Name: Ironman #120 Date: Tue May 23 09:35:40 1989 Doomer, Jesus has already been to Hell. Liked that analogy, FE. Name: Fire Escape #65 Date: Tue May 23 11:48:21 1989 That's what 1st Peter 3:19-20 imply at least.. "He (Jesus) was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, through whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built." Who were these spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago? And why did Jesus appear by the Spirit to preach to them? Jude 6 says that God imprisoned angels who abandoned their positions to join Satan and that these "spirits" are kept in chains for judgment in darkness. Sounds like spirits in prison to me. Still why did Jesus visit them to preach to them? Preaching what? We can only speculate at this point as the I don't think the Bible offers very much insight. It would be my guess that Jesus declared to them God's ultimate plan of salvation for mankind and revealed to them how they unwittingly had helped God in their endevour to twart His will. Some speculate that even angels theoretically could repent and trust in Jesus as savior, and that this is the purpose for which Jesus went and preached to them. At any rate, according to scripture Jesus did go to "hell" to tell the spirits something. The important thing is that he didn't STAY there. He ascended on high to sit at the right hand of the Father. Fire Escape Name: Doomer #20 Date: Tue May 23 13:23:59 1989 Howwever.. If we were free from sin in the first place and then CHOSE sin, God had to either create us with an 'evil side' or He had to create the 'evil' we got to choose. Name: Gryphon #21 Date: Wed May 24 14:58:06 1989 Right.. And to even give us the chance of being evil, he had to create SOMETHING that was evil for us to turn to, no? Since he created everything...and he's all-good..then he couldn't create anything evil.... But since evil exists, he must have created it. Back to bible contradictions 101.. Name: Snappy #98 Date: Wed May 24 16:02:33 1989 Some free choice.... Do it my way or bake in the pits of hell. Name: Utwo #109 Date: Wed May 24 17:51:52 1989 I guess will get some more Bible quotes to read in the next few post. It's funny that the Bible was intended for readers who already believed in Jesus and was to help strengthen those readers' faith and now people try to convert people using the Bible which makes no sense since if you don't believe in the same God why would you believe in a bunch stories written about that God. Name: Doomer #20 Date: Thu May 25 11:30:08 1989 Gryph: Makes a good case for the non-existance of God doesn't it? Or at least the 'misconceptions' of God, perhaps... Name: The Radical #163 Date: Thu May 25 15:45:39 1989 How are we supposed to believe in a God who hasn't shown his face in 2000 years. I mean, I personally am not going to put my trust in a book full of stories being told 3rd 4th or 5th hand by the time they got written down a hundred years later. Besides, I don't want worship a god that behaves like a spoiled child, killing or maiming people he doesn't agree with throughout the old testament, at one point I beleive(somewhere in the old testament) he killed a bunch of kids by attacking them with wild animals of some kind just because they made fun of his prophets bald head. The story of Job is another good example. (even though it's actually an old folk tale that predates the bible, but was modified & incorperated into the bible) A "kind and loving god lets Lucifer kill off most of Job's family and visit all sorts of personal hardships on Job just so he can win a bet!?!? If he truly existed he wouldn't be letting people all over the world(without even a guarantee of heavan in compensation) for other peoples mistakes and wrongdoing. He wouldn't have let Hitler kill 6 million Jews, or Stalin kill 20 million Russians. oops. Insert "suffer" in between "world" and "(" 3 lines up. Anyway, give me a break on this Christianity crap. THE RADICAL Name: Fire Escape #65 Date: Thu May 25 19:02:04 1989 Just because evil exists doesn't mean that God desires it or that he created it. Evil is a manefestation of free will. It is something that we create by rebelling against what is right or good. God allows it to exist because He allows us free will. He could do away with evil if He removed our ability to choose for ourselves, but He doesn't want robots, so He allows us to make evil with our choices. It is a price that we pay for having freedom. As for the Bible, Most of the New Testament was written by the apostles who had firsthand experienced these things before their own death. Most scholars agree that most of the books of the New Testament were written between 70 and 90 AD before the death of the Apostles. The Old Testament records God's relationship with one people to teach us how He deals with all men. The Law and the Prophets were preserved to ensure the survival of prophecy so that when it was fulfilled we would see the inspiration of the writtings. If you examine the Old Testament like I have you will find that the New Testament fulfilles over 300 Old Testament prophecies. It is very fascinating and I promise it will increase your faith in the inspiration of the Bible as a whole. If interested in a file on Prophecy E-Mail Fire Escape. Fire Escape Name: Doomer #20 Date: Wed May 24 00:40:42 1989 Oh so either Hell isn't a permanent resting place or Jesus went down to spit in their faces or make fun of them? Doesn't sound QUITE right to me... Name: Utwo #109 Date: Wed May 24 18:32:20 1989 I'm glad some human was there to write it down for us. hehe Name: Fire Escape #65 Date: Thu May 25 19:06:15 1989 It was recorded through inspiration, the same way creation was. You don't have to believe it, but there is such a thing as spiritual revelation. This was obvious given to the apostle through God's Spirit. I don't think Jesus went to make fun of them. I'm sure he had a very good reason for going there. Like I said though, it doesn't say why he went there, only that it was to preach. Perhaps it was to call the demons to repentance so they could be saved? I don't know. But I do know that it is not part of the nature of Jesus to be vindictive or cruel. Fire Escape Name: Gryphon #21 Date: Thu May 25 21:50:51 1989 BullS#$%! 