99percentatheism wrote:
I find it incredibly fascinating that Christians see repentance and forgiveness as part of the joy in the Gospels and their detractors see only in negativity and dread.
From your statement above you appear to view all non-Christians as "detractors" (i.e. as people who are trying to detract Christians from their belief).
This is understandable since the Bible does a very good job of brainwashing it's readers into viewing non-believers in this way.
However, non-believers are seldom "detractors" in reality. They are simply people who don't fall for the Biblical dogma, or who have at one time fallen for it themselves but now see its fallacy.
I personally don't care what you believe. And therefore I am not attempting to detract you from anything. I am on an open forum like this for the purpose of raising the awareness of humanity. Bouncing off posts like yours in debate simply offer me a platform to illustrate points that serve to raise awareness.
Now having said this I would like to address the point you have just made.
You say that "Christians see repentance and forgiveness as part of the joy in the Gospels"
I hold to you that what they
don't see is the fallacy behind it.
I personally have no problem with concepts such as repentance and forgiveness in the context of some imagined supreme being. If there exists a supreme being then I most certainly repent anything I may have done that might even remotely be considered to be immoral. I've already confessed in another thread that I actually feel guilty for eating meat. Yet ironically that's not even a sin in Christianity. I would have no need to repent for eating meat in Christianity. Thus illustrating that my desire for
repentance goes far beyond what Christianity is even demanding.
I would have absolutely no problem repenting any and all immoral deeds I may have been guilty of. And of course I would accept forgiveness from a God who is offering forgiveness. It would be absolutely foolish not to.
So does this mean that I should rush off and repent to Zeus or Allah?
I'm sure that you, as a Christian would say, "No way! Jesus is the one you must seek to be granted repentance and forgiveness".
And you see that's where the problem lies.
Christianity isn't about repentance and forgiveness. On the contrary Christianity is about Christianity. Period amen!
In fact, Christianity absolutely
denies repentance and forgiveness for anyone who refuses to confess that Jesus is "The Christ" and the one and only Lord and Savior, etc.
It's not about repentance or forgiveness at all. It's entirely about supporting that Christianity is the
ONE TRUE RELIGION.
That is what Christianity is all about.
Christianity was an invention of an ancient culture where neighboring cultures were all in competition to create a religion to trump their neighbor's religions.
This mindset actually started with the Greek (and other Mediterranean cultures). Even though the Greeks believed in many Gods, even they proclaimed Zeus to be the "God of Gods". You can believe in whatever Gods you like as long as you ultimately recognize that Zeus is the Big Chief.
The Hebrews simply took this idea one step further. They took the idea of Zeus, proclaimed him to be the ONE and ONLY God. They even went further and proclaimed him to be jealous of all other Gods that might even be imagined to exist. And they renamed him "Yahweh".
The Christians robbed this God from the ancient Hebrews, nailed him a pole as the sacrificial lamb for all of mankind and renamed him "Jesus".
The Muslims then came along, and rewrote their own version proclaiming that this was done by an illiterate prophet who flew off to heaven on a flying horse. And then renamed their God "Allah" (although three had no doubt already existed previous fables of a God named Allah as well.)
But the bottom line in all of this is that Christianity isn't about repentance and forgiveness at all. On the contrary it's simply a religious cult that refuses to allow that anyone has been sufficiently repented or forgiven until they join and support the cult and all of its decrees.
So I put to you that Christianity is not about repentance and forgiveness at all. It's about refusing to acknowledge repentance and forgiveness for anyone who is
Outside of the Christian Cult.
"What? You are not a Christian? You refuse to believe that Jesus is the Christ and Savior? Then obviously you are refusing to repent your sins and you are rejecting God's offer of forgiveness! You are yourself choosing hell!"
That is the mentality of Christianity. That is the core of this cult.
It's not about repentance and forgiveness at all. It's about demeaning anyone who refuses to join and support the cult as being "heathens against God".
How can you not see this?
I have no problem with any God that might exist.
But I do have extreme problems with the underhanded and unethical cult known as "Christianity".
And of course Islam does basically the same thing. They renounce everyone who doesn't worship Allah as having "rejected God" too.
How can you not see that this is just what these ancient religions were doing?
All they were doing is trying to condemn anyone who refused to join their particular religion. And Christianity is no exception.
It's not about repentance and forgiveness. It's about supporting a cult lest you be branded a "heathen".