Do Christians believe that non-Christians are going to hell?

Great Debates
201

The thing is, Tomndeb, that I can anticipate your arguments because I was exposed to Catholic bullshit for 16 years. I knew as soon as I posted that you were going to pull that one.

I, personally, myself, do not believe that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ. Therefore, if you can accept the concept that believing that concept and knowing that concept are synonymous in this case, I do not know that. Or at least, I am quite certain in my own mind that the Catholic Church was not founded as necessary by God through Christ but, like other religions, is a fraud perpetrated by the malicious on the gullible.

I became aware of that when I realized that they wanted me to believe that God is a practical joker who creates gay perople and then says: “Guess what, if you ever express the sexuality I gave you, I am sending you to Hell!”

But in THEIR view (i.e. the Catholic Church) I obviously would rate as someone who had it clearly explained to him that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, and therefore should know it.

So obviously, THEY belive that I am damned. Otherwise, who exactly are they referring to when they postulate this class of people who know that the Church is necessary but refuse to remain in it?

If I really “knew” that the Catholic Church was ncessary to salvation and established specifically by God to save me and refused to remain in it, then I guess I would be insane, would I not? Is that what that class of unsaved persons is? The insane?

202

You are WILDLY misinformed in this area. Haven’t we had this debate before?

The Bible contains MANY factual errors in the original languages and many irreconcilable contradictions.

None of those copies agree with each other, by the way, and you’re quite wrong that scholars agree on any definitive original text for even a single book, much less the entire Bible.

203

[QUOTE=Bible man]
There are very few actual errors in the Bible and they are easily traced back to either translation errors or to copiest slips. We have so many copies that it’s fairly easy to look back and see who did what. Scholars pretty much agree to the actual wording of the Bible books, of course what those words actually mean is quite a different story.
And yes, paradoxes (apparent contradictions) exist and they are a great source of discovering various Truths which are hidden in its pages /QUOTE]
Sorry, Bible man, but that is what is called “sophism”. In the first place, you are quoting the Bible to prove the “truth” of the Bible. Does that not strilke you as circular reasoning?

But as long as we are quoting from the Bible, let’s look at just ONE small example of error.

The same incident, a victory by King David over the King of Zobah, is described in 2 Samuel 8:4 and in 1 Chron. 18:4. But the first account claims that King David captured 700 horsemen, and the second claims he captured 7,000. ( King James Version)

DO NOT try to tell me that it matters little since in either case it simply records a great victory, and the details are unimportant. If you postulate that the Bible is written by an almighty and omniscient God, then in fact a small contradiction like this is EXACTLY what an all-knowing God would NOT have done.

The accounts disagree. The second number is ten times greater than the first. This is not just a case of rounding up. Since God inspired both accounts, why the difference? Does God not count well?

By the way, for what it is worth, the same contradiction occurs in the original Hebrew scriptures used in Judaism

If you ascribe this to human error, then are you admitting that God would allow human error to creep into his book?

How much error has God allowed to creep in elsewhere, do you suppose? Maybe Jesus really said that he was “a” son of God, not THE Son of God, and some more of those pesky errors crept into the Gospls written decades and even centuries after his death?

Maybe he walked out on a sandbar just below the surface of the stormy sea to pull a small boat to safety and decades later one of his apostles said it “looked” like he was walking on water, and a kid who was listening to this story grew up to be one of the scribes who wrote down one of the gospels, and wrote it the way he remebered hearing it?

I once worked in an office in which a religious fellow employee had a sign on the wall of his office that read BIBLE: (B)asic (I)nstructions (B)efore (L)eaving (E)earth.

I prepared a similar sign that read (B)ullshit (I)n a (B)ound (L)eather (E)dition.

Needless to say, I was ordered to take my sign down and his was allowed to stay up. Doncha just love Christians?

204

Therefore, you are not one of the people whom the church believes have damned themselves by deliberately rejecting a truth that they know.

That seems pretty clear and I am not sure why you are having understanding it.

Aaaah! It is your great psychic powers to know what the church “really” means despite the text that they use to explain their position.

Well, if it makes you feel better to imagine that they consider you damned in spite of their actual declaration, you have my sympathy. (It must be a terrible burden.) On the other hand, not one of the priests I know and only maybe one of the bishops whom I know (and most of us think he’s a loon), would actually agree with your psychic predictions.

The general belief among the scholars, priests, and religious of my acquaintance is that if one’s life encounters obstacles that cause one to turn from the church (especially if the obstacles are the result of church teachings in conflict with one’s life experiences), then it is rather unlikely that one has deliberately chosen to reject a position known to be true, and much more likely that the life experience has interfered with one’s beliefs.

