Is Jesus's "this generation will certainly not pass" valid grounds for scepticism?

To re-address the OP.
Poem asks why people don't just run from Christianity because of the supposed words of Jesus that wrongly portray his return.

We've devolved into "why don't they run because of all the atrocities of the OT?".

Well, they just don't, because that is not how cult followers behave. They believe there must be a good reason why their God does bad things, and no amount of reason and logic will make them think otherwise.
They praise the horrible creature that is their God and thank it when their child didn't manage to catch the bus that crashed and burned with 50 other kids on board.
 
steenkh said:
Yes, he kills off family and slaves just for a wager. Even when I was a child, I couldn’t really understand the moral here. It was part of my Children’s Bible, and it was presented as if everything was made right in the end, but only Job himself was compensated, not all the suffering and deaths of any other people. My teacher nun thought they were compensated in heaven:rolleyes:
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Exactly. I thought the same thing. It's as if the only things that matters were Job and God's bet. The Bible is filled with stories where anyone, but the main characters are fodder. Your teacher is typical. They just breeze past the awfulness as if it doesn't matter. They cherry pick their way through the Bible.
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Manopolus said:
Okay, if I must. So the basic mantra goes that Jesus died for our sins... basically set up as a divine human sacrifice. Okay, so why was that necessary? Is God making the rules, or is He following some unknown set of rules? Why is it necessary?

I don't think I need to explain why murdering people or tricking others into murdering people is bad. Being crucified is bad... that pretty naturally seems to suggest that knowingly causing someone to be crucified is bad.

Well, it's suggested that it was somehow necessary... which doesn't match up with the supposed power of this supposed God who created everything to begin with. That means that we're dealing with an evil God if he demanded an evil act without an appropriate justification that was clearly out of his hands.

And yes, it very much is right in line with the standard human sacrifice model -- to sacrifice other humans to the Gods to appease them so they don't do bad things to us. Jews practiced animal sacrifice in those days, so it's not particularly surprising. That's not anywhere close to an ethical system in my view of things. It's certainly not something anyone would consider today... any group practicing it today would likely be systematically wiped out with no one feeling sorry about it. A typical Christian zealot in today's world would consider it Satanic.

And yet...

That's what your core story is actually about. It very clearly points to a story which is fundamentally an act of human sacrifice committed by God himself on his own son in order to make a contract. Sure, it's sort of backwards, but it clearly points to human sacrifice.

...and on top of that we've got the ritual cannibalism of communion. Sure, it's not actually flesh and blood (unless you're a Catholic who believes it's magically transformed), but it still unquestionably pays homage to cannibalism.

Sorry, but I don't think crucifying people or eating them are things I want to celebrate in a religion. Those things are unequivocally bad. It's admittedly somewhat harmless in the way it's practiced, but that doesn't change the underlying ideas. Yes, early humans got into some rather messed up things (including slavery... and I haven't even got into that part). But we don't condone those sorts of things now (at least... most don't).
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You pretty much nail this on the head on this. Well said.

The story doesn't make sense. The answer I got when I pointed this out in Sunday School was that God hates sin and the penalty was death. That this was the only way God could forbid man. If God is all powerful and created the universe don't tell me he is this unbelievably stupid
 
Sinning is basically flipping off God. Why would God want to spend eternity with a bunch of little ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ flipping him off? If you were all powerful, would you be playing that ◊◊◊◊?

So in the eyeblink we have on earth, we have a choice: be a dick, or be cool. The cool get the endless summer, the dicks get the shaft (by their own insistence). If you can't 'not be a dick' for an eyeblink, you'd be a total pain in the ass in eternity. QED.
 
Thermal said:
Sinning is basically flipping off God. Why would God want to spend eternity with a bunch of little ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ flipping him off? If you were all powerful, would you be playing that ◊◊◊◊?

So in the eyeblink we have on earth, we have a choice: be a dick, or be cool. The cool get the endless summer, the dicks get the shaft (by their own insistence). If you can't 'not be a dick' for an eyeblink, you'd be a total pain in the ass in eternity. QED.
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Flipping off a God that kills, tortures and treats human beings as crap just because he can.
Good thing this is just someone's sick imagination.
 
Cosmic Yak said:
Which is the opposite of what you were saying before.
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Which bit? I don't think I'm contradicting myself.
acbytesla said:
It's a dumb story giving another example of just how awful the God character in the Bible is. Almost as bad as where God sacrifices Job's family in testing Job.
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Yeah now there's a problematic book.
 
Thermal said:
Sinning is basically flipping off God. Why would God want to spend eternity with a bunch of little ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ flipping him off? If you were all powerful, would you be playing that ◊◊◊◊?

So in the eyeblink we have on earth, we have a choice: be a dick, or be cool. The cool get the endless summer, the dicks get the shaft (by their own insistence). If you can't 'not be a dick' for an eyeblink, you'd be a total pain in the ass in eternity. QED.
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The real question is why is a soul created by God and shaped by an environment into which it was placed by the same God being a dick.

