Who said anything about people Cowboy?

You just posted this yourself:

Rev.20:10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.


Everlasting torment is everlasting torment. Doesn't matter who it's being applied to. It's pointlessness and uselessness would still remain the same. There would be no positive aspect in it.

So my point still stands.

Like I said. This has nothing at all to do with the teachings of Jesus.

In fact, Leviticus is from the Old Covenant that according to you has been FINISHED and no longer applies.



This is precisely the kind of hypocrisy that I'm talking about.

You spit in the face of Jesus using Leviticus as your hawker.

Here's a web site that has a nice feature. It gives a summary of every chapter in a block above the chapter. So this way you can get an idea of what the chapter is all about before you read it.

http://www.easyenglish.info/booklist/genesis.htm

However, a word of warning,...

This "Easy English" bible is written in an interpretative format that may not be the interpretations that you would personally get from reading the original text yourself.

The interpretations they give are pretty standard Christian interpretations. (i.e. they puff up what they like to emphasize and ignore any potential interpretive problems or inconsistencies)

In case you didn't know, I'm not likely to agree with the standard interpretations, but that's just me.

One thing to keep in mind is that anytime you read literature from religious sites, they are always going to attempt to play up the ideals they'd like for you to believe and agree with, and they will basically ignore, or play down, anything at all that doesn't fit that picture.

That's cool. I'm glad you found a church you are happy with. That's important.

I used to take my mother to church ever Sunday because she was too feeble to go on her own. I did not enjoy the services but sat through them anyway for my mother's sake. My mother was well aware of my position on the Christianity, and she was cool with that. But she still liked to attend services because she had been doing it her entire life.

After she died I haven't been inside a church since, and have no intention on changing that anytime soon. All they did was sermon on stupid stuff that doesn't even apply to me anyway.

Did you hear the song I posted? "Poetry and Music"?

I don't do Karaoke, but I do play guitar and sing my own songs.

I don't go to bars though, I prefer the coffee houses.

Or tea.

So?

You support everlasting punishment and torture day and night for ever and ever.

I objected to that because it has not positive aspect in it.

You couldn't care less. You still support it.

Only because you have to because otherwise you'd have to confess that the God depicted in your religion is unrighteous.





Well, there you go. At least you found something positive in homosexuality.

That's better than everlasting torture that has no positive value at all.

There could also be a deep intimate connection between lovers in homosexuality too. So it could also have deeply emotional positive value for the loving relationship too.

Hardcore religious bigotry.

Not based on anything Jesus taught at all.

How dare you judge others to be "sinners" when Jesus taught NOT TO JUDGE others.

Christian hypocrisy.

Clearly your knowledge of science is grossly lacking.

The "Theory of Evolution" is only one small part of the science. The "Theory" is simply an explanation for how evolution might occur.

In addition to the "theory" there also exists overwhelming physical evidence for the FACT that life on Earth has clearly and very slowly progressed from lower life forms into more complex life forms. That is based on observational evidence, not "theory".

Also the age of the Earth of about 4.5 billion years old has been confirmed by many different scientific fields including astrophysics. That's again a scientific FACT that can be relied upon.

Why do Christians insist on spreading lies about science in an effort to support their religious beliefs? If their religion is true they shouldn't need to resort to distorting the truth to support it.

The DNA evidence alone is sufficient on it's own to show the evolution of the human species. In fact, (and I'm sure you are not aware of this), but it won't be long before geneticists will be able to tell us precisely how things have evolved using DNA alone.

Our human DNA actually contains a detailed record of our entire evolution. All that is required now is for us to be able to read that record. And that's just a matter of time.

DNA is like the HARD DRIVE of the human species. It's utterly amazing what modern science is able to discover anymore.

These ancient religions based on superstitions of Gods that control the weather, plagues, and so forth, are truly at the end of their days. We are witnessing the birth of very strong secularism in the human species.

