The Reasons why "Just Following Jesus" Doesn't work

[robvalue]

This video sums up very well how absurd the idea that people send themselves to hell is, and how such reasoning makes no sense in other contexts.

We warn people not to walk towards danger because (a) we know the danger is there and (b) generally speaking, we didn't create the danger ourselves just as a way to hurt people and refuse to remove it, or are pals with someone else who did.

For the most part, danger in our world is an unfortunate byproduct of something with a purpose, it's not there simply as a danger and nothing else. If it was the latter, we would generally try and remove this danger if we could. Right? If God cannot even match up favourably to a reasonable human, he fails as any kind of benevolent being.

At this point I see only these rebuttals:

1) God literally cannot remove "hell": he was powerful enough to create it but not powerful enough to remove it. It was pretty stupid to make it in the first place, then. It would be like digging a massive hole for people to walk into, knowing you couldn't ever fill it back up.

2) God is beyond our understanding so we can't judge him like this. Well, if we can't understand him, we have no way to know he is actually benevolent other than blind faith.

3) Hell does have a purpose, that being to make sure we follow God. Well, then it's a blatant attempt to influence our decision through threats.

And lastly: Christians are "choosing" Islam hell, as well as every other hell that could ever possibly exist, if they do happen to exist and they are wrong about Christianity. Is that fair? Are you choosing Islam hell, if it turns out that is the real hell? It's no different to us "choosing" your hell, if it turns out your hell is real. You don't think Islam hell is real, and we don't think your hell is real.

http://youtu.be/HaJgLBoB_Pw

[Lek]

1) God literally cannot remove "hell": he was powerful enough to create it but not powerful enough to remove it. It was pretty stupid to make it in the first place, then. It would be like digging a massive hole for people to walk into, knowing you couldn't ever fill it back up.

I don't see any reason God couldn't remove hell, but he created it for a reason, so why would he want to remove it?

2) God is beyond our understanding so we can't judge him like this. Well, if we can't understand him, we have no way to know he is actually benevolent other than blind faith.

We don't know all that is involved in God's decisions. If he was evil and wanted us to go to hell, then why would he sacrifice himself on our behalf? My decision isn't blind. I know the bible, I'm aware of science, and I know what I sense. You have to make a choice and go with that.

3) Hell does have a purpose, that being to make sure we follow God. Well, then it's a blatant attempt to influence our decision through threats.

If we do live on after this life, then at that point we're either with him or away from him, depending on our own free choices. Hell is a place of torment because it is existence without God. I know I'm going to catch it from all sides for this, but I really lean toward the belief that, since Jesus died for us all, that hell is a place where one comes to know his need for God and eventually comes to faith. As much as this will distress you, that would mean we would all be together with God eventually.

And lastly: Christians are "choosing" Islam hell, as well as every other hell that could ever possibly exist, if they do happen to exist and they are wrong about Christianity. Is that fair? Are you choosing Islam hell, if it turns out that is the real hell? It's no different to us "choosing" your hell, if it turns out your hell is real. You don't think Islam hell is real, and we don't think your hell is real.

If Islam hell is real, then I am choosing not to believe in it. I'm choosing christianity, they're choosing Islam, and you're choosing "none of the above". We can only choose one way. If I'm totally sincere abut my beliefs and have truly sought him, I'll let God, who looks at the heart, decide where I go. I'm not saying all religions are correct. I'm saying that we can make our decisions based only on what God has revealed to us.

[robvalue]

OK, thanks for answering

[Chas]

Give me liberty, or give me death. I really doubt he is as he's portrayed as his enemies, partly because you people seem to think Yahweh is a good guy despite his actions.

Why do you use the bible to show how evil God is, but not to show how evil Satan is?  He's the one who enticed Adam and Eve to commit the first sin and blow it all for everyone.

What the fuck is it with you people?  You can't understand that we don't claim God is evil, we claim that the character described in your holy books is an evil character.

There is no evidence that any gods exist, and no one hates the non-existent.

