(June 30, 2015 at 9:07 pm)Randy Carson Wrote: That's ultimately for your creator to decide.

But if you want to examine your own conscience, did you show them how the people who created these fears in them were misinterpreting a handful of the scriptures? Or did you help them to understand the whole of the Bible which is very clear on how much God loves us?

My friend's Dad made it clear how much he loved him, right before he whipped him with a lawn mower cord in grade one. God's love seems pretty similar-- he's so full of love, except for the part where he punishes those who dare cross him or disbelieve, and not only themselves, but their descendents to the fourth generation.

If that's what love is, then God needs therapy.

(June 30, 2015 at 9:07 pm)Randy Carson Wrote:

(June 30, 2015 at 8:59 pm)SteelCurtain Wrote: I am really not sure how that answers the question.

I have personally guided two or three of my friends who came to me looking for help to get over the fears instilled in them by the church. Should I be drowned, Randy?

That's ultimately for your creator to decide.

But if you want to examine your own conscience, did you show them how the people who created these fears in them were misinterpreting a handful of the scriptures? Or did you help them to understand the whole of the Bible which is very clear on how much God loves us?

If someone asked me if you should be drowned, Randy, I would easily say no; in fact, I would be horrified that anyone even considered physically harming you. Why can't you answer Steel's question the same way?

(June 30, 2015 at 9:18 am)Randy Carson Wrote:

(June 30, 2015 at 9:09 am)SteelCurtain Wrote: Do I get an apology, Randy? Did I misrepresent your position?

I apologize.

I thought the three of you were saying that I AGREE with killing heretics, but you did correctly say that I understand it.

Now, my question: Don't you understand the logic of it - even if you don't agree with it?

Analogy: A man with an AK-47 takes several dozen people hostage in a crowded shopping mall. He's not going to surrender peacefully. People WILL die. But a sniper has a clean shot that will take him out with no innocent people killed.

Does he take the shot?

If a heretic leads people into eternal damnation, has he not done those souls more harm than the gunmen at the mall?


BTW - why is PiousPaladin's name written in a strikeout font?

I noticed that you put the hero, the sniper, in the place of those who burned heretics. The problem is that sniper isn't shooting an innocent person but those who burned heretics were killing innocent people. A better analogy would be if the man with the AK-47 walked into a Catholic Church and started killing the congregation members because he thought that they were an alien army secretly plotting to take over the earth. From his point of view, the killings make sense, don't they?

The people who killed heretics were also wrong in their justification for killing innocent people. It is insane to kill innocent people because someone wrongly believes that they are aliens. It is equally insane to kill people because they worship the bible god in a way in which the Catholic Church doesn't approve.

The reason that I used a Catholic Church is not to offend you but to try to help you understand how your statement might sound to some people, me included.

(June 30, 2015 at 9:36 pm)SteelCurtain Wrote: It's easy for you to brush off everything that is harmful about your religion as a bastardization. Yet there is a reason that "Catholic Guilt" is a meme in our lexicon, and has a rich history in our literature. There is a reason that "fire and brimstone" speech is part of our lexicon, there is a reason why fear of hell is nearly ubiquitous among Christians. I'm sorry Randy, but reading through the Bible, you cannot escape the death cult nature of the "believe in me or suffer eternal anguish" bullshit that is rampant throughout. Whether you want to accept it or not, your intellectual honesty is at stake in not acknowledging its pervasiveness.

Your mind is twisted....darkened, really. You cannot see verses such as:

Quote:John 3:16-18
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

Romans 5:1-10
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. 6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!

Romans 8:31-39
If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
   we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Quote:I listened. I provided support for what they needed rather than what I wanted for them. I asked them questions and allowed them to come to their own conclusions. I allowed them to grieve for a lost part of their life. I was supportive. My conscience is without reservation perfectly clear.

Bull. What they needed was to know that God loves them and that the people who had abused certain passages or concepts were wrong. But you couldn't tell them that God loves them because you don't know that God loves you.

I've heard your story that many people in this forum have been hurt by other Christians, have had bad experiences, etc. I'm very sorry that happened. But what ALL of those folks need is not less God but less man and MORE GOD. God is love. Only God can heal these hurts.

Quote:Which brings me to my point: why did you post that verse from Matthew? If you don't believe that I or anyone that leads a person from your concept of Truth, if you can understand the murder of a person that simply doesn't believe the same things about foreverland that you do, why post those verses or that opinion at all?

I leave you to God's mercy, Mike, but you saw the verse. Leading others astray is something that God takes very seriously, apparently.

(June 30, 2015 at 11:00 pm)Nope Wrote:

(June 30, 2015 at 9:18 am)Randy Carson Wrote: I apologize.

