(October 8, 2015 at 1:51 am)sinnerdaniel94 Wrote:(October 8, 2015 at 1:48 am)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote: The gift is not free. Submission is not freedom. What are you, George Orwell?
YOU DONT HAVE TO SUBMIT!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes. You do. You must change almost everything about yourself. I know you think that it is simply acceptance of the gift which allows the "holy spirit" to work through you and change you from within, but the result is the same. You must accept a set of rules about what is/isn't acceptable behavior (sin), and dedicate yourself to service to the master.
The word for that is "submission", whether you like it or not.
Why can God not simply let me into heaven as I am, an honest, decent person who simply does not think the evidence provided by the Hebrew scripture-writers is good evidence, given that it conflicts in so many astoundingly-ignorant ways with the world I observe around me? (I saw your "from a rock" comment, and as a former evolutionary biologist, it made me nearly snort tea through my nose.) Why can God not simply let me die like all the other mammals, if I have failed to meet the standards required for heaven?
When you offer me a "free" gift, and the price of not accepting that gift is torture, it is not a free gift. It is a threat. It is a forcible compulsion. It is unworthy of any being that could ever deserve to be worshiped.
On the other hand, it makes total sense if you're a Broze Age tribal warrior priest who thinks that genocide against the tribe in the next valley is okay, that enslaving the survivors is okay, and that women are the property of men. That is not God. That is the selfishness of humans, and I reject all concepts that derive from that basis because I am a moral person.
A Christian told me: if you were saved you cant lose your salvation. you're sealed with the Holy Ghost
I replied: Can I refuse? Because I find the entire concept of vicarious blood sacrifice atonement to be morally abhorrent, the concept of holding flawed creatures permanently accountable for social misbehaviors and thought crimes to be morally abhorrent, and the concept of calling something "free" when it comes with the strings of subjugation and obedience perhaps the most morally abhorrent of all... and that's without even going into the history of justifying genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, religious intolerance, and suppression of free speech which has been attributed by your own scriptures to your deity. I want a refund. I would burn happily rather than serve the monster you profess to love.
I replied: Can I refuse? Because I find the entire concept of vicarious blood sacrifice atonement to be morally abhorrent, the concept of holding flawed creatures permanently accountable for social misbehaviors and thought crimes to be morally abhorrent, and the concept of calling something "free" when it comes with the strings of subjugation and obedience perhaps the most morally abhorrent of all... and that's without even going into the history of justifying genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, religious intolerance, and suppression of free speech which has been attributed by your own scriptures to your deity. I want a refund. I would burn happily rather than serve the monster you profess to love.
