How many animals go to heaven?

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Originally Posted By: DiRTY DOGOriginally Posted By: SlickerThanSnotstarting to get ugly now. 9 pages. guess it was about time. lol Interesting that the bigotry, hatred, and personal attacks are coming from the same guy preaching about Jesus and the holy scriptures...

You have done your share of attacking other peoples’ personal beliefs in this thread. And you have done it hiding behind book smart knowledge of religion. You even self-proclaim yourself;

Originally Posted By: DiRTY DOG
I consider myself an amature EXPERT on mormonism.

In real life, I observe people for book smarts verses street smarts. In doing so, I hold a higher value in individuals with wisdom over knowledge. That is what I have tried to engage you on, but you tuck tail and claim anything outside your knowledge of scripture is boring. Even with your response to me, does this sound familiar?

“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” -Stephen Roberts

You are simply repeating something you read and trying to preach it to me word for word. You are coming across just as indoctrinated as those raised into a religion. This is not a personal attack on you, this is simply my observation that everything you have said resonates as if from a well-educated parrot.
 
Quotes were being thrown around, I threw one back without attributing the source. You did the same thing with your explaining heaven to an ant story from Rick Warren's A Purpose Driven Life. Pot, meet kettle.

Originally Posted By: Infidel 762but you tuck tail and claim anything outside your knowledge of scripture is boring. Even with your response to me, does this sound familiar?No, I never said that. Here is my quote, and several pages later my prediction was correct that you, specifically a "spiritualist" of some kind, still refuse to answer questions about your god experience, and that's not interesting to me when you make a claim but won't defend it or even answer basic questions about it.
Originally Posted By: DiRTY DOGAnd I won't debate nondenominational spiritualism, since each individual defines their belief system differently, keeping it vague enough that it can't be identified or pinned down or falsified. Debating that is like trying to pin an invisible cloud to a wall. I don't find it interesting.
You claimed to have a god experience, I asked some questions (I can't read your experience in a book) like how you determined the non-human power was a god. You have refused to address my questions and I doubt you intend to. This is not an interesting discussion to me. Perhaps you are the one hiding and tucking tail.
 
A most interesting series to read here, and very revelatory it seems.

I suppose the one question I have is why a non-believer feels such a compulsion to convince others to believe in nothing?

The way I figure it is this. If the non-believer is right, then we will all be equally dead and either buried or cremated. On the other hand, if the non-believer is wrong, then he will still be in the same place, dead.

My son, who is going on 48 said to me recently, "You know Dad, if Jesus was not God, then everyone will just be dead, but if I've lived a Christian life and there is no eternal life, it will still have been a pretty good life."

By the time I turned 30, as an atheist, I had pretty much destroyed everything around me. I lost my family, and my home, and it was largely because life was all about me. I mean if there was no God, then there really wasn't anything such as sin, and if I didn't get caught by the law or some irate husband, then someday I would just be dead like all the fools who believed there was life after death, except I would have had all that "fun".

As I came to the end of that rope, I fell down on my knees beside the bed in a two bedroom trailer, and prayed "God, I don't know if you even exist, not really, but if you do, I'm asking you to come into my heart forgive me for my sin against you, and against others." In the twinkling of an eye, I knew that God not only existed, but that Jesus had forgiven me of every terrible sin I had committed because he paid the price for me. 42 years have come and gone and He is just as real today.
 
Originally Posted By: DoubleUp
By the time I turned 30, as an atheist, I had pretty much destroyed everything around me. I lost my family, and my home, and it was largely because life was all about me. I mean if there was no God, then there really wasn't anything such as sin, and if I didn't get caught by the law or some irate husband, then someday I would just be dead like all the fools who believed there was life after death, except I would have had all that "fun".
Some people are only "good" because they are driven by fear. Fear of getting caught. Fear of the law, fear of a godly punishment.

I've actually heard people argue that they might be a rapist or murderer save their belief in a god. That's scary as [beeep], they would do terrible things to other people if they knew they could get away with it, the only reason they don't is because they might face consequences. Yikes!

There's another type of person who does not rape or kill because they simply don't want to hurt people. They wouldn't want it to happen to them, so don't do it to other people. Or stealing, or lying, or cheating. Not out of fear of punishment or getting caught.

The point is, some people NEED fear to be a good person, and religion offers that structure and constant threat of punishment. In your case christianity. It sounds like you NEED religion as a crutch or choke chain around your neck to keep yourself in check and not destroy your life and other people's lives. You should stay in church.

