WordWolf

Mark S already had this to say.... The Myths of Hell My goal is to also write a book. One of the chapters of my future book is on this web site with link above which I did. Rob Bell sounds like he is not a hateful person mixed with common sense and likely a study of the bible also. To use demonic theology and believe that immediately after death all people go to either hell for eternal torment or heaven for eternal pleasure is crazy. This was not part of the Old Testament theology. Hell is instead the grave or the place of death. And biblical translators see this with newer biblical versions for example the NIV, having ZERO usages of the word Hell in the entire Old Testament. The doctrine of hell originated with Greek, Roman and perhaps other mystic theology. Hell is simply the grave or the place of death. It takes God the creator to raise people from the dead. The first man to be raised from the dead to live eternally is Jesus Christ. All Christian who read the bible and believe in Jesus Christ should see this. Otherwise they are dumb-dee dumb dumb. In the actual bible for people who know how to read. After the resurrection of Jesus Christ we have the followers of Jesus Christ to be raised from the dead next and this is when Jesus Christ returns. We have seen this in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. Then in the figurative book of Revelation chapter 20, we have the first resurrection with those who were persecuted for the work of God being raised from the dead. Next we have what can be called the resurrection of the unjust. The outcome of this resurrection is not clearly stated in the figurative and not literal book of Revelation. However, since God is referred to as the God of love. What is the purpose of raising humans from the dead???? To torture them only? Or to improve them with perhaps some punishment, which we often get now, but to at least try to purify their sin nature so that they can see how good and loving Jesus Christ is, while following him. The clearest example of this in the bible is Jesus Christ appearing to Saul, also named Paul; and getting him to change from one of the most hateful persecutors of the followers of Jesus Christ to the best teacher of Jesus Christ and God's word as seen in the New Testament. This is clearly seen by reading Acts chapter 9. Acts Chapter 9

No matter what your position on the subject, I think few would deny it's an emotionally-charged subject for many, and for some it's one of the main, if not THE main, topic for thought concerning God, the Universe, and so on. After all, if life on Earth is temporary, and something after that is eternal, then what comes after might be seen as a lot more important than what happens here. It's certainly been talked about a lot down the centuries. Shakespeare himself makes a passing reference to the subject in Hamlet's famous "To Be or Not To Be" soliloquy, and final disposition became a minor point in that story (that of Hamlet's father, that of Claudius, etc.) Hamlet said we didn't know what happens, and no traveler returns to tell us what happens, and I'm sure none of that was too obscure for Shakespeare's audiences. They were neither the first nor the last to think about all this. To some, the answer is OBLIVION. We live, and after that, there is nothing whatsoever. That's perhaps the default position of those who believe there's no Higher Power, no Fate, no Destiny, and so on. There's no reason to live, so there's no reason to exist after "life" in any form. To some others, the answer is "reincarnation." To them, all of a person's existence can be thought of as a wheel. They live, they die, then they return to live again as a human or an animal. I've heard it expressed that the goal of such returns and reincarnations is so that a person can improve over multiple lifetimes and lifeforms, eventually improving enough to get promoted, so to speak, from the wheel of lives and go on to some form of afterlife, some form of Heaven or heaven. My main problem with these systems is that I don't think they work on paper. Any statistician can explain the concept of "regression towards the mean." In any group (and moreso as the numbers of individuals increase), all the members of a population tend towards "average." The outliers are high and low, with most clustered around the mean, and possibly the median or mode. So, based simply on statistics, I would expect any one lifetime to be average, neither moving one up nor down the ladder. The outliers might point higher- but it's equally likely they will point LOWER, possibly canceling out the gains of the previous lifetime. For an individual, one would expect to live a few higher and a few lower, and most as average. So, over 50 lifetimes, one should, statistically speaking, expect to remain effectively walking in place. Don't expect the average person will make it to promotion even over 1000 years. In fact, the numbers will suggest the longer they try, the more likely they go NO PLACE but remain at the same level. It's only if one counts one or possibly 2 lifetimes that one should expect to be either significantly ahead or significantly behind. The more lifetimes one averages in, the more likely they will end in an "average" result.

This is a thread for discussing the various positions concerning humans, eternity, and their final disposition in eternity, infinity, and so on. I'll primarily come at it from a perspective reflecting what I think the Bible says, but that's not the only perspective allowed for this thread. All positions are fair game, as are all sources (like books).

