Figuring Out Religion

[Mountaineer]

I'm okay with the idea that Hitler wasn't a Christian, but it is still disturbing to think that he and millions of his victims will suffer side by side in Hell for all of eternity.

I once took a New Testament course at a Baptist college (as a side note, the Professor's name was "Dr. Lord").  It was an evening course and most of the people in the class were part time students who had full time jobs and really weren't all that engaged in the class as far as I could tell.

So the professor is going over the requirements for salvation and I thought I was just pointing out the obvious by saying something like: "So that means all Jewish people are going to Hell then, right?"

Suddenly the whole class was engaged.  I think some people might have imagined that I was getting at some kind of anti-Semitic point (which I wasn't doing at all).  I just thought that we would get this interesting topic out in the open and really untangle it, but instead it just seemed to piss everyone off, including the professor.  That always seemed like a strange response to a very legitimate topic of discussion in a New Testament class.

I should have told my disgruntled classmates to express their displeasure with me through the strength of their counter-arguments, rather than through their sour and vaguely menacing facial expressions, but I didn't fully appreciate at the time that a college classroom is often not the best place to discuss controversial ideas.

MT,

Good story about Dr. Lord!  You would have been a fun guy to be in class with.

Serious question.  Why does it disturb you that Jewish people (and do you mean the race or the the religion when you use the term Jewish) who do not "trust God's Word and believe" are going to Hell any more than any other race or religion that does not believe? 

It seems you may not think this is "fair" by man's standards (like the Job account) but I'd appreciate knowing a bit more on why.

God's Word says the Israelites were God's chosen people to bring a savior to the world and they did that.  The Israelite prophets had been predicting the coming of Jesus for hundreds (e.g. Isaiah), if not thousands (e.g. Psalms) of years.  They had the chance to believe that savior when he came, just like everyone else does.  Many did, many did not - just like the gentiles.  Anyway, that is why I'm asking the question.  Thanks.

... Mountaineer

[Kshartle]

I should have told my disgruntled classmates to express their displeasure with me through the strength of their counter-arguments, rather than through their sour and vaguely menacing facial expressions, but I didn't fully appreciate at the time that a college classroom is often not the best place to discuss controversial ideas.

Sometimes the interwebs are not the best place either

I think some people take a challenge of their belief system as an personal attack and they have to lash out to defend their sense of self. It makes them uncomfortable to see the reality of what they beleive in. They don't have time for legitimate counter-arguments because they don't have the emotional strength to really explore the issue honestly and see the contradictions. It would destroy the little bubble they live in. 

[Kshartle]

Serious question.  Why does it disturb you that Jewish people (and do you mean the race or the the religion when you use the term Jewish) who do not "trust God's Word and believe" are going to Hell any more than any other race or religion that does not believe? 

MT has his own reasons I'm sure but I think using Jews as his example is by far the most effective way to cut to the heart of the matter in a way that can't be avoided. Christians identify with Jews more than other religions or athiests because Christianty sprung from the Hebrews/Jews etc.

If he would have said Muslim or Athiest or Buddist or Hindu it would have been easy for the teacher to agree and move on. Jews are more of a "protected" group in our society in that if you are critical of a Jew or Jews you might quickly be labeled "anti-semite". You can attack every other religion and atheism and not be subject to the same reaction, almost like a pavlovian response. Even the fact that I'm writing this and saying the word Jew there might be those wondering if I'm an "anti-semite"....ask yourself why.......

[Mountaineer]

Serious question.  Why does it disturb you that Jewish people (and do you mean the race or the the religion when you use the term Jewish) who do not "trust God's Word and believe" are going to Hell any more than any other race or religion that does not believe? 

MT has his own reasons I'm sure but I think using Jews as his example is by far the most effective way to cut to the heart of the matter in a way that can't be avoided. Christians identify with Jews more than other religions or athiests because Christianty sprung from the Hebrews/Jews etc.

If he would have said Muslim or Athiest or Buddist or Hindu it would have been easy for the teacher to agree and move on. Jews are more of a "protected" group in our society in that if you are critical of a Jew or Jews you might quickly be labeled "anti-semite". You can attack every other religion and atheism and not be subject to the same reaction, almost like a pavlovian response. Even the fact that I'm writing this and saying the word Jew there might be those wondering if I'm an "anti-semite"....ask yourself why.......

