No it doesn’t
Yes, I think it does. You couldn’t comprehend something like that unless you believed in some seriously crazy shit.
American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate, Steven Weinberg once famously said, “With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.”
So you think he’s a thoroughly decent gent, but also a stark raving lunatic…and evil. Alternatively he is a human being, just like you, with a different belief system.
I have read every post in this thread and found it fascinating.Thank you for starting it. However, please be mindful that for many people faith is deeply personal, complex, possibly handed down through generations and absolutely core to how they have developed and grown.
Leaving a faith system can be traumatic. I might write more if feel comfortable at a later point. But please be kind and tolerant of people, even if you find aspects of their faith intolerable
If you read my opening, you know that I appreciate this absolutely. In this instance, I find his views (based on his faith) abhorrent. If anybody would like to agree that Hitler would be forgiven for his actions then I’m all ears (eyes).
If you ask me, of course, Hitler will never get anywhere near heaven no matter what he does, however he repents. But then, if its up to me to choose who can get to heaven, it would not be too fair. (I.e. the entire Man Utd and Everton team would probably not get in)
Before I go on, I must say I am putting this from a perspective of a Christian on how I think God would behave based on what I believe of Him, but if you do not believe in Him, if this perspective does not make sense to you, so be it too as I mentioned before.
If you look at what God says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” It says ANYONE. Now from a human perspective, we shudder to think that IF, a big IF that Hilter really did repent and receive God, he would have been forgiven. But again God is God. To Him, a sin is a sin, to exaggerate, stealing a sweet from a grocery store is to Him essentially the same as murdering someone. A drop of black paint onto white destroys the white paint as much as multiple drops of black paint onto white. If through one man’s sin that destruction would come onto mankind, then it is through one man’s sacrifice that ALL mankind would have the chance to be saved. To frustrate ourselves by asking a hypothetical question like whether Hitler repented and then start hitting God with it would be quite pointless.
So that is really looking for the perspective of God again I say, if you do not believe Him, then I am sure it would not make sense. And even as a Christian, it might be strange to say this, but I actually felt I had more freedom even if some felt that religion restrict people. Maybe I have never believed in religion but in a God.
Not even Saint Marcus?
No. Not even him. And also the guy who called me Uncle when taking my coffee order, you are this close to going to hell…be careful…
And the guy who spitefully omitted my masterpiece from the Greatest Art poll…careful.
You obviously pushed him to the logical conclusion of his belief in God’s grace. Fair enough. But you also said it was the early hours after a huge amount of wine. Most of the Christians I know simply haven’t thought critically about what they believe. As others have pointed out, some churches actively seek to prevent critical thought. That doesn’t make their parishioners mad or bad
Who mentioned anything about the afterlife? For you I plan to make you watch reruns of every single match Everton ever played in history since their inception.
I think the rationalists struggle with the dissonance between, “its futile to try and understand God’s plan because They are so beyond human understanding” but at the same time the certainty about the rules and expectations that They have laid out for humans as evidenced in holy books.
If God works in mysterious ways then surely Their holy book is also beyond human understanding.
In fact if God works mysteriously then the optimal thing to do is not worry about what God wants (because it’s not possible for humans to understand Them) and instead just live your life for the betterment of human civilization and nature and hope for the best.
I get what you are saying and all I can say is there is a reason why we also call believing in God or a religion, a faith. It really does take faith. I know there are bible scholars and apologists who would be up for people to have a debate with them on almost every single thing in the bible on how it is relevant in its context. I am not one of those. I am really one of those who believe in God with faith. I have friends who tell me that if I can ask God to appear in front of them physically, they would definitely believe in Him. I just plainly tell them I can’t, He might do it if He wants to, but I can’t summon Him like the way I summon my dog just to prove something to someone else.
I have earlier said in my first post that God is experienced, never externally transmitted. When I became a born again Christian, I naively just shared it with my best friend and he, being the intellectual kind, mocked me and say ‘ah…church…you know what, I am from the church of satan, I would melt in your church.’ To me back then, it was funny as hell and we laughed it off. A few years later, he contracted Leukemia and was given 6 months to live and I was there with him during the diagnosis at the doctor’s. And over the next few weeks and months, he told me that the things he heard about God from me and friends keep coming back to him and eventually he became a born again christian. It has been 20 years since his Leukemia diagnosis, he is living well and I would say even a more staunch believer than myself.
What I am trying to say, like what you rightly say, God transcends logic whether you want to see that in a positive or negative light. If anyone tries to understand everything about God, we probably go insane and I don’t think we will never come to an agreement of who God is, how God is etc…hell, we cannot even agree whether we should have bought someone in the transfer window. So I can never explain God in a logical and rationale way, by the definition of the type of people you mentioned, and I would never attempt to. Maybe one day, these people will experience God themselves or maybe not.
Absolutely fair. People ask me why I love football and LFC, and I don’t always have a very convincing answer especially when the reason I got into LFC as a kid was because I liked the way a commentator said “Didi Hamann.”
So you’re plan is to send him even deeper than the 7th level of Hell?
I’ve been on the receiving end of many jokes from my agnostic and atheist friends but I’m afraid I didn’t get this one.
It’s difficult for me to put my feelings on this topic into words. Basically, I’ve never doubted the existence of God but I admit that there was a prolonged period in my life when I absolutely hated Him for certain reasons (“global” reasons, so to speak, not something that happened to me personally). At one point, I felt something very profound that led me to believe in His benevolence and that He is the centre of cosmic justice, to put it that way.
I really don’t think that someone like Hitler would be able to reach Heaven in any sense because he wouldn’t be able to repent and atone for his sins. People like that don’t have the basic ingredient that is needed to feel - humanity.
I also don’t think I stand to gain something inexplicably good if I’m judged a good person or the opposite if I’m judged a bad one, whatever will be, will be. My vision of the good outcome is being at my home, near my river and woods, with people that I love and Type O Negative playing live on a stage just beneath my house.
Him, He etc. What makes you think the almighty (should it exist) be male?
Because “the almighty” (ὁ Παντοκράτωρ) is masculine?
If we accept that the Bible is the product solely of human endeavour, written / edited / redacted / compiled over many years by many different human authors / editors / redactors, then I agree with you. Timing and the era in which it is set provides context.
And as it is not of our time, and does not reflect our society, its message has little or no relevance to us.
A concept which will be disappearing quicker than United fans once CR snaps a nail.
He’s constantly referred to as of male gender in all linguistic forms I’ve encountered so far, so I’ve always gone with that. Not that I imagine Him with a white beard or something.