You think chinchillas can think that abstractly?
The point is, do you think humans think as God does?
The point is, responding to a question by asking another question doesn’t hide the fact that you didn’t answer the question.
In fact, I did. Abstractly.
Nope.
10 deflections
Sigh. It is another way of pointing out what is in the Bible. God’s ways are not our ways. His ways are as different from ours as the heavens are above the earth.
In these discussions it helps to meet people half way, instead of creating further divisions.
Seems like if something as important as your eternal afterlife is on the line, God could make things a heck of lot more clear.
Then, after He is deliberately vague, He sends them to eternal damnation. What is the love, again?
What can be more clear than to love God with everything within you and to love your fellow man as you love yourself?
Further, God “sends” no one to hell. Each individual chooses an eternity of God or no God for himself.
The hangup for skeptics is this: how can someone love a being with everything within them when they are unsure of that being’s very existence? That is irrational.
There are a couple of things that might help address that hang-up. First, is this type of love is not the warm emotional kind of love. The early Jews (and even today) address the issue is that learning and following the laws of God will lead to love of law and therefore God. Jesus’ approach was slightly different: Love of him or love of God leads to love of God’s laws.
In either case, it takes time and effort to learn to know God’s laws and to follow them; it takes an equal amount of effort in learning to know and follow Christ to the Law.
Many skeptics feel there is better use for their time. Those of us who have followed one or the other feel it is time well spent.
What do you mean?
The original authors were passing on thier own accounts of what they witnessed, or so we are told all the time.
The fact that you need a decoder ring to determine what is supposed to be literal and what isn’t is part of the problem. There is no consistency with either peoples interpretations of the Bible, or the Bible itself for that matter.
The bigger problem is that we have someone trying to tell us that the Word of God is no longer the Word of God, which is convienient when you can’t answer direct questions regarding that word.
It is not called Man Interpretation of Gods Wisdom. Its called the Word of God. There was a very good reason for that. Its because if when religion was being brought to the fore, had there been any ambiguity about the absolute nature of how people were to act, then it would have all fallen apart at the seams.
Simple fact is this…religion is the single easiest way to control a large group of people. If you give them something to look forward to beyond this life that is based on your actions while you are here, it makes it at least a little harder to act like a complete ass to everyone you meet while you are here.
It doesn’t actually matter if any of it is true, as long as you get people to believe its true…or at the very least fear its truth enough to follow it even if they aren’t 100% sure about it.
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Told by whom? King James in English or in Hebrew with the foundation in Hebrew culture, instead of English culture?
Again, the afterlife is a small part of religion and religious practice. The reason people of faith have to be careful of those (usually in government) who attempt to exert control is because people of faith look to ideals that are greater than self. People of faith actively look for things they can do for God. Therefore, over the years, we have discovered to be very careful when someone says, “Do it for God” because they generally mean, “Do it for me.”
It takes magnitudes more effort and courage to develop a custom philosophy, in the context of modern science, that isnt spoon fed to you by ancient mythological texts. But then again, you might be right about effort - it does take a lot of mental gymnastics to rationalize the Bible as the word of God
You mean like this? “Gods laws” are used to justify a lot of bad things in theocracies. You just think your Gods laws are true .
You might as well ask, how can a woman love a man who beats her?
Or a man a woman who takes all his money to buy stuff and then wants more?
People are just irrational.
You just have to believe and accept. Keep telling yourself over and over until you feel good and get a lovely warm feeling your body. You can do it
Just belliieeeeeve.
Me, well I just heard, found and tried to get a rabbit stuck out of my chain link fence. It was screaming when I found it, calmed down when I tried to get it out, but it bled out after I got it out / couldnt walk. Poor fellah. God is love I guess.
I trust people more who do things for themselves. People who truly believe they’re acting on god’s wishes tend more towards throwing logic and reason out the window.
Overall, I tend ro agree. There are exceptions, and those should not be taken lightly. People should not fool themselves in saying something they do for God is truly more for self.
