Skepticism versus gullibility

[Behold]

This is why people hate Christians.

People "hate Christians" because unbelievers need Truth, and they come to someone like you, and they read your Threads that abuse the bible and accuse God on a "christian" forum.
They come to a "christian" Forum like this, and if they unfortunately find your Threads, they have found your "cynical" unbelief, and personal attacks against the bible.
You even post over and over that God is unable to get the message of Salvation to everyone worldwide.
That's just DUMB on Steroids......that type of thinking.
So, what unbeliever would read what you write, and think....>>"that is a Christian" and I want to be one of those.

A.) NONE.....not one.

See, THat's the negative and spiritually posionous effect you have , and you relish it.....because its your ministry, according to your Threads and your posts... to cast doubt on the bible and falsely accuse God on a public forum.. while you complain endlessly about what YOU say are issues with Christianity and with the Church.
Even your Personal Gospel "Universalism" = leads unbelievers to Hell, by telling them that everyone is already reconciled to God, so, they dont to trust in Christ or be born again and forgiven before they DIE. @St. SteVen
So all that is what you have offer this forum, every day you are here.
Its very unfortunate.

 

[St. SteVen]

I heard a sermon that came down pretty hard on skepticism.
Trying to process how I feel about that. Thanks for listening.

It appears that there is no room for healthy skepticism in the church.
But for some reason the skeptics weren't called gullible. No one was, actually.

We are offered apologetics to counteract skepticism. (unbelief)

I was raised evangelical Protestant.
I remember my state of shock when I found out where the Bible actually came from.
Not what the church told me.

I had never heard of the canon of scripture.
I thought a cannon was a war relic, not a religious relic. - Ha!

Same with the hell doctrine.
No one informed me that there were three biblical doctrines of the final judgment.
They did bad-mouth Universalism though.

I had no idea that Universalism was actually a Christian doctrine from the early church in the East.
Which is where the church came from, hello?

And what about inerrancy? Don't get me started... Grr...

Anyone else want to rant on either aspect? Thanks.

 

[Behold]

It appears that there is no room for healthy skepticism in the church.

Trying to prove your accute skepticism of God, has been proven. @St. SteVen

 

[St. SteVen]

Trying to prove your accute skepticism of God, has been proven. @St. SteVen

Sorry for the misunderstanding.
I'm not skeptical of God.
I am skeptical of the church and of individuals like you that parrot nonsense.

 

[Behold]

individuals like you that parrot nonsense.

Being that you can't prove what you posted , i guess that makes you dishonest.

See, i can prove you are a deceiver.
Its very simple.
You teach a false Gospel, defined by Paul as cursed and you as well for selling it..... Galatians 1:8.

Your gospel, "Universalism" is Satanic, and is designed to lead unbelievers to THINK and believe that they can DIE never forgiven, and never born again, and they can still go to heaven.
So, you are a theological/religious pariah, who pretends on the forum to ask sincere questions, that are really just hateful attempts to cast doubt and deliver insults against the Bible, God Himself, and born again Christianity. @St. SteVen

Your own THREADS and POSTS prove it., and will continue to do because you have nothing else to offer.

 

[soberxp]

Nestorianism has never developed in China.

 

[Behold]

Nestorianism has never developed in China.

Lots of confusion regarding Christ's Divinity.
Nothing new.

One of the best ways to realize Christ's Divinity is simply to understand that God wrapped Himself in Human flesh and was born of a Virgin.
This means that God became one of us to offer Himself to all of us...: as "The Gift of Salvation" The Gift of Righteousness", the "Blood Atonement", and "Eternal Life".

The thing that "trips up" the minds of most Christians, is that they dont understand that only God Himself can meet His own requirements for holiness and righteousness and truth.
We can't and that is why Jesus had to die on The Cross to SAVE US.
So, God had to offer these to us as a GIFT, so that we can have them.

Carnal people can't stand this, and want to try to do it for themselves....and that is why their religious emotions fight against God's Salvation, and try to do it their way, which is to try to perform for it, which insults The Cross of Christ and the Grace of God.

Paul teaches....."to them that worketh NOT, but believeth on God who justifies the UNGODLY.... = Their FAITH is (counted by God) as (Christ's) Righteousness".......given to them as "the Gift of Salvation".

 

[St. SteVen]

New topic:

The one gospel - What is it?

A follow-up to a previous topic: https://www.christianityboard.com/threads/what-is-the-difference-between-the-gospel-to-the-jews-and-the-gospel-to-the-gentiles.74212/ Respondents had great difficulty in defining what the one gospel is. Disagreeing with me that there were many gospels, they...

www.christianityboard.com

 

[St. SteVen]

Skepticism versus gullibility​

I heard a sermon that came down pretty hard on skepticism.
Trying to process how I feel about that.

