Dude in the top photo looks like your average Redditor lmfao

Need to make him about 10 years younger though.

I can’t even tell how old he is, he’s too round

Hell aside consider the following-
1) People who accept Jesus tend to have better lives. I don't mean things like physical wealth or prosperity. I'm talking about things like better mental health and being able to sleep at night. The feeing of inner security and peace instead of fear and despair.

2) Man's laws give the feeling of being bound in some way that feels oppressive. God's Law isn't just about saying do this or don't that. They exist as something we can live - don't lie, don't murder, love your neighbor/enemies. Jesus summed up all Law - Love God with all your being. Love your fellow man as yourself. Those words show the truth of that God's Laws is based on Love not Chains.

3) Love, Hope, and Faith, the greatest of which is Love. There are people out there desperately wanting genuine Love and Hope in their lives while looking for someone to have Faith in that won't steer them wrong. These people find and accept Jesus who provides all three.

God doesn't send any one to hell. People choose that for themselves.

I do. I happily choose hell. Because it's as absurd as believing in magical pink unicorns and the Flying Spaghetti Monster or that a pink china teapot is orbiting the moon. It's beyond ridiculous, sorry. And If God endowed me with a rational brain, He can't exactly hold it against me that I failed to "believe" in something so utterly absurd and frankly childish (not to mention unbelievably unjust and immoral).

If you want to believe in that, that's your prerogative and I won't stop you or try to change your mind. I'm not interested in changing your faith. If it genuinely helps you live a better life or cope with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, then more power to you. I also have no time for those militant atheist types. That's lame too and believe me the Richard Dawkins of this world make me cringe almost as much as the Trump supporters. Equally idiotic if you ask me. I know people who are devout believers and their faith keeps them going through hard times, so far be it from me to deprive them of that comfort. I don't see the point in that at all. Why would I even want to deprive them of something that helps them live a better life and cope with trauma? It's not like I have much better to offer them. So I'm not your typical atheist either. I find a lot of them just as insufferable as a lot of hardcore religious types. And tbh their parties also suck lol. I'd much rather go to an Evangelical church than some atheist meetup. At leas the Christians are happy and have good music.

But I'm not ever gonna lose any sleep over whether I may one day burn in some "eternal" fire lol. That's too absurd for words. Sorry. If when we die you're proved right and I'm roasting on a BBQ, then feel free to gloat all you like. I just don't have time for such childish nonsense, sorry. It's just too absurd for me to even contemplate. That's the honest truth. So that's why I'm not a Christian or a Muslim. And no amount of time, torture or "arguments" will change that. It's just absurd. And I'm not having it. End of. But if it makes sense and works for you, then great. I'm not going to try and change your beliefs.

Unless you question me. Then I'll answer you honestly about why I don't believe it. But I have no particular interest to go around "deconverting" believers. That's lame. Faith clearly helps a lot of people and why would I want to change that. It's just that you won't get me to believe in it. Any more than you can get me to believe in the Tooth Fairy.

You must have been bored and had nothing else to do.

That was about as much of a non-reply as I've ever seen. You come off like a militant atheist only to later condemn militant atheists. You constantly rip Christianity as "childish nonsense" and then say you have "no particular interest to go around 'deconverting' believers". Make up your mind.

Seriously dude, what is your point?

And knock it off with the "I'm superior to Christians" attitude. Atheists have no exclusivity on intellect. I've seen atheists that were dumber than a bag of hammers but somehow still think they're smarter than Christians. Yes, some Christians are also stupid. I've met them. I am a software developer, Years ago I have wrote code that dealt with reading bar codes. A friend of my father-in-law was trying to explain to me how barcode were the mark of the beast. I told him giving every item in your inventory the item number 666 is an insane inventory system.

Both atheists and Christians are human beings. Some are dumb and some are very smart. Education, learning, reason and intellect does not make one an atheist. In fact it is probably the opposite because it is human nature to question our existence and atheists are grossly deficient on that answer. "Duh, I dunno" just doesn't cut it for most people.

it is real simple Boolean logic, either there is a God or there isn't. The most important thing that everyone on the planet should do is find out for themselves if there is.

