A comradely hug for you, Outroar!


Full weirdness disclosure: I used to stay with nuns in the school holidays. Voluntarily. I loved listening to them talking, often arguing, about morality and theology. And cross-stitching. But the really inspiring ones were basically visionaries: they had such tremendous imaginations that they could paint pictures of a metaphysical concept like heaven, so that it would seem both real and unreal; a place and a sensation; a thing and an idea.

Christians have to believe that heaven exists. But in what form? The possibilities are endless. I've always been far, far more interested in listening to how other christians perceive heaven than in pinning down a definitive theological framework for what it is and isn't. Quite simply, nobody can know. We have a few oblique allusions in the bible — a book written by men with no personal experience of heaven — and that's all.

Sorry to get all mystical on yo asses, but there it is. As humans, christians can only have expectations of heaven that are related to their ways of perceiving things on earth. Maybe it's a big house party in the sky. Maybe it's the sensation of the soul enjoying absolute tranquillity. Maybe it's just annihilation. One day we may find out.

“All I say is that I think it is damned unlikely that anything like a central cosmic will, a spirit world, or an eternal survival of personality exist. They are the most preposterous and unjustified of all the guesses which can be made about the universe, and I am not enough of a hair-splitter to pretend that I don't regard them as arrant and negligible moonshine. In theory I am an agnostic, but pending the appearance of radical evidence I must be classed, practically and provisionally, as an atheist.”

Sophistry.

A comradely hug for you, Outroar!

I'm just saying. CHILD ABUSE. Don't just throw that term around based on a couple of cartoon notions. It doesn't do any credit to anyone's intelligence.

24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.

26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

or being threatened with hell upon failure to do so.

I am not throwing it around lightly. Teaching children about hell, as it is described in the bible, as plenty of US christians do is child abuse.

I think the parents would have to be pretty hardcore, hate-filled fundamentalists.

So what are they being threatened with? What is the point of god telling you to do something and then willfully refusing to carry it out.

Wait a minute... we're talking about Christians having to hate gays. Christians aren't commanded to hate gays, so there's nothing to threaten them for if they don't.

Gay people are certainly being threatened with hell. That's dispicable. Why not discuss that, rather than making up stuff about parents telling their kids they have to hate gays or they'll go to hell?

Well, of what worth is a caricature if it's not a generally applicable template? That is precisely what a caricature is intended to be. Usually an exaggeration of sorts, yes, but never without at the very least a simulacrum of accuracy - and frequently rather considerably more than that.

Yes, your personal mileage may differ, but that's understood.

I didn't say that they had to hate them (if you go back and read what I said). I said that god's (old testament) word says that they shall be put to death because god finds them abominable and therefore they are abominable.

They just have to agree with god and kill them. Feelings don't come into it.

Teaching your children that it is necessary to hate gays or otherwise you will be tortured for all eternity is abusive and anti social.

*Correction - I did say they had to hate them so that is a mistake on my behalf .... one of those nights.... I suppose the hatred may well follow being commanded to agree that they are abominable....

*Correction - I did say they had to hate them so that is a mistake on my behalf .... one of those nights.... I suppose the hatred may well follow being commanded to agree that they are abominable....

In fact they're commanded to love, although that seems paradoxical with some of the horrible stuff in the Old Testament.

That's all fine and dandy.... after all if they are homophobic and kill gays they get to please god... If they actually rather like gay people, but are afraid of god, and still kill people they please god... Either way they are onto a winner to claim their ticket in 'paradise'.

God is the one who finds gays abominable and pleasing him is all that counts. It would be easier to hate gays first before you kill'em though.....

They're commanded to love however I suppose that's where things get a a tad messy. First stone and all of that.... However they are still obeying god by killing gays....