... on Hell Fire (Yes, it Exists)

1) ... on Hell Fire (Yes, it Exists), 2) ... on the Whereabouts of Hell Fire and Other Points on Seismology

Video commented on:

Haz657 : The Most Horrible Christian Fundamentalist Moment Ever
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG33H8xHngM

My top comment:

To any Protestant out there, I agree there is Hell.

If you want to stay free from it, be Catholic. Not necessarily meaning the Modernist kind who accept Bergoglio as Pope. Not meaning all of those are Modernist either.

A blog for Protestants about Catholicism:

Great Bishop of Geneva!
http://greatbishopofgeneva.blogspot.com

Next

some answers to other people commenting

Paul T Sjordal

This is the core of Christian belief: threats make things true.

So for instance, I can tell you "Believe that the moon is made of green cheese, or my friend Ted will torture you for three days." This threat causes the claim to be true, so the moon is made of green cheese unless you want to be tortured for three days. You don't want to be tortured for three days, do you?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I somehow think hardcore atheists need to realise it is no fairytale before this helps them ...

Paul T Sjordal

+Hans-Georg Lundahl I don't quite follow what you mean, nor do I follow how your comment is related to mine.

Do you believe that threats make things true, or do you agree with me that threats cannot make things true?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Your argument is that basically atheists have been fooled into believing Christianity because they were not sophisticated enough to see Hell as a scare.

If I got that wrong and it means something with less unwarranted assumptions about people, do correct me.

My answer to that is that the scare of Hell is meant for those already believing, so they choose the acts that will give them merits for Heaven rather than traps for Hell. That in other words the words are not meant as an argument against atheism in the first place, but adressed to people intelligent enough not to be atheists. Such people being also more frequent.

Paul T Sjordal

+Hans-Georg Lundahl Your argument is that basically atheists have been fooled into believing Christianity because they were not sophisticated enough to see Hell as a scare.

That's not my argument at all.

I am merely pointing out that your argument is bad because threats don't make things true. It doesn't matter if the bad argument is directed at Christians or at atheists, the argument still contains bad logic in either case.

Your sloppy logic is inexcusable. It is inexcusable because you already know that threats don't make things true. Every religion promises some kind of unpleasant afterlife if you do not follow the tenets of that religion, yet you remain a Christian. You already know that threats don't make other religions true, so you have no excuse for arguing that your threats make your religion true. You already know that this is a bad argument that cannot support its conclusion, yet you used the argument anyway. This means that you either don't understand how logic works, or you assume that the people you are speaking to are profoundly stupid.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"I am merely pointing out that your argument is bad because threats don't make things true. It doesn't matter if the bad argument is directed at Christians or at atheists, the argument still contains bad logic in either case."

Well, thing is that I all along agreed that threats do not make a thing true, and so presumably does even the guy in the video, even if he is a Protestant and could be a fideist.

My point against you is that you set up a strawman.

Where do you find the kind of Christian who pretends that the threat of Hell makes Christianity true? It is not even a good summing up of Pascal's wager, as he put it.

And Pascal's wager is not the main argument for the truth of Christianity either.

"You already know that threats don't make other religions true, so you have no excuse for arguing that your threats make your religion true."

As said, I am not arguing that my threats make my religion true. They only make my religion a practical necessity to follow IF it is already true, which must be known on other grounds.

And I only know that other religions' threats are not true because I know the other religions are wrong. Also on other grounds.

+Paul T Sjordal "This means that you either don't understand how logic works, or you assume that the people you are speaking to are profoundly stupid."

Those words are truer of you than of me. YOU either do not recognise a straw man when making it OR assume Christians reading your argument will agree to be strawmanned because unable to detect a strawman.

Paul T Sjordal

+Hans-Georg Lundahl Do you honestly believe threats make things true? Do I really have to explain to you why threats don't make things true?

You are unaffected by any of the threats made by other religions, yet you think your threats should carry weight when you argue against others.

Either you don't understand why the threats of other religions don't affect you, or you think everyone else is a moron.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Do you honestly believe asking questions that presuppose I made an argument I did not make, makes my case bad or yours good?

Are you even sober? I have known drunkards who could continuously miss a point carefully repeated to them.

Or perhaps you have gotten old enough to be senile?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
updating after a double check

I am sorry.

I just found out you think Sam Harris is a tolerable philosopher.

Condoleances!

Paul T Sjordal

+Hans-Georg Lundahl The threat itself implies that the threat supports the truth claims regardless of how obliquely you refer to the threat.

Why even reference a threat like that unless you believe it supports your truth claim? The threat is so widely regarded as support for the truth claim, that if you meant to reference the threat without using it to support the associated truth claims, you would have taken pains to explain what you were actually trying to say when you referenced that threat.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

+Paul T Sjordal Learn to read.

And use critical thinking if you have such to something other than the Bible, like Sam Harris for a change.

I cannot state that it is "widely known" that the threat is regarded as support for the truth claim.

And you cannot say I did not take pains to explain what I mean.

But this may be lost to you, if you cannot read. I mean with real reading comprehension. Not just enough to get a general very sketchy idea of what I am saying and how to spell your answer.

+Paul T Sjordal In fact, when Jesus told of Hell, he was speaking to people who already accepted his truth claim on other grounds.

robin coelho

+Hans-Georg Lundahl intelligent enough not to be atheists? lol that's the most unintelligent thing I ever herd.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

The fool hath said in his heart: there is no God.

Amusing interlude?

I try to copy the next words of Sjordal, in order to copy the debate. You know copy paste: first blueclick, then push the buttons alt + C. Well, I try three times in the Georges Pompidou library. All three of them the blueclick vanishes before I get a chance to push alt + C. Let us see if it is better the fourth time?

Next time I tried:

Same story.

Some librarian abusing admin privileges to limit my freedom of expression, and possibly imagining himself (or herself) in he position of defending Sjordal's copyright.

Fact is I have already notified Sjordal so if he really, really objected he could have:

• a) told me so
• b) gotten my answer that he was also free to copy my words if he wanted to make a version of his debates on a blog
• c) stopped replying to me if he felt really bad about getting his words copied out to a blogspots as he wrote them
• d) sued me.

But certain librarians, I am not sure which ones of them, are in the mode of "let's harrass Hans-Georg Lundahl and teach him a lesson"!

Aftermath to previous, perhaps?

I wrote the library and complained.

23:30 minutes of 40? Credible?

The sessions of internet in the library are 40 minutes. You get a ticket. You tap a code, you get to a page where you chose a language to read a short agreement, you click language, and another page to click yes (or theoretically no).

I tap the code. The page where I should click language does not work. After five minutes of retrying I complain. Then I wait for the young Arabian lady in the reception to reboot the session, so I can tap the code again. When I have lost in all nearly 8 minutes I go back, she claims to have already rebooted it, I claim no. After yet another while she starts rebooting. That takes some while. When I finally get to the start page, I have only 23:30 left, now it is 18:09.

Update

Contacted librarians, or one of them, he denied censorship. Pointed out that for copy it is not alt + C but ctrl + C. I replied if I had tried alt that would explain the vanishing blue clicked area, but I did not think so. Perhaps I was wrong. Now back to essentials like ...

Paul T Sjordal

+ robin coelho Theists are indoctrinated, not stupid.

He thinks that because he is mistaken about why he believes what he believes. He thinks he carefully reasoned things through to arrive at his beliefs. Yes, he's wrong about that, but we're all human and we're all wrong about lots of things.

Just because we don't fall victim to these cognitive biases on this particular issue, don't go thinking that being atheist makes us appreciably smarter. There is a statistically significant correlation between religiosity and intelligence, but their average IQ and our average IQ is only 4 to 6 points different from one another. That's hardly worth remarking on.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

He thinks that because he is mistaken about why he believes what he believes. He thinks he carefully reasoned things through to arrive at his beliefs. Yes, he's wrong about that, but we're all human and we're all wrong about lots of things.