[Secular Elf]

I'm sure that you have met some of those Christians that say they aren't like the "bad Christians" they throw out the old testament and just follow the words of nice cuddly Jesus, well that doesn't work either.

You made some good points but I do have to disagree on a couple of them. One thing I want to say is that I wish Atheists would tone down the "You're just a stupid creatard!" type of comments. I agree with what Matt Dillahunty said about that subject. It is okay to say an argument is stupid as long as you can show WHY that is the case but we shouldn't say religious people are stupid. I think it reflects negatively on atheists. I understand it can be frustrating but it is important to remain civil when discussing these issues because we need to be the ones who appear to be rational and calm. When I debate people, I often have the urge to ask if the other person is an idiot and it can be difficult to resist saying it. However, it is better to let your opponent be the one who does the name-calling if your goal is to try to convince people who are either on the fence or already question their views.

It also isn't accurate to say they are stupid or at least it doesn't appear to be the case from my point of view. Many have just been manipulated into believing something ridiculous. I have debated a lot of religious people and most of them were not stupid. Naive? Sure. Ignorant about certain topics? Usually. However, I will point out that we're all ignorant about certain things so this isn't just something that is exclusive to religious people. I could point out several quotes from Atheists that sound exactly like something a religious fundamentalist would say.

I think Dillahunty summed it up perfectly when he said that he didn't get smarter when he became an atheist, he just became more informed about certain subjects.

I would agree with you up to a certain point.

I would say that religious people are not exactly stupid.  Many are just as intelligent as non-religious people in many areas, EXCEPT when it comes to their religion.  The author of "The God Virus," Dr. Darrel Ray described the catatonic, glazed-eye state religious people whip themselves into when they talk about their faith.  There have also been studies (http://mic.com/articles/95234/psychologi...ral-brains) indicating that there are physical differences in the brains of conservatives as opposed to liberals.   This indicates that people who are religious are hard-wired in their brains to think a certain way about the transcendental, which is what Paul Kurtz had theorized about in his book "The Transcendental Temptation."

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Funny because on other boards I've been on, christians are the first ones to incite name calling as soon as you challenge their beliefs or refuse to convert to their twisted, brain-washed way of thinking. Happens every time. Then when you say, "well, that wasn't very christian of you.", they go all bat crap crazy.
More christians need to learn to take the high road they claim to walk on.

Exactly.  I prime example I can give is on Facebook, when my sister commented negatively in a thread between me and one of my freethinker friends about the GoTell Crusade that had occurred in my hometown.  She did not like us discussing possibly challenging revivals (it was held at the high school football field), called us pathetic, and even made a threat of fighting against us, bringing up her grandchildren, my niece's kids (her grandkids by adoption, which is a different story altogether).  Anyway, that pissed me off so I did respond emotionally.  That was about three weeks ago, I have not been on FB nor talked to her other than a brief hello since then.

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Gotta call bullshit.  Of course you can open a book wherever you like and just take what you get from it.  That is the way it works even if you read a book straight through.

You were right at the start when you expressed relief/happiness that at least they aren't creationist/fundamentalists.  From there, like it or lump it, they are adult human beings who are going to form their own takes on reality and values without regard to what you or I think.  Personally, I'm in favor of that.  Even if they are making a mistake by your or my standards, it is better in my opinion that they act coherently for what they believe and feel.  That is the only way to take the next step as an individual.  Anyone who becomes persuaded that they have to please you or me in order to be okay is lost.  Lets leave proselytizing to the people who invented it.  I'm fine without god but I'm not knocking on doors to get followers.

I agree wholeheartedly with that.  When you see a false claim someone is making and you know it is false, you have to call them on it.  I did that in a LTE when I saw an article written by a professor from a local religious college state some shit about Thomas Jefferson (it was Christian revisionism) that was not true in the local paper.

It isn't really necessary to proselytize for atheism.  People will find that road when the begin the journey themselves, asking that one question which is the first step on a journey of a thousand miles.  For me, reading the Bible and paying close attention to its details, among a few other things, led me on the road to atheism, no one prompted me, I did it on my own by starting to ask questions.

