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Undead Molten Llama
#451 Old 4th May 2010 at 8:13 PM
Quote: Originally posted by kiwi_tea
That's absolutely untrue and only shows you haven't read the Bible. 'Gnashing of teeth', etc, are quotes taken directly from Christ's account of life after death for sinners.


And what do you think "gnashing of teeth" means, kiwi? Are you familiar with the grief practices at the time? As in, the ritual of "official mourning?"

Because really, kattenijin is quite right. The concept of a "hell" as place of eternal suffering for the unjust is a very common theme amongst religions both ancient and modern, but the specific brand of it advocated by many Christian churches is not Biblical at all and is indeed a construct of the medieval Catholic church.

But back to the reason vs. faith thing. (Whoa! Gear switch! ) It seems to me that our point of disagreement may not actually be over reasoning but rather over premises. As in, I can reason all I want from the premise that "A supernatural, superhuman Being/Presence/Force/Kumquat exists," but you will never accept the reasoning as reasoning because you can't accept the premise. Yes/no? Or are you willing to accept the premise for the sake of argument? I'm just asking before I go dig up that "novel" I wrote years ago, so that I can decide if it's worth it to go through the effort of dusting it off and posting it. (Although honestly, I may have to upload it somewhere. It's way tl;dr. )

I'm mostly found on (and mostly upload to) Tumblr these days because, alas, there are only 24 hours in a day.
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Scholar
#452 Old 4th May 2010 at 8:20 PM
@Ivan: Oh. Well, if you were to ask me personally, no, because I find the concept of sin as nothing more but farce.

Rather, what I mean is if you actively do it, it's sin. If you subconsciously (something you have no control over) do it, it's sin. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

And if you subconsciously do something that's sin and don't realize it, you cannot repent on that sin, because you are not aware of it, and therefore, damned.

Is that a shillelagh in your pocket, or are you just sinning against God?
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retired moderator
#453 Old 4th May 2010 at 8:35 PM Last edited by kiwi_tea : 4th May 2010 at 9:31 PM.
Quote: Originally posted by iCad
And what do you think "gnashing of teeth" means, kiwi? Are you familiar with the grief practices at the time? As in, the ritual of "official mourning?"

Because really, kattenijin is quite right. The concept of a "hell" as place of eternal suffering for the unjust is a very common theme amongst religions both ancient and modern, but the specific brand of it advocated by many Christian churches is not Biblical at all and is indeed a construct of the medieval Catholic church.

But back to the reason vs. faith thing. (Whoa! Gear switch! ) It seems to me that our point of disagreement may not actually be over reasoning but rather over premises. As in, I can reason all I want from the premise that "A supernatural, superhuman Being/Presence/Force/Kumquat exists," but you will never accept the reasoning as reasoning because you can't accept the premise. Yes/no? Or are you willing to accept the premise for the sake of argument? I'm just asking before I go dig up that "novel" I wrote years ago, so that I can decide if it's worth it to go through the effort of dusting it off and posting it. (Although honestly, I may have to upload it somewhere. It's way tl;dr. )


I'm not familiar with those grieving practises (although being a Kiwi, I'm familiar with Pacific Island ones, where there's a bit of gnashing and wailing), so I may have to reconsider my point. But then, I need specifics. How are we also to charitably interpret the furnace and the darkness Christ also speaks of? It certainly doesn't sound like 'removal from God', which sounds like pleasant modern reinterpretation - and in fact reminds me of the concept of nirvana in some ways, extinguishment, perhaps. Not that I find any of that pleasant either, and I believe we're finally and forever extinguished in death (which, isn't something to mourn, it's like such not existing is a form suffering). At any rate, I'm rambling. Enlighten me about these grieving customs, and the darkness and furnace.

As to reasoning, it seems... ...well. Your premise is a baseless assumption, and moreover it's an assumption that includes half of the conclusions you've planned to reach.
How is it any better from reasoning starting at: 'I have experienced what I conclude to be vampires', and concluding from that that, 'I better cover the house in garlic.'