K

Your response reminded me of my observation that the most intolerant people seem to be those who preach tolerance the loudest and are the quickest to label those who disagree with them.

Our cultural obsession with "political correctness" may well be our downfall 

... Mountaineer

[ns2]

Where does Neanderthal man fit into the Adam and Even/Garden of Eden narrative?  Was the Garden of Eden a paradise for Cro-Magnon man only?

Back when I was still trying my best to take the Bible literally I had to work hard at reconciling the kind of inconsistency with scientific evidence that you speak of.

The best I could come up with was the parallel universes idea that some physicists (I think even Steven Hawking) have played around with. What if being expelled from the garden of Eden was actually a transference into another parallel universe?

Today I just don't take the Genesis account literally. I think the story is loosely based on what was probably a real Adam and he lived in an irrigated desert, probably in present day Iraq. I don't think he was the father of the human race. 

Jewish rabbis don't even take the creation and flood accounts literally. I think they say the literal history begins around the time of Abraham. I'm not always down with that either (for example I don't think the sun literally stopped for Joshua, though there might have been some human reason for him to believe that it did).

[Kshartle]

Serious question.  Why does it disturb you that Jewish people (and do you mean the race or the the religion when you use the term Jewish) who do not "trust God's Word and believe" are going to Hell any more than any other race or religion that does not believe? 

MT has his own reasons I'm sure but I think using Jews as his example is by far the most effective way to cut to the heart of the matter in a way that can't be avoided. Christians identify with Jews more than other religions or athiests because Christianty sprung from the Hebrews/Jews etc.

If he would have said Muslim or Athiest or Buddist or Hindu it would have been easy for the teacher to agree and move on. Jews are more of a "protected" group in our society in that if you are critical of a Jew or Jews you might quickly be labeled "anti-semite". You can attack every other religion and atheism and not be subject to the same reaction, almost like a pavlovian response. Even the fact that I'm writing this and saying the word Jew there might be those wondering if I'm an "anti-semite"....ask yourself why.......

K

Your response reminded me of my observation that the most intolerant people seem to be those who preach tolerance the loudest and are the quickest to label those who disagree with them.

Our cultural obsession with "political correctness" may well be our downfall 

... Mountaineer

I believe that phenomenon is called projection. I think the many of the people who clamour for quotas to "Help" minorites are not-so-deep-down racist and they think people deserve different treatment based on skin color. What could be more racist?

I also think many of the people who claim we need to threaten people with violence if they don't send money to the poor is because not-so-deep-down they not charitable and assume everyone else is like them. My GF has some friends who are major recipiants of "state" aid and I have discussed the concept of taxes and such with them. They are strident that no one would give if they weren't forced to...completely absurd. When I explained how much more virtuous and better it would be if I could keep my money (buy things and employ others, invest in business to employ donate more to involuntary poor etc.) their reply was "what have you given to us?" Well, our entire group just got together and bought them a special-needs van (one is wheelchair bound), not to mention all the state money. Everyone who gave is clearly a greedy taxpayer who needs to be forced to help others.

Sorry for derailing off religion guys. This started to turn psychological a few posts ago.

[MediumTex]

Serious question.  Why does it disturb you that Jewish people (and do you mean the race or the the religion when you use the term Jewish) who do not "trust God's Word and believe" are going to Hell any more than any other race or religion that does not believe? 

MT has his own reasons I'm sure but I think using Jews as his example is by far the most effective way to cut to the heart of the matter in a way that can't be avoided. Christians identify with Jews more than other religions or atheists because Christianity sprung from the Hebrews/Jews etc.

If he would have said Muslim or Atheist or Buddhist or Hindu it would have been easy for the teacher to agree and move on.

That's mostly what I was thinking.

