Question from Jakob:
Hello, I am back again. So my fear of hell has came back a little, just a little. So anyway do you know of any good books on the origin of hell and similar Christian mythology?
Answer by SmartLX:
Hell’s a little bit specific for a whole book. There is The History of Hell by Alice K. Turner, which is mostly focused on changing visual depictions of it. All I could immediately find besides that were essays by the devout like this one, podcasts like this one, and of course the mostly neutral fact dump on Wikipedia. If anyone has a good read to share, feel free to comment. (Yes, thank you, we know about the Bible.)
Books on Christian mythology are plentiful, but mostly focused on the Christ story and its parallels in earlier pagan mythology.
I think it might be just as useful for you to read about all the different concepts of the afterlife throughout history to see how plain it is that no living person knows what happens, good or bad. That means no one has the authority to threaten you with, or warn you about, any kind of hell – unless you hear it directly from the other side somehow. Listen out if you like, but don’t get your hopes up.
31 thoughts on “Seeking the Source of Hell”
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Jakob, you don’t need to fear hell. For one thing hell is not yet, except for the times many equate hell to places here on earth where conditions are so horrible, that to me, hell would be a better place to be. For another thing, hell will not be forever. Hell will be at the time this Earth’s history comes to a close, and there will be a punishment period, but it has never been God’s desire that any should suffer. That is why He offers us salvation, but that salvation is so that we do not need to die and not enjoy His presence forever. But He will not, would not, could not make us suffer. The only reason why we suffer, is because of the choice Adam made in the beginning, and because some of the choices each individual makes during their lifetime. If we choose not to follow God’s plan for our lives, we end up not making wise choices. We may get sick, and sometimes die. We may hurt the ones around us and cause their deaths. This is not God’s fault. And the worst decision we can make is to ignore God’s attempts to save us. There will be a hell later on after Christ comes back, but there is not a hell right now as some believe that the Bible is, believing that God is sending those who die to. But God is loving. He is all loving. Any idea about God that detracts from that embodiment of God, is a lie and the person who believes that about god is not worshiping the true God.
God is merciful. He is all merciful. And to believe that a merciful God would even consider to remand a being to a tortuous punishment with no end, would be a believing a lie about God, and that person does not know the One, True God.
And God is just. He will not unfairly judge or punish. The only reason why He gave us His word, is so that we could no how best to live to help us skirt around the pitfalls that we could encounter while we have to live here. He does not want us to suffer needlessly. So why would He then send a being to hell to suffer for eternity, for just a few short years on this Earth? He is not vindictive. In fact, to have to commit anyone to hell for punishment would bring the greatest sorrow to God that anyone could bear. If a parent can feel the pain and grief to lose a child, then the God that created that parent would feel nothing less and even more. He knows what Love really is, for He is love. So, to believe that God would commit such an act means that you are not worshipping the true God. The Bible has been misinterpreted by those who did not keep in mind the major theme of the Bible, which is “God is Love”, and when they approached certain subjects in the Bible, their understanding was clouded by their wrong assumptions and their inability to reconcile what the were reading from what they thought they knew.
For example, they believe from what others who do not know what the Bible says, are are basing what they know only from what they learned from others who also are teaching from what they heard, but have never reconciled what they learned from what the Bible is really teaching. God is Love is the whole theme in the Bible. So, when you read that the Bible says that God is love, and then here someone says that God will send someone to burn in hell forever, then your first thought is, God is not like that. And you go back to God’s word to see how that person could have ever arrived at that conclusion. First someone mistakenly believes that each individual God created is already immortal. But where is that being taught in the Bible. Who could suffer throughout eternity being burned for ever and ever, unless, that person was immortal. But where does it say that man is immortal? The Bible makes it perfectly clear who is immortal. Please read 1 Timothy 6:16″who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen nor can see, to whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen.”
God is the only immortal. That is why He is offering us eternal life, because He did not create us immortal. Would we have had immortality if Adam had not fallen? Well lets look at a text that could shed some light about God’s intentions for mankind. This is found in Genesis chapter 3 “2 And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:” So we see here that God had intended for man not to eat from the “Tree of the knowledge of good and evil”, but man did not obey Him. So, out of love God removed the possible suffering for ever that man would certainly have brought upon themselves because of Adam’s bad choice, when he chose to listen to Satan and not to God, making Satan our leader instead of God. God removed man from the Garden of Eden and provided for man all that we would need. But we can see that God did intend for man to inherit eternal life if man had not fallen. So, the idea of man being immortal now is not biblical, because man was removed from the Garden before he ate from the “tree of life”.
So, since man is not immortal, then man can not be sent to hell, when he dies to burn forever to burn, because hell fire burns up anything it touches.
I will need to continue this at a later time.
Jakob, do you fear Valhalla, or Hades, or the Duat? These are just a few of the many variations of the “bad” place that religious dogmas have invented over the eons as a tool to keep the masses in line. Your fear of hell will slowly subside the more comfortable you become with the realization that existence is temporary and supernatural tales are complete nonsense. But I do encourage you to read up on the material as LX suggests and get a better idea of how this control propaganda evolved from culture to culture. Any chance to learn something new is a good thing.
Meanwhile, please ignore Preacher Gerald’s speculative claims for which there is absolutely no evidence for…
“C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity and elsewhere, raised the argument from desire. He posed that all natural desires have a natural object. One thirsts, and there exists water to quench this thirst; One hungers, and there exists food to satisfy this hunger. He then argued that the human desire for perfect justice, perfect peace, perfect happiness, and other intangibles strongly implies the existence of such things, though they seem unobtainable on earth. He further posed that the unquenchable desires of this life strongly imply that we are intended for a different life, necessarily governed by a God who can provide the desired intangibles.[13]” this is from “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence_of_God”
There is plenty, plenty, of things that suggest that God is real. Whenever anything is reproduced it is from something that is alive. Whenever some device is made, it is made from an intelligence. That is the observation method in action. And considering the fact that it is impossible for the inorganic to become organic, then some kind of intelligence performed the life giving. Creating Adam, making sure all that was required for him to exist was provided. That is why the impossible that comes up when you say that animals and humans came about through Evolution, does not come up when you consider that all was created by God already ready to exist. All was provided to allow life on this planet to survive.
