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It's so frustrating...

Yeah, kids are supposed to be pure and innocent until they reach an arbitrarily designated age. For some reason, the sin of Adam was passed down to everybody, and then, for some reason, the sin just flares up.
 
JonathanClement said:
I don't want to be a Christian, but I don't want to go to hell either.

It just makes me wonder why Yahweh, if he exists, would be so cruel as to put us in such a situation...

Could someone help?
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Since Hell does not exist you are at zero risk of going there. Since Yahweh does not exist She did not make you suffer this dilemma.

Sometimes we do adopt certain practices and/or beliefs because they give us comfort. Nobody wants to feel stressed or worried.

Another reason people sometimes adopt behaviors and/or beliefs is because the logic underpinning them appeals to their desire to live in touch with reality.

Johnathan, as I read your post I could feel your agony. You seem to be at a crossroads where one path follows your emotions and the other follows reason. But it does not have to be an either or proposition, you should want both and settle for nothing less.

If you were going to buy a new car, or make some other major financial commitment, would you not investigate claims made by a salesperson?

By choosing to focus on the facts you can create a situation where you feel better later because you know you investigated this matter and followed the truth.

In many decades on this planet I have never once seen an even slightly compelling piece of evidence to support the idea that an Imaginary Bearded Sky Daddy made me, and he loves me so much that he will punish me forever if I screw up.

If the Christian God appeared before me I would spit in the face of the mass murdering genocidal monster. But it will never appear, because it does not exist, and I shall not waste my time worrying about what a fairy tale thinks of me.

Choose reality, my friend, it will always be there. Good luck.
 
Whack01 said:
This forum isn't typically a good place to go for theological answers, though you will find a plethora of logical ones here.
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What a perfect example of a dichotomy that is not false! It is indeed a fact that theology and logic are polar opposites and mutually exclusive.

In one case we have fairy tales with no basis in fact, and in the other we have facts with no basis in fairy tales.

For people interested in pursuing reality, this realization alone should be very helpful.
 
JonathanClement said:
Okay, most of the arguments I had against Christianity have been reconciled by Christians. I've been reading the bible and I'm almost finished Deuteronomy.

So, now that Christians have patched up the holes in their beliefs, I'm getting really frustrated and depressed because I'm starting to wonder if Christianity isn't true...
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Which specific arguments against Christianity did you have, and how were they reconciled? It sounds like you still have plenty of questions that have not been satisfactorily answered, yet for fear of retribution, you haven't explored these questions as thoroughly as you would have liked. If Christianity has to tell you that it's a sin to challenge your beliefs or question its basic tenets, then it obviously doesn't have all the answers itself.
I've gotten on my knees and seriously begged God for understanding... Begged him to give me the spiritual fortitude to want to change... To want to follow his laws...

I'm seriously trying to give God the benifit of a doubt.

I don't want to be a Christian, but I don't want to go to hell either.

Whenever I try to think of a way that their arguments don't work, I get this feeling that I'm just making excuses not to believe...

I've been trying my damnedest to seek God and the truth, whatever that might be, but it just feels like I loose no matter what I do.
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Nobody can force you to believe. Not God, not yourself, and not anybody else. Nobody can force you to disbelieve either. You simply have to figure out what works best for you. When it comes to Christianity, or any belief system or philosophy, you have to take only what you need and see how it applies to your own life, and do away with everything else.

If I don't believe and it's true, then I go to hell.

IF I DO believe and it's not true, then I waste the only life I have for pleasure by deleting my hentai collection and and giving up my possessions.

And if I DO believe and it IS true, then I've still lost because I just end up becoming this...zombie in heaven where my personality is completely destroyed and all I ever care about is God. I never get to have kids or experience sex, and in this life, I have to go through the agony of knowing that there will be people who are deprived of these joys who will go into one of 2 categories: Eternal torture in hell, or being a mindless blob in heaven.

Whenever I say that I don't want to be obsessed with God, I.E., Heaven, There's always this irritating feeling that's telling me that I'm being selfish and wicked or that it's "Satan talking".