But as you say, you have no time for that. Well... it's your life. I'm not going to tell you what to do.

To be fair, if you reread what I wrote you'll see I'm not saying the entirety of Christianity (or Islam, or any other religion) is "childish nonsense". I was referring specifically to the concept of hell and eternal torment. Although there are plenty of other things I don't agree with too.

And yes, I have no particular desire to deconvert people if they are genuine believers (and not the more "fake" political kind who just say they are for some nationalist cultural identity reasons) and it gives their life meaning and succor. It's a futile task anyway. And I do genuinely find militant atheists annoying.

What is my point? That the concept of eternal damnation is illogical. And if God endowed me with reason, He can't very well hold it against me for using that reason to question it and then punish me forever.

I also don't believe I claimed to be "superior" to Christians in any way. 🤔 I'm merely stating my "beliefs". I'm not referring to "intellect" to make some comparison of intelligence. I'm referring to human intellect & capacity for rational thought that we were all born with. As opposed to a lot of other species (whose intellect we can't quite be sure of, although dolphins, octopuses and crows seem pretty damn smart).

So yes, atheists have no monopoly on intelligence. There are smart & dumb people everywhere. There are devout Muslims who are world experts on astrophysics. Until pretty recently, most Western scientists were actually believing Christians & it didn't seem to conflict with their faith. During the Middle Ages, a ton of science was also done by devout Muslims. So they're certainly not mutually exclusive.

You're right that it's human nature to question our existence. That sort of ties in with my point above about our "God-given" reason. And yes, atheists don't often have a satisfactory answer to the deep questions. But saying "I don't know" is not about a copout; it's about honesty and, dare I say it, humility in the face of an ancient, vast Cosmos that we have just started to understand. I *don't* know. That's why I admit I don't know.

It could equally be argued that believers are being less honest or showing more arrogance by adamantly claiming they *do* know. 🤔

Is there a God or isn't there? I don't think it's quite that black and white. First, you need to define "God". You're a programmer, so you can appreciate that. If you don't first define/declare the term, the code won't run. I *have* spent a lot of time on this already. 🙏

"That the concept of eternal damnation is illogical. And if God endowed me with reason, He can't very well hold it against me for using that reason to question it and then punish me forever."

Is the concept of failing a class in college illogical? Damnation is a misunderstood concept by most people. It is not burning in a lake of fire. It is a cessation of learning. This life is a test. It is for us to find and choose to follow God or not.

God does not hold anything against anyone of His children. He is a loving father and loves all of us. But the most important part of our life is the right to choose. We are entirely responsible for our actions and the consequences of those actions. God will never stop a person from rejecting Him or from doing all sorts of reprehensible things. That is why bad things happen to good people. It is also why good things happen to good people and good things also happen to bad people. God is not a dictator and He will never try to control or micromanage your life.

He has set laws in place and it is up to us to adhere to those laws or not but we choose the consequences. Those consequences were never about endlessly burning in a lake of fire. That was used throughout the Bible as a metaphor and a warning because bad actions lead to bad consequences.

"But saying "I don't know" is not about a copout; it's about honesty and, dare I say it, humility in the face of an ancient, vast Cosmos that we have just started to understand. I *don't* know. That's why I admit I don't know."

There are just so many people out there who are content with the question. They don't want an answer. This isn't just about the existence of God but nearly every question in life. They hide behind the question because if they found the answer it will require them to move out of their comfort zone and they don't want that. There are some who even think they are intellectually superior as long as they have the question without an answer.

The answer to the existence of God is not impossible. I think it is a copout that soooo many atheists (and the more intellectually honest ones who call themselves agnostics) just do not want to deal with the change it would require them to make. I think that goes all the way up to the most intellectual atheists. Change scares people almost as much as truth.

"It could equally be argued that believers are being less honest or showing more arrogance by adamantly claiming they *do* know."

