Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
(June 9, 2018 at 3:21 pm)chimp3 Wrote: Sins (if victimless)are the most interesting things about people. Why the fuck would you want to wash them away?
People don't like when things are different. Most of us want to be around people who think and act like we do, so when someone is "weird", we push them away. Or browbeat them until they conform.
It's kind of odd how we like to balance the ideas of being as free as we can, but also expect people to go with the grain.
Even if you keep your sins to yourself, and do not involve others, they are interesting. I like to let a few of my skeletons out of the closet and dance with them once in awhile.
God thinks it's fun to confuse primates. Larsen's God!
As bad and absurd as substitutionary atonement is, the very idea that there can be no justice unless perpetrators "pay" for their crimes is very primitive and unenlightened. It plays to basic human emotions but as enlightened beings, we should rise above those.
Anyone of us may fail to rise above our personal base emotions, of course. That is understandable as we are all fallible. That is why a victim of a crime should never be the one to impose punishment on the offender - He/she could not be trusted to be impartial.
IMO, the "someone must pay" thing is the most damning thing against Christianity and all similar religions. It is very base and primitive thinking that has no place amongst enlightened people. Revenge-think is for animals. Enlightened people rise above that - or at least understand that we SHOULD rise above it. Again, we are all fallible and anyone of us may fall prey to revenge-think at times but if we are enlightened, we rise above it most of the time.
Even assuming true monsters like the torturers of the Inquisition, does an enlightened person take pleasure in the eternal torment of another? Of course not. Better to rehabilitate those monsters or banish them from existence. Eternal torment to make them "pay" serves what? Absolutely nothing. And it makes the punishers guilty of a crime far worse than the punished were ever capable of.
A religion based on revenge-think is sick and depraved. It has no place in modern society.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
(June 9, 2018 at 8:48 pm)AFTT47 Wrote: As bad and absurd as substitutionary atonement is, the very idea that there can be no justice unless perpetrators "pay" for their crimes is very primitive and unenlightened. It plays to basic human emotions but as enlightened beings, we should rise above those.
Anyone of us may fail to rise above our personal base emotions, of course. That is understandable as we are all fallible. That is why a victim of a crime should never be the one to impose punishment on the offender - He/she could not be trusted to be impartial.
IMO, the "someone must pay" thing is the most damning thing against Christianity and all similar religions. It is very base and primitive thinking that has no place amongst enlightened people. Revenge-think is for animals. Enlightened people rise above that - or at least understand that we SHOULD rise above it. Again, we are all fallible and anyone of us may fall prey to revenge-think at times but if we are enlightened, we rise above it most of the time.
Even assuming true monsters like the torturers of the Inquisition, does an enlightened person take pleasure in the eternal torment of another? Of course not. Better to rehabilitate those monsters or banish them from existence. Eternal torment to make them "pay" serves what? Absolutely nothing. And it makes the punishers guilty of a crime far worse than the punished were ever capable of.
A religion based on revenge-think is sick and depraved. It has no place in modern society.
It would be cool if there was a time/place transporter and you could zap the bad guys to a different time, say like to what's now South Dakota maybe 34 million years ago. Or even to what's now Australia 120 million years ago. Or maybe 57 million years into the future.
Who the fuck comes up with this shite!
I like it, but only because it sounds like divine legal gobbledygook. lol!
"Yeah, I know I killed all those people your honour, because I'm a sick fuck, but hey, here, take my 90 year old father instead and we'll just call it even!
(*whispers* shhhh... don't tell anyone but the old man's got cancer and will be dead anyway soon!)
And people really believe God would come up with stuff like this? When he can make anything happen anyway? Pretty bloody convoluted isn't it?
Obviously it wasn't God as it wasn't "invented" until the middle ages (below).
As an ignoramus, I'm genuinely curious now to know what core beliefs in the current modern day bible are actually original?
Quote:Skeptics commonly criticize core Christian beliefs by claiming that they were not really held by the earliest Christians. Instead, we are told, these beliefs were invented post facto by the institutional church.
The classic example of such an argument has to do with the divinity of Jesus. The earliest followers of Jesus didn’t really believe that Jesus was divine, this argument goes; it was only the later institutional church, under political pressure from Emperor Constantine, that insisted Jesus must have divine status. Thus, some argue, the belief that Jesus is God is not really, well, Christian.
