As an deist who used to be a Jew, I just don't see what makes it any more believable than Judaism. The whole idea of a "son of God", saints, hell, fallen angels, and eternal judgment is much less believable than the comparable simplicity of Judaism.
As an deist who used to be a Jew, I just don't see what makes it any more believable than Judaism. The whole idea of a "son of God", saints, hell, fallen angels, and eternal judgment is much less believable than the comparable simplicity of Judaism.
I find reality to be rather complex in my experience; and I feel that any religion which is true to reality will also necessarily be rather complex -- though perhaps the perceived complexity and nuance of anything depends much on the mind that engages it.
I would question the assertion that Judaism is "comparably simple," as I have studied enough of it to know that there is a distinction (and contentious relationship) between written Torah and oral Torah; that the vast exegesis of the rabbis is not for nothing; and that the need for explaining how "God's chosen people" have been the subject of such grave historical misfortunes is at least as theologically thorny as, say, the doctrine of the Trinity.
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Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
Clearly, this is the cornerstone of everything here: we disagree on what true love is and whether it is compatible with hell.
We disagree on far more than that, but that is one of the things we disagree on, yes.
Here's a quote from C.S. Lewis's The Problem of Pain which nicely sums up my view of God:
Quote from C.S. Lewis »
“You asked for a loving God: you have one. The great spirit you so lightly invoked, the 'lord of terrible aspect,' is present: not a senile benevolence that drowsily wishes you to be happy in your own way, not the cold philanthropy of conscientious magistrate, nor the care of a host who feels responsible for the comfort of his guests, but the consuming fire Himself, the Love that made the worlds, persistent as the artist’s love for his work and despotic as a man’s love for a dog, provident and venerable as a father’s love for a child, jealous, inexorable, exacting as love between the sexes.”
That did not touch the problem at all.
See, that's the only conception of love that I find to be really dignifying. Whereas you seem to prefer to believe in (in Lewis's words) a "senile benevolence" in heaven, I want a God who cares enough about me to get angry if I start mucking up my life. I want a God who respects me enough to allow me to experience (and if need be suffer) the consequences of my actions. Not a "helicopter parent" who dashes in with a Magic Eraser to wipe away every unpleasantry, regardless of whether I even feel any contrition or remorse.
So if I understand this correctly, when you think of someone who wouldn't torture their child for an eternity, your first thought is, "Pfft, what a helicopter parent?"
You love those false dichotomies don't you?
Yes, I want there to be a heaven and a hell! I want an abyss of darkness that contrasts the light and allows it to shine all the brighter, or even to shine at all. And I don't just want hell for other people, as you slanderously insinuate. I want to be allowed to damn myself if such is my will. I want there to be a separation of the sheep and the goats even without taking for granted that I am one of the sheep.
So you want people to suffer infinite agony for all of eternity.
Now do you see if you had just freaking admitted that, we could have saved two pages worth of denial from you?
No doubt you will find all of this abominable and will sharply criticize me.
Well, yes. Because you're advocating something morally unconscionable and being hypocritical on top of it. Were you expecting applause?
Well, in the words of Martin Luther: "Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders."*
*= Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise.
Well, you could not want people to suffer. That's entirely doable. It's called loving and forgiving people.
As an deist who used to be a Jew, I just don't see what makes it any more believable than Judaism. The whole idea of a "son of God", saints, hell, fallen angels, and eternal judgment is much less believable than the comparable simplicity of Judaism.
Well, Christianity came out of a school of Judaism that emphasized apocalyptic eschatology. So some of those (hell, fallen angels, eternal judgment) do stem from Judaism. It was a predominantly Jewish movement early on. Remember that Judaism has a long, long history of differing interpretations.
Though it'd be hard to find a simpler religion than deism.
If I may ask, what lead you to deism? If I understand correctly, you believe there is a God, but that God's involvement in the world ended at the moment he created the universe, and now he's not involved and just lets everything run its course. If this is the case, my question becomes what convinced you that God was involved at the creation of the world, if you do not feel God's involvement elsewhere?
Highroller, your response is exactly as I foresaw it would be. So there is nothing more for either of us to say here; though I do sincerely hope that one day (not to say I am faultless on this point) you will learn to be gracious in your disagreements with people. Good day.
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Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
As an deist who used to be a Jew, I just don't see what makes it any more believable than Judaism. The whole idea of a "son of God", saints, hell, fallen angels, and eternal judgment is much less believable than the comparable simplicity of Judaism.
I find reality to be rather complex in my experience; and I feel that any religion which is true to reality will also necessarily be rather complex -- though perhaps the perceived complexity and nuance of anything depends much on the mind that engages it.
I would question the assertion that Judaism is "comparably simple," as I have studied enough of it to know that there is a distinction (and contentious relationship) between written Torah and oral Torah; that the vast exegesis of the rabbis is not for nothing; and that the need for explaining how "God's chosen people" have been the subject of such grave historical misfortunes is at least as theologically thorny as, say, the doctrine of the Trinity.
While I admit that Judaism is very complicated, Christianity just seems much more so (though I do admit that many of those illogical contradictions within Judaism are what have made me become a deist).
As an deist who used to be a Jew, I just don't see what makes it any more believable than Judaism. The whole idea of a "son of God", saints, hell, fallen angels, and eternal judgment is much less believable than the comparable simplicity of Judaism.
Well, Christianity came out of a school of Judaism that emphasized apocalyptic eschatology. So some of those (hell, fallen angels, eternal judgment) do stem from Judaism. It was a predominantly Jewish movement early on. Remember that Judaism has a long, long history of differing interpretations.
While this is true, if you go mainly by what is in the bible and the rabbis' interpretations, there isn't much that leads to those things within Judaism. And much of that was from retroactive changes withing Judaism in Christian-dominated areas.
Though it'd be hard to find a simpler religion than deism.
If I may ask, what lead you to deism? If I understand correctly, you believe there is a God, but that God's involvement in the world ended at the moment he created the universe, and now he's not involved and just lets everything run its course. If this is the case, my question becomes what convinced you that God was involved at the creation of the world, if you do not feel God's involvement elsewhere?
My main reason for still believing in God in some form is this. At some point, someone or something had to have started everything. The Big Bang had to have happened somehow. And even if there were universes before the Big Bang, they had to start somehow. The only thing that I can think of that would be capable of this would be God. So I believe in God existing. However, I am unable to view see God as interfering in life after that. Almost everything else can be explained by science.
My God! I want a God who takes good and evil seriously! Who created a universe not as some idle simulation, where running someone over with your car has ultimately the same impact (read: NONE) whether done in real life or in Grand Theft Auto, but where our words and deeds and cultivated characters have genuine and even everlasting repercussions. None of this, "bloodthirsty mass murderers are on the same page as average people" bull*****.
