That's the thing, God doesn't threaten anything, he merely rules and judges - and the judgement for sins is eternal punishment. That is a final conclusion. Everyone goes to hell. The way one can get out is by the Atonement of Jesus, not "if I do this, if I do that". And that is fragile, and yes, "narrow is the gate" - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%207%3A13-14&version=NKJV.
Well okay, say for a second, not jokes (but as I've said before, you're thinking about this wrong, hell is a summary punishment for sin, mocking or otherwise disbelieving can merely ruin one's only fragile way out). What WOULD - jokes wouldn't but what would - that be a punishment for instead that you are more okay with?
It's not God's business to force himself on some sinner - "your problem". He simply gives an open, loud call, an unmerited offer of grace and union, and doesn't do anything beyond that which would violate anyone's free will.
There is a simpler idea - https://www.reasonablefaith.org/videos/short-videos/if-an-unbeliever-dies-for-someone-else-how-can-god-send-that-person-to-hell/ - that everyone deserves hell, and it's only a reach out to Jesus that can save you from it.
So everyone is going to be eternally tortured, and it's only something special and fragile - that can most certainly be severed by mocking - that can get one out of this.
What exactly is irrational here? What would be the "more acceptable" condition for eternal screaming torture, in your view?
If Christian God exists, offense against him is punished by eternal torture. That's just how theology works (fwiw exactly the same in Islam, btw). It's in the Bible and in philosophy of religion: https://www.gotquestions.org/hell-real-eternal.html , https://www.catholic.org/encyclopedia/view.php?id=5634 , https://www.reasonablefaith.org/search/eyJyZXN1bHRfcGFnZSI6InNlYXJjaCIsImtleXdvcmRzIjoiSGVsbCIsInN1Ym1pdCI6IlN1Ym1pdCBTZWFyY2gifQ , and for a variety, https://islamqa.org/hanafi/askimam/3509 .
Are you an atheist?
What's the reference to Canada suing Biden about?
I'm not promoting this, but this is the logic I did not invent. See https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heaven-hell/ : "[Saint] Augustine insisted that hell is a literal lake of fire in which the damned will experience the horror of everlasting torment; they will experience, that is, the unbearable physical pain of literally being burned forever. ... So why, one may wonder at this point, do the Augustinians believe that anyone—whether it be Judas Iscariot, Saul of Tarsus, or Adolph Hitler—actually deserves unending torment as a just recompense for their sins? The typical Augustinian answer appeals to the seriousness or the heinous character of even the most minor offense against God. In Cur Deus Homo (or Why God Became Man), a classic statement of the substitution theory of atonement, St. Anselm illustrated such an appeal with the following example. Suppose that God were to forbid you to look in a certain direction, even though it seemed to you that by doing so you could preserve the entire creation from destruction. If you were to disobey God and to look in that forbidden direction, you would sin so gravely, Anselm declared, that you could never do anything to pay for that sin adequately. As a proponent of the retributive theory, Anselm first insisted that “God demands satisfaction in proportion to the extent of the sin.” He then went on to insist that “you do not make satisfaction [for any sin] unless you pay something greater than is that for whose sake [namely God’s] you ought not to have sinned” (Cur Deus Homo I, Ch. 21). Anselm’s argument, then, appears to run as follows: Because God is infinitely great, the slightest offense against him is also infinitely serious; and if an offense is infinitely serious, then no suffering the sinner might endure over a finite period of time could possibly pay for it. So either the sinner does not pay for the sin at all, or the sinner must pay for it by enduring everlasting suffering."
I'm not promoting this, but this is the logic I did not invent. See https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heaven-hell/ : "[Saint] Augustine insisted that hell is a literal lake of fire in which the damned will experience the horror of everlasting torment; they will experience, that is, the unbearable physical pain of literally being burned forever. ... So why, one may wonder at this point, do the Augustinians believe that anyone—whether it be Judas Iscariot, Saul of Tarsus, or Adolph Hitler—actually deserves unending torment as a just recompense for their sins? The typical Augustinian answer appeals to the seriousness or the heinous character of even the most minor offense against God. In Cur Deus Homo (or Why God Became Man), a classic statement of the substitution theory of atonement, St. Anselm illustrated such an appeal with the following example. Suppose that God were to forbid you to look in a certain direction, even though it seemed to you that by doing so you could preserve the entire creation from destruction. If you were to disobey God and to look in that forbidden direction, you would sin so gravely, Anselm declared, that you could never do anything to pay for that sin adequately. As a proponent of the retributive theory, Anselm first insisted that “God demands satisfaction in proportion to the extent of the sin.” He then went on to insist that “you do not make satisfaction [for any sin] unless you pay something greater than is that for whose sake [namely God’s] you ought not to have sinned” (Cur Deus Homo I, Ch. 21). Anselm’s argument, then, appears to run as follows: Because God is infinitely great, the slightest offense against him is also infinitely serious; and if an offense is infinitely serious, then no suffering the sinner might endure over a finite period of time could possibly pay for it. So either the sinner does not pay for the sin at all, or the sinner must pay for it by enduring everlasting suffering."
