Wow, the theological debate between the faiths is really sophisticated. No wonder atheists have such a hard time refuting their claims... psyche

Jesus would be so proud.

I never will understand how people can turn a message of salvation into such hate.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

I never will understand how people can turn a message of salvation into such hate.


message of salvation? Indoctrinating kids with lies from an early age and giving them the false belief of an afterlife is not a message of salvation, it is just sad.

Later that Sunday at Church -

So dawg, what happened?

Shoot, went to a rally to preach the word. Came out an accessory to a fist fight and inciting unrest. It's funny like that in the hood sometimes. You never knew what was gonna happen, or when. After that I knew it was gonna be a long summer.

-Don't Be a Menace to Saudia Arabia While Drinking Your Juice in the Heart Land.

i doubt a group of atheists would have started beating on christians. islam is factional and agressive and will always be so.

>> ^ghark:

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
I never will understand how people can turn a message of salvation into such hate.

message of salvation? Indoctrinating kids with lies from an early age and giving them the false belief of an afterlife is not a message of salvation, it is just sad.


Not that I am a Christian, but that hardly sounds like the bible I read, which is my point entirely.

>> ^marinara:

i doubt a group of atheists would have started beating on christians. islam is factional and agressive and will always be so.


Ah hahahaha. No, Christians are peace lovers duh, like the shit bag Christian who runs Black Water (the gun for hire mercenary killers), aka Erik Prince. On another 'crusade' to slaughter the bible into 'heathens'. The whole US army is fanatical Christians, who think the bible = make wars, make money, fuck everything else. Yeah, Jesus wants you to have guns and drive your SUV past homeless people. Yeah, Jesus would be totally be against health care. What about the bat shit crazy Evangelicals that love a good disaster, one day closer to seeing the man in the sky. Christians, hypocritical douche bags of the world.

The land of the FREEEEEE and the homeeeeee offfff thhhheee BRAAAVVVEEEE.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

>> ^ghark:
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
I never will understand how people can turn a message of salvation into such hate.

message of salvation? Indoctrinating kids with lies from an early age and giving them the false belief of an afterlife is not a message of salvation, it is just sad.

Not that I am a Christian, but that hardly sounds like the bible I read, which is my point entirely.


Maybe you missed the part about burning in an everlasting pit of fire if you don't believe? Anyways, I wasn't really referring to the words of the bible, I was referring to how the 'message of salvation' is communicated to those still unfit to discern wrong from right.

WTF was going through their heads that made them think this would be an ok idea?

Mmmmmmmm..... holy wars.

@ghark I never understood where everlasting damnation came from. The only place something like that is even close to mentioned in Revelation, which is a hard book to take on face value (because it even mentions the lake of fire itself being destroyed if memory serves). The rest of the new Testament just talks about it like blackness, destruction, or how I would think someone would describe non-existence. I could very well be theologically mistaken, but even Jews, close kin with Christian, don't believe in eternal suffering.

But indeed, to your point; yes, it is a shame that those of faith doesn't even really practice the most important part of it, forgiveness and love . Is the "to those" a type-o and did you mean "from those" instead? If not, I don't actually understand

what is this "peace team" and why are they made of the feeblest old people ever????

@GeeSussFreeK and @smooman (quoting doesn't work)

Eternal damnation and hellfire are inventions of the character of Jesus (some of the more explicit examples: Mt. 10:28, Mt. 25:41, Mt. 25:46, Mk 9:47-48, Lk 10:15, Lk. 12:5, etc., not counting all the parables where "bad fruit/branches" are cast into "unquenchable fire").

One main point of departure between Christianity and Judaism is hell.

Some good online tools for Bible "study":

http://www.biblegateway.com/
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/index.htm

"Excuse me, is this the line to Mr Video?"

I went to heaven and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

@hpqp
Perhaps I read to many poems in high school, but every one of these, to me, seem to be analogous to being killed in spirit.

Mt. 10:28: "...destroy both soul and body..."
Mt. 25:41: "...into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels..."
Mt. 25:46: "...eternal punishment..."
Mk 9:47-48: "..thrown into hell, 48 where “‘the worms that eat them do not die, and the fire is not quenched."
Lk 10:15: "...will go down to Hades"
Lk. 12:5: "has authority to throw you into hell"

The only one that seems to really indicated being not destroyed seems to be Mk 9:47-48. Eternal punishment could be eternal non-existence, and going to hell or Hades could mean the same thing. Unquenchable fire seems to speak more about the fire, not those being eradicated by it. Fire seems to be what most people see as the "hell" part, the part about eternal torment in the form of torture instead of destruction. For me, the idea of fire is that it consumes things. Once consumed, the thing is gone, and so is the fire. So, is the bible saying the fire doesn't go out but is always ready to consumed the next evil doer, or the fire isn't going out because the source isn't consumed? Really, I don't know, don't care anymore I guess..."hell" seems to violate God's own decree of love, a fairly large theological problem, more than just being destroyed.

Most likely it is me that is wrong about hell, no matter, I don't think it a real thing. Even though, sometimes, when I see all the injustice in the world, like all those assholes in the video, I wish there was a place after death where justice was done. If your an atheist, then the life itself is truly an unjust thing.

Edit, o ya, and thanks for taking the time to research a very great reply

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
@GeeSussFreeK


Aye I think you're right if you take things even further back and look at the old testament. From my (relatively little) study of the old testament hell refers more to a grave, or blackness, and not a fiery pit. I decided to use the words I did because most teaching these days is based on the simplistic fact that hell is indeed a fiery pit, and 'that's where you go if you're bad'. It's a twisting/mistranslation of the old testament's words, and a variety of words that meant different things (such as Hades, grave etc) were often lumped together in the translation as just "hell". So it seems that even if the bible does refer to this place I mention, it wasn't necessarily the original intention of the authors of the scripture that formed the bible for it to be described this way.

"to those" refers to children, who cannot yet discern right from wrong. A classic example (I think) of what this kind of indoctrination does is provided in the Amish documentary that is here on the sift.
http://videosift.com/video/Trouble-In-Amish-Paradise

They argue the how's why's and wherefore's of community protocol, mostly centered around how literally the religious teachings should be followed. It's clear to see that it never even crosses their mind that perhaps there isn't even a god. God is all they've ever known since childhood so any other possibility would be meaningless to them.

@hpqp good info, cheers