slims999

I'm 20 years old and this is my first post here at the infidels forum. I love being an infidel, hah.

At 18, I was christian, a strong christian. I listened to all the sermons from my pastor and listened to all the advice I was given from other people with more experience and some elders. They were great. A bunch of extremely loving people. Anyways, getting down to it, I realized there were too many loopholes in the Christian ideals and mindset that I couldn't go on. I had to change.

One of the many ideas that I disagreed with was fudgement in the afterlife. You would think that if someone loved you so much, he would kill you? Is this truly an act of unconditional love? Must we as humans oppress ourselves to believe such a thought?

I couldn't do it anymore. So God sends his son Jesus to DIE! For me? Would he do that? Hah. He kills his own son for the idea that he will get all humans to now follow him and his followers. It's pathetic.. Whatta u guys think?

slims999

Maybe I should have put this in Biblical Criticism section! haha. If any moderators wanna move this post, please do so.

--Slims

John Page

No, but if you get people to believe its true then you can get them to do all kinds of good stuff for you (suboptimal for them).

Thus, the phenomenon "belief in an afterlife" contributes to cohesion within a religious group and enhances the power that religion has etc.

Cheers, John

Bill Snedden

Perhaps not Biblical Criticism, but I do agree it needs to be moved. For now, General Religious Discussions should do...

Regards,

Bill Snedden

oriecat

Hi slims999, welcome to II. Your post deals with issues that, I believe, a lot of the ex-theists will relate to as being helpful in their deconversion. The notion of a loving god who would do such a thing, who would need to make a sacrifice like that, in order to earn more love. Or whatever. What does a being like god need love for anyway?

As a random aside.... mmmm, fudgement.

Vandrare

i have to say im in the same boat here... i was a christian until about 2 years ago. one of the big issues for me was that all these people in the world who may have just been unlucky and be born into a different religeous culture (as randomly as i was born into a christian family), even if they are moral according to christians and devoutly worship their god they're still condemed to hell for being unlucky essentially. all those people like gandhi, and buddha, and the colossal amount of people in other religions who have made very positive impacts on the world, and are loving and kind will burn forever?! that strikes me as being absolutely unchristian really, since you can't expect someone to just totally disregard everything they've been taught their entire lives and have grown up to implicitly believe when its really just as probably as the next religion. it would be like a christian finding out the hindu's were right all along and being expected to just stop believing something so personal and integral to them. how could such a benevolent and loving god condemn so many innocent people based on the luck of the draw?!
*hope all that made sense....*

Shake

My take on this is this: why worry about something that may or may not happen after you die? I'm going to enjoy aspects of this life while I'm here and not worry about some story that is more than likely just that! I further feel that enjoying this life is definitely something one can do without slipping into the immoral or illegal.

Old Man

I think you are confused between love and worship.

The way you see it, God ought to bow down to you, and worship at your very feet, being some kind of Arabian genie, who can be conjoured up at will to do your bidding.

That idea of God is ridiculous. God's unconditional love is that he has loved you unconditionaly, by bringing you to the point where you can exercise your free will to receive the blessing. But if you reject it, that's your business and not God's.

Deu 11:26 Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse;

Old Man

I think you are getting confused. Even before Christ set foot on the world, there were people righteous enough to go to heaven. For instance, John the Baptist. Christ also testified about those who did not need to repent:

Luk 5:32 I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

Just because someone never knew Christ, does not automatically mean is eternally condemned.

As far as people being born into different religious cultures, the bible clearly teaches that the external idolatry of semi-heathen cultures can be forgiven by God, provided the foolishness of their outward rites are acknowledged. One example is Naaman who asked forgiveness of Elijah for performing the outward rites of heathenism.


2Ki 5:18 [Naaman speaking] "In this thing the LORD pardon thy servant, [that] when my master goeth into the house of Rimmon to worship there, and he leaneth on my hand, and I bow myself in the house of Rimmon: when I bow down myself in the house of Rimmon, the LORD pardon thy servant in this thing".

2Ki 5:19 And [Elijah] said unto him, Go in peace.

The bible also teaches that all judgment is entrusted to God, so you can't say that Christianity teaches that everyone who has never heard of Christ will go to hell. It plainly does not teach this. It only teaches that everyone who rejects the true Christ will go to hell., but that presumes that the true Christ was preached, which it isn't always.

John Page

Did they report back yet to confirm/deny judgement at death?

Cheers, John