How is it any better from reasoning starting at: 'A higher power commands a holy war', and concluding from that that, 'Holy wars are righteous.'

How is it any better from reasoning starting at: 'The color green is a dairy product', and concluding from that that, 'Green plastic comes from a cow udder.'

It throws skepticism, and most importantly skeptical observation, right out the window before we even begin. What does 'reason' even become, under such a schematic? I know you don't routinely reach such crazy conclusions, or routinely abuse the concept of 'reasoning' like this day-to-day. But you have made one exception to the rules of reason you normally follow, and it seems to differ in no fundamental way from any other irrational and unskeptical presumption.

Edit: I guess what I'm getting at is: If we accept your definition of reason, what basis do we have to say that, for example, Pat Robertson is being unreasonable? Your definition seems to devalue 'reason' to the point of worthlessness, because it conflates reason with blind faith (albeit blind faith backed with observations made selectively to reinforce the conclusion).

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GON OUT, BACKSON, BISY BACKSON
Undead Molten Llama
#454 Old 4th May 2010 at 10:03 PM
@ kiwi_tea:

At the time, in the Ancient Near East, a great show was made for the dead. Professional mourners were hired. Their duty was to wail their heads off, gnash their teeth, tear at their clothes, scratch themselves until they bled, throw ashes on their head, the whole nine yards. The richer the person was, the more mourners they had, and the louder the racket was. SO, in the local vernacular of the time, the phrase "gnashing of teeth" was not synonymous with pain or torment but simply with grief. In Christian thought, separation from God causes grief. As in, regret. As in, lamenting that one could have done something to not be in said state of grief.

As for furnaces...I'm sorry, but to which Scripture are you referring? I'd have to read it to determine the context. (I'm a poor Christian in that I can't tell you chapter and verse everything that Christ said. I don't have a Bible in my head. ) I'll look it up in the meantime, but if you have a verse or even just the book that it's in, that would make it easier. But, that said, Jesus very often spoke in parable and metaphor, so...Well, like I said, I'd need to read the Scripture to which you're referring in its context.

But as for separation from God. From Genesis, we know that we were "meant" to live in harmony with God, to walk with Him and talk with Him, as did Adam and Eve. But they chose to sin and so became separated from God, and they are symbolic of humanity as a whole. Jesus's ultimate purpose was to restore the relationship between God and us, to remove the separation between us, and to remove from us the onus of the Law. This simplicity has gotten lost in rhetoric, in Christian in-fighting, and in the concept of doing good works and the erroneous "good people go to heaven, bad people go to hell" dichotomy. Salvation is so simple that a child can understand it. It is we who make it complex, far more complex than it needs to be and far more complex than it should be.

As to premises/logic/reasoning...Well, a premise often is an assumption, and it can sometimes be "baseless," particularly so when dealing with complex/philosophical logic. The purpose of the reasoning is in part to see whether or not the assumption has a "base." So, my purpose in reasoning then becomes to see whether or not the premise/stance stands up under logical analysis. Logical reasoning often starts with a premise that can be neither proven nor disproven because the purpose of complex logical reasoning with a more philosophical bent -- as opposed to something more straightforward like a syllogism or something more mathematically-based -- is to explore the possibility of validity, not necessarily to "prove" anything. Just like, you know, science does. Your examples are examples of simple deductive logic; that's not the logic I'm talking about here.

At least, this is all what I was taught in my logic classes back in the Dark Ages in Catholic school, where the curriculum was very Classical. We began training in the trivium (logic, grammar, and rhetoric) in the first grade. Like Spock said, "Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end." It's merely a tool.

So, maybe we do have differing views as to what logical reasoning is after all. And if that's the case...then it's hard to have a discussion about this subject until we rectify that.

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Mad Poster
#455 Old 4th May 2010 at 10:09 PM
Quote: Originally posted by iCad
From Genesis, we know that we were "meant" to live in harmony with God, to walk with Him and talk with Him, as did Adam and Eve. But they chose to sin and so became separated from God, and they are symbolic of humanity as a whole.


