willieH: Hi Paul...
Kent Hovind seems like a rational, objective, open-minded person. And he's definitely very intelligent. I think he could be convinced of Universalism. He's in jail at the moment; he has a lot of time on his hands. He'd probably be willing to read Universalism literature if we sent it to him—out of boredom, if nothing else. Imagine if we had someone as prominent as Kent Hovind going around lecturing about Universalism; converting all his fundamentalist cohorts.
By the way, even though I'm agnostic, I say we because as a sentient human being, I despise the doctrine of Hell.
Even though you are agnostic now, does not mean you always shall be... Many which spent years as
athiests are believers today. They followed a process of change, as they considered the evidence, and proposals of Evolution versus Creation, and scrutinized the entire situation over time.
Many scientists who start out promoting and supporting Evolution, continue to examine what they are supporting, and find that the intracacies of the Universe which are observable on earth show that random evolution is ridiculous.
I was an agnostic of sorts for the first 30 years of my life... (I'm 63)...
Explaining the evolution of physical things is one (albeit foolish) thing, but what really bothered me more were the more intangible portions of our being... such as LOVE, HATE, FEAR, SORROW... the emotional and NON-PHYSICAL things within our being... which have no explanation for being here, and were not generated from mysterious gases exploding mysteriously in the distant past...
Science really has no explanation of the existence of LOVE does it? It is NOT scientifically MEASUREABLE, and so they ignore it, as if it is not there, when it is the most SOUGHT after quantity within humanity...
We ALL participate IN IT, we ALL seek it, we ALL need it... WHY?
If science does have an explanation of how and why it is here, I'd like to hear it!
As time went on in my agnosticism, ...I examined the ridiculous proposal of how MATERIAL things which did not exist prior to it, were generated from an explosion! Any explosion! Not to mention that DNA itself, is essentially INFORMATION. INFORMATION does not generate itself. What BOOK has ever "written itself"?
It is one thing to note that something physical appeared and mutated into another thing, ...but DNA is a microscopic BOOK... Which contains ALL the parameters of the lifeform in which it exists... without the DNA program within us, none of what we are would eventually materialize into what we ARE...
Take your time brother Paul... It is okay for you to challenge what is before you...
Challenging HELL was not my first step to believing... but it was my first step to being a believer in the SALVATION of ALL MEN... and it exists only in the VENGENT minds of those who perpetuate its false existence...
BTW... Up until you started this thread, I had never heard of this Hovind guy! :omg: What is he in JAIL for?
