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Forums - General - Which concept has done more good in the world? Karma or The God of Abraham?

BMaker11 on 04 September 2013
dsgrue3 said:

No, an atheist evaluates all claims separately. As opposed to what theists do - know their position is true, THEN find arguments against other ones. That being said, the likelyhood of either belief, while arguably different, is rather close to 0. Pascal's Wager dictates no one pay either claim any mind. 

@bold

Actually, Pascal's Wager states, in a nutshell: believe in God "just in case". If you believe and you're wrong, well...you lose nothing. If you believe and are right, you get everything. If you don't believe and and your right, again, you lose nothing. But if you don't believe and are wrong, you get punished. So you should just believe to cover your own behind.

As if an omniscient being can't see through that thin veil. I think you're thinking of Occam's Razor, which states that the simplest answer is best, and "gods" and "forces" or overly complicated answers, so we shouldn't pay attention to them when more simple answers can answer the question at hand.



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BMaker11 on 04 September 2013
binary solo said:

Learn you religious history. It was Moses gave the 10 commandments, who was alive 1300-1600 years before Christ appeared. So yes, those laws came about before Christianity ever appeared. Your point?

To put that in context, Socrates the so called founder of Western philosophy was born about 470 years before Christianity appeared (about 900 years AFTER Moses gave the 10 commandments. The Roman republic was founded in 509BC, at least 800 years after Moses gave the 10 commandments.

Tutankhamun and Moses might have been alive at around the same time.

Oh, 1600 years before Christ? That's nice.

Now go look up Hammurabi's Code, which was made back in 1772BC

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi



dsgrue3 on 04 September 2013
BMaker11 said:
dsgrue3 said:

No, an atheist evaluates all claims separately. As opposed to what theists do - know their position is true, THEN find arguments against other ones. That being said, the likelyhood of either belief, while arguably different, is rather close to 0. Pascal's Wager dictates no one pay either claim any mind. 

@bold

Actually, Pascal's Wager states, in a nutshell: believe in God "just in case". If you believe and you're wrong, well...you lose nothing. If you believe and are right, you get everything. If you don't believe and and your right, again, you lose nothing. But if you don't believe and are wrong, you get punished. So you should just believe to cover your own behind.

As if an omniscient being can't see through that thin veil. I think you're thinking of Occam's Razor, which states that the simplest answer is best, and "gods" and "forces" or overly complicated answers, so we shouldn't pay attention to them when more simple answers can answer the question at hand.

My mistake, it is a derivation of Pascal's Wager. 

  • If the probability for the existence of god is > 0.5, then one should live their life that way.                                                                                                        
  • If the probability for the existence of god is < 0.5, then one should not live their life that way.
EDIT: I see you mentioned Occam's Razor, it could be that in conjunction with Pascal's. 

BMaker11 on 04 September 2013
BMaker11 said:

Actually, what "99% of the Bible says about him" isn't all candy and rainbows. There's no need for desperation nor is it hard to find anything bad about Jesus. I feel like you're the type that's been spoonfed that Jesus is nothing but goodness, but you've only heard about the Sermon on the Mount (turn the other cheek, love thy neighbor, etc).

Jesus said that he didn't come to get rid of the old laws (Old Testament) but to enforce and fulfill them, and that until the earth and heaven pass over, not a jot or tittle of the old laws will be removed (Matthew 5: 17-18). The OT was harsh. It called for enslaving neighboring nations. It said that if a virgin is raped, she must marry her rapist. If your child is "unruly", you are to take him/her to the outskirts of the town, and the townspeople are to stone that child. And there are many more (and much worse, mind you) I don't care if you believe that "Jesus got rid of the OT laws" nonsense, because he himself says that he came to uphold them, not get rid of them. And those laws aren't something any civilized human being would want to stand by.

Jesus said he didn't come to bring peace on earth, but to bring a sword/division (it can be interpreted that "sword" means to sever ties with people, hence the difference in Luke version of this quote, saying "division). And that he wants households to fight against each other, father against son, mother against daughter, etc. Your enemies will be in your own household (Matthew 10: 34-35/Luke 12:51). But I'm leaning more towards an *actual* sword, considering he said that if you don't have a sword, if you have nothing but the clothes on your back, sell them, and buy a sword (Luke 22:36)

Jesus said that if you love your family more than him, you are not worthy of him (Matthew 10:37). Why kind of ego must you have to say that if you love your family (which *everyone* does), you are not worthy?

