The Tension of Faith

Congratualtions, you found a personal rationalisation for a really repulsive belief; that billions even trillions of people will be condemned to everalsting torture of an unimaginative kind simply because they were born in the wrong place and to the wrong parents.That must make you feel so much better.And you're praying for your friends so that god will change his mind just for them? That goes down as one of the craziest things you've said.

To be clear, you believe that people who don't belive the same things as you are going to hell don't you?

You didn't answer my question, do you believe that people that don't believe the same things as you are going to hell?

That's a very evasive answer.I take it then that the minimum requirement is to be a baptised Christian?Catholics trust in Jesus yet you denounce them. Are they going to hell?
Is GDR going to hell?

There's about 7.5bn people on the planet and about 2.2bn are Christians. Let's say that all of them pass your test - so that's a large overestimate. That means that 70% of the people alive today are going to hell simply because they were born in the wrong country or to the wrong parents. 5bn people tortured in hell for eternity.That's some git of a god you've got there, Faith.Something like 107bn people have ever lived. A big chunk of those will have been alive before Christianity was invented and it took a few thousand years to grow, so I'd say 85 billion people in hell to date as a very conservative guess, for no fault of their own.God 'so loved the world' that he comdemned almost all of his creation to everalsting torture? Does that actually make sense to you?

Right so now there are grades of hell? Some of the eternal torture is less than for others?You wouldn't be making stuff up again would you?

And you don't think that this is the most bizarre and evil idea that has ever been thought?God creates man to live a short and brutal life ending in eternal torture. After a few thousand years of hell filling up he has second thoughts and sends his son to earth to be killed in order to save a small percentage of the population allowing the remaining billions to enjoy eternal torture regardless of how decently they live their lives.It's utterly preposterous.

There's really not much point trying much harder because you all have different excuses as to why it all hangs together despite it's obvious nonsenses.You don't accept the omni-god so your particular get-out-of-hell card is that god didn't forsee The Fall, because of course if he had, the the creation was an error. etc etc.Others who believe in this archane system believe something quite different, it's like nailing blancmange to the ceiling.

And that's your excuse for not explaining how your personal version of god can be the Christian God whilst not having a clue what he's doing. Ok.

In you belief system the all seeing, all knowing, all loving, all powerful being created two vulnerable innocents who were then tricked by a snake (which god had also created) into eating an apple (which god had created) which gave them knowledge.Despite this being like putting a child into a room with a chocolate bar and wonder why the toddler eat it he gets so pissed that he condemns all their progeny to everlasting torture. That's getting on for 100 billion people to date in hell for something their parents did.And what's god's response? He sends his 'son' to be killed for Adam's 'sin' which in some inexplicable way attones for it. But not fully, oh no, only for a few people who happen to live in a part of the world where this Jesus guy is known and only if they grovel in admiration of this psychopath.He's not a clever or nice god is he? And it's not a very believable story is it? He fucking planned it? Wow, what a total bastard.

If this is supposed to be an answer to my post, I'm not seeing it.

Congratulations! How very like Faith. And you feel under no obligation to say why. Interesting.

Yes, he would like to draw me into biblical literary criticism which I'm simply not interesred in; it's more important that those who believe in these things actually justify what they believe and the justification is not in the bible stories, it's in the logic of their belief in them. eg how can you believe in a loving god that condems 90% of all humanity to everlasting torture for something a distant parent allegedly did?The problem here is that I'm responding to Faith's beliefs which are, apparently, very different to Nuke's. Christians believe very different things based on the same stories. I can't argue with him based on what Faith believes. His beef is not with me playing back Faith's beliefs, it's with Faith.If he'd like to display his belief based on this damnable book, I'll happily have a pop at that, but until he does, it's moot.

And yet you continue to butt into a discussion I'm having with Faith calling it 'a bad argument', 'crap' and not even an argument, without actually saying why; in fact refusing to say why.Methinks the lady doth protest too much. Like I say, interesting, very interesting. I think a nerve has been touched.

Don't be silly, we know that that Faith doesn't want her friends to go to hell. If she thought that, they are very unlikely to be her friends. (She often though derives a lot of satisfaction from telling her opponants here that we're heading that way.)She now seems happy that she's found a neat little linguistic way over the problem of feeling bad about her friends - who, presumably, are in every other way except in believing something different to her are decent people - are going to be tortured by her god forever and ever, amen.She can feel better knowing that it's not her fault, don't shoot the messenger. The point we're discussing is about whether the message itself makes any kind of sense and of course it doesn't. The message is at its very best a childish fantasy and horror story.