[My Rejoinder] Basically, God is warning us of the consequences of our actions. You can take that as a threat. Normally, threats are intended to get a person to act a certain way. God is willing to let you do evil if you want. He is just stating what the consequences of your actions are. He is not seeking to force you to do right. He wants you to think before you do wrong.
But, at various times, "wrong" has included eating pork, not eating pork, believing in witches, not believing in witches, accepting the Pope, not accepting the Pope; and so on. It seems to me that you also confuse consequences with punishments, a frequent occurrence among christians. If I warn a child that the stove is hot and will burn his hand if he touches it, I am speaking of a consequence. If I threaten a child that if she goes near the stove I will whip her ass, that is a threat of punishment.
Eternal suffering in the flames of hell, for not believing in something that is incoherent, improbable and incomprehensible, is a threat of punishment NOT a consequence. One has the suspicion that the threat is made because persuasion, and even coherent presentation of the argument, is not possible.
/*****************************/ Later:
Without the Bible, the killing would still have occurred, the only difference is that there would have been more of it.
You mean the Athanasians would still have killed the Arians about the difference between homoousious and homoiousious? Protestants would have killed Catholics and vice versa? And Catholics would have killed Albigensians? and witches? And all would have killed Jews, anyway? Wycliffe would have been killed for translating some other book into English?
Pardon me, but it is hard not to think that the bible had something to do with all of this. Further, it is hard not to think that it brought about more killings, not less. The most I could see accepting is that it had no influence at all, which takes away any argument for the supposed civilizing influence of church, christianity or the bible.
later:
The point is that "faith" will manifest itself in a person's life through "works." "Anyone who is a follower of Christ and has a relationship with the Lord would obviously never do anything that bad." That is what we say and it is a true statement. A person must reject Christ to do those things.
Of course, they can repent and be saved and made new the next day, and be ready for heaven, right? As many times as necessary, as long as they get the last one in on time and before deadline, right? Or do you deny the efficacy of the Atonement?
There are also other verses which state that faith without any manifestation in works is sufficient. These are among some of the most well-known and fought over contradictions in the bible, and point to an early division in christianity, between the Jewish Christians of Jerusalem and the Paulist Hellenizing Christians of the diaspora, that has obviously never been resolved. There are certainly numerous protestant churches extant that insist that faith alone suffices, whereas the usual catholic position is that certain works are required.
/********************/
[Rejoinder] As I said, compare this to Christ. As the question, "Is this what Christ would do?" The answer is, "NO."
So, basically, there are no christians in the world today who ever do anything wrong, or evil. The way we can tell who a christian is, is that they are the ones doing good stuff. As soon as somebody does something evil, this reveals the previously hidden fact that they were not christians.
This obviously contradicts the idea that being a christian (in the sense of belonging to a christian church, or calling oneself a christian) has some actual influence on behavior, as all of the actions cited by the atheists in this round of debate were committed by people who thought they were christians, and who others generally accepted as christians. By your statements you are admitting what we have said all along, that professing belief in christian doctrines is meaningless noise, and no indication of how someone will behave in the future, as they may at any instant, turn out to be one of the false-type of christians. In this way, christians (as usually defined and understood) are no different from anybody else.
Is there some non tautological way of distinguising "real" christians from all the false ones around?
On the other hand if I see someone whipping bankers, cursing fig trees, or organizing a new cult and proclaiming themselves the son o' god, I'll know they're acting like Jesus.
-- Autumn afternoon Greg Erwin ai815@freenet.Carleton.ca Alone walk on fallen gold VP, Humanist Association of Canada Sun shines, warmth fading
Man created God, not God, man ---Garibaldi