Dear Jesus: A letter to Jesus from a nonbeliever

[ImAlwaysRight]

No one should be chosen for eternal damnation. I can envision better systems, and I am sure God can do so as well.

The choice is yours. I have explained before that "eternal damnation" is merely an existence in separation from God. Whatever torture (if any) that existence may entail is not of God's doing, but the result of a "community" of willful beings acting without any influence of God's grace.

I am asking if nonbelievers can be saved

And I said I believe they can.

You've no idea what goes through my mind...Clearly, God is not interested in making sure the truth is presented in a truly believable fashion. He could do so, but does not.

I can read your summarization of christianity and see that it contained glaring omissions which I believe to be either the result of dishonesty or woeful ignorance of christian beliefs. Which is why I think the problem is not so much that God isn't interested making it believable as it is that you are not truly interested in believing - which is your choice.

Clear communication does not deprive you of free will.

My sentence was not clear. I was saying that preventing dishonest people from distorting the message would require depriving them of free will.

It is. You just don't like to think about the ugly side of your religion

We're not talking about me - this thread is about you and your salvation. And clearly, you have willfully chosen not to think about the beautiful side of my religion - which is why I don't trust your phony earnestness.

So back up your claim with details. What information have I presented this is factually incorrect?

Aside from the intentional omission, the following claims are factually wrong:

1. That "God created everyone with a propensity for sin". That is the most dishonest and negative spin you could put the fact that he created us with free-will and with that free will choose to sin.

2. That he punishes them(meaning everyone) forever when they sin. Actually, he honors the will of everyone; and they choose whether or not they want to spend eternity in relationship with him or separated from him. You for some reason think he owes it to you to let you deny Him throughout your life then let you hang out in Heaven in the afterlife since the alternative(that you've been duly warned about) would be so disagreeable.

Safer bet? I just don't get that. Are they choosing to believe, even though it does not make sense to them? How is that possible? How can a person choose a belief that does not make sense to them, and still remain honest? I cannot do that.

You just conflated two different things. I didn't say that their actual belief in the divinity of Jesus is just in order to be safe. I said the that they tend to favor the interpret of scripture that says that one must believe in the divinity of Jesus to be saved because this is a safer bet -i.e. if one is wrong on this point then they don't want to be guilty of giving nonbelievers false hopes. Those are two wholly different things.

[Captain Chaos]

Quote by: AlwaysRight The choice is yours. I have explained before that "eternal damnation" is merely an existence in separation from God. Whatever torture (if any) that existence may entail is not of God's doing, but the result of a "community" of willful beings acting without any influence of God's grace.

You have explained that. Other Christians believe in eternal torture or eternal death. You guys all make compelling arguments for your interpretation of damnation. One would think that a book inspired by God would be clear on this issue.

It is the eternal part that is morally objectionable. Why doesn't God allow you to change your mind, once you learn the truth?

My sentence was not clear. I was saying that preventing dishonest people from distorting the message would require depriving them of free will.

OK. But the three methods I suggested earlier would greatly enchance man's understanding, without compromising free will. Clearly, God is not doing everything he can to save us, while permitting us to have free will.

And clearly, you have willfully chosen not to think about the beautiful side of my religion - which is why I don't trust your phony earnestness.

I am perfectly earnest in not desiring eternal separation from God. I am also perfectly earnest in not believing the metaphysics of the Bible. What part do you imagine I am being phony about?

That "God created everyone with a propensity for sin". That is the most dishonest and negative spin you could put the fact that he created us with free-will and with that free will choose to sin.

By free will, we mean free from God's control. That, at least, is my understanding of the term free will. Our will is not free from the chain of cause and effect. Every decision we make is the result of a branching chain of cause and effect that causes that decision. If you trace it back far enough, the conditions that cause our decisions occur before we were born.

So... yes, God does not control our decisions. Yes, it is within our nature to sin. So, yes, God created us with a propensity for sin. Personally, I am not offended by this. I do not feel that God did a bad thing in doing so, because I imagine it is a necessary part of emergent creation.

That he punishes them(meaning everyone) forever when they sin. Actually, he honors the will of everyone; and they choose whether or not they want to spend eternity in relationship with him or separated from him. You for some reason think he owes it to you to let you deny Him throughout your life then let you hang out in Heaven in the afterlife since the alternative(that you've been duly warned about) would be so disagreeable.

I disbelieve in the God of Abraham. I am not denying him. These are very different concepts. In fact, in my own spiritual pursuits, I very much open myself up to the divine presence.

Those who disbelieve are not necessarily denying him. These are two different things.

You just conflated two different things. I didn't say that their actual belief in the divinity of Jesus is just in order to be safe. I said the that they tend to favor the interpret of scripture that says that one must believe in the divinity of Jesus to be saved because this is a safer bet -i.e. if one is wrong on this point then they don't want to be guilty of giving nonbelievers false hopes. Those are two wholly different things.

