The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel

[_KevinSim]

KevinSim,

Honestly, it is probably best if you just stay where you are.

Aristotle, are you saying that there is no compelling reason for a Latter-day Saint to think that God wants her/him in Biblical Christianity?

[_Aristotle Smith]

Aristotle, are you saying that there is no compelling reason for a Latter-day Saint to think that God wants her/him in Biblical Christianity?

Not at all. I think there are plenty of compelling reasons for a Latter-day saint to switch to orthodox Christianity. You don't seem all that interested in those reasons because you seem to show very little interest in finding out about it. You seem to want to know the answer before doing any investigation. Since you don't seem interested in doing any investigation into the matter, it's probably best for you to stay where you are. Plus you have repeatedly stated that God wants you to be LDS, therefore I don't understand why you are asking the question.

I have provided many resources in the above comments on ways to investigate orthodox Christianity, a term I prefer to Biblical Christianity, but my guess is we are talking about the same thing. If you are interested, I would recommend those resources. If you aren't, I really don't have much else to offer. Perhaps another Christian will. If you have specific questions about aspects of orthodox Christianity or the Bible, I would be happy to answer them.

But I'm afraid there is no a priori way to decide where God wants you without looking into where you think he might want you.

ETA:

I think deciding God wants you in a different place is a two part process. First, figuring out that where you are at right now is not the right place. Second, figuring out the new place to be. There are plenty of reasons for thinking that the foundational claims of the LDS church don't hold up to scrutiny. Those have been hashed and rehashed so many times, I don't really feel compelled to point them out or engage in those arguments. If you haven't looked into part one, I don't think you will find part two interesting or compelling.

[_Chap]

Aristotle, are you saying that there is no compelling reason for a Latter-day Saint to think that God wants her/him in Biblical Christianity?

...

But I'm afraid there is no a priori way to decide where God wants you without looking into where you think he might want you.

As an exmo, you are in a much better position to understand where KevinSim is coming from than I am.

But let us make an attempt to assume that from where KevinSim is standing, his position makes sense. Surely he is living in an environment where if you want to know what God wants you to do, then you pray about it and (in his terms) listen to what God tells you?

That is the only way you get a "compelling reason" to do anything in his religious culture, and all the things that outsiders think come first (such as reading evidence-based arguments in favor of a certain course of action) are quite secondary. After all, when Moroni 10:4 says:

And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

it is not stated as a precondition that you should read the Book of Mormon before praying to know whether it is true. The prayer apparently takes precedence over everything else, and KevinSim is not even going to think of reading anything you recommend until, as he sees it, God authorizes him to.

[_huckelberry]

Are you saying that I should keep more of an open mind regarding Islam? Are you saying that to really know the faith that God wants me to be in I should read the Quran and see if it actually teaches that Allah is that powerful and yet lets some souls suffer endlessly?

This is, of course, more or less a trick question, since as I understand it Biblical Christianity also teaches that its deity has this power and yet its deity also lets some souls suffer unbearable agony from the point at which they die on and on forever every single moment of eternity. Do you understand Christianity differently, Stormy Waters? Does a thorough reading of some version of the Bible lead you to believe that God either doesn't have the power to cause souls to cease to exist, or that God won't let some souls suffer unbearable agony endlessly?

I find it odd you start and end this post with reference to finding different versions of the Bible as if they teach different things. They don't ,one version will do just fine. I think Aristotle mentioned different translations to encourage reapproaching the text with fresh ears.

You of cours are not the first person to have noticed the problem of suffering in hell. In fact people have thought about it over many centuries. I for one do not find your version of Biblical hell in the Bible and do not believe it. I realize that the interpretation you reference has a sizeable place in history.

The fact that Biblical Christianity has different ideas in the understanding of differnt people is a drawback in some peoples view. To my view having variations is a good thing.

[_KevinSim]

You of cours are not the first person to have noticed the problem of suffering in hell. In fact people have thought about it over many centuries. I for one do not find your version of Biblical hell in the Bible and do not believe it. I realize that the interpretation you reference has a sizeable place in history.

Huckelberry, I'm glad to hear that you "do not find" the Biblical Hell I described "in the Bible and do not believe it." That's a good indication you've given some serious thought to the things Christianity teaches.

But tell me, if there really is no such Hell, then what is the fate of Judas Iscariot, that Jesus in Matthew 26:24 says is so horrible that "it had been good for that man if he had not been born"? He said something similar in Mark 14. If the fate of Judas is not Hell, then what is the eternal fate of Judas?

The fact that Biblical Christianity has different ideas in the understanding of differnt people is a drawback in some peoples view. To my view having variations is a good thing.

I agree completely; I myself have different ideas on some subjects than other Latter-day Saints do. But there have to be some ideas members of a faith have in common, or it raises the question of what it means to be a part of that faith at all. And what is more central to a faith than the goodness of the deity that faith believes in? That's what I try to focus in on.

[_KevinSim]

But tell me, if there really is no such Hell, then what is the fate of Judas Iscariot, that Jesus in Matthew 26:24 says is so horrible that "it had been good for that man if he had not been born"? He said something similar in Mark 14. If the fate of Judas is not Hell, then what is the eternal fate of Judas?

Huckelberry, were you planning on responding to this?

[_KevinSim]

Not at all. I think there are plenty of compelling reasons for a Latter-day saint to switch to orthodox Christianity. You don't seem all that interested in those reasons because you seem to show very little interest in finding out about it.

And, of course, the reason you think I "show very little interest in finding out about it," is because of my reluctance to read a modern translation of the book orthodox Christianity treats as scripture, the Bible.