Yes, I want there to be a heaven and a hell! I want an abyss of darkness that contrasts the light and allows it to shine all the brighter, or even to shine at all. And I don't just want hell for other people, as you slanderously insinuate. I want to be allowed to damn myself if such is my will. I want there to be a separation of the sheep and the goats even without taking for granted that I am one of the sheep.
There's a fair number of things that make Christianity unacceptable to me, but this one is definitely in the top ten.
Infinite torment for finite crimes.
If Christianity incorporated reincarnation, so that Hell was a lesson you learned about your life before you embarked on your new one, I could understand that. If Hell were a Purgatory, where once you understood the magnitude of your crimes and sincerely repented, you would be accepted into Heaven, I could understand that. But infinite, pointless suffering without reprieve isn't loving. It's not justice. It's pure, petty, revenge. That's the decree of a petty tribal war deity, not the wise, loving deity that Christians proclaim.
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Quote from MD »
I am willing to bet my collection that Frozen and Solid are not on the same card. For example, Frozen Tomb and Solid Wall.
If Frozen Solid is not reprinted, you are aware that I'm quoting you in my sig for eternity?
There's a fair number of things that make Christianity unacceptable to me, but this one is definitely in the top ten.
Infinite torment for finite crimes.
Define "finite crimes."
Certainly, we can only commit crimes for the duration of our mortal lives. But observe that the severity of a crime has nothing to do with how long is spent in the commission of that crime. An embezzling scheme could take months to enact; a murder could be done in seconds, yet it would be the far more heinous crime.
Observe, further, that the severity of a crime is tied to the stature of the offended party. If you exterminate a whole hive of ants, that would not be considered a crime except perhaps in the extremely strict Jain religion. If you maliciously kill a cat or a dog, you could receive a sentence of some months for animal cruelty. If you commit arson and burn down the house of another person then, even if no one is hurt, you could expect to spend years in prison.
What, then, of crimes committed against God? What is the appropriate penalty for crimes against a being of infinite stature and significance?
You might say, "But surely nothing we do could actually harm God." True; but we accept the principle of mens rea ("guilty mind") in all our judicial dealings. Suppose you had a gun and fired it at me, meaning to kill me; but unbeknownst to you it was loaded with blanks. Or suppose you fired bullets at me but there was an intervening pane of bulletproof glass. In either case, though your deed could not actually harm me, yet you would be charged with attempted murder.
Without proposing a "therefore," I would simply ask you to carefully consider these points.
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Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
Observe, further, that the severity of a crime is tied to the stature of the offended party. If you exterminate a whole hive of ants, that would not be considered a crime except perhaps in the extremely strict Jain religion. If you maliciously kill a cat or a dog, you could receive a sentence of some months for animal cruelty. If you commit arson and burn down the house of another person then, even if no one is hurt, you could expect to spend years in prison.
What, then, of crimes committed against God? What is the appropriate penalty for crimes against a being of infinite stature and significance?
What? Ants, dogs, and cats are not sentient. Amongst sentient beings, a justice system that handed out disproportionate protection and punishment based on "stature" would, I think, rightly be called corrupt and unjust. When poor people are punished more swiftly and severely for crimes against rich people, or black people against white people, or anything of the sort -- we deplore it, do we not?
There's a fair number of things that make Christianity unacceptable to me, but this one is definitely in the top ten.
Infinite torment for finite crimes.
Define "finite crimes."
Certainly, we can only commit crimes for the duration of our mortal lives. But observe that the severity of a crime has nothing to do with how long is spent in the commission of that crime. An embezzling scheme could take months to enact; a murder could be done in seconds, yet it would be the far more heinous crime.
Observe, further, that the severity of a crime is tied to the stature of the offended party. If you exterminate a whole hive of ants, that would not be considered a crime except perhaps in the extremely strict Jain religion. If you maliciously kill a cat or a dog, you could receive a sentence of some months for animal cruelty. If you commit arson and burn down the house of another person then, even if no one is hurt, you could expect to spend years in prison.
What, then, of crimes committed against God? What is the appropriate penalty for crimes against a being of infinite stature and significance?
You might say, "But surely nothing we do could actually harm God." True; but we accept the principle of mens rea ("guilty mind") in all our judicial dealings. Suppose you had a gun and fired it at me, meaning to kill me; but unbeknownst to you it was loaded with blanks. Or suppose you fired bullets at me but there was an intervening pane of bulletproof glass. In either case, though your deed could not actually harm me, yet you would be charged with attempted murder.
Without proposing a "therefore," I would simply ask you to carefully consider these points.
Certainly, if I killed (or tried to kill) God, I would expect his dying vengeance to be terrible.
Observe, though, that in our justice system, the punishment is, in theory, proportional to the harm done by the crime. Which crimes do you consider worthy of an eternity of agony? The Infernal threshold appears to vary depending on your flavour of Christianity. For example, as I understand Catholicism, dying without confessing a mortal sin would send you downward, unless you're perfectly sorry (rather than just imperfectly sorry). According to wikipedia, the Church doesn't provide a list of which sins are mortal, but on its list of 'grave' sins, along with the usual suspects, are such winners as masturbation, contraception and cheating at games (unless the damage is unusually light).
As you observe, we can't actually harm God. So the penalty for harm done against a being who can't be harmed should presumably be minimal. As for attempted <crime>, (I am not a lawyer) I believe that the accused must have a clear intent to perform the crime, and/or have made substantial preparation towards it - but again, this is God, so are we talking about forging some kind of Godslaying sword and poking it at the air hopefully? Claiming that sin harms God is a bit of a stretch - disappoints him, possibly, makes him angry, that too, but harm is unlikely.
And punishment without the intention of teaching and reformation - and that's what eternal damnation is - is just petty vengeance. God - and the world in general - gains nothing from it except childish satisfaction. Do the people in Heaven get to sit on clouds and point at the damned and go HA-ha?
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Quote from MD »
I am willing to bet my collection that Frozen and Solid are not on the same card. For example, Frozen Tomb and Solid Wall.
If Frozen Solid is not reprinted, you are aware that I'm quoting you in my sig for eternity?
My main reason for still believing in God in some form is this. At some point, someone or something had to have started everything. The Big Bang had to have happened somehow. And even if there were universes before the Big Bang, they had to start somehow. The only thing that I can think of that would be capable of this would be God. So I believe in God existing.
So an unmoved mover. To prevent this from being turtles all the way down, why does the universe in this case require God? In other words, why ascribe the universe to God instead of just letting the universe be the "prime mover"?
What? Ants, dogs, and cats are not sentient. Amongst sentient beings, a justice system that handed out disproportionate protection and punishment based on "stature" would, I think, rightly be called corrupt and unjust. When poor people are punished more swiftly and severely for crimes against rich people, or black people against white people, or anything of the sort -- we deplore it, do we not?
