I meant that he had converted from Judaism. Sorry for the confusion. It’s my understanding that he may have exaggerated how orthodox his upbringing was (some Jewish critics say he was raised in a fairly non-observant household) but he was definitely Jewish by birth and by faith. Regardless of that, he has been a Born Again Christian for the last fifty years.
Thanks for the clarifications, Diogenes. I didn’t mean to zero in on your post. It’s just that I always stop to read whenever I see your name.
That’s my understanding as well with respect to his parents’ orthodoxy. Ceil calls it “nominal”, I believe. I’m not sure that Rosen himself exaggerates it, really. For almost any given OJ, there is likely both someone more and someone less orthodox.
No worries. I took it as a sincere question not a challenge. It;s nice to see back posting again regularly Lib. 
Lordy.
I don’t have a dog in the fight between the Rosens and their detractors, but I do have some investment in the fight between intellectual honesty and rhetorical legerdemain.
I do understand that you didn’t endorse the link, though, Tom. You merely provided it for us to have a look. And what I saw was something like an Ann Coulter review of a Hillary Clinton book — words deliberately selected to offend, spin, and provoke; straw men constructed and then attacked; gross oversimplification of complex facts (as in the account of Ceil’s childhood); and a not-so-hidden agenda in the guise of something else, in this case a slam against the Jews for Jesus in the guise of a book review.
It was rather galling, I thought, that an organization whose very name is a gimmick has decided to accuse their own namesake of gimmickery. Their calling Ceil Rosen “bitter and scornfully hostile” is surely the utterance of the very blackest pot. And their deliberate misrepresentation of Moishe’s comment on his conversion experience by ripping it from its context is the most dishonest thing I’ve heard since George W. Bush’s State of the Union Speech.
Sad, really.
If the SDMB weren’t so anal about fair use, I’d do a point-counterpoint on the, um, book review. But hopefully, Dopers will take it upon themselves to investigate the facts. I’m glad I did.
Because he’s an idiot. He probably thinks a straw man is just a character from The Wizard of Oz. But I thought it was a strawman, so I said so.
But it’s not really a strawman, Lamia. Read Revelation and you’ll see what many fundamentalists believe is a literal description of what is to come. If such horrors are played out on Earth in the last days, they can’t even imagine the torture that is Hell. I’ve personally sat through movies, sermons and youth rallies that describe Hell in no nicer way than Ben does. Have you listened to the “Sounds of Hell” (Real Audio recording from the Art Bell show) from, for instance, here. That is what many fundamentalists believe. And, yes, they think non-Christians deserve the punishment because they rejected Jesus.
I weep for anyone who thinks the Lord sends his children to suffer eternally, and calls that divine judgment. For as we have judged, so are we to be judged. It cannot be in your heart that millions are tormented forever in the name of the Lord unless the desire for that torment is there in your heart as well, and that desire will consume you, if you let it.
There is no hope for any of us, if there is not hope for all of us. Put down your bibles, and find someone to love.
Svt4Him, If is thing is hateful, it is not made less hateful if it is done by God. So, choose. If you must believe in Hell, then love the God of Hell, and be his servant. Or believe in the God of Love, and forgive your brothers, and yourself.
I was speaking with an apostate Muslim today. He has been declared an apostate by an Iranian Court. He has fled for his life, and lives now in the US. But he still believes in Allah, and the Prophet Mohammed. He does not believe in the judgment of religious leaders any more. We agreed on one thing. God is right. The fact that none of us agree about Him is just proof that all of us are wrong.
Svt4Him, just be wrong. It’s a human thing. God will take care of the rest of it.
Tris
This beautifully reminds me of one of my favorite attributed-to-Sufis stories.
Fellow by the name of Bahlul, a wise fool and holy man, wants to help a village that is suffering terribly in an unseasonably bitter winter. The village was running out of firewood and fuel, so Bahlul took it upon himself to go fetch some fire.
Where to best find a large supply of fire? he wondered, and the answer came to him: in Hell, of course. So Bahlul traveled down to Hell, wending his way through countless souls trapped screaming and sobbing in pyres of flame, and located the fellow who ran the place, said hello, explained the reason for his visit, and asked if he could be spared some fire to bring back to warm the winter-bound village.
He was startled when the fellow who ran the place replied wearily, “We have no fire here.” He looked about at all the soul-pyres, and started to question that statement. He was cut off.
“Listen very carefully to me, man. I tell you true, we have no fire here. Everyone who comes here brings their own.”
I appreciate that story more and more each time a thread like this recurs.
A very nice story, indeed. It reminds me of the Sandman comic in which Satan kicked everyone out of hell.
Haw Haw Haw!
Is that site a parody, tell me nobody is really insanely stupid enough to be treating the ‘scientists drilled into hell’ thing as real, are they?
This reminds me of a joke I once read (in a Christian magazine, to boot):
A Jew comes to the gates of heaven and knocks on the door.
It is opened and he is let in by the doorman.
However, when they proceed in, the doorman says: “Now you need to be really quiet and tiptoe past that wall there.”
The Jew asks curiously what is behind that wall, to which the doorman replies: “Oh, that’s the Christians. They believe they’re here alone.”
Not really fitting the OP, kind of the other way around…but it fits the story above in that you get what you bargain for.
Is there any group anywhere that has not been the butt of that joke?
Dead babies is the only group that comes to mind, Lib. Though I do freely admit I haven’t checked recently for “new” dead baby jokes.
Most religions don’t believe in a doctrine of exclusive salvation. That’s pretty much a Christian thing. The joke wouldn’t work for Jews or Hindus or Buddhists because they don’t believe that.
“The gods of the Disc have never bothered much about judging the souls of the dead, and so people only go to hell if that’s where they believe, in their deepest heart, that they deserve to go. Which they won’t do if they don’t know about it. This explains why it is so important to shoot missionaries on sight.”
- Terry Pratchett, Eric
I didn’t say the joke was brandnew, did I?
I just thought it illustrated the point in question - as a Christian, do you believe that all other faiths go to Hell no matter what or could you imagine sharing your concept of Heaven?
Btw, do all Christian subgroups subscribe to the concept of exclusive salvation? I am asking because I used to be Catholic, and I’ve had my share of Catholic education. They never mentioned the other faiths’ salvation/non-salvation, though.
Reading this thread, I was wondering if they just swept it under the rug or whether exclusive salvation is actually only being purported by Fundamentalists / Hardcore Catholics.
Reminded me of the same thing, Ben, as well as the Saint of Killers in Preacher.
Hmm… I’m not so sure, Diogenes. There seems to be some contingency tied to most everything. Judaism, for example, might not exclude Gentiles from eternal life per se, but then there’s that pesky Jewish Law — failure to follow it results in exclusion by contingency.
The last bunch of cranky Catholics who insisted that only Catholics could get into heaven got excommunicated for not backing down from that position.
Well, but we do get cut some slack, only having to follow the seven Noachide commands, not the whole 613 mitzvot.