205

Wow! I’m with DtC on this one. Your statements in the last couple of posts do not honestly reflect what most Biblical scholars claim. There are many errors in the available texts. As Bart Ehrman , one biblical scholar puts it, no two texts are alike. There are more differences than there are actual words in the Bible. While it is true that most of these differences are minor spelling and grammer errors, there are some pretty significant ones that were made purposly. The text was changed from the original and something was added or left out. Occasionaly to support a certian theological arguement.

There are plenty of contradictions as well beginng with the Book of Genisis. Once more, it’s your basic unsupportable assumption about the Bible’s purpose and source that leads you to justify or ignore the plain evidence.

Presented in a playful tone this reveals your bias. You encourage another poster to disregard the opinions of others who don’t agree with you rather than have them consider different sides of the argument.

Anyone who is interested should indeed study the Bible. I’d encourage them to take an honest look at several diverse opinions and the scholastic evidence that support same. Specific subjects are good to study as well. What happens during a study will be determined by what’s in their heart. Are they looking for the truth or to support preconcieved arguements.

206

Oddly though, each of its claims about history before man, or for early man, or even for many of the periods which it covers, have either been proved wrong or no evidence for the claims has been found. Pretty shoddy job for a deity. It would be far more convincing if backed up by the evidence of the rocks, which is also supposedly from god, right? Human written Bible vs rocks - I’ll take the rocks anyday.

207

If you would drop the patronizing tone for a second, Tomndeb, I would point out that it is not a case that my life experince “interefered” with my beliefs (as if Catholic dogma were some sort of incontestible truth that is being broadcast but that I am unable to receive because my “life experience” is interfering with my reception of it).

Rather, it is the case that my experience of reality has shown me Catholic dogma (and other religious dogma) for the mind-control bullshit it really is.

208

You are the one who is deliberately reading into the text statements that have not been made and then complaining about them.

I am only pointing out that from the perspective of the church your claim that the church has damned you is false.

I have no problem with you viewing the RCC or all Christianity or all religious belief as so much nonsense. However, when you make a false claim regarding what the church* teaches*, I am going to point out your error. When you wander back into a thread after more than a week’s absence simply to erroneously claim that my refutation says the opposite of what the words actually say, then I am going to point out that you are still in error.

Regardless what may or may not be “True,” the point of discussion was the teaching of the church–and your interpretation is in error.

209

We maintain the original writings were dictated directly by the Holy Spirit and are without error. After that some care must be taken regarding copiest errors, innocent mistranslations, purposeful mistranslations as well as additions or subtractions from the original text. Despite what is being posted on this website, these human errors are relatively minor, just like the one you dredged up. None of the main Bible themes are in dispute ie, mankind is lost in sin and in need of a Savior, God promised from the beginning that He would supply a Messiah, He has done so in the Person of Jesus Christ, and it is up to each individual to accept or reject Him to avoid certain judgement. Actually, it’s these clear and undisputed concepts that are rejected by Bible detractors like yourself, the minor imperfections resulting from God’s decision to use human agency to spread His message are just excuses to disobey the Truth. Your focusing on a decimal point error made by a copiest is just one example of the lame excuses used by those who want to feel justified in rejecting the salvation that God offers. I can imagine the conversation between you and the rich man while awaiting final judgment, “I lost my salvation because I ignored the teachings of the Law and the Prophets which would have led me to salvation thru the Messiah, how about you?” “Oh, a decimal point got me.”
If a decimal point is a good enough reason for you to reject the Bible, it’s certainly good enough for me.

210

Which ones? Which manuscripts are the correct ones? Also, how do you explain all the errors?

Don’t forget the authorial errors.

Those are easily dealt with and well known. Everybody knows, for instance, that Isaiah 7:14 doesn’t say “virgin.” How fortunate for everyone that we still have lots of mauscripts of the original languages and plenty of people who can read them. Why bother with a translation when I can read the Greek for myself?

Yep, there’s a few of those. You should read Bart Ehrman’s book.

What original text? How do you know what was in the original text? Where can this original text be found?

No, some of them are pretty huge. Would you like to hear some?

Those are New Testament themes, not so much the Hebrew Bible…and kind of an evasion as a response to the erros.

Funny. Also evasive, ad hominem and erroneous with regard to the quality of the errors.

Here’s a better one for you. Was Jesus born during the census of Quirinius or is Matthew a liar?

Appeal to Fear.

