The Arrogance of Christianity

[Europa]

Originally Posted by Yggdrasil

What's wrong is that that seemingly innocent affects us in several profound ways. That belief in paradise is the very definition of a bigoted, partisan farce. What, those who don't believe get to burn?? O RLY?

It doesn't matter.

From what you've written, I assume you don't believe there is a heaven or hell. I agree with you. But I consider myself to be unfortunate in this, and can only hope that sometime in my life I'll find something I can believe in, to convince me that an afterlife does exist.

Originally Posted by Yggdrasil

As much good as the Christian religion has created, it has been used for extremely dire purposes.

Power corrupts, and over the course of a few thousand years there is going to be those who will use that power to their own gain...wouldn't you?

I would.

[PastorSehmish]

If it hadn’t become an issue it wouldn’t have been an issue, but now it is…To me the question is simply do we have a perfect copy of the Word of God in our times. If you believe we have a mostly perfect copy or a pretty good copy your answer to the above question is no. My answer to the above is Yes. I happen to believe God has not left us without His word, and that means all His words. I believe the God who gave us His word is able to also preserve His word. I believe in the miracle of inspiration and I believe in the miracle of preservation.

The next question is if we have it where is it ? It can’t be all Bible versions because they are all different, some by little some by much. I believe God has given English speaking people a perfect Word of God in the King James Bible, because of the superior texts it was translated from and because of the superior translation methods that were used. I do not believe that the Wescott and Hort texts are better. They are recent discoveries and I for one do not believe God was waiting 1800 years to give us the true Bible. Nor can I accept that He was hiding this better manuscript in the Vatican ( does something smell fishy here…) and in the deserts of Egypt just waiting for the Laodecian church to find them. We already had the best manuscripts and they are the ones our King James Bible comes from. There are many excellent websites that go into detail about all this and you should visit there if you want to study the details.

Do I believe someone can get saved from another version ? Yes I do, in fact I believe you could get saved from a talking donkey if you told you enough true things. Of course four footed talking donkeys are not all that common…the two footed ones much easier to find. I am glad I did not receive the kind of education that taught me there was no true Word of God in our day…Pity those that did. Blinded by arrogant intellectualism and trapped now by their college loyalties they become evangelists in the cause of persuading others that they too have no reliable Word of God. What a sad situation. Professing themselves to be wise they have become fools…

[dagnabitt]

My God...

[PastorSehmish]

Greetings heathens,

Simply put there is a God and you can choose to believe Him or choose to deny Him. The mere fact this is such a hot topic is evidence that the Lord is trying to reach out to everybody on the face of the earth. You are asking yourselves these questions because God is putting the in your heart - he wants you to make a choice. He want's you to choose him; but will you? The God of the Bible is real. The God of the Bible's prophecies come to pass (Ezekiel 4:3-6 was fulfilled in 1948 - accurate to the very year). And most importantly, Jesus was real. The wages of sin is death, but Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins once and for all.

Will you accept this gift of salvation and forgiveness? All you must do is believe on him and accept him as your savior and you will go to heaven when you die.

God bless,
Dr Pastor Emeritus Wayne Sehimsh

[Yggdrasil]

I'll be lukewarm to take you seriously at first, because the trolling here is incessant.

In the case that you are in fact a minister, good on you. I do not want to get into a heated theological debate with you, because there is a plethora of information that we can both fling at each other, and I'm not up for that. If anything, I, and all other interested posters, are welcomed to discuss faith and theology in piecemeal, because uprooting a whole plant in one large heave is too much of an effort.

Now there are several points I would like to talk about. You state that there is great discussion among this topic, and that such discussion is auspicious. Auspicious indeed! It shows that many more people are thinking for themselves, and offering a critical analysis to their everyday lives. To what conclusions they reach; that is not my prerogative.

Now, I opened my bible to Ezekiel, and read the passages, yet I see no evidence of prediction. And if there is such, it is extremely vague. If you are alluding to the formation of the state of Israel, I will be glad to inform you that, right now, the Palestinians are asking for their land back, and not too nicely.

Now, assuming Jesus existed, what is it about him redeem the sins of the world? Is it the fact that he suffered by being nailed onto a cross? Because I can tell you, many, many more people have experienced greater pain, and for less reason. Take for example those poor German girls from about a month ago.

They're born, and they were kept locked up in a basement of 27 years. They never left. And their father raped them. Daily. He even fathered 9 malformed children with them. He beat them, they were filthy, all of them. I think it is fair to say that they have been through greater pain that being nailed. Am I to worship them because they have been through pain and innocent?

Secondly, I discuss the topic of a historical Jesus right hear in my thread. Before you go about declaring the new Testament as the absolute and infallible word of God, read my posts. You'll see the irony.

Then you offer me the gift of "salvation and forgiveness", and a free ticket to Heaven. As nice as it'd be to be up amongst the clouds, angels, and deceased loved ones, what are the consequences of refusal? Do I writhe, twist, moan, agonize, burn and suffer for all eternity? Well, bub, there's a thousand other religions out there with as tall a tale as yours, and apparently, you're up for the fryin' booth too.

[PastorSehmish]

Indeed most of your points are quite true, and do not require any further comment.

I am assuming when you say "assuming Jesus existed" you mean Jesus as the son of God, as there is ample historical evidence that he did actually exist. All religious opinions aside, to deny the existence of the person we know as Jesus (whatever you consider him to be) is truly foolish.

