@philokalia saidI am leaving the belief in eternal torment in burning flames for eternity entirely ~ lock stock and barrel ~ up to Christians.
You aren't actually leaving it up to Christians. You are attacking a specific, hyperbolic position that is not the case for most people.
@philokalia saidI embrace the view with regard to non-believers and "salvation" that has been prevalent on this forum among Christians for as long as I have been here. Perhaps you haven't been reading people's posts.
But that is rather curious because you do tend to embrace a particular view of what the Christian God is like -- saying that all non-believers are sent to hell and such.
@philokalia saidIf those "hundreds of millions of other Christians" turn up here to defend their ideological corner, I will do my best to engage them. You brandish them quite often, but Argumentum ad Populum and Appeal to Authority basically do nothing for me. Try them on someone else.
Yet, I have said that does not actually describe my beliefs or the theology -- which is the case for me and hundreds of millions of other Christians.
@philokalia saidMy "position here" is that I engage the stance ~ with regard to non-believers and "salvation" ~ that has been prevalent on this forum among the Christians I have interacted with for the last 10 years or more. The degree to which your stance is "wishy-washy" ~ and strewn with hedging that makes the nonsense make sense to you, compared to theirs ~ is not as interesting to me as you seem to think it is.
I do not really understand your position here...
@philokalia saidLike I said, if those "hundreds of millions of other Christians" turn up here to defend their ideology, I will engage them. If whatever beliefs they have related to supernatural causality and about morality and justice strike me as incoherent and not credible, then it will get discussed.
So, you have acknoweldged that many Christians in the world (hundreds of millions) accept the idea that there will be non-Christians who enter the Kingdom of God, correct?
You don't see me debating Suzianne about "eternal torture". If "hundreds of millions of other Christians" like Suzianne turn up here, there will almost certainly be no debate between me and them about "eternal torture".
@fmf saidOh, OK, so you phrase it as non believers going to hell as a direct challenge to a specific school of thought...
Like I said, if those "hundreds of millions of other Christians" turn up here to defend their ideology, I will engage them. If whatever beliefs they have related to supernatural causality and about morality and justice strike me as incoherent and not credible, then it will get discussed.
You don't see me debating Suzianne about "eternal torture". If "hundreds of millions of o ...[text shortened]... turn up here, there will almost certainly be no debate between me and them about "eternal torture".
This shouldn't be regarded as the default position for Christianity.
@philokalia saidThere's no onus on you to confront any believers who talk openly about non-believers going to hell if you don't want to. I am not interested in being a proxy if you decide to try to do it indirectly though.
Oh, OK, so you phrase it as non believers going to hell as a direct challenge to a specific school of thought...
There are at least four or five Christian posters here [and countless others in the past] who vehemently believe that no Muslims and Jews and Hindus and Buddhists nor any other non-believers are "saved". They don't seem to want to confront you, and you don't seem to want to confront them, even on a debate and discussion message board. So be it.
I am not interested in serving as a proxy for the theological disagreements between you.
@philokalia saidFrankly, I don't really care what you do or don't think is "the default position for Christianity".
This shouldn't be regarded as the default position for Christianity.
@philokalia saidI disagree with you. And it's worth noting, I see no evidence that you are a contributor who reads other people's posts much. Sometimes you admit it [as if doing so legitimizes your more shallow or disengaged posts]; other times your premature discursive ejaculations and off-topic or topic-dodging personalized remarks make it plain to see. But you should see fit to post in the way you like to. If you don't agree with my take on the torturer god ideology, I'm OK with that.
I actually think none of them or few of them actually have such a limiting position as you say it is, so I brought it up.