Various related posts (to the narrowly focused verse-specific threads)

[jabcat]

Note- anything that's not considered very narrowly focused UR apologetis specifically directed at the OP will be brought to this thread, rather than just deleted/edited out as was the original intent.  Gary has asked the new section be moderated VERY tightly, mainly so he can go in and easily pull out things he can use without a lot of "clutter".

[jabcat]

I'll just put others in here as they come up then.  I understand some pertinent things may be said, it's just that Gary's asked this section be very limited/focused- that this section not be treated as a usual discussion format.  (He even wanted people to disable their signatures when they post in here, again, to limit "clutter".)  I don't think that's practical, so I figured I might just edit out the sigs when he starts collecting data from here.

So, moving onward, we'll just move things to here in readable format then.  Maybe later tonight I can move some of the "dead linked" material from the Recycle bin here in long format where they can be read. 

[jabcat]

Ross:

Hi;
For just as in the Adam ALL die, so also in the Christ shall ALL be made alive.
Seems to be the signifacance of the good news. 
   

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sorry, I missed the part about verses that assert God will FAIL.

[jabcat]

PaoloNuevo
NIV

22 "As the new heavens and the new earth that I make will endure before me," declares the LORD, "so will your name and descendants endure.

23 From one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, all mankind will come and bow down before me," says the LORD.

24 "And they will go out and look on the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; the worms that eat them will not die, the fire that burns them will not be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind."

I can hear an E.T. preacher saying that this proves beyond a doubt that only those who have repented constitute "all mankind" and clearly there are those who will be burning forever.

(Inspite of the "unquenchable fires" God has kindled in the past).

[jabcat]

from Gary; 

I said I could never be happy in a party upstairs in the heavenly living room knowing that so many people were being tortured in the basement, and I thought it was pretty heartless of her to think that she could be happy under those circumstances. In fact, I told her I thought God would be disgusted to have people like that at his party and that I thought God himself would go down into the basement to help the people there. From "The Last Word and the Word After That" by Brian McLaren

"Partying in the attic while there's torture in the basement" degrades the character of God.

[jabcat]

Shawn said;

The doctrine of eternal torture wants me to believe several things I find unbelieveable, illogical and unscriptural.  These are just a few...

1) In Genesis, when Adam and Eve brought sin and death to mankind by their rebellion and God went over the consequences of this action...he made no mention of eternal torment.  Death was mentioned, toil with work, pain with child bearing but never once mentioned mankind burning in flames for all of eternity?  Wouldn't this be a good opportunity to bring it up?  If presenting your child with punishments for disobedience...would you tell them I will take away your TV, but instead when it happens you not only take away their TV but you cut off a hand?  No, even us evil parents realize the unfairness of such a punishment.  Why didn't God mention it as one of the consequences of their sin?  Because it wasn't.

2) Is there anything your child could do that would make you burn them for eternity?  I can see parents turning their children over to the law for punishment, prison and in extreme cases even the death penalty.  But, even us evil men and women see the lack of justice in infinite punishment for temporal sin.  If your child asks for food do you give him a stone?  No.  We are evil yet can do good for our children.  If we can show mercy to our children how much more will God show us (men and women made in HIS image) mercy?

3) That mankind born into pain, suffering and bondage to sin, headed for death right from birth, by no choice of their own should burn in hell for eternity.  Mankind should share the same fate as the devil?  The devil was in the presence of God, was not born into sin nor was a slave to sin, and chose to rebel from God.  Even if we serve a God of justice rather than a God of agape love, mercy and grace...could this be deemed justice?  Should mankind suffer eternally for temporal sin?

4) People are born under different circumstances, different cultures, different religious teachings, some have been abused, neglected, abandoned, are mentall ill etc.  Some are taught Christ nearly from birth, were well taken care of and some were not.  The teachings of many in the ET crowd state that anyone not a Christian at death will burn forever.  Considering the above, how is this justice?  Not to mention, how do you reconcil this with God who loves agape and who is full of mercy and grace.

5) ET would have me to believe the blood of Jesus has limited power.  God sent his only begotten son to partially save the world even though he wanted to save the whole world.  The sacrifice on the cross wasn't enough to save all mankind.  Mankind had to save itself through "choice" and "rightful living". 

6) Even mankind has deemed torture inhumane.  We are evil yet know that torture has no place in a civilized society.

7) Civilized nations do not torture for punishment for even the most terrible of crimes.

What the eternal torture doctrine wants me to believe is the God we serve created people knowing he would burn them eternally.  It would have me believe that mankind can show more mercy than God.  It would have me believe the power of the blood of Christ has limits.  It would have me believe that God who loves agape...will agape love their "BBQ'd little hearts" while he burns them, tortures them...not to better or purify them but merely to punish.  Considering the gravity of such a dark doctrine don't you think there would be clear unrefuteable scriptural evidence of such?  The fact is there is little to any scripture supporting such a doctrine. 