Plenty of people have never heard of Jesus or don't believe in christianity, or any other religion, and yet are still good people. I mean, only 1% of Japanese claim christianity, would you or your son say that the other 99% of Japanese can't have "a good life" because they don't have a christian life? What about India, or China? Only christians can have good lives?
 
Originally Posted By: DoubleUpA most interesting series to read here, and very revelatory it seems.

I suppose the one question I have is why a non-believer feels such a compulsion to convince others to believe in nothing?


Actually, there is a word to define those people who are compelled to convince others what to believe.
It’s “evangelist”.
Look it up sometime.

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Originally Posted By: DiRTY DOGOriginally Posted By: DoubleUp
By the time I turned 30, as an atheist, I had pretty much destroyed everything around me. I lost my family, and my home, and it was largely because life was all about me. I mean if there was no God, then there really wasn't anything such as sin, and if I didn't get caught by the law or some irate husband, then someday I would just be dead like all the fools who believed there was life after death, except I would have had all that "fun".
Some people are only "good" because they are driven by fear. Fear of getting caught. Fear of the law, fear of a godly punishment.

I've actually heard people argue that they might be a rapist or murderer save their belief in a god. That's scary as [beeep], they would do terrible things to other people if they knew they could get away with it, the only reason they don't is because they might face consequences. Yikes!

There's another type of person who does not rape or kill because they simply don't want to hurt people. They wouldn't want it to happen to them, so don't do it to other people. Or stealing, or lying, or cheating. Not out of fear of punishment or getting caught.

The point is, some people NEED fear to be a good person, and religion offers that structure and constant threat of punishment. In your case christianity. It sounds like you NEED religion as a crutch or choke chain around your neck to keep yourself in check and not destroy your life and other people's lives. You should stay in church.

Plenty of people have never heard of Jesus or don't believe in christianity, or any other religion, and yet are still good people. I mean, only 1% of Japanese claim christianity, would you or your son say that the other 99% of Japanese can't have "a good life" because they don't have a christian life? What about India, or China? Only christians can have good lives?

Good point.
Some people actually do good in their lives because it’s the right thing to do. They don’t need a promise of eternal reward or a threat of eternal punishment.

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^^^^^^So just reading this above, you're saying that you and DD are evangelist's? Seems a little out of the norm really. You've said questions are good, so I am just wondering. Been sitting out a little while since the imaginary dragon that DD introduced to the conversation didn't come with a Dirty Dog rule book to follow, but this raised a question I found interesting.
 
"Evangelist" actually has a defenition, and I don't meet the defenition.

As for imaginary dragons, it was actually invisible from the start and as such can't have visible flames, can it like you changed it to? Because it's invisible. Invisible beings are something you're familiar with yes? Like a god?

The invisible dragon analogy is just a variation of Russell's Teapot which states in summary: If you make an unfalsafiable claim, then it is your burden to provide evidence of your claim, otherwise your claim is rubbish.
Quote:Russell's teapot is an analogy, formulated by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making unfalsifiable claims, rather than shifting the burden of disproof to others.

Russell specifically applied his analogy in the context of religion. He wrote that if he were to assert, without offering proof, that a teapot, too small to be seen by telescopes, orbits the Sun somewhere in space between the Earth and Mars, he could not expect anyone to believe him solely because his assertion could not be proven wrong.
 
Originally Posted By: obaro^^^^^^So just reading this above, you're saying that you and DD are evangelist's? Seems a little out of the norm really. You've said questions are good, so I am just wondering. Been sitting out a little while since the imaginary dragon that DD introduced to the conversation didn't come with a Dirty Dog rule book to follow, but this raised a question I found interesting.

“In Christianity, evangelism is the commitment to or act of publicly preaching (ministry) of the Gospel with the intention of spreading the message and teachings of Jesus Christ.

Christians who specialize in evangelism are often known as evangelists, whether they are in their home communities or living as missionaries in the field, although some Christian traditions refer to such people as missionaries in either case. Some Christian traditions consider evangelists to be in a leadership position; they may be found preaching to large meetings or in governance roles.

Christian groups who encourage evangelism are sometimes known as evangelistic or evangelist. The scriptures do not use the word evangelism, but evangelist is used in (the translations of) Acts 21:8, Ephesians 4:11, and 2 Timothy 4:5.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelism

I’m sorry I didn’t explain it better the first time.

