The Great Controversy -- or Is It Really?

[Rich10]

Originally Posted by ollie

Yeah, it's not that I see biblical literalism as necessarily the cause of the problem, but that it seems wrapped up in it. Your point that science and religion answer different questions is a good one and the problem I see is that people are using religion to answer questions that are science ones. Or, more nuanced, the pieces that science does have something to say on are neglected in favour of a religion-only approach.

Maybe its not just the USA (although it does look like we exported it).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michae..._ref=dinosaurs
For the record, I would have climbed into the saddle for the picture.


I love the clip of the child sitting next to the dinosaur.

[ParaGoomba Slayer]

Originally Posted by Heroscaper Guy

So every non-Jew went to Hell, yes.

Doesn't that make God more evil than Hitler, perhaps even MechaHitler then?

[dok]

Originally Posted by Heroscaper Guy

I can only answer the last one due to it being the only thing I've paid attention to while being bored in church. Supposedly, that's what the whole sacrificing an animal that was determined clean on the altar was for. It was to repent of your sins to God. So every non-Jew went to Hell, yes.

This may be the Christian understanding of afterlife before Christ, but it is not the Jewish understanding of it.

[Heroscaper Guy]

Originally Posted by dok

This may be the Christian understanding of afterlife before Christ, but it is not the Jewish understanding of it.

So now I'm curious, what happened to all the gentiles then? (I'm honestly curious, not attacking what you're saying).

[dok]

Originally Posted by Heroscaper Guy

So now I'm curious, what happened to all the gentiles then? (I'm honestly curious, not attacking what you're saying).

First of all, the afterlife in general is much less of an emphasis in Jewish theology. The idea of hell is basically absent, and heaven is relatively rarely mentioned. The emphasis is on following the laws in this life for their own sake.

But to your point - gentiles are not required to follow all the rules in the bible. They have a significantly smaller set of requirements, the so-called laws of Noah. They're mostly common sense "don't be evil" things, and not so different than the Ten Commandments without the stuff about the sabbath. Only the "chosen people" are chosen to follow all of the laws of the bible (and be blessed for it).

[Aldin]

Originally Posted by Heroscaper Guy

So now I'm curious, what happened to all the gentiles then? (I'm honestly curious, not attacking what you're saying).

Well... that's not my Christian understanding of it either. My understanding is that the sacrifice of animals was a substitute for the needed sacrifice of the Christ and that in and of itself it was insufficient. There was no "redemption" through animal sacrifice. Redemption was always through the Christ. As such, people living before the time of Christ could still be redeemed by Him at the point of His sacrifice (much in the same way that that sacrifice covered people yet to be born).

You could almost say that animal sacrifice was a way of saying to God "look ahead to the sacrifice that is to come, and cover our sins as we in faith acknowledge our future redeemer". (Note that there were many different reasons for performing animal sacrifice and I've simply chosen to focus on the covering of sins.)

Job (Old Testament) said "I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth." (Job 19:25 NIV). My understanding is that salvation always and only is through the sacrifice of the Christ - but that that salvation can happen before, during and after the event of that sacrifice by faith.

Ephesians 2:8 says "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God" (NIV). Hebrews 11 (it's long, I'm not gonna put the whole thing here) talks about Biblical figures from the Old Testament and how they acted by faith - and about how they hadn't received the promise. It wasn't saying that they weren't redeemed, but that they were redeemed by faith before Christ came. That in history it was necessary for Christ to redeem, but that it was also possible to look forward to that time in faith, just as today we look back on that time in faith.

~Aldin, trying for clarity

[quozl]

Job was one of those gentiles, BTW.

[Hahma]

I hope this guy isn't a Scaper

[ssnover95]

Originally Posted by Hahma

I hope this guy isn't a Scaper

He's a silly man on the Internet who likes to antagonize groups he doesn't like. He once posted a video challenging atheists to disprove the existence of God and offered a $100,000 prize. It was then repeatedly pointed out to him how burden of proof works.

He's been getting a bit of media coverage lately.

[Hahma]

Originally Posted by ssnover95

He's a silly man on the Internet who likes to antagonize groups he doesn't like. He once posted a video challenging atheists to disprove the existence of God and offered a $100,000 prize. It was then repeatedly pointed out to him how burden of proof works.

He's been getting a bit of media coverage lately.

The scary thing to me is that this silly man has 1.6 million likes on his FB page. He seems to say a bunch of stuff that is wrong (on many levels) but as is often the case anymore, a lot of people will believe him and "learn" from him.

[quozl]

Not all. I'd bet a lot of people have him "liked" for entertainment purposes.

[Aldin]

Originally Posted by Hahma

I hope this guy isn't a Scaper

I wish he was. It seems to me that getting people out of their radical echo chambers and into places with relatively free, open, and respectful discourse is a great way to try for some empathy and consideration of other points of view. One thing I love about 'Scapers is that I can get honest and respectful presentations of points of view here from people that don't agree with me. I think that's really healthy for a human being to experience.

~Aldin, peacefully