@kellyjay saidOf course your morally-depraved and incoherent torture ideology is intended as a "threat". It has been used to coerce and frighten children and adults for millennia.
It isn't a threat to say every wrong will be dealt with unless you have done wrong, but it is only a warning even then.
@fmf saidAs I understand it, no specific crime need have been committed; simply being a descendant of Adam is damnable. That is the doctrine.
What is it I have done in my six decades that, morally speaking, warrants me being punished by torture for 400,000,000,000 years and then for eternity after that?
It's a fairy tale for frightening people into compliance with the rules. Thou shalt not do X, and if you do do X, you'll be punished. That's the ticket. A primitive form of morality from several thousand years ago when the human race was not very spiritually advanced. It took a few thousand years for the human race to advance to the point of seeing that if virtue is its own reward, then vice must also be its own punishment; that people should do the right thing because it is the right thing, not because they'll be punished if they don't. Unfortunately, not everyone advances at the same rate.
@fmf saidYou have your eyes fixed on people as if they are the reality makers, we are not. What is true about everything doesn’t reside on who believes it and who doesn’t, who has more letters after their names. God being the creator isn’t dependent upon people just the truth.
Yes, you do. My Muslim neighbour has a God figure. Theistic Jews have a God figure. Sikhs have a God figure. The Balinese woman I am doing some work for today has her Hindu God figures. So, yes. You do. You have a God figure, KellyJay. And you are describing him to me.
@FMF
The stages of moral development:
https://www.thoughtco.com/kohlbergs-stages-of-moral-development-4689125
This is only one possible list of the various stages; of course, there are others.
Such as
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2013.00057/full
Quote from Kohlberg's stages:
"Stage 1: Punishment and Obedience Orientation. At the lowest level of moral development individuals haven’t yet internalized a sense of morality. Moral standards are dictated by adults and the consequences of breaking the rules. Children nine years old and younger tend to fall into this category.
Children believe the rules are fixed and must be obeyed to the letter. Morality is external to the self."
This characterizes the Judeo-Christian concept of ethics: right and wrong are dictated by God, God punishes and rewards the compliant and the disobedient (respectively). Rules come from daddy; daddy will spank you if you disobey. Commandments come from God; God will torture you for ever and ever if you disobey. It's the same stage.
Now, don't think I don't hear the objections of JosephW and KellyJay: "So, moonbus thinks he's above God." Which, of course, misses the point. Thing is, those at a more advanced stage of moral development can see and understand those at lower stages, but the reverse is not so. Those at a lower stage cannot see or understand that there are stages at all, much less accept that there are higher stages than their own.
Now, don't think I don't hear the objections of JosephW and KellyJay: "So, moonbus thinks he's above the rules, he can just do whatever he wants." In a sense, yes, but in another sense no. Those at higher stages of moral development may do what they want because they have disciplined themselves to want what is morally right (provided their reasoning faculty is functioning to correct desires directed at faulty ends--see for example Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics), whereas those at lower stages of moral development must be prevented from doing what they want, if necessary by being told fairy tales about eternal punishments, because their wants are largely undisciplined, chaotic, egotistical, and incongruent with what is right.
There is also a hierarchy of human relationships:
R1: first kin, close relatives.
R2: best friends or intimates.
R3: strangers who are very weak, e.g., a blind person; or very young, e.g., a small child of 6 years old; or who are elite of the society, e.g., a famous scientist who is also a Nobel prize winner.
R4: common strangers.
R5: someone you dislike or enemies.
From this, it can be seen where Jesus was: forgive even your enemies.
I leave it to you to figure out where on the ladder the frequent posters to the SF are.
@kellyjay saidWhat you insist is "true about everything" does not become more convincing and less far-fetched, KellyJay, merely because you keep repeating this "argument" over and over and over again.
What is true about everything doesn’t reside on who believes it.
Show me one scintilla of evidence that even just ONE person has been tortured in burning flames after they die in accordance with the grotesque supernatural assertions you make about divine punishment. Go for it.
@fmf saidYou have an explanation for the universe and everything in it that is not supernaturally driven? I have asked before what are you using to dismiss the transcendent God? Something that takes in everything? Do you just stick your head in the sand as if avoiding that question some how removes from you the possibility of consequences?
People like you and your Bible-inspired eternal torture moral nonsense are not "reality makers".
@fmf saidHow can anyone show you something that has not happen yet?
What you insist is "true about everything" does not become more convincing and less far-fetched, KellyJay, merely because you keep repeating this "argument" over and over and over again.
Show me one scintilla of evidence that even just ONE person has been tortured in burning flames after they die in accordance with the grotesque supernatural assertions you make about divine punishment. Go for it.