Sure, sure, sure!

And you are of course very certain I believe what I believe because I fear Hell if I didn't!

How come you know me better than I know myself?

But more importantly, how do you know I think I came to believe (which is another thing than staying a believer) because I carefully reasoned it all out?

Paul T Sjordal

+Hans-Georg Lundahl But more importantly, how do you know I think I came to believe (which is another thing than staying a believer) because I carefully reasoned it all out?

I'm assuming that you're like most people.

Most people are convinced their conclusions are based on reason even though modern neuroscience shows us that most of our decisions are snap judgments based on instinct, emotion, and a whole laundry list of cognitive biases.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

You are assuming that what is the start of one's belief is also its logical basis.

A belief with a logical basis is usually shared by people. The logical basis for it is not identic to most of their personal starting believing it.

The exception is a conversion, where the belief one converts to is one that one converts to because of its logical basis - in relation to one's previous beliefs.

Paul T Sjordal

+Hans-Georg Lundahl I'm assuming nothing of the sort, I am merely pointing out that we all think our beliefs are the result of careful reason when in most cases it is anything but.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

We all think our beliefs are the result of careful reason?

No. Not when it comes to start it and when it comes to a person's individual share in his beliefs.

I do believe however that careful reasoning has confirmed it time after time when I have had occasion to defend it precisely against attacks of the rational or quasi rational sort.

I also am very sure that the beginning of precisely my own fact of being a Christian believer (not speaking for anyone else here) was not indebted to any fear of Hell on my part.

Paul T Sjordal

+Hans-Georg Lundahl So you do in fact believe that your Christian beliefs are the result of careful reasoning. You do in fact believe that the facts and logic are on your side.

So why did you take such offense at me making that assumption about you?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"So you do in fact believe that your Christian beliefs are the result of careful reasoning."

No, unless by result you refer to the result of my REMAINING Christian in the face of so much reasoning that has been provided me.

"You do in fact believe that the facts and logic are on your side."

Yes, I do believe that.

I also do believe the two things are quite distinct.

Even if I had myself been as innocent up to now of "careful reasoning" on behalf of Christianity as I was at age 9 (five times younger than my present age) when becoming Christian when my mother gave me a New Testament and told me it was the truth, the facts and the logic would still be on my side, and if I had my first argument with an Atheist tomorrow, I would be discovering that tomorrow.

"So why did you take such offense at me making that assumption about you?"

You assume I took such offense at you making that assumption, when I was clarifying they were two distinct assumtions.

Paul T Sjordal

+Hans-Georg Lundahl So you believe that your Christian beliefs do not come from reasoning, but are proud of the fact that they have not been changed by reasoning? Based on this fact, you believe this is proof that logic is on your side.

Do you understand that the most obvious explanation for that first sentence is that you have been indoctrinated to the extent that you are largely immune to reason?

It is interesting that you would admit to this obliquely and not understand the implications of your own admission.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Do you understand that the most obvious explanation for that first sentence is that you have been indoctrinated to the extent that you are largely immune to reason?

To you perhaps.

To me that is some evidence that it is you who have, through indoctrination in modern psychology made yourself immune to reasoning.

How many posts of comments have you so far wasted without reasoning, without backing up your initial assertion that the pre-rational basis for my faith (as, on your view every Christian's) is fear of Hell or fear of anything at all, just gassing about that there is such a thing as a pre-carefully-rational basis in my personal example of the Christian faith, as if that invalidated it rationally?

I have also a pre-carefully-rational conviction that the outer world exists, that it is not an illusion I am making up while being the only thing in existance. How does that not invalidate my rejection of Solipsism?

Yet, on your reasoning the most obvious explanation for me being no solipsist is that I have become immune to reason when it comes to solipsism.

Paul T Sjordal

+Hans-Georg Lundahl Of course you have come to a different conclusion based on the same facts, but do you understand that you can be wrong?

You readily admit that reason did not lead you to Christianity. You further admit that reason has not been able to change your position. If we add to that the fact that Christians regard faith as a virtue, then my conclusion is pretty obvious and requires the fewest assumptions.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

You readily admit that reason did not lead you to Christianity.

I admitted no such thing.

I admitted that careful reasoning on my part did not lead me there.

Reason and careful reasoning on one's own part are two different concepts.

You further admit that reason has not been able to change your position.

I did not admit that either - except the basic one. In detail it has more than once changed my position, for instance since I converted to Catholicism after reasoning about the Reformation and about where Protestants get the Bible from.

So, if reason has not been changing my basic position, maybe it is because it is reasonable, like grass being green.

If we add to that the fact that Christians regard faith as a virtue

We do not define faith as rejection of reason.

We do define it so that it sometimes involves rejecting false reasons without at first understanding why.

then my conclusion is pretty obvious and requires the fewest assumptions.

Except that you shortcut the main question whether Christianity is right or wrong by a lopsided reasoning about my person which leaves out the fact that your person is as attackable.

Reasons about Christianity being wrong are required to be about Christianity, not about myself. Especially since you are continuously reasoning from bad guesses about what I said about me, instead of from what I was in fact saying.

Paul T Sjordal

+Hans-Georg Lundahl Whether or not I am "attackable" is entirely beside the point. And pointing out that I have come to a different conclusion than you does not make my position "biased" nor any less tenable than your explanation for why things are the way they are.

You freely admit that you did not come by these beliefs through reason, and you freely admit that you are immune to reason. You are even proud of being immune to reason.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

You are now admitting for the second time, that either you are unable to read or you are deliberately distorting my words.

pointing out that I have come to a different conclusion than you

Not what I pointed out at all.

does not make my position "biased" nor any less tenable than your explanation

As if I were the one trying to discredit the other guy's conclusions by pointing to bias.

You freely admit that you did not come by these beliefs through reason, and you freely admit that you are immune to reason.You are even proud of being immune to reason.

Those are three blatant lies in a row, unless they are simply three blatant admissions of your incompetence in reading with what your presumably Danish teachers would have called læseførståelse.

What I admitted was instead:

1) when my reason first accepted Christianity as true, it was not through a careful process of investigation.

That is not the same thing as not having reason in my Christianity from the very start.

A quick decision may be a perfectly reasonable one. And later vindicated by the careful investigation that was not there from the start. Normal cognitive biasses are as much reason as careful investigation is. Or even more so, since they are what careful investigation is based on.

2) I have since been immune to reasonS offered for abandoning Christianity.

That is not the same thing as saying I have been immune to reason.

Instead it is synonymous in my case, as I claimed, with having had reasonS (within many careful investigations, including this one) which were valid before my reason (singular now) for staying a Christian.

This is why I insisted on a distinction between basing the start of a belief on careful reasoning and on basing the upkeep of a belief at least partially on careful reasoning.

To make double sure not to give you an excuse beyond your incompetence for misunderstanding me again, partially does not mean after more than twenty years "only parts of the question", it means "only part of the time". As with any belief of any normal person or even any person at all who is merely human.

3) I am proud of having a reason faithful to its Creator and faithful to my previous knowledge of Him, even in moments - and they have been pretty short - when I have not fully understood how to answer a doubt. That is what faith is about, and not about being "immune to reason" even if that is a parody that might suit your agenda.

Paul T Sjordal

+Hans-Georg Lundahl

Yes. We have different conclusions from the same data. We saw an example of the kind of "reason" that you claim bolsters your faith when you decided to inject the same old tiresome threat into a discussion about whether or not your claims are true, then insisted that you weren't trying to use the threat to persuade anyone of anything.