This is one thing I've never understood. It seems like a giant set-up, in my mind. Entrapment, if you will. God creates creatures with the ability to sin... and then punishes them because they use the curiosity and free will that God supposedly gifted them with.
Undead Molten Llama
#456 Old 4th May 2010 at 10:22 PM
Quote: Originally posted by fakepeeps7
This is one thing I've never understood. It seems like a giant set-up, in my mind. Entrapment, if you will. God creates creatures with the ability to sin... and then punishes them because they use the curiosity and free will that God supposedly gifted them with.


Not "punishes" them, necessarily, but separates from them, yes.

Now, in my mind, the early chapters of Genesis is an allegory, the purpose of which is to illustrate the relationship that is supposed to exist between God and man and the relationship that exists due to the consequences of free will choice. I am not a person who believes that God created humans (or any other animal) in the sense of building them from scratch, so to speak. To me, He gave us souls and free will.

I am not convinced that God knew in advance which free will choice humanity would make because to me that rather trumps the very concept of free will. It is, for me, an issue currently under study and has been for a while. So, I'm afraid that I have no real concrete answer for you at this point in time, although I can point you toward others' thinking on the issue, if you're interested, which espouse different viewpoints, and then you can read with an open and inquisitive mind and think about the issue for yourself.

I'm mostly found on (and mostly upload to) Tumblr these days because, alas, there are only 24 hours in a day.
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#457 Old 5th May 2010 at 4:14 AM
Thinking specifically of Matt 13:36-13:50 -

"Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field.
He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man;
The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one;
The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels.
As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.
The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;
And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear."

It's definitely allegory, I realise. But that doesn't detract from its hellishness.

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GON OUT, BACKSON, BISY BACKSON
Instructor
#458 Old 5th May 2010 at 11:25 AM
Don't mean to divert the topic but if anyone religious can explain to me what you think about dinosaurs, I'd appreciate it. There's no denying their existence. Why weren't they mentioned in the Bible? Seems like a big thing to leave out. So, God created Dinosaurs (in whose image?) and then got tired of them and THEN for some reason he decided to create people instead?
Top Secret Researcher
#459 Old 5th May 2010 at 12:54 PM
Quote: Originally posted by jooxis
Seems like a big thing to leave out.


Haha... pun intended I hope!
Scholar
#460 Old 5th May 2010 at 4:09 PM
Quote: Originally posted by jooxis
Don't mean to divert the topic but if anyone religious can explain to me what you think about dinosaurs, I'd appreciate it. There's no denying their existence. Why weren't they mentioned in the Bible? Seems like a big thing to leave out. So, God created Dinosaurs (in whose image?) and then got tired of them and THEN for some reason he decided to create people instead?


Dinosaurs are fake! They're just fabrications from Elephant, Hippo, and Whale bones, and lots of plaster; don't you know.

(Not my real view on the subject, just what I've heard from a Creationist group I know)

Sarcasm is a body's natural defense against stupid.
Undead Molten Llama
#461 Old 5th May 2010 at 4:42 PM
Quote: Originally posted by jooxis
Don't mean to divert the topic but if anyone religious can explain to me what you think about dinosaurs, I'd appreciate it. There's no denying their existence. Why weren't they mentioned in the Bible? Seems like a big thing to leave out. So, God created Dinosaurs (in whose image?) and then got tired of them and THEN for some reason he decided to create people instead?


I think dinosaurs are awesome! I have a particular fondness for pterosaurs, which aren't dinosaurs, but... Oh wait, I guess you mean from a more creationist viewpoint. Well, first of all, bear in mind that all of us who are "religious" are not necessarily of the "creationist" mindset. I'm not. So for me, there is no issue when it comes to dinosaurs; I believe that life evolved (and continues to evolve) and at some point humans were imbued with souls, the thing that is "in God's image," for our badly-designed bodies certainly can't be. And bear in mind that only humans are "in God's image," so dinosaurs wouldn't have been in anyone/anything's image.