Of course. Because we understand, correctly, that all human beings have intrinsically the same worth, regardless of their abilities or genetics or economic position. That they are "created equal," as our Declaration of Independence states.
It does not follow necessarily that all sentient beings are created equal. Suppose there were a sentient planet -- a genuine Gaia figure -- whose continued life made possible the life of other (human scale) sentient beings that walked upon her surface. Would not her life be intrinsically more precious than the life of humanoids?
Certainly, if I killed (or tried to kill) God, I would expect his dying vengeance to be terrible.
Well, one of the central points of Christianity is that God deliberately positioned Himself in such a way as we could kill Him; and that's just what we did. In the most gruesome way possible.
And, we would do it again. If Jesus were to have come in modern times, there are many nations where the state would publicly execute him or privately "disappear" him in short order. Even in Western democracies, he would be widely regarded by the authorities as a fanatic and a rabble rouser; and in due time he would be assassinated and many would breathe a sigh of relief and say, "Good riddance!" That's just how it goes when someone rocks the boat too much, especially when they prick peoples' consciences in the process.
Analogies of crime and punishment only extend so far. The salient point for Christianity is that we are all, in our natures, cut from the same cloth as the archetypal rebels Adam and Eve. We depose God from the throne of our hearts, preferring the gods of material success and pleasure. We salivate over and call "enlightened" any theory or philosophy that allows us to deny His existence. Or we claim to believe in and love Him while making Him a mouthpiece for our obviously carnal desires (as in the "prosperity gospel" preached by Joel Osteen and others). Ours is an adolescent race, in perpetual resistance to the discipline of a heavenly Father.
The point is that God doesn't owe us anything, though we owe Him our very existence; and if He were to destroy the world He would be guilty of nothing more than a playwright who crumbled up a script because he found his characters unsatisfying, or a computer programmer who pulled the plug on a simulation. And we especially hate to hear talk like this. Atheists have no problem professing (based on the apparent evidence of the cosmos) that human beings are profoundly, mind-bogglingly insignificant; yet they take it as a personal offense when Christians assert that God is not beholden to us. There is no rationality to this response but only wounded pride.
I suppose I am wandering in my speech here. You can respond as you wish; though if you're not willing to take seriously the idea of a God who is not only loving and just but sovereign, we might as well not waste one another's time.
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Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
Atheists have no problem professing (based on the apparent evidence of the cosmos) that human beings are profoundly, mind-bogglingly insignificant; yet they take it as a personal offense when Christians assert that God is not beholden to us. There is no rationality to this response but only wounded pride.
For myself, and probably a few others here, we take issue with God's punishment as being some form of justice. We as humans have evolved a sense of justice and condemning someone to eternal suffering for one act in a litany of seemingly insignificant acts offends that sense of justice. Furthermore, it becomes insulting when someone dismisses our umbrage with reasoning that God works on a different level. It's that justification that has been used throughout history to allow some people to rationalize brutality against others. Perpetuating that attitude, and not any sense of pride, is what gets me riled up.
Of course. Because we understand, correctly, that all human beings have intrinsically the same worth, regardless of their abilities or genetics or economic position. That they are "created equal," as our Declaration of Independence states.
It does not follow necessarily that all sentient beings are created equal. Suppose there were a sentient planet -- a genuine Gaia figure -- whose continued life made possible the life of other (human scale) sentient beings that walked upon her surface. Would not her life be intrinsically more precious than the life of humanoids?
No. You've missed the point of assigning intrinsic value in the first place. A farmer nourishes hundreds or even thousands with the fruit of his fields. Is he then more valuable than those hundreds or thousands? No -- not just because he happens to be the same species as them, but because a being's intrinsic worth is not decided by what he can do for you, how much he produces, or how valuable you perceive him to be. Those things are all extrinsic. The point of assigning intrinsic value is to avoid a universe where those who are perceived to be of less value are trodden upon as a result of nonsense like this proposed concept of justice.
Incidentally, I learned this in part from the example of Christ, who I expect would be the very last person to endorse this twisted notion, if his Biblical character is any indication.
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A limit of time is fixed for thee
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
though I do sincerely hope that one day (not to say I am faultless on this point) you will learn to be gracious in your disagreements with people. Good day.
Funny, here I thought you preferred the open proclamation of harsh truths to someone who sugarcoats things.
Or are you learning to acknowledge that everyone seeks mercy when they are in the wrong?
The point is that God doesn't owe us anything, though we owe Him our very existence; and if He were to destroy the world He would be guilty of nothing more than a playwright who crumbled up a script because he found his characters unsatisfying, or a computer programmer who pulled the plug on a simulation. And we especially hate to hear talk like this. Atheists have no problem professing (based on the apparent evidence of the cosmos) that human beings are profoundly, mind-bogglingly insignificant; yet they take it as a personal offense when Christians assert that God is not beholden to us. There is no rationality to this response but only wounded pride.
No, the claim is not that God is beholden to us. YOUR claim is that God is just and that God is loving. Yet, you are also claiming the existence of hell, which is irreconcilable with justice or love.
Consider a nurse. An infant kicks her, or cries at her, or grabs at her. What does the nurse do? Abandon the child? Cause the child harm? She does neither, else she would be judged a terrible nurse. She instead continues to treat the child gently.
Is the goodness of God exceeded by that of a human nurse? Is the love of God exceeded by the love of a human nurse? If not, how terribly do you slander God, by presuming him to harm his children out of spite.
I apologize; I cannot keep answering questions here at the present. I have frankly gotten in over my head. My own thoughts on the matter of hell are not sufficiently clear and well-ordered to make any sort of reasonable defense of the doctrine, especially to people who do not even accept the existence of God as an axiom. When I get all my ducks in a row I may make another attempt.
One thing I can say with absolute certainty is this: I am convinced that God's whole point in making us was to increase the size of the Divine Family. "He became what we are so that he might make us what he is." (Athanasius of Alexandria)
In this mortal life, we can show ourselves to be true Sons and Daughters of the Father by treating one another with the utmost respect and compassion and graciousness; by acting towards flawed mortals as if they were in fact radiant gods. Then after we die "the perishable shall be raised imperishable," and God will joyously welcome us into His household. But there will be people who go through life simply using and abusing and despising their fellow human beings, or defiling themselves with merely animal pleasures, growing obese or addicted or sexually exhausted without a thought towards transcendence. They will not inherit a greater life who ***** on this life. They will not see God's face who can barely stand to look at the faces of their brothers and sisters.
So I am convinced that for some there must be a place of separation or dismissal, a hell. But that word and that idea are freighted with two thousand years worth of baggage that my shoulders are not strong enough to bear up under. Again, I am sorry.
