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Slimebeast on 16 July 2012
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IIIIITHE1IIIII said:
Slimebeast said:
IIIIITHE1IIIII said:

Bolded: I didn't say that. I said that people who are not taught how to act good are considered evil, since evil = lack of good.

Italics: Feel free to call me ignorant, arrogant and unpleasant. At least I know that I don't hate anyone for who they are, and that I sympathize with everyone's actions. Even if I strongly disagree with them.

You implied it by mentioning people's risk of ending up in hell and being described as evil. And even how you express it now, is flawed logic. Christianity doesn't condemn the ignorant, it condemns the truly wicked - namely people who despite knowing what is good choose the bad. And that can be a Christian person just as well as a non-Christian.

I don't call you ignorant but I admit that you genereally speaking come off a bit disrespectful in your argumentation and threads (it's not automatically bad though, some of us need to have that role). But most of all I wanted to make you and others (since this is a popular argument) aware of how cliché and unintellectual it is to use the "control tool" argument on religion, and I'd like to imagine you wouldn't want to make that impression around here.


I have never understood the bolded. Using that logic, worshipping God is something unnecessary that might as well be excluded. As long as you act like a good person, you will be rewarded once you die. You might as well hate God and some of His words (namly some of the crazy and ignorant stuff mentioned in the Bible) as long as you don't hurt anybody and actually care for others. And yet, some other people say that worshipping God is essential to your salvation? (I know you are not one of those)

As for the rest, I wouldn't want to make that impression unless I have to. What I want is for everyone to stop all kinds of hate. My religious threads are mainly meant to stop people from using religious arguments to prevent the happiness of others, and to stop people from using such arguments to justify hate (which ironically wouldn't be necessary if they actually read the part of the Bible where hate is condemned). And then there is my recent non-religious thread (where I defended criminals) whose purpose was to stop hate from both religious people and atheists.

No, worshipping God is everything. I do want to say I am actually one of those people who say that worshipping God is essential to salvation, depending on how you define "worship" of course. Worship through your heart or through good works or both? Worship in its core could mean just to acknowledge that God rules and my fate depends on God's grace. So in that sense worshipping God is essential for salvation.

But when it comes to worship as in daily rituals and good works, now that's a topic of huge discussion throughout Church history, and Luther was the big moment in Church history to make clear again what salvation ultimately consists of.

As for your threads, that hate and hostility goes both ways though - historically it's been very much from the religious towards the unbelievers, but nowadays it's been just as much hostility and disrespect from atheists towards the religious. I would argue the hate is stronger from non-religious towards the religious than vice versa if you break it down to the 20th Century, with everything from state persecution toward religios by Stalin and Mao to modern day bullies and even teachers in school who ridicule you if you are religious.

Now I know this is an international forum, but knowing you are a Swede it feels extra strange to see a person who feels his mission is to tear down the  destructive influences of Christianity, knowing he lives in such a secular country like Sweden. Christianity really is no problem here.