But the thing is, all I want is to be left alone in peace without the looming threat of hell over my head. I just want to be able to fantasize about being a ninja or a wizard without feeling guilty about it. I want to be able to look at women without feeling shame. I want to be able to enjoy sexual pleasure. But then it's almost like there's a voice in the back of my head saying "It's now about what you want!"

It just makes me wonder why Yahweh, if he exists, would be so cruel as to put us in such a situation...

Could someone help?
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What you describe is called Pascal's Wager, and it's no good reason to believe. Every religion says pretty much the same exact thing, "Believe what we believe, or go to hell!" They can't all be right. As I said, any religion that has to threaten you in order to get you to believe probably doesn't have that much to offer on its own merit. But that's exactly what you need to consider. You need to think about what your religion has to offer, and whether or not it's right for you.

Christianity is not for everyone, and there are different brands of Christianity that work better for different people. If you aren't ready to walk away from your faith entirely, yet you still feel a lack of personal reconciliation with Christianity, then perhaps you should look into a denomination that doesn't push the kinds of tenets that make you feel uncomfortable for being yourself. Any belief that encourages self-loathing is one you should avoid. There is nothing wrong with being born human.
 
Silentknight said:
Which specific arguments against Christianity did you have, and how were they reconciled? It sounds like you still have plenty of questions that have not been satisfactorily answered, yet for fear of retribution, you haven't explored these questions as thoroughly as you would have liked. If Christianity has to tell you that it's a sin to challenge your beliefs or question its basic tenets, then it obviously doesn't have all the answers itself.
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Well, I guess not ALL of them. Some of the contradictions for one. And... Eh, I'm too tired to think of them right now.

Silentknight said:
What you describe is called Pascal's Wager, and it's no good reason to believe. Every religion says pretty much the same exact thing, "Believe what we believe, or go to hell!" They can't all be right. As I said, any religion that has to threaten you in order to get you to believe probably doesn't have that much to offer on its own merit. But that's exactly what you need to consider. You need to think about what your religion has to offer, and whether or not it's right for you.
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Well, it's kind of a triple Pascals wager for me. So, I have a 3/4 chance of losing when it comes to my stance on Christianity. If I am a christian and I'm wrong, I waste my life. If I believe in Christianity and I'm right, I lose my personality. If I don't believe in Christianity and it's right, I'm damned. If I don't believe and I'm wrong, I live happily.
 
Civilized Worm said:
Wait 'till Edmund Standing gets here, he's logical and has a degree in theology.
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I'm sure Edmund is a fine person if you respect him. And I have no doubt that he is a logical person if he has an advanced degree. It is theology I object to, not theologians. Some of my best friends, wait, actually none of my best friends are theologians.

If every person who is now a theologian suddenly chose a new career on the same day, all around the world, not a single person would be harmed in any way. The future of the human race would not be put in jeopardy. Science would continue to accumulate knowledge unabated. Your computer would still work. Theology is a luxury for societies with plenty of food, but it has no practical application at all.

But back to Jonathan and his dilemma. Silentknight made some good points. Nobody can force you to believe anything. Some of us might try to illustrate why we disagree with theism, you have to decide to follow either blind faith or objective reality. I made my choice a long time ago, and I still see no evidence to suggest I was wrong.
 
Perhaps relevant is to note that Pascal came up with his wager in the 1600s, so this type of struggle has been going on for a very long time and you are definitely not the first.

I second the previous suggestion to find a Christian denomination that is less dogmatic and strict (such as a Unitarian church, or even Methodist). It sounds like you may not be quite ready to dis-believe in hell but you find the whole system of religion to be quite discouraging (damned if you do, damned if you don't since heaven is not much more appealing than hell as it has been presented to you). It's not going to be helpful or healthy for you to believe in something so depressing, so why not find a Christian church that doesn't guilt you about sex and being male and all the rest. I was raised Methodist and none of that stuff was ever mentioned. We had female pastors, and homosexuality was pretty much accepted, you can fantasize about being a ninja, get married, have children, and I don't think the Methodists are the ones who object to Harry Potter books, etc. As I recall, they taught that as long as you had accepted Jesus as your savior and were at least making an effort to live a decent life, you were saved and free to pretty much do and think as you pleased. There wasn't much talk about sin. Along those lines, though, I would recommend avoiding Southern Baptist and pentecostal churches at this point.
 
