Diego_008

Hello. I am pleased that you have responded to my post. The books that I mentioned are simply books of the Sunnah of the prophet. Although they are not given the considerable Holiness that the Qur'an is given, they are regarded with considerable respect. You might consider reading them as you might enjoy them. Sahi al Bukhari is one of the principal collections. There are approximately 5 of those within Sunni Islam. However the one I mentioned is one of the primary ones that is everybody's go to if you will. The Sunnah of the Prophet basically amounts to what he said, what he did, what he agreed to, and various things that he essentially did throughout his life. Riyad us Saliheen is a general collection of the Sunnah from various sources all of the five, that basically gives you an overview of Islam after the Qur'an. Of course, the Shia have their own collections of sooner, which are different than those of the Sunni. But, that starts getting into questions of Islamic Division, and I won't go there right now as it's quite a mess. I basically agree with your statement. I think that the Quran is quite lovely, and the misinterpretations have resulted in all the disasters that Islam has faced. The same of course, can be said of the Bible. It's misinterpretation has resulted in quite a mess for Christianity. But, many religions have similar problems. Perhaps this is because religions are led ultimately by men. We hope they are Guided by God, we pray that they are Guided by God, and we really wish that they make the right decisions. But arrogance and unfortunately absolute Surety in what they believe result in, well, some disasters. Please pardon the unusual paragraphing and capitalization of this post. I am doing this speech to text and therefore the results can be a little bit off. I look forward to hearing from you.

Again, your citing of various studies simply indicates that you are appealing to an authority that doesn't necessarily have any. You are of course free to do that but you need to recognize that you are doing exactly that. The church fathers, including Augustine, definitely have a bit more Authority that is more trustworthy for that matter than the ones you have cited. And again it is perfectly okay for you to reject belief in hell. you are free to do this. But in so doing you have to reject the entire hellenization of Christianity. Again you are welcome to do this. There is no objection to this, as long as you understand this is what you are doing. You have to completely throw out Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas in order to do what you are trying to do. You are certainly welcome to do so. But in so doing what you have done is created yet another Protestant denomination. Since there are already 38000 of those, I do not know why you would want to create another. But feel free. There is certainly no reason to prevent you from doing this. But you have to recognize that that is what you are doing.

You do not have to go on, as it would serve no purpose. You are free to believe what you wish. But you must recognise that you are rejecting the Church Fathers in so doing, AND every scholar I mentioned, plus many others. My education is likely equivalent or greater than your own, thank you. And yes, it does not shock me that you quote C of E scholars. That Church, beginning in the 20th Century, lost any shred of orthodoxy, and orthopraxy, that it may have ever had. And arguing that the text Jerome used was inferior is simply an opinion, since you did not bother to back it up. Again, you ARE free to reject Augustine. But you then must decide who else to reject, or keep, based on YOUR authority. The question then arises: Who died and left you in charge? Certainly Holy Mother Church did not! And Eastern Orthodoxy did not read Augustine until the 19th Century, as he wrote in Latin and did not speak Greek. He was not translated to Greek until the nineteenth century. Even today many Orthodox question whether he should be classified as a father. Nevertheless, they do believe in hell, just as much as the West does. My advice to you is to not insult my intelligence. I get rather upset with people who attempt to do that. I have three degrees, one of them an advanced degree. I am far more educationally prepared to deal with you than you give me credit for. Don't go there. I have probably read more Plato, more Aristotle, more Augustine, more Thomas Aquinas, more Richard Hooker, more Thomas Cranmer, more John Jewell, more Martin Luther, and even possibly more Calvin than you have. And I have read a considerable amount of the church fathers, various of them. And then we can get into the Qur'an. And the Sunnah of the Prophet. Liberal Scholars such as the ones you have quoted mean very little to me. They have led the Church of England into complete disaster. And also of course, the liberal Lutheran denominations that followed them as well. The state of Mainline Protestantism is a complete mess. I personally want nothing to do with it. Your logical fallacy of Appeal to Authority does not work with me. It serves no purpose to even go there. I have had far too much study of philosophy and logic to be fooled by it. Please note that I am not attempting to insult you. If I really wanted to do that I could do it in four different languages. To do so would serve absolutely no purpose and would reduce me possibly to your level which I do not care to go to. But I absolutely shall not stand around and watch you insult my intelligence thank you very much. Please know that if there is any irregularity in the paragraphing OR capitalization of things, or the spellings of things for that matter, it is due to the fact that I am doing this by speech to text. It makes things much faster when you can answer responses this way. I unfortunately do not have the time to sit here and type up my entire response, since said response is quite lengthy. I apologize for any confusion as regards the above matters. You will note, for example, my spellings tend to be very British, however my phone when doing speech to text automatically spells things in the American fashion. In order to explain that logic, all I shall say is that I was educated by quite a few British folk when I was growing up, hence the problem.

