well the first problem isn't a problem, because it's not meant to be the reason to believe, it's meant to be reason enough to look into believing -- the "impetus" for your belief. to ignore the possibility of Christianity being the path to salvation is taking a stupidly large (and needless) gamble.

the second problem isn't a problem either, because the Bible is quite clear that all you need to do is believe in the fact that Jesus died and rose again for our sins, and accept that sacrifice.

thirdly, the Bible says that if we weren't all sinners those who didn't sin would get into heaven on their own merit, but no one is without sin.

julz

Because I can not even figure out a God of love who decided to create a universe populated by people who will suffer for the eternity, even though he knew it from the very beginning
After all , He was not obliged to create human kind
It is such a mostruosity that the most important Christian comunity, the catholic churce refute the predestination
The point is that the Catholic church is wrong
This is exactly what it is written in the Bible
I suppose that now it is clear why I suppose that most of the christians have never read the Bible

hm... another silly question about heaven came to my mind. lets say your wife stops believing (for example like dan silverman). how can you be happy in heaven if you know that your wife is roasting in hell at the same time? how does this work with everyone being happy in heaven? (of course i assume that you love your wife. :))

Christians are not supposed to marry non-Christians for that very reason.

But usually if you have situation with a believer/non-believer marriage it is because the person KNEW before marriage that they were marrying an unbeliever and they either A)did not want to listen to the Bible or B)believed that somehow they could convert their partner later. Situations such as Dan's are rare. In my many years of Christianity I have seen maybe not even a half dozen personal cases like Dan's. Usually its the other way around, the husband will usually convert to Christianity from a 'heathen' state.

Most of the time when a believer marrys an unbeliever it is a Christian woman marrying a un-Christian man and hoping they will change.

What is much more common, and IMO much more heart wrenching is when children become unbelievers. Their parents usually have a difficulty adjusting to these decisions. I have seen many kids I went to school with being brought up Christian and became un-Christian as they grew up. I have also seen how hurt and miserable the parents get.

It is a very very difficult situation knowing that a loved one is going to hell, or not just loved_ones, just seeing people around you going to hell is very difficult sometimes.
I think you have misinterpreted my saying there is nothing I can do, to nothing_I_would_do.

For example, I have been talking to jcl,you and phemox in this thread I wouldnt want any of you to go hell. I am very sincere about that. But what can I do? I can only try my best and pray that some day you might see the truth and convince you the best I can. (although sometimes it seems if you guys just WANT to go to hell)

The point is I cant force you or anyone to believe.
Well how can anyone on earth be happy knowing that on average 150,000 people die EVERY_DAY? Many of them are dying painful deaths, many people are hurting and dying by the thousands EVERY_SECOND. How can any of us be happy? All you can do is try your best to help whoever you can and know that in the end you tried your hardest.
http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/pcwe
I believe in heaven we will just simply know that justice has been done. Everyone was given a choice, there was no partiality. In heaven, as on earth we need to continue to live, in spite of those who are less fortunate.

In fact, an atheist would be much more depressed than a believer about all the death and suffering because you have 55 million people dying every year, and every injustice and atrocity goes UNANSWERED. At least Christianity gives a reason for justice, and provides a recompense for all those truly evil things which have occured.

I do love her very very much, and though she has done many things wrong she never has rejected God.

@AlbertoT:
okay, i can see what you mean, given you have a problem with how our God supposedly acts. i wouldn't call the Catholic church the "most important Christian community", though. if they were so important there would've been no Reformation, and Protestants are Protestants because they feel that being a better Catholic has no relation to being a better Christian (and at times can be even distracting and detrimental).

@ventilator:
Jesus is quite clear that there isn't marriage in heaven ("what happens when there are seven brothers, and the first is married, dies, and his widow marries the second, who dies... who has her in heaven?"... see Jesus' response in Matthew 22). many things will be different, including our minds (there will be no sin). i don't want to lose the uniqueness of many of my relationships and the special uniqueness of my relationship with a particular girl who's very special to me, but i trust that in heaven it will be all good, and we will be changed such that it's all good.

julz

We have, but we draw different conclusions. That's why there sadly are many different Christian factions that all believe in the savior Jesus Christ, but believe in fundamentally different gods.

As a European Protestant I believe that God loves us as described in the New Testament, and God did never kill innocent children. The story in the Bible is just a parable for expressing Gods superiority over other gods, in that case, the Egyptian gods.