I was just thinking about our ”biosphere” there is nothing like it. But it is not perfect. There are areas that call upon our ingenuity to survive. But, the areas that meet our every expectations, allow us to not only to just survive, but to thrive to no limit. Except when demand outweighs production. But, in the areas that are not so conducive to life, even as far as the outreach of space, with our intellect, our ingenuity, we are able to reproduce our environment, (to a more or less degree), and continue thriving. If we are able to produce this environment, then how did this environment become so perfect place in the beginning? Oh, yes I forgot ” it was an accident ” Man, you sound like a broken record. But, but, but, look at all the other planets, solar systems. How there is not another planet like unto ours. What? How? An accident? Just as it doesn’t fit, in organisms, simple or small, to get rid all of the buts, buts. like well , How, how did life come to be. An accident? The first question that pops up, is how could something so complex be explained by simply saying an accident. Life has it’s needs. These needs can not be overlooked, put on hold, not in the beginning. Not when that life is so vulnerable. What does life need? Well, what has man not been able to produce? An essential, power source? A bonding principle to pull and hold things together? The necessary agar like substance (if you believe Evolution ), that would permit that first life to be maintained, and the surety that that agar like substance would be available for some time. Then you would need a biosphere that would develop and meet the needs of that life as it went through it phases, up to the our time. All, an accident is the best you can come up with. Look at all the problems that arose when man decided to grow their own bacteria. How much trial and error went into. And that was with our level of intelligence. Ok, we are much smarter now. But are we smarter than an accident? Look at all the complications, we are running into, just building robots. Sure the transistors and resistors and microchips are helping us astound ourselves. But, but, but, it doesn’t compare to the one celled organism like the amoeba. The ability it has to move, to consume, to replicate, and all on a seemingly innate sense of being? All, everything, encoded into its DNA, supplying the knowing of what is necessary for it to survive. Tim, an accident doesn’t explain how? And when we come to the highest for of complex life, at least on this planed, when it comes to man, the word accident should have been erased from the vocabulary book. How can an accident explain our circulatory system? Our respiratory sysem? Our cleansing system? Our defense systems, (no, its not a typo), systems. Starting from the outside in, our bodies have a defense strategy that would make any country go “goo,goo, gaa, ga” to have. And all of it one wheels. Mobile. We are a self contained factory. So, well made that if we were to follow the rule book, the Bible, and eat right, excersise right, rest right and act right, we could live en enjoyment and happiness, for almost hundreds of years. Man can only, almost dream of such perfection coming for a factory, or from off a opperating table. And you and others are willing to explain it all away by crying “accidentally fabricated”. Like I said, your ignorace, your willing ignorance, is getting in the way of your greatest aspirations. It is preventing you from achieving more than you think possible, more than you are able to imagine. And it it capping your potential. You are settleing on roaming in the mud, when you could be soaring like an eagle. Man take off those blinders and soar.
Gerald writes: [I was just thinking about our ”biosphere” there is nothing like it. But it is not perfect. There are areas that call upon our ingenuity to survive. But, the areas that meet our every expectations, allow us to not only to just survive, but to thrive to no limit. Except when demand outweighs production. But, in the areas that are not so conducive to life, even as far as the outreach of space, with our intellect, our ingenuity, we are able to reproduce our environment, (to a more or less degree), and continue thriving. If we are able to produce this environment, then how did this environment become so perfect place in the beginning? Oh, yes I forgot ” it was an accident ” Man, you sound like a broken record]
Sure, our environment is perfect. Well, 70% of the planet is covered with water, and we aren’t equipped to live there. But still, 30% of the planet’s environment is so “perfect”. Well, technically, we don’t live in Antarctica, or the Greenland ice sheet. In fact we don’t live on any glacier. Nor do we live on the highest mountains that are way too steep and covered in snow year around. But still, 25% of the planet’s environment is so “perfect”. I guess we should probably mention the harshest deserts that are devoid of humans, not to mention swamps and jungles that are inhospitable too. But still, 20% of the planet’s atmosphere is so “perfect”…
But we can continue to “thrive” in space, eh? It’s hard to “thrive” when you can’t conceive the next generation…
http://www.livescience.com/33047-space-sex-pregnancy.html
The environment on Earth isn’t “perfect” for any one particular type of life. Many life forms live in areas where it is impossible for humans to inhabit. Yet it appears that each life form is adapted to survive in it’s location…just like the theory of evolution predicts. Well go figure…
[But, but, but, look at all the other planets, solar systems. How there is not another planet like unto ours. What? How? An accident?]
We know what 7 other planets are basically made of: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune. We know about Pluto and other dwarf planets, as well as most of the moons around those bodies. Out of the 100 billion planets in just the Milky Way galaxy, we can say that 7 of them are not like Earth. Just 7. So you can’t possibly say that there “is not another planet like ours” because there are still 99,999,999,993 left to study. Not to mention that since we don’t know under what possible conditions life could happen, we can’t even rule out that some of the moons in our own solar system might harbor life at the moment (this has been explained you previously). I’m confident you will repeat this mistake in the future though…
[How, how did life come to be. An accident? The first question that pops up, is how could something so complex be explained by simply saying an accident. Life has it’s needs. These needs can not be overlooked, put on hold, not in the beginning. Not when that life is so vulnerable. What does life need?]
The first life forms weren’t complex. Replicating molecules aren’t complex. Lipid chains aren’t complex. All a protobiot needs is a water excluding membrane (lipids) around a replicating molecule (of which there are many). This of course has been explained to you previously. I look forward to you not learning from it once again…
[ The necessary agar like substance]
Stunning display of ignorance. The chemical “soup” sometimes mentioned in literature is not a gelatinous substance. The “soup” refers to a relatively homogenized mixture of lots of molecules.
[Then you would need a biosphere that would develop and meet the needs of that life as it went through it phases, up to the our time]
It’s amazing how you can be so wrong about so many topics in thread after thread at this website. The biosphere doesn’t meet the needs of any life form. Life forms adjust to the biosphere. As the biosphere changes, life forms either adjust to it or go extinct. As a creationist it’s no wonder you think the biosphere would have to “develop” and meet the needs of life, which is completely backwards from what actually happens. The scientific theory of evolution predicts that life will have to adjust to changing conditions or go extinct, by the way. Go figure, another prediction that holds true.
Please let us all know when you plan on making this same mistake again in the future so we can get some popcorn ready.
[All, an accident is the best you can come up with.]
No, an accident best fits the billions of facts and empirical data that we have on the topic. Unlike your flavor of Santa Claus for adults…
[But are we smarter than an accident?]
The “accident” doesn’t require intelligence. All it requires is that it is possible. Since life is possible under the rules of the universe, then life is possible. Whether or not we can figure out how life started has nothing to do with life being chemically, physically, and thermodynamically possible. You conflate two unrelated characteristics on the topic…
[Look at all the complications, we are running into, just building robots. Sure the transistors and resistors and microchips are helping us astound ourselves. But, but, but, it doesn’t compare to the one celled organism like the amoeba. The ability it has to move, to consume, to replicate, and all on a seemingly innate sense of being? All, everything, encoded into its DNA, supplying the knowing of what is necessary for it to survive. Tim, an accident doesn’t explain how? And when we come to the highest for of complex life, at least on this planed, when it comes to man, the word accident should have been erased from the vocabulary book. How can an accident explain our circulatory system? Our respiratory sysem? Our cleansing system? Our defense systems, (no, its not a typo), systems.]
DNA is not a code first of all. That’s been explained to you before.
Life starting doesn’t explain how, you are right. The theory of evolution explains how. Which is why you’ve been told 100 times that the start of life and the evolution of life are two completely different topics. How life started has NOTHING to do with how life has changed ONCE IT STARTED. How long do insist on making this same stupid error of thought?
There are all kinds of articles on the evolution of the circulatory or respiratory systems. Read up on them for answers to your questions concerning those.
[So, well made that if we were to follow the rule book, the Bible, and eat right, excersise right, rest right and act right, we could live en enjoyment and happiness, for almost hundreds of years.]