I cannot speak for all Christians. People are people and arrogance is a human failing even among Christians. But to claim that just the fact that knowing the answer to a question is arrogance is absurd. Apply that reasoning outside of the question of the existence of God. Does just knowing the solution to an algebra problem make you arrogant? Arrogance comes from how a person acts upon learning a truth. But there are plenty of people who are just as arrogant believing misinformation or false theories as truth. There's an awful lot of smug atheists who cling very tight to the theory of evolution and just do not understand that 1) it is just a theory and 2) it has absolutely nothing to do with the existence of God or not.

"Is there a God or isn't there? I don't think it's quite that black and white. First, you need to define "God". You're a programmer, so you can appreciate that. If you don't first define/declare the term, the code won't run. I *have* spent a lot of time on this already."

Ha ha ha!!! You got me. Yes you have to define a variable in many programming languages before you can use it.

But atheists have already define and initialized that variable as Boolean and initialized to as false. Many of them won't even accept something as vague as Aristotle's "unmoved mover". When the concept of Intelligent Design came out a few decades ago, it was denounced by the scientific world as being too "Christian". It had absolutely nothing to do with any religion or any proof of God.

There are about as many definitions of what a supreme being, unmoved mover or intelligent designer are as there are people.

So let me simplify all of that. Just ask God if He exists. Then ask God who He is. Then ask God what our purpose is. There is only one God, not many. Read the Bible, not with the intention of proving it wrong but in it's proper context. It is a religious history of the Jews (Old Testament) and a history of Jesus Christ and his disciples, plus a lot of letters that the Apostle Paul wrote to Christians in different parts of Asia Minor and Rome (New Testament).

The process is simple but the work behind finding out is not easy. Some people search their entire lives to know. Some know immediately.

Like I said before, the existence of God is the most important question in life.

There arw so many goobers who just refuse to see this logic and I have no idea why

Because it's not logical to us. (Also threatening people with punishment is a pretty suspicious way to convince them to accept something, no offence. If something is true, it should be demonstrably true. Why resort to threats (and arguably a sort of emotional/psychological blackmail) to try and convince people? That's the kind of thing the mafia does. If I really wanted to convince people of a particular truth, it would actually be a much better strategy if the concept of hell didn't exist and I instead let them freely make up their minds based on rational arguments and ideally some kind of evidence, rather than fear of torment.)

And there are thousands of religions saying different things. It's not about deliberately refusing to see it. It's about failing to be convinced by the "logic". Otherwise you can end up falling for anything. You likewise presumably refuse to accept Islam is the truth. I could ask you similar questions. You've also been warned multiple times about hell yet you still don't believe Muhammad is the Messenger of God and you will face judgement for not worshipping the One True God. Why is that and what will your defence be if it turns out you're wrong?

(And personally, not to want to sound too flippant, but Islamic hell is a... hell of a lot scarier than Christian hell. If I were you, I'd take my chances with Islam just in case. If you're wrong, Jesus may still go easy on you. Sort of a mini-version of Pascal's Wager, if you like.)

I have zero fear of hell because if God exists, he endowed me with an intellect to question things, and the concept of hell goes against my intellect which He Himself gave me to use. If He didn't want me to use it, why give it to me?

Therefore I spend no time worrying about it. It's simply too fanciful an idea to entertain. Besides, half my friends and people I care about (some of whom have already left this earthly plane) will presumably end up there as they were unbelievers, so even if I got saved, I'd still suffer for all eternity knowing that they're being eternally tormented, unless in heaven you somehow stop caring about them or your memories of them are erased or something, but that sounds like a bit of a copout to me.

Plus the concept of an eternal part of "you" that exists after death makes no sense to me anyway. What part of "you" remains, exactly? Your memories? Your earthly personality? You're not even the same person today that you were 10 years ago. Are "you" even real or an illusion?

The difference is it's a warning of something bad in the future, not a manipulation threat.
See if it is true and you were warned, then it's horrible that you end up there, compared to your belief that it is just manipulation.
The reason Christianity rises above other religions is that everything that can be verified in the Bible is true, whereas in other religions things are demonstrably false. Like Muhammad cutting the moon in half or bhudisms psychological "enlightenment" which just turns out to be brain silence.
In Christianity we have prophecies that have come true, historical events that we later verified were true and more importantly nothing false.