The significance of most Jewish people going to Hell under Christian theology is that Christianity is, according to Jesus, basically just a new and improved form of Judaism.  I am pretty sure that people back in Jesus's time would have have been even more offended by his message if he had told them that the ultimate effect of his ministry would be that vastly fewer Jews would be going to Heaven after he came compared to before he came.  From the Jewish perspective, what kind of "Savior" is that?  Jewish people might say that they were doing a lot better before he came when they had hundreds of years of guidance on how to get to Heaven, as opposed to a couple of years of preaching in rural areas by a peasant whose message wasn't even written down until several decades later.

When I look at Christianity and Judaism, it reminds me of a club for people with long beards that decides to start letting in people with fake beards as well.  After a while, however, the fake beard members of the long beard club take control of the organization and decide that it would make the club better if the members who had real beards were no longer permitted to belong to the club at all. 

If you wanted to point out the peculiar nature of having a group of people with fake beards running a long beard club, you wouldn't point to the clean-shaven people who weren't allowed to belong to the club; rather, you would point to the people who had founded the club who actually had long beards, but who were no longer allowed to belong to the club.

Judaism is where Christianity came from.  Jesus was Jewish.  A belief system that is based on Judasim, but which provides for eternal damnation for Jews who simply believe in traditional Judaism as described in the Old Testament is just odd to me.

Believe it or not, I really think that a lot of the things that I am pointing out are actually not arguments against Christianity, but rather arguments for Christianity without all of the baggage that has been added to it over the centuries.

[Gosso]

Christians are to humble their exterior, but also elevate their interior.  It is far more difficult for the common person to humble the exterior than it is for the clever person.  While the difficulty for the clever person is in elevation of the internal, which comes more easily to the common person.  I find a mainly intellectual religion lacking in joy, which is why I moved away from Stoicism and Zen.  GK Chesterton made the interesting point that Christian saints are typically painted with eyes that are wide open or full of compassion, while Buddhists are typically painted with closed and sleepy eyes.  If I have to choose then I'd go with the openness and compassion.

That is an interesting and very thoughtful take on religion, but it seems to cast religion as sort of like a spiritual health club, where the individual simply shops around for the one with the facilities, equipment and membership profile that is most appealing to him personally.

Jesus does say he has come for the poor and broken, which I think means the poor and broken in spirit.  Jesus is a of healer for the soul.

I'm okay with the idea that Hitler wasn't a Christian, but it is still disturbing to think that he and millions of his victims will suffer side by side in Hell for all of eternity.

I once took a New Testament course at a Baptist college (as a side note, the Professor's name was "Dr. Lord").  It was an evening course and most of the people in the class were part time students who had full time jobs and really weren't all that engaged in the class as far as I could tell.

So the professor is going over the requirements for salvation and I thought I was just pointing out the obvious by saying something like: "So that means all Jewish people are going to Hell then, right?"

Suddenly the whole class was engaged.  I think some people might have imagined that I was getting at some kind of anti-Semitic point (which I wasn't doing at all).  I just thought that we would get this interesting topic out in the open and really untangle it, but instead it just seemed to piss everyone off, including the professor.  That always seemed like a strange response to a very legitimate topic of discussion in a New Testament class.

I should have told my disgruntled classmates to express their displeasure with me through the strength of their counter-arguments, rather than through their sour and vaguely menacing facial expressions, but I didn't fully appreciate at the time that a college classroom is often not the best place to discuss controversial ideas.

Over the past few days I have been working my way through several YouTube lectures given by NT Wright, one of the leading New Testament scholars, and he has some interesting things to say about the current western incarnation of Christianity.  He believes that too much focus has been placed on faith and getting into Heaven which has drowned out all the other important aspects of the religion.  One could even say we have turned Heaven into an idol, and have forgotten what Christianity is all about, mainly love for Christ, joy and compassion.

Here is a quick video from NT Wright (3 minutes): http://youtu.be/vggzqXzEvZ0

If one wants to know how one of the top Christian apologists sees Hell then read through these quotes from CS Lewis.  I have a difficult time disagreeing with this version/vision of Hell.  Lewis also tells us that we cannot know what type of "deal" God has made with other religions or peoples, all we can know is that the path through Christ is likely the most secure.

Also, as far as I know Jewish people don't believe in Heaven or Hell, or care all that much about the afterlife.  Jewish religion is primary concerned with life on this Earth.