As you well know (or should know by know) I am a deeply spiritual person myself and favor a mystical view of the universe. So I'm not overly thrilled with complete secularism either. Although I don't see any harm in it. I personally believe that humanity will become highly secular before it finally turns spiritual again.

However, that's really not a problem. Most secular people seem to be quite intelligent anyway. I doubt if you'll find a "secular Jihadist"

And perhaps it needs to be this way. They need to drop these personified God myths entirely first. Then after they become highly secular and have cleansed themselves of these ancient myths of angry jealous godheads, they will finally be prepared to actually embrace a mystical view of the universe.

So this stage of secularism may actually be the cleansing tool that humanity needs to move forward spiritually.

I'm against the death 'penalty', especially in terms of a 'punishment' as in "Capital Punishment".

I'm especially against cruel and unusual forms of punishment such as an electric chair or gas chamber. If they are going to put someone down at least use a form of lethal injection and put them to sleep with an anesthetic even before that.

However, having said that, I'm not against euthanasia under certain circumstances.

When it comes to dealing with dangerous people, the simple fact remains that we must protect society from those people. So they must be 'removed' from society. Thus incarceration itself should not even be thought of as 'punishment', but rather as a safety precaution for the innocent people who might otherwise be harmed by dangerous people.

So I don't even condone incarceration as a form of "punishment". Yet we must still incarcerate people to protect society. None the less, there's no need for us to view this process as "punishment".

~~~~

My stance is that almost anyone who does something horrific is basically mentally ill to begin with. Either that or they had been erroneously taught by their religion that doing horrible things is God's will. (such as in the case of Jihad suicide bombers).

Society and religion can be as much a cause of violence as anything else.

And then of course there's the mental illness issue too.

In fact, it's pretty hard for me to imagine a normally "healthy" person choosing to go out and do horrible violent things.

That doesn't make any sense to me at all. So just about everyone who does something truly horrible is most likely either mentally ill, or has been convinced of some weird religious ideals that make them think that they are doing violent things to serve their God.

~~~~~

As far as distraught people who react under extreme pressure (such as a woman murdering her abusive husband), I would personally deem that person to be reacting in "self-defense" and those issues are extremely difficult to deal with, I confess that.

Nothing is ever simple that's for sure.

But yes I would vote against capital "punishment", although I would support euthanasia in certain circumstances, so there's fine line there too.

It's clearly not an easy issue to deal with in any case.

Church is religion.

If anything, it's a day to rest and meditate.

And as far as being a "holy day", well gee whiz, shouldn't every day be a holy day for a truly spiritual person?

Why should weekdays be weak spiritually?

I personally prefer to avoid bars and churches. I don't care for either one.

Cowboy, you have fallen into the horrible trap of thinking that if you can't convince someone of your religious beliefs you then need to degrade them, and belittle them, or discredit them in some way.

You are also grossly wrong in the conclusions that you JUMP to.

You stated, "You've stated multiple times for you to accept Jesus, you would have to lower your standards, and or for you to obey the law's given to us, would be lowering your standards. This is conceitedness, this is thinking you are the greatest, at least in comparison with the subject at hand."

There you go trying to use Jesus as a battering ram again.

We aren't talking about "accepting Jesus" here (especially the moral values that Jesus himself supposedly taught).

Contrary to your outright LIES here, I have stated repeatedly that I am in total agreement with the moral values that Jesus is said to have taught.

So this has absolutely nothing at all to do with the moral standards or values of Jesus.

What I reject is the idea that Jesus was the sacrificial lamb of God sent to be crucified to pay for our sins. That is the immorality that I object too. And from my point of view this is not objecting to the moral values of any "God". On the contrary, it is my very reason for rejecting that rumor as having anything to do with any God. It simply isn't sane or moral, IMHO.

I make no apologies for that, I feel grossly sorry for you if you feel that having someone beaten and nailed to a pole would somehow be a morally righteous way of 'paying' for anything.

So this isn't about Jesus at all. It's actually an objection to using Jesus as an excuse to support the dastardly religion that Jesus himself appears to have actually rejected in terms of moral standards.

