Ignorance Doesn't Excuse Your Sin Sonny. Off to Hell You Go

[Skwim]

I had to use an analogy because you did not understand the literal. If you still don't get it, I give up.


I almost agree, this concept is very complex. That is why I recommended a book instead of posting my opinion. You have all kinds of different groups, those who died in places where Christianity hadn't gotten to, people that can't read or know anyone who can, people who have mental defects, and children. I recommend the book but I will make a few comments. I do believe God judges a person who transgresses his moral commands as guilty but he pardons them if they are unaccountable.

1. People are only accountable for the revelation they received.
2. Some think the unevangelised have another chance after death to accept God.
3. New International Version
For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
4. Even without the bible we have a God given conscience.

I think it is, even our own legal systems do not allow for ignorance of the law as a defense. Since we have plenty of willful sins on our record why does the technicality of ignorant sinning meaningful. It is more important to get to heaven than it is to debate how much we are punished in Hell. No one knows what exactly hell is. The bible suggests that the punishment will fit the crime and that is enough for me. I do not see the point of this discussion. ​

To make specific judgments you require specifics about every type of sin, what the specific punishments would be, and exactly how ignorant a person was and why. No one knows any of those and so again I don't see the point. We should be discussing how to get to heaven not how to modulate our punishment in hell.

I give up.


.

 

[Skwim]

what you do unto yourself also counts....
too bad you have to read between the nouns to catch that item

and having heard better things....you would persist with a plea of ignorance?

What better things would they be that invalidate the status of ignorance?

Is ignorance of the god's listed sins a valid reason for being held blameless for committing them or not?

A) Yes, you are to blame for doing X even if you were unaware you should not do X.

B) No, you are not to blame for doing X because you were unaware you should not do X.
​

.

 

[1robin]

Having re-read what I wrote, I do not believe there was anything uncivil in it, and certainly not ballistic! I'm not sure where that came from.

No there wasn't, that was my point. Your first post or two are usually civil, around the third or fourth post the wheels come off and you become sarcastic.

But this is my very point about all of those things that believers claim about God, what he wants, what power he has, what he has done to accomplish his will (and what he hasn't done). And I say the same to them -- they cannot and do not know anything about God in those terms. And so on to your next point...

Virtually nothing is known to a certainty. Almost every claim to knowledge is based on faith. No one can know what the totality of God is. Aquinas said all we can know is what he isn't. However we can get close.

1. The creator of time must be independent of time.
2. The creator of matter must be immaterial.
3. The creator of space must be space less.
4. A rational universe must have a rational cause, which must be unimaginably intelligent, and incomprehensibly powerful. Etc.......

I find that that is exactly how bronze age men who knew none of that described God.

I am fully in agreement that the definitions you have provided are logically consistent. I just do not necessarily agree that they represent any sort of reality, and my reasons are based in my observations about the reality in which we all, collectively, find ourselves. I can give many, many examples, but let's try a fantastical one for a moment -- the question of demonic possession and exorcism. Think very carefully about whether God has the power to exorcise demons, whether God wishes demons to possess power over us, how demonic possession could then occur, and why exorcism is necessary? You will, if your logic is careful, find it so full of holes that you will have to dismiss the whole thing entirely.

It seems you agree what would be true if God exists, but you deny his existence. I can't debate both, so pick between God's essence or God's existence and we can discuss which ever it is you choose.

Then you do not believe in the current Christian notion of Hell?

The dominant interpretation of Hell was invented as a scare tactic by Catholicism. They took the allegorical imagery concerning the valley of Gehenna and made it into literal fire and brimstone. Since at one point Catholicism controlled Christianity with an iron fist, whatever they determined was true was inflicted on everyone. There are huge numbers of people who believe just as I do about Hell. I have no idea what Hell is right now, but I believe it is eventual annihilation. I can back all that up with scripture if you require me to.

Once again, you have to confront a very logical point: if these things are bad and cannot be permitted to go on for eternity -- and God has the power to put a stop to them all -- then are they also not bad enough that they should not have been permitted to go on this long? And therefore, why, if God has the power to stop them, has He not?