Traditional Judaism firmly believes that death is not the end of human existence. However, because Judaism is primarily focused on life here and now rather than on the afterlife, Judaism does not have much dogma about the afterlife, and leaves a great deal of room for personal opinion. It is possible for an Orthodox Jew to believe that the souls of the righteous dead go to a place similar to the Christian heaven, or that they are reincarnated through many lifetimes, or that they simply wait until the coming of the messiah, when they will be resurrected. Likewise, Orthodox Jews can believe that the souls of the wicked are tormented by demons of their own creation, or that wicked souls are simply destroyed at death, ceasing to exist. http://www.jewfaq.org/olamhaba.htm

[moda0306]

I think MT's point is pointing out something pretty important...

We are trained to think of life as a gift... but how much of a gift is any child/baby getting to be born and die at the age of 2 because he was beaten/shaken to death by his dead-beat stepdad, only to serve an eternity in hell because he hadn't "found Christ."

Meanwhile, someone who murdered said child, and who knows what other disgusting acts, but "found Christ" in prison, goes to heaven for eternity.

Well, if I'm going to hell anyway (as I haven't found Christ yet), or I'll be forgiven if I eventually do even after what I'm about to say, here goes...



If God really think giving a child "the gift of life" for a few days/months/years only to have them suffer eternity in hell is fair, then I say to him, "F*ck you, God.  These kids didn't ask for your 'gift,' and any sin you want to attribute to them because their great, great, great, great, great Gramma ate a f'king apple is bullsh!t if you think an eternity in hell is fair while the very person who took him out of this world before he could even 'find Christ' gets eternity in heaven."

If God truly is all-knowing, he would have seen these problems coming before he even created life, and since he made the rules, he has to bear full responsibility for the setup.  2 years of life and eternity in hell is no gift.  Any being who would design rules like that deserves  no respect from me.


So I guess what I'm saying is that, even though there is overwhelming evidence that all this self-referential bible-quoting to prove the bible is the word of God is probably just flat-out wrong, on the off-chance that our God TRULY IS the way Mountaineer describes, I guess I have to say, with little risk to myself, as I can always repent if I "find Christ," your God is an @sshole and doesn't deserve my respect.

I'm not calling you the same.  I'm not trying to be insulting.  I'm just explaining to you the "faith" in my own moral code that tells me that this is narcissistic behavior.... and simply stating that based on his "setup" for judgment, I don't respect Him.  (Keep in mind, I don't believe much of this is actually true).

Further, to examine this a bit further, if God truly is all-knowing and all-powerful, then creating life was infinitely simple to him.  He literally did not have to go through one ounce of true effort or strain to create us.  He didn't slave away doing anything.  He didn't spend billions of years trying to design the physical world, screwing up along the way, being frustrated with himself, but doing it anyway to create a set of "rules" that will guide life over millions of years.

He just "did it," on a whim.  And in doing so, if Xan and Mountaineer are correct has subjected billions and billions of unknowing children to "the gift of life" for a couple years, followed by eternity in hell.  He could have wrote the rules differently, but didn't.  He knew hell was going to exist, and that billions of people he gave his "gift" to were going to go there for eternity.

So by sacrificing absolutely NOTHING (since he's all-powerful), he has knowingly (since he's all-knowing) set up a system that sends children to eternal misery as payment for his "gift of life."

And for now... if I'm going down... I'm going to go down with his TRUE gift in-tact... not the "gift of life," but the gift of reason and the gift of a moral center, not to mention dignity... and I "reason" that if your God exists the way you say he does, that he's morally vacuous, and is just doing this for shits and giggles... so if I find out that you two are right, I hope I have the balls to stick my middle finger in the air and go down like a man.

Maybe that's the true test.... what if the TRUE test is reading the gospel and being able to identify the moral disaster that is his decision to give "the gift of life" at the cost of eternal damnation, and just call him what he would be... an @sshole.

Maybe that's the ticket into heaven... use the ACTUAL gift he gave us (reason, dignity, and a moral compass) to have the balls to call him on the BS, for all the happy words that he tries to send our way, and that this is the true ticket to salvation.

That's a move I could see a truly wise God pulling.

[moda0306]

I edited my post at the end there to be a bit less offensive, and a bit more interesting.