Do the rumors of Jesus even claim anywhere that Jesus taught anyone that they should view the Torah as the "Word of God"?

Certainly not that I know of. In fact, the gospels have Jesus referring to the Torah as "Your Law" when he speaks to the Pharisees about the Torah, not as "God's Law". He also calls the scribes (the keepers of the Torah) and the Pharisees (the overseers of the Torah) hypocrites.

Far more importantly Jesus taught totally opposite values that had been taught in the Torah.

The Torah taught people to that God condones the seeking of revenge as in "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". Jesus taught precisely the OPPOSITE. Jesus taught people to turn the other cheek, and to forgive those who trespass against them.

I agree with the moral values of Jesus. I don't need to "accept" them since they are already in harmony with my own personal moral standards. I can hardly "accept" moral values that I already hold myself.

But I most certainly reject the immoral values that had been attributed to the God of Abraham, as did Jesus apparently.

The Torah had people judging each other to be 'sinners' and commanded them to stone sinners to death, and to also kill heathens. Jesus rejected those immoral practices as well, and instead taught precisely the OPPOSITE. Jesus taught people not to judge others and not to cast stones at other people.

So once again, I'm already in agreement with the moral values that have been associated with Jesus. It's the immoral values that were taught in the name of the God of Abraham that I reject, just as Jesus did.

~~~~~

I have no problem with the moral standards that Jesus himself is said to have taught. In fact, I have stated endlessly that I believe that Jesus was a Mahayana Buddhist who was clearly teaching the far higher moral standards of Buddhism and rejecting the moronic ignorance that had been taught in the Torah.

So I'm actually in agreement with the moral values of Jesus, and I'm also in agreement with Jesus' rejection of the immorality that had been taught in the Torah.

So it is totally ignorant of you to try to use Jesus as a battering ram to belittle me in the name of "Christianity".

~~~~~~

Where does Christianity fail?

Well, it fails because it tries to make out like Jesus was the sacrificial lamb of this immoral God of the Old Testament. A God that apparently Jesus himself didn't even agree with when it came to moral values.

Christianity tries to hold Jesus up as a battering ram to support the ignorance of the Old Testament, such as things like "God hates homosexuality", or that punishments and/or having someone crucified on a pole is somehow "righteous".

That's baloney.

Also, where did Jesus ever predict the coming of Paul to finishing teaching his message? Paul is the author of about 75% of the material in the Christian New Testament. And most of what Paul does is dredge up things from the Torah, or Old Testament and proclaim them to be "God's Will" in Jesus' name.

That's baloney too!

Jesus never prophesied that he would send some guy named Paul to challenge his moral standards and replace them with the immoral standards of the Torah. Standards, that Jesus clearly worked very hard to reject and replace with far higher moral standards.

~~~~~~~

You're just being ignorant yourself in attempting to use Jesus as a battering ram against me simply because I refuse to allow Jesus to be used an an excuse to support the immoral things that Jesus himself clearly rejected.

Jesus was a VICTIM of the Abrahamic religion. He was an activist who spoke out against the immoralities of that religion, and it was the teachings of that religion that allowed the pharisees to incite a mob to have Jesus crucified are charges of blaspheme against God.

It was the very religion that Jesus spoke out against that became his demise.

And then, after Jesus was nailed to the pole and SILENCED via his death, the rumors that ended up becoming the New Testament were created and used to metaphorically nail Jesus to the Torah. Jesus was then used as an excuse to support things like "God hates homosexuality", and "God hates heathens", etc.

I don't reject Jesus at all.

On the contrary, I reject the very same kinds of immoral mentalities that Jesus himself rejected.

When you use Jesus as a battering ram to insult people who refuse to accept the immoral crap that Jesus himself taught against, you are actually "nailing Jesus to the Pole of the Torah".

~~~~~~

I have no problem with Jesus, Cowboy.

