wdog

no I think i understand, that is why I keep saying that I would ALWAYS welcome my child home, even in an afterlife. If I were god and you were an atheist your whole life, I would welcome you into heaven after you had died. I simply can't imagine any loving parent that wouldn't, especially given their absentee status I descibed above.

the love you descibe is a one way street to god, he wants worship (what kind of loving friend or parent wants that anyway? relationships are built on trust and respect, not worhip and prayer) and an asking of forgiveness via a jesus ritual to let you come home. I on the other hand would simply let you in since you were my son and this would be our home, no silly rituals necessary.

I have more mercy, love, and compassion than your god.

BTW sorry, I kept think I was talking to radorth.

[ September 29, 2002: Message edited by: wdog ]</p>

Opera Nut

1)Hell is physical punishment. When you die you have no body to punish but merely a soul. QED Therefore they cannot torture you.

2)Jesus said he came with a sword in order to break up families. So breaking up families (especially by being a pushy Bible thumping rectum) is DOING GAWD'S WILL!! How cool is that??
Tell your fundie relatives that the next timt they hassle you!!!

Stephen T-B

So, to be in hell is to be separated from god.
Well, in that case I’m in hell even as I write, and I have to say I don’t find it in the least bit unpleasant.
God separated itself from me when I was about 19 by simply disappearing out of my life. I knew then that if my life ended up in the trash can, I’d have no-one to blame but myself and if it didn’t, I’d have no one to thank but myself. I was in control, and it was a good feeling, and god, having been irrelevant, is now a nonsense.
Am I tortured?
No.
Change of subject: RJS, if you want to know about the nature of the Creator God you shouldn’t read the Bible, which common sense tells us is mostly myth, legend and highly-embellished anecdote: you should read a book about Chaos Theory. You will discover there about Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions. and may come to the conclusion that the Creator God is a non-linear differential equation with an inevitable outcome but one which the human mind does not have the tools to predict.
And this brings us to the difference between you and I.
That idea I’ve just outlined is one I warm to. On the other hand, for you to think about it even for a moment fills you with a sickening sense of icy desolation.
Am I right?

sbaii

RJS, if you want to know about the nature of the Creator God you shouldn’t read the Bible, which common sense tells us is mostly myth, legend and highly-embellished anecdote: you should read a book about Chaos Theory. You will discover there about Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions. and may come to the conclusion that the Creator God is a non-linear differential equation with an inevitable outcome but one which the human mind does not have the tools to predict.

God as a differential equation.I wish I knew more math so I could appreciate that! Soem of the more educated fundies like to use the Uncertainty Principle to explain god (in the gaps)

sbaii

(I only meant to quote the statement about Chaos Theory.I know nothing about it that I could explain to anyone.)

RJS, I brought up the subject of hell because cruel and unusual punishment is a modern concept which we in the US debate a lot. Most people, I believe, don't want to be cruel to children or to animals. And intellectually they know that torturing criminals does not make them better citizens. In the South where fundamentalism is the strongest and educational systems routinely low on national standards, states kill more criminals and isolate mentally ill criminals without benefit of medications.

The concept of eternal torture and hellfire actually appears more in the "good news" of the New Testament. Fundamentalists dwell on hell so that their religion is based more on fear than love of any god. The fear of hell makes parents disown children who are gay, nonbelievers,or sinful in some other way. That seems to contradict the ideas in the parables of the Prodigal Son and the Good Shepherd.

There is nothing that justifies a punishment that has no end. Psalm 139 tells about the uncircumcised going to hell. Most women are not circumcised altho some moslem societies do some
horrendous attempt at it. So does that mean most of the women who have lived will not go to heaven? Six hundred years ago the Church Fathers debated whether women had souls. With time human knowledge grows and even religious thinking changes. In this time when our scientific knowledge is exploding, there is every justification to doubt the magical creation of the universe. In this age of worldwide communication, we know more than any generation before us. For instance, I know of people who have been wracked with crippling diseases for over ten years that would make the measily three hours Jesus supposedly spent on the cross pale in comparison.

Any god with an ounce of justice in him/her/it would understand our doubts especially given the Bible's silly renditions of creation. The main reason people believe in a god today is because they want to live eternally which goes against everything we know of natural law and because they don't want to know the discoveries of science out of fear of hell. Heaven will be full of ignorant drips and self-righteous demagogues. I'm with Mark Twain.