For All Those Who Do Not Believe In GOD?

Great Debates
41

Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.
Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.
And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.
Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
And that’s just from the Sermon on the Mount! Don’t forget the parable of the sheep and the goats.

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire,
prepared for the devil and his angels:
For I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and you visited me not.
Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

42

Wildest Bill:

Wildest Bill, let me assure you that I do not intend to patronize or insult you in any way. That said, I think you came into this debate a little underprepared.

Imagine you came into Great Debates, posted a topic entitled “For all those who are not baseball fans,” and proceeded to explain why baseball is the greatest sport in the world. One of your arguments was that a player hitting a ball over the outfield fence was the most exciting event in all of sports.

When questioned as to why you spend so much time focussing on homeruns as opposed to pitching, fielding, baserunning, etc. you admit that you had no idea that hitting the ball over the fence was called a homerun. Furthermore, when asked why you consider a homerun more exciting than a touchdown in football, you candidly admit that you’ve never even heard of a touchdown, and that you think that football sounds like some game some guy made up for money when he was stoned.

Finally, to top it off, you insult the great game of Scrabble, to the dismay of the intelligent Scrabble playing populace that frequents Great Debates.

How many people do you think are going to take you seriously?

Okay, lecture mode off. Now I have a serious question for Bill. If Bible prophecies are coming true, as you claim, how do you deal with the Bible prophecies that have not come true? I’ll focus on two for the moment:

  1. Ezekiel’s prophecy about the destruction of Tyre occurring during the reign of Nebuchadrezzar, which did not occur. (See Ezek. 26:14, 27:36)
  2. Numerous predictions made by Jesus and his followers that the world/ second coming would occur during their lifetimes (See Mt. 16:28, 23:36, 24:34, 26:64, Mk. 9:1, 13:30, 14:62, Lk. 9:27, 21:32, Phil. 4:5, 1 Th. 4:17, Heb. 1:2, 10:37, Jas. 5:8, 1 Pet. 1:20, 4:7, 1 Jn. 2:18, 4:3, Rev. 1:1, 1:3, 3:11, 22:7, 22:12, 22:20)
43

Well, you’re welcome…but note that those Bible verse basically demonstrate that Jesus was of the opinion that the world would end in the 1st Century C.E. (A.D. to you.)

Oh well, what’s 19 centuries among friends.

44

Bill was asking for a definition?

I didn’t see a question in there.

No, no, no, let me do that.

45

Be careful there, Bill. You know that many people view your Bible as mythology as well. And are you alluding that mythology is based on something someone came up with when they were stoned? Were people the people who wrote your bible under the influence of mind altering subastances?

What if someone said that the parting of the Red Sea was actually a hallucination? What if it was said that your God(s) were just some goofy contrivance geared toward economic gain? I mean, really…whole continents have been conquered, and cultures decimated in the name of capitalism under the guise of Christianity.

46

goboy:

I’m not disputing that when Jesus called on people to repent, for the end of the world was at hand, he had something more in mind than saying “Hallelujah! Jesus loves me!” and then putting a “Christians aren’t perfect–they’re just forgiven” bumper sticker on their donkey. However, I think the most likely message of the historical Jesus was that the wicked & sinful and rich & powerful (who appear to be very close to synonomous in the Gospels) had better repent of their oppression of the poor and meek, because Judgment Day was right around the corner. Note how radically unworkable the morality of the Gospels frequently seems for a real-world society–give away all your possessions, total non-resistance to evil–but, if the world is going to end any minute now, worrying about your stock portfolio (or your olive plantations) would be pretty useless.

47

And for all those wondering why one-world government is a bad thing, well, duh! I mean, it will be headed by this little-known minor statesman out of Romania, and there will be one currency (dollars, of course), and then all the newspapers will be bought up by the Global Community, and then Buck and Rayford and Tsion Be-Judah will have to go into hiding in a shelter in Mount Prospect. And we can’t have that!

Am I getting warm, Wildest Bill? :slight_smile:

48

Are you willing to give up your driver’s licence, and voluntarily abstain from operating any heavy machinery in anticipation of the rapture. You may kill someone when you disappear, and that would not look good.

49

It’s not that bad. Honest…

sigh Nobody wants to play with me…

:: Takes his torture device and branding iron home with him ::

Yer pal,
Satan

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50

Wildest Bill:

And they have been able to do so with a great deal of help from the US. It’s been a while since I last took a stab at interpreting scripture, but I don’t recall mention of that.

Oh, never mind. I see now that I’m dealing with a particularly virulent breed of fundamentalist.
::rooting around and looking for some Raid::

Not to worry, boyo, we’re all gonna be worm food for most of it anyway.

Waste
Flick Lives!

51

Oh my, why I’m answering this I don’t know. Perhaps because it seems people are so overly concerned with what they have no control over… ???

