How would you respond to this woman? Her argument is this: She belives the world popped into existince (i.e., an eternal universe). While we would attribute the creation of the universe to God, she thinks that is just creating a middle-man since it doesn't answer who created God. And if can God can exist without being created, then her reasoning is why can't the universe exist without being created?
Responding to Someone Who WANTS to Go to Hell
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How would you respond to this woman? Her argument is this: She belives the world popped into existince (i.e., an eternal universe). While we would attribute the creation of the universe to God, she thinks that is just creating a middle-man since it doesn't answer who created God. And if can God can exist without being created, then her reasoning is why can't the universe exist without being created?
Chains Broken
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God can exist without being created because He is supernatural and is outside of the universe. There was no "before God" since He created space and time, "before" was a concept created by Him. He is outside of the Universe.
The universe has to have been created to exist because all scientific data that we have collected either points to or is in line with the fact the the universe has an age and a beginning. By the laws of physics matter and energy cannot have a beginning where they turned into something from nothing, so it can only have happened supernaturally, against the laws of physics and nature.
To answer her main question I would say that's fine. I won't push my religion on people who don't want it, you respect my religion and I respect your spirituality/lack of religion. If we can't respect each other we go backwards as a society.
My response: While it's difficult, if not impossible, to prove with certainty if the universe had a beginning from science alone, there are reasons to believe it did. Our universe is governed by the principle of causality, or cause and effect. Everything that has happened in our spacetime dimension is the result of some action preceding it. Causation would imply something had to cause the universe to come into being. That something is what we believe to be God. If God created the universe outside of our spacetime dimension, it would also solve the dilemma of His existence. God is not governed by time or causality. Therefore, He exists in an eternal present, having no end and no beginning. That may be difficult to fathom, but that's why God is God.
An eternal universe wouldn't explain where we come from, or all life for that matter. Current evolutionary theories about our origins are insufficient, IMO, and certainly don't explain how organic matter came from inorganic matter. Nor would it explain the complexities of the universe. There are at least 154 finely-tuned variables needed for any kind of life to exist. That number is even greater for complex life to exist. There are far too many complexities in nature and the universe to attribute it all to happenstance. Believing the universe and everything in it poofed into existence all by themselves is a simplistic, if not magical, explanation that requires far more faith than believing it was created.
At the end of the day, no amount of explanation or evidence will suffice because, at its core, it's a matter of the heart. Satan and Adam believed and still rebelled. We all make a choice about what we will believe and whom we will serve. If someone chooses to not believe and wants to go to hell, that's on them. God is not begging them to get saved, and neither should we. We are just messengers. What they do with the message is up to them.
An eternal universe wouldn't explain where we come from, or all life for that matter. Current evolutionary theories about our origins are insufficient, IMO, and certainly don't explain how organic matter came from inorganic matter. Nor would it explain the complexities of the universe. There are at least 154 finely-tuned variables needed for any kind of life to exist. That number is even greater for complex life to exist. There are far too many complexities in nature and the universe to attribute it all to happenstance. Believing the universe and everything in it poofed into existence all by themselves is a simplistic, if not magical, explanation that requires far more faith than believing it was created.
At the end of the day, no amount of explanation or evidence will suffice because, at its core, it's a matter of the heart. Satan and Adam believed and still rebelled. We all make a choice about what we will believe and whom we will serve. If someone chooses to not believe and wants to go to hell, that's on them. God is not begging them to get saved, and neither should we. We are just messengers. What they do with the message is up to them.
George Whitefield wrote, in a letter to John Wesley -
“You think otherwise: why then should we dispute, when there is no probability of convincing? Will it not in the end destroy brotherly love …”
The woman has heard and doesn’t want to hear anymore. I would honor her request.
“You think otherwise: why then should we dispute, when there is no probability of convincing? Will it not in the end destroy brotherly love …”
The woman has heard and doesn’t want to hear anymore. I would honor her request.
Love her. Honor her request. Pray and intercede for her that God will prepare her heart to receive the truth, and draw her to Himself so that she comes face to face with His amazing love. It will be HIS doings ....and she will know God is real.
