Hudson. HA! Patrick McGoohan. And Ernie Borgnine.
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Scott McKnight’s blog was about that today let me see if I can link it, it looked more at politics, but politics is just our collective self beliefs:
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Oh, Phil, that was fantastic! There are so many takeaways from that article. Have you read the book? I’m going to add it to my list. I speculate that it will sit next to (in position and reverence) my copy of Unoffendable by Brant Hansen. Thank you for sharing.
Absolutely I believe what I want to believe. That isn’t the question. When I was a Christian there was a whole litany of claims that I ‘had’ to believe to be considered a ‘true’ Christian and escape the fires of Hell. As I grew older and investigated those claims I couldn’t continue those beliefs. As far as Jesus is concerned I find myself in Bart Erhman’s camp more than the mythicism camp.
I also noticed you did not answer my question about Hell.
Thanks Stephen. I do find these views interesting . I first of all don’t know or claim to have earned any minas over my lifetime and certainly have spent some.
However, I am sure that we know that this parable is about faith in the teacher his teachings and the spiritual fruits that that brings. I guess you are disputing this parable “wrong “ because you think that this is not fair to those that fear not love him and those that had hated him with no faith to follow in him?
Or is it not fair that more is given to those that been faithful and fruitful and taken from those that were not?
I think it isn’t that we -Christians included-should be neither conservative nor progressive but rather both. The trick is in picking the right things to conserve and the right ones on which to attempt progress.
Liking the article so far.
I already wrote about what makes the parable sickening, in a comment above.
It’s not how I roll, but what makes these parables disgusting is their casual cruelty. If this Jesus can’t tell a story about being “faithful” and “fruitful” without ending with a massacre, then he’s not a consistently reliable moral teacher. I think he sounds like a confused monster, personally, but I think it’s just as likely that his biographers couldn’t abide his decency and couldn’t resist inserting some quotes about torture and mass murder. First-century anachronism and all.
OK, this might not be directly relevant, and possibly too political, but Left and RIght no longer have much value in describing politics. I offer it for consideration:
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I think that moderator Laura said it well, Scott K (LearningU). And as she said, your question is very broad, unless what you really meant is something like “why don’t atheists believe in Jesus?” That still is a broad question since some atheists might be willing to believe such a man existed. But they do not believe in God and would not accept His assertions in t hat way – or would try to deny He said them. And there are a number of other things your question could have meant.
Why “appalling” and how do you know they “developed later from the church”?
JES10—the issue of the duration of hell is an ongoing one, and since everlasting torment seems to be among the biblical phrases existing in the text, it will continue. But it was Jesus Himself who declared that no one comes to God except through Him and by being born again.
And Christians generally do believe what Jesus has t aught.,
Already explained above.
Ask the person who wrote that.
I am not disagreeing with you about this either, I’m just expanding the population. I think that the “litany of claims” that you had to believe fit well within your original statement that Christians believe what they want to believe. I merely expanded it to non-Christians as well.
Well, it was not a question, but I did not wish to engage over that topic. Who knows now exactly what the afterlife looks like? Everyone has an opinion, and, true to what you said, I think that those opinions have more to do with what a person wants to believe.
All too many James. As reformed Christianity collapses, its heart of darkness, from the beginning, is cast in to relief.
So let me understand you are rejecting the parable because you find it offending in that it’s so cruel to those that don’t live their lives fruitfully in accordance with the teachings of Jesus Christ and therefore will die. Isn’t that the choice of those that defy him and don’t live their lives that way? It seems he is just making it pretty black or white and you are being petty. Would you rather he sugar coat it and maybe say they just go out to pasture? Or maybe make it rhyme? I think one should focus on the meaning of the parable.
So then what’s the big deal about death? Do you think Atheist believe in the afterlife? Do you believe that you live and die and the spirit goes on somehow? Where ya going?? Or do you think you just live and die and that’s all she wrote?
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That’s not even close to what I wrote. You asked a question of atheists (that’s me) about whether there are things that Jesus preached that I think are wrong. I answered you, thinking you were curious about what others believe.
I was wrong about that.
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As a Christian it’s all transcendentally about the company one aspires to. So I look forward to being in Hell with you Stephen. The righteous can keep heaven. But if God is the psychopathic sadist they say, then of course He’ll put us there!
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I agree with you, Michael. I think everyone has commitments to what it is they essentially want to believe, but rarely are we clear on what those things really are. With atheists, clearly, the ‘things’ can be all over the map. I rarely talk with other atheists who have any clear notion what it is that drives their beliefs, unless you count the belief/hope that science will one day answer all questions. I always want to ask them what good all those future answers are going to do them in their day to day life, but those kind of questions usually yield assertions of “whatever you like”. To which I always think sure, but what do you like. Apparently they don’t know or don’t think it matters.
But the situation doesn’t strike me as all that much better for Christians. They share among themselves the assumption that God’s will is best and also the assumption that the Bible is the best place to discover what that may be. But what drives the desire to believe that and how well is that working out? The shared endorsement of God’s will and Bible doesn’t seem to lead Christians to either want the same things or believe the same things once you dial in to specifics. Whether atheists or Christians, it is difficult to know whether it is wants or beliefs which come first.
Edited to say I it should be Michael_Cullen who is the author of the quoted response to the earlier quote above, but I am mystified on how to fix that.
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I think most still believes in it.
However I think scripture is clear that the unbeliever is destroyed in the lake of fire. I’m not certain if I believe they are tortured in hell , then resurrected at the white throne and then destroyed because the wages of sin is death, not eternal life.
I definitely don’t believe in universalism though. I wish it was true, but scripturally there is to much talk about wicked ones being destroyed.