The Cross And The Resurrection

[Astreja]

Anyone can say yes to Jesus Christ and what he has done on the cross. It cannot get simpler than that.

 

I cannot and I shall not say 'yes' to such a thing, Jay.

• I do not believe that the Jesus portrayed in the Bible actually existed. The character may be inspired by a now-dead real person, but I feel strongly that the Biblical Jesus is at least 75% mythology.
  
• I do not believe that Jesus came back from the dead.
  
• I do not believe that a group of magi actually followed a star to his birthplace, nor do I believe the bit about the loaves and fishes, the water to wine, the walking on water, or any of the alleged healings.
  
• I do not believe that heaven or hell actually exist, and I have no interest in living forever.
  
• I do not consider the god of the Bible to be a moral and respectworthy being.
  
• And finally, I do not believe that killing Jesus absolves anyone of anything. Death is just death, and there's nothing magical about it. Furthermore, the idea of agreeing to let someone die in My place disgusts Me. Nothing good can come of it.
  

There are just some things, Jay, to which one must say 'no,' For Me, Christianity is near the very top of that list.

[Astreja]

The Bible covers the entire time span of human history.

 

I disagree. The Enûma Eliš predates the Bible, and before we had written works we had cave paintings and other artifacts.

[Realist]

The Bible covers the entire time span of human history.

 

... ever thought of taking up comedy Jay??

[Sirelien]

I would say your conception of God of the Bible is totally wrong. I believe God is Benevolent Love ( 1 John 4). But as we have discussed here several times before, when people say No to God, God respects their decision and separates them from Himself.

 

Oh yes, he absolutely respects their decision! The Bible is perfectly clear that God respects the decision of anyone who chooses to say no to him! He respects them in exactly the same way that I would be respecting a young lady's decision if I were to say to her:

 

"Look, I adore you, and I'd love us to be more than friends. Would you like to go out with me next Friday?

 

Oh and if you say no, I'll smash your face in!"

[bdp]

• I do not believe that a group of magi actually followed a star to his birthplace
  

 

This MUST have happened because the 'gospels' are all eyewitness accounts.

[ShackledNoMore]

I would say your conception of God of the Bible is totally wrong. I believe God is Benevolent Love ( 1 John 4). But as we have discussed here several times before, when people say No to God, God respects their decision and separates them from Himself.

 

So then what's up with all the killing and vindictiveness in the Old Testament (I know you don't like the OT, but still--same god, so xianity claims) and the concept of sending almost everyone to hell for eternity that developed in the New Testament in exchange for the here and now wrath of the Old Testament god? If the rest of the bible was like 1 John 4 then you might have more of a case, but it most certainly is not. (Even 1 John 4 is tainted--it presents the carrot, the love of god, how he will save you with his sacrificial atonement, how he will give you an out from the self centered fear that has been browbeaten into you with the stick over and over again in the bible and through the meme.) I describe nothing more than a central theme of the bible, so how does that constitute a totally wrong conception of the christian god?

 

 

The Bible covers the entire time span of human history. There's a lot going on that we have a tough time understanding from our cultural vantage point. That is one reason why people should start at the New Testament. It is a lot easier to understand what is happening. Moreover the OT understanding of God is not as complete as the NT revelation of God.

 

If that were true, instead of a one-liner just saying "there is a lot of 'stuff' going on to make it tough to understand from our cultural vantage point" you should be able to provide some intelligent discourse to delve into what these factors are and why what is clearly described as a vindictive, violent, bloodthirsty, genocidal tyrant (who was "forced" to be this way against HIS OWN CREATION, according to you) is really pure unadulterated love and what it is about our unique cultural perspective that causes us to see this violence and genocide as evil instead. I would give you the opportunity to explain this, and you're welcome to try, but as Ourobous has already picked you out on, you have already demonstrated that you are deplorably clueless about our contemporary cultural vantage point:

 

A society filled with firm, believing Christians is a very good and well functioning society.

 

... so how come then the USA which is one of the world's most christian countries has the worlds highest jailed population? Also how come the worlds most stable and crime free societies (as in Scandinavia) are regarded as atheistic countries?

 

One difference could be that Scandinavia still teaches Lutheran faith in their public schools and still recognize the Christian monarchs.

Eh... if you wonder about the Scandinavian culture, perhaps you should ask me instead of making shit up. I was born and raised there. Got married there. Worked there. All my kids were born there before we moved to US.

