What's universally good about scaring people (notably children) with images of eternal torture? That was Jesus not the Old Testament.
Martial arts are commonly recommended for kids who are bullied. It changes their life in two major ways. One is that it gives them confidence and changes their attitude, so they no longer broadcast the unconscious signals that attract bullies--it even changes the way they walk. The other is that by using martial arts instead of, say, boxing or wrestling, you don't have to be as strong and skillful as your attacker to fend him off. If the smaller, weaker kid throws the bully over his shoulder or simply sidesteps the punch, he'll look like a complete idiot and bullies are motivated by the need for respect. Even adults can react this way. For a child, it's pure hell. The only thing worse is to be bullied by your own parents, the people you love by instinct. As Pat Benatar put it, "Love and pain become one and the same in the eyes of a wounded child." ("Hell Is For Children") The majority of the men in America's prisons were abused as children. Haven't you learned from your experiences with your own family that many of these people cannot ever remove their God glasses? They're hopeless. There is no point in trying to communicate with them. If it's a member of your family then you have a major problem, but if it's just some Jesus freak you run into on an internet board, that's what the IGNORE button is for. And don't forget that in those benighted times the average person genuinely believed in the reality of supernatural phenomena, so a well-fabricated story with a sympathetic hero and a lot of cool action sequences would be quite popular. Today, people may call in a feng shui consultant to advise in redecorating their parlor, but deep down inside they know that feng shui consultants have to know a lot about redecorating or they wouldn't get many gigs. You have to evaluate each individual claim on its own merits. There's no "one size fits all" when applying the scientific method. Science is hard work, which is the reason most people don't even bother studying it, much less making a career of it. Disappointment and heartbreak can also contribute to depression, and being bullied does not always lead to depression. Everybody has different strengths and weaknesses. Some Christian sects are pretty bad. The Christian Scientists, if left alone, would let their children die of diseases that real science conquered 100 years ago. Most bullies are just as insecure as their victims. They get various kinds of respect by bullying. From the other insecure jerks they get adoration, and from their victims they at least get fear, which they regard as a form of respect. This increases their sense of security. Fine. But this says nothing about the supernatural accretions that make the Jesus myth what it is. To accept Jesus as a real, but totally mortal, historical figure is not to believe in an extraordinary phenomenon and therefore does not require extraordinary evidence under the Rule of Laplace. I don't know your family so I can't answer that. Based on what you've told me about their church, I have assumed that they are not actual evangelical, pentecostal, charismatic, whatever, fundamentalists. But despite that, perhaps they feel strongly that theirs is a Christian family and therefore all of its members must be Christians. You did turn the tables on them by starting out as a Christian and then changing your mind. That frightens people. In the more severe Islamic communities, apostasy mandates the death penalty! Fortunately this isn't true in any modern Christian congregations, but it sets a precedent that they can't abide. What if you start spreading apostasy among their other members? This should be an easier question for you to answer because it's all about you. I'm sure their "want" gets rather pushy and annoying. People who don't believe in supernatural phenomena generally don't want to spend very much of their time (or any of it!) talking about supernatural phenomena, especially with people who do believe in them, and most especially with people who are angry or disappointed with them personally for not believing. Again, you set yourself up for this by being a Christian, marrying into a Christian family, and then deciding that you're not a Christian. There are no rules for solving this problem. Everybody has to find their own way through it. I hate to say it, but you might wake up one day and decide that the only way you'll ever have peace in your life will require divorcing your wife. For the sake of God, Jesus, Kermit the Frog, Frodo Baggins, Robin Hood and King Arthur... please make this decision BEFORE you have children. Afterwards you have to make your life about them, not about you. And it will be hell for them to live with a father who doesn't respect their mother and thinks their grandparents are creeps. You spend so much time talking about this with people you believe are misguided if not downright stupid. That's got to make you angry. At some point you're going to have to tell them to just shut the hell up and leave you alone. They have no right to treat you this way. It's time for you to start making yourself feel good, not them. Stop caring. Well that's fine. What I'm hearing is that you don't really mind the religion and the church and the services and the punch and cookies. What you mind is being bullied about it. So this is what you have to stop. If they don't have enough respect for you to stop treating you this way, then as I said you're going to have to face some difficult decisions about your own life. But I suspect that if you let them know that this is what it's going to come down to, they might discover that they have the ability to back off. You have to stand up for yourself, and you're not doing that. You're talking about God and Jesus and miracles. What you should be talking about is how all this dumb crap affects you and how it makes you wonder if you married the wrong girl. You're being bullied and you have to stand up to these bullies just as you would have to stand up to the ones who attack you with their fists. You might remind them that Jesus was not a bully.
I don't understand what you are saying. I challenge you to find one wicked/evil/bad/unethical thing that Jesus Christ said in the Bible including the verse. The ONLY thing I consider wrong with what Jesus said is "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him." John 3:36 I don't consider this a just requirement for those who have not seen him. Therefore, it could be construed as unethical.