That is not a point of logic. That is determined by God's will. Whatever he determines the proper length of time there is no higher standard which can refute it. people have the bizarre idea that God must adapt to our pathetic requirements. Our history clearly demonstrates we are morally insane, and do not sit in judgment over God. You can get a good look at how this works if you look into divine command theory. If God says 100,000 years is the proper time period to allow evil and suffering to exist what can you appeal to in order to show God should have picked a different time span.

This is, like it or not, an extremely reasonable question.

It does have an answer, that is why the argument from evil is no longer considered valid by the majority of philosophers. The presence of evil is not contradictory with the existence of a good God. If true love exists it requires freewill, if freewill is actually free we will use it to do wrong, if we do wrong then others may suffer. No one knows how long this will go on because God did not spell it out to anyone. It is completely up to God and we have no say in the matter.

BTW suffering, evil, and death exist with or without God. However if God exists then hope exists. That does not mean you should believe in God but it does mean you should do everything in your power to investigate his existence.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Virtually nothing is known to a certainty. Almost every claim to knowledge is based on faith. No one can know what the totality of God is. Aquinas said all we can know is what he isn't. However we can get close.

1. The creator of time must be independent of time.
2. The creator of matter must be immaterial.
3. The creator of space must be space less.
4. A rational universe must have a rational cause, which must be unimaginably intelligent, and incomprehensibly powerful. Etc.......

I find that that is exactly how bronze age men who knew none of that described God.

First, I really don't find those 4 points to be very informative at all, actually. They say virtually nothing about God that has anything whatever to do with our existence, down here where we life.

And second, I've read the bronze age men's books, and they say a very great deal more indeed, including attributing a very large number of quite human-like attributes to God (anger, regret, savagery, etc.). Those are excessively difficult to read into your 4 point description.

It seems you agree what would be true if God exists, but you deny his existence. I can't debate both, so pick between God's essence or God's existence and we can discuss which ever it is you choose.

You know quite well I do not believe in the existence of God. But if somebody provides me with an understandable description of the attributes of whatever god(s) they might believe in, I'm certainly capable of looking at how those attributes might explain that which is said to have been caused be that god or those gods.

It does have an answer, that is why the argument from evil is no longer considered valid by the majority of philosophers.

Odd, I've read quite a number of philosophers, and I can rhyme off quite a few who still consider the argument valid. Take a look at the entry "Problem of Evil" in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy -- particularly the Bibliography at the end. The Problem of Evil (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

The presence of evil is not contradictory with the existence of a good God. If true love exists it requires freewill, if freewill is actually free we will use it to do wrong, if we do wrong then others may suffer. No one knows how long this will go on because God did not spell it out to anyone. It is completely up to God and we have no say in the matter.

Since you claim we know nothing more about God than the 4 points listed above, this is obviously more than you can claim to know.

BTW suffering, evil, and death exist with or without God. However if God exists then hope exists. That does not mean you should believe in God but it does mean you should do everything in your power to investigate his existence.

And what, in your opinion, should this "investigation" consist of?

 

[1robin]

First, I really don't find those 4 points to be very informative at all, actually. They say virtually nothing about God that has anything whatever to do with our existence, down here where we life.

Our existence down here was not the original context. The context was my mentioning God's omnipotence, your saying we can not know anything about God, then my responding with 4 convergent inferences to the best explanation.

And second, I've read the bronze age men's books, and they say a very great deal more indeed, including attributing a very large number of quite human-like attributes to God (anger, regret, savagery, etc.). Those are excessively difficult to read into your 4 point description.

The context again was not everything bronze age men said. I said that men who had no idea what the questions were, got all the answers correct.

You know quite well I do not believe in the existence of God. But if somebody provides me with an understandable description of the attributes of whatever god(s) they might believe in, I'm certainly capable of looking at how those attributes might explain that which is said to have been caused be that god or those gods.

Finite minds cannot comprehend infinites. Can you picture an infinite distance? No, then how can you imagine infinite power? If the God of the bible does exist I fully expect to not be quite able to comprehend him in totality. A finite should by necessity find an infinite being mysterious. Your obviously not talking about God's nature, I think your trying to steer the conversation to evidence of God's existence. If you are let me know and I will provide that evidence. I can't do both.

