Threat or Warning? Moral or Immoral?

[A Troubled Man]

I'm not threatening you, I'm giving you some good advice. Take it or leave it.

...God created both heaven and hell. Those who put their faith in Him will go to heaven, those who reject Him will go to hell. Yes, I believe God is moral in everything He does, so that would include in creating both hell and heaven.

Is the "advice" we get from believers threats or warnings regarding Heaven and Hell?

Is it moral or immoral for believers to reiterate their "advice" to others?

Would you conclude the "advice" is reason to reject any religion that offers it?

[Wootah]

[Replying to post 15 by A Troubled Man]

Compared to what standard are you claiming they are good?

They simply aren't good enough for the standard God sets.

It's like a restaurant or a club. We know by the type of people they let in how good it probably is. Groucho Marx understood this in a comical way when he said something like, 'I wouldn't join a club that would let me in. Even John West understands the idea - it's the fish John West rejects that makes it the best. It's like an employer that recruits the best.

The point here is that we know how good heaven must be by the fact that he refuses seemingly good people.

[Goat]

[Replying to post 15 by A Troubled Man]

Compared to what standard are you claiming they are good?

They simply aren't good enough for the standard God sets.

It's like a restaurant or a club. We know by the type of people they let in how good it probably is. Groucho Marx understood this in a comical way when he said something like, 'I wouldn't join a club that would let me in. Even John West understands the idea - it's the fish John West rejects that makes it the best. It's like an employer that recruits the best.

The point here is that we know how good heaven must be by the fact that he refuses seemingly good people.

And how do you know all this? Assuming there is a god, how do you know who he refuses or doesn't?

[Wootah]

We are all evil / have sinned. Easily recognisable.

We are not evil, we are compassionate and altruistic by nature.

If you believe you are evil, then you will begin behaving that way.

They say an alcoholic best defeats alcoholism by knowing he is an alcoholic.

[Goat]

We are all evil / have sinned. Easily recognisable.

We are not evil, we are compassionate and altruistic by nature.

If you believe you are evil, then you will begin behaving that way.

They say an alcoholic best defeats alcoholism by knowing he is an alcoholic.

And many alcoholics became alcoholics because of poor self image, and being told they are evil all the time

[10CC]

We are all evil / have sinned. Easily recognisable.

We are not evil, we are compassionate and altruistic by nature.

If you believe you are evil, then you will begin behaving that way.

They say an alcoholic best defeats alcoholism by knowing he is an alcoholic.

And many alcoholics became alcoholics because of poor self image, and being told they are evil all the time

Or worthless or not good enough or god hates them or they are the devil or any number of other recruiting techniques and submission techniques. Many suicides result from the same abuse.

[A Troubled Man]

Way too vague a statement. If you had the power to give free will to say 10 creatures and one of them started trying to kill the other 9 would you stop it?

That is a strawman, who said anything about killing others? We are talking about using free will to simply life ones life without having to be forced to worship a god.

That is your opinion but in my opinion it is not the best interpretation of the evidence.

But, that is exactly what is happening.

The gun to the head is the logically necessity of God being good.

That is why I reject your god, I don't want a gun to my head demanding I worship some selfish god.

Assume you are good. You see a guy try to rob someone - what do you do? Allow it or stop it. It's that simple to understand that a good God will stop evil.

Again, that is another strawman. We aren't talking about robbing, we are talking about being forced to worship a god, and nothing more.

I don't understand you analogy. There is still a lot of actions that we can take.

No, there isn't, we either worship your god or we go to hell, that is the only option your religion offers.

[A Troubled Man]

Compared to what standard are you claiming they are good?

They simply aren't good enough for the standard God sets.

The standard God sets is, "Worship me or go to Hell"

It's like a restaurant or a club. We know by the type of people they let in how good it probably is. Groucho Marx understood this in a comical way when he said something like, 'I wouldn't join a club that would let me in. Even John West understands the idea - it's the fish John West rejects that makes it the best. It's like an employer that recruits the best.

It isn't anything like that, God only wants those who worship him, the rest are sent to Hell.

The point here is that we know how good heaven must be by the fact that he refuses seemingly good people.

That is why I reject your God. He doesn't care so much about people being good as He does about people worshiping Him. That's called, "Selfishness"

[A Troubled Man]

They say an alcoholic best defeats alcoholism by knowing he is an alcoholic.

So what? We are only alcoholics if we excessively drink alcohol.

Are you saying all people everywhere are excessively evil?

That isn't even remotely true by any stretch of the imagination. Only an extremely tiny minority of people commit acts that may be deemed 'evil' compared to the billions of people on the planet.

You would need to show us how all people in the world are excessively evil in order for your analogy to have any validity.


So, tell me, what evil things did you do yesterday and what evil things did you do today and what evil things will you do tomorrow. What evil things did your neighbor do to you today and the neighbor across the street or the neighbor next to him. Clearly, your neighborhood must be full of evil people doing evil things and they must all be excessively evil things, because that is the analogy you used, that we are all alcoholics drinking excessively every day and all day long.

So, how many murders were committed on your street today? There must have been many considering how excessively evil all your neighbors are. How many times have the women been raped on your street, every day?

Please tell us just how excessively evil we all are based on your analogy?

[Sonofason]

I'm not threatening you, I'm giving you some good advice. Take it or leave it.

...God created both heaven and hell. Those who put their faith in Him will go to heaven, those who reject Him will go to hell. Yes, I believe God is moral in everything He does, so that would include in creating both hell and heaven.

A Troubled Man wrote:

Is the "advice" we get from believers threats or warnings regarding Heaven and Hell?

I do not believe, for the most part, that a believer has the capacity or the ability to actually cause a person to go to hell. While under a certain circumstance one could, I do not believe that most Christians have such thoughts in mind when they warn people of hell, and so I believe that in all, or at least most cases, such talk by believers is merely a warning to those who might be neglecting God. It should be considered that if a non-believer is killed, he dies without God, and surely will learn what hell truly is.

A Troubled Man wrote:

Is it moral or immoral for believers to reiterate their "advice" to others?

I think it could be immoral, as there is hardly a believer who knows the fate of any particular man. While it is true that a Christian can read aloud, or quote from scripture the sort of man that might find himself in hell, he cannot know which particular men will find themselves there. Thus I think it would be somewhat immoral to say that "you are going to hell". But it is not immoral to suggest the dangers of hell to those who set themselves on a course in life that the Bible declares is worthy of hell.

A Troubled Man wrote:

Would you conclude the "advice" is reason to reject any religion that offers it?

No I would not. I tend to heed such advice.

[A Troubled Man]

I do not believe, for the most part, that a believer has the capacity or the ability to actually cause a person to go to hell.

Whether they do or not is irrelevant to the fact they make or reiterate those threats.

While under a certain circumstance one could, I do not believe that most Christians have such thoughts in mind when they warn people of hell, and so I believe that in all, or at least most cases, such talk by believers is merely a warning to those who might be neglecting God. It should be considered that if a non-believer is killed, he dies without God, and surely will learn what hell truly is.

That being said, you too will learn about the Hell created by other religions, and you too should heed those threats from those other gods. In fact, a long line of gods awaits us all, each one judging us for the decisions we made in our lives. They all await us like some fraternity hazing ritual, standing in line waiting to paddle our asses.