Edit:

I can’t speak for DD. I don’t know him, I have never met him, and to the best of my memory, we have never communicated here or anywhere else.
We seem to share a lot of opinions, but there are most likely subjects where we don’t agree.

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Originally Posted By: DiRTY DOGQuotes were being thrown around, I threw one back without attributing the source. You did the same thing with your explaining heaven to an ant story from Rick Warren's A Purpose Driven Life. Pot, meet kettle.

I am not basing my whole position verbatim off other peoples’ words and claiming them as my own. I clearly stated it was an analogy I heard and then had to explain its meaning to you like a child after you miss-understood it. Would you care to discuss further? You claim man created something that I say the human mind is not even fully capable of understanding. So explain exactly what you are saying man created?    
 
Originally Posted By: DiRTY DOG

Originally Posted By: Infidel 762but you tuck tail and claim anything outside your knowledge of scripture is boring. Even with your response to me, does this sound familiar?No, I never said that. Here is my quote, and several pages later my prediction was correct that you, specifically a "spiritualist" of some kind, still refuse to answer questions about your god experience, and that's not interesting to me when you make a claim but won't defend it or even answer basic questions about it.
Originally Posted By: DiRTY DOGAnd I won't debate nondenominational spiritualism, since each individual defines their belief system differently, keeping it vague enough that it can't be identified or pinned down or falsified. Debating that is like trying to pin an invisible cloud to a wall. I don't find it interesting.
You claimed to have a god experience, I asked some questions (I can't read your experience in a book) like how you determined the non-human power was a god. You have refused to address my questions and I doubt you intend to. This is not an interesting discussion to me. Perhaps you are the one hiding and tucking tail.

I already told you what I have experienced and what stands as proof to me, I do not know how simpler I can say my life was a complete wreck, in desperation I sought God and he restored me.  I am not writing an auto biography here, I touched on the main points and that is where it stands. You touched on your main points and confirmed what I suspected; you had a religious, childhood up-bringing, degrees in religion and have never encountered a spiritual experience of any sort. My thought into you, is that you have resentment from your childhood upbringing and the things they told you will be condemned for. You have spent countless hours studying all these faults in religion to rationalize the non-existence of a Godly creator of all that is. Now you find yourself professing these emotions and beliefs on here, in the same manner as the garden variety bible thumper.

What I wonder most, is how can a human with such insignificant size in the never ending confines of space, whose existence in time spans a blip in never ending eternity, whose entire vantage point is grounded by earthly limitations, think so highly of oneself to say; there is no Godly creator out there?

I already know your answer, without some religious text to attack you have nothing other than the “it is impossible to prove one way or the other” comeback.

So if you do not hold resentment, why do you feel the need to attack religious beliefs?
 
Normally this thread would have been locked by now, but it is not right for me to get involved and then do so with an appearance of trying to get the last word...
 
I can see religions "evangelizing" because they believe whatever their teaching happens to be. What I don't understand is those who believe nothing trying to convince others to do the same.

"There is none good, no not one." I'm not the judge, and don't have to be. God himself will judge and it will be a fair judgment. Of course if you don't believe in God, there is no such thing as sin. So it would be impossible to do wrong no matter what you did, and everyone would be "good" because bad/wrong can only come from sin. You admit that down inside you there is something which tells you that rape, stealing, lying, cheating, etc. are wrong. Without that inner voice you couldn't possibly judge people who don't do those things as good or moral or bad. In the animal kingdom there is no such thing as good or moral. There is life and there is death, so if you're merely an animal it would be impossible to determine what is good or moral.
 
Originally Posted By: Infidel 762Normally this thread would have been locked by now, but it is not right for me to get involved and then do so with an appearance of trying to get the last word...

Perhaps. I think the discussion is actually going pretty well. It hasn't gotten overtly personal (one or two posts aside), and most of the players are being at least civil. It's spirited, but not ugly yet. I've quite enjoyed the reading.
 
First off, the definition of evangelist matches up with what I had in mind; what doesn’t match up is why it was used to answer the question of why nonbelievers feel the compulsion to try and tear down others beliefs.
DD- my bad you did say invisible dragon; but that just brings up more questions for me. I will answer you right quick though on my dealings with invisible stuff. I have dealt with such basic things as the other senses, stuff I can’t see but know is there like heat wind and sound, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what you meant. I’ll try to get deeper into that question later. As for the other question, are you saying a god has to be invisible?
 