211

[QUOTE=Bible man]
We maintain the original writings were dictated directly by the Holy Spirit and are without error. After that some care must be taken regarding copiest errors, innocent mistranslations, purposeful mistranslations as well as additions or subtractions from the original text. Despite what is being posted on this website, these human errors are relatively minor, just like the one you dredged up. None of the main Bible themes are in dispute ie, mankind is lost in sin and in need of a Savior, God promised from the beginning that He would supply a Messiah, He has done so in the Person of Jesus Christ, and it is up to each individual to accept or reject Him to avoid certain judgement. Actually, it’s these clear and undisputed concepts that are rejected by Bible detractors like yourself, the minor imperfections resulting from God’s decision to use human agency to spread His message are just excuses to disobey the Truth. Your focusing on a decimal point error made by a copiest is just one example of the lame excuses used by those who want to feel justified in rejecting the salvation that God offers. I can imagine the conversation between you and the rich man while awaiting final judgment, “I lost my salvation because I ignored the teachings of the Law and the Prophets which would have led me to salvation thru the Messiah, how about you?” “Oh, a decimal point got me.”
If a decimal point is a good enough reason for you to reject the Bible, it’s certainly good enough for me.[/QUOTE)
First of all. Bible Man, if you will read the actual verses in the Bible that I am referring to, you will see that the numbers are written in letters, not in arabic numerals. Seven hundred in one verse and seven thousand in another.

So how did an omnipotent, omniscient God allow this error to get in? And do you admit that there are errors in the Bible introduced by human fallibility and human error. Yes or no?

212

Yes, I faintly remember you losing this argument a while back. As I recall, along the way you sadly demonstrated a complete ignorance of what the Bible actually stated about a host of subjects, while making numerous unsuported assertions about what you thought it contained. You made unsupported claims about inconsistencies, errors, and contradictions that were in it (just like your latest post) and you accepted no proof or explanation which proved your accusations and assertions to be completely false. At one time when you were proven wrong, you even argued that I shouldn’t use proofs from the Bible to prove or disprove anything because it was an unreliable book a priori (!). At times you appealed to non-biblical sources (like Josephus) to bolster your wild opinions, and when I pointed out areas where they themselves supported and verified the accounts written in the Bible, you then claimed that those accounts had been falsified and inserted later (by some nefarious Christians I suppose).
Your arguments therefore, completely lacked integrity and factual accuracy; many of your sources were completely spurious and even when using the reliable ones, you didn’t hesitate to impeach them whenever it suited you. One of your posts had so many false statements about what the Bible contained that I proposed to the moderators that a limit should be made to number of errors that should be allowed a member to post at one time - just one of your incorrect assertions was so exponentially wrong that it challenged even the math bloggers that dropped in. In short, if that was indeed you that lost that argument (I sure hope you weren’t the guy), then there’s not a reason I can think of for me or anyone else to waste time discussing any subject with you, much less a subject about Truth and Integrity. Been there, done that, movin’ on now…

213

I think that very first line is where so much of the problem lies. It is the root cause of many misconceptions and false traditions that follow. There are no passages that indicate that the nature of inspiration and the scripture it may have influenced means it “was dictated directly by the Holy Spirit and without error.” That in itself is an unsupported belief. It is a tradition that descends from the time Constantine got people together to outlaw anyone who dared to think differently. Before that there were many differing schools of theology as men tried to understand the meaning of Jesus Christ. It was men who declared which books and which theology would become the official position of a state sponsored church . After that for many years the public was in large part illiterate and so they needed the church leaders to read passages to them and dictate the meaning. Those who disagreed and attempted to give voice to non official doctrine did so at there own peril.

Because you believe that first line to be true you must interpret and explain all other evidence in a way that lets it remain true, no matter how illogical it gets. It’s a form of idol worship. Upholding and following tradition replaces the desire to know the truth. When the evidence gets to be to undeniable you make concessions such as you’ve done here. as in; God did allow minor changes to take place and there is human error but all the real important stuff is still there, preserved by God…because that was his plan. Here the false assumption and tradition struggles to survive. If you acknowledge that there are examples of human error in the Bible {based on the evidence of your own eyes and a little reasoning} then how can you be sure there aren’t any major errors? Is there any scriptural reference for that belief?

You’re correct the changing of a decimal point is minor. There are many other minor differences and contradictions in the Bible. How many times did the cock crow before Peters denial? The gospels don’t agree. Did one or both thieves mock him? The gospels don’t agree. There are however other changes that were done to change the theology.
Example; 1

Mark 1:11 after Jesus is baptized the voice says, NIV 11And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
That’s what we all remember. In some early versions it reads “You are my Son, *Today *have I begotten you”
Significant difference? How does it affect traditionally theology? How do we decide which is actually God’s word?

example 2
Take Luke 22 during the last supper, In more recent copies it says, NIV 17After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you. 18For I tell you I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” 19And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 20In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. 21But the hand of him who is going to betray me is with mine on the table. 22The Son of Man will go as it has been decreed, but woe to that man who betrays him.”
That’s how most Christians remember it and has become a traditional part of the Sacrament. In some earlier manuscripts it reads,
"After taking a cup and giving thanks he said, “Take this and divide it amongst yourselves, for I say to you that I will not drink from the fruit of the vine from now on, until the kingdom of God comes.” And taking bread, giving thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body. But behold, the hand of the one who betrays me is with me at the table.”
The adding of “which is given for you, and “which is poured out for you” changes what is stressed and has also affected current theology.