Sure sounds like Rocky AND "Time.com", whom Rocky chose to quote, are claiming "universal salvation" is a main thrust of the book, if not THE main thrust of the book. But, no discussing either- or vpw's position on it or vf's position on it, for that matter, without discussing Rob Bell's position on it. No idea why that's such an issue when the alternative is to just open a new thread right next to this one with that as the subject, but that's how Rocky wants it, so I'll let him have it his way.

I normally wouldn't consider that as an option, but now I'll consider "borrowing" it that way. Presuming their system lets me. I'm curious why you're being so cagey about the book's contents, but I'll play along anyway.

One of our posters once insisted vpw never plagiarized. Then, once it was incredibly obvious he DID plagiarize, the poster went on to say that God Almighty either gave vpw the same material He gave others, so it was God Almighty who apparently plagiarized. Then he switched to "but we're all God's Children so God authorized him to plagiarize it and it was OK because it all belonged to God so He could authorize plagiarizing it." So, it would not surprise me if somebody tried that, somewhere.

the original F13, Jason was not "present a lot." Furthermore, we learned that, years ago, he was a kid who went to Camp Crystal Lake for Summer Camp, and supposedly died because he fell in the water, and the counselors on-duty were slacking off and weren't where they were supposed to be, so someone blamed them for Jason's "death."

The address of the main characters- and the setting for many scenes- was 328 Chauncey Street, in Brooklyn. The main restaurant mentioned was "the Hong Kong Gardens." One character didn't seem to wear a watch, but could tell the time by smelling out his window. They had a Chinese take-out place downstairs, and-they cooked by a strict schedule. So, based on the dish he could smell, and whether he was at his own window or his downstairs neighbor, he could tell what time it was, unless someone ordered a family special, which threw him off completely. Although none of the characters were astronauts, and despite all of the scenes taking place on Earth, there were frequent mentions of one of the 4 main characters possibly being sent to the Moon or going there- some of them outright, some of them rephrased but obvious in context. BTW, not really a clue per se, but I was surprised that the title of this series actually can translate properly into Spanish without losing meaning or connotation. Depending on how you define the concept, this was either a short-lived show, or a very long-lived show. Some time before this show, 2 of the main characters had used "pet names" for each other- "Buttercup" and "Bunny." Another of the principal cast was an "engineer of subterranean sanitation."

Considering all of that (especially the number of sequels), is this "Friday the 13th", either "Part 2" or "Part 3"?

A) I'm not posting from the USA, so it's not in any public library local to me. I also don't want to sign up for Amazon solely to read this. If it's available online without signing up, sure I'll read it. I'm pretty sure I have a program that will render it on a desktop already. B) We either dance around a book's contents, or we discuss the book's contents. If we dance around them, this is not a discussion OF the book's contents. If we discuss the book's contents, the thread makes plain what the topics are of the book (to the degree they're discussed.) Based on what you've posted so far, the author is either stating outright he's supporting "universal salvation", or he's insinuating it while refusing to state it outright (I find that intellectually dishonest no matter WHO does it.) I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt that he's saying it outright, sooner or later in the book. It seems Mark S came to much the same conclusion (his posts reflect that understanding.) So, either the author is supporting that position (based on what you, the thread-maker, posted) or he is not and your communications made it look otherwise. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you're representing the book's contents fairly faithfully. C) I'm not asking you to "change" anything. You seem to be pretty specific that you're tightly defining the discussion. If the author wrote a book espousing "universal salvation", then discussing "universal salvation" while discussing that selfsame book sure sounds completely on-topic, at least by our usual practices. If we have to only discuss the subject in light of direct quotes from the book, then it seems this thread is very limited- and needlessly so, IMHO. So, normally we'd just discuss both in one thread. Since you seemed opposed to that, I asked. Mainly, I want to know if you're going to have issues discussing it on this thread. If so, then I'll open a parallel thread where we can actually discuss the topic you brought up, and both the content the author provided as well as what we ourselves bring to the table. I think it's a waste of time and would rather just continue on this thread, but if so, you'll have to ease up and let people chime in without prefacing their sentences with "In accordance with Rob Bell" or something along those lines. This is not a rigorous academic forum instituted by a university. We can decide to what degree we're unclenching today. So, simple question, IMHO. Can we discuss "universal salvation" in general in this thread, or will we need to open a parallel thread to do so?