While I would prefer to discuss the prophecy of Ezekiel in another thread, the issue of how only Jesus was able to die for our sins is in a way complicated. Simply put though in both the old and new testaments, it was God who provided the sacrifice. God provided Jesus to pay for our sins, as he was sinless.

The sacrifice must take the place of sinful man: Sin and guilt was imputed to Jesus. As the wages of sin is death, he had to die for us. But as our sin was imputed to him, he has taken that punishment upon himself, for people past, present and future. Praise the Lord!

I'm glad I could enlighten you.

God bless,
Dr Pastor Emeritus Wayne Sehmish

[Hexadecimal]

Originally Posted by PastorSehmish

Indeed most of your points are quite true, and do not require any further comment.

I am assuming when you say "assuming Jesus existed" you mean Jesus as the son of God, as there is ample historical evidence that he did actually exist. All religious opinions aside, to deny the existence of the person we know as Jesus (whatever you consider him to be) is truly foolish.

While I would prefer to discuss the prophecy of Ezekiel in another thread, the issue of how only Jesus was able to die for our sins is in a way complicated. Simply put though in both the old and new testaments, it was God who provided the sacrifice. God provided Jesus to pay for our sins, as he was sinless.

The sacrifice must take the place of sinful man: Sin and guilt was imputed to Jesus. As the wages of sin is death, he had to die for us. But as our sin was imputed to him, he has taken that punishment upon himself, for people past, present and future. Praise the Lord!

I'm glad I could enlighten you.

God bless,
Dr Pastor Emeritus Wayne Sehmish

If Christ took only the wage of death from our sins, then we would no longer die. The cup that God gave Christ to drink was not that of physical death, but the full and infinite burden of God's wrath against sin. Rather than destroying every last of His creation; He took the burden of wrath upon HIMSELF as He, the Almighty, is the only One mighty and righteous enough to endure His own perfect wrath. This is why Christ proclaims being abandoned by God at his time of death - all presence of God was taken from Him; God turned His back upon Himself in wrath and smote Christ, not just in flesh, but in spirit too. His avatar was completely devoured and three days later reformed. Christ did not just die those three days; He was subjected to the entirety of Wrath so that man would be spared that judgment; so that the faithful may find heaven, and that the haters of God may be smote from existence in Hellfire rather than subjected to eternal wrath in the knowledge of their folly.

Perhaps something to consider; it has certainly deepened my own faith to understand this.

[countdown2chaos]

Originally Posted by PastorSehmish

Greetings heathens,

And most importantly, Jesus was real. The wages of sin is death, but Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins once and for all.

Will you accept this gift of salvation and forgiveness? All you must do is believe on him and accept him as your savior and you will go to heaven when you die.

So I can do whatever the heck I want because someone died 2000 years ago and I'm not responsible for my own actions? But the second before I die I can say hey Jesus, you saved me.And I'm in pearly white clouds and golden gates forever?
And if I don't am I going to rot in Hell no matter my actions on Earth? Heck, I might as well believe "Jesus you saved me" and shoot myself, why live on Earth when I can just die and live in "heaven?"
Dogma fails.

[Dark_Magneto]

Originally Posted by Europa

From what you've written, I assume you don't believe there is a heaven or hell. I agree with you. But I consider myself to be unfortunate in this, and can only hope that sometime in my life I'll find something I can believe in, to convince me that an afterlife does exist.

You don't need it.

When your time comes, you should just die.

It doesn't matter whether it be disease, age, or if your opponent is a lunatic... so long as your time comes.

Just die.

"It is easy to remove the mind from harping on the lost illusion of immortality. The disciplined intellect fears nothing and craves no sugar-plum at the day's end, but is content to accept life and serve society as best it may. Personally I would not care for immortality in the least. There is nothing better than oblivion, since in oblivion there is no wish unfulfilled. We had it before we were born, yet did not complain. Shall we whine because we know it will return? It is Elysium enough for me, at any rate."

- H.P. Lovecraft

People have the wrong idea. They think that even if their current life sucks, they have a better one waiting in the hereafter.

Normally these people would never awaken from their fantasies. They live trivial lives since they believe they have an endless one on hold. They proceed from this assumption. No matter how old they get they'll continue to tell theirselves "My real life hasn't started yet". "The real life is up next, so this life is trivial".

They continue to tell themselves that. And they age. Then die. And as the darkness takes them, only then may they realize that the life they lived was the real thing.

People don't live provisional lives, nor do they die provisional deaths.

That's a simple fact.

The problem is whether or not they realize this simple fact.

Whether they have truly awakened.

Killing all ones' religious beliefs may be a drastic remedy, but it can also be a good opportunity to wake them up. With this cognitive bloodbath, if they can break through this true "life" in the face of "death", they may awaken. The fog in their minds will lift. The gates of rebirth will open.

Of course... only if they can make it through.

For most people, it's out of the question. Their cultural influences, childhood indoctrination, peer pressure, and institutionalisation will not allow them to consider it. Their ego is to such an extent that to entertain the concept that they could truly, completely die and be existentially negated must not be allowed.

Out of all the creatures on the planet, humans are the only ones that have egos and recognize the fact that they will some day die. Various afterlife beliefs are merely a method of cognitive escapism to deceive oneself and ease the mental anguish that inevitably results from acknowledging ones' own inevitable demise.