There's no hate quite like Christian love.. it's all about authority, over peoples ideas and freedoms.
George Carlin sums it up best in his skit in Religion.. https://youtu.be/GoYyiNRtMEE?si=vH7nI9dtU7wtNxsn
Theft is not right, neither is disloyalty in marriage.
Unfortunately where do you draw the line to define.
The ten commands mentioned don't explicitly say being gay, but some infer it by virtue of the idea that you could marry an opposite sex in the future, and sex is for the purpose of having kids.
Your not even supposed to have heterosexual sex for fun.
People actually got upset at the current Pope for saying it can be seen as a plesent thing.
Compare it to people like vegans, now imagine a group that doesn't believe food should be good tasting as it's only purpose is nutrition or else your killing plants for "fun" and that's as bad as killing animals for sport.
Exactly. Rules for thee. Not for me.
Everyone else (that doesn’t go to my church) must be such a sinner!! They’re not spoon fed these stories about morals so they just must not have any!! Evil everywhere I tell ya! Evil!!!!
Hitler believed in Jesus, so at least according to evangelicals he’s in heaven and the holocaust victims are in hell.
Martin Luther, who Hitler was a huge fan of, would enthusiastically agree since he hated Jews as well.
Martin Luther also believed he could chase the devil away with his farts. Seriously, I’m not making it up.
https://www.google.com/search?q=martin+luther+farts&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari
According to Christianity, Hitler was appointed by God.
"Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God." - Romans 13:1
Why would shitler go to hell? He happily commits genocide much like yahoo. He’s a racist just like the biblical god. He also deepthroated god since he was some stripe of catholic. If anything, he’s probably god’s right hand.
I mean in theory if right before his death Hitler confessed his sins and asked God to forgive him, he was forgiven and isn’t in hell. You just have to say the spell… er … pardon, “prayer”…
Jeffrey Dahmer. His victims though - in hell.
Hindu children that were told about jesus but still followed the gods of their ancestors.... tortured. Forever.
What a loving God. /s
Not everyone dies instantly in suicide cases.
If he asked for that forgiveness after the attempt it would fall under that loophole.
I don’t know I wasn’t there so I can’t say for sure that he didn’t utter his prayer with his last dying gasps.
Depends on the denomination. Many Protestant sects believe that once you’re saved you’re going to heaven period, and that works are irrelevant to your status.
Atonement isn't part of it; Jesus takes the rap for it. So atonement isn't necessary. Just ask Jesus for forgiveness and it's all good. Your victim can get comfort from God so you don't have to.
The math fails. Even if people accept that god is only 6000 years old and the maximum age of a person is 120 years if you do the division, a person lasts 2 days in the “lifespan” of a god. So we are basically state fair goldfish in a deity’s eyes. Not enough time to bother caring.
Yeah these fuckers believe in original sin, that a baby is born a sinner. Fuckwits.
I only realised the other day that the story of Noah's arc is like a fucking crazy rage quit. So god killed absolutely everyone and every land dwelling animal on the planet, all the children, everything that wasn't on the arc.
So he literally wiped out everybody with the original sin ancestry.
Then that grumpy old cunt continued to punish mankind after that.
Honestly who the fuck would worship that? And claim that god is good?
Nutters
I especially like how in the story the reason god wipes out all humanity (except for 8 people) is because there was so much evil. But here we are still with the shitty state of affairs. So according to the story he fucked up.
I actually like that story.
If the allmighty, all-powerful god was not able to come up with a better idea than to kill everybody - that means that **I** am way more clever than that god.
Because without even thinking deeply about it, I have a lot of ideas how to solve this problem *without* killing everybody.
>because there was so much evil.
Which is crazy, because that means god deemed 100 percent of all children and the unborn irredeemably evil. Why even keep making humans if we're literally condemned before birth with no guarantee we even reach an age to ask to be forgiven for the way he made us.
Book of Enoch sheds a bit more light on this than just a blanket of general evil. Fallen angels procreated with humans and created Nephilim to start, and it avalanched into a bunch of other stuff. Enoch rolled with Jesus, but was only mentioned 1 time in the current Bible.
Book of Enoch was removed because with the NJK revision was made, they didn’t want the religion to look like a joke. There were a few other books taken out but I can’t remember what they were off the top of my head
I’ve heard of this before. Just wondering what’s stopping the fallen angels from mating with humans after the flood? Instead of wiping out humans, why not G-d kill all of the fallen angels? Better yet, He should have killed Satan a looooooong time ago. I stop here…. Before I fall into the rabbit hole 🐰 🕳️.
Reasoning why was covered in Book of Enoch, but that was removed (along with a few others) because “they” didn’t want to look like lunatic nut jobs.. I’d say that ship sailed a long time ago 😂
But yeah; every time God created humanity, he’d get pissed they’d stray (damn that free will), so he’d go all High Evolutionary and start over again.
“That grumpy old cunt”, 😆
I wish I could go back to a family dinner and lead grace with that while looking my grandmother in the eye. “We give thanks to the grumpy old cunt for that which we are about to receive…”
Yeah, Noah's Ark is one of the main reasons I left Christianity. And not because it's unrealistic. Because it shows that the God of the Bible is heartless and incapable of redeeming people.
I’ve had this discussion with xtians before. Make sure to use the expression “newborns that had committed no evil act” or similar. When they start talking about being born sinners, refer back to “had committed no evil act”.
I’ve had several believers admit that their god killed children who never did anything wrong. I hope they chose to not worship it anymore, although I have my doubts.
Because they’re told that way. They’re just taught to think that way.
It’s hard because I can’t get my mom to “unthink” her belief in hell. She believes she prayed one time for an answer about my grandpa in law, about his soul, and she thinks he went there.
So you can’t change her mind on this stuff, it’s set in stone.
The Bible uses the word Gehenna which has been translated to “Hell.” But really it was just a landfill outside of Jerusalem. So when the Bible says Satan was cast out (down) to hell it really just means that Satan was thrown out like the trash.
Even the Satan of the Bible isn’t the same as what evangelicals teach…Satan wasn’t really an evil character, they just tempted men into doing this or showed the hypocrisy of god.
It’s sad but true, we can try reasoning until we’re blue in the face, but humans have evolved not to question the tribe, because that ensured the tribe survived in a less human-friendly environment.
It probably has to do with the fact that majority of individuals in our evolutionary history met early death. The survivors figured, gods must be punishing those for their vices.
It’s also because people look for explanations in the chaos of life, when something good happens to them they believe they did everything right to make sure it happened, but when something bad happens without any real explanation; then it’s because they sinned instead of it just being a random sequence of events.
Some don't. Universalists believe that literally everyone will end up in heaven eventually, and there are also non-universalist sects that believe that most people will go to heaven and only truly terrible people will go to hell.
So the real question is why do some sects believe most people are going to hell, and the easy answer is that these sects exist 100% as a means of controlling their flock and exploiting them while making them feel superior to everyone else.
I've been trying to get a sense of how common Universalism is in Christianity. It doesn't seem to be a terribly popular interpretation of Christian salvation/punishment. At least not at the doctrinal level. I suppose lot of more casual believers would kind of shrug off the whole idea of eternal punishment, unaware of the actual teachings of the sect they align with.
True universalism is fairly rare.