One last thing, though: thank you very much, Crashing00, for pointing out my misuse of the term "intrinsic worth." The correct statement for a Christian, I believe, would be that only God has intrinsic worth; the worth of everyone and everything else is whatever God has imputed to it.
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Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
One thing I can say with absolute certainty is this: I am convinced that God's whole point in making us was to increase the size of the Divine Family. "He became what we are so that he might make us what he is." (Athanasius of Alexandria)
Then why reject people?
In this mortal life, we can show ourselves to be true Sons and Daughters of the Father by treating one another with the utmost respect and compassion and graciousness
Have you done so?
Do you feel that advocating that someone be tortured for all of eternity, getting up set at the idea that someone would not suffer unspeakable agonies forever is respect or compassion or grace?
But there will be people who go through life simply using and abusing and despising their fellow human beings
Yes, there will be people who despise their fellow human beings.
Are you not one of them?
So I am convinced that for some there must be a place of separation or dismissal, a hell.
Love does not dismiss.
But that word and that idea are freighted with two thousand years worth of baggage that my shoulders are not strong enough to bear up under.
Oh, come off it. You're not Jesus.
One last thing, though: thank you very much, Crashing00, for pointing out my misuse of the term "intrinsic worth." The correct statement for a Christian, I believe, would be that only God has intrinsic worth; the worth of everyone and everything else is whatever God has imputed to it.
Yes, that is true. But you missed the point.
Nobody deserves heaven. Nobody deserves God's love. Nobody deserves love of any kind. And it's not a matter of whether or not we're horrible or whatever, it's that you can't "deserve" love. That's not how love works. It's not a transaction. It's not that I do this and therefore I deserve love. Anyone who speaks of "deserving" love doesn't know what love is.
Love is a gift. Love is offered freely. It's not about what one does, it's about who one is. And indeed the truest love is the love that is offered without any conditions, without thought of anything in return.
At the heart of Christianity is that it is impossible for man to be anything other than flawed, but that God offers his love anyway, not because we're perfect, not because we're anything other than ****ed up, but because God loves us anyway. Because God so loves the world.
You say it's illogical or impossible for God to redeem the world. Why? Nothing is impossible for God. That's in the Bible. Why would an infinitely loving being that you say that God is only forgive some of the people of their sins and the rest instead condemn to eternal suffering when he could forgive all of them? You say we're all, as human beings, inherently sinful against God. How then does it make any sense to only redeem some and punish the rest if we're all guilty of being human equally together?
I'm just going to respond to the one thing you said that was actually worth saying. Not all the snarky one-liners where you continue to verbally degrade and belittle me, which is what you have a marked habit of doing in your conversations with anyone with whom you disagree, and which is why I find you to be the single most obnoxious regular poster on this forum and wish you would go the way of TIBA (just telling it like it is).
Nobody deserves heaven. Nobody deserves God's love. Nobody deserves love of any kind. And it's not a matter of whether or not we're horrible or whatever, it's that you can't "deserve" love. That's not how love works. It's not a transaction. It's not that I do this and therefore I deserve love. Anyone who speaks of "deserving" love doesn't know what love is.
Love is a gift. Love is offered freely. It's not about what one does, it's about who one is. And indeed the truest love is the love that is offered without any conditions, without thought of anything in return.
At the heart of Christianity is that it is impossible for man to be anything other than flawed, but that God offers his love anyway, not because we're perfect, not because we're anything other than ****ed up, but because God loves us anyway. Because God so loves the world.
Yes, this is all true. This is well said. Jesus was adamant about God's love for the world. His teachings on the matter are breathtaking.
He was also adamant about the reality of hell. And you say to me, "Oh, come off it, you're not Jesus," when you're the one trying to one-up Jesus by insisting that no righteous person could possibly believe such an abominable thing.
You call yourself a Christian, and yet you not only cherry-pick your way through the Bible at large (which, yes, I also do); you pick and choose which parts of the thoroughly attested personage of Jesus you like and sweep the rest under the rug. That is disingenuous in the extreme; in such a case we might as well praise Hitler for his love of animals while ignoring all the racist, warmongering and genocidal parts of his person.
So, right... plank out of eye and all that.
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Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
I'm just going to respond to the one thing you said that was actually worth saying. Not all the snarky one-liners where you continue to verbally degrade and belittle me, which is what you have a marked habit of doing in your conversations with anyone with whom you disagree, and which is why I find you to be the single most obnoxious regular poster on this forum and wish you would go the way of TIBA (just telling it like it is).
Pointing out the fact that running around saying that you want people to be condemned to suffering for all of eternity while at the same time saying we should all have love and forgiveness and compassion for one another makes you a hypocrite isn't a snarky one-liner. It's a basic fact. And it becomes noticeable when you accuse others of hypocrisy.
Now you could honestly address that issue, but you haven't done that. You've instead opted for trying to dance around or dodge the issue, and when it was clear I wouldn't let you do that, you've opted now for arrogant dismissal and ad hominem arguments, as though attempting to portray me as atheist Hitler would somehow make the holes in your argument go away.
You call yourself a Christian, and yet you not only cherry-pick your way through the Bible at large (which, yes, I also do);
... So, what did you accomplish by bringing this up?
Do you actually object to my not taking everything in the Bible as automatically true? Well, correct, of course I don't. Why would I?
Also, I resent the term "cherry-picking." I don't go through the Bible searching for passages that agree with me and then refusing to acknowledge the ones that disagree with me. I attempt to recognize what the books of the Bible meant in the context of the time, place, and religious tradition of the people who wrote it.
you pick and choose which parts of the thoroughly attested personage of Jesus
"Thoroughly attested?"
you like and sweep the rest under the rug. That is disingenuous in the extreme;
No I do not. I readily recognize that Jesus and I had differences of belief. Exactly where we differ, I'm not sure, because we don't have any records of what Jesus actually taught from either Jesus or anyone who was there, but I think it's safe to say we disagree on several issues.
in such a case we might as well praise Hitler for his love of animals while ignoring all the racist, warmongering and genocidal parts of his person.
So because I disagree with you, I'm a Nazi? Really now?
So, right... plank out of eye and all that.
What, you make a post with ad homs instead of addressing the legitimate concerns I have about your argument and you pat yourself on the back like you accomplished something?
How's about actually addressing this part that you, conveniently, did not quote?
Quote from Highroller »
You say it's illogical or impossible for God to redeem the world. Why? Nothing is impossible for God. That's in the Bible. Why would an infinitely loving being that you say that God is only forgive some of the people of their sins and the rest instead condemn to eternal suffering when he could forgive all of them? You say we're all, as human beings, inherently sinful against God. How then does it make any sense to only redeem some and punish the rest if we're all guilty of being human equally together?
