If Jesus died to forgive us, then why is there a Hell?

Why should we trust the words of someone who cannot or will not tell where they came from? What makes you think anyone should trust someone who has 85 years, but won't tell us anything about even the first few?

Those are my two questions. If you are an authority on a religious ideal (agnosticism) there should be a general idea of what it is that led you to this conclusion. "I grew up in 'Nam and I saw both theists and atheists getting shot before they got answers to their questions. And so I SWORE on the second moon of Jupiter that I would not stop until I convinced EVERYONE that it's all blind guesses." There should be a story much like this, giving a framework of how someone who worked at a chapel near the Vatican is dead set on telling everyone that they don't know what they're talking about. This is how real ppl ( not spies, not Chinese or Russian accounts operating as a business, not members of Anon) function. They can actually list what led them from point A to point B. Sure, you can refuse to tell your past. But then you also don't have proof of what you say being true. You're a person making witness (to agnosticism, not Christianity) but you have no testimony. There should be a story to all this.

But there isn't. Are you a paid troll, who doesn't actually have a reason to disbelieve what I say?
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Paid%20Troll
Oh look, three questions.

The point is, in the absence of a legitimate past, this begins to look less like someone legit having an opposing opinion, and more like someone paid to do so. And we already hear that you're a paid media shill. Someone like that would definitely be likely to take a gig as someone spreading propaganda. To be likely to write anything for money. Guess what I'm paid? Nothing! I'm a real person telling my own opinions, crazy or not.

Leadfoot, I assume you have a past.

Tell me a few highlights of it (not even a full bio), just to demonstrate that people who have nothing to hide don't mind telling how they came to their faith.

You refuse to consider the answers?

Which answers are these?

Yours (which I've been ignoring to talk @Frank)? Or supposedly Frank's (trust me, I've asked and each time he's dodged the question)?

I answered his questions with questions of my own.

He asks "Why should I tell you these answers?" But how can we trust you if you don't? If we don't know anything about you?

As for your questions, nah I haven't been paying much attention.

"Hell"- in Heb & Grk, means GRAVE.

I do not care less if you "trust" me or not. There is nothing about you or your comments that makes your opinions of me feel important, Bulma.

Frankly, your thinking is so distorted, I feel better than your disagree with me than I would if you agreed.

As for my first few years...well, I was a child. Then I grew up. You ought to try it.





I answered your first two questions...and in this next paragraph, not a single question mark.

Ask your question...if you have a question...and if you can get help in putting it into comprehensible English.



I am not a paid troll...and, for the last 20 plus years, I have met and broken bread with MANY of the people who are regular posters here in this forum. (And several who no longer do post here.)

Why would I "disbelieve" what you blindly guess? You are free to blindly guess anything you want to.



Oh, come on, Bulma. Grow up. It only sounds that way to you, because you realize I am right on the button in mentioning that most of the crap you post...is nothing but BLIND GUESSES GONE APE!

I doubt ANY of the people here in the forum give a biography of themselves. So are you saying EVERYONE here is a paid poster...just here to dispute your blind guesses about the REALITY of existence?



Nowhere has it ever been alleged that I am a paid media shill. I did get paid $1000 for a MY TURN published in Newsweek Magazine...which had to do with an absurd cat leash law passed in my home town. And I mentioned that I had an op ed sized letter published in the New York Times...and several other op ed pieces published in other newspapers around the country (and in England)...but no pay for any of those things.

Learn to read...if you are able. I am NOT a paid media shill...nor an unpaid media shill.



You don't ever write anything worth being paid for...so that probably is the reason you are not. As for being a "real person"...I actually write under my real name. You hide under an alias. So don't give me that real person garbage.

Now...ask a question if you have one...or go back to sharing your blind guesses about the REALITY of existence. I enjoy hearing them. Get get a good laugh out of them, actually.

What is YOUR question, Frank?

I do not have any questions of you...or of that Bulma character.

But HE seems to think he has asked me questions...when all he has done is to ask me to post a biography of myself.

Here...allow me to ask some questions of myself like a reasonably intelligent person would do if he/she were nosy enough to want to know this kind of thing:

When were you born, Frank?

I was born on August 9th, 1936.

Were you born into what would be called a "religious" family?

No. My family was Catholic, but neither my mother or father were regular church goers. They did require that I attend church every Sunday...and made sure I had a coin or two to put into the collection basket. And I was required to go to Sunday school classes. Those are the classes taught by nuns each week after Mass. Catholic kids who went to public schools were strongly encouraged to attend them.

Did you consider yourself to be religious?

No...not until a bit later in life when I was in the military. At that point, away from home for the first time, I felt comfort in "religion."

How religious did you feel you were when that started?

I became what Catholics call "a daily communicant." I went to Mass every morning before going to my duty station...and I learned the Latin rite and became an "altar boy" serving Mass for the Catholic chaplain. I was comforted by the notion of a "god" who "loved me"...and that I "loved" in return. Even though I had not been religious earlier, I had always been a kind individual...and one with empathy for others. So the change in character was not dramatic.