 

I was Christian in Sweden, while 99.99% of my school mates were atheists/agnostic/state church nominal Christians. Not much of "Lutheran" teachings in school, but a lot of evolution and science. Our monarch in Sweden is agnostic, at least according to some interviews.

 

Whatever. You Christians make up shit all the time without thinking twice. The goal justify the means, right? Lie, steal, manipulate, whatever it takes, as long as you get some followers for Jesus.

[ShackledNoMore]

Dawkins wrote:

 

"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infancidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously manevolent bully."

 

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, Chapter 2.

 

 

I think he is saying that because he was brought up in a Christian culture. I don't see too many muslims complaining...

 

I don't see to many christians complaining, either, but I do hear exactly the same thing from both ex-christians and ex-muslims who have actually examined their sacred texts.

[Thackerie]

That's not the TOE...

 

I should have said DNA/RNA study of human population.

 

That study has already been done. It seems that "Adam" and "Eve" never met.

 

In the field of human genetics, Mitochondrial Eve refers to the matrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of modern humans. In other words, she was the woman from whom all living humans today descend, on their mother's side, and through the mothers of those mothers and so on, back until all lines converge on one person. Because all mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is generally passed from mother to offspring without recombination, all mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in every living person is directly descended from hers by definition. Mitochondrial Eve is the female counterpart of Y-chromosomal Adam, the patrilineal most recent common ancestor, although they lived thousands of years apart.

 

 

Mitochondrial Eve is estimated to have lived about 200,000 years ago in East Africa. Y-chromosomal Adam is estimated to have come along 50,000 to 80,000 years later. If you're interested in reading something factual about this topic, you can start at http://en.wikipedia....tochondrial_Eve

[bornagainathiest]

@JayL You can't CHOOSE to believe something. I could never make you believe the earth is a Cube. I could threaten you to go to hell if you don't believe it, but you won't believe it...

The evidence that it's a sphere* (*hope I'm translating this right, English is not my native language) is just too overwhelming to take that seriously.

Now consider it's not me claiming the earth is a triangle-shape, but an old 2,000 year old book.. Makes it even harder right?

That's what position we're in...

 

And you still have two open questions!

 

 

I believe TOE is pointing towards one father, one mother origin for all humanity. So Adam and Eve story seems to stand up pretty well.

You're back to the making of assumptions.The proof will tell you where it's pointing, you already have an opinion about the proof even before I provide it.

Do we keep on playing games? Fine:

"What if TOE is proven and is clearly not pointing towards one father and mother?" Would that finally convince you there were no Adam & Eve, therefor no talking snake, bad trees and fruits.. no need for salvation?!

 

Ummm...sorry to say Prestissimo, but I don't think you can nail Jay down by focusing on the Book of Genesis.

 

If he's ignoring the Old Testament in favor of the New, then he'll probably argue that Jesus didn't die on the cross for any sins we inherited from Adam and Eve. No. He'll probably say that Jesus died only for the sins we've committed ourselves, not for any from any earlier time. This let's him stay exclusively within the New Testament. It also makes his life much, much easier. By dropping the idea of Original (and Inherited) Sin he can distance himself from the "difficult to understand" (his words) Old Testament. He can also avoid having to deal with all the 'nasty' aspects of God's OT personality. You know... the barbaric laws, the plagues, the genocides, the paranoic jealousy, the wanton sadism, etc., etc.?

 

So, imho, trying to pin him down by comparing the Genesis narrative with the TOE is a lost cause. Not just because he's ditched the OT, but also because he's quite ignorant about what Evolution is. You'd have to educate him as to what it is and how it works, before you could get him to see that the Bible and the TOE don't agree. Even then, if you did manage to do that, do you really think he's got the integrity and honesty to openly admit anything, unless he's got absolutely no option but to do so?

 

Btw, that was a rhetorical question. I think we know the answer to it, right?

 

Sorry again about this but I'm sure that (unlike Jay) you'd rather not waste your time persisting in a fruitless, futile activity, ok?

 

All the best,

 

BAA.

[JayL]

I would say your conception of God of the Bible is totally wrong. I believe God is Benevolent Love ( 1 John 4). But as we have discussed here several times before, when people say No to God, God respects their decision and separates them from Himself.