Odd, I've read quite a number of philosophers, and I can rhyme off quite a few who still consider the argument valid. Take a look at the entry "Problem of Evil" in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy -- particularly the Bibliography at the end. The Problem of Evil (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

I did not say the argument has been banned from encyclopedias. I do not feel like looking it up, also doing so would end the debate. Let me instead ask you instead for what you must provide for the problem of evil to actually be a problem.

You need to show that God could create a world in which less evil exists but that at least the same number of people would come to belief in God. Good luck, no one in the last 5000 years plus has pulled it off.

If God's purpose for creating the universe is actual love then: If true love exists freewill must exist, for freewill to exist the misuse of that freewill must be allowed, if freewill is misused suffering results. Where is the contradiction?

Since you claim we know nothing more about God than the 4 points listed above, this is obviously more than you can claim to know.

Please quote any statement I have made in the last 13,000 posts where I said those 4 things are all I, you, or anyone else know about anything.

And what, in your opinion, should this "investigation" consist of?

Forget atheism, if it is true there is no advantage in knowing it. The first place anyone should go would be comparative religion. If you find as I found that Christianity is by far the greatest contender for a theology that might actually be true, then the next place is go is to investigate the integrity of the biblical textual tradition. Then read the bible cover to cover. Then investigate core doctrines until they become clear and the overall narrative consistent, etc....... At some point in all of that, when enough light bulbs light up, you just might have an encounter with the risen Christ, in spite of your self.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Forget atheism, if it is true there is no advantage in knowing it. The first place anyone should go would be comparative religion. If you find as I found that Christianity is by far the greatest contender for a theology that might actually be true, then the next place is go is to investigate the integrity of the biblical textual tradition. Then read the bible cover to cover. Then investigate core doctrines until they become clear and the overall narrative consistent, etc....... At some point in all of that, when enough light bulbs light up, you just might have an encounter with the risen Christ, in spite of your self.

Only going to respond to the end of your post at this time.

I have read the Bible, cover-to-cover, on more than one occasion. I am better versed in the Bible than most of the Christians who I personally know. (Then again, I'm better versed in Shakespeare too. This just says something about the fact that I like to read, and I retain what I've read.)

If you were to read the ancient Sumerian "Epic of Gilgamesh" (I have), which has a featured character Noah (under the name of Utnapushtim), you would find most of it to be nonsensical, although it is a great human story. Oh, yes, chase down and kill the monster "Humbaba," but you would say, "there's no such thing." Or weep with Inana when Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill "the Great Bull of Heaven" you would think, "poor, silly Sumerians, so unsophisticated to think heaven had a bull!" And you would think those things, for the simple reason that you were not indoctrinated into the religious beliefs of the Sumerians -- who would have taken the epic seriously.

It is the same for me when I read the Bible. I have not been previously indoctrinated by religious belief in God, YHWH, Jesus, Satan or all the other stuff. So I read the Bible with a mind free of that prejudice, and can see it as it is. I read it is as literature, and I find it often stilted, often silly, often completely incorrect, often filled with errors that no competent editor would ever let slip through. I also find much of great beauty, much that is truly philosophical (Ecclesiates), much purely erotic poetry (Song of Songs).

But never, on no occasion in all of my reading, did I ever come across something that made me think "this is TRUE." Not once. At least, not any more than Homer's Iliad -- which although mostly fable -- led Schliemann to actually discover Troy! We humans pass our stories along from generation to generation, and they are changed in the telling -- until some genius author writes them down in a way that is memorable and literate.

But just as you would no more believe -- reading Homer -- that Achilles was rendered invulnerable by dipping him in the river Styx (flowing from Hades), except for the ankle by which he was held and thereby killed, nor would I believe in Balaam's talking *** (ooh, bleeped, call it "donkey") or in the Exodus -- which archaeology shows pretty conclusively cannot have taken place as described.

