Jesus Christ was apparently quite a tolerant bloke. He hung out with the whores, the beggars, the undesirables etc, he told parables about "good" people turning a blind eye to the hurting of their brother while a Samaritan turned out to be the truly good person. He said "Judge not lest ye be judged".

I don't even believe the guy was anything other than an altruistic nutter (if he existed at all) and I know his message better than you, or the douchebag in the video...

Persecution is being tossed in an arena with lions. It's being nailed to a cross. It isn't "co-existing with others and not getting the privilege of being able to make rules on how they live their lives". That's called equality, respect, common decency. You and you're ilk don't know true suffering mate.

Perhaps if you actually emulated the person you claim to worship (you know, the one that is waiting for you in the afterlife with a big fucking stick and an accounting of your years of intolerance) rather than made up your own interpretation, you'd actually be a christian worthy of the name...

And if you want to witness suffering, go minister in Africa for a few years, then get back to us about just how bad it is to be "persecuted"...

Under a video about an innocent child being killed due to our gradual march towards a police state, you are justifying the need for a police state because people "mouth off" at the cops.

This kid was a satisfactory sacrifice because some people say mean things to the police. We should tolerate people being innocently killed, having their houses partially destroyed, being mistreated and actively hunted because of skin colour, police brutality and everything it encompases. Because sometimes, guys. Sometimes... people say nasty things to the police. It nearly makes me cry that people can be so mean to police officers. I hope this kid learns a lesson from this. I don't know what lesson - maybe "don't let other people be mean to the police"? Might be useful in the afterlife.

People enter hell because of their sin and willful rejection of God. You are saying that people have no way of knowing, but the scripture says something different. You say you have never seen or heard anything, but what I find when talking to atheists is that they've had plenty of experiences, supernatural or otherwise, to point them towards God but they chose not to go that way. In any case, I'll be praying for God to speak to you in a way you can understand.

I think you're hung up on some of the wording of Matthew 7:14 where Jesus said there are few who find the narrow way, and not the meaning of it. It is not saying that people through no fault of their own end up on the broad way, the scripture says they enter into it. That implies a choice, and to find is to obtain something, which means they know what they are going after in the first place.

Being paralysed is not the same as death.

Jesus took the entire punishment for sin; He bore the fullness of Gods wrath against sin. The scripture says He was actually made sin for us. Whatever He experienced was far worse than what people experience in hell. No human being could bear that, eternally or otherwise. He could bear it becase He is special, that's the point. He didn't just bear the punishment for sin, He defeated death and disarmed the power of death and hell over human beings, all who put their faith and trust in Him as Lord and Savior.. He came not only to die for our sins, but also for many other reasons, one such reason was to destroy the works of the Devil.

Jesus saw everything pertaining to life and death, to judgment and the afterlife. He is an eyewitness, you simply don't believe Him. Everyone will know Jesus is Lord when they stand before Him; the scripture says that even the demons believe (and tremble). Knowing who He is and knowing Him personally are two different things entirely. If you enter into eternity without knowing Him, then it is too late. If God expects you to know His Son, it stands to reason He will provide a means for you to do so. It is up to you to respond to that.

That is what I am saying. THE pixie dust does exist - you could snort if you wanted to and it would show you - many cultures have for thousands of years - it's called Yopo contains (Bufotenin (5-HO-DMT), 5-MEO-DMT and NN DMT) - I would NOT recommend doing it (take NN DMT and smoke it or do Ayahuasca to get there). But, it's not going to be about what your puny ape brain considers "ever lasting" it is something completely different - to some degree it seems that we are eternal but not in way of ever lasting memory of one life to another, but it does contain "death" as well and you will remember that you've been there before even though it's beyond any fucking ape insect of Earth's imagination or comprehension. Do it and find out for yourself, lol! I was just as cynical as Dawkins about the afterlife until 4 seconds into the experience... it's like an atomic fucking bomb of alien consciousness (gold mine).

What is precious about life when your meaning is making it to an afterlife?

yeah...that's what Christians do...

when they're not building hospitals, feeding the poor, raising their families, defending the nation, going to work every day.

Good luck finding that atheist hospital before you drop into your nihilist, nonexistent afterlife! lol

also, I'm curious... what is precious about life when it has no meaning?

I wouldn't keep beating this horse bloody if yours hadn't died HUNDREDS of years prior.

We're NOT talking about philosophy. This is NOT a perspective based on convictions alone. We are talking about TEST-ABLE SCI-ENCE...

