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Living for eternity
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10-09-2009 3:26pm#1
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You assume wrong.
As a Christian I believe that you go to hell if you reject the offer of undeserved salvation in Christ, and you get resurrected to dwell in God's presence for eternity if you accept that undeserved offer.
Well you're going to spend eternity somewhere. The question is where.
As much interesting stuff as I can think of. Learning new musical instruments? Jamming with Eric Clapton? Learning carpentry? Building a full-scale replica of Gaudi's Sagrada Familia out of match sticks?
Never knew he was a Christian, interesting. Now I know why I prefer Jimmy Page
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CerebralCortex wrote: »Never knew he was a Christian, interesting. Now I know why I prefer Jimmy Page
I don't think Clapton is a Christian. For him, jamming with me would probably be hell.:D0 -
As Christians, I assume you believe that you go to heaven if you are a good person and hell if you are a bad person. For all ETERNITY.
As PDN already pointed out, you assume wrong. The basic message of Christianity is that Christ died to pay the penalty for sins. These are real sins from real sinners. And the scripture has concluded that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God and that there is nobody who does good, no not one. So in the starting blocks we are all bad people, granted some might be better or worse than others but ALL are sinners and in need of forgiveness, justification and sanctification. Some people agree with this and others don't but if its true then its true and neither the believing or non believing in it makes a blind bit of difference. So everyone that goes to the bad eternity it is not because they are bad otherwise everyone would be going, no it is because they do not accept the door that has been opened to them, through which they might walk into the good eternity. What differentiates these bad people and the other bad people, is the fact they choose not to walk through the door provided.
Anyway, Eternity, what is it? I can honestly tell you that I don't know. My mind which is captured in time and governed by a frame of reference which by nature rejects alien concepts like eternity is not capable of conceiving what eternity is. It would be like a blind man trying to understand what flying would be like. He doesn't even know what the ground looks like let alone what flying above it would be like. Same thing can be said of us who have never known eternity but have heard about it in words which are inadequate catalysts through which to convey such a concept as eternity. Descriptive words are inept at best when put along side the actual experience of eternity.
Imagine the blind man not only receiving sight but also being able to experience flight into the bargain, how would he be able to describe that experience to his blind friends? Well I believe that is sort of scratching the surface in describing in words what eternity must is like. But there are two sides to eternity, the one where God is and the other where He is not. A God forsaken eternity. An equally unimaginably terrible existence IMO.Also, what do you do in Heaven for eternity?
Again in the Christian concept you are either in one place or the other. As my hope is to be going to the good place I can only imagine that it is a billion billion times cooler (Fonzy cool not temperature cool) than anything we have ever experienced on earth. Unfortunately most people's concepts of eternity in heaven conjure up visions of playing harps and floating on clouds. I would describe that as a type of hell to be honest. If all this battling against evil forces in the air about us and wrestling against non flesh and blood entities and striving against sin in the flesh has as its goal a cloud and harp I will be bitterly disappointed. No, I believe that heaven is going to be the place where absolutely everyone is going to want to be. Like a really really cool night club that everyone wants to get into except even much much better than that. Think of all the really cool people that will be there, all living in true harmony with the LORD. Can't wait
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That's pretty selfish and petty of God, isn't it? Believe in me, or else I will throw you into Hell. If God is all-loving why can't he/she/it just forgive us all?
Have you not heard of Jesus? He suffered to forgive people, you know Christianity 101:rolleyes:Are you not supposed to praise God for all eternity? I also like how some of you like to play with words and say infinity is not eternity and it is outside the bounds of time. Wouldn't it be cool if you could apply the same logic to the universe and say the universe is eternal. Oh no, that wouldn't suit the Christian teachings...
They are supposed to praise God for all their 'natural' life, I think, and spend the rest of their spiritual/enlightened light WITH God. (me thinks)How about you die, your electro-chemical brain activity dies, and you exist as you did back before you were born. That wasn't so bad was it?
Actually, I alluded to this another thread but your brain does not 'die' per se, it supposedly shuts down slowly...very slowly... unless it's being blown apart of course. The body ain't dead until it's both warmed up and dead
Back before you were born, you were part of some gene thingy ma bob 0 -
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I look forward to a little footy in teh morning, then some skiing in the afternoon. A good pint in the evening sitting by the lake chatting with people from different times, cultures and countries.
I could also play hockey and maybe hurling for the first time. I may even have an ear for music and find it interesting to learn an instrument. Maybe paint.
Learn what lived at the bottom of the Marianas Trench. Explore other planets. Lots to keep me busy. Not to mention that there are no worries over money or food.
I sometimes can hardly wait. 0 -
Fanny Cradock wrote: »Still, it didn't stop Swinburne.
I've have never read this book. I will buy it when I get paid. Looks like it would be right up my street. Thanks for the link FC
Here's a good customer review of the book which our resident angst filled Dawkinian might consider taking on board:
"Swinburne is perhaps the leading figure in contemporary natural theology and _The Existence of God_ is his most important work. In it, he employs the tools of modern confirmation theory to develop a sustained argument for theism.
Swinburne views himself as part of the long tradition of Christian evidentialism that seeks to give rational reasons for belief in God. However, unlike, say, Anselm, Aquinas, or Paley, Swinburne thinks that every deductive argument for theism rests on premises that could rationally be rejected by the skeptic. Thus his arguments are inductive; he treats theism as a large-scale explanatory theory on a par with, say, quantum theory or Newton's theory of motion. He takes several classical arguments (the cosmological and teleological arguments, the argument from religious experience, etc.) and recasts them in terms of Bayesian probability theory, arguing that each of them confirms God's existence, i.e. raises the probability that He exists.