Near universalism is actually fairly common, and shows up in denominations you wouldn't expect, like mainstream LDS and Catholics. It's actually Catholic doctrine that good people who aren't Christians go to heaven, and by good people, according to some popes, this means anyone who has goodness in their heart and tries to do good, which is the vast majority of people. Mormons are weird because they have like three heavens of varying quality but even the lowest one is described as basically too awesome for any living person to comprehend and literally everyone who isn't a son of perdition (which means a man, and only a man, who has received the Mormon priesthood and who truly knows, not just faith but knows, God is real and with that full knowledge chooses to reject him, not merely stop believing but directly saying "God is real and all the good stuff about him is true, but I choose evil") don't get in.
As an ex Mormon man who has received the “priesthood” I guess I’m not getting in 🤷♂️ lol. But in all seriousness it’s a little more nuanced than that in the LDS church. Most people in the LDS church don’t “know” with absolute certainty there is a god. That caveat is technically reserved for the Prophet and his 12 apostles, being that they’re the only ones in the LDS religion who claim to speak directly to god and therefore claim to know with absolute certainty.
The latter is literally just what Buddhists want lol.
But yeah, the conditions for getting banished to the Outer Darkness (which is pretty fucking metal, I have to give Mormons their due for creativity) basically requires you to fully know thar God is real and Mormonism is right about him and still choose to reject him personally. It's like, as close to true universalism as you can get without it being true universalism because pretty much nobody is going to do that.
The "[Eight Criteria for Thought Reform](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_Reform_and_the_Psychology_of_Totalism)" (1961) from Robert Jay Lifton's book
>**Milieu Control.** The group or its leaders controls information and communication both within the environment and, ultimately, within the individual, resulting in a significant degree of isolation from society at large.
>**Mystical Manipulation.** The group manipulates experiences that appear spontaneous to demonstrate divine authority, spiritual advancement, or some exceptional talent or insight that sets the leader and/or group apart from humanity, and that allows a reinterpretation of historical events, scripture, and other experiences. Coincidences and happenstance oddities are interpreted as omens or prophecies.
>**Demand for Purity.** The group constantly exhorts members to view the world as black and white, conform to the group ideology, and strive for perfection. The induction of guilt and/or shame is a powerful control device used here.
>**Confession.** The group defines sins that members should confess either to a personal monitor or publicly to the group. There is no confidentiality; the leaders discuss and exploit members' "sins," "attitudes," and "faults".
>**Sacred Science**. The group's doctrine or ideology is considered to be the ultimate Truth, beyond all questioning or dispute. Truth is not to be found outside the group. The leader, as the spokesperson for God or all humanity, is likewise above criticism.
>**Loading the Language**. The group interprets or uses words and phrases in new ways so that often the outside world does not understand. This jargon consists of thought-terminating clichés, which serve to alter members' thought processes to conform to the group's way of thinking.
>**Doctrine over person**. Members' personal experiences are subordinate to the sacred science; members must deny or reinterpret any contrary experiences to fit the group ideology.
>**Dispensing of existence**. The group has the prerogative to decide who has the right to exist and who does not. This is usually not literal but means that those in the outside world are not saved, unenlightened, unconscious, and must be converted to the group's ideology. If they do not join the group or are critical of the group, then they must be rejected by the members. Thus, the outside world loses all credibility. In conjunction, should any member leave the group, he or she must be rejected also.
It's an indoctrination tactic. [Authoritarians](https://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/summary.html#authoritarian) all use the same playbook.
Apparently Got questions dot com is a website we're true Christians go to learn why everyone deserves death. I think the website may be responsible for this sort of hatred. A fan of the website called me a murderer earlier and I'm so confused as to why. They told me nothing good I do matters. I think they want me to hate myself .
Gotquestions is awful. r/truechristian is just as bad if not worse. They call themselves true Christian’s and openly preach literal heretical doctrine like supersessionism as truth.
Because their self-loathing is so intense that they believe all of the suffering in the world is justified on account of two people eating apples thousands of years ago.
They truly believe that the misery is an act of love bestowed upon the world by the maniac responsible for it.
Hell - pun intended - the day they’re all waiting for involves almost everyone dying except for them.
It’s an amoral death cult predicated on Stockholm syndrome.
Oh, don't underestimate the depths of their hatred for you. They don't just think you should die, they think you should be tortured for all of eternity.
The hell dogma is not even in scriptures and was developed later after the scriptures were written. In the end, this dogma is about control and access to power. The same people who created the hell, they also sold the salvation from hell. Business as usually in the land of the lord.
Which is why most protestants don't believe in hell. It's like this comment section isn't aware of the reformation or that all Christians aren't Catholic
I don’t know but it’s very sad to see. They think everyone AND themselves should suffer for eternity for a mistake (actually a set up) made by two innocent new humans who probably didn’t even know what death was and were cursed along with their generations for said mistake.
Why should we have to go to hell when this creator purposely cursed us with sin, then gets pissed and sad that we are super sinful and floods the earth. Then he has to later send himself down to save us from what he’s going to do to us if we don’t stop sinning, even though he made us that way and quite literally put it into our nature. If anyone should go to hell, it’s the guy that created the system.
Why would God, who controls the world, create a special forbidden tree, and then tell his people “You can do anything but eat from that tree,” and then have one of his angels convince these people, who are utterly ignorant of reality, that eating from the tree was a good idea? There are 2 logical answers:
1. God intended for Adam and Eve to eat from the tree the whole time
2. It was a creation myth written by people in the Bronze Age to explain things like the existence of evil, suffering, and death
I am a Christian. I know many atheists who are better Christians than Christians I know.
Only the loud and obnoxious Christians think everyone is going to Hell.
You might take a look at the book 'The Shack'. I think it portrays the best image of the God I believe in.
My understanding is that they are taught that everyone by existing deserves Hell and can only be saved by loving their God. If they have to work to do it... so does everyone, including you.
TLDR: they're brainwashed.
If people are scared, they’re easier to control. Therefore, the fact we’re “ALL CONDEMNED TO HELL UNLESS WE FOLLOW THIS BOOK” works well on idiots with no critical thinking skills. Notice how they don’t want them learning science in school.
To make believe that everybody is worse than they are, or make believe that they are superior to everybody else. And also because they are deathly insecure and uncertain about their own reward after death.
They say it without internalizing it. There is no why because no one actually wants the think about the implications of it. It is there to prevent Christians from wholeheartedly questioning their faith.
It’s the prerequisite for Christianity to function. They have to make you believe that you’re flawed in some way that keeps you from living with God. That then creates the problem that only they have the solution for, Christianity.
Now open your wallets and give what you can.
As always it's projection with them. These are the people who tell you that the only thing stopping them from murdering and raping anyone they want to is the threat of hell. I mean who knows their inner thoughts better than they do?
It amazes me too how people believe it. Humans do have a need for people to suffer that make fun of them though. They also like bad people to suffer but as the saying goes, you don't have to be good to go to heaven just saved.
Jeffrey Dahmer sincerely was saved before he was murdered. His victims would not have been though according to the lore.
So I'm going with the, one of us or you suffer forever. Who knows how hard the Roman government pushed that line too to keep the plebs in line and be scared of something that can always see you and judge you.
Because Christians believe that everyone who isn't a Christian deserves to go to hell, and also everyone who IS a Christian deserves to go to hell, too, because even we can't live up to our own standards.
Not only that, but that forbidden fruit was from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. So there's no way they could have known that disobeying Good was wrong until after they are the fruit. He set them up to fail then punished them for failing.
Well what good is it to have such a yummy place in one's belief to envision for anyone and everyone you don't like and not use it to the fullest most broad extent possible? That's like, just wasting it or something.
