Annoying Christian Thought

[mcdaddy]

There's plenty to question. The more you get into the Bible and the notion of Christianity, the worse it looks. The more you look at how believers behave versus nonbelievers, the more clear it is that all the claims of Christianity improving things are just not true. Look at the world today - the more secular a nation is, the more likely it is to care about justice, caring for the poor, etc.

 

And the Bible - you read it through, even if you try to omit the OT, none of it makes any sense. An all powerful being creates this whole universe - but cares about if we believe or not (not if we're good or not, just if we believe). The best people in the world are never going to heaven without following this god - but the worst can get there with some mere remorse. Believing in the religion your parents and everyone you know believes in is wrong, if it's the wrong religion, but good if it's the right one. Heck, the mere notion of Jesus - if god is all powerful, there's no need for a sacrifice if he wishes to change the rules for people. He can just make the change, and send a prophet - no need for an extended torture scene. And why allow a devil, if you are indeed all powerful? All this is omitting the notion of Hell.

 

To some extent, that is correct, More importnantly is what you said about non believers (If I can paraphrase: non fanatics might be a better term). The behavior of believers is uncalled for in many cases and as for them improving things: NOPE, that is certian. It has been yrs, but in the past I worked for 2 companies owned by "christians". What a joke they were and I mean the christian management. they treated the blue collar employees like shit.

 

Antix...doesn't Jesus say "you will know a tree by its fruit?". Does xianity, as a whole, produce good or bad fruit? I'll let you be the judge of that.

 

But it seems you already know the answer.

 

Edit: point being, If the fruit is bad, so is the tree.

 

You may think that very few xians have it "right". But all that does is show that the tree can get lucky and produce a few good apples among bushels of rotten ones.

[Deva]

There's plenty to question. The more you get into the Bible and the notion of Christianity, the worse it looks. The more you look at how believers behave versus nonbelievers, the more clear it is that all the claims of Christianity improving things are just not true. Look at the world today - the more secular a nation is, the more likely it is to care about justice, caring for the poor, etc.

 

And the Bible - you read it through, even if you try to omit the OT, none of it makes any sense. An all powerful being creates this whole universe - but cares about if we believe or not (not if we're good or not, just if we believe). The best people in the world are never going to heaven without following this god - but the worst can get there with some mere remorse. Believing in the religion your parents and everyone you know believes in is wrong, if it's the wrong religion, but good if it's the right one. Heck, the mere notion of Jesus - if god is all powerful, there's no need for a sacrifice if he wishes to change the rules for people. He can just make the change, and send a prophet - no need for an extended torture scene. And why allow a devil, if you are indeed all powerful? All this is omitting the notion of Hell.

 

You have not made a Biblical case for the nonexistence of hell.

Was she trying too? I thought she was just saying the bible was nonsense.

 

Evidently not. She said she could make one. I had my hopes up.

[antix]

There's plenty to question. The more you get into the Bible and the notion of Christianity, the worse it looks. The more you look at how believers behave versus nonbelievers, the more clear it is that all the claims of Christianity improving things are just not true. Look at the world today - the more secular a nation is, the more likely it is to care about justice, caring for the poor, etc.

 

And the Bible - you read it through, even if you try to omit the OT, none of it makes any sense. An all powerful being creates this whole universe - but cares about if we believe or not (not if we're good or not, just if we believe). The best people in the world are never going to heaven without following this god - but the worst can get there with some mere remorse. Believing in the religion your parents and everyone you know believes in is wrong, if it's the wrong religion, but good if it's the right one. Heck, the mere notion of Jesus - if god is all powerful, there's no need for a sacrifice if he wishes to change the rules for people. He can just make the change, and send a prophet - no need for an extended torture scene. And why allow a devil, if you are indeed all powerful? All this is omitting the notion of Hell.

 

To some extent, that is correct, More importnantly is what you said about non believers (If I can paraphrase: non fanatics might be a better term). The behavior of believers is uncalled for in many cases and as for them improving things: NOPE, that is certian. It has been yrs, but in the past I worked for 2 companies owned by "christians". What a joke they were and I mean the christian management. they treated the blue collar employees like shit.

