'GOD.'

     There is no more divisive word in human history. The very concept everywhere. Whether you look at a penny and
read 'In God we trust' or whether you're in a Gamestop looking at the latest Devil May Cry game. It's a concept that's been around since the dawn of man, but why? Why has the story of God and Satan has stayed so timeless?
Saying the words alone is enough to conjure up enough countless points of view.

'God?', says the evolutionist, ' What a bizzarre fantasy.'
'God?', says the asheist?, 'You just need a crutch.'
'God?', says the God-fearing man, 'He is as evident as the water in the sea.'
'God?', says he Satanist, 'Down with him.'

     The evolutionist will tell you that "'Evolution' is the change in the inherited characteristics of biological
 populations over successive generations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological
 organization, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.

     Life on Earth evolved from a universal common ancestor approximately 3.8 billion years ago. Repeated speciation and the divergence of life can be inferred from shared sets of biochemical and morphological traits, or by shared DNA sequences. These homologous traits and sequences are more similar among species that share a more recent common ancestor, and can be used to reconstruct evolutionary histories, using both existing species and the fossil record. Existing patterns of biodiversity have been shaped both by speciation and by extinction."
   

     But what started life itself? The so-called 'Big bang'?

     In "Religion & Science", Barbour says that Stephen Hawking writes, If the rate of expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million it would have eclipsed before it reached its present size. On the other hand if it had been greater by a part in a million, the universe would have expanded too rapidly for stars & planets to form. The expansion rate itself depends on many factors, such as the initial forces. The
cosmos seems to be balanced on a knife edge. If the strong nuclear force were even slightly weaker we would have only hydrogen in the universe. If the force were even slightly stronger, all the hydrogen would have been converted to helium. In either case, stable stars & compounds such as water could not have been formed. Again, the nuclear force is only barley sufficient for carbon to form; yet if it had been slightly stronger, the carbon would all have been converted into oxygen. Particular elements, such as carbon, have many other special properties that are crucial to the later development of organic life as we know it. For every billion antiprotons in the early universe, there were one billion and one protons. The billion pairs annihilated each other to produce radiation, with just one proton left over. A greater or smaller number of survivors--or no survivors at all if they had been evenly matched--would have made our kind of material world impossible. The laws of physics seem to be symmetrical between particles and anti-particles; why was there a tiny asymmetry? Again Hawking says,

     "The odds against a universe like ours emerging out of something like the Big Bang are enormous.
I think there are clearly religious implications."
     
     The more research you do on evolution, the more and more messy the whole hypothesis seems.
    
     Oh, one more thing, I'd like to cover the subject of other other Gods, but I don't quite have the space for that.
    
     Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.

    The term atheism originated from the Greek (atheos), meaning "without god(s)", used as a pejorative term applied to those thought to reject the gods worshipped by the larger society. With the spread of free thought, skeptical inquiry, and subsequent increase in criticism of religion, application of the term narrowed in scope. The first individuals to identify themselves using the word "atheist" lived in the 18th century.
     
     I've met nice and polite atheists who are legitimately good people. That being said, I've met atheists who completely
look down upon the more religious people. But something has always made me wonder about people who are legitimately good people, but choose to be atheists, because when you ask then what happens when they die, they answer 'nothing'.

     Nothing.
 
     Humans are like flowers. They bloom, some more beautiful than others, but the wind inevitably sweeps them away.
The human life is insignificant. It passes quickly, you will be remembered by few or many, and you fade away into the
past and become a forgotten memory. Every second that passes you stride closer to your grave.

     This world is imperfect. Murder, rape, attempted genocide, the list goes on and on. Is this world
really the only one that exists? What's the point of even living? I can put this gun to my head and die now,
or live for 50 more years and die later, witnessing 50 years of lying, cheating, theft, murder.
     
     Why do you keep living? To prolong your eternity of nothing? If this imperfect Earth is all there is, then I'll grab a gun and go
on a killing spree and try to bring as many people as I can with me.
     