People that don’t follow the Bible live just as long as those that do. Seems following “the rule book” is not necessary for long life. And if we were so “well made” people wouldn’t die from so many diseases, and 1 in 5 pregnancies wouldn’t end in miscarriage…
[And you and others are willing to explain it all away by crying “accidentally fabricated”.]
No, we explain it via the theory of evolution, Gerald. Stop conflating the start of life with the changes living things go through. That simple mistake is making a giant roadblock in your intellect that won’t allow to understand anything…
[Like I said, your ignorace, your willing ignorance, is getting in the way of your greatest aspirations. It is preventing you from achieving more than you think possible, more than you are able to imagine. And it it capping your potential. You are settleing on roaming in the mud, when you could be soaring like an eagle. Man take off those blinders and soar.]
My greatest aspiration is to get you to understand the difference between abiogenesis and the theory of evolution. Unfortunately it is your ignorance that is getting in the way…
“Belief in the immortality of the soul was an important aspect of ancient thought espoused by the Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Plato, in Phaedo, presents Socrates’ explanation of death: “Is it not the separation of soul and body? And to be dead is the completion of this; when the soul exists in herself, and is released from the body and body is released from the soul, what is this but death?” ( Five Great Dialogues, Classics Club edition, 1969, p. 93).
Socrates explained that the immortal soul, once freed from the body, is rewarded according to good deeds or punished for evil. Socrates lived ca. 470-399 B.C., so his view of the soul predated Christianity.
Plato (ca. 428-348 B.C.) saw man’s existence as divided into the material and spiritual, or “Ideal,” realms. “Plato reasoned that the soul, being eternal, must have had a pre-existence in the ideal world where it learned about the eternal Ideals” (William S. Sahakian, History of Philosophy, 1968, p. 56). In Plato’s reasoning, man is meant to attain goodness and return to the Ideal through the experiences of the transmigration of the soul. Thus secular philosophies sanction the idea of the immortal soul, even though the Bible does not. Believe it or not, God’s Word teaches something entirely different.
History of a Controversial Teaching
The doctrine of the immortal soul caused much controversy in the early Catholic Church.
Origen (ca. 185-254) was the first person to attempt to organize Christian doctrine into a systematic theology. He was an admirer of Plato and believed in the immortality of the soul and that it would depart to an everlasting reward or everlasting punishment at death.
In Origen De Principiis he wrote: “… The soul, having a substance and life of its own, shall after its departure from the world, be rewarded according to its deserts, being destined to obtain either an inheritance of eternal life and blessedness, if its actions shall have procured this for it, or to be delivered up to eternal fire and punishments, if the guilt of its crimes shall have brought it down to this …” ( Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 4, 1995, p. 240).
Origen taught that human souls existed before the body but are imprisoned in the physical world as a form of punishment. Physical life, he reasoned, is a purification process to return humans to a spiritual state.
Later Augustine (354-430) tackled the problem of the immortality of the soul and death. For Augustine death meant the destruction of the body, but the conscious soul would continue to live in either a blissful state with God or an agonizing state of separation from God.
In The City of God he wrote that the soul “is therefore called immortal, because in a sense, it does not cease to live and to feel; while the body is called mortal because it can be forsaken of all life, and cannot by itself live at all. The death, then, of the soul, takes place when God forsakes it, as the death of the body when the soul forsakes it” ( Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2, 1995, p. 245.)
The influences of pagan Platonic philosophy on Origen and Augustine are profound. Richard Tarnas, in his best-seller The Passion of the Western Mind, points to this influence: “… It was Augustine’s formulation of Christian Platonism that was to permeate virtually all of medieval Christian thought in the West. So enthusiastic was the Christian integration of the Greek spirit that Socrates and Plato were frequently regarded as divinely inspired pre-Christian saints …” (1991, p. 103).
Centuries later Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225-1274) crystallized the doctrine of the immortal soul in The Summa Theologica. He taught that the soul is a conscious intellect and will and cannot be destroyed.
A few centuries later the leaders of the Protestant Reformation generally accepted these traditional views, so they became entrenched in traditional Protestant teaching.
The immortality of the soul is foundational in Western thought, both philosophical and religious. Belief in going to heaven or hell depends on it. But does the Bible teach that death is the separation of body and soul or that the soul is immortal?(.ucg.org/the-good-news/what-does-the-bible-say-about-the-immortal-soul#.WKiIWrdQcDo.gmail)
Hebrew Understanding of the Soul
The Hebrew word translated “soul” in the Old Testament is nephesh, which simply means “a breathing creature.” Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words defines nephesh as “the essence of life, the act of breathing, taking breath … The problem with the English term ‘soul’ is that no actual equivalent of the term or the idea behind it is represented in the Hebrew language. The Hebrew system of thought does not include the combination or opposition of the ‘body’ and ‘soul’ which are really Greek and Latin in origin” (1985, p. 237-238, emphasis added).
The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible makes this comment on nephesh: “The word ‘soul’ in English, though it has to some extent naturalized the Hebrew idiom, frequently carries with it overtones, ultimately coming from philosophical Greek (Platonism) and from Orphism and Gnosticism which are absent in ‘nephesh.’ In the OT it never means the immortal soul, but it is essentially the life principle, or the living being, or the self as the subject of appetite, and emotion, occasionally of volition” (Vol. 4, 1962, “Soul,” emphasis added).
That nephesh doesn’t refer to an immortal soul can be seen in the way the word is used in the Old Testament. It is translated “soul” or “being” in reference to man in Genesis 2:7, but also to animals by being translated “creature” in Genesis 1:24. Nephesh is translated “body” in Leviticus 21:11 in reference to a human corpse.
The Hebrew Scriptures state plainly that, rather than possess immortality, the soul can and does die. “The soul [ nephesh ] who sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4, Ezekiel 18:20).
The Old Testament describes the dead as going to sheol, translated into English as “hell,” “pit” or “grave.” Ecclesiastes 9:5-6 describes sheol as a place of unconsciousness: “For the living know that they will die; but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, their hatred, and their envy have now perished …”
King David laments that death extinguishes a relationship with God. “For in death there is no remembrance of You; in the grave who will give You thanks?” (Psalms 6:5).
The immortal-soul concept isn’t part of the Old Testament, but it began to make inroads into Jewish thought as Jews came in contact with Greek culture. In the first century the Jewish philosopher Philo taught a Platonic concept: “… The death of a man is the separation of his soul from his body …” ( The Works of Philo, translated by C.D. Yonge, 1993, p. 37). Philo followed the Hellenistic view that the soul is freed upon death to an everlasting life of virtue or evil.”
“The Apostles’ View
In the New Testament the Greek word translated “soul” is psuche, which is also translated “life.”
In Psalms 16:10 David uses nephesh (“soul”) to claim that the “Holy One,” or Messiah, wouldn’t be left in sheol, the grave. Peter quotes this verse in Acts 2:27, using the Greek psuche for the Hebrew nephesh (notice verses 25-31).
Like nephesh, psuche refers to human “souls” (Acts 2:41) and for animals (it is translated “life” in the King James Version of Revelation 8:9 and Revelation 16:3). Jesus declared that God can destroy man’s psuche, or “soul” (Matthew 10:28).
If the Old Testament describes death as an unconscious state, how does the New Testament describe it?
No one wrote more about this subject than the apostle Paul. He describes death as “sleep” (1 Corinthians 15:51-58; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).