Yes. I misunderstood you. Sorry about that.


Why do you believe the Bible is God's word?

[Gods_Mercenary]

Quote by: Captain Chaos I said created us with a propensity for sin. That means we are prone to sinning. Do you know any adult humans who are sinless? I assume the answer is 'no' - we must be prone to sinning, if everyone is a sinner. Ignoring him because we are tempted to do evil things is very different from ignoring him because you find the information that supports the existence of an Abrahamic god to be not believable. In your analogy, the mother did not deliberately cause the car to hit the child. But God makes the choice to eternally damn a person. A beter analogy would be to say that the mother tells the child "if you go in the road, I will pull out my shotgun and blow your head off." The child goes in the road, so the mother kills him. Surely the mother could do better than that? And will he respect our decision if, after we go to hell and thus have new information confirming its existence, we decide to believe and obey.

You apparently don't listen too well. Earlier I said that I personally believe that belief in the Abrahamic God is not necessary for salvation. A good person who has never heard of God can still be saved. If you follow my argument, then God has done everything He can to guide us. You don't have to be able to believe. Every culture has a similar moral code, in my argument this comes from God and His will to save us. Every person has a choice to follow universal human morality or ignore it.

Sin is simply more attractive to Humans, it has nothing to do with propensity. God is trying to tell us that it is not all a bed of roses.

My mother-son story depended on your understanding that I think that Hell is simply an unavoidable consequence of Sin that sinners have chosen. Once you die, it's all over, you've chosen. God respects our decision.

[Captain Chaos]

Quote by: God's Merc You apparently don't listen too well. Earlier I said that I personally believe that belief in the Abrahamic God is not necessary for salvation. A good person who has never heard of God can still be saved. If you follow my argument, then God has done everything He can to guide us. You don't have to be able to believe. Every culture has a similar moral code, in my argument this comes from God and His will to save us. Every person has a choice to follow universal human morality or ignore it.

It is possible that I am getting you and AlwaysRight confused. Sorry, if I am doing that.

I very much try to follow my inborn moral code. I also have a personal relationship with my internalized concept of God. Don't know if it is real or not, but it is still very important to me.

Sin is simply more attractive to Humans, it has nothing to do with propensity. God is trying to tell us that it is not all a bed of roses.

The writers of the Bible claimed that God was saying that. I think they were listening to their imagination. If God really wanted us to believe, we would. He could communicate in such a way that we would have no doubts about the metaphysical nature of reality. The fact that he does not do this is proof that he is not interested in making sure we are certain of the facts.

My mother-son story depended on your understanding that I think that Hell is simply an unavoidable consequence of Sin that sinners have chosen. Once you die, it's all over, you've chosen. God respects our decision.

But it doesn't have to be that way. The choice of a nonbeliever is not the same as the choice of one who believes and disobeys anyway.

Either way, God could do better than eternal damnation. Any of us could design a better system.

[Gods_Mercenary]

I suppose we can agree to disagree, the important part I guess is that you try to be a good person.

My arguement is admittedly pretty shakey, just like everybody else's.

There are no real answers, anybody who claims to have them should be ignored.

We can only really try to get at the truth through debate and sharing of ideas.

I think you, a doubter, have a much better chance of hitting upont the truth than those of us who seem so sure that everyone else is wrong.

[Heehoos]

Wow! Awesome. :)

[Fonceai]

Quote by: Z So, your reply is to fling ad homs and cop-out.

How is pointing out your failure to understand an "ad hom"?

And where exactly is the cop-out?

Quote by: Z You are unable to argue the assertion "Jesus never existed",

This is where an "ad hom" would come in nicely, and why I reported you.

I have repeated that I'm not trying to argue against that assertion. The fact that you are bringing it up means you're either ignorant or being belligerent on purpose. Thus the report.

This got you in trouble before and it will do so again.

Quote by: Z have decided it's okay to invent your own santa-like truth where Jesus exists "for you",

Santa-like. That's cute. It's like a veiled "ad hom".

Quote by: Z and offered "yes I did!!" to my observation that you very obviously haven't confronted your memetic inclination to believe in a santa-like being.

You're repeating the same thing over and over and not actually addressing anything I wrote in the previous post.

If a person "confronts their memetic inclination" and doesn't agree with you, that doesn't mean they didn't confront it.

Quote by: Z I can live with that.

You clearly can't, and that's part of what this thread is about.

Coming to a choice about God and such is every person's own business.

Any person who tries to pipe up that they can prove one way or the other is an asshat. No one can prove anything. Ever.

You're trying so hard to prove that Jesus didn't exist, yet by doing so you are already acknowledging and granting credit to the mythology behind Jesus.

Unless you can take someone back and show them the past, you can't prove this.