Did you change from being "religious" to being an atheist?

No. Atheism never came to mind for me. At some point in my mid-20's I came to the realization that I just did not know if there actually was a GOD (were any gods)...and became agnostic on the issue. I adopted the position I currently hold, which is:

I do not know if any GOD (or gods) exist or not;
I see no reason to suspect that gods cannot exist…that the existence of a GOD or gods is impossible;
I see no reason to suspect that at least one GOD must exist...that the existence of at least one GOD is needed to explain existence;
I do not see enough unambiguous evidence upon which to base a meaningful guess in either direction on whether any gods exist or not...so I don't.

(When I use the word "GOD or gods" here, I mean "The entity (or entities) responsible for the creation of what we humans call 'the physical universe'...IF SUCH AN ENTITY OR ENTITIES ACTUALLY EXIST.)

Do you have any questions of me?

Yes- when you look at Nature- do see a ACCIDENT or DESIGN?

These people don't have questions, they already know.

Tmo uses the term 'churchoid' to refer to people who go to church. At first I thought it was some oblique reference to Churchill, but no it's just an insulting term from a simple minded bigot.

I don't know why you waste your time on such.

What else would you have me CALL them- they aren't CHRISTIAN, they don't listen to his words!

I've got better things to do with my time that waste it talking to the likes of you.

You're just a latest in a long line of egomanical idiots who think they speak for god.

They're all nasty bigots and so unbelievably dull.

Your avatar suits you mad Prince Ludwig, more commonly known as shorty greasy spot spot.

When I "look at nature" what comes to mind is:

I wonder how all this came to be?

My answer is always:

I do not know.

Perhaps it is the result of a "god" creating it...and perhaps is just part of a process that always has been occurring without a start.

"Without a start."

Are you also agnostic about The Big Bang?

Well...I could be playing golf or watching television or doing a crossword or Killer Sudoku...but it is more fun to see what these guys have on the agenda for today. (Doing a Hard Killer Sudoku every night before sleep, Izzy. Thanks for giving me that clue back many years ago.)

I've been playing a water sorting game.

I don't mind chatting to genuine Christians like Spademaster, but this lot are all about how God is a right nasty bastard just like them.

The wiki version is in my A2K profile but that doesn’t say much about my spiritual journey which as it says there, started on or about age seven. It should be said that I was very unworldly, even for a seven year old. As all my siblings agree, we were 'raised by wolves'. We were never 'socialized' with exposure to other people until school started (couple of years late for me). There was no physical or emotional abuse at all, there was no dialog with them either. We all now call it 'Benign Neglect' and all of us for our individual reasons, are sincerely thankful for it.

My spiritual beginning was kind of the reverse of what Frank described as his end. It was in those early days while walking 'home' from school. I was bewildered by seeing a city for the first time. I was gobsmacked by what things were there. And although I had been outside before, I noticed 'nature' for the first time and realized that as impressive as the city was, 'nature' was something that had to be designed far more subtlety than these man designed things. It demanded a creator in my mind.

Following that ‘awakening', my next discovery was that no one else was talking about this and I could not understand why this huge obvious mystery was either not noticed or ignored by virtually everyone! This has not changed in the sixty seven years that followed. I continually challenge my POV, trying to find opposing views which would negate it, but have found nothing to come close to challenging it.

That is what started it. Somewhere during high school years I reasoned that there was a conscious being behind 'all this' and it would probably be interested in its creation. It became 'God' to me and I began seeking, and eventually found him. The churches I encountered along the way always reacted with revulsion to anything I said on the subject, as were the secular forums I sought out.

In a way all that was helpful to my journey. If you regard the words of Christ as meaningful, you have to be prepared to stand against everything and every one if called on to do so.

There were many 'adventures' along the way, but they are incidental. I make no secret of them but I doubt they would be of help.

PS: It occurred to me that we might be unfair in our rejection of Frank’s awakening. His description exactly fits the experience of people who one day 'snap' and realize they are being controlled by a cult they were in. I mean no disrespect to Catholics, etc., if it is a cult in one’s mind, that is all that counts in a 'snap' experience.

Look inside the human brain- and see if that came about by Evolution!

I have no idea if the "human brain" (or any brain, for that matter) came about by evolution.

It might have.

It might have been created by a god.

It might have come about through a means no human could ever understand, TMO. We humans are merely the currently dominant life-form on a relatively nondescript planet, circling relatively nondescript star in a relatively nondescript galaxy...among TRILLIONS of other galaxies.

Okay?

Yes. It must have been exciting to experience Mass at the Vatican. However, he did not experience the joy of a relationship with God. Or, he was "disappointed with God" in some way.
God knows Frank. Let them work it out between themselves.
My prayer for Frank is Shalom (strong peace). He is a good man as far as I know.