Paradox: God planned everything, like you said "in order" and a man has a free will... how to match these 2 things? God knows what I will do?
There is no god, no heaven, but there is a HELL. With death comes a total loss of experience and sentience, BLACKNESS, a deep deep "sleep" that you never ever awaken from, nothing more nothing less, and that my friends is the HELL OF IT! :-/
Not completely. Ezekial 18:4- the soul that sinneth, it shall die. Ecclesiastes 9:5- For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing Ecclesiastes 9:10- Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest. The english word hell is from the greek Hades or the Hebrew Sheol and refers to the common grave, not some place of eternal torment, which is not a teaching found in the bible. As usual, it's men's own ideas and teachings which have screwed up the original message.
Ecclesiastes 9:5- For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing The dead know not any thing. arrrrrrrrrghh :-/
so all that happens to the non-believer is that he dies? there's no repercussions for being a non-believer? essentially the only thing that faith in jesus 'saves' you from is death? not eternal torment? COOL! you're obviously going against everything christianity stood for for the past 19 centuries, but I LIKE IT! ps - i'm just curious though, what was jesus talking about with his gruesome descriptions of what awaits one in hell?
I consider myself a christian, but I don't like to use the term because the original meaning of what a christian was and believed has been so distorted over the centuries that it bears little resemblance to what the scriptures actually teach and what Christians of the first century, who learned directly from Jesus, believed. Hundreds of years after Jesus had died, there were all kinds of schisms in the church and false doctrines were introduced by various councils and decrees. For my money, the bible is the only authority on the subject and any teachings or alterations by men are wrong. Of course, false teachings are so ingrained into "christianity" now and the bible is pretty much ignored, so no wonder no one wants to believe it now- the churches aren't conveying the original message. Some common beliefs that are not found in the bible: All good people go to heaven Bad people go to hell Hell is a literal place of eternal torment Humans have a soul that lives on after death If you choose not too live according to the bible's commands, when you die, you just turn to dirt. You'd have to give a scriptural reference to those gruesome descriptions, because I don't recall Jesus describing such a thing.
There was an anime about eternal life... It was actually a punishment to a man who abused life. He would grow old and then grow younger, continuing the process... the world went into a nuclear war... the human race has ended... the world was corrupted with a messed up environment nothing living on Earth... he was left on Earth all by himself, constantly suffering from pain, hunger and loneliness... Eternal Life is scary...
The ancient writings which some like to characterize as the original Bible, are incomplete fragments of manuscripts representing only a fraction of the bible known today .The fact is the Bible narrative has been written over centuries, before and after the Christ story was added to it. "The Bible is a collection of the superstitious beliefs of the ancient inhabitants of Palestine, with indistinct echoes of Indian and Persian fables, mistaken imitation of Egyptian theories and customs, historical chronicles as dry as they are unreliable and miscellaneous poems, amatory, human and Jewish-national, which is rarely distinguished by beauties of the highest order but frequently by superfluity of expression, coarseness, bad taste, and genuine Oriental sensuality." Max Nordau (1849-1923) The Bible was thought of and written by blokes for blokes, as all religious books are. In 2 thousand years time even Joseph Smith's claims of divinity via the angel Moroni (funny how Moroni is only a C short of Moronic) and its 12 golden plates could have the same relevance as the accounts of divine revelations said to have been made to Moses or Jesus. At least in Smith's case he is 2 up on the 10 commandments. I think Immortality would be best. It gives you a choice. If you think things were really that bad you could always top yourself - possibly by drinking or shagging yourself to death, instead of the mandatory game over which evolution may indeed be trying to overcome as we speak.