Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

No

Only Judeism

Only Islam

Yes to both Judeism and Islam

[Orange Wizard]

A bit late to the party, but this guy:

His story make no sense, have no proof, but you're punished for not believing in it. And he DOES know that it's entirely up to him if we believe him or not.

I'm sorry, but that guy is insane, and following him is morally indefensible. Especially since he have hundred of different sects each killing in his name, and for quite a lot of them, "in good faith". You cannot blame a suicide bomber for his lack of faith.
The one thing you can do, if you love your fellow human being, is to shut paradise's door in His face, get down to hell, and join Satan. That guy seems 1000 more understanding, human and compassionate than God.

Really, guy?

...

Really? We have hundreds of different sects for killing in the name of (a) God, therefore my sect of showing kindness to everyone in the name of God is morally indefensible?

Really? And in order to act morally (in your eyes) I must willfully submit myself to (the expectation of) eternal torture?

I'm mostly confused, more than anything else, so please don't take this the wrong way.

[mastahcheese]

Sounds very similar to Purgatory, but with up to 70% less soul cleansing via holy fire.

Pretty much, yeah.

I think it's fairly safe to say Jesus was speaking mostly figuratively there (you could probably get in-depth about doing good possibly cancelling sin and not stopping yourself doing much good to prevent yourself from little sin), much like the removal of kebabs planks from people's eyes.

I'd agree and say that he was most likely speaking figuratively.

But you know how people like to take Bible verses way too literally at times, and wanted opinion on that aspect.

Although I must admit, the visual image of the road to heaven being paved with the severed hands and eyes of sinners trying to reach heaven is rather... Biblical.

[Uristides]

No, it was Jesus himself, supposedly.
*Shrugs*
Also, the three days Jesus was dead, he was in the Spirit World, educating people on how the system was supposed to work.

Riiiight, and Jesus boated across the Atlantic around 30-40 AD, centuries before any Europeans reached the Americas, thus spreading Christianity long before Europeans even got there.

I don't think he went through the Atlantic. He needed to go east so he could have time to stop by Japan and lrnhow2divinity.

[hops]

The image of Jesus sprinting across the ocean is hilarious to me for some reasons.

[smjjames]

No, it was Jesus himself, supposedly.
*Shrugs*
Also, the three days Jesus was dead, he was in the Spirit World, educating people on how the system was supposed to work.

Riiiight, and Jesus boated across the Atlantic around 30-40 AD, centuries before any Europeans reached the Americas, thus spreading Christianity long before Europeans even got there.

I don't think he went through the Atlantic. He needed to go east so he could have time to stop by Japan and lrnhow2divinity.

Through Siberia? Following the Silk Road trade route would have been a heck of a lot faster and easier than tromping through frozen Siberia.

[Frumple]

More actually-taught, there is something or other that links Christ to Buddhism somehow, and posits that Jesus did take a trip through Asia after the biblical events he was involved in. Forget how large a following it is, but I had one of my professors (Ordained priest, radical christian, taught philosophy of religion and history, among other things. WW2 vet, put feet on ground in Japan, awesome guy all around) write a couple books on it.

I guess big J could have cartwheeled over the Bering Strait afterwards?

[Orange Wizard]

No, it was Jesus himself, supposedly.
*Shrugs*
Also, the three days Jesus was dead, he was in the Spirit World, educating people on how the system was supposed to work.

Riiiight, and Jesus boated across the Atlantic around 30-40 AD, centuries before any Europeans reached the Americas, thus spreading Christianity long before Europeans even got there.

I don't think he went through the Atlantic. He needed to go east so he could have time to stop by Japan and lrnhow2divinity.

He also arrived at the age of twenty-one. So he ran so fast across Siberia that he actually went back in time.

Time travelling Japanese Jesus? Somebody needs to make a movie about this.

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

More actually-taught, there is something or other that links Christ to Buddhism somehow, and posits that Jesus did take a trip through Asia after the biblical events he was involved in. Forget how large a following it is, but I had one of my professors (Ordained priest, radical christian, taught philosophy of religion and history, among other things. WW2 vet, put feet on ground in Japan, awesome guy all around) write a couple books on it.

I guess big J could have cartwheeled over the Bering Strait afterwards?

On a side not to this I always thought it would be cool if Buddhism, Christianity, and Muslim/Islam were just three different forms that god took to preach to the majority of the world

I don't believe that's true but I kinda thought that's be cool if it was

[Orange Wizard]

No? If we take the word literally, it's God putting them in a garden where they have everything they could possibly want (food, nice weather, etc.) and saying "don't eat that fruit over there, it will kill you".

It's more like telling a kid not to drink the jar of acid when they're surrounded by lemonade and fruit juice.

[Phmcw]

Really, guy?

...

Really? We have hundreds of different sects for killing in the name of (a) God, therefore my sect of showing kindness to everyone in the name of God is morally indefensible?

Really? And in order to act morally (in your eyes) I must willfully submit myself to (the expectation of) eternal torture?

I'm mostly confused, more than anything else, so please don't take this the wrong way.

No problem, my beef is with your version of God, who appily condemn human being to eternal suffering on ground that he didn't chose them (in your case) and let peoples completely convinced to die and kill for his glory (else why kill yourself on a tower?) murder scores of innocents. That being is evil, and no one should follow him.