Many people are surprised to find that the term immortal soul appears nowhere in the Bible. However, though the Scriptures do not speak of the soul as being immortal, they have much to say about immortality. For example: “You know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him” (1 John 3:15).
Paul told the members of the congregation in Rome to “seek” immortality (Romans 2:5-7). He taught Christians at Corinth that they must be changed and “put on” immortality (1 Corinthians 15:51-55). Paul proclaimed that only God and His Son possess immortality (1 Timothy 6:12-16) and that eternal life is a “gift” from God (Romans 6:23).
The most powerful words come from Jesus Himself: “And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:40).”
“ucg.org/the-good-news/what-does-the-bible-say-about-the-immortal-soul#.WKiIWrdQcDo.gmail”
Thanks for the history of the soul and how the Bible writers first started working it into their texts after they heard about it from other cultures. Why this response is under a series of comments about evolution and abiogenesis is not clear. As you frequently hit “reply” in the wrong places there is no telling what this is supposed to be in response to unfortunately, or even if you were responding to something in this particular thread.
As there is no empirical data or evidence of the existence of souls contained in your post, there is nothing more to reply to…
Gerald writes: [C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity and elsewhere, raised the argument from desire. He posed that all natural desires have a natural object.]
Really. I know people that desire to have lived in ancient Greece. I know people that desire to have never been born. Seems your example isn’t very good. Those desires cannot be satisfied. Da Vinci desired flight. Guess how many times that happened before May 2, 1519…
[There is plenty, plenty, of things that suggest that God is real. Whenever anything is reproduced it is from something that is alive.]
Ah, the old “life has to come from life” argument. You must have forgot this argument automatically nullifies the existence of your flavor of god then. You know, the part where you god is alive and life has to come from life, so what gave life to your god. The false logic loop.
[And considering the fact that it is impossible for the inorganic to become organic, then some kind of intelligence performed the life giving.]
LOL. As usual you have completely ignored past discussions that have already covered the erroneous conclusions of your sentence above. All life is made up entirely of non-living components. There is no molecule or atom that is “alive”. In organic chemistry, the definition or organic is “arbitrary” per Spencer Seager: “Chemistry For Today”. One general definition of organic is any molecule containing carbon. Of course steel contains carbon, as does urea, and they are considered inorganic. Urea is almost always in urine, but is still considered inorganic. The things that make up life, like the compounds of prime importance in biochemistry, are antigens, carbohydrates, enzymes, hormones, lipids and fatty acids, neurotransmitters, nucleic acids, proteins, peptides and amino acids, lectins, vitamins, and fats and oils. Of course animo acids, alcohols, sugars (a carb), and fats are found in deep space in comets and meteors. Lipids are all over the place on earth, especially in clays. So to say they are “organic” isn’t particularly accurate. The whole organic/inorganic argument isn’t an argument at all…
Continue ignoring the Preacher, Jakob, and enjoy your reading.
“There is no molecule or atom that is “alive”. In organic chemistry, the definition or organic is “arbitrary” per Spencer Seager: “Chemistry For Today”. One general definition of organic is any molecule containing carbon. Of course steel contains carbon, as does urea, and they are considered inorganic. Urea is almost always in urine, but is still considered inorganic. The things that make up life, like the compounds of prime importance in biochemistry, are antigens, carbohydrates, enzymes, hormones, lipids and fatty acids, neurotransmitters, nucleic acids, proteins, peptides and amino acids, lectins, vitamins, and fats and oils. Of course animo acids, alcohols, sugars (a carb), and fats are found in deep space in comets and meteors. Lipids are all over the place on earth, especially in clays. So to say they are “organic” isn’t particularly accurate. The whole organic/inorganic argument isn’t an argument at all…”
Well organic is stated throughout the scientific world as that which is alive. But this part of your quote is interesting. How do we know about the different parts of that which is inorganic? We as intelligent beings were able to break them down into their individual categories and label them as what they are. We as, a type of intelligence, are able to combine them and utilize them for our purposes. If we don’t manipulate them in any way these do nothing on their own. They would just lie there forever. You see this experiment has been done forever. And it has always been the same. Nothing, zilch, nada. To make life, someone needs to act upon what is around, someone much smarter than us. Ok then me. Don’t worry, if you would but stop ignoring all the factors, you can meet the challenge. You too, can rise to the occasion. The factor you are ignoring is. If we make ourselves, and every other organic organism produces itself, then something made all organisms. Life must have come from an Intelligence that knew how to manipulate on a far greater scale than we are capable of even imagining. Else, why haven’t we duplicated that process. And I add than we can ever imagine, because in the Bible, when man was constructing the “tower of Babble” God said that they needed to do something about that and He created all the different languages, causing a confusion among the people, which inhabited their abilities to coordinate and cooperate together, causing the dispersion, of the peoples into different parts of the earth. And He said that they did this, because “anything they can imagine they could perform” this is found in Genesis chapter 3.
Man, hasn’t even figured out how He got all that we are made of to stick together. How the atoms, electrons, and such to bond together and create, life. That is if indeed, the shell that we are made of, is needed for us to say that we are alive. Harboring a conscientiousness that would just disperse if not contained. Interesting principle, is it not? Ok, that’s mine. I’m going to patent it.
Come on Tim. Accept defeat and in so doing you will actually be winning. You can be on God’s side and become a preacher too. Or at least be able to spread life, real life, that will lead to eternal life. Which is yours if you only realize that there is more to this life than meets the eye, the eye with blinders. There is a life that starts right now and goes on throughout eternity.
Gerald writes: [Well organic is stated throughout the scientific world as that which is alive.]
Correct. That is one level of “organic”. Any complete living organism is considered organic, as per the definition – relating to or derived from living matter. At the molecular level “organic” is generally a compound containing carbon (some texts say carbon AND hydrogen), but those definitions don’t always hold. Potassium bicarbonate for example contains carbon and hydrogen but is an inorganic compound. Cyanide is an organic compound, but quite toxic to many groups of life forms.
Your comment did not specifically address or refute any point I made…
[How do we know about the different parts of that which is inorganic? We as intelligent beings were able to break them down into their individual categories and label them as what they are. We as, a type of intelligence, are able to combine them and utilize them for our purposes.]
Great. Does that mean that any of the molecules in our body are “alive” in any way? No. Does that mean that they can’t exist outside of living things? No, since the Murchison meteorite and multiple space probes catching debris off comet tails clearly shows that amino acids and sugars and alcohols and other compounds exist in deep space where no life can be found.
Your comment did not specifically address or refute any point I made…
[If we don’t manipulate them in any way these do nothing on their own. They would just lie there forever. You see this experiment has been done forever. And it has always been the same. Nothing, zilch, nada. To make life, someone needs to act upon what is around, someone much smarter than us.]
If they didn’t do anything on their own they wouldn’t form water tight lipidic membranes all on their own. They wouldn’t form peptide chains all on their own. They wouldn’t make copies of themselves, like the plasmid in the Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast. All these things happen because they can happen under the laws of chemistry. Every single thing in your body is chemically possible, or else it wouldn’t be able to exist. None of those compounds or molecules require intelligence in order to exist. Don’t take my word for it, go ask any chemistry teacher on planet Earth.
