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A Discussion With a Youth Pastor
Windbit
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I talked to my Church's youth pastor today (My parents make me go to Church). He doesn't know that I am a skeptic; he just thinks I'm a Christian who's trying to understand God's Word. I talked to him for about 2 hours, and here are some of his personal beliefs that I find interesting.
1)He doesn't believe it is possible to know why God created the world the way he did, but that God created the world the best way it could be without being perfect. Humans can only experience a perfect world after death through belief in Jesus Christ.
2)When asked if people who have never heard the Gospel are judged by it, he replied that Jesus is the only way to salvation. I gave the example of Asians who lived too far from Israel in Jesus' day to have ever been able to hear about Jesus, and thus could not make the choice to choose or refuse him. He said that even though his answer may not be well received, he told me that he thought it was the Biblical answer: they would die and go to Hell. I commented on how unfair it is that they were condemned for living where God put them. This lead him to what I believe was his most important statement.
3)God is a loving God. However, He loves Himself more than His creation. We sinned, so therefore we deserve to suffer. It is only through the grace of God that we get to enjoy life at all, and that he would give us the chance to be redeemed through Jesus Christ. As for how unfair it is that people can live life without ever learning of Christianity and be condemned to Hell because of it, he replied that everyone is condemned because of the sin of Adam and Eve. It was unfair to God for them to disobey him. He said he isn't 100% sure about this final part, but that he believes that God is not obligated to be fair to His creation. God doesn't care if something is fair or not, not even things that could determine a person's eternal destination.
I personally don't understand how people could find hope in a God who doesn't care about the unfair circumstances he makes for his creation. "What if you were born in a region where you never got to here the Gospel, never chose to refuse salvation, but died and went to Hell anyway?" I asked him. He didn't give me a straight answer on that, but I assume that he accepted that God doesn't have an obligation to be fair to him either.
1)He doesn't believe it is possible to know why God created the world the way he did, but that God created the world the best way it could be without being perfect. Humans can only experience a perfect world after death through belief in Jesus Christ.
2)When asked if people who have never heard the Gospel are judged by it, he replied that Jesus is the only way to salvation. I gave the example of Asians who lived too far from Israel in Jesus' day to have ever been able to hear about Jesus, and thus could not make the choice to choose or refuse him. He said that even though his answer may not be well received, he told me that he thought it was the Biblical answer: they would die and go to Hell. I commented on how unfair it is that they were condemned for living where God put them. This lead him to what I believe was his most important statement.
3)God is a loving God. However, He loves Himself more than His creation. We sinned, so therefore we deserve to suffer. It is only through the grace of God that we get to enjoy life at all, and that he would give us the chance to be redeemed through Jesus Christ. As for how unfair it is that people can live life without ever learning of Christianity and be condemned to Hell because of it, he replied that everyone is condemned because of the sin of Adam and Eve. It was unfair to God for them to disobey him. He said he isn't 100% sure about this final part, but that he believes that God is not obligated to be fair to His creation. God doesn't care if something is fair or not, not even things that could determine a person's eternal destination.
I personally don't understand how people could find hope in a God who doesn't care about the unfair circumstances he makes for his creation. "What if you were born in a region where you never got to here the Gospel, never chose to refuse salvation, but died and went to Hell anyway?" I asked him. He didn't give me a straight answer on that, but I assume that he accepted that God doesn't have an obligation to be fair to him either.
Windbit on
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And everyone was created in his image.
A whole universe full of jerks.
That said, I don't know your pastor, but if those were really his answers, then I'm going to have to say he's not, well, helping you. There's a lot of other scholarship if you are interested in learning about it that might explain it in better terms, or at least make your decision not to believe more firm, if that's how you choose to go.
A lot of what you wrote in here is pretty false by biblical standards.
There are a panoply of other answers out there, and just about the only one that would be consistent across Christianity, as far as I can see, would be the first sentence of #1.
edit: The first clause of #1.
The problem with 'biblical standards' is that the Bible (KJV is the only one I've read so I can't speak to Hebrew/Aramaic) is vague and seemingly contradictory. Hence you get peace and love hippie Christians and hellfire and brimstone Christians basing their 'faith' on the same texts.
Edit: also Redx: that is a funny sig.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
Everything makes sense if you add this into the equation.
I know I don't post here often, but I read quite a bit and wanted to respond to this.
I can't believe that he said that. The Bible clearly says that God is perfect, so I don't know where he would get that from.
Also wrong. In Romans (right off the top of my head I can't remember what chapter it's in, but I'll look it up in a little bit) it says some important things about God's law. One thing it says is that those who have not heard the law (God's law) will not be judged, but will instead be judged by 1) what is in their heart and 2) the laws by which they live. This applies to those places to those places where people have never heard Gods word, like those jungle tribes, asian culture during Bible times, etc. Those people still have a chance to go to Heaven by God's own word.