There is a historic kernel to the story of the Hebrew exodus from Egypt, there was indeed a Hebrew tribe in Egypt, the Hyksos, and they even governed Egypt for a while. But the story of killed children is not historical, otherwise it would certainly have been mentioned in the Egyptian chronicles, so I have to accept that it never happened and a loving God would never do such a thing. A loving God would also never send people to hell that just happen not to believe - thats utter nonsense. God loves anyone, Christians, Muslims and Atheists likewise. That is the greatness of God.

But some Christian factions really believe in a lesser god that kills children because it fits, as you correctly say, the description in the Old Testament. So you have literal bible believing Christians with a children killing god, and non literal bible believing Christians, the majority I think, with a loving God. That are two different gods.

This is just to explain the contradiction between mainstream Christian belief and some passages in some books of the Old Testament.

Tobias

I appreciate what you said but one thing is what you believe an other thing is what the Bible claim
If you are Christian you must beleive in the Bible , old a new Testament
regrdless if you like it or not

AlbertoT, the Christian faith is based on the Bible, that's agreed by all Christian factions, but they do not agree on how to interpret the Bible. Most Christians see the bible as a work inspired by God, containing human thoughts about God, moral advices, poesy, parables, fables, and literature. They certainly dont see it as a history book and dont think that the fables really happened.

This has nothing to do with what I like in the Bible or not. It has all to do with what the Bible is and how it is meant to be understood.

The Bible was inspired by God, but written by humans, with all their weaknesses, errors and in the context of their society, and often hundreds of years after the events that they describe, when the events are already faded behind fables and legends. You are wrong when you think Christians are forced to believe the Bible is a history book. Most Christians accept logic, history and science like anyone else. I suppose you are an Atheist or Agnostic, but if you ask your local pastor, he'll probably patiently explain to you how Christians normally understand the Bible. If you want to learn more, I recommend the Yale Bible course

http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies

by Professor Christine Hayes, a Christian and Theologist. The Bible course is free downloadable.

Sadly the 'history book' belief by some Christians is used by Atheists to show that Christian faith is immoral, which it isn't.

True indeed, but it's also the obvious reason why I have far more problems with the fundamentalist ideas (read: mainly only their interpretations of the Bible or in case of different religions the different holy scriptures). I respect either way. It's definitely not wrong to look at the Bible as something valuable in terms of literature, psychology, philosophy, morality and what more. It's reason number one why I think it's actually good for people to read through the Bible. I don't agree with organized religion in general for various reasons, but religious philosophy is very interesting.



Yeah. Most atheists have issues with the fact that the belief is based upon faith as the evidence for this 'truth' though. I don't agree that this is somehow only true for Christians with the 'history book' belief of the Bible. The faith basically is the immorality at hand. It may sound disrespectful, but the blindness people seem to rely upon is immoral. Especially when there are great arguments and when there is actual physical evidence that suggests many different stories. I'm not against the belief in God(s), but it's striking how many people seem to believe for practically no reason or who have never really given it much thought. Of course it's a bit different for those who think of the Bible as a nice book but nothing more, but only believing in a God doesn't make you a Christian, right? I mean, believing in a God makes you a theist. So, there must still be reasons why people think their 'Christian' God is the 'correct' God to believe in. You don't become a Christian, just because you live in a Christian country and happen to believe in a God. After all, that would be illogical, right?

Anyways, my point is, I've talked to many people that claimed to be (non-fundamentalist) Christians, but turned out to really be more agnostic about their true beliefs.



As long as it doesn't interfere with their deeper religious beliefs this is certainly true. But take for example the evolution theory and lots of moderate Christians will sort of question science. It's difficult not to generalize here as there also are many (european) Christians that do accept the theory of evolution. But it's easy for moderate Christians to accept that their cars and what not are functioning because of science on one hand, but at the same time there's this serious hesitation when it comes to different kinds of scientific theories such as the theory of evolution or even basic history.



I know you were talking about what Christians tend to believe in, but when it comes to accepting logic, history and science.... what ever happened to the conclusion that seems to make more sense? Like; God was invented by humans and the Bible is just part of that? After all, Gods don't write books, humans do.

I guess perhaps believing in God (of the Bible) ultimately stands directly in the way of accepting logic, history and science here?

Cheers

In principle I would accept it, but it is hard for me to accept an interpretation which is the direct opposite of what the Bible claims

Let me stick to the predestination

I would suggest again to read the letters exchanged between Erasmus and Luter on this topic

Erasmus says : Luter how can you believe in such a mostruosity ?
Luter replies : Erasmus how do you dare to interpretate the word of Lord ?

Luter quote the Bible
Erasmus just the "the common sense" ( and a little bit of humanity)