Donnadogsoth

And, of course, God burns invincibly ignorant people, such as the 95% of the world's historical population who never heard of him and aren't natural saints, because that's the kinda guy he is. But, that's a very interesting psychoanalysis of me, thank you. The problem is, my father isn't threatening to burn me alive. I have a real emotional response to people threatening to burn me alive, and threatening to burn my invincibly ignorant friends alive, too. Though, I suppose my friends are dispensable. If I were in Heaven and they were in Hell, too bad for them I guess. I'll send them a postcard, "Wish you were here!" I guess they'd send me one too, saying the same thing!

See, you're just a liar. My friends are not proud. They just see no reason to adhere to any religion, yours or anyone else's. And, they're not natural saints, either. So, your God is going to burn them and you'll be whacking off in Heaven to the images and sounds (and smells?) of them being tortured on Hell Television. Well, at least we will have the moral satisfaction of knowing we don't deserve to "self-immolate"--again, another lie: God is doing the burning, God set up the game, God set up the punishments, we did not choose anything except to live our lives and die at the end.

Nationalism is the only answer. Religion is a hopeless tangle of competing damnation threats and emotional claims. Individualism is just a herd of cats waiting for the bulldozer. Anarchy (cap or com) is a nice pipe dream but we can't smoke the pipe forever while these things are happening. The leftwing is obviously mendacious and pernicious. The center is a do-nothing almost by definition. The rightwing is a mudbath of fiscal fiddling. That leaves nationalism as the only way to mobilize people to defend tradition, including heterosexual identity, free speech, and the quality of sanity that allows for things like science to exist.

Has he won the argument about who gets the nukes, or why rich people in an AnCap wouldn't just use their money to buy armies that would reinstate kings?

Have fun watching me and my friends burn.

Are you motivated by fear of Hell or the bribe of Heaven to ignore the fact God wants to burn people? Does it not matter to you because they're my friends that are going to burn and not your friends? All your friends are going to Heaven? Will you enjoy watching us burn while you're in Heaven (maybe on tv?) Why are you being so difficult? Is it hard for you to be honest about your motivations?

I humbly suggest you're underestimating the nature of Hell. Someone famous once said that Hell is to fire, as fire is to a picture of fire . . . You won't be using your mind for much under those conditions other than thinking up new ways to scream.

God's going to burn you too, Richard.

Are you telling me God's creation of the universe was a craps game? Are you telling me that, prior to rolling the dice on this universe that he didn't know what would happen, he didn't already have in mind a standard by which he would judge the creatures he would create?

1. God set up the system of things knowing full well most people would burn. Saying he doesn't want anyone to burn is crocodile tears. 2. Invincibly ignorant means impossible to convert. In the old days it referred to having too little information, as a Medieval Chinaman, or a mental retardate, or an unbaptised infant. In the new days it refers to people utterly confused by the welter of competing truth claims. As one acquaintance put it, "I have no iota of understanding why anyone would believe in religion." He burns too. I might have met four people in my entire life I could say really believe in Christ and really walk the talk, and one of them was insane (wouldn't even defend his family in a fight), and the others I'm not sure of either. Everyone else I know burns. 3. "Hell of a thing to live your life in fear, isn't it?" My friends are normal people. Family men and women, some are NGO members, they're of good cheer, helpful, normal people. They don't know theology and generally "wing it" when it comes to the bigger questions in life. They aren't saints, natural or otherwise. They will never be converted to any religion. They might, like my father, on their deathbed wonder if they should pray, and then be bemused by the options: Thor, Zeus, Brahman, Odin, Buddha, Mazda, Mumbo-Jumbo . . . and say ah, to hell with it, lets just crack a joke and make the people around me smile . They're normal people living normal lives. Nothing will penetrate their ignorance of God. They're not proud about it, they're not egomaniacs, they're not anti-theists, they're not Satan worshippers, they've done nothing more or less worse in their lives than any other normal, non-malevolent people, but they're confused and tired by the whole thing and simply made their peace with the life they find themselves living.