In case anyone's wondering, the quote from the Amplified Bible is NOT a departure from vpw, it is right out of his playbook. The only difference is that they are admitting that's where its from (if not, a few seconds of a websearch would reveal it, of course.) vpw used to do "literal translations according to usage" that looked an awful lot like the Amplified Bible's rendering of the same verse. The best known is probably Philippians 4:13. vpw rendered it "I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him who infuses inner strength into me." (Sing along if you want, Acts 29 did a song including it, probably because they were told that was HIS rendering of the verse.) Philippians 4:13 Amplified Bible, Classic Edition (AMPC) 13 I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me [I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me;[/u] [/u]I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency] I'm sure there's someone out there who's ready to say that both rendered it the same because both got Divine Revelation to do so, rather than vpw just lifting their work without attribution- which was the basis for his entire career, as we now know in these parts.

Granted, he's not addressing quotes from Rob Bell's book. That having been said, is this topic tightly confined to that? It seems the thrust of the book- if I understand correctly- is that of "universal salvation", that is, that all of humanity will be saved. Are we unable to discuss that if it isn't tied to a direct quote? If not, my own involvement in this thread's going to be minimal at most.

The address of the main characters- and the setting for many scenes- was 328 Chauncey Street, in Brooklyn. The main restaurant mentioned was "the Hong Kong Gardens." One character didn't seem to wear a watch, but could tell the time by smelling out his window. They had a Chinese take-out place downstairs, and-they cooked by a strict schedule. So, based on the dish he could smell, and whether he was at his own window or his downstairs neighbor, he could tell what time it was, unless someone ordered a family special, which threw him off completely.

No, that takes place primarily in Manhattan.

Next show. The address of the main characters- and the setting for many scenes- was 328 Chauncey Street, in Brooklyn.

*does some quick research* Super Fetch is an optimizing program. Its purpose is to use processor power you're NOT using and use it to pre-fetch things you commonly use. This means that programs you use all the time may load faster (they're already loaded) or files you use a lot may open faster (it's already accessed). If you turn it off, you won't have performance problems. At worst, some things you used to see open faster will open slower, but they will still open in standard amounts of time. The only reasons this would be an issue is if you're using a low-performance PC and it was already taking a long time even with Super Fetch, or you're using a slower machine to run PC games. PC games often use a LOT of the processor power, and sharing it with Super Fetch may make it struggle to keep up. So, it's safe to stop the service, but you probably don't need to anyway.

If not Mr Ed, how about "KNIGHT RIDER"? "Michael Knight" and KITT are the 2 principal characters, and we see the Hoff but not KITT's voice actor. (Sorry I'm not checking in that often. My internet access was down, and now it's intermittent so it's up and down.)

Any chance this is JAMIE LEE CURTIS?

The Marx Brothers movie preceding this was "Duck Soup." A funny movie, and a madcap romp. Quintessential Marx Brothers. Yet, at the time, a commercial flop because it was TOO madcap for the audiences. So, Zeppo jumped ship and stopped making movies. Irving Thalberg told Chico why it flopped- no story structure, no direction, no reasons to root for the MBs. He argued (and proved to be right) that the audiences needed a story structure, and a reason to root for them, and some clearly-defined good guys (played by Alan Jones and Kitty Carlisle) and bad guys (Lasparri horse-whips Harpo in his first scene in the movie.) So, "A Night at the Opera" and "A Day At the Races" were big commercial hits, after which Thalberg couldn't do that voodoo that he do so well because he died during the filming of ADatR. The movie takes place in Milan, on a steamship, and in NYC including an opera house. (We know it was Milan only because we saw Groucho's hotel bill for "Hotel Milano" for an instant just before the famous stateroom scene- with 2 maids, a manicurist, etc all crowding into a tiny stateroom the size of a walk-in closet. The stateroom scene has been used by a number of people in homages to the scene. Interestingly, when Harpo, Chico and Alan travel in disguise, only Henderson figures out something's not right. "I'm Henderson- plainclothes man." (Groucho) "You look more like an OLD clothes man."

That's it.

