A Good God would not send a decent Atheist to hell.

[marketandchurch]

This was the post that got me banned on Christian Chat:

Then God doesn't care about the goodness and decency of an atheist, a buddhist, etc. And if that is the message you are telling me, then there is no point to being a good person. There is no point of fighting on behalf of the oppressed, as America did, in WWII. The only purpose of fighting the Japanese, and beating back the Nazi's should have been so that we could bring more people to christ...is that what your saying? Should America be sending food and aid to heathens in Haiti? Should America be helping out muslims in disaster relief fallowing a natural disaster, unless it is to bring them to Christ? Is a person's only value to you, there potential to become a convert? They have no humanity beyond that?

You have an old testament my_adonai, and you are to be as obsessed with its obsessions, as you are with the new testament's. And the Old Testament's preoccupation is fighting evil, championing the good, and making a more ethical existence, during this lifetime.

And unless you think Christians alone can make this lifetime a little better, a little less genocidal, with a little less starvation, a little less torture, etc, it is an unethical message to peddle, that a good God would demand goodness, unless one doesn't believe in his son. Then one's goodness is pointless. One might as well not care about not gossiping behind other people's back, destroying someone's dignity in public, sleeping with a coworker's wife, extorting an elderly couple that one was hired to help, raping a pre-pubcescent child, killing another human being because of their skin color, etc, etc, etc.

Apparently, I was challenging people's faith, and was just there to be anti-christian, in saying that a Good God would not send to hell decent people, simply because they do not believe in his Son. I got all sorts of less then appetizing replies, saying I'm screwed for eternity, if I don't accept Jesus. I feel that I am not alone, even within the Christian community, in thinking this as I've heard many catholic priests, and mainstream protestant pastors, while I was growing up, distancing themselves from such a belief. I don't know where people on this forum stand, but I'll put it up for debate:

• Topic of Debate: A Good God would not send to hell a decent person, simply for not believing in his son.

If you agree with me, and are a Christian, please square your response with the rest of the New Testament. What I'm looking for is scriptural consistency to back up your position, and more importantly, how one will then re-read the entire message of the New Testament, if one wants to hold that position. I say this because I don't want you to drop scripture, simply because it doesn't conform to your own personal beliefs, but I am looking for how one can reinterpret the New testament, if one drops that central tenant, & for the rest of us, impediment, to everlasting life. Is there room for this? Or is the New Testament rigidly in the affirmative about Christ being the only way to heaven? Which is fine. That's their theology, but let's see where this goes.

[JohnA]

[Replying to post 508 by JohnA]

Just give me the post number John and I'll look at it. Seems I don't always get email notification from this site.

How many times do I need to post it to you:
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 090#601090

[Choir Loft]

[Replying to post 517 by Clownboat]

Clownboat wrote:
"Here's the gig. Before you can believe that you need to be saved, you need to believe that there is a god out there that loves you, but is also willing to send you to a lake of fire for eternity. Great! We can be saved. But why should I believe in this god in the first place that is willing to send so many to eternal torment?"

You should believe because....

DEATH AND THE GRAVE ARE WAITING FOR YOU

There is no escape from this ultimate truth. You are going to die.

The only hope a man has for rescue from the grave is in One who is above and beyond it.
There is no hope in man's own dead hand. The dead cannot rescue anyone.
If there is to be a rescue from the grave, man must find it in something beyond himself else there is no hope for him at all.

The entire work of Holy Scripture from beginning to end is a testimony of God's work of redemption - how fellowship with man was lost and how He plans to retrieve as many as possible. God has presented an opportunity and a hope to escape from a terrible eternity apart from Him. The mechanism is called grace, unmerited favor, and it's extended to all who will receive it. Our contemporary problem is that fools are convinced their own cleverness will save them, or that by denying the problem it will somehow go away.

It won't because...

DEATH AWAITS. The grave, the worm and dust are the inevitable destiny of all. Yet many are so vain in their imaginations they assume death itself has no power over them or that they can somehow escape its consequences by some conceited act or attitude. But every single thing they try will die with them.

DEATH AWAITS. No man has power over anything in the grave. He cannot move his little finger. He cannot draw a single breath. He cannot call for help.

DEATH AWAITS. The dead know nothing. They do not know the past the present or even who they are. In the grave all are stripped of everything they knew in life.

DEATH AWAITS. And death, whether you like it or not, is forever. There is no turning back in the graves' lonesome valley of death. There is no hope in anything. There are no attitudes or opinions. There is nothing at all.

What sort of reward would YOU imagine for those who are so foolish as to deny an opportunity to avoid it?

The flames of hell are not crimson, orange and yellow. They are BLACK.
Eternal torment is not the suffocating stench of sulfer or the sight of burning flesh. There is no smell or vision at all.
In eternal death there is nothing.

DEATH AWAITS. Eternity apart from God is a black hole.

"They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever."
Jude 1:13

DEATH AWAITS. Like the sinking of Titanic beneath icy waves, it is inevitable. It cannot be delayed or stopped.
The only hope a man has is to grasp rescue while life and breath still cling to him.
All too soon life will disappear below the sea and the ground men walk upon.
All who have not found rescue when it was available will surely die without hope.