I thought the three of you were saying that I AGREE with killing heretics, but you did correctly say that I understand it.

Now, my question: Don't you understand the logic of it - even if you don't agree with it?

Analogy: A man with an AK-47 takes several dozen people hostage in a crowded shopping mall. He's not going to surrender peacefully. People WILL die. But a sniper has a clean shot that will take him out with no innocent people killed.

Does he take the shot?

If a heretic leads people into eternal damnation, has he not done those souls more harm than the gunmen at the mall?


BTW - why is PiousPaladin's name written in a strikeout font?

I noticed that you put the hero, the sniper, in the place of those who burned heretics. The problem is that  sniper isn't shooting an innocent person but those who burned heretics were killing innocent people. A better analogy would be if the man with the AK-47 walked into a Catholic Church and started killing the congregation members because he thought that they were an alien army secretly plotting to take over the earth. From his point of view, the killings make sense, don't they?

The people who killed heretics were also wrong in their justification for killing innocent people. It is insane to kill innocent people because someone wrongly believes that they are aliens. It is equally insane to kill people because they worship the bible god in a way in which the Catholic Church doesn't approve.

The reason that I used a Catholic Church is not to offend you but to try to help you understand how your statement might sound to some people, me included.

I'm not offended. No worries on that account.

The man with the gun kills the body. The man with the bad theology kills the soul.

From the vantage point of eternity, which is worse?

(June 30, 2015 at 9:46 pm)bennyboy Wrote:

(June 30, 2015 at 9:07 pm)Randy Carson Wrote: That's ultimately for your creator to decide.

But if you want to examine your own conscience, did you show them how the people who created these fears in them were misinterpreting a handful of the scriptures? Or did you help them to understand the whole of the Bible which is very clear on how much God loves us?

My friend's Dad made it clear how much he loved him, right before he whipped him with a lawn mower cord in grade one.  God's love seems pretty similar-- he's so full of love, except for the part where he punishes those who dare cross him or disbelieve, and not only themselves, but their descendents to the fourth generation.

If that's what love is, then God needs therapy.

Above, you wrote, "God's love seems [emphasis added]...".

Are you speaking of your own personal experience of God's love? Or is this just what you've read about in books and you actually have no personal experience of God at all?

Randy, when are you going to get it through your thick fucking skull that the people you're talking to hold no belief in your god? When is it going to sink into your simple brain that preaching at people isn't going to get you anywhere? When will your bullshit-addled mind realize that anecdotes, Bible verses, and broad assertions are as good as bullshit to the average atheist?

Rhetorical questions; I realize none of that will ever happen.

(June 30, 2015 at 11:29 pm)rexbeccarox Wrote: Randy, when are you going to get it through your thick fucking skull that the people you're talking to hold no belief in your god?  When is it going to sink into your simple brain that preaching at people isn't going to get you anywhere? When will your bullshit-addled mind realize that anecdotes, Bible verses, and broad assertions are as good as bullshit to the average atheist?

Rhetorical questions; I realize none of that will ever happen.

I hear you, becca. And now hear the Word of God:

Isaiah 55:11
11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

I'm just doing my part, becca. The Holy Spirit has to do the rest.

(June 30, 2015 at 11:15 pm)Randy Carson Wrote:

(June 30, 2015 at 9:36 pm)SteelCurtain Wrote: It's easy for you to brush off everything that is harmful about your religion as a bastardization. Yet there is a reason that "Catholic Guilt" is a meme in our lexicon, and has a rich history in our literature. There is a reason that "fire and brimstone" speech is part of our lexicon, there is a reason why fear of hell is nearly ubiquitous among Christians. I'm sorry Randy, but reading through the Bible, you cannot escape the death cult nature of the "believe in me or suffer eternal anguish" bullshit that is rampant throughout. Whether you want to accept it or not, your intellectual honesty is at stake in not acknowledging its pervasiveness.

Your mind is twisted....darkened, really. You cannot see verses such as:

---

Quote:John 3:16-18
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

Romans 5:1-10
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. 6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!

Romans 8:31-39
If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
   we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

---

I appreciate the confirmation on your wealth of intellectual dishonesty. Well done.

(June 30, 2015 at 11:15 pm)Randy Carson Wrote:

(June 30, 2015 at 9:36 pm)SteelCurtain Wrote: I listened. I provided support for what they needed rather than what I wanted for them. I asked them questions and allowed them to come to their own conclusions. I allowed them to grieve for a lost part of their life. I was supportive. My conscience is without reservation perfectly clear.

Bull. What they needed was to know that God loves them and that the people who had abused certain passages or concepts were wrong. But you couldn't tell them that God loves them because you don't know that God loves you.