 

Antix...doesn't Jesus say "you will know a tree by its fruit?". Does xianity, as a whole, produce good or bad fruit? I'll let you be the judge of that.

 

But it seems you already know the answer.

 

I have seen some good fruit and I mean some .But 90 percent of it is rotten, Like I said in another poast 9especially in a work environment) but as soon as someone says they are saved / born again etc, it is time to run for the hills in another direction.

[SusanStoHeli]

Saying something I don't believe is not trolling.

 

Since you say yourself that you never believed and you aren't an ex-christian I can't expect you to understand why this thread is trolling.

 

I totally agree about the inhumanity of the notion of Hell - but it's not something all Christians believe. I think a good biblical case can be made both ways - for a literal Hell, and for none.

 

 

Give me a really good Biblical case for none -

 

And I think there's room for discussion about the ridiculous extremes of Christianity that even many other Christians think are ridiculous

 

Agreed, on some other forum where people have not been damaged by all forms of Christianity. If people are "Christian" they should take it elsewhere instead of posting in the Colosseum where they think no criticism can touch them. And I don't care if I get a couple of points for saying this.

 

Nothing personal, but ignorance is bliss.

Being hurt by other people who are Christians, by toxic forms of Christianity - and I completely get that - I've got my own stories of hurt from Christians, from the Christian majority and toxic churches - that doesn't make it reasonable to take that out on everyone who is Christian. It's just not right.

 

And this is the Colosseum - not just a pure support zone.

 

As to Hell - first, like I said, Jews don't believe in Hell. It's not part of their religion. All those OT references claimed to say it exists - they can be seen as mistranslations, exaggerations, out of context quotes, in some cases references to a physical location where bodies were dumped. I can take it either way - but what I'm saying is that someone saying the Bible does not have a Hell - they do have some Biblical support on their side.

 

I know this is an odd link - but I don't want to spend a bunch of time getting another one, when this one does a good job of properly answering all of the questions and really explains the issues with accepting the modern mistranslations.

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=85849

[Guest Valk0010]

There's plenty to question. The more you get into the Bible and the notion of Christianity, the worse it looks. The more you look at how believers behave versus nonbelievers, the more clear it is that all the claims of Christianity improving things are just not true. Look at the world today - the more secular a nation is, the more likely it is to care about justice, caring for the poor, etc.

 

And the Bible - you read it through, even if you try to omit the OT, none of it makes any sense. An all powerful being creates this whole universe - but cares about if we believe or not (not if we're good or not, just if we believe). The best people in the world are never going to heaven without following this god - but the worst can get there with some mere remorse. Believing in the religion your parents and everyone you know believes in is wrong, if it's the wrong religion, but good if it's the right one. Heck, the mere notion of Jesus - if god is all powerful, there's no need for a sacrifice if he wishes to change the rules for people. He can just make the change, and send a prophet - no need for an extended torture scene. And why allow a devil, if you are indeed all powerful? All this is omitting the notion of Hell.

 

You have not made a Biblical case for the nonexistence of hell.

Was she trying too? I thought she was just saying the bible was nonsense.

 

Evidently not. She said she could make one. I had my hopes up.

Ohh I didn't read above. Your right, she did say that.

[antix]

COULD WE LOCK THIS THREAD AND I WILL START ANOTHER ONE IN THE LIONS DEN. I DISAGREE WITH DEVA IN THAT I AM NOT A TROLL, BUT THE FACT THAT YOU GUYS ARE FIGHTING WITH EACH OTHER SUPPORTS HER POINT. MOVING TO THE LIONS DEN

[SusanStoHeli]

There's plenty to question. The more you get into the Bible and the notion of Christianity, the worse it looks. The more you look at how believers behave versus nonbelievers, the more clear it is that all the claims of Christianity improving things are just not true. Look at the world today - the more secular a nation is, the more likely it is to care about justice, caring for the poor, etc.