Sorry for getting a little raw with my positions.

[Kshartle]

If God truly is all-knowing, he would have seen these problems coming before he even created life, and since he made the rules, he has to bear full responsibility for the setup.  2 years of life and eternity in hell is no gift.  Any being who would design rules like that deserves  no respect from me.

Why is he responsible for it? Is it because he created it with his actions that he chose against a moral standard (that you can see and judge as right or wrong so surely he can)? Sorry.....I haven't had the strength to re-visit the other thread. I haven't even read it since my last post there.

I probably agree with you about 99% on this. Mark the calendar.  I would say for me it's not a matter of whether or not I respect such a being though but more of....."does it make sense that such contradictions could exist in reality?"

[Kshartle]

I edited my post at the end there to be a bit less offensive, and a bit more interesting.

Sorry for getting a little raw with my positions.

I am a cronic editor. I always wait and see if anyone's snagged a quote too soon.

[moda0306]

Kshartle,

Remember, I agree with you that people (especially with the premise that this person... err... entity... is "all knowing" and "all-powerful"... not much ambiguity there) should be responsible for their actions.  I just can't prove that people have this moral obligation with deductive logic, and neither can you .  And further, and more importantly (since we agree on the principal), we've been placed in a moral dilemma by all being trapped on the same rock together, with other potentially-self-owned entities, competing for scarce resources to survive and prosper.

But, let's have this fight outside (this thread).  I'm going to kick your ass(umptions) so bad.

JK.

[Kshartle]

Kshartle,

Remember, I agree with you that people (especially with the premise that this person... err... entity... is "all knowing" and "all-powerful"... not much ambiguity there) should be responsible for their actions.  I just can't prove that people have this moral obligation with deductive logic, and neither can you .  And further, and more importantly (since we agree on the principal), we've been placed in a moral dilemma by all being trapped on the same rock together, with other potentially-self-owned entities, competing for scarce resources to survive and prosper.

But, let's have this fight outside (this thread).  I'm going to kick your ass(umptions) so bad.

JK.

I'll re-gather the strength. You slipped in some sentences here that I am DYING to.....let's say...clarify. But I'll refrain.

[moda0306]

If God truly is all-knowing, he would have seen these problems coming before he even created life, and since he made the rules, he has to bear full responsibility for the setup.  2 years of life and eternity in hell is no gift.  Any being who would design rules like that deserves  no respect from me.

Why is he responsible for it? Is it because he created it with his actions that he chose against a moral standard (that you can see and judge as right or wrong so surely he can)? Sorry.....I haven't had the strength to re-visit the other thread. I haven't even read it since my last post there.

I probably agree with you about 99% on this. Mark the calendar.  I would say for me it's not a matter of whether or not I respect such a being though but more of....."does it make sense that such contradictions could exist in reality?"

Kshartle,

I'm one for decision-trees, and I always like to give certain benefits of the doubt.  I think it's ridiculous to think our creator would have set things up the way Xan and Mountaineer describe (with all due respect to your faith, fellas), but I think it's fair to point out that if it truly is that way, God isn't anyone I am going to bow to.  He's simply a narcissist who wants people to bow to his name who put NO effort into creating us and KNEW that he was setting things up so billions of innocent people would go to hell for eternity in exchange for a bit of life.

And to think he gave us this internal moral compass and gift of reason and gift of choice to have us just bow to that kind of bullsh!t, because he created something that was infinitely simple for him?  I give my 8 year-old nephew more credit for trying hard at simple math and being nice to other kids than that God for how he has CHOSEN to set the game up, if that's the case.

All I'm saying is that it makes my decision easy... I'm either right, and I can reject this form of Christianity because it is simply not true, or I'm wrong, Mountaineer and Xan are correct, and I can do one of the following:

1) Betray the moral compass God has given me to earn a spot in heaven by bowing down to him and Christ as they send billions of children to hell (I say this because God is all-knowing and all-powerful in this example, so I believe he's fully responsible for hell, and the unfortunate fate those undeserving that go there) as "payment" for their short "gift of life."

2) Go down like a man, accept my fate in hell, but retain my moral dignity by calling a narcissist on his bullsh!t, and not bowing down to Him.