Originally Posted By: DesertRamOriginally Posted By: Infidel 762Normally this thread would have been locked by now, but it is not right for me to get involved and then do so with an appearance of trying to get the last word...

Perhaps. I think the discussion is actually going pretty well. It hasn't gotten overtly personal (one or two posts aside), and most of the players are being at least civil. It's spirited, but not ugly yet. I've quite enjoyed the reading.

Well, I guess it all depends on what you define as civil.
How about this?

Originally Posted By: BJJ223Those churches are evil. The Bible clearly teaches homosexuality is a wicked sin and has no place in the Church. Sodomites are NOT accepted in any way. Women are not allowed to be pastors. That is wrong. This is just more evidence of the falling away before Jesus Christ returns.

9/11 is more complicated. It was an inside job by rouge elements in our government and Israeli intelligence. Buildings don’t collapse at free fall speed, fall on their own footprint, and simultaneously turn to dust due to a gravity fed collapse. Bldg 7 wasn’t hit by a plane. It collapsed at free fall speed at 5:20pm. The Pentagon was not hit by a 757. There were 12 different war games going on that morning simulating these exact events as a distraction.

Was 9/11 judgement from God? Probably. Just not the way most people think. We have allowed Christ hating Jews to infiltrate our government. Most of the people that want your guns are Jewish. All the filth from Hellywood is Jewish. Epstein was a Jewish honey trap meant to blackmail US and world leaders for the state of Israel. Just research the Maxwell name. G Maxwell was his Jewish handler. Most of the key people attempting the coup on Trump are Jewish.

As a nation, we have made Hitler look like a rookie amateur in murder with our abortions. God is definitely judging us for our sins.

That should be obvious to any rational person. We have gone insane. We are at the edge of a civil war. We believe a man can chop off body parts and that makes him a woman. We are indoctrinated with Sodomite propaganda.

All because we have rejected the God of the Bible.

Add in all of his hatred and bigotry in his other posts and compare it to the doctrine and beliefs found here:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westboro_Baptist_Church

Take a few minutes and read the information in the link.

Civil?

*
 
Originally Posted By: fw707
Civil?

Don't overlook this - "...(one or two posts aside)." Compared to most of these religious discussions, this one's pretty tame, so far. There are actors that warrant scrutiny. You know how this works.
smile.gif
 
Hm. I keep getting accused of things which I never said. Originally Posted By: InfidelWhat I wonder most... so highly of oneself to say; there is no Godly creator out there?I never claimed there was no creator or no god. Here's what I did say:
Originally Posted By: DiRTY DOG Like the invisible dragon, there is no evidence god communicates at all to anybody let alone exists. I am always open to new evidence. You have offered none. My position is a doubtful agnostic. No one can prove or disprove there is a god with certainty. It's just that as a general rule, simpler explanations (occam's razor) are preferable because they are based on reality, tangible evidence, and rational thought, as opposed to delusion. Again, the burden of proof rests on the shoulders of the one making a non-falsafiable claim (there is a god and he communicates with people).
Originally Posted By: Infadel 762So if you do not hold resentment, why do you feel the need to attack religious beliefs?Why do you and others feel the need to promote your religious beliefs on PM by creating hunting threads and including stuff about creators and spirituality etc and adding bible scriptures to signature lines?

Why do you accuse me of "attacking" when I'm simply inquiring about the religious claims you (and others) make? Is religion/theology really the sacred cow that nobody is allowed to poke? Then keep it to yourself. Keep your sacred cow tied up in your own yard 'cause if it wanders onto my property I'm gonna give it a warning shot or worse. Are your beliefs (and others) so fragile that you get upset and defensive when you're confronted by questions? Apparently yes.

How else do you really figure out what you believe or more importantly what is truth except by picking things apart and asking questions and considering other options?

You dismiss "book learning" or "schooling" because...? I'm sincerely confused about that. When you go to the dentist for a root canal, do you say, Hey doc I need a root canal but I don't want you to do any of that book learning root canal stuff you learned in dentistry school, I want you to use your wisdom and make up an new original surgical procedure ok.

Anyways I think we've run the course here and I have a bottle of Maker's Mark 46 sitting here that needs some attention on New Year's Eve. Let's start a new thread where we can argue about 17hmr's knockdown power or 223 effective range or do 40gr Vmax bounce off coyotes or something we can measure with calipers.
 
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