This is the world (universe, perhaps multiverse) which engineers towards space discovery, sustainability of planetary bodies and their varied biology, geology, chemistry, and all of the sciences explainable through the holiest of holy languages -- MATHEMATICS -- based on innovation and implementation through repeatable testing.

Your beliefs do NOT contribute to that, though they do contribute elsewhere -- the realms of philosophy and mythology. I guess we call that religion. But not science.

In this life, we are concerned with temporal discovery and how to engineer with such discoveries. We're not concerned about the afterlife in THIS life. We are concerned with science, especially because it has a track record of proven results which we all benefit from.

It doesn't matter what you believe or once believed, there is a rigorous process for scientific knowledge; including a peer review process. All humans have emotional pain, but that shouldn't hold us back in the dark ages before reason.

To me it seems she's using the 'logic' that the reason people do 'good' may or may not be intended to 'please god', either way god is pleased by the 'good deeds', but the true reason people try to 'please god' is not altruistic, it's all to gain 'god's favor' for their own personal gain and happiness (if only in the afterlife) and therefore it's actually selfish and self serving when thoroughly analyzed. It makes sense to me.

But what if the 'holy spirit' tells me clearly that I don't need to believe in any supernatural insanity to be a good person (which is the most important, and often missed lesson of religion)? Or that my 'heavenly reward' is in life, in knowing I'm a decent person to others, no afterlife required?
It seems that should be just fine, according to some scripture (not that I care about or believe in scripture) and should be enough to get proselytizers to let me be, but it's not.

It depends on what you mean when you use the word good. I'll venture that you are using a relative standard of good, but that isn't the standard that God uses. Usually, when we call ourselves good it is in comparison to other people. You might think, I've never raped or murdered, and I am certainly no Adolf Hitler or Ted Bundy, so I am good by basis of comparison. Yet, what God calls good is moral perfection, and everything that falls short of that He calls evil. His standard is an absolute standard, not a relative one, and so our relative standard of good is not good enough.

When people call themselves good, generally, what they really mean is that they have good intentions. In our hearts we want to do right and think good things about people, yet the reality is usually starkly different. If you examine yourself in the light of the 10 commandments, even just four of them such as do not lie, do not steal, do not covet, do not take the Lords name is vain, you probably find them that you've broken them hundreds if not thousands of times in your life. Jesus took the standard even higher and said that if we hate anyone, we've murdered them in our hearts, and if we look at a woman with lust we have committed adultery with them in our hearts. If our lives were an open book and people could see not only what we've done but also what was going on in our hearts, would anyone call us good? I can say for myself it would be an open and shut case.

This is why we need a Savior; we will be judged for what we do in this life and our goodness isn't good enough. That is why Jesus came; to pay the price that we cannot pay so that we can be forgiven for our sins and have eternal life. Whether you care about the scripture, think about whether you would ever jump out of a plane without a parachute. That's exactly what you are prepared to do by entering into eternity without Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

But what if the 'holy spirit' tells me clearly that I don't need to believe in any supernatural insanity to be a good person (which is the most important, and often missed lesson of religion)? Or that my 'heavenly reward' is in life, in knowing I'm a decent person to others, no afterlife required?
It seems that should be just fine, according to some scripture (not that I care about or believe in scripture) and should be enough to get proselytizers to let me be, but it's not.

Completely saddened by your lack of decency and disregard for human life.
I'm sorry you can't see to separate yourself from the hate and violence and propaganda that overcomes you.
Hate breads hate. See if you can correct your path in this world, because even if you believe in a afterlife, it won't want you.

Listened to this the other day.

Everyone pretty much ignored the philosopher because he had nothing substantive to say in a debate grounded in fact.

Traumatic brain injury can result in significant personality changes, and I recall reading on occasion that one of these can be a predisposition to religious belief (can't find a source right now).

I wonder if this is the case for the neurosurgeon here as nothing he says really explains why what he perceived wasn't simply imagined reality.

I thought the really straightforward and clear cut rebuttal here from the con side was that people's interpretations of the afterlife always seem to mirror what their religious upbringing would have assumed to be the case.

Also, that of course no revelatory information seeming to confirm the veracity of the experience (say the location of a valuable buried family heirloom) has ever been recorded to occur.

It probably went on to a good afterlife. With cake.

If there is an afterlife formed from the love we give to the world, he will be most rested of all.