Your comment did not specifically address or refute any point I made…
[If we make ourselves, and every other organic organism produces itself, then something made all organisms.]
I didn’t make myself. Did you make yourself? Fascinating. What grade did you get in biology in high school?
[Life must have come from an Intelligence that knew how to manipulate on a far greater scale than we are capable of even imagining.]
Already addressed in my previous post. You’ve just done the same false logic loop again. If life has to come from an Intelligence, and your god is alive, where did your god come from? Thanks for defeating your own argument. To claim that life HAS to come from other life makes the existence of any life totally impossible, since there is no way for a first life form to arise. Think about it!
[Else, why haven’t we duplicated that process.]
God of the gaps argument, which has been pointed out to you before as being a useless debate tool. Used to be that everyone thought a god created all the languages, because no one knew where they came from. Then linguistic studies came along and everyone could see how later ones evolved from earlier ones. People thought sickness came from “doing evil”. Now we know it is bacteria and viruses. God beings have always been credited with things that humans can’t conclusively answer, because it is the easy, lazy way to put off actually figuring anything out. Until someone actually goes and figures it out, then suddenly the god isn’t needed anymore.
[Man, hasn’t even figured out how He got all that we are made of to stick together. How the atoms, electrons, and such to bond together and create, life. That is if indeed, the shell that we are made of, is needed for us to say that we are alive. Harboring a conscientiousness that would just disperse if not contained. Interesting principle, is it not? Ok, that’s mine. I’m going to patent it.]
I don’t suppose it would be worth pointing out to you that you are totally and completely, 100% WRONG? We know precisely how and why everything stays together, and how it interacts, and what it does. They call it chemistry where I’m from. I’ve pointed out to you more times than I can count that there is nothing about any living thing that violates any of the laws of chemistry, physics, and thermodynamics. You seem to lack knowledge in these areas and it is affecting your understanding of what we know and don’t know. Even consciousness and awareness is not a complete mystery. Those with deformed, damaged, or altered brains cannot operate within normal parameters as those with normally developed and connected brain hardware. All evidence points to consciousness begin a function of the material in the brain and how it is connected.
Have fun down at the patent office though…
[Come on Tim. Accept defeat and in so doing you will actually be winning. You can be on God’s side and become a preacher too. Or at least be able to spread life, real life, that will lead to eternal life. Which is yours if you only realize that there is more to this life than meets the eye, the eye with blinders. There is a life that starts right now and goes on throughout eternity.]
Accept what? That you cannot provide even one iota of empirical data or evidence of your flavor of god being? That you can’t refute any argument I make, and lack basic understanding of many of the topics you choose to discuss at this website? That you use the same defeated arguments time and again for no obvious purpose? Sure, I can readily accept that.
You’ll failed to present even one plausible reason to accept your fairy tale in the entire time you’ve been here. That nonsense isn’t acceptable…
Nullifies. Can you in anyway prove that life comes from non-life? By observation, OBERSAVATION!!!!!!!!!!, life has always come from life, it may be simple, or complex. This is by observation. Please inform me of any instance that you, or anyone else dead, or alive has at any time observed life coming from a rock, which more than likely was around before life, or from primordial ooze, which possibly could have been around, or even from chemicals, which also is likely. But, as far as we know life comes from life. So, question. Are there rocks, ooze and chemicals around now? Ok, Ok, since this question may be taxing your powers of observation, I’ll answer it for you. Yes. There are rocks, ooze and chemicals around now. So, what else is missing? du, du, du, do, di, di, dum.. No, you can’t figure this question out. Ok, I’ll answer this one to. Intelligence. Intelligence is around to. So, let’s just put everything together now. Ok? Rocks, Ok. Ooze, Ok. Chemicals, Ok. Intelligence, Ok. I’m not going to fast for you, am I? Well, in the past there was God, who made the rocks, ooze and the chemicals. Learn to deduce by observation, not imagination. You’ve got to learn to control that. I’t will get you into trouble. And stop allowing the others to tell what to think. And use all that factors. Don’t just exclude those that don’t make sense to you or that you don’t agree with.
There are plenty of people who look at the evidence, and they are pretty smart people, and they say that it is not outside the realms of impossibility to accept that an Intelligence made everything, since everything is so complex, and so orderly(leading to be disorderly) and when ever anything is made, something intelligent has always, ALWAYS, made it.
Gerald writes: [Nullifies. Can you in anyway prove that life comes from non-life? By observation, OBERSAVATION!!!!!!!!!!]
Yes. Every single atom in your body is NOT alive. Can you possibly comprehend this? None of the water is alive. None of the proteins are alive. None of the iron, calcium, potassium, nitrogen, or sodium is alive. Is this sinking in with you? Every single living thing on Earth is made up of non-living components. Obviously life comes from non-life, because all living things are made up on non-life pieces! You are proof that life comes from non-living things. So am I. So are polar bears, and E Coli, and ladybugs. Life proves that non-life can produce living things.
[There are plenty of people who look at the evidence, and they are pretty smart people, and they say that it is not outside the realms of impossibility to accept that an Intelligence made everything, since everything is so complex, and so orderly(leading to be disorderly) and when ever anything is made, something intelligent has always, ALWAYS, made it.]
I’ve never ruled out, with 100% certainty, that some kind of god critter could exist. I can’t prove a negative, so since there is no evidence for gods or the supernatural I have no way of proving they don’t exist. What I can say is that since there is no empirical data for such things, and many supposed characteristics of such things are illogical, there is no reason to take such claims as even remotely plausible.
Thanks once again, by the way, for making the false logic loop claim that intelligence is required to make something, thereby begging the question of what made your god, which is an unending circle of nonsense. If intelligence requires intelligence, there could never be anything intelligent. Think about it.
“Discover Prophecy-1 You Can Understand Bible Prophecy by David Asscherick.” I ask you to look at this seminar. Walk a mile in my shoes for me. And then lets come together and discuss your possible agreements and your disagreements that you have. If possible watch the whole series. At the least you will see why I stand as I do. At the most you will have your stand challenged. You can stand firmer knowing that you have left no “stone” or in our case no “fossil” unturned. But the Bible is one reason why I refuse to accept the theory of Creation, and not the theory of Evolution. (outside of the fact that the theory of Evolution is preposterous) But since I have heard of so many people trying to bring down the Bible, and yet this Book is still one if not the most read book today. It is causing peoples everywhere to think and search. And even after so many years, it is still causing an unrest in the thinking persons mind.
You can find these series on youtube, or purchase it on the ” hopemedia ” website.
I watched a portion of Part 1 as you asked. I couldn’t get through all of it because I found it utterly ridiculous. At around the 10:00 minute mark David claims that the Bible is always historically, scientifically, and translator accurate. Readers at this website are already familiar with the fact that you have been unable to show these claims are true. You have been unable to support such claims as the global flood, and the Exodus, or even figure out if Adam came before or after the animals depending on which Chapter of Genesis you prefer to believe. The Bible is not the infallible book that David or you espouse, and nothing he said or you written has proven otherwise.
