16th March 2003, 7:58 PM
The only way any of us could ever make an informed decision on this is through research. I think it's clear we could go back and forth for hundreds of posts on the Semantics of God, but that would get us nowhere. It is possible for someone to know everything available for humans to know about God and still go to hell. It's accepting the gift that really defines who lives and who dies.
Here's a metaphor for it that I love, because it's simple and to the point:
Let's say I tell everyone here that I will give them $100. Does that mean everyone gets the money? No. Only the people who take it from me. You can say, "Oh, sure, I want the cash," but if you don't actually, physically take it from me, you can't have it.
Now, there's plenty of stipulations and other nits to pick in that, but it communicates the basic idea.
In all seriousness, though, if anyone actually wants to know how God works, check out theology. An actual theological study, though. There are people who publish books and papers on God of the same caliber as those published about science. If I wanted to know about the big bang, I wouldn't be doing the theory justice to read what some unpublished noname has to say on some crappy videogame website. :) These are issues that could potentially effect your soul, so maybe it's not something that should just be written off.
Here's a metaphor for it that I love, because it's simple and to the point:
Let's say I tell everyone here that I will give them $100. Does that mean everyone gets the money? No. Only the people who take it from me. You can say, "Oh, sure, I want the cash," but if you don't actually, physically take it from me, you can't have it.
Now, there's plenty of stipulations and other nits to pick in that, but it communicates the basic idea.
In all seriousness, though, if anyone actually wants to know how God works, check out theology. An actual theological study, though. There are people who publish books and papers on God of the same caliber as those published about science. If I wanted to know about the big bang, I wouldn't be doing the theory justice to read what some unpublished noname has to say on some crappy videogame website. :) These are issues that could potentially effect your soul, so maybe it's not something that should just be written off.