Does Jesus rank on the list of worst torturers of all time?

Well again, it "never comes up" with learned Christians/theologians, and it's in direct reference to what Hell is for the damned - it never comes up as their belief for what Hell will be for Humans. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

But yes, my reading of the Bible suggests that the "eternal punishment" is really nothing more than the destruction of your eternal soul - not some "eternal torture", and as such it is a "second death". Torture and death aren't interchangeable

 

Well, I guess that would come down to the author's idea of just what death really is.

 

Here's where it says that: http://biblehub.com/2_timothy/3-16.htm
I didn't say "written by", but what the verse says in the link above.

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Yes, he did....he was a barbarian:
Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ. (Ephesians 6:5 NLT)

Christians who are slaves should give their masters full respect so that the name of God and his teaching will not be shamed. If your master is a Christian, that is no excuse for being disrespectful. You should work all the harder because you are helping another believer by your efforts. Teach these truths, Timothy, and encourage everyone to obey them. (1 Timothy 6:1-2 NLT)

In the following parable, Jesus clearly approves of beating slaves even if they didn't know they were doing anything wrong.

The servant will be severely punished, for though he knew his duty, he refused to do it. "But people who are not aware that they are doing wrong will be punished only lightly. Much is required from those to whom much is given, and much more is required from those to whom much more is given." (Luke 12:47-48 NLT)

 

Had you said some Christians today, I would agree, but since you choose to generalize, >>>MOD EDIT Insult Removed<<<
Seems you are as intolerant as those you choose to excoriate.

 

Ok not 100%.....so please tell us what percentage of Christians today are moral enough to have read their Bible and removed the part that says to kill gays? What percentage, my friend? THAT would be the percentage who are moral, for starters. We await your reply.

 

I'd say a considerable majority of Christians except if they are also conservative republicans.


http://www.gallup.com/poll/169640/sex-marriage-support-reaches-new-high.aspx

Same-Sex Marriage Support Reaches New High at 55%

Nearly eight in 10 young adults favor gay marriage

 

Oh yeah, slavery was supported as an institution by the New Testament authors. I don't think anyone can deny that the alleged words of Jesus on the matter amount to an admonition to grin and bear it, presumably because people were supposed to expect the good life, so to speak, only after they died and then were resurrected and allowed into heaven, i.e. paradise. That's where people were supposed to store up their treasures. They were supposed to pay their taxes to Caesar, bear slavery and bear whatever else might come along, even persecution and death, and simply await the reward for their great faith in the next life.

It's the perfect thing to convince a bunch of poor idiots of! Obey me and suffer for me, underlings, for your reward in heaven will be all the greater for it! That's great for military service as well, of course, where death is always staring people in the face. And hey, what do you know? This crap got popular right around the time when religious zealots from around *ahem* Galilee! were waging bloody warfare against the Romans. The New Testament is littered with passages attacking both the Romans and the Jewish establishment who collaborated with them (the Pharisees, etc.).

Interestingly, to sum up, the alleged demigod Jesus came along and told people to stop fighting, pay their taxes, bear their slavery, and look forward to "the Kingdom" and a life of perfect bliss not on Earth in their lifetimes, but rather in the life to come after they had died (the "first death"). I see this as an attempt to calm the warring zealots who were fighting hard to free themselves from Roman rule. Whoever was preaching this stuff wanted the conflict to end, probably because they were afraid for what would become of Israel otherwise. And we see where that warfare did in fact lead them - into destruction and diaspora, and even to the destruction of their beloved temple!

And the model of this alleged demigod's "salvation" for mankind was one borrowed from Mithraism and other such cults prevalent at the time - the solar sacrifice and resurrection/redemption model. As Roman soldiers prayed to and trusted in Mithras to save them, so Christians prayed to and trusted in Jesus to save them, all based allegorically on the sun's - on Sol Invictus's - death and rebirth at Winter Solstice.

 

Oh no, you didn't say "written by" but you've criticized as if it did. You said that if it is God-inspired, then God did something wrong. ^_- Well you know a certain actress was my inspiration for making a watercolor, and it didn't come out great, so it wasn't me that screwed up, it was her.

He also said, "give unto Caesar what is to Caesar." Do you think that meant that he supported the Roman Empire?

"This letter is from Paul" - 1 Timothy 1

Are you switching back and forth between versions?

