Regarding the claim that there is only version of Christianity, and that bibles are self-explanatory

 Tony Swanson re "There are a few denominations of Christianity, but they all agree in what matters.

(Example)
 That hell is a separation from God is universal."

---
Only a few?
Really?

There are tens of thousands.

And that doesn't even count all the rogue independents.

Meanwhile, no.
They do not all agree on anything (let alone everything) meaningful.

Defining Hell as "separation from God"
is like describing what it's like for a child in the foster care system as "separation from parents".
 
Or to describe what it's like to go sky diving as "separation from plane". 


It's a straight-up dodge
to avoid talking about the fact that various Christian sects have different claims about what "Hell" is like.

Various sects use ~mostly~ the same religious language.
But the words mean something different between sects. Thus, the doctrines are not really the same.

Mormons teach that we can get our own planet to rule over, as a GOD.

They also used to teach that black skin is a curse;

-which black people should be working to lift, so they can be "white and delightsum" in the afterlife.

Although, they've recently been trying to bury their racist past, in order to appeal to more people.
 
The Southern Baptist Convention (parent organization of all American Evangelical churches) did a good enough job burying their super-racist, slave-trading origins
from most new members and visitors
(from back then they fought for the Confederacy, under the belief that negros were lesser beings, and that slavery was divinely ordained in scripture). 

So I'm pretty sure the Mormons will be able to hide their history too.

----
Meanwhile, ...

JWs teach that Jesus is aka "Michael the arch angel", a created being, through-whom his Unitarian "God" made the universe.

They also teach that "Hell" is the grave;
not a literal realm.

They claim dead is dead; without any consciousness, and that only 144000 people get into heaven, and the rest of the JWs will inherit and repair the earth.

They TOO believe that their church is the only true church, and has the only true saving doctrines.
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Fundamentalist churches insist on a literal interpretation of bibles.

Most of those are strictly authoritarian ideologues.
But a few are not.

Jimmy Carter, for example, interprets bibles as a rare left-ish version OF a literal reading.

He denounces conservative-authoritarian churches (which he used to be part of) for their ugly, abusive misrepresentation of Jesus.  
----   
Meanwhile, ...

Many fundamentalist churches teach a literal fire in Hell;
- specially designed to be able to make spirit-form humans feel it ~the same as~ being burned alive as flesh-and-blood people.

Some churches, instead, describe it as:
no fire of any sort. But just pure literal darkness/blindness. And severe, unending emotional suffering, for lack of any social connection to a GOD nor anyone else.
Nor anything to do with their time.

- The ultimate form of psychological torture, as blind trash;
thrown away and forgotten
in an eternal prison's solitary confinement.

--------

Moderate protestant churches insist on a mix between literal and metaphoric meanings;
each church having their own specific ideas about which things are literal, which things are non-literal, what any of it means, and how that's supposed to be applied in people's lives.

Their ideas about hell vary between sects.
Their ideas about what's REQUIRED in order to secure salvation ... also vary between churches.

For example, some are Trinitarian and say that matters.
 
Some are Unitarian and say that matters.

Some say water baptism is required.
Some say it's not.

Some say that allowing women to teach in church is a defiance to the divine order, and a rebellion against God.

Some allow women to teach and lead their church, as ordained ministers.

etc etc etc.

Whichever ones are getting that stuff wrong,
are misrepresenting "God", and stumbling potential converts. 

And you can't even say "Well, they should have kept looking, until they found the true version", because you've already committed to the position that the churches all agree on all the stuff that matters. 
 So if church-A stumbles Person-B with something that even YOU would call bullshit, ...
 then that's it. 
 They're stumbled, and going to end up in a Hell ... for someone else's fault.

And you can't say that never happens, because bibles say it DOES happen. 
 Believers are also warned that if they stumble anyone, ...
despite still (themselves) being a devout believer, ... "God" will make them regret ever being born.

And yet, whatever church stumbled them ... didn't mean to get it wrong. 

 It's most likely an honest mistake about what some bible texts meant;

- ASSUMING there even IS an objectively self-explanatory complete-packaged-set of meanings (a claim that actual bible scholars universally reject). 

In that case,
the only person who should be blamed ... is the "God" who was so careless about his "message" in the first place.


---
Meanwhile, ...

Progressive Christianity has been delving heavily into the notion that bibles should be interpreted as almost entirely metaphors ... for progressive values;

- while some lean conservative in their metaphorical interpretations.
- Such as Jordan Peterson; who defines "God" as merely a necessary abstract of moral ideals; meant to be applied in the framework of authoritarian hierarchical structures.

