Hell:a Bundle Of Lies.

@Zino,


I don't think I argued that you did otherwise.


I didn't make any such assertions, please refer.


I have tried to reason with mazaje along such lines, but I don't see where the concerns I bore out have been discussed.


1. The Christian is not called to "defend" God.
2. So far the discussion has been about worldviews, in this case "rationalism" and "Christianity".

Day and night? that's another false allegation bro. How many will you give in a day? 

these days you hardly find me on the muslim threads . . . the only time you see me there is if someone is trying to use the bible as a crutch to prop up islam.

I don't see any reason how that is compatible with what is at play here. I simply say, if you don't believe hell exists then you're better of sleeping than arguing that i prove it to you.

you again misrepresent me to prove an invalid point. I was there only when muslims (as they ALWAYS do) try to use the bible to prop up their own God and his prophet.

I don't bother them about proving that the quran is real or not . . . i have a choice not to read it and i exercise that choice. You don't believe hell exists . . . good, go to bed and stop asking me to prove it for you.

No wahala man, am just angry at all the FOOLS out here in naija that are always out there in the morning shouting on their voices about jesus, money,prosperity, heaven ,hell etc and interupting my peaceful morning sleep, and when ever you question their belief they start casting and binding you to hell in the name of jesus when clearly they don't even know what they are talking about. . . . . . . . .  the anger extends here man  so no vex abeg.

Okay, I see why. Cheers.

Did the Bible say the Devil was going to torment anyone in a fiery furnace?

i dnt knw what all that is about,we all knw there is judgement, one thing, no one has come back from d dead to tell us which religion to follow,but i do believe every religion preaches d basics of human existence, love thy neighbour as thy self,do unto others what u want them to do to u. If we all do this the world would be a better place,

Are we debating what 'a pastor' told you or what is written in the bible? Once again - no dimensions were given, neither were we told of the extent to which the construction had proceeded, so to engage in guessing and predictions lies squarely in the realm of conjecture.

How do you define 'exceptionally high'? Is the term not relative to the kinds of structures at that particular time? When you can give me proof, either from your own records or from the biblical account as to the dimensions of the tower and the stage it was constructed to, then you have no basis.

The law of loving your neighbour as your self trancends all religions, religion is one of the bane of this world. I live in a country where 80 percent of the people do not believe in god but the people of the country are 1000 times better and more humane than nigerians or ghanians who mostly believe in god. so religion has nothing to do with morality and being good to each other.

You're free to believe whatever you want.

@pilgrim:


I have gone through your posts and i realise you werent directly talking to me so i apologize for my errancy there.

@debosky

Why are you just twisting the whole issue up and tying yourself into knots?
Genesis 5 says thus:

 5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. 6 The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."


It is written there in black and white that god came to see the tower they were building. It did not say a house, tent, cage or temple. He specifically came down to see the TOWER.

What makes a building a tower? Your house?

I brought out a defination of the word tower and it expressly used the phrase "exceptionally high in proportion" which differentiates it from a regular building. Buildings like the Trump Towers or the Twin Towers are used to express buildings that are exceptionally high in proportion because they dwarf regular buildings. the biblical passage was explicit enough to name it as a tower and not a small house or shelter and Just because the bible didnt gaff like the dimensions of noah's ark this time doesnt mean it did not goof by saying "god came down to see the Tower"

You can rigmarole and try to squeeze out from this precarious situation but the bottom line is that it is specifically refered to as a tower and not a minute house or mid size temple.

Besides if you trying to wiggle out from that assertion to say it wasnt a tower, how then did god decide to scatter a multitude? If only 8 people built an ark that big then it pre supposes that probably double the size , maybe 16 people were building  the tower and just because of that group, he decides to scatter the rest that had no interest in it?

Talk about a surgeon trying to remove a mole with a gullotine!

You don't need to use lame excuses as to what dimension the so called tower was. A tower is a tower bottom line!
Stupid fairytale!  

Silly excuse. you have every right to tell them to shut up.

No earthly tower is as high as an aircraft can fly. So what is your question.

@pilgrim


What so hilarious about freethinking? That i don't have the right to chose and i shouldnt be so dogmatic to a belief that cannot be substantiated with conclusive evidence but to rather rely on faith?

What good has religion done to the world? The fact that there are thousands of contradicting passages in the bible makes it so nauseating that a freethinker would do away with such nonsense and pick up the next book to analyse. The fact that i am not dogmatic to the point of stupidity over a book that provides no intelligent claim whatsoever makes me a free thinker.

the fact that everytime i ask a question about the absurdity of that biblical passage instead of using reasoning and logic christians resort to belief and faith. What is that? But when they see a shroud of physical  evidence to back up their claim, they scream to the high heavens to substantiate the very existence of it.

People assume that the bible contains stories which serve as moral guides to live your life by. While the bible does contain some good moral precepts, such as any ethical person could write, it contains some stunningly immoral teachings.