This guy's a troll bro dw

YOOOOOOOO BRO CAN YOU FOLLOW ME 🙏

Okay fine I've followed you. Happy now? 🤣 Do you get Christian Karma points?

I just kinda felt like there was a friendship blossoming between us you know

Hey, the world is always turning
https://youtu.be/8L82II1lNjo?si=exwb6jBJjngRdTeX

Literally why is this in the Politics stream when this has NOTHING to do with politics?

Religion is political.

When you mix religion and politics, bad things happen

Yeah, religion and politics overlap a lot, although ideally church and state should remain separate in my view. But we seem to be creeping back to the old days, at least in the US, but it's happening elsewhere too.

That's because people see the alternatives and realize its worse.

Uhh welll yes and no

Thank you for the warning. I find it difficult to take the concept of eternal hellfire seriously though so will continue to take my chances. I can't conceive of a Being smart enough to create the universe who is also petty enough to come up with that. So that alone stops me believing in religions that have it. Judgement is one thing; eternal torment for a temporary sin is another. Not exactly proportional to the crime and God is supposed to be a just God.

Then again He did also create mosquitoes so who knows... 🤔

Plus the Bible barely even describes hell. Just talks about a "second death", gnashing of teeth and a lake of sulfur, etc. The OT describes it even less. A lot of that imagery is probably Dante's fault.

The Qur'an is a bit more explicit though. But who knows if even that isn't taken more metaphorically these days by some "progressive" Muslims.

Might help to know what hell is. It's simply the eternal separation of existence with the God you reject. Heaven, of course is existence in the presence of the God of creation for eternity. There are only four chapters in the Bible that describe creation the way God intended it for us, the first 2 chapters of Genesis, and the last 2 chapters of Revelation. Chapter 3 of Genesis describes Satan deceiving humanity into disobedience. The balance of the Bible describes mankind's determination to put themselves in the place of God, God's description of order and Law, and His plan for redemption, for those who accept it.
The Bible would be just another book, except for one thing. Prophecy. No other religion has that. God says what He is going to do before it happens. And it happens. There are at least 109 fulfilled prophecies of Jesus first advent on earth. There are 2000 regarding His second coming, such as the nation of Israel being completely removed from the promised land, the returning and becoming a nation in one day, May 14, 1948. No other nation in history survived over 400 years without a homeland. There's so much more than that, take astronomy for example. The bible says the heavens will be rolled up like a scroll, can be torn and a couple others. Astronomers are now saying space is not an empty vacuum, but has the characteristics of a fabric, and they've discovered places where the universe is folding back on itself. Fun stuff.
On the other hand, science tells us that humans evolved from a primordial ooze over a few million years to become an intricate, self-replicating creature comprised of 100 trillion cells. So I wonder what evolved first, the muscular system, or the skeletal? The digestive system, or the circulatory system that transports nutrition to and waste away from the cells. Cardio vascular or the respiratory system? Did the nervous system evolve first or the endocrine system? How did blood evolve? It carries nutrients and waste as noted, but also carries oxygen to and CO2 away from the cells, and it fights foreign invaders. How did clotting evolve? I mean millions of primordial humans must have bled to death from skinned knees before evolution finally got it right.
What about the eye? How did it evolve. I has muscles, it's attached directly to the brain, a complex lens system and the inverted image is reversed in the brain. The lens is transparent, yet heavily nourished by blood but we don't see a reddish tint. And there is so much more

The ear now, how did those 4 little bones evolve in the inner ear. Reproduction? The male carries half of the genetic material and the female carries the other half which combines to became another distinct being, with a full set of DNA. Thinking about this would keep me awake at night.
All around us there is evidence of design. That would imply a designer. If only Darwin had written the theory of adaptation, he would have been right.

I'd say stuff happening and elimination by trial and error, since undesirable and actively disadvantageous traits will go extinct due to natural selection. So no, that doesn't necessarily imply a designer...

To bad Darwin was so pathetically wrong and was a god to Adolph Hitler and other real Nazis and genuine racists.

I love th

No other religion has profecies, yeah right...

