God did not create religion. Religion is just how people with similar faith and beliefs choose to CONGREGATE with one another.

You're right about this, God didn't create religion, man did. The main purpose for it was and is to divide and control the people, which I'd say it's doing very well.

I dont think its purpose is to divide or control, just to provide a congregation of like minds,,,

That's sort of the same idea, it's a way to control the minds of the masses, and divide them against each other. All the while those in power stay in power thanks in part to such distractions.

people are free to their own choices and beliefs, and with six billion plus on the earth, they are bound to divide THEMSELF according to similar culture, region, ancestry, faith, or about one hundred other categories,,,

Firstly people are free to choose yes, but society tends to influence said choices particularly in this way. There is much pressure to conform to certain beliefs, and if one decides not to, they get beaten down for it. You can see some of that here in how non believers are viewed and how their thoughts are seen by some.

Second in terms of dividing, some may on their own go in different ways, but I'd contend those in control push the differences make them bigger and create tension where it needn't be through the whole this way is the only way business.

I dont happen to witness adults being pressured into any particular belief. In fact, I see the opposite, where having ANY beliefs or opinions or judgments that dont paint everyone as lovely intellectuals is considered unacceptable or 'bigoted' or 'hateful' or any number of adjectives which paint basic judgement with a negative stroke

What about kids? Are they not pressured into certain belief systems by their families?

And surely you can't tell me Christians don't apply some pressure in getting others to believe as they do, by saying their God beats this others God, which is pure arrogance.

That's because at times IT IS, especially within the works of Christianity, to say that God will burn you forever if you don't do this or do that, is very much hateful.

of course, pressure is a part of life, but it changes as we get older and I think by the time we are adults we have all the freedom in the world to make our own experiences and draw our own conclusions/form our oen beliefs

One says god will punish you.
another religions say THEY will punish you.

I say if it preaches hate or intolerance it is but a twisting of god and not actally OF god.

Someone can NOT be "pressured" into believing. Faith only comes from one person, the person giving it. This is NOT something that can be "pressured" upon someone else. Yes the Christian faith does say if one doesn't accept Jesus as lord and savior accepting the sacrificial gift given to us, they then would die from sin. But this can't in any way "force someone, push someone, or pressure someone" into believing. For they would have no fear in the death in the first place because they see it all as nonsense. And there is no hatred in Christianity. I nor any one other person can tell you who is going to heaven or not. Heck we don't even know for sure if we ourselves are going, for we have not been judged yet. So I nor anyone else could tell someone "if they don't stop this or that, they are going to miss out on heaven, if you accept Jesus as lord and savior you will go to heaven. For we do not know who will or won't. I don't know where you guys get off with Christianity being hateful. It all boils down to how YOU take it. I can tell you that your sweater is the ugliest piece of clothing ever. You can either choose to get mad at me, or you can choose to see that I was just trying to help you out and inform you of your unsatisfying choice of clothing to try to help you from appearing as a fool. It all boils down to how you look at it. You will not see the beauty in our father less you choose to see it. Just as in my previous examples.

Oh but there is hatred and discrimination taught in Christianity.

Hatred and discrimination of gays is one. Hatred and discrimination against other religions is another.

Perpetuation of religion is usually done by putting the fear of god into the children at a young enough age that they will never question it out of fear.

Christian love is conditional as is their god's love. No real love is conditional.

Then why do Christians continually try to pressure people into believing it and insist on continually insulting them when they explain why they don't believe it?



But we have already shown that this very concept is unreasonable. To not believe in something doesn't not constitute a refusal to accept whatever tenets it might claim to hold out.

So that's a false accusation being made by the fables right there!




Sure it can! It's a brainwashing scheme that preys on people "Pressuring" them that if refusal to believe will result in condemnation. Not only will God not like you, but nobody will like you! And you will be condemned to eternal damnation where there will be wailing and the gnashing of teeth and unquenchable fire! And the "worm" will not die!

And who do you think they are suggesting that the "worm" is, in this scenario?

The non-believer who has rejected God of course!



Baloney. First off, every non-believer of the Hebrew fables is not an atheist. Therefore to suggest that they are not concerned about a potential afterlife is hogwash. Moreover, you are speaking as though the Hebrew fables alone have a patent on this idea. Which is also false.



Bull crap, you just finished claiming that non-belief equals refusal to accept Jesus as Lord and savior, and that such an action results in spiritual death.