You continue providing us links to opinion pieces at AIG or youtube videos by preachers. How about a website linking us to empirical data supporting what you claim is true…or maybe there isn’t such a place, or the other stuff is the only trick up your sleeve, eh?…
I have looked at the bible prophecy’s Honestly I don’t find them convincing. Here are Jacob’s 3 Laws of prophecy first it must be vague and self fulfilling. for example A bloodthirsty ruler will be born in the west and he will make many civilizations fall before him and all men shall fear him But his empire will be defeated by a grand coalition. this was Jacobs prophesy it has already been fulfilled and will be fulfilled many more times. In fact this will refer to Both Alexander the great, Juluis ,Caesar Napoleon and Hitler witch brings me to my 2nd law it must be up for interpretation. the book of Revelations being the best example. you can find numerous books from the 1900s onwards that all try to decipher on what it means. Not surprisingly such books became very popular during the coldwar some were even bestsellers. Personally think the book of revelations represent the early Christians. never the less the same is done with Nostradamus or any vague literature . the 3rd law is it must cover its own ass. what do I mean by this? well it should say. For example stop sinning or you will be destroyed thus even if it fails it won’t be proved wrong. All prophecys must follow those laws if not it wont work. Although it won’t really change peoples belief look at the mormons who have predicted that the world would end numerous times year after year and it did little to hurt there belief. on a final note science fiction writers and futurist from the 19th century have made predictions of the future far more accurate than any bible prophecy. of and Last of APOCALYPSE NOW! I really wanted to say that. PS allot of prophecys have been proven as forgeries.
The thing about ” Jacob’s 3 Laws of prophecy” is not even mentioned in the Discover Prophecy series. So, I don’t know where you got them from. Please let me know what you found to be unconvincing?
If you would like to know about Bible prophecy, please refer to the following video series on prophecy from David Asscherick from hopemedia. The series is called “Discover Prophecy” and it is a set of 24 videos. Try the first and second one and see if it provides insight to what you are wanting to know. One thing I would like you to think about. That is if one is willing to accept the possibility of there being God, then the opposite is also true. There is evil, in the presence of the devil, also known as Satan. And much of what is being taught about the Bible, about God has been influenced by lies of Satan. Many of the first teachers of the Bible, the priests of the Catholic church, did not know what the Bible actually taught. They learned then about the Bible as many people learn of Evolution. And the Bible was not in the everyday language of the people, so the people had to accept what was told them. And much of what was told them were things that benefitted the priests. And they were lies. The priests took advantage of the people. But once Martin Luther learned to read the Hebrew and Greek languages, he found out that the Catholic church had been teaching what was not backed up in the Word of God. Just like the teachers of Evolution. And when Martin Luther started to translate the Bible into the common everyday language the Church began to persecute him and all the others who began to teach what the Bible was really teaching.
But it isn’t people behind the lies. It is Satan. He wants us to forget that there is a Creator. Or he wants us to feel that God doesn’t care. Or worse, he wants us to think that God is not loving. That He is tyrannical. And that is the reason God gave us His word. And that is the reason that God came down to live with us. So that He could show us who He really was.
Before you doubt the Bible, learn what it had to say about the future hundreds of years before it came to pass. Read Isaiah 46: 9-10. Since we obviously did not evolve here. Then the Bible is correct and God created us. And the Bible has been shown that it is an extraordinary book. Surviving the ones who attempted one way or another to rub it out. But it still is causing a stir in this world, and that is because God wants us to know the truth. Please look at the videos I have mentioned on youtube. It will open your eyes, and show you why we can believe that the Bible is God’s word.
Hope media seriously? Those guys are more interested in my wallet than saving my soul and those videos are bloody expensive. Well no point on fooling the ignorant if your not gonna make profit I suppose. Anyway all prophecy in the bible follow my laws and some were written in a later date. And some are plain wrong. See the rational wikis guide on prophecy. Prophets in the ancient Hebrew culture were not fortune tellers in fact such feats were forbidden. They were more of spiritual guide’s. The bible is nothing more than a collection of ancient books full of contradictions.it’s also very difficult to read and not clear at all. That is why we atheist don’t take it very seriously. Also gerald you have been asked numerous times to increase your knowlegde of evolution you can start by simply reading the greatest show on earth or even easier sapiens.
Increase my knowledge of Evolution. I have followed up on almost every link offered. Each time I read I come up with all kind of reasons why Evolution is too impossible to be real. All of what Christians attribute to why we believe an Intelligence made everything, the Evolutionist want to attribute it first, because of an accident and then to a simple organism.
But at least the Christian looks at what has been observed and follow the logical path which dictates that life can only come from something that was alive. Meaning that an inorganic compound has never been observed producing an organic from of life. We have seen that organic forms of life are the only forms of life producing other and the same forms of life.
The Evolutionist Atheists wants to to come away from observation and impose their imagination over logic and suggest an illogical path of reason.
All you have to do is count the number of scholars who have spent time and money trying to prove exactly what you said about the Bible being a bunch of ordinary ancient books full of contraditions.
But more then a few of these have either become believers in the Bible as being God’s word or the have given up or died never finding the contradictions.
Ok. You tell me a few of the contraditions that you have discovered. Better yet. Look at the videos. The first few should show how Christians have come to believe. Then tell me why you feel that it’s not enough to change your mind and tell me just where you find it lacking.
All it will take is a little time on your part and you will come to an understanding of our point of view.
But I can tell you haven’t taken the time, not even to see why, although Atheists in the past have made the same claims as you about the Bible yet it is still one of, if not the most widely read book in the world. And as I said earlier, a lot of Atheists have become Christians after their attempts to erase the Bible from history. That should at least cause you to ask why. Why have many Atheists changed their minds?
We aren’t talking about garden variety Atheists. We are talking about the cream of the crop Atheists. Sure many from here but also many from countries where Atheism was the God of these countries. Countries where to be caught believing in God could cause one to loose all they had icluding their lives. But when they had a chance to read for themselves the word of God, they accepted it with all their hearts. What makes you different? I think it is the fact that you will not set aside excess baggage and honestly look at the evidence many of the use to be Atheists have provided to let their fellow scholars know what caused them to turn around.
You can’t go by what your previous Christian friends may or may not have told you. People are human and they have to get rid if it as their lives get closer to Him. But these studies show directly from the Bible what was going to happen hundreds of before they happened and they help to show how it just couldn’t be an accident. And many previous Atheists have spent time and money trying to show how these prophecies had to have been written latter on in history because they were so surprised as to how exact the prophecies were. Yet, none of them were successful. This has been happening for year. You and your fellows aren’t the first. But you will fail, at least you will if you will do the research and pur your money where your mouth is.
Jakob, Jakob, Jakob. Where are the contradictions? Which ones do you know of contradict some other part of the Bible? Please allow me the chance to show you that the Bible is one harmoniously woven document, put together over hundreds of years with one principle theme. And that is that God loves us, and does so even more then we can imagine. Believe I understand the reasons for your skepticism. And you have every to be have doubts, with all the baggage that each one of grows up with. But, when you look for yourself at what the Bible says, you will see that the contradictions come not from the Book, but from the erroneously, misconceptions of what they believe the Book is saying and not from what it actually says.
