Guitarist Brian Welch leaves koRn

i dont know about the christian system, but i think for us what gets you in to heaven and hell is pretty clear, but you dont KNOW whos going to heaven and hell, its for god to judge... Not believing in god isnt an automatic rule for hell, and believing isnt an automatic rule for heaven... though each makes it's respective outcome more likely...
Sorry incidents i think i was confusing you with zepplin...

Originally Posted by: 6strngs_2hmbkrsFor all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23)

so you can be a nice person, and never do anything horrible, but reject God, and still go to hell... on the other hand, a seriel killer could go to heaven if he asks for forgiveness of his sins and means it. heck, even marilyn manson could go to heaven if he repented. now, you have to look in the bible, and one person that God really really loved, King David, had committed adultry, he had murdered, and had done various other sins... but yet he was still "a man after God's own heart"...

You may think that leading a good life might earn you some kind of benefit, but reall it all boils down to whether you ask forgiveness or not, because no one is perfect...

Well...it's actually a two-step program of repentance AND reconciliation. The murderer can't just ask forgiveness and mean it. He must also reconcile such an atrocity as murder. If you ask me, that's not an easy task. But, then again, I don't believe in hell, being as the word it was translated from (the hebrew "Sheol") means "grave." There are other logical reasons that hell can't exist. For instance, God cannot lie. God's promise is eternal life. Those who "believe and are baptised" (aka, do God's will and have faith) receive this promise. If one is in hell being tortured eternally, they are also living eternally. This means that they have received God's promise of eternal life. If they have received God's promise, why are they in Hell? It's a logical impossibility.

ok, the thing with hell meaning "grave"... throughout the bible, hell is referred to as "death" or "to perish" multiple times, but what it means is that you will die eternally... like, a constant torture. yes a serial killer can go to heaven while ghandi goes to hell... ok... sin cannot enter heaven, period, so if you have sinned (and everybody has!) then you cannot go into heaven... however, God is very merciful, and gave us the opportunity to get forgiveness of our sins, only once you are forgiven can you enter heaven, and believing in God, but ulitmately God gave us a choice. we can choose to ask for forgiveness, you don't have to repent, but after you ask for forgiveness you become a new creation (in romans 12 somewhere, first few verses I think) it says something like "the old has passed away, and the new is come" so basically, the serial killer would more than likely change his way of life after recieving Jesus, now, this doesn't mean you can just accept Jesus and then go off and do whatever you feel like doing, knowing that you can get forgiveness for it. And also, the righteous are given rewards when they get to heaven, so it's not like "the perfect christian who tried his best not to sin throughout his whole life" and the serial killer who asks for forgiveness while he is sitting in the electric chair will both be treated equally in heaven, but both will go to heaven. does that make sense?

Sorry jolly,I can't resist.

6strngs,what you say fits perfectly in line with orthodox teaching...here is the problem/s though...

"God WILLS that ALL mankind be SAVED..." (I Tim. 2:4).

And "Thy WILL BE DONE..." (Matt. 6:10).

"And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw (drag in Greek) all mankind unto Myself. (John 12:32

"We rely on the living God, Who is the Savior of all mankind" (1 Timothy 4:10)

"For even as, in Adam, all are dying, thus also, in Christ, shall all be vivified" (1 Corinthians 15:22)

Here is an excerpt explaining the problem with the orthodox use of forever,everlasting and forever and ever.

"It may at first seem strange that I would question the meaning of the words "for ever." Surely, "for ever" means for all time to come! Indeed, this is true if one relies on its meaning in the English language. But in English Bible translations, there is a great deal of trouble (and even error) in the words "for ever" (or their equivalents).

The truth is, the original Bible was written in Hebrew (or a cognate language called Aramaic) and Greek. In these early languages there are words that could reasonably be translated with the English "for ever." But in the vast majority of cases when we meet with ''forever", the Bible does not mean "everlasting." This is where a big problem arises concerning the duration of God's judgments in "hell."

The Hebrew word most often translated "for ever" is olam. Its Greek equivalent is aion. These terms never mean, of themselves, "forever" or "everlasting." They actually signify an indefinite time period that only the contexts in which they are found can determine.