Okay, I think I generally agree with everything you said.
Continuing with the last point you said, we can be pretty sure at least say that a few-day-old embryo has no mind, if it doesn't even have a brain (and can bud into several new ones, as I've already mentioned)?
"at what point do you assert that the clone/infant attains rights?" - When they have an individual mind, clearly.
"Does the "mind" exist before birth? How do you test for a mind before birth?" - Good question. I'm inclined to think one first wakes up at birth, but anyway/at the very least, in the cases if there is less brain than the brain-deads have, the conclusion is obvious.
Your response about stem cells is interesting and thoughtful. I didn't pick up however, do you think pig stem cell culture (also not "styrofoam") should be given similar protections as human one? (Obviously, they visually etc are the same - the fundamental morally distinguishing difference between human mind and pig... brain contents is not reflected here.)
bad joke = slap to God
slap to God = eternal torture
He promises hellfire for what he doesn't find funny tho...
What did she do now?
"For voters who see the very act of acknowledging one's racial identity as itself racist, the politics of multiracial whiteness reinforces their desired approach to colorblind individualism."
I still don't understand and can't parse the horsheshit before the very last two words, which however do look like something I'd very much stand for!
I'm lagging behind. Never heard this. Any hot links to/about this?
What do you mean not in good faith?! My father is from Central Asia, where the dominant religion is Islam. And a couple of people close to me died as atheists. Why do you think I'm not genuinely interested in this?..
Can you answer that question at least, please? I don't want this conversation to end like this...
Okay. But what did he tell us? You and they say different things on that, with equal conviction. Just how, how am I supposed to be certain who of you two is right?
(If either one is; again, the single biggest doubt I have is eternal screaming torture in hellfire doctrine, I'm more certain at the moment that that is too bad and nonsensical to be true, especially, with a perfect being around, than that there is a God who's talking.)
That is if your God is right. If theirs is, he only became militant later and to justly defend himself and God's word from prosecutions, and as to the latter he only had sex with Ayesha when she grew up and was willing (and she never considered herself a victim and in fact he died with head on her lap and she grieved, and she led an army after, a rare feat, and also she had an excellent memory and piety and contributed the most hadiths).
(Personally I'm pretty sure he wasn't lying and he had a sincere vision, like St. Paul, or the disciples of Jesus, and for the same reasons - one can't base sincere conviction and drive on a lie. Nor was Christianity locally prominent or in any way threatening, iirc; in fact technically one can say Islam is a type of Unitarian Christianity.)
Furthermore their claim to truth is that theirs is simply the only strictly monotheist religion to begin with.
Nor does it make sense to them for someone else to be punished for one's sins. Which I tend to intuitively agree with, although it is an infinitely secondary point compared to eternal torture hellfire, which they believe in...
(I never talked to Wahhabi, only ordinary mainstream majority traditional Sunni.)
How am I supposed to be genuinely certain who of you two is right, if any? Maybe you can tell me something, frankly at the moment I don't know what to believe...
No, what is meant by human life is individual human life, not a form of life that has human genes. Just like if I have an ex who also happens to be a ballerina does not imply that she's an ex-ballerina.
Stem cells multiplying in a petri dish have no mind and thus no rights, whether they are from a pig, from a human, or even from Jesus himself. Do you agree or no?
I'm not sure I understood your position - what you're okay and what you're not okay with?
I can tell you only one thing. God told us directly the path to salvation. Take it.
When I briefly lived in the middle east (Egypt, to be specific), that is exactly what Muslims told me. How do I know which one of you two guys is right? Or that you're not both wrong?
How do YOU know?
But is it flawed with respect to this argument?
You can have a stem cell culture grow into artificial organs or even (with the same genetic code!) be used to create a new embryo [this is currently forbidden for humans because of valid safety concerns, but it has been done with animals and the technology is getting better by the day; anyways, if you kill a stem cell line, they will not become a human in the future!]
What's the fundamental moral difference between a womb and a petri dish (and conscious vs unconscious tending to its contents), for the purposes of our discussion?..
My point was to demonstrate that saying "it's human" and "it's life" does not equate to saying "it's a human life". That's literally a wordplay.
He may be a commie but at least he's an honest one. And cute (as an old guy). Let's not be violent to Bernie. Not at the top of the list, at least.
"In your religion, you rely on the word of man from thousands of years ago." - well, for a good reason, he resurrected from the dead, so he knows a thing or two about what's on the other side, speaking simply.