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Funny because on other boards I've been on, christians are the first ones to incite name calling as soon as you challenge their beliefs or refuse to convert to their twisted, brain-washed way of thinking. Happens every time. Then when you say, "well, that wasn't very christian of you.", they go all bat crap crazy.
More christians need to learn to take the high road they claim to walk on.

Yes...at the end of the day the fact is that most xtians are simply full of shit.

Ramen, Min, ramen.

[comet]

Why do you use the bible to show how evil God is, but not to show how evil Satan is?  He's the one who enticed Adam and Eve to commit the first sin and blow it all for everyone.

What the fuck is it with you people?  You can't understand that we don't claim God is evil, we claim that the character described in your holy books is an evil character.

There is no evidence that any gods exist, and no one hates the non-existent.

The Bible is better than an ink blot test. how a person describes god is a direct reflection of the person.  stupid descriptions = stupid people. god and bad look into intentions.



you get to pick.

[Secular Elf]

If I based my thought of evil or good on what people say then yes it would be subjective. That is the problem with saying we know what is evil and what is good from our parents or the Government/Laws. God is not a man. He is a maximumly great being because He possess all quality that are better to have to their fullest possibility. He also does not possess any negative qualities. So unlike people what He says is trustworthy and true and will never change.
We can all agree that everyone does wrong to some degree. This idea didn't come from our parents because I have three little ones at home and when they have something taken from them the express their wronged feelings. I never had to teach them that. So it isn't taught or legislated it is build in us.

Objectively if the mouse is eaten by a cat it is bad for the mouse's survival and good for the cat the cat's survival.  Yet there is no out cry for the right of a mouse against a cat because it is not evil. There is however an out cry for those people who are being murdered and oppressed by other people.

This argument is an old one I will agree

I'll ask again, since you seem to have missed it.  You say that one cannot cherry pick the bible.  Are you okay with the rules about whom you can buy as slaves and how you can treat them?

Good point FAF.  I will bounce off your argument and add to it.

In the Old Testament the Judeo-Christian god (Jesus, who as the Trinity dogma indicates he is his own father, thus the same) is stated to be the same yesterday, today, and forever more (Hebrews 13:8).  So Christians today worship a being who commanded the Israelites when they went into the land of Canaan to commit genocide (1 Samuel 15: 2-32; Deutoronomy 2:34; 3:6; 20:16-18) and steal their land. 

My question to you Rakeisha, is that if your god came to you in a vision and asked you to kill your kids (like he asked Abraham to do) or to shootup a location full of "sinners", would you do it?  Remember, you have to obey god, it is a Biblical imperative (Job 36:11; John 14:15; Luke 6:46; Ephesians 6: 5-9, etc., etc., etc.).

[Secular Elf]

Very good discussion here.  Very interesting.  I have noticed that our dear Christian friends keep beating a dead horse.

Having been a Christian myself once, I am quite familiar with the arguments the theists are presenting.  I am just not that impressed with them.

The reasons why revolve around facts and knowledge.  I have since my slow long de-conversion learned some things and my knowledge base has expanded.

What I care about are facts, not necessarily what the Christians claim is "THE TRUTH."  Truth is a dime a dozen.  Facts stick around and are solid.

The history of Christianity, of which I have familiarized myself with, is full of interesting facts:

1.  The Torah (Old Testament), a product of First Temple Judaism and the Babylonian Exile, was influenced by Sumerian and West Semitic culture.  Clues from the Torah and from recent archaeological and DNA studies indicate that the Hebrews and Canaanites were from the same root stock of people and culture.  The Hebrews were originally polytheists or at least henotheists.  Monotheism evolved in Israel/Palestine with the ever growing power and influence of the priests of Yahweh (this was the second independent evolution of monotheism, the first was in Egypt ca. two centuries earlier by the Pharaoh Akhenaton, before the "Conquest of Canaan" ).  It was during the Babylonian Exile period that Jews adopted and adapted certain myths from the Assyro-Babylonian religion and weaved them into their own (Adam, Eve, and Trees story, the Great Flood story, the confounding of one
language into many story, Nimrod is a play on words of Enmerkar, the King of Kish--all have their origins in the original Sumerian mythology). The Hellenistic Culture also had its
influence on the Jewish Culture of the 1st Century BCE and 1st Century CE.

