Giving Everyone The Opportunity To Renounce Sin And Be Forgiven

 

Bread of Life

11 hours ago

Hi James! Thanks for these reflections. You are a very clear thinker, good at recognizing weaknesses in arguments, and good at expressing yourself. I would have loved to have you there yesterday to help sort things out. You might be right that none of these people will ever believe what I believe. I hope you are wrong though. You mentioned, "A just God would never hold that against anyone." I don't think God is going to destroy anyone for following the path that they honestly believe is true. However, God is going to destroy sinners. I know you believe that my version of Christianity is nicer than certain other versions. But that doesn't mean I think I'm okay, you're okay, and everyone is okay. Human history tells a different story. Someone on the chat (maybe you?) said, "Rebekah would let everyone into heaven." Actually, I wouldn't. But I would give everyone the opportunity to turn from their corrupt ways and be forgiven. Hmm...just like God has. --- ​ @Bread of Life  Thanks for the compliments. And thanks for the further clarifications. From here, I'd like to clarify: I agree. Everyone has enough serious faults that a perfect paradise kingdom could not be maintained as a paradise, unless: a.) so many of our flaws were repaired, and then b.) protections put in place, to assure no one becomes dangerously faulty again. So I'd welcome that, in a general sense. It would be necessary. However, that's pretty much where our agreement ends. Because you seem to think he would need to go a lot further than that. As I see it, ... A benevolent Super-Being would not destroy people for being imperfect. He could-and-would just fix them. From where I sit, ... it seems that your religious narrative complicates the simplicity of LOVE into a strange mess of violent contradictions. I don't mean that as an insult. I'm just testifying to what I see. I'll explain what I mean. -- -- If I showed up at The Gates of Heaven, ... Let's say, hypothetically, you arrived there first. And now you're perfect (or, at least, what He'd consider to be perfection). So He puts you in charge of meeting non-Christians at the gate. It's your job to give everyone the opportunity to "turn from their corrupt ways and be forgiven". So then you ask me "Do you agree to turn from your corrupt ways?". I would ask "Are you meaning to imply that you're willing to give me enough energy that I become even capable of going out to do "sin things"? And before you do that, you want ... a promise that I won't? If that's what you mean, then I could maybe promise that. First, I need to see the list of the rules I'd be agreeing to. -- But then it turns out to be moot. I mean, ... When it comes to anyone being "transformed"/remade as His idea of a "perfect person" ... All of their flaws will also be repaired; so they won't be selfish, forgetful, short-sighted, ignorant, confused, foggy, etc.. ever again. THAT part I actually think is great; if it were true. - Just not the rest of it. Here's where I start to have serious reservations about the narrative: Everyone entering Heaven would literally forever-loses their ability to even have an unapproved thought or feeling, ever again. If that's "good" and "necessary", then: He should have just created everyone in that state to begin with. However, regardless of that, ... Transforming people INTO that State would, of course, ensure no one will ever commit a sin in Heaven. So then anyone's promise to "never sin again" would be like: Letting birds into bird-heaven, where the Great Bird Spirit will clip their wings, to ensure they never sinfully fly again. But then you ask first "if I let you in, do you promise never to fly again?".

It's an un-meaningful promise. Anyone allowed in

won't even be able to exercise the freedoms in question. They won't be capable of wanting to. They won't even be allowed to LOVE outside the limits being set. They'll be re-programmed, to ensure they aren't even capable of feeling or thinking any differently than The Great Spirit *wants. (*much of which appears to be utterly arbitrary; until we realize that literally everything in bibles was just random religious dudes expressing their own personal feelings ... but lying and saying a GOD privately shared those "truths" with them).

So the question really needs to be: "Do you agree to enter, knowing in advance you'll never be allowed to leave, never be allowed to die, and never be allowed to fly ever again. But you'll also never be allowed to want to?" "Also, your greatest desires, all day every day, will be to stroke the feathers of The Great Bird Spirit, and sing praises to his wonderfulness. Why? Because this is why he made you, and why he made you so fragile, dull, and small. So that you'll be ever-amazed, ever intimidated, and ever awe-struck by how strong, radiant, and larger-than-life he is.

You will always look up to him, as a helplessly and haplessly dependent child, who "feels lucky" (because of being psychologically institutionalized). In that permanent State Of Being, you wouldn't be able to even imagine a better set of circumstances; under the ever-present authority of a Larger Than Life Father (but not a Mother, as females are lesser. We would not want to insult him). You will be reverted back to the way Adam-bird and Eve-Bird were, when The Great Bird Spirit first created them, ... 6000 years ago; sometime AFTER the Sumerians invented beer. You'll forever live under his roof/ his rules, as eternal children and the bestest(!) ego support specialists he has ever created. As a result, He'll never have to experience "Empty Nest Syndrome", and never have to become responsible for maintaining his own ego. It will be the ultimate in permanent codependence. You'll be the happiest Syndromes in all of Stockholm! This way, he will never again need to burn anyone alive (until dead), nor have parents stone their own young kids to death, nor force rape victims to ever again have to marry their rapists as his wife-property (granting the rapist the legal and moral right to rape her "morally" for the rest of his life),

(continued ...)

nor ever again command violent genocides, slavery, child-abductions, girl-child sex-slavery, baby-killings,

nor sit and WATCH adults and children be kidnapped, raped, and slowly tortured to death (without intervening with THAT. But still making the time to help random Christians with trivial matters). And he will never again have to violently drown puppies and kittens when he gets mad at humans.