I did a little bit of research, and found out that, at least according to "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigveda#Translations", there are five English translations of the Rigveda, which is part of the Vedas, which are the books of scripture of Hinduism. The five versions are by H.H. Wilson in 1888, Ralph T.H. Griffith in 1889, Nag Sharan Singh in 1990, Ravi Prakash Arya and K.L. Joshi in 2001, and Joel Brereton and Stephanie W. Jamison in 2004.

Aristotle, how many of these five versions of the Rigveda have you read? Have you read all of them? Maybe you have; if so you will have surprised me, and I would stand corrected. But I seriously doubt that a whole lot of orthodox Christians have made the effort to read all five translations of the books Hindus consider scripture.

For sake of argument, let's say that you've read four of these five translations, say all of them except the Arya and Joshi version. If that were the case, and someone was trying to persuade you to consider the possibility that Hinduism had more accurate things to say about God than orthodox Christianity did, and if that someone told you in order to find out about the truthfulness of Hinduism you had to read the Arya and Joshi version, would you rush out, find a copy of the Arya and Joshi version, and immediately start reading it?

Or would you rather point out to this someone that you've already read four versions of the Rigveda, and ask this someone why he thought there was something so special about the Arya and Joshi version, such that it was guaranteed to give you insights about Hinduism that the other versions did not?

I have read the King James Version of the Bible three times, cover to cover. I have also read the New Testament by itself, at least two times, Matthew to Revelation. The Bible is a big book. The New Testament by itself is significantly smaller, but it's still significantly large; it's too big for me to sit down and read cover to cover in one day, unless perhaps I decided to put my life on hold and do nothing but read the New Testament. Why is it so unreasonable for me to be reluctant to read a modern translation of the Bible before I know any reason why such a translation would tell me anything different about orthodox Christianity from what the KJV has told me all the prior times I've read it?

I'm very interested in the "plenty of compelling reasons" you mentioned above "for a Latter-day saint to switch to orthodox Christianity." I just don't see any good reason to believe those reasons hinge on me reading some (as far as I can tell) arbitrarily chosen version of Christian scripture when (once again as far as I can tell) I have a pretty good understanding of orthodox Christianity from the version of the Bible I have read, multiple times. Why should I believe that a modern translation of the Bible is going to tell me things about orthodox Christianity that the King James Version did not?

If you have specific questions about aspects of orthodox Christianity or the Bible, I would be happy to answer them.

Well, I do have two. I have given a lot of thought to the idea of some souls suffering unbearable agony from the point of their biological death for the rest of eternity. Does orthodox Christianity and/or the Bible teach that God is so omnipotent that He has the power to cause some souls to cease to exist, take them from existing to not existing, sort of the reverse of what orthodox Christians think God did when He created us, take us from not existing to existing? Does God have the power to completely annihilate us, so that there's no trace of us at all, no spirit, no thinking being, no anything?

And if God does have that power, the next question is, does orthodox Christianity believe and/or the Bible teach that some non-empty group of souls will spend an infinite amount of time, from their deaths going on for the rest of eternity, in unbearable agony?

I think deciding God wants you in a different place is a two part process. First, figuring out that where you are at right now is not the right place. Second, figuring out the new place to be.

I think I understand what you're saying. For the record, that's not the approach I've taken. I decided long ago that I believed in God, and that nothing would ever shake me from my belief in God. So rather than reject an idea about God and then have no belief until I found another belief about God that met my requirements, it's always been for me a question of which belief about God made more sense. If my parents raised me in faith M, with its description of God, and I found problems with faith M, that wouldn't motivate me to drop faith M; I'd hold it until I found some other faith (say C) that described God and didn't have those problems; only then would I drop M, and subsequently embrace C.

But that doesn't make a whole lot of difference for the case we're discussing. Even if I did drop M, and stay in limbo until I found C, still if all of C's problems added up together were worse than all of M's problems added up together, I certainly would have no reason in the world to embrace C.

[_KevinSim]

Yipes! Apparently I posted this article twice! Please ignore this one.

[_KevinSim]

The prayer apparently takes precedence over everything else, and KevinSim is not even going to think of reading anything you recommend until, as he sees it, God authorizes him to.

I've never said anything about waiting until God authorizes me to do something. Rather, I'm going to wait on reading a modern translation of the Bible until I'm aware of some good reason to believe that reading that modern translation will tell me something about orthodox Christianity that reading the KJV did not. God authorizing me to read a modern version would be a good reason to read it, but that's hardly the only good reason, at least as far as I can tell.

[_huckelberry]

But tell me, if there really is no such Hell, then what is the fate of Judas Iscariot, that Jesus in Matthew 26:24 says is so horrible that "it had been good for that man if he had not been born"? He said something similar in Mark 14. If the fate of Judas is not Hell, then what is the eternal fate of Judas?

Huckelberry, were you planning on responding to this?

I do not know of any biblical explanation of hell but there are several strong statements of condemnation such as this that people have used as starting points for their imagination. I certainly do not have any secret inside information. You specified "unbarable agony for eternity". I see no reason to believe that. For Judas it might mean he will off and hang himself.

Because I believe any complete forgiveness and eternal life is only possible as a group, community, family event I suspect it may reach many people. I believe in a purgatory of some kind where this family event, the kingdom of God matures beyond the begining made in this life. Because it is not an individually possible event I do see it as possible somepeople will not be included due to their hositilty to the project and overwhelming personal ego.

You mentioned omnipotence. I think there are at least two quite different understandings of that concept for God. One is that God is the source of all the power that is. That idea would have limits of power defined by what God is capable of doing. The second idea is that omnipotence means God can doing any task the human wish might demand. I only believe the first is a meaning ful discription of God. It is possible that the requirements of the kingdom of God being a success inevitably entails some people being excluded or loss due to the serious destructive potential of evil.