Tom Newton wrote:
> Speaking of hilarious and mythical comic book characters, how
> about the Jehovah clown from the Bible: An oversized white
> male sitting on a throne in some mythical dimension called
> "heaven" who supposedly waves his hairy arms and creates the
> whole universe in 7 days.
>
> And has the mentality of a primitive and savage warlord.
>
> And who is quite insane.
>
> God is obviously our ultimate parent. And any parent who
> tortures their children for even a minute is obviously
> sick in the head.
>
> Yet Jehovah supposedly throws his children into a mythical
> dimension called "hell" to be tortured for eternity. And
> he does this if they break one of a set of laws that no
> two Christians can agree on the exact number and meaning
> of.
>
> Tom
>
>
You realize that (most of) this bullshit that you just recited doesn't
actually exist in the Bible, correct? Some of it exists in Christian
imagery and some of it exists in Christian doctrine, but the vast
majority of these claims are based on adapted pagan concepts that were
introduced by Constantine in the early days of the Christian movement,
not on the Biblical text itself.
To go through your points piecemeal, the Bible claims that the universe
was created in SIX days, not seven; God rested on the seventh (pedantic,
I know, but an important distinction nonetheless). And it can be argued
that the creation account is merely present to illustrate a theological
point, rather than a scientific one.
As for any points relating to the imagery of God, those are largely
invalid. The Bible does not in any location state or suggest what the
physical appearance of the Father is.
The role of God in the Israelite's conquest of the land of Canaan can
indeed be seen as troubling, even by many Christians. Generally, it is
accepted that we do not understand the reasoning for this, and God, in
his omnipotence, may very well have foreseen what might have arisen had
the Israelites not smitten those nations, man, woman, and child. I can't
answer for this. I will concede that it gives the appearance of being
primitive and savage, and there is an apparent contradiction between the
nature of God as defined in the old testament and as defined in the New.
The accusation of insanity I will dismiss out-of-hand. There's no
logical reason to debate such a point.
To answer for your final point, the contradiction of Hell versus a god
of love, Hell is largely adapted from pagan mythos. While there are
Biblical accounts that attest to the torturous nature of Hell (the
parable of Lazurus and the rich man and the description of hell as a
place where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched), the
Biblical account has a very clear pattern: the penalty for sin is death;
the gift of God is eternal life. Sinners will perish, those who seek
salvation will live. I don't, personally, believe that Hell is a place
where evildoers will be tormented for all eternity. I believe that Hell
is a place where evildoers will perish and be forever cut off, and I
believe that the Bible attests to this.
To conclude, Christianity as it is practiced is largely not Christianity
as it was preached by Jesus. Hypocrisy is a large tenet of modern
Christianity, and this is a very serious flaw.
I've added alt.religion.christianity to this posting, in case anyone
wants to answer for it.
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