Which is why I would cheerfully burn in hell for eternity rather than follow such an entity.
But that’s just me. When I was a Baha’i, I was often told by Christians that I would go to hell for my beliefs. It never bothered me then.
If we can’t understand, how can we know that we’re supposed to obey?
This argument seems to fail badly at the “justify” part of the OP’s question. It’s an argument that could just as easily be used to “justify” the behavior of Satan or Cthulhu.
The bible…do people still read that book? seriously
Isn’t time to put that book aside an find something fresh. What a waste of time
I’m not a believer. My point is merely if one truly believes in an all-powerful omniscient God, then it’s not your place to question His commandments. You don’t have to “justify” anything; His word is all you need, whether it makes sense or not.
That doesn’t follow at all. Power and omniscience don’t mean that God is either trustworthy or moral, or even sane. How do you know that the reason his commands don’t make sense is that the commands are simply senseless?
How does the one follow from the other? Perhaps the point of it all is for us to eventually usurp and kill God, granting Him the blessed release of Oblivion, and everything is just a lead-up to us being ready to do that, as a species. There is no reason to assume that God wants obedience; in fact, given that disobedience is possible, it’s necessarily true that God wants it.
Once you push God off into the “not constrained by human logic or human understanding” category, how can you say anything definitive about Him at all?
So we should stone adulterers and give our daughters to the mob to be raped?
I didn’t say anything about trust or morality. What difference would it make anyhow? If a being has the ability to send you to Hell for not following His commands, does his level of morality or sanity really make any difference to those who are subject to His judgment?
You are both attempting to apply logic and reason to something that is neither of those things. People who believe in it apply their own illogical, unreasonable standards.
It comes down to do you believe that there is a greater power or force than you, at work in the universe. I believe that there is. I believe that God sent his son, to redeem man…but then, I’m a Christian. Definitely more spiritual than religious.
Morality matters for its own sake. And if he’s evil or incomprehensible, what makes you think that obeying him will keep you out of Hell?
And that argument basically boils down to the most moral thing you can do being the extermination of humanity, so God has no more new toys to torture.
So are you. If logic and reason don’t apply to something, then nothing meaningful can be said about it about it.
You don’t know. That’s the big “fuck you” of it, isn’t it? Your only chance is to obey and hope.
Amen.
You are avoiding the OP. How do you reconcile what you believe with a God that punishes people for something Adam and Even did 6,000 years ago, and flooded the entire world killing everyone except a single boatful of people, and created leprosy, aids, and malaria, and let’s earthquakes happen, and killed the first born son of everyone in Egypt, and punished a family whose father did not let his daughters be raped?
And why do you thing God needs to redeem man anyway? It seems like we should redeem God.
If God is so incomprehensible then you have no way of knowing what he can or will do or why, so you might as well do what you like.
If God is incomprehensible, then that is the sum total of what can be said about it. All other discussion is pointless.
This isn’t the question you are asking, but I had a thought about a better way to answer the daughter’s question. (Not that your friend is likely to tell her this.)
Look, you believe that I’m going to be sentenced at Judgment Day for not being a true-believer. Then I’m going to combine with oxygen forever. But how do you know that the experience won’t be blissful? You heard me right. And, for that matter, how do you know that the people who get to the giant Retirement Home in the clouds won’t be envious of the ecstasy, if not actually in physical torment?
Of course that doesn’t make any sense. Neither does combining with oxygen forever in the first place.
Why be picky about absurdities? Why choose some of them and believe them, while rejecting others? Why not reject all of them?
- Jack
Then some fat shit in a polyester suit and his wife with makeup that would make a whore blush would need to get real jobs.
I believe that these are not the most pertinent texts to answer the OP, and to the extent they are they are too limited to give an accurate context in answering the [juvenile] question posed in the OP.
At any rate, the texts do indicate the “nature of the punishment” and I can see why so many atheists find the “it’s a mystery” answer so suspect.
The bible does not indicate anywhere that people will burn in hell for eternity.
And so the premise of the OP is invalid. IOW, the Bible is true, your interpretation is not.
That statement will likely cause some to Google up “Lazarus” and quickly misapply it. (and this may include atheists and Christians alike unfortunately) Some may give the “it’s a mystery” answer----the same answer given when pointing out the dichotomies in the Trinity doctrine.
At any rate, there is no biblical basis for a burning hell.
From here.
Basically you get over it by making a lot of the arguments you’ve undoubtedly already heard. In a nutshell, you can argue that God’s actions are justified:[ul]
[li]by definition[] for reasons beyond our comprehension[]via some amalgam of the first two arguments[/ul][/li]If you, like me, don’t find those arguments particularly compelling, you may have a hard time squaring Christian salvation theology with the contemporary loving God.