Abusive Theology 101

[ITChick]

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What parents do is punish. What god does is torture.

Huge difference.

Hebrews 12:7-11,
"7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? 8 If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. 9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! 10 They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it."

Note: I'm not posting this Scripture as a rebuttal to your comment; I don't expect you to follow the Bible - I don't know why you would if you don't call yourself a Christian... but I've found it to be so true in my life. If God is all-knowing then He would, in theory, know how best to discipline us to have the most effective end results.

Considering that, I find it more logical to conclude that what I would consider torture is really just pushing me to my limits. If any of you have been in the Marine Corps you can relate to this perfectly; your gunnery sgt. pushes you beyond what you think is humanly possible, and only after the painful experience can you look back and see it was that very testing of your limits that turned you into such an effective soldier. As they say, "Pain is weakness leaving the body."

While you could label this as masochistic, it is not. Masochism is deriving pleasure, or even sexual gratification from your own humiliation and pain.. discipline is enduring pain with the goal of improvement. Completely different, in fact I might argue that refusing to accept discipline for what it is could be considered victimizing oneself.

I write all this because I've found that every difficulty in my life (that wasn't self-inflicted) has bred greater wisdom and peace. I have yet to find a more convincing theory on personal suffering.

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Locke, I don't think Maelstrom was talking about personal suffering. I think he was referring to that place that some Christians love to damn us to when we insult their belief (or their god) or if *gasp* they hear we are an Atheist.

You know. Hell. No second chances - it isn't to teach you anything, it is simply there to torture you. Unless you accept Jesus Christ as your saviour.

Now my opinion is this: Unless God stops torturing (or allowing the torture of) my friends and family, everyone I know and everyone I've never met (even the murderers and rapists) I'm not going to accept him as a personal anything.

One of the things that gives me a lot of peace as an atheist is the fact that I never have to have that conversation with God. You know the: "Uhm... God... I don't know if you noticed, but they are torturing people down there. Can you please make it stop?" one.