Greatest I am wrote:Ierrellus wrote:I Corinthians 15:22 on universal salvation. As my friend Bill would put it, "What part of "ALL" don't you understand?"
There are many references to hell, --- which denies universalism.
You should not ignore half the bible if you are to quote it.
I think you're preaching to a crowd that is dwindling. I've been following atheist arguments for over 20 years and as is also true of theist arguments, the atheist ones have certain recurring themes...like appealing in their arguments to the lowest common denominator in (most of the time) Christianity, the literalists. There are still a reasonable number of them around but they're thinning out; your target audience is shrinking. There is an underlying semantical system system in the Bible which is both rational (dictionary type, not philosophical) and allegorical by which it can be demonstrated that the hell passages are metaphors for internal [spiritual] cleansing, most likely accomplished in time. The promotion of any allegorical system of interpretation has traditionally been considered a treading ground of religious liberalism, but this allegorical system--while it certainly rocks the literalist boat (universal salvation is a prime tenet)--nonetheless not only supports most traditional doctrines, it offers even stronger evidence of the supernatural orchestration of the Bible than literalism can claim, and I find those claims reasonably impressive.
Point: interpreting the Bible differently than the traditional literalist way, if that interpretation is able to account for entire themes (like the hell passages for instance) is not "ignoring half the bible". The Cor. 15 passage noted is not cherry picking when hell as a "refining" process has been factored in.