I've heard your story that many people in this forum have been hurt by other Christians, have had bad experiences, etc. I'm very sorry that happened. But what ALL of those folks need is not less God but less man and MORE GOD. God is love. Only God can heal these hurts.

Except your sky daddy is only love if you understand him is just the right way. And any variation in that understanding is considered heresy which apparently in a whirlwind of love, a person should be drowned mafia style.

Tone down the preaching, Randy. Nobody wants to hear it. If that's all you have, then you've exhausted your attempts at reasoned argument and have settled on pulpit pot shots. Your god is only love about 10% of the time. For every one of those verses about love, I could pop off 10 which describe the hate mongering, fear mongering jackass that is described by your Bible.

I won't waste my time or breath though, because it doesn't exist. It is a story you tell yourself to feel more secure about your place in the cosmos. If you need that, fine. But I don't. I am happy, connected, and secure. I enjoy fulfilling relationships. I practice empathy and connect with others. I seek to rectify my ideas and align them most closely with what can be shown to be, not what a book written by bronze age goat herders and the medieval scribes who modified it to fit their whims.

(June 30, 2015 at 11:15 pm)Randy Carson Wrote:

(June 30, 2015 at 9:36 pm)SteelCurtain Wrote: Which brings me to my point: why did you post that verse from Matthew? If you don't believe that I or anyone that leads a person from your concept of Truth, if you can understand the murder of a person that simply doesn't believe the same things about foreverland that you do, why post those verses or that opinion at all?

I leave you to God's mercy, Mike, but you saw the verse. Leading others astray is something that God takes very seriously, apparently.

I bet you do, Randy. You know what the ultimate irony is? You caterwauling about how using fear to subjugate others is not what your religion is all about, and in the very same post you threaten me with your god's wrath for leading people astray, alongside your "understanding" about people who believe differently being killed for doing so. But it's not about fear at all, is it?

Still didn't answer the question.

(June 30, 2015 at 11:15 pm)Randy Carson Wrote:

(June 30, 2015 at 9:36 pm)SteelCurtain Wrote: It's easy for you to brush off everything that is harmful about your religion as a bastardization. Yet there is a reason that "Catholic Guilt" is a meme in our lexicon, and has a rich history in our literature. There is a reason that "fire and brimstone" speech is part of our lexicon, there is a reason why fear of hell is nearly ubiquitous among Christians. I'm sorry Randy, but reading through the Bible, you cannot escape the death cult nature of the "believe in me or suffer eternal anguish" bullshit that is rampant throughout. Whether you want to accept it or not, your intellectual honesty is at stake in not acknowledging its pervasiveness.

Your mind is twisted....darkened, really. You cannot see verses such as:

Quote:John 3:16-18
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

Romans 5:1-10
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. 6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!

Romans 8:31-39
If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
   we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Quote:I listened. I provided support for what they needed rather than what I wanted for them. I asked them questions and allowed them to come to their own conclusions. I allowed them to grieve for a lost part of their life. I was supportive. My conscience is without reservation perfectly clear.

Bull. What they needed was to know that God loves them and that the people who had abused certain passages or concepts were wrong. But you couldn't tell them that God loves them because you don't know that God loves you.

I've heard your story that many people in this forum have been hurt by other Christians, have had bad experiences, etc. I'm very sorry that happened. But what ALL of those folks need is not less God but less man and MORE GOD. God is love. Only God can heal these hurts.

Quote:Which brings me to my point: why did you post that verse from Matthew? If you don't believe that I or anyone that leads a person from your concept of Truth, if you can understand the murder of a person that simply doesn't believe the same things about foreverland that you do, why post those verses or that opinion at all?

I leave you to God's mercy, Mike, but you saw the verse. Leading others astray is something that God takes very seriously, apparently.

No, the problem is that Steel, and I, and many others read ALL the verses, not just for God so Loved the World.  And we ask questions like why would a omnipotent god need to sacrifice his son in order not to punish eternally for finite crimes?  And we look at what god is supposed to have actually done (like ordering the death of all Egyptian first born or the death of everyone but young virgin women in whole apparently blameless villages) as opposed to declarations of fatherly love.  And we don't believe things simply because they are written in an old book, no matter how many people revere that book.  We don't believe extraordinary claims with minimal evidence.  We don't believe a book that is contradicted by history and science.  

Ultimately the questions are two:  Is god real (to which I say most probably not); and if the Christian god is real is he good (to which I say obviously not unless like Dritch you define good as whatever god does).

So I ask you is supporting people in unreal beliefs leading them astray?  If so every apologist is very very guilty.

So Steel listened to people in pain. People seeking answers.  And he let their own rationality find the answers.  And those answers were not only right, but not religious, and they made those people feel better.  Because a world without Yahweh is better.  I'd say he saved people from stumbling.