47 “And a servant who knows what the master wants, but isn’t prepared and doesn’t carry out those instructions, will be severely punished. 48 But someone who does not know, and then does something wrong, will be punished only lightly. When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required. (Luke 12:47-48 NLT) What you're typing isn't consistent with what you're referencing.

But anyway, that section in the NLT is labelled "Be Ready for the Lord’s Coming". It doesn't refer at all to beatings, as you say it does. Once again, the Bible under scrutiny doesn't verify wild claims.

 

No, if they were moral they'd remove it from their "best book of all time" that they give their impressionable children. But it appears that NOTHING, no matter how vile it would be, can get them to do that....because they are simply immoral (except the ones who have removed it, of course.)

 

You asked a question, I responded with facts and you move the goal post.

Is bigotry moral?

 

FreedomSeeker has only one purpose. To prove that God is a tyrant and Jesus the same. I'm afraid most people of this type are rather like the JW's. They know how to quote texts but not the real meaning or the context in which they are written.

2 Tim. 3 is an interesting chapter. What is Paul actually referring to in 14-17. Certainly the Scriptures he refers to must be the Tanakh. There were no Christian scriptures at the time.
in the Greek v 14 reads ..... But continue in the things you have learned and were assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from a babe you know the Sacred Letters the ones being able to make you wise to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
NOTE the Greek says sacred letters. The Hebrew word for 'letter' - Otmeans 'sign', 'wonder', 'heavenly revelation'.

Paul was a Jew. The Jews believe that the Hebrew alphabet was inspired by angels. Even letters have special significance. The Talmud considers that the wisdom concerned in the Jewish alphabet was to be compared with God's wisdom in creating the Universe.
A Talmud slightly later said that every child should have a lesson on the importance of every Hebrew letter.

So what was Paul - the Pharisee -- actually referring to. The Tanakh has no reference to Jesus or his teaching etc.

Certainly Timothy would have learnt the Tanakh from an early age.

Paul, a Pharisee, would then, according to the above, certainly have believed that Scriptures were God given. But, as a Jew, what else could he believe.

You cannot understand much of the NT without understanding Judaism. And you cannot understand Judaism without understanding the ancient world.

 

Inspired is an interesting word.

Let's remember that what writings were gathered to compose the Bible by men. Many writings were left out. "Inspired" would need to cover this collection process.

Also, the Bible has been translated from language to language just to get to (for example) the King James Version and today we have numerous versions being used at the same time, with people looking back and forth between them to try to figure out meaning.

God would have needed to do a lot more than just control the very word choice of the original authors.

 

I'm not bigoted per se, but I do of course call for higher standards than religions teach (call that what you will.)

 

An easy job to be sure....the Bible makes it so easy....like taking candy from a baby.

And when the Pope is too much of an intellectual coward to remove talking donkeys, or love of slavery, or killing gays, or women being worth 1/2 a man from the book, then it's like falling off a log it's so easy. Make my job harder, Christians, I beg of you.

 

Of course slavery was accepted. It was a fact of the way of life. You are criticising a completely dfferent age. Now I suppose in your 21st century arrogance you will say if you had been born in that day and age you would have spoken out against it. Yeh. And you would probably have been stoned to death.

In the USA there are reckoned to be around 60,000 slaves (sex), millions who are so underpaid they only just survive, people dying because they can't afford medicine. Apart from the health situation, where we have a free health service, it's similar in the UK.

In the ancient east slavery was a means of keeping alive in many cases. With all our modern 'morals' we are little better off than people 2,000 years ago.

The New Testament is littered with passages attacking both the Romans and the Jewish establishment who collaborated with them (the Pharisees, etc.).

No it isn't. There are references to a couple of rebels who were dealt with by the Romans. If you study the Bible Jesus, Paul, Luke and others are all ready to appease the Romans. To prevent confrontation. Read Jewish History. The Zealots were in a minority. It was their actions in the end which left the rest of the Jews no option but to fight.

Jesus had been dead 30 years before this.

As regards Mithraism and Jesus.

Jesus, the Rabbi, would have adhered to the Jewish religion. The Romans treated the Jews uniquely. They knew the readiness of Jews to die for their religion andt they gave instructions that the Jews were to be left alone in this matter. No governor was allowed to put up images of gods, even that of Caesar, that would provoke the Jews.
Pilate did. One night his soldiers smuggled shields with Tiberius head on them and hung them. The Jews
complained and Tiberius told Pilate to remove them immediately.