Wow. Are you missing out.

Also tbf your interpretation of "hell" as being just "the absence of God" is not a universally held Christian belief. It might even be quite a modern interpretation.

In any case, it doesn't concern me because I don't believe in any of it. I'll be 100% honest: I have NO IDEA what's going on. I don't know where the universe came from, "why" we're here, or what the purpose/meaning of our existence is (if there is one). But one thing I am confident of is it's not contained in a bronze-age Hebrew/Aramaic text that talks about YHWH ordering genocide & slavery, or a later Greek text translated over 100 years after Jesus died (we don't even have the original, if it ever existed), in a mixture of fancy Greek (Luke) and sloppier Greek. With internal contradictions (the Gospels don't even agree with each other on a lot of details).

Nor is it to be found in a 7th-century Arabic text that was also written by a supposedly illiterate man who was this close to hurling himself off a cliff, who supposedly heard the voice of Gabriel in a cave before he started a political movement, whose sayings were recorded on fragments of bone & palm leaf & other things & compiled into a codex after his death, & put in no logical order based on the length of surahs rather than any themes (which didn't even include vowels/consonant markings & if you believe some accounts one of the first caliphs had half the variant readings burned), which repeats itself ad nauseam, regurgitates stories from the Bible but gets a lot of the details "wrong", & tells me I'm going to burn in hell on practically every page.

I'm sorry. The idea that the Being who created the Laws of Physics, gravity, atomic forces, Quantum Mechanics, black holes, & guided evolution for billions of years, also produced "books" of this incredibly (laughably) inferior quality... I just can't buy it.

If you want to believe it, great. But trust me when I say you won't be converting a lot of us any time soon, because frankly it insults my intellect & if I want to be extremely blunt, I actually find it deeply, deeply offensive that I should be expected to believe that the Creator of the Cosmos produced these second-rate "books". So if anything, it's the least we can do remain civil & tolerate your beliefs out of respect without resorting to insults.

Honestly, if you wanted us to believe in God, the best thing you could to would be to get rid of your "books". Best argument against God if ever there was one.

Pretty harsh criticisms, interesting none of them are original thought, but repetitions of some pretty lame intellects. As you say, your choice who and what you believe. You do know that Darwin's Theory of Evolution is just that still, a theory. Otherwise it would be called Darwin's Law of Evolution. Not one bit of it is proven. That's why I said earlier if they called it Darwin's Theory of Adaptation, much of it would be proven.
I don't want to create hostility. I've read all the contrasting arguments and more before I came to my conclusions. I know the concept of miracles, etc. stretches your beliefs, but I have been on a clear trajectory to certain death several times and there was a clear physical and supernatural power that moved me totally out of what was going to happen. Sliding sideways on ice broadside to go head on with an approaching semi was one. There was no natural force available or applied that pushed me out of the path I was on- Newtonian physics were disrupted for a time.
As I said before, be well. I appreciate the exchange of ideas with you, I'll never claim to know everything, I plan to be learning until my last breath.
Which, damn it, brings me to one last observation. My wife was a hospice nurse for years, and sat beside hundreds of people as they died. She noted, and I started a log, that the people of faith universally passed peacefully, and not just urban myth, many were greeted and exchanged greetings with beings that loved them. People such as yourself fought death to their last breath, and many passed in great visible and discernable fear. I know with a study group of only hundreds, and regarding the control group those who were not cognizant of their passing this is more anecdotal than bona fide scientific study. The numbers however are compelling.

Thanks for taking the time to respond and I appreciate that these are your beliefs.

I'm afraid there's extremely little chance of me converting to Christianity (or Islam or any similar religion) in this lifetime). But it's fine if it works for you.

Christianity isn't the only religion that claims to have prophecies.

I'd also be interested (maybe) in specific examples of actual prophecies that were fulfilled. Most Jews don't believe in those prophecies. (If they did, I guess they might become Christians. 🤔)

A lot of them are Christians interpreting the ancient texts after the fact to fit their narrative.

Quite a few are pretty vague and could refer to anything.