Sure, it's entirely possible that I'm wrong about you. What you don't seem to understand is that you could be wrong yourself. If I am right and you believe what you believe as a result of indoctrination, then you will have a difficult time understanding why you believe the things you believe. The human brain has a remarkable capacity to rationalize away internal inconsistencies.

Look, why don't we examine the reasons for your faith? Let's look at why you think your faith claims are true? Start by telling us why the truth claims of your religion are more valid than the truth claims of all the other religions. Answering that question will help us get to the bottom of why you think these things are true.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

We saw an example of the kind of "reason" that you claim bolsters your faith when you decided to inject the same old tiresome threat into a discussion about whether or not your claims are true, then insisted that you weren't trying to use the threat to persuade anyone of anything.

Your reading comprehension is deplorable.

What I said was that the threat has never been there as bolstering the truth claims of Christianity, and is only useful for those already accepting some Christian truth.

In a very bad moment of my adolescence thinking of Hell was very useful to me since it detained me from suicide. And not only detained me but made me decide not to even consider it.

I am not claiming and have not claimed in this conversation that Hell is an argument with which to convince a convinced atheist.

I said very clearly, an Atheist has to accept the truth claims of Christianity (or some of them) before he can be helped in any way by the threat of Hell.

Sure, it's entirely possible that I'm wrong about you. What you don't seem to understand is that you could be wrong yourself.

Less likely to be so than one who doesn't know me.

If I am right and you believe what you believe as a result of indoctrination, then you will have a difficult time understanding why you believe the things you believe.

Even so, I will have a clear memory of the events and I cannot admit the "indoctrination" as you prefer to call the Christian education by my mother was based primarily on the fear of Hell, since I know for a fact that that was a very theoretical threat to an idealist, devout Christian at age nine, wellbehaved and all, and never told absurdities like one could get to Hell for just stealing jam while waiting for the food.

The human brain has a remarkable capacity to rationalize away internal inconsistencies.

You think it has a remarkable capacity for that.

I think you have been indoctrinated by psychiatry.

Look, why don't we examine the reasons for your faith?

I take strong exception to the we part.

If you are anything like interested in my reasons, I have examined them with lots of less shrink like persons than you.

It is pretty much over the blogs I am writing.

Including the one in which this is reposted.

Assorted Retorts : ... on Hell Fire (Yes, it Exists)
short link : http://ppt.li/ka

Assorted Retorts
http://assortedretorts.blogspot.com

Paul T Sjordal

+Hans-Georg Lundahl You're either being dishonest with yourself or being dishonest with us. No one forced you to interject that threat into a discussion about whether these claims are true, and since those threats are widely considered proof that the claims are true by others, you would have understood that your statement could be misconstrued and would have taken pains to point out what you really meant in order to avoid others coming to the obvious conclusion.

[I am ignoring rest of the post he made here and answering only the above.]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

The discussion was before my "injection" of anything NOT about whether these claims are true, you started a discussion about whether the truth claim is backed up mainly by the threat, and I clearly referenced the truth claim as very much prior to it.

If you are first dishonest, then someone challenges your dishonesty, do you feel you have a right to call that person dishonest back, even if he was in fact not dishonest? Do you feel you have a right to distort the real history of the discussion to back up such an accusation of dishonesty?

Paul T Sjordal

+Hans-Georg Lundahl I stand corrected. I stupidly lost track of my own original post.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

OK!

Now, I will get to the rest of what you said!

Rest of his previous post

contains material for dialogue split up and is given with my answers. I will now remake the dialogues rather than give my posts as such.

I

Hans-Georg Lundahl

In a very bad moment of my adolescence thinking of Hell was very useful to me since it detained me from suicide. And not only detained me but made me decide not to even consider it.

Paul T Sjordal

Even if this is true, that doesn't make your claims true.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

The claims of Catholicism. No. But it illustrates my point that it was not fear of Hell that made me accept Christianity as true, but rather accepting Christianity as true which made the fear of Hell of some rather dramatically great use for me.

II

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I am not claiming and have not claimed in this conversation that Hell is an argument with which to convince a convinced atheist.

Paul T Sjordal (his answer confronted with his admission)

I'm not asking for that. I'm asking how you know your claims are true and why you think others should accept your claims as true. It was into this conversation that you felt it necessary to interject mention of that tiresome old threat.

...

I stand corrected. I stupidly lost track of my own original post.

[Other part of his previous post

Left alone, since I presume it was covered by his last one.]

III

Hans-Georg Lundahl

If you do want to know how I know my claims are true, I suggested we took that conversation under some other video on youtube or under some other blogspost of mine than under one dealing with Hell.

This blog deals with atheism insofar as it is opposed to Five ways of St Thomas (more or less Kalam), and insofar as it is opposed to accounts of the miraculous, including the Resurrection of Jesus Christ:

somewhere else : What a blooper, Dan Barker from Atheist League!
http://notontimsblogroundhere.blogspot.fr/2011/04/what-blooper-dan-barker-from-atheist.html

The particular blog post deals with the fact that when St Paul spoke of 500 who had seen Jesus, after he had died on the Cross, as risen, he was not bluffing, or if he was he was taking a big risk.

This blog is partly for atheists, when it comes to origins, partly for such Christians, including some fellow Catholics of mine or presumed such, who accept evolution:

Creation vs. Evolution : The Abiogenesis Problem
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.fr/2014/02/the-abiogenesis-problem.html

The particular post deals with abiogenesis.

If you have a blogger account, you have no trouble commenting!

C Ya!

Jenny Goodall

Who would serve a severely sadistic God who establishes and maintains a place like that? If that God exists, it is incumbent upon all compassionate people to work together to topple that odious being from power.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

can't be done

besides, if you think of who gets to hell, it is maybe because God is compassionate that hell exists

Andy Doney

+Hans-Georg Lundahl UTTER RUBBISH. So all non believers go to hell, just for exercising the free will this inconsequential, non existent deity is supposed to have given them? If that's your idea of compassion then you're a nasty little [...], and so is your [...] "God".

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Apart from you bad language (which is really bad), I am not saying that all non-Christians necessarily go to Hell, though it would typically be the case for adult non-believers.

I am not saying that refusing to believe is both an exercise in free will and excusable either.

You see, free will is something a murderer exercises while murdering. But I presume you see no problem with murderers going to Hell.

The first proof-text of Catholics and - presumably - Arminians against Calvinism is that the first murderer heard God tell him he had been exercising free will. Genesis chapter 4.

Philip Wakefield

+Hans-Georg Lundahl The fact that you equate cold-blooded murder with unbelief speaks volumes.

What about the believers who commit murder? Do they not go to heaven?

The whole point of Christianity is that we are saved by faith and NOT works;

According to Christian doctrine, even Hitler could go to heaven whereas an unbeliever will go to hell; what kind of justice is that?

Andy Doney

+Hans-Georg Lundahl Well you presume wrongly. Supposing a wife, beaten daily, decides to kill her husband? Supposing there ISN'T a "Hell"? Ever heard of life imprisonment as a merciful alternative for mitigating circumstances?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

God knows the mitigating circumstances too.

There are cases when a killing is not murder.

The Roman Catholic doctrine (and I am a Roman Catholic) says that "faith not works" is true of "works of the ritual law of the Old Testament", but "faith and works" (Epistle of St James!) is true of "works of justice".

I hope Hitler escaped 45 and had a chance to repent and get to Heaven, but if he didn't, well he is in Hell. As to very many statements of the Nazi régime, they are equivalent, if not to atheism at least to Apostasy. If Hitler stood by those to his death, he would then have died as an Apostate and gone to Hell for that, as well as for crimes he committed as a ruler and a bad one at that.