 

Oh yes, he absolutely respects their decision! The Bible is perfectly clear that God respects the decision of anyone who chooses to say no to him! He respects them in exactly the same way that I would be respecting a young lady's decision if I were to say to her:

 

"Look, I adore you, and I'd love us to be more than friends. Would you like to go out with me next Friday?

 

Oh and if you say no, I'll smash your face in!"

 

 

 

You are misunderstanding Christian message. First of all, nobody is threatening violence to anybody. . BUT you ARE living under a guillotine. I hope you know that. It has many years to go before the blade comes down and cuts your head off but it is going to happen. That is, we all agree that you are going to die one day and you do not know what happens afterward. Would it be 'fade to black' or your consciousness surviving physical death? Whatever the case, the grim reaper, the guillotine, is waiting for all of us, agreed??

 

And then here come happy Christians and they have even worse news.... There is hell and you will not only die but you will suffer eternal torment. At this point. you let out, 'What the F%$^!!!!!' And your uncertainty about death now turns into absolute white hot hatred of this negative news. This just can't be!!!! So in this frame of mind, you are not exactly interested in hearing about the 'Loving God of the Bible'. I believe this is where a lot of atheists are at right now.

 

 

But let's back track to our guillotine. We know we all face death, the great beyond, the great dividing line beyond which we cannot see. Now there is some possibility the hell exists. It may be a small possibility but we cannot be certain that it is zero. And suppose God knows this - that hell actually exists. Now would it be an act of love to keep you in the dark and not warn you about it ?? You may prefer not hearing about it. But IF it is real, you really do have know about this and prepare before your death! For all we know, avoiding hell could be the most important thing we need to do in this life! So IF the hell is real, God is actually being loving and kind by warning you about this possibility!!! But the Gospel tells us that God does more than that! He provides a way out, a life boat, if you will.

 

But then you say, come on, things are not that bad. The hell is simply an impossibility! But Christian message is that we are actually on a Titanic of a sort. The whole ship is sinking and is doomed ultimately. It may be a luxury ship but there is something wrong happening on the ship. Just look around your life. I do not have to point out the guillotine hanging over our heads. In your daily life, you face precarious risks everyday. A car veers off on the highway. A terrorist bombing. Sinking cruise vessel! Our lives are open to unknown dangers. So hell may sound like an extreme bad news but there are bad news already on this Titanic. Can the news get even worse for us? That is not impossible....

 

The bottom line is that IF hell is real, the Loving God would warn you about it ( even if you don't want to hear it ) and will provide for you a way out, a life boat called J-E-S-U-S. So perhaps it is not a good idea to shake fists at God when He could be actually right.... But my main point is that warning about hell is not inconsistent with Christian message of Loving God.

[bornagainathiest]

JayL replied to ShackledNoMore...

I would say your conception of God of the Bible is totally wrong. I believe God is Benevolent Love ( 1 John 4). But as we have discussed here several times before, when people say No to God, God respects their decision and separates them from Himself.

 

 

See what I meant when I typed this out, folks?

3.

My last point about this vast ocean of Christian opinions is that we Ex-christians should be wary of clever Christians who use this diversity of views to their advantage. Because there are so many different interpretations and personal takes on the nature of God, certain Christian apologists can say,

"Aha! I can see that you Ex-Christians were mistaken about the true nature of God!"

"With so many false beliefs about God out there, it's not surprising that you lost your faith."

"Ok, ignore everything you've ever heard and listen only to me... I alone know the REAL truth."

That sound familiar?

 

It's the classic Christian deceit.

 

Tell your audience that their conception of God is totally wrong and then sell them the lie that you alone know the real truth.

It doesn't actually matter a whole lot what this 'real' truth is, you just need get the gullibles to swallow your bait - that they were wrong about X, Y or Z about God. Once hooked you can reel them in, first with the idea of understanding scripture "correctly", then with false promises of future salvation, eternal life, heavenly bliss or some other emotionally-appealing fantasy. All of this spiel has to be based on your "correct" understanding of X, Y or Z aspect of God or else it just won't work... catch?

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Now, to be totally honest folks, I wrote point #3 (in this color) about a certain clever Christian on this forum. This person is NOT JayL! No way. He doesn't qualify as clever, in any sense of that word. A clever person wouldn't try and sell such a weak-assed pile of BS to Ex_Christians! We are not gullible. We are not easilyswayed. We are not easily fooled.

