Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Are the Majority of People Saved?

Choosing to reject? The existence of a God or gods has yet to be proven.

I can see Christians and Muslims sharing the same heaven. And Hindus, Zoroastrians, Buddhists. Lots of people the world over will make it. Unless there is reincarnation there were billions of humans that never got know there was a Jewish religion or a Jesus.

As a question to our believers here. Do you think Nebuchadnezzar who acknowledged the God of Israel or the Zoroastrian wise men that made the journey to see Jesus will be denied heaven? They were neither Jewish nor Christian. What about Cyrus II who sent the Jews back to Jerusalem?

Chew on that for awhile. More examples to come.

What would a mind capable of creating a universe be like?

Would such a Being fret over what the little creatures think or believe?

Would such a Being damn some to hell simply because they weren't convinced in the correct dogma?

Hastings, I think your above reply applies more to tf49 than Mauser. Tf's daming people to hell for not believing in Jesus, Mauser see no evidence for heaven or hell, hence no trips to what he sees as that non existent place.

A/S: I actually was replying to TF49 as was Mauser. Mauser and I differ on the existence of the supernatural creator but these exclusionary "Christians" don't seem very Christian. But who am I to judge? I was just trying to get them to thinking. There is a very long list of not particularly religious people or at least not fundamentalist Jew or Christian that did the right thing when the chips were down. Maybe Oskar Schindler a Catholic who didn't attend church vs. the WW2 Pope who could have started excommunicating fascists but basically did nothing.

In addition to the lack of proof and evidence, there's a lot of "loose ends" and contradictions in the publications of various relgions, and they largely go ignored, or are constructively excused by their believers. Pity that a god was incapable of writing those things himself.

According to the bible didn't the earth take longer to complete that the rest of the universe? The stars were a snap and were done in a day I thought.

Well, I’ll try to get a threefer here…..

For AS….. no, TF is not damning anyone to hell, you just don’t like to hear anything that you consider threatening to your hard held beliefs…. You must have been quite offended…. Your dog barks way too loud.

For DBT and M9….. please note that it is God that will be the judge…not me…and I would expect that your protestations that “but there was no evidence of you, God” will simply swept away if/when God shows you the truth.


But…. I would not be surprised that God has some regard for folks that have strong opinions about God. I expect He has His eye on you and that is a very good thing.

The apostle Paul was a persecutor until God paid him a visit. Jesus did not have much good to say about the lukewarm Laodiceans… seems He preferred them to be either hot or cold. He can deal with cold just fine.

Yes, the stars were the little lights situated above the dome of the sky.

There's no evidence to support your premise, so iit doesn't mean anything.

Anybody know how long it took to put the Old Testament together???
What about the New Testament???
Back in the day, with no radio, tv, books etc. can anybody tell me how they entertained themselves????
Stories told around the fire….. With wine….. it was a miracle…

Ok, glad you are not bothered by anything I might say. Some folks here show up and get involved with some discussion about God or Jesus or the Bible and then get upset when they hear answers, opinions or viewpoints that they don’t agree with.

They remind me a bit of those “social justice warriors” that go around getting triggered …..then protesting, criticizing and demeaning what other folks believe.

We should refrain from that.

Can't assume that - you might say something that bothers me. I meant that your belief means nothing to me unless it's proven to be true. If you're judging me by your unproven belief system, then that might warrant bother.

Some of "God's" instructions in the bible are immoral and unethical - that bothers me. It's not a good book to literally lead your life by.

It’s a fact that many people nowadays do not consider the Bible to be authoritative. So when people come at em’ with the assumption that it is, it’s gonna be a no-go. Without changing what one believes, it is possible to change how one communicates.

There was once a version of Christianity that was rooted in an event, not the multiple records of the event. The multiple records of the resurrection followed the event of the resurrection by years. And the faith of Christianity grew like wildfire before the Bible…as we know it…ever even existed. And stating that fact doesn’t discount the Bible in any way.

And nowadays, scriptural authority just isn’t accepted by many in our culture. And to me, it makes sense to go back to what early Jesus followers did during the first three hundred years of the faith ~~ to point to the event that the entire faith is founded on. It’s all pointless without the resurrection.