Jesus said that if people don't want him to be king over them, bring them before him and slay them (Luke 19).

And let's not forget that it wasn't until Jesus that the concept of eternal damnation came up. This is worse than anything anyone has ever done (and I mean....worse than Hitler). It's like the OT on steroids. If you killed 50 million people in the most gruesome way ever, I may very well agree that your "soul" should be imprisoned for the average lifespan of each person you killed (so 50 million people x 75 years for each life taken) and even have you tortured brutally every second of every day you're in that prison. But at least that is finite to match your finite crime. But eternal damnation is just that: eternal. You are punished FOREVER. Tell me just one thing that any person can do that honestly deserves pain and torture for an infinite amount of time? Killing someone? Stealing? The one unforgivable sin, blasphemy? You can be "forgiven" for killing someone, but utter a combination of words that Jesus doesn't like and you get tortured forever?

If you believe that eternal and infinite punishment is justified in any manner whatsoever, you are insane. And you look up to the guy who instituted that.

So yea, you don't have to be desperate to find something bad about Jesus. Because if everyone "lived like Jesus", it wouldn't be Wonderland. The image of the humble, kind Jesus is only one part of him, as described in the Gospels. I know it's convenient to ignore that Jesus said that if you're wealthy, you should just give ALL your money away to the poor (Luke 18:22) (although this just makes the poor people rich and then....they have to give their money to the poor because Jesus said the wealthy should give away all they own to the poor? It's just a dumb cycle at that point), but just because the image of peaceful Jesus has been ingrained into your understanding of him for many years, that doesn't negate that he wasn't really the nicest dude


And I'm pre-empting a response to this post about taking those verses "out of context". If there's one thing I dislike more, in a religious discussion, than "Jesus made the OT obsolete" (untrue), it's "you're taking that out of context". It's awful convenient when something nice like "turn the other cheek" and "love thy neighbor" are completely "in context" no matter how you use them, but "I didn't come to bring peace, but to bring a sword" is all of a sudden "out of context". Personally, I've read the surrounding verses, and chapters to those verses, and let me tell you, "if you love your father or mother more than me, you are not worthy of me" means exactly what it says. Don't believe me? Read the "context" yourselves. In the meantime:



richardhutnik on 04 September 2013



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Slimebeast on 04 September 2013
dsgrue3 said:
Slimebeast said:

I addressed a couple of separate things in my first post and it stuck through the whole thread of argumentation.

1. Mainly I wanted to adress that I think the thread maker's question is irrelevant, or should I say unnecessary, overrated or clichéd and something I personally am tired of. The question if a certain philosophy is more "useful" or "good" than the other is not so interesting. Because to me, that question, while there's aspects of it that are sometimes worth to discuss, is not the main thing when I try to relate to a philosophy or religion. Time and time again we hear "Christianity is destructive to mankind because of the Crusades and whatnot" while Bhuddism gets a free ride because it's more innocent. The OP clearly insinuates that it's more legitimate to hold a karmic belief than an Abrahamic belief and he is using the "usefulness" argument, which I think is flawed from the very start. So I wanted to adress that right off the bat.

2. I dismissed the karmic justice belief system in relation to Christianity in a sweeping manner. I didn't do that out of accident though and it wasn't meant as an insult. There was thought behind it.

First, to simply claim that "Christianity is true" sounds on the surface just like primitive bible thumping, which I also admitted to. But that's just one side of it. That claim in its simplicity also includes theological truths.But more about that some other time.

Second, to use logic and reason as an argument to dismiss Karmic justice versus Christianity. Again I did it in a sweeping manner without going into depth. It was just meant as a broad claim, the detailed arguments - the evidence for my claim - would be for a later time. You can use a sweeping argument to raise awareness and I did that.

 - - - - - - - - - - -

3. Now you propose all possible deities as alternatives to Christianity. That's perfectly legitimate. I only wanted to adress Christianity versus Karmic justice though, in line with the OP.

It connects to my first reaction, that the question of religion primarily hasn't so much to do with how "useful" a certain religion is, but how likely it is to be true. For a sociologist or politician it might be the other way around, but obviously for people pondering deeply on matters of faith, existence and worldview, the main question is whether something is true or not.