1. He created EVERYTHING. If he is all-good and created EVERYTHING then he created all manifestations of all things in existnace..including evil. You can't squirm out of THIS one..... 2. Prophecies don't mean a thing. Like usual, the Xians have ignored my post about Nostradamus. He prophecized just as many things as the Bible. Does that make him special? oh, never mind, his power was probably demonspawned. 3. Removing evil in no way restricts free will...because if there's no evil, then you still have free will in everything....if all evil was removed, then no one would even have an inkling of it, thus free will isn't hampered. 4. The "Worship me or burn in a lake of fire" (Visit Hell, this year's vacation Hot Spot?) thing is still corny. Name: Ironman #120 Date: Thu May 25 23:07:44 1989 Gryphon, you are totally incorrect on Nostradamus. He's your prophet, so I'll allow you to defend him. Name: Jk #18 Date: Fri May 26 01:15:35 1989 Phascinating how the point about "God creating humans perfect", and yet humans still being capable of imperfection has been smoothed right over. Play fair kids... Name: The Radical #163 Date: Fri May 26 10:48:35 1989 Excuse me.. but if god hadn't created evil, we would have still had the free will to do a variety of good things to choose from. Or was he trying to thin out the ranks of people going to heaven, since Revelations tells us their is only room for 144,000 anyway. Name: Doomer #20 Date: Fri May 26 13:10:43 1989 Fe: Man created the engine. A manifestation of that engine is exhaust (Which is 'evil') If you want to squirm around that you CAN say that we didn't create that evil, yet we caused it to be released. So God has evil in this cage and he let it out, get it? Name: Gryphon #21 Date: Fri May 26 15:03:30 1989 BUt Ironman..he isn't "my prophet". I don't give a damn about Nostradamus. He was just a prophet....as was this Jesus fellow. Name: Utwo #109 Date: Fri May 26 23:12:26 1989 144,000 stands for all. It is a symbolic meaning as I have said before that most everything in Revelations is symbolic. It is possible that it was like a secret code among Xians to avoid persecution. Name: Ozz #141 Date: Sat May 27 11:43:53 1989 Nostradamus: I've never read him, but I've been told that he is so vague that you can fit one of predictions to any event. Name: Snappy #98 Date: Sat May 27 21:38:59 1989 Nostradamus is not unlike the bible in this way. Name: Gryphon #21 Date: Mon May 29 09:16:44 1989 OZZ: Not really...I've read thru his book (go up to Waldenbooks, they have it..) and found them to really be concise... Name: Fire Escape #65 Date: Tue May 30 15:20:26 1989 Jesus didn't claim to be a prophet... Jesus claimed to be GOD. "Why do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, 'I am God's Son'?...Father glorfy me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began...If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know Him and have seen Him... " Exerpts from John 10:36, 17:5, 14:7. Notradamus never claimed to be God, Jesus did. I put more faith in His words than those of Nostradamus. As for the 144.000 This number of men represent a special group of people who had been redeemed during the great tribulation. They are in no way representative of the complete number of the redeemed, they are only a portion of the redeemed that have a special privilege of learning a special song because they underwent a special trial! Read Revelation 14:1-5, it is quite clear, symbolism or not. Revelation chapter 7 also mentions the 144,000 and goes into great detail in describing the composition of the number. It seems that this 144,000 is composed of Jews from every tribe of Israel. This is the number of the redeemed Jewish Christians during the tribulation. The complete number of those born Jew who during the great 7 year tribulation accepted Jesus (Yeshua) as their Messiah as prophesied by the Prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah. God didn't create us perfect, he created us good. Meaning we are not immune to evil like God is, but we didn't have any sin against us when we were created. We had a clean slate so to speak. Thus we were very good. It doesn't say, "And God created man and behold he was perfect." It says "And God beheld all that he had created and it was very good", in other words, there was no sin YET! Sin = Rebellion against God's will. If an entity has the capasity to chose his own action, then he has the capasity to sin, as there is the possibility that what he chooses to do will be in rebellion to God's will. This free will implies the capasity to sin. There is no way around that no matter how much you philosophize. Don't blame God for not creating you a robot. Thank Him that He gave you the ability to choose His will or your own. And then thank Him for supplying a way to be forgiven for chooseing your own instead of His. FE Name: Gryphon #21 Date: Thu May 25 22:13:41 1989 Prove it.. (well, so it won't just be that, I gotta say somethign else, hmmmm...) Okay. Prove it was a spiritual revelation to the dudes that wrote this.. Name: Doomer #20 Date: Fri May 26 13:24:34 1989 Gryph.. Be reasonable would ya?! The guys SAID that it was spiritual revelation! So it MUST be true.