 

Nevertheless, our not-at-all-clever troll is still using the standard Christian opening-gambit on us, fooling himself that it will work. Pathetic, isn't it? Laughable, even!

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

[JayL]

• And finally, I do not believe that killing Jesus absolves anyone of anything. Death is just death, and there's nothing magical about it. Furthermore, the idea of agreeing to let someone die in My place disgusts Me. Nothing good can come of it.
  

There are just some things, Jay, to which one must say 'no,' For Me, Christianity is near the very top of that list.

 

Suppose a railroad worker sacrificed his own life to save a train full of commuters and essentially 'died for those people'. You were one of those passengers. And you are totally disgusted that the 'hero' sacrificed his own life to save yours. You made sure to visit his grave to spit on his coffin. The whole event filled you with contempt for such ethic.

 

Jesus Christ died not only for your sins but for sins of entire world. And a very good thing followed his death - his resurrection.

 

Another problem I see is that you have to depend on your intellectual ability to assess on things that you have very little experience of.

[bornagainathiest]

You are misunderstanding Christian message. Fist of al, nobdy is thratening volence to anybdy. . BT you RE ling under a gutine. I hop yu now that. It has man years to go fore the be comes don and cus your head off but it is gong to hen. That is, we algree that ouare going one day and u doot know wat hans afrward. Wld it be 'fad to back' or yo....

.

 

Blah-blah-blah!

.

 

Yadda-yadda-yadda!

.

 

Garbage, trash & crapola!

.

 

...ing Gd would wrn you abot ( evif you do want to he it ) and will proide for you way ot, a life boat called S-H-I-T. Sorhaps is not a gooidea to snake fists at Goo when H coube actually rightggg.... But my mn poi is that rning about Hank Hill is not consistent with Crusty massage of Lovable Dog.

 

See what I mean?

 

You are misunderstanding Christian message.

(Everthing else is irrelevant btw, this is the bait. Don't bite!)

 

BAA.

[Sirelien]

Whatever the case, the grim reaper, the guillotine, is waiting for all of us, agreed??

 

I agree that we are all going to die, yes. Even Christians are going to die.

 

And then here come happy Christians and they have even worse news.... There is hell and you will not only die but you will suffer eternal torment. At this point. you let out, 'What the F%$^!!!!!' And your uncertainty about death now turns into absolute white hot hatred of this negative news. This just can't be!!!! So in this frame of mind, you are not exactly interested in hearing about the 'Loving God of the Bible'. I believe this is where a lot of atheists are at right now.

 

How many times must I tell you that this is a community of ex-Christians. We were all Christians once! For obvious reasons therefore, the above does not apply to us at all!

 

But let's back track to our guillotine. We know we all face death, the great beyond, the great dividing line beyond which we cannot see. Now there is some possibility the hell exists. It may be a small possibility but we cannot be certain that it is zero. And suppose God knows this - that hell actually exists. Now would it be an act of love to keep you in the dark and not warn you about it ?? You may prefer not hearing about it. But IF it is real, you really do have know about this and prepare before your death! For all we know, avoiding hell could be the most important thing we need to do in this life! So IF the hell is real, God is actually being loving and kind by warning you about this possibility!!! But the Gospel tells us that God does more than that! He provides a way out, a life boat, if you will.

 

Aww, it's so kind of God to provide a lifeboat when he was the one who threw us overboard in the first place! Try to get this into your head JayL - a loving God would not create hell, or indeed send anyone to hell, in the first place!

 

And Pascal's Wager has long since been debunked as sheer nonsense. What if the Hindus are right? What if the Jews are right? What if the Muslims are right? I can't believe in all religions, since they all contradict each other. And besides, what if the truth is that there is an all-powerful creator who created all the world's religions as way to test human beings, in order to test which of them can think and which can't. And what if the reality is that by showing they have a brain, and that they won't just blindly follow what they're told, all atheists (and atheists only) will be saved.

 

I have absolutely no evidence that this is true, in just the same way that you have no evidence that Christianity is true. Don't you think then that you should reject Christianity, by Pascal's Wager, just in case the scenario I have outlined is in fact true!

[JayL]

Dawkins wrote:

 

"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infancidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously manevolent bully."

 

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, Chapter 2.

 

 

I think he is saying that because he was brought up in a Christian culture. I don't see too many muslims complaining...