So it makes my decision pretty close to the same no matter what the conclusion is... though the possibility of a very DIFFERENT higher power is something I'll continue to explore.

[MediumTex]

RE C.S. Lewis's position that he can't know what deal God has made with other religions, that almost made me want to laugh out loud.

While it's certainly true that no one can know what deal God has made with other religion, it is also impossible to know for sure what deal God has made with your own religion (look at how many different interpretations of Christianity are out there), whether God has actually made a deal with any religion, or whether God even exists at all.  It's ALL a matter of faith, since God has apparently chosen not to reveal himself to us except through images of the Virgin Mary burned on pieces of toast, statues of her crying blood, etc.  If one were to say that God has actually revealed himself to us through all of creation, I would say fine, but that same creation is also the manifestation of many other deities as well.  For example, what would the Sun God say if someone were to say that the sun is a manifestation of God?  He might say: "Look, my sun franchise runs through the year 3,999, so could you maybe just pick something else in nature to cite as a manifestation of God?  I've already got the sun pretty well covered."

C.S. Lewis was a very smart man and a very good writer, but I think that many of his writings about Christianity sound better than they actually are simply because he was so good at crafting and telling a story.  When you really pick apart his arguments and reasoning, though, his logic is pretty tangled.  Ultimately, I came to see Lewis as basically a fellow who was very happy with how his religion made him feel, and he had a sincere desire to share that good feeling with others.

The problems I have with the kind of joy that C.S. Lewis was trying to share are the following:

(1) The joy often evaporates into a sense of guilt and anxiety over whether you are actually doing everything that God wants you to do in order to let you into Heaven.  In such cases, a person may come to live with so much guilt and anxiety that their religious experience can begin to literally shake them apart psychologically.

(2) The casual certainty that Lewis dangles in his writings simply isn't the day-to-day experience that most religious people have.  To the extent that the joy he writes about is contingent upon being able to develop the same sense of casual certainty about the truth of Lewis's brand of Christianity, then the failure to cultivate that degree of certainty can create much disillusionment and disappointment. 

[Kshartle]

If God truly is all-knowing, he would have seen these problems coming before he even created life, and since he made the rules, he has to bear full responsibility for the setup.  2 years of life and eternity in hell is no gift.  Any being who would design rules like that deserves  no respect from me.

Why is he responsible for it? Is it because he created it with his actions that he chose against a moral standard (that you can see and judge as right or wrong so surely he can)? Sorry.....I haven't had the strength to re-visit the other thread. I haven't even read it since my last post there.

I probably agree with you about 99% on this. Mark the calendar.  I would say for me it's not a matter of whether or not I respect such a being though but more of....."does it make sense that such contradictions could exist in reality?"

Kshartle,

I'm one for decision-trees, and I always like to give certain benefits of the doubt.  I think it's ridiculous to think our creator would have set things up the way Xan and Mountaineer describe (with all due respect to your faith, fellas), but I think it's fair to point out that if it truly is that way, God isn't anyone I am going to bow to.  He's simply a narcissist who wants people to bow to his name who put NO effort into creating us and KNEW that he was setting things up so billions of innocent people would go to hell for eternity in exchange for a bit of life.

And to think he gave us this internal moral compass and gift of reason and gift of choice to have us just bow to that kind of bullsh!t, because he created something that was infinitely simple for him?  I give my 8 year-old nephew more credit for trying hard at simple math and being nice to other kids than that God for how he has CHOSEN to set the game up, if that's the case.

All I'm saying is that it makes my decision easy... I'm either right, and I can reject this form of Christianity because it is simply not true, or I'm wrong, Mountaineer and Xan are correct, and I can do one of the following:

1) Betray the moral compass God has given me to earn a spot in heaven by bowing down to him and Christ as they send billions of children to hell (I say this because God is all-knowing and all-powerful in this example, so I believe he's fully responsible for hell, and the unfortunate fate those undeserving that go there) as "payment" for their short "gift of life."

2) Go down like a man, accept my fate in hell, but retain my moral dignity by calling a narcissist on his bullsh!t, and not bowing down to Him.

