Lucifer

[Crossless2.0]

GC's Christianity: Where small-minded resentment and schadenfreude join hands before the wishing well.

If you continue down this same path according to the Bible you will wish you had a wishing well at judgement.

GC

And we are in the same boat according to the Koran. Anyway, thanks for making my point for me.

[Godscreated]

 No not in the sense you are probably asking. I have respect for God who created all things which means He has power beyond belief and has providence over His creation. You see I believe God will keep his promises to all of mankind and in that I have a fear for those who do not know Him nor believe in the wrath He promises for those who will not accept Christ as savior and for who He is. God is limitless and so his wrath will be also. I know you don't want to hear this but God is justified in anything He chooses to do, (here it comes) because He is God. He is the supreme ruler of His creation.

GC

You do not know what I want to hear or not. let me ask you this: Do you have any chronic illness? Hypertension , diabetes, gastrointestinal reflux? Anything more serious?

 I know you want me to say that I live in trembling fear of God each day, that's what ever atheist here believes and I explained that my fear is respect for the most powerful being who has providence over His whole creation. Meaning He can do whatever He desires and would be justified in doing so. The word desire does come with who God is, something I have yet to find atheist understand.
I have gastrointestinal reflux and a chemical imbalance in my brain that sometimes causes anxiety. Why is this important to you and me being fearful of God?

GC

[The Grand Nudger]

That's some pretty sick shit.  Your god can come down from giving children HIV or whatever he does all day, put his godly business into my wife.....cut her up a little bit, and set our house on fire on the way out....

Jus-ti-fied!

[Neo-Scholastic]

I'll grant you that Hitchens probably over-egged his remark, yet the point remains that the doctrine creates a problem and then offers the cure.

That's one way of looking at it. The underlying assumption is that the condition of sinfulness was invented or manufactured as opposed to say recognized.

Remove "God", eliminate "sin". Problem solved, and not a shot fired.

"Sin" as a word carries a lot of theological baggage. So in a sense yes, outside a theological context the term sin seems rather quaint. In Biblical Hebrew, sin literally translates as missing the mark like an arrow missing its target. Translated into contemporary secular language, sin would mean something like failing to achieve one's moral potential. Most people consider themselves generally good people and by and large most people are. At the same time, I think most people would freely admit they are as good as they possibly could be. Jeff Goldberg said it best in The Big Chill (and i'm paraphrasing) , "Rationalizing is more important than sex....can you go a week without rationalizing something."

A fair criticism of much church-speak is that it appears to advocate over-the-top scrupulousness. As in, if you take a cookie without asking then you unworthy to stand in the presence of the Holy God! That kind of talk is very off-putting and I think theologically reckless. The idea is that unrecognized sin grows (lies beget bigger lies) unless there is a change of direction. Repentance is that change of direction - away from rationalizing our faults and toward overcoming them. As a result of true repentance, the righteous cultivate the habits of virtue that will carry with them into eternity. That is regeneration.

[The Grand Nudger]

That and over the top un-scrupulousness, look at yer boy up there.  

I don't know that sin actually -can be- translated into a secular meaning, but laying that aside..the mark that's missed....isn't the mark of morality in any sense other than churchspeak "morality". It's not about being as good as we could possibly be, in any sense other than that penultimate height being another mark of churchspeak religiosity. Bringing us right back round to hitchens comments, wherein the condition is manufactured, and the cure conditional upon the manufacturer of the condition.

[Faith No More]

Then you are missing the central point of Christianity. Everyone deserves the condemnation because universally humanity has been corrupted and individually we have fallen short of holiness. GC merely points out, as I do now, that Christ of has extended His Grace and offers eternal life to anyone who will accept it.

I can understand that many on AF see Christianity as just a culture of do's and don'ts to keep people from living life the way they want to. And in a sense that's true. From our perspective, we are inviting spiritual alcoholics to our AA meetings and they are telling us to fuck off so they can keep drinking from a bottle of lies.

Oh, I'm not missing anything.  I've read enough Christian's posts on this board to know precisely that they believe everyone deserves it.  What I'm trying to tell you is that, despite you both feeling that everyone deserves it, telling people they're destined for and deserving of eternal punishment if they don't accept what you're saying is no more courteous than telling someone to fuck off, especially when you do it in the manner that GC did.  I mean, you'd think that if GC really believed we were doomed for eternity, he wouldn't be so callous as to say "if you find that nonsense...well the lasting result of that is on you."  He's clearly only putting on a show and doesn't really give a damn about what happens to anyone else as long as he believes that he has scored his place in heaven.  Thus, your assessment that he was being "gracious" is complete and utter bullshit.  I'd much rather have someone be sincere with me and tell me to fuck off than to have them feigning compassion while simultaneously demonstrating that don't actually give two shits about what happens to me.  And quite frankly, I find it sickening that you Christians will pat each other on the back over this kind of behavior simply because you're not dropping any f-bombs.

As for seeing Christianity as a "culture of do's and don'ts to keep people from living the life they want to," nothing could be further from the truth.  All I see is delusional people holding a bottle of snake oil trying to convince me that I'm sick and only they have the cure.  You can fuck right off with that shit.  

[chimp3]

You do not know what I want to hear or not. let me ask you this: Do you have any chronic illness? Hypertension , diabetes, gastrointestinal reflux? Anything more serious?

 I know you want me to say that I live in trembling fear of God each day, that's what ever atheist here believes and I explained that my fear is respect for the most powerful being who has providence over His whole creation. Meaning He can do whatever He desires and would be justified in doing so. The word desire does come with who God is, something I have yet to find atheist understand.
I have gastrointestinal reflux and a chemical imbalance in my brain that sometimes causes anxiety. Why is this important to you and me being fearful of God?

GC

I am wondering if you attribute your own maladies to gods wrath the way you did with your church fellows. If not, how do you discern between your illness and theirs?

[lisah]

The entire problem with religion is that is takes the concept of Lucifer entirely too seriously, especially when the real evil has always been man himself.

GC himself is evil.  He may not see it, but he is.  

He would rather prevent a great advancement than admit that his god is fiction.

My general impression is that in the face over overwhelming and nasty criticism GC has been more gracious than most members, including myself.

As for Swedenborgian theology we take references to Lucifer as not a single entity but rather a collection, like Legion, of evil spirits. Nevertheless Drich's answer still holds. Those who desire to place themselves above God's authority will be cast down. Think of every thread or reply on AF in which atheists stand in judgment over God because the world does not conform to their expectations of what an all-mighty creator should in their minds should be able to create.

I stumbled upon Swedenborg when researching Helen Keller. I haven't read a lot of Swedenborg's ideas, but it seemed very complicated. However, his writings I also found to be some of the most creatively inspired writings that I have read to date. Interesting stuff.

I am not making the connection that atheists stand in judgment over God so much as people. How can one judge what one does not believe in? It makes no sense to me.

[The Grand Nudger]

Bingo, we can only stand in judgement over what dipshits say on gods behalf.  Obviously, dipshits have to be wrong about....well, all of it, or the term god... as they use it, is meaningless.

[madog]

Judging on what I have heard from you so far your make up your faith as you go along ......

 Because you can't coherently understand the simplet parts of Christianity.

GC

So you consider my understanding of Christianity is why you make up your faith as you go along? Personally I think you create your own failings and neither I or your fantasy God has any responsibility for your failings ...