I believe it to be a real event. I believe it to be the most defensible, and the most important event associated with Christianity. While we go back and forth about stuff like a 6 day creation, the God of the Old Testament versus the God of the New Testament, or even the Mosaic Law…ultimately, for me…I’m standing on the resurrection, because the entire faith of Christianity stands on that event.

I’m convinced that following Jesus…not following other ‘Christians’ and not following organized religion or anything that it entails…but simply following Jesus will make one’s life better and will make one better at life. Even if one doesn’t believe in His divinity.

Antlers,
You keep claiming there was this unified early Christianity, but I don't see the history supporting that claim. Early Christianity was very diverse with over 60 gospels that we know of, Dozens of "Books of Acts", and what we call Revelations was just one of dozens if not hundreds of such works. Early Christianity appears way to diverse to support you hypothesis of developing from eye witnesses of a single event. It seems it's more likely to have grown from multiple factions each trying to capitalize upon a adaptation a Jewish version of the Mystery Cults common in the area at the time.

Well if you think about it families were a lot larger specially when you throw in the wine aspect.

Interesting reply….ok…..

You express your view that my belief system means nothing to you because it is not proven to be true. My view is that my belief system is undoubtedly true…..God provides that witness and proof to me as He abides within me. John 14:20 “….. you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me and I am in you.”

You have repeatedly stated that there is no evidence to “support your premise” about the existence of God. I would say that the evidence for the existence of Yahweh is all around us and one only has to “look around” and see the evidence of God’s existence. Further, one only has to look around and see the sin of this world.

Putting these two points together, I see conclusive evidence and I have my proof.

You do not see evidence nor have proof…… I’m ok with that, but also, you can expect me to disagree with those that claim there is no evidence and there is no proof.

Lastly, I am in total disagreement with you that the Bible is not a good book to live your life by. It is my assessment that many here do not understand the concept of dispensations nor do they understand the New Covenant. Many here will pull from the OT to discredit God’s actions and His love….. I view this as simply making an excuse to “justify their uncomfortableness” with God.

I don’t see many folks criticizing the biblical teachings of Jesus. It seems that even the existence of the historical Jesus is totally swept aside in order to divert from discusssion of His teachings.

Anyway….. carry on…..

Btw…. Jesus does indeed love you and His hand is extended toward you….

John 6:37 “…… whoever comes to me I will never drive away.”

Matthew 7:7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

Ask….Seek…..Knock

My advice is to be an “honest seeker.”

Time will tell

I disagree. Wholeheartedly. Early core Christianity wasn’t “very diverse” at all. Those who were closest to the actual event all made it crystal clear. It absolutely and unequivocally developed from a single core event, and the eyewitnesses of that core event. When He did rise from the dead, that was the start of it all. This very small band that some referred to as a sect or even a cult, who were living in the [bleep] of the whole Roman Empire, and who were squashed between that Empire and the Jewish Temple, whose leader had been crucified after being rejected by His own people…not only survived but thrived in light of tremendous resistance. And it was eventually embraced by the very Empire that had tried to eradicate it. And the Jewish Temple who were actually the first ones to persecute Jesus and His followers was obliterated out of existence, as was Ancient Judaism.

Karen Armstrong is an author who is no friend to evangelical Christianity. She wrote a book called ‘Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence’. She said, “Yet against all odds, by the third century, Christianity had become a force to be reckoned with. We still do not really understand how this came about.”

Whether one’s a historian, or an anthropologist, or a skeptic or even an atheist with an agenda...it’s hard to explain. But something certainly did happen in the 1st century that caused the core faith of Christianity to spread like wildfire. I’m good accepting the multiple, separate, and independent core accounts of those closest to the actual core event. People like Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, James (the brother of Jesus), Peter, and Paul, all give ample testimony for why Jesus’ core movement overcame both the religious and the political power structures that had tried to destroy it...!

Between the Jewish Temple and the Roman Empire it’d seem that this small sect or cult should’ve been squashed and buried alongside Jesus. But nope...! Nowadays, some of the 2.5 billion Christians worldwide are takin’ pics of the ruins of the Jewish Temple Mount and others are takin’ pics of the ruins of the Forum in Rome.

It’s more than fine with me if others choose to see things differently.

Two thousand years and Christians are still waiting.