Your Suggestions Would Be Appreciated

[Hungry Hungry Hippo]

Hey guys, a family member wrote me a statement, parts of which had to do with Christianity, and I'm going to critique it and email her back. I just wanted to run it by you guys and ask your thoughts on the matter. Do you agree with my critique? Disagree? Would you add anything in? Was I too harsh? Did I say something stupid? I'd love to hear your thoughts. And thank you guys for your input on the last thread I'd started, your help was invaluable in crafting my response as I really didn't know much about where the Christian idea of eternal torture came from. Thanks guys!

Her full statement: When I was becoming a Christian, I was fascinated by how many fundamentalist Christians practically slavered over the possibility that God would provide the Rapture, which meant God magically summoning all the "good" people to Heaven and damning all the evil ones to a very uncomfortable Hell (including those who had never heard of Jesus and babies). What a wonderful idea: just separate all the good people out of the world and send the rest to Hell. Well, that's when I quit being a capital C Christian and became a follower of Jesus' principles. How could anyone imagine that the Jesus who preached brotherly love and peace making would condone such a thing. It would be laughable if it weren't so easy for the believers, terribly ignorant and violent s they are, to spread their influence. Who on Earth would you condemn to death; I can't think that I would be able to condemn anyone, mostly because I have lived long enough (committed enough deadly sins myself) and known enough people intimately that I know that good and evil are both part of the Holy Spirit inside of each and every one of us. Everybody has a choice: to forgive or seek revenge; to hate or love our enemies; to try to make something good in the world, something that makes a better world for all creation or to pursue being money-grubbing, self-centered assholes.

(I proceeded to break it down some and address certain  parts of it)

"Well, that's when I quit being a capital C Christian and became a follower of Jesus' principles."
 
Well I would certainly hope that you’d apply some critical thinking skills to Jesus’s ideas and not blindly believe everything he said; he did after all have a number of rather stupid and immoral ideas. I can think of a few right off the top of my head. "Take no thought for tomorrow," would be an excellent example; I’ve argued with Christians who use this verse to justify abusing the environment. Another example that comes to mind would be the idea of vicarious redemption that he introduced. To tell you the truth I find the death and resurrection of Jesus to be one big spectacle of god’s immorality (not to mention a total sham).

"How could anyone imagine that the Jesus who preached brotherly love and peace making would condone such a thing. It would be laughable if it weren't so easy for the believers, terribly ignorant and violent s they are, to spread their influence."

Uhh… Have you ever read the Bible? You do realize it says retarded shit like this, right?
 
2 Thessalonians 1
6 God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you 7 and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. 8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might
 
Jude 1:
7 In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.
 
Revelation 14
11 And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever. There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name.”
 
Revelation 20
10 And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
 
The Judgment of the Dead
11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. 13 The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15 Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.
 
Now, I don’t know about you, but I get the feeling that if you had the opportunity to question Jesus and ask him if he thought the biblical idea of eternal torture was moral; his answer would be a resounding “yes!!” I mean, could you REALLY, HONESTLY say he would disagree with something that his own holy scripture says? And even if you could, I would still contend that it’s definitely understandable how other Christians could conclude that he would be in agreeance with the Bible’s message, after all, he did supposedly author it. The Bible is a vague book and there are many different ways in which one might interpret it that would be completely understandable. Yours is just one of many.
 
As far as that bit about believers being ignorant, the fact that you’ve seemingly overlooked the passages I pointed out makes your statement highly ironic (you’re obviously one of those Christians that likes to cherry pick from the Bible). I would largely agree that believers are ignorant in many areas (mainly when it comes to how congruent their beliefs are with reality), but I don’t think that their immoral archaic ideas stem from ignorance of the Bible, in fact I would argue just the opposite and say their attitudes (generally) arise from a more complete understanding and acceptance of the Bible’s message; it really is an obnoxious horrible book. I applaud you for adopting a moral code better than the atrocious one advocated in the Bible, but one CAN arguably reason that Jesus would have condoned and even advocated for some pretty horrible attitudes and ideas.
 
“I know that good and evil are both part of the Holy Spirit inside of each and every one of us.”

Please Define "holy spirit." This term is meaningless to me.

[Longhorn]

Sorry mate, my brain went TL;DR :c

[Hungry Hungry Hippo]

Lol,

it's cool. This is just part of my response... I think the whole thing is like 5 pages long.

[Randy Carson]

Hey guys, a family member wrote me a statement, parts of which had to do with Christianity, and I'm going to critique it and email her back. I just wanted to run it by you guys and ask your thoughts on the matter. Do you agree with my critique? Disagree? Would you add anything in? Was I too harsh? Did I say something stupid? I'd love to hear your thoughts. And thank you guys for your input on the last thread I'd started, your help was invaluable in crafting my response as I really didn't know much about where the Christian idea of eternal torture came from. Thanks guys!