In my practice/belief, I strive to end the cycle (samsara), and rise above the gods/God, to where/when before even they came. That primary point. So whatever happens, I will still hold to my beliefs, because they hold that whatever happens in this physical world, is mostly just illusion. Something like this: My past I cannot hold on to. The future I cannot chase and catch. The present I can only observe and be aware of. The current moment that is eternal is all that matters.
So bring on your raptures and armageddons and all of the stories told for millenia. I’ll be doing my thing, happily, and hopefully sharing in the wonders that our experiences have to offer.

52

OK, I’ll agree with that.

53

OH, and thought i’d share this memory too. I saw a woman wearing a shirt the other day. It read “It’s not that life is so short, just that wer’e dead for so long!”

Thought that was cute!

54

Well, I had dinner with Satan (and about 15 others) Saturday and he failed to offer me his “mark.” (Name tag and a marker to fill it out, yes, but no mark. I put a fish symbol on mine.)

As for me, I expect the Second Coming in the near future. As for what will happen, the strong likelihood, IMHO, is that He will be killed for not conforming to the prejudices that masquerade as orthodox belief.

Just like last time.

55

WB -

…and what if the mark of the anti-christ is that cross you so proudly display on the chain around your neck or on the wall in your house or on top of your place of worship.

Do you think the anti-christ, being the awfully clever and twisted guy that he is, would be above using your symbol of worship for a mark. How do you know you have not already accepted the mark yourself and have commited yourself to its worship all these years? If you think about it, plenty of terrible crimes have been commited over the centuries past, all in the name of Christianity. Are you really absolutely, positively certain you are on the right side or do you simply choose to believe that you are?

If I may borrow from goboy’s (a fellow doper) sig… “The happiness of credulity is the cheapest and most dangerous of all qualities.” - G.B. Shaw

56

Not really.

“From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 4:17)

The kingdom was at hand. He didn’t say will be at hand, as you are trying to imply.

“Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.” (Matthew 16:28)

That did not happen?

“For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places…And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory…Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled…Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.” (Matthew 24:7…30…34…42)

He probably meant the generation from the good tree he speaks of in one of your ellipses. Generation being “that which is generated”, not the other meaning.

“Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless, I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” (Matthew 26:64)

That didn’t happen either? Didn’t Jesus ascend into heaven according to the text?

Again, a little out of context with some of these which come after Jesus’s parable about the greedy farmer “even now is the hour of your death” and then goes on to say “you know not the hour…” Think there might be a connection?

57

Wildest Bill:

Why don’t you elaborate on this? Because the way I see it:

  1. The Soviet Union, once one nation, has split up into a dozen or more.

  2. Ditto Yugoslavia.

  3. Ditto the Czech Republic and Slovakia, formerly Czechoslovakia.

  4. Ditto (going back a little further) the British Empire, now the UK and a a Commonwealth of essentially sovereign nations.

  5. As an extension of #4 we’ve got Parliament returning “home rule” to Scotland and Wales.

  6. Then there’s the newly sovereign Inuit territory of Canada.

Granted, the Germanies have reunified and there is increasing hope the Koreas may do the same, but it’s pretty clear we’ve had a net gain of governments lately, quite the opposite of moving toward a “one world government.”

So, I’ve identified my evidence. Identify yours.

58

“At hand” = “near in time or place”. To say that the kingdom will be at hand would mean that, at some point in the future–like maybe 1900 years or so in the future–the kingdom will be “near”. To say that the kingdom is at hand means that, in the 1st Century, the kingdom was near, at that very moment.

Well, I suppose the standard Christian interpretation has been that at least some of this apocalyptic talk by Jesus was referring to the Resurrection–it being a tad embarassing to go around preaching “Repent! For the world ended 1900 years ago!”

“Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.” (Matthew 24:32-34–just to fill in the ellipsis a little.)

In light of the repeated references to the kingdom being “at hand”–i.e., very near–your reading seems a bit strained to me. I suppose someone who knows New Testament Greek might be able to enlighten us as to which reading is more likely correct.

Wouldn’t that be “going in the clouds of heaven”? “Coming” in the clouds of heaven sounds more like the End of the World than the Resurrection.

Given all the references to the nearness of the End of the World, I don’t think all the “be prepared” parables can be boiled down to only referring to the ever-present possibility of personal death, as opposed to the alleged imminence of the supernatural day of divine judgment.

59

Why do you have a hard time believing it? Your mythology is meaningful to me in four ways:

  1. as a rich and compelling literature
  2. as a philosophical influence on western culture(s)
  3. as a motivational principal in history/politics
  4. as a threat to my personal liberty and welfare

I am quite comfortable with three of those facets and quite wary of the last. The possibility that events might occur which some people of faith might interpret as heraldic their particular gotterdamerung is relevant to me only as it relates to points 3 and 4.

If you point to a person and shout “antichrist” I will nevertheless form my own opinion. And if I find myself in Jonestown I will not drink the kool-aid.

60

Actually, upon consideration I should ammend my list:

  1. As an important part of the lives of certain people that I love or respect.