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So, I wouldn't say that they don't know their Bible. They probably know it better than most Christians.

I'm curious about what causes you to say this as well. Perhaps because they preach a hateful, judgmental, wrathful God? Is there some scientific reasoning behind this assertion, perhaps statistical, since, I assume (yes, unfairly) that you don't know them.

Edited by Princess Artemis

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I've a question, for Christians, specifically those who promote the "God is loving and kind" idea and who also hold the idea that "Sinners and non-believers will go to Hell"..

 

 

Why do you think that God is "loving", if He sends people to Hell? If Hell exists, I'm really more in agreement with the "God is a hateful god" idea.

 

This "God" is supposedly all-knowing, right (well, that's what I was always taught)? Well, WHY does He allow people to be born, knowing full well that they will not come to Him and will end up in Hell, being tormented for eternity?

 

He condemns them before they're even born (if you believe a soul is formed at conception), knowing they'll live and die as damned souls.

 

The "but He is merciful and WANTS us to come to Him!" thing doesn't really convince me--He could just as easily made oblivion the destination for sinners and non-believers.

 

 

So how do you justify the claim that "God is love"?

 

 

(Honestly, I don't want this to sound like an attack--it's something that I've seriously wondered for a while now, and is one of the questions that made me finally break with Christianity. There are a lot of other issues I have with it, too, but this is one that I'm really curious about.)

Edited by KageSora

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I've a question, for Christians, specifically those who promote the "God is loving and kind" idea and who also hold the idea that "Sinners and non-believers will go to Hell"..

 

 

Why do you think that God is "loving", if He sends people to Hell? If Hell exists, I'm really more in agreement with the "God is a hateful god" idea.

 

This "God" is supposedly all-knowing, right (well, that's what I was always taught)? Well, WHY does He allow people to be born, knowing full well that they will not come to Him and will end up in Hell, being tormented for eternity?

 

He condemns them before they're even born (if you believe a soul is formed at conception), knowing they'll live and die as damned souls.

 

The "but He is merciful and WANTS us to come to Him!" thing doesn't really convince me--He could just as easily made oblivion the destination for sinners and non-believers.

 

 

So how do you justify the claim that "God is love"?

 

 

(Honestly, I don't want this to sound like an attack--it's something that I've seriously wondered for a while now, and is one of the questions that made me finally break with Christianity. There are a lot of other issues I have with it, too, but this is one that I'm really curious about.)

From what I was taught, it is as simple as this:

 

God gave man free will. For him to take away that free will would be just as cruel as forcing them to love him.

 

When I was a Christian- and I still hold many Christian values close to my heart- I had believed that Hell was where people went who were unrepentant of their sins. As in they feel no remorse or sadness for their actions. I still believe that to this day. Hell is reserved for the worst of the worst. But I'd never been a traditional Christian. I always interpreted things differently.

 

Something I've always wondered about is why God is such a jerk in the OT. Not meant as an attack, but he was a God of wrath and smite this and that for not behaving the way I want it to and fear me or rawr :U He even demanded sacrifices. And then in the NT he sends his only son so mankind can be saved and starts preaching "love they neighbor as thyself".

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C S Lewis was very good on this. He worked out his ideas after his wife died and he needed to make sense of it all. Here is a fair explanation of what he worked out - said far better than I could do it.

 

Also - if we have free will - as - if you believe in god - we do - that has to allow for everything NOT being nice.

"Morally, because wrong actions result where free wills operate, the possibility of suffering is inevitable. God does not violate the aggressive person’s will to strike the innocent."

 

ALSO - if there is no pain, no ugliness - how to we recognise what is not painful, what is beautiful. You need the contrast.

 

As I said - I am not Christian - I neither accept nor refute this; I am just posting it for general edification.

 

There's loads more, but....

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I actually do happen to think the lake of fire is oblivion or something like it. It's something in which death dies. Maybe that means death ceases to exist? But then it is said to die, so, only way I can figure is it's something quite outside my ability to understand, which is, at a best guess, something like oblivion.

