Well, the way Catholics interpret that, for example and as far as I know, is that everyone is born as a sinner due to original sin an' shit. And they have to confess and be absolved of their sins (no Jesus factoring in there for example, to answer your question again, Astner).
Lots of denominations do think that babies are innocent though for example, and we can find Bible passages that can be interpreted as a promise heaven (and with that eternal life) to groups regardless of the believe in Jesus. Famous is this one:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:3
Originally posted by peejaydAsking people to express their freedom/free will in a selfless way ≠ killing those same people for not doing what you asked of them-- which is what God did at S&G.
* it's like giving a responsible man a knife... not to kill people, but to help him in cooking? 😛 anyway, [b]this is free will:"For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another."
Galatians 5:13 [/B]
I think of God as an entity whom will lead you to water when you are thirsty, but he will not put the water in your mouth-- you have to make that decision for yourself. OT God, on the other hand, would lead you to water, then shout "psych!" whilst drowning you in it.
Originally posted by Galan007Only if you abused his gift in his eyes.
Asking people to express their freedom/free will in a selfless way ≠ killing those same people for not doing what you asked of them-- which is what God did at S&G.I think of God as an entity whom will lead you to water when you are thirsty, but he will not put the water in your mouth-- you have to make that decision for yourself. OT God, on the other hand, would lead you to water, then shout "psych!" whilst drowning you in it.
So best do as God says
Originally posted by Robtard
It [could] means that they won't be going to heaven. Unless they John 14:16 it up.
So the question is, why hasn't it been brought up yet that according to Christianity all have sinned and are worthy of death, and it's only through Jesus Christ that one can be saved?
Because if all are worthy of death, then what God supposedly did in Sodom and Gomorrah wasn't wrong.
Originally posted by peejayd
* babies [b]are innocent... i don't buy Catholic's "original sin" shtick... it's just their way of manipulating people to be their members from the very beginning of life, by baptizing babies... whereas, in the Bible, baptism is provided to people old enough to acquire faith and do good works... [/B]
So why where the babies in Sodom and Gomorrah blasted from the planet along with their sodomite parents, cousins, uncles etc.?
Originally posted by Newjak
Once again what is the evidence you used to come to the conclusion? How hard is it to find an ancient city?What is the probabilities we would have found such a city.
Well in that case if we are assuming the whole thing is Supernatural then you have no evidence to back anything you claim. For instance explain to me how Supernautral fire works, does it leave the same types of damage as normal fire? Does it burn as hot, or hotter or is very precise?
It doesn't matter if you feel it doesn't exist you can still provide data and numbers as to why you feel it doesn't exist?
As in I don't think it exists because the probability of finding asteroid damage conclusive enough to destroy a city the size of Sodom and Gomorrah is 99% because the damage would produce a minimum 5 mile diameter that unless completely covered, unlikely do to the environmental factors surrounding the area, by some obstruction would have been spotted via satellites that constantly monitor the area.
Since in the proposed areas of Sodom and Gomorah their exist no such impact areas,although Asnter claims there are, I can safely deduce with a 90% certainty that they don't exist and have never existed.
Mind you all of that is hog wash cause I don't know the numbers but I think you get the general idea.
Instead you say well we can find a firepit 30000 years ago therefore a city is much easier to find therefore S&G can not exist.
Well what does that mean. How accurately can we find firepits from that age. Does that mean if we go to an area and say well we don't see a firepit does that mean I can say with 99% certainty a firepit did not exist in that particular area since we didn't find one?
And how does firepit probabilities relate to cities? Is a city 30 times as likely to be found in an area if it existed than a firepit? A thousand times?
If you want to say I don't believe the city exists cause it just seems unlikely to me. Fine I doubt you will find a person to argue with you or have reasonable points to say you are wrong, logically it's hard to think of us not finding a city or an area like it, but to sit here and act like you have definitive proof it couldn't have existed isn't the same.
That claim denotes you have actual factual data to support your claim in that you know numbers and data sets to prove it.
holy shit you are all over the place... I'm not sure if you want an answer about the methods of archeology and paleontology, a diatribe on epistemology or my thoughts on burden of proof... let me approach it like this:
To me, for something to be categorized as "existing", evidence is required. Now, it is fine if you don't hold this view on knowledge, reasonable people can disagree on fundamental things, and I wont try to stop you from believing in something based on the probability that it might have occurred, though without any good reason to think it did. I would point out that I can name an infinite number of things that have a non-zero probability of existing that I know for a fact you don't believe in, but I will digress for reasons of concision.
