Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

Yeah, but that doesn't really hold either. There's millions of planets in existence, most of them do not support life. We just happen to be on one that does


Uh, there would be no one transitional animal, but dozens of stages in between

Exactly! we are on the only planet, within our knowledge, that has been placed in the infinitly small margin that supports thinking, walking, and talking beings that have debates on Wiki forums. The mere fact that we are alive today proves this.




Well then one of those "stages" would be about inbetween bat and rat and would fit into the not going to survive stage.

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Yes, within our knowledge. Now what about those billions of planets that we do not know about yet?


Not necessarily. The way I see it, a gradual development from rats, to something resembling flying squirrels, and onto flying proper, isn't so implausible if taken slowly enough. But you should really be debating this with a trained scientist and not some guy calling himself "Soul Camel". This was the first one I stumbled across, seems sound enough. Go ask them and report back

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They are designed as well then, actually all planets are designed, its just that earth was designed to support life. I'll check that out, but in the mean time, look at AIG, no not investments, and dont turn tail as soon as you see the full title. It's a creationism site with tons better arguments than I could ever prodouce.

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That's not saying anything, though. To rebut an arguement against intelligent design by saying "the world was intelligently designed" doesn't change anything. You're merely restating your point. What's so implausable about us being the only planet able to support life near us by mere circumstance? If the universe was intelligently designed, wouldn't there be more planets supporting life?

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Look I'm sorry, but that didn't mean a thing


Question: have you cross-referenced any of these answers? Because so far, I'm finding it hard to trust a website that hasn't even thrown up an outside link in about twenty pages

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They are designed as well[and could support life].... but in the mean time, look at AIG, no not investments... It's a creationism site with tons better arguments than I could ever prodouce./quote]

Answers In Genisis. It's an international orginization. I'm surpried you have'nt found it.here it is
For all anyone knows, yes there could be other "Earths" with people having debates about us.

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Whoah whoah whoah! Back it up a sec...

This has gotten way off course. I'm no mod, and I hope I'm not overstepping my bounds, but if you gentlemen would like to talk about the finer points of Intelligent Design, perhaps it would be best to find/create a topic on it? This argument is relevant to the general topic of "Religion and Politics", but in my humble opinion is not anywhere near the subject of "Are all non-Christians going to Hell?"

Like I said, I'm not trying to act like a mod, but sewiously.

You gotta point there. I'm sick of this constant back and forth though... oi...

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Why there's evolution? Genetics. Biology.

[quote=alehandro]This chance is impossible.[/quote]

Umm... no, that's why it's a chance. Any chance is possible. It's possible that if I flip a coin a million times, it'll land on it's edge every time. It's far beyond plausible, but it is possible.

And why does everyone assume that it has to either be Creation or Evolution? Perhaps it's something else alltogether that we have no inkling of? What if we were created in a lab by aliens, then abandonned on Earth? I don't believe that, but it's a possibility, albeit an infintesimal one.

Or it's possible that the universe was created at this very instant, with every atom in its place and current status. You couldn't prove it otherwise, because if all of your knowledge of the past can only come from memories and physical records (which it does), then that theory would be plausible as well.

No it doesn't. I quote: "For those within the mainstream of the tradition, mathematics, logic and praxeology ... are generally considered a priori disciplines."



I think you're confusing a priori with a posteriori. If you're not, I'm lost. It's healthy logic to make an inference from an a priori premise.



Thing is, a criminal going to jail is normally undergoing fair retribution for an act that was morally wrong. Having no faith can not reasonably be said to be morally wrong.



Which implies what about God?



The natural consequence of refusing to accept a deity for whom there is little evidence and against whom there is a big ol' logical argument is only eternal distress because aforesaid deity made it so. I don't like to point fingers, but the word 'sadism' comes to mind.



