men and women throughout history and from every corner of the globe have been willing to sacrifice "our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor" for any number of causes, some good, some bad, from civil rights to their nation/tribe to the proletariat to the Volk to the service of God- remember 9/11?

But just because they said they were doing it for God, or at least for their god, does not always mean that they were. Satan will trick people in making them think they are doing what is right, when they are infact doing what is wrong.

I have a new-ish question...

What is a soul exactly? What's your definition of it? Where does it reside? I've always found that this is one thing that we humans tend to see differently from individual to individual.

The soul is all that we can see, touch, and not express.

I didn't think Paul saw the resurrected Jesus, I thought he just had a vision. That's what so amazing about the guy- that he, who had been a persecutor of the faithful, could claim equal authority with people who had actually known Jesus, and make it stick.

Acts 1:1-3

In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.

Paul was an apostle, so it seems to me that all the apostles saw Jesus with their own eyes after his resurrection, for forty days.

When I spoke of "myths, legends, history, folktales, poetry, prophecies and ethical instructions"-not "simply folklore"- I was primarily referring to the Old Testament, which forms the bulk of the Bible, and by "the purpose of the compilers" I meant that the 'greater purpose' that shapes this vast collection of various forms of literature was human, not divine.

Ah, okay, thank you for clarifying that!

As for the martyrdom of St Paul and others, men and women throughout history and from every corner of the globe have been willing to sacrifice "our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor" for any number of causes, some good, some bad, from civil rights to their nation/tribe to the proletariat to the Volk to the service of God- remember 9/11?

Right, but as stated before, Paul would know if Jesus resurrected or not. Martyrs after wards were based on faith, Paul was not. Why would he martyr himself if he knew that his beliefs were false, and he gained nothing of them? This goes the same for all the other apostles as well.

And, by the way, the point I was making was not about the New Earth, but was merely meant to explain the intentions of Dr. Ransom. You said he was being unfair, and so I was explaining that he was not being rude to Tesseract, but merely making a point that everyone has something more to learn.

Fair enough

That being said, I wanted to ask you something. And please don't take this the wrong way, because I don't mean it to be rude, though it's hard to word correctly without it sounding rude. What is the overall purpose/point of your posts? I'm probably just missing it. I've seen you mention 9/11, the new earth, how atheists reject all religions and not just one. Those are all very varied subjects. I'm not sure what they have in common, and what you're trying to say by mentioning them. So my question is, what point are you making, and how do all these things you have mentioned come together to prove that point? Is it just to tell us what atheists believe, or that you don't approve of what the church believes, or something else, etc. etc. ?
(Hope that makes sense. It's almost 3 in the morning here as I try to type this in a way that makes sense. )

Absolutely no offense, and absolutely makes sense.
Basically, I was just trying to reply to questions raised by others

This is going to be a bit discursive, but...
I started off replying to Dr. Ransom's comment to Tessesract because I thought it wasn't a valid criticism. Then I noticed in the good Doctor's reply he asked why Tesseract hadn't answered all his questions, so I thought I had better do that. The questions themselves covered a wide range of topics.

The question about the meta- theme of the Bible led to a question from FoodforThought about Paul, which I tried to answer. The part about 9/11 was part of that response, and it was just an attempt to point out the willingness of someone to die for a cause was no guarantee of the truth of said cause.

I generally try to respond to people's posts- when the subject is so large and the issues so varied there is a tendencies to end up tearing down rabbit holes all over the place.
Trying to cover all possible objections in advances gives me a tendency to ramble- e.g. I had another post prepared on the subject of the Jewish view of the Jesus/Pharisee clash, but thought better to delete

I was in fact worried about being thought rude by FoodForThought for not going on to his other questions to Tess, but thought tackling the Cosmological Argument from the Principle of Sufficient Reason at the moment might be a bit of overstretching...

I started off replying to Dr. Ransom's comment to Tessesract because I thought it wasn't a valid criticism. Then I noticed in the good Doctor's reply he asked why Tesseract hadn't answered all his questions, so I thought I had better do that. The questions themselves covered a wide range of topics.

Of course, neither Tesseract nor Dr Ransom have been about, though they've been much referenced and discussed these past days!

I'll try to hit on some points/answers/rebuttals offered during that time.

Now here Tesseract is giving the same answer I would have done- Heaven- because it's the answer that the great majority of Christians, both denominations and individuals, would have given. You, Fencer (if I may presume )and others may have a different opinion, but it's a distinctly minority view.

It might be a minority view, but is it the right one? Even a non-Christian who disbelieves in the Bible might believe at least in self-consistency; that's why many Christian leaders are rightfully condemned, even by non-Christians, for hypocritical behavior: they say I believe the Bible then ignore what it says. In this case, many Christians -- probably without meaning to -- ignore what the Bible says about the New Earth, and the fact that God will mix His New Heaven with that world (Rev. 21).