 

Now, that said, consider this. You have found some young wild rabbits which you wish to be free to make their own choices as best rabbits can, but you also want them to like you and be comfortable around you. You want them to live. For this thought experiment, there's no where you can take them, they are your responsibility and yours alone. You can build a garden for them and fill it with yummy, nutritious things for bunnies to eat. You can guard the garden from predators. You can be near them so they learn that you are not going to turn them into bunny soup. What you cannot do is force them to like you. You can't pen them in because they are wild rabbits and that is against wild rabbit nature. The rabbits that stay close to you in your garden get the benefit of yummy, nutritious food and fewer predators. The rabbits that leave, well, that was their choice, wasn't it? Now, do wild rabbits ever come to learn that a human cares about them and loves them and wants the best for them? Actually, done very carefully, some do. They do not become tame rabbits, but they realize the human isn't going to hurt them. https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/tainted-love/ is a really good description of what I'm trying to get across, but not from a Christian.

 

I see God in that way, and that is how He can be loving and yet there still be untold dangers in the world and perhaps even eternal torment (which wouldn't be a place created to torture people but simply a place where there is no God; I don't believe He made a place to torture people but that because how we are made to love Him, ultimately, if by our choice we choose to leave Him, after all is said and done, it will affect us in ways we cannot begin to understand in a world where He is present). There must be for us to be free and for Him to be love. He loves us enough to risk losing us. And yes, I believe He knows this will/has/does happen with some before/as/after they are born, and it grieves Him. I don't think it's what He wants, I think it is a result of allowing us freedom. Like E.M. Smith's Little Jack I linked to, God doesn't 'love us against our will'. Terrible things would happen if He did, and we would curse Him.

 

ETA: Fuzz is right, C.S. Lewis is very good on this subject.

Edited by Princess Artemis

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What if i don't need that garden? What if, as a wild bunny, I have my own perfectly fine garden that I like and have no use for one governed by a human I don't know? ._.

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What if i don't need that garden? What if, as a wild bunny, I have my own perfectly fine garden that I like and have no use for one governed by a human I don't know? ._.

I don't even see the human. huh.gif

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The problem is that there doesn't seem to be just one human: different rabbits report different gardens and different caretakers, and some rabbits don't perceive a garden/caretaker at all. Unless you're saying that all the other rabbits are deluded...?

 

(Because the Goddess I honor is very clearly NOT the Christian God.)

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So, if you, yourself, had a garden, you would see more than one you? The reason I wrote up that little thought experiment was not to place you in the position of the rabbit, but of the human, so to explain to KageSora better how I understand God's love works. If you want to place yourselves into the position of the rabbits, it won't work, because that's not how the thought experiment is designed.

 

ETA: It is, of course, an imperfect analogy, because it is an analogy. The purpose is to explain to KageSora how I see God's love working, not to cover every contingency ever nor to cover every theology out there and create an apologetic for mine. It has only a certain use and no other...take it for what it is : )

Edited by Princess Artemis

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I've a question, for Christians, specifically those who promote the "God is loving and kind" idea and who also hold the idea that "Sinners and non-believers will go to Hell"..

 

 

Why do you think that God is "loving", if He sends people to Hell? If Hell exists, I'm really more in agreement with the "God is a hateful god" idea.

 

This "God" is supposedly all-knowing, right (well, that's what I was always taught)? Well, WHY does He allow people to be born, knowing full well that they will not come to Him and will end up in Hell, being tormented for eternity?

 

He condemns them before they're even born (if you believe a soul is formed at conception), knowing they'll live and die as damned souls.

 

The "but He is merciful and WANTS us to come to Him!" thing doesn't really convince me--He could just as easily made oblivion the destination for sinners and non-believers.

 

 

So how do you justify the claim that "God is love"?

 

 

(Honestly, I don't want this to sound like an attack--it's something that I've seriously wondered for a while now, and is one of the questions that made me finally break with Christianity. There are a lot of other issues I have with it, too, but this is one that I'm really curious about.)

I think of it as an issue of free will. People can choose God, or choose to reject God. Hell, in that case, is the state of living without God. I don't think God "sends people to Hell" like he does in things like scary Chick Tracts, sitting on a throne and yelling at people to go to Hell even after they see Him face to face and believe in him or want to repent of sins. I think that people, even in the afterlife, must have the option to reject God, and if they do, there must be a place for them to go. And as God orders the universe, so it is God who created that place and sends them to that place, but only because they chose it. I believe that God loves all people and wants them to come to Him, and it grieves Him when they reject the love and goodness that He offers, but what's the alternative -- make people puppets? Force them to love you? Force them to do good? Leave no room for doubts, faith, beliefs, questions?