JonathanClement said:
If I am a christian and I'm wrong, I waste my life.
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How?

If I believe in Christianity and I'm right, I lose my personality.
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Uh, why?

If I don't believe in Christianity and it's right, I'm damned.
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According to some.

Add:
I'll second the "Investigate a different denomination". Christianity has alot of variety (as well as certain core similarities). Before throwing out the baby with the bathwater, check out other teachings and maybe read some other Christian thinkers. Maybe first figure out what the minimum you need to believe to be a Christian and then add or not add other Christian beliefs when you can come to a conclusion about them.
 
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A Christian Sceptic said:
Yeah - because they don't cherry pick using their own interpretations. :rolleyes:
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I think you missed the important thing that they (Skeptics Annotated Bible) don't do.

They do not try to pass off the sociopathic brutality of ancient tribes as being useful in some way as a moral compass. Oh, and they also do not claim that any harm will befall a person that ignores such drivel. Oh, one more claim they do not make, that this anthology of loony rants is the inspired word of some Imaginary Bearded Sky Daddy.

They just quote the actual text that is really in this horrid collection of genocide, mass destruction, psychotic temper tantrums, and blessings for infanticide. Then everybody has a good time making fun of it, as well they should. As well they should.
 
JonathanClement said:
It doesn't, but they were supposed to kill them and people justify this by saying that the kids would automatically go to heaven. Of course, the adults would go to hell, so it nullifies the whole argument.
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So their justification is wrong. What justification & reason do the scriptures give for them doing this?
 
Whack01 said:
So their justification is wrong. What justification & reason do the scriptures give for them doing this?
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Goddidit?

We knew it was wrong, but God said he would kill our entire families if we did not do what he said and kill those babies as ordered?

They were not Jewish?

God threatened to have them court-martialed?

I don't really know. I'm not the one that imagined this psychotic sky fairy.
 
Whack01 said:
So their justification is wrong. What justification & reason do the scriptures give for them doing this?
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All the mass murders in the old Testament have the "God told me so" justification. For most of the genocides it is supposed to be because the victims believed in a different God and would infect the Chosen People.

For some murders it is said that the victims were bad people who practiced child sacrifice and killed people from other tribes. But of course after Joshua's people slaughtered "everything that breathed" in the city there is not much chance of getting the other side of the story. Dead men tell no tales.

And if they were killing them because they killed their own children - then why did they kill the children too?

In the end every dirtbag mass murderer in history has had some excuse ready. Any reason why we would treat this case differently?

In the end the only good thing about the OT mass-murders is that they probably didn't happen.

But it is disturbing that some people try to give justifications for them, even now.
 
A Christian Sceptic said:
Hi,

I think people are getting confused to the context of your example. Is this what you meant:

You asked someone about Deuteronomy 2:34 and the answer they gave was that "killing the children was a good thing, because they'll go straight to heaven." Is that correct?
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In fact this nonsensical justification is given by Dr Norman Geisler in Lee Strobel's Case for Faith. He suggests that in fact God is doing the kids a favour by sending soldiers to murder them along with the rest of their people because if they grew up they would become evil like their parents and go to hell, whereas killing them in their youth would ensure their place in heaven.

I completely agree with Civilised Worm about this obscene idea.
By the way - if you're interested in being a Christian you might want to first stick with Jesus teachings first since He's the founder and Teacher - his teachings, for Christians, supersede and reinterpret the Old Testament teachings. (Well - actually, He put the intention of many of the laws back in line to their original purpose). Just my two cents.
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Yeah, stick with Jesus' teachings - after all he said that not a single letter, nor the smallest part of a letter will pass away from the old law.
 
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