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Only Judeism

Only Islam

Yes to both Judeism and Islam

[Orange Wizard]

That's true. Any other way of expressing it sounds weird, though. Jesus has updated your relationship status from "love" to "it's complicated"?

[Cptn Kaladin Anrizlokum]

An idle question just occurred to me:

If there is an afterlife, and it is good, why are we so afraid of death?

So afraid that everything about us seems to fight death.

In fact, if God loves us and is omnipotent, why didn't he just let us stay in heaven anyway? I'm sure there's plenty of space for us to crash in.

Many people fear death because they see it as an end, not a transition...

I was taught there are different levels of heaven, but everyone can stay in one. Very few/no one is worthy of eternal torture.

[Frumple]

That's true. Any other way of expressing it sounds weird, though. Jesus has updated your relationship status from "love" to "it's complicated"?

Yeah, love sounds a lot better. Makes a better sound bite, even if it's kinda' bullshit, if YWHW's love is different from the love of humankind. Is one of the reasons the word has been used in the past, despite the fact that doing so is basically duplicitous. One of the more insidious uses of religious language, really... PR stunt far, far more than accuracy.

I'm sure the church could figure something out if they wanted a term that was descriptive instead of obfuscative, but, well. Is part of the trouble with proselytizing religions. Often theology falls before social concerns, if it'll bring more to the donation platter.

[Gnorm]

Speaking of which, does anyone know what the legality of printing a Bible like this in America is? I think that the 1769 version of the King James Bible is copyrighted by the Crown in the UK.

Everything made before 1923 is considered public domain in the US, but even if the KJV copyright were recognized for a specific organization the QJV would be allowed. Similarity as an argument falls rather flat when you consider the vast similarities between other versions of the Bible. Further, the QJV has a clear and distinct value: theological and political commentary on the Bible and gay rights, which the QJV's makers see as necessary.

But it being public domain essentially preempts all that anyway, it would just still be legal anyway.

Wasn't meant to be an argument against QJV—I feel I've already made mine—I was honestly just curious.

[TheDarkStar]

In fact, if God loves us and is omnipotent, why didn't he just let us stay in heaven anyway? I'm sure there's plenty of space for us to crash in.

According to my religion, we're here to learn, grow, and get experience (so things like pain or death are good for us eventually). It could be compared to a parent teaching a child - letting the child always have anything it wants and having no consequences for certain behaviors (example: throwing tantrums) will spoil it.

[TD1]

-snip-

Many people fear death because they see it as an end, not a transition...

I was taught there are different levels of heaven, but everyone can stay in one. Very few/no one is worthy of eternal torture.

It's not many people.

It's every living thing. Even someone who says they don't fear death, if presented with a life threatening situation, will do something to help themselves.

And as for eternal torture, that's what I'm told I'll get....

Because I won't believe in our omnibenevolent overlord in the sky.

In fact, if God loves us and is omnipotent, why didn't he just let us stay in heaven anyway? I'm sure there's plenty of space for us to crash in.

According to my religion, we're here to learn, grow, and get experience (so things like pain or death are good for us eventually). It could be compared to a parent teaching a child - letting the child always have anything it wants and having no consequences for certain behaviors (example: throwing tantrums) will spoil it.

Childbirth in which the baby dies-who does that teach?

[Orange Wizard]

So, stuff like that is why I don't believe in an omnibenevolent god. It's not reflected in the world around us, and it's not reflected in the Bible. "You are my chosen people, now go destroy everyone else" doesn't sound to me like a god who loves everyone.

[TheDarkStar]

According to my religion, we're here to learn, grow, and get experience (so things like pain or death are good for us eventually). It could be compared to a parent teaching a child - letting the child always have anything it wants and having no consequences for certain behaviors (example: throwing tantrums) will spoil it.

Childbirth in which the baby dies-who does that teach?
[/quote]

The mother obviously, but the baby also gets a chance eventually. God loves everyone, not just people who survive past a certain age.

[Orange Wizard]

How can the baby get a "chance" if it dies in the womb?

[Fabulous death bringer]

http://www.wjkbooks.com/Content/Site117/ProductImages/0664239900/235/The-Bibles-Yes-to-Same-Sex-Marriage.jpg

This will hopefully stop the whole 'god hate gays' side if it hasn't stopped yet, enjoy. And yes it is a real book.

[Phmcw]

So, stuff like that is why I don't believe in an omnibenevolent god. It's not reflected in the world around us, and it's not reflected in the Bible. "You are my chosen people, now go destroy everyone else" doesn't sound to me like a god who loves everyone.

Does sound like a guy I'd fight though, even if that mean defeat and eternal damnation.

[TD1]

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

You could argue that this is all cleared up in the New Testament...

But that, instead, gives evidence for a changeable God. One who is eternal changed his core in a short (for him) time frame. Doesn't sound like a reliable figure.

And if you don't believe in an omnibenevolent God, why believe in a God at all? If he does not love all, then he cares not for us. He may as well be Satan, because Satan's main sin was to question God....who, if not omnibenevolent, is just as flawed as Satan is. A non-loving God? Why would he make a heaven? Why would he reward the loving and the good? Why would he do anything but sit about? And, if all he does is nothing, then perhaps he didn't cause the universe to be in the first place. And, if he does, was it perhaps as something to amuse himself? Not something I'd want to praise. If he did create the universe, but simply doesn't love it, then the core teachings of Christianity just aren't justifiable.

-snip-

Childbirth in which the baby dies-who does that teach?

The mother obviously, but the baby also gets a chance eventually. God loves everyone, not just people who survive past a certain age.
[/quote]
So God "teaches" the baby by killing it before it can comprehend the lesson it was given? And, given God values all lives equally, then he used the death of a child to teach someone else a lesson? So the mother's life lesson was more important than an entire life?

There is a point where pain on earth goes from educational to completely detrimental.

[Frumple]

The mother obviously, but the baby also gets a chance eventually. God loves everyone, not just people who survive past a certain age.

... and what lesson does that teach that is worth learning? Especially that couldn't be taught with considerably less suffering involved. I damn sure can't think of any, beyond the world is shit and, if there is an existent divinity, it either hates (from the perspective of humanity,* anyway, because that is worst-sort-of-mad-scientist level of fucked up instruction method) the parent in question or just does not give one iota of damn.

Alternately, the mother dies, or something happens that leaves her brain dead, crippled, etc., so forth, so on. Rest of the family's dead, too! And on, and on.

*And, if I haven't already, I'll note that this is the only perspective we have any credible reason to give a shit about in this sort of scenario. "Daddy only breaks your legs because he loves you" isn't something that flies, and shouldn't be.

[Orange Wizard]

http://www.wjkbooks.com/Content/Site117/ProductImages/0664239900/235/The-Bibles-Yes-to-Same-Sex-Marriage.jpg
This will hopefully stop the whole 'god hate gays' side if it hasn't stopped yet, enjoy. And yes it is a real book.

The issue being that the book costs twenty dollars. I'd read it if it were free, but I'm not paying twenty dollars to see arguments I've probably already seen.

So, stuff like that is why I don't believe in an omnibenevolent god. It's not reflected in the world around us, and it's not reflected in the Bible. "You are my chosen people, now go destroy everyone else" doesn't sound to me like a god who loves everyone.

Does sound like a guy I'd fight though, even if that mean defeat and eternal damnation.

Difference of perspective, I guess.

[Aeax]

If there is an afterlife, and it is good, why are we so afraid of death?

Simply because according to the bible, we weren't meant to die. I think there was a passage where it said something along the lines of: "He had instilled eternity into us." So its only natural that people would be afraid of death.