I can tell you how creationists tend to view dinosaurs, though, knowing many creationists as I do and reading their literature and such partly for the lulz but mostly so that I can refute them intelligently instead of creating straw men of their actual position. I have a lot of creationist stuff around the house since my roommate is a creationist; it is something on which we amicably agree to disagree. So:

Some (though actually not many) creationists believe that dinosaurs never actually existed and that all the fossils are hoaxes designed to convince people to "believe in" evolution in a One World Government/Evil Scientist conspiracy sort of scenario.

MOST creationists, however, believe that:
1) Dinosaurs were created at the same time as the cattle and other land animals. The Scripture doesn't list every kind of animal created, after all.
2) None were carnivorous until the Fall, just as it was with all other animals.
3) Representative dinosaurs were on the Ark (how many "kinds" is a question in creationist circles), but the rest perished in the Flood. Hence, fossils.
4) They lived alongside of man until they went extinct for whatever reason. Many creationists believe that an ice age followed shortly after the Flood, so it's thought that dinosaurs went extinct then.

As evidence for the fact that dinosaurs and man coexisted, they will point to Scripture. They will often use the description of Behemoth in Job 40:15-24...although most non-creationist Christians believe that a hippopotamus is being described. They will also point to some art created by ancient cultures that depict what to them are dinosaurs.

So, there you go. I'll reiterate that this isn't what I believe, but as it seems that Ivan and I are the only "religious" people posting at the moment...Meh.

@kiwi_tea: I'm getting to you! For now, I'll just say that I feel incredibly stupid for not recognizing the Parable of the Tares, given that we had just been talking about it in fellowship last week. Derp. :p

I'm mostly found on (and mostly upload to) Tumblr these days because, alas, there are only 24 hours in a day.
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Scholar
#462 Old 5th May 2010 at 5:04 PM
Okay, then here's one; the Ark itself To carry every kind of animal...it would have to be MASSIVE! Like, the size of a freaking country! And so freaking...massive!

Is that a shillelagh in your pocket, or are you just sinning against God?
Undead Molten Llama
#463 Old 5th May 2010 at 7:07 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Nekowolf
Okay, then here's one; the Ark itself To carry every kind of animal...it would have to be MASSIVE! Like, the size of a freaking country! And so freaking...massive!


Creationists tend to think that not every animal was represented on the Ark, but only a pair (or 7, if "clean") of a representative species of the different "kinds" of animal. The trouble is that they've never been able to clearly define what a "kind" is, or where the "cut-off" is between "kinds." Even though they've invented their own special branch of science ("baraminology") to figure this whole "kind" thing out, they STILL haven't managed it. And it's actually very important to their whole dang "theory" that they do so because they also believe that evolutionary-type change is limited to being within the "kinds." Meaning, they believe that an ancestral created "dog" subsequently evolved -- although they won't use that exact word, of course! -- into wolves, foxes, coyotes, jackals, domestic dogs, cape hunting dogs, etc., but they don't believe that a dog can "decide to become a monkey," which is what they seem to think evolution is...which by itself is LOL-worthy.

Anyway, MOST seem to land somewhere around the Family on the classification scale, some more around the Order in terms of what the "kind" is, except for humans which of course is just the one species. (Or two, if they count Neanderthals, which they will sometimes do in order to claim that Neanderthals were "fully human.") So instead of having a pair of every species of rodent on the Ark, there was, according to them, just a pair representing the rodent "kind." Maybe a pair of chipmunks or something. By doing this, it means that there were fewer animals on the Ark, and creationists seem to think that this solves the problem of where to put them all, the workload to care for them with only 8 people on the Ark, etc.