There will be eternal peace and happiness, while all the perfectly Stepford Bride(s) of The Great Spirit serve and flatter him perfectly, for the rest of time.

They won't even care about their loved ones (not even their own kids) from their earthly life; because: Those people were disposable, if they didn't want to be transformed into the very same Eternal-Praise-Penguins in a joyously monotonous, fascist, communist, Totalitarian Kingdom of the Royal Butt-Kissers, ... for eternity."

So then YOU proceed to ask every person at the Gates: "Do you agree to these terms? Or shall I kill you where you stand? Because either way, I will not lose a moment's sleep over it. But don't take that personally. The person standing in line behind you is the person I loved most from my earthy life. And I will dispose of their life like trash too, if they don't agree to these terms. " -- -- And so I ask, ... "Since we WILL (according to you) all be shown PROOF of this afterlife, and proof of its correct terms-and-conditions, for this impressively conditional "unconditional love", ... and THEN given a finally FAIR chance to respond to what we finally KNOW to be the the real situation, ... What is even the POINT of all the destructive preaching, attempted coercion, attempted brainwashing, and bad arguments all us non-lucky-guessers have to put up with on Earth? Why didn't "His people" (AND all the people who mistakenly assumed they were "His people") just leave everyone alone (which they WOULD HAVE if The Great Spirit directly told them to; without ambiguity)? There was no need for all that drama, dysfunction, and division caused by "the faithful", if, (after we die) we'd all be:
* shown proof,
* given the unquestionably-legit version of "the message",
and then
*given a moment to decide (under duress) if we want to live that way forever or not. "Decide. Now!"

[Again, that is YOUR perfect hand on that gun. And the head you are pointing it at is the person you loved most in this life. This is the "perfect plan" you keep calling "the Good News"] And yet, why would we need for a creator to "forgive us" for being "exactly the way he made us"? If HE did that to US, He should be the person apologizing to us; not the other way around. I wasn't in that fabled garden. I didn't eat that fruit. I didn't earn the resulting troubles. -Not that the Adam and Eve characters (in that story) were fairly warned nor fairly treated. But that's another matter. And how is any human's opinion of the Jesus-sacrifice-stories even relevant? Per your explanation, what really matters is: if we'd rather *live as eternal praise-bots* or else "Lovingly murdered" and thrown away like trash? If we say "sure. I'd rather live that way than just be slaughtered and then thrown away like trash", then: Shouldn't that be all he needs to know? And wouldn't that make our opinions about Jesus' "human sacrifice" irrelevant? We should be able to say "It still doesn't make sense, on any level. But I'm still choosing (under direct threat against my life) to ENTER and AGREE to your terms. So I can come in anyways, DESPITE not really understanding the stuff about Jesus dying ... right? I mean, I can hardly be blamed for not understanding something. And apparently, I WILL understand it AFTER I'm transformed. And then my opinions about it will be GIVEN to me. So why even ask me about it; ever? And why witness to people NOW, without logic, and without proof, ... based on exactly the same reasoning that all other religions use to validate their religions too?
Why not wait, and let everyone who ever dies ... find out the proper way, when they are given a more clarified and verified chance to respond? If you, in this life, can make a difference in anyone's eventual outcome, ... That automatically means the entire system relies heavily on chance encounters. That would automatically mean the "Divine Plan" is unjust; because: At least SOME people aren't hearing exactly what they needed to hear, or experiencing exactly what they needed to experience, at exactly the right time in their life. So then they end up murdered by God (or a faithful agent of God) and thrown away like trash ... because why? Because they didn't happen to see one of your videos?

Or they DID but you didn't do a good enough job selling it? 
It also automatically infers a "God" who is so weak and limited ... that he needs human vessels to carry forth his wisdom from the heavens, to all corners of creation; - a job only a GOD would be qualified for, and wouldn't need any help with. I mean seriously. Look at the way Hellfire and anti-LGBT Fundamentalists screw it up;
- misunderstanding the message,
and then stumbling countless souls AWAY from the entire notion of Jesus.
They don't intend to get it wrong.
They accidentally get it wrong.
A lot of them have some special ugliness inside. [Yes. Otangelo comes to mind; since he's been a guest on your panel, and tries to use you to lure people over to his super-evil version of it. But there are millions of Christian-Fundamentalist predators like him] I'm sure most of them have good intentions.

But as Matt Dillahunty noted:

That's partly their parents' faults, and their parent's church's fault. And if you keep helping them, then it's also your fault. It's also partly the Bible's fault. And if your God exists, then it's mostly his fault. So people like Otangelo read the texts through an ugly lens. And as a result, they get it wrong, in some very ugly ways. That's the *inevitable* results of making humans so messed up (if we were designed),
and then lazily using a bible to clue us in (according to bibles).
Even most people who think those stories are TRUE, ... are going to each come away with a different (mutually incompatible) idea of what it all means.
So then they're going to go stumbling people, as they try to "witness";
because a "God" couldn't be bothered to speak for himself.
That means (any) God either doesn't exist,
doesn't care much,
doesn't care at all,
or actually enjoys all the confusion; like Loki would.

In all cases, people trying to "witness" on behalf of a God" are going to cause way more problems than they are attempting to solve.