How Christians Can Make The World A Better Place

If you actually read my OP, you'll see that I never said that. My entire post was strictly about how people should better treat others regardless of how they are treated.

And no, I have yet to answer you. I will before the night's over.

ITT: No one was condemned to hell.

Or you could have just said yes/no the first 2 times I asked instead of backpedalling and requiring me to waste my time checking this thread for your rather obvious response.

Yes, you believe in hell.

Yes, you believe people that don't believe as you do will BURN THERE FOREVER.

Yes, that makes your original post about love utterly worthless.

Sleep tight champ.

And please, for the love of Allah, don't give the BS response of "it's not that god punishes them, they're just not following gods way and he can't be a part of sin, IT'S ALL THEIR FAULT NEO".

Either god can overcome the gap and he's a ***, or he can't and he's not omnipotent. Stop making these threads.

Kind of reminds me of those abusive husbands that beat the ***out of their wives while telling them "I'm doing this because I love you! YOU made me do this!"

The Bible says the only unforgivable sin is blasphemy, so NO, we don't believe that people that don't believe will burn there. In fact I don't even believe in hell as most people define it, since the Bible does not even define it that way.

And by mistakes you mean letting your child walk into burning sulfer and stay there forever.

Because you love them so much.

It's like you people don't even think about this stuff before you type it. You just regurgitate what you've told yourself to make illogical things make sense.

I stumbled on this page:
http://www.freethoughtpedia.com/wiki/Cafeterian

Do you identify yourself as one, OP?

That's why you stone disobedient children to death.

No one ever said to throw out the OT. The OT is the past though. The NT is the new covenant between God and his people and the beginning of the new relationship he shares with them. I don't get why that's so hard to grasp.

Slavery is a big issue and one you bring up regularly when speaking about this issue. Should we condemn all Americans for allowing slavery to exist in these United States? Slavery no longer exists here, well at least not legally, in this day and age but there was a time when it was accepted. Now we came to a point where we realized this was not the right way anymore and fought for a change. The fact is that it was still there at one point. It was a sign of the times when things like that were acceptable in societies across the globe. Things change and evolve over time to reflect the people that inhabit it. Or would you hold judgement over any nation or person or anything that was once affiliated with some kind of injustice?

With faith, faith itself stays the same but the people change to reflect the world around them just like anyone else.

But being a homosexual is still a sin in the eyes of god and therefore anyone who follows him.

You can preach tolerance and acceptance all you want, but the ideas of what god says written down by man thousands of years ago cannot be changed.

That's not a choice, that's a bribe.

Oh ok I thought you were advocating that position, which I had already addressed in my post.

I know cognitive dissonance is a key factor for religious belief, but it just seems like that basic question should at least get people to go "wait a sec... this doesn't make sense", even if they're not educated enough to understand the scientific/logical contradictions of their religion.

Basically:

"If you had a child, and you loved them, there is -nothing- they could do to you that would motivate you to allow to them WALK INTO OPEN FLAMES and remain there in agony. You would do everything in your power to pull them out."

Epicurus put it right:

The Riddle of Epicurus

If God is willing to prevent evil, but is not able to

Then He is not omnipotent.

If He is able, but not willing
Then He is malevolent.

If He is both able and willing
Then whence cometh evil?

If He is neither able nor willing
Then why call Him God?

Atheists, winning since 300BC.

Your baseless hatred makes me laugh. Your inability to comprehend, or stay on topic just scares me. Stop making these threads? What, threads that tell people to love one another unconditionally? Telling people to treat those who don't share similar beliefs better? Why, solely so you can be correct in stating that Christians are terrible excuses for human beings? I really don't understand your points. How hypocritical is it of you to say that my beliefs are garbage when your belief is that anyone that doesn't assimilate to your exact ideals are idiots?

You asked a question I haven't got around to answering. I was busy, but since you've put words in my mouth, let me set you straight. The Bible states clearly that the only way to heaven is through Jesus. From everything I gather of the New Testament, seeking Jesus is living his example. To live his example, is to love people unconditionally and to put them before yourself. It is to take care of those that cannot take care of themselves. It is to have an open heart, and an open mind. Do I think you have to state "I believe in Jesus" to end up in the right domain for eternity? No, I think you have to live those tenants out. God changed the game for us.
You said if you loved your child unconditionally, you would do anything in your power so they wouldn't have to spend an eternity in flames. Guess what, God did that for us. He sacrificed himself so that we won't have to experience those flames. He gave us free will because He cherished us. He then made the only sacrifice worthy of abolishing those mistakes of ours that would keep us from Him.

People that have never heard the word of God, never reach a point of responsibility. There is a place for them in heaven. People who don't see "God" the same way I do, but live for others and not themselves, there is a place in heaven for them. Currently do I think there is a place for you? No, but not because you don't believe. It is because of how you treat and judge others. Your judgments will be the same measure in which you are to be judge. Is it up to me to make that judgement, no. I am in no place. I am just as terrible a person as you (or anyone, I am not singling you out), therefore I have no right to judge a (wo)man. No human has that right. Thank you for running off with this thread for no reason and warping it from my original message and reducing it to the same slander every religious topic on these forums becomes.

Before you go off on your "typical Christian" rant since I just blew up; it isn't that I hate you now, or even dislike you as a person. I still love you as a human and care for your well being. I am just sad that you have came into this thread with such a calloused heart and closed mind that you couldn't even be bothered to check the theme of the thread before jumping on the "proving Christians wrong and stupid" bandwagon. Hell, Xueye and I have had numerous nose to nose bouts in religious threads, usually getting no where and even we have had a progressive, meaningful debate here.

So like what happened to all those people who died long before Jesus was born?

