So Bill Nye is going to debate Ken Ham...

[Kheldarson]

Well it depends on the interpretation.

According to fundamentalists, everyone is damned by default simply by being born with original sin. In that case, one wonders why God keeps us around if most people will be damned.

I'm Catholic, so that's my interpretation. And in current Catholic dogma, it's taught that original sin makes us flawed but does not necessarily condemn us to hell automatically.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

Free will is a rather tricky thing to break Christianity's balls over though considering scientific research isn't exactly sold on the concept either. I've never found the idea of both having free will but certain actions being verboten to be that difficult to assimilate. Remove a God figure and it's still a true statement I can't go around murdering people or that continually ripping people off without it resulting in bad things societally. I can dig not liking the threat, but I still think it's not exactly something big to get hung up over. For the record, I don't believe in free will at all. I think we delude ourselves and the reality is some of us got the right computers in the right place at the right time, and others did not. The outcome of those interactions were always going to go one way given the input.

I tend to think in a theological framework the idea of hell essentially acts as a giant safety valve for human behavior. Yes I know person X is a lying cheating bastard. Yes, I would probably feel really good if I just killed him. People would probably applaud me for it anyway. I might even get a sympathetic jury and get acquitted for it. But if I buy the concept of hell, I realize his judgement will come around eventually. I don't need to deal with him myself nor deprive society of two possibly contributing members. In other words, the idea is that it arrests the impulse to violence no matter how enraged the person actually makes me. And we're being polemic here, fill in whatever extra stuff makes the person worthy of that punishment in your mind.

We can of course debate the efficacy of that, but honestly when we think these things were put down on paper for the first time, I'd find it highly doubtful what was being written was actually considered oppressive. That's just the nature of reading a historic text with thousands of years between its writing. "God" today comes off as oppressive because our mores and norms don't match ancient Judea. I hate the "sky bully" as an argumentative strawman because it reduces the totality of christian thought to... well fundamentalism. But hey, it sells well and it speaks to many former Christians... well lets just say hot buttons.

[siead_lietrathua]

Also, it didn't have to be Judas. The only time Jesus pegged him as the betrayer was after Judas had made the decision himself.

had to dig it up, but from the book of John.
22 His disciples stared at one another, at a loss to know which of them he meant. 23 One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him. 24 Simon Peter motioned to this disciple and said, “Ask him which one he means.”
25 Leaning back against Jesus, he asked him, “Lord, who is it?”
26 Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” Then, dipping the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. 27 As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him.
by this account, jesus picked judas.

to the hell not having fire, this is the only one i could think of to look up off the top of my head. weather or not catholic dogma uses it, it's in the gospels and can easily be seen that hell= fire and torture (or, as hubs said it, knashing of teeth. (sidenote, my secondary is catholic, and they DO do the whole hell-fear thing from what he's told me)
Matthew 5:22
22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,' is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

Remove a God figure and it's still a true statement I can't go around murdering people or that continually ripping people off without it resulting in bad things societally....

it's not just a society thing. prolonging our species is something hardwired into us. typically, murdering people in our tribe makes it harder for the tribe to survive. that's why people instinctively hate killing, unless it's to protect someone. or if their wiring is off.
if anyone says they could readily kill if not for the threat of hell... they need serious help.

[Kheldarson]

had to dig it up, but from the book of John.
22 His disciples stared at one another, at a loss to know which of them he meant. 23 One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him. 24 Simon Peter motioned to this disciple and said, “Ask him which one he means.”
25 Leaning back against Jesus, he asked him, “Lord, who is it?”
26 Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” Then, dipping the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. 27 As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him.
by this account, jesus picked judas.

Also from that book (same chapter too!):

13:2 And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him;

And if you go by Matthew, in chapter 26 we see Judas selling Jesus out in chapter 26: 12-14 and then declared by Jesus to be his betrayer in 25.

Mark chapter 14, same thing. Judas goes to the priests first and then is declared at the Passover supper after.

Luke does the same in chapter 22.