But God has provided an escape by means of the blood of Jesus who died upon the cross.

Clownboat wrote:
"Then there is also the fact that I am just not OK with human sacrifice. If you have an affinity for blood or human sacrifices, I just can't understand it. All this talk about blood and human sacrifice makes me think of the Mayan's. Do you think they might have been on to something, or were they just barbaric?"

It's all about justice. Justice demands payment in blood. Always.

A man's life is in his blood. Blood is life and life is blood.
When you talk about blood you are talking about life at it's most basic level.

Justice, whether it's divine justice or human justice, is all about demanding a man's blood in payment for offense.
If you watch a man kill someone you love, every fibre of your being will demand his life as payment. Justice demands blood.

Earthly courts have the power to take a man's blood, his life, in payment for his crimes.
In prison a man's life leaks away with the passage of time, as though he had opened a vein allowing his blood to spill out upon the ground.
Justice demands payment of a man's life in blood.

Heavens' court has the power to take a man's blood, his life, in payment for the capital crime of rebellion against the Most High.
Justice demands payment of a man's life in blood - in heaven as it is on earth.

"The soul that sins shall die."
- Ezekiel 18:20

Life is not a cartoon show and it isn't a sterile video game where mistakes can be reset at the push of a button.

The raw stuff of life is blood and justice, God's and man's.
In heaven and on earth, justice demands payment for offense in blood.

But God has demonstrated His desire to redeem, or buy back, the lives of those who have committed offense against Him.
He has provided the payment of blood that justice demands - in the blood of His own son, Jesus.

Therefore those who accept Christ's sacrifice on their behalf are said to be 'just' or 'justified' in the eyes of God - as though they had never sinned at all.

But only the blood of Jesus can buy this kind of forgiveness.

DEATH AND THE GRAVE AWAIT.

No man can avoid justice before God when he is already condemned. His own blood is due as just payment.
If a man is to escape divine justice, he must find someone ELSE to pay the penalty for his sins.
And that someone ELSE cannot himself be guilty of anything, otherwise justice would demand his blood as well.

Blameless Jesus shed His blood upon the cross so that those who accept it won't have to pay with their own blood.
The blood of Christ shed upon the cross pays the penalty God's justice demands.
Jesus died so that we may be found sinless and obtain life from God.

Jesus didn't come to earth to make bad men good. He came to make dead men live.

and that's just me, hollering from the choir loft...

[Clownboat]

[Replying to post 517 by Clownboat]

Clownboat wrote:
"Here's the gig. Before you can believe that you need to be saved, you need to believe that there is a god out there that loves you, but is also willing to send you to a lake of fire for eternity. Great! We can be saved. But why should I believe in this god in the first place that is willing to send so many to eternal torment?"

You should believe because....

DEATH AND THE GRAVE ARE WAITING FOR YOU

There is no escape from this ultimate truth. You are going to die.

The only hope a man has for rescue from the grave is in One who is above and beyond it.
There is no hope in man's own dead hand. The dead cannot rescue anyone.
If there is to be a rescue from the grave, man must find it in something beyond himself else there is no hope for him at all.

The entire work of Holy Scripture from beginning to end is a testimony of God's work of redemption - how fellowship with man was lost and how He plans to retrieve as many as possible. God has presented an opportunity and a hope to escape from a terrible eternity apart from Him. The mechanism is called grace, unmerited favor, and it's extended to all who will receive it. Our contemporary problem is that fools are convinced their own cleverness will save them, or that by denying the problem it will somehow go away.

It won't because...

DEATH AWAITS. The grave, the worm and dust are the inevitable destiny of all. Yet many are so vain in their imaginations they assume death itself has no power over them or that they can somehow escape its consequences by some conceited act or attitude. But every single thing they try will die with them.

DEATH AWAITS. No man has power over anything in the grave. He cannot move his little finger. He cannot draw a single breath. He cannot call for help.

DEATH AWAITS. The dead know nothing. They do not know the past the present or even who they are. In the grave all are stripped of everything they knew in life.

DEATH AWAITS. And death, whether you like it or not, is forever. There is no turning back in the graves' lonesome valley of death. There is no hope in anything. There are no attitudes or opinions. There is nothing at all.

What sort of reward would YOU imagine for those who are so foolish as to deny an opportunity to avoid it?

The flames of hell are not crimson, orange and yellow. They are BLACK.
Eternal torment is not the suffocating stench of sulfer or the sight of burning flesh. There is no smell or vision at all.
In eternal death there is nothing.

DEATH AWAITS. Eternity apart from God is a black hole.

"They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever."
Jude 1:13

DEATH AWAITS. Like the sinking of Titanic beneath icy waves, it is inevitable. It cannot be delayed or stopped.
The only hope a man has is to grasp rescue while life and breath still cling to him.
All too soon life will disappear below the sea and the ground men walk upon.
All who have not found rescue when it was available will surely die without hope.

But God has provided an escape by means of the blood of Jesus who died upon the cross.

