Nature is amazing, supernature - all the more amazing. Your view on Christianity? The typical. God wants us to live in peace and be happy. God is not out to get us with spiritual coercion and some twisted race against the clock decision, or else when you die you burn forever in hell, even though its impossible for spirit to burn. Man has a pride problem, and God sent Himself to fix it, that man may see the sacrifice of His God, not only humiliating Himself and becoming a human (C.H. Spurgeon once said it was more humiliating for God to become a man than for an angel to become worm) but going all the further to die on a ragged tree by the hands of his own creation for a cause of His own system of sacrifice, of which man had origionally perverted for financial wealth and immense hypocrisy regarding the true God fearing Jews. How is this horrendous or unbearable? What about Hell? Amazingly, many people use fear and attempt to clothe it in gospel. In reality, all they are preaching is the gospel of coercion, or as I like to call it, the good news of fear. Lets get two things straight on Hell. First of all, everyone is judged fairly. This goes to everyone, no matter if they knew the truth and ignorantly rebelled against it, or if they did not know the truth or could not comprehend the truth. The latter is justified by two verses in the Bible, one in the Old Testament, another in the New.
"If you say, 'surely we did not know this,' does not He who weigh the hearts consider it? He who keeps your soul, does He not know it?" --Proverbs 24:12
"Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but to him who blasphemes the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven." -- Luke 12:10
How do you blashpheme the holy spirit? Rebellion. How do you blaspheme the Son of Man? Reject Him. The latter is forgiven on behalf of innocence. This goes with Proverbs 24:12.
Still on the subject of Hell, a very logical and compassionate atheist might ask "why does eternity have to be physical torture for an act commited within 80 years time?" The response would be that the flames in Hell (and the biblical, final Hell is the second death of Revelation 20) are almost certainly symbolic for condmenation or a permanent state of judgment. It makes sense. Revelation is apocalyptic scripture - it is to be taken for the most part metaphorically. Also, I would add that a mind-set is not temporary - it is permanent until it is changed by external resources. Thus, eternal damnation in Hell is not unrighteous, it is merely respecting the intrinsic value of a person on behalf of his or her free will. Someone once said that Hell is not Hell from the perspective of those in Hell, but is Hell from the view of Heaven. It all has to do with the better life. The people in Hell are self-righteous, arrogant, and not willing to see the truth on behalf of this. C.S. Lewis said the doors of Hell are locked from the inside. I've always told atheists that it is good to get in your mind that God is fair before they run off into the doctrine of Hell. The gospel message is that of love, of which I think I've decently covered.
I also might add, with vigor on this subject due mostly on behalf of the great Christian thinkers, such as C.S. Lewis and J.P. Moreland, that many are Christians and they don't even consider themselves to be, and many who claim to be Christians never have truly repented and accepted the cure to their pride. These are usually the hypocrites who make people mad and even more confused over the truth of good religion. A philosopher once said "judge a man not by what he says, but how he acts". Jesus once said "judge a tree by it's fruit". The New Testament speaks on this seeming mystery of salvation identity disorder.
"[God] will render to each one according to his deeds: eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and imortality; but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness --indignation and wrath" -- Romans 2:6-8
"But," you say "Billy Joe the preacher said "nobody comes to the father but through me" (John 14:6) speaking on behalf of the words of Jesus". Is it really odd to have the acceptance of Christ only via verbal acceptance? I believe many know him and practice his virtues without even knowing it, all on behalf of their humility. Here comes the liberal train out to get me.
So you see, the real question is not "Will you save yourself from fire fire fire?" but rather "Would you like your life and your eternity to be better?" God is not looking for sheer doctrinal correctness, but rather honesty and innocence. Don't you want to be sure that you will have better life?
I APOLOGIZE FOR THIS SHORT SERMON
fools *pointing finger* was merely stating his reason for rejecting Christianity and I was giving my reply. If you delete my post, you must delete his as well. If you want to continue this (I dont really see why) then meet me in apologetics. No more preaching, I promise.
blessings,
John