Everything in his power? So you're telling me that it is not entirely within God's capability to come down from his hiding-place and say "Hello, here I am"? If God really wanted to prevent me from going to Hell, he'd actually carry out the incredibly easy task of telling the world that he exists. Clearly, he has not done everything in his power.



Indeed I would. And I'm not saying that God should force anyone to do anything. That's why I oppose the notion of Hell.



Moreover, in the business world, if a product isn't advertised, it's hardly the consumer's fault if they miss out on the benefits.



Well, I don't see how I can trust someone who doesn't even bother to make himself known.

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"You get the Most Annoying Transsexual I've Ever Spoken To award." -The Zephyr Song

My theory is this:
Hell is what you make of it.

i.e. Ever have to wake up at 4:30 am to go run many miles, four times a week, for half a year??

If hell is a bunch of treadmills, I'll um, not be very...happy..

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Upsilon:

An a priori assumption with no legitimate logical basis is a false assumption to start with. That was my whole point. The claim that miracles do not happen is a false assumption with no logical or empirical foundation.

Your still arguing as if God were in some way obligated to you. If you fell off a boat, and someone threw you a life preserver, and if you do not grab it, you die. Plain and simple. If you respond by saying, "But I couldn't see the life preserver," you still die. You are essentially rguing, "God has to make absolutely sure I see it and that I know what it's for. Plus he has to make sure I want to grab it." If you cannot see, I cannot help you.

You also argue that God has not made himself known. Yes he has. You just choose to continue to ignore the ways he has made himself known. If you refuse to see, again, I cannot help you. He has already tossed you a life preserver. You just keep arguing that it's not there.


A priori is when you approach the subject with assumptions already in place. Some are true (like the nature of mathematics), some are false. A posteriori is when you draw conclusions from observation, measurement, and logical analysis. If your assumption prior to reading Scripture is, "There are no such things as miracles," then you are operating under a false a priori assumption. That is what I am challenging. And in logic, as stated above, a priori does not always mean foundational. A priori assumptions can be wrong, and if they are, they mess up the whole system. That is exactly what I am claiming about your logic: that you begin with false assumptions then set out to prove those false assumptions, which is circular reasoning. Had you continued to read the very article you cited, you would have observed that most empirical philosophers reject the notion of a priori truth.

Personally, I recognise that almost all disciplines have certain a priori foundations. But even those assumptions can often be tested in some way. For example, I can begin with the a priori assumption that 2+2=4, but I can also test that assumption to see if it holds. Logically speaking, it is impossible to even imagine that 2+2=anything other than 4, therefore it holds. But in the assumption that miracles cannot happen, you must be able to prove that they cannot. Miracles are not logically impossible, and therefore the assumption does not hold; it can only be moved into the realm of observation. And, as I've stated in this thread and plenty of places elsewhere, one cannot base a proof on lack of evidence.

My point in all this is that, if you wish to discredit the Scriptures, you're going to have to do better than claim, "But there's no such things as miracles!" You'll have to prove that miracles cannot happen. Historically speaking, the apostles have already proven themselves reliable and trustworthy witnesses of the events of Jesus' life. Therefore, in order to discount what they say, you must be able to demonstrate that what they claim they saw could not possibly have happened. That's not a matter logic alone can address, only history.

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I say that if one hears about Christianity and has a chance to join it but refuses, when you die you go to Hell.
HOWEVER
If you never heard, you probably get the choice when God judges you.

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I wish it were that easy, but I can't really square that with Scripture. There can be no certainty about the fate of those who have never heard. However, the Scriptures do seem to indicate that those who have never heard are still in danger. If someone falls off a boat, and no one throws them a life preserver, then they still die. That is why God tells us to make disciples of the nations, baptizing them and teaching them. We have an obligation to give them a life preserver.