Everyone has bought into the assumption that the bible is the "Good Book", but I have found that few people have even read it. How do they get their information? It is given to them from the pulpit-- by pastors and christian zealots who have chosen non-offensive, morally mainstream stories to read to their congregations. The bible, both in the Old and New Testament, is morally repugnant and should be rejected by every ethical person.

"Talking about love your neighbour as yourself" quote of christ, none of those moral teachings are original. All of the favorable teachings of Jesus can be found in earlier "pagan" writings. Nothing good said by Jesus was original.It was all said before.


Christ came, they tell us, to make a revelation, and what did he reveal? "Love thy neighbor as thyself"? That was in the Old Testament. "Return good for evil"? That was said by Buddha, seven hundred years before Christ was born. "Do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you"? That was the doctrine of Lao-tsze. Did he come to give a rule of action? Zoroaster had done this long before "Whenever thou art in doubt as to whether an action is good or bad, abstain from it."

Did he come simply to tell us that we should not revenge ourselves upon our enemies? Long before, Socrates had said: "One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him." And Cicero had said. "Let us not listen to those who think we ought to be angry with our enemies, and who believe this to be great and manly. Nothing is so praiseworthy, nothing so clearly shows a great and noble soul, as clemency and readiness to forgive." Is there anything in the literature of the world more nearly perfect than this thought?

Was it from Christ the world learned the first lesson of forbearance, when centuries and centuries before, Krishna had said, "If a man strike thee, and in striking drop his staff, pick it up and hand it to him again?"

Is it possible that the Son of God threatened a vast majority of his children: "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels," while Buddha, centuries before, was great and tender enough to say: "Never will I seek nor receive private individual salvation; never enter into final peace alone; but forever and everywhere will I live and strive for the universal redemption of every creature throughout all worlds. Never will I leave this world of sin and sorrow and struggle until all are delivered. Until then, I will remain and suffer where I am"?

What Jesus brought to the world was this: the idea of condemning someone for their honest opinion to eternal torture. The infinite revenge of Jesus, for failing to believe his unbelievable tales, is the most intense form of pain and anguish imaginable, and not just for a long time, but forever. Apparently, his inexhaustible forgiveness runs out when it comes to hell. From hell there is no pardoning-- the gates of hell are one-way only. His "unconditional love" comes with this condition: believe these unreasonable accounts or suffer so much you'll wish you had never been born. And considering that the vast majority of the people who ever lived either never heard of Jesus or didn't believe in him, and are thereby subject to this doctrine of eternal pain, the notion of infinite revenge should be enough to sicken any moral, just person.

By the way you see freethinking as hilarious, freethinkers see christians as a group of imbecilic bunch under the deluge of hypnotism of fear of the unknown and hoping that the unknown would provide future succor for them in an utopian world filled with milk and cookies with no war, anger and rebellion, just a place where you sing praises all day and wear halos in white garments, oops i forgot the wings!  

Zino ben abeg where you dey? you dey drink beer? tell all this deluded people make them here word abeg. why the heck are  they trying to prove all those myths? debosky is trying hard to explain the tower of bable, i have news for you debosky there were people living in china and indai with very different languages when that myth was written around 2000-2500 BCE. . . . . . .
Noah's ark was a plagarized myth. . . . . . . . . . . . .

This is fallacy. Who told you that christians are only that because they have no right to choose? My parents made us go to church by force every sunday as a kid, now that i'm an adult i have all the freedom in the world to choose to burn my bible . . . but i made a conscious, rational and well-informed (my opinion) choice to stick with it. What's the problem here?


In the absence of religion what good has athiesm done to the world?


There are thousands of contradicting claims in science textbooks too . . . what's new? Its a conscious choice, don't read the bible . . . is anyone forcing you?


It simply makes you an athiest, end of. There are freethinking christians too.


I'm just wondering, why are you really bothered about explanations to bible passages? I thot you said it was full of nonsense? I'd recommend you burn your bible and free your mind.


Magazines, novels, TV, radio . . . are chockful of immoral ACTS . . . throw the bible away.


Everyone comes here claiming the bible is a bad book but the problem is none of them has dilligently studied it. The bible doesnt have to be YOUR good book. You can pick a science textbook.


Well, why is this a particular problem? Just read the pagan writings and ignore the bible. you have that right under the law.


Not really, He brought a message of salvation to the few who'd be willing to listen. He didnt bring a general message to force you to believe in. Ignore Jesus, live your life like He doesnt exist. When you die you can find out if there is anything like eternal torture or not, if i were you i would wait patiently for that time instead of wasting precious time banging on a bible i don't believe in.


As a "freethinker" i'd expect this shld not bother you at all. What does Buddha say?


why are you so concerned about what Jesus has to say? I don't see this kind of venomous "concern" about Allah's hell or Buddha's place for bad people . . . its not by force you know.