So why do I claim it's more logical for one religion to be true than another? In this case Christianity vs Buddhism. It's a huge topic and as I said I quickly wanted to raise awareness of a principle. Sometimes religion debates are seen as faith versus science, or religion versus atheism. Yes, but it's also religion versus religion.

Just like you say, out of all those gods out there, what reason do I have for choosing the Christian God? It's like I said a huge topic and needs its own thread, but I just wanted to express my opinion that Christianity is much more grounded in reality than the belief in karmic justice is (the Western interpretation of Buddism, that's what the OP laid out for us).

Both beliefs (Christianity and Karmic justice) share one trait. The naive, childish hope that there exists something supernatural to counter the evil and dysharmony of our world. And I admitted to that. There's no doubt about that.

But in my opinion both beliefs also differ in their likelyhood of being true. Now for an atheist that might sound like an outrageous statement since all religion is based on delusion. Well, thats his problem. Obviously one can evaluate any belief system for its probability of being true, especially if you are a "seeker". As best as we can, obviousy, because we are limited. And we do that with all theories, with all worldviews. So that claim is not outrageous in itself.

I often ponder how people who are inclined to Bhuddist ideas, how they can believe in that. What evidence and factors do they invoke to get that idea? I don't know of many (that's why I also threw a question about it to ultima as a challenge). One key difference between Christianity and Bhuddism is that one has a personal almighty creator as an explanation while the other has a vague life force who brings order and balance to the world. I can't believe in a nameless lifeforce. A God is much more logical and a Christian God is even more probable to be true than the simple existense of karmic justice.

Claims require evidence, through empiricism or rational argument.

You've made claims with absolutely no substantiation. You constantly assert things blindly with no basis other than "I believe this over this." That's great, but don't pretend it's logical unless you can demonstrate that you've utilized rationalizations to draw a conclusion.

Not to be reductive, but it seems as though you find a god more likely than a force. Feel free to expand upon that extrapolation, but again I saw no argument for why this is. You have to accept many more outlandish things for one than the other.

Both beliefs (Christianity and Karmic justice) share one trait. The naive, childish hope that there exists something supernatural to counter the evil and dysharmony of our world. And I admitted to that. There's no doubt about that.

I'm glad you can admit this, but now I am unsure what your beliefs are. If you recognize they are naive and childish, how can you possibly argue they are logical?

But in my opinion both beliefs also differ in their likelyhood of being true. Now for an atheist that might sound like an outrageous statement since all religion is based on delusion. 

No, an atheist evaluates all claims separately. As opposed to what theists do - know their position is true, THEN find arguments against other ones. That being said, the likelyhood of either belief, while arguably different, is rather close to 0. Pascal's Wager dictates no one pay either claim any mind. 

Are you able to have a discussion about principles? The practical evidence, obviously you need those, and they are there, but I already told you that this wasn't the thread for those. I only touched on one type of evidence, the likelyhood of a creator versus carmic force. I argued that an independent agent is more likely than a nameless and undefined "force". I can't explain it better at the moment, it's too big of a topic if you can't even grasp the principal difference.

About the childish hope. Of course it can be there at the same time as logic and reason. It's self-evident. One works as a motive to search, the other as a basis to hold on to that worldview. It's a far more complex than that in Christian theology, but for the sake of simplicity, surely you can accept the principal difference between hope/wish versus evidence/logic, and realize that they both have a purpose, they both are real factors.

I understand that you as an atheist despise the hope/wish part, and you try everything to get rid of that in yourself, and you are very careful in avoiding public claims which have anything to do with such primitive feelings or instincts. That's okay, but don't pretend for one second that they are not there, that you or any other person is just a purely logical, biological machine. 

I don't think the instinct/hope/wish part bears nowhere near the weight as facts (EDIT: I messed up this sentence, I think it should say evidence/logic instead of facts), especially not in public arguments, but I am open about their existance and I acknowledge their influence on our minds and how we grasp reality. And like I said earlier, "instinctual faith" (it's a term I made up) as a concept is very important in Christianity. It's not just "blind faith" and that's that, it's a big and complicated thing theologically. If you as an atheist just dismiss it as blind faith, without showing any awareness that it's a complex issue, you're out of the discussion.