Now, you are totally correct to point out that, for some things, and especially in the study of early human history, it may be the case that evidence of such things is either exceptionally rare or has not survived time, yet we know they must have occurred. So, let me give a non-controversial example:
Squids and Octopi have no bones. After dying, their bodies are either eaten quickly by scavengers at the bottom of the ocean, or the ocean itself decomposes them beyond recognition, rapidly. This makes finding any fossil remains of squid or octopi ancestors nearly impossible (a recent discovery was only possible because the bodies of the proto-octopi had descended into an oxygen deprived area of ocean). Yet, we know there must be an ancestor to the modern squid.
Similarly, we know that, at some point, hominids began using wooden tools, probably some 100 000 years ago, though maybe longer. However, wooden tools, if they survived, would be indistinguishable from other pieces of wood aged hundreds of thousands of years, yet, we know they must have been employed at some point (we didn't go from no tools to complex wood/stone tools).
So, what do we do in circumstances like this? Well, one thing that is obvious is that, in terms of squid and human tool use, we have observations in the modern world that necessitate some historical explanation. We have modern tools, therefore, we can assume at some point we had more primitive tools. Modern squid exist, therefore we can assume there was an evolutionary ancestor to the squid. So, given there is no evidence for the existence of S&G, what in the modern world do we see that necessitates their existence?
I would say nothing. We have a story with clear metaphorical themes (if not completely a metaphor itself) in a book full of stories of questionable historicity (there is no evidence that Egyptians held Jews as slaves; the entire book of Exodus is plagued with this issue) written by people who have a cultural tradition of using stories as metaphor. There are very few archeological sites that may be S&G, however, none are widely accepted and certainly no definitive evidence has been provided to suggest these are the cities in question (read the link, some of the best sites are actually from centuries after the story of S&G would have taken place). Keep in mind, there are also people who claim to have found the Holy Grail, the Cross Jesus was crucified on, Noah's Arc, or the grave that Jesus and his family were supposedly buried in. Certainly you and I can agree that something needs a little bit of verification before we say "a-ha, this is clearly historical site X".
You seem to have taken my point about firepits off on a tangent. I've never said "we found firepits therefore S&G doesn't exist". In fact, if it helps you comprehend what I'm saying, feel free to jettison that point for now, I was simply trying to say, look at how accomplished modern archeology is, we are able to identify things that would have far less of a footprint than a city would have.
I mean, outside of this explanation, I'm not sure what you want me to demonstrate...
Here, try this:
So, it is not really clear when S&G were supposedly destroyed. The Battle of Siddim, the story of Lot preceding the judgement is said to be early second milenium BC, with this page giving the exact date of 1877 BC. Well, lets look at what else archeology has found in that region from that time, or even further back.
Dating back to beyond 5000 BC, Sumer is one of, but certainly not the oldest civilization known to history. There are dozens of sites attributable to their culture, dating back well beyond 2000 BC, of which we know quite a bit more than we do of S&G. Looking at one such city, Ur. Archeological record not only gives us an idea of who the people of Ur were, but we know much of their trade, we know it was the most important port in the region in the period before 2000 BC, we know about their politics, their laws, their culture, their relations with their neighbours, etc. We know about their conflicts and eventual conquest in the same time period as S&G was allegedly being destroyed. I mean, take some time looking over these civilizations, and the type of artifacts and sites left by them, sometimes dating back over 3000 years from when S&G was being destroyed.
I mean, there is this asteroid impact, in Austria, roughly 1500 years before the events of S&G... Supporting my original idea about a kernel of truth and metaphor.
Was this what you wanted? if not, just like, a clear sentence about what you want me to explain would be helpful. Its hard to be clear in a response when you are all over the place (and seriously, stop trying to talk stats, it is painfully obvious you don't know what you are doing).
Originally posted by Galan007
Asking people to express their freedom/free will in a selfless way ≠ killing those same people for not doing what you asked of them-- which is what God did at S&G.I think of God as an entity whom will lead you to water when you are thirsty, but he will not put the water in your mouth-- you have to make that decision for yourself. OT God, on the other hand, would lead you to water, then shout "psych!" whilst drowning you in it.