In the Book of Jonah, for example, the Hebrew word olam (translated by the words "for ever" in the King James Version) is limited to the three days and nights that Jonah was in the belly of the fish - Jon.2:6. At other timer it refers only to the life span of a human being - Exod.21:6. The word actually refers to an indefinite period of time--but a period having a clear beginning and an end! An English word that satisfies the meaning of the Hebrew most consistently is the word" "age" or "age-lasting." This is how Rotherham in his excellent translation of the Bible usually renders the word.

Though this is readily admitted by most scholars to be the real meaning, there are a number who will still render it by the English words "for ever," "everlasting," or "eternal." The main reason for doing this is a theological one, not by the grammatical rules of language. They force this meaning because olam and aion are at times associated with God in human affairs or His divine existence in heaven. Since it is theologically certain [from various passages of scripture] that God has an eternal existence, it is felt by some that the words olam and aion may satisfactorily be rendered "for ever."

While this may appear reasonable on the surface, this explanation is not a proper one. God entered into an "everlasting" (olam) circumcision covenant with Abraham as a standard of holiness, but we are told that the "everlasting" covenant only lasted until the time of the apostles, according to the New Testament revelation - Gal.5:6. The fact is, God has entered into various olam associations with individuals or nations on this earth, but in no sense were the olam agreements intended to last for all eternity. They are all governed by "beginnings" and "ends."

In the New Testament the word aion means the same as olam. At no time does it refer in a precise sense to "eternity." This especially applies to matters concerning judgments on all evildoers. Though the King James Version says the smoke of their torment ascends "for ever and ever," the original only means "for the ages of the ages." Those "ages" have an end. "Behold, I make all things new." Rev.21:5."

Hope that helps a little...now jolly's gonna beat me!

Originally Posted by: Jolly McJollyson There are other logical reasons that hell can't exist. For instance, God cannot lie. God's promise is eternal life. Those who "believe and are baptised" (aka, do God's will and have faith) receive this promise. If one is in hell being tortured eternally, they are also living eternally. This means that they have received God's promise of eternal life. If they have received God's promise, why are they in Hell? It's a logical impossibility.

Careful Jolly you may just negate all existence with that one !

ok... you all can believe whatever you want to believe, I gave you what I believe to be truth, and now it's in God's hands whether you decide to ignore it completely, or try to combat it with some kind of "it was interpreted wrong" stuff, or whether you'll actually be able to believe... I'm really doubting that I'll be able to save anyone over a guitar message board... but seriously, let's just stop talking about this religion stuff... put aside our differences, and come together to talk about what we do have in common, and that would be our guitars... whether you are playing guitar for devil worship, or God worship, or something in between. it's all good. and I think we should go back to that subject and stop with all the religion, especially since I don't think any minds are going to be changed here...