The whole faith and evidence thing, all the reasons why you hold to a certain worldview, obivously it has multiple levels. Like I said, different weight to different evidence, and evidence with completely different natures.

In short, I have internal and external evidence for being a Christian. And since you ask for it, here are some examples:

Internal (these don't bear much weight in relation to the outsideworld):
- that instinctual impulse, what to an atheist is pure "blind faith" and delusion.

- personal spiritual experience, within the Christian realm but also related to spirituality

External (these can at least be argued about in discussions such as on VGC):

- The history of the Jewish people, Christianity and the Church. How it connects together in such an intriquate and intelligent way, historically and theologically. In my opinion. I don't see that with any other religion. Just as a concrete example, the literal restoration of Israel, just like was prophesied.

- Prophecies about Christ in the Old Testament fulfilled by the person Jesus Christ, and prophecies made by Jesus Christ and human history. A radical peasant ideology that conquered the world. Something else like this is completely unheard of.

- The biblical analysis of humanity and human nature, including sin, righteousness, morality and salvation. It's brilliant, especially in the New Testament. I don't see such a clear analysis of human nature anywhere else, not from any psychologist, sociologist or anybody in our modern world. To me it's a sign of divine inspiration, that the biblic authors were able to encapsulate human nature in a theological ancient text in such a brilliant way.

I'll leave it at that for the moment.



Slimebeast on 04 September 2013
BMaker11 said:
Kane1389 said:

I love it how desperatly you are trying to find something ''bad'' Christ did, and forget 99% of what Bible says about him. ''So do what Jesus did?'' LMAO! Seriously??  Yeah, if were all like Jesus, heaven would already be on Earth.

But seeing your other posts in this thread, it is clear how close minded and hateful you are towards anything Christian. Disgusting

Actually, what "99% of the Bible says about him" isn't all candy and rainbows. There's no need for desperation nor is it hard to find anything bad about Jesus. I feel like you're the type that's been spoonfed that Jesus is nothing but goodness, but you've only heard about the Sermon on the Mount (turn the other cheek, love thy neighbor, etc).

Jesus said that he didn't come to get rid of the old laws (Old Testament) but to enforce and fulfill them, and that until the earth and heaven pass over, not a jot or tittle of the old laws will be removed (Matthew 5: 17-18). The OT was harsh. It called for enslaving neighboring nations. It said that if a virgin is raped, she must marry her rapist. If your child is "unruly", you are to take him/her to the outskirts of the town, and the townspeople are to stone that child. And there are many more (and much worse, mind you) I don't care if you believe that "Jesus got rid of the OT laws" nonsense, because he himself says that he came to uphold them, not get rid of them. And those laws aren't something any civilized human being would want to stand by.

Jesus said he didn't come to bring peace on earth, but to bring a sword/division (it can be interpreted that "sword" means to sever ties with people, hence the difference in Luke version of this quote, saying "division). And that he wants households to fight against each other, father against son, mother against daughter, etc. Your enemies will be in your own household (Matthew 10: 34-35/Luke 12:51). But I'm leaning more towards an *actual* sword, considering he said that if you don't have a sword, if you have nothing but the clothes on your back, sell them, and buy a sword (Luke 22:36)

Jesus said that if you love your family more than him, you are not worthy of him (Matthew 10:37). Why kind of ego must you have to say that if you love your family (which *everyone* does), you are not worthy?

Jesus said that if people don't want him to be king over them, bring them before him and slay them (Luke 19).

And let's not forget that it wasn't until Jesus that the concept of eternal damnation came up. This is worse than anything anyone has ever done (and I mean....worse than Hitler). It's like the OT on steroids. If you killed 50 million people in the most gruesome way ever, I may very well agree that your "soul" should be imprisoned for the average lifespan of each person you killed (so 50 million people x 75 years for each life taken) and even have you tortured brutally every second of every day you're in that prison. But at least that is finite to match your finite crime. But eternal damnation is just that: eternal. You are punished FOREVER. Tell me just one thing that any person can do that honestly deserves pain and torture for an infinite amount of time? Killing someone? Stealing? The one unforgivable sin, blasphemy? You can be "forgiven" for killing someone, but utter a combination of words that Jesus doesn't like and you get tortured forever?

If you believe that eternal and infinite punishment is justified in any manner whatsoever, you are insane. And you look up to the guy who instituted that.

