Amos

As opposed to places where people are burried above ground. Is that better?

Godless Dave

Most Christians I know (granted that's not many) are like that.

I really don't think that's true, Sullster. The sects that do believe that are the loudest and the most politically powerful, but I think your run of the mill American Christian believes that Darwin, Gandhi, and Carl Sagan are all in some kind of heaven.

[ September 05, 2002: Message edited by: Godless Dave ]

[ September 05, 2002: Message edited by: Godless Dave ]</p>

Amos

Most Christians make carefully calculated pronouncements to protect their own destiny.

At least, the one's I know all profess to be saved-sinners and also have to queeze in somehow.

GeoTheo

Sullster:
You're going to HELLLLL!!!!!!!!!
Now do you fell better?
I don't.
Do you think it bothers Christians that people are going to hell?
I will say this though, No one really can Know another persons position before God.
I am offended by conservative Christians who make authoritative pronouncements about where someone went after they died. I heard one guy even say his mother died and is now burning in Hell.
I'm not sure if it is even right to say things like that.
I once had a pastor who had some wisdom when He preached at a non-Christians funeral.
He preached on the story of Lazarus and the rich man. The reach man wanted to go back and tell his brothers to believe.
My Pastor than asked. "What would so and so say to us if he could speak today?"
"He would say believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, No matter where he is."
I think that was a good way to put it.

The Other Michael

Originally posted by GeoTheo: (but emphasis added by me)
If the preacher was making the second bolded section something that the deceased non-Christian would have said, he's about as unethical and scurrilous as you could get.

Nothing like getting to put words into someone's mouth after they've died and can't protest, eh?

If that isn't the case you may want to reword your anecdote to make the meaning clearer.

cheers,
Michael

[ September 05, 2002: Message edited by: The Other Michael ]</p>

sullster

Amos, Sorry but you are missing what is funny about your writing. It implies that YOU are NOW living 6 feet under. Just a grammar error. No offense. My grammar is rusty to say the least.

GEOTHEO,
You miss my point. I know you christians believe I am going to hell, some say so and some don't. I just think you are darn hypocites for not saying that someone is in hell who is a dead atheist. Come on, show us your god's love!

About that pastor you mentioned. I don't believe in hell, but if I did, I would wish him there. What a bastard to say those things. Also, leave the rich guys alone. All the top evangelists are quite rich don't forget.

Gregg

sullster, forgive me for saying this, but you're sounding an awful lot like a creationist who keeps making false statements about evolution ("It violates the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!" "There are no transitional fossils!" "Half a wing is not an advantage!" "It's a completely random process!") over and over no matter how many times he's corrected.

I'm quite familiar with the teachings of New Thought Christianity. Despite having become an agnostic in recent years, I still work for a New Thought Christian organization and have for 16 years. I've taken all the classes and read all the books. The theology is intimately familiar to me. I can state for a fact that there is absolutely no teaching of "hell where people who don't believe in Jesus go to be punished after they die" in it. Period. The theology does not merely gloss over the concept of hell as a place of punishment for wrong belief or unbelief, it specifically excludes it. Some New Thought churches do interpret hell metaphysically as the feeling of separation from God, but this can hardly apply to those who don't even believe that God exists.

You need to familiarize yourself with Christian history. The early Christians didn't even believe in Jesus as a human being. Jesus Christ (Annointed Savior) was the Logos (Word), an emanation of God, an intermediary between God and humankind. Some Christian groups believed merely knowing Jesus was enough for salvation, while others said you had to believe Jesus had undergone a sacrificial death and resurrection in a heavenly dimension, much like the dying/rising savior gods of the mystery cults. Many of these cults may not have believed in hell or punishment for not believing in Jesus--they might have thought you'd simply cease to exist at death, or perhaps go to Sheol, a pretty dull existence but not one of eternal pain and punishment.

At some point, a guy we now know as Mark decided to collect the various strands of his Christian community's teaching (collections of Wisdom sayings and parables, the concepts of the Messiah and the "vindication of the suffering righteous one" from the Jewish scriptures, and the crucifixion and resurrection of the heavenly Christ) into an allegorical narrative set in a psuedo-historical Palestine of the early first century. He drew practically all of his plot elements directly from the Jewish scriptures.

Later on, other Christian communities came by copies of "Mark's" allegory and decided to write their own versions. "Matthew" was the one who introduced lots of descriptions of damnation and hellfire. At this point, most people still understood that these were allegories, not histories.