 

[Ingledsva]

*
Leviticus 5:18 And he shall bring a ram without blemish out of the flock, with thy estimation, for a trespass offering, unto the priest: and the priest shall make an atonement for him concerning his ignorance wherein he erred and knew it not, and it shall be forgiven him.

Num 15:25 And the priest shall make an atonement for all the congregation of the children of Israel, and it shall be forgiven them; for it is ignorance: and they shall bring their offering, a sacrifice made by fire unto the LORD, and their sin offering before the LORD, for their ignorance:

Num 15:26 And it shall be forgiven all the congregation of the children of Israel, and the stranger that sojourneth among them; seeing all the people were in ignorance.

Provisions are made for ignorance, - so obviously no auto hell for things done in ignorance.

*

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

*
Leviticus 5:18 And he shall bring a ram without blemish out of the flock, with thy estimation, for a trespass offering, unto the priest: and the priest shall make an atonement for him concerning his ignorance wherein he erred and knew it not, and it shall be forgiven him.

Num 15:25 And the priest shall make an atonement for all the congregation of the children of Israel, and it shall be forgiven them; for it is ignorance: and they shall bring their offering, a sacrifice made by fire unto the LORD, and their sin offering before the LORD, for their ignorance:

Num 15:26 And it shall be forgiven all the congregation of the children of Israel, and the stranger that sojourneth among them; seeing all the people were in ignorance.

Provisions are made for ignorance, - so obviously no auto hell for things done in ignorance.

*

Oh, yes! I'd forgotten -- all you have to do is bribe the judge with the smoke of burning entrails....

 

[Ingledsva]

Oh, yes! I'd forgotten -- all you have to do is bribe the judge with the smoke of burning entrails....

 

[Thief]

What better things would they be that invalidate the status of ignorance?

Is ignorance of the god's listed sins a valid reason for being held blameless for committing them or not?

A) Yes, you are to blame for doing X even if you were unaware you should not do X.

B) No, you are not to blame for doing X because you were unaware you should not do X.
​

.

more like.....
you know not grace
and cannot walk among the angelic
then off to hell you go

 

[Reggie Miller]

I give up.


.

Oh, you hear and understand you just reject it because it isn't what you wanted or expected to hear.

Luke 16:31
"He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'"

1 Corinthians 14:21
In the Law it is written: "With other tongues and through the lips of foreigners I will speak to this people, but even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord."

 

[Reggie Miller]

I had to use an analogy because you did not understand the literal. If you still don't get it, I give up.


I almost agree, this concept is very complex. That is why I recommended a book instead of posting my opinion. You have all kinds of different groups, those who died in places where Christianity hadn't gotten to, people that can't read or know anyone who can, people who have mental defects, and children. I recommend the book but I will make a few comments. I do believe God judges a person who transgresses his moral commands as guilty but he pardons them if they are unaccountable.

1. People are only accountable for the revelation they received.
2. Some think the unevangelised have another chance after death to accept God.
3. New International Version
For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
4. Even without the bible we have a God given conscience.

I think it is, even our own legal systems do not allow for ignorance of the law as a defense. Since we have plenty of willful sins on our record why does the technicality of ignorant sinning meaningful. It is more important to get to heaven than it is to debate how much we are punished in Hell. No one knows what exactly hell is. The bible suggests that the punishment will fit the crime and that is enough for me. I do not see the point of this discussion. ​

To make specific judgments you require specifics about every type of sin, what the specific punishments would be, and exactly how ignorant a person was and why. No one knows any of those and so again I don't see the point. We should be discussing how to get to heaven not how to modulate our punishment in hell.

That's the best post I've seen in a long time.

Bravo, 1robin!

 

[Muffled]

Then you re extremely naive.


.

I believe that God does what He says He will do, and He knows whether people have heard the gospel or not. I don't believe that is naivete but believing people haven't heard because they are not adherents seems pretty naive to me.

 

[TheMusicTheory]

Nice thread

It isn't that ignorance is an excuse for the sin but I don't see how God would rationally condemn people for all eternity for something they didn't know.

The problem here is that, biblically, god did this *all the time*.