Something that is both unbiblical and unscientific.
If this was someone you worked with or met socially, it would be worth asking her for the evidence for her belief a nd to talk about the scientific evidence for the universe having a beginning.
One could also move on to ask why she doesn't want heaven a d to explain the reality of hell.
No not the medieval concept of fires, and pitchfork wielding demons, but the bib.ical depiction of an absents of all that is good.
ScottA
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I would say, that "Unfortunately that is just an easy and superficial form of conjecture, an opinion about something she could, but does not know all there is to know about; and that opinion is also contradictory...because she seems to actually believe enough to know there is a hell."
I'm not on TicTok or I might tell her myself. But then I would be done with it because, it is written "He who is unjust, let him be unjust still; he who is filthy, let him be filthy still; he who is righteous, let him be righteous still; he who is holy, let him be holy still.” Revelation 22:11
I was thinking about what you and @TLHKAJ said and it reminded me of a quote which I thought you both might appreciate.
”When I cannot talk to a person about God, I talk to God about that person.” - Paul Washer
Matthew 10:13-15
New King James Version
13 If the household is worthy, let your peace come upon it. But if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. 14 And whoever will not receive you nor hear your words, when you depart from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet. 15 Assuredly, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city!
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Simply the message from Christ, move on from them if they won't believe the gospel message of salvation by believing in Him.
Don't worry about it.
Shaking off the dust of the place from your feet means you are done with them, don't waste time there.
The foundation of this is in John 6, God must grant people to come to and believe in Christ, no one else believes.
No amount of talk will change someone on the inside, that is what God's does.
63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.
64 But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him.
65 And He said, “Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.”
Further confirmation of John 6 is here.
Philippians 1
27 Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel, 28 and not in any way terrified by your adversaries, which is to them a proof of perdition, but [f]to you of salvation, and that from God.
29 For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake,
30 having the same conflict which you saw in me and now hear is in me.
New King James Version
13 If the household is worthy, let your peace come upon it. But if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. 14 And whoever will not receive you nor hear your words, when you depart from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet. 15 Assuredly, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city!
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Simply the message from Christ, move on from them if they won't believe the gospel message of salvation by believing in Him.
Don't worry about it.
Shaking off the dust of the place from your feet means you are done with them, don't waste time there.
The foundation of this is in John 6, God must grant people to come to and believe in Christ, no one else believes.
No amount of talk will change someone on the inside, that is what God's does.
63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.
64 But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him.
65 And He said, “Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.”
Further confirmation of John 6 is here.
Philippians 1
27 Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel, 28 and not in any way terrified by your adversaries, which is to them a proof of perdition, but [f]to you of salvation, and that from God.
29 For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake,
30 having the same conflict which you saw in me and now hear is in me.
In order for the universe to exist it had to be created by a spiritual force greater than it's material box. One can not create an environment without first being outside of it in the planning stages. Then, one can create or gather the materials to construct it.
Because her argument is totaly baseless, so is her question. God says to mankind, "where were you when I laid the foundation of the world"
God speaks, God creates, God acts, God is patient, God loves, God is spiritual and therefor all consuming. The universe has non of those attributes and has no means of establishing them. The universe is made up of parts. God tells us there will come a "NEW" heaven and "NEW" earth. Again God. Not the universe. The universe is witness to a force so strong, much more then the sum of it's parts or it's age.
This woman refers to God in her disbelief but not in accordance with God's references to Himself, she simply decides to call Him God as though her definition of the God she refers to suffices the litmus test of reason ....WRONG! She doesn't pass the litmus test of science either. She has visions of grandeur in her own mind. To some, ignorance is bliss! Move on!
ScottA
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Yeah, sadly she shows herself to be a flake, outspoken but unknowledgeable and uninformed. Being outspoken is not enough.
When confronted with atheist arguments, I wait until the list or reasons starts and then continue to ask "And what happen before that?" Eventually they have to answer "I don't know" and they have lost.
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