And a bunch actually contain textual errors. (Psalm 22:16 is an interesting example. Aside from the fact that it's not talking about Jesus anyway unless you interpret it through that later Christian lens, the original Hebrew literally makes no actual sense. It says "like a lion, my hands and my feet". In short, it's a typo. The text is corrupted. And it's often used as one of the main examples of "prophecy" about Christ. It's literally a typo. Forgive me, but I simply CANNOT believe in an omniscient deity who makes typos. (Let alone one who condones the slaughter of innocents or talks about smashing infants' heads against rocks and other immoral stuff. I just don't have time for that. It's 2025.)

The Qur'an also has tons of "typos" and other textual stuff that makes zero sense, but good luck ever getting a Muslim to ever admit to that. It spells words differently in different verses (so much for consistency), repeats itself ad nauseum, has terrible internal structure, and uses ancient Meccan dialect words. (And those random letters at the start of lots of surahs? They're essentially typos. But apparently they have some hidden meaning or something. Or maybe they just got copied down wrong when the Qur'an was being written down on bits of palm leaf and fragments of bone and literally mean nothing. Just like what happened with the Bible in countless places, which you don't even notice if you only read the English (or other translations).

I'm sorry but I just can't believe the Creator of the Cosmos who came up with the Laws of Physics and Quantum Mechanics could be that sloppy. It stretches credulity beyond any kind of rationality. I find that beyond absurd, so if God wants to burn me in fire for all eternity then so be it. But hey, it works for millions of people so who am I to judge?)

Little chance of converting? Is that because you are prohibited upon pain of death from leaving your religion?

🤣 Yes, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are going to personally bludgeon me with a copy of the Origin of Species while reciting incantations to Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman and Christopher Hitchens for my outrageous apostasy from the Church of Unbelief.

I think you may want to go back and reread my comment...

That's Islam. Funny post though.

Hi flip, I'd be glad to dive into prophetic verse, this is a hard format for that, but Psalm 22 is indeed about Jesus and is very precise. Jewish people knew that verse was speaking of the Messiah. Isaiah 53, again a prophetic verse specifically about Jesus, the Messiah. There are prophesies about Israel rejecting Jesus in His first advent. Daniel has a very specific prophecy that foretells to the day when the Messiah, Jesus, would ride into Jerusalem in what they call the Triumphal Entry. Keep in mind, these prophecies were written 1000, 700 and 500 years before they happened. Amazingly the early scriptures were locked into history when 70 Greek scholars translated them from Hebrew to Greek in the 3rd Century BC. It goes on extensively, so much so that it can be studied for a lifetime. It's not a novel to be read once and set on a shelf until a downsizing yard sale.
God does not want you to "burn in Hell" (there's your apt Dante reference.) To the contrary He has gone to great lengths to prevent that.
What is ironic is the textual errors you mention are created by so called christian academics, who don't believe a word of the Bible.
My background is in applied science. I learned in a High School science fair project how to analyze data (I got to the state competition solely because I demonstrated the scientific method, I had my hypothesis- animal behavior, developed a study with variables and control, gathered and analyzed data. I was sent to a local college to get tutored in probability and statistics so I could develop and use the right math). I've applied those methods to my study of the spiritual and there is no question in my mind as to the veracity of Christianity based on the original transcripts. When you learn that there are over 40,000 original transcripts you can actually see for yourself regarding Christ, and only 3 of the Gettysburg address, it opens your eyes. Two of those are drafts Lincoln gave as gifts, and are not identical to the 3rd, which is what we all know. That was taken as dictation by a news reporter as Lincoln spoke it. The original manuscript is lost to history.
As for creation, I love the Big Bangers theory- in the beginning there was nothing then it exploded!!!! Sounds like a bit of plagiarism of the Bible, but then I have a strange sense of humor. The mathematical probability of all living organisms and ecosystems evolving by accident is a zero with a couple billion zeros after the decimal point. Be well.

I actually appreciate the time and effort you took to took to write your response btw. You wrote a long response. And I appreciate that.

I want to respond in kind. So I can't just respond with a simple response.

Understood. Looking forward to our next discussion in the World Of Memes... or is it Whirled O' Memes?