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I am not sure of those who have never heard. (man on an island argument) but I am sure of another thing, If you don't understand the diference between right and wrong at the most basic of levels (infants and the unborn) you will be pardoned. Didn't Jesus call the little ones unto him? Also, the unborn aren't baptized. I beleive that the covenant between those who ask for forgivness and Jesus Christ is given at the precise moment you end that prayer, not as you are taken out of the water. (ill make a topic)

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Actually, God's pardoning of children (or anyone else for that matter) is not based on their knowledge of right and wrong, but purely on God's mercy. Even if you do not realize that what you are doing is sin, it is still sin.

To argue that God sets age limits (or comprehension limits, if you prefer) is to attempt to justify people by the law rather than by grace. And on rather spurious grounds, considering that God himself never tells us of such age limits in Scripture.

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God's mercy is extended because of the innocence of children.

I think that "little child" is fairly specific about infant to toddler, when you have little to no knowledge of your sin nature.


Both of these children must have commited sin at some point, but yet because of their age, knowledge, and ignorant innocence because of this they are redeemed by Christ.

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You're reading an awful lot into the text that isn't actually there, alehandro. The Matthew passage doesn't even discuss the term innocent. It is addressing weakness and humility. You might want to read that again and pay careful attention to the context (i.e., who is great and who is least). The subject matter is not innocence at all.

The same is true for the 2 Samuel passage. Nowhere in either passage is the child commended for innocence.

However, Psalm 51 says:


You might also want to pay attention to Romans 5:12ff as well.

Not to mention Ephesians 2:

No one is saved by their own personal innocence, but by God's mercy (i.e., grace). Human salvation is not something that people can claim by any standard of their own, whether good works or supposed innocence. Either it is by God's love, or it is not at all. As I pointed out at the bottom of the first page of this thread, even if someone lived a perfect life, they still do not deserve an eternity of bliss because of it. Eternal bliss can only be given or received as a free gift, not as payment for something owed.

There has only ever been one human being on this earth who was innocent of sin, and that's the Lord Jesus himself. To argue that children are innocent of sin is to ignore the fallen condition of the human race. Either mankind is a race of sinners, or Jesus Christ died a pointless, meaningless death.

Now, you yourself said that they were redeemed by Christ. But if they are truly innocent, then why would they need to be redeemed by Christ? My answer? Because they are part of fallen humanity, and just like us, they are in need of a Savior. This in itself demonstrates that they cannot be saved according to their innocence, but only according to God's mercy.

As I contended at the beginning of this thread, the only way anyone can enter into God's kingdom is because Christ died for them. Period.

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The innocence of a child is different than the perfection of an adult. The adult is worldly and knowledgeable, while the child is merely doing what he observes. The innocence of a child is implied by the weakness humility, but this is only a technicality and we basically see the subject only in slightly different ways.

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Okay, fair enough. We were at cross purposes for a while there. (Same goes for all points regarding miracles and a priori.)



Okay, let's follow this analogy through. First of all, to allow for the fact that it is God himself who puts the infidel in danger in the first place, the analogy needs to state that the person who threw you the life preserver is the same person who pushed you off the boat.

Okay, so that guy throws you a life preserver that you cannot see, whose presence is not at all known to you. ...so? What good is that? If the guy shouts at points out the life preserver, you'd be a fool not to grab it. But what difference does it make if you're not aware of the existence of this life preserver? He might as well have thrown nothing at all.

In fact, it seems to me that the only reason Mr. X throws you the invisible life preserver is to justify murdering you.



Oh, so I'm not allowed to tell you that you don't know God, but you're allowed to tell me that I'm consciously refusing him?

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"You get the Most Annoying Transsexual I've Ever Spoken To award." -The Zephyr Song

God didn't push anyone off the boat. We jumped off ourselves. Trying to blame God for human failure again. Let me make this clear in case you missed it: God is not the one responsible for human failure; humans are.

As for whether you see the life preserver or not: it's not that the life preserver is invisible, but the fact that you cannot see it. The blindness is not his fault. Maybe it's the fallen condition of mankind that makes it so, or maybe it's stubborness (i.e., a refusal to open your eyes and look for it).