2.  The Early Christians, first and foremost before the Gentile influx into the religion, were Jews, thus, Christianity in its very beginnings was just another sect of Judaism, which grew
out of Second Temple Judaism.  Second Temple Judaism during the 1st Century CE was influenced not only by its direct ancestor of First Temple Judaism, but also by the pagan
cultures of the Greeks and Egyptians.

3.  The earliest Christians were not monolithic.  From its very beginning there were many groups that evolved over the first 100 years of its existence, all had variations in belief.  The
named groups include Nazarenes, Ebionites, Elkasites, Nicolaitans, Naasenes, Ophites, Carpocratians, etc., etc.

4.  Early on there were three different varieties of the sect of the followers of Yeshua ben Yusef: Elkasites, Ebionites, and Nazarenes.

5. The Christology (nature of Jesus) was divided into several varieties, depending on which Early Christian group you were talking about: Jesus as a Davidic Messiah, or as a reincarnated being, or as a Messiah who was not divine (all of which were among the Jewish Christians); or even more complicated among the Gentile Christians: Gnosticism (the material world is bad, created by an evil god [the demiurge] of the Hebrew Bible, and that Jesus was the Savior spirit sent from the true god of light to liberate the souls trapped there through secret teachings); Adoptionism held that Jesus was born human and became divine only at his baptism when God adopted him; Docetism held that Jesus was pure spirit and did not have a body, his appearance in human form was thus an illusion and Jesus could not physically die.  Pauline Christology held that Jesus was both divine and human at the same time.  This Pauline Christology became the view of the Proto-orthodox Christians, who held other opinions of Christ's nature as heresy, later became the predominant theological view among Orthodox Christianity through both argument and force of arms.

6.  The Nazarenes believed that Jesus was the Messiah that all Jews had been looking for.  In the Jewish context, a messiah (Hebrew: mashiach, “anointed one”) is a king or High Priest traditionally anointed with holy anointing oil.  He was never considered by Jews to be God or a pre-existent divine being or Son of God.  In its native Jewish context, the messiah was meant to be a future Jewish king from the royal Davidic line, who will be anointed with holy anointing oil, to be the king of God’s kingdom and rule the Jewish people during a Messianic Age.  Belief in the eventual coming of a future messiah is a fundamental part of Judaism even today.  

7.  The Elkasites believed that Jesus was a simple prophet who had been born before many times and would be born again frequently in the future.  This belief in reincarnation indicates that the Elkasites were evolving towards a Gnostic direction.

8. The Ebionites regarded Jesus as the Messiah but did not consider him divine.  They also zealously followed the Law of Moses and revered Jerusalem as the holiest city.  They restricted table fellowship only to Gentiles who converted to Judaism.

9.  Christianity began splitting away from Second Temple Judaism around 70 CE and was completely a new religion by 135 CE, all the while Second Temple Judaism evolved into Rabbinic Judaism.  The split was due to continuing tensions between traditional Judaism and Greco-Roman Culture as well as the Roman-Jewish conflicts (three wars) of the eastern Roman provinces.

10. In 144 CE Marcion, the founder of a somewhat gnostic Christianity known as Marcionism, was the first Christian to formulate a canon of scripture, called by the followers of Marcion the Gospel of the Lord.  Today it is known as the Gospel of Marcion. It initiated the formation of the New Testament.  Marcionism proved to be a great rival of the Proto-orthodox Christianity of Rome, which had excommunicated Marcion and declared his brand of Christianity heresy.

11. As Christianity continued to be spread it also continued to be more diverse.  In the Roman province of Phrygia in Asia Minor Montanism sprung up.  A charismatic prophetic movement of Christians led by Montanus and his associates Priscilla and Maximilla, it was well noted for its emotionalism.  Called the New Prophecy, it was declared heresy in 177 by the Proto-orthodox Christians.

