(January 29, 2020 at 9:06 am)Chad32 Wrote: Just imagine being muslim, where your parents tell you that you'll go to hell if you don't follow islam, then some christian comes up and says you'll go to hell if you don't change religion. Sounds like either way you're risking hell, so there's always going to be someone telling you that their god is going to toss you into a lake of fire for not sticking with the right religion.

Works the other way around too. That's how you know this hell thing is bullshit. You're damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

This sort of conflicting "facts" is one source for the seeds of skepticism. They can't both be right.

(January 29, 2020 at 9:37 am)Fierce Wrote: The issue is that theists tend to have a backwards view of what loving means. After all, those incapable of seeing what a monster their god is will erroneously view their own actions of saving someone's soul as loving.

And they're jump to special pleading if you compare what their god does, to what Humans do. If anyone else did the crap that their god did, everyone would call him a monster. But they say "well god is different, or he has the right to do what he wants because he created everything".

It's like when they want to credit every good thing that happens in the world to god, and every bad thing to us. It just doesn't make sense. Like there's never any negative consequences to the things their god tells people to do. You can't blame the big guy, because he's perfect. And we know he's perfect because he says he is. He also never lies, because he says he never lies. And liars always have to tell the truth about whether they lie or not.

I sometimes make the argument that if you have an idea of what the nature of god is, being omnibenevolent and stuff, and you see something in the bible that directly contradicts that, the right course of action is to exclude the god of the bible from being the one true god. Not make excuses for horrible actions because "He just has to be perfect. It's in his nature".

Well, you could just exclude that incongruous detail from magic books true or plausible portion.

As if people ever bullshitted anyone else about some fairies. Thing is, is that most of the people with issues like you mention actually worship the magic book, not the god it allegedly describes.

(January 29, 2020 at 9:06 am)Chad32 Wrote: Just imagine being muslim, where your parents tell you that you'll go to hell if you don't follow islam, then some christian comes up and says you'll go to hell if you don't change religion. Sounds like either way you're risking hell, so there's always going to be someone telling you that their god is going to toss you into a lake of fire for not sticking with the right religion.

Works the other way around too. That's how you know this hell thing is bullshit. You're damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

Also applies to xtians of different denominations, (and presumably to muslim denominations as well) so there is no way to win. All those bible bashers shouting abuse on the streets are going to hell as well because none of them picked the right one.

As a preteen, I used to suffer from night terrors about dying and going to eternal Hell. Went on for years, even after I renounced the evangelical Christian faith that I was born and brainwashed into. And, so, yes, I think it's child abuse.

(January 29, 2020 at 3:59 pm)Jehanne Wrote: As a preteen, I used to suffer from night terrors about dying and going to eternal Hell.  Went on for years, even after I renounced the evangelical Christian faith that I was born and brainwashed into.  And, so, yes, I think it's child abuse.

Since I really never believed though I had to participate I didn't have the fear.  But I have a question for you...Just as you had fear that an eternal hell was very real to you was the concept of some wonderful heavenly place as real?  Did you truly believe that if you did everything 'right' you would have some beautiful after death spent with your loved ones?

I really puzzle about that.  Does hell have the bigger hold on the mind of a child brought up like that than the concept of a heaven?

@arewethereyet fear, as an emotion, generally correlates better to our physiological response of fight/flight more directly than endorphine induced elation regarding some happy thoughts, thus the negative would have a stronger hold than the positive in most instances.

Being abusive is abuse.

(January 30, 2020 at 12:26 pm)tackattack Wrote: @arewethereyet fear, as an emotion, generally correlates better to our physiological response of fight/flight more directly than endorphine induced elation regarding some happy thoughts, thus the negative would have a stronger hold than the positive in most instances.

I get that but what I asked is if the belief was as 'real' when thinking about heaven as it was about hell.  Did you have heaven as thought out as you did hell?  Was it all about avoiding hell or was there some thought about working your way into heaven.  Do you spend your life trying not to sin too much in order to escape punishment?  If that's what life is about I am not seeing the appeal in the whole Christian belief system.  A life spent either avoiding doing something 'wrong' and atonement for every potential misstep seems like a miserable way to live.

It seems even more empty to have the 'get out of jail free card' by claiming to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior.  How many murderers and rapists find Jesus in prison?  Just think - that's who you get to spend eternity with - someone who said the magic words.

(January 30, 2020 at 12:26 pm)tackattack Wrote: @arewethereyet fear, as an emotion, generally correlates better to our physiological response of fight/flight more directly than endorphine induced elation regarding some happy thoughts, thus the negative would have a stronger hold than the positive in most instances.

Huge difference between fearing getting  hit while trying to cross a busy crosswalk at an intersection, and fearing Darth Vader.

The problem with our species evolution, worldwide, is that we started out in a scientifically ignorant age. And unfortunately to this day, most humans simply buy the superstitions their parents sell them in youth prior to formulating adult critical thinking skills.