Well, I shall contribute a vague end of my side. My take on religion is a complex one. In fact, it's so complex that even I still don't fully understand how I believe things are. All I know is I've come a long way from what I used to believe back in high school and I'm no poser slandering the name of God to make people think I'm hardcore. Don't get me wrong though. I don't slander God's name. Not anymore anyway. But I'm still far from a Christian. Though I've yet to fully research Christianity I have begun researching some other, more exotic religions as well as lesser exotics. But in an interesting way the pieces are planting together in one form or another and even some morals and factors involved in religions based less around God seem to fit some pieces with religions that do focus directly on God. In any case it's really not like any of us have any 100% guarantee... not until we die anyway and even that's a bit biased to assume that we'll learn "everything" after death. When I get down to the basic facts of what I actually know, I know nothing. The rest is up to a leap of faith in any given direction. From where I stand all I see are people leaping. Making huge jumps every which way and not even always looking in the direction they're jumping. A lot of them just jump. Some jump because others jumped that way. It's just a shambled mass of people leaping every which way and yelling out to everyone else "hey, you're going the wrong way". And no one seems to think they're wrong. And that's fine. I strongly agree with self confidence in one's own beliefs. But I'll be taking solace sitting in my stationary spot until I can make more sense of things. It's just gonna be some time before anyone sees me jumping, let's just say. As much as it's based around our everyday lives I think that people should lighten up with religion and let people go their own way. I've seen about as many hypocrisies as I have legit beliefs from people. The church my mom goes to is one of those Pentacostle churches where the people jump up and scream and shake all about. They claim that it's the lord jumping into them and speaking through them. Thing is, the lord must certainly like speaking through the same people all the time because my mom has yet to claim that she suddenly flew out of her chair and "spoke in tongues". To that I say balderdash. I find that to be a load of crap. I'd imagine that things like that would happen a lot more often, outside of church, and with random people. Now Buddha. Buddha is good to me. I'm not exactly a regular practitioner but I have read into Buddhism and it gets my approval since it's based around finding your own personal happiness. No right virtues or wrong sins. Only the own person's decision and the effect afterwards. Ever seen a picture of the Dahli Llama? Ever seen a picture where he's not smiling? He smiles because he's happy. Happy with himself. How can anything like that be wrong or bad? All I know is what makes sense to me. And what makes sense to me is the thought that people should just take a step back and reevaluate things a bit more. If the end result is still the same then that's fine. I support that, like I said earlier. But something as big as where you put your life just shouldn't be short changed. I did just that at one point and decided that I was an inane little **** talking out of my ass figured I should know what I'm talking about. Keep in mind I'm still trying to learn what it is that I'm talking about so, be gentle with my hypocrisies, that is to say if I expressed any above. I was gonna try to keep it short but I don't feel like rereading this for any grammatical mistakes so please forgive my misspellings and whatnot if any.

Originally Posted by: Dr_simonCareful Jolly you may just negate all existence with that one !

I've tried negating God's existence with logic. I couldn't do it. I can negate hell. I can negate the eternal soul. I can negate the trinity doctrine. I cannot negate God's existence. Hence my reason for being I guess what you could loosely term "Christian."

Originally Posted by: Jolly McJollysonI've tried negating God's existence with logic. I couldn't do it. I can negate hell. I can negate the eternal soul. I can negate the trinity doctrine. I cannot negate God's existence. Hence my reason for being I guess what you could loosely term "Christian."

Just curious, why Christian and no other religion that believes in God?

So you didn't see the film Dogma then !!

Originally Posted by: Dr_simonSo you didn't see the film Dogma then !!

Oh, but I did. Nice reference, by the way.

Originally Posted by: Angus loverJust curious, why Christian and no other religion that believes in God?

Because of various other beliefs I hold.

Originally Posted by: Akira If you don't believe in hell then it doesn't exist. [/QUOTE]
that seems a little naive... I could say I don't believe that this website exists... does that mean it doesn't? no... now, I know that you are going to try and use this against me and say "then how do you know that Ala doesn't exist." but trust me, I have felt the presence of God before, it's overwhelming and life changing, it was so strong that the entire room of over a hundred people just started crying, including some of the toughest men you'll ever find, including a former body-builder who used to be "Mr. California"... and that is enough to convince me that God is real. now, it is most likely that none of you have ever felt something like this, but if you did it would probably convince you too...

[QUOTE=Jolly McJollyson]I've tried negating God's existence with logic. I couldn't do it. I can negate hell. I can negate the eternal soul. I can negate the trinity doctrine. I cannot negate God's existence. Hence my reason for being I guess what you could loosely term "Christian."

ok... the word Christian means "christ-like" and is defined as someone who trys to live their lives as much like christ as they can (oviously, no one can be perfect like him, but they can at least try to be as good as they can) I'm not going to be able to change your mind I'm sure... but lots of people call themselves christians, and only a few actually are...

Originally Posted by: 6strngs_2hmbkrs...it was so strong that the entire room of over a hundred people just started crying, including some of the toughest men you'll ever find, including a former body-builder who used to be "Mr. California"... and that is enough to convince me that God is real....

Please be VERY careful...ive seen the emotion that can be stirred and the mind warping that can take place at some churches and conventions.

I attended one such church with a friend one time...we believed and still believe in Christ but were a little unsure about the 'show'...amazingly we were the only ones not speaking in tongues,rolling on the floor,being tipped over and sobbing.

Mabey the holy ghost just didn't like us mabey?Or we didn't 'open our hearts(or wallets) to christ'?

