Can a Christian here explain the concept of hell...?

The first lie of the devil in the Bible was, "You shall surely not die", I think he continues to promote that today.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0l5FmszjVkU

Maybe true what he said..nobody knew...

 

He doesn't know.

 

The "concept of hell" is, you-(minus) GOD.

everything that GOD IS not; no Light; no love, no joy, no peace, no patience; no rest; anything that is not GOD's Stuff; you didn't want HIM in this life, remember?

Because GOD CHOSE to REMOVE HIMSELF (and any of HIS Stuff) for the rest of Eternity.

you; who you are; the real you. And even in Hell, you'll be there with a part of what GOD gave you. . .HIMSELF, because, after all you were CREATED in HIS IMAGE and LIKENESS. . .so if you chose to go to Hell, you'll take a piece of GOD with you. . .maybe.

yes; yes; and all of you, and then some.

Thanks.[/QUOTE]

You're welcome.

 

What I don't understand, is the description of hell by some of the religious. Such as having maggots eating away at your body, burning in fire, etc. How would someone take their physical body to hell, when it's buried in the ground on earth? How can you have maggots eating away at a spirit with no physical body? How can spirits be burned by fire?

 

So earth is hell, and everyone is in it? I mena, since there is no God that must mean that earth is hell and everyone on earth is in hell.

 

Your body is your shell; You are an Everlasting Soul. You are not Eternal; because you were brought into Being by THE ETERNAL SOMEONE outside your being; you are Everlasting because THE ETERNAL SOMEONE WHO brought you into being has no ending.

Everything that we know in the Physical, has a Spiritual (Eternal/Everlasting) Counterpart (so to speak)--- The Real Deal.

Just as maggots, in the Physical, eat away at rotting flesh, until it all consumed, and then they die, so it is in the Spiritual that they (maggots) eat away at you in the Spiritual. . .but because Spiritually, you have no ending, so it is with the Spiritual maggots eating away at the real you; they never die because they never complete their feeding of you.

The thing that separates us from Eternity is Time. The THINGS of GOD IS just as simple as those two words (Eternity and/or Time). HE gave us Time (and all of HIS Creation) in order for us to contemplate, and begin to understand Eternity/Everlasting.

Outside of Time is Eternity; and outside of Eternity is GOD; and outside of GOD IS GOD; and outside of GOD IS GOD; and outside of GOD IS GOD...

GOD given Time is the Preparation for GOD given Eternity/Everlasting.

What if you never stopped being in Love? What if you never stopped experiencing Joy? What if Peace was never ending?

For someone as Brilliant as you are, you state some of the dumbest stuff!
You are not "earth". . .last time I checked. . .THANK GOD!!!

And see, you couldn't even justify that statement. Its evident in the phrase, "I mena (forget the typo)". See that's why I don't even have to try to make a ------ out of you. . .you do so very well. . .all by yourself.

 

there is no soul- only mind, which is in effect a computer chip caused by impulses among neurons.

You have yet to say one intelligent thing, nehemia, since your first post on this board.

 

Who made the "computer chip" jumbo?

If, as you state, I "have yet to say one intelligent thing. . .since" my "first post on this board", why are you, oh most "intelligent"-less one, still following me around?

 

You are phrasing your questions incorrectly. It is not 'who made the computer chip', but 'what caused the computer chip to come into existence?"

The answer is evolution.

And the reason I continue to respond to your utterly incorrect statements is that it that I find it to be annoying that one could be so oblivious and self-deluding as to outright deny scientific facts. It is also out of curiosity- basically, how could you believe sometihng that is so obviously wrong? It's frusttrating that I don't know. And at this rate, it seems I never will.

So there you go, NehemiaH

 

You CANNOT answer my questions, so you accuse me of "phrasing" them wrong???

Proof please???

What "scientific facts" have I denied?
If you're referring to "evolution", you CANNOT prove anything has ever evolved and you most certainly CANNOT show anything evolving now.

And please show me the "so obviously wrong" of what you think I "believe".

 

Do you believe in natural selection?

In the USA, it is one of the only places where black wolves exist. Black wolves have part domestic dog DNA, which is different from wolf DNA. Scientist believe they got that from mating with companion dogs of Native Americans. There was something about that gene for black fur, they just discovered recently, that it's true, that gene for black wolves was responsible for creating more resistance to disease. Black wolves flourished while a much higher percentage of gray wolves died out. Do you believe that? It's true, I can look it up for you if you want.

The point is, sometimes mutations in the wild are favorable for survival. If so, that trait or mutation will become more dominant over time. Could you agree with that?

 

Is there a HELL?

I'm not sure...

 

No I don't.


Natural Selection's Role in the Real World
by Frank Sherwin, M.A.

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. It became popular—and still is—because it explained creation without the Creator, putting in His place something called natural selection (or "survival of the fittest"). Today if a theist and atheist were together viewing a beautiful flower, or the amazing flight of a hummingbird—they would have quite different ideas regarding the origin of these organisms.

The atheist would have no choice but to recognize the unlimited power of natural selection, saying, "Selection, acting on the genetic variability in natural populations, is responsible for the wondrous diversity of animals and plant life that is so apparent as we look around us.

But these assertions are not without serious problems, voiced by modern Darwinists (neo-Darwinists) themselves. In a refreshing admission, a noted evolutionist stated, "However, in 1859 when [Charles Darwin] published the Origin, he actually did not have a single clear-cut piece of evidence for the existence of [natural] selection. (See also: Margulis & Sagan, Acquiring Genomes, Basic Books, 2002.)