But I have HUGE problems with Christianity.

~~~~~~

This may very well be something that you are not even capable of or willing to understand.

I don't renounce Jesus, and anyone who uses Jesus as a battering ram to try to belittle me is grossly out of line, and they have not understood my position.

And unfortunately this is what Christianity has come to represent. Nothing more than a religion that uses Jesus as a battering ram to belittle anyone who refuses to buy into the whole Christian religion.

~~~~~

I renounce the immoral things that the Old Testament associates with "God". Punishing women with painful Childbirth because of mistakes made by Eve. Allowing things to get so far out of control that he feels that he needs to drown his entire creation save for a few "sinners" that he saves by "grace". Having his own son crucified as a sacrificial lamb to pay for the sins of man.

~~~~~

Are any of those things associated with the moral values that Jesus taught?

Absolutely NOT.

So how dare you throw Jesus in my face as a battering ram just because I refuse to buy into your highly immoral and hypocritical religion.

As far as I'm concerned Jesus was a Hebrew who saw the wisdom in Mahayana Buddhism and tried to find a way to teaching higher moral values to his brothers and sisters. He could see the that the Torah was baloney, (or at least highly corrupted), but he couldn't just come out and renounce the Torah. So he did the best he could do with what he had to work with.

Unfortunately his objections to the immoral teachings of the Torah ultimately got him crucified in the name of the God of the Torah. And then extremely unfortunately he was metaphorically crucified a second time when he was nailed to the Torah itself by being proclaimed to have been the sacrificial lamb of the God of the Torah.

This is probably the saddest event in all of human history.

That's my position. So don't ever try to use Jesus as a battering ram to belittle me Cowboy. If anything, I stand up for Jesus far more than the Christians do.

And ironically I respect Jesus as a mortal man for what he tried to do. A lot of "Christians" have told me that if they discovered that Jesus was a mere mortal man they would crucify him themselves. They would have absolutely no respect for the man if he was a mere mortal man.

When I ask why, they reply, "He would no longer be able to keep his promise of eternal life".



That's pretty sad don't you think?

Just goes to show that they have no love for Jesus at all. All they are truly interested in is the eternal life that he supposedly offers as a GIFT.

I love Jesus even if the world is purely atheistically and godless.

Can you say the same thing?

Sure you did, you said:



Thinking highly of one's own moral values can hardly be equated to conceitedness.



I would hope that everyone thinks highly of their own moral values.



I have never claimed to be "greater than God".

That's your delusion.

It's my position that we can know that these fables of a fictitious God that are written in the bible are necessarily false because the moral standards of those fables aren't even as high as the moral standards of many humans, (myself included). No conceit in that.

We dismiss the fables of Zeus along the same lines.

It's my position that these biblical fables cannot be true because in order for them to be true are creator would need to be far less moral than us (or at least less moral than some of us). Obviously there are immoral people too.

So when I say that I have higher moral values than the biblical God, or that the Biblical God has lesser moral values than myself, what I am actually saying is that it's crystal clear that these fables are false, because it would be impossible for me to have higher moral values than a real God.

Thus the biblical fables can't be true, because I clearly have higher moral values than the fictitious God depicted in those fables.

That's my whole point.

Like Jeanniebean has already pointed out, your mind is closed and locked like a vault.

You are so convinced that the biblical picture of God is true, that you don't even understand that when people point out flaws in this picture of God they are doing so because they are convinced that no God could be that absurd, immortal, or stupid.

I'm not saying that "God" is absurd, immoral, or stupid. I'm simply saying that the Hebrew fables of God are absurd, immoral, and stupid, and thus they cannot possibly have any validity as being a correct picture of God.

You then try to TWIST that around to proclaiming that I arrogantly think that I'm greater than God.



No, that's silly.

Of course not.

I'm dismissing the validity of the Hebrew picture of God.

I'm not belittling any actual "God".

If a God actually exists I imagine it to be far wiser than those ancient male-chauvinistic Hebrews.

We keep entertaining your position that the Hebrew picture of God might somehow be true. And we try to work around that for YOUR SAKE.

We try to show you why not real God could be that lame.

You keep defending that it should be alright for a God to be that messed up.

But no one is claiming to be greater than "God".

We're just dismissing absurd fables is all.