This black-and-white movie lost its original opening- about 3 minutes of material, and the footage was never recovered. The story begins in one of the three countries the US and its allies were fighting against in World War II, which meant its opening, with references to that country, were excised by the studio. The opening caption had read the name of the city, and said it was where people sang all day, and did something else in the evening relevant to this movie's title. The movie itself began with a song that was passed along, person to person, and ended at a restaurant, stopping at the Maitre'D, who goes up to an actress and begins the first dialogue of the movie. (On an unrelated note, one of its actors changed his billing in movies after this, so his name was somewhat less ethnic, also due to World War II.) This movie references both Pagliacci and Il Trovatore. A supposed exchange in another language, or possibly just gibberish, was actually plain English reversed and included in the movie BACKWARDS. It's approximately what you'd think the characters said. "Did you hear what he said? He said you're frauds and imposters, and you absolutely don't belong here at all!" "He said that about us? Why..." "That's ridiculous, that's an insult!" Later: "...I wouldn't stand for a thing like this!" "He says he didn't mean it and he wants to know if you'll stay here." Musical numbers- "Alone", "Santa Lucia", "All I Do Is Dream of You", "Cosi-Cosa", "Take Me Out To The Ballgame", "the Anvil Chorus", "Stride La Vampa", "Di Quella Pira", Miserere" ( those last 4 courtesy of "Il Trovatore"), and "Stridono lassù" (from "Pagliacci") One of the principal cast later said that 2 of his movies were superior to all the others he did, and he referred to this as the first of the two, along with the movie he did immediately following this one. With a stronger plot structure and more refined characters, the audiences certainly showed up to watch it more often in theaters, so the 2 movies were probably their biggest successes. A few diehard fans have criticized this movie for exactly the same reason the public liked it- it lacked a trademark anarchy of earlier movies. One scene from this movie has been reused in a few different television shows down the years, including one cartoon. A later movie, completely unrelated, had a character use a fake passport with the name "Rodolfo Lassparri"- the name of one of the "villains" of this movie (the other "villain" would be Hermann Gottlieb, unless you also count Henderson, the plainclothes man/detective.) This movie begins in Italy, and ends in NYC. It has 3 locations- those 2 and one other. Probably the most famous scene includes: two maids, a manicurist, 2 engineers, a woman looking for her Aunt Minnie, and a cleaning woman. Kitty Carlisle later said, of her role here, that her younger relatives thought of her as somehow cool because of her role in this movie. [No, the phrasing was not another clue.]She and Alan Jones did their own singing.

There's no rule in place yet, but I'm using a few that I think are common sense. I limit myself to one role/actor for the list that hasn't aired in theaters yet. The actor and the role both have to be known to a degree, and it has to be inside the next year. The reason for the last "rule" is that there's been hoopla and discussion about the upcoming movie if it's airing soon, so people may well know who's expected. It certainly was a better clue than Lennie Weinrib, and he's played the Joker more than once.

This couch potato is going to keep his piehole shut for a few more hours.

This movie begins in Italy, and ends in NYC. It has 3 locations- those 2 and one other.

This black-and-white movie lost its original opening- about 3 minutes of material, and the footage was never recovered. The story begins in one of the three countries the US and its allies were fighting against in World War II, which meant its opening, with references to that country, were excised by the studio. The opening caption had read the name of the city, and said it was where people sang all day, and did something else in the evening relevant to this movie's title. The movie itself began with a song that was passed along, person to person, and ended at a restaurant, stopping at the Maitre'D, who goes up to an actress and begins the first dialogue of the movie. (On an unrelated note, one of its actors changed his billing in movies after this, so his name was somewhat less ethnic, also due to World War II.) This movie references both Pagliacci and Il Trovatore. A supposed exchange in another language, or possibly just gibberish, was actually plain English reversed and included in the movie BACKWARDS. It's approximately what you'd think the characters said. "Did you hear what he said? He said you're frauds and imposters, and you absolutely don't belong here at all!" "He said that about us? Why..." "That's ridiculous, that's an insult!" Later: "...I wouldn't stand for a thing like this!" "He says he didn't mean it and he wants to know if you'll stay here." Musical numbers- "Alone", "Santa Lucia", "All I Do Is Dream of You", "Cosi-Cosa", "Take Me Out To The Ballgame", "the Anvil Chorus", "Stride La Vampa", "Di Quella Pira", Miserere" ( those last 4 courtesy of "Il Trovatore"), and "Stridono lassù" (from "Pagliacci") One of the principal cast later said that 2 of his movies were superior to all the others he did, and he referred to this as the first of the two, along with the movie he did immediately following this one. With a stronger plot structure and more refined characters, the audiences certainly showed up to watch it more often in theaters, so the 2 movies were probably their biggest successes. A few diehard fans have criticized this movie for exactly the same reason the public liked it- it lacked a trademark anarchy of earlier movies. One scene from this movie has been reused in a few different television shows down the years, including one cartoon. A later movie, completely unrelated, had a character use a fake passport with the name "Rodolfo Lassparri"- the name of one of the "villains" of this movie (the other "villain" would be Hermann Gottlieb, unless you also count Henderson, the plainclothes man/detective.)