Indian triumph

-Removed-

Originally posted by @philokalia
You really do not like it when I call out where it is all going from the very start, lol.

Look, not every thread has to be about this. We've made lots of points in threads that you dedicated to this theme, and argued very passionately.

I've explained to you how it isn't like the distortion that you imply in many other places.

You should drop it.

Cosmic justice is beautiful.

I'm not embarrassed.

But I'm sick of the same bad lines, bad takes, etc., and having to reach for the same Bible verses time and time again.

It's a sickness of repetition of the same lines of argument.

Originally posted by @philokalia
It's a sickness of repetition of the same lines of argument.

Originally posted by @philokalia
But I'm sick of the same bad lines, bad takes, etc., and having to reach for the same Bible verses time and time again.

Originally posted by @fmf
Something utterly grotesque and demented lies at the very heart of your religious beliefs and defines the essential nature of your god figure. No wonder you want to drop it.

Originally posted by @dj2becker
Grotesque and demented according to which objective standard? Oh wait you don't have one so you're just stumbling about in the wilderness with a moral compass that is blown around by the winds of public opinion.

Originally posted by @fmf
Your moral standards are every bit as subjective as mine.

Originally posted by @dj2becker
From your atheistic perspective maybe so. But if the God of the Bible is real your perspective would be invalid.

Originally posted by @dj2becker
... if the God of the Bible is real your perspective would be invalid.

I won't condescend to you at all, FMF. I know you are a smart guy and you are worth my time. We just have different perspectives on this. I also did want to say, earlier, that I appreciated the detente you reached on the "rights" stuff earlier on in the thread. I felt like we had both grown in our posting behaviors and that was excellent.

Now, let me wax on the topic of hell just a bit....

I think it's important to understand what hell is -- it is a place where people send themselves by their own actions. By living a poor life, by ignoring God, by not seeking redemption, you send yourself to hell. Just as how we play a role in our salvation, we also play a role in our own condemnation .

I do not speculate on what, exactly, hell or heaven looks like. We understand heaven and hell in earthly terms, but there are no earthly terms which correspond to it -- I was told that the descriptions which St. Basil provides us are meant to fill us with a grandiose idea of what they are, since the grandness of his explanations is what stands in for the actual grandness of what these places really are.

In every single teaching about 'hell,' the emphasis is that the actual punishment is isolation from God, and that the proverbial wounds are self-inflected. For, when we have done things to take us outside of the favor of God, when we isolate ourselves through our own ignorance and egotism, we inflict our own wounds. One of the more interesting descriptions of hell is that it is a place where nobody can see one another's faces, and you are always standing, naked, and everyone has their backs to you in a miserable and dirty place of agony.

Make of that what you will.

Justin Martyr speculated that only the souls of Christians who "knew" and who routinely failed to fulfill their goals would go to hell, and that the souls of non-believers who did not meet the other criteria for salvation through contrition & grace would go to a place of limbo before their soul was simply snuffed out and everything was as if they had never existed.

I'd like to point out something else, as well: Christianity is simultaneously condemned for being overly merciful and overly cruel. It makes no sense. On the one hand, it is unjust that a repentant murderer who gives his heart to Christ will go to heaven; yet, it is also too much if such a man would go to hell.

But whatever you wish to consider about it... do so fairly. Do so with a proper context.

But let me guess what the reaction will be: ignorant outpourings all trying to reduce this back to a cartoon in which a good hearted Buddhist will be sent to hell but a conniving and lying Christian will go to heaven because of some weird legalistic understanding of the situation.

That isn't how this works at all.

I'll also repeat this line... I am no expert at all on what sends a person to hell, or what hell is like; I was told to spread the Gospels, and I know that through faith in Christ and through following Him in Good Faith we attain eternal life.

Moreover, I know that through prayer, fasting, and meditation on His Word, your life improves dramatically, and it is a literal miracle. I see it every day.

Originally posted by @fmf
Your religious beliefs are the quintessential upshot and expression of your subjectivity. You cannot render them objective by simply declaring them "objective".

Originally posted by @philokalia
I won't condescend to you at all, FMF. I know you are a smart guy and you are worth my time. We just have different perspectives on this. I also did want to say, earlier, that I appreciated the detente you reached on the "rights" stuff earlier on in the thread. I felt like we had both grown in our posting behaviors and that was excellent.

Originally posted by @dj2becker
My belief in objective moral truth is logically consistent with my theistic beliefs. Your belief in moral relativity is logically consistent with your atheistic beliefs.

Originally posted by @fmf
If Hindu gods are real then we shouldn't be eating beef.