While analogies are always imperfect in some way, in this case, you've essentially taken the analogy and tried to make it God's fault that you will not take hold to his life preserver, even going as far as blaming him for the fact that you are not in the boat. Trying to blame God for the fallen human condition is like trying to blame the jewelry store owner for his store being robbed.

But in any case, blaming God for the fallen state of humanity doesn't really do much to change that fallen state. Claiming that God pushed you out of the boat and threw you an invisible life preserver doesn't help you back into the boat, now does it?


You can try to tell me I don't know God if you want. It's just that I'm not at all likely to believe you.

As for your refusing him? From my observation it doesn't seem to matter whether you are doing so consciously or not; the fact is you are headed in the opposite direction from where grace and mercy are available. Is that your intention? Maybe not, but it is the reality.

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Human failure? Okay, I don't claim to be perfect, but I do the best I can. All things considered, I don't often do bad things. And none of what I do is ever that serious. And when I go wrong, I patch things up, I apologise and do what I can to set it right. This is the life story for billions of people in the world - the billions of people who, you're saying, are justly being sent to Hell for choosing the wrong belief. Now, some humans can be immoral dastards, but you can't blame the whole lot of them for something a fraction of them have done. And you certainly can't (as my understanding of Christian doctrine goes) class the fact that two people ate a forbidden fruit 6,000 years ago as a failure for all of present-day humanity.

I wasn't even referring to human failure in the first place. The reason why it's necessary for Mr X to have pushed you off himself is that Hell is an arbitrary and unjustified consequence of not turning to God. It is not a natural consequence, and if it is then that is only because God himself made it so. If he wanted to, God could install everybody into Heaven immediately; the fact that he doesn't indicates that he's to blame.



If I can't see it, it might as well be invisible. And as to whose fault the blindness is, well, it certainly isn't mine. And I don't see how you can claim that it isn't God's fault that he's never made himself known to me. There's nothing I can do about that.



You think I stubbornly refuse to seek it? In case you aren't aware, I spent the first twelve years of my life as a practising Christian. If my efforts to find it had ever proved successful, I wouldn't be arguing the case for atheism right now. I've never found, but it's not for lack of seeking.

Oh, also? Blaming the "fallen human condition" for the scenario isn't going to help, because if it is Adam and Eve's fault that I can't see the life-preserver, it's hardly fair to punish me for it.



Perhaps I can't blame God for that. But can you blame me?



No, but it makes God seem a lot less benevolent and a whole lot less plausible.



Fair enough. You don't know God.



Well, it's certainly not my intention. And your word that it is the reality will not suffice.

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"You get the Most Annoying Transsexual I've Ever Spoken To award." -The Zephyr Song

Reread the analogy. No one pushed you off the boat. You simply fell out, along with the rest of us.



Then it's time to know Him. No time to second guess His love.[/quote]



Yes, we do.



He wasn't blaming you. As it says in the lyrics I linked to above, "You know that even if you were
the only one He died for,
that means only your sins drove the nails."

It was all of humanity, not just one.



You might want to read the lyrics I linked to in this post.



Then look at the Word that litters the Bible. Look at Jesus' Word. Look at the Word that belongs to God Himself.

I don’t think I ever used the term "justly," I only indicated that it was a reality, whether just or not. I don’t like the idea of people going to hell any more than I like the idea of people drowning at sea, but it is a reality.


We have a word for this: COERSION. Yes, God could force everybody into heaven if he wanted to. But then, if he did, would heaven be truly heaven? I find it interesting that, what most people detest about Inquisitors, Crusaders, and Muslim terrorists, you actually WANT God to do: force people to accept him for eternity, whether they want him or not.