So, again, it didn't have to be Judas. In fact the three other gospels indicate that it was the incident with the woman washing Jesus' feet with costly perfume which set Judas off. It was his decision to betray Jesus. If he decided not to, something else would've set off the scene (perhaps the priests would've taken matters into their own hands from jealousy?)

to the hell not having fire, this is the only one i could think of to look up off the top of my head. weather or not catholic dogma uses it, it's in the gospels and can easily be seen that hell= fire and torture (or, as hubs said it, knashing of teeth. (sidenote, my secondary is catholic, and they DO do the whole hell-fear thing from what he's told me)
Matthew 5:22
22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,' is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

I'm Catholic as well, and I can tell you that hellfire and brimstone aren't used in modern teaching. The lack of being in God's presence is deemed enough.

Please further note that the Catholic Church does not teach Bible literalism (so fires of hell can be taken as metaphor), nor does it declare that anybody has actually ever gone to hell.

[Hyena Dandy]

I think what you're looking at whne you see the people who are given evidence otherwise and still ignore it is cognitive dissonance, not lying.

Cognitive dissonance is hardly unique to Christians. Seeing as in this thread, we have someone saying that Christians believe something, and arguing with a Christian who says they don't believe that...

[siead_lietrathua]

Also from that book (same chapter too!):...

that doesn't negate when i said originally that "in one of the gospels, jesus picks judas himself as his betrayer".
all it does is show that there are contradictions. which i think anyone that's read the book knows.

I'm Catholic as well, and I can tell you that hellfire and brimstone aren't used in modern teaching. The lack of being in God's presence is deemed enough. Please further note that the Catholic Church does not teach Bible literalism (so fires of hell can be taken as metaphor), nor does it declare that anybody has actually ever gone to hell.

Regardless of whether or not catholics teach it (and, again, i've known catholics that tell me they do), among the 4000 or so other sects of christianity, there are plenty that do belive in a punishing fire. the concepts of a fire hell are still IN THE BOOK. which was the only point i was trying to make. infighting between the christian sects over who got the interpretation right doesn't matter.

and it REALLY doesn't matter when we are talking about Ken Ham, who IS a bible literalist (when it's convenient for him). when we are talking about Ken Ham's view of hell, it is very much the fire and brimstone place of torture.


edit

sidenote: glad to see i'm not the only one on the net that thinks this face is the perfect image to describe the debate.
(screenshotted this while first watching it)


is that not the perfect "what the heck......" face ever?

[crashhelmet]

The translations and mistranslations of the Holy Bible are a huge problem that people need to stop taking literal.

From HEBREW AND GREEK WORDS MISTRANSLATED TO MEAN HELL

Matthew 18:9
And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell (gehenna) fire.

When Jesus Christ uses the term gehenna fire, He does not mean everlasting tormenting hell fire. By the term gehenna fire, Jesus means God’s age lasting refining fire on the Day of Judgement.

Gehenna takes its name from a valley located in Jerusalem called the valley of Hinnom. During Jesus’s time on earth, this valley was used as the city dump. A fire was constantly kept alight there to burn up and consume all of the city’s unwanted rubbish.

Now, let us understand the spiritual meaning and significance of this original Greek word gehenna, which Jesus uses to refer to the fire of judgement on the Great White Throne Judgement Day. This is the future age-to-come judgement for all resurrected unbelievers and for Satan and his fallen angels, as we discussed previously in Chapters 12 and 13.

2 Peter 3:7-12 says that on the Day of God’s Judgement, the elements will melt with fervent heat and the whole earth will be dissolved. So, the earth will become a literal ball of fiery molten lava (a lake of fire).

Hebrews 12:29 says that God Himself is a consuming fire.

Malachi 3:2 says that God is like a refiner’s fire and like the launderer’s soap.

Don't even get me started on the horrible mistranslations of 1 Corinthians 6:9

[Kheldarson]

that doesn't negate when i said originally that "in one of the gospels, jesus picks judas himself as his betrayer".
all it does is show that there are contradictions. which i think anyone that's read the book knows.