Hey Gerald, explain to Jacob how your god loved the world so much it drowned newborns that couldn’t possibly be “evil” in the worldwide flood. Or how the poorest first born Egyptian died who had no control over what the pharaoh did. Those are great examples of love…
I did not ask you to buy anything. The videos have been playing ed on YouTube for free. The ones for sale are to help produce others and the o es who find them useful, they as I would like to do, take them to show to others.
I know it is hard for you to understand, but not every one is out to make money from the gosple. So before you judge, open the merchandise and putting aside your preconceptions then learn. You can watch the whole series from youtube for free.
Why don’t you tell me which prophecy is so specific from my knowledge they are very vague as to history behind it please watch or read the bible unearthed is completely unbiased ill simply ask you if any of these prophecy’s of jesus came true. have became true the mashiach will bring about the political and spiritual redemption of the Jewish people by bringing us back to Israel and restoring Jerusalem (Isaiah 11:11-12; Jeremiah 23:8; 30:3; Hosea 3:4-5).
He will establish a government in Israel that will be the center of all world government, both for Jews and gentiles (Isaiah 2:2-4; 11:10; 42:1).
He will rebuild the Temple and re-establish its worship (Jeremiah 33:18).
He will restore the religious court system of Israel and establish Jewish law as the law of the land (Jeremiah 33:15).
Also remember the New testament was an pretty much an open book Test. and that websites that try to prove the bible are almost always use selective reporting. And please do watch the bible unearthed I had to spend 50 minutes through your boring video.
“We know what 7 other planets are basically made of: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune. We know about Pluto and other dwarf planets, as well as most of the moons around those bodies. Out of the 100 billion planets in just the Milky Way galaxy, we can say that 7 of them are not like Earth. Just 7. So you can’t possibly say that there “is not another planet like ours” because there are still 99,999,999,993 left to study. Not to mention that since we don’t know under what possible conditions life could happen, we can’t even rule out that some of the moons in our own solar system might harbor life at the moment”
I have made no mistake my friend, but you have made a whopper. You are assuming that just because this this planet, (by accident, you say, or so I’m told), just because this planet has life, you want to stretch that point of view, of accidental creation, into including that there is certainly life on another planet. Now from strict point of Atheistic point of view, which is that something needs to be observed in order to be able to come to a logical assumption. Now since all of what we can observe, from looking at all of the other planets that we have had access to, this is the only, the only planet that has life. Anything else is pure speculation. But of course Atheism is built around pure speculation. Not logic. Logic would dictate that since we have never, never, at all seen something made out of nothing, and that something, especially life, has only been the product of something that has some kind of intelligence, that would mean that all life came from some kind of intelligence. Yet, the illogical, irrational Atheistic, mind would like to bend that logic and insist that the theory of an “Accidental Creation” is more irrational than that of ” Intelligent Design”. But when one considers that all of life on this biosphere is just to complex to have been made so perfect without the benefit of having had a caretaker overlooking ever aspect of what has been made, then what the Atheist is thinking is even more ludicrous. Or ridiculous. Which ever one meets your fancy.
Gerald writes: [I have made no mistake my friend, but you have made a whopper. You are assuming that just because this this planet, (by accident, you say, or so I’m told), just because this planet has life, you want to stretch that point of view, of accidental creation, into including that there is certainly life on another planet.]
Please quote exactly where I said that “there is certainly life on another planet”. Where did I write that? To save you the time and embarrassment, I didn’t say that. What I said is that YOU cannot say “there is not another planet like unto ours” because we have no idea what the vast, vast majority of planets in just our galaxy are like. We also cannot say under what possible range of conditions any type of life can exist under, so even limiting our search to Earth-like bodies is a baseless assumption. We haven’t even checked most of the moons around the planets in this solar system yet. So what I said is that we don’t know, which means we can’t rule it out. All we know is that life is possible and that the building blocks for Earth life are scattered all over this solar system. If I have failed to explain this clearly please let me know next time instead of misrepresenting my statements in your next post.
[Now from strict point of Atheistic point of view, which is that something needs to be observed in order to be able to come to a logical assumption.]
Actually there are many atheists that aren’t very scientific in their lack of belief of the supernatural. Atheist does not equal science Gerald. Atheism is just the lack of belief in god beings. Since the majority of scientists are religious and/or believe in a personal god, using “atheistic” to describe scientists is an insult to a lot of scientists. Why don’t you act a little more mature and say “scientists” when describing people that work in a scientific field, and just use “atheist” when talking about belief systems. Your mashing up of the two things is really quite ridiculous…
[Now since all of what we can observe, from looking at all of the other planets that we have had access to, this is the only, the only planet that has life. Anything else is pure speculation.]
We can’t actually say that though Gerald. That’s the whole point of my previous response that you are replying to here. We don’t know if any of the other planets have life or not. Mercury and Venus most likely do not. Mars may have in the past (given that planet was wet in it’e early history), and if so it could continue to exist underground. The moon Titan has methane oceans on it (methane is a hydrocarbon) and bacteria here on Earth consume hydrocarbons for energy. So life could be possible there given the oceans of food just laying around. We can’t say Earth is the only planet with life because we haven’t investigated everything else yet.
[But of course Atheism is built around pure speculation.]
For most atheists, their lack of belief in gods is due to the complete lack of empirical evidence and data for such creatures. It is not speculation to find speculation as insufficient evidence. And why were you talking about life on other planets (a science discussion) and suddenly switched to talking about belief systems? Please make up your mind what you want to talk about…
[Not logic. Logic would dictate that since we have never, never, at all seen something made out of nothing, and that something, especially life, has only been the product of something that has some kind of intelligence, that would mean that all life came from some kind of intelligence.]
Here you go from atheism (a lack of a belief system) to a scientific discussion about life again. Is this a bipolar disorder of some sort?
Life isn’t made out of nothing, Gerald. It’s made out of various inanimate molecules and atoms. Do you think people just appear from nowhere? How odd. No Gerald, you are made up out of the air you breathe and the material you ingest into your body. That is something from something Gerald.
I see you’ve presented the “life from life” false logic loop again. I’m not sure why you can’t understand that saying it takes life to create life, or intelligence to create intelligence, is a self-defeating logical paradox. If it takes intelligence to create intelligence, you can’t possibly have a first intelligence, because there will always be that need for a previous intelligence to create the new one. It’s like adding 1 to infinity…you never reach the end.
[Yet, the illogical, irrational Atheistic, mind would like to bend that logic and insist that the theory of an “Accidental Creation” is more irrational than that of ” Intelligent Design”]
Atheism is the lack of a belief in god beings. This has nothing to do with a scientific discussion about abiogenesis verses creationism. Please pick one topic and stick with it, your Jekyll and Hyde routine is becoming tiresome.
By the way, intelligent design isn’t possible if it takes intelligence to create intelligence Gerald, for the reasons outlined earlier in this post. Think about it…
[But when one considers that all of life on this biosphere is just to complex to have been made so perfect without the benefit of having had a caretaker overlooking ever aspect of what has been made, then what the Atheist is thinking is even more ludicrous. Or ridiculous. Which ever one meets your fancy.]
What does the complexity of life have to do with belief systems?
“Isaiah 11:11-12King James Version (KJV)
11 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.