Clownboat wrote:
"Then there is also the fact that I am just not OK with human sacrifice. If you have an affinity for blood or human sacrifices, I just can't understand it. All this talk about blood and human sacrifice makes me think of the Mayan's. Do you think they might have been on to something, or were they just barbaric?"

It's all about justice. Justice demands payment in blood. Always.

A man's life is in his blood. Blood is life and life is blood.
When you talk about blood you are talking about life at it's most basic level.

Justice, whether it's divine justice or human justice, is all about demanding a man's blood in payment for offense.
If you watch a man kill someone you love, every fibre of your being will demand his life as payment. Justice demands blood.

Earthly courts have the power to take a man's blood, his life, in payment for his crimes.
In prison a man's life leaks away with the passage of time, as though he had opened a vein allowing his blood to spill out upon the ground.
Justice demands payment of a man's life in blood.

Heavens' court has the power to take a man's blood, his life, in payment for the capital crime of rebellion against the Most High.
Justice demands payment of a man's life in blood - in heaven as it is on earth.

"The soul that sins shall die."
- Ezekiel 18:20

Life is not a cartoon show and it isn't a sterile video game where mistakes can be reset at the push of a button.

The raw stuff of life is blood and justice, God's and man's.
In heaven and on earth, justice demands payment for offense in blood.

But God has demonstrated His desire to redeem, or buy back, the lives of those who have committed offense against Him.
He has provided the payment of blood that justice demands - in the blood of His own son, Jesus.

Therefore those who accept Christ's sacrifice on their behalf are said to be 'just' or 'justified' in the eyes of God - as though they had never sinned at all.

But only the blood of Jesus can buy this kind of forgiveness.

DEATH AND THE GRAVE AWAIT.

No man can avoid justice before God when he is already condemned. His own blood is due as just payment.
If a man is to escape divine justice, he must find someone ELSE to pay the penalty for his sins.
And that someone ELSE cannot himself be guilty of anything, otherwise justice would demand his blood as well.

Blameless Jesus shed His blood upon the cross so that those who accept it won't have to pay with their own blood.
The blood of Christ shed upon the cross pays the penalty God's justice demands.
Jesus died so that we may be found sinless and obtain life from God.

Jesus didn't come to earth to make bad men good. He came to make dead men live.

and that's just me, hollering from the choir loft...

I would ask you to evidence your claims, but we both know that will/cannot happen.

As it stands now:
- I don't believe that you know what happens to us when we die (if anything). You for whatever reason are claiming to have some special knowledge that you really do not have. Would it interest you if I said incarnation was real, or the Muslim afterlife is real? I think not, yet that is all you seem to offer to me (this particular Christian afterlife is real). I hope you can see why it is not convincing.
- Blood is not "magical" to me. Blood, is what it is and does what it does. I see nothing special about it. Due to this, I am still against human sacrifice. I assume you are as well, but for some reason in this one case, you are OK with it. If that works for you, that is just fine, but please understand, I am not OK with human sacrifice to god concepts. End of story.

I would assume that if a god can create the universe with spoken words, he can forgive my minor wrongs I have done in this life without the need to sacrifice a human. I have lived a good life, there just is no reason that an innocent human needs to die for anything that I have done.

[DanieltheDragon]

[Replying to post 519 by Choir Loft]

It occurs to me you have a passion for fire and brimstone preaching perhaps a career in preaching is in order because that was a lot of preaching there. Although it just presents a dilemma if I believed in god but didn't love him would I still burn? Honestly I couldn't love such a sadistic creator

[Choir Loft]

[Replying to post 517 by Clownboat]

Clownboat wrote:
"Here's the gig. Before you can believe that you need to be saved, you need to believe that there is a god out there that loves you, but is also willing to send you to a lake of fire for eternity. Great! We can be saved. But why should I believe in this god in the first place that is willing to send so many to eternal torment?"

You should believe because....

DEATH AND THE GRAVE ARE WAITING FOR YOU

There is no escape from this ultimate truth. You are going to die.

The only hope a man has for rescue from the grave is in One who is above and beyond it.
There is no hope in man's own dead hand. The dead cannot rescue anyone.
If there is to be a rescue from the grave, man must find it in something beyond himself else there is no hope for him at all.

The entire work of Holy Scripture from beginning to end is a testimony of God's work of redemption - how fellowship with man was lost and how He plans to retrieve as many as possible. God has presented an opportunity and a hope to escape from a terrible eternity apart from Him. The mechanism is called grace, unmerited favor, and it's extended to all who will receive it. Our contemporary problem is that fools are convinced their own cleverness will save them, or that by denying the problem it will somehow go away.

It won't because...

DEATH AWAITS. The grave, the worm and dust are the inevitable destiny of all. Yet many are so vain in their imaginations they assume death itself has no power over them or that they can somehow escape its consequences by some conceited act or attitude. But every single thing they try will die with them.

DEATH AWAITS. No man has power over anything in the grave. He cannot move his little finger. He cannot draw a single breath. He cannot call for help.

DEATH AWAITS. The dead know nothing. They do not know the past the present or even who they are. In the grave all are stripped of everything they knew in life.

DEATH AWAITS. And death, whether you like it or not, is forever. There is no turning back in the graves' lonesome valley of death. There is no hope in anything. There are no attitudes or opinions. There is nothing at all.