And I stated that his naming Judas as his betrayer took place AFTER Judas made his decision. So it wasn't like Jesus named his betrayer and then Judas felt obligated to go out and do it; Judas had already offered and been paid to do so. And all four Gospels agree on that timeline.

That's why my argument for free will in that case stands.

Regardless of whether or not catholics teach it (and, again, i've known catholics that tell me they do), among the 4000 or so other sects of christianity, there are plenty that do belive in a punishing fire. the concepts of a fire hell are still IN THE BOOK. which was the only point i was trying to make. infighting between the christian sects over who got the interpretation right doesn't matter.

Except not all sects agree that the Good Book is discussing a literal fiery place. That's a big difference.

[TheHuckster]

Regarding the whole Judas thing, my best explanation is this:

Yes, without him, the prophecy of the circumstances behind Jesus' death would not have occurred. However, Judas's intention was not to fulfill that prophecy. His intention was full of spite, greed, and hate. He didn't betray Jesus because it's what God set out to have him do. He did so because the pharisees asked him to do it for thirty pieces of silver. That is what makes his actions sinful and wrong.

In order for a prophecy such as the son of God dying for humanity's sins to take place, one had to ironically sin in order for that death to take place. When you think about it, if someone condemned Jesus to death because he wanted to fulfill the prophecy that original sin be forgiven, that in and of itself is a selfish and sinful intention.

That being said, at least in the Catholic church, whether or not God has forgiven Judas is still left for debate. In history they seemed to have gone back and forth on the whole thing and I believe today it's back to "we don't know."

[Gravekeeper]

Considering how much shit the Gospels went through and what they originally started as, they're a piss poor basis for any debate on free will, never mind any sort of reference to the life of Jesus. The verses in question likely have at least 9 different translations and 27 different wordings across different versions of the Bible.

As for Hell, you're both technically correct. In Catholic dogma it is defined as a state of suffering without the grace of God as the primary mode of suffering. But it is also mentions unquenchable and eternal fire as another one of them.

Also, Catholic dogma does not assume you're automatically fucked by default. You gotta work at it and remain totally unrepentant for your entire life right up to the moment you perish.

The translations and mistranslations of the Holy Bible are a huge problem that people need to stop taking literal.

I'm dubious of any website with that sort of domain name that goes on to claim that it knows what Jesus said and what he meant. Especially given that it doesn't have its history right in any way shape or form.

Yes, in the original Hebrew religious text Gehenna was a burning garbage dump at one point. However, prior to that it was where the Caananites were said to worship their gods in all manner of evil and foul ways. But, specifically but burning children alive as sacrifice. As for the burning garbage dump, it was also where they dumped corpses not just garbage. Hence the whole dead being cast into the fires of hell thing. Thus it became a poetic synonym for eternal punishment.

That said, there is absolutely no historical or literary evidence the valley was ever anything of the sort. It's Bible-ception. The New Testament referencing the myth from the Old Testament. But again, that myth was that the valley was a cursed placed where children were sacrificed in fire, bodies were dumped, garbage was burned and the Caananites in general used it as a giant orgy pit.

Considering the first references to Gehenna ( as a place of eternal punishment ) were almost 600 years prior to Jesus's life, the idea that he would reference it as a literal place in his time is ridiculous. He would be referencing it as it was stated in the Hebrew Bible ( a poetic synonym for eternal punishment ), seeing as what he set out to do was reform Judaism. Not start Christianity.

[siead_lietrathua]

Except not all sects agree that the Good Book is discussing a literal fiery place. That's a big difference.

i said that. i also said that KEN. HAM. IS. A. BIBLE. LITERALIST.
so when talking baout ken ham, and how HE teaches things, he does teach literal fire hell.

this isn't about every sect. it's about ken ham-and-cheeze-on-white.

[Kheldarson]

Except you made the statement that Catholics believe it too. I denied it, as a Catholic, but you insisted. Ergo, you established that you were talking not just about Ken Ham but about multiple sects in Christianity.

Just because you keep overshooting your own argument doesn't mean I can't respond to the argument you are making.

