Jesus was a boss in World of Warcraft, but people kept kiting him into Stormwind and Blizz removed him. Ruined it for everyone. 
I just can’t get over how disrespectful you folks are being of Xianity. It’s almost as if you were claiming that Xians are stupid. Don’t you realize that Xians have feelings, and are being badly hurt by all this mockery of their most sacred beliefs? Have you, sirs, at last no sense of decency?
I feel for a Christian that feels in any way threatened, offended or hurt by this foolishness. It is clear that the pizza-haters on this thread know very little about Christianity (or religion in general, for that matter) to make an informed assault on it.
It is also clear they have no manners and feel just fine about wrecking a thread about a topic on which they have no interest.
If I started a thread about trains and someone popped in to say that airplanes rule and trains suck, that someone would have been ridiculed. Vegetarians on a roast beef thread; people against space exploration on a Moon Base thread; Republicans on a Democratic primary debate.
Someone who thinks a particular topic is not worhy of discussion serves the MB better by not posting at all.
Added: This is not about the feelings of some group. It is about the rights of paying customers of this board to discuss the topics of their interest in an intelligent manner without sabotage.
But that’s just me talking.
And I can’t believe the biased moderation forces haven’t stepped in to issue unfair reprimands. Are they busy? Perhaps they’re sleeping and must be awakened.
I don’t agree with the concept of “sacred.” If perhaps Christians didn’t want their ideas debated or even ridiculed, then perhaps they should have rethought the whole evangelical, “we dominate your culture so shut up and listen to our take on things” movement of the last several thousand years, as well as the idea of bringing up issues like these for debate.
This is just the same old drivel. If you have some evidence that people don’t understand Christianity, then present it instead of posturing. I would bet that DtC knows far more about Christianity than you or most of the people in this thread for instance.
GD is not the place in which people’s beliefs get patted on the back and told they are special. It’s the place where they get debated.
Did you even READ the OP? It’s not exactly a serious topic on a serious subject. Tuckerfan is not a delicate old lady inquiring about a deeply treasured theological matter he/she needs to brush up upon who is now horrified to find that the matter has inspired a lively debate.
Take your own advice: either offer some contribution to the debate, or stop kvetching about it. Do you have some explanation for the quirks of the issue? Why does Jesus’ spiritual body have wounds? How do blood sacrifices magically make up for past evil, and why is anyone demanding that they be made up for them in the first place?
Sabotage? Again, did you read the OP?
I am discussing the matter in an intelligent manner. I WISH the questions I were asking were really just lighthearted ones. But they aren’t. They’re pretty darn serious. That the subject matter is somewhat ridiculous is not my fault: that’s just the nature of the subject matter.
I think Sapo’s sabotage comment was directed towards pseudo*'s mock shock.
Or they’ve gone on a journey. Or we just need to speak louder. By the way, do you have a match? I can’t get this fire lit.
Actually, no but upon review of the OP I realize that **Apos ** is right and then you can just as easily apply my post to the Christians on this thread (!). Although if this is a thread for the non-believers to mock Christian belief, then it should be MPSIMS more than a GD.
I did give my response to the OP, as did several others. They were shot down with dogmatic disregard for their context. I will now follow my own advice and let you play with your strawmen.
I need to break this into 2 parts - and again this is a WAG:
1 - Sin makes us unfit to be in the kingdom of God.
For an analogy, start with the US and Cuba. The rule is that any Cuban citizen who makes it to the US can apply for US Citizenship. Lets say that the US is a paradise and medical science has produces eternal life, and society is such that everyone follows the laws, the jails are empty, if existent at all. Cuba, is pretty much what we have now, but lets take away the technology to span the sea to the US, by craft or swimming. The US has that capability but Cuba is a sorvern nation,and one that is ruled by a enemy of the US. Not that Cuba is a threat, but it is not in the interest of the US to do a technology exchange, nor will the leader of Cuba accept it.
Now the US policy is to accept ANY person of ANY nation who never broke a law, who gets to US soil. First problem, a person from Cuba can not get to the US by themselves, they live on Cuba, the US has no right to evacuate people of Cuba. Second problem, everyone in Cuba has broke some law at some time, so even if a cuban could get to US soil, he would be seen unworthy and be shipped back. THis is without Jesus.
The solution, to invade Cuba in the future, overthrow the leader and resurrect the dead, judge them according to their deeds and see if they are worthy of eternal life - meaning that they have no ‘debt’ to the laws.
Second part:
The wages of sin are death. But how much death does each sin buy. I don’t know. The way I take it is that for those who’s name is in the book of life, there is no sin, as Jesus has satisfied that. So one is accepted into eternal life with God. The Father still judges one according to one’s works, so it seems like the one’s who did a lot of good will get the nice house in ‘heaven’ - even if this person has also did the most bad - because the bad is gone. For the people not in the book of life, I don’t know if there is differing levels of torment, or they will all just be destroyed.