12 And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.”
Now just to be fair, I will assume that your biblical knowledge is at least on the par as that of mine, and that you do know that according to the Apostle Paul,
“Romans 2:28-29King James Version (KJV)
28 For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh:
29 But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.
So we know that God’s people aren’t just what is born from woman.”
Jesus said, “John 15:16King James Version (KJV)
16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.”
This has familiar sound to it, to which we can attest to by looking to the Old Testament and look up a verse that Jesus made, before He became flesh and walked among us.
Here is the text, found in,
“Deuteronomy 7:6-8King James Version (KJV)
6 For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.
7 The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people:
8 But because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”
So, you see, some of God’s promises, especially in the Old Testament, (which can be looked at as a prediction), can refer to His people from every age.
Look at these texts found in Romans 11: 11-31, (well I’ll only give part of them) “20 That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. 21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. 22 Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. 23 And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. 24 For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.”
The gist of it is, God selected Israel after man had lost sight, of Him. He selected them to fly His banner and allow the whole world to find Him again. Of course there were those who refuse to follow, Him, and those who didn’t follow Him were cut off from the main stalk. These if they continued in their unbelief, would be lost. But the main stalk served to be used by God to continue showing the rest of the world that there really is the one true God. And that is how the gentiles, those who were not born into the the selection of people of God, would be grafted into that stalk, and be accepted as one of His original people. It says that we are privileged to receive all that the original sons and daughters are heirs to. But that also means that we are to be held to the same expectations. And that as God removed those who were of the original people, because of a lack of faith that led to disobedience, so to would we, if we fall short can be cut out.
Now this is the fulfilling of the predicted promise to be fulfilled. It is found in a prophecy that God made about the time of the end, which is found in the book of Daniel.
” Daniel 2:34-36King James Version (KJV)
34 Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces.
35 Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.
36 This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king.
This book of Daniel has been held in high disdain among those who wish that there was not God, for it gave in prophecy years long ago, which kingdoms would rule this earth, up unto the end of the earth. The Atheist community have tried time and time again to show that this book was written in a more recent time of history, only to come up short in showing how an ordinary man was somehow able to so accurately predict the kingdoms that did rule, hundreds of years before they came into power. ( I might add, that this one of the reasons that the Bible is found to be God’s holy word, because He told us that “Isaiah 46:10King James Version (KJV)
10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:”
Now to the already out of touch Atheist who are not aware of such a text, and who for some reason, do not worry about if there is a god or not, this may not mean much. But to the Atheist who actually worried about there being a god or not, this meant that they may be wrong. That there may be a god. And that there attempts to erase Him from history, may be offensive to Him, since He is endeavoring to save this world. So they did all they could to prove that Daniel was written later in history, or to prove that it was fake. But all their efforts served only to cement the book of Daniel as part of the true word of God.
But this book and others show what God’s intention is for all of His people. Both of the original people who remained faithful to Him and of those who came later and remain faithful to Him. And by being faithful to Him, I mean those who keep His word. Keep His Commandments. Please look at Revelation 12 : “17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”
And Revelation 14:”12 Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.”
So being faithful means that we obey Him even if we are threatened by death. Because we know that He has won the victory of death.
“1 Corinthians 15:55-57King James Version (KJV)
55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
56 The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.
57 But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Now look at Revelation 20
“13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
Notice that death and the grave or (hell) will be thrown into the lake of fire. So there will be no more death or any more graves.
Notice also that those who will not be faithful, and obey God will also be tossed into that lake of fire.
Not a pretty thought. To be destroyed for all eternity, a life extinguished, forever never more to be. When we could have had it all. But we instead listened to someone say, there is no God, or because we disobeyed His commandments. Especially when so many say that it is ok to disregard the fourth Commandment, and instead remember the first day of the week, Sunday, and not the day that God asked us in His 10 Commandments the seventh day of the week the Sabbath, which we call Saturday.
No, it is better to do all that God has asked us to do, instead of that which someone else tells us today.
I’m sorry I forgot the rest of your verses that you posted. I’m seeing that you are doing as the rest of the Jewish hierarchy have done with God’s word. You disregard parts that they feel do not matter. But look at Isaiah 53. All of this book is a prophecy of what would happen to the Messiah, when He would come and walk among His creation.
You and they ignored the fact that God set up a sacrificial system for some reason, and connected it to Isaiah 53, by saying that the Messiah would be led like a lamb to be sacrificed. They did not want to think about this so they ignored the prophecies. So when the Book declared that the Christ was to be the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”
“Revelation 13:8King James Version (KJV)
8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
And finally to give His life
“Isaiah 53:10New International Version (NIV)
10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes[a] his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.”
The original people of God didn’t want to accept this part of the prophecies. That is why Christ is not accepted as the true Messiah among many of the Jews, because they have been taught that the Messiah would come as a hero and not as a sacrifice. And He will, but not until the time of Revelation.
No, the Bible is not a book of contradictions. But is a book that has been misinterpreted, not only by the Jewish community concerning the Old Testament, but also by many of the now Christians who have allowed the errors that have been brought into God’s church by the Catholic church, where they started teaching that 1). Salvation could be worked into.
2) People should bow down to idols. 3) people could go to God through other saints like Mary, or other saints. making the Bible contradict itself when it says that “John 14:6King James Version (KJV)
6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”
4) Where the Catholic church is saying that it is ok to break God’s 10 commandments and forget about the holy Sabbath that God told His people to remember in Exodus 20:8-11 and 5) When the Catholic Church contradicted the Bible saying that man or man’s soul was immortal, and that if that soul was wicked when he died, he would go to hell and burn for eternity. Bringing us to one of the most devilistic scheme that the Catholic church and many of the Christian churches have fallen for, and that is that God, who is supposed to be all loving and all merciful and all justice, would send people to burn and be tortured forever and ever, contradicting the Biblical image of the true God, and making Him a sadistic, arbitrary, one.
“let God be true and every man a liar”
Very well you make an interesting statement. Imm not an atheist by the way perver to be called a diest. You state that the bible is being misinterpreted you are indouptably right on that one. But that is exactly my point,due to its vagueness and broadness it can be used to support about any kind view of view. Even if you could convince me that the bible is the word of god which Christianity should I follow should I become a Catholic again or should I become a protestant and of which of the many splinter groups of it or perhaps I should become a Jew. The bible say a god is not the author of confusion but can you think of any book that has caused more confusion. I must say that I do enjoy these talks with you.
I’ll ask you again. What did you find ridiculous? Or what didn’t make sense to you? I’m sure you are aware that many believe something, not because they have for themselves looked into the subject that they have formed an opinion about, but because of what they have heard others say about that subject. Even today with many of those who do not accept the Bible as God’s word, they do so not because of what they themselves have actually learned and found out is wrong about God’s word, but because of what others have said about God’s word and also because of the lack of a spiritual life of those who professed to be Christians. So please let me know what you found to be ridiculous.
I am afraid that you have missed the most logical part of what I said. The early Israelites did not believe that the so existed apart from the body. The words that were translated as so in Hebrew and Greek referred to the soul being the person. For example, when they reported people who had drowned at sea they sometimes said that every soul was lost. Due to the Greek influence, somehow the biblical reference of soul went from being the person to being a spirit but this is not a biblical teaching. This can be seen if you would take all of the texts and gain the whole understanding.