[siead_lietrathua]

i said some catholics. the experice of catholics that i know and speak to have told me they are taught it. therefore, SOME are taught it.
like how i wrote SOME sects of chistianity do, and you responded with this assertion that "Except not all sects agree that the Good Book is discussing a literal fiery place. That's a big difference."

we are saying the same thing. SOME sects teach it (including, apperantly, SOME groups of catholics)
if you are gonna take it, than when i write SOME, or sentences that mean SOME, as an assertion of ALL, well then this conversation will go nowhere.

edit:
going back through the thread, i didn't start making any assertions about catholics period until you brought it up. christianity was being used as the term until you began your assertions that catholics are different.
and the first thing i said about catholocism is "(sidenote, my secondary is catholic, and they DO do the whole hell-fear thing from what he's told me)" and beyond that, the only stuff i said about catholosism in specific is that i've had catholics tell me they do teach hellfire. so, you're arguing that the personal experience i was told by someone has to be wrong because it's diffrent than yours?
we can talk about the bible without having to get into this sect argument. it's all the same book. and whether or not people are taking it literally, if it's in the book it's up for discussion. even if hell is a metephor, it's still described, in that book, as a place of burning. so we can still say that hell, from the context of that book, is a sadist's wet dream.

[Gravekeeper]

i said some catholics. the experice of catholics that i know and speak to have told me they are taught it. therefore, SOME are taught it.

I refer to my last post again. In Catholicism, "Hell" is the state of suffering of willfully choosing to be being separated from God's grace. It has been referred too as "the unquenchable fire", yes. But the official position of Catholicism is that it is a state and it makes no further attempts to define it nor does it make any move to define its nature or punishments beyond that.

To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him forever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called "hell."

That is the official position of Catholicism from the Vatican itself. Which, no offense, far outweighs the personal anecdote of a random voice on a web forum.

As for "some" Christians, the only major sect that has a literal burning hell fire are the Protestants, specifically the sub sects of Southern Baptists and Evangelicals as Protestants varying on their view of Hell ( Amongst other things, there are many more variations of Protestants than Catholics ).

Everyone else defines it as a state of being and Eastern churches reject the idea outright. Instead referring to it as a state of experiencing God. IE everyone ends up with God, but if you hate God, hanging out with him for eternity will suck and you will thus be experiencing "Hell" cus you don't like his company.

It only seems like a prominent thing from your point of view because the US has the largest group of Southern Baptists / Evangelicals in the world and they are an obnoxiously loud bunch of judgmental assholes. When in truth, there's really only around 16-20 million of them there vs the 2.1 billion or so Christians world wide.

So, eternal hell fire is really more of an asshole thing than a Christian thing. Eternal damnation even more so has even fewer sects believe in that than in Hell being an eternal fiery pit of misery.

Got it? Get it? Get It? Good. -.-

[siead_lietrathua]

*facepalm*
so what word can i use then. a couple? a few? i figured "some" was sufficient.

and, again, ALL i said about catholocism was that the catholics i knew told me diffrent than what Kheldarson was saying. that's it.
when i was talking about hell, i said some sects of christianity (actually, looking back i said "plenty of" the first time. which, frankly, one is "plenty of" when talking about BS). arguing that it may only be this one group of assholes or this other group of assholes still makes them "some".

and i'm not arguing if it's a christinan thing, a catholic thing, or an asshole thing. i'm gonna quote myself from before: "it's all the same book. and whether or not people are taking it literally, if it's in the book it's up for discussion. " however a sect chooses to interperet it is their thing. but the justifications for the interpretations are in that book!
i mean, you can swat off any controversial subject with whether or not a particular sect teaches it. the sects may not teach slavery anymore, but it's still in the bible, and can still be talked about as a horrible thing in the bible.

edit: if this is just boiling down to "well we can't say bad things about the bible because everyone interperets it diffrerent" then i'm skipping outta this thread. but not before sharing more Bill Nye Face.


i swear that keeps making me laugh, i can't help it.