How, Exactly, Is Living An Average Life Wicked?

[Amethyst]

How exactly, is getting up in the morning, eating breakfast, going to work, and coming home from work, so horrible and terrible that we need to be saved? I harm no one by any of the activities I do on a day-to-day basis. I simply do not believe that living a normal life makes me so terribly evil and wicked that I deserve eternal torture. I know that I am a good person, despite what your religion says. I have, in short, self-esteem. And yet, that is exactly what the core tenet of Christianity is -- that by going through your day-to-day lives, you are horrible, awful, depraved, unclean, etc. and need saving from eternal torture. It promotes self hatred.

 

I believe that the vast majority of people are actually good. Or at least, they are so neutral that they cannot really be considered evil. Not like Hitler. Not like Saddam Hussein. Let's face it, the vast majority of people only break traffic laws. It's not like the average person is a thief, or a rapist, or a killer. And eternal torment for going 5 miles an hour over the speed limit seems a bit ridiculous, doesn't it?

 

And let's face it, eternal torment for a good person simply because they do not belong to the world's most popular religion seems just...well, a tad unfair. I mean, why should an average, ordinary person who grew up in say -- Asia -- be tortured forever simply because they were Buddhist because that is the belief system of their culture? So again -- I have yet to hear any Christian able to justify eternal torment for anyone who lives a normal life. I mean really. How cruel can you be, to justify torture, literally forever, to average people living average lives simply because they do not believe in *your* god? You have to be really, really cruel and depraved to do that. Or totally and completely brainwashed.

 

So let's hear, from the Christians, exactly why they want to keep the Christian label. Why fear eternal hellfire and damnation for leading average lives? When it would be so unfair and cruel, and your god is supposed to be kind and loving? How can you people honestly keep believing in this nonsense? Or are you like me when I went to church even though I disagreed with hell, and later realized that I could not honestly call myself a Christian because I could no longer believe in the hell doctrine? And if so, why then do you still cling to the Christian label? If it is for social acceptance -- and in my case it was -- can you at least not be honest with yourself and admit to yourself that you are agnostic or deist or atheist or whatever, even if you can't be honest with the people around you?

[Guest eejay]

Great post! I am anxious to hear the results, because the question you posed cuts through and gets to the exact point. I still think that the predominant answers you may get will still be the same old bs...because the bible says so. Or because we were born with 'original' sin. What the fuck is that? Original sin! What a clever way to chain us in early, because even as babies, we are eternally damned. Tells me a lot about their god. Anyway...standing by to see their answers.

[Dhampir]

We assign values to our transgressions, but to god, each one is the same as the all the others.

[Amethyst]

We assign values to our transgressions, but to god, each one is the same as the all the others.

 

Which makes it an inherently unjust system. And yet, the Christian god is supposed to be just.

[R. S. Martin]

According to my liberal Lutheran professor, being human is wicked. That being the case, your question is moot. Sorry if that makes you (and me) want to pull out our hair. The best way for me to cope with it is to turn off my heart and/or brain when it comes to these kinds of thoughts.

 

Let's see if any Christians dare confront us on this.

[whereelse]

The matter of wickedness as far as the Christianity goes has to do with offending God. Let me explain. You can be a pretty moral person according to our american morals that base morality on the degree you offend someone else, and still live a life of wickedness to God. You see the reason that the sins we all agree are horrible such as murder and rape are horrible because of the fact that the person being raped or murdered has value placed on them by God. The offense to person is terrible. The offense to the One who created that person is worse.

 

So it is with matters that do not directly hurt anyone else. The issue is how it affects God.

[Amethyst]

Ooh. A fundy!

 

So let me get this straight. Because a great, divine being is somehow offended by us living average daily lives, that somehow justifies him going, essentially on a temper trantrum and tormenting people for all of eternity? A good, kind, decent human being gets tortured forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever because an all-powerful being is offended by them living out their daily routines? Such cruely and depravity is *justified* because you honestly and truly believe that an all-powerful being is *offended* by say, a nice little old lady in China who *happens* to be Buddhist? Said little old lady gets tortured forever because being born in her culture *offended* your god?

