Love me or else (Part One) (Where is it now?)

by dhw, Tuesday, January 01, 2013, 19:42 (4105 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

Part One-Dhw: Why, then, do you swallow the pronouncements of authors you know little or nothing about, written some two thousand years ago in a language you do not speak, describing a future for which neither you nor they can provide any testable evidence?
 
TONY: As I told David, for me, the evidence is in the trustworthiness of all of the predictions that came before. [...] Why should I trust [the bible] any less than some scientist that I do not know and have not met, many of which speak a language that I do not?-Many scientists have made accurate predictions. Does that mean I should also believe them when they predict that science will prove that life and the mechanisms for evolution came about by chance? You have no more evidence for Revelation 3-5 than they have for their prediction, so why not keep an agnostically open mind instead of presenting it as proof of God's benevolence?-Dhw: ...while you find cold comfort in this world, I find no comfort in your cherry-picked quotations.-TONY: Cherry picked? I fully admit the full spectrum of his personality, how is that cherry picking? [...] I do not know of any place where it says that unbelief, in and of itself, makes you a sinner.
 
You quoted Revelation 21;3-5, which says there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain etc. (proof that God is not a "tyrannical asshole") but have now twice ignored verse 8, which says that the fearful, and UNBELIEVING etc. "shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone."-Dhw: It's now even less clear to me what sort of afterlife you envisage.
 
TONY: The meek shall inherit the earth. The entire book talks over and over and over throughout about a resurrection (of the righteous and unrighteous no less) [...] I would need to believe in an afterlife, as such, before I could explain to you what kind of after life I believe in.
 
You and St John between you have now explained it very clearly. Apparently all of us are to be resurrected. If we die and come to life again, that is an afterlife. And according to St John, an author whom you trust, some folk will then have their tears wiped away by God, while the unbelieving like me will suffer a "second death" in a lake of fire and brimstone. Thank you.
 
TONY: What is more terrifying than a sense of justice that is not like ours? How about a higher power that has our sense of justice.....-We already live under a higher power that has our sense of justice. And as you keep repeating, we know society's rules and deserve to be punished if we break them. But if, for instance, God thinks unbelievers should be chucked into a lake of fire and brimstone, or a Muslim fundamentalist should be offered 1000 virgins for killing you and me, we have every reason to be scared stiff.
 
Dhw: ...when it comes to the horrors of his world, you either blame man or you fall back on the notion that we mustn't judge God, and in any case he'll make it up to any innocent victims in some nebulous afterlife. -TONY: I am fairly certain I never said we were all going to heaven or hell...-No, you didn't, though Revelation 21; 3-5 and Revelation 21;8 would do for starters! You wrote (20 Dec. at 05.06) "...even should he kill a few so-called innocents, he has not taken anything that he could not return in better condition than he took it." I assume that once someone is dead, the only way they can be better off will be through some form of afterlife. I would regard resurrection and whatever happens after it as a "nebulous afterlife".-TONY: Yes, I say you musn't judge god because we are not qualified to judge god any more than a infant is qualified to the actions of their parents. -Of course you're right. If God exists, he makes the rules and so he alone is "qualified". I do not find that comforting.


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