So you have indeed condemned non-believers to death by the very dogma that you support as the "Word of God".



You're attempting to do that very thing right now by arguing cases for precisely these results.

Moreover, you don't even merely offer them up as simply "What the Bible claims". Most everyone would agree that this indeed what the biblical stories claim. You're not telling us anything we don't already know.

But what you are trying to do is demand that it's true!.

So you are indeed trying to tell people what they must belief!

In fact, you do these even more below, you aren't finished yet!




So now you are telling us that we will appear as fools if we don't believe you?

Because you somehow have it right and we are a bunch of completely blind idiots who refuse to accept God?

Talk about the epitome of arrogance and insults.

And who's getting mad at you?

All we're doing is pointing out how utterly arrogant you are to think that you know God and that we somehow don't.

That is indeed one of the extremely disgusting things that this religion produces. It leaves you with no choice but to believe that we must indeed be totally blind ignorant fools. Just as you have just now suggested. We can't even see that our own clothes are "ugly" to put it in your words.

And that's not judgmental of you?



That's total baloney. These stories have serious problems and are not "beautiful" by any stretch of the imagination.

What is "beautiful" about a story where all of humanity is at odds with their creator. The vast majority of them are doomed to spiritual death where there will be wailing and the gnashing of teeth and unquenchable fire.

And the few people who survive this nightmare only do so because this God appeased himself by having his own son butchered on a pole to PAY for their sins!

They must condone that God's innocent son was butchered to pay for their unworthiness, and accept him as their lord and savior in order to obtain "GRACE" that can never be earned on it's own merit, to be permitted to serve the will of this God in some sort of eternal life.

I'm sorry Cowboy, but there is nothing beautiful about that story in the least. It's an extremely pathetic and sad story. Even for the few people who might be given "Grace" it would still be a nightmare. When they do go to haven they will forever need to live under that knowledge that they don't even deserve to be there an they were only allowed in via grace that was obtained by them condoning having God's innocent son butchered in their stead.

You call that a "beautiful story"?

I see nothing beautiful about such a story. If the story is indeed true then life is indeed a nightmare. And going to heaven would be an equal nightmare. A place we supposedly don't even deserve to be and cannot even possibly earn on our own merit?

I've told you many times before, and I'll say it again. Pure atheism is a far prettier picture.

I'd rather discover that there is no God or afterlife at all, than to find out that the Hebrew fables are actually true.

Absolutely. As far as I'm concerned, if the biblical fables are true, then God, and humankind are both pathetic.

Fortunately they can't be true. Because disbelief does not equate to refusal to obey.

It's that simple. The whole fable is built on a falsehood.

Disbelieve does not constitute refusal to obey.

It's that simple.

In order to believe that, we'd need to believe that God isn't even intelligent enough to know the difference between disbelief and disobedience!

I'm supposed to believe that God is that stupid?

How could the creator of all life be that stupid?

It's clearly just a truly devious man-made brainwashing scheme to try to convince people that if they refuse to believe it they are rejecting the God.

They steal the person's right to choose by demanding that if a person doesn't believe in the religion they are choosing to reject God.

Which can only be total bull crap.

I think people confuse LOVE with acceptance, I can love someone without having to be ACCEPTING of how they treat others or themself or me

A great example is abused wives who manage to get away and live productive happy lives but they still will always LOVE that ex husband

I still LOVE my ex although I know that he was not (as a husband)what was healthy for me and my kids or our spirits

I am teaching my daughter now that I love her EVEN when she is doing bad things, but that doesnt mean I am going to ignore those bad things or that she will not have consequences for choosing them

Love comes from wanting whats best for others not from accepting whats worst for them just for the sake of claiming to love

so love is not conditional, but what we do to and for each other or ourselves comes from what we learn is healthy or unhealthy


Not all christians are taught identically, Im sure, but I was taught to hate sin and not the sinner, so I can LOVE people without condition(meaning I can want them to be closer to God) but that doesnt mean I need to be blind or dishonest about things that are not in their best interest physically, emotionally, or spiritually

If one doesn't believe in it and accepts Jesus Christ as lord and savior they then would carry their sin(s) with them. Sin is not allowed in the paradise for sin comes from disobedience to our father. That is why accept Jesus as lord and savior and accepting his sacrifice is the first step. It washes you clean of your sin(s) making you pure once again.



