Do all Christian denominations teach people who arn't christian go to hell or is it j

Unfortunately we are back to "do you believe the bible" and the problems contained therein when you raise these points...and for me the answer is "no"

 

saying and acting are 2 diffrent things. he made hell, crafted and fine tuned the requirements to be a bare minimum. so i'd say he does indeed want us there. yeah, ok, he sent him to participate is a snuff film, then developed resident evil. so i'm not so sure i'd call that much of a sacrafice

 

I didn't know God worked for Capcom - I thought he was a Rockstar employee

 

well, given the content of his work i'd say hes a rockstar brass.

no i think most people will agree. "Pro divine gay killings or anti-divine gay killings" is a fairly easy yes or no question. "pro holocaust, or anti-holocaust" ya know what i mean? its a very clear idea, so either you're for it or against it. why can't you just say "I support my god in his sadistic killings, or no, i don't"

 

To be fair Tek I don't think "killing" is the issue - more "eternal damnation". In that sense it is not a decision or action by the hand of man but a dictate of God.

Nowhere does the bible say "go queer bashing"

 

well i know that. but its getting to the point. either he agrees that they should be damned or he doesn't.

 

Agreed, but believing that they will be damned is not the same as outright persecution.

I am apparently damned too, but do not feel persecuted because of that. I look at it as the Christian God being "Anti-Sin" as opposed to Anti any specific group. The only problem therein is what you call a "sin" others call a Saturday night out.

 

Except in the bit dealing with the laws for the fledgling nation of Israel. Though I guess that depends on whether you classify 'bashing' as 'executing for performing homosexual acts'.

Right... which amounts to some 'old dead people' saying God is all powerful but he will only do what he has told us he will and will only behave in a way which we expect him to. Hence, he remains all powerful but for all intents and purposes he is entirely without the power to behave in any way other than what we expect.

How??? I'm saying that people have made claims for an omnipotent God but then throw in tonnes of restrictions to make it so that he can only be omnipotent in ways they think are ok. This completely disavows God of his omnipotence because it seems he is incapable of not bending to promises he made to his followers. So in fact God CANNOT act in any way he choses because he said he wouldnt. Right? Im really failing to see my inconsistency!

Through the medium of what humans have recorded about God. God speaks for himself... (ahem) through people. So seems to me people are pretty essential in saying what God can and can't do.

Sure great for your own personal religious views thats fine. But when your trying to discuss the logical implications of religious views I think it might do you good to entertain a few 'what if's...' to see what your particular position entails. For instance, I could say I respect most of what the Dalai Lama has said in his teachings however were he to advocate slaughtering babies I would quite quickly regard him as having serious moral problems. Your belief seemingly allows for no such opinion if God did somehow communicate a bizarre shift in morality which suggests that Christian morality is based on the whims of Mr. God. As you've said you don't consider his choices arbitrary but your position entails that if God said murder was good then it would be. This means murder being bad was an arbitrary choice as if the act is neutral without God to give us morality then its an arbitrary choice by God to make it good or bad. You can't use YOUR morality to judge Gods morality because according to you without God there is no standard.

I think this is all pretty irrelevant to the point I was making, to re-iterate it:

If you believe that:
-Whatever morality God makes it is correct.

Then:
-The laws and punishments he gives for breaking his morality are also morally fine because hes got the authority to make any punishment morally ok.
-Practices which we today under our present morality would condemn as brutal and intolerant are morally fine for back then because God said so.

The fact that you are justifying his punishments as ok because he gave lots of warnings just supports rather than refutes the argument that people who believe God gets to set morality must accept his previous moral judgements even if they are brutal by todays standards.

Im not suggesting you try and work out what it would have been like if God had deemed rape as morally ok (which he could have done given that no act is inherently wrong or right until God tells us!). I was arguing that you have to appreciate that if God was to change morality again (for instance its no longer moral to kill homosexuals even if your setting up a nation) then under your worldview whatever morality he came up with is the 'real' morality because he is God. I don't understand why this concept is so difficult or indeed why you are arguing against it so much. It seems entirely obvious to me that if god sets what is morally good then logically you must accept as morally good whatever he says no matter what your personal morality is at present!

Once again I'll raise the point that i am discussing my views on morality not conducting social research.

 

Actually I'm simply arguing that to say God is omnipotent and then lay out a list of things he is incapable of doing is rather inconsistent. You don't see the contradiction then great... but I don't agree with you. I am sorry that you find that so upsetting but it's really not the huge issue your making of it.

And for the record yes I do think a morality that is based on respect for other people rather than a morality based on obedience to whatever laws a deity supplies is superior. That's my opinion, I have a several very good reasons for believing that (including that I dont consider killing homosexuals to ever be moral behaviour) and I wont apologise for it. That does not however mean I am not well aware that most reasonable religious people adhere to morality systems which overall seem to be pretty damn nice. Im not denying that at all nor do I expect people to change their beliefs and agree with me. However, on a DISCUSSION BOARD I feel it is perfectly and 100% acceptable to debate the various implications even when they are negative of certain religious beliefs. To only be able to discuss positive aspects is to be entirely unbalanced. On most threads on religion I try to argue for a middle ground i.e. recognising positive and negative aspects. I have never denied religious morality has positive aspects...