12. Between 150 to 160 the school of Gnostic Christianity called Valentinianism was founded by its namesake, Valentinian.  He wrote The Gospel of the Truth.  After his death Valentinianism became a major movemnt that seriously challenged Proto-orthodox Christianity.  Valentinian Christology involved a godhead that was divided into three parts.  This trinitarian concept is recognized by modern scholarship to be influenced by ancient Egyptian religious thought, as Valentinian was an Egyptian from Phrebonis who taught in Alexandria.

13. During the Crisis of the Third Century (235-284 CE) Christianity underwent stress through being persecuted, which led to internal strife.  The Decian Pesecution of 250-251 resulted in Christians criticizing and accusing other Christians, mostly clerics, who gave in to imperial demands of citizenship.  These were called lapsi, “those who have lapsed/fallen away.”  This caused a rival papacy (anti-pope) and two schisms within the Church.  The anti-pope was Novatian, who founded Novatianism.  The Novatianists took a hard position against the lapsi when the Roman See sought reconciliation.  Novatianism was considered by the Roman Church to be heresy.

14. In 301 Armenia became the first nation-state to adopt Christianity as its official religion during the reign of King Tiridates III the Great.  A Christian community had been estabished there since the 1st Century CE but had largely reained a minority religion amidst the native pagan Armenians.  Gregory the Iluminator was the missionary who convinced Tiridates to convert to Chritianity.  Thereafter the King adopted a policy of aggressive conversion of his people, which resulted in a civil war that ended in his victory and the foundation of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

15. As a religion Christianity is like any other human institution in that it is subject to the same environmental forces that shape it and the same perspectives that study it.  Christianity in its very beginnings was a Jewish sect, and had inherited some qualities it still shares with Judaism, mainly monotheism.  As it gained more converts from the Gentile populations, it was also influenced by its surrounding cultural environment.  Christian beliefs were shaped, either through direct borrowing or indirectly influenced by other pagan religious ideology and mythology.  Directly from Zorastrianism or indirectly from the Essenes came the dualistic notion of the cosmic struggle of good and evil.  The idea of Satan had been changed in its native Judaic environment as the right-hand angel of Yahweh to the Christian enemy of God.  The idea of an immortal soul evolved first in Judaism as well as being influenced by Greek Platonism.  The finality of death and the tarrying of the shades of the dead in an underworld Judaism shared with Assyro-Babylonian mythology.  The Greek ideas of Hades as both a god and a place for all the dead as well as the myth of the imprisonment of the Titans in Tartarus and the Egyptian lake of fire of the underworld translated into the Christian idea of Hell.  Nearly all religions have a class of spirit beings of some sort, so Judaism and Christianity have their angels.  Depictions of angels as winged humanoids did not appear in Christian art until the 4th Century, but ideas of winged spirit beings from the iconography of Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, and Assyrians no doubt had their influence.  And ideas of the Apocalypse evolved from Hellenistic Judaism.

[Rekeisha]

@Secular Elf did you have a relationship with Jesus?
@Rob that was a weird video... God is a just judge and will judge our actions. He will separate those who follow him from those who haven't. He will reward those who have been faithful and punish those who have rejected him. We are God's servant wither you like it or not and we are responsible for the information He has revealed to us. We will all be judge for what we have done or not done on this earth.

[Chad32]

Justice doesn't have anything to do with whether or not someone likes someone else. A just court judge can think the defendant is a piece of crap, but judges him on his actions. Not how much money the defendant gave him prior to the court hearing. Your eternity being based on mindless obedience to something that can't be concretely proven is not a just system. Might makes right is about the worst idea you could come up with, because all it would take is someone else overpowering the current ruler and the very concept of goodness, justice, and all that gets shifted.

Hence why old testament Yahweh seems so worried about people elevating themselves to his level in the garden story and the babel story, to say the least. If he's really obtained compelte mastery over everything, and is truly impossible to overthrow, he must consider himself very lucky to be in that position.