Her full statement: When I was becoming a Christian, I was fascinated by how many fundamentalist Christians practically slavered over the possibility that God would provide the Rapture, which meant God magically summoning all the "good" people to Heaven and damning all the evil ones to a very uncomfortable Hell (including those who had never heard of Jesus and babies). What a wonderful idea: just separate all the good people out of the world and send the rest to Hell. Well, that's when I quit being a capital C Christian and became a follower of Jesus' principles. How could anyone imagine that the Jesus who preached brotherly love and peace making would condone such a thing. It would be laughable if it weren't so easy for the believers, terribly ignorant and violent s they are, to spread their influence. Who on Earth would you condemn to death; I can't think that I would be able to condemn anyone, mostly because I have lived long enough (committed enough deadly sins myself) and known enough people intimately that I know that good and evil are both part of the Holy Spirit inside of each and every one of us. Everybody has a choice: to forgive or seek revenge; to hate or love our enemies; to try to make something good in the world, something that makes a better world for all creation or to pursue being money-grubbing, self-centered assholes.

(I proceeded to break it down some and address certain  parts of it)

"Well, that's when I quit being a capital C Christian and became a follower of Jesus' principles."
 
Well I would certainly hope that you’d apply some critical thinking skills to Jesus’s ideas and not blindly believe everything he said; he did after all have a number of rather stupid and immoral ideas. I can think of a few right off the top of my head. "Take no thought for tomorrow," would be an excellent example; I’ve argued with Christians who use this verse to justify abusing the environment. Another example that comes to mind would be the idea of vicarious redemption that he introduced. To tell you the truth I find the death and resurrection of Jesus to be one big spectacle of god’s immorality (not to mention a total sham).

"How could anyone imagine that the Jesus who preached brotherly love and peace making would condone such a thing. It would be laughable if it weren't so easy for the believers, terribly ignorant and violent s they are, to spread their influence."

Uhh… Have you ever read the Bible? You do realize it says retarded shit like this, right?
 
2 Thessalonians 1
6 God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you 7 and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. 8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might
 
Jude 1:
7 In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.
 
Revelation 14
11 And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever. There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name.”
 
Revelation 20
10 And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
 
The Judgment of the Dead
11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. 13 The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15 Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.
 
Now, I don’t know about you, but I get the feeling that if you had the opportunity to question Jesus and ask him if he thought the biblical idea of eternal torture was moral; his answer would be a resounding “yes!!” I mean, could you REALLY, HONESTLY say he would disagree with something that his own holy scripture says? And even if you could, I would still contend that it’s definitely understandable how other Christians could conclude that he would be in agreeance with the Bible’s message, after all, he did supposedly author it. The Bible is a vague book and there are many different ways in which one might interpret it that would be completely understandable. Yours is just one of many.
 
As far as that bit about believers being ignorant, the fact that you’ve seemingly overlooked the passages I pointed out makes your statement highly ironic (you’re obviously one of those Christians that likes to cherry pick from the Bible). I would largely agree that believers are ignorant in many areas (mainly when it comes to how congruent their beliefs are with reality), but I don’t think that their immoral archaic ideas stem from ignorance of the Bible, in fact I would argue just the opposite and say their attitudes (generally) arise from a more complete understanding and acceptance of the Bible’s message; it really is an obnoxious horrible book. I applaud you for adopting a moral code better than the atrocious one advocated in the Bible, but one CAN arguably reason that Jesus would have condoned and even advocated for some pretty horrible attitudes and ideas.
 
“I know that good and evil are both part of the Holy Spirit inside of each and every one of us.”

Please Define "holy spirit." This term is meaningless to me.

1. The Rapture is a theological novelty invented by Protestants in the 1830's. Your family member is right to reject it because it is an error.
2. Jesus warns us of hell because it is real. Before you look silly to your family member, you would benefit from reading this and this.
3. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

[robvalue]

Looks good to me.

It may be worth mentioning that Jesus brought Hell along with him, it's not mentioned in the Old Testament. Saying stuff like "Jesus wouldn't do that" is to just ignore what the book actually says. Christians are generally pretty good at that, they come up with an image of what Jesus was like (idealised version of themself) and it wouldn't matter if Jesus spent the whole time killing baby seals in the bible.

[Hungry Hungry Hippo]

1. The Rapture is a theological novelty invented by Protestants in the 1830's. Your family member is right to reject it because it is an error.

Could you suggest a place I could go to read more about this?

---

Looks good to me.

