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Yes, yes, it's the same old "join me or die" routine that every cult in existence has stressed. Whether your religion emphasizes hell or not, you still believe that good and honorable people are tortured for eternity thanks to your forgiving God who just can't find it in his heart to forgive. His ego is so massive that committing the Holocaust is forgivable with just a quick prayer and an "I'm sorry." But fail to worship and praise and grovel at God's feet and off you go to Firefest 2015.
Most religions don't believe that. So many Fundamentalists and their Atheist offspring ponder the notion of Hell; I'm not really certain why that is the case.
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It never ceases to amaze me how anyone - ANYONE - Christian or not, can see infinite love, perfect justice, and limitless forgiveness in a God that gets his jollies from watching people be tortured ... and not for being bad but for simply picking the wrong religion. What a crock.
That is Fundamentalism.
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All this says is that your religion can't tolerate "outsiders." It can't tolerate those who think, act, or believe differently. It's no wonder why the Bible references humanity as the flock and the Lord as the shepherd as often as it does. Because we're supposed to forgo the use of our brain and bleat our way into heaven like the biggest dumbass sheep in the pasture.
You don't seem to be doing the best job of communicating with people who think differently. Same person, same tendency, different belief system.
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The threat of hell was invented to keep gullible people in line - to make sure no one would dare leave the almighty cult and the leadership of Jesus, Paul, Moses, Joshua, or whomever happens to be in charge at the time.
Well, I wasn't raised on the concept of Hell but I'm from California.
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Why do you think God decided to use an intermediary like Moses to get his supposed laws across to the masses? Yeah ... because there WAS no God. Just Moses hanging around up there on the mountain thinking of ways to keep the Israelites doing as they're told. Once he had chiseled all of that religious nonsense into those stone tablets, he came back with the biggest whopper of a fish-story about God, the Hebrew God of Genocide, saying "follow these rules or else!"
Wow, you put more literal truth in the Moses idea than I do...Fundamentalist much...
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It really saddens me - yes, it truly does - that good and decent people have been hoodwinked into a morally depraved cult that says everyone but Christians will be tortured forever. I don't think you folks can even grasp the pure, pernicious evil that infinite torture actually represents. Any ideology, religious or otherwise, that has such a despicable core as eternal torture, will rot society from within. And yep, in many respects, that's just what it's doing.
If it makes you feel better...I'm sorry you grew up in a Fundamentalist family.
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Because there really is a correlation if not a causation between religiosity and crime rates, teen pregnancy rates, violence, the percent of the population that is or has been incarcerated, etc. so on and so forth. Often the most religious states are the ones still executing people, the states that are the most racist, the states that are the most xenophobic, the states with the lowest standards of living, yada yada.
Cupper will have the statistics off the internet very soon.
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I suppose any ideology or paradigm that allows a person to befriend someone of a differing religion, someone you have fun with, someone you confide in and who confides in you, someone you trust, someone you love and yet be able to look that friend in the eye and think to yourself, "Yep, you deserve to BURN for all eternity in hell!"
Yah, can I say again I'm sorry you grew up Fundamentalist?
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Well ... any ideology or paradigm like that can't help but be a blight on our civilization.
You gave a rousing speech just like your former Pastor...I'm not much for rousing speeches; they go against reason too emotive...
For me, religion was an obstacle that was blocking out the light, allowing the darkness to invade my soul and allowing the fear of death to actually develop. It wasn't until I went AROUND this obstacle (and rejected religion) that the light of God's love started to permeate my soul, instead. Then I wasn't afraid anymore. No fear for myself, nor for anyone else out there in the world. Just my view.
I do not "fear" death but I am in NO hurry for it to happen.
Although many of the Ultra-religious posters here would disagree I am a fairly religious person, but I haven't found any organized religion I am comfortable with, I can Bible-thump with the best of 'em.
YES, "God" did create the Universe but not in six Earth days, that would be a meaningless timeframe outside Earth.
Ah another truly rudderless as one travels through the streams of life...;-)...it isto see how deep deep deep cynicism on the human condition makes one throw the oars overboard and drift dimly into a sweeping all-encompassing fog. Another Odysseus coming back from a war lost on the seas of life. Appears that there will be many 'harbors' not seen!
Yah, can I say again I'm sorry you grew up Fundamentalist?
You gave a rousing speech just like your former Pastor...I'm not much for rousing speeches; they go against reason too emotive...
Where do you get the notion that Shirina was a fundamentalist -- or has to have been one to find it a pernicious belief system? She is Bengali and has had contact with Christian fundamentalism but was not raised in it IIRC.
You are fortunate to be "from California" and not having been raised on hellthreat. Good for you. However I find hellthreat implicit in Christianity, if greatly watered down in many of its precincts. If Jesus is a saviour then he has to save you from something. But no matter how furiously you distance yourself from the overt implications of that, it doesn't invalidate the critique. And it certainly doesn't justify the claim that "most religions don't teach that". There's always a carrot and a stick.
The concept of "afterlife" in religion is linked to real life. Faith in religion, for example, is a top requirement for good afterlife and a top requirement for dismissing bad afterlife.
"How many quarters are in a dollar?"
"Daddy, when we die, are we going to heaven?"
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I agree.
