A question for Christians, particularly those of the inerrantist stripe.
28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
Matthew 10:28, NIV
And:
8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might 10 on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed.
2 Thessalonians 1:8-10, NIV
“Punished with everlasting destruction.” Is that what a perfectly merciful, perfectly benevolent Father would do to his children?
Ha, keiths must think the concept of debt is subjective.
I must? Please share your phoodooesque reasoning.
Alan, petrushka,
Do you see your mistake?
The use of abstract nouns like “evil”, “debt”, “nepotism”, and “rancour” isn’t fallacious — it’s essential. Both of you do it routinely, just like the rest of us, and for good reason.
The only problem is your confusion regarding the fallacy of reification.
The concept of subjective is subjective!
The concept of think is subjective!
The concept of concept is subjective!
keiths,
Well, its also possible that you think debt is an adjective.
It always frustrates me when I see people say that “concepts are subjective,” because that makes no sense at all, on the best understanding of what concepts are and what ‘subjective’ means. But I’ve long stopped tilting at that windmill.
Alan and petrushka seem to have tiptoed away, and Mung, phoodoo and colewd show no signs of being able to answer my questions, so let me pose a couple more.
The verses I quoted in the OP were from the New Testament, but of course the Old Testament is an even richer vein of stories demonstrating the Christian God’s appalling lack of love. I’d be remiss not to mention some of those.
Let’s start with the Flood:
“I’m pissed off, so I’m going to kill every creature on earth.” Can’t you just feel God’s love in that?
On a smaller scale, observe God’s great love for Uzzah:
Uzzah tries to keep the ark from falling, and gets killed for his trouble. He was truly beloved of God, wasn’t he?
Praise be to the gracious, merciful and loving Yahweh.
There’s your “loving” God in action, Christians. Care to explain?
I told him, don’t you be touching that ark, Uzzah. That oughter teach him, I guess.
Petrushka can speak for himself if he feels the need.
You may have retired to spend more time with your computer screen but I have other stuff to do and other stuff I prefer to do than bandy words with the character you play on the internet.
My sole intervention in this thread was to ask those who agreed with the claim “evil exists” if they could support it. Your attempt so far falls short. Repetition is not an argument.
Alan,
It’s interesting how your strong desire to discuss whether evil exists suddenly evaporated when I pointed out the goofy mistake you had made:
I doubt anyone is surprised that you made another mistake. Can you bring yourself to admit it to us, and to yourself?
I am pretty sure I know what keiths does in his spare time.
He sets up a chess board with all the pieces sort of in the right places. He then moves the bishops around the table in a series of chaotic and illegal moves, slowly sets down his plate of cheese, then kicks one of the legs of the table as hard as he can, and the pieces go flying all over the carpet, and shouts, ah ha, I won again!
Then he throws a half empty bag of cashews into his hamster aquarium and says, figure it out idiot.
phoodoo,
Adults can disagree. However one thing all the adults agree on is that you are not to be taken seriously.
Hahahaha!
The eternal punishment in hell only applies if there is some kind of afterlife eternal existence … But is there?
I have been researching the subject lately and I have come to the conclusion that there isn’t.
In short, once the mythical beliefs of some kind of afterlife originating probably in Babylon, Egypt and ancient Greece found their way into Christianity, the need for some kind of panishment for the sinners arised, which gave way to the acceptance of the other beliefs like fiery-hell and such…
But this created a paradox: where do the unbaptized infants go if they die prematurely? How about afterlife for the so so sinners or those who weren’t exposed to the teachings of Christianity? This created the way for other afterlife teachings: purgatory and limbo.
So, if there is an eternal punishment, then keiths is right; its not compatible with God’s love.
Also, this means that God failed to tell Adam and Eve about the real consequences of their disobedience:
gen 2:16-17
“16The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.
Why did’t God tell them that they were going to be punished eternally in the fiery hell?
Because none of it happened and it’s really just cobbled together fragments of ancient myths?
OMagain, to phoodoo:
Having run away from my questions, he’s moving on to the second prong of his “phlee and phlail” strategy.
Rumraket,
These Bible stories have “made up by humans” stamped all over them. It’s amazing that believers won’t see it.