Christian/Atheist Compromise

It's worse than that. I've met elderly Christians who've NEVER given it a moment's mature thought. Not once.

 

In post #44 you wrote: "That would be akin to a Christian telling unbelievers they are destined for hell and there's no turning back. Jesus never does that..."

I produced a Bible verse that clearly says that Jesus cursed people and told them that they were going to hell. Now, since Jesus is supposed to be God and has the power to send people to hell are you saying that Jesus was lying? Can it be that you are ignorant about your favorite religious fairy tale and think that it says things that you want it to say instead of what it actually says?

Jesus promises to throw people into the lake of fire. He isn't interested in showing everyone love and mercy and forgiving them or in improving their conditions so that they can be "saved". He's a mean SOB. When he returns he will torture everyone to the point that even his fans will curse him (Revelation chapter 16).

I suggest you take some time to actually read and comprehend your favorite religious fairy tale. So get a pen and paper. Start reading and write down what you've read every couple of verses in your own words. Do that for each chapter and book. Then read what you've written. If you still believe what you now think you believe by the time you've read the whole Bible and summarized it in your own words your faith will be a hundred times stronger than it is now. But you also might reject all of it. So, do you have the guts to do that for yourself or are you just content to bitch at me?

 

So, just like all of the other billions of people who have claimed to have faith in Jesus over the last 2,000 years, you actually have zero faith in him. If you did you could do what he said you could do. You could even do more than what he did.
https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/John 14:12

Jesus is so disappointed because no one has ever had any faith in him. No wonder he's going to be ticked off and kill everyone and destroy the world when he returns.

 

Again, you have nothing positive to say about anything. Nothing to promote as good. With that said, you are almost hopeless, save for the Grace of God.
Hell is merely separation from God. As Jesus has said, it will be equivalent to a "lake of fire". Thing is, people like yourself, seem to desire that separation.....that is, I believe until you experience it.
We just had a man, the facebook killer, on a power trip. He killed an innocent elderly man to satisfy his lust. He showed it to the world..... that is until cornered by police, he realized his lust could no longer satisfy. That must be a contemporary picture of what hell is like. You may enjoy it since that is what you seem to desire (for a season anyway).
I have read and contemplated the entire Bible for years. I also listen to others of the same Spirit and learn. No man is an island to himself. It is a Rock of Offence to you and your desire seems to destroy it with your Pharisee type babel. That's been tried for centuries.

 

Jesus was a Pharisee, he believed in what they believed.

 

Jesus believed in the Spirit behind the law. He judges righteous judgement The Pharisees put their faith in the "letter" of the law. It wasn't enough for them so they added to it. Just like you do. Actually, the Pharisees were a society that Jesus, the Nazarene, was never a part of. Jesus summed up all of their laws in two. It destroyed their world!

 

Since you believe in the same things the Pharisees of old believed in you are also a Pharisee.

 

That is unquestionably true. But then of course the bible is laughingly inconsistant about god.

 

I sought out the entire word when I read the whole bible. It was so lacking that I am now atheist. I found a God that commits genocide, sanctions slavery, promotes misogyny, condones rape and threatens hell. Try reading the bible without the rose colored glasses.

 

So......you attribute those actions to God rather than the fallen nature of mankind? Perhaps you should starte in Geneses again and read it when God confronted Adam after Adam hid from God. God asked him "why are you hiding?" Adam said "I was naked and ashamed". God said "How did you know, did you eat of the apple"?

That is where it all started. Adam responded, " That women that YOU put here with me- SHE gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it.
Not only did Adam blame the women, but he blamed God. Perhaps that is the original sin rather than just eating the fruit. It is embedded in the nature of mankind. To blame others and blame God. God had given to man a "help mete" only because He saw Adam desired relationship. To that point, Adam's only relationship was with God. God only gave him women for good. Adam tainted his relationship with God by accusing Him. Our purpose here on earth is all about relationship.....including relationship with God.

It seems by blaming God, you only carry out that original sin. Perhaps you should re read the Bible and understand how mankind had the role in those actions you describe instead of pretending you know better than God.

 

Being that I was once as blindly indoctrinated as you are I understand somewhat why you cannot see just how ridiculous the whole apple and sin nonsense is.

Billions have had to suffer and supposedly be punished for eternity because one idiot ate a stupid apple. Can you not even remotely conceive the absurdity in this?

The Bible make Harry Potter sound normal and believable.

 

That idiot, Adam, exercised "choice". The God that created you to be your own person gave that same choice to you and me. I don't know any other possibility. In order to love there must be unlove. Your choice.

 

Excusing that the story is a myth and ridiculous, Adams choice does not justify the condemnation of all mankind. No human, no matter how bad, has or will ever deserve the punishment of eternal torment. It is not rational to believe that a man built a boat and housed the seed of all the animals alive today, to survive a worldwide flood. It is not rational to believe millions of people wondered in a desert for 40 years, being fed by a man in the clouds after crossing through a parted sea. It is not rational to believe that a man survived in the belly of a big fish for three days. It is not rational to believe fallen angels empregnated human women and bore Nephlium. It is not relational to believe an all knowing being created a man, put him in a garden with a tree of forbidding fruit, which leads to the destruction of billions of humans without knowing in advance the outcome. And, it is not rational to believe all this nonsense with 0 physical or verifiable evidence to support it.

 

It is also irrational to think God would inhabit the body of a lowly peasant from Galilee and die a horrifying death on a cross after being scourged when the people desired him to lead a rebellion instead. You've made your point. You believe you know better than God.

 

Got another lil tidbit of irrational. How rational is it to believe that a supernatural being would save the life of a man deemed the most righteous in a city who offered his daughters as sex slaves to crowd to save 2 angels?
Wait, it gets more bizarre. Then, his wife is turned to salt. Then, he gets drunk and is saducced by both daughters to impregnate them?

Bet you don't hear this preached from the pulpit.

 

Never with your self-righteous slant.

 

Sorry, are my standards of morality to high for you and your God?

 

..... a twisted self- righteous morality.

 

So, incest, slavery, genocide, mass rape, misogyny, stonings and eternal torment are not twisted? Have your cult pressure checked.

 

Religious dogma.

Yes, you have consistently demonstrated you can't think past your particular religious dogma.

Just not in any way you can demonstrate.

 

The problem could be one of interpretation. All of the biblical stories are designed to illustrate the Ten Commandments in Exodus 34:10-28. So when they are examined from that perspective they tend to make more sense. The Adam & Eve story isn't about eternal torment. They were forgiven with a few minutes.

 

Secular, Godless, "dogma". Mankind need redemption in spite of the fact you feel mankind is becoming "enlightened". You see death and destruction around you and say "we're learning". The Bible is about the "romance of redemption" and you refuse to go there. You've got it down in your own eyes. You may proceed.

 

..and believers do tell atheists that they will go to hell....believers do a lot of things Jesus wouldn't do....maybe not you but you aren't the only believer...

 

I am truly grieved and sorry for that. Mercy is in desperate need for all of mankind. Remember, even Believers were in rebellion at one time. We are all a work in process. Not perfect, just forgiven.

 

Which brings me to the "if believers are always forgiven" (and how they determine that is a mystery) why should they ever do anything right?