- "Heaven" and "Hell" also being abstracts for life here on earth, rather than literal. 

- While others lean hard left in their interpretations;
rejecting authoritarian hierarchical principals outright, and declaring many paths to enlightenment. 

Meanwhile, Calvinists (and similar) preach absolute predestination for all souls.
You're either born fated to heaven, or born fated to hell. And there's nothing you do to change it.

While "Universal Salvationists" preach that all souls end up in Heaven, after they've been adequately molded to the will of God. 

There's also the Joel Osteen crowd, preaching the "Prosperity Gospel";
 which most Christians reject as an inexcusable perversion of biblical ideals,
while some swear Joel got it right.

There's also Preterism;
 which interpret bible prophecies as (mostly) things that were fulfilled in biblical times, rather than things that we're still waiting to see happen. 


Churches can't even agree if humans gradually evolved from different forms of life, 
or
 if humans being literally and directly created by their "God" was the intended meaning of the texts.

Science has proven that a literal reading of Genesis does not comport with scientific reality.

And yet, if it's not interpreted as literal,
then:
 the entire fundamentalist concept of
the ransom sacrifice
loses the fallacious premise it was built upon. 
-------------

Even Catholic churches are splitting (even more than before) over matters of doctrine.

For example:

Some say it's fine to be LGBT and live as-such, as long as a person accepts a vague notion about the sacrifice as "true".
- 
And yet:

Some say that the oldschool values are the right ones. And that people who intentionally live in a way that "God" does not allow ... will be rejected by God as "workers of lawlessness";

- which means there IS a list of THINGS all humans "must do" (rules they must abide by; sacrifices, efforts, and changes they must make).

-which makes the claim that a person need only "accept/believe" the core claim:
A marketing tactic, and a bold-faced lie.

----------
Meanwhile, there remains a dividing line between churches that preach "once saved/always saved", vs the idea that a person can lose their protected status.

Related to that, churches divide over "saved by faith along" vs "works are also required".

-In most cases, each of these churches denounce the churches on the other side of those dividing lines as "not real Christians".

 I hear that almost daily, in religious debates.

Any point a skeptic wages against Christianity, ... will be countered by a random Christian saying 

 "Oh, you can't hold that against Christianity. Those people aren't real Christians".

-While whichever Christians the point DOES apply to (which they previously declared, in other threads)
... fall conveniently silent;

That way,
don't have to answer to the other Christian,
and
they don't have to admit to the outsider/skeptic that Christianity is a house divided against itself (and thus: cannot stand). 

In fact, the entire meaning of "Protestant" means to "protest" the Catholic church's claim to being authorized by the true God as his true church.

Thus, most protestant today will denounce catholic churches as "idolaters" who worship statues, pray to marry, and will have to answer to "God" for their rebellion.


Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic church switched to saying:
 
It's morally wrong to proselytize, because it's an aggressive activity that (in the context of modern society) pushes people away;
-a sentiment social scientists agree with.

They also switched to saying:
atheists can make it into heaven, if "God" reads their heart/intent and decides they didn't intend to rebel. 
 
Although, if ANYONE can be judged by alternate criteria, then, ... really ... everyone should be.
 In that case, it becomes an extreme moral injustice to proselytize. 

 
Although, of course, some factions say that you'll go to Hell if you never hear the message. So they push, push, push to "get the message out there". 
  How is that reasonable?

And yet, most Christians will DODGE the question about what happens if someone never hears "the message". 
 -Because they realize any actual answer  ... will reveal a crucial flaw in the narrative.


Meanwhile, most people are so terrible at communicating (such as yourself),
that EVEN IF they are right about their message (they're not; but to humor the premise),
 ... people still aren't getting anything meaningful or otherwise adequate from you. 

 You're very vague and dodgy. It's hard getting you to commit to specifics.

For the most part, you just say "go read a bible" ...
which is just going to result in random ideas about what the texts mean.

Frankly, it's absolutely bizarre 
that you live in a mental universe
where everyone who reads a bible (any version) 
all come away with the same exact understandings of what the all the important texts mean,
and how those aught to be applied in today's people's lives. 
 
--------

 Never send a man
to do a God's job.
 
He'll screw it up.
And then he'll condemn his audience
for his own mistakes. 
----------

 And that doesn't even include all the people who (very reasonably) recognize it as:

 utterly irrational, anti-factual, anti-logical, 

 manipulative, abusive, and (yes) extorsion. 

