Mace

yourgoingtohell.com [Mod warning: there may be a virus on that site. Scroll down and read before going there. -Barefoot Bree]

What?

It depresses me. It really does. The fact that this just fuels my doubts over and over and over.

You know I suppose I'm going through the same things you guys did years ago but... man...

loose cannon

I visited "yourgoingtohell.com" and my Norton AV popped up and told me it had just blocked a trojan. Nasty.

Mace

What exactly does that mean?

loose cannon

It meant my anti-virus protection informed me that a nasty virus was trying to access my computer whilst I was visiting that site.
I was just warning other people to stay away from the site if they do not have their computer protected.

I. C. Unicorns

ACK! it should be "you'regoingtohell.com" Can't Satan spell?

Mace

Hyposcrites can't spell!

Selsaral

So we've established that it's very suspicious that an all-good God would use threats of eternal punishment to get people into line. That his method of persuasion is the use of threats and fear. It does however make perfect sense for people who want people to join their religion...just scare them into it.

This merges perfectly with the idea that all God wants is for people to believe in him. I mean really, this omnimax diety gets off on judging us for eternal damnation on whether or not people believe in his existence, when he goes to such great lengths to avoid being detected? Makes no sense.

However, just like the fear of hell, this makes perfect sense for a religion trying to gain adherents. It makes sense for humans trying to gain control of other humans through religious conversion.

And I am not suggesting that a bunch of evil christians sat around rubbing their hands together menacingly and decided that their evil religion should have these features to get more adherents.

I am suggesting that there are many different sects of christianity, and there have been since the dawn of the religion. Those that have these features (scare people into believing, and insist that only by believing in their God would you be spared eternal torment) simply were more effective at gaining adherents. Therefore after two thousand years of christians murdering each other over control of the religion, you end up with the versions that are most effective at control and at gaining converts.

Godless Wonder

This article seems like it might be some help...
http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/thoughts.html

Fencesitter

Would it help to talk to people who have gone or are going through deconversion?

I haven't read your other threads, so I don't know if this has already been suggested, but exchrisitan.net has a lot of people that have deconverted, some more recently than others. And it also provides some support in that process, I think.

Then there's losingyourreligion.com. But that's just a website, no interaction.

I've been hesitant to post, because I don't want to push you into or out of Christianity. That's your choice.

But whatever you decide, I hope that there's support for you in your beliefs or non-beliefs.

Fence

Asha'man

I think this is an excellent observation.

Fear is the tool of men trying to control your behavior. Faith is a tool of con-men trying to sucker you into buying whatever they're selling.

Why are these things so tightly tied to religion? A real God should have no need for these tools. But if the religion was false, what other methods could it possibly use?