So yea, you don't have to be desperate to find something bad about Jesus. Because if everyone "lived like Jesus", it wouldn't be Wonderland. The image of the humble, kind Jesus is only one part of him, as described in the Gospels. I know it's convenient to ignore that Jesus said that if you're wealthy, you should just give ALL your money away to the poor (Luke 18:22) (although this just makes the poor people rich and then....they have to give their money to the poor because Jesus said the wealthy should give away all they own to the poor? It's just a dumb cycle at that point), but just because the image of peaceful Jesus has been ingrained into your understanding of him for many years, that doesn't negate that he wasn't really the nicest dude

Jesus didn't condone child stoning. You really think theologicans for 2,000 years misunderstood that part, and then all of a sudden comes Dawkins and a bunch of internet dudes with their "evilbible" websites and re-interprets Jesus the "right way"?  Just stop, man.

The essense or spirit when Jesus says he is not removing the OT law is that God's view of mankind is unchanged, and what constitutes sin is unchanged. That it's still practically impossible for a human to satisfy the law, and that there is no way for man to attain righteousness except through the grace of God.

A literal interpretation of sword is laughable. It's allegorical/symbolical speech, just trust us on this one.

Loving Jesus more than your own family. Surely you can see the point in that? The message is that to every human, God should be the most important of everything, that he is worthy of all praise, that he is a "jealous" God. But it doesn't mean you shouldn't love anybody else. Yes, you could say God has a strong ego, but it's perfectly okay. If you have children you want them to like you more than anyone else. It's not dramatic or controversial to me.

"Jesus said that if people don't want him to be king over them, bring them before him and slay them", it doesn't say like that in Luke 19. Jesus is telling a parabel, a story, and in that story there is a king that kills people.

Eternal damnation. That's a heavy topic, and I get upset too at Christians who believe in eternal torment for ordinary unsaved people. To make it simple, it's just one interpretation of what will happen in eternity. I and many others interpret the NT so that it promotes destruction of the unsaved (after punishment), but not eternal suffering.



dsgrue3 on 04 September 2013
Slimebeast said:

Are you able to have a discussion about principles? The practical evidence, obviously you need those, and they are there, but I already told you that this wasn't the thread for those. I only touched on one type of evidence, the likelyhood of a creator versus carmic force. I argued that an independent agent is more likely than a nameless and undefined "force". I can't explain it better at the moment, it's too big of a topic if you can't even grasp the principal difference.

About the childish hope. Of course it can be there at the same time as logic and reason. It's self-evident. One works as a motive to search, the other as a basis to hold on to that worldview. It's a far more complex than that in Christian theology, but for the sake of simplicity, surely you can accept the principal difference between hope/wish versus evidence/logic, and realize that they both have a purpose, they both are real factors.

I understand that you as an atheist despise the hope/wish part, and you try everything to get rid of that in yourself, and you are very careful in avoiding public claims which have anything to do with such primitive feelings or instincts. That's okay, but don't pretend for one second that they are not there, that you or any other person is just a purely logical, biological machine. 

I don't think the instinct/hope/wish part bears nowhere near the weight as facts (EDIT: I messed up this sentence, I think it should say evidence/logic instead of facts), especially not in public arguments, but I am open about their existance and I acknowledge their influence on our minds and how we grasp reality. And like I said earlier, "instinctual faith" (it's a term I made up) as a concept is very important in Christianity. It's not just "blind faith" and that's that, it's a big and complicated thing theologically. If you as an atheist just dismiss it as blind faith, without showing any awareness that it's a complex issue, you're out of the discussion.

The whole faith and evidence thing, all the reasons why you hold to a certain worldview, obivously it has multiple levels. Like I said, different weight to different evidence, and evidence with completely different natures.

In short, I have internal and external evidence for being a Christian. And since you ask for it, here are some examples:

Internal (these don't bear much weight in relation to the outsideworld):
- that instinctual impulse, what to an atheist is pure "blind faith" and delusion.

- personal spiritual experience, within the Christian realm but also related to spirituality

External (these can at least be argued about in discussions such as on VGC):

- The history of the Jewish people, Christianity and the Church. How it connects together in such an intriquate and intelligent way, historically and theologically. In my opinion. I don't see that with any other religion. Just as a concrete example, the literal restoration of Israel, just like was prophesied.