 

Your god sounds an awful lot like a tyrant to me. Try again.

 

I will tell you my daily routine.

 

I get up in the morning. I go to work where I work on engineering documentation. I go home. That is pretty much it.

 

So I do not see, how by my very existence, I am such a horrible awful person. In fact, I know in my heart that I am a beautiful person, and a good and nice person, and not deserving of any torture at all.

 

You are totally and completely brainwashed.

[Astreja]

I contend that you cannot offend an omnipotent being, any more than a bacterium on a house sparrow in the next town can offend *me*.

 

If the god of the Bible is so easily offended by the everyday behaviour of beings it supposedly created and occasionally controls directly (e.g. Pharaoh), there's no pleasing the S.O.B. and no point in even trying.

 

Furthermore, it would seem that it's up to us puny mortals to lead the way in moral behaviour by condemning rape and murder... Biblegod really dropped the ball on that, too.

[Amethyst]

If the god of the Bible is so easily offended by the everyday behaviour of beings it supposedly created and occasionally controls directly (e.g. Pharaoh), there's no pleasing the S.O.B. and no point in even trying.

 

Biblegod reminds me an awful lot of the Goa'uld. I wonder...

[HuaiDan]

Allow me to play devil's advocate, w/o even summoning the christian god.

 

Have you ever been wronged and thought, "I wanna beat that person" or "I could just kill him/her"?, even if just a temporary flash of rage? Have you ever denied a beggar your pocket change, thinking "get a job!"? Did you do everything you could to prevent the Rwandan genocide? Assist the disaster victims in Myanmar and Sichuan, China? How many times have you passed up a starving stray animal, thinking, "I wish I could help, but I gotta get to work"? Have you ever felt jealous of a rival's success? Ever intentionally caused a loved one emotional pain because you were angry at him/her and wanted them to pay?

 

Everybody's a sinner. It's inescapable.

[Amethyst]

Allow me to play devil's advocate, w/o even summoning the christian god.

 

Have you ever been wronged and thought, "I wanna beat that person" or "I could just kill him/her"?, even if just a temporary flash of rage? Have you ever denied a beggar your pocket change, thinking "get a job!"? Did you do everything you could to prevent the Rwandan genocide? Assist the disaster victims in Myanmar and Sichuan, China? How many times have you passed up a starving stray animal, thinking, "I wish I could help, but I gotta get to work"? Have you ever felt jealous of a rival's success? Ever intentionally caused a loved one emotional pain because you were angry at him/her and wanted them to pay?

 

Everybody's a sinner. It's inescapable.

 

Thought crime is one of the many reasons I will never go back to Christianity. One does not deserve eternal torment for *thoughts*. As for crimes that do deserve torture -- mass murder and child rape are the only ones I can think of, and even then *eternal* torment is a bit overboard. Those are still finite length crimes. Let's say -- if you happen to be Adolf Hitler -- a year for each person killed in his cause. And even then, that's still a lot of torture.

 

I think the problem is that most people just can't comprehend what *eternal* means, and they justify it because they've been told since birth that it's true. And most people can't comprehend what true torture is, Biblical torture either. We hear a lot about waterboarding in the media these days. Biblical hell would be a thousand times worse.

 

And to believe that ordinary, average people get tortured forever? I simply cannot understand what, besides lifelong brainwashing, would make anyone accept such a thing.

 

I seriously doubt that 99.99% of those who go to church have volunteered overseas. I do give money to the Red Cross regularly. That is where my charitable contributions go.

 

As for animals...I've never seen any strays where I live. And I'm allergic to furry critters to the point where I might have an asthma attack if I am near them too long. But you're right, I suppose I would theoretically get eternal torture if I avoid an animal because I will have an allergy attack, according to Biblegod.

[HuaiDan]

Whether or not you deserve eternal torture for your crimes is a different issue. I'm just toying with the idea that we're all sinners.

 

And, while "thought crime" may be an unsavory notion regarding the power of state and the extent its control embodies, in the eyes (sic) of an omniscient creator our thoughts would be animalistic abominations.