You're citing a lack of proof as proof that he didn't exist.

That's your same old ploy, and you can't offer anything else.

Here's a hint...

When you include a negative assertion as proof of your claim, you're committing the aforementioned fallacy.

"There are no writings about Jesus..." is the ignorance fallacy.

"Jesus has never appeared to me or spoken to me..." is the ignorance fallacy.

Take someone like Isherwood, for example.

Thinks all forms of theism are nonsense. But he doesn't begrudge anyone their belief because he basically understands that they might not be him, they are different from him, so who is he to tell a specific person they are wrong?

You gathered your own set of "memes" and convinced yourself of a conclusion. They are "memes" because you didn't witness any of the historical events, or lack thereof, which you are citing.

At best, someone else wrote about something and you accepted that.

That's a "meme", right?

Doesn't that mean that a theists memes are just as bullshit as your memes?

Your answer is probably going to be, "But my memes are based on facts" yet you fail to understand that a person's life and experiences are facts for that person. So your book memes mean nothing to their life memes.

See how stupid this "meme" crap is?

The answer to the God / Jesus / whatever question is nobody fucking knows... and that means no one is right if they are saying "yes" or "no" to the question of existence.

Believe what you want as your own personal choice.

But if you continue to repeat yourself in a post directed at me I'll report you for every single bend of the rules you are trying to get away with.

You're trying to pick a fight, not debate. That's enough to merit a report.

Maybe if you let others more open to discussion resume the intent of this thread, you might learn something about human nature and the other 92% of the planet who thinks people like you are morons.

[Zhavric]

Fonce:

So, let me get this straight.

You stated that I'm not capable of understanding things, used vulgar language in stating that I don't matter "jack sh**" " to you and I'M the one worthy of being reported? You're right. This has reached the point of ridiculousness, but it's not because of any wrongdoing on the part of yours truly. Check the posts in the thread again and you'll see that each and every point I've presented has addressed your ARGUMENT. Not you specifically.

Don't blame me when you're the one who crossed the line.

Let's agree that you believe your position is true for you and that any logic professor will explain that truth is absolute and is either true or false. If you want to debate the existence of Jesus further, by all means lets. I'm not going to debate with you further on this issue if you're going to hurl ad homs at me and then cry foul.

[bishop]

enough of the nonsense. debate the topic or leave it alone.

DO NOT RESPOND IN THIS THREAD TO THE PRECEDING MESSAGE.
Please contact a member of the staff privately if you have any questions.

[Fonceai]

Okay, then on topic, what's my argument?

I'm of the opinion that Captain Chaos' letter in the OP means that if he feels he is saved, then he is.

The letter precludes the existence of Jesus, so what's your stance on his letter?

[notyetfood]

I too see no way to believe in every little story attributed to Jesus. I grew up in a Catholic family and still say the Lord's Prayer(our father who art in heaven...). I even miss the Catholic church, which to me was soothing and magical, but now i would feel guilty to go into a church and say I believe in one holy apostolic church the resurrection of the dead and all that. Personally I didn't get that the tone of the original comment here was overly harsh or mocking. I BELIEVE it was said with sincerity and a little humor.

[Ken Carman]

Quote by: ImAlwaysRight The choice is yours. I have explained before that "eternal damnation" is merely an existence in separation from God. Whatever torture (if any) that existence may entail is not of God's doing, but the result of a "community" of willful beings acting without any influence of God's grace.

This is a somewhat interesting philosophical exercise. One would assume, given common Christian precepts/dogma/whatever you wish to call it.... since God is thought of as "the Creator," who also set up how things work in all ways... it's a little like the builder of a mall saying, "Hey I may have built it, designed it, set out all 'specs;' but if the floor warps, I'm not responsible?" That's a negative analogy, so let's use a somewhat more positive one. He designs that mall to fit a specfic plot of land. At some point an oil company discovers oil, a eco group claims there's an endangered species being exterminated by drainage, or society just changes its rules about how such things should be. God might say, "Hey, I did it right," but to say, "I am not responsible for the way it is?" A little cheesy at best.

Now, if we wish to get into a less all encompassing, all powerful, all knowing, deity... that might make the model more workable and the claim the way things are design have no affect on free will a little more plausible. I've often wondered, using the biblical story of Adam, Eve and the Garden complete with a tree they should never eat from: "What was he thinking???" It's a little like those who dangle a worm in front of a fish saying, "I'm not responsible if that fish bites."

[Ken Carman]

Quote by: Captain Chaos The writers of the Bible claimed that God was saying that. I think they were listening to their imagination. If God really wanted us to believe, we would. He could communicate in such a way that we would have no doubts about the metaphysical nature of reality. The fact that he does not do this is proof that he is not interested in making sure we are certain of the facts. Either way, God could do better than eternal damnation. Any of us could design a better system.