And in order to act morally (in your eyes) I must willfully submit myself to (the expectation of) eternal torture?

Well, quite a lot of resistants were communist atheist. From their point of view, being caught was torture followed by complete anihilation. They still did it. For the good of humanity.

[smjjames]

Also, if god didn't want them to eat it, he should have put a giant serpent there to guard it or not even put it there at all. And yes I know people will go 'but he put it there as a test'.

[tahujdt]

The image of Jesus sprinting across the ocean is hilarious to me for some reasons.

I was picturing Jesus kitted out with hiking gear to much the same effect.

-snip-

* tahujdt sprays water everywhere

Okay, now that there's no danger of flames, let me touch on this.

Spoiler: Response to Pmhcw (click to show/hide)

>He then randomly selected a tribe of herders and made them his chosen people, commanding them, among other things, to commit genocide, rape, and to take slaves.

Okay, I don't remember seeing God commanding anyone to rape anyone in the Bible; if there is, post the verse, I'd love to know it.

Now, to start off, if you're going to take stuff out of the Bible to prove how horrible Christianity is, then for the sake of this debate, I'm going to assume the Bible as Gospel as being unquestionably true, because if it wasn't, you'd have to come with other arguments.

>[He commanded them to] commit genocide
I don't think it was genocide so much as regiocide (killing all people in an area), but just saying this doesn't seem to help my case much. Here's my argument.

Remember when I said that we're taking everything in the Bible as true? Let's examine the case of Sodom and Gomorrah. In the story of Lot fleeing Sodom, God just says "Screw it" and blasts the cities off of the face of the earth. In the story, two angels come to visit Lot and warn him about the coming conflagration. He sees these two foreigners in the street, and invites them to stay the night with him. That night, people from all over the city come and circle around the house, planning on raping the two. Lot offers them his two daughters instead (hospitality was one of the most sacred virtues then, so letting your guests come to harm was one of the blackest sins), but they try to break into the house. The angels blind the gang, and tell Lot and co. to flee the city ASAP.
This is how bad it gets before God just gives up and (I imagine) hits the Big Red Button marked "Brimstone". (a lot of the buttons on God's keyboard are Big Red ones.) So, you can imagine that the state of a place where God tells an army to go through and kill 'em all would still be pretty bad. In short, compare them to their neighbors, and at their worst, the Israelites are still looking pretty good.
>[Jesus] get tortured to death, taking on himself the original sin
In the Old Testament, the way to get rid of sin was to make a sacrifice to God. It was saying "this innocent baby animal is taking on your sin for you." Jesus died to be the ultimate sacrifice; he's the sacrifice for everyone's sins, ever; all people have to do now is beg  forgiveness.

I did not address all your points for the sake of something approaching brevity. Some of those points I won't touch with a 26.6666667 cubit pole, because Only You Can Prevent Forum Fires. If there's something else (that isn't meant to be flamey) that you'd like to bring up, feel free to.

EDIT: 9 ninjas

[Frumple]

And yes I know people will go 'but he put it there as a test'.

Test would... actually kinda' not make sense. Testing a creation implies it is not perfect, and to say that a creation -- to a certain extent, the creation -- of god is flawed is to say that the creator itself is flawed. Imperfection shouldn't be able to arise from perfection,* if I remember my theology bitsies right. Or at least some of them. Plenty of contradiction in all that stuff.

*Technically nothing can, since full-bore perfection necessitates singularity (if something is other, then the perfect thing is divisible, in some sense, and subsequently imperfect) and renders multiplicity of anything an impossibility. Nothing can exist except the perfect thing if it is, indeed, perfect. That's... skipping a few steps in there, but is one of the theological explanations of perfection in a nutshell. Also more or less how omnipresence becomes a logical necessity of the existence of a perfect god. Shit gets weird, some days.

[Orange Wizard]

No problem, my beef is with your version of God, who appily condemn human being to eternal suffering on ground that he didn't chose them (in your case) and let peoples completely convinced to die and kill for his glory (else why kill yourself on a tower?) murder scores of innocents. That being is evil, and no one should follow him.

Yeah, I can understand that. Again, though, it's a difference of perspective. You can't blame God for evil that he didn't commit. I suppose you could blame him for not preventing the evil and suffering. I don't, however.

Well, quite a lot of resistants were communist atheist. From their point of view, being caught was torture followed by complete anihilation. They still did it. For the good of humanity.

I'm afraid I don't quite understand.
These people believed that what they were doing was for the good of humanity. Okay. Fair enough.
These people believed that being captured would result in torture and death. Alright.

What I don't get, though, is the apparent assumption that my rejection of God would be better for humanity.

Also, ninja'd by Tahu and Co.

[TD1]

Out of curiosity, I looked it up:

They must be dividing the spoils they took: there must be a damsel or two for each man, Spoils of dyed cloth as Sisera's spoil, an ornate shawl or two for me in the spoil.   (Judges 5:30 NAB)

 Now kill all the boys and all the women who have slept with a man.  Only the young girls who are virgins may live; you may keep them for yourselves.  (Numbers 31:7-18 NLT)