Actually, you cited NOTHING. You simply state that "scholars and studies" support you. And there are plenty of scholars and studies that do not. That is why there are literally 38,000 Protestant Churches alone, not counting the Roman, Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Assyrian, and Lutheran Churches. And none of the last NAMED Churches, or their scholars, would agree with you. Altbough the simplest reading of those verses may indicate what you suggest, in order to get that, you have to totally ignore the Greek influence on the understanding of of the verses in question. Again, you are perfectly free to do this. But appealing to scholars, most likely modern day liberal ones, in and of itself means little. I prefer to trust the Fathers of the Church. You are free not to. But understand that the majority of the Church will, and does, disagree. Relying on "scholars", and not 2,000 years of Church history, AND Seven Ecumenical Councils, and even 1400 years of MUSLIM understanding (granted, not the Bible, but influenced by it), and Plato, and Aristotle, and and Augustine (who Platonised Christianity), and Thomas Aquinas (who Aristotelianised Christianity), and Luther, and Calvin, and Archbishop Cranmer, and Richard Hooker, and John Jewell, and, and, and... Shall I go on? I can, if you like.

That is not a logical response. I DID read the verses. I have read the Bible many times, thank you very much. I am simply indicating that if you eliminate the Hellenising influence on Christian thought, you have essentially eliminated HALF of Christianity. To argue otherwise defies logic, and even coherant thought. Now, you ARE free not to believe in Hell, and to reject Hellenisation. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, though I do not agree with it. BUT, at LEAST recognise that ignoring the Church Fathers, and going to a RADICAL Sola Scriptura perspective, makes you go even further than Luther did, or for that matter, even Calvin. You can hold a Russellite view. But do know that that IS what it is. I happen to respect Russell (not Rutherford, but that is another matter), but I DO disagree with him.

Well, certainly most Jews, and the Jehovah's Witnesses, would agree. But Judaism, and ESPECIALLY Christianity, went through a Hellenising phase. THAT is really where the concept of the Eternal Soul developed. Judaism did not develop the idea deeply enough to come up with Hell, though some Jews DO believe in it (a minority). But Christianity DID Platonise, and Aristotelianise, sufficiently to get the idea. The NT itself talks about the lake of everlasting fire, as I recall. Unless you are willing to toss out the Hellenising influence on Christian thought, I don't think you can just drop Hell from consideration. Even Luther and Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Sola Gratia was not ready to throw out the Church Fathers.

I am more than happy to "conversate" (to use a colloquialism) with you. I am NOT happy to be insulted, however.

To assume that the Argument from Design makes ME a Creationist simply makes YOU look unintelligent. Try again, please. No, that is NOT what the Argument from Probability does. Apparently you have never taken a Philosophy class. Look up "Ontological Argument" on Wikipedia, or any other source of your choice. Anselm of Canterbury made it popular. I do not have time to go into it now, as I am making supper.

Sorry. This was a repeat of the previous post.

There is plenty of evidence. There is not a 100% proof, but evidence there certainly is. The Argument from Design is just one. The Ontological Argument is another. The Argument from Probability is yet another. I assume you know them. If not, do so indicate. I shall be happy to enlighten you.