This was the reason of the OT. People had to sacrifice good cloven hooved livestock to absolve their sins. Those that hadn't done this I can only assume aren't with God. That is quite sad. So many people weren't following God's commands, and therefore were dying eternally, that is the reason He sent His son.


Actually, scratch that. If I recall, somewhere it states that Jesus died for all sin, past current and present. If that were the case, all those who loved others, or followed the rituals one/other is more than likely in heaven. I'm not God, I can't tell you with absolute certainty.

You don't understand. In the protestant myth cycle it isn't God who does the torturing, its the Devil. Leaves God with clean hands in the mater.

No direct involvement, no coordination, rather like the superPACs of today's politics.

^ This

Just jumping in here with a few things:

Daemun, have you read the bible front to back? If not I would suggest doing it Chronologically. I did it last year and it was very enjoyable. Also, I don't know if you knew this or not but Neosutra used to be in seminary. His knowledge of the Bible is that of any knowledgeable Christian. This is why he insists on getting specific answers to his questions (ie - Yes/No). From what I've seen, the questions are preloaded where either answer will allow him to give an answer that leaves you both confused and lost.

As for the "Kid into Fire" thing, I'll toss my view on it:

The key here is allow. No parent would allow their child to walk into fire. Any responsible parent would do everything in their power to keep their child out. The catch for alot of cases is free will. Sure you can do everything within your power to keep your kid out of the fire, but when s/he is out on their own possible with friends... they can make the decision on their own to walk right into that fire.

All in all, everyone just needs to keep in mind that what people say is their opinion on things. No matter how much paper you have to back things up, when your time comes you'll find out what happens.

Edit:

Yes I believe that is right... those from OT times that believed in the coming of Jesus Christ were saved under the New Covenant. The OT is mostly prophecy of the coming of Christ where as otherwise it's rules and history.

It's hard to grasp because the God hasn't changed between Old and New, just the rules have been adapted for a new group of people. You can't simply dismiss the Old because it doesn't apply to you and was made for Jews. That's my hangup. The God of Moses is the same God that Jesus Christ speaks on behalf of/is.

You cannot compartmentalize God between the two pacts.

Everything that happens in the OT is relevant to the character of God spoken of throughout the story. People want to pick 'n choose the good stuff from the OT but completely ignore anything like the orders to wipe out villages and keep women/children 'for yourselves', the orders to wipe people out who started worshiping other gods, the rules on how to keep captive humans, the animal sacrifices, the stoning for just about anything and even the weird stuff like shebears ripping youth to pieces.

"But those youth were mocking Elisha and could have killed him Sparth."
"Yeah and God could have supernaturally paralyzed them, put them to sleep, erased their memories or scared them off but chose to have them mauled to death by bears under his command."
"Well God's decision is always the best."
"Yes, I'm sure those youth learned their lesson after being ripped to pieces. If someone mocks you, God will kill them for you."

If you hear someone has a reputation for being a certain way do you simply just throw that out and declare "that was the past?" when you meet them? Doubtful.


I bring it up because it represents one of the most egregious acts of cruelty in the entire Bible. The very fact that people can liken it to 'servants' or 'maids' is ridiculous in itself. Tell me, do we beat our servants today? Call them your property? Seize their children and keep them as your own? Buy and trade them for currency? No, yet the Bible goes into detail on how to this and further double-downs on this inhuman act in the NT testament by refusing to even outlaw the practice. What happened to the Golden rule here?

The almighty bastion of morality and good couldn't even take some time to tell his flock to stop the imprisonment of one another? Completely breathtaking. We've seen God get mad before but apparently people living in servitude across the Middle East wasn't enough to do much of anything. People are 'wicked' and we get a global flood, they commit sex acts and Sodom/Gomorrah get destroyed, the Egyptians refuse to let Moses and his people (slaves btw) go? Plagues across the board. But other people are beaten daily for refusing to work and that's not stirring?

I'm glad you said 'we' came to the conclusion it (slavery) wasn't right anymore because that was exactly the word I was going to use. God didn't declare that slavery was immoral - man did. Man showed that he could be more moral than laws set down in the text and fought to free his fellow man from the chains of imprisonment across the globe. If we had simply rested on the laurels of the Bible we'd still be running a local slave economy today disguised under the banner of it being 'the biblical' thing to do. In fact many people fought against abolition simply because the Bible said it was permissible.

If you want to concede that God allowed slavery because 'everyone was doing it' then why the ban on homosexuality? That was pretty commonplace in the Bronze Age. Why no promotion of rape? That too was commonplace.


Faith changes. People come to pick and choose what they feel they like and discard the rest much like posters here have. The few that actually take the faith in it's original form are those who are labeled terrorists or extremists and for good reason.

Can Christians provide a bounce castle in every backyard? If not, then this charge is impossible.

If a Christian gave me a bounce castle, I would never say a bad thing about religion, ever.

You'll have your bounce castle along with a lake of sulfur when you're in the next dimension.

I like sulfur. It smells like eggs, and eggs taste gooooooooood...

Do you think that if Religion never existed that slavery would never have existed?

Edit: not trying to condone anything here, just curious.

That's more based on laziness. Actually, the Pope waaaaay back in the day tried to stop slavery in the 1500s, but in that, they also created a loophole. They stated that people couldn't use Native Americans as slaves or anyone for that matter, unless they were considered prisoners of war.

But, the whole continent of Africa had been under a series of wars (including with the Moors), so people snagged slaves from there under the guise of them being prisoners of war, which was a lie, because they were just taking these people who had never been prisoners or even involved with a war.

You want my kids bounce castle? They never play in it anymore :(

I thought it was with the Moops.