 

I don't really think the fire and torture part is literal -- I think it's people trying to conceive of a life without the presence of the divine. Maybe people who are in Hell don't even know that they're in it. Maybe they do know God exists, but for some reason are unwilling to fully embrace the ways of God. C.S. Lewis' book "The Great Divorce" is a good allegory-ish work on this subject. In it, people in Hell are being given repeated chances after death to leave Hell and choose God and heaven. But many of them can't actually get past their own internal/psychological obstacles; such as one who refuses to enter heaven because God also permitted the man who killed his brother to enter, and the soul from Hell refuses to share heaven with his brother's murderer or accept a God who can forgive that man.

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...I'm not sure how much differently "judge not or ye shall be judged" can be taken =P Though I can understand what you're saying as that's more or less why we have branches and branches and branches of denominations.

I just mean that every Christian focuses on different sections of the Bible. I suppose they would interpret the "judge not" verse as "It's god's judgment that counts, but we're warning you of how god will judge you" or something like that. There's always a way to interpret it in your favor. (well, maybe not always)

 

However, Jesus taught more of a "hate the sin, love the sinner" approach. In the gospels he's often dining, conversing, healing, etc with what most people considered either "sinners" or "unclean". Heck, he went as far as to heal a woman who had been menstruating for years; she went out of her house and grabbed the hem of his robe and he allowed her to be healed. Around that time, she would have been considered seriously unclean.

 

Notice how their signs don't say "we hate gay people". They say that "God hates gay people". Maybe they do hate sinners, but I can't be sure of that. For all I know, they might claim to love sinners too, just like evangelicals do while they tell us we're going to hell.

 

Most of the things they quote are 1- OT (which as discussed earlier, most of us don't follow a good portion of those laws), 2- Paul (ICK, for above mentioned reasons as well), or3-  completely taken out of context. And honestly, the Bible has so many phrases in it (and so much symbolism) that you can take a piece of it out of context and use it to argue the support of almost anything.

 

Again, they have a different focus.

 

I don't really agree that they'd know the Bible better than most Christians. Sure, there are a number of Christians that have not read the Bible more often than a small passage at church every week and thus don't know it, but I doubt that's a majority (definitely isn't here). What drives you to say they know more?

 

Honestly, I have no statistics. But, these people base their lives around this religion. They live in a community made up of their own church members, go to church a lot, and even go out to protest based on their beliefs. I can't say for sure, but what I've seen in documentaries and interviews suggests that they actually do spend a lot of time on their religion and on reading the Bible.

 

In contrast, while the majority of Americans identify as Christians, I don't think the majority of Christians actually go to church every week, or sit down and read the Bible frequently. Only a tiny fraction have probably ever read it cover to cover. Most of them know the parts their preachers tell them, have probably heard the most popular stories (Adam and Eve, Noah, Christmas), and that's about it.

 

The difference I see is that the members of the WBC are such a tight-knit, committed group, that they probably spend more time and thought on their religious beliefs than do most Christians.

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To say hell exists is like saying candy land exists. If god wasn't loving we wouldn't be alive we wouldn't have been thought of. We have free will to choose to listen or disobey and face the consequence. When you die, you don't think nothing happens you perish basically your thoughts cease to exist you feel no pain, you do not turn into a spirit. The literal soul is you not something separate from you.

 

For those who don't want to believe in god there is no place, you were given your warning yet you did not listen. Its like if I told you a tornado or hurricane was coming and you didn't want to believe me. I warned you the best I could, I tried reasoning with you not forcing you to listen, but giving sound thought and evidence on the matter.

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To say hell exists is like saying candy land exists. If god wasn't loving we wouldn't be alive we wouldn't have been thought of. We have free will to choose to listen or disobey and face the consequence. When you die, you don't think nothing happens you perish basically your thoughts cease to exist you feel no pain, you do not turn into a spirit. The literal soul is you not something separate from you.

 

For those who don't want to believe in god there is no place, you were given your warning yet you did not listen. Its like if I told you a tornado or hurricane was coming and you didn't want to believe me. I warned you the best I could, I tried reasoning with you not forcing you to listen, but giving sound thought and evidence on the matter.

"If God wasn't loving, we wouldn't be alive. We wouldn't even have been thought of."

 

That's not even close to being true. Pretend for a second that I'm a god with no universe, no world, no life forms to look after. I'm feeling bored and malicious, so I create an entire universe, invent some little human beings and throw them into a world full of death and destruction. And then I point at them and I laugh.

