Nah. Homey don’t play dat game.
I confess that I don’t know the new (or old) testament well, but this is new to me. In which book or books did Jesus promis revenge on non-believers?
Well, if those that believe get to go to Heaven(which isn’t exactly what he promised, but why get the message right at this late stage of the game, right?), and those that don’t follow his message get a warm and toasty afterlife, what would you call it?
I call it trying to save people. If I told you your house was on fire and begged you to follow me out, would you blame me for your fate and call me vengeful when you decided to ignore my plea?
Well, Lib, to be completely fair, the “house on fire” analogy has been brought up before – and in Czarcasm’s view (or at least in Gaudere’s, she being the source for this answer), what you’re doing is warning Czarcasm that an invisible dragon is about to set his house on fire, and he needs to flee from it.
Since he has no proof of the dragon’s existence or intent other than your word and no way to validate your word, would he not be wise to at least think through the situation before abandoning all his earthly goods and the house given him by his sainted mother whose existence and telephoning habits we’ve been at pains to discuss in this thread?
I can see their perspective. Perhaps a better metaphor for the issue is that the Bill Gates Foundation is giving away free yearlong vacations to the resort of your choice, and all you need to do is get in touch with them. But you know that there are always going to be people who see this as a scam of some sort and just plain will not call, or who have developed a hatred of Bill Gates thanks to somebody sending them a virus that corrupted their copy of Windows, or something of the sort.
Huh-uh. It’s already burning. It was burning when he bought it. Invisible dragons? Sorry, I don’t buy it.
A burning building? Sorry, I don’t buy it.
I know that I’m hopelessly ignorant and should read the new testament for myself, but I again have to ask in which books did Jesus speak about a warm and toasty afterlife?
Czar usually requires those who debate Christian theology to defend every position ever espoused by any person claiming to be a Christian. Failure to do so is defining Christian to be whatever you want, in order to win the argument. When you put forth a scriptural element that underlies your faith, he points out that the entire Bible is unreliable, and cannot be relied on in any rational discussion, but when he feels like pointing out the failures of Christian morality, any old passage from Leviticus will do.
Tris
True enough–but, to be fair, he’s simultaneously positing the existence of a Jesus who “promises revenge on nonbelievers” (and presumably has the capability to exact this revenge) and denying that this Jesus might actually be in a position to know whether the house is on fire or not. Where I come from, that’s cheating.
Actually, what is being proposed is that you come up to me and try to tell me that my house is on fire, I don’t see a fire at all and ask you where you got the idea that my house is on fire, and you tell me that your invisible friend told you so.
BTW, in this “fire” analogy, who exactly is responsible for setting the house on fire? If this “Jesus/God” amalgamation didn’t create the Hell that a majority of Christian sects believe exists, who did? Doesn’t this make the analogy more along the lines of “If you don’t pay your “insurance” dues(worship a certain way), we won’t be able to prevent an “accident” from happening to your house(life)”?
Of course, if Jesus is Love, none of us will go to hell because anyone who is the embodiment of love wouldn’t allow someone to be abandoned for all eternity. I know that I couldn’t do that to my children, and I’m just a hate-filled atheist.
As far as Tris’ claim goes, I am merely bringing up points brought forward by a large number of Christian sects. If these arguments doe not apply to your personal sect, it doesn’t make them any less valid. No matter how honest a used-car salesman you are, I’m still going to chain my wallet to the inside of my jacket, demand that everything be in writing, and still not believe 75% of what I’m told the next time I venture onto a used-car lot.
Czar,
Well, maybe you could get to know a few car salesmen, and take a look at the way they live their lives away from the car lot. Then, if you ever need a car, you could just go buy one from the one you found to be the most honest in other matters.
Of course, I too have bought used cars, and I can’t promise you this will work.
Tris
But just because a few car salesman lead exemplary lives away from the lot (the sales place, not the guy with the salty wife) doesn’t mean that the cars they’re selling back at the office are anything special; for all the evidence bares out, the cars are just as speculative and generic as a run-of-the-mill fortune cookie’s fortune.
And, like Czarcasm, I find it interesting that the puppet masters holding the strings that make the devils and angels dance are actually the same divine Gepetto. I’ve yet to come across any religious adherent (or poignantly faithful text) who can explain why a supposedly omniscient, omnipotent god–who claims to be a loving being–would create an ethereal paradise and, at the same time, throw in a fire and brimstone juke joint that caters to his somewhat rebellious clientele. I would hedge my eternal bets that if a powerful parental figure were indeed as kind as both the books and faithful say (or at the very least logically “all there”), he probably wouldn’t send his children to a time-out room where red hot pokers and manacles–and other tortourously fun devices–line the walls if they commit the “sin” of not believing. Or repenting. Or not bowing enough, etc…
Of course, it helps that my cold, black heart is an atheistic one and, as it is, I haven’t disagreed with a single syllabub of what Czarcasm has written. For this thread, anyway. Haven’t read many of the others.