 

I don't see to many christians complaining, either, but I do hear exactly the same thing from both ex-christians and ex-muslims who have actually examined their sacred texts.

 

 

What I meant is that no Christian would threaten physical violence to him just because he has a different opinion about God. But under Islam his life would be in a great danger.

[JayL]

You are misunderstanding Christian message. Fist of al, nobdy is thratening volence to anybdy. . BT you RE ling under a gutine. I hop yu now that. It has man years to go fore the be comes don and cus your head off but it is gong to hen. That is, we algree that ouare going one day and u doot know wat hans afrward. Wld it be 'fad to back' or yo....

.

 

Blah-blah-blah!

.

 

Yadda-yadda-yadda!

.

 

Garbage, trash & crapola!

.

 

...ing Gd would wrn you abot ( evif you do want to he it ) and will proide for you way ot, a life boat called S-H-I-T. Sorhaps is not a gooidea to snake fists at Goo when H coube actually rightggg.... But my mn poi is that rning about Hank Hill is not consistent with Crusty massage of Lovable Dog.

 

See what I mean?

 

You are misunderstanding Christian message.

(Everthing else is irrelevant btw, this is the bait. Don't bite!)

 

BAA.

 

 

 

 

I thought my argument was fairly logical.

 

 

Ah I see. But people do not want to hear reasonable arguments!

[JayL]

Whatever the case, the grim reaper, the guillotine, is waiting for all of us, agreed??

 

I agree that we are all going to die, yes. Even Christians are going to die.

 

And then here come happy Christians and they have even worse news.... There is hell and you will not only die but you will suffer eternal torment. At this point. you let out, 'What the F%$^!!!!!' And your uncertainty about death now turns into absolute white hot hatred of this negative news. This just can't be!!!! So in this frame of mind, you are not exactly interested in hearing about the 'Loving God of the Bible'. I believe this is where a lot of atheists are at right now.

 

How many times must I tell you that this is a community of ex-Christians. We were all Christians once! For obvious reasons therefore, the above does not apply to us at all!

 

But let's back track to our guillotine. We know we all face death, the great beyond, the great dividing line beyond which we cannot see. Now there is some possibility the hell exists. It may be a small possibility but we cannot be certain that it is zero. And suppose God knows this - that hell actually exists. Now would it be an act of love to keep you in the dark and not warn you about it ?? You may prefer not hearing about it. But IF it is real, you really do have know about this and prepare before your death! For all we know, avoiding hell could be the most important thing we need to do in this life! So IF the hell is real, God is actually being loving and kind by warning you about this possibility!!! But the Gospel tells us that God does more than that! He provides a way out, a life boat, if you will.

 

Aww, it's so kind of God to provide a lifeboat when he was the one who threw us overboard in the first place! Try to get this into your head JayL - a loving God would not create hell, or indeed send anyone to hell, in the first place!

 

And Pascal's Wager has long since been debunked as sheer nonsense. What if the Hindus are right? What if the Jews are right? What if the Muslims are right? I can't believe in all religions, since they all contradict each other. And besides, what if the truth is that there is an all-powerful creator who created all the world's religions as way to test human beings, in order to test which of them can think and which can't. And what if the reality is that by showing they have a brain, and that they won't just blindly follow what they're told, all atheists (and atheists only) will be saved.

 

I have absolutely no evidence that this is true, in just the same way that you have no evidence that Christianity is true. Don't you think then that you should reject Christianity, by Pascal's Wager, just in case the scenario I have outlined is in fact true!

 

 

All I am saying is that the idea of warning about hell is not incompatible with God's love in the Bible.

[Sirelien]

All I am saying is that the idea of warning about hell is not incompatible with God's love in the Bible.

 

And I am telling you that hell itself is incompatible with the idea of a loving God.

[JayL]

 

Aww, it's so kind of God to provide a lifeboat when he was the one who threw us overboard in the first place! Try to get this into your head JayL - a loving God would not create hell, or indeed send anyone to hell, in the first place!

 

 

 

I had this exchange with Astreja:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Astreja, on 20 January 2012 - 03:56 PM, said:

 

 

JayL, on 20 January 2012 - 08:21 AM, said:

 

1. God is benevolent love.

Negated by the concept of eternal punishment.

 

No it does not !! How do you expect a benevolently loving person to deal with evil?? Suppose you are a extremely benevolent person. And I am a serial killer/ rapist who derive pleasure from torturing and killing you. And we both have eternal life. How would deal with me??