Re: the 1000 year rule of Christ, Judgement
My interpertation is from the Book of Revelation - IIRC Chapters 19-22.
It is usually considered 5 wounds, the crown of thorns, the piercing, and the 3 nails, sometimes represented by the 5 pointed star.
I don’t know the answer because I don’t know how many people have accepted the gift, nor how many sins each person in that group has committed, nor the magnitude of each sin. Perhaps a minor thorn of the crown makes up for all the masturbation in the world, and the 3 nails and the piercing was to make up for what Hitler did - if he was saved.
Again the Father sets the rules, but to us it doesn’t mean anything. Sin will lead to death it’s that simple. One sin of masturbation, or the sin of extermination of a people - all lead to the same place. OTHO if sins are cleansed by the blood of Christ, you have NO sins during Judgment so their is no meaning of the cost this way either.
So yes there does seem to be a cost if sin, but for us it doesn’t seem to matter.
(again this entire post is my understanding and not to be taken as religious doctrine)
The laws given to the Jews IIRC were given by the Father, and are still to be followed. Jesus added the ‘spirit’ to the meaning of the laws. There is no more a need to make animal sacrifices as the perfect sacrifice was made for you.
God clearly states many times that His vengeance will not be denied.
The Kingdom of God, may be taken as the Garden of Eden, when A&E were kicked out a ‘sword’ blocked them from reentering and from eating of the tree of (eternal) life. In Revelation a new earth will be formed, the Kingdom of God will return to it (or be it), the Tree of eternal life is there. It seems to be there, and to eat of that fruit, one must be without sin. We are all sinners and by ourselves can’t enter, nor can we eat of the fruit of life.
The question of morality is hard to understand except for the believer. Accepting Jesus as your king, is just not asking for forgiveness, but accepting Jesus as your King, the one you are going to serve, you are no longer serving yourself (which is serving Satan).
Mocking something is a form of harsh criticism, but it would be hard to argue that the snark in this thread is truly without argumentative content.
A typical, content-free dismissal and avoidance of criticism. If you believe we disregarded something important, then feel free to explain what it is. Otherwise, this sort of allegation is nothing more than octopus ink to beat a hasty retreat.
Allegations means nothing if they are not explained. Constantly, continually, apologists for your dogma insist that critics just don’t have it right, don’t have the TRUE, the SUBTLE, and INGENIOUS understanding of the subject. Yet time and time again they refused to be nailed down on exactly what that is. Critical issues go completely unexplained (recall the free will debate: this is a common feature it seems).
Again: you want to allege a fallacy, you back up that allegation with an explanation. ANYONE can yell out the names of logical fallacies at random and pretend that it’s some sort of response or conclusive refutation. It means nothing if you can’t back it up.
No it’s not, it’s where we exist, see the Cuba - US analogy above.
Well besides creating you, you don’t have to owe Him from my understanding, you will exist and eventually die, just like a mouse, or a fish.
Also there is nothing you can really give to God anyway, except for your willingness to accept him.
Don’t know if this helps, but sin leads to death. Jesus stood in for us.
DtC you seem to ‘value’ (word used loosely here) the Old Testament more then the New, any reason for that?
It’ still not our fault.
I have no problem with that. I’d actually prefer that over immortality.
If he wants me to “accept” him he has to prove he exists first. He’d also have a lot of explaining to do.
But it’s only God’s own rules that are at work here and he can change them anytime he wants. Why does he need a sacrifice to forgive people? Why CAN’T he just let sinners into Heaven? Is he omnipotent or isn’t he? And what does he get out of a sacrifice?
Strange that I would come across that way. I’m actually more interested in the NT than the OT, particularly in the Gospels, but I have more regard for the teachings of Jesus than I do for Paul. I have more regard for something like the Sermon on the Mount or the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats than I do for Paul’s theories on salvation, or really for any part of the resurrection. To put it another way, I’m more interested in Jesus’ life than in his death. I personally don’t believe Jesus ever thought he was dying for anyone’s sins. My disregard for the soteriological aspects of Christian scripture might come across as a disregard for the NT itself, but that’s not really accurate. I just don’t think any of that came from Jesus.
Apos, the question was: IF Jesus was able to work miracles why not heal his own wounds?. It was based on the premise that Jesus can do the things he is said he was able to do. To refute an answer given on the premise that Jesus is not miraculous is simply changing the question.
