Proselytizing

[rjh4 is back]

Even if you think that word is too extreme, or means something more specific to war, or whatever, there is still the issue of the religion causing fear of doing nonharmful things like thoughts, for instance not actively thinking 'love' thoughts (worship, prayer, adoration, etc) about someone (your xtian god) when ORDERED to, gets punished with eternal torture. That is cruel and unfair, unlike warnings against doing harmful things like murder. Also, the punishment is not real, whereas jail/execution for murder is real. Same with the fact that there is no god reading the kid's mind constantly as threatened, unlike witnesses/clues/evidence/forensics/autopsies seeing that a murder has been done.

Cruel and unfair? That, of course, either presupposes some objective standard of fairness and cruelty or is merely your opinion.

Guess what? I get to have an opinion of godboy. I even get to have a bad opinion of him, what he would be like if real that is. Guess what? He's a cruel shithead, if your holy book is to be believed. Fucking mental case, actually. Demands you to think nice things about him. Worship, praise, adoration, letting him into your heart, accepting him, blah blah blabbity blah. You even think he reads your mind all the time, so I'll bet anything that you do indeed think nice things about him, and I'll bet you even try and talk yourself into believing you are doing it because you WANT to. Lucky it happens to be exactly what you think he's ordered you to do, eh?

The punishment is not real? And you "know" this how? You may not believe it is real.

The same way that you know Neverland is not real, and Valhalla is not real, and Buddhist reincarnation is not real, etc. With that argument, why aren't you a deist instead of specifically a christian? How do you know any of the other god's afterlife rewards and punishments aren't real? How do you know that magical dragons don't use dead christians for stove fuel all because they never read enough sci fi while alive? You can make up an infinity of possiblities, even if a reward/punishment afterlife and a god are requirements. Why don't you believe in the others just in case?

Don't get me wrong Scented Nectar, while I think hell is real I do not think it is the best to go around and tell children about Christianity by focusing on hell and scaring them into believing. I think the Christian message is easy to present in a positive way such that one is not scaring them into belief just like I think one can teach a child that murder is not an appropriate behavior without trying to scare them into not doing it because the will be executed. In both cases, while the consequences can be discussed, the focus would not be on that but on the positive. The difference would be like the difference between a malevolent dictator who rules by fear and a benevolent king that encourages the positive. You clearly see the God of the Bible as the former, I see Him as the latter.

Then why did he make up the whole hell punishment in the first place? Why did he not eliminate sin and anything else offensive to him when he created everything? Seems kind of silly to create an enemy you can't quickly squash. What positive has he encouraged? Is it the killing of babies of nonbelievers? Is it the killing of people for many nonharmful 'crimes'? Is it the mindfuck of blame for someone else's disobedience (everyone blamed for Eve eating an apple, many cases of children punished for their parents' transgressions)? Is it the demands of thought control, love me or else I'll torture you? Think about this stuff. Why are you such a god fan? Relief and thanks at being told you're good for following commands, and that you'll not be punished?

Scented Nectar...do you think it is wrong for parents to teach children what they believe?

If the belief has no validity to it and causes mental trauma, like in the case of hell belief, it is very wrong.

If there was no reward or punishment aspects to the afterlife you believe in, would you still follow the commands that do no harm to break? The thought commands to pray and worship and love your god? The commands not to worship any other ideas of god, etc?

Nice rant. You have a nice day too, Scented Nectar!!