     However, that's not what I think. I don't think I could go through life knowing when I die, I fade into
an eternal blackness. I found a book called the 'Bible'. Devleing into science, I found that there is actually a
great amount of evidence proving that this book is telling the truth. Here's one or two examples.

     Catastrophic events have characterized the earth's history. Huge floods, massive asteroid collisions, large volcanic eruptions, devastating landslides, and intense earthquakes have left their marks on the earth. Catastrophic events appear to explain the formation of mountain ranges, deposition of thick sequences of sedimentary rocks with fossils,
initiation of the glacial age, and extinction of dinosaurs and other animals. Catastrophism (catastrophic changes), rather than uniformitarianism (gradual changes), appears to be the best interpretation of a major portion of the earth's geology. Geologic data reflect catastrophic flooding. Evidences of rapid catastrophic water deposition include fossilized tree trunks that penetrate numerous sedimentary layers (such as at Joggins, Nova Scotia), widespread pebble and boulder layers (such as the Shinarump Conglomerate of the southwestern United States), fossilized logs in a single layer covering
extensive areas (such as Petrified Forest National Park), and whole closed clams that were buried alive in mass graveyards in extensive sedimentary layers (such as at Glen Rose, Texas). Uniform processes such as normal river sedimentation, small volcanoes, slow erosion, and small earthquakes appear insufficient to explain large portions of the geologic record. Even the conventional uniformitarian geologists are beginning to yield to evidences of rapid and catastrophic processes.
     
    Catastrophic flooding? That sounds a lot like Noah's flood, something I'm sure your familar with.

     Radiometric dating methods (such as the uranium-lead and potassium-argon methods) depend on three assumptions: (a) that no decay product (lead or argon) was present initially or that the initial quantities can be accurately estimated, (b) that the decay system was closed through the years (so that radioactive material or product
did not move in or out of the rock), and (c) that the decay rate was constant over time. Each of these assumptions may be questionable: (a) some nonradiogenic lead or argon was perhaps present initially; (b) the radioactive isotope (uranium or potassium isotopes) can perhaps migrate out of, and the decay product (lead or argon) can migrate into, many rocks over the years; and (c) the decay rate can perhaps change by neutrino bombardment and other causes. Numerous radiometric estimates have been hundreds of millions of years in excess of the true age. Thus ages estimated by the radiometric dating methods may very well be grossly in error. Alternate dating methods suggest much younger ages for the earth and life. Estimating by the rate of addition of helium to the atmosphere from radioactive decay, the age of the earth appears to be about 10,000 years, even allowing for moderate helium escape. Based on the present
rate of the earth's cooling, the time required for the earth to have reached its present thermal structure seems to be only several tens of millions of years, even assuming that the earth was initially molten. Extrapolating the observed rate of
apparently exponential decay of the earth's magnetic field, the age of the earth or life seemingly could not exceed 20,000 years. Thus the inception of the earth and the inception of life may have been relatively recent when all the evidence is considered.

    About 10,000 years would be in line with what the Bible says, but quite contrary to what evolution states.
     
    Let's assume what the bible says is true and go on from there.

    The Greek word for hell as a final destiny, is a different word. The word gehenna was used to
describe the Valley of Hinnom, the garbage dump on the south side of Jerusalem. It was the place
where wild dogs gnashed their teeth as they fought over the garbage of the dump. Gehenna is the final
place of punishment; Hades is the intermediate place of the dead.

   

     Jesus (in Luke 16) says the souls of the wicked go to Hades after death, but in Matthew 10:28 Jesus speaks about hell also. There, He says that both soul and body are cast into gehenna after the resurrection and final judgment. In Matthew 10 Jesus is talking about final judgment, but in Luke 16 He is talking about what happens immediately after death.

    Hades is like a county jail (a temporary prison), until the sentence is determined. The Lake of Fire (gehenna) is like a state penitentiary, a permanent place of punishment.