What sort of reward would YOU imagine for those who are so foolish as to deny an opportunity to avoid it?

The flames of hell are not crimson, orange and yellow. They are BLACK.
Eternal torment is not the suffocating stench of sulfer or the sight of burning flesh. There is no smell or vision at all.
In eternal death there is nothing.

DEATH AWAITS. Eternity apart from God is a black hole.

"They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever."
Jude 1:13

DEATH AWAITS. Like the sinking of Titanic beneath icy waves, it is inevitable. It cannot be delayed or stopped.
The only hope a man has is to grasp rescue while life and breath still cling to him.
All too soon life will disappear below the sea and the ground men walk upon.
All who have not found rescue when it was available will surely die without hope.

But God has provided an escape by means of the blood of Jesus who died upon the cross.

Clownboat wrote:
"Then there is also the fact that I am just not OK with human sacrifice. If you have an affinity for blood or human sacrifices, I just can't understand it. All this talk about blood and human sacrifice makes me think of the Mayan's. Do you think they might have been on to something, or were they just barbaric?"

It's all about justice. Justice demands payment in blood. Always.

A man's life is in his blood. Blood is life and life is blood.
When you talk about blood you are talking about life at it's most basic level.

Justice, whether it's divine justice or human justice, is all about demanding a man's blood in payment for offense.
If you watch a man kill someone you love, every fibre of your being will demand his life as payment. Justice demands blood.

Earthly courts have the power to take a man's blood, his life, in payment for his crimes.
In prison a man's life leaks away with the passage of time, as though he had opened a vein allowing his blood to spill out upon the ground.
Justice demands payment of a man's life in blood.

Heavens' court has the power to take a man's blood, his life, in payment for the capital crime of rebellion against the Most High.
Justice demands payment of a man's life in blood - in heaven as it is on earth.

"The soul that sins shall die."
- Ezekiel 18:20

Life is not a cartoon show and it isn't a sterile video game where mistakes can be reset at the push of a button.

The raw stuff of life is blood and justice, God's and man's.
In heaven and on earth, justice demands payment for offense in blood.

But God has demonstrated His desire to redeem, or buy back, the lives of those who have committed offense against Him.
He has provided the payment of blood that justice demands - in the blood of His own son, Jesus.

Therefore those who accept Christ's sacrifice on their behalf are said to be 'just' or 'justified' in the eyes of God - as though they had never sinned at all.

But only the blood of Jesus can buy this kind of forgiveness.

DEATH AND THE GRAVE AWAIT.

No man can avoid justice before God when he is already condemned. His own blood is due as just payment.
If a man is to escape divine justice, he must find someone ELSE to pay the penalty for his sins.
And that someone ELSE cannot himself be guilty of anything, otherwise justice would demand his blood as well.

Blameless Jesus shed His blood upon the cross so that those who accept it won't have to pay with their own blood.
The blood of Christ shed upon the cross pays the penalty God's justice demands.
Jesus died so that we may be found sinless and obtain life from God.

Jesus didn't come to earth to make bad men good. He came to make dead men live.

and that's just me, hollering from the choir loft...

I would ask you to evidence your claims, but we both know that will/cannot happen.

As it stands now:
- I don't believe that you know what happens to us when we die (if anything). You for whatever reason are claiming to have some special knowledge that you really do not have. Would it interest you if I said incarnation was real, or the Muslim afterlife is real? I think not, yet that is all you seem to offer to me (this particular Christian afterlife is real). I hope you can see why it is not convincing.
- Blood is not "magical" to me. Blood, is what it is and does what it does. I see nothing special about it. Due to this, I am still against human sacrifice. I assume you are as well, but for some reason in this one case, you are OK with it. If that works for you, that is just fine, but please understand, I am not OK with human sacrifice to god concepts. End of story.

I would assume that if a god can create the universe with spoken words, he can forgive my minor wrongs I have done in this life without the need to sacrifice a human. I have lived a good life, there just is no reason that an innocent human needs to die for anything that I have done.

You have lived a good life?

NO MAN IS GOOD ! Absolutely no one.

All your good deeds will mean NOTHING in the grave. If you believe that something you've done is good, then show me EVIDENCE that it will mean anything to anybody one hundred or one thousand years from now. You ask for EVIDENCE...SHOW ME YOURS.

Your good deeds are nothing more than stained toilet paper in the eyes of God. Good only to be flushed away where they belong.

Be careful that you do not follow your 'good deeds' into the sewer.

No reason for an innocent human to die for your sins? Who else? You are already under sentence of death! Payment is due. Who will pay? Certainly not you. Only one who isn't guilty can make payment. If you cannot understand that simple point, you are not as clever as you think you are.

Why ask for evidence you will not receive? Your pretended openness to truth is a tissue of hypocrisy for in claiming to desire evidence you actually suppress it.

"...the gospel is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord..."
- 2 Corinthians 4:4b-5a

You refuse to acknowledge the meaning and use of justice in the world (as it is in heaven as well). Somewhere in the back of your mind you know that if you agree with that single point - your entire argument and objection to the gospel will blow apart like a house of cards in the wind.