Quote:
Quote:Substitutionary Atonement
This same sort of argument has also been applied to other doctrines, particularly the substitutionary nature of the atonement. Critical scholars, led by the classic work of Gustaf Aulén, have long argued that the earliest Christians did not believe that Christ died as a substitute for sinners. Instead, they say, these Christians believed what is known as the “Christus victor” view of the atonement—the idea that Jesus’s death on the cross (and resurrection) conquered the Devil and other forces that held people in bondage. On this view, Christ did not die in place of rebellious sinners but instead rescued victims from a fallen world
According to the biblical fairy tale blood is required to cleanse sins. Moses used animal blood, with the priests sprinkling over the sinners. By the time the Christian version came along they said that that ritual was useless and that Yahweh sent his son down to shed his blood as a sacrifice so that Yahweh wouldn't go nuts and throw everyone into the lake of fire. He will give a pass to those who believe that Yeshua's blood cleaned the slate. It's weird.
I guess killing something pure and innocent isn't a sin, as long as your stated reason for doing it is to wash away other sins.
Poe's Law: "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing."
June 10, 2018 at 9:14 am (This post was last modified: June 10, 2018 at 9:43 am by Huggy Bear.)
There is no such thing as substitutionary atonement, it is simply atonement.
Death (eternal separation from God) is the penalty for sin.
God cannot simply change his law and be a just God.
The anology of substituting ones sick grandfather fails because that sacrifice doesn't change the heart of the one who committed the crime.
The blood of Christ completely changes a person's nature so that they are no longer the same person that committed the sin, they have the same nature / spirit of Christ (the term 'Christian' means "to be like Christ ") which is blameless.
Therefore when one receives the holy spirit, they cannot even be accused of sin, let alone be judged for it.
Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don't you believe me? - John 8:46
This is nothing new.
In the time of Moses during the Passover, it was required for one to have the blood of a lamb displayed on third door in order for the angel of death to "pass over" their door.
That was just a foreshadowing of what was to come.
There is no such thing as substitutionary atonement, it is simply atonement.
Death (eternal separation from God) is the penalty for sin.
God cannot simply change his law and be a just God.
The anology of substituting ones sick grandfather fails because that sacrifice doesn't change the heart of the one who committed the crime.
The blood of Christ completely changes a person's nature so that they are no longer the same person that committed the sin, they have the same nature / spirit of Christ which is blameless.
Therefore when one receives the holy spirit, they cannot even be accused of sin, let alone be judged for it.
Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don't you believe me? - John 8:46
Yeah, he can change the law, and he should. If he did exist, and was just. Because creating a place of suffering, and sending people down there by default isn't just. Judging people mostly based on whether they worship him or not, instead of their deeds in life, isn't just.
Spilling blood doesn't change anyone. Saying a prayer doesn't change you either, hence the need for regular revivals in churches.
Poe's Law: "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing."
June 10, 2018 at 10:02 am (This post was last modified: June 10, 2018 at 10:05 am by Huggy Bear.)
(June 10, 2018 at 9:35 am)Chad32 Wrote:
(June 10, 2018 at 9:14 am)Huggy74 Wrote:
There is no such thing as substitutionary atonement, it is simply atonement.
Death (eternal separation from God) is the penalty for sin.
God cannot simply change his law and be a just God.
The anology of substituting ones sick grandfather fails because that sacrifice doesn't change the heart of the one who committed the crime.
The blood of Christ completely changes a person's nature so that they are no longer the same person that committed the sin, they have the same nature / spirit of Christ which is blameless.
Therefore when one receives the holy spirit, they cannot even be accused of sin, let alone be judged for it.
Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don't you believe me? - John 8:46
Yeah, he can change the law, and he should. If he did exist, and was just. Because creating a place of suffering, and sending people down there by default isn't just. Judging people mostly based on whether they worship him or not, instead of their deeds in life, isn't just.
Spilling blood doesn't change anyone. Saying a prayer doesn't change you either, hence the need for regular revivals in churches.
He cannot change the law because you cannot enter the presence of God as a sinner.
Therefore if you cannot exist in Gods presence (as a sinner) then you must exist in a place removed from Gods presence, which by that very nature would be hell.
All good things come from God.
If God is love, there would be no love in that place.
If God is peace, there would be no peace in that place.
If God is joy there would be no joy in that place
If to be with God meant the end of fear, you'd know nothing but fear in that place.
If to be with God meant the end of suffering, you know nothing but suffering in that place.
I think you get the point.
Say we use the sun as an analogy for God, if the sun went away would that not cause suffering?
You call yourself an atheist, and by your own volition choose to remove yourself from the presence of God.