As an example, I'll pull from the story of Genesis:

- God creates man and woman ignorant of the difference between good and evil. They have a "child-like" understanding of the world around them, and do not know right from wrong.

- God tells them not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge and life/death because it will kill them (this is sort of a white lie, depending on how you look at it, but whatever, not important).

- Then god goes off to run some errands or something and while he's gone, a talking snake tells Eve "Look, he's just messing with you. You can eat that fruit no problem"

Now, think about Eve for a second. Again, this is someone who has never been introduced to the concept of a lie. In fact she can't even fathom it because *she is ignorant of the difference between right and wrong, good and evil, etc.* To her, then, there is no reason to doubt what the snake says to her except that god told her not to do it, but, again, since she is ignorant of right and wrong, there is nothing in her mind telling her "this is wrong". She doesn't know what that is.

So she eats it and Adam eats it under similar logic.

God comes back and gets pissed because they ate it and curses them forever for it. Except he set the whole thing up to fail to being with, didn't he? By giving his creation free will but not revealing to them a basic understanding of right and wrong, he all but ensured humanity would fall. It was inevitable.

But he punished them for it anyway.

Never mind the questions this raises about god's omnipotence and omnipresence (he had to know this was going to happen or he isn't omnipotent by definition, and him leaving and having to search for them as they hide when he returned rules out omnipresence on its face). If this god of the bible is both omnipotent and omnipresent, then he basically walked away and hide to watch the Eve/Snake exchange to wait to smite humanity when they did precisely what he knew they were going to do because he didn't equip them to understand the consequences or the ramifications of their actions. They literally did not know it was wrong to disobey their god because they didn't know what "wrong" was, until they ate the fruit. Then they became instantly aware of concepts like deception and disobedience. Then and only then. It was an impossible catch-22.

But he punished them for it anyway. Severely.

So the god of the bible would seem to have no issue whatsoever in punishing the ignorant.

 

[1robin]

That's the best post I've seen in a long time.

Bravo, 1robin!

Thank you, RM. Actually this topic is not one I have studied in dept. However if anyone actually wants to investigate this issue I would recommend Dr. Craig's book "The Problem of the Unevangelised".

 

[1robin]

Only going to respond to the end of your post at this time.

Ok, but that sure makes justifying in depth responses to you hard to justify.

I have read the Bible, cover-to-cover, on more than one occasion. I am better versed in the Bible than most of the Christians who I personally know. (Then again, I'm better versed in Shakespeare too. This just says something about the fact that I like to read, and I retain what I've read.)

Ok, I will credit you with what you claimed until I see sufficient evidence that it isn't true.

If you were to read the ancient Sumerian "Epic of Gilgamesh" (I have), which has a featured character Noah (under the name of Utnapushtim), you would find most of it to be nonsensical, although it is a great human story. Oh, yes, chase down and kill the monster "Humbaba," but you would say, "there's no such thing." Or weep with Inana when Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill "the Great Bull of Heaven" you would think, "poor, silly Sumerians, so unsophisticated to think heaven had a bull!" And you would think those things, for the simple reason that you were not indoctrinated into the religious beliefs of the Sumerians -- who would have taken the epic seriously.

I am not sure whether your making a parallelism argument or suggesting that all the books that contain mysterious things must all be true or all be false. Since billions believe the bible is literally true and pretty much no one believes the Epic of Gilgamesh is true they must not have the same provenance (for lack of a better word). You might as well claim that if Harry Potter isn't historically reliable then neither is Thucydides history of the Peloponnesian wars.

It is the same for me when I read the Bible. I have not been previously indoctrinated by religious belief in God, YHWH, Jesus, Satan or all the other stuff. So I read the Bible with a mind free of that prejudice, and can see it as it is. I read it is as literature, and I find it often stilted, often silly, often completely incorrect, often filled with errors that no competent editor would ever let slip through. I also find much of great beauty, much that is truly philosophical (Ecclesiates), much purely erotic poetry (Song of Songs).