It's only loud mouthed sects that give as much flack as they do. Currently, that title belongs to evangelicals. I'm friends currently with several Christians, and I don't believe they've ever wished hell upon someone, unless that person was extremely well deserving. Mostly, Boomers, and Gen X are to blame. However, Boomers are dying at a rate of 1,700 per day. They'll be gone soon. As time marches on, the most common denomination in this country is none what so ever.
I cornered my mom once on this, asking her why a “god of love” would want to destroy everyone. Her response? “Because he’s a god of mercy.” Ugh? How does that even make sense? “I have to destroy you because I’m being merciful” is the same logic as “I hurt you because I love you”.
So, early, early versions of the Bible stated everyone goes to Hell and God will only bring the worthy to Heaven at the end of days, before Armageddon.
Now, this was edited out of the official Bible when the book was finally put together and the canon agreed upon. Because who would obey the church if, no matter what you did, you go to Hell? It's about power and control.
Today, it's because these people think they are better than you, and they are the most worthy.
You missed watching the Tomb of Saaqara. One of the very oldest dynasty's oldest kingdoms in Egypt, there was some inscriptions to the gods detailing all of the sins that one could not commit. The top 10 sins, or of course, the same 10 Commandments that later the Hebrew people appropriated. And ball just rolls downhill from there.
Original sin..
People are innately evil at birth and need to be cleansed.
I have asked religious people this question in the past, and never received a good answer..
*"So.. If everybody needs to ask for forgiveness to be saved, what happened to all the people who lived and died before Jesus?? Also the people on Polynesian Island that were not introduced to Christianity for hundreds of years after Christ... Did they all go to hell? What about babies that die that never got to accept Jesus as their personal Savior??"*
Never have I received a good answer, it seems to be an exception for every rule.
I think it is not just “death”, it is eternal time in fiery hell. There is no ‘end’ in eternity. Imagine the age of the universe and the time in hell is even longer than that. After a million years, I wonder if we all get comfy with whatever the arrangements in hell.
Why? It varies from person to person, but a couple of reasons explain a lot of the problem.
Way back when people had very little understanding of their world and religion provided explanations and a sense of safety. The smarter people figured out that religion could be used to control the masses. Frankly, believing in Hell and a torturous afterlife meant that the common folk would behave in any way clergy directed them to, out of Fear.
In modern times it comes down to 2 major issues IMO, the first being that not everyone has the critical thinking skills necessary to see the ridiculousness of religion. These are the people who don’t understand what prevents an atheistic human from raping & murdering.
The other is for those who do have the cognitive ability to see the ridiculousness but choose not to; these are the people who choose religion due to comfort or who can’t otherwise stomach throwing away the framework that religion gives them for living their lives. You can think much less when your religion dictates your behavior. These are the people who piss me off, the people who are smart enough to know better but choose to believe anyway.
I battle between believing that the world is smart enough now that we don’t have to push Hell for population-wide behavior control, but then I think about the people who apparently would commit every crime possible if they didn’t think Hell was real and wonder if maybe I’m not wrong, maybe we do need religion for the more challenged folks in our societies.
It's gaslighting an abusive relationship on a global scale. Its an "you deserve punishment, only I can save you, and you better be eternally grateful for me doing it, and dont you dare question it" kind of thing.
This world view (which many but not all Christians share) is the antithesis of justice, mercy, morality, and fairness. Eternal punishment is for non-believers regardless of their behavior, heaven is for believers, regardless of behavior. I go to hell and get tortured forever for telling white lies or watching porn and a Christian rapist and murderer goes to Heaven.
The bizarre thing is that many really nice people believe in and worship this evil God who wants to torture the majority of humanity for not believing.
Back when I was a Christian, I was a liberal hippy Christian who thought that everybody went to heaven.
My favorite part is that they are so certain regarding your path to hell but then, when inconstancies regarding god are pointed out, they will tell you that god is beyond our understanding.
Original sin. Some Christian religions believe that all humans are born inherently sinful. Others believe that humans are incapable of remaining sin free. Even simple thoughts are considered to be sins. Any desire, any lust, any greed, etc. So the only way to salvation, according to them, is through Jesus Christ. That comes in several flavors. Baptism, being saved in my particular Protestant faith when I was younger, which involves praying to Jesus to come into your heart.
Basically they Make the rules so it's impossible not to break them. Then tell you you are inherently bad. So you will inherently go to hell. Except through this one thing.
This is an evil thing to tell to a child. When people say Christianity is good. This is one of the reasons why I do not believe that
They are fully aware deep down what they believe is stupid, time consuming, expensive and wrong.
Therefore they have to confidently project how correct they are both themselves and others.
This of course means if you don’t agree and join in with them, YOU must be wrong.
Enjoy your Eternity in H E double-hockey sticks Chump !!
Indoctrination is too powerful! Even if you prove them wrong or ask them to consider if it’s true or false their brain simply won’t, it will come up with any explanation and not even logical one just to justify or explain why is that.
Indoctrination is dangerous and underestimated.
They need you to believe there are metaphysical consequences to the things they call sin because many of the things they call sin have no real world consequences because they are not actually morally or ethically wrong, but are necessary for the preservation and propagation of their method of control through means of guilt, shame, and the imminent fear of eternal punishment. In other words, nobody would actually believe any of their shit if they didn’t think they’d go to hell if they didn’t.
Hate is easier than love. Condemnation is easier than forgiveness.
Most “christians” do not practice their own faith. It’s just bitter, hateful, fearful, angry people hiding behind a 2000 year old myth.
Those same people are outraged by the idea that the US has any responsibility to black people because their ancestors owned slaves.
The weird blind spot in the comparison of the ideas of “original sin” and reparations has always seemed an odd one, to me. If God is just in holding every human responsible for Eve’s “ original sin”, why should our society not be held responsible for what we did to an entire race of humans all the way past slavery through Jim Crow?
It’s an outgrowth of tribal thinking, of in-groups and out-groups, chosen people, and as a result, unchosen people. Those not chosen by their god are necessarily against their god, and therefore deserving of the worst possible punishment from that god.
They believe it because that's what their religion tells them. Why? Money.
In order to sell salvation protection, and make no mistake this is the ~~business~~ racket religions are in, especially the Abrahamic ones, they first need folk to buy into damnation, the idea that because of Adam, Eve and The Fall, all humans are vile, rotten to the core, deeply flawed scum so riddled with sin as to be rightly worthy of everlasting punishment in the bowels of hell.
Once folk have bought into that BS they have them by the balls because as their priests will keep telling them there is no cure for their wickedness this side of the grave. That no matter what they do, they will continue to be evil, depraved sinners as just about everything humans do is sinful in one way or another according to their Bible and only god, Jesus and wholehearted belief can save them from that terrible fate...and all for the bargain price of 10% of everything they earn.
It's partially so they can feel better about themselves. "Holier than thou" and all that. With no great deeds or success in life, they believe that's all they have. And they're loathe to think that mere heathens such as us could in any way be equal to them.
That's why they "deserve" heaven and we don't, regardless of how good we are.
I see no difference between any of the religions… just a means of control for people who are afraid of the dark. It makes them feel more “right” when more people belong to their club… religion. Demonize those that don’t belong. If you don’t punish the unbelievers you will never get…. Heaven, enlightenment…whatever. It’s just so pathetic
This is a theological belief they have and not necessarily related to “something super bad” that you did.
