Dio, stop lying yourself. You disparaged religion in this very thread. You told Oakminster that he shouldn’t disparage atheists but “religionists.” That’s people who practice a religion. Just because you told someone else to do it for you doesn’t mean you are guilty.
And, yes, I’m aware of the other possible interpretations. But you have no problem calling the other poster a liar rather than assume they have misinterpreted you, so I offer you the same courtesy.
No, he isn’t. People don’t act like assholes either when people tell them there are smurfs. People don’t say that someone who believes in them needs to go get waterboarded. People don’t say that believing in smurfs caused all the evil in the world.
And you are continually repeating a logical fallacy that is extremely popular in atheism. You do have to defend a negative. Whoever makes the claim has the burden of proof. As I pointed out before, I can say there is no gravity. I can say that you don’t exist. I can make a lot of negative claims, but, because my audience isn’t convinced that they are true, they are useless without providing evidence.
And everyone instinctively knows this, as, when you claim that God doesn’t exist, you always wind up offering evidence. The OP did here in the form of an apparent inconsistency: how can a loving God send people to hell?
BTW, as a Christian, I read the Bible, agree with you that Hell as we mean it today isn’t in there, and actually accept the argument that a loving God could not punish people for eternity. The purpose of punishment is rehabilitation, and it is God’s will that all men shall be saved. Being omnipotent, that means it will happen.
The two are Scylla (who went ahead to defend “Any answer is better than no answer” as a stance) and ClassyLadyhp (I think you know this one…).
I’ll retract the statement, or rather revise it: we have two stupid trolls and at least one of them believes in a serious hell.
But as to your other sentence, it’s covered in the title: “before condemning me to hell”.
Fair enough. 
…who has been waterboarded. 
I saw the OP of thread. Many a hearty laugh was had.
This is incorrect. “Religionist” does not mean merely religious. It refers only to religious zealots. Look it up. Disparaging religious zealotry is not disparaging religion.
This is of absolutely no relevance to my point, which had nothing to do with the OP. It was a response to the always fatuous notion “you can’t PROVE there are no sky gods” is a meaningful reason not to assume they don’t exist.
The claim is that sky gods exist. Non-existence is the null. The null does not have to be proven, it is assumed.
Those are not negative claims, they are alternate hypotheses for observed phenomena. They are positive claims.
I have never claimed outright that gods don’t exist, nor have I ever tried to offer evidence. That would be impossible.
That’s an argument against Hell, not against God, and it’s not offering “negatove evidence” anyway to point out flaws or logical inconsistencies in the God hypothesis, just showing that you haven’t overcome the null.
The only thing an omnimax God logically needs to save people from is himself. Nothing else can logically be a threat to them.
Omnipotent beings don’t need to rehabilitate people. They make people correct the first time. That is if they are all loving.
In any case, the God depicted in the bible isn’t omnipotent. He asks questions, works through intermediaries and took six days and needed to rest after creating the universe. An omnipotent being doesn’t need to do any of that. An omnipotent and all-benevolent being also doesn’t create parasites that blind children or cancer.
QFT.
The next step in the Religious Dance of Justification is to then claim that God has a bigger plan then we mere mortals can fathom and, therefore, anything we percieve as ‘mistakes’ are really some cog in a hyper-intelligent plan that we do see or understand.
You got a point there. A dog and his bone.
I try to ignore all religious blurbs, but a soldier who was waterboarded, (along with his whole outfit) told me to experience the sensation just stand in your shower with your back to the nozzle , raise your head and drizzle water on your head over the nose & mouth. You get an involuntary gasp, even its only a second. It’s a terrible sensation , but your not dying. “stop human suffering…end marriage” - W.C. Fields
Forcing you to listen for hours on end as they doggedly try to save you from that fate?
FWIW, I’ve never had anyone personally state they hope I burn in hell for all eternity, but I’ve had many people say that they were sad that I was going to burn in hell. Of course, I don’t judge others beliefs or try to push mine on them so maybe I don’t get the same negative replies.
Why would you assume that omnipotence leads to benevolence? I see no reason to think that. I’m referring to the first paragraph. In the second, you add in all-benevolent so maybe you meant that in the first paragraph as well.
If you did, why would you assume the God of christianity to be all benevolent? He even says he’s a vengeful God and old testament smiting was something he didn’t seem troubled with. All benevolence would work contrary to the ‘believe or else’ theology since without a non-benevolent ‘or else’ then what would be the point?
Lastly I’ve always figured that creating something with free will and allowing that free will to be exercised is pretty much giving up omnipotence even if you’re only doing it temporarily.
Omnipotence has no need for benevolence. But Christians for some reason believe their god to be all-loving.
Ask Christians. As I say, it is obvious that their God, if he exists, is a terrible being and I would sooner worship a San Acitos Dirt Shrew.
This is a little unclear. Are you saying the Christian God is giving up his omnipotence to give us free will?
If he’s omnipotent, he can create us to do whatever he wants. If he wanted a world of justice and minimal suffering he could have created us so that our instincts would lead to that world.
If we were given true free will he could not create us to do whatever he wants or there really wouldn’t be any free will. Isn’t that what christians believe the angels are, created creatures without free will? Maybe he was just bored and wanted to work with something that didn’t always do as expected.
Of course, that would mean he wouldn’t be omniscient but I never got that one anyway.
Shit, even the title of this thread infected me with stupid.
I agree with the second paragraph.
To indulge in a bit of fantasy, lets consider the myth for a moment. In the old testament there is no belief in all benevolence. That’s where the fire and brimstone is in the bible.
Fear is a common tool to train and discipline others and since you can’t just make them do something I could see leading them to think you were a hard ass disciplinarian who doles out his infinite love only to those who deserve it.
That wasn’t working though. You can’t coerce love ( and why is that so important to him btw? ) and what’s the point of orderly if you’re trying to get something to love you that has a choice. Heck, even some of the angels without free will didn’t love him.
Also, there needed to be an out. If you’re just some god who will smite any who disobey you without fail, once someone has done that, good luck getting them back. They’re already screwed on that deal so you have to be forgiving else you can’t get them back in line. They need to believe in a second chance.
How do you sell that once you’ve taken on the roll of angry vengeful hardass? You reinvent yourself as a loving god who only smites the evildoers once and only after every possible chance at getting them to do it willingly has failed.
Thus, you give everyone the forgiveness card but only if they play it. It’s good almost for all eternity though so it’s really a generous offer.
To answer your question more directly though, I think it’s important to believe your god is all loving or you’d have to face the reality of your second point.
I never thought of Scylla as a hardcore fundie. A rightwing conservative, yeah. But never as a fundie.
The OP should have been here when we had Joe Cool, Jersey Diamond*, His4Ever and Wildest Bill. His head would have exploded.
As for me, I’m religious, I guess, in that I believe in god, but not really in any particular religion. What do I win?
*I heard from some Dopers – can’t remember who – that Jersey later divorced Joe and came out of the closet. And sent out some e-mails appologizing for her behavior. If she was a closeted lesbian, it would probably explain why she might have been extra hostile.
When does it end? When am I not going to be considered an idiot for forthrightly dismissing someone’s claim that something not proved to exist, exists because I can’t demonstrably prove it doesn’t exist?
The Three-headed Sausage King? The Infinity-footed Peanut Butter Cyclops?
Would it be reasonable for me, according to you, to assert that there are no such beings, or am I being a total douche-bag without all the answers who should grow up? Mind you, I am all those things anyway, so it’s not necessarily relevant to this discussion.
Oh, c’mon - you’re really going to blame the thread???