This thread brings up another thing I dislike about Christianity: the tendency to argue the most minute detail among it's adherents. Humans do like to argue about more than religion but it's just one more barrier in the constant us vs. them nonsense we've been dealing with for ages.
I see people arguing over the Bible and what they should get out of it and it upsets me. There are only 3 things to consider: the text, your interpretation of the text, and everyone else's interpretation of the text. The writers of the Bible are dead and so they aren't here to give us context or tell us who is right or wrong. So at best you are making suppositions based on religious tradition and your own spiritual, educational, and cultural background. Remember, each prisoner in Socrates' cave thinks himself to be the best at interpreting the shadows cast by the firelight and that what they see is the sum of the thing, because all they've ever seen are shadows.
There's no evidence to suggest one religion (or lack of) is correct over the other so I stopped caring about religion from early on, and if there's a god somewhere he's probably understanding if he is all knowing, and if he's going to punish me eternally for not showing my devotion to him, he's an illogical dick and a tyrant. I think most religions are fairly reasonable in that they teach a system in how to live your life rather than trying to broker you a promise to living forever or save you from eternal suffering or whatever.
The only single thing I might dislike about modern Christianity is its influence on American politics. You can say people will do the same based on whatever beliefs they might hold, but they are basically unseen compared to Christians who have such a loud voice in certain regions of the country. It turns a lot of debates from "This is reasonable to some degree" to "It is said in this book that..."
Pointing out the fact that running around saying that you want people to be condemned to suffering for all of eternity while at the same time saying we should all have love and forgiveness and compassion for one another makes you a hypocrite isn't a snarky one-liner. It's a basic fact. And it becomes noticeable when you accuse others of hypocrisy.
There is no hypocrisy in my position. None. Yes, I believe there is a hell, and I want there to be a hell, and I want it to be as sparsely inhabited as possible. It is no different than wanting a maximum security prison to exist, as a judicial measure of last resort, while also hoping that very, very few people commit crimes deserving of incarceration there. How is there any hypocrisy or inconsistency in that?
"Thoroughly attested?"
Um... the gospels?
No I do not. I readily recognize that Jesus and I had differences of belief. Exactly where we differ, I'm not sure, because we don't have any records of what Jesus actually taught from either Jesus or anyone who was there, but I think it's safe to say we disagree on several issues.
Okay, so the gospels aren't good enough for you because they aren't eyewitness accounts. And even if they were they could've been embellished. Well, you can go one of two ways from there.
First, you can say that we ultimately can't know anything for sure about who Jesus was. In that case, why follow him? Why be the disciple of a straight up enigma? You might as well follow the teachings of Weegdorf Lukenburg, a medieval Bulgarian mystic who probably never existed, but then again he might've, because ultimately we can't be sure.
Alternatively, you could acknowledge that, in a culture steeped in oral tradition, at the very least the parables of Jesus were transmitted with a high degree of fidelity. Then, since Jesus told many different parables warning people of the danger of hell and describing the torment of those who go there, you would have to admit that Jesus really did believe in both a loving heavenly Father and hell. In which case, his moral worldview is more like mine, and crude and inferior relative to your own. And in that case, again, why follow him? For "a pupil is not above his teacher." (Luke 6:40)
So because I disagree with you, I'm a Nazi? Really now?
It was hyperbole meant to jar you into realizing the fallacy of your approach to Jesus. Guess it didn't stick.
How's about actually addressing this part that you, conveniently, did not quote?
Fine.
Quote from Highroller »
You say it's illogical or impossible for God to redeem the world. Why? Nothing is impossible for God. That's in the Bible. Why would an infinitely loving being that you say that God is only forgive some of the people of their sins and the rest instead condemn to eternal suffering when he could forgive all of them? You say we're all, as human beings, inherently sinful against God. How then does it make any sense to only redeem some and punish the rest if we're all guilty of being human equally together?
Actually, the Bible does say that some things are impossible for God; most specifically He cannot violate His own holy nature. For example, Titus 1:2 tells us that God cannot lie.
Now as to forgiveness: as I mentioned earlier, forgiveness is not the same as redemption or reconciliation. Forgiveness removes the offense of our brokenness; redemption restores us to wholeness. God has forgiven everyone on the cross, whereby He says, "Your sins do not turn me away from you; I am willing and eager to make you whole and welcome you home." But then the ball is in our court; for we must accept God's offer of reconciliation. If we refuse, He cannot redeem us without violating our agency or overriding our free will. If God removes our capacity for self-creation, then He goes against Himself, for the Creator created us in his own image.
Remember the parable of the prodigal son? The Father was overjoyed when the prodigal came home; but the prodigal had to make that choice of his own volition.
Bitsy:
While I can sympathize with what you're saying, the matter at stake here is hardly "the most minute detail." Yes, Protestants arguing with Catholics about the nature of the Eucharist is silly. Even arguments about Creationism vs. theistic evolution are in some sense frivolous (though potentially impactful to public education). But the nature of God's character, His love, the ultimate fate of human souls... these are significant things. You are right to suggest that we should be humble in handling them. I need to do better on that point.
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Love. Forgive. Trust. Be willing to be broken that you may be remade.
My main reason for still believing in God in some form is this. At some point, someone or something had to have started everything. The Big Bang had to have happened somehow. And even if there were universes before the Big Bang, they had to start somehow. The only thing that I can think of that would be capable of this would be God. So I believe in God existing.
So an unmoved mover. To prevent this from being turtles all the way down, why does the universe in this case require God? In other words, why ascribe the universe to God instead of just letting the universe be the "prime mover"?
Because then you have to ask what created the universe. Since spontaneous creation of matter is not a natural thing, it has to be supernatural. Which means that it has to be a supernatural power, a "God" of some sort.
My main reason for still believing in God in some form is this. At some point, someone or something had to have started everything. The Big Bang had to have happened somehow. And even if there were universes before the Big Bang, they had to start somehow. The only thing that I can think of that would be capable of this would be God. So I believe in God existing.
So an unmoved mover. To prevent this from being turtles all the way down, why does the universe in this case require God? In other words, why ascribe the universe to God instead of just letting the universe be the "prime mover"?
Because then you have to ask what created the universe. Since spontaneous creation of matter is not a natural thing, it has to be supernatural. Which means that it has to be a supernatural power, a "God" of some sort.
What if it just always existed? Why does there have to be a beginning? What if it just always was?
Pointing out the fact that running around saying that you want people to be condemned to suffering for all of eternity while at the same time saying we should all have love and forgiveness and compassion for one another makes you a hypocrite isn't a snarky one-liner. It's a basic fact. And it becomes noticeable when you accuse others of hypocrisy.