I am not equating unbelief as in any kind of unbelief with murder. I am saying that wilful unbelief or wrongbelief is worse than murder. It is a kind of suicide, and suicide is worse than murder.

But of course, there are cases when someone's unbelief as yet, as up to then, is not yes a wilful unbelief, not yet a sin. This does not mean he can get to Heaven without becoming a believer. Some unbelievers who never had a chance to believe are nevertheless damned for sins they had a chance to avoid, did not avoid, and could have been cleansed of if they had been believers.

Philip Wakefield

+Hans-Georg Lundahl And in that one comment, you typify everything that is wrong with religion.

In your enthusiasm to ditch your common sense, logic and reason, you forgot to ask yourself: Is Satan, Lord of the Earth, deceiver of men, capable of producing a bible for the purposes of misleading mankind, and if so, what would such a book look like?

In what way might Satan's version of the bible differ from God's?

I mean, do you think that Satan would be evil enough to preach genocide, kidnapping, rape, murder and slavery?

Would Satan threaten to burn souls for eternity because their owners refused to submit to him?

Would Satan give an evil spirit permission to murder Job's family and his slaves and to torture Job himself to the point of death?

Is Satan capable of duping bronze-age Palestinians into thinking that he is the Messiah?

If the bible is the only evidence for God, then how would you attempt to subvert God if you were Satan?

Or perhaps you think that the most wise and sophisticated entity ever created by God is simply too dumb to figure out that the best way to subvert God would be to masquerade as God and create a 'moral handbook' for men to subscribe to?

The fact is that if Satan did produce a religious dogma, it would look a lot like Catholicism.

+Hans-Georg Lundahl You mentioned something in an earlier post which further highlights my point and illustrates your lack of ability to think critically about information you have been given.

You Said:

"The first proof-text of Catholics and - presumably - Arminians against Calvinism is that the first murderer heard God tell him he had been exercising free will. Genesis chapter 4."

In your haste to blame Cain for his actions, you completely neglect to consider how God exercised His own free-will which is what actually caused the murder.

Paraphrasing the story, Cain and Abel go running into the kitchen where God is sitting.

"Grand-dad, grand-dad, we drew pictures for you!"

God picks up Abel's drawing which depicts cows and sheep in a field. God says,

"Well done Abel, that's a lovely picture," and fixes it to the fridge using a fridge-magnet.

God then looks at Cain's picture which depicts a selection of fruit in a nice bowl and says,

"That's a crap picture Cain," and throws it into the bin.

And because of that, Cain came to resent Abel.

Now, if I were God, after Abel's demise I might be filled with self-recriminations.

"Oh woe is Me! If only I had respected Cain's offering, Abel would still be with us. Oh what a terrible grand-dad I am!"

It wouldn't have happened with me though; I would have stuck Cain's picture to the fridge no matter how crap it was.

In other words, Abel's death came as a direct consequence of God's actions but God was too much of a coward to face up to His responsibility.

That is the kind of leader you have chosen to follow. You have exercised your free-will to support a religion that strives to corrupt children.

All of you, right up to and including the pope had better start praying that there is no such place as hell because if there is... well, I suggest that you should pack a lot of sun-screen before you go.

And perhaps some ear-plugs too; the sound of screaming can be pretty depressing.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

It has not occurred to you that:

a) both Cain and Abel were already adults so both were beyond such a childish reaction?

b) since Cain was big brother, since he asked "am I my brother's keeper", he might have already exercised his freewill for the ill of Abel by harrassing little brother under the pretext of keeping him out of trouble and he might after that have been told off before this contest of sacrifice.

It might even be the case that if God had accepted Cain's sacrifice he would thereby have encouraged Cain's ongoing harrassment.

Before you dismiss this as speculation, first of all your own excuse for Cain is quite as much speculation, second, there is a parallel between him and the Pharisees.

And these decided to "kill" Jesus about a week before they were shouting "crucify", but they had already for years been carrying out a decision to "destroy" Jesus.

Philip Wakefield

+Hans-Georg Lundahl It doesn't matter; being 'continually harassed' is preferable to being dead. And God's choice was based on His own selfish desire for the smell of burning flesh. Did you forget about that?

And on the issue of the Pharisees; whose prophecy exactly was it that was fulfilled by Jesus' crucifixion?

Was Jesus not sent by God specifically for the purpose of sacrifice?

Jesus was sacrificed by God, to God, to appease God. How is that the fault of the Pharisees, or Judas Iscariot for that matter?

It wasn't the will of the Romans that killed Jesus, it was the will of God. Why do you fail to see this?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Being continually harrassed is obviously wasting the time a man has on earth. Being dead - and for Abel it has meant Heaven, after Christ came down to Sheôl to pick the rigfhteous souls up - is what most of our existance in total goes to anyway.

As to the will of the Pharisees, it was criminal, even if God foreseeing their crime had decided to use it for His good purpose. That kind of thing is why He allows evil choices to be made by Creatures in the first place.

Philip Wakefield

+Hans-Georg Lundahl Since you have decided not to deal with the points I have raised, I will finish with this: Any moral view of a man who considers 'unbelief' to be more vile than 'murder' and who thinks that it is better to be 'dead' than to be 'harassed' can only be vile and putrid.

Satan himself could not come up with a more rancid world view.

I think that evolution must have left you behind so fortunately, it is likely that you and your kind will soon become extinct.

The sooner the better.

And if I though that you held any position of authority, I would demand that you are dismissed on the grounds that you do not relate your decisions to logic or reason.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

+Philip Wakefield I dealt with the points you raised.

And your idea of what "evolution has left behind" stinks of Nazism.

+Philip Wakefield Sorry, I missed one post of you, bbs.

+Philip Wakefield I mean, do you think that Satan would be evil enough to preach genocide, kidnapping, rape, murder and slavery?

God's Bible is not exactly preaching it, but reporting it. In the case of killing off certain people's God had picked out, it was no genocide but carrying out of a divine judgement. In case of slavery the Bible gives limiting rules for it, but does not preach it. In the case of rape, there are rules about the duties a rapist has for repairing his crime.

Would Satan threaten to burn souls for eternity because their owners refused to submit to him?

He's not warning of his own trap.

Would Satan give an evil spirit permission to murder Job's family and his slaves and to torture Job himself to the point of death?

He was that evil spirit.

Is Satan capable of duping bronze-age Palestinians into thinking that he is the Messiah?

He will be duping much of Modern Man into thinking his man is the Messiah.

If the bible is the only evidence for God, then how would you attempt to subvert God if you were Satan?

Have I ever admitted that the Bible were the only evidence for God? No.

Philip Wakefield

Dude, your opinion of what it says in the bible does not count as evidence. You should just leave it now. You have nothing to say of any relevance to a modern world.

Good-bye.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I am very glad that all the world is not modern.

I am also very glad of not basing my opinions of what it says in the Bible on either your nor even on only my own reading capacity. I stand with the Catholic Tradition. In details I have perhaps read beyond what is firmly established therein, but never against.

Tcbmap

+Hans-Georg Lundahl

"You see, free will is something a murderer exercises while murdering. But I presume you see no problem with murderers going to Hell."

First off, if hell were true, I guess I wouldn`t have a problem with a murderer ending up there.

The other problem I have though is, I`m a non-believer. I have and I know I will never murder anyone. Well unless they try to murder me or family first. This god folks worship, will actually take the murderer into heaven before me simply for the fact that the murderer might or is a god believer.

So this guy would invite a murderer into heaven over someone who would never hurt a fly. Only because the whole story make no sense at all to me.

Why would I worship something that would hold a murderer, pedophile, rapist, torturer or any other thing in higher regard than me simply because I have a hard time believing a story that has been passed on thru the years?