~~~~~

I imagine also, that you probably have the mindset that, either the biblical picture of God is true, or there is no God at all and atheism would be the only other alternative.

Thus, from your perspective there are no other "choices", it's either believe in the biblical God or face atheism which you probably couldn't handle.

I don't have that problem in two ways.

First, I can actually accept an atheistic reality if that is indeed the truth. That's not going to devastate me.

Secondly, I have no problem considering far greater pictures of God than what the Hebrews came up with. So I'm not limited to considering only the Abrahamic picture of God or atheism.

I have absolutely no problem embracing Mysticism (or a mystical view of God). This mystical view of God is quite abstract, and clearly a mystery. But I have no problem accepting that. After all, if God truly is far above humans then why limit him to being a jealous male-chauvinistic human-like dictator?

Why not think of God as being something far greater than we can even begin to imagine? In other words, let your imagination GO. This of the most PERFECT vision of a God that you can possibly imagine, and then STOP! Then REALIZE that God would be even GREATER than your FEEBLE imagination!!!!

Well, I can imagine a God FAR GREATER than what the Hebrews imagined God to be like. So why should I allow God to be limited by their imagination?

If I'm going to believe in a God I may as well believe in a truly awesome God.

Anything short of that I may as well go with atheism.


So no Cowboy, I don't think I'm greater than God. But I certainly do hope that I'm wiser and more intelligent than a bunch of male-chauvinist Hebrews that ran around stoning each other to death for sins and were nailing people to poles for blaspheme in the name of a jealous egotistical God who refuses to have any other Gods placed before him.

It's the Hebrew fables that I dismiss as being beneath me Cowboy. And thus they cannot possibly be the "Word" of any all-wise supreme being.

So I'm not claiming to be greater than "God"

I'm just dismissing absurd fables for being inferior to even my own mere mortal human values.

This explains a lot right here.

Evidently you condone punishment just for the sake of punishment itself. With no need to consider whether or not it has any positive constructive or useful purpose.

I don't condone that mentality in men or in gods.

So that's clearly a HUGE point that we will never see eye-to-eye on.