Does God just throw randomly generated souls at the heavenly wall to see what sticks?
 
arthwollipot said:
Basically the idea is that we have to use our free will to choose to come to God, or it doesn't count, or something.
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But even in the supernatural sense, there is nothing outside the system. The characteristics of the soul can either be random, or they can be selected by God, and then that soul will be shaped by the environment, either randomly or predictably. None of that process truly allows for free will. The soul has no control over what it is, nor has it control over the environment influencing it (and that'd be a feedback loop anyway).

A soul can choose to come to God, but it cannot choose to be the sort of soul that chooses to come to God.
 
Another very problematic story involves God punishing Adam and Eve for eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Even though God tells them not to eat from it, they would have no concept of what is good and what is bad. This is the equivalent of punishing a baby.
 
acbytesla said:
Another very problematic story involves God punishing Adam and Eve for eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Even though God tells them not to eat from it, they would have no concept of what is good and what is bad. This is the equivalent of punishing a baby.
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And yet, the fundamental basis of all Christianity.
 
Cosmic Yak said:
Spare me your faux indignation. I find your denials utterly implausible- and I have every right to do so.
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You know it's a shame I'm not a Christian - we could have a very interesting conversation. ....

Come on CY, in the interest of productive communication - just accept that you are wrong on this.
 
Cosmic Yak said:
The bit where you said, several times, that the OT does not apply to Christians.
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Okay, well I haven't been sufficiently clear about that then.

I didn't say that the OT "does not apply" to Christians. Not only have I not said that, I distinctly remember pointing out one part (the censure of homosexuality) that Christians do still follow. If you've got the impression from what I said that Christians do not and need not pay any attention at all to what is said in the OT then I have not explained it very well.

Old testament law (specifically - there is more to the OT than the law) was fulfilled. Christians are not bound by the OT covenant, but by the new covenant brought by Jesus. Part of the old covenant, for example, was circumcision (Genesis 17:9-11), and while many Christians do still practice that, it is not a requirement as it is in Judaism.

Proverbs are not law. Proverbs are not a part of the covenant between God and humanity. There are good proverbs (5:18-20) and there are horrible proverbs (23:13-14). But they are not law.

And trust me, from someone who was in a church with a strong belief in the Eschaton, the Prophecies in the back end of the Old Testament are very much paid attention to.

No, the Old Testament does very much "apply" to Christians. They are just not bound by the covenant outlined therein.
 
Olmstead said:
But even in the supernatural sense, there is nothing outside the system. The characteristics of the soul can either be random, or they can be selected by God, and then that soul will be shaped by the environment, either randomly or predictably. None of that process truly allows for free will. The soul has no control over what it is, nor has it control over the environment influencing it (and that'd be a feedback loop anyway).

A soul can choose to come to God, but it cannot choose to be the sort of soul that chooses to come to God.
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This isn't a problem just for theists though is it? Richard Dawkins has reluctantly admitted that there is no free will within his methodological materialist would view. The implications are seismic if true.
 
arthwollipot said:
Okay, well I haven't been sufficiently clear about that then.

I didn't say that the OT "does not apply" to Christians. Not only have I not said that, I distinctly remember pointing out one part (the censure of homosexuality) that Christians do still follow. If you've got the impression from what I said that Christians do not and need not pay any attention at all to what is said in the OT then I have not explained it very well.

Old testament law (specifically - there is more to the OT than the law) was fulfilled. Christians are not bound by the OT covenant, but by the new covenant brought by Jesus. Part of the old covenant, for example, was circumcision (Genesis 17:9-11), and while many Christians do still practice that, it is not a requirement as it is in Judaism.

Proverbs are not law. Proverbs are not a part of the covenant between God and humanity. There are good proverbs (5:18-20) and there are horrible proverbs (23:13-14). But they are not law.

And trust me, from someone who was in a church with a strong belief in the Eschaton, the Prophecies in the back end of the Old Testament are very much paid attention to.

No, the Old Testament does very much "apply" to Christians. They are just not bound by the covenant outlined therein.
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I'm not following this at all.

Aren't you going to respond to #493.
 
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acbytesla said:
Yes. A house built on sand.
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We can sum up that:

God got cross with Adam and Eve because they did something that God knew they would do, and that God didn’t try prevent, and in fact, God got so cross that for thousands of years He punished all the innocent descendants of Adam and Eve. Then He decided to stop being cross, but the only way He could do that was to split off a part of Himself and impregnate a virgin, who fortunately had a very understanding boyfriend who married her anyway, and the Søn then had to be murdered in a gruesome way in order to make God forgive all of humanity. But the Son who was supposed to be called Immanuel, but got called Jesus, was not really dead, but ended up in Heaven where a small fragment of humanity also end up when they die, whereas most of humanity will be tortured for ever and ever in Hell.
By the way this God is the wisest and most kind god imaginable.

I can’t understand why Christians accept this story as True, but clearly would have laughed at it if they heard somebody else believed in something similar.

This thread is about minor contradictions in the belief of Christians, and how they cope with it, but in reality the entire story is so full of holes that it bugs my mind that anybody could ever believe any of it.
 
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