* one way to summarize this is:
"But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully,"
I Timothy 1:8
* you have been given a gift --- use it correctly, responsibly and righteously... that gift is not something like "oh, it's mine! i'll use it in any way i want to!" there are still rules and regulations... do not use your freedom as an opportunity to do evil things... God gave you a heart and a brain --- use it...
Originally posted by Robtard
So why where the babies in Sodom and Gomorrah blasted from the planet along with their sodomite parents, cousins, uncles etc.?
* so you want those babies to exist without a parent/guardian? even so, God is intelligent enough to put the babies in heaven, and the evildoers in hell...
* physical death can be a punishment, but it's not the punishment...
Originally posted by peejayd
* so you want those babies to exist without a parent/guardian? even so, God is intelligent enough to put the babies in heaven, and the evildoers in hell...* physical death can be a punishment, but it's not [b]the
punishment... [/B]
Originally posted by Oliver NorthWhoever said I believe S&D exist?
holy shit you are all over the place... I'm not sure if you want an answer about the methods of archeology and paleontology, a diatribe on epistemology or my thoughts on burden of proof... let me approach it like this:To me, for something to be categorized as "existing", evidence is required. Now, it is fine if you don't hold this view on knowledge, reasonable people can disagree on fundamental things, and I wont try to stop you from believing in something based on the probability that it might have occurred, though without any good reason to think it did. I would point out that I can name an infinite number of things that have a non-zero probability of existing that I know for a fact you don't believe in, but I will digress for reasons of concision.
Now, you are totally correct to point out that, for some things, and especially in the study of early human history, it may be the case that evidence of such things is either exceptionally rare or has not survived time, yet we know they must have occurred. So, let me give a non-controversial example:
Squids and Octopi have no bones. After dying, their bodies are either eaten quickly by scavengers at the bottom of the ocean, or the ocean itself decomposes them beyond recognition, rapidly. This makes finding any fossil remains of squid or octopi ancestors nearly impossible (a recent discovery was only possible because the bodies of the proto-octopi had descended into an oxygen deprived area of ocean). Yet, we know there must be an ancestor to the modern squid.
Similarly, we know that, at some point, hominids began using wooden tools, probably some 100 000 years ago, though maybe longer. However, wooden tools, if they survived, would be indistinguishable from other pieces of wood aged hundreds of thousands of years, yet, we know they must have been employed at some point (we didn't go from no tools to complex wood/stone tools).
So, what do we do in circumstances like this? Well, one thing that is obvious is that, in terms of squid and human tool use, we have observations in the modern world that necessitate some historical explanation. We have modern tools, therefore, we can assume at some point we had more primitive tools. Modern squid exist, therefore we can assume there was an evolutionary ancestor to the squid. So, given there is no evidence for the existence of S&G, what in the modern world do we see that necessitates their existence?
I would say nothing. We have a story with clear metaphorical themes (if not completely a metaphor itself) in a book full of stories of questionable historicity (there is no evidence that Egyptians held Jews as slaves; the entire book of Exodus is plagued with this issue) written by people who have a cultural tradition of using stories as metaphor. There are very few archeological sites that may be S&G, however, none are widely accepted and certainly no definitive evidence has been provided to suggest these are the cities in question (read the link, some of the best sites are actually from centuries after the story of S&G would have taken place). Keep in mind, there are also people who claim to have found the Holy Grail, the Cross Jesus was crucified on, Noah's Arc, or the grave that Jesus and his family were supposedly buried in. Certainly you and I can agree that something needs a little bit of verification before we say "a-ha, this is clearly historical site X".
You seem to have taken my point about firepits off on a tangent. I've never said "we found firepits therefore S&G doesn't exist". In fact, if it helps you comprehend what I'm saying, feel free to jettison that point for now, I was simply trying to say, look at how accomplished modern archeology is, we are able to identify things that would have far less of a footprint than a city would have.
I mean, outside of this explanation, I'm not sure what you want me to demonstrate...
Here, try this:
So, it is not really clear when S&G were supposedly destroyed. The Battle of Siddim, the story of Lot preceding the judgement is said to be early second milenium BC, with this page giving the exact date of 1877 BC. Well, lets look at what else archeology has found in that region from that time, or even further back.