You will be able to see "justification" in things that I could never see justification in.

~~~~~

Also, if you think that way yourself, then it's not surprising that you can imagine a God thinking that way.

But since I can't think that way myself, there's no reason why I should believe that a God should think that way.

No offense, but I personally don't think much of anyone who condones punishment just for the sake of punishment.

I also don't feel that punishment is a very effective tool even when used for purposes of "correction". But at least in that case there's an attempt to get something positive out of it, even if it's not the best way to go about it.

But punishment just for the sake of punishment is a totally senseless concept as far as I'm concerned.

So we would never be able to agree on that point alone evidently.

Who is "we".

Speak for yourself buddy. There's no need to get rude and start slinging personal insults.

There is nothing "conceited" about not condoning the eternal torturing of conscious beings.

If the God of the religion you support is "beneath" that, then don't use that to try to insult me. It's the religion you're supporting has the unjustifiably cruel and ruthless God.

I'm sorry that it bothers you that I'm above that.

And I'm truly sorry to hear that you're not.



Well, then fine. According to you, then, there is no "damnation" that I need to be "saved" from.

So the only thing I would need to be "saved" from would be mortal death. However, according to you, in order to be saved from this mortal death, I would need to worship and obey this insanely mentally ill God who thrives on punishing people for every little thing.

In that case, I would actually prefer to be "saved" from having to worship this demon.

So all you are telling me that if I refuse to believe in this religion I will actually obtain TRUE SALVATION and be free from the whole ignorant shebang.

In other words, all you are telling me is that if I choose to believe in atheism then I will be correct, because for me, that's precisely the way reality will be. I will just die when I die like the atheists believe.

If that's the case with your religion, then it best that I don't believe in it.

Then I will truly be "Saved" from everything. No worries about eternal damnation, and no worries about having to worship a sick cruel demented egotistical God.

In other words, I politely decline the offer of your hateful vengeful God and willfully accept the everlasting peace of non-existence.

False prophets would be humans.

Besides, the idea that any conscious being would be tormented for ever and ever is an insane idea, IMHO.

There would simply be no sane reason for it.

If it doesn't SERVE GOD, then why bother with it?

And the only way it could SERVE GOD, is if the God was somehow pleased by it. Otherwise there would be no justification for it.

I can't believe that you can even support such a horrid notion as eternal suffering for any conscious entity.

I don't care how 'evil' an entity is, if it has to be destroyed for the safety of others so be it. But even I wouldn't wish eternal punishment on even an 'evil' entity.

Yet you expect me to believe that a "God" would.

Sorry, your picture of God is not inviting to me in the slightest.

It seems to me that you are the one who constantly takes everything person.

I couldn't care less what YOU SAY.

I'm addressing the fables directly.

The notion of eternal "punishment" would need to have a PURPOSE.

What would be the purpose of "punishing" someone endlessly?

Who would benefit from this?

If God is not benefiting from it by being pleased by, and the people who are being punished cannot possibly benefit from it because they will never again have a change to have "learned" from the punishment, then what would be the point to the punishment?

I guess this is where you and I differ wildly.

Apparently you see some sort of 'justification' in utterly meaningless punishment for no good reason other than to make people suffer because someone has decided that they "deserve" to suffer.

That's ridiculous. If these beings are so unwanted and unworthy of existing, what would be the point in "punishing" them endlessly. Why not just wave them out of existence with your all-powerful magic wand. After all, remember 'With God ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE".

There would need to be a sane reason for God to keep them alive in a state of eternal suffering.

But what could that reason be?

The idea that they simple "deserve it" is unacceptable to me. No conscious being deserves to be placed into a state of eternal endless torment. That's far beneath my own moral standards.

So the God of the Bible is necessarily beneath my moral standards.

There can be no question about it.

Either than or he would need to be powerless to prevent it, but that would violate the idea that he's all-powerful so we can't have that either.

The only rational explanation is that these are just utterly absurd fables. That explains everything.

Then there's no need to justify a "God" who condemns people to eternal torment, because it's just a fable, and there's no truth it whatsoever.

Problem SOLVED.

Sorry Cowboy, but your claims are totally inconsistent:

You just posted a verse from these fables that claims that false prophets will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.



And now you're trying to claim that hell is not for ever and ever.

At best your so-called "holy scriptures" are riddled with errors.

At worse, they are just outright superstitions that are riddled with extremely poorly thought out ideas.

It makes no sense to post a verse where it says that people will be tortured day and night for ever and ever, and then to turn around and claim that hell isn't eternal suffering in an attempt to justify the 'sanity' of your God.

Obviously you'll argue for whatever excuses seem to best fit the current concern in the moment.

Either the torturing is for ever and ever, or Revelations 20:10 is in ERROR.

You can't have it both ways.

This is why I reject these myths as being nothing more than superstitious fables, they aren't even consistent in their claims.

Well fine, if that's the truth, then your belief that there exists a God who punishes women with painful childbirth, sacrifices his own son in a brutal way so that he can forgive the sins of men, and tortures people for ever and ever to satisfy his lust for revenge, then so be it.

If that works for you, more power to you.

I have sound reasons for dismissing all of those horrible things, and believing that some guy named Jesus actually tried to dismiss those negative teachings and rumors as well. Unfortunately he got caught up by the negative religion and became a victim of the religion's very tendency to incite its followers to wrongfully crucify people in the name of God, which is precisely what happened to Jesus himself.

Then Jesus himself was used as an idol to condemn people in the name of religion. It totally backfired on him unfortunately.

That's truly sad.

You've got to be joking, or truly naive.

Have you ever heard of a Volcano? The fact that molten lava flows out of the Earth was well-known back in ancient times. Moreover, volcanos themselves were often the focal points of God's and/or demons for many cultures. That's a common myth and requires absolutely no "divine knowledge" to come up with such superstitions.



So this is somehow a "Good Thing"?

The devil and false prophets are going to be tormented day and night for ever and ever.



And that serves what purpose?

Does this make God happy to know that beings are being tortured day and night for ever and ever?

It certainly can't be to teach them a "lesson" since the "lesson" will supposedly never end. It can only be a concept of REVENGE.

But the desire to seek endless revenge is actually a human FAULT.

The idea that a supreme all-powerful being would need to seek revenge or in any way be pleased to know that beings are being tortured for ever and ever for having "crossed" him is not the character trait of a loving "all-merciful and forgiving God", but instead it's the extremely immature character trait of a foolish human being.

The things that you offer up to 'support' these myths are precisely the same reasons I reject them as being nothing more than myths.

Any God who gets his rocks off by torturing people for ever and ever is one sick puppy, IMHO.

Like I say, I would feel much better about a purely atheistic world with no god at all then I would feel about a God who is so sick that he seeks eternal revenge via physically torturing people for ever and ever.



That's not the character traits of a "God". That's just the sign of a truly absurd fable. It's a very sound reason to reject these writings as being utterly absurd.

We have tried countless times to agree to disagree with Cowboy.

We have told him that we are confident that God loves him and appreciates his beliefs, etc.

All we have ever asked from Cowboy is to respect that our reasons for not believing in the religion.

I'm sure he doesn't realize it, but the harder he tries to push the religion onto us the more we will explain to him why we don't buy into it.

So his pushing of the religion is what gives us the opportunity to explain why we don't believe it in great depth.

He's actually doing us quite the favor by presenting us with a constant flood of absurdities to object to.

The more he tries to "justify" the religion with excuses for it, the more opportunity we have for explaining why we aren't buying into those excuses.

His continued harping that other people "need" to believe this religion lest God will be mean to them also helps our case, even though I'm quite sure he's not the slightest bit aware of that.