Only because that murdering rapist might or does believe the story that I don`t, he would get into heaven before me. And my only sin would be not believing that same story.

Kind of makes you think.......

Hans-Georg Lundahl

There were two murderers and thieves crucified beside Our Lord. One of them mocked Him. The other asked Him to remember Him.

But before he was promised Paradise he had to confess he was being executed for his own fault and God on the Cross next to him without a fault.

Now, a murderer even if he is a believer does not always have that humility.

Faith without works is dead. A murderer who does not repent will, even as a believer, go to Hell.

Philip Wakefield

+Hans-Georg Lundahl You have already indicated that you hold no opinion of your own; you can leave it there now.

I think it would be an easy task to demonstrate your lack of morality too; you are nothing more than an obedient slave, a yes man who would commit any act that his religion demands without even considering the moral implications for a second.

You are a disgusting excuse of a human being and an enemy of humanity.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Philip, in case you didn't notice:

• a) I was answering someone else
• b) you are indulging in hate speech quasi interrupting my conversation with that someone.

You just demonstrated YOUR willingness to be rude and gratuitously insulting for YOUR religion of Antichristianity.

+Tcbmap , if you ever wondered what God has against infidels, take a look at Philip Wakefield and his behaviour.

Philip Wakefield

+Hans-Georg Lundahl "a) I was answering someone else"

I don't care; I will challenge bullshit wherever I come across it.

+Hans-Georg Lundahl "if you ever wondered what God has against infidels"

Yes and if I was the head of one of the richest international organisations on the planet, the Catholic church, then I would object to being exposed as a charlatan too.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

+Philip Wakefield, you were not challenging bullshit, you were personally insulting one person who was politely answering another person. Even in a very off topic way.

You were also doing it with words implying hatred of any Orthodox Catholic.*

And I simply do not see how a sensible man in possession of his senses could get out such a screamer as you just did.

God is indeed head of the Catholic Church, or so we claim. Others claim Satan is. Neither God nor Satan have any need of any of its riches for himself.

The Pope is earthly head of the Catholic Church. He is not God. I am neither Pope nor God. And since Hell fire is solidly anchored in Gospel, exposing even a real Pope as a fraud** would not make this dogma go away.

* I meant the words: "You have already indicated that you hold no opinion of your own ... you are nothing more than an obedient slave, a yes man who would commit any act that his religion demands without even considering the moral implications for a second."

The "no opinion of [my] own" part is a reference to my insisting on holding no doctrine contrary to such as are clearly indicated in Bible and Tradition. The rest is an inference from the parodic formulation thereof. Of course I am not without opinions of my own, and his real problem is I am too independent as a thinker - in relation to his sect.

** A real Pope as a real fraud, i e Catholicism as a fraud. Will not happen. A false Pope can of course be exposed as a real fraud, as a non-Catholic posing as Catholic.

To Philip Wakefield's credit

After posting the above reply, he stpped out of the way in a fashion. The thread was deleted (perhaps not my favourite way, but still:) and Tcbmap posted his argument to me again as top of a new thread. I appreciate the part about a new discussion.

Pantheist Alexander

I am conciousness, conciousness is pure energy, when i die my body will rot and if hell is fire, it is pure energy, fire can't burn fire. LOOK WAKE UP IDIOTS HELL OR HADES IS MYTHOLOGY. IT DOES NOT EXIST OUTSIDE THE MINDS OF THE IGNORANT LIKE THIS PREACHER. It doesn't even exist in Judaism or early Christianity , the Christians incorporated scary mythology from Babylon and ancient Greek mythology to scare ignorant people into believing their crap. so they can rule over their lives and profit off of them.

stony tina

"If you keep em stupid, I'll keep em poor." said the factory-owner to the vicar.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Two points on the main topic:

Even a soul, which would normally not be subject to pain through burns, exactly as other damned spirits, the fallen angels, have by divine decree been made subject to material fire so it will burn them exactly as it burns a body.

AND, on the day of resurrection you will get your body back and it will stay where your soul is after death or purgatory. Some die and get to Heaven, directly or after Purgatory, their bodies will stay in Heaven. Some die and their souls get to Hell (as the rich man from the Bible passage), their bodies will also be in Hell (excepting those who are given a second chance by being resurrected and living again in their erthly life and who take that chance).

A somewhat less burning issue is where we get the doctrine from. We do get it straight from Christ. Meaning that it is there in early Christianity and it was there in the late Temple religion of his time. Whatever happened since with Judaism.

To both the pantheist and the stony, there are actually rich people who have asked for religions without hellfire and you are getting them. You are also getting sacked or ruined by usury.

Pantheist Alexander

+Hans-Georg Lundahl first of all the rich man poor man is a Hellenized Jewish parable that was supposedly written by Luke who never met Jesus (does not resemble any other parable spoken by Jesus) but rather it resembles Greek mythology like hades and contradicts the judgement of the living and the dead on the last day as how are you condemned before being judged. The rest of the bible talks of enemies of israel being burned in gehenna and being totally consumed by fire or worm "both body and soul" , this is talking about annihilation and non existence, death being cast into the lake of fire is metaphorical for death will no longer exist after the judgement. It seems you have not studied the bible to understand it correctly. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not PERISH but have ETERNAL LIFE." eternal life is a gift the other option is to perish or no longer exist, no where does it say you live forever in hell, that was made up by the greek priests who fused platos version of the eternal soul with mythological greek hades (hell), this contradicts god of the old testament which states there is the body brought to life from the breath of god. "The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life." and also Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. This stance of eternal life only for the chosen and non existence for the rest was taken by the founding fathers of christianity. Early forms of conditional immortality can be found in the writings of Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus.

stony tina

+Hans-Georg Lundahl
What a nice fairy-tale.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Pantheist, the rationale for my interpretation of Scriptures is what is Tradition of the Church.
If you reject it, you get a kind of freedom or intellectual leeway to construe other meanings. I have no reason to believe yours are better than Luther's or Calvin's.

To the specific claims, St Luke never met Jesus, but several of His disciples and also His Blessed Mother.

There is no real contradiction between a particular judgement directly when dying and a general judgement on a specific common future day of Resurrection.

Your attempts to pinpoint sources of passages and supposedly real opposite beliefs indicate you merit your name, since a Pantheist by definition thinks he is part of God. You. Are. Not. Neither do you have His omniscience, nor do your Academic sources for these suppositions. You are serving rich people who do not want to be reminded some of their acts (not the fact of being rich in itself, but some ways they use to get there or to stay there and some of the things they consider perks of riches) are such as will land them in Hell. Or, perhaps more rightly, you are naively trusting Academicians so serving them.

Of course, some poor risk Hell as well.

By desiring same sinful perks of riches as certain rich who get there. Or by wanting a class warfare to replace the rich.

Nick B

+Hans-Georg Lundahl I'm sorry. I keep seeing you comments and I notice you make a lot of assumptions.

How do you know this "hell" is real? How do you know that your religion is "real"? You know there are no first hand accounts of the Jesus character, right? You know that the creation story as told in the bible is demonstrably false, right? You know that the bible is full of scientific falsehoods, historical inaccuracies and immorality, right? You do know that there has never been any evidence of anything supernatural ever documented, right?

You do know that countless other religions, both modern and ancient, have made claims that contradict yours, also based on zero evidence, right?

You claim a lot of knowledge but I don't see you providing any evidence. If you don't have evidence for something, then you should keep your fucking mouth shut. It's not proper to speak about things you know nothing about kid.

HGL answering piece by piece.

Quoting Nick

How do you know this "hell" is real?

Responding

Christ said so. More than once.