It doesn't matter whether you find blood payment for crime unseemly or not, it is a fact! All justice for all time is based upon it. Civilized countries have merely discovered ways to keep blood payment in the dark and to make it look less grievous than it really is. As have you.

Despite all the arguments you believe are so clever in your own mind, one fact remains.

THE GRAVE AWAITS YOU

In that you deny the grace and favor God extends to you in this life YOU DO store up a terrible wrath for yourself. In that day all your excuses and denials will melt away like snow in a furnace.

"...'as I live!' declares the Lord God, 'I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die..."
- Ezekiel 33:11

Do not blame God for your own foolish ways. They are yours and yours alone. Yet Christ died to save you from your own vain ways. Repent and be saved while there is yet a little time.

All the evidence a man needs for salvation and the knowledge of God is contained in the pages of the Holy Bible. If you wish to dine on evidence rather than lies, dust and ashes then read it's pages.

and that's just me, hollering from the choir loft...

[DanieltheDragon]

[Replying to post 522 by Choir Loft]

So where is the pulpit feature on this forum or are you a street preacher?

seriously when your ready to debate we are willing to reciprocate discussion.

[Clownboat]

[Replying to post 517 by Clownboat]

Clownboat wrote:
"Here's the gig. Before you can believe that you need to be saved, you need to believe that there is a god out there that loves you, but is also willing to send you to a lake of fire for eternity. Great! We can be saved. But why should I believe in this god in the first place that is willing to send so many to eternal torment?"

You should believe because....

DEATH AND THE GRAVE ARE WAITING FOR YOU

There is no escape from this ultimate truth. You are going to die.

The only hope a man has for rescue from the grave is in One who is above and beyond it.
There is no hope in man's own dead hand. The dead cannot rescue anyone.
If there is to be a rescue from the grave, man must find it in something beyond himself else there is no hope for him at all.

The entire work of Holy Scripture from beginning to end is a testimony of God's work of redemption - how fellowship with man was lost and how He plans to retrieve as many as possible. God has presented an opportunity and a hope to escape from a terrible eternity apart from Him. The mechanism is called grace, unmerited favor, and it's extended to all who will receive it. Our contemporary problem is that fools are convinced their own cleverness will save them, or that by denying the problem it will somehow go away.

It won't because...

DEATH AWAITS. The grave, the worm and dust are the inevitable destiny of all. Yet many are so vain in their imaginations they assume death itself has no power over them or that they can somehow escape its consequences by some conceited act or attitude. But every single thing they try will die with them.

DEATH AWAITS. No man has power over anything in the grave. He cannot move his little finger. He cannot draw a single breath. He cannot call for help.

DEATH AWAITS. The dead know nothing. They do not know the past the present or even who they are. In the grave all are stripped of everything they knew in life.

DEATH AWAITS. And death, whether you like it or not, is forever. There is no turning back in the graves' lonesome valley of death. There is no hope in anything. There are no attitudes or opinions. There is nothing at all.

What sort of reward would YOU imagine for those who are so foolish as to deny an opportunity to avoid it?

The flames of hell are not crimson, orange and yellow. They are BLACK.
Eternal torment is not the suffocating stench of sulfer or the sight of burning flesh. There is no smell or vision at all.
In eternal death there is nothing.

DEATH AWAITS. Eternity apart from God is a black hole.

"They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever."
Jude 1:13

DEATH AWAITS. Like the sinking of Titanic beneath icy waves, it is inevitable. It cannot be delayed or stopped.
The only hope a man has is to grasp rescue while life and breath still cling to him.
All too soon life will disappear below the sea and the ground men walk upon.
All who have not found rescue when it was available will surely die without hope.

But God has provided an escape by means of the blood of Jesus who died upon the cross.

Clownboat wrote:
"Then there is also the fact that I am just not OK with human sacrifice. If you have an affinity for blood or human sacrifices, I just can't understand it. All this talk about blood and human sacrifice makes me think of the Mayan's. Do you think they might have been on to something, or were they just barbaric?"

It's all about justice. Justice demands payment in blood. Always.

A man's life is in his blood. Blood is life and life is blood.
When you talk about blood you are talking about life at it's most basic level.

Justice, whether it's divine justice or human justice, is all about demanding a man's blood in payment for offense.
If you watch a man kill someone you love, every fibre of your being will demand his life as payment. Justice demands blood.

Earthly courts have the power to take a man's blood, his life, in payment for his crimes.
In prison a man's life leaks away with the passage of time, as though he had opened a vein allowing his blood to spill out upon the ground.
Justice demands payment of a man's life in blood.

Heavens' court has the power to take a man's blood, his life, in payment for the capital crime of rebellion against the Most High.
Justice demands payment of a man's life in blood - in heaven as it is on earth.

"The soul that sins shall die."
- Ezekiel 18:20

Life is not a cartoon show and it isn't a sterile video game where mistakes can be reset at the push of a button.

The raw stuff of life is blood and justice, God's and man's.
In heaven and on earth, justice demands payment for offense in blood.

But God has demonstrated His desire to redeem, or buy back, the lives of those who have committed offense against Him.
He has provided the payment of blood that justice demands - in the blood of His own son, Jesus.