"For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born." 1 Corithians 15:3-8 It interesting that, if it did happen, even after witnessing the resurrected body, that of these 500 brothers, most of them fell asleep. The term "fallen asleep" usually means to fall asleep in Christ or not accept. It sounds like most people didn't believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Perhaps the word believe is not clear . Remember Satan believes in Jesus , he tempted Him and others passages show you he believes , but the case believe and following the teaching are two different things , Rejection of his teaching Mat. 4 and 5 chapters, brings trouble here on the earth and in the future ( No hell fire ) separation from God.
Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: but I say unto you, that every one who is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment; and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council; and whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of the hell of fire. Here was have gentle Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, inventing the concept of hell.
Too late, we're married 15 years now with two kids. I stopped believing when the youngest was 5, so I was a Christian for 10 years of married life....and even a Sunday school teacher and a music minister at a prior church. We both left the church at the same time and she finally found a replacement. There are countless reasons and countless personal experiences that led up to when I stopped believing. It did not help when I came to the realization that deacons, priests, pastors are just as screwed up as the rest of us. How can you follow or even try to believe in something when the expert disproves everything they teach? That's forgivable and understandable, but it leaves the student lost and without direction. The straw that broke the camel's back was when we stepped in where God should have. We had to answer our own prayers. It was then that I realized, there really is no god. Then I thought, if everyone in the world started answering their own prayers, then they wouldn't need god either.
I just gave you two examples of immoral teachings. You quoted them. Should I wait for you to reread the post? So you find nothing wrong with telling people to turn the other cheek? To leave their families and follow him? To give no thought for the morrow? To love their enemies? You believe mandatory love is moral? Eternal damnation? Vicarious redemption?
Lets be practical or call it scientific . You body can not stand more then 60 degree centigrade at 100 you become a boiling soup at 240 you are BBQ, that passage must have been somehow mistranslated.
Since you read the NT. read the example of rich man and Lazarus at the gate The poor man wert to the bosom of Abraham and the rich went some other place , he called from that place were he was uncomfortable warm , he asked for water , he was not a boiling soup he wanted water .
You might want to read the rest of that Chapter. "42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”[f]; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit." Paul believed in a spiritual rebirth - not a physical resurrection.
Why argue about the future . Let's live a life a Godly life on the earth , then in the future we will be with God were that is . I believe the earth life is a filter
A lot of interpretation , that why we have to keep studding, and not following someones interpretation
Up until 3 weeks ago I would agree. The problem here is that Jesus is revising the old law. If you follow the law for salvation you have to follow it. He laid it out for everyone to understand. The problem is that we as humans cannot follow the law we are unredeemed in God's eyes. It is through Jesus Christ and simply abiding in Christ that you gain eternal life as an alternate set of laws. The Sermon on the Mount has tons of these revisions to the old law. They were problematic for me too until I found out that if you are a Christian, you aren't supposed to be following the law as a Christian. If anything, Jesus was pointing out how difficult it is to earn salvation. But, the whole law is kept simply by you following Christ's law. Does this mean you can sin because you are free from the law? No, if you abide in Christ, you make mistakes but you don't sin, or you never abided in the first place. If you abide in Christ you make mistakes, and you pay for your crimes, and you rehabilitate, and you move on and no longer sin. So, if a person who abides in Christ kills, repents, pays for his crimes, and continues to abide in Christ, they are saved. If they kill again, then they never did abide in Christ, but have a chance to in the future. What I'm talking about is an alternate set of criterion of salvation for a Christian. It is about loving God with all your heart and mind and loving your neighbor as yourself. Both the law and this alternate law are not mutually exclusive. The alternate law is meant as a means to the first set of laws. In the most literal sense of the written word, which is all we atheists have to go by, I concede to your point. If you are a Christian however you are exempt from the law, but must instead accept Christ as your savior and follow Christ's law. This information is from a sermon that was given a few weeks ago at the wife's church. When they started talking about the Sermon on the Mount I had the same reservations as you did. I've never committed adultery and I don't plan to. I couldn't believe that Jesus was saying just thinking about it is the same as doing it. It didn't make sense or it was just unjust and a bit aggravating that Christians thought Jesus was a good man. But, what man hasn't had a slip of thoughts with all these girls nowadays letting it all hang out because it's fashionable? I thought it was some cruel joke.
I hear this all the time in spite of things like: "It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass away than for the smallest part of the letter of the law to become invalid." (Luke 16:17 NAB) And it doesn't stop Christians from enforcing certain Old Testament laws, like those against homosexuality. And if the OT was so invalid, why do they keep it around? And the OT describes the origin of everything in Genesis. So let's not pretend it doesn't exist and isn't influential. Most of all, if Jesus wasn't supernatural, then "abiding in Christ" makes no sense whatsoever, nor does salvation, or being redeemed, or sin, or any other Christian catchphrase. If Jesus said things like this: “He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.” (Matthew 15:4-7) Then you have to wonder how so many Christian children survive the experience.
None of the apologetics you gleaned from your wife' church make any sense. Jesus never exempts anyone from the law; in fact, he says explicitly that he has come to uphold the law. (Matthew 5:17-19, Luke 16:17, John7:19)