~~~~~

Like jrbogie, I agree that religions *can* be, and often are, quite detrimental to humanity on many levels. This is particularly true of the fragmented Abrahamic religions that are based on the idea of a jealous God who will condemn people to eternal damnation if they fail to believe in a particular fragment of that fractured folklore.

We see the Christians, Jews, and Muslims butting heads in the real world all the time. So religion becomes a serious "political issue" truly. It negatively affects everyone, even those who don't care to believe in it.

~~~~~

Just for the record, I personally believe that there do exist spiritual philosophies that are not harmful to humanity, and can even be quite positive. But those spiritual philosophies do not create jealous Godheads that demand that a person follow a particular doctrine lest God will be peeved with them.

So I'm not personally out to abolish spirituality altogether. In fact, if people want to believe in Jesus that's ok with me too. But when they run around like Cowboy trying to beat people over the head with Jesus, then their religion becomes truly ugly and detrimental again.

So Cowboy isn't helping the religion of his choice at all. All he's really doing is demonstrating how big of a pain in the butt it can truly be for those who aren't interested in buying into it.

Jesus never told anyone to go out and "ARGUE WITH ANYONE TO THE DEATH"

That's ridiculous.

In fact, the scriptures have Jesus himself saying that if a man hears his words and doesn't believe he will not judge them.

And he was speaking to people LIVE.

So if Jesus isn't going to judge against those who didn't even believe in him in person face-to-face, he most certainly wouldn't be judging people for not believing in 2000-year-old hearsay rumors about him.

The whole idea of holding Jesus up as a battering ram, or threat, toward non-believers of the religion is utterly ludicrous.

The scriptures themselves don't even support that kind of nonsense.

That's just religious EXTREMISM that can't even be supported by the original writings anyway.

But that's apparently Cowboy's agenda. He's trying to convince people that Jesus will condemn everyone who refuses to believe that Jesus was "The Christ".