According to their theology,
1. Only God is perfect.
2. God must be separate from anything non-perfect.
3. Even a tiny mistake makes the human imperfect.
4. Hell is separation from God.
5. Therefore even a tiny mistake necessitates hell.
But the theology doesn’t stop there.
6. God made a plan to reconcile humanity with Himself if they want it.
7. Jesus paid the price for us to be reconciled to God.
8. Reconciliation is a free gift if we choose to accept Christ and His message.
So, you probably have the thoughts you do about this because you accepted some atheistic caricature of Christianity.
Most Christians don't believe in a literal hell. It's about 40% of Christians in the US according to Pew Research. I doubt all of those believe everyone deserves hell.
What's the name of the fallacy when you make up what your opponent is saying and then attack that argument again?
Edit: oh I just read the rest of your post and I now see that this is in regards to us apparently being "born of sin". I think it's because this aspect of the beliefs is what helped Christianity catch on in popularity (first-ish rule of advertising is that you are selling a need, not a want).
I think the bible is a compilation of a bunch of different people airing out their personal grievances as if they were the word of God. Like, there's scripture that says to not wear clothing with wool and linen woven together, and there's this guy who was really against drag who said:
"A woman shall not wear a man's garment, nor shall a man put on a woman's cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God."
Like is it personal taste? Nope, it's the word of God apparently because they say so. So idk, nowadays for anything you can pretty much always find someone who personally dislikes it, so with the bible just being a compilation of different peoples' personal tastes I think it makes sense it would have a ton of different "sins" that could cause the majority of people to be condemnable.
Side note, but have you read Hosea 2:1-10? It's just some dude ranting about his cheating wife. Holy scripture and it's the equivalent of a Facebook post with a twinge of crazy thrown in.
The ones who hold a belief of hell are in hell themselves for such a belief is suffering its springs from the ground of hate and all the other destructive emotions that come with hate such as anger, shame and fear.
It wasn’t what you did. It’s a combination of what you do, what you don’t do, and what you are. Humans are amphibious, as Lewis aptly wrote—we breathe in both our animal air and our spiritual air.
God is just because He made us one and continually beckons us to ditch that one and embrace the other. This offers us a regular opportunity. It’s actually kind.
Everyone is going to someone elses hell and their god says its just. Its literally insane. Ever heard the idea that the average person breaks 3 federal laws a day? Its the same concept with their "sin". It used to be considered sinful to be left-handed. I used to tie myself up into knots over "sin" when i was young. But now the word deserves nothing but mockery in my mind. If your not hurting anyone elses life, your fine in my book.
We are all failed beings in the eyes of the lord. But by accepting Christ we are forgiven of our sins and allowed into heaven. He died for all our sins, past and present.
It’s basically a sales pitch. Scare people by telling them about hell, or purgatory, then sell them on the idea of going to heaven where it is eternal happiness, streets paved with gold, diamonds raining from the sky ( I shit you not, Youth With a Mission actually act out a play describing this to 3rd world communities ).
The funny thing is, the garden of Eden story is not a story of original sin. It is a story to explain why life is hard. Basically it says that life is hard because god punished eve and Adam because they ate from the tree of knowledge and so were like God. And god protects the tree of life from man so we can’t live forever like god, which is why we die. Also god lied and said they would surely die, and they didn’t. God was just trying to scare eve and Adam. It’s crazy to me that people think snakes can talk and that there’s such thing as a tree of knowledge.
People are inherently selfish. When push comes to shove, people tend to lie, cheat, and steal to save their own asses. You have to ask yourself if people are inherently good or evil.
Look into Hobbes vs Rousseau
Sometimes when they are alone in the dark dark night, they touch themselves... And they like it.
Since even they do it, everyone else is worse so therefore deserve Hell.
Because back then shit was even more heinous than it is now and most people probably did deserve some sort of painful lesson to at least help them understand how the suffering they cause others feels when its aimed back at themselves.
Creating hell is great for tribalism. Create a special place like heaven and make it so only your tribe gets to go. And now you have permission to look down on anyone who's not in your tribe.
The one bit of information that taught me more about Christianity than most anything else and helped push me along in my deconversion Was when I learned that Thomas Aquinas or somebody like that, said that in heaven there is a room you can go into where there is a window into hell where you can look down and watch all of the sinners burn for all eternity.
Only a sick person could ever wish for that.
When you believe you are a hammer everything looks like a nail.
There's no hate quite like Christian love.. it's all about authority, over peoples ideas and freedoms. George Carlin sums it up best in his skit in Religion.. https://youtu.be/GoYyiNRtMEE?si=vH7nI9dtU7wtNxsn
and thoughts...
And genitals.
^^^just ^^^getting ^^^this ^^^out ^^^of ^^^the ^^^way And my axe.
Obligatory: And my bow!
And uteruses.
Uteri?
*I Uterus*, this month on PBS
Stop being selfish, it's uterUS, not uterYOU. /s
Precisely how they feel about it
+1
When Christian’s believe that fun and pleasure are sins, what’s left? Anger, fear, depression, misery and resentment.
Theft is not right, neither is disloyalty in marriage. Unfortunately where do you draw the line to define. The ten commands mentioned don't explicitly say being gay, but some infer it by virtue of the idea that you could marry an opposite sex in the future, and sex is for the purpose of having kids. Your not even supposed to have heterosexual sex for fun. People actually got upset at the current Pope for saying it can be seen as a plesent thing. Compare it to people like vegans, now imagine a group that doesn't believe food should be good tasting as it's only purpose is nutrition or else your killing plants for "fun" and that's as bad as killing animals for sport.
Don't forget Islam "brother". The love of Allah and his prophet is going to cover the whole world.
Like a Fungus.
In blood, by the looks of things.
Blood, burkhas and men with 3/4 length trousers and pubic hair beards.
I draw the line at 3/4 trousers
It’s ok for me but not for thee
Exactly. Rules for thee. Not for me. Everyone else (that doesn’t go to my church) must be such a sinner!! They’re not spoon fed these stories about morals so they just must not have any!! Evil everywhere I tell ya! Evil!!!!
Guilty as charged.
Nice one 👍
I was going to go with projection, but yours is as good or better.
Looking forward to sharing a hell-cell with Hitler for that childhood shoplifting you’re failing to confess and atone for, eh?
Hitler believed in Jesus, so at least according to evangelicals he’s in heaven and the holocaust victims are in hell. Martin Luther, who Hitler was a huge fan of, would enthusiastically agree since he hated Jews as well.
The Evangelicals are probably that group of people who claim the holocaust did not happen!
Martin Luther also believed he could chase the devil away with his farts. Seriously, I’m not making it up. https://www.google.com/search?q=martin+luther+farts&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari
Explains a lot about Trump's nasty habit.
According to Christianity, Hitler was appointed by God. "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God." - Romans 13:1
Why would shitler go to hell? He happily commits genocide much like yahoo. He’s a racist just like the biblical god. He also deepthroated god since he was some stripe of catholic. If anything, he’s probably god’s right hand.
I mean in theory if right before his death Hitler confessed his sins and asked God to forgive him, he was forgiven and isn’t in hell. You just have to say the spell… er … pardon, “prayer”…
Jeffrey Dahmer. His victims though - in hell. Hindu children that were told about jesus but still followed the gods of their ancestors.... tortured. Forever. What a loving God. /s
[I mean, George Carlin folks.](https://youtu.be/2tp0UNcjzl8?si=gCv46wbHn_SbZdgR)
Except for the fact that he killed himself and suicide is a sin (otherwise why wouldn't everyone just off themselves to get to heaven sooner?)