Sorry, but I am not buying it.

[jabcat]

From Gary;

Whitewings suggested we open the ideas to the new site to the forum. Why don't you upload this to that section and we can discuss this. I'll join in.

Here are some of the components or suggested buttons, links, etc.

I need to get a handle on pages versus posts, how we handle the content and how to organize it. I still don't have my head around tags, pages, posts and how that is really going to help with the organization.
We have general front page tabs like:
About Us
Contact
News (announcements, etc)
Store
Forum
blog
Donate
Sitemap
Search
Register
Gifts (Lovewins t-shirts, etc from Cafepress)
RSS, etc.
Links
Participate


Then we have content that can be laid out a lot of different ways. The idea is to have tabs, menus, layout, whatever to allow the person to get to the exact info they are looking for without having to search like crazy or have to read a whole book to get to the part they are looking for. Tab or topic button suggestions:
Most popular articles, videos, audio
New Content
Books
Articles
FAQ
Audio
Video
music
Hell Scripture index
UR Scripture index
Topics
Quotes
NDE-OBE, Afterlife
Testimonies
Tracts
Best Apologetics
                Best writings and thoughts in favor or UR
                Best writings and arguments disproving Hell (Hellbusters)
                Best writings and arguments disproving Annihilation
Poetry
Reviews
Bible Babel

Early Church Views
UR Believers

On front page and all pages:
Room for ads
Header
Footer

[WhiteWings]

Gary,

I think the first think you have to decide is what your ideal article looks like.

Say you write an article about the meaning of the word hell. You mention some verses. The views of the church fathers. The Jewish society 1st AD.
You happen to have a few good YouTube links and 20 links to good UR article son other sites and 3 books you think are relevant.

First question is: Do you want to give all that info to the user. Or you just say "I'm the teacher, read my conclusion"article and take it or leave it.
Only then, imo, we can talk about layout because the layout is there to support your teachings and not your teachings to fill the layout.....

I know you like large print. That preference also forces you in a certain direction. It's a simple fact large letters take more screen space so things have to be sacrificed.
For example you can't have 4 colums and large print because then you end of with a column width of 20 letters. That's not readable either.
So that's another thing that limits possibilities. Things are always a trade-off.

You could for example use a electronic Bible style layout
(http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/5764/layouttest.gif)
The large area is your article and the the smaller area's contain info like strong numbers.
But it's not large print....

Many people still use a 800x600 screen resolution. Also something to consider.

Right now I can thing of two other ways to present lots of info while assuming the reader has  800x600 screen.
Left colum: Your article in large print. Width 800 pixels.
The right column hold all the extra info like links, Strong defenitions etc.
It's out of view for small resultion users. The have to use their scroll bar to get to that page. People with larger resolutions see both columns.

The other way is tabs.
Internet explorer has tabs to quickly switch between sites.
Now imagine each of your articles has such tabs too.
Tab#1: Main article
Tab#2: Links to books on Amazon, YouTube, related article on your own and other sites etc
Tab#3: The study tab. When the user reads you article under Tab#1 s/he clicks for example on the word Aion. The site switches to Tab#3 and a Strong/Thayer defenition is shown. Complete with the Greek.

Tab#3 is highly multifunctional if in your article the user clicks on for example "....Origin wrote...." then in Tab#3 a book/quote is opened showing that paragraph.

That's what I would like to see. Just causal reading articles without distracting stuff. But if if curious I click something and get a wealth of info that backs up your claims.

[WhiteWings]

The tab idea is a bit unconventional but it allows to present huge amounts of info.
The other advantage is that you can later decide to add an extra tab without wrecking the whole site.
Changing a layout from 2 to 3 columns is not something trival.


So tell us a bit what you like Gary. If you don't you might end up with something that looks like a porn site  :laughing7:

[WhiteWings]

Another possibilty is that you make Tab#3a-Green, Tab#3b-Yellow, Tab#3c-Red

As before it contains info like described above.
But the level of difficulty varies.
Overloading the novice with scholary stuff isn't productive. So the novice clicks the green tab. The advanced student clicks red and all others click yellow.

Something like
(http://homepage.mac.com/alexrestrepo/images/shots/CustomTabPanel.png)
(http://webdesignledger.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/jquery_tabs_11.jpg)
(http://javascriptly.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/tabbed-navigation-final.gif)
(http://images.sixrevisions.com/2008/12/18-21_light_tabbed_box.png)
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_-j7_-ccACuU/TJrsn69RSTI/AAAAAAAACGs/JuYbQcdCawY/Create+a+Slick+Tabbed+Content+Area+using+CSS+&+jQuery.png)