It may be worth mentioning that Jesus brought Hell along with him, it's not mentioned in the Old Testament. Saying stuff like "Jesus wouldn't do that" is to just ignore what the book actually says. Christians are generally pretty good at that, they come up with an image of what Jesus was like (idealised version of themself) and it wouldn't matter if Jesus spent the whole time killing baby seals in the bible.

Yeah, I've heard people say that before. I've never looked into it much but I do find it hard to believe that Hell isn't mentioned in the old testament. Could you recommend any further reading on this?

In fact, where is hell first mentioned in the Bible? Is it Matthew 5:22 ""But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire."

lol, I should totally include that passage!

[Cato]

Milleby,

I have absolutely no issues with the points you're making; however, I'm left a bit confused about your intent. Your family member comes off as a kind and considerate person and what I would call an ally against the lunacy of Christian fundamentalism. Personally I would leave well enough alone on this particular matter. In fact, I can easily imagine a fundamentalist believer pointing to the exact same verses to buttress their overall interpretation of scripture.

[Mr Greene]

There exists at least one 18th century and two 19th century pre-tribulation references: in an essay published in 1788 in Philadelphia by the Baptist Morgan Edwards which articulated the concept of a pre-tribulation rapture,[31] in the writings of Catholic priest Manuel Lacunza in 1812,[32] and by John Nelson Darby in 1827.[33] Manuel Lacunza (1731–1801), a Jesuit priest (under the pseudonym Juan Josafat Ben Ezra), wrote an apocalyptic work entitled La venida del Mesías en gloria y majestad (The Coming of the Messiah in Glory and Majesty). The book appeared first in 1811, 10 years after his death. In 1827, it was translated into English by the Scottish minister Edward Irving.[citation needed]

Dr. Samuel Prideaux Tregelles (1813-1875), a prominent English theologian and biblical scholar, wrote a pamphlet in 1866 tracing the concept of the rapture through the works of John Darby back to Edward Irving.[34]

An 1828 edition of Matthew Henry's An Exposition of the Old and New Testament uses the word "rapture" in explicating 1 Thes. 4:17.[35]

Although not using the term "rapture", the idea was more fully developed by Edward Irving (1792–1834). In 1825,[36] Irving directed his attention to the study of prophecy and eventually accepted the one-man Antichrist idea of James Henthorn Todd, Samuel Roffey Maitland, Robert Bellarmine, and Francisco Ribera, yet he went a step further. Irving began to teach the idea of a two-phase return of Christ, the first phase being a secret rapture prior to the rise of the Antichrist. Edward Miller described Irving's teaching like this: "There are three gatherings: – First, of the first-fruits of the harvest, the wise virgins who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth; next, the abundant harvest gathered afterwards by God; and lastly, the assembling of the wicked for punishment."[37]

John Nelson Darby first proposed and popularized the pre-tribulation rapture in 1827.[38] This view was accepted among many other Plymouth Brethren movements in England. Darby and other prominent Brethren were part of the Brethren movement which impacted American Christianity, especially with movements and teachings associated with Christian eschatology and fundamentalism, primarily through their writings. Influences included the Bible Conference Movement, starting in 1878 with the Niagara Bible Conference. These conferences, which were initially inclusive of historicist and futurist premillennialism, led to an increasing acceptance of futurist premillennial views and the pre-tribulation rapture especially among Presbyterian, Baptist, and Congregational members.[39] Popular books also contributed to acceptance of the pre-tribulation rapture, including William E. Blackstone's book Jesus is Coming, published in 1878,[40] which sold more than 1.3 million copies, and the Scofield Reference Bible, published in 1909 and 1919 and revised in 1967.[41]

The Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church,[7] the Anglican Communion and many Protestant Calvinist denominations, have no tradition of a preliminary return of Christ and reject the doctrine. The Orthodox Church, for example, rejects it because the doctrine of the rapture depends on a millennial interpretation of prophetic scriptures, rather than an amillennial or postmillennial fashion.[42]

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapture

[Hungry Hungry Hippo]

Milleby,

I have absolutely no issues with the points you're making; however, I'm left a bit confused about your intent. Your family member comes off as a kind and considerate person and what I would call an ally against the lunacy of Christian fundamentalism. Personally I would leave well enough alone on this particular matter. In fact, I can easily imagine a fundamentalist believer pointing to the exact same verses to buttress their overall interpretation of scripture.

Well, this discussion was supposed to be an argument between us; we'd had such disagreements over the phone and concluded that it'd be best to just engage in these arguments via email; but maybe I am being a little mean in my response...

[robvalue]

Reference of hell in NT:

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/interp/hell.html

Hell (as usually described) not in OT:

http://www.biblestudying.net/cosmo-5.html

Maybe someone can find better links/texts? These might get you started.

I agree keeping it friendly is much more likely to get results