 

 

I'm going full DA with this folks. Don't tell me we're created in his image, he's all-powerful enough to create perfect creations, contradictions in the free will argument, etc, I know already. The original post asked how we can all be sinners. I'm giving a hypothetical answer.

[Onyx]

Being yourself is not a sin but lording it over people is. That's what fundamentalism feel like to me. That it is power hungry and lacking any distinct morals.

[Kuroikaze]

The matter of wickedness as far as the Christianity goes has to do with offending God. Let me explain. You can be a pretty moral person according to our american morals that base morality on the degree you offend someone else, and still live a life of wickedness to God. You see the reason that the sins we all agree are horrible such as murder and rape are horrible because of the fact that the person being raped or murdered has value placed on them by God. The offense to person is terrible. The offense to the One who created that person is worse.

 

So it is with matters that do not directly hurt anyone else. The issue is how it affects God.

 

Why, please tell, would the all powerful creator of the universe bother with being offended at something I do?

 

How can the being who spoke the earth into existence be affected by anything I do?

 

How exactly could me questioning his existence posibly harm him any way at all? Doesn't the creator of the universe have better things to do that to worry about whether or not I believe in him?

[Ouroboros]

The matter of wickedness as far as the Christianity goes has to do with offending God. Let me explain. You can be a pretty moral person according to our american morals that base morality on the degree you offend someone else, and still live a life of wickedness to God. You see the reason that the sins we all agree are horrible such as murder and rape are horrible because of the fact that the person being raped or murdered has value placed on them by God. The offense to person is terrible. The offense to the One who created that person is worse.

 

So it is with matters that do not directly hurt anyone else. The issue is how it affects God.

So basically we raped and murdered God. Doesn't that mean he's neither omnipotent nor immortal?

 

If we offend God so much, then he's a bad creator.

[Unknowing1]

The whole God thing reminds me of a dictatorship of the worst kind.

[Amethyst]

Whether or not you deserve eternal torture for your crimes is a different issue. I'm just toying with the idea that we're all sinners.

 

And, while "thought crime" may be an unsavory notion regarding the power of state and the extent its control embodies, in the eyes (sic) of an omniscient creator our thoughts would be animalistic abominations.

 

 

I'm going full DA with this folks. Don't tell me we're created in his image, he's all-powerful enough to create perfect creations, contradictions in the free will argument, etc, I know already. The original post asked how we can all be sinners. I'm giving a hypothetical answer.

 

Right, but IMO your answer only goes to show how unjust the hell doctrine is. People supposedly get tortured forever, (or murdered if you believe in the liberal Christian view that hell is death and not torture), for their thoughts. I can't imagine anything more unethical and immoral than that.

[dunany77]

Why, please tell, would the all powerful creator of the universe bother with being offended at something I do?

Apparently he's still holding a grudge against the little dolls he made in the garden. They ate fruit from a tree that they weren't supposed to and got the knowledge of good and evil! *GASP* We can't have little people walking around with knowledge now can we??? If only they ate the twinkies from the junk food tree, they would have remained ignorant and immortal!

 

The fact that god can be offended is proof enough he was dreamed up by a man sitting in the desert sun for far too long.

[dunany77]

Everybody's a sinner. It's inescapable.

That's because we only care about the people in our Monkeysphere!

 

First, picture a monkey. A monkey dressed like a little pirate, if that helps you. We'll call him Slappy.

 

Imagine you have Slappy as a pet. Imagine a personality for him. Maybe you and he have little pirate monkey adventures and maybe even join up to fight crime. Think how sad you'd be if Slappy died.

 

Now, imagine you get four more monkeys. We'll call them Tito, Bubbles, Marcel and ShitTosser. Imagine personalities for each of them now. Maybe one is aggressive, one is affectionate, one is quiet, the other just throws shit all the time. But they're all your personal monkey friends.

 

Now imagine a hundred monkeys.

 

Not so easy now, is it? So how many monkeys would you have to own before you couldn't remember their names? At what point, in your mind, do your beloved pets become just a faceless sea of monkey? Even though each one is every bit the monkey Slappy was, there's a certain point where you will no longer really care if one of them dies.