Dating back to beyond 5000 BC, Sumer is one of, but certainly not the oldest civilization known to history. There are dozens of sites attributable to their culture, dating back well beyond 2000 BC, of which we know quite a bit more than we do of S&G. Looking at one such city, Ur. Archeological record not only gives us an idea of who the people of Ur were, but we know much of their trade, we know it was the most important port in the region in the period before 2000 BC, we know about their politics, their laws, their culture, their relations with their neighbours, etc. We know about their conflicts and eventual conquest in the same time period as S&G was allegedly being destroyed. I mean, take some time looking over these civilizations, and the type of artifacts and sites left by them, sometimes dating back over 3000 years from when S&G was being destroyed.
I mean, there is this asteroid impact, in Austria, roughly 1500 years before the events of S&G... Supporting my original idea about a kernel of truth and metaphor.
Was this what you wanted? if not, just like, a clear sentence about what you want me to explain would be helpful. Its hard to be clear in a response when you are all over the place (and seriously, stop trying to talk stats, it is painfully obvious you don't know what you are doing).
I was just pointing out the faults in your reasoning.
Secondly you did it again? You're trying to use the firepit as an example of why S&D can't exist.
Yes we have come far in our ability to find ancient history that still and in of itself does not hold any valid point to the existence or lack there of for a city without any context to it.
I'm not gonna disagree with squid and human tool usage example in that you are right there are logical conclusions people can reach.
There are also other examples one could use where there are competing theories that can both be valid.
The last bit of what you posted is much better than the rest of what you've been doing I'll give you that.
As for statistics explain to me why I should listen to you on why I don't know what I'm talking about. what are your credentials or is it regulated to a college statistics class?
And I'm all over the place cause I'm finding multiple things that are just off putting in your posts.
Originally posted by Astner
Only the ones that believe in Jesus will be cleansed of sin according to the Bible.
I offer an alternative to the Bible and to Hinduism, two religions that should have been made into mythologies like Greek and Norse EONS ago but have lived in evolving manmade ideals ever since.
How about instead of offering the garantee of some big-daddy rewarding us, we choose not to sin for postive progress as it pertains to humanity improving it's civilization.
Why not? I'll tell you why not, grown ass children too stupid to be able to make good choices unless they're afraid of the boogeyman. We men are wretched, superstitious, idiotic things.
Originally posted by peejaydObviously there are consequences for your actions-- spending eternal damnation in Hell is THE consequence of living a sinned lifestyle.
* you have been given a gift --- use it correctly, responsibly and righteously... that gift is not something like "oh, it's mine! i'll use it in any way i want to!" there are still rules and regulations... do not use your freedom as an opportunity to do evil things... God gave you a heart and a brain --- use it...
Prematurely slaughtering thousands of people(of whom would've logically included many innocent/sin-free women, infants and children) for expressing their free will in a way he did not approve of, equates to OT God cherry-picking when the 'free will' he gave mankind was applicable and when it was not-- and going on to smite said 'sinners' and anyone associated with them. You're trying to justify that which cannot be justified.
If I go kill a 2 month old baby just because he lives in a crime-ridden city, am I preforming the will of God? No. I'm murdering an innocent child, and I should burn in Hell.
...But apparently God doesn't need to follow the same rules he set for man. Apparently he can kill babies en gros w/o consequence. /shrug
Originally posted by DolosIsn't that a bit pompous to assume anyone who believes in a higher power is automatically a grown ass child and hindering human development?
I offer an alternative to the Bible and to Hinduism, two religions that should have been made into mythologies like Greek and Norse EONS ago but have lived in evolving manmade ideals ever since.How about instead of offering the garantee of some big-daddy rewarding us, we choose not to sin for postive progress as it pertains to humanity improving it's civilization.
Why not? I'll tell you why not, grown ass children too stupid to be able to make good choices unless they're afraid of the boogeyman. We men are wretched, superstitious, idiotic things.
A manly man would feel secure enough in accepting that he doesn't know anything about an elderly-chap who decided to create the universe just for the purpose of creating him and his family, and nurture them for divine bonding, and make good decisions in life regardless.
Most men and women aren't. Period.
It's just that simple.