I got that beat. I was raised in a tiny church, however my Mom got cancer when I was 12, she spent 5 years being tortured by cancer in most of her body and died when I was 17. I didn't believe in God and I literally hated the idea of God and those that I thought so naïve to believe in a good God and miraculous healing. I loved to interrogate any Christians who dared to witness to me, and I used the same lame arguments I see non-theists use in this forum and other places. You would not believe the story of what it took to turn me from hating even the idea of God to being born again. Anyway, I was not going to a church, and was not being counseled by any Christian. I set out to adopt my positions concerning core doctrine in a vacuum (found out later they were all mainstream protestant doctrines by accident) and only then to select the church I thought had the best creed. So my story is similar to yours only I went the other way and mine is more sensational.

But never, on no occasion in all of my reading, did I ever come across something that made me think "this is TRUE." Not once. At least, not any more than Homer's Iliad -- which although mostly fable -- led Schliemann to actually discover Troy! We humans pass our stories along from generation to generation, and they are changed in the telling -- until some genius author writes them down in a way that is memorable and literate.

That is probably because your drug many presumptions into your investigation. You have no justification to simply write off a book (which despite its extreme claims) is accepted by 1 out of 3 people alive today. The most scrutinized book in human history, the most popular book in history, and the only worldview which accounts for observable reality so comprehensively. A book who's authors paid the highest of prices to defend without any material motivation.

But just as you would no more believe -- reading Homer -- that Achilles was rendered invulnerable by dipping him in the river Styx (flowing from Hades), except for the ankle by which he was held and thereby killed, nor would I believe in Balaam's talking *** (ooh, bleeped, call it "donkey") or in the Exodus -- which archaeology shows pretty conclusively cannot have taken place as described.

I know about Schliemann, Troy, Homer, Achilles, the bible, etc...... However I don't know why your lumping them together. Only the bible is adopted as reliable by billions of people.

Instead of making these strange comparisons and sweeping statements, we should consider the evidence its self.

Let's start with the motivation of the NTs authors. One of (if not the) greatest expert on testimony and evidence said the following.

The great truths which the apostles declared, were that Christ had risen from the dead, and that only through repentance from sin, and faith in him, could men hope for salvation. This doctrine they asserted with one voice, everywhere, not only under the greatest discouragements, but in the face of the most appalling terrors that can be presented to the mind of man. Their master had recently perished as a malefactor, by the sentence of a public tribunal. His religion sought to overthrow the religions of the whole world. The laws of every country were against the teaching of his disciples. The interests and passions of all the rulers and great men in the world were against them. The fashion of the world was against them. Propagating this new faith, even in the most inoffensive and peaceful manner, they could expect nothing but contempt, opposition, revilings, bitter persecutions, stripes imprisonments, torments and cruel deaths. Yet this faith they zealously did propagate; and all these miseries they endured undismayed, nay, rejoicing. As one after another was put to a miserable death, the survivors only prosecuted their work with increased vigor and resolution. The annals of military warfare afford scarcely an example of the like heroic constancy, patience and unblenching courage. They had every possible motive to review carefully the grounds of their faith, and the evidences of the great facts and truths which they asserted; and these motives were pressed upon their attention with the most melancholy and terrific frequency. It was therefore impossible that they could have persisted in affirming the truths they have narrated, had not Jesus actually rose from the dead, and had they not known this fact as certainly as they knew any other fact. If it were morally possible for them to have been deceived in this matter, every human motive operated to lead them to discover and avow their error. To have persisted in so gross a falsehood, after it was known to them, was not only to encounter, for life, all the evils which man could inflict, from without, but to endure also the pangs of inward and conscious guilt; with no hope of future peace, no testimony of a good conscience, no expectation of honor or esteem among men, no hope of happiness in this life, or in the world to come.

Such conduct in the apostles would moreover have been utterly irreconcilable with the fact, that they possessed the ordinary constitution of our common nature. Yet their lives do show them to have been men like all others of our race; swayed by the same motives, animated by the same hopes, affected by the same joys, subdued by the same sorrows, agitated by the same fears, and subject to the same passions, temptations and infirmities, as ourselves. And their writings show them to have been men of vigorous understandings. If then their testimony was not true, there was no possible motive for this fabrication.