It is, of course, important to note that leading historical scholars of both:
Hebrew and Christian textual history and cultural history 
will tell you that:

 Bibles are not historically reliable,

got a lot of things wrong, 

were heavily tampered with,

were all translated with signficant personal theological bias,

and
are not reasonably read as part of a larger unified ideological whole. 

They would also tell you that:

Moses is either entirely or (at the very least) mostly mythical. 

Yahweh is a composite of defunct deities from other religions. 

And the biblical Hebrews were polytheists, until sometime after the dawn the Second Temple Period; eventually rewriting the texts, to more-or-less compart with their newfound monotheism.

They'll also tell you that early Christian writers either intentionally or accidentally misunderstood the Hebrew messianic prophecies;
- and then based the newly immerging religion of Christianity on those misunderstandings.

In fact, some of the most popular verses Christians like to site from the OT to support Christian messianic claims ... weren't even really ABOUT the Hebrew messiah. 

These are among countless reasons
why a layman reader 
has no chance of understanding those texts
within the context of the cultures they were written in.

They're going to read it in a modern context, and end up impressively far from an informed perspective. 
----

Plus, "belief" doesn't form in the mind 
the way you think it does.

People who don't find any religion's claims to be
credible ... aren't "rebelling" against that religion's "God". 

Christian factions aren't "rebelling" against the Islamic Allah.

Muslims aren't "rebelling" against any Christian factions' "God".

Wiccan's aren't rebelling against any Abrahamic faction's "God". 

JWs and Mormons aren't rebelling against Mainstream protestant "God"(s). 

Catholics aren't rebelling against Protestant ideas about "God". 

etc etc..

Beliefs (perceptions of reality) form in the mind,
as a result of a complex set of automatic processes.

No one "chooses not to believe" in any specific religious narrative.

No one "chooses to believe" in any of those either.
That simply isn't how perceptions form in the mind. 

Even while being scientifically illiterate about this, ...
just the experience of EXISTING as a human ... should have taught you this already.

Try to "believe" that tiny gremlins live in your refrigerator. They live off of any poorly sealed foods, and they quickly hide whenever someone opens the fridge. 

Go ahead. 
Try to "believe" that.
 You won't be able to. 
Because that's not how beliefs form in the mind.

Every mind has a unique set of conditions that must be met.

Those conditions arise and change gradually, merely as an inevitable result of passive and active internal and external variables. 
 We don't even notice most of those changes as they happen.

When the person's unique conditions are met, perceptions adjust automatically. 

However,
for some people,
if they just immerse in an ideological echo-chamber, ...
that environment gradually reshapes their lense. 

 If their unique mind happens to be susceptible enough to that conditioning,
they will eventually either:
a.) fully "believe" (whatever they perceive were the intended teachings of that group)
or
b.) accept only some of it.


Otherwise, they end up:
c.) not really adopting any of it.

In the case of b.) and c.), they will eventually move on, in search of whatever makes more sense to them. 

---

The dividing lines go on,
and on,
and on.

So even if one of those factions gets it right, ...
that automatically means:

 all the other factions are getting it so WRONG ... that they are misrepresenting the meanings, terms, and conditions for "salvation";
which would make them a stumbling block to humanity.

----
No matter which sides of various doctrinal dividing lines you happen to be on, ...

You hold to an alleged "Divine Plan" that leaves countless souls falling through the cracks and into an eternal Hell ... through no fault of their own. 

- A "Hell" that can't be ethically or rationally justified in the first place. 

In fact, I know you can't even propose:
 a rational basis 
which all humans have (pre-witness)
to even seek or listen to any religion's message. 

Being offered reasons to keep listening, after the introduction is presented ...

doesn't count as reasons for anyone (prior to that) to start seeking or start listening. 

There's nothing about merely existing as a human ... 
that lets all humans know there's a literal, singular Super-Being 
playing a high stakes game of Hide and Seek with humans. 

Assuming and Seeking such a "God" 
is not evidence of moral character.

It's only evidence of social/cultural influence, rumors, curiosity about those rumors, and some (very vulnerable) people being desperate for comforting reassurances.   

 These are not morality traits.
 
Someone who isn't at-all-interested in religions, 
isn't "rebelling" against a deity. 

Someone else picking the wrong version (rather than a hypothetically right version) ... isn't trying to be wrong.

And yet, you would irrationally and unfairly blame countless humans anyways, per a religious narrative that doesn't even remotely resemble reality, nor rational reasoning, nor justice.  
----------

I don't know what rock you've been living under, that you didn't know about any of this.
 But your personal education is fantastically lacking.



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