 

And the Bible - you read it through, even if you try to omit the OT, none of it makes any sense. An all powerful being creates this whole universe - but cares about if we believe or not (not if we're good or not, just if we believe). The best people in the world are never going to heaven without following this god - but the worst can get there with some mere remorse. Believing in the religion your parents and everyone you know believes in is wrong, if it's the wrong religion, but good if it's the right one. Heck, the mere notion of Jesus - if god is all powerful, there's no need for a sacrifice if he wishes to change the rules for people. He can just make the change, and send a prophet - no need for an extended torture scene. And why allow a devil, if you are indeed all powerful? All this is omitting the notion of Hell.

 

You have not made a Biblical case for the nonexistence of hell.

Was she trying too? I thought she was just saying the bible was nonsense.

I was - I was writing this post before the request for proof about hell came up. Because the Bible is nonsense, even if you omit hell - while that belief is an example of some of the worst of what many Christians believe, it's not the end of how and why I believe Christianity is a self-contradictory myth.

 

I've posted a link to a nice set of reasoning that represents what I've read elsewhere as well, about why Hell is not necessarily in the Bible. You always have to remember it's been through so many translations, and terms that made sense then, grow to have a different meaning (like Gehenna being taken to be somewhere supernatural, when anyone of the time would know it as a literal location). My only point here is to say that first, a Christian who doesn't believe in Hell is not a contradiction, and second, that there is plenty more wrong with Christianity than only the notion of a God sending people to Hell for failing to adequately bow and scrape.

[SusanStoHeli]

There's plenty to question. The more you get into the Bible and the notion of Christianity, the worse it looks. The more you look at how believers behave versus nonbelievers, the more clear it is that all the claims of Christianity improving things are just not true. Look at the world today - the more secular a nation is, the more likely it is to care about justice, caring for the poor, etc.

 

And the Bible - you read it through, even if you try to omit the OT, none of it makes any sense. An all powerful being creates this whole universe - but cares about if we believe or not (not if we're good or not, just if we believe). The best people in the world are never going to heaven without following this god - but the worst can get there with some mere remorse. Believing in the religion your parents and everyone you know believes in is wrong, if it's the wrong religion, but good if it's the right one. Heck, the mere notion of Jesus - if god is all powerful, there's no need for a sacrifice if he wishes to change the rules for people. He can just make the change, and send a prophet - no need for an extended torture scene. And why allow a devil, if you are indeed all powerful? All this is omitting the notion of Hell.

 

To some extent, that is correct, More importnantly is what you said about non believers (If I can paraphrase: non fanatics might be a better term). The behavior of believers is uncalled for in many cases and as for them improving things: NOPE, that is certian. It has been yrs, but in the past I worked for 2 companies owned by "christians". What a joke they were and I mean the christian management. they treated the blue collar employees like shit.

I've found this to be generally true - the more someone trumpets their "christianity" - the more it's a ploy used to avoid scrutiny of their horrible behavior.

 

But when you look at nations around the world, look at the criminality, social network and support, treatment even of criminals of the least religious countries, the standard of living, treatment of minorities - then contrast that to the most religious countries, the difference is HUGE.

[mcdaddy]

Why choose to be part of a religion where 90% of the adherents are toxic?

 

I dont think it's near as bad as that. Most xians are decent people. And by most I mean the same % as nonbelievers. People are who they are, regardless of their faith, or lack of it. Now there are some who use their faith as a weapon. But that's not most of them.

 

I can think of a thousand reasons not to be a xian.

 

There's a whole other thread for that tho.

[SusanStoHeli]

COULD WE LOCK THIS THREAD AND I WILL START ANOTHER ONE IN THE LIONS DEN. I DISAGREE WITH DEVA IN THAT I AM NOT A TROLL, BUT THE FACT THAT YOU GUYS ARE FIGHTING WITH EACH OTHER SUPPORTS HER POINT. MOVING TO THE LIONS DEN

I don't know about fighting - I'd say debating - with fervor.

[Deva]

And this is the Colosseum - not just a pure support zone.

 

I am fully aware of what the Colosseum is, as is antixianxian. That is why he chose to post here. It is an area for reasoned discussion. What a great way to get away with preaching in his curiously anti-Christian way (although he is one) and draw out ex-christians and get them in trouble?