 

The only solution is eternal lock up cell. That is what hell is. Does the existence of the eternal lock up cell mean you are not a benevolently loving person??

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

So it is reasonable that a Loving God would create hell, eternal separation from Himself - and Satan, fallen angels and even some truly evil human beings deserve to go there.

 

The part that may not sound reasonable is the Christian claim - that even normal people may end up in hell because they have

failed in some areas or that they are under the 'original sin'. THAT is not reasonable and is hard to accept. It is this idea that the whole world is essentially doomed and is heading towards God's wrath.

[Sirelien]

The gaping flaw in your question is that you stipulate as a condition that everyone must have eternal life.

 

Why? Why must everyone have eternal life? Are you saying that the all-powerful omnipotent God, although he created life, is physically incapable of ending life? I find that very difficult to believe - after all, the former is surely a lot harder than the latter!

[JayL]

The gaping flaw in your question is that you stipulate as a condition that everyone must have eternal life.

 

Why? Why must everyone have eternal life? Are you saying that the all-powerful omnipotent God, although he created life, is physically incapable ending life? I find that very difficult to believe - after all, the former is surely a lot harder than the latter!

 

I agree. There are passages in the Bible that seem to indicate such ending to human existence and that hell itself would be destroyed. But of course, a few minutes in hell would be the most extreme punishment in any human terms and seemingly outweigh any sins committed by most people on the earth.

[Sirelien]

The gaping flaw in your question is that you stipulate as a condition that everyone must have eternal life.

 

Why? Why must everyone have eternal life? Are you saying that the all-powerful omnipotent God, although he created life, is physically incapable ending life? I find that very difficult to believe - after all, the former is surely a lot harder than the latter!

 

I agree. There are passages in the Bible that seem to indicate such ending to human existence and that hell itself would be destroyed. But of course, a few minutes in hell would be the most extreme punishment in any human terms and seemingly outweigh any sins committed by most people on the earth.

 

Can I assume from what you say that you now accept that no loving God would torture people for eternity.

 

Furthermore, while I would agree that some Bible verses can be interpreted to suggest that hell will not be eternal, others very unambiguously claim the opposite - that it will be eternal. This surely leads us to the logical conclusion that the Bible was not inspired by an all knowing perfect being, since if it were, then it wouldn't contain such inconsistencies!

[centauri]

That is one reason why people should start at the New Testament. It is a lot easier to understand what is happening. Moreover the OT understanding of God is not as complete as the NT revelation of God.

Ah yes, the old progressive revelation argument.

God gets revised and edited by Christianity.

Forget about all that "old" stuff and buy the new and improved product.

Of course, it involves a monumental denial of what the Bible God declared in his first set of ramblings and it obliterates the popular Christian claim about the entire Bible being perfectly harmonious and self proving.

In order to set forth this Christian apologetic, you end up destroying another Christian apologetic.

[centauri]

The bottom line is that IF hell is real, the Loving God would warn you about it ( even if you don't want to hear it ) and will provide for you a way out, a life boat called J-E-S-U-S. So perhaps it is not a good idea to shake fists at God when He could be actually right.... But my main point is that warning about hell is not inconsistent with Christian message of Loving God.

You shake your fist at the Hebrew God all the time.

You toss aside his message (aka Old Testament) as one tosses aside an old shoe.

I don't see you expressing any concern over it.

[JayL]

That is one reason why people should start at the New Testament. It is a lot easier to understand what is happening. Moreover the OT understanding of God is not as complete as the NT revelation of God.

Ah yes, the old progressive revelation argument.

God gets revised and edited by Christianity.

Forget about all that "old" stuff and buy the new and improved product.

Of course, it involves a monumental denial of what the Bible God declared in his first set of ramblings and it obliterates the popular Christian claim about the entire Bible being perfectly harmonious and self proving.

In order to set forth this Christian apologetic, you end up destroying another Christian apologetic.

 

I have never said that the entire Bible is perfectly harmonious. The Bible is not an easy book to understand. And I have also been arguing against the statements that a lot of people here seem to like - that God is omnipotent or omnipresent. What do they mean anyway? That God is present in duck's arse? That God can lie? These are stupid, stupid statements not supported by the Bible. Yet people go around with these idiotic notions!