There is no hypocrisy in my position. None. Yes, I believe there is a hell, and I want there to be a hell, and I want it to be as sparsely inhabited as possible. It is no different than wanting a maximum security prison to exist, as a judicial measure of last resort, while also hoping that very, very few people commit crimes deserving of incarceration there. How is there any hypocrisy or inconsistency in that?
Firstly, maximum security prisons don't (or at least aren't supposed to) indefinitely torture every inhabitant. Even if they did, a maximum security prison has two purposes. One is to reform the inhabitants; Hell gives no opportunity for reformation. The other is to protect the rest of society from the actions of the inhabitants - but even if this separation is necessary after death, it need not be eternal torture.
That's the thing about your conception of Hell; it's inconsistent with the portrayal of the Christian God as loving and merciful, because it's the infliction of eternal torture for no purpose.
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I am willing to bet my collection that Frozen and Solid are not on the same card. For example, Frozen Tomb and Solid Wall.
If Frozen Solid is not reprinted, you are aware that I'm quoting you in my sig for eternity?
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Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
I find reality to be rather complex in my experience; and I feel that any religion which is true to reality will also necessarily be rather complex -- though perhaps the perceived complexity and nuance of anything depends much on the mind that engages it.
I would question the assertion that Judaism is "comparably simple," as I have studied enough of it to know that there is a distinction (and contentious relationship) between written Torah and oral Torah; that the vast exegesis of the rabbis is not for nothing; and that the need for explaining how "God's chosen people" have been the subject of such grave historical misfortunes is at least as theologically thorny as, say, the doctrine of the Trinity.
That did not touch the problem at all.
So if I understand this correctly, when you think of someone who wouldn't torture their child for an eternity, your first thought is, "Pfft, what a helicopter parent?"
You love those false dichotomies don't you?
So you want people to suffer infinite agony for all of eternity.
Now do you see if you had just freaking admitted that, we could have saved two pages worth of denial from you?
Well, yes. Because you're advocating something morally unconscionable and being hypocritical on top of it. Were you expecting applause?
Well, you could not want people to suffer. That's entirely doable. It's called loving and forgiving people.
Or at least not being a dick.
Well, Christianity came out of a school of Judaism that emphasized apocalyptic eschatology. So some of those (hell, fallen angels, eternal judgment) do stem from Judaism. It was a predominantly Jewish movement early on. Remember that Judaism has a long, long history of differing interpretations.
Though it'd be hard to find a simpler religion than deism.
If I may ask, what lead you to deism? If I understand correctly, you believe there is a God, but that God's involvement in the world ended at the moment he created the universe, and now he's not involved and just lets everything run its course. If this is the case, my question becomes what convinced you that God was involved at the creation of the world, if you do not feel God's involvement elsewhere?
While I admit that Judaism is very complicated, Christianity just seems much more so (though I do admit that many of those illogical contradictions within Judaism are what have made me become a deist).
While this is true, if you go mainly by what is in the bible and the rabbis' interpretations, there isn't much that leads to those things within Judaism. And much of that was from retroactive changes withing Judaism in Christian-dominated areas.
My main reason for still believing in God in some form is this. At some point, someone or something had to have started everything. The Big Bang had to have happened somehow. And even if there were universes before the Big Bang, they had to start somehow. The only thing that I can think of that would be capable of this would be God. So I believe in God existing. However, I am unable to view see God as interfering in life after that. Almost everything else can be explained by science.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
There's a fair number of things that make Christianity unacceptable to me, but this one is definitely in the top ten.
Infinite torment for finite crimes.
If Christianity incorporated reincarnation, so that Hell was a lesson you learned about your life before you embarked on your new one, I could understand that. If Hell were a Purgatory, where once you understood the magnitude of your crimes and sincerely repented, you would be accepted into Heaven, I could understand that. But infinite, pointless suffering without reprieve isn't loving. It's not justice. It's pure, petty, revenge. That's the decree of a petty tribal war deity, not the wise, loving deity that Christians proclaim.
Define "finite crimes."
Certainly, we can only commit crimes for the duration of our mortal lives. But observe that the severity of a crime has nothing to do with how long is spent in the commission of that crime. An embezzling scheme could take months to enact; a murder could be done in seconds, yet it would be the far more heinous crime.
Observe, further, that the severity of a crime is tied to the stature of the offended party. If you exterminate a whole hive of ants, that would not be considered a crime except perhaps in the extremely strict Jain religion. If you maliciously kill a cat or a dog, you could receive a sentence of some months for animal cruelty. If you commit arson and burn down the house of another person then, even if no one is hurt, you could expect to spend years in prison.
What, then, of crimes committed against God? What is the appropriate penalty for crimes against a being of infinite stature and significance?
You might say, "But surely nothing we do could actually harm God." True; but we accept the principle of mens rea ("guilty mind") in all our judicial dealings. Suppose you had a gun and fired it at me, meaning to kill me; but unbeknownst to you it was loaded with blanks. Or suppose you fired bullets at me but there was an intervening pane of bulletproof glass. In either case, though your deed could not actually harm me, yet you would be charged with attempted murder.
Without proposing a "therefore," I would simply ask you to carefully consider these points.
What? Ants, dogs, and cats are not sentient. Amongst sentient beings, a justice system that handed out disproportionate protection and punishment based on "stature" would, I think, rightly be called corrupt and unjust. When poor people are punished more swiftly and severely for crimes against rich people, or black people against white people, or anything of the sort -- we deplore it, do we not?
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
Certainly, if I killed (or tried to kill) God, I would expect his dying vengeance to be terrible.
Observe, though, that in our justice system, the punishment is, in theory, proportional to the harm done by the crime. Which crimes do you consider worthy of an eternity of agony? The Infernal threshold appears to vary depending on your flavour of Christianity. For example, as I understand Catholicism, dying without confessing a mortal sin would send you downward, unless you're perfectly sorry (rather than just imperfectly sorry). According to wikipedia, the Church doesn't provide a list of which sins are mortal, but on its list of 'grave' sins, along with the usual suspects, are such winners as masturbation, contraception and cheating at games (unless the damage is unusually light).
As you observe, we can't actually harm God. So the penalty for harm done against a being who can't be harmed should presumably be minimal. As for attempted <crime>, (I am not a lawyer) I believe that the accused must have a clear intent to perform the crime, and/or have made substantial preparation towards it - but again, this is God, so are we talking about forging some kind of Godslaying sword and poking it at the air hopefully? Claiming that sin harms God is a bit of a stretch - disappoints him, possibly, makes him angry, that too, but harm is unlikely.
And punishment without the intention of teaching and reformation - and that's what eternal damnation is - is just petty vengeance. God - and the world in general - gains nothing from it except childish satisfaction. Do the people in Heaven get to sit on clouds and point at the damned and go HA-ha?