It appears that there is no room for healthy skepticism in the church.
But for some reason the skeptics weren't called gullible. No one was, actually.

We are offered apologetics to counteract skepticism. (unbelief)

I was raised evangelical Protestant.
I remember my state of shock when I found out
where the Bible actually came from.
Not what the church told me.

I had never heard of the canon of scripture.
I thought a cannon was a war relic, not a religious relic. - Ha!

Same with the hell doctrine.
No one informed me that there were three biblical doctrines of the final judgment.
They did bad-mouth Universalism though.

I had no idea that Universalism was actually a Christian doctrine from the early church in the East.
Which is where the church came from, hello?

And what about inerrancy? Don't get me started... Grr...

Anyone else want to rant on either aspect? Thanks.

 

[Behold]

It appears that there is no room for healthy skepticism in the church.

Hell is designed for religious "skeptics".

Heaven is designed for True Believers.

You'll find out that these are not the same in eternity.

 

[St. SteVen]

Hell is designed for religious "skeptics".

Heaven is designed for True Believers.

You'll find out that these are not the same in eternity.

Sounds like a tool invented to control the masses with fear.


Bibles and New Testaments that do NOT contain the word "Hell".

Scarlett's N.T. (1798)
The New Testament in Greek and English (Kneeland, 1823)
Young's Literal Translation (1891)
Twentieth Century New Testament (1900)
Rotherham's Emphasized Bible (reprinted, 1902)
Fenton's Holy Bible in Modern English (1903)
Weymouth's New Testament in Modern Speech (1903)
The New Testament, James Moffat, (1917)
Jewish Publication Society Bible Old Testament (1917)
Panin's Numeric English New Testament (1914)
The New Testament, Charles B. Williams, 1937
The People's New Covenant (Overbury, 1925)
Hanson's New Covenant (1884)
Western N.T. (1926)
NT of our Lord and Savior Anointed (Tomanek, 1958)
Concordant Literal NT (1983)
he N.T., A Translation (Clementson, 1938)
Emphatic Diaglott, Greek/English Interlinear (Wilson, 1942)
New American Bible (1970)
Restoration of Original Sacred Name Bible (1976)
Tanakh, The Holy Scriptures, Old Testament (1985)
The New Testament, A New Translation (Greber, 1980)
Christian Bible (1991)
The Scriptures (1993)
World English Bible (in progress)
Orthodox Jewish Brit Chadasha [NT Only]
Original Bible Project (Dr. James Tabor, still in translation)
Zondervan Parallel N.T. in Greek and English (1975)**
Int. NASB-NIV Parallel N.T. in Greek and English (1993)**
A Critical Paraphrase of the N.T. by Vincent T. Roth (1960)
New Testament, Recovery Version, Living Stream Ministry, 1991
New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE)
Roman Catholic Holy Bible In Its Original Order, Fred R. Coulter, 2007
Etymological N.T. (An Ultra Literal Translation, 2011, Michael Wine)
Aramaic Peshitta New Testament, 2006, Janet M. Magiera
MirrorWord N.T. (Francois du Toit) still in translation
Victorious Gospel of Jesus Christ, Electronic Ver. (Tentmaker Ministries)
The Source N.T. (Dr. Ann Nyland), 2004, 2007
Jonathan Mitchell N.T. (Jonathan Mitchell) 2009
The Scriptures, 2016
Tree of Life Version, Baker Bookhouse, 2016******
The New Testament (David Bentley Hart) Yale University Press, 2017

 

[FredVB]

So there is Hades and Gehenna... this means there is no hell? I would not argue that there is torture from God. What is imagined from imagery on hell is not a part of belief that I speak for. Yet we all basically start off at enmity with God since the ancient fall, taking on culture around us that we adapt to and not following anything from God. What God means for us yet has to be revealed to us and we need to respond to that. God is gracious, with love for us before we respond. Those who remain apart from God beyond the revelation shown to them are still subject to justice from God, always with fairness, and God provided the way out for them, through Christ's work of atonement for any who come with repentance, to put away sinful choices. The rebellion to that has consequences in the hereafter, that they would be miserable with, and Christ who cares for delivering any would have been sparing them but for there unrepentant rebellion.

 

[FredVB]

So there is Hades and Gehenna... this means there is no hell? I would not argue that there is torture from God. What is imagined from imagery on hell is not a part of belief that I speak for. Yet we all basically start off at enmity with God since the ancient fall, taking on culture around us that we adapt to and not following anything from God.