But really what it does is give rise to a new and much, much larger problem: Ark lands, animals go out. That pair of chipmunks then has to more or less instantly evol-- I mean "change within its kind" -- into all of the rodent species that we know today. And that's...a lot. The fewer the animals you have on the Ark, the more this "change" (Can't use the "E" word!) has to happen in a very short amount of time. We're talking freight-train speed evolution here. And if you add dinosaurs into the mix, it makes it even more absurd: Ark lands, the pair (assuming that dinosaurs aren't clean) of, say, Compsognathus ('Cuz they're conveniently small) comes out, has to instantly "change" into all the dinosaur species we know (and those that we don't know)...and then after all that effort of "changing," they all more or less immediately go extinct.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense...

So yeah...As a character on a favorite show of mine once said: "Noah's Ark is a problem." For the literalist-creationists, that is. Not for the rest of us.

Oh, if you need lulz in your day, have a read through the articles here: http://www.answersingenesis.org/get...topic/noahs-ark. AiG hates me because I'm the kind of person they dislike most: A professing born-again Christian who doesn't agree with them. Really puts a bug up their butt. But they've stopped publishing my letters with detailed lulzy "rebuttals" on their site! I'm very offended. ;p

I'm mostly found on (and mostly upload to) Tumblr these days because, alas, there are only 24 hours in a day.
Muh Simblr! | An index of my downloads on Tumblr.
Scholar
#464 Old 5th May 2010 at 7:24 PM
... ... ...

My mind is blown. It'd just be easier to say "one of every species" then, "what? Deal with it!" :p

Is that a shillelagh in your pocket, or are you just sinning against God?
Lab Assistant
#465 Old 5th May 2010 at 7:33 PM
Quote: Originally posted by jooxis
Don't mean to divert the topic but if anyone religious can explain to me what you think about dinosaurs, I'd appreciate it. There's no denying their existence. Why weren't they mentioned in the Bible? Seems like a big thing to leave out. So, God created Dinosaurs (in whose image?) and then got tired of them and THEN for some reason he decided to create people instead?


I think that He tested Earth to make climate, vegetation and animals just for us and our purposes.

Abandoned account...
Mad Poster
#466 Old 5th May 2010 at 8:52 PM
Quote: Originally posted by jooxis
Don't mean to divert the topic but if anyone religious can explain to me what you think about dinosaurs, I'd appreciate it. There's no denying their existence. Why weren't they mentioned in the Bible? Seems like a big thing to leave out. So, God created Dinosaurs (in whose image?) and then got tired of them and THEN for some reason he decided to create people instead?


I thought Satan put those bones in the ground to mess with our heads...
Retired
retired moderator
#467 Old 5th May 2010 at 9:00 PM
Unless you live in the USA or a developing country, there isn't a large number of Christians who are Creationists. Nevertheless, I guess it is relevant because there are and a Christian is basically whoever claims to be Christian, as far as I can tell.

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GON OUT, BACKSON, BISY BACKSON
Scholar
#468 Old 5th May 2010 at 9:32 PM
Quote: Originally posted by fakepeeps7
I thought Satan put those bones in the ground to mess with our heads...

Nah, that's what rock n' roll is for :p

Is that a shillelagh in your pocket, or are you just sinning against God?
Instructor
#469 Old 5th May 2010 at 10:37 PM
If Satan put dinosaur bones to mess with our heads, that also explains why hardcore evangelicals also believe that space aliens are demons that will try to take over the world and why the NWO is out to get us.

People who believe in dinos, aliens, and one world government are messed up by Satan according to the hardcore Christians.

Apparently, there is not much science supporting the creationist views. If there is a water shield above mars, why hadn't it burst open when our robots came here and why aren't the scientists finding them? There aren't any water shield, although there was one like that in FFX when they're playing Blitzball.

God, please protect me from your idiot followers for they have blinded themselves with bleach.

Money doesn't buy you happiness but it buys you beer and coffee.

Life is like Go. Its takes smart and amoral people to make decisions based on their strategies of living.
Mad Poster
#470 Old 5th May 2010 at 11:02 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Xunixeon
If Satan put dinosaur bones to mess with our heads, that also explains why hardcore evangelicals also believe that space aliens are demons that will try to take over the world and why the NWO is out to get us.