Therefore those who accept Christ's sacrifice on their behalf are said to be 'just' or 'justified' in the eyes of God - as though they had never sinned at all.

But only the blood of Jesus can buy this kind of forgiveness.

DEATH AND THE GRAVE AWAIT.

No man can avoid justice before God when he is already condemned. His own blood is due as just payment.
If a man is to escape divine justice, he must find someone ELSE to pay the penalty for his sins.
And that someone ELSE cannot himself be guilty of anything, otherwise justice would demand his blood as well.

Blameless Jesus shed His blood upon the cross so that those who accept it won't have to pay with their own blood.
The blood of Christ shed upon the cross pays the penalty God's justice demands.
Jesus died so that we may be found sinless and obtain life from God.

Jesus didn't come to earth to make bad men good. He came to make dead men live.

and that's just me, hollering from the choir loft...

I would ask you to evidence your claims, but we both know that will/cannot happen.

As it stands now:
- I don't believe that you know what happens to us when we die (if anything). You for whatever reason are claiming to have some special knowledge that you really do not have. Would it interest you if I said incarnation was real, or the Muslim afterlife is real? I think not, yet that is all you seem to offer to me (this particular Christian afterlife is real). I hope you can see why it is not convincing.
- Blood is not "magical" to me. Blood, is what it is and does what it does. I see nothing special about it. Due to this, I am still against human sacrifice. I assume you are as well, but for some reason in this one case, you are OK with it. If that works for you, that is just fine, but please understand, I am not OK with human sacrifice to god concepts. End of story.

I would assume that if a god can create the universe with spoken words, he can forgive my minor wrongs I have done in this life without the need to sacrifice a human. I have lived a good life, there just is no reason that an innocent human needs to die for anything that I have done.

You have lived a good life?

NO MAN IS GOOD ! Absolutely no one.

All your good deeds will mean NOTHING in the grave. If you believe that something you've done is good, then show me EVIDENCE that it will mean anything to anybody one hundred or one thousand years from now. You ask for EVIDENCE...SHOW ME YOURS.

Your good deeds are nothing more than stained toilet paper in the eyes of God. Good only to be flushed away where they belong.

Be careful that you do not follow your 'good deeds' into the sewer.

No reason for an innocent human to die for your sins? Who else? You are already under sentence of death! Payment is due. Who will pay? Certainly not you. Only one who isn't guilty can make payment. If you cannot understand that simple point, you are not as clever as you think you are.

Why ask for evidence you will not receive? Your pretended openness to truth is a tissue of hypocrisy for in claiming to desire evidence you actually suppress it.

"...the gospel is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord..."
- 2 Corinthians 4:4b-5a

You refuse to acknowledge the meaning and use of justice in the world (as it is in heaven as well). Somewhere in the back of your mind you know that if you agree with that single point - your entire argument and objection to the gospel will blow apart like a house of cards in the wind.

It doesn't matter whether you find blood payment for crime unseemly or not, it is a fact! All justice for all time is based upon it. Civilized countries have merely discovered ways to keep blood payment in the dark and to make it look less grievous than it really is. As have you.

Despite all the arguments you believe are so clever in your own mind, one fact remains.

THE GRAVE AWAITS YOU

In that you deny the grace and favor God extends to you in this life YOU DO store up a terrible wrath for yourself. In that day all your excuses and denials will melt away like snow in a furnace.

"...'as I live!' declares the Lord God, 'I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die..."
- Ezekiel 33:11

Do not blame God for your own foolish ways. They are yours and yours alone. Yet Christ died to save you from your own vain ways. Repent and be saved while there is yet a little time.

All the evidence a man needs for salvation and the knowledge of God is contained in the pages of the Holy Bible. If you wish to dine on evidence rather than lies, dust and ashes then read it's pages.

and that's just me, hollering from the choir loft...

I have been preached at enough throughout my life. Ironically, much of it was the same scare tactic that you just employed. (You will die, you are bad, you will burn!)

Whatever dude. I suggest you leave the scare tactics to the terrorists, if your god were true, he would have a better way to reach out to the ones he loves.

But he is not it seems, so I have nothing to fear and your words are empty.

I do hope that you will try debating and leave the preaching for church. This being a debate site after all.
Be well.

[otseng]

[Replying to post 522 by Choir Loft]

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[Choir Loft]

[Replying to post 522 by Choir Loft]

Moderator Final Warning

This post would be considered to not comply with the guidelines on preaching. Please read through the guidelines and abide by them.


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If a Christian point of view is not allowed to be presented, then at what point is there a debate? Please clarify as I'm not clear on this rule.

There is no debate at all when one side of an argument is not allowed to present its full and complete position. Please clarify as I'm not clear on this rule.

When it becomes illegal, unseemly or unpopular to present the gospel (especially when details have been requested by a forum participant) the issue becomes censorship. I wasn't aware that this site was opposed to free exchange of ideas. Please clarify as I'm not clear on this rule.