You can certainly think that if you choose. It's a totally free country (well, not really; we are becoming more like a Police State every day, what with the Patriot Act still being enforced by such lovely groups as the NSA, and the TSA groping us when we fly, but religion, at least for NOW, has not been effected). But you can also be wrong. Or I can be. Or we BOTH can be. But we cannot BOTH be right and think mutually exclusive things.

Whoever said they were geographical places?

I absolutely agree that death is not the worst thing that can occur to a person. And having been through severe medical problems in my life, where I faced death many a time, having been homeless twice, and having had numerous other horrible things happen to me, I agree, death, to the person who has endeavoured to live a good life, is far from awful. And death for one's ideals is even better. As far as avoiding Abraham's Path, Observant Jews neither avoid it, nor believe in Hell as such. And many non-Abrahamic Paths have Hell, or Hells plural. Hinduism is an example. Buddhism, whether theistic or non-, does. Voodoo does. Santeria does. Shinto does, depending on the believer. So, it really depends on who you ask. And then there are the Hells we ourselves create.

No. But with a degree in Philosophy, I DO know how Aristotelian Logic, and Basic Symbolic Logic, both work. But good luck to you.

I DO know about the Valley of Hinnom, later called Gehenna. Jews to this day do not believe in Hell as such. I also know about Sheol, which is known in LXX Greek as Hades. But that is not the point. The NT does speak of Hell, and at least part of it IS eternal. I am not sure how any Christian can get around that.

Logic simply is. There cannot be two forms of logic, mine and yours. Logic IS. Now, one us of may be right, and the other wrong, or we may BOTH be wrong. But we cannot both be right together when we believe mutually exclusive concepts. And I do not dispute your right to believe in anything, or not, as you choose. But I dispute the idea that there can be TWO types of logic, both accurate.

This much is obvious. But to say a person can behave like a total arse without fear of any punishment from an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good Deity seems a bit absurd to me. If human justice were perfect, I MIGHT buy it. But that is obviously not the case. Comparing eternal life to coffee or liver strikes me as illogical in the extreme.

Well, I am not so sure I agree with you there. It seems to me that some behaviour is just awful, and deseves some kind of punishment. Of course, the Muslim Hell is a bit like Orthodox Christian concepts, wherein there are two layers, Hades and Gehenna, although the Muslims do not name it in that manner. But Hell is not NECESSARILY permanent to a Muslim or an Orthodox. Catholics have an analogous concept, Purgatory, but that IS a bit different, nonetheless. I do NOT accept Luther's simplified Heaven and Hell for all Eternity. There almost has to be a Hades/Sheol in there to account for the fact that most of us are not immediately worthy of Heaven, nor of Eternal Hell (Gehenna), aside from the truly awful (Stalin, Pol Pot), or the truly blessed.

Well, yes. The Abrahamic religions were ever thus. Judaism kind of got past it. But Christianity and Islam are still there. Islam does allow the possibility that Jews, Christians, and Sabians (possibly Madaeans or Harranians), known as People of the Book, may have a shot at Paradise.

I am reviewing the Noble Qur'an and Sahi al-Bukhari, as well as Riyad us Saliheen. And a biography of the Prophet Muhammad. I have read the Qur'an three times, in various translations, and have learned small parts of it in Arabic. What are people's basic perspectives on the Qur'anic text? What about the other documents I mentioned? Thoughts?

Hello, all: I thought I would greet you all. I have just applied for ordination today. I am Diego (well, legally Jamison, which I obviously used in my application, but everyone CALLS me Diego). I identify with Lutheranism . That is to say, I believe in the doctrines of that tradition, but do NOT believe it has a monopoly on truth. I was raised Roman Catholic (Tridentine Mass attending in the late 80's and early 90's) and Traditional Anglican. I have studied in my lifetime Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and the LDS Church by attending those services. I had almost become a Monk and Priest in my young years. I have READ about many other religious traditions as well. So why the ULC? Well, I just find that straight neutral non-sectarian Faith is the way to go, overall. I have pretty traditional views about most things, but also tend to view the world as a multiplicity of standpoints and perspectives. Well, enough jabbering on my part. I AM glad to be here, and hope to hear from all of you. Peace be with you.