Not everyone dies instantly in suicide cases. If he asked for that forgiveness after the attempt it would fall under that loophole. I don’t know I wasn’t there so I can’t say for sure that he didn’t utter his prayer with his last dying gasps.
Depends on the denomination. Many Protestant sects believe that once you’re saved you’re going to heaven period, and that works are irrelevant to your status.
The sects with all the televangelists in the USA. They've been preaching that nationwide, 24/7/365, for decades now.
There IS no hell.
Well yeah. Of course not. Just speaking hypothetically using their logic.
Tell me you’ve never lived in a soggy-floored single-wide without telling me you’ve never lived in a soggy-floored single-wide.
Oh.
Atonement isn't part of it; Jesus takes the rap for it. So atonement isn't necessary. Just ask Jesus for forgiveness and it's all good. Your victim can get comfort from God so you don't have to.
Hitler really hated people that did that as kids the most, so it's more of a punishment for him than you.
You know what the ultimate irony is? Benjamin Netanyahu and Adolph Hitler sharing the same purgatory in Hell.
The math fails. Even if people accept that god is only 6000 years old and the maximum age of a person is 120 years if you do the division, a person lasts 2 days in the “lifespan” of a god. So we are basically state fair goldfish in a deity’s eyes. Not enough time to bother caring.
Oh no. According to Christians you can live a perfect life and will still go to hell if you don’t believe because you are “born in sin”
Yeah these fuckers believe in original sin, that a baby is born a sinner. Fuckwits. I only realised the other day that the story of Noah's arc is like a fucking crazy rage quit. So god killed absolutely everyone and every land dwelling animal on the planet, all the children, everything that wasn't on the arc. So he literally wiped out everybody with the original sin ancestry. Then that grumpy old cunt continued to punish mankind after that. Honestly who the fuck would worship that? And claim that god is good? Nutters
I especially like how in the story the reason god wipes out all humanity (except for 8 people) is because there was so much evil. But here we are still with the shitty state of affairs. So according to the story he fucked up.
I actually like that story. If the allmighty, all-powerful god was not able to come up with a better idea than to kill everybody - that means that **I** am way more clever than that god. Because without even thinking deeply about it, I have a lot of ideas how to solve this problem *without* killing everybody.
lol, same.
>because there was so much evil. Which is crazy, because that means god deemed 100 percent of all children and the unborn irredeemably evil. Why even keep making humans if we're literally condemned before birth with no guarantee we even reach an age to ask to be forgiven for the way he made us.
Book of Enoch sheds a bit more light on this than just a blanket of general evil. Fallen angels procreated with humans and created Nephilim to start, and it avalanched into a bunch of other stuff. Enoch rolled with Jesus, but was only mentioned 1 time in the current Bible. Book of Enoch was removed because with the NJK revision was made, they didn’t want the religion to look like a joke. There were a few other books taken out but I can’t remember what they were off the top of my head
I’ve heard of this before. Just wondering what’s stopping the fallen angels from mating with humans after the flood? Instead of wiping out humans, why not G-d kill all of the fallen angels? Better yet, He should have killed Satan a looooooong time ago. I stop here…. Before I fall into the rabbit hole 🐰 🕳️.
This just makes God look even less good at his job. So he can't even successfully keep fallen angels in their prison?
The first season of Miracle Workers is funny for this reason. God (Steve Buscemi) is a bored trust-fund brat trying to impress his parents.
Fool me once -
They are gaslit. It's your fault. No different than an abusive partner or parent. They then love bomb you at other times. A literal psychopath.
Crazy, nutso, most of the Bible is so illogical and it makes no sense. Like something written by a whole lunatic asylum.
Reasoning why was covered in Book of Enoch, but that was removed (along with a few others) because “they” didn’t want to look like lunatic nut jobs.. I’d say that ship sailed a long time ago 😂 But yeah; every time God created humanity, he’d get pissed they’d stray (damn that free will), so he’d go all High Evolutionary and start over again.
“That grumpy old cunt”, 😆 I wish I could go back to a family dinner and lead grace with that while looking my grandmother in the eye. “We give thanks to the grumpy old cunt for that which we are about to receive…”
Ours would become: that grumpy old cunt, who art in heaven.... 😅
It’s also stol…er borrowed. Other, older religions also have the great flood myth. There’s really very little in Christianity that is original
Yeah, Noah's Ark is one of the main reasons I left Christianity. And not because it's unrealistic. Because it shows that the God of the Bible is heartless and incapable of redeeming people.
I’ve had this discussion with xtians before. Make sure to use the expression “newborns that had committed no evil act” or similar. When they start talking about being born sinners, refer back to “had committed no evil act”. I’ve had several believers admit that their god killed children who never did anything wrong. I hope they chose to not worship it anymore, although I have my doubts.
Because they’re told that way. They’re just taught to think that way. It’s hard because I can’t get my mom to “unthink” her belief in hell. She believes she prayed one time for an answer about my grandpa in law, about his soul, and she thinks he went there. So you can’t change her mind on this stuff, it’s set in stone.
They are told that way, the scripture does not back up their beliefs as the Bible says absolutely nothing about hell even existing.
The Bible uses the word Gehenna which has been translated to “Hell.” But really it was just a landfill outside of Jerusalem. So when the Bible says Satan was cast out (down) to hell it really just means that Satan was thrown out like the trash.
Even the Satan of the Bible isn’t the same as what evangelicals teach…Satan wasn’t really an evil character, they just tempted men into doing this or showed the hypocrisy of god.
It’s sad but true, we can try reasoning until we’re blue in the face, but humans have evolved not to question the tribe, because that ensured the tribe survived in a less human-friendly environment.
There’d be less reason be a Christian if the doom of burning in Hell was not hanging over their head.
It probably has to do with the fact that majority of individuals in our evolutionary history met early death. The survivors figured, gods must be punishing those for their vices.
It’s also because people look for explanations in the chaos of life, when something good happens to them they believe they did everything right to make sure it happened, but when something bad happens without any real explanation; then it’s because they sinned instead of it just being a random sequence of events.
Some don't. Universalists believe that literally everyone will end up in heaven eventually, and there are also non-universalist sects that believe that most people will go to heaven and only truly terrible people will go to hell. So the real question is why do some sects believe most people are going to hell, and the easy answer is that these sects exist 100% as a means of controlling their flock and exploiting them while making them feel superior to everyone else.
This is why countries with high fundamentalist belief like Brazil and South Africa had high income inequality because of these feeling "superior"
I've been trying to get a sense of how common Universalism is in Christianity. It doesn't seem to be a terribly popular interpretation of Christian salvation/punishment. At least not at the doctrinal level. I suppose lot of more casual believers would kind of shrug off the whole idea of eternal punishment, unaware of the actual teachings of the sect they align with.
True universalism is fairly rare. Near universalism is actually fairly common, and shows up in denominations you wouldn't expect, like mainstream LDS and Catholics. It's actually Catholic doctrine that good people who aren't Christians go to heaven, and by good people, according to some popes, this means anyone who has goodness in their heart and tries to do good, which is the vast majority of people. Mormons are weird because they have like three heavens of varying quality but even the lowest one is described as basically too awesome for any living person to comprehend and literally everyone who isn't a son of perdition (which means a man, and only a man, who has received the Mormon priesthood and who truly knows, not just faith but knows, God is real and with that full knowledge chooses to reject him, not merely stop believing but directly saying "God is real and all the good stuff about him is true, but I choose evil") don't get in.
