Me: I personally don't like Christainity and I don't consider myself to be Christain. My main reason is that if God burns people in hell forever, I think he violates the 8th amendment (and the constitution and the bill of rights are a much better source of legal morality than Christianity and the bible) and I don't care how many Christians I piss off from saying that.
Well, I'm not necessarily pissed off from you saying that. Everyone has a right to free thought, and everyone has reasons for their opinions.
What I saw in what you said however is a lack of understanding of Christianity, as well as the U.S. Constitution.
1. Firstly, God doesn't send people to hell. If you look at the Christian Doctrine, it says we are all sinners, and doers of evil. Evil according to Christianity is purely the absence of God, and Hell is purely separation from God. So, when we do evil, we are further and further separating ourselves from God.
Now we have this problem. Because no one (not one) is good, and we all do evil, so therefore we are all in some way shape or form, separated from God. So, we are all on our way to Hell.
The Mirical of Christianity is:
God loved us so much, that he sent down his son in the form of a man (in order to keep covenant relationship with humanity) to live a sinless life (to be the intercessor between good (God) and man). Then die a painful agonizing death, suffering not only physical pain, but spiritual pain, in taking all past, present, and future sins of all people.
And it is a beautiful contrast between Jesus (who is all good) taking the punishment of man (flawed). It is almost unfair. But it shows God's mercy.
2. Secondly you said:
the constitution and the bill of rights are a much better source of legal morality than Christianity and the bible
But you fail to understand that these legal documents were based off of Judeo Christain values.
So, the values in these documents had a source, and the source is the Bible.
So, you actually do base your source of morality on a document that is based off of the values of the Bible.
But at the same time, God saying things like, "gays are bad and I don't like them" to me is free speech. If he advocated the death penalty for gays, I would take issue with it. But if he says stuff like, "it's an abomination", to me, that's free speech.
No where in the Bible will you find God commanding his followers to persecute any group of people. And I use the word persecute for a reason.
He purely condemns it.
The Bible teaches that God is a just God, and he alone will have his vengeance, meaning our role as Christians is not to defend God, but to be messengers of his word.
I'm LGBT, but I would rather be called degenerate than burn in hell forever under any circumstances whether LGBT or not.
I hate Christainity more over it's threats of eternal hellfire (if accurate) than I am about any anti alphabet attitudes it may have.
All I can respond to this with, is Jesus loves you and wants you to follow his plan according to his word.
And I will say, the advocates for Christianity, who use threats as a means to try and convert people to Christ's words are not basing their teachings off of Biblical principles and should not be taken seriously.
God doesn't threaten anyone either. Again:
We are all doers of Evil. Evil by our own accords = separation from God. Separation from God = Hell.
So, think of it like this:
Imagine hundreds of people walking off of a cliff's edge. Each step represents a purposeful act of Evil. The cliff's edge represents total separation from God. They are walking away from God.
Now imagine a man in the crowd (Jesus) stopping people and pleading with them to turn around. Some turn around, others keep going.
The steps going opposite of the cliff represent dying to your own wants and desires and having faith in the man (Jesus) and turning away from Evil.
But everyone goes to heaven. Jesus paid for everyone's sins, so you go to heaven no matter what.
you may say.
Then why do I have to worship God? I'm going to heaven no matter what by your logic.
The Bible teaches that salvation is based upon faith in Christ alone.
Now some people might tell themselves," I have faith in Christ, and I'm going to heaven no matter what I do now".
But that is not real faith.
Real faith produces good works. Real faith changes you.
Having faith in the Bible, means leaving whatever you desire or want in your life now, and dying to yourself (metaphorically of course) and having faith in how Jesus tells us to live our lives.
For example: If Jesus tells us to help the poor, but we ignore them every time we see them, we don't really have faith in Christ, because if we did, we would be living like Jesus tells us to live.
Worship is merely an expression of our love for God. That's what God wants, because God doesn't want you to have faith in someone you don't love. Otherwise, it is simply for personal gain.
The Bible teaches that you can know everything there is to know about the Bible, but if you don't have love, you are a (as the Bible puts it) a resounding Gong. An annoying noise.