Nick Responds

The character in the bible is a blatant copy of many other mythological characters from around that same time period and we have no first hand writings to confirm that the character actually existed. So this means nothing. Even if the Jesus character was real, there's no evidence that he was anything special. Supernatural. So it'd just be the words of a man. That's not evidence for hell.

HGL responding again:

The character in the bible is a blatant copy of many other mythological characters from around that same time period

somewhere else : So, Dionysus was a Copy of Moses, may One Presume?
http://notontimsblogroundhere.blogspot.com/2012/11/so-dionysus-was-copy-of-moses-may-one.html

and we have no first hand writings to confirm that the character actually existed.

Already answered.

[See below]

Even if the Jesus character was real, there's no evidence that he was anything special. Supernatural. So it'd just be the words of a man. That's not evidence for hell.

The evidence for His being real is also evidence for His Resurrection being real.

somewhere else : What a blooper Dan Barker from Atheist League!
http://notontimsblogroundhere.blogspot.com/2011/04/what-blooper-dan-barker-from-atheist.html

Quoting Nick

How do you know that your religion is "real"?

Responding

Because of verified miracles and fulfilled prophecy.

Nick Responds

There have been zero "verified" prophecies or miracles. This claim has been debunked a million times over.

HGL responding again:

somewhere else : History vs Hume
http://notontimsblogroundhere.blogspot.com/2013/01/history-vs-hume.html

Quoting Nick

You know there are no first hand accounts of the Jesus character, right?

Responding

Wrong. I know there are. Sts Matthew, Peter and John gave first hand accounts. St Luke based his account on lots of first hand accounts which he had credibly interviewed. St Mark took down a sermon by St Peter - I have heard - in which the latter mingled selected passages from Matthew and Luke. It made quite a good Gospel in itself, even if only 16 chapters long.

Nick Responds

Incorrect. We have no writings that are first hand (the earliest dated writing that mentions the Jesus Character we have is about 70-80 years after the character would have died) and Paul said he met Jesus in a dream. FFS if you haven't even read your own bible, or fact checked your sources, then don't make wild claims. It's pathetic.

HGL responding again:

Incorrect. We have no writings that are first hand

somewhere else : Tim O'Neill makes an excellent case against the proposition That Constantine turned Jesus into the Son of God
http://notontimsblogroundhere.blogspot.com/2014/01/tim-oneill-makes-excellent-case-against.html

And check the part about Tertullian here:

Great Bishop of Geneva! : Answering Paul S. Pavao, Part I
http://greatbishopofgeneva.blogspot.com/2014/03/answering-paul-s-pavao-part-i.html

(the earliest dated writing that mentions the Jesus Character we have is about 70-80 years after the character would have died)

What is your date of Gospels and what do you base it on?

and Paul said he met Jesus in a dream. FFS if you haven't even read your own bible

You have not read it, or else you are grammatically ignorant.

St Paul says he met Jesus in a VISION, not a dream.

Quite a difference. Unfortunately for the understanding of Atheists, YOUR only available explanation for a vision is hallucination, your main explanation of those is schizophrenia, and it is blatantly absurd to think a madman could have kept up the kind of "leadership" or rather ruke he exercised in Church after Church.

Besides, the vision had a very tangible effect after it was gone: St Paul was blidn for days until one CHristian healed him.

Do check YOUR facts about St Paul in the text you have, i e the Bible.

Not believing it is no excuse for ignorance of it when trying to argue from it even against it.

Nick again

+Hans-Georg Lundahl Cool. I'm glad you think "Visions" is evidence. I love it when you christians prove my points for me.

Also, vision, dream, hallucination, whatever. It wasn't real, which was the point.

But I'm glad we can agree that we have no first hand accounts of Jesus at all.

Me again

I'm glad you think "Visions" is evidence. I love it when you christians prove my points for me.

Also, vision, dream, hallucination, whatever. It wasn't real, which was the point.

Two points you missed:

a) vision per se does NOT mean "not real".

b) Saul had plenty of confirmation that his particular vision WAS real, including witness of Christians who had seen Christ risen and talked to him together.

Hallucinations do not appear to different peoples in same way. Christ risen did.

Douay-Rheims Bible + Challoner Notes : The Acts Of The Apostles : Chapter 9
http://drbo.org/chapter/51009.htm

But I'm glad we can agree that we have no first hand accounts of Jesus at all.

But we can't.

You have NOT answered the challenge on when YOU think Gospels came from and why.

Nick

+Hans-Georg Lundahl The earliest writing that mentions the character Jesus we have is dated long after anyone would have been alive to see the Jesus character first hand.

This isn't up for discussion, it's a well known fact.

And a "vision" is never evidence. Ever. If you think so, you're a raging lunatic.

Me

The earliest writing etc

Which one?

is dated long after anyone would have been alive to see the Jesus character first hand

When? Known how?

This isn't up for discussion, it's a well known fact

As any charlatan will say when wanting to avoid discussion.

And a "vision" is never evidence

Except when something backs it up.

If you think so, you're a raging lunatic

It is bad enough that Atheists should conclude that about those who have visions. But that you conclude it about people believing the visions of others make you a menace to liberty of religion.

Nick

+Hans-Georg Lundahl Which one do you think is the earliest document we have that mentions the Jesus character and is written in such a way to suggest 1st hand meeting of the character, and I'll respond to that.

I am not trying to avoid anything. It's a fact that the earliest document we've ever found that has mentioned Jesus that suggests 1st hand encounter is dated long after the character lived. The writer would have had to have been over 100 years old at the time of the writing, in a time period where living to 35 or 40 was considered lucky.

If there's evidence, there is evidence. If a person claims to have a vision that coincides with evidence, that doesn't make the vision evidence. It just means the insane claim happens to match up with evidence. But the important thing to note here is that the evidence is what counts. Not the vision.

"I had a vision that that there would be a war in Iraq". We can point to evidence that supports the claim that there was in fact a war in iraq, but that doesn't mean that the "vision" I had is evidence of anything. It's just a wild claim with nothing but anecdotal assertion to back it up.

And yes, people who think visions, dreams or hallucinations should be taken seriously have serious mental health issues.

Hans

Which one do you think is the earliest document we have that mentions the Jesus character and is written in such a way to suggest 1st hand meeting of the character, and I'll respond to that.

St Matthew. Written by one disciple who had been raised in the tribe of Levi, who had been a tax collector, and then been a disciple, one of the twelve, for nearly all of Jesus' public life. He had also been speaking to St James the brother of the Lord to get details about genealogy and to the Blessed Virgin Mary pretty probably for details about Nativity, but since he tells the story from St Joseph's persepctive, he had certainly spoken to St James, the son of St Joseph in a first marriage. St Matthew wrote the Gospel in a first Hebrew or Aramaic version in the year 34. He later did a Greek translation himself. Obviously before he died. And obviously while writing later in Greek, he already had a very early text in Hebrew/Aramaic. That is who I think did it and when. I base this on the Christian Church and its Tradition. I consider it reliable, just as I consider reliable that the Founding Fathers wrote Declaration of Independence, that other item based on US Tradition. Now, respond if you like.

It's a fact that the earliest document we've ever found

Found as in found a papyrus of?

The writer would have had to have been over 100 years old at the time of the writing, in a time period where living to 35 or 40 was considered lucky.

This sounds like the Gospel of St John. It is also probably the latest book of the NT, certainly later than Apocalypse which is from St John's exile on Patmos under Domitian.

Since it was after Patmos that St John was found the sole surviving Apostle and asked to write another Gospel to vindicate the Divinity of Christ against Ebionite misuse of the Synoptics.

As with St Matthew, I base this on Tradition of the Church.

Now, 35 or 40 considered lucky in this time period? Where do you get such stats from?