If what that is would not be hell, how would it be desirable? I am sure it would be most desirable to avoid it however fair it is, for what God freely provides for us which was at great cost.

 

[FredVB]

God is absolutely just, so that means God is absolutely fair. We should not want to settle with God's fairness. Our problem is that we do not see how contrary to God we go and how horrible we are, in rebellion to God and what we do to others. Fairness will involve our unhappiness in what comes after this life. You do not have to call it hell, but it would not be preferable. Christ came that we can be delivered from that through him and what he accomplished. We were warned from going that way that would be without him, for good reason.

 

[FredVB]

God cares for all, I am sure all are given some opportunity, though we who have come to the reconciliation God provided should help others have more opportunity for this too. Any of us should act with love, which would not go contrary to God's will, being in the heart of one in the new covenant. Love which God has fully is what God means for there to be among us.

 

[MatthewG]

@St. SteVen​

On the contrary.

Universalism came from the early church in the east. (Jerusalem) It was an orthodox doctrine of the Greek speaking church.
The western Latin speaking church of Rome and their councils promoted their biased doctrines.
They also applied that bias to the Bible they gave us.

Jerusalem = east
Rome = west

Where did the church come from originally? Jerusalem or Rome?

Apokatastasis in the early church

Universalism did have strong early roots in the Greek‑speaking East, especially through theologians like Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and others. But it was never the unanimous or official doctrine of the Eastern Church, and the Western Church didn’t simply “invent” eternal torment out of bias. Both East and West had diversity, debates, and competing interpretations.

Your instinct — that the East preserved a more hopeful, restorative view — has historical weight. But the idea that Rome “gave us a biased Bible” is not historically accurate.

Let me break it down cleanly.

1. Where universalism actually came from​

The Greek East (Alexandria, Cappadocia, Antioch)​

Universalist theology emerged primarily from:

• Origen of Alexandria (3rd century) Taught apokatastasis — the eventual restoration of all creation, even the devil. This was rooted in Greek philosophical ideas about God’s goodness and the purpose of punishment being medicinal.
• Gregory of Nyssa (4th century) A canonized saint in the East. Explicitly taught that God’s love would eventually overcome all resistance and that all souls would be purified.
• Didymus the Blind, Evagrius Ponticus, and others Continued this universalist stream.

These thinkers were operating in a Greek intellectual world where God’s nature and the purpose of punishment were understood differently than in the Latin West.

Jerusalem and the East​

You’re right that the East — especially the Greek‑speaking regions — tended to emphasize:

• God’s healing
• Theosis (union with God)
• Punishment as corrective
• Christ’s victory over death as cosmic, not selective

This environment made universalism more plausible.

2. The Latin West took a different path​

The Western church (North Africa, Rome, Gaul) leaned heavily on:

• Tertullian
• Cyprian
• Augustine

Augustine especially shaped Western doctrine:

• He rejected universalism
• He emphasized inherited guilt
• He saw punishment as retributive, not medicinal
• He believed the saved were few

This became the dominant Western framework.

So yes — the West hardened into eternal torment much more strongly than the East.

But that doesn’t mean the West “invented” it. It means they chose certain interpretations over others.

3. Was universalism “orthodox” in the early East?​

This is where nuance matters.

True statements​

• Many early Eastern theologians were universalists.
• Some of them are saints in both East and West.
• Universalism was not considered heretical for the first 300–400 years.
• The East never fully embraced Augustine’s harsh views.

Not true​

• That universalism was the official doctrine of the Eastern Church.
• That the entire early church believed it.
• That Rome “corrupted” the Bible to hide universalism.

Universalism was one of several competing views in the early church.

4. Did Rome give us a “biased Bible”?​

This part needs correction.

The canon of Scripture was not created by Rome alone​

• The Eastern churches used the same core books.
• The canon developed gradually across the entire Christian world.
• No council “edited” the Bible to remove universalism.
• Manuscripts from Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Greece match the Western canon.

Translation bias?​

Yes — Latin translations sometimes reflected Western theology. But the Greek manuscripts (the originals) still exist, and they don’t teach universalism explicitly.

So the Bible itself wasn’t altered. Interpretation was.

5. So what’s the real picture?​

You’re right about this​

• Universalism has deep roots in the early Greek church.
• The East was more hopeful and restorative.
• The West became more legalistic and punitive.
• Augustine’s influence shaped Western Christianity for 1,500 years.

But not this​

• That universalism was the only orthodox early view.
• That Rome corrupted the Bible.
• That the East universally held universalism.

The truth is: Early Christianity had multiple streams — universalist, conditionalist, and eternal‑torment — all present from the beginning.