, just because some unidentified person wrote the stories down thousands of years ago. That's the logic that upsets you.
Religion, by its nature, defies logic or at least the logical operation of the universe as we understand it. If it did not, there would be only one religion.
Atheists and Christians have a lot in common really. The Atheist simply believes in one fewer god than the Christian. Their beliefs are a lot more similar than the adherents of many other faiths that humans have belonged to throughout history.
Sin is what separates people from God. Sin is what sends people to hell.
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23 NIV
Without Jesus Christ, there is no forgiveness of sins.
“For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Colossians 1:13-14 NIV
Right on brother! In Church, there is one person on the cross, Jesus Christ. There are no pretenders.
Jesus performed miracles with 1000's of witnesses, including bringing back 2 people from the dead.
After Jesus was crucified, over 500 people saw him at one time in the days following his death.
There were other leaders back then that were false Messiahs, they were merely leaders and did not perform miracles.
God sent his son to reconcile with the people of the Earth that he created, sacrificing his own son for our sins. Believe in him and you'll have eternal life.
The signs are there. The trumpets will sound and those who believe in him will rise into the sky and the others will be left behind.
Watch this scene that follows the Bible and decide for yourself. None of you will read the Bible if I ask you too, but this short scene explains it well, please.
Please watch from 1:12:08 till 1:15:30. (give not even 3 and 1/2 minutes of your time)
The majority of earth's population is not Christian and is going to hell according to Christian logic.
Organised religion is a control mechanism of the weak minded. It is a carefully orchestrated belief system designed to take money from them and put those at the top of the church in an unelected position of power where they do not have to abide by the same rules as the parishioners. In fact, they can and do take advantage of the parishioners in many nefarious ways under the guise of "God's will".
When someone tells you they are a good Christian, get ready to be screwed hard.
The majority of earth's population is not Christian and is going to hell according to Christian logic.
Organised religion is a control mechanism of the weak minded. It is a carefully orchestrated belief system designed to take money from them and put those at the top of the church in an unelected position of power where they do not have to abide by the same rules as the parishioners. In fact, they can and do take advantage of the parishioners in many nefarious ways under the guise of "God's will".
When someone tells you they are a good Christian, get ready to be screwed hard.
It's a bit more nuanced than that. According to Christianity, if you believe with 100% certitude that a dead person named Jesus miraculously was resurrected/reincarnated three days after he died then you go to heaven (provided you believe with 100% certitude several other supernatural miracle stories). If, on the other hand, you have some degree of skepticism, even a small degree, that those things ever actually happened, then you go to hell.
It's quite a proposition for many people. Many people find it impossible to convince themselves with 100% certitude that the supernatural aspect of that story ever happened. Making yourself believe something that you know is highly unlikely is not something everyone can do. I suspect that very few people can do it.
Sin is what separates people from God. Sin is what sends people to hell.
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23 NIV
Without Jesus Christ, there is no forgiveness of sins.
“For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Colossians 1:13-14 NIV
Right on brother! In Church, there is one person on the cross, Jesus Christ. There are no pretenders.
Jesus performed miracles with 1000's of witnesses, including bringing back 2 people from the dead.
After Jesus was crucified, over 500 people saw him at one time in the days following his death.
There were other leaders back then that were false Messiahs, they were merely leaders and did not perform miracles.
God sent his son to reconcile with the people of the Earth that he created, sacrificing his own son for our sins. Believe in him and you'll have eternal life.
The signs are there. The trumpets will sound and those who believe in him will rise into the sky and the others will be left behind.
Watch this scene that follows the Bible and decide for yourself. None of you will read the Bible if I ask you too, but this short scene explains it well, please.
Please watch from 1:12:08 till 1:15:30. (give not even 3 and 1/2 minutes of your time)
I watched your video. Outside of the context with Christian theology it comes off as just some sort of horror/mystery film. What would I think of this clip if I was raised Hindu in India? I'm not sure I'd understand it as anything more than a low budget western film somehow attached to religious beliefs.
Jesus performed miracles with 1000's of witnesses, including bringing back 2 people from the dead.
After Jesus was crucified, over 500 people saw him at one time in the days following his death.
It appears that none of the Gospels was written by a witness of JC's life. The Gospels, which were written after Paul's letters (he didn't witness JC either), mention various episodes like the one above (interestingly, they don't all mention the restoring-the-dead-to-life incidents--one might think that those were rawther important to include), but at best they would have been hearsay.
But let's cut to the chase and focus on the biggest alleged miracle of all: JC's resurrection. For the sake of discussion, I'm willing to posit that JC was stone dead--no coma, no catatonia--and came back to life.
And? So? All that we can *reasonably* conclude from that is that JC was very special.
What's weird is how Christians can't buy Aliens, Big Foot, Nessie but will buy into Samson kickin' butt on not 10, not 50, not a 100 but 1000 soldiers, David vs Goliath, Daneil in the Lions den, Noahs Arc and on and on, Moses parting the Red Sea, really?
People don't realize the Bible was written by men thousands of years ago in a society that had no knowledge of science, lacked perspective and couldn't understand the source of storms, floods, plagues of locusts, deadly epidemics that killed their children, lakes turning blood red, things randomly catching fire. The mythos of a powerful god causing these things was among other things an attempt by the writers to explain why these things happened. It's pretty much Hebrew mythology.
Not true. It’s in my DNA to care for loved ones and do things that make me happy. It’s not in my DNA to believe in things that I cannot see or feel. My parents and grandparents believed everything older people told them but I was born into a world where evidence that they were wrong was easily found by those that are able and willing to look.
Yes. Its axiomatic among Religionists that Atheists are lost souls who have no values. The ones I know are decent, law-abiding helpmates who believe in compassion, empathy, egalite and all basic morals without seeking heavenly rewards or seconday superstitions. Take responsibility and do the decent thing because it is right, not because some invisible entity *might* be judging you. And its kind of cool also not believing in Hell and some Devil thats part of the religion toxic package. Its a great vast universe; why want more? (The answers to the latter question are probably pretty interesting.)
To define things like "decent" and "basic morals" and "right" (which cannot be time/place/culture dependent) you need a supreme being (otherwise, a pedo's idea of decent is just as relevant as your own, which is to say, not at all).
For most atheists, that supreme being is themselves (e.g. I think X is bad, so X is bad).
