You mean Driscoll plagiarized this, too? He's going to hell.

Good grief! I bet that guy had one messed up family

I think one of the main reasons why I am no longer a Christian (and, in fact, agnostic married to an agnostic Jew) is because of "Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God" which I read in high school. My 15 or 16 year old mind couldn't wrap itself around this God versus the God that I was mostly taught about in Methodist Sunday School (mostly about Jesus' love, etc.). Of course that God made no sense either as I read huge chunks of the Bible, which is filled with hate and venom.

I also had the misfortune (or maybe fortune) to have a best friend who went to an Assembly of God Church.

I went with him a few times and was freaked out by how they spoke in tongues. He also only watched Trinity Broadcast Network and told me watching "Star Wars" was satanic.

The end of my religious belief came when he told me masturbating and pre-marital sex was sinful and that I would go to Hell if I did so. It wasn't very long afterwards that I learned that he had married his girlfriend (at age 18) after getting her pregnant.

That was that.

I understand this kind of thinking comes from a different time. A time of crushing poverty. Of rampant diseases that ravaged whole families. Of warring groups that could descend on a village and cut it to ribbons. Of shifting climates that could leave people starving or flooded. The dangers were countless. There was a desperate need to find answers, to make some sense. A ruthless god with a penchant for torture was a reflection of the human condition and capricious natural world.

Oh, and then there was the time when I was told that I was going to burn in hell for having an earring. I was 17 or so and some girl my age approached me in a movie theatre parking lot to try to "save me" with this information.

And the time a local school where I grew up censored "Catcher in the Rye" because of the word "goddamn" in it.

And the time my mom tried another church in the area and the sermon was about how gays were going to burn in hell forever. She never went back.

The level of circular logic, special pleading, and explaining away that contributes to the obscene violation of Occam's Razor that is current Christian dogma, is so reminiscent of the efforts of early Renaissance "scientists" to maintain the fiction of a universe made of perfect circles and spheres. Eventually, the house of cards has to fall and the simple explanation has to be accepted.

Who the hell holds spiders over the fire? Besides future serial killers? I guess God is a serial killer, if you think about it.

I've never heard a convincing explanation for why God, if She exists, would give a flaming fuck at a rolling doughnut what any human does or says or thinks, anymore than a geek cares about the views of the individual ants in his ant farm. He can't even tell one from the other.

But there's no depiction of the horrors of Hell as grisly as the one by Father Arnall in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, which draws heavily on Dante but adds a special lyrical touch to the depiction of boiling brains and other jollities. But, you know, every imagining of Hell is a human imagining, not a divine one.

From here on out I'm just going to replace Driscoll in my mind's eye with season 1 Boyd Crowder, for comfort's sake.

Too much Driscoll on the mind leaves me feeling slimy.

When I was in college, and a Christian, I had a history professor who was fascinated nearly to the point of obsession with early colonial religious history. Then, I couldn't understand how he could know all this theology so intimately and not become saved (he was agnostic). Now, myself an atheist, I don't understand how he could study all that theology so closely without just becoming sickened and fed up.

Why would anyone believe in, much less worship such a jerk god?

Hallelujah!

@7

Maybe if you think of it as God is us and us is cats, then it make sense. We are God's cat videos; we can haz salvation.

Oh, and then sometimes God is a dog person, but we're still cats.

By 1971, however, Jonathan Edwards had mellowed out, and had a hit on the US pop charts with this song.
http://youtu.be/HQe8Mk19_s4

I can't really distinguish between "God" and "Devil" in that passage, seems like you're pretty fucked in hellfire either way.

Aaand a Judaic perspective on sin and redemption, taken from the Chabad.org translation of the Weekday Amidah:

Cause us to return, our Father, to Your Torah; draw us near, our King, to Your service; and bring us back to You in whole-hearted repentance. Blessed are You L-rd, who desires penitence.

Pardon us, our Father, for we have sinned; forgive us, our King, for we have transgressed; for You are a good and forgiving G‑d. Blessed are You L-rd, gracious One who pardons abundantly.

I prefer this understanding of God, who waits (passive-aggressively, one could argue) for sinners to apologize and make redress for their wrongdoings.

The last thing I read by Jonathan Edwards was in American Lit class when I was a junior in high school. Let's keep it that way, eh?

I was told a story of a Calvinist woman who was so tortured by the question of whether she was saved or not, that she threw her child down a well, because she knew then that if she had done that, she was clearly going to hell, and could stop stressing.

I would think, being forced to live with such a vision of your impending doom, constantly, would be so fatiguing that you would eventually have to discount it, set that vision entirely aside, check yourself to see you didn't immediately incinerate, and go about the rest of your happy life whistling.

Mar Hill just opened a church in Olympia. Hopefully we will see them close up shop before too long. Dear lord, why this pox upon our city?

@20 And they opened one in Everett just last weekend.

The city father's are overjoyed as it means one less empty building staring back at them.

I think the church/tavern ratio had to be near 50/50 now. And most of the bars up there suck.

I'm a bit puzzled. I get that you all hate Christianity and, for reasons that escape me, Mars Hill with an abiding passion.

What I don't understand is why. You think Christianity nonsense or even choose the nihilist route, atheism. Okay. So if those of us who disagree are such laughable simpletons, why the hatred? Seems to be me the easier and less stressful choice would be, I don't know, don't go to church and Mars Hill particularly.

@22: If you think homosexuals are just poor deluded people who don't understand biology, why the hatred and outrage?

@22: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew_cNONhh…

It's not nihilism, it's the fact that a belief in God suggests certain consequences which have not been observed, thus we reject the hypothesis.

Further: Mars Hill in particular is extremely damaging to the people in and around the church. Note that we don't rail against the UCC, or the vast majority of Christian denominations. Just the ones who cause pain and anguish to people.

@22 First, because almost all Christians fail to follow the teachings of Christ. That is, to reject all worldly goods and wealth and devote one's life to serving the sick, the poor, and the helpless, which is totally understandable. That's a lot to ask, as we non-Christians don't expect that kind of sacrifice from our fellow humans.

However, instead of trying to live up to the Christian ideal, failing, and acknowledging your failure, you use the most mean-spirited parts of the non-Gospel Bible to sublimate your failure to follow the teachings of Christ by persecuting those who personally offend you in some way.

That's why people are fed up with Christianity, because people like you project your failure to be holy onto others who are different and don't share your shameful guilt. And that's what you should be ashamed of the most.

@22: Well I will say the idea of The Almighty holding you over the pit of hell like the loathsome insect you are does have a certain appeal......

@22- My opinion about Christianity in general is the same as my opinion of any other religion: It's wrong about theology. My contempt for certain churches and certain Christians is based entirely on their actions. I can see how an self-deluding egoist such as yourself would mistake actual humility (atheism) for nihilism. The universe is vast beyond comprehension. It's not created to test your soul. There is no plan for you. There's no supreme being that cares about you. It is not about you. That's not nihilism, it's realism. I know the vastness of the universe, I know wonders without end, I know oneness with the universe.

I know this because I know there is no such thing as divinity.

@26- Nice zing.

@27: Thank you kindly!