So an unmoved mover. To prevent this from being turtles all the way down, why does the universe in this case require God? In other words, why ascribe the universe to God instead of just letting the universe be the "prime mover"?
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Of course. Because we understand, correctly, that all human beings have intrinsically the same worth, regardless of their abilities or genetics or economic position. That they are "created equal," as our Declaration of Independence states.
It does not follow necessarily that all sentient beings are created equal. Suppose there were a sentient planet -- a genuine Gaia figure -- whose continued life made possible the life of other (human scale) sentient beings that walked upon her surface. Would not her life be intrinsically more precious than the life of humanoids?
Well, one of the central points of Christianity is that God deliberately positioned Himself in such a way as we could kill Him; and that's just what we did. In the most gruesome way possible.
And, we would do it again. If Jesus were to have come in modern times, there are many nations where the state would publicly execute him or privately "disappear" him in short order. Even in Western democracies, he would be widely regarded by the authorities as a fanatic and a rabble rouser; and in due time he would be assassinated and many would breathe a sigh of relief and say, "Good riddance!" That's just how it goes when someone rocks the boat too much, especially when they prick peoples' consciences in the process.
Analogies of crime and punishment only extend so far. The salient point for Christianity is that we are all, in our natures, cut from the same cloth as the archetypal rebels Adam and Eve. We depose God from the throne of our hearts, preferring the gods of material success and pleasure. We salivate over and call "enlightened" any theory or philosophy that allows us to deny His existence. Or we claim to believe in and love Him while making Him a mouthpiece for our obviously carnal desires (as in the "prosperity gospel" preached by Joel Osteen and others). Ours is an adolescent race, in perpetual resistance to the discipline of a heavenly Father.
The point is that God doesn't owe us anything, though we owe Him our very existence; and if He were to destroy the world He would be guilty of nothing more than a playwright who crumbled up a script because he found his characters unsatisfying, or a computer programmer who pulled the plug on a simulation. And we especially hate to hear talk like this. Atheists have no problem professing (based on the apparent evidence of the cosmos) that human beings are profoundly, mind-bogglingly insignificant; yet they take it as a personal offense when Christians assert that God is not beholden to us. There is no rationality to this response but only wounded pride.
I suppose I am wandering in my speech here. You can respond as you wish; though if you're not willing to take seriously the idea of a God who is not only loving and just but sovereign, we might as well not waste one another's time.
For myself, and probably a few others here, we take issue with God's punishment as being some form of justice. We as humans have evolved a sense of justice and condemning someone to eternal suffering for one act in a litany of seemingly insignificant acts offends that sense of justice. Furthermore, it becomes insulting when someone dismisses our umbrage with reasoning that God works on a different level. It's that justification that has been used throughout history to allow some people to rationalize brutality against others. Perpetuating that attitude, and not any sense of pride, is what gets me riled up.
[card=Jace Beleren]Jace[/card] = Jace
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No. You've missed the point of assigning intrinsic value in the first place. A farmer nourishes hundreds or even thousands with the fruit of his fields. Is he then more valuable than those hundreds or thousands? No -- not just because he happens to be the same species as them, but because a being's intrinsic worth is not decided by what he can do for you, how much he produces, or how valuable you perceive him to be. Those things are all extrinsic. The point of assigning intrinsic value is to avoid a universe where those who are perceived to be of less value are trodden upon as a result of nonsense like this proposed concept of justice.
Incidentally, I learned this in part from the example of Christ, who I expect would be the very last person to endorse this twisted notion, if his Biblical character is any indication.
Which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind
It will go and thou wilt go, never to return.
Or are you learning to acknowledge that everyone seeks mercy when they are in the wrong?
No, the claim is not that God is beholden to us. YOUR claim is that God is just and that God is loving. Yet, you are also claiming the existence of hell, which is irreconcilable with justice or love.
Consider a nurse. An infant kicks her, or cries at her, or grabs at her. What does the nurse do? Abandon the child? Cause the child harm? She does neither, else she would be judged a terrible nurse. She instead continues to treat the child gently.
Is the goodness of God exceeded by that of a human nurse? Is the love of God exceeded by the love of a human nurse? If not, how terribly do you slander God, by presuming him to harm his children out of spite.
I apologize; I cannot keep answering questions here at the present. I have frankly gotten in over my head. My own thoughts on the matter of hell are not sufficiently clear and well-ordered to make any sort of reasonable defense of the doctrine, especially to people who do not even accept the existence of God as an axiom. When I get all my ducks in a row I may make another attempt.
One thing I can say with absolute certainty is this: I am convinced that God's whole point in making us was to increase the size of the Divine Family. "He became what we are so that he might make us what he is." (Athanasius of Alexandria)
In this mortal life, we can show ourselves to be true Sons and Daughters of the Father by treating one another with the utmost respect and compassion and graciousness; by acting towards flawed mortals as if they were in fact radiant gods. Then after we die "the perishable shall be raised imperishable," and God will joyously welcome us into His household. But there will be people who go through life simply using and abusing and despising their fellow human beings, or defiling themselves with merely animal pleasures, growing obese or addicted or sexually exhausted without a thought towards transcendence. They will not inherit a greater life who ***** on this life. They will not see God's face who can barely stand to look at the faces of their brothers and sisters.
So I am convinced that for some there must be a place of separation or dismissal, a hell. But that word and that idea are freighted with two thousand years worth of baggage that my shoulders are not strong enough to bear up under. Again, I am sorry.
One last thing, though: thank you very much, Crashing00, for pointing out my misuse of the term "intrinsic worth." The correct statement for a Christian, I believe, would be that only God has intrinsic worth; the worth of everyone and everything else is whatever God has imputed to it.
Have you done so?
Do you feel that advocating that someone be tortured for all of eternity, getting up set at the idea that someone would not suffer unspeakable agonies forever is respect or compassion or grace?
Yes, there will be people who despise their fellow human beings.
Are you not one of them?
Love does not dismiss.
Oh, come off it. You're not Jesus.
Yes, that is true. But you missed the point.
Nobody deserves heaven. Nobody deserves God's love. Nobody deserves love of any kind. And it's not a matter of whether or not we're horrible or whatever, it's that you can't "deserve" love. That's not how love works. It's not a transaction. It's not that I do this and therefore I deserve love. Anyone who speaks of "deserving" love doesn't know what love is.
Love is a gift. Love is offered freely. It's not about what one does, it's about who one is. And indeed the truest love is the love that is offered without any conditions, without thought of anything in return.
At the heart of Christianity is that it is impossible for man to be anything other than flawed, but that God offers his love anyway, not because we're perfect, not because we're anything other than ****ed up, but because God loves us anyway. Because God so loves the world.