No this can not be done. For if one doesn't believe in heaven/hell/our father/Jesus/ect then there would be absolutely no fear, no pressure to believe because they don't believe in all this in the first place. So they would have no fear of perishing in the first place, because they would think this is all as legitimate as the tooth fairy. So no, try again.



No, if you would keep it in context and not just to argue for the sake of arguing we were specifically talking about the Christian beliefs. They wouldn't be "scared" into believing for they would have no fear of the second death.... IN THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. So no again failure, one can not be "scared, pressured or anything" into believing in the Christian faith.



I have condemned no one. Their lives are not over yet, they still have time to come to the lord if they wish.



I do state it's the truth yes. But no I'm not telling anyone what they must believe. If one wish to believe the sun rises in the east and set's in the west so be it, if one wishes to believe apples are pink then so be it, if one wishes to not believe in the father, then so be it. I'm out of love trying to spread the word of God to enlighten people informing them of the good news. I'm not in this for a reward or anything for myself, this is all for the readers of this forum.



What is beautiful about this is that our father even though we are at odds with him has offered us a way into the paradise. Out of love and forgiveness for the human race in general he has given us a way to return. God didn't have his own son butchered on a pole, that would be you and I that did that. Jesus did that himself, he followed through with giving us the good news even knowing that this would happen. That is where the beautiful thing is. Jesus offered his life up for you to rejoice in the paradise.

I think you're misunderstanding a couple of things here:

First Dragoness said: "Oh but there is hatred and discrimination taught in Christianity."

She didn't say that Christians are hateful people.

You say, "Not all christians are taught identically, Im sure, but I was taught to hate sin and not the sinner"

That is being taught to be hateful toward other people. It doesn't matter that you've been taught to make a distinction between sin and the sinner, what you are basically doing is accusing people of knowingly and willfully commuting sins. From a non-believer's point of view you are basically accusing them of lying and telling them that you have absolutely no respect for their honesty.

For example, if a non-believer tells you that they don't believe in the Hebrew religious writings, for you to act like they are choosing to refuse to obey God is doing two thing.

First, you're basically calling them a liar and suggesting that they could believe in the religion if they wanted to. Which is truly absurd, because many based belief on whether or not something seem rational and from there point of view the Christian religion is not rational. Plus they already give you tons of rational reasons why they have rejected the religion as being false.

So when you act like they are merely "choosing" to disbelieve out of some sort of ignorant childish rebellion or some such nonsense, you are insulting them and basically calling them a liar.

The second facet to that is that you are insinuating that they have willfully "chosen" to do this "bad" thing. In fact, in your post you talk about an abusive man and that you "love" him anyway in spite of his bad behavior. Or when your daughter does bad things you "love" her anyway in spite of her "bad" behavior.

So the whole way through your post you basically accusing non-believers of "bad" behavior.

You may claim to 'love' them, but your religion has you judging them to be morally bad people (i.e. having chosen to make a "bad" decision to be a "bad" person and refuse to obey God!)

In other words, you don't even give them the respect that you expect them to give you!

You don't respect their belief that the Hebrew religion is nothing more than false man-made superstitious mythology, yet you expect them to respect your belief that it is!

They are the "BAD" person who is doing something "BAD" but you love them anyway. In the meantime, clearly you are the "GOOD" person who has indeed freely chosen to worship and serve "God".

So you're basically judging non-believers to be "bad" people (or at least people who are freely "choosing" to be "bad". And you flatly refuse to give their "belief" that the Hebrew folklore is nothing but man-made bull crap any "respect" at all.

This cartoon truly fits this situation:



You're basically giving the non-believer absolutely no respect for their their beliefs, whilst demanding that the only way they can ever be considered to be a "Good Person" is if they change their mind and start worshiping "your beliefs". Literally!

That's the mindset that Christianity teaches its followers to take on.

And you clearly have that mindset, because you're trying to equate non-believers with people who are doing "BAD THINGS".

And you're acting like they refusal to believe deserves no respect yet your choice to believe should be treated with the utmost respect!

Of course, non-believers fully understand why you believe the way you do. Because the religion teaches you to think that way. It convinces you that the Bible is the "Word of God" and that anyone who rejects the "bible" must therefore be rejecting God!

Well, sure, once you have been convinced that the Bible is indeed the "Word of God" it's easy to fall right into that trap. After all, if the Bible truly is the word of God then to reject it would be to reject God.

But non-believers give a myriad of arguments why no sane reasonable God would have ever set up such an insane situation!