I don't think it's really kosher to critcize an atheist or other non-Christian for lacking knowledge of Christianity because he accepts as a point of discussion the belief that most Christians actually hold. This is an internal matter for you guys to straighten out among yourselves, at which point you can turn to us benighted heathens with a united front. Your argument is with your co-religionists.

But I like to walk and chew gum at the same time.

As others have said, my main point in asking those questions was not you're ignorant; but rather, your claim to have known and experienced actual Christianity, not completely but to have basic familiarity with its beliefs — is that a valid claim? Or might you have missed something vital that would be worth re-evaluating?

*Can't hold back aswer...*

Spoiler

Heaven and Earth?

Could you explain your explanation there though Dr. Ransom (If I may call you that), I'm afraid it confused me a tad...

Ithilwen has already answered this, yet I can also elaborate ...

Earlier I'd referred to Revelation 21, which repeats a promise first made in the last of the Old-Testament book of Isaiah: God will not simply destroy the world and pull all His people to an alternate existence in Heaven forever. Rather, despite whatever spiritual form Heaven exists in now, He's promised to remake a New Heavens and New Earth, a physical world over which Christ Himself reigns personally as King. Multiple cultures will be represented there from all across history, all of God's people. Surely technology and learning will flourish, all in worship to the One Who has saved His people, and they will dwell in both a physical world with physical new bodies, free of all suffering and death (2 Corinthians 5).

However, in the back of many Christians' mind is the thought — and sometimes even a fear! — that we're destined for some kind of disembodied existence in a vague, shadowy-light, "spiritoid" afterlife, where (so we're told) we'll be happy anyway, singing to God forever and ever. That only works if a) one ignores all of what Scripture says about God redeeming His world — such as in Romans 8, about the world world (Greek kosmos) groaning as it awaits deliverance — and b) one defines "worship" as only singing in church, not all of life lived for God.

I can discuss more about this if you like, wolfloversk. Getting hold of this truth — and it's not some Deep Secret Teaching of Scripture; it is "hidden" in plain sight, obscured only by our own ignorance! — helped change my life, and it interweaves with so many other truths. ...

The harder [question] is who were the Sons of God who lay with the fair Daughters of Men and produced the giants? I understand there's still some discussion over that.

And the only reason I'm sick of that question is because I once had a manager who talked and acted as if the whole point of the Bible was that a long time ago in a pre-Flood world far, far away, Space Aliens™ (!!!) might have been sinning with women and made Hybrid Children — and all this is in the Bible, crazy crazy crazy (!!!). Apparently that was the most important message to be gained from Scripture. Never mind that God-rescues-sinners-and-stays-holy-and-shows-mercy thing.

I think, though, that question is much easier to answer. "The sons of God" likely refers only to human men. That especially matches what we find in the rest of Genesis 6: that people were multiplying quickly and spreading their sin far and wide, so much that God declared a Flood.

Your answers don't seem so far apart to me, and, as you yourself point out, there is disagreement among Christians on the issue- I assume the "Evangelicals and others" don't regard themselves as confused.

When some Christians are saying "Jesus didn't care about the Law, but only love" and others are saying "Jesus cared about the the Law, came to fulfill it, and only opposed what people had corrupted it to be," that seems very different.

Again, I'm not asking whether the majority of Christians believe such-and-such, but rather, are their beliefs consistent? If they say I believe the Bible, then repeat something that only evangelical culture has conditioned them to believe — such as "The Pharisees were so into God's real Law that they forgot how to love" — there's a hypocrisy there.

The compilers of the New Testament came later, when they were taking all the votes of what books to include.

This is a common misconception. The only "votes" about which books to include came after Gnostic fan-fiction started coming around (though perhaps fan-fiction is the wrong term because they hoped to co-opt existing books, not tribute them). Church leaders came up with tests for what was a real New Testament book, and among those tests was whether the broad Church was already accepting the books as authoritative. This was to defend the existing canon, not establish it.

1. A wild "Gospel of Thomas" (ghostwritten by Gnostic Bob) appears!
2. Early Church uses confirmation of existing churches' canon acceptance!
3. It's super effective!

The question about the meta- theme of the Bible led to a question from FoodforThought about Paul, which I tried to answer. The part about 9/11 was part of that response, and it was just an attempt to point out the willingness of someone to die for a cause was no guarantee of the truth of said cause.

I was in fact worried about being thought rude by FoodForThought for not going on to his other questions to Tess, but thought tackling the Cosmological Argument from the Principle of Sufficient Reason at the moment might be a bit of overstretching...

You don't come across as rude at all, Graymouser! I responded to your response, I'm not sure if you caught it or not, but I certainly don't expect you to respond to questions I made towards Tess, though I wouldn't discourage it, either!