Some crank who tries to pass off our mortality rates as a proof of considerable progress? Now, that is idiotic of you. Not meaning you need be totally an idiot generally, ok somewhat since "the fool hath said in his heart etc", but this one is idiotic of you.

If there's evidence, there is evidence ... But the important thing to note here is that the evidence is what counts. Not the vision.

You are discounting or just ignoring the possibility that the evidence and the vision can be totally integrated.

"I had a vision that that there would be a war in Iraq". We can point to evidence that supports the claim that there was in fact a war in iraq,

If someone put in a time capsule of 1970 the record of a vision stating on what provocations Iraq would have wars, and it matches up with the occasions that occurred since that is evidence of a vision being prophetic. if he only says after the wars occurred, "I had a vision" that is not even evidence of the vision occurring.

And yes, people who think visions, dreams or hallucinations should be taken seriously have serious mental health issues.

As said, people who think that are a serious threat to the liberty of Christians. So is very often Psychiatry. Especially it was so in the Soviet Union under Chrushchev, Staling preferring the Gulag, and the shrinks of Chrushchev have collaborated with shrinks in US and in Sweden and probably over much other places of the globe.

I am not taking the word even of a shrink, much less of their selfappointed fan club that Christianity in its basics equals madness. Is that understood?

Quoting Nick

You know that the creation story as told in the bible is demonstrably false, right?

Responding

Wrong. I know Evolutionism is demonstrably wrong.

Nick Responds

That's rich! So you actually believe evolution is wrong. Evolution, one of the best founded scientific theories in the entire world, backed by mountains of evidence... more evidence than we even have for gravity, atomic theory and germ theory.... yet you think it's "wrong".

Great, when you prove it's wrong, show me your Nobel prize. Until then, it's a completely unfounded and ridiculous thing to say.

You know what. I'm not even going to continue reading your rebuttal. Once you say evolution is wrong, you've pretty much proven that you're just an uneducated buffoon waffling about, desperate to cling to your fairy tale as if it was true.

Have a good life wallowing in your ignorance.

HGL responding again:

So you actually believe evolution is wrong. ... Great, when you prove it's wrong, show me your Nobel prize. Until then, it's a completely unfounded and ridiculous thing to say.

Abiogenesis is chemically impossible:

This Blog: ... on Abiogenesis and Evolutionist Ideology
http://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2014/02/on-abiogenesis-and-evolutionist-ideology.html

Evolution of mammals from a common ancestor is geometrically and genetically (not on genome level, but on level of number of chromosomes) impossible:

Creation vs Evolution : Letter to Nature on Karyotype Evolution
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2011/11/letter-to-nature-on-karyotype-evolution.html

Geological Column is an Abstraction without Foundation:

That same blog: Three Meanings of Chronological Labels
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2013/12/three-meanings-of-chronological-labels.html

As being a Swede and knowing whom the Noble Prize committees are promoting, I am not holding my breath for that recognition.

'm not even going to continue reading your rebuttal. Once you say evolution is wrong, you've pretty much proven that you're just an uneducated buffoon waffling about

Our readers can be thankful I am taking you more seriously than you take me.

Quoting Nick

You know that the bible is full of scientific falsehoods, historical inaccuracies and immorality, right?

Responding

Wrong for two out of three, wrong for one sense of the third as well.

Holy Bible tells ABOUT lots of immorality - with perfect historic accuracy.

Quoting Nick

You do know that there has never been any evidence of anything supernatural ever documented, right?

Responding

You are repeating the babble of Hume, I presume ...

Quoting Nick

You do know that countless other religions, both modern and ancient, have made claims that contradict yours, also based on zero evidence, right?

Responding

There is often as much evidence for founders making claims. There is no evidence any contradicting religion had a founder giving miraculous evidence as proof of his claims. Not the kind of miracle only God could make.

If Odin could fool old king Gylfe of Uppsala with a bit of hypnosis, that is because Gylfe was not the brightest one about being picky and choosing when it comes to miracles.

And a founder having a revelation from some deity is not evidence enough for a religion being true. Mohammed, like Odin, like Joseph Smith, like Numa Pompilius receiving a revelation from Egeria, like Hesiod receiving one from the Nine Muses is NOT the kind of evidence Moses provided by parting the Red Sea, Joshua by commanding the Sun to stand still, Our Lord by raising several dead and by rising from the dead as well. It is NOT the kind of evidence St Martin of Tours provided when he had died, by his body raising the corpses it touched from the dead.

Two comments

not worth bothering much about:

stony tina

+Hans-Georg Lundahl You better study the veracity of your sources again. And do it critically, this time.

Pantheist Alexander

+Hans-Georg Lundahl look he called you an ignorant buffoon, which is pretty much correct. He told you to hold on to your fairytale no matter what evidence and how true this evidence is, even if it stared you in the face you would not see it, you have sold your soul and it will be close to impossible for you to reclaim it. I pity you.

Reality:

Neither of them bothered to make a real logical argument. Both resorted to what amounts to namecalling. However, stony tina tries again and gets a response:

stony tina

+Hans-Georg Lundahl
"It's in this book and it's true because the book says it's true and because the book says the book is true it must be true because the book says so"

In all seriousness, I wonder if you're actually able to explain how those pesky things called proof and evidence work and how one demonstrates the veracity of any given claim.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Have you never learned that quotation marks are there to quote?

What you attributed to me is not an exact quote of anything I said and it is not a fair summing up of it either.

I find people gassing on about words like proof and evidence, like you do, far peskier than those actually trying to do some of it, even against me.

Nick B

+stony tina He clearly hasn't even researched the topic. He assumes that Jesus was a real character because the church and christian websites say so. 

Look at his response about earliest writings of Jesus. He doesn't even know lol. Might as well be talking to a brick wall. 

Hey Hans. I got a good idea for you. Try getting your facts from something other than jesusIsLord.com.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Nick B, try reading before responding! 

"He assumes that Jesus was a real character because the church and christian websites say so." 

The websites I linked to are my own essays on my blogs. 

The Church I trust because communities usually have a correct tradition about their origins. 

"Look at his response about earliest writings of Jesus." 

Earliest writings "of" Jesus? No, about Jesus. 

"He doesn't even know lol." 

Easier to tell her that than to answer the points I made to myself, isn't it? 

"Hey Hans. I got a good idea for you. Try getting your facts from something other than" 

I am getting my facts from all over the place from all sorts of sources including lost of secular ones. 

"other than jesusIsLord.com." 

Is that a site? I did not know of it. Might be a name of a blog of mine, when I need a new one. 

[I looked it up afterwards, it is a site, and it does not offer any info.]

Nick B

+Hans-Georg Lundahl I have read what you wrote. That's why it was so easy to refute everything you said. Which is why everyone here is picking you apart. The stuff you say is logically flawed and void of substance and evidence. 

I mean, look at your statement "I trust the church because communities are correct about their traditions". 

By that logic you would have to say every deity claim ever made is true and accurate, even though the teachings themselves contradict each other. 

You're too easy to beat man. Go away. You bore me.

stony tina

+Nick B Awww.... he bores you? Damn, I thought he was hilarious. Hilariously stupid, that is. XD

Nick B

+stony tina It's a comedy act I've seen too often. It used to be funny. Now it's just boring for me. 

I would prefer it if one of them would create a new, difficult argument to fight against. I love being challenged. But they've been using the same flawed logic and shitty arguments for thousands of years now. 

They need new material.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

+Nick B, you have not learned to quote correctly even. 

I wrote: "The Church I trust because communities usually have a correct tradition about their origins." 

You quote this as: "I trust the church because communities are correct about their traditions". 

You could have spared yourself that by copy-paste! 

[Which I used myself to make sure the quotes from myself and his pseudoquote were correct.] 