 

As to Hell - first, like I said, Jews don't believe in Hell. It's not part of their religion. All those OT references claimed to say it exists - they can be seen as mistranslations, exaggerations, out of context quotes, in some cases references to a physical location where bodies were dumped. I can take it either way - but what I'm saying is that someone saying the Bible does not have a Hell - they do have some Biblical support on their side.

 

Yes they do -- plenty of Biblical support. The Old Testament is only a portion of the Bible Christians accept.

 

As to the link - I have seen it all before. A burning garbage dump is still a place that burns. This story can be taken literally or metaphorically, however you choose, but it is still a strong case for the existence of hell. Also, have you read Revelation lately?

[Deva]

Why choose to be part of a religion where 90% of the adherents are toxic?

 

Good point. But I wouldn't say the adherents are that toxic - they are nowhere near as toxic as the doctrine. They mostly pay lip service to it and go along for the social cohesion. Yes, many Christians are decent, and intelligent people.

[SusanStoHeli]

Hey - I'm just saying - and as I showed, it is Biblical, that there is a reasonable basis for saying there is no Hell - that the only dark fate being preached is separation from God and a permanent death. Not every Christian is a literalist - few are - especially since the Bible has too many contradictions for a literalist to hold up well.

 

Yep, I've read Revelations. Point being that there are verses to say there is a Hell, and verses to say there is not. Which means that making your own choice is the only reasonable way to go.

[Deva]

Hey - I'm just saying - and as I showed, it is Biblical, that there is a reasonable basis for saying there is no Hell - that the only dark fate being preached is separation from God and a permanent death. Not every Christian is a literalist - few are - especially since the Bible has too many contradictions for a literalist to hold up well.

 

Yep, I've read Revelations. Point being that there are verses to say there is a Hell, and verses to say there is not. Which means that making your own choice is the only reasonable way to go.

 

The bible states that these people are alive and still burning. Separation from God, yes, but who finds that terrible? Seriously. If you say there is no hell then you have to explain the parts that say "they shall be beaten with many stripes rather than few", - there are many verses about punishment after death. The story of the rich man and Lazarus and a whole slew of other verses. How can someone simply ignore it?

[Deva]

COULD WE LOCK THIS THREAD AND I WILL START ANOTHER ONE IN THE LIONS DEN. I DISAGREE WITH DEVA IN THAT I AM NOT A TROLL, BUT THE FACT THAT YOU GUYS ARE FIGHTING WITH EACH OTHER SUPPORTS HER POINT. MOVING TO THE LIONS DEN

 

If you think this is a fight, you haven't been here very long.

[Deva]

Actually antixtianxian I think I read that you say you are eastern orthodox. I would then ask if you accept the teachings of your own church. The eastern church fathers had a great deal to say about punishments after death. Do you accept the aerial toll houses, for example? If not, why not? http://orthodoxwiki.org/Aerial_Toll-Houses

 

This is not a blissful afterlife for all.

[antix]

Actually antixtianxian I think I read that you say you are eastern orthodox. I would then ask if you accept the teachings of your own church. The eastern church fathers had a great deal to say about punishments after death. Do you accept the aerial toll houses, for example? If not, why not? http://orthodoxwiki....ial_Toll-Houses

 

This is not a blissful afterlife for all.

 

Not really, at this point I have no clue what to accept at face value, I do know fundamentalistic christisnity is not the answer because condemns innocents. I am here to read and learn and definitely not troll.

[Akheia]

Anti, I don't think you're a troll, FWIW. I think you're seriously questioning, and it's good to question. It sounds like you're at that stage where you think that Christianity is a toxin, which it is, but are still clinging to the idea that maybe it's just how modern Christians have perverted the sweet, pure Bible's words. But once you really think about it and study it with the blinders off, you find very quickly that the Bible is even more toxic than modern Christians have made it. They've buddy-Jesused it down to a religion that ecumenical Yahweh wouldn't even recognize, and the most hardcore of the hardcore fundies are probably much closer to the Bible's true demands than any other group of them.