So they reject the religion partly on these grounds. That it's an insane claim to begin with. And of course, to back that up they try to show why so many things in the bible are indeed insane and totally unbelievable.

And what do they get in return for their "Defense" of their own beliefs?

The Christians basically accusing them of lairs and claiming that they really "could" believe in it if they simply "wanted" to!

That is utterly absurd.

The other thing that the Christians do that is truly "Hateful" is when other people try to explain to them why they don't believe in the biblical stories, the Christian accuses them of "bashing" their religion and not respecting their beliefs!

Like DUH?

Why should anyone respect the beliefs of people who go around insulting everyone else's beliefs.

To believe that the Bible is the work of men and was designed to support a religious fable with the intent of keeping the masses under the thumb of the religious leaders of the time, is itself a very valid belief and should be respected as such.

In other words, if Christians could simply respect non-believers for not believing in their religion there wouldn't be a problem.

But as long as believers are continually going around accusing non-believers of being "bad" people who have made "bad" choices, that just gets disgusting real quick.

It basically gives the Christian a FREE PASS to insult and disregard the beliefs of others (i.e. the belief that the Bible is nothing more than a brainwashing scheme made up by men), and basically judge them to have made "inferior decisions" that need to be "corrected".

That is insulting to those who do not believe in the Bible, and it's also hateful, because it's basically accusing them of lying and willfully choosing to reject "God".

In fact, it goes to such horrible extremes that Christian even apply this same hate-strategy to other religions and spiritual beliefs. They accuse those people of "rejecting God" too and claim that they are worshiping "false idol images".

In other words, they are doing precisely what the ancient Hebrews taught people to do. Put down all other religions and beliefs, in favor of OURS!

Only we have the Patent Rights on God!

Everyone who disagrees with us is rejecting God!

From my point of view this is the most hateful brainwashing scheme ever devised by mankind, because it has created a situation where anyone who doesn't suck up to it is automatically condemned to having made THEIR OWN FREE WILL CHOICE to reject God and burn in hell! And they have no one to blame for their CHOICE but themselves!

That is such baloney!

Either suck up to our brainwashing scheme or be labeled an idiot heathen who has freely chosen to be the enemy of God!

That very notion doesn't wash, it's a logical contradiction too that I'm not even going to bother to go into here.

Besides, all you're doing here is describing what the fables claim.

Everyone already knows what the fables claim. So it's a moot point.





Sure this is done all the time. Everyone doesn't already have firm beliefs. That's where your argument fails. These religious myths are aimed an pressuring undecided people and people who are unsure of themselves into cowering down to this religion out of either fear of God's wrath or out of lust for a supposed assurance of a gift of an eternal life.

So yes, it absolutely pressures people to believing in it. Moreover, if you refuse to believe you are instantly accused of making a "bad choice" and willfully choosing to "reject God" and refuse to be "saved".

Moreover, Christians accuse all people of this no matter what their beliefs might be!

This religion teaches you to have absolutely no respect for anyone else's beliefs, but acts like you should demand respect for yous because you are a "servant of God".

It's the most despicable brainwashing scheme ever devised by mankind.



This is total baloney on your part!

If you sincerely believed your own view here you'd never LEAVE the Christian Forums!

You are out to pressure and convince non-believers into swallowing the Christian faith. In fact, you have been constantly arguing with me, evidently just for the sake of argument, because I've already given you countless valid sane reasons why I don't believe in these outrageously unbelievable myths.

Yet, you continually accuse me, or underhandedly insinuate, that that I am somehow "refusing to Obey Our Father".




Sure you have. And you just did it again right now. You condemn everyone who doesn't accept Jesus as "The Christ". And now you underhandly insinuating that they "Still have time if they wish".

In all honestly Cowboy your blatant refusal to respect other people's beliefs is phenomenal. A belief that the bible is nothing more than a dastardly brainwashing scheme created by men to control the masses using superstitions, fear of damnation, and/or luring people in with a promise of an eternal paradise, is itself a belief.

You constantly accuse people who hold that belief, of basically being liars.

You're trying to claim that they have a CHOICE to believe otherwise which is absurd!

They base their beliefs on what they deem to be reasonable and they have shown why they have a myriad of reasons why they feel that the biblical stories are totally unreasonable.

And therefore they don't just random "chose" to believe in things because it's what they'd LIKE to believe in, but rather they evaluate whether or not it is reasonable to believe in something, and their evaluation of the Hebrew fables tells them that these fables are unreasonable.