I have,though,felt the 'prescence' you describe...its powerful and touches your heart..give in a little and you may begin to cry.(the following is my opinion)This is neither a 'prescence' or God...it is the pull of emotion and the manipulation of it.

On a completley different note...I'm seeing Cryptopsy tommorow!Anyone else catching the show?

nope... this isn't one of those wierd mind warping churches... they don't have people rolling on the ground and speaking in tongues... in my opinion, those churches are a bunch of bull crap... this was your normal baptist church, at a summer camp I went to in 6th grade with the youth group... and no one was trying to force this on anyone... we were just singing, and you could just feel him in the room. not everyone cried, but the majority did, it wasn't emotion taking over, it was an unexplainable feeling, and it was life-changing... no one started rolling on the ground, or speaking in tongues, or had demons come out of them... it was just... amazing... that's all I can really say...

Originally Posted by: 6strngs_2hmbkrsnope... this isn't one of those wierd mind warping churches...

Thats good to know.

Originally Posted by: 6strngs_2hmbkrsthat seems a little naive... I could say I don't believe that this website exists... does that mean it doesn't? no... now, I know that you are going to try and use this against me and say "then how do you know that Ala doesn't exist." but trust me, I have felt the presence of God before, it's overwhelming and life changing, it was so strong that the entire room of over a hundred people just started crying, including some of the toughest men you'll ever find, including a former body-builder who used to be "Mr. California"... and that is enough to convince me that God is real. now, it is most likely that none of you have ever felt something like this, but if you did it would probably convince you too...



ok... the word Christian means "christ-like" and is defined as someone who trys to live their lives as much like christ as they can (oviously, no one can be perfect like him, but they can at least try to be as good as they can) I'm not going to be able to change your mind I'm sure... but lots of people call themselves christians, and only a few actually are...

Thats why Jolly said loosley. Actually a Christian is a person who believes in Jesus as Christ, or someone who follow's the teachings of Jesus. It does not literally mean, be as much like him as you can. But, following his teachings will bring you Closer to god and Jesus. Closer spiratually, menatally, and physicaly.

Someone can believe as Jesus as the Messiah, or prophet, or whatever you want to call it. But if he is not Christ-like, does that make him not christian?

Originally Posted by: DreamRyche2112Actually a Christian is a person who believes in Jesus as Christ, or someone who follow's the teachings of Jesus. It does not literally mean, be as much like him as you can. But, following his teachings will bring you Closer to god and Jesus. Closer spiratually, menatally, and physicaly.

Someone can believe as Jesus as the Messiah, or prophet, or whatever you want to call it. But if he is not Christ-like, does that make him not christian?

yes, I'm sorry, you are right, it's more about believing and following his teachings... sorry, I knew I wouldn't be able to explain that right, lol...

oh and for one last thing, I'm going to have to quote the show 'south park' here for a second, when they were trying to convert Kyle, who is jewish and doesn't believe in hell, to come to christianity, or, well, it was like the "mind-warping" type thing, with the tongues and the rolling on the ground kinda thing, but anyways! I'm getting off subject, anyways so Kyle goes to his parents and tells them he wants to be a christian so he won't have to go to hell, and his parents say "we're jewish, we don't believe in hell" and Kyle says "But if they are wrong, then nothing happens to them, but if we're wrong, then we burn in hell for eternity"

I just thought that was ironic...

hey ponyone... I'm not going to dog you on your beliefs... but, Jesus is supposed to come twice... now, even I have not read the bible cover to cover, but, he could be coming in a chariot of fire, the second time around... just a thought... and I also agree that the Catholic church is pretty wierd (no offense to catholics) I don't know a lot about the catholic church, but from what I do know is that it's pretty out-of-whack with what the bible teaches...

I'm sorry, but does the Bible (or torah) really say that when the messiah comes that evrerything will be perfect? I don't think so... as far as I know, it says the messiah will come to save us, not from physical danger, but from our sins...

also... doesn't the Bible/Torah also say that when the messiah does come that he will be rejected by his own people? (Jews) and isn't it ironic that the jews now reject Jesus as being the messiah?