It's not a threat?
Offline I was arguing with some christian who said:
"KSMB on judgement day you will have no excuses"
to which I responded:
"that is about as scary as being threatened to be punched in the aura by some dirty hippie"
Then I got:
"in your ignorance you gleefully run straight into hell"
to which I responded:
"again, imaginary threats do not work"
And then I got what I found interesting:
"whats the threat? i am not God, i cant threaten you with anything. i am just warning you what God says"
I think, in some way he is right, he is not the one doing the threatening. But he certainly is the one relaying a threat. I can't perceive of the concept 'being tormented forever if I don't believe in [insert nonsense]' as anything other than a threat. It's in the same league as "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stomping on a human face -- forever", or "my best friend said that he would shoot you in the knee caps if you don't come up with the money". How do I make the christians realize that this is indeed a threat (although it's an imaginary one)? Does anyone have some good comebacks to this line of "i am just warning you what God says" thinking?
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I'd have less of a problem with posts like that if they didn't read like the poster was playing with himself as he typed.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
I think that the person can technically get away with it because they're not expressing and intent to inflict harm. It's a common way of avoiding responsibility for one's statements to claim that one is merely giving an account of what someone else has articulated. In truth he's probably expressing a desire to see you harmed or delight in the fact that you will be harmed which is equally crude in my opinion.
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
I ask them to look up the definition of blackmail and then explain how the threat of hell does not fit this description.
"Take all the heads of the people
and hang them up before the Lord
against the sun.” -- Numbers 25:4
That is when I put on my poker face and ask them what they are going to be doing at the end if it turns out that they were wrong about the whole thing and it has really been about Mumbo Jumbo god of the Congo all along.
After that, the rap has to be tailored to how they respond. Usually I will point out that however old Mumbo Jumbo may feel about me, at least I am not a living representative of the religion that wiped out most of his followers by selling them the blankets that were wrapped around men while they died of dysentery.
If they so much as try to mention the bible, I am likely to ask them if they have read the source texts for the followers of Mumbo Jumbo. After all, if they have not read a book, how can they know what authority it may hold?
Another possible line of attack is to ask them if they know how many bishops at the council of Nicaea voted that Jesus was not god at all but really a powerful magician. Since different sources cite different numbers of attendees, it is not possible to even know how the vote went down. However, since basically no fundies even know jack shit about the early church, they will not have an answer. Then you can tell them to learn about what they would talk about before spreading their filth.
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I have actually had religious fanatics tell me matter of factly that I am going to hell, and that the more I laugh in their face, the longer I am going to burn. but then of course, they also tell me that I am going to burn for eternity. and they do delight in it. the next time some religious whacko mentions Jesus, tell them right off the bat that you hate jesus. oh man, you will hear some shit then. or tell them you like Jesus in the mel gibson movie, but you hate baby jesus. that confuses.
I usually go straight for the "fire and brimstone (Fred Phelps)" approach: tell them that "God hates you", "All fags are going to hell", "Ronald Reagan was a FAG-enabler"; it usually shuts believers up very quickly.
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
As I've droned on with here before I'm sure the biblical writers slotted hell in as a classic argument from force. Believe this or you're dead. That's ironclad logic for you. Most the christian theists in orbit around this site hold to these views and will resort to them eventually. I personally think if there was a better argument for the faith there'd be no need for blatant threats like this one. And yes, I think a lot of christians get a kick out of 'knowing' the big guy is going to come down and level the score. They are also projecting the fear that drove them to believe in the first place, so it may not be as personally vicious as I usually suggest.
There's a cerebral layer of christians who don't believe in hell. These are usually your where did we come from cosmological/abiogenesis/self=spirit wrestlers who are looking for the answer in their own lifetimes. They'll either hold to the idea hell is separation from god - which to me sounds pretty good (no hymns, no cardigans, sleeping in on Sunday), or they'll maintain we don't know. A lot of modern christians are starting to interpret the bible in very broad ways - not unexpected, I guess. I have a policy of asking christians is they would press the ignite button on the eternal lake of fire. So far they've always said 'no'. I've not asked a rabid southern baptist yet. I'm sure there would be plenty of volunteers in the fundamentalist christian/muslim camps.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
I always thought it was a like a little kid saying that his dad was going to come down and kick your ass. It really is a threat, even if it is passive-aggressive.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
I think this type of thing is part of the reason why it is easy to accept certain views associated with certain religions. That is, one can think a gay person is inferior because that is god's position, not their own. The same goes for views in Islam. If god wants someone dead, that is god's prerogative, not the believer's.
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I would say "if you really think god is the judge of whether I'm good or evil, then how do you think he'd feel about YOU trying to take over his job?"
Should you get a rematch you might ask EXACTLY where he is getting this stuff.
If he earned all of his gold stars in sunday school he might be able to come up with bits and pieces of it from all over -- taken out of context of course. No place will he find all of it in one place. So as his god did not put it all together in one place someone else did. Ask for his name and where that god endorses his assemblage as correct.
At this point the Catholic churches fall back on church teaching as being at least the best there is if not infallable should some pope actually have performed the ritual of infallibility of which there are very, very few.
The last pope did skeptics a favor by pointing out it was not and never had been official church teaching of an either/or heaven or hell. It only goes along with the getting into heaven part and what is required to get there and a few of the explicitly recited punishable offenses.
Jews stole the land. The owners want it back. That is all anyone needs to know about Israel. That is all there is to know about Israel.
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www.giwersworld.org/made-in-alexandria/index.html
www.giwersworld.org/00_files/zion-hit-points.phtml
Many years ago at one job I had a couple of fundamentalist "friends". Lets call them Fundie A & Fundie B.
Fundie A told me point blank that I was going to hell. Now he wasn't judging me, he was just reporting the facts you know. I didn't believe in Jesus so therefore the Bible said I was going to hell.
A few years go by and I left that company and then I heard Fundie A was fired for looking at porn on his work computer.
A few years ago Fundie B started working at my new place of employment. I reminded Fundie B that Fundie A told me I was going to hell. I said I guess he knows what that is like now. Fundie B still was friends with Fundie A and quickly told me he is much better now. I assume all forgiven and such.
Time wounds all heels.
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
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