Yet you show absolute blatant disrespect for their beliefs!

And then you often scream 'foul' when they try to explain to you when they don't believe and you try to accuse them of 'bashing' your beliefs.

If you would STAY over in the Christian forums instead of trying to constantly convert non-believers, then you wouldn't need to hear why non-believers don't buy into these absurd stories!



You've just insulted non-believers here by underhandedly insinuating that non-believers are wishing to not believe in "the father".

But that's not what non-believers are saying. What non-believers are saying is that they don't believe that the Hebrew fables have anything to do with any "heavenly father".

That, my friend is a HUGE DIFFERENCE!

You are trying to FORCE that same issues again. The idea that to reject the Hebrew fables is the same thing as rejecting God.

I've told you a billion times, I DO NOT REJECT ANY GOD!

What I reject are the claims of mortal men who they speak for God!



No Cowboy, I did not have Jesus butchered on a pole, and neither do I condone any such act.

If God can't accept me for who I am without having someone nailed to a pole to pay for my sins that's HIS DECISION not mine!

I don't require that anyone needs to be nailed to any poles for my sake.

In fact, if I can't earn my right to eternal life on my own merit than I'm not interested!

It's YOUR RELIGION that claims that God requires this brutal act on my behalf, NOT ME!

And personally I don't believe that any genuinely divine all-wise, all-intelligent God would ever dream up such an obnoxious way of "saving" people.

In fact, this whole obsession and fixation with sin and bloody sacrifices being required to pay for sins is in fact, one of the greatest reasons that I totally dismiss these fables as being utterly absurd and unworthy of serious consideration.

I don't believe that any all-wise divine loving God would have ever become involved in such a sick and demented way for souls to be "saved".

As a mere mortal man I can imagine far better ways to deal with these kinds of problems and situation. Far more positive and constructive.

Why should I believe that as a mere mortal man I can think up far more positive and constructive solutions to problems than an all-wise all-powerful God?

That's as absurd as anything can possible get.

When you ask me to believe in these Hebrew fables, you're basically asking me to believe that God isn't even nearly as wise and as intelligent as myself.

He can only solve problems using truly gross ignorant means that I personally consider to be on the level of the mentality of a common barroom drunkard.

And you expect me to believe that our "Almighty Creator" can't do any better than that?

My only argument to you is quite simple.

It's is extremely reasonable and sane to totally reject the entire biblical fables as being utterly absurd and ungodly.

Therefore any accusation by you or anyone else that I am "Choosing to reject our father" simply because I don't believe in utterly insane and ignorant fables, is nonsense and totally unsupportable.

It's a perfectly legitimate stance to believe that those fables are the totally unwise creation of mortal men.

I see no reason under the sun to believe that any truly all-wise supreme being would be associated with those fables.

I'm not saying that atheism has to be true. All I'm saying is that if there is a spiritual essence to life, the Hebrew fables cannot be a correct description of it. They are far too crude, rude, and utterly outrageously insane, IMHO.

This quote pretty much roughs up your entire post, so my response to this will be pretty much for your entire post.

Hell has almost nothing to do with Christianity, nor does "perishing". Christianity is all about enjoying life, sharing love with one another, and uplifting our father. It's not done out of fear of death, fear of the unknown, fear of anything, there is absolutely NO fear in Christianity. If one only believes in Christianity out of fear, their beliefs would then be in vein and not truly sought after. We aren't obedient out of fear, out of anything of such. We do what we do in our lives out of love for one another. Again Christianity isn't about death, fear, lusting after something, or anything. It is about LOVE abra. Love for our father, and love for one another. I've never said this to you, but Abra I do love you. That is why I continuously stay in this forum even when it seems pointless. I stay here in hopes to show you and others the road to eternal life through Jesus Christ. Would not want anything less for you or anyone else in this world.

Not being insulting but thought I'd say this and hopefully it'll help you. Yes the bible is crude, it's got it's rough edges and isn't all painted up to be beautiful. Life isn't beautiful, there is killing, rape, and all sorts of crude things that happen everyday. Sorry God didn't give you a Cinderella story. The bible holds history of what once happened and what is to still happen. So with how the world truly is, rude and crude, then would not something that tells of the past and the future be as well? Of course it would, because that is how it is to this day.

I believe you. And I am truly saddened by it.

This immediately brings to mind Steven Weinberg's famous quote, "Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things, but it takes religion to get good people to do bad things."