This would become a problem a little later.

The fact that the Romans were in Palestine at all was because the Jews were engaged in a bloody civil war in the Maccabean peroid. The Romans intervened, some say at the request of one side to help them. They never left.

When our ancestors look back with their superior knowledge let's hope they don't have the same attitude as you.

 

Oh?

well I can understand your subjective assessment. Care to share some of your major "higher standards" of morality?

 

Valid question.
For one, not giving our kids a book that says it's ok to KILL innocent people if they turn out like god made them (i.e. not their fault)....I'm talking about the Pope not having the balls to remove the parts of his book that say to kill innocent people (gays.)
Have a great evening....and keep posting.

 

Only religion >>>MOD EDIT Flamebait Removed<<< can get intelligent people in 2015 to actually DEFEND SLAVERY (virtually the worst moral crime of all time.) Brave moral people have fought and died in wars to end the slavery of others (this might be altruism at its finest.) But because of the fanaticism that religion causes, even intelligent people, in 2015 no less(!), will defend virtually the worst moral crime of all time. Despite claiming to be all-loving and a great moral teacher, Jesus, never spoke out against virtually the worst moral crime of all time (slavery), but did approve of it in at least 2 verses (I've posted those probably a dozen times on this forum.) So one has to ask, empathetically, for each and every one of the millions and millions of victims of slavery: JESUS, JESUS, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME? If he was really god/divine and really all-loving, he&#8217;d have been the Abe Lincoln of his time, and could have simply said two words to get the ball rolling: &#8220;No slavery.&#8221;

But there is a better belief system, fortunately.

 

Such a poor argument, every time someone brings up the advocation of slavery in the Bible, somebody always has to make the argument that it was a "different time". See, I can forgive humans for their transgressions, but I'm not sure how that applies to a SUPPOSEDLY all powerful and all caring God advocating for human slavery.

 

You refuse to accept the difference between 2000 years ago and today. Anything to get at Jesus.
As I said to someone else, if you had been brought up in the days we are talking about it would be the natural thing to do. I suppose you are going to say you would have been different to the rest of the middle eastern population of the time. You have a one - track mind.
I very much doubt any Christian today supports slavery. Even the most ardent Bible puncher would recognise slavery is wrong, and always has been IN OUR MODERN UNDERSTANDING.

One thing is sure. If I were interested in MSH your attitude and intolerance would put me off completely.

 

Reading your post I was sort of reminded of Reggie Jackson who hit 3 home runs on 3 successive pitches in the World Series....that's because you just "hit it out of the park" on that great post!

 

I didn't mention anything about God advocating slavery. Slavery was around long before the Jewish God came on the scene.
Slaves have been a fact of life from time immemorial. The Bible on picks up slavery as it picks up many social 'mores' of the time.
Why is it that people declare they don't believe in the Bible 'it's full of myths and fairy stories' and yet criticise things they don't believe in.

Sometimes I wonder if anyone on here has actually done any real study. Does anyone have the capacity to see the difference between our world and the ancient world. Between our culture and eastern culture. Between our understanding and their understanding.

We are 2000 years ahead with with all the advantages and knowledge those 2 millenia give us.

 

I see your point, it's not fair to compare today to 2000 years ago. So can we both agree that if one lived 2000 years ago that Christianity might be a valid belief system for them, back then, at that time....but not in 2015? So if we invent a time-machine, then Christianity will be a very valid system for 2015 (use the time machine and go back to live 2000 years ago), but until then, its not valid for our modern, more moral world.

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Because YOU DO believe in fairy stories!
We are in the longest war in US history, thanks to FAITH, and some people don't see that, for one thing.

 

If i was the all-loving, all-caring, all-knowing son of god i would have!!

 

Yes, I freely admit that I'm very intolerant....of slavery, of inconsistency, of killing innocent people (gays), of hatred of the other just because they didn't buck lottery-like odds and pick the same unproven invisible super-hero in the sky out of the tens of thousands on offer as you fortunately did, etc.

Can you say that you are, like me, intolerant of a book that says to kill innocent people - gays?

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Then admit that god was not all-knowing and could not see the future (back then.)