Do you believe that 2007 will have the second coming of Jesus Christ?

[John Dibble]

Yes, Buddha came to me and told me that Jesus was reincarnated as a ferret only a few hours ago.

[John Dibble]

Probably one of the most distasteful parts of Christianity for me is the part that you hear over and over from people trying to convert others, which is that you get eternally tortured in hell if you don't believe that Jesus was the Son of God, etc.

No, Hell is the consequence of sin; it is NOT the consequence of disbelief:

John 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."

But Salvation is the consequence of living by faith:

John 3:16-18 "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. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son."

Dude, you're contradicting yourself - first you say that non-belief isn't the reason you go to hell, then you say non-believers are condemned (a.k.a. going to hell) because they don't believe. It's right there in plain English, the second half of the last sentence in your post.

[John Dibble]

Dude, you're contradicting yourself - first you say that non-belief isn't the reason you go to hell, then you say non-believers are condemned (a.k.a. going to hell) because they don't believe. It's right there in plain English, the second half of the last sentence in your post.

Hello and welcome to Jesus 101!

In the beginning, God created man. He was all like, "Dude, don't do that sh**t over there." But man was all "Whatever, man," and did it anyway (man was probably high). God was pissed and was like, "You idiot, now I have to send you to hell. I LOVE YOU!" Man was like "That's lame." So God felt a little bad and was like "Well just wait 2000 years I'll fix everything."

So 2000 years later this Jesus guy pops out and doesn't do any of that sh**t over there. God was like, "Jesus is so awesome, let's kill him so that man doesn't have to go to hell." So they killed Jesus and that was a serious bummer. But then Jesus popped out of the ground a few days later all like, "Pshh death is for pussies. Believe me and you can come hang out with God."

To summarize: God condemned man to hell for sin. The belief, faith, and acceptance that Jesus died in stead of you is what forgives you your sin. Now, one could indeed argue that not believing results in going to hell, but not believing would not be a problem if you didn't already have sin on your plate. Besides, the Bible states that even the demons know and believe in God and Jesus.

LOL, amusing. Anywho, in response to the last part - in terms of "belief" I think "worshiping and submitting" were also implied, so keep that in mind for the rest of the conversation, but I digress...

Biblically, all humans are sinful in nature, right? Suppose a Christian and, oh I dunno, how about a Buddhist both live near identical lives, the primary difference being their religion. If the Christian commits a sin, the Buddhist also commits the same sin. Basically, if the Christian steals $10 from his grandmother, the Buddhist steals $10 from his grandmother. That's not to say they generally go around doing bad things, but even the most devout slip up now and then. So let's also say if one feels bad and tells his grandmother the truth and pays her back $20, so does the other.

When they both die, they have committed an equal amount of sins. The Christian is "saved" and goes to heaven, and the Buddhist is "condemned" and goes to hell - this is what the quote before says will happen. They have committed equal amounts of sin, and yet they receive different fates. Logically, given that they both have sinned equally, the consequences can't be because of sin. The only difference was their beliefs, and the one who believed in Christ gets saved and the one who doesn't burns eternally. The end result is the direct consequence of believing or not believing. Logically you can't get around it. You can still say that sin is the reason you go to hell, but you first have to also say that not believing is the only sin God won't forgive.

[John Dibble]

Dude, it's real simple.

Belief/Worship -> Heaven
Non-belief/Non-worship -> Hell

You can try to bulls**t your way out of it all you like, but the link is quite clear. The consequence of not believing and not worshiping is hell. That's how things stand according to the quotes you've put here. You can try to gussy it up as much as you like, doesn't change the simple facts.

[John Dibble]

this is real simple:

if you get caught stealing and have a "get out of jail free" card that you refuse to use, are you convicted and sent to jail on the charge of stupidity or on the charge of stealing?

Except under the concept of "original sin" I'm guilty of a crime I didn't commit. Since the condemnation comes from something I didn't do in the first place, your example is flawed.