    While Hades is not the final destiny of the wicked, it is a place of conscious suffering and of despair place of torment. The man in Luke 16 wanted someone to dip the tip of his finger in water to cool his tongue (Luke 16:24). At another place, the Bible says that the Lord knows how to reserve the unjust under punishment for (until) the day of judgment (2 Peter 2:9). Hades is a temporary prison where the wicked dead are kept under punishment until the day of
judgment and the final sentence is named.

    The purpose of the Judgment is not so much to determine who is saved and who is lost. The matter of salvation has been determined by our decision regarding Jesus Christ here in this life. For example, John 6:47 says, He who believes in me has everlasting life. The word believes is a strong word: It means to embrace, and to cling to; it includes
repentance and obedience. Those who sincerely receive Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord of their lives, are assured of eternal life. By way of contrast, those who do not know God, and who do not obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord (2 Thessalonians 1:8-9).

    And so the final Judgment is not so much designed to determine who is saved and who is lost, as it is to determine the degree of punishment and the degree of reward. Every human being will some day stand before the judgment bar of God. There will be rewards and there will be appropriate punishment. Exactly when and how God will accomplish all this, is not
really important for us to know. But in Revelation 20:1314, the word translated hell (KJV) is Hades. And so when the text says that death and Hades will deliver up the dead who were in them, those in Hades (the temporary prison) will be judged, and then cast into the Lake of Fire. The Lake of Fire will be the eternal destiny of the unsaved.

   The Scriptures indicate that Christ descended into Hades before He went back to the Father, at the time of His crucifixion and resurrection and ascension. Acts 2:27 says that His soul was not left in Hades and that His body did not see corruption. Acts 2:32-33 says that Jesus was raised up and exalted at the right hand of the Father. And Ephesians 4:8-10 says that when Christ ascended on high, He led captivity captive. It is the belief of many evangelical Bible
teachers that it was at this time that those in the righteous portion of Hades were led into the place called Paradise in New Testament times. Jesus descended into Hades, set the Old Testament saints free, and took them to Paradise to be with Him. And now, when saved persons die, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8).

    If the above Scriptures are properly interpreted, then immediately after death, the saved find themselves in Paradise and the lost find themselves in Hades. Exactly what activities will take place during the time between death and judgment (in these temporary abodes) is not revealed in Scripture. The Bible is restrained in what it says about life immediately following death. There are many questions about life after death that go beyond the limits of our understanding. Now we see through a glass darkly, but a marvelous day is coming when those mysteries will be completely unveiled.

   We do know two major facts about this religion. Unbelievers will be in a state of anguish and torment (Luke 16:2328; 2 Peter 2:9). The saved will be resting from their labors in joyful satisfaction (Revelation 14:13; Acts 7:59; Philippians 1:23; 2 Corinthians 5:8). The spirits of those who die in their sins will be ushered immediately in Hades, and after the Judgment, both body and soul will be delivered into the Lake of Fire. The spirits of those who die in Christ will be ushered immediately into the Paradise of God, and upon receiving new bodies, eventually will be transported into the final heavenly home, which Jesus says He is preparing for His people (John 14:1-3).
   
    That doesn't sound too bad. While life on Earth won't be as glamours as living a religion free lifestyle, I'd certainly be pleased if when I died I'd go to a perfect paradise for all eternity. Certainly sounds better than suffering and being in constant mind numbing pain for all eternity. Thank about that. Such pain for all eternity, never ending, no respite, no relief. No life on Earth could be with that, at least not for me.
    
    But Satan seems rather friendly, more welcoming than that Christ fellow. He lets you do whatever you want,
no consequences. Life will be more open, free and exciting. No petty rules to hold you back from enjoying life to it's fullest. But would you be really happy? When your time runs out, are you at peace with whatever may happen to you after death?
 
    What about you? Why do you live? What do you believe? Yourself? Others? Or something greater?

    On last thing, let's keep this polite. Too many times have I seen religious discussions fly out of proportion on the internet. Also, I had links to where I found some of my more technical information, but mistakenly deleted them. If you really want them, PM me and I'll try to find them again.