 

Regarding prayer, a lot of what you said really resonated with me because that's what began the destruction of my faith. The unequivocal verses in the Bible describing how God will answer ANY prayer that ANY believer makes in Jesus' name were often parroted at my various fundie churches (I moved around a lot in my youth), but eventually even someone as dense as I was could see that people weren't actually getting much of anything they prayed for. It didn't escape me that my peers weren't praying for really big definitive stuff like amputated limbs growing back or someone to be raised from the dead--they were praying for zits to clear up, car keys to be found, good parking spaces at the mall during the holidays. Or they were praying for terribly generic things like "give us a revival" or whatever. I realized I was playing it safe by making these gumby requests because I knew, deep down, that prayer wasn't what the Bible said it was. I began to really question just what prayer's role in a Christian's walk was at that point.

 

That whole bullshit non-answer about "yes/no/wait" that fundies give when someone questions prayer's lack of usefulness never really hit home for me because that was not what the Bible said. It didn't say God would only answer prayers that were for stuff he wanted to do anyway. It said ANYTHING. ANYTHING! Move mountains. Raise the dead. Heal the blind. ANYTHING! Why were we not praying for a zillion dollars to build a mega-temple? Why were we not praying for the entire continent of North America--or fuck, the world--to convert? Why were we not praying for people to resurrect and for mortal illnesses to clear up overnight without medical help? Why did we even carry insurance, for that matter, and go to the doctor, if we had the red Bat-Phone to the creator of the entire universe, a fellow who'd sworn in his Holy Word that he was now our special magic fairy who'd give us anything we asked because we were his beloved little toddlers?

 

That made me question in turn the whole issue of free will--why was I praying? If God wanted to do whatever it was, he'd do it regardless... wouldn't he? Why was it a good thing for me to pray for stuff I needed when God was supposed to provide everything? What kind of piece-of-shit father makes his kids beg for their dinners every night and fawn all over him to get a roof over their heads? And why did God want me to be a "child" forever? My parents seemed eager for me to begin my adulthood and get out of the house, but Yahweh/Jesus wanted me to be dependent forever, and prayer was one vehicle he used to keep me there. Yeah, the whole prayer thing was a major issue for me.

 

I was also learning a lot of history in college at the time (guess what my pastor at the time thought about that?) and it was shocking to me to see just how absolutely un-historical the OT and NT are, and how staggeringly similar Jesus' supposed life story is to those of other god-men floating around Judea; he wasn't even the only Jew who was claiming divinity and preaching revolution and apocalypse. He was a mash-up of a half-dozen other deities' stories. It wasn't even unusual for someone to claim a divine father as a way to get ahead in the religious atmosphere bubbling at the time. Then I found out how cobbled-together the NT is and it was all over for me. There was nothing divine about the NT, nothing at all. The Jesus presented in the Bible didn't exist. The OT certainly was nothing but a book of fables, no more binding than Hesiod's Works and Days and a LOT less entertaining and morally uplifting; science has so thoroughly disproven the Bible that it's only by ignoring the fabric of reality that someone can even give it half credence as a source of truth. I couldn't weasel out like super-liberal Christians by just taking the "germs of truth" from this diseased, moldy infection of a book because once you realize none of its claims could possibly be true, only its philosophy is left, but it is a philosophy that is a stain upon the psyche of humankind--evil, cruel, oppressive, barbaric, exclusionary, violent, and a host of other nasty things. Not for nothing do Christians fear education and make ignorance and cognitive dissonance a virtue.

 

No, the issue isn't how fundamentalists have perverted the Bible. The issue is that the Bible itself is perverted, and only by massively twisting its words and contorting logic can anybody really salvage anything out of it.

[mcdaddy]

Anti, I don't think you're a troll, FWIW. I think you're seriously questioning, and it's good to question. It sounds like you're at that stage where you think that Christianity is a toxin, which it is, but are still clinging to the idea that maybe it's just how modern Christians have perverted the sweet, pure Bible's words. But once you really think about it and study it with the blinders off, you find very quickly that the Bible is even more toxic than modern Christians have made it. They've buddy-Jesused it down to a religion that ecumenical Yahweh wouldn't even recognize, and the most hardcore of the hardcore fundies are probably much closer to the Bible's true demands than any other group of them.

