Tris
[aside]
Alvin Plantinga in God, Freedom, and Evil calls counter theology atheology.
But, I think counter-theology works reasonably well.
[/aside]
Tinker
I’m trying, Czar, but I admit that it’s difficult. I think I’m wired more like Peter, even though I think more like John.
But no matter whether I see the difference or not, I should never make any judgment about your motives. I don’t (and can’t) know them. Perhaps if you could be just a tad more gentle for a spell, I could ease into it better. But that’s not a request, just a musing. I wouldn’t want you to feel like you’re walking on glass. So I’ll make an extra-extra effort. Or, I’ll try anyway.
As an observation, not intended to belittle anyone’s position, people like Tris and I look at the world and see a purposive operation tended by a person who has professed great powers and great love for those present. We’re quite aware of the capacity of man to be inhumane to man, and of the tendency of nature in general to not care about human wishes, but beyond these see goodness present.
It’s my impression that most of the atheists see a totally non-purposive moved-by-blind-chance world that nonetheless has some “good” (i.e., pleasurable or uplifting) aspects, but in general do not expect anything good to happen unless it is caused by the “good” acts of well-intentioned humans.
The one view is reinforcing and comforting to its adherents; the other is depressing or at best neutral to its. Yet we’re viewing the same world.
Something like this may best explain the Heaven-Hell issue that keeps getting raised around here.
As regards the OP, would it be at all worthwhile to get a good modern translation of what Jesus actually said and look at it? Or is the question more in the line of “abstract for me the really important part of what he said?”
Libertarian said: Death, as you most likely use the term exclusively, equates to what we would call the end of the moral play. You get a curtain call.
That may be an interesting point, but it doesn’t answer my question, so I’ll rephrase.
Millions of Xians, for many centuries, have claimed to have received communications from Jesus. One of the central beliefs of conventional Xianity is that if I don’t believe in, love, and worship
Jesus and YHWH before I die, I will burn forever in Hell. And the word “Death” has meant, to every Xian I have ever talked to, what happens when your heart stops beating and your brainwaves flatline.
You disagree.
So we have an absolute contradiction, not just a different viewpoint.
Either you are correct and other Xians are wrong, or vice versa.
So: were all those other Xians mistaken? Hallucinating? Getting a message from some other Jesus?
Again: is the Jesus who communicates with you the same being that other Xians experience? If so, how do you account for the contradiction? If not, who are the other ones?
I think it may be time to haul out the Elephant again;
Or both sides are wrong
Or both sides are partly right (maybe the term ‘death’ is just being given a different meaning - and I’d defy anyone to demonstrate a method whereby we can pinpoint the moment that ‘death’ occurs)
Or …
Mapache,
Why not go straight to the horse’s mouth? Your moral journey is yours alone. The rest of us are there for you to use as you see fit. Try to separate the wheat from the trash as you filter through what you see in your play.
“But about the resurrection of the dead–have you not read what God said to you, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.” — Jesus (Matthew 22:31-32)
Decide for yourself.
For Czarcasm, Mapache, and any other atheists worried about eternal torture in burning Hell, your worries are over, for I now present you with a gift:
http://www.thisistrue.com/goohf.html
Really? How many animals other than humans do you know that enjoy sex (well it is suggested that some of our ape cousins do)? Humans are the only species that procreate more than one season a year. For many animals (e.g. the domestic housecat), sex is painful. Many animals don’t even have sex (e.g. salmon). Many animals risk death or actually die in the attempt (this is particularly noticeable among the insects and arachnids). Yet all these animals procreate. Instinct does not require pleasure.
I can just imagine an ameoba completing mitosis and saying to its other half “Was it good for you?”
Well, change that slightly. They do reproduce sexually, but not through intercourse.
You’re right in that I should have brushed that statement with a much narrower stroke. Um…oops.
Still, I stand by how logical it is for the human species to find pleasure through sex through the explanation of an evolved species.
I guess that would also explain the pleasurable sensations of childbirth. 
Dolphins. The have sex year round for pleasure, although they do have mating seasons. Technically, don’t human females have mating “seasons” too? It’s just they have 12 per year as opposed to just one.
What this has to do with Jesus’ message is beyond me. But I’m sure Jesus loves the dolphins too.
[sub]::walks out singing “Jesus loves the little dolphins…”::[/sub]
Well, if you can figure out how to make the ordeal of squeezing of something the size of a watermelon through a hole the size of a lemon pleasurable, I’m sure the science taxonomists will name the next stage of human evolution after you. Maybe, for example, AustrloLibertarian. 
Um…that should be AustraloLibertarian. Damn As, they’re slippery little devils, ren’t they?
One lady told me that, to get a feeling for what it might be like, I should imagine shitting a bowling ball. At any rate, I don’t see how your treatment of natural selection is any different from what Czar says people do with the Bible. You pick and choose what sounds the best, and then make excuses for the rest.
What Czar says people do with the Bible?!?
Can anyone give me a rough estimate of how many Christian sects now exist, each one differing on such matters as interpretation and verse emphasis? This isn’t something I made up, Lib.
No, you’re right, Czar. You didn’t make it up. The history of Christendom is replete with Internecine battles over piddly shit.
(Thank you, Phil Dennison. ;))
Buddy, look up the last of the Beatitudes (Matthew version).
As they used to say in my day, far out. 
No, actually, I didn’t make excuses for anything. I admitted that I made a mistake and was perfectly willing (as most religious apologists aren’t wont to do) to not cloud the issue with a diatribe of mangled, ambiguous and convoluted faux-logic. I didn’t come back with statements of how I feel this might be true due to some highly suspicious, yet strongly purported disembodied voice giving me instructions; nor did I avoid the accusation that I had written something incorrect by offering up questions that are thinly-vield attempts to draw away from my mistake.
I said I was wrong, which puts me–on a level of personal responsibility–way ahead of most Bible defenders.
So put that in your corn-pipe and smoke it.
By the way, it should read “…thinly-veiled…”; if you read anything else, it’s probably because you’re suffering through some mighty fun hallucinations. I don’t misspell. Ever. I swer.