People who believe in dinos, aliens, and one world government are messed up by Satan according to the hardcore Christians.


How can hardcore evangelicals believe in space aliens, demons, and the NWO if they think that people who believe in space aliens, demons, and the NWO are messed up by Satan? Or are you saying they listen to Satan?

I'm confused...
Retired
retired moderator
#471 Old 5th May 2010 at 11:15 PM
Guys. I understand the morbid fascination in the craziest elements of Xtianity, but there are currently two theists making a case on here. iCad is the more reasonable one, and where the focus should be. Let's not get distracted by the most marginal stuff.

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GON OUT, BACKSON, BISY BACKSON
Instructor
#472 Old 6th May 2010 at 1:36 AM
Christianity has pretty much failed people by providing superstition instead of concise answers to their believers.

And the Crusaders raped women and pillaged villages in name of Jesus. They claimed to be "Holy Warriors" too.

But some of the Crusaders are themselves Templars, heretic christians. So the Roman Catholic Church got greedy and took their money away before Barbequeing them in the stakes.

Talking about Juicy Meat from a Crusader!

God, please protect me from your idiot followers for they have blinded themselves with bleach.

Money doesn't buy you happiness but it buys you beer and coffee.

Life is like Go. Its takes smart and amoral people to make decisions based on their strategies of living.
Scholar
#473 Old 6th May 2010 at 1:55 AM
Quote: Originally posted by ivan17
I think that He tested Earth to make climate, vegetation and animals just for us and our purposes.



If God is omnicient (all knowing), then why would he need to "test"?

Sarcasm is a body's natural defense against stupid.
Instructor
#474 Old 6th May 2010 at 2:27 AM
Quote: Originally posted by kattenijin
If God is omnicient (all knowing), then why would he need to "test"?


Yeah. Why would he test the Earth to make so we can enjoy it when he is all-powerful and all knowing?

Hume would think that a God who is all powerful and all knowing with the hint of goodness would make the Earth exactly how he wants it. In fact, he later stated that that God is just like the indulgent parent but doesn't know how to get around it.

Would you agree?

God, please protect me from your idiot followers for they have blinded themselves with bleach.

Money doesn't buy you happiness but it buys you beer and coffee.

Life is like Go. Its takes smart and amoral people to make decisions based on their strategies of living.
Undead Molten Llama
#475 Old 6th May 2010 at 4:49 AM Last edited by iCad : 6th May 2010 at 4:50 AM. Reason: Man, I suck at the pseudo-HTML. :p
@ kiwi_tea

Okey-dokes. Parable of the Tares.

First, you forgot the parable itself, which is kind of important when it comes to understanding the explanation of it that you quoted. So, the actual parable:

Quote:
Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.”(Matthew 13:24-30)


Now, for those who don't know: A tare is a weed that looks an awful lot like wheat until harvest time. At the time, if you didn't like your neighbor and wanted to sabotage him, you'd go into his fields and sow tares amongst his wheat, and no one would know that anything was amiss until harvest time.

That said, there are different interpretations of this parable. Some, who accept the rapture and the tribulation as things in our future, interpret it as a warning indeed, with the furnace of fire being a reference to toasty warm hell where people will be tortured forever, blah, blah. BUT the more common interpretation is one of leaving judgment to God. The owner in the parable says to let both the good and bad seed grow and then he will, at harvest, tell the reapers to separate the good from the bad, with the bad to be destroyed by fire and the good to be retained. In his explanation, Jesus explains that the Son of Man is the owner and that he will judge who is "wheat" and who is "tare," with the metaphorical tares to be burned as the tares in the parable were to be burned.