So it makes my decision pretty close to the same no matter what the conclusion is... though the possibility of a very DIFFERENT higher power is something I'll continue to explore.

If i believed then I would bow. I don't consider it moral or immoral at that point. If someone points a gun at me and tells me to punch someone in the face it's not immoral for me to do so anymore. Once the overwhelming violent threat is there it's not a moral question for me anymore. It's on the robber or whatever.

Burning in Hell forever is lot more serious than just getting shot and killed so that's the threat used to get people to do all kinds of nasty stuff. That and patriotic, collectivist appeals (the latter two are much more popular nowadays, and religious appeals are in practice collectivist). Funny no one ever has to threaten anyone to eat chocolate or go to the movies or listen to music or do anything they actually want to do.

[moda0306]

Kshartle,

Faced with eternal damnation, I'd probably bow as well.

But even if I accept EVERYTHING Xan and Mountaineer have said about God's message to us, the next thing I'd be wondering is whether it's really all a moral test to see if we're willing to stand up to a life in hell by saying, "God, you are wrong and are a narcissist for all of this."

So I'd still not be able to take it 100% seriously even if I DID hear Jesus/God speak to me through the Gospel.  There'd still be that nagging doubt that I'm actually falling into a trap that is costing me my ACTUAL spot in heaven, next to all the people who were just... well.. good people.

[MediumTex]

moda,

I think that your description of God is different from the way believers might describe him.

If God were the entity you are describing, I don't think that anyone would want to worship him.

What you seem to be saying is: "Since God is this basically unsavory character, it makes no sense to worship him."  You position, however, rests on the assumption that God is, in fact, an unsavory character, and I don't think that a religious person would agree with that.

Since we are ultimately talking about an abstraction, people are free to interpret it however they want.  One person may see a narcissistic God (moda), other people may see  a kind and loving God (Mountaineer), and still others might see a badass combat strategist God who provides supernatural help to determine winners in military conflicts (many tribes in the Old Testament, the Knights Templar, and George W. Bush).

[Kshartle]

Kshartle,

Faced with eternal damnation, I'd probably bow as well.

Yeah I mean the best you could hope for down there is a smoke break - ZING!

[Kshartle]

Youtube "Bible verses not read in church". There are five of them. Some are funnier than others. The opening song is an instant classic.

The one with the hill people is my favorite.

[moda0306]

Kshartle,

Faced with eternal damnation, I'd probably bow as well.

Yeah I mean the best you could hope for down there is a smoke break - ZING!

The company might not actually be that bad, either.  If the only test for getting into heaven is belief in Christ, then hell might be a bit better place to hang your hat.

Heaven for climate, hell for company, they say...

[MediumTex]

Kshartle,

Faced with eternal damnation, I'd probably bow as well.

Yeah I mean the best you could hope for down there is a smoke break - ZING!

I saw Christopher Hitchens in person in one of his God/No God debates a few months before he died, and he compared Christianity to North Korea in the sense that you can either believe a bunch of really odd things, or you can experience endless suffering.  Ultimately, people who choose to believe the odd things are frequently just doing it because they sincerely want to avoid the endless suffering.  As I thought about the profile of the average churchgoer in my part of the world, this point actually made a lot of sense.

It's sort of comical, but religious leaders have found that one of the best ways to get people into church in recent years has been to tell them that God wants for them to have more money, but before God will do that the people will have to give God some money, and he has chosen that particular church to collect the money for him.  This is a refreshing (or at least entertaining) departure from the North Korea model of fear and conformity, but it's still sort of unsettling.  I don't ever recall Jesus saying anything like "Take up your cross and follow me and we can go test-drive Escalades."

[Kshartle]

Youtube "Bible verses not read in church". There are five of them. Some are funnier than others. The opening song is an instant classic.

The one with the hill people is my favorite.

NM - that's not the right search. I can't look for it. Later. They are 3 min long or so and funny cartoons acting out some old testament stuff.

[Kshartle]

I don't ever recall Jesus saying anything like "Take up your cross and follow me and we can go test-drive Escalades."

Everyone knows Jesus would drive a Prius.

Sorry guys. That's my last blasphemy. I know it can be offensive deeply.