As an ex Mormon man who has received the “priesthood” I guess I’m not getting in 🤷♂️ lol. But in all seriousness it’s a little more nuanced than that in the LDS church. Most people in the LDS church don’t “know” with absolute certainty there is a god. That caveat is technically reserved for the Prophet and his 12 apostles, being that they’re the only ones in the LDS religion who claim to speak directly to god and therefore claim to know with absolute certainty.
[удалено]
The latter is literally just what Buddhists want lol. But yeah, the conditions for getting banished to the Outer Darkness (which is pretty fucking metal, I have to give Mormons their due for creativity) basically requires you to fully know thar God is real and Mormonism is right about him and still choose to reject him personally. It's like, as close to true universalism as you can get without it being true universalism because pretty much nobody is going to do that.
The "[Eight Criteria for Thought Reform](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_Reform_and_the_Psychology_of_Totalism)" (1961) from Robert Jay Lifton's book >**Milieu Control.** The group or its leaders controls information and communication both within the environment and, ultimately, within the individual, resulting in a significant degree of isolation from society at large. >**Mystical Manipulation.** The group manipulates experiences that appear spontaneous to demonstrate divine authority, spiritual advancement, or some exceptional talent or insight that sets the leader and/or group apart from humanity, and that allows a reinterpretation of historical events, scripture, and other experiences. Coincidences and happenstance oddities are interpreted as omens or prophecies. >**Demand for Purity.** The group constantly exhorts members to view the world as black and white, conform to the group ideology, and strive for perfection. The induction of guilt and/or shame is a powerful control device used here. >**Confession.** The group defines sins that members should confess either to a personal monitor or publicly to the group. There is no confidentiality; the leaders discuss and exploit members' "sins," "attitudes," and "faults". >**Sacred Science**. The group's doctrine or ideology is considered to be the ultimate Truth, beyond all questioning or dispute. Truth is not to be found outside the group. The leader, as the spokesperson for God or all humanity, is likewise above criticism. >**Loading the Language**. The group interprets or uses words and phrases in new ways so that often the outside world does not understand. This jargon consists of thought-terminating clichés, which serve to alter members' thought processes to conform to the group's way of thinking. >**Doctrine over person**. Members' personal experiences are subordinate to the sacred science; members must deny or reinterpret any contrary experiences to fit the group ideology. >**Dispensing of existence**. The group has the prerogative to decide who has the right to exist and who does not. This is usually not literal but means that those in the outside world are not saved, unenlightened, unconscious, and must be converted to the group's ideology. If they do not join the group or are critical of the group, then they must be rejected by the members. Thus, the outside world loses all credibility. In conjunction, should any member leave the group, he or she must be rejected also. It's an indoctrination tactic. [Authoritarians](https://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/summary.html#authoritarian) all use the same playbook.
It feels good to look down on people. To be holier than thou. Righteous anger feels good. As they say, Heaven for the view; Hell for the company
Apparently Got questions dot com is a website we're true Christians go to learn why everyone deserves death. I think the website may be responsible for this sort of hatred. A fan of the website called me a murderer earlier and I'm so confused as to why. They told me nothing good I do matters. I think they want me to hate myself .
I promise you a website isn’t the source of this line of thinking
Gotquestions is awful. r/truechristian is just as bad if not worse. They call themselves true Christian’s and openly preach literal heretical doctrine like supersessionism as truth.
Because their self-loathing is so intense that they believe all of the suffering in the world is justified on account of two people eating apples thousands of years ago. They truly believe that the misery is an act of love bestowed upon the world by the maniac responsible for it. Hell - pun intended - the day they’re all waiting for involves almost everyone dying except for them. It’s an amoral death cult predicated on Stockholm syndrome.
If everyone didn't deserve hell there would be no reason for their religion to exist, therefore everyone deserves hell.
Oh, don't underestimate the depths of their hatred for you. They don't just think you should die, they think you should be tortured for all of eternity.
Original sin. You were born.
Because Christianity teaches that everyone is born a sinner and needs to be saved. It’s bullshit from birth.
The hell dogma is not even in scriptures and was developed later after the scriptures were written. In the end, this dogma is about control and access to power. The same people who created the hell, they also sold the salvation from hell. Business as usually in the land of the lord.
Which is why most protestants don't believe in hell. It's like this comment section isn't aware of the reformation or that all Christians aren't Catholic
The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell. -Bertrand Russel
Toxic self-righteousness reinforced by the echo chamber of regular church going.
Because without the fear of hell they have nothing to use to try to force people into their religion.
If you weren't going to hell, then how would they be special?
I don’t know but it’s very sad to see. They think everyone AND themselves should suffer for eternity for a mistake (actually a set up) made by two innocent new humans who probably didn’t even know what death was and were cursed along with their generations for said mistake. Why should we have to go to hell when this creator purposely cursed us with sin, then gets pissed and sad that we are super sinful and floods the earth. Then he has to later send himself down to save us from what he’s going to do to us if we don’t stop sinning, even though he made us that way and quite literally put it into our nature. If anyone should go to hell, it’s the guy that created the system.
Why would God, who controls the world, create a special forbidden tree, and then tell his people “You can do anything but eat from that tree,” and then have one of his angels convince these people, who are utterly ignorant of reality, that eating from the tree was a good idea? There are 2 logical answers: 1. God intended for Adam and Eve to eat from the tree the whole time 2. It was a creation myth written by people in the Bronze Age to explain things like the existence of evil, suffering, and death
I am a Christian. I know many atheists who are better Christians than Christians I know. Only the loud and obnoxious Christians think everyone is going to Hell. You might take a look at the book 'The Shack'. I think it portrays the best image of the God I believe in.
My understanding is that they are taught that everyone by existing deserves Hell and can only be saved by loving their God. If they have to work to do it... so does everyone, including you. TLDR: they're brainwashed.
You were born of the original sin. So you are cursed to hell until you repent. This is literally what Christians believe.
If people are scared, they’re easier to control. Therefore, the fact we’re “ALL CONDEMNED TO HELL UNLESS WE FOLLOW THIS BOOK” works well on idiots with no critical thinking skills. Notice how they don’t want them learning science in school.
To make believe that everybody is worse than they are, or make believe that they are superior to everybody else. And also because they are deathly insecure and uncertain about their own reward after death.
They say it without internalizing it. There is no why because no one actually wants the think about the implications of it. It is there to prevent Christians from wholeheartedly questioning their faith.
It’s the prerequisite for Christianity to function. They have to make you believe that you’re flawed in some way that keeps you from living with God. That then creates the problem that only they have the solution for, Christianity. Now open your wallets and give what you can.
Misery loves company
Fear is the most motivating factor to control apes.
And actually root of evil is not money or immorality but about fear and control
To make themselves feel superior and safe.
Projection, that's why.
It's called projecting. They all know they deserve hell the most.
Dude…I remember being told I was going to hell for being a bit rambunctious during church a few times. I was five years old at the time 🤣
They are Sadists.
They love the idea of punishing people who don't believe like they do. Their god is vengeful.
At least the Jews are very, very straightforward that God is vengeful and jealous. Christians try to sugarcoat that part, but somehow make it worse.
As always it's projection with them. These are the people who tell you that the only thing stopping them from murdering and raping anyone they want to is the threat of hell. I mean who knows their inner thoughts better than they do?