 

Boom. God doesn't have to be loving. You can argue that he is, but nothing about our existence necessitates a loving god.

 

Also, it's more like you're warning me that a supernatural storm is coming, that I can't see, hear, feel, or identify rationally, and you aren't giving me any evidence. You might be able to explain your prediction in a rational and thoughtful way, but I've never seen anybody actually justify it in a convincing way.

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To say hell exists is like saying candy land exists. If god wasn't loving we wouldn't be alive we wouldn't have been thought of. We have free will to choose to listen or disobey and face the consequence. When you die, you don't think nothing happens you perish basically your thoughts cease to exist you feel no pain, you do not turn into a spirit. The literal soul is you not something separate from you.

 

For those who don't want to believe in god there is no place, you were given your warning yet you did not listen. Its like if I told you a tornado or hurricane was coming and you didn't want to believe me. I warned you the best I could, I tried reasoning with you not forcing you to listen, but giving sound thought and evidence on the matter.

Those are suppositions that only make sense in a Christian context. As a Wiccan, I see no concrete proof that any of it is true and have yet to have a Christian present me with anything that's objectively verifiable.

 

I'll ask you this: Why, where Christians see the Christian God, do Hindus see the Gods of their religion, Wiccans see the Goddess and the God, Shintoists see the kami, etc? On what basis can it rationally be claimed that one point of view is true and all others necessarily false? Why do you believe what you believe, aside from having been brought up in it? How can you make sweeping claims about the fate of souls and the nature of God from a limited human perspective? (For the record, I personally believe that human beings have as much chance of comprehending the nature of any God(s) that might exist as my cat Emmie has of comprehending where cat food really comes from.)

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From what I was taught, it is as simple as this:

 

God gave man free will. For him to take away that free will would be just as cruel as forcing them to love him.

 

When I was a Christian- and I still hold many Christian values close to my heart- I had believed that Hell was where people went who were unrepentant of their sins. As in they feel no remorse or sadness for their actions. I still believe that to this day. Hell is reserved for the worst of the worst. But I'd never been a traditional Christian. I always interpreted things differently.

This this this this.

 

The problem is that there doesn't seem to be just one human: different rabbits report different gardens and different caretakers, and some rabbits don't perceive a garden/caretaker at all. Unless you're saying that all the other rabbits are deluded...?

 

Perhaps because each rabbit has a different, unique, experience of the garden, each one interprets it differently. Some may not witness a caretaker, others may see only the effects or only certain aspects, and others may see all of the caretaker's actions. Personally I would believe myself to be a rabbit that only sees certain aspects of that caretaker and draws my own conclusion based on that. I think most religious (not Christian but all religions) people are in that category because honestly, who can say they've seen and can explain every aspect of the local diety(ies)?

 

I just mean that every Christian focuses on different sections of the Bible. I suppose they would interpret the "judge not" verse as "It's god's judgment that counts, but we're warning you of how god will judge you" or something like that. There's always a way to interpret it in your favor. (well, maybe not always)

 

Well that's true. Like I said the Bible is full of symbolism and can be used to defend and tear down nearly every moral or ethical decision out there.

 

Notice how their signs don't say "we hate gay people". They say that "God hates gay people". Maybe they do hate sinners, but I can't be sure of that. For all I know, they might claim to love sinners too, just like evangelicals do while they tell us we're going to hell.

 

Once I can access their website on my slow-as-molasses school internet, I'll take a peak around their website to see if they preach any personal hate toward the groups they say God hates.

 

Honestly, I have no statistics. But, these people base their lives around this religion. They live in a community made up of their own church members, go to church a lot, and even go out to protest based on their beliefs. I can't say for sure, but what I've seen in documentaries and interviews suggests that they actually do spend a lot of time on their religion and on reading the Bible.

 

In contrast, while the majority of Americans identify as Christians, I don't think the majority of Christians actually go to church every week, or sit down and read the Bible frequently. Only a tiny fraction have probably ever read it cover to cover. Most of them know the parts their preachers tell them, have probably heard the most popular stories (Adam and Eve, Noah, Christmas), and that's about it.

 

The difference I see is that the members of the WBC are such a tight-knit, committed group, that they probably spend more time and thought on their religious beliefs than do most Christians.