- Prophecies about Christ in the Old Testament fulfilled by the person Jesus Christ, and prophecies made by Jesus Christ and human history. A radical peasant ideology that conquered the world. Something else like this is completely unheard of.

- The biblical analysis of humanity and human nature, including sin, righteousness, morality and salvation. It's brilliant, especially in the New Testament. I don't see such a clear analysis of human nature anywhere else, not from any psychologist, sociologist or anybody in our modern world. To me it's a sign of divine inspiration, that the biblic authors were able to encapsulate human nature in a theological ancient text in such a brilliant way.

I'll leave it at that for the moment.

This isn't an argument about principles. It's an argument about truth. 

Yes, you did mention that you believe it's more likely that a being exists than a force but you failed to back up that claim. Why bother making the claim if you can't back it up? It's not furthering anything. Saying "I can't back it up right now" is simply admitting you have no rational reasons for that position. 

If there is evidence for a particular belief, it isn't naive or childish. You were the person who said the belief was naive and childish, so don't pretend there is evidence. 

I don't despise hope or wishes. But they have no place in an argument for the validity of a claim. I'm about as logical a person as you will find, but I'm human; I emote.

Of course what draws people to Christianity is more than blind faith. It's one of more of the following: Credulity, Indoctrination, Spiritual Experience, Desperation.

"Instinctual impulse" - this can be described as the desire for answers. Humans are anxious about the words "I don't know". Simply, any answer seems better to fallible minds than no answer. That being said, it's not evidence for anything even remotely supernatural. 

"Spiritual Experience" - this can be refuted by not being exclusive to Christianity. Every religion ever manifested by mankind has had members who had these. Some replication has even been performed in laboratories. 

"Prophecy" - this one is rather easily explained. Are you familiar with Nostradamus? Same deal, accompanied by cherry picking and deliberate obfuscation.

"The biblical analysis of humans and human nature" - if you think humans are made of dirt I think you need a basic chemistry lesson. I hope you weren't being sincere in this argument. Its elementary interpretation of the psychology of humans is readily apparent as well. You mean if you dangle food source in front of a hungry human, they will consume it? Wow, astonishing.



richardhutnik on 04 September 2013
BMaker11 said:
dsgrue3 said:

No, an atheist evaluates all claims separately. As opposed to what theists do - know their position is true, THEN find arguments against other ones. That being said, the likelyhood of either belief, while arguably different, is rather close to 0. Pascal's Wager dictates no one pay either claim any mind. 

@bold

Actually, Pascal's Wager states, in a nutshell: believe in God "just in case". If you believe and you're wrong, well...you lose nothing. If you believe and are right, you get everything. If you don't believe and and your right, again, you lose nothing. But if you don't believe and are wrong, you get punished. So you should just believe to cover your own behind.

As if an omniscient being can't see through that thin veil. I think you're thinking of Occam's Razor, which states that the simplest answer is best, and "gods" and "forces" or overly complicated answers, so we shouldn't pay attention to them when more simple answers can answer the question at hand.

Pascal's Wager is pretty useless, because it presumes that belief in something being true, in and of itself, is relevant.  I can go into the book of James in the Bible, and it flat out says that merely believing in one God is pointless, because demons are said to believe that and tremble in fear.

So, pretty much, we have a society now where religous experience is reduced to some mystical weirdness and affirmation of statements being true, with karma overrunning this dogma,but people pressing on.



BMaker11 on 04 September 2013
Slimebeast said:

Jesus didn't condone child stoning. You really think theologicans for 2,000 years misunderstood that part, and then all of a sudden comes Dawkins and a bunch of internet dudes with their "evilbible" websites and re-interprets Jesus the "right way"?  Just stop, man.

The essense or spirit when Jesus says he is not removing the OT law is that God's view of mankind is unchanged, and what constitutes sin is unchanged. That it's still practically impossible for a human to satisfy the law, and that there is no way for man to attain righteousness except through the grace of God.

A literal interpretation of sword is laughable. It's allegorical/symbolical speech, just trust us on this one.

Loving Jesus more than your own family. Surely you can see the point in that? The message is that to every human, God should be the most important of everything, that he is worthy of all praise, that he is a "jealous" God. But it doesn't mean you shouldn't love anybody else. Yes, you could say God has a strong ego, but it's perfectly okay. If you have children you want them to like you more than anyone else. It's not dramatic or controversial to me.