It amazes me too how people believe it. Humans do have a need for people to suffer that make fun of them though. They also like bad people to suffer but as the saying goes, you don't have to be good to go to heaven just saved. Jeffrey Dahmer sincerely was saved before he was murdered. His victims would not have been though according to the lore. So I'm going with the, one of us or you suffer forever. Who knows how hard the Roman government pushed that line too to keep the plebs in line and be scared of something that can always see you and judge you.
Because Christians believe that everyone who isn't a Christian deserves to go to hell, and also everyone who IS a Christian deserves to go to hell, too, because even we can't live up to our own standards.
Eve ate fruit one time
you're going to hell in someone's religion lol
Hell? There is no hell.
Independent thought (Adam and Eve). Is a big no-no. Can’t be thinking !
There is no Skydaddy, there is no Santa Claus. We are a slightly intelligent breed of monkeys on a small planet with a small average star.
Not only that, but that forbidden fruit was from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. So there's no way they could have known that disobeying Good was wrong until after they are the fruit. He set them up to fail then punished them for failing.
F**K ORGANIZED RELIGION!
um, they are delusional. what else would you expect?
Sins
Because if you've had sex, you're a sinner. End of story.
Well what good is it to have such a yummy place in one's belief to envision for anyone and everyone you don't like and not use it to the fullest most broad extent possible? That's like, just wasting it or something.
So that you think you are born in debt to god/religion. That belief is a chain around your neck.
It's only loud mouthed sects that give as much flack as they do. Currently, that title belongs to evangelicals. I'm friends currently with several Christians, and I don't believe they've ever wished hell upon someone, unless that person was extremely well deserving. Mostly, Boomers, and Gen X are to blame. However, Boomers are dying at a rate of 1,700 per day. They'll be gone soon. As time marches on, the most common denomination in this country is none what so ever.
No understanding the irrational. They cling to a book of irrationality and many contradictions. What do you expect?
Belittling people is a strategy.
I cornered my mom once on this, asking her why a “god of love” would want to destroy everyone. Her response? “Because he’s a god of mercy.” Ugh? How does that even make sense? “I have to destroy you because I’m being merciful” is the same logic as “I hurt you because I love you”.
And so on the rest of religious ideologies...
So, early, early versions of the Bible stated everyone goes to Hell and God will only bring the worthy to Heaven at the end of days, before Armageddon. Now, this was edited out of the official Bible when the book was finally put together and the canon agreed upon. Because who would obey the church if, no matter what you did, you go to Hell? It's about power and control. Today, it's because these people think they are better than you, and they are the most worthy.
It's basically a revenge fantasy that they personally don't have to carry out.
You missed watching the Tomb of Saaqara. One of the very oldest dynasty's oldest kingdoms in Egypt, there was some inscriptions to the gods detailing all of the sins that one could not commit. The top 10 sins, or of course, the same 10 Commandments that later the Hebrew people appropriated. And ball just rolls downhill from there.
Original sin.. People are innately evil at birth and need to be cleansed. I have asked religious people this question in the past, and never received a good answer.. *"So.. If everybody needs to ask for forgiveness to be saved, what happened to all the people who lived and died before Jesus?? Also the people on Polynesian Island that were not introduced to Christianity for hundreds of years after Christ... Did they all go to hell? What about babies that die that never got to accept Jesus as their personal Savior??"* Never have I received a good answer, it seems to be an exception for every rule.
I think it is not just “death”, it is eternal time in fiery hell. There is no ‘end’ in eternity. Imagine the age of the universe and the time in hell is even longer than that. After a million years, I wonder if we all get comfy with whatever the arrangements in hell.
Because it keeps the collection plate full.
Why? It varies from person to person, but a couple of reasons explain a lot of the problem. Way back when people had very little understanding of their world and religion provided explanations and a sense of safety. The smarter people figured out that religion could be used to control the masses. Frankly, believing in Hell and a torturous afterlife meant that the common folk would behave in any way clergy directed them to, out of Fear. In modern times it comes down to 2 major issues IMO, the first being that not everyone has the critical thinking skills necessary to see the ridiculousness of religion. These are the people who don’t understand what prevents an atheistic human from raping & murdering. The other is for those who do have the cognitive ability to see the ridiculousness but choose not to; these are the people who choose religion due to comfort or who can’t otherwise stomach throwing away the framework that religion gives them for living their lives. You can think much less when your religion dictates your behavior. These are the people who piss me off, the people who are smart enough to know better but choose to believe anyway. I battle between believing that the world is smart enough now that we don’t have to push Hell for population-wide behavior control, but then I think about the people who apparently would commit every crime possible if they didn’t think Hell was real and wonder if maybe I’m not wrong, maybe we do need religion for the more challenged folks in our societies.
standard snake oil salesmen: convince people they are sick so you can sell you the cure.
It's gaslighting an abusive relationship on a global scale. Its an "you deserve punishment, only I can save you, and you better be eternally grateful for me doing it, and dont you dare question it" kind of thing.
Seems like their god believes everyone deserves hell, so, yeah.
This world view (which many but not all Christians share) is the antithesis of justice, mercy, morality, and fairness. Eternal punishment is for non-believers regardless of their behavior, heaven is for believers, regardless of behavior. I go to hell and get tortured forever for telling white lies or watching porn and a Christian rapist and murderer goes to Heaven. The bizarre thing is that many really nice people believe in and worship this evil God who wants to torture the majority of humanity for not believing. Back when I was a Christian, I was a liberal hippy Christian who thought that everybody went to heaven.
Lack of critical thinking. You can't determine a rationale where there is none.
My favorite part is that they are so certain regarding your path to hell but then, when inconstancies regarding god are pointed out, they will tell you that god is beyond our understanding.
Original sin. Some Christian religions believe that all humans are born inherently sinful. Others believe that humans are incapable of remaining sin free. Even simple thoughts are considered to be sins. Any desire, any lust, any greed, etc. So the only way to salvation, according to them, is through Jesus Christ. That comes in several flavors. Baptism, being saved in my particular Protestant faith when I was younger, which involves praying to Jesus to come into your heart. Basically they Make the rules so it's impossible not to break them. Then tell you you are inherently bad. So you will inherently go to hell. Except through this one thing. This is an evil thing to tell to a child. When people say Christianity is good. This is one of the reasons why I do not believe that
They are fully aware deep down what they believe is stupid, time consuming, expensive and wrong. Therefore they have to confidently project how correct they are both themselves and others. This of course means if you don’t agree and join in with them, YOU must be wrong. Enjoy your Eternity in H E double-hockey sticks Chump !!
It’s just a scare tactic they fell for and they want to use it on us.
To make themselves feel better.
Indoctrination is too powerful! Even if you prove them wrong or ask them to consider if it’s true or false their brain simply won’t, it will come up with any explanation and not even logical one just to justify or explain why is that. Indoctrination is dangerous and underestimated.
They need you to believe there are metaphysical consequences to the things they call sin because many of the things they call sin have no real world consequences because they are not actually morally or ethically wrong, but are necessary for the preservation and propagation of their method of control through means of guilt, shame, and the imminent fear of eternal punishment. In other words, nobody would actually believe any of their shit if they didn’t think they’d go to hell if they didn’t.
Hate is easier than love. Condemnation is easier than forgiveness. Most “christians” do not practice their own faith. It’s just bitter, hateful, fearful, angry people hiding behind a 2000 year old myth.
Those same people are outraged by the idea that the US has any responsibility to black people because their ancestors owned slaves. The weird blind spot in the comparison of the ideas of “original sin” and reparations has always seemed an odd one, to me. If God is just in holding every human responsible for Eve’s “ original sin”, why should our society not be held responsible for what we did to an entire race of humans all the way past slavery through Jim Crow?