You say that Christianity is all about love and uplifting the father. But you seem to fail to recognize that this isn't the entire truth at all. Christianity is truly about a firm belief that the Bible is the "Word of God", and that Jesus died to pay for our sins, etc.

One of the things that you expect people to do in order to "uplift" the father is to worship the Bible as the "Word of God".

And that is truly the point of contention here. Nothing beyond that.

The only way to appease you would be to accept the dogma that you worship without question and worship it as the "Word of God".

That is truly the fundamental basis of Christianity. Nothing short of that is acceptable. And we've been through the whole thing of how even different Christians disagree on how to interpret these scriptures. Clearly you don't agree with the views of the Catholics, and they don't agree with your views, etc.

So who is "uplifting" the father? Those who demand that hell is real? Or those who dismiss hell as being unreasonable?

And if we're allow to chose from these scriptures what we would like to believe and how we would like to interpret things, then where's the line?

I've offered to you interpretations of words directly from the Gospels and attributed to Jesus himself that suggest that Jesus does not judge those who do not believe in him. I've also offered to you interpretations of words directly from the Gospels and attributed to Jesus himself that suggest that there are people who are righteous and have no need of repentance.

Yet you blatantly refuse to allow for my interpretations of these scriptures! If you are truly concerned with allowing people to have a relationship with God "the father" as you call him, then why do you interfere with there interpretations of "God's Word".

If you truly believe that the Bible is "God's Word" then you should accept that however anyone interprets it must be the way that God meant for them to interpret it.

But you refuse to even respect that. You refuse to allow me to interact with "the father" in my own way. How is that uplifting the father? You're refusing to allow the father himself to communicate with me in his own way.

Maybe I don't need to have Jesus pay for my salvation. Did you even think about that?

You say, "I stay here in hopes to show you and others the road to eternal life through Jesus Christ."

How arrogant is that Cowboy?

I mean, seriously. Stop and think about this for a moment.

You're suggesting that Jesus himself has FAILED to communicate with me and others, and that now somehow this responsibility has fallen upon your shoulders to correct for God's inability to communicate directly with his very own children.

How utterly arrogant is that? I don't mean that in a derogatory way. Arrogance simply means "Self-importance". Somehow you seem to feel that you are an important component for God's communication with me, and for helping me to find my "salvation".

That very notion right there suggests that you somehow believe that you are closer to God than I am. And moreover, it also implies that I am somehow making a willful choice to refuse to 'comply' to God's will.

That refute my position that I have genuine and sincere reasons for disbelieving that the Hebrew fables came from any God.

~~~~~

Secondly, just for the sake of completeness, let's pretend that the Bible truly is the "Word of God".

You say, "I stay here in hopes to show you and others the road to eternal life through Jesus Christ."

I've read the Bible myself. What makes you feel that you have a better handle on it than me?

I've shown you direct versus from the Gospels that lead me to believe that Jesus himself does not require that anyone believe in him. I've shown where he has supposedly said this in his very own words. I've also shown where Jesus also supposedly said that he did not come for the righteous and in other places he vividly implied that the vast majority of people in heaven were never in need of any repentance.

Have you ever thought that if the bible truly is the "Word of God" perhaps different people get a different message from it?

Perhaps God is telling me that I'm one of those people who are not in need of repentance, and it's not important that I believe in Jesus.

Who are you to claim otherwise?

And sure you can run off and shove Paul's words in my face claiming that all have fallen short of the glory of God, etc.

But why bother?

I thought you were supposed to "uplift our father", not be arguing with other people about their interpretations of HIS WORD!

I have deeply serious problems with people who claim to be "uplifting God" when all they do is argue for the most negative possible interpretations of scriptures they can find.

If you're going to have faith in God and faith that the bible is the "Word of God" then you need to have faith that God can indeed communicate with all of his children quite well on his own without your help!

When you start stepping in claiming that only your interpretations are the "Word of God" then you've quickly moved from "uplifting the spirit of God" into the realm of trying to "Become God" yourself!

Clearly everyone has their own interpretations of these stories. You disagree with the Catholics on their position of Hell. So who's uplifting the word of God? Those who accept hell as Jesus described it, or those who refute the very notion?

Why do you get to pick and choose what things should mean and how they should be interpreted?

Why do you get to chose who Jesus shall pick?

You say, "I stay here in hopes to show you and others the road to eternal life through Jesus Christ."

Don't you TRUST Jesus to take care of his own business?