A professor at Nottingham Trent University asks, ". . . even if the neo-Darwinians are correct, at what level is natural selection supposed to work? Certainly it's not on the very small level, "How natural selection operates at the molecular level is a major problem in evolutionary biology. The late S.J. Gould described the limits of this supposed creative process, "Natural selection is therefore a principle of local adaptation, not of general advance or progress. And that's our point! Creation scientists have no problem with Gould's evaluation of natural selection, adding that selection has nothing to do with the origin of species (macroevolution). Four other evolutionary biologists agree, "Natural selection can act only on those biologic properties that already exist [creation]; it cannot create properties in order to meet adaptational needs [macroevolution].

To conclude, while the evolutionist views the living world and gives credit to a mysterious, impersonal process, the creationist can simply give glory and honor to the One who created it—by the work of His fingers (Psalm 8:3-4).

Becky, "mutations" destroy, they're never "favorable for survival"; Even the Science you believe in shows that.

 

The gene for black fur, which is considered to be a mutation, gave the black wolves an advantage for survival due to resistance to infections. Here's an article...

I never let anyone call me Becky, but I guess it's OK, at least you didn't ask if I'm from Sunnybrook Farm.

 

This has little to do with "your God". It has everything to do with belief, energy, all that mystical crap. The same kinds of healings have been performed outside of the Christian faith, outside of religion altogether.

Maybe Christians should spend more of their energy trying to heal people in this way rather than condemning those who haven't blindly accepted the heartless "WORD" that apparently teaches feelings don't matter. What a shame, I thought history purged these barbarians from the Earth.

Well anyhow, glad your uncle's better - this type of work will be the future.

 

After reading through all the pages of this thread (most of them bloated by Nehemiah's damning rants), I have a few things to say:

#1) Nehemiah doesn't know what he's talking about. He's repeating random things he's heard in true evangelical reckless style because he's honestly afraid that he doesn't have the time to do proper theological research or he might lose some souls. Be warned, I've actually developed some very psychologically painful disorders from being constantly exposed to these people as a teenager in San Diego. There were times in my life when everything was going wrong and I was having chemical imbalances in my brain, and because of these people not believing in chemical imbalances I actually started to wonder if I had already died and was in hell. No joke. It's scary stuff, so please just tune these people out for everyone's sake. I was lucky enough (or God was watching over me) and during that time I went to a bookstore looking for a good bible and some random guy came up to me and suggested The Companion Bible by E.W. Bullinger. That guy may have saved my life and sanity, because whenever I start to relapse into that eternal damnation mentality, I dive back into that bible and start double checking all the cross references and greek root words just to make sure again that I'm not the crazy one. Anyway, if I hadn't come across that Bible, I may never heard of any other view of hell other then eternal damnation and now more then 10 years later I've learned so much more about it and discovered that before most of the world was converted by force, Universal Salvation was actually the only "sane" and logical teaching on the subject. I guess the Romans seemed to think it would be a better way to control the population, but like most of their other theories, it's backfired on them and had a devastating effect. Just like when you push someone too hard, they are eventually bound to fight back.

Anyway, before I ramble on too much...

#2) Lpe04 sounds like he really knows his stuff and has his head squarely on his shoulders. I'd like to hear more from him.

#3) Rebecca and ncz_nate, I can understand where you're coming from, and believe me, I have to fight back on my bitterness against the majority of "christians" too because they messed up my mental health so bad (because I trusted them with it) and then they refused to even help with my resulting debilitating migraines and anxiety until it got so severe that I had to threaten to kill myself. I think you guys are probably a better representation of what Christians should act like then 99% of christians, including myself. If the bible is true and there really is some sane translation out there, you probably have the least to worry about from it and the most to gain from it, but it's hard when you have to always keep remembering to stick to the less bastardized commentaries and do so much research on every verse just to weed out all of the strife that has been added into the common interpretation over the centuries. Honestly, the only reason I even keep up with this and don't just declare myself an agnostic is because I care about the mental health of all these people, and their children, and the people who they try to convert.

And Nehemiah, I hope you think long and hard about this, because I'm being very very honest in everything I'm saying in this post and I don't care anymore. I'm sick of what people like you are doing to our minds. I'm not judging you, because I understand how you got sucked into it and it wasn't of your own free will, but you better get you stuff straightened out or karma is gonna come back on you and trust me it will suck. That is not a threat of any kind - just saying it's common sense - it's gonna backfire on you. So stop putting people in hell and start putting them in heaven instead. Aight?

 

Fortunately your kind outnumber the crusaders here. It is better to be like Christ than to preach of Christ.

Suffering is the chisel that forges character in men, I can tell you've been through your share of suffering. This world would be a profoundly better place if the stubborn religious would adopt your humble ways that Jesus once taught. I left Christianity to be closer to God, I was tired of the misinterpretations and misrepresentations of what it all really meant. But guys like you and pingpong and lpe remind me that Christianity itself is not bad at all.

Anybody can be an armchair Christian, but how many of you will pick up your cross and walk the narrow path?

 

I read at least twice in the past the exact opposite to what you've just said, where 1 group of patients was prayed for and the other wasn't, neither of the groups were aware of the praying and in both cases, the prayed for group showed a marked improvement over symptons than the unprayed for groups.

 

The Templeton Foundation study shows praying for heart patients had no effect on patients outcome:

I would suspect it would be a good idea for religious people that are sick to pray, sense it brings them comfort and most likely reduces the blood pressure. However, according to scientific study, it looks like it doesn't do much good to pray for people. Please share it, if you know of a different scientific study of the benefit/lack of benefit of prayer.