This is, I think, a brilliant strategy: it means that Swinburne's case does not rest on the cogency of any one argument and that none of his arguments depends on such controversial grounds as the principle of sufficient reason or the claim that existence is a "real predicate." Rather, his premises generally reflect obvious features of the world (such as its existence and complexity) together with a set of widely accepted principles of scientific reasoning. Moreover, he establishes a rational framework applicable to any inductive arguments for theism, making it easier for other philosophers of religion to offer their own inductive arguments. (I'm surprised more of them have not done so!)
Of course, the book is open to criticism. Many of Swinburne's claims are idiosyncratic, for instance, his claim that at every moment God chooses to exist at the subsequent moment. But nothing critical rests on these oddities. More vexing is the dreaded "problem of the priors" besetting Bayesian reasoning in general. His assignment of probabilities to certain propositions might be unsatisfying to the skeptic, to say the least. But here Swinburne is aided by the modesty of his goal: he merely aims to show that it is more likely that God exists than that He does not. His assigments of priors, I think, almost always errs on the side of caution. Presuppositionalists, Wittgensteinians, fundamentalists, and other fideists will hate this book, as will knee-jerk atheists. Thinking atheists and theists who value reason will appreciate it, even when they do not accept its conclusions. All should read it. "0 -
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I'm glad you brought this up. You're helping me to bring clarification to my own ideas.If I might veer slightly left with this for a second, can I ask how Christians square their claims of there being evidence of God with the notion of faith? In particular, isn’t the whole point of the story of doubting Thomas that there is merit in accepting the Christian message without evidence or proof? Surely, by observing or even seeking evidence, (isn’t that all that Thomas did?) you are diminishing the virtue of faith? The whole idea that believing without evidence is more "blessed" actually has to do with the closeness of your relationship with God, and how much you believe in what He has promised. Thomas said he had to touch Jesus and see Him with his own eyes, in order to believe. That was essentially showing that he did not have faith in what Jesus had promised previously.
A person who has come to know the character of God through a relationship with Him and has developed total faith in what He says or has said, will be assured that God will fulfill all that He has promised, without having to see the results with their own eyes.
John 20:
24But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.
25The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the LORD. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.
26And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.
27Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.
28And Thomas answered and said unto him, My LORD and my God.
29Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.
Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Faith is "evidence" of things not seen. It is called evidence because there is no other type of evidence available for what is hoped for, and also because it's as good as evidence in that it is substantial and acts as it's own proof for the believer. But this does not make it "blind faith" that is hoping in something for no reason. It is believing in a promise, because you know the One who made the promise.0 -
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Fanny Cradock wrote: »
Now for the other type of "proof", which it transpires isn't a proof at all. It's often used to back up a scientific theory. Somebody says, "Yeah, well, theory X has been proven by science". The thing is, they are wrong! Science doesn't deal in proofs (and that's not a criticism); it deals in evidence, which means that unlike a mathematical proof, no theory in science is untouchable. In other words, theory X is forever provisional and can always be subject to alteration (or outright rejection) if better evidence is produced. It's the same in law. When some one is "proved" to be innocent or guilty it doesn't mean that the verdict is certainly correct, it means that the evidence is strong enough to reach a verdict on guilt or innocence. Hence the term "proved beyond doubt" does not mean "proved with certainty". It might later transpire that something proved may not be true after all. OJ Simpson was found to be innocent, right?
Not entirely a fair analogy,
In a court case things are usually either black or white i.e Innocent or Guilty.
A court case is based mainly on circumstancial evidence, and some forensics are thrown in the side. At best, the court can never be 100% absolutely sure of whether the guy is guilty or not, and you're right the case could be later overturned.
Science has a pivotal difference here, in that when Science throws out a theory, the old one is still correct it's just science has advanced and we've got a better theory.. This is why, Evolution will never be cast aside as being 100% wrong, it will be merely modified and fixed as new evidence becomes available.
Hopefully this will help clear things up better::)
Isaac Newton, produced a theory of Gravity that overthrew previous notions of the world being a perfect sphere. Newton's theory, predicted that the equator would be bulged and the poles flattened a bit. When Einstein overthrew (overthrew is, perhaps,a misnomer) Newtons idea's, the Earth still had its bulgy equator and flat poles, Einsteins theory just incorporated more accurate details that allow our GPS systems to be accurate. In fact, nearly all space missions use mainly Newtonian Mechanics because they are accurate enough to plot the required course.
Heck, using Newton's 'overthrown' theory you can still calculate the mass of the Earth to a high degree of accuracy, you'll just er be off by about 1% from the current accepted value which probably is off by another decimal of a percentage from the actual value - the point is we are getting closer and Newton's prediction is far from wrong.
But you are right, science can never be exactly 100% certain.
That is, in my view, what makes science actually work. 0 -
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But you are right, science can never be exactly 100% certain.
That is, in my view, what makes science actually work.
You've just said exactly the same thing I did but with some additional waffle
To clarify, I never said that science and law where made the of exactly the same stuff. Despite your objections to what I see as a limited but functional analogy, even a trial where the verdict is later overthrown is comprised of accepted truths that don't change with the verdict. I've never claimed otherwise for science.0 -
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Thank you Malty T. 
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