Well it's nice of you to say so but personally I'd say it's likely your being being unfair to most of them. You for instance I doubt are particularly ugly, stupid, mean spirited, bigoted or ummm... stupid but I think the fact that you consider a law that condones executing homosexuals as ok (and in fact God given) in a specific context to be something worth discussing and for me something worth strongly questioning.

To make comments like you have just done and then say 'I don't do arguments' is rather contradictory don't you think? Anyhow if discussing this with me bothers you so much then take the easy option and don't. I promise I won't be offended.

aiki I don't know how to explain this to you. I am not suggesting that present Christian doctrine is amoral nor am I suggesting that any of the hypothetical situations I posed are likely to happen all I am trying to get you to realise is what the position your advocating logically entails for morality! Morality being completely in the hands of a God means that humans are denied the right to define moral behaviour hence why you respect a God who once said it was ok to execute homosexuals as morally good. Now I understand clearly that Christian doctrine suggests that God has gave us the 'real' morals now that he was actually trying to push in all along and has promised thats the way its going to stay... but the hypotheticals I am suggesting are to try and point out that it seems morally wrong to just accept the rules of God simply because he is God. Being unable to even discuss hypotheticals is something I cannot understand. If someone said for instance assume that God came down and told you he existed would you then believe in him? Now I can see that is entirely inconsistent with how I regard the world to operate and entirely unlikely to happen but I can still answer the question and it doesn't mean I then must agree a God exists... Im simply entertaining a hypothetical to further discuss my views!

Danke schon.

 

I would have thought the term alone was sufficient as an explanation. If you want me to give an example of how such a morality would contradict a morality based on obedience to God how about the example I have been giving throughout the entire thread:

If I was teleported back to the time when Israel was a fledgling nation and someone showed me that God had said it was morally good to execute I would disagree that it was morally good.

If someone who accepted Gods view on morality was more important than their own personal morality was teleported back to the time when Israel was a fledgling nation and someone showed them that God had said it was morally ok to execute homosexuals they would have to accept that killing homosexuals was morally good.

Do you see the difference? On the one hand respect is defined by what God says is good and on the other respect is defined by actual respect for others and does not rely on God to set it out for me. I don't think the differences between such positions are that difficult to see! Also I do realise that my hypothetical contains a time machine (i.e. the teleporter) which does not exists but please entertain that such a device could exist... if this is possible for you.

In every discussion on Christianity you argue that people have to accept various religious assumptions in order to discuss things meaningfully. This seems highly illogical to me and you've never adequately convinced me that such acceptance is necessary- beyond the acceptance everyone grants when discussing anothers opinion. I've had discussions with religious people without accepting their assumptions even on this message board and they seem to have fairly productive without granting the assumptions you always argue for.

The topic at hand I am discussing is: What are the implications of believing that any morality provided by God is good.

The assumptions I need to accept to discuss such a view are:

1. That some Christians believe that any morality provided by the Christian God is good.

I accept this assumption. Assumptions I do not need are:

2. That God exists.
3. That God can only behave exactly as defined by Christian doctrines.

Sometimes I do grant these assumptions to discuss a particular point but they are not required at all times to have a meaningful discussion.

I honestly have little idea of what your replies have to do with my original posts most of the time. On this occasion:

1. I was discussing how the premise that God's morality is always good (i.e. God is sovereign) entails accepting some pretty reprehensible stuff.
2. That present day Christian morality does not overall seem particularly immoral but in the past it was.

Your response is:
1. To tell me Christianity requires belief that God is sovereign when I already mentioned that in my original post ?!?!
2. To paraphrase me as saying ALL Christian doctrine is 'immoral'.

What are you talking about?

Yes but you seem a bit confused here. I was saying that entertaining such a hypothetical conflicts with my NON-CHRISTIAN ATHEISTIC world view yet I am entirely capable of doing it. You see accepting that God could come down and tell me seems to actually negate the fact that I dont believe such a God exists... however, I am able to entertain the hypothetical to discuss what effects it would have on my beliefs. You on the otherhand seem just totally inable to comprehend a any hypothetical even when you believe it has already occured in the past(!) you simply refuse to imagine it happening again. I don't know how it's possible to continue past this point.

 

Perhaps we miss the 'justice' in having someone tortured for eternity?

My congratulations to him for choosing the dumb ruleset that landed the vast majority of his loved ones in eternal torture. Either he's seriously bad at planning ahead or he planned to choose a ruleset that would leave everyone damned for eternity... So is he stupid or sadistic?

Because he hasn't made himself known.
Are you about to accuse us all of lying to ourselves?
That we do know about God but just don't want to believe?
That we believe we have a choice between eternal bliss/damnation and just thought the damnation sounded fun?

I'll tell you why not:
a) It wasn't necessary for him to do so. He could've solved the problem anyway he wanted without torturing himself/his son.
b) He didn't suffer for the eternity he's throwing left right and centre at those who don't believe the 'myth'.

This makes the sacrifice seem more like a tokenistic gesture rather than a genuine sacrifice.

 

I don't quite get what you mean... could you explain it further?
You're saying that we can potentially redefine our morals into something completely different?

 

And for the record yes I do think a morality that is based on respect for other people rather than a morality based on obedience to whatever laws a deity supplies is superior

ckava, would you be willing to share some of what you're smoking? if a deity created you, and the world you live on, and even your sense of right and wrong(which you claim proves him to be less just than any of us humans), how do you figure that you have even as good a grasp on justice as God does, if not more? Read Job 38-41; once you can perform any of the achievements God recorded there, I'll be all ears.