 

Most Christians who actively engage in debates on controversial subjects make it a point to know what they're talking about. In addition, anyone who goes to a Christian school or who has parents who require weekly (or even bi-weekly) church visits and Bible readings on top of that would know enough to form protests and the like. It's true that a lot of Christians just go off of what their parents, school, or pastors say without thinking to check the verses referenced. It's sad, but that happens with everything else too, including non-religious debates.

 

They are rather tight-knit, but a lot of churches are which tends to turn new churchgoers or even kids off because there's already an established environment that's not willing to change.

 

Edit: I need to not type things when I'm half dead. Herpderp wat is grammar.

Edited by JaziandCo

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So, if you, yourself, had a garden, you would see more than one you? The reason I wrote up that little thought experiment was not to place you in the position of the rabbit, but of the human, so to explain to KageSora better how I understand God's love works. If you want to place yourselves into the position of the rabbits, it won't work, because that's not how the thought experiment is designed.

I understood what you tried to explain but the problem still remains. My rabbits would see, smell, feel, hear and be able to touch me but I can't see, smell, feel, hear or touch any god.

 

For those who don't want to believe in god there is no place, you were given your warning yet you did not listen. Its like if I told you a tornado or hurricane was coming and you didn't want to believe me. I warned you the best I could, I tried reasoning with you not forcing you to listen, but giving sound thought and evidence on the matter.

To me, those warnings are like "Don't go up the hill, you'll get a flower pot in your head!"

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For those who don't want to believe in god there is no place, you were given your warning yet you did not listen. Its like if I told you a tornado or hurricane was coming and you didn't want to believe me. I warned you the best I could, I tried reasoning with you not forcing you to listen, but giving sound thought and evidence on the matter.

Where is this evidence?

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I understood what you tried to explain but the problem still remains. My rabbits would see, smell, feel, hear and be able to touch me but I can't see, smell, feel, hear or touch any god.

Then you understood what I tried to explain and there is no problem. It was an analogy to try to get across an idea, not to present an argument for faith.

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The evidence is every where. Like for a tornado the clouds coloring, the wind speed the forming of a funnel cloud are the evidence. People don't react until it's to late, some don't listen when told to leave the area.

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The evidence is every where. Like for a tornado the clouds coloring, the wind speed the forming of a funnel cloud are the evidence. People don't react until it's to late, some don't listen when told to leave the area.

So...

 

how does this relate to proof of God/Heaven/Hell again? -is genuinely confused-

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The evidence is every where. Like for a tornado the clouds coloring, the wind speed the forming of a funnel cloud are the evidence. People don't react until it's to late, some don't listen when told to leave the area.

Wait, so scientists warning people of a tornado watch, with documented wind speeds and established, testable knowledge on how wind works, in which a person can look outside and /see/ the winds, this is a documentable phenomenon...

 

How is this situation in any way like trust a really old book that preaches an invisible whatever that will send you to bad places because 'you suck'?

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The evidence is every where. Like for a tornado the clouds coloring, the wind speed the forming of a funnel cloud are the evidence. People don't react until it's to late, some don't listen when told to leave the area.

That is proof that some humans are dumber than others. not proof of a god.

Tornadoes and other natural disasters are all easy to explain via science. even with earthquakes and volcanoes we are getting to a point we can predict more accurately when ones will hit and extent of devastation using science... still not seeing any god here

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Holy cow this thread moves fast. And what I meant by my previous statement wasn't that this IS a huge argument (sorry if that's what I seemed to have meant) just that most of the time it is inevitable that someone will take offense to a particular statement and it will escalate from there. Anyways, BACK TO THE AMUSING DEBATES!

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The evidence is every where. Like for a tornado the clouds coloring, the wind speed the forming of a funnel cloud are the evidence. People don't react until it's to late, some don't listen when told to leave the area.

Where is this evidence?

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That is proof that some humans are dumber than others. not proof of a god.

Tornadoes and other natural disasters are all easy to explain via science. even with earthquakes and volcanoes we are getting to a point we can predict more accurately when ones will hit and extent of devastation using science... still not seeing any god here

Okay, I *THINK* -- and I'm not saying I agree or disagree with this point, just trying to clarify some communication issues, here -- I *think* SilverWingWyvren wasn't saying that hurricanes *are* the evidence of God's existence, but that just as there are warning signs of a hurricane forming and approaching, so there are also signs and communication in the world to alert us to God's existence and what we're supposed to do about it.

 

IF that was the statement, I'd like to hear more on Silver's thoughts. If not, then I'm sorry if I've muddied the waters further!

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