[John Dibble]

this is real simple:

if you get caught stealing and have a "get out of jail free" card that you refuse to use, are you convicted and sent to jail on the charge of stupidity or on the charge of stealing?

Except under the concept of "original sin" I'm guilty of a crime I didn't commit. Since the condemnation comes from something I didn't do in the first place, your example is flawed.

need I remind you that you're not debating with a Catholic 

No, we could probably have a somewhat rational discussion if you were Catholic.

[John Dibble]

this is real simple:

if you get caught stealing and have a "get out of jail free" card that you refuse to use, are you convicted and sent to jail on the charge of stupidity or on the charge of stealing?

Except under the concept of "original sin" I'm guilty of a crime I didn't commit. Since the condemnation comes from something I didn't do in the first place, your example is flawed.

need I remind you that you're not debating with a Catholic 

No, we could probably have a somewhat rational discussion if you were Catholic.

all excuses aside, the differences are irrelevant for the outcome in my case and in your case is the same - we need faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins

Yes yes, I understand. I need to give the schoolyard bully my lunch money to avoid him beating me up.

[John Dibble]

God is just because the book that is supposedly the word of God says God is just? I remind you that circular logic isn't very affective in real debates.

[John Dibble]

God is just because the book that is supposedly the word of God says God is just? I remind you that circular logic isn't very affective in real debates.

for someone who doesn't belief faith is logical, you sure spend a lot of time discussing religion

Just because I don't find faith particularly logical doesn't mean it's not worthy of discussion. If you haven't noticed a good deal of people in the world are religious, and religion affects a range of things such as culture, politics, and law. Should I ignore something that has a significant impact on the world simply because I find that something to be illogical?

[John Dibble]

actually, unless you live in a dry county, I don't see how the religion of Christians is affecting you at all.  The last time I was affected by someone else's religion was when the Mormons knocked on my door.

You lack imagination, try putting yourself into other people's shoes. You're a Christian, one of the clear majority in this country, so obviously other religions don't affect you as much as it would if you held another set of religious beliefs. Here's just a few examples of how people holding different religious beliefs can affect me:

1. Christians often try to affect the school system. While this might not affect me directly anymore given I am done with school, it could affect any children I might have in the future. There are many who push for creationism and intelligent design, non-science and pseudo-science respectively, to be put on equal footing with the science of evolution in the classroom. Others wish to teach those and ban the teaching of evolution outright. (mind you I don't have any notion against the ideas being discussed, but to put them on equal footing with legitimate science is not acceptable) Also, such people are often inclined to ban books in school libraries that any future children of mine might want to read. Basically, they want to push their beliefs onto the students.

When people want to do this, clearly it's going to have an affect on those who disagree - at the very least the opposition must rally to prevent it from occurring, and at worst it occurs and the opposition has to deal with the consequences.

2. If I wanted to run for elected office, do you think I could be open and honest about my religious beliefs and still stand a chance of winning? Nope. Wouldn't matter much to too many people in this country if they agreed with me on the issues or not, they wouldn't accept someone without faith, and probably their faith in particular. In fact a good deal of Christians aren't very friendly or tolerant towards non-believers in general. The religion issue can break up friendships, prevent relationships that might otherwise be great (in my experience many Christian women won't go out with a non-believer, which limits my pool of possible mates), and some people will get outright violent about it.

3. Many people I care about are gay. Friends, family, coworkers, acquaintances. Frankly, I see no logical reason why they shouldn't be allowed to marry, adopt, and everything else that straight couples do. However, there's this certain group of people who work constantly to prevent that because they view these people as "sinful" and they must "protect the sanctity of marriage". Take a guess who those people are? Does this affect me directly? Sure. If someone you cared about was suffering an injustice wouldn't it affect you?

Need I go on? Religion is such a big part of our world that it would be illogical to ignore it as if it didn't affect me.

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It might not change Muslim terrorists, but that doesn't make it worthless to discuss. Discussion allows us to gain and spread knowledge. If discussing Islam gives people a greater understanding of the world around them and of those who wish to kill them, what does it matter if the terrorists themselves won't change?