I'm curious as to what church denomination you attend. Believe me when I say I'm not trying to be an ass, but this guy is full of crap. He obviously has no idea whatsoever what the Bible actually says, and it hurts me that he's teaching this sort of stuff to today's youth. The Bible warns of people like this, "wolves in sheep's clothing".
This is strange to me. Assuming those people have never had the choice and so they are now dead when Armaggedon comes, they have therefore experienced Hell and know that the religion that was "correct" was one they weren't aware of, right?
So, Armaggedon comes and they're pulled out of hell and told "K, so you were in hell 'cause you weren't Christians, but you can be Christians now if you want or you can go back to hell, either way you've been punished for something over which you had no control."
First of all, I think the average person would be like "fuck, yah, I'm Christian." but at the same time they'd be like; "And also, I hate you motherfuckers!"
Not to mention that at that point it's kinda moot, I mean it's about Faith, so if you remove all doubt then it's not faith, it's knowledge which isn't the same thing. If I tell you that I have an apple and if you believe in the apple then you get to go to heaven, if I then show you the apple you no longer "believe" in it, you know it's there. So, does that mean you still get to go to heaven being that you no longer "believe"?
-Robert E. Howard
Tower of the Elephant
Crashtard pretty much nailed what I was referring to, but I didn't want to start quoting scripture. But here's what I was thinking:
Rev 20:12 And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds.
A Christian "loophole" if you will, that there will be a judgment based on your deeds should you not be a believer.
Book of Job?
You wouldn't worship a deity that would back down from a dare would you?
"God tests His creation" is a rather different statement from "God loves Himself over His creation", wouldn't you say?
You really should read it.
Because whoever suggested it was like that is a lying shit, or was lied to by a lying shit.
aside from they whole Omniscience thing, he was using Job to prove how much his followers loved him. That the most faithful ones would bear almost any amount of suffering and would not loose their faith and subservience to him.
It's an accuser angel.
I don't think they even HAD Lucifer back when that was written. I know they didn't have an afterlife yet.
Satan translating to roughly accuser or opposer or some shit like that.
edit:I'm not sure if you were correcting or clarifying there.
Well, wasn't Lucifer kinda ret-con'ed into the bible anyway? I mean, timeline-wise, he was back during genesis, but it was not mentioned until the new testament, right?
Trust me on this.
It's been studied.
the bible needs a better editor.
Not by me mind you. I only read some random version of the bible when I was little. Re-read later by itself for one religion and one religious lit class. and of course just typed shit in google.
I, and those sourses and my memories, may all be wrong, cause I have never actually read a non-translated bible. But using Satan to describe God's foil in the book of Job, does not seem to be incorrect based on any of that.
Everything Christianity is based on is contradictory shit, and that's why you're getting these fucked up answers. Truly devout Christians are incapable of intellectually consistent explanations of their religion because none exist.
No, noone has experienced hell yet since the end of the world obviously hasn't come and so Jesus hasn't been able to sit in judgement of the living and the dead. Didn't you have to recite the basics of faith before getting communion, or is that just a Catholic thing? You heathen.
I got my information from a university course, by a guy who studies comparative theological texts among other things, for a living.
Here's something that points out a lot of similar things.
Most of the things associated with Lucifer and satans were tacked on AFTERWARDS by the Christians when they got into their whole hellfire thing.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A1087616
--
Seriously, I think people get most of their theology from Biblically-inspired fiction rather than actual religious texts.
Like the whole idea of people turning in to angels. HAHAHAHAH.
What do you expect from a Pagan Emperor? He just wanted it on his desk before the orgy.
Oh Constantine, you silly twat.
Guilt
I haven't read either Bible, but isn't god a lot nicer in the New Testament?
The last few of Paul's letters get pretty rough. The NT is alright, but the fact that it's inextricably tied to the hateful baggage that is the OT really diminishes any sort of moral value you could draw from it. There are better philosophies of life, morality, ethics, etc. in other religions that don't have as much of the violence, hatred, and shit throwing.
Jesus was sort of into lakes of fire and gnashing teeth.
Kinky bastard*.
* And technically, he IS a bastard.
That was your first mistake. Youth Pastors are sort of the G4 version of Pastors. They're wild and crazy and hip to how the kids talk these days, with their jeans and their hair. And they love Christ in that totally wacky and hip non-sexual way.
sounds reasonable, cause, you know, orgies.
I'm curious; is it fun, bashing things that you really don't know anything about?
Edit: See what I did there? I can say random things and make other people sound wrong too. I really think that before you start telling someone they are wrong you ought to find out what's really being said. The Bible is like a transformer: there's more than meets the eye.
All of which you've arbitrarily placed there. Or, was that not the type of response you were expecting? A college education is good for a great deal, especially when it comes from an incredibly conservative private college in the bible belt.
Youth Paster is just a fancy title for "Intern Salesman."