I guess I have to come to the defense of any deity, or dieties, there may be out there. (Note: I do believe in "God," but that's not the point I'm making here.) To be crass it's a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. Having spent many hours writing: never finishing, an unpublished book on the subject... I know the nature of deities: who and what they could be, fuel human imagination. Unfortunately it also fuels our base nature and hunger for power over each other even more. This nature has created some of the greatest evil, and evil people, in human history. Amongst all the human mind can surmise and then use against others, God must be like the whisper of hummingbird wings at the moment of Hiroshima's meeting the bomb.

But, going back to my previous post, if God really is "all knowing" and "all powerful" then it seems that the God some believe in is a bit more like an absent landlord than loving Creator. Some claim Jesus fills this role for God. If so, then the statement applies to that "Jesus" too.

[Marilyn Monroe]

Quote by: Inlineskater Besides, don't you think that torture would wear off after a while? I mean pain is only something in your head that your brain tells you to be unpleasant, but wouldn't you get used to it? And anyways, why would satan punish you for doing what he wanted you to, thats exactly what god wants you to think.

How can you burn when you have no flesh?

Hell is never getting to see God IMHO, kinda like Limbo is for the non-Baptized children and other folks who were good but didn't have the opportunity to know Jesus. In the end, the Limbo people will be let out, the hellions won't, I guess.

Personally, I think if you want to believe in God and Jesus it's best to throw the bible out the window, and just believe. There's way to much difference between the OT and the NT to believe that stuff in MHO.

[Marilyn Monroe]

Quote by: notyetfood I too see no way to believe in every little story attributed to Jesus. I grew up in a Catholic family and still say the Lord's Prayer(our father who art in heaven...). I even miss the Catholic church, which to me was soothing and magical, but now i would feel guilty to go into a church and say I believe in one holy apostolic church the resurrection of the dead and all that. Personally I didn't get that the tone of the original comment here was overly harsh or mocking. I BELIEVE it was said with sincerity and a little humor.

Hey, I do some of that, too! Hard to shake isn't it? Chuch always made me a little nautious, but I still tend to hold onto some of the teachings just because they are a part of me.

[Ken Carman]

Quote by: Marilyn Monroe How can you burn when you have no flesh? Hell is never getting to see God IMHO, kinda like Limbo is for the non-Baptized children and other folks who were good but didn't have the opportunity to know Jesus. In the end, the Limbo people will be let out, the hellions won't, I guess. Personally, I think if you want to believe in God and Jesus it's best to throw the bible out the window, and just believe. There's way to much difference between the OT and the NT to believe that stuff in MHO.

Personally, I think Limbo is a perpetual dance under a bar... but that's just my weird sense of chuckle.

[Ken Carman]

Quote by: Marilyn Monroe Hey, I do some of that, too! Hard to shake isn't it? Chuch always made me a little nautious, but I still tend to hold onto some of the teachings just because they are a part of me.

Having been a barely accepted; by marriage, member of a family for over thirty years. I find the draw of "the Church" amazing. I surmise it's a sense of a large community more than anything else; kind of like being Jewish but, perhaps, more so. Growing up Baptist, I left that faith with ease and tried many others; eventually settling on UU. Even within that faith I'm considered somewhat of a heretic and have moved my membership several times. I think God, or Jesus if you wish, could have a lot more believers if organized religion was part of the "Thou shalt not(s)." It seems that as soon as any church proclaims some creed, set of beliefs, rules of personal behavior or principles, the very act of "organized" means congregants, staff, minister, or priest, will head straight to doing exactly the opposite of what they claim.

Kind of like how the disciples behaved when Jesus was alive? After the cross, they eventually were more "as one" for a while: fused by the execution and reports of his return. Eventually splits happened and increased rapidly over the years. Once again, as I previously posted, any all knowing deity would certainly know that this would happen considering the very nature hotwired into his own creation... intentionally? Or... mistake? Slight fudge? If "fudge" then certainly populated with more than enough NUTS!

[Ken Carman]

Second note culled from the various posts....

To claim that because one side says there's not enough evidence, and something can't be proven "proves" it does, is circular logic to the extreme. It proves nothing; only the point that some believe there's not enough evidence or proof.

[Marilyn Monroe]

Quote by: Ken Carman Personally, I think Limbo is a perpetual dance under a bar... but that's just my weird sense of chuckle.

Good one, but you know that" limbo dance" came after the dwelling place of the dead, or did it?

[Ken Carman]

Quote by: Marilyn Monroe Good one, but you know that" limbo dance" came after the dwelling place of the dead, or did it?

Did you mean "came" or "named?" The first: I'm sure it was. The second, probably true. Could also be "limber," with an "o," since you have to be to do so. But what do I know? I'm just some wise-ass, small time, columnist with a worn out keyboard.