OT: Bible Discussion (Split from Real World Sensitivities)

[Imp]

And that shows the fundamental flaw in our political system
Once saw a quote cant remember who that said something like 5% of poloticians are doing the job for the right reasons (i.e. not self gain) 5% actually have the abilty to do the job. The chances of somebody falling into both categories are remote so we can deduce most of the time no one is capable & they would never be heard anyway.
Mind even if thought I was capable I would not fancy it.
Good stepping stone for getting you on the board of big companies though

[capnq]

Originally Posted by Imp

This is a major sticking point for me though & if you look at the whole picture where you are born has a huge bearing on your chances.
Generalising but being born in the West say means you have a good chance of decent living conditions & are likely to adopt some faith involving Christ.
Being born in Asia possibly a worse standard of living & more likely to adopt another faith. So I would think its fair enough to say the odds have been stacked against you simply because of your place of birth.
If so for a God to be fair does he not have to judge you on your actions & the way you live your life with the fact that you believe him having little bearing on the outcome.

"Standard of living" not only has less relevance than you think it does, it has the opposite effect.

Originally Posted by Matthew 19:23 (Revised Standard Version)

And Jesus said to his disciples, "Truly, I say to you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven."

(If you'd like more context, I recommend reading Matthew 19:16-30.)

Affluence makes it more difficult to recognize your own need for any form of spirituality. I was raised as a Lutheran, and can't consciously remember a time when I didn't believe in Jesus, but the closest I've ever felt to God was during a two-week period when I was homeless. (I'd rather not discuss my circumstances at that time in any detail.)

I tried to dig up a better answer to your question, but disagreed myself with the conclusions people came to in the first couple search results I looked at. The first piece I found that I thought worth linking to was this PDF from the Free Church of Scotland.There's an article in it titled "Cross-cultural Evangelism", written by a Hindu who converted to Christianity:

Originally Posted by Ram Gidoomal

What about those who live and die without
ever hearing the gospel? What about - to take
one people group at random - the Western
Gaisu people in China? [...] They practice
ancestor worship, and no Gaisu or indeed no-
body in the immediate area has ever been
known to become a Christian. The area is al-
most untouched by Christian witness. So what
will become of those Gaisu who have died and
will die without hearing the gospel?

The answer is, we just don’t know.

As frustrating as it is, this is the most honest answer I've found to your question. The people who are absolutely sure they know the answer are the ones whose arguments I find the most painful to read.

[Imp]

So its an unsolved question.
As pointed out in the article I raised standard of living not because it effects faith but because they are "inherintly bad" so given a harder life (does not mean worse mind you) & less chance for salvation.
Its this lack of a solid founding on important issues that causes me problems. Lots of things look fine at first glance but if think them through fall down or indeed contradict themselves.
Thanks for taking the time but think I must accept that I have chosen my lot, as I said at the start great pieces of work & I think there must be something the universe or at least Earth is just to well organised to create life without some help.
To me that is the biggest argument that somebody/thing was involved in its creation, so surprisingly science & maths show the odds of it happening are so remote that its the best argument that someone designed it that way.

From the scientific viewpoint you could indeed take the view that God is all around us & in everyone of us. No matter how hard science looks it cannot understand the atom, the harder you look the more difficult it gets. It is the only known thing that acts both as a particle & a wave depending on if you are looking or not. Other things to so everything including you are made of something we cannot comprehend.

Actually they may have found a second thing recently not sure as have not kept up to date

[Skirmisher]

Bah Youtube had a nice Zappa video relating to this dicussion but the damn link doesn't work. Oh well.

[Imp]

Skirmisher whats the name of the song, the guys a bit of a nutter or was Quite smart though I think seem to remember he has a good buisnees head.
Could be a myth again but think read he was not getting the reaction he wanted in one video so made his guitarists equipment live. That got the jerking about response he wanted
Guessing they were not to happy about it.

[Skirmisher]

It's called "Dumb All Over"

You can find it by searching youtube, somebody posted a live version from 1981 with I think spanish sub titles in it.

[Imp]

Good call not listened to for ages just setting up the muffin man

[capnq]

Originally Posted by Imp

As pointed out in the article I raised standard of living not because it effects faith but because they are "inherintly bad" so given a harder life (does not mean worse mind you) & less chance for salvation.

I'm sorry, but I've read this sentence three times and I still can't figure out what point you're trying to make. What are you referring to as being "inherently bad"? (I can't tell what the pronoun "they" is replacing.)

"Standard of living" and "a harder life" do not correlate in any way with "chance of salvation". (IME, the first two don't even correlate with each other.)

[Imp]

Sorry it was late, what I meant was they had been selected already as being unworthy by birthplace. No chance of hearing the word & hence salvation & one could say punished with a harder life to.

I would agree that a lower standard of living is no bad thing in 3rd world countries I would make sure once I realised to be able to repay peoples hospitality. In many cases I was invited into strangers homes & fed because its a sign of freindship, the done thing. For several of these I am sure feeding me was a bigger sacrifice than you might expect but you could not refuse so made sure I had something to give in return. People just are far more friendly only 2 times ever in Central Europe has this happened to me & never in a big city.
You do not have to go totaly native to get this change, getting out of the "rat race" money driven culture seems enough. Also people have/take the time to try & understand you help etc which strangely means despite language barriers etc you feel less alienated than back home. Slow your pace of life down & do your best to recipricate.

[capnq]

Originally Posted by Imp

what I meant was they had been selected already as being unworthy

That point starts getting into arguments about predestination, which I'm not going to even attempt to summarize. It's one of the issues that defines the doctrinal differences between denominations.