 

So how many monkeys would it take before you stopped caring?

That's not a rhetorical question. We actually know the number.

 

http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html

[Neon Genesis]

The matter of wickedness as far as the Christianity goes has to do with offending God.

You do realize that if God didn't want to be offended by our lack of belief, he can always prove himself to us so we would believe in him and he would no longer be offended, right? Isn't God a big boy who can take care of himself?

 

You see the reason that the sins we all agree are horrible such as murder and rape are horrible because of the fact that the person being raped or murdered has value placed on them by God. The offense to person is terrible. The offense to the One who created that person is worse.

Are you actually saying that offending God is worse than rape and murder? You realize that that makes your God sick and disgusting, right?

 

So it is with matters that do not directly hurt anyone else. The issue is how it affects God.

How do you know how God is affected by the issue if you don't have proof of how God is affected by it?

[Robbobrob]

The "everyone is a sinner" docttrine is a very convenient starting place, for if we all start evil (with original sin) then we all need to be cured (with the finest "snake oil" around no less).

 

But, Jews, the people who actually wrote the verses the "original sin" doctrine is based, dot believe humans are inherently evil by being born. They believe in "neutral at birth" philosophy. I'd think that the people whom the verses were written for would have a better idea of the meaning than some johnny-come-lately band of heretics.....which the Christians were back 2,000 years ago.

 

Plus, being convicted of "the sins of the father (and mother)" is a completely unjust position for anyone to take, especially a deity looking for peity.

[Vigile]

The matter of wickedness as far as the Christianity goes has to do with offending God. Let me explain. You can be a pretty moral person according to our american morals that base morality on the degree you offend someone else, and still live a life of wickedness to God. You see the reason that the sins we all agree are horrible such as murder and rape are horrible because of the fact that the person being raped or murdered has value placed on them by God. The offense to person is terrible. The offense to the One who created that person is worse.

 

So it is with matters that do not directly hurt anyone else. The issue is how it affects God.

 

Yeah, yeah, we all know god is an anal retent. There's a reason most people don't like to be around nit picking people, they're irritating and obnoxious. You want to spend an eternity with this guy?

[Deva]

The matter of wickedness as far as the Christianity goes has to do with offending God. Let me explain. You can be a pretty moral person according to our american morals that base morality on the degree you offend someone else, and still live a life of wickedness to God. You see the reason that the sins we all agree are horrible such as murder and rape are horrible because of the fact that the person being raped or murdered has value placed on them by God. The offense to person is terrible. The offense to the One who created that person is worse.

 

So it is with matters that do not directly hurt anyone else. The issue is how it affects God.

 

So God would be affected by the actions of a human being? God who created all of space/time? Isn't that strange? Why would he be so offended?

 

"American morals" or Chinese morals or Indian morals or whatever would not stand up to the perfect standards of an all holy all just God, now would they? Then again, "sin" means much more than just wrong actions, doesn't it? Isn't it a universal contaminent of the whole universe brought about by Satan, who had been given that power by God?

 

Does one have to believe in God to value human beings? What about those who believe in a different God and put a value on humans? Isn't it human beings who have learned through thousands of years that killing each other is not a good idea?

 

The questions go on and on..

[MathGeek]

We could prattle on about this issue ad-nauseum, but how far do you think about this issue in your daily life?

 

I think about it maybe one every 80,000 seconds I guess. Joe Schmo the Register Jockey doesn't seem to care about it unless I steal something from him. Macy McSpouse doesn't seem to care unless my "urge to purge" overrides my ability to stand at full-mast. And like the fabled perpetual motion machine, the examples are endless.

 

We are atheists in practicality, and maybe spiritual outside practicality. Your spiritual life is mutually exclusive of your daily life. Too bad most fundamentalists can't respond thoughtfully to those ideas.

[Amethyst]

We could prattle on about this issue ad-nauseum, but how far do you think about this issue in your daily life?

 

I think about it from time to time. It is the main reason why I will never go back to the Christian religion.