I have read what you wrote. That's why it was so easy to refute everything you said. 

Well, why didn't you? Our duel about trustworthiness of Gospel, I see your last post answered by me in several smaller ones, and none of them answered by you. 

Which is why everyone here is picking you apart. The stuff you say is logically flawed and void of substance and evidence. 

Easier to claim than to show, right? 

By that logic you would have to say every deity claim ever made is true and accurate, even though the teachings themselves contradict each other. 

Not so. 

I am claiming communities are correct about their origins. I buy that Numa Pompilius saw the nymph Egeria (except I think "she" was a demon) and that she told him how to make diviniations in the same Etruscan rite that was current up to Christianity. 

That does not mean that I buy that divination is correct. 

I but that Mohammed and Joseph Smith had revelations. That does not mean I buy that these revelations were from God. They contradict each other and the Gospel. And none of them was backed up by either prophet curing a lame or raising a dead. Or parting a Sea for his people to walk through. 

Are you starting to get my drift?

Nick B

+Hans-Georg Lundahl I did show it. The earliest dated documentation that mentions the character Jesus and is written in such a way that would suggest a 1st hand eyewitness account of the character in action was written long after the character had died. Too long for the author to have seen the person first hand. 

The historicity of the character Jesus is not based on 1st hand testimony, because there isn't any.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

No, Nick, you did NOT show this. You claimed it, I disputed the claim, you gave no evidence for your claim, I gave some for mine.

Some other stuff

Starting with a comment by Nick B that I already answered, and an answer by Pantheist Alexander.

Nick B

+Hans-Georg Lundahl Cool. I'm glad you think "Visions" is evidence. I love it when you christians prove my points for me. 

Also, vision, dream, hallucination, whatever. It wasn't real, which was the point. 

But I'm glad we can agree that we have no first hand accounts of Jesus at all.

Pantheist Alexander

+Nick B But I'm glad we can agree that we have no first hand accounts of Jesus at all. 

but he told you Matthew and John were first hand accounts. 

LOOK 
The Jewish bible was written after the Babylonian exile , prior to that the jews were polytheists, the Christian bible was written by Hellenized jews and greeks, using philos advice to Hellenize Jewish scripture into greek allegory. That's it, THEN the Romans hijacked this religion of many contradictory beliefs, burnt the books they didn't like and chose what was "gods words" (that was voted on by murdering dictators like Constantine) and you get the start of Christianity but these zombies do not look outside of the book of fiction as they fear this hell fire. They remain stuck in ignorance, don't bother with them after the reply shows you they have no interest in knowing truth.

HGL

[On thread yes, but inaccessible for copying for the moment. Ah, corrected:] 

+Pantheist Alexander 

these zombies do not look outside of the book of fiction as they fear this hell fire. 

As explained to Paul Sjordal earlier, you are wrong. 

I had a good case for Christianity that satisfied me well before I had any involvement in personally fearing I would myself go to Hell in any way. 

I have not ignored the arguments you rattle off, I have not been impressed. 

When you say: 

The Jewish bible was written after the Babylonian exile , prior to that the jews were polytheists 

I answer: how do YOU know that? 

The real answer is you do not. 

You are contradicting the Hebrew tradition. You are not doing it on the basis of any document. You are doing it on the basis of guesswork.

the Christian bible was written by Hellenized jews and greeks, using philos advice to Hellenize Jewish scripture into greek allegory.

Do you even know what all of the words you use here mean?

Philo's advice?

Hellenize into allegory?

Can you explain these concepts?

But even if you can, you cannot substantiate this was the origin of Christianity. Or of New Testament corpus either with or without really exotic apocrypha.

Again, you are:

Contradicting the tradition of the concerned community (this time of the Christian side of the Christian Jewish divide), with no basis in other tradition similarily old, with no basis in document, based on modern guesswork.

That's it, THEN the Romans hijacked this religion of many contradictory beliefs, burnt the books they didn't like and chose what was "gods words" (that was voted on by murdering dictators like Constantine) and you get the start of Christianity

You have:

• a) no evidence Christianity was "a religion of many contradictory beliefs". There were Christians, there were Gnostics, there were Ebionites. They did very much contradict each other, but they were distinct;
• b) no evidence beyond Protestant prejudice against Catholicism that Romans hijacked it;
• c) no evidence Christianity "crystallised" around ignorance of lost false Gospels rather than around condemnation of these, while they were still being spread by their adherents;
• d) no evidence Constantine voted on anything during the Council of Nicea, and no evidence (beyond non-factual and counter-factual Dan Brownery) Canon of Scripture came from that Council rather than earlier.

Some more

Nick B

+Hans-Georg Lundahl I did show it. The earliest dated documentation that mentions the character Jesus and is written in such a way that would suggest a 1st hand eyewitness account of the character in action was written long after the character had died. Too long for the author to have seen the person first hand.

The historicity of the character Jesus is not based on 1st hand testimony, because there isn't any.

[Answered above.]

Pantheist Alexander

+Nick B there is a physiological reason why they hold on to Christianity. They fear death. They are cowards and they are spiritually lazy. They run on simple reward and punishment principles. They take up their delusion and create a bubble of ignorance around them . They fear science and truth because it threatens their conception of the artificial delusion they hold on to and think their god will throw them into hell iif they question their dogma, they are brain dead zombies, I feel sorry for them. Their god is the least likely candidate for creator of the universe but they cling to this idolatry. They are no better than the mythological pagan beliefs that pre-dates their religion.

Nick B

+Pantheist Alexander I agree. But I would make that same sentiment toward anyone who believes in anything supernatural, not just religious people.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Pantheist, They are no better than the mythological pagan beliefs that pre-dates their religion.

Indeed He is by Creation ex Nihilo.

BUT Evolution is no better than those Pagan Creation Stories that forgot this vital detail.

there is a physiological reason why they hold on to Christianity.

Convenient charge in order to avoid a real debate, right?

Nick B

And he's an evolution denier.

Go figure. He just confirmed his full-retard status.

Pantheist Alexander

+Nick B everything is evolving, from god to the people who worship him. 

stony tina

+Pantheist Alexander "everything is evolving, from god to the people who worship him."

Nice way of phrasing their self-absorbed nature.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

stony, I doubt that is what Pantheist meant. He maybe means something by calling himself a pantheist?

Pantheist and Nick, Evolution is not an undoubtable and undoubted axiomatic statement like 2+2=4.

[I think they have proven for me: Evolution goes well with Atheism and even better with Pantheism, and Evolution denying Christians are not idiots because there is proof for evolution, but "just because".]

sarmadasco

Incredulous. A pastor, and I use the word loosely, mimics a man burned via an accident. He wasn't mimicking but was mocking the guy. Talking about the 'secretions', which was simply the gel they use to keep burnt skin, moist,that made him sick to his stomach? Where do these people find their pulpits and the people to listen to their diatribes of hate, evil and violence? I wonder if in his mind, he believes he's better than those he is judging for taste in music, dress, etc? Can he even see that he is a part of the evil? Of course he cannot. A crazy, religious extremist….one of the most dangerous people, or group of people that could possibly exist! He will, though, one day, get back all he has ejaculated verbally, at others. THAT…I want to see. Not to see him suffer, but to help him and show him that those he's been condemning for whatever reasons are not what he's been dictating all these years. He needs to experience true love and care, up front, directly.

And of course some ways of getting riches and some perks with riches are not sinful and will not land one in Hell.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I think the secretion was a secretion.

Even friction wounds produce secretions, what do you think burns do if you survive them?

sarmadasco

+Hans-Georg Lundahl I know what they do…as I have been burned from my chest, downwards to my feet. It is not pleasant but one adapts and at least I can cover up not that I should have to. I know.