Right, ok. It is relevent, because Ghandi's actions are de-valued if motivated by a belief in Indian superiority, which undermines your argument somewhat. Christianity is about turning towards God, rather than away from him. Those who do turn to God go to be with him when they die, those that don't, don't.
Whether Hell is actually a litteral pit or not is not that important. Hell is to be without God, which is to be without anything. I tend to think of it like screaming alone in the darkness for all eternity, without the comfort of darkness or the relief of being able to scream. Christianity isn't actually about Heaven and Hell, they are tangentile. Christianity is about the relationship between the individual and God.
You are complaining that Christianity would condemn Ghandi to an eternity without God, but by your own admission he wasn't interested in being with God to begin with.
If you genuinely don't want to offend then you might try moderating your tone and not hiding behind platitudes.
So, you don't want God, and you're complaining he doesn't want you?For me it is a moot point, because I cannot bring myself to think that a kind and loving creator being would burn me forever simply because I didn't blindly accept one man's opinion that he was God.
How can you go to God when you die if you reject him with your dying breath?It's sort of a contradiction in terms. The benevolent, merciful torturer of his own children.
He doesn't. So your statement is irrelevant.There is no morally righteous God if it values blind faith over reason, and assigns EITHER of them a moral value.
Patently obvious, point made repeatedly in the Bible.Faith nor reason are inherently good or bad.
As Rhy rightly noted, you deploy No True Scotsman yourself. Faith in God is flawed because it is human. Humans stray and, when they do, commit Sin against God. A Christian is one who follows the teachings of the Christ, not one who is morally superior.Plenty of men have faith and commit terrible atrocities, some men have reason (flawed reason) and commit terrible atrocities. Faith has nothing to do with morality. Then you get into the No True Scotsman argument- no Christians are evil because they accepted Christ, but those who commit evil didn't really accept Jesus into their heart.
Rubbish, because Christianity is not about Heaven and Hell. Some people do try to "sell" that, but the religion does not focus on Heaven and Hell, accept as the logical result of the state of the individual's relationship with God.If the main selling point is that no matter what I do, as long as I accept Christ I get into heaven, and if I don't I am cast out, that right there tells me that the true value is the church coffers and the church pews never being empty. The main moral value in organized religion is money and political power.
Of course it is, that's why Christians don't use it.The flowery "we're all evil, just as bad as murderers, if we don't accept Christ" argument is total hooey.
I suggest you actually read some salvation Theology, sufficed to say Native Americans do not automatically go to Hell.That means every person who lived before Christ is in hell. Oh, but we can make exceptions, yes? Sure we can. See God made a special pact with everyone before Jesus, the old covenants and such. And those poor native Americans that never heard about Christ? Well they can't get into heaven but they can be judged on their merits and sent somewhere less bad than hell. Goody, so they are denied eternal paradise because they were born in the wrong place? Isn't that God's fault, not theirs?
So, basically you want us all to by Biblical litteralists so that you can make fun of us. Sorry, it doesn't work like that; you have to deal with us as we are, not as your prejudice would have us be.If all else fails, Noah's ark. I urge someone to collect all the species in their own locality, nevermind the whole of the Earth, and build a ship and herd all the animals on it, and then after the flood is over, re-distribute them across the lands in such a way that only certain species are found on certain continents, and islands! Don't forget islands! Noah must have used the ship just to find all the animals. Must have taken a long, long time, too, unless he has Santa Claus "visit every Christian household in one night" super speed powers. Because "with God, all things are possible" means it doesn't have to make any sort of sense, and I'm a terrible person for thinking logically. That's evil and I'm going to hell.
I point you to Socrates here.Finally, if God has a divine plan, created me, and knows my heart, then he intended me to be a skeptical of him. He's also done a very good job of convincing me that he isn't real or he isn't involved at all. The crime of not believing in ancient mythology shouldn't be a perpetually damning offense. If there's one thing I know, more than anything else, is that not believing in something is NOT A CRIME.S
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