The answers to the OP given were all very simple and in the lines of “because he had no need to” (in that they didn’t prevent him from doing what he had to do) and “because he wanted to keep them” (in that they served some purpose to his mission).
After that it was all scattershots trying to put down Chirstianity itself. Not that those are not worthy of their own debate but not the pertinent to the OP at all. You are not attacking the answers, you are attacking the question.
As for the Free Will debate, I am not sure what your objections were over there, but the thread is still there if you feel you need to add something or seek further clarification of a point. I was very satisfied with your answers and said so at the moment. I came to understand your point of view and accepted it as valid even if I didn’t feel compelled to subscribe to it. If you feel you need to take that further, I will gladly meet you there (unless you were just trying to put me down by mentioning it in the hopes that nobody would bother to go check it, but that doesn’t sound like you)
Son of God being all knowing could have told us Zombies require a shot to the head to undo his great works. Before guns it must have been tough times.
Why are you trying to drag your Are Xians Stupid? argument into this thread? If you couldn’t convince anyone of your viewpoint over there, what makes you think you’ll be able to do it over here?
Not according to this:
Why do you need fault at all, why can it just be the way things are?
He may one day prove Himself to you. One day all things will be made clear. Till then, just like that mouse, He doesn’t owe us anything.
Why do you assume that God can just change his word like that? The Word is the Son, and was as such at the beginning.
I think our view of what a omnipotent God is is not reality, just our limited interpretation of God. Also I don’t think it’s what God gets out of sacrifice, but what we get out of it. But as far as God goes, it seems like Jesus got a lot of grief and anguish and pain, the Father got his righteous vengeance, and creation is once again in balance.
Nonsense: that isn’t what I asked. I was pushing on the issue of why certain things would be certain ways and why and how any of that made any sense. I didn’t demand that Jesus not be all powerful: on the contrary, that seems like a problem for the issue, not a solution.
Perfectly acceptable in GD, by the way, to question the question, unless the OP specifically forbids it.
If that were true then God would not be in the kingdom of God, since he is as vile a being as can be imagined, judging from the Bible.
Now that is simply grotesque. And you think we should follow a creature who thinks like this ?
First, that’s incredibly insulting, but I’ve learned to expect no better from Christians. Second, morality is no harder for non-Christians to grasp than anyone else. Third, if you are basing your morality on God’s alleged will, that isn’t morality at all. Obedience isn’t morality; neither is doing something because you fear hell/annihilation or desire heaven.
Serving myself is serving myself, not serving Satan, or Tiamat or Hermes or any other fictional being. I have no intention of accepting anyone as my king, and anyone who wants to be my king is my enemy.
It still doesn’t make any sense that Jesus or anyone could stand in for us for our “sins”; punishing someone else can’t possibly make up for anything I have done, and Jesus died long before I was born anyway. As for sin leading to death, that’s better than having anything to do with the ultimate evil, God.
If a god created us, he botched the job badly. He owes us a lot.
God is omnipotent, and can therefore change his mind any time he likes - he’s not less powerful than humans. And “The Word is the Son” makes no sense.
Nothing.
So, Jesus suffers, an evil god gets to gloat over the suffering of his own son, and this puts the universe in balance ? As if it was ever out of balance.
No nonsense, that what the OP asks:
If the question had been “if humans lived under water, would we still sweat?” the answer “we don’t live under water” is not an answer but a dismissal of the question. The question is just a hypothetical, there is no point in fighting the premises.
To the question asked, an answer was given (as early as post #2) some reasonable amount of back and forth with the usual sidejokes followed, despite **Der Trihs ** efforts to derail the conversation. Then you started using terms like “emo cry” and “mumbo jumbo” that just dismiss all answers given and to come without addressing them. After that, the usual mess-o-rama that happens on all religious threads followed where all the arguments from all previous threads are jumbled together and it becomes a general attack on religion.
That’s the part I don’t understand. Why do all threads that ask anything connected to any religious belief need to be assaulted and turned into a general bashing of religion and religious people? What is so wrong about discussing something within the terms set on the question?
We have had several threads on ridiculous assumptions (what if the Earth was a cube?) and people walk inside the lines and keep to the premises (most people at any rate, there is always the ------- that pops in to say how ridiculous the premise is). Why can’t it be the same with religion? Why can’t it deserve the same respect all other ridiculous assumptions get?
All this on the assumption that the OP wasn’t a trolling for this precise kind of free-for-all. It most certainly is not what I surmise from it.
PS: Should I be drawing any conclusions from the two paragraphs in my quoted post that you didn’t address?
Because it’s a ridiculous belief that people follow, and kill and oppress other people over. Open a thread asking “What if blacks really were inferior ?” or "What would society be like if women really were less intelligent than men ?"and watch how fast those threads get derailed.