Finally it seems to have occurred to some that arguments opposing the gospel simply cannot be sustained either by logic, evidence or persuasion. Failing totally to defend an illogical and imaginary position, the tactic seems to be to call out the big guns and simply forbid a man the right to speak. This seems a cheap way to win an argument. That's the way it looks to me, anyway.
Please clarify as I'm not clear on this rule.

At what point is telling the truth perceived to be offensive? Please clarify as I'm not clear on this rule.

and that's just me, hollering from the choir loft...

[Choir Loft]

[Replying to post 517 by Clownboat]

Clownboat wrote:
"Here's the gig. Before you can believe that you need to be saved, you need to believe that there is a god out there that loves you, but is also willing to send you to a lake of fire for eternity. Great! We can be saved. But why should I believe in this god in the first place that is willing to send so many to eternal torment?"

You should believe because....

DEATH AND THE GRAVE ARE WAITING FOR YOU

There is no escape from this ultimate truth. You are going to die.

The only hope a man has for rescue from the grave is in One who is above and beyond it.
There is no hope in man's own dead hand. The dead cannot rescue anyone.
If there is to be a rescue from the grave, man must find it in something beyond himself else there is no hope for him at all.

The entire work of Holy Scripture from beginning to end is a testimony of God's work of redemption - how fellowship with man was lost and how He plans to retrieve as many as possible. God has presented an opportunity and a hope to escape from a terrible eternity apart from Him. The mechanism is called grace, unmerited favor, and it's extended to all who will receive it. Our contemporary problem is that fools are convinced their own cleverness will save them, or that by denying the problem it will somehow go away.

It won't because...

DEATH AWAITS. The grave, the worm and dust are the inevitable destiny of all. Yet many are so vain in their imaginations they assume death itself has no power over them or that they can somehow escape its consequences by some conceited act or attitude. But every single thing they try will die with them.

DEATH AWAITS. No man has power over anything in the grave. He cannot move his little finger. He cannot draw a single breath. He cannot call for help.

DEATH AWAITS. The dead know nothing. They do not know the past the present or even who they are. In the grave all are stripped of everything they knew in life.

DEATH AWAITS. And death, whether you like it or not, is forever. There is no turning back in the graves' lonesome valley of death. There is no hope in anything. There are no attitudes or opinions. There is nothing at all.

What sort of reward would YOU imagine for those who are so foolish as to deny an opportunity to avoid it?

The flames of hell are not crimson, orange and yellow. They are BLACK.
Eternal torment is not the suffocating stench of sulfer or the sight of burning flesh. There is no smell or vision at all.
In eternal death there is nothing.

DEATH AWAITS. Eternity apart from God is a black hole.

"They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever."
Jude 1:13

DEATH AWAITS. Like the sinking of Titanic beneath icy waves, it is inevitable. It cannot be delayed or stopped.
The only hope a man has is to grasp rescue while life and breath still cling to him.
All too soon life will disappear below the sea and the ground men walk upon.
All who have not found rescue when it was available will surely die without hope.

But God has provided an escape by means of the blood of Jesus who died upon the cross.

Clownboat wrote:
"Then there is also the fact that I am just not OK with human sacrifice. If you have an affinity for blood or human sacrifices, I just can't understand it. All this talk about blood and human sacrifice makes me think of the Mayan's. Do you think they might have been on to something, or were they just barbaric?"

It's all about justice. Justice demands payment in blood. Always.

A man's life is in his blood. Blood is life and life is blood.
When you talk about blood you are talking about life at it's most basic level.

Justice, whether it's divine justice or human justice, is all about demanding a man's blood in payment for offense.
If you watch a man kill someone you love, every fibre of your being will demand his life as payment. Justice demands blood.

Earthly courts have the power to take a man's blood, his life, in payment for his crimes.
In prison a man's life leaks away with the passage of time, as though he had opened a vein allowing his blood to spill out upon the ground.
Justice demands payment of a man's life in blood.

Heavens' court has the power to take a man's blood, his life, in payment for the capital crime of rebellion against the Most High.
Justice demands payment of a man's life in blood - in heaven as it is on earth.

"The soul that sins shall die."
- Ezekiel 18:20

Life is not a cartoon show and it isn't a sterile video game where mistakes can be reset at the push of a button.

The raw stuff of life is blood and justice, God's and man's.
In heaven and on earth, justice demands payment for offense in blood.

But God has demonstrated His desire to redeem, or buy back, the lives of those who have committed offense against Him.
He has provided the payment of blood that justice demands - in the blood of His own son, Jesus.

Therefore those who accept Christ's sacrifice on their behalf are said to be 'just' or 'justified' in the eyes of God - as though they had never sinned at all.

But only the blood of Jesus can buy this kind of forgiveness.

DEATH AND THE GRAVE AWAIT.

No man can avoid justice before God when he is already condemned. His own blood is due as just payment.
If a man is to escape divine justice, he must find someone ELSE to pay the penalty for his sins.
And that someone ELSE cannot himself be guilty of anything, otherwise justice would demand his blood as well.

Blameless Jesus shed His blood upon the cross so that those who accept it won't have to pay with their own blood.
The blood of Christ shed upon the cross pays the penalty God's justice demands.
Jesus died so that we may be found sinless and obtain life from God.