However, sometime after the end of the Jewish War, as Christianity became more and more a gentile faith, a lot of people started believing that the gospels were actual history. (This isn't very surprising when you consider that a lot of people regard the Book of Mormon as actual history.) Gentiles were much more inclined than Jews to accept that a human man could become God, and vice versa. (For Jews and Muslims alike such a proposition is sheer blasphemy.)

The church in Rome eventually became one of those that accepted the historical Jesus belief. Once it secured the backing of the state, it collected all the gospels, selected those it considered "orthodox," edited them to make them even more orthodox, and then proceeded to stomp out all the "heretical" sects. It managed to hold on to power for over a thousand years, at which point the spread of literacy, the invention of movable type, and the translation of the Bible into German led people to question the Church's official interpretations. In short order, Christianity split into hundreds of squabbling sects again.

My point in sharing all this is to demonstrate that there's no such thing as an "official" version of Christianity. There wasn't one from the beginning and there isn't one now. It is entirely subjective. About all you can really expect is that a person who claims to be a Christian includes Jesus Christ somewhere in his/her belief system, if only as a figurehead.

Gregg

[ September 07, 2002: Message edited by: Gregg ]</p>

sullster

GREGG,
Thanks for your quickie christian history. You are very enthusiastic for an agnostic. I can respect an intellectual curiosity about the religion but working for them seems odd to me.

Alright, your particular corner of the christian religion doesn't do hell. But, even your nice-guy christian group still believes that death for an atheist is a "separation from god".

Gregg, you miss the point too. Even if there is no firey hell in your theology, you still posit some kind of experience, which you label-"a separation from god". You are still claiming that a dead atheist "goes somewhere" after death.

emphryio

I hope this version of christianity where there is no heaven or hell catches on. Because if it does, there won't be any christianity at all soon after.

Sullster, I see your point as being that any religion that has an eternal hell, is disgustingly barbaric. Anyone who believes in an eternal hell is a very ugly person. And belief in an eternal hell justifies all religious intolerance. (Witch hunts, inquisitions, 9/11, etc. Compared to eternal hell, these are all inconsequential and worth it if they save a few souls.)

I would prefer it if christians faced reality, got in my face and said, "You're going to hell because you don't believe." Maybe to do this might make some confront what a disgusting thing they've chosen to believe in.

Gregg

Fair enough, although there's a lot more to it than that. When I started working for them over 16 years ago, I accepted the teachings and did so for several years, although there was no pressure whatsoever to do so (they're a very open-minded and tolerant group). Gradually I moved toward a position more in line with, say John Shelby Spong or the Jesus Seminar, and it's only been in the last couple of years that I've begun considering myself an agnostic. However, I still very much enjoy working there, I'm still fascinated by religion and spirituality (they have an excellent library on these topics), and frankly, I don't think religion's going to go away anytime soon, so I have no problem working for one that's pretty open-minded and seeks to promote tolerance and peace. Would it be better if I went to work for some big corporation whose only concern is the bottom line? Finally, it's just hard to quit a place after 16 years. Particularly in tough times like these. Thus far, I just haven't felt a dissonance strong enough to motivate me to look for another job.

I'm sorry, you must have misunderstood. I didn't say this at all, and it's definitely not what they believe. They're pretty live and let live. They figure if there is a God and life does continue after death, eventually it'll work out, with no "punishment" involved. No belief that the atheist will be permanently separated from God upon death, or annihilated.

I said that New Thought groups interpret hell as a FEELING of separation from God, and I should have pointed out that I meant in this life, not after death. Not an actual separation, imposed from "above," but one that exists solely in the mind. And if one does not believe in God AT ALL, it's pretty impossible for this feeling of separation to exist. Even if it did,, there is no teaching that this feeling of separation somehow becomes permanent upon death, or that the atheist goes to some "bad" or "gray" place at all, much less for eternity. Basically they just say that life continues, just on another plane.

Also, please keep in mind that this is not "my" theology. I used to accept a lot of it, but now I'm agnostic about it. I'm just reporting it to you to demonstrate that your claim that "all" Christians believe in hell for atheists is incorrect. Clearly I'm not having much luck disabusing you of this notion, so this will be my last word on the matter.

Gregg

[ September 07, 2002: Message edited by: Gregg ]

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