The repeated reference to fire could simply be narrative mirroring, with the concept of burning retained from the parable in the explanation of it; this is what I tend to think. Or, the destruction could be seen as supporting the annihilationist stance. People who accept this stance reject the concept of hell entirely and believe that those who do not accept Jesus as savior will simply be annihilated at their death, that they will cease to exist entirely, both physically and spiritually. (Much as, say, atheists believe.) The destruction MIGHT support the stance of "hell as place of eternal torment/suffering/punishment, as I said...except that if you cast someone into a fiery furnace (or a lake of fire, for that matter), they won't be suffering for that long, certainly not eternally, and there won't be much time for wailing and teeth-gnashing. And, on top of that, the standard medieval depiction of hell only "works" if people retain some sort of physical form there. You can't torture an immaterial soul with material things like fire and molten sulfur. But...that's a tangent.

So I think the parable is more about God being the only one who can judge who is righteous and who isn't, who is a "true Christian" and who isn't, and that he will do so at a person's death, their "harvest," and not before. Martin Luther said it much better than I can:

Quote:
Again this Gospel teaches how we should conduct ourselves toward these heretics and false teachers. We are not to uproot nor destroy them. Here he says publicly let both grow together. We have to do here with God's Word alone; for in this matter he who errs today may find the truth tomorrow. Who knows when the Word of God may touch his heart? But if he be burned at the stake, or otherwise destroyed, it is thereby assured that he can never find the truth; and thus the Word of God is snatched from him, and he must be lost, who otherwise might have been saved. Hence the Lord says here, that the wheat also will be uprooted if we weed out the tares. That is something awful in the eyes of God and never to be justified.

From this observe what raging and furious people we have been these many years, in that we desired to force others to believe; the Turks with the sword, heretics with fire, the Jews with death, and thus outroot the tares by our own power, as if we were the ones who could reign over hearts and spirits, and make them pious and right, which God's Word alone must do. But by murder we separate the people from the Word, so that it cannot possibly work upon them and we bring thus, with one stroke a double murder upon ourselves, as far as it lies in our power, namely, in that we murder the body for time and the soul for eternity, and afterwards say we did God a service by our actions, and wish to merit something special in heaven.

Therefore this passage should in all reason terrify the grand inquisitors and murderers of the people, where they are not brazened faced, even if they have to deal with true heretics. But at present they burn the true saints and are themselves heretics. What is that but uprooting the wheat, and pretending to exterminate the tares, like insane people?


Yep, Martin Luther in the early 1500s might well have been talking to many evangelicals today. How little we have learned.

Oh and this:

Quote: Originally posted by kiwi_tea
Unless you live in the USA or a developing country, there isn't a large number of Christians who are Creationists.


Actually, AiG is a large-ish (as creationist organizations go) Australian organization. Its founder is Australian, as are many of the scientists (For many of them are credentialed, but they often speak "authoritatively" on subjects unrelated to their degree) who contribute to its site and its publications. The organization was large well before it opened its US offices.
And I have heard that there is also growing support for creationism in the UK, but I'm not sure if the source from which I heard that is accurate. Anyone from the UK, please set me straight if I'm wrong.

So don't just blame it on us backward, uneducated Yanks!

And because I'm curious:

Quote: Originally posted by Xunixeon
Christianity has pretty much failed people by providing superstition instead of concise answers to their believers.


"Failed people" in what way? Also, to what "concise answers" and "superstition" , do you refer, specifically?

Quote:
And the Crusaders raped women and pillaged villages in name of Jesus.


Well, no. Generally they did it in the name of the Church and at the behest of the particular Pope in power at the time of the particular Crusade. Who, in turn, generally had political motivations, not spiritual ones. Jesus had little to do with it. The Crusades were a horrible time, truly a warning about the dangers of the mingling of politics and religion. But the fact that they happened doesn't mean that Christianity is wrong or evil. It means that the PEOPLE, at the time, were wrong, and I'm sure that some of them were evil, too. I've often said it, but God shouldn't be judged by the actions of people who claim to follow Him because people are often in error.

I'm mostly found on (and mostly upload to) Tumblr these days because, alas, there are only 24 hours in a day.
Muh Simblr! | An index of my downloads on Tumblr.
 
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