RE: Irational fear of hell still naggs me from time to time
October 7, 2017 at 4:02 pm
(This post was last modified: October 7, 2017 at 4:05 pm by KevinM1.)
(October 6, 2017 at 1:56 pm)Drich Wrote:(October 6, 2017 at 10:48 am)Minimalist Wrote: You need to see a shrink, dripshit. Plus a nice long stay in a room with padded walls.
So tell me some more about what your America would look like without a constitution or bill of rights...
Fun fact: the word 'god' doesn't appear in the Constitution.
Fun fact: most of the Founding Fathers were deists, believing in a god that was akin to a clock maker rather than one who played voyeur.
Fun fact: I actually did my senior university project on the sermons of a local Revolutionary War pastor, and how much his rhetoric played (if it played any role at all) in forming and supporting the attitudes of rebellion among the common folk.
One of the benefits of living in one of the original colonies is having the history of the era at my fingertips. Actually being able to touch and hold the manuscripts was pretty amazing from a historical POV. If any of you have the good fortune to visit NH, and enjoy history, check out Strawbery Banke (http://www.strawberybanke.org/).
Anyway, while it's true that the Founders generally believed in a god, it certainly wasn't the same one most Christians, especially non-denominationals and/or evangelicals, today believe in. These were men of the Enlightenment. And even then, their actions often belied their words (see: slavery).
Ultimately, the genesis of our government has far more to do with British Common Law than anything to do with religion. And if you don't believe me, you can ask my former professor (https://cola.unh.edu/faculty-member/james-farrell), who's Catholic (as though that matters).
(October 6, 2017 at 3:27 pm)Astreja Wrote:(October 6, 2017 at 10:47 am)Drich Wrote: If you want to experience it for yourself then threaten to spit in God's eye and demand he show you what was so bad about hell. Over and over and over again. I promise you. you will see Hell. What i can't promise is a return trip home. Even so that what I did. I wanted to know the truth and I jumped off a cliff to find it. I did.
Your method sounds very much like an act of self-hypnosis, especially the "over and over and over again" part.
Actually, it sounds more like attributing coincidence to something divine, which, I guess, could simply be the definition of superstition. "I kept doing this thing over and over, and then one time something bad actually happened, so the cause must've been that thing I thought of rather than a chance encounter/event!"
It's a symptom of a weak mind.