Testimony of the Evangelists by Simon Greenleaf

 

[Reggie Miller]

Thank you, RM. Actually this topic is not one I have studied in dept. However if anyone actually wants to investigate this issue I would recommend Dr. Craig's book "The Problem of the Unevangelised".

Thanks for the reference. One who is familiar with the Bible scriptures can see your logic is correct just by knowing what the Bible says about the subject(s). You are indeed correct according to scripture.

 

[Skwim]

I believe that God does what He says He will do, and He knows whether people have heard the gospel or not. I don't believe that is naivete but believing people haven't heard because they are not adherents seems pretty naive to me.

Just consider:

"The Uncontacted Indians of Peru

There are an estimated 15 uncontacted tribes living in the Peruvian Amazon, all face catastrophe unless their land is protected

Survival has been calling on the Peruvian government to protect land inhabited by uncontacted tribes since the 1970s."

source​

Think they or their immediate ancestors have heard of the gospel?
.

 

[Ben Avraham]

* Leviticus 5:18 And he shall bring a ram without blemish out of the flock, with thy estimation, for a trespass offering, unto the priest: and the priest shall make an atonement for him concerning his ignorance wherein he erred and knew it not, and it shall be forgiven him.

Num 15:25 And the priest shall make an atonement for all the congregation of the children of Israel, and it shall be forgiven them; for it is ignorance: and they shall bring their offering, a sacrifice made by fire unto the LORD, and their sin offering before the LORD, for their ignorance:

Num 15:26 And it shall be forgiven all the congregation of the children of Israel, and the stranger that sojourneth among them; seeing all the people were in ignorance. Provisions are made for ignorance, - so obviously no auto hell for things done in ignorance. *

Ingledsva, I have been under the impression that you have never read the book of Jeremiah. A major prophet he was. If you have read it, you must have missed Jeremiah 7:22. That is a secret Jeremiah revealed unto us which HaShem never commanded that sacrifices be part of the religion of Israel. Why then sacrifices of animals were used in old Israel? Because, after 430 years in Egypt from childhood, the Israelites had become too fun of the Egyptian society and, watching every day how they would sacrifice animals to their gods, they would never be convinced to leave Egypt if the religion of Israel would never use sacrifices like the great nation they praised so, in spite of the slavery kind of life they lived. So, perhaps to make the Exodus possible to happen, Moses used of "Pichuach Nephesh to add the system of sacrifices which became a ritual law commanded by Moses, not by God.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Ok, but that sure makes justifying in depth responses to you hard to justify.

I said "at this time." That indicates I hope to return to it.

Ok, I will credit you with what you claimed until I see sufficient evidence that it isn't true.

How kind.

I am not sure whether your making a parallelism argument or suggesting that all the books that contain mysterious things must all be true or all be false. Since billions believe the bible is literally true and pretty much no one believes the Epic of Gilgamesh is true they must not have the same provenance (for lack of a better word). You might as well claim that if Harry Potter isn't historically reliable then neither is Thucydides history of the Peloponnesian wars.

Not "parallelism" at all. When the Sumerians were reading Gilgamesh, there was no Bible. For some reason, God hadn't gotten around to telling them all about the Gospel -- perhaps he felt they didn't need to know?

And now, if people don't believe the Epic of Gilgamesh in toto it's because they know better -- even though they accept the existence of Sumer and the city of Uruk, and most accept the Gilgamesh himself was an actual king (the Sumerian King List has him reigning for 126 years -- shades of the Patriarchs!). I can find no evidence for very much of anything mentioned in Harry Potter, with the exception of some landmarks, while there's tons of evidence to back up Thucydides.

Yes, some of the things in the Bible are historically true -- this is typical of all writers, who write about the world in which they actually live (like J.K. Rowling). And then there's Balaam's talking donkey (Num 22:21-25) and healing snake bite with a bronze statue (Num 21:8-9) and bringing dead bodies back to life after 3 days (John 11:43-44). For some reason, and none that anybody can explain to me, these things only happened way back then, and are inoperative now. Just like Harry Potter's wand -- you can wave that thing all over the place, and it won't do a darned thing anymore.

And that's how I evaluate.