Dear Nathan,
Excuse me but in case you haven't realized, I view the Bible as fairly inaccurate teachings. I wish you Bible religionists would agree on whether a non-believer goes to Hell and is killed by the devil (Satan), or goes to Hell and is tortured for a while then dies, or lives forever being tortured, or whatever. I wish I could lock a few of you in a room and not let you out until you have come to an agreement on this matter--let alone agree on a non-vague description of what Heaven is like. Regarding that trinity thingy, my English teacher always emphasized that if you can't describe "it" then you probably don't know what "it" is -- in other words you don't know what you are talking about.
PS, an atheist is one who knows that there is no God (or are no gods) and an agnostic is one claims that man can never know whether there is or was an all-creator -- i.e., nothing to do with the human race or being supreme.
Darwin Bedford
www.atheists.net
At 06:45 PM 7/29/02 -0400, you wrote:
I hope that you will take a few minutes to review these few brief notes that I am typing.
First of all many things that you try to explain, such as how you "meet your maker" and "seeing God for only half a second" are fairly inaccurate according to the teachings of the Bible. The Bible says you are judged and sent to a place of torment or paradise based on your acceptance of Christ.
Second a lot of things are simply accepted based on the fact that we only comprehend things with limits and have finite comprehension. You seem to be an extremely intelligent person and I would never be able to debate you on many issues, but you still can truly only comprehend and understand things based on what you have seen and imagined. Both being finite. It is virtually impossible to explain things of God, such as the three in one God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit in finite terms because of it being something we have nothing to relate it to. There is only one God but three in one. This doesn't make earthly knowledge sense through explanation, but it does explain many things. God's omnipresence is something that cannot be explained in human terms, but it does explain how God could meet everyone at death and spend as much time with them as He needed to (although you don't face him at death as I mentioned earlier.)
I am not attempting to argue with you, but it does seem that someone as smart as you would take a little more time and try to find out a few more facts. I would love to communicate with you directly and do what I can to answer any questions that you may have.
Sincerely,
Nathan
P.S. I also have never met a true atheist (one who believes that the human race is the supreme being out there) I have only met agnostics (one who doesn't believe in God, but does believe there is something out there greater than us) which you seem to be.