The fact that we can be quite sure that passages were changed by men to support their preferred theology as well as the minor errors you accept, means we have to be exceedingly cautious about granting this 2000 year old book so much authority over our lives and accepting it’s passages to eagerly. It means we have to work a little harder at trying to discern the meaning of Christ’s message and rely a little more on the inner voice and our own ability to think, rather than what someone else tells us, based on tradition.

214

No, I’m talking about the real debate where you were thoroughly exposed and dissected, not whatever fantasy you’ve now turned it into. Either that or you’re confusing me with someone else, which may well be the case. I don’t remember anything about a math blogger. I don’t know anything about math and (to my knowledge) have never tried to use a mathematical argument about anything related to the Bible. I do know there weren’t any decimal points during the time the OT was written, though, so maybe you should learn something about math yourself.

Did you ever figure out when Jesus was born? Which Gospel is wrong, Matthew or Luke…or both?

215

Diogenes, I urge you to drop this particular rope. Arguing with Biblical literalists is like herding cats. Rabid cats. Hungry rabit cats. Hungry rabid cats that have never been declawed and are, in fact, cougars.

216

Cougars with toothaches,.that are in denial.

217

The sad part Bible Man is that there are people out there who will get taken in by your illogical unfounded but ferverent assertions of the Truth (you likely should stop capitalizing it, as it is a bit of a crackpot redflag.) I feel some pity for you, because there was a time where I feverishly defended protestant christianity as well. However my pity does end here. You are a member of a forum that is dedicated to fighting ignorance, but I wonder why. It is directly at cross purposes with some of the ideas you have stated:

-The condradictions in the Bible are a good thing
-All interpretations are untrustworthy, except those that aren’t
-Quoting the bible to prove the bible (circular arguments)
-Asserting that demonstratable biblical errors are not proof of biblical error
Frankly your half baked, half witted humerous charming and deceptive writing style
only serve to remind me, and should be a warning sign to those not bettter versed in scripture, that you may be a pathological liar. It is a writing style that, above all, resembles sleight of hand. Constantly turning the phrase so the unfocused reader remembers only your humerous quips, and not your many logical inconsistancies.

While I understand that you probably sincerely believe what you are writing you should understand the effect, style and substance of what you are writing is counter to the idea of Truth, at least where Truth is established by reason and debate, and not by evasion, lies and misdirection.

Reading your nebulous ad hominem indictment of Valteron was the last straw. Hypocrisy is rife throughout your posts.

Understand, this is not about you, but rather about what you are doing. You are free to believe in the bible, but you are not free to confuse your belief with Truth and then use deceitful tactics on a rationalist message board. Not without response and illumination anyway.

I hope you someday understand what you’re doing and start fighting ignorance. Until that day I hope that as few people buy into the garbage you appear to be spouting.

Good day.

218

First, if the numbers are in letter form, then it was a translation error instead of a copiest problem. And I already answered your other question, you just don’t like the answer - the original inspired writings are without error and true seekers of the Truth are not disuaded at all by a few insignificant errors that might occur thru the various human agencies as they copied, translated and disseminated the message. Some minor errors have indeed occured in that very human process; most were caught and corrected immediately before they ever left the desk, some a short time later, and some a long time later. Taking your logic to the extreme, then the very moment a scribe or translator penned a mistaken stroke then you would have us conclude: Look, God is a failure - He was unable to protect His Word from distortion by a human being, everything previously penned is now completely suspect, we obviously can’t trust such a weak God, etc etc, Like I said, if a minor mistake made by a human being is enough to make you reject the clear message of the Bible (mankind’s hopeless condition and God’s solution), it’s simply because you have no desire to obey the message. This argument of yours is just a smokescreen to vainly attempt to justify your decision. It’s like failing to answer a summons because a typist misspelled the judges name; pure nonsense. The excuse wouldn’t work in a court of law and it certainly won’t work at the Great White Throne Judgement (Rev20:11-15)

219

No, the contradiction is present in the Hebrew. Where are you getting all this stuff about the errors all being translational? Are you under the impression that we don’t have the Greek and Hebrew texts?

220

Yoo-hoo, Bible Man? Can you step over here for a minute? Thanks!