"Jesus said that if people don't want him to be king over them, bring them before him and slay them", it doesn't say like that in Luke 19. Jesus is telling a parabel, a story, and in that story there is a king that kills people.

Eternal damnation. That's a heavy topic, and I get upset too at Christians who believe in eternal torment for ordinary unsaved people. To make it simple, it's just one interpretation of what will happen in eternity. I and many others interpret the NT so that it promotes destruction of the unsaved (after punishment), but not eternal suffering.

Jesus didn't condone child stoning. You really think theologicans for 2,000 years misunderstood that part, and then all of a sudden comes Dawkins and a bunch of internet dudes with their "evilbible" websites and re-interprets Jesus the "right way"?  Just stop, man.

No, I don't think that a bunch of internet dudes re-interpret Jesus the "right way". I just believe that they take scripture at face value instead of jumping through a bunch of hoops and say "that's metaphorical" when a verse is inconvenient

The essense or spirit when Jesus says he is not removing the OT law is that God's view of mankind is unchanged, and what constitutes sin is unchanged. That it's still practically impossible for a human to satisfy the law, and that there is no way for man to attain righteousness except through the grace of God.

So, God placed in a bunch of (terrible) laws that humans couldn't possibly satisfy, and made himself the only means to satisfy them? That's like me putting an 11 ft basketball hoop in front of you, and telling you to dunk, and when you can't, I tell you that I, Dwight Howard (for example), am the only means that you can dunk. Which is terrible because Dwight Howard knows you can't possibly dunk (aka God is omniscient). So he placed these rules in place....knowing that people couldn't satisfy them, only until they went to him. That's a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, that he punishes mankind for if they don't let him have his way.

A literal interpretation of sword is laughable. It's allegorical/symbolical speech, just trust us on this one.

I conceded that it may not be literal because the similar verse in Luke said "division", so, like I said, it could have meant "to sever ties". But that isn't a good thing, either way. Because the verse continues to say that he'll "put father against son; mother against daughter". So just because it's not a literal sword, it then becomes ok to pit family against each other and make them their own enemies?

But then again, it could be a literal sword considering that Jesus said, in another verse, to sell your clothes to buy a sword if you don't have one. You can't buy "division".

Loving Jesus more than your own family. Surely you can see the point in that? The message is that to every human, God should be the most important of everything, that he is worthy of all praise, that he is a "jealous" God. But it doesn't mean you shouldn't love anybody else. Yes, you could say God has a strong ego, but it's perfectly okay. If you have children you want them to like you more than anyone else. It's not dramatic or controversial to me.

No, I don't see the point in that. I can understand loving Jesus. But, if you don't love him more than your family, you're not worthy of him? He is a jealous God? That is incredibly human in nature, not divine. And if/when I have children, if they love someone more than me, I won't deem them "unworthy". As long as they still love me, that's all I need. And I mean, are there "levels" of love. Why can't we love things equally? If you love both your mother and your wife, can you really love one more than the other? That makes no sense. So it is a controversial issue.

"Jesus said that if people don't want him to be king over them, bring them before him and slay them", it doesn't say like that in Luke 19. Jesus is telling a parabel, a story, and in that story there is a king that kills people.

He does say this in Luke 19, first off, and secondly the parable drew an analogy to God, stating that, basically, he can do what he wants. Even if he is harsh, you still do what he says. If you don't like it, tough noogies.

Eternal damnation. That's a heavy topic, and I get upset too at Christians who believe in eternal torment for ordinary unsaved people. To make it simple, it's just one interpretation of what will happen in eternity. I and many others interpret the NT so that it promotes destruction of the unsaved (after punishment), but not eternal suffering.

Convenient that it's "just one interpretation", when you realize how gruesome it is. Can I respond to someone saying "God loves you. Look at John 3:16" with "well, that's just one interpretation. It could actually mean something completely different"? (this is the problem with leaving holy books up to your subjective interpretation, as opposed to have an objective understanding that everyone can agree on)

But, I guess, utter destruction is better? Well...either the soul is eternal or it isn't. You can't get out of eternal suffering by saying that, instead, the soul is destroyed, because it then contradicts your belief that the soul is eternal.