Jesus didn't come to earth to make bad men good. He came to make dead men live.

and that's just me, hollering from the choir loft...

I would ask you to evidence your claims, but we both know that will/cannot happen.

As it stands now:
- I don't believe that you know what happens to us when we die (if anything). You for whatever reason are claiming to have some special knowledge that you really do not have. Would it interest you if I said incarnation was real, or the Muslim afterlife is real? I think not, yet that is all you seem to offer to me (this particular Christian afterlife is real). I hope you can see why it is not convincing.
- Blood is not "magical" to me. Blood, is what it is and does what it does. I see nothing special about it. Due to this, I am still against human sacrifice. I assume you are as well, but for some reason in this one case, you are OK with it. If that works for you, that is just fine, but please understand, I am not OK with human sacrifice to god concepts. End of story.

I would assume that if a god can create the universe with spoken words, he can forgive my minor wrongs I have done in this life without the need to sacrifice a human. I have lived a good life, there just is no reason that an innocent human needs to die for anything that I have done.

You have lived a good life?

NO MAN IS GOOD ! Absolutely no one.

All your good deeds will mean NOTHING in the grave. If you believe that something you've done is good, then show me EVIDENCE that it will mean anything to anybody one hundred or one thousand years from now. You ask for EVIDENCE...SHOW ME YOURS.

Your good deeds are nothing more than stained toilet paper in the eyes of God. Good only to be flushed away where they belong.

Be careful that you do not follow your 'good deeds' into the sewer.

No reason for an innocent human to die for your sins? Who else? You are already under sentence of death! Payment is due. Who will pay? Certainly not you. Only one who isn't guilty can make payment. If you cannot understand that simple point, you are not as clever as you think you are.

Why ask for evidence you will not receive? Your pretended openness to truth is a tissue of hypocrisy for in claiming to desire evidence you actually suppress it.

"...the gospel is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord..."
- 2 Corinthians 4:4b-5a

You refuse to acknowledge the meaning and use of justice in the world (as it is in heaven as well). Somewhere in the back of your mind you know that if you agree with that single point - your entire argument and objection to the gospel will blow apart like a house of cards in the wind.

It doesn't matter whether you find blood payment for crime unseemly or not, it is a fact! All justice for all time is based upon it. Civilized countries have merely discovered ways to keep blood payment in the dark and to make it look less grievous than it really is. As have you.

Despite all the arguments you believe are so clever in your own mind, one fact remains.

THE GRAVE AWAITS YOU

In that you deny the grace and favor God extends to you in this life YOU DO store up a terrible wrath for yourself. In that day all your excuses and denials will melt away like snow in a furnace.

"...'as I live!' declares the Lord God, 'I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die..."
- Ezekiel 33:11

Do not blame God for your own foolish ways. They are yours and yours alone. Yet Christ died to save you from your own vain ways. Repent and be saved while there is yet a little time.

All the evidence a man needs for salvation and the knowledge of God is contained in the pages of the Holy Bible. If you wish to dine on evidence rather than lies, dust and ashes then read it's pages.

and that's just me, hollering from the choir loft...

I have been preached at enough throughout my life. Ironically, much of it was the same scare tactic that you just employed. (You will die, you are bad, you will burn!)

Whatever dude. I suggest you leave the scare tactics to the terrorists, if your god were true, he would have a better way to reach out to the ones he loves.

But he is not it seems, so I have nothing to fear and your words are empty.

I do hope that you will try debating and leave the preaching for church. This being a debate site after all.
Be well.

You are offended by my definition of God's will? My evidence comes from the Bible

You don't like the warning? If I warned you not to jump off a tall building and that the result would be death would you consider that offensive too or would you go ahead and take the plunge?

The Bible is God's will revealed. Where do you get your ideas?

I have been accused of NOT supplying evidence for my assertions.

How strange, then that those who oppose the Bible are allowed to make whatever fantastic claim they wish WITHOUT ANY EVIDENCE OF THEIR OWN.

If you believe God should act differently from the way He has revealed Himself to be, then present your case. Don't just sit there and be a nay sayer. It proves only that your argument is false, contradictory, and totally baseless. It proves you don't know the basis of your own argument.

If YOU have evidence to support your antithesis, then let's have it. Cough it up if you can and try to make it stand in the light of truth.

But I think you cannot and so your post devolves into nothing more than protest - which in and of itself proves nothing.

As for constant warnings I have also presented a way to escape - EVERY SINGLE TIME. The truth here is not that hell awaits, but that the writer simply doesn't want to accept the opportunity to escape it.

And I've read nothing about opposition to the offer of peace, forgiveness, love and acceptance from God. Nothing at all. What's wrong with that part?

The focus of opposition has been entirely upon the negative. I have included the whole picture - the warning of destruction as well as the offer of salvation.

The world works the same way. Behavior results in consequences. The truth is out there. It's also true that many live like spoiled children, don't want to play by the rules and cry foul when the laws of physics reveal themselves.

Life simply isn't fair and that's the truth. Deal with it.

But Jesus has come to save us from our sins and debauched ways.

Something is wrong with that?

and that's just me, hollering from the choir loft.....