No. Trying to blame the store owner for the robbery committed against him again, I see. God did not create men to be sinners; he created them to be saints. They became sinners on their own, and that is where hell came from. Get this through your head: HELL EXISTS BECAUSE OF HUMAN FAILURE. Period. As I have said like a jillion times every jillion seconds, hell is first and foremost a state of existence apart from God.


It is if you don’t open your eyes.


I’m not blaming anyone, just stating facts. There’s lots of people born into this world without sight, and who knows who’s fault it is when it happens? But it does not change the reality: blindness is blindness, no matter whose fault it is.


He has made himself known to you: through me. As a servant of God’s Word, he has spoken to you through me. He has also revealed himself to you through the Scriptures and the Holy Christian Church. To argue that he hasn’t revealed himself is essentially to ignore this. The problem seems to be that you want him to reveal himself in a way that suits you, not as he truly is. That is where the problem lies. You want a god that fits your way of thinking; the true God transcends human thought.



But I wonder what it was you were looking for. What was it you hoped to find? According to you, you simply woke up one day and said the Bible didn’t make sense to you. Other than that, you really haven’t told us much about your spiritual journey, so I can’t really comment on it. Why is it that you up and determined that you couldn’t trust either the Scriptures or the Holy Christian Church?

And speaking of arguing for atheism, what is it that you hope to accomplish by doing so?

It is my observation that you continue to try to blame the Creator for the fact that mankind screwed up his creation. That makes no logical sense to me. Second, you seem to think he is obligated to fix everyone’s problems just so, when the reality is he is in no way obligated to do any such thing. The fact is, he has already done enough: he sacrificed his beloved Son to reconcile us to him.

God has already done his part to reconcile us, but you want to blame him for everything to start with. He has made the supreme sacrifice for you, but you claim you won’t accept it unless it fits all of your criteria. God has (and continues to) extend his hand to you in friendship and help, and you continue to spit in it. Now, you argue that you were not God’s enemy (at least if I understand you correctly), but the very fact that you are arguing against his Word demonstrates that you are. What’s more, by arguing your case for atheism (which is why I asked you what you hoped to accomplish earlier), you are trying to snatch away from him some of his saints (it remains to be seen if you will succeed). You claim that the existence of hell is unjust: I agree, but I understand that hell is the result of human injustice, not injustice on the part of God.

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I just wanted to be point this word out because I know someone is going to attack Didymus on this.

Yes, I know we did go through the lame "facts" discussion a while back on this thread. Thing is: What we're (True Christians) telling you are FACTS!

We Christians, while knowing there might not exactly be so much "evidence" in some cases, have faith. Trust. Hope. In fact, this sense is so strong that we call them FACTS. We know, we have a feeling inside, a voice telling u these FACTS, and not just any voice but the VOICE OF TRUTH! JESUS IS THE VOICE OF TRUTH! He's that voice inside. He's that feeling. He's that trust, that, faith, that hope. He is the way, the truth, and the life, the source of all life, and the source of these FACTS can know for sure to be true!

And as I said before, this is a feeling you get through God's grace. The feeling, the faith, the trust, and the hope are so strong that you KNOW that they are FACTS! We consider it a feeling, a faith that others cannot comprehend. I;m sure the other Christians on here can agree with me.

He has made himself known to you: through me. As a servant of God’s Word, he has spoken to you through me. He has also revealed himself to you through the Scriptures and the Holy Christian Church.[/quote]

As well as every other Ture Christian who's ever touched your life, Upsilon (and all other non-believers).

The thing is, Christianity is a minority, albeit a fairly large one. There are MANY other religions, and I can almost guarantee that their adherents will defend their beliefs just as strongly as you do. So how can you know that one religion is "right" while another is wrong? After all, the Greeks honestly believed in their religion, and the Vikings believed in theirs. And if you had told them that they were wrong, they'd have just as much belief and would argue over it until they were blue in the face. Well, maybe not the Viking, he'd just axe you, but that's not the point. There is very little true evidence for any religion, and so I feel that we must look at it from a different light than evidence.