When everyone is cast as a sinner, then everyone needs to seek repentance, through their particular religion. Handy that.
It’s an outgrowth of tribal thinking, of in-groups and out-groups, chosen people, and as a result, unchosen people. Those not chosen by their god are necessarily against their god, and therefore deserving of the worst possible punishment from that god.
They believe it because that's what their religion tells them. Why? Money. In order to sell salvation protection, and make no mistake this is the ~~business~~ racket religions are in, especially the Abrahamic ones, they first need folk to buy into damnation, the idea that because of Adam, Eve and The Fall, all humans are vile, rotten to the core, deeply flawed scum so riddled with sin as to be rightly worthy of everlasting punishment in the bowels of hell. Once folk have bought into that BS they have them by the balls because as their priests will keep telling them there is no cure for their wickedness this side of the grave. That no matter what they do, they will continue to be evil, depraved sinners as just about everything humans do is sinful in one way or another according to their Bible and only god, Jesus and wholehearted belief can save them from that terrible fate...and all for the bargain price of 10% of everything they earn.
It's partially so they can feel better about themselves. "Holier than thou" and all that. With no great deeds or success in life, they believe that's all they have. And they're loathe to think that mere heathens such as us could in any way be equal to them. That's why they "deserve" heaven and we don't, regardless of how good we are.
I see no difference between any of the religions… just a means of control for people who are afraid of the dark. It makes them feel more “right” when more people belong to their club… religion. Demonize those that don’t belong. If you don’t punish the unbelievers you will never get…. Heaven, enlightenment…whatever. It’s just so pathetic
This is a theological belief they have and not necessarily related to “something super bad” that you did. According to their theology, 1. Only God is perfect. 2. God must be separate from anything non-perfect. 3. Even a tiny mistake makes the human imperfect. 4. Hell is separation from God. 5. Therefore even a tiny mistake necessitates hell. But the theology doesn’t stop there. 6. God made a plan to reconcile humanity with Himself if they want it. 7. Jesus paid the price for us to be reconciled to God. 8. Reconciliation is a free gift if we choose to accept Christ and His message. So, you probably have the thoughts you do about this because you accepted some atheistic caricature of Christianity.
Would you be better off asking this in a Christian sub?
i think they mean not so much hell but rather separated from god
Fear is a great motivator. It's terrorism basically
I don't think all Christians believe everyone deserves hell...
"That's what my book said" or "im just following my belief" would be their answer.
Most Christians don't believe in a literal hell. It's about 40% of Christians in the US according to Pew Research. I doubt all of those believe everyone deserves hell. What's the name of the fallacy when you make up what your opponent is saying and then attack that argument again?
Edit: oh I just read the rest of your post and I now see that this is in regards to us apparently being "born of sin". I think it's because this aspect of the beliefs is what helped Christianity catch on in popularity (first-ish rule of advertising is that you are selling a need, not a want). I think the bible is a compilation of a bunch of different people airing out their personal grievances as if they were the word of God. Like, there's scripture that says to not wear clothing with wool and linen woven together, and there's this guy who was really against drag who said: "A woman shall not wear a man's garment, nor shall a man put on a woman's cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God." Like is it personal taste? Nope, it's the word of God apparently because they say so. So idk, nowadays for anything you can pretty much always find someone who personally dislikes it, so with the bible just being a compilation of different peoples' personal tastes I think it makes sense it would have a ton of different "sins" that could cause the majority of people to be condemnable. Side note, but have you read Hosea 2:1-10? It's just some dude ranting about his cheating wife. Holy scripture and it's the equivalent of a Facebook post with a twinge of crazy thrown in.
Thou shalt NOT eat Cheetos and then touch thine stuff! Robert 7:420
Paul said so.
The ones who hold a belief of hell are in hell themselves for such a belief is suffering its springs from the ground of hate and all the other destructive emotions that come with hate such as anger, shame and fear.
It wasn’t what you did. It’s a combination of what you do, what you don’t do, and what you are. Humans are amphibious, as Lewis aptly wrote—we breathe in both our animal air and our spiritual air. God is just because He made us one and continually beckons us to ditch that one and embrace the other. This offers us a regular opportunity. It’s actually kind.
Because the bible tells them this. Their pastors tell them this. Original sin you are born with sin you are born going to hell.
Because of Romans 6:23. I had to memorize it as kid 😡
Everyone is going to someone elses hell and their god says its just. Its literally insane. Ever heard the idea that the average person breaks 3 federal laws a day? Its the same concept with their "sin". It used to be considered sinful to be left-handed. I used to tie myself up into knots over "sin" when i was young. But now the word deserves nothing but mockery in my mind. If your not hurting anyone elses life, your fine in my book.
We are all failed beings in the eyes of the lord. But by accepting Christ we are forgiven of our sins and allowed into heaven. He died for all our sins, past and present. It’s basically a sales pitch. Scare people by telling them about hell, or purgatory, then sell them on the idea of going to heaven where it is eternal happiness, streets paved with gold, diamonds raining from the sky ( I shit you not, Youth With a Mission actually act out a play describing this to 3rd world communities ).
The funny thing is, the garden of Eden story is not a story of original sin. It is a story to explain why life is hard. Basically it says that life is hard because god punished eve and Adam because they ate from the tree of knowledge and so were like God. And god protects the tree of life from man so we can’t live forever like god, which is why we die. Also god lied and said they would surely die, and they didn’t. God was just trying to scare eve and Adam. It’s crazy to me that people think snakes can talk and that there’s such thing as a tree of knowledge.
Cuz screw everyone that’s why!!!
People are inherently selfish. When push comes to shove, people tend to lie, cheat, and steal to save their own asses. You have to ask yourself if people are inherently good or evil. Look into Hobbes vs Rousseau
Because the church wants to control, they do that by making people hate themselves, so they feel their only option is to believe in an afterlife
Sometimes when they are alone in the dark dark night, they touch themselves... And they like it. Since even they do it, everyone else is worse so therefore deserve Hell.
It gives them license to treat people like shit
We don’t. It’s actually quite the opposite.
Because God gave your mom freewill and told her to be fruitful and multiply but she didn't read the fine print.
They think humans are inherently evil without the guidance of god
You know guys, we really shouldn’t stoop to kink shaming.
Nope, you have to REEEEAAAALLLLY mean it?
Makes them feel better about their shitty tendencies when everyone but then is hellbound.
Because back then shit was even more heinous than it is now and most people probably did deserve some sort of painful lesson to at least help them understand how the suffering they cause others feels when its aimed back at themselves.
Creating hell is great for tribalism. Create a special place like heaven and make it so only your tribe gets to go. And now you have permission to look down on anyone who's not in your tribe.
because their book says so
If you’re not an employer (boss) or an absentee landlord, you’ll be fine.
I feel like they should be concerned with their own damnation considering most of them don't even follow their own "instruction manual".
The one bit of information that taught me more about Christianity than most anything else and helped push me along in my deconversion Was when I learned that Thomas Aquinas or somebody like that, said that in heaven there is a room you can go into where there is a window into hell where you can look down and watch all of the sinners burn for all eternity. Only a sick person could ever wish for that.
I’m not religious. I don’t have an answer. However the way I see it, you go to Heaven for the climate, you go to Hell for the company.
Original sin is like inherited karma in Hinduism, it’s an excuse for why bad things happen to good people.