I'm happy you're invulnerable to the r-word. We share something in common, at least. Why does God want to burn my atheist friends? That's a problem for me. They're invincibly ignorant of God and they're not natural saints, so according to you they're going to burn. Why should I worship a God that wants to burn my atheist friends? Fear of Hell? The bribe of Heaven?

Sounds pretty racist against all those peoples who lived and died never having had a chance to be saved while being less than a natural saint. Why is it good to save as many as we can? Everyone who ends up in Hell deserves it, so, what difference does it make if we save more people? Everyone just gets what they deserve.

If people invincibly ignorant of Christ can be saved anyway, why spread the Gospel?

Without "opening our eyes" we weren't humans at all. Satan is the Monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey that changed the proto-men into men capable of perfecting their technical practice. Satan is therefore the creator of mankind, a kind of Prometheus.

What happens to the Medieval Chinese, Mahti? What happens to the people who never heard of Christ?

The cowards may be shameless but they are still ruled by the fear of being shamed out of existence by their fellow men. Thus postmodern conscience makes cowards of us all.

Oh, you're one of those Christians, are you? God says jump off a cliff or eat a bag of nails, your choice. Your God will not give me what I want after I die, because I would choose annihilation, not being tortured for eternity. Why do you want to worship a God who wants to hurt people?

"Have you truly given a gift if you take it away the moment you don't approve of its use?" Didn't I answer that question? "Do you hold his parents responsible for his crimes?" Didn't I answer that question? So you're a liar. Are you acting in bad faith, too? Just a Christian troll? Have a conversation about what? About something that wants to burn me? How about this question for you: why do you worship something that wants to burn people? How about this question for you: Are you a Catholic? If not how can you expect to be saved outside the Church?

And a partridge in a pear tree . . .

I have nothing better to offer at current, so I agree.

I'm not sure. Consider the difference between meaning and emotion. Emotion is an an impelling charge or force, irresistible without free will. Meaning might be termed the colouration of the Logos. The more meaningful something is the closer it is to the Logos. Absolute free will means the ability to choose between emotion or meaning, between robotic circuitry or accordance with the design of the Logos. The human emotion associated with the choice could be considered the Holy Spirit, the spirit of agape or divine love. So there is an emotion associated with free will but is it irresistible? It allows us to choose to rise to an "upgraded" personality, temporarily or characteristically. The people who don't feel this divine emotion are generally called psychopaths. If agape is not irresistible then what regulates its strength?

If real choice means a monstrous God burning me, everyone I know, and mediaeval China to boot in Hell, then no I don't want a real choice. Actually, if you give a child a knife and he immediately starts stabbing his playmates with it, you DO take it away. And if you cause that child to be schizophrenic and hear voices telling him to stab his playmates, YOU'RE responsible.

If we believe in free will then we must also believe in a soul. That is because, in a material universe all the objects in that universe are governed by physical laws and have no choice in their behaviour. This includes the atoms that make up our respective brains. If our entire brain operates in obedience to physical laws, then there can be no choice involved in our decisions. Everything is the result of the laws. The only escape that allows free will is the introduction of a supernatural aspect to the human mind, such that the mind is more than the sum of its neurological parts. That supernatural dimension, uncontrolled by physical laws, is where decisions could originate through acts of will, which are then filtered into the material universe through the geometry of the brain. Note that this also means that the universe is, in a sense, set up to obey us, because its physical laws will "bend" in the direction of our decisions. That is, the laws themselves don't change, but allow for multiple outcomes due to the action of free will.

God made this wonderful cherub and then said "Oops! Didn't see that coming!" when it turned into the ultimate demon of darkness? And then he didn't do anything about it but let it corrupt (a) His wonderful universe and (b) the very race he had made in His image? And he just keeps this thing around to help screw up this race even more throughout its entire miserable history?

If Hitler's parents were OMNISCIENT and knew what he would turn into, then yes.