 

Regarding prayer, a lot of what you said really resonated with me because that's what began the destruction of my faith. The unequivocal verses in the Bible describing how God will answer ANY prayer that ANY believer makes in Jesus' name were often parroted at my various fundie churches (I moved around a lot in my youth), but eventually even someone as dense as I was could see that people weren't actually getting much of anything they prayed for. It didn't escape me that my peers weren't praying for really big definitive stuff like amputated limbs growing back or someone to be raised from the dead--they were praying for zits to clear up, car keys to be found, good parking spaces at the mall during the holidays. Or they were praying for terribly generic things like "give us a revival" or whatever. I realized I was playing it safe by making these gumby requests because I knew, deep down, that prayer wasn't what the Bible said it was. I began to really question just what prayer's role in a Christian's walk was at that point.

 

That whole bullshit non-answer about "yes/no/wait" that fundies give when someone questions prayer's lack of usefulness never really hit home for me because that was not what the Bible said. It didn't say God would only answer prayers that were for stuff he wanted to do anyway. It said ANYTHING. ANYTHING! Move mountains. Raise the dead. Heal the blind. ANYTHING! Why were we not praying for a zillion dollars to build a mega-temple? Why were we not praying for the entire continent of North America--or fuck, the world--to convert? Why were we not praying for people to resurrect and for mortal illnesses to clear up overnight without medical help? Why did we even carry insurance, for that matter, and go to the doctor, if we had the red Bat-Phone to the creator of the entire universe, a fellow who'd sworn in his Holy Word that he was now our special magic fairy who'd give us anything we asked because we were his beloved little toddlers?

 

That made me question in turn the whole issue of free will--why was I praying? If God wanted to do whatever it was, he'd do it regardless... wouldn't he? Why was it a good thing for me to pray for stuff I needed when God was supposed to provide everything? What kind of piece-of-shit father makes his kids beg for their dinners every night and fawn all over him to get a roof over their heads? And why did God want me to be a "child" forever? My parents seemed eager for me to begin my adulthood and get out of the house, but Yahweh/Jesus wanted me to be dependent forever, and prayer was one vehicle he used to keep me there. Yeah, the whole prayer thing was a major issue for me.

 

I was also learning a lot of history in college at the time (guess what my pastor at the time thought about that?) and it was shocking to me to see just how absolutely un-historical the OT and NT are, and how staggeringly similar Jesus' supposed life story is to those of other god-men floating around Judea; he wasn't even the only Jew who was claiming divinity and preaching revolution and apocalypse. He was a mash-up of a half-dozen other deities' stories. It wasn't even unusual for someone to claim a divine father as a way to get ahead in the religious atmosphere bubbling at the time. Then I found out how cobbled-together the NT is and it was all over for me. There was nothing divine about the NT, nothing at all. The Jesus presented in the Bible didn't exist. The OT certainly was nothing but a book of fables, no more binding than Hesiod's Works and Days and a LOT less entertaining and morally uplifting; science has so thoroughly disproven the Bible that it's only by ignoring the fabric of reality that someone can even give it half credence as a source of truth. I couldn't weasel out like super-liberal Christians by just taking the "germs of truth" from this diseased, moldy infection of a book because once you realize none of its claims could possibly be true, only its philosophy is left, but it is a philosophy that is a stain upon the psyche of humankind--evil, cruel, oppressive, barbaric, exclusionary, violent, and a host of other nasty things. Not for nothing do Christians fear education and make ignorance and cognitive dissonance a virtue.

 

No, the issue isn't how fundamentalists have perverted the Bible. The issue is that the Bible itself is perverted, and only by massively twisting its words and contorting logic can anybody really salvage anything out of it.

 

Can't up vote on mobile, so here ya go.

 

+ 1 google

[sjessen]

Post moved to General Theological Questions, The Word of God?