You say it's illogical or impossible for God to redeem the world. Why? Nothing is impossible for God. That's in the Bible. Why would an infinitely loving being that you say that God is only forgive some of the people of their sins and the rest instead condemn to eternal suffering when he could forgive all of them? You say we're all, as human beings, inherently sinful against God. How then does it make any sense to only redeem some and punish the rest if we're all guilty of being human equally together?
It doesn't make sense, does it?
So why accept it as true?
I'm just going to respond to the one thing you said that was actually worth saying. Not all the snarky one-liners where you continue to verbally degrade and belittle me, which is what you have a marked habit of doing in your conversations with anyone with whom you disagree, and which is why I find you to be the single most obnoxious regular poster on this forum and wish you would go the way of TIBA (just telling it like it is).
Yes, this is all true. This is well said. Jesus was adamant about God's love for the world. His teachings on the matter are breathtaking.
He was also adamant about the reality of hell. And you say to me, "Oh, come off it, you're not Jesus," when you're the one trying to one-up Jesus by insisting that no righteous person could possibly believe such an abominable thing.
You call yourself a Christian, and yet you not only cherry-pick your way through the Bible at large (which, yes, I also do); you pick and choose which parts of the thoroughly attested personage of Jesus you like and sweep the rest under the rug. That is disingenuous in the extreme; in such a case we might as well praise Hitler for his love of animals while ignoring all the racist, warmongering and genocidal parts of his person.
So, right... plank out of eye and all that.
Now you could honestly address that issue, but you haven't done that. You've instead opted for trying to dance around or dodge the issue, and when it was clear I wouldn't let you do that, you've opted now for arrogant dismissal and ad hominem arguments, as though attempting to portray me as atheist Hitler would somehow make the holes in your argument go away.
... So, what did you accomplish by bringing this up?
Do you actually object to my not taking everything in the Bible as automatically true? Well, correct, of course I don't. Why would I?
Also, I resent the term "cherry-picking." I don't go through the Bible searching for passages that agree with me and then refusing to acknowledge the ones that disagree with me. I attempt to recognize what the books of the Bible meant in the context of the time, place, and religious tradition of the people who wrote it.
"Thoroughly attested?"
No I do not. I readily recognize that Jesus and I had differences of belief. Exactly where we differ, I'm not sure, because we don't have any records of what Jesus actually taught from either Jesus or anyone who was there, but I think it's safe to say we disagree on several issues.
So because I disagree with you, I'm a Nazi? Really now?
What, you make a post with ad homs instead of addressing the legitimate concerns I have about your argument and you pat yourself on the back like you accomplished something?
How's about actually addressing this part that you, conveniently, did not quote?
I see people arguing over the Bible and what they should get out of it and it upsets me. There are only 3 things to consider: the text, your interpretation of the text, and everyone else's interpretation of the text. The writers of the Bible are dead and so they aren't here to give us context or tell us who is right or wrong. So at best you are making suppositions based on religious tradition and your own spiritual, educational, and cultural background. Remember, each prisoner in Socrates' cave thinks himself to be the best at interpreting the shadows cast by the firelight and that what they see is the sum of the thing, because all they've ever seen are shadows.
The only single thing I might dislike about modern Christianity is its influence on American politics. You can say people will do the same based on whatever beliefs they might hold, but they are basically unseen compared to Christians who have such a loud voice in certain regions of the country. It turns a lot of debates from "This is reasonable to some degree" to "It is said in this book that..."
There is no hypocrisy in my position. None. Yes, I believe there is a hell, and I want there to be a hell, and I want it to be as sparsely inhabited as possible. It is no different than wanting a maximum security prison to exist, as a judicial measure of last resort, while also hoping that very, very few people commit crimes deserving of incarceration there. How is there any hypocrisy or inconsistency in that?
Um... the gospels?
Okay, so the gospels aren't good enough for you because they aren't eyewitness accounts. And even if they were they could've been embellished. Well, you can go one of two ways from there.
First, you can say that we ultimately can't know anything for sure about who Jesus was. In that case, why follow him? Why be the disciple of a straight up enigma? You might as well follow the teachings of Weegdorf Lukenburg, a medieval Bulgarian mystic who probably never existed, but then again he might've, because ultimately we can't be sure.
Alternatively, you could acknowledge that, in a culture steeped in oral tradition, at the very least the parables of Jesus were transmitted with a high degree of fidelity. Then, since Jesus told many different parables warning people of the danger of hell and describing the torment of those who go there, you would have to admit that Jesus really did believe in both a loving heavenly Father and hell. In which case, his moral worldview is more like mine, and crude and inferior relative to your own. And in that case, again, why follow him? For "a pupil is not above his teacher." (Luke 6:40)
It was hyperbole meant to jar you into realizing the fallacy of your approach to Jesus. Guess it didn't stick.
Fine.
Actually, the Bible does say that some things are impossible for God; most specifically He cannot violate His own holy nature. For example, Titus 1:2 tells us that God cannot lie.
Now as to forgiveness: as I mentioned earlier, forgiveness is not the same as redemption or reconciliation. Forgiveness removes the offense of our brokenness; redemption restores us to wholeness. God has forgiven everyone on the cross, whereby He says, "Your sins do not turn me away from you; I am willing and eager to make you whole and welcome you home." But then the ball is in our court; for we must accept God's offer of reconciliation. If we refuse, He cannot redeem us without violating our agency or overriding our free will. If God removes our capacity for self-creation, then He goes against Himself, for the Creator created us in his own image.
Remember the parable of the prodigal son? The Father was overjoyed when the prodigal came home; but the prodigal had to make that choice of his own volition.
Bitsy:
While I can sympathize with what you're saying, the matter at stake here is hardly "the most minute detail." Yes, Protestants arguing with Catholics about the nature of the Eucharist is silly. Even arguments about Creationism vs. theistic evolution are in some sense frivolous (though potentially impactful to public education). But the nature of God's character, His love, the ultimate fate of human souls... these are significant things. You are right to suggest that we should be humble in handling them. I need to do better on that point.
Not going to debate the nature of God, but that one can just as easily be chalked up to pure semantics. God can't lie because he is The Truth.
Because then you have to ask what created the universe. Since spontaneous creation of matter is not a natural thing, it has to be supernatural. Which means that it has to be a supernatural power, a "God" of some sort.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
What if it just always existed? Why does there have to be a beginning? What if it just always was?
Firstly, maximum security prisons don't (or at least aren't supposed to) indefinitely torture every inhabitant. Even if they did, a maximum security prison has two purposes. One is to reform the inhabitants; Hell gives no opportunity for reformation. The other is to protect the rest of society from the actions of the inhabitants - but even if this separation is necessary after death, it need not be eternal torture.
That's the thing about your conception of Hell; it's inconsistent with the portrayal of the Christian God as loving and merciful, because it's the infliction of eternal torture for no purpose.