So, when your child says, “Dad, I’m leaving,” you will hold him prisoner? I don’t think you quite understand who is abandoning Whom?
Hey! If you want to construct your own analogies, fine. But don’t mangle mine the way you mangle scripture, please. 
In my analogy, you like fire. You thought it was a neat feature of the house when you bought it. You didn’t know or care that it was dangerous. In my analogy, you’re ignorant and reckless.
Exactly. When you realize that things are really heating up, you waste your time trying to figure out whom to blame. Someone must have tricked you into buying the house, you figure. It’s like the old powder-wigged fop, sitting on his porch and drinking tea, fanning himself and complaining to his servants about the fly population while a battle of muskets rages in the background.
And what sort of moral decisions would there be to make otherwise? I’ve yet to come across any faith basher who can explain why God ought to possess the wimpy and foolhardy attribute they call “love”.
Originally posted by Libertarian:
If I said “Dad, I’m leaving” I would hope that my dad would not have armed guards posted at the door to escort me to an isolated torture chamber from which there is no possibility of escape and which would allow him to never think of me again.
The fact is, there are conflicting reports of how God feels about us. Maybe he loves us, maybe he hates and is disgusted by us, maybe he loves some and despises others. There is a large portion of the world’s population that has faith in the fact that you have “abandoned” their God, and fully believe that you are going to be in for a nasty surprise when you die. Logically one should believe in all Gods for the best chance of evading torment, but unfortunately Gods tend to be the jealous type. Of course, you can always say that the people warning you that “your house is on fire” believe in a false God, while your God is real, so basically what it comes down to is you saying that everyone really knows your God is the true God, but they choose to believe in false Gods or no God because of… rebellion? Lack of concern over their fate? Who knows what you tell yourself.
I believe God ought to possess love, because I feel that love is a good thing. When I think honestly on the subject, I come to the conclusion that people should be loved, that judgements on an admittedly flawed person should not last for eternity, and that nobody deserves to be tortured. Now you can respond by saying that that isn’t my honest opinion, but merely an attempt to escape God’s righteous vengeance. All I can do is what I believe to be the right thing to do. There may be a God that will hate me for this, just as there may be a God who will hate you for believing in a false God instead of him. In any case, you don’t have to worry about me libeling your God by calling him loving.
Since Jesus claimed many time he was committed to doing his father’s wishes, I think his basic message is obedience.
I don’t know, Czar, I just feel like you’re changing the parameters of the question every time you reply. Let’s look at it broken down:
You claim that Jesus’ message, in part, was “promising revenge on nonbelievers.” So, taking as given for the purposes of discussion that a man named Jesus existed and that he said this, some questions are in order:
- Do you believe that he actually had the capability to exact this revenge?
- If he didn’t, then was he lying or was he crazy (or some other option–don’t want to get caught in a false dichotomy)? Either way, if he didn’t, then isn’t it perfectly valid for his modern day followers to take the positive parts of his message and deny the negative parts? If Jesus wasn’t God, then it does no harm to pick and choose.
- If he did have the capability to exact this afterlife revenge, then doesn’t it logically follow that he at least had some form of supernatural power, whether as the “Son of God” or some other form?
- And if that is the case, doesn’t it follow that there’s a possiblity that the house actually is on fire, and that’s he’s made that clear to his followers, and they’re trying to make it clear for you?
- And if 3 and 4 are true, doesn’t it follow that perhaps Jesus, or someone associated with him, might be the guy who made the rules and can enforce him however he pleaes? That, of course, doesn’t obligate you or me to play the game, but we also can’t complain if we play and lose.
Mind you, the chain of questions stops at #2 for me, and I assume for you. I’m just interested in seeing the questions debated in a fair manner.
- Again for the umpity-ump time, I don’t even know that he existed! Most, if not all, of my propositions concerning him have been preceeded by the word “if”.
- Again for the umpity-ump time, I don’t even know that he existed! Following your logic though, does that mean you don’t mind if people worship the Unibomer, as long as they ignore and/or deny the parts about blowing up people?
- Again blah blah blah.
- Again blah blah blah, and if your god would quit setting houses on fire, we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place.
- Again blah blah blah. At this point we could be talking about Odin, Zeus or any other god. Same “if” when I talk about them.
We can debate this in a fair manner as long people remember that I don’t believe in Christianity in the first place, and thus cannot logically love OR hate what ever it is you worship.
Remember, we are all atheists-I just believe in one less god than you do.
I hope by “you” you don’t mean me, because I would think it would be painfully obvious that I am an atheist by now. If not, then I really am not communicating well.
Apparently, also, I typed “given for the purposes of this discussion” in Swahili or something, since you leaped right over it.
Finally, given for the purposes of the discussion that Jesus did build the house, it’s his right to set it on fire whenever he pleases, I would guess. But if he does so while simultaneously providing me with the escape route, it’s hardly his fault if I don’t take it.