[quote="Graymouser":2h0jv7pk]But I like to walk and chew gum at the same time.

As others have said, my main point in asking those questions was not you're ignorant; but rather, your claim to have known and experienced actual Christianity, not completely but to have basic familiarity with its beliefs — is that a valid claim? Or might you have missed something vital that would be worth re-evaluating?

Okay, let me ask a question of my own:

Where, exactly, does the Koran say who the successor to Mohammed is?

Now, not being an Islamic scholar, my reply would have been " the four righteously guided caliphs, and then the uluma."

Some learned Muslim might have replied

"For the answer, look up, especially 5:55, "Only Allah is your Wali, and His ....""

Then I would have said "Oh, you're a Shi'ite, and that's a minority view"

And our learned Muslim would have said

"It might be a minority view, but is it the right one? Even a non-Muslim who disbelieves in the Koran might believe at least in self-consistency; that's why many Muslim leaders are rightfully condemned, even by non-Muslims, for hypocritical behavior: they say I believe the Koran then ignore what it says. In this case, many Muslims-- probably without meaning to -- ignore what the Koran says about Wali, and the fact that the succession should have passed to Ali

"Again,[continues our scholar] my point isn't to show anyone else ignorant or something, but simply to remind you: if you'd been saturated in or paid better attention to strongly Koranic Islam, I wonder if you'd claim to be a "atheist" now?"

Or, if this learned Muslim was having this discussion with you, Dr. Ransom, "...I wonder if you'd claim to be a "Christian" now ?"

At which point we'd probably both reply that internal doctrinal disputes have very little to do with our mutual rejection of Islam (though this particular dispute causes hundreds, if not thousands, of people to be murdered every year. :O )

^^ I'd just like to make two points about this, Greymouser.

First off, the New Earth scripture is not some huge debatable issue. The Bible is quite clear about it. It's not one of those things that can be viewed either way. The only reason why people don't believe it/know about it, is because of lies that have seeped in from non-Biblical sources.

And secondly, Dr. Ransom said what he said to Tesseract, because of something Tesseract said. That does not mean he would say that to every atheist/agnostic who comes on here. What he said was appropriate for this particular situation, because Tesseract claimed to already know what the Bible really says, and so Dr. Ransom put that claim to a test. I doubt he would have said it to someone who by his/her own admission did not know everything about the Bible.

~Riella

Out of curiosity: Have you guys debated Amil/Premil/Postmil views on here before? And do you know when/where? I wouldn't mind reading over that if you have/do.

I'm not sure what you're talking about. What are they (Amil/Premil/Postmil) abbrevations for?

It's about the millennial reign of Christ in Revelation. Amillinial, Premillinial, and Post-millinnial. Does it happens before, during, or after the Tribulation? Or is it totally separate in the context of the Tribulation? Is Christ's reign on this earth or the New Earth? I personally don't really have an official position on this at this time. But that's the question that's been raised.

Ah, thanks Fencer. I'm not good with abbreviations. I'm not sure exactly where I stand but I lean more towards the Tribulation happening and then Christ's millennial reign. One thing's for sure - I don't share the same beliefs concerning the end of days that are found in the Left Behind books.

I find Left Behind as an interesting supposition of what may happen at the End Times. One thing is for certain: nobody will every get a true picture of what it will be like until it is actually happening. Like with the Young Earth/Old Earth debate, no model we can come up with is capable of truly painting the full picture of what will happen (or has happened). We can get glimpses of part of it, but we will never truly get what it will be like until it is happening. I just know that when Christ comes to call his people home, I'll be one of them.

Yes me 2,(hope to see you in heaven) The left behind books are fictional, people who have rejected the gospol cannot be saved, only jews and people who have never heard it. I think Christs rein will be after the second coming, when he establishes his kingdom in New Jerusalem, then he'll throw Satan in Hell, and after 1000 years, the devil will come back and try to defeat Christ, but he wont and Satan will be locked up for eternity.

^^ I'd just like to make two points about this, Greymouser.

First off, the New Earth scripture is not some huge debatable issue. The Bible is quite clear about it. It's not one of those things that can be viewed either way. The only reason why people don't believe it/know about it, is because of lies that have seeped in from non-Biblical sources.

And secondly, Dr. Ransom said what he said to Tesseract, because of something Tesseract said. That does not mean he would say that to every atheist/agnostic who comes on here. What he said was appropriate for this particular situation, because Tesseract claimed to already know what the Bible really says, and so Dr. Ransom put that claim to a test. I doubt he would have said it to someone who by his/her own admission did not know everything about the Bible.

~Riella

All right -this seems like a good enough place to leave it.

As far as the substance of the argument goes, not believing in either Heaven or the New Earth, I have no particular dog in this fight.