Do atheist worry about eternal damnation?

[Grave_n_idle]

Nope.

It's an act of vicarious substitution, not forgiveness. Sin is not 'forgiven' in the sacrifice of the Lamb, it is hidden by blood.

what does that mean, hidden by blood?

The sacrifice at Calvary is a Passover sacrifice.

The sacrifice takes place at Passover; the sacrifice is referred to as a lamb; the sacrifice is described as being without blemish; the lamb is killed in order to protect the faithful from the righteous vengeance of Jehovah God, the blood is spilled to avert this vengeance (in the original Passover, the blood was literally applied to the doorways of the faithful, to mark the home as exempt from the act of judgement); the lamb is bodily consumed.

Because it follows the pattern of the Passover sacrifice, the mechanism by which 'salvation' is achieved can be derived - it's NOT a sacrificial goat (scapegoat) sent into the wilderness with the sins of man attributed to it, it's a pure lamb sacrificed to avert judgement. Your sins aren't removed, they are ignored.

This is also why Christians need to participate in the Eucharist. If you don't eat the flesh of the lamb, the ritual is not complete.

[Godular]

In my case, it was three days of complete silence. After holding a dying innocent infant in my arms.

Luckily, I still managed to happen upon an article about secular humanism before the suicidal ideation got too far.

("God intervened to save you!" in 3....2....1.... God gets automatic credit for the good outcomes, if not the infant with bone cancer AIDS outcomes, of course. Another one of those magic tricks.)

The Devil is responsible for the suffering. Try reading a Bible for a few days and come back and argue against us.

The devil is God's will too. So... still his fault.

[Zottistan]

what does that mean, hidden by blood?

The sacrifice at Calvary is a Passover sacrifice.

The sacrifice takes place at Passover; the sacrifice is referred to as a lamb; the sacrifice is described as being without blemish; the lamb is killed in order to protect the faithful from the righteous vengeance of Jehovah God, the blood is spilled to avert this vengeance (in the original Passover, the blood was literally applied to the doorways of the faithful, to mark the home as exempt from the act of judgement); the lamb is bodily consumed.

Because it follows the pattern of the Passover sacrifice, the mechanism by which 'salvation' is achieved can be derived - it's NOT a sacrificial goat (scapegoat) sent into the wilderness with the sins of man attributed to it, it's a pure lamb sacrificed to avert judgement. Your sins aren't removed, they are ignored.

This is also why Christians need to participate in the Eucharist. If you don't eat the flesh of the lamb, the ritual is not complete.

God was so much cooler before he became a hippy.

[Ashmoria]

what does that mean, hidden by blood?

The sacrifice at Calvary is a Passover sacrifice.

The sacrifice takes place at Passover; the sacrifice is referred to as a lamb; the sacrifice is described as being without blemish; the lamb is killed in order to protect the faithful from the righteous vengeance of Jehovah God, the blood is spilled to avert this vengeance (in the original Passover, the blood was literally applied to the doorways of the faithful, to mark the home as exempt from the act of judgement); the lamb is bodily consumed.

Because it follows the pattern of the Passover sacrifice, the mechanism by which 'salvation' is achieved can be derived - it's NOT a sacrificial goat (scapegoat) sent into the wilderness with the sins of man attributed to it, it's a pure lamb sacrificed to avert judgement. Your sins aren't removed, they are ignored.

This is also why Christians need to participate in the Eucharist. If you don't eat the flesh of the lamb, the ritual is not complete.

your sins aren't removed, they are ignored. is it also right to say "forgiven" since things you forgive aren't removed but are put in a bin labeled "wrong but not to be acted on"?

[Soviet Socialist not Soviet or Socialist]

What correlation? And there are near infinite religions to choose from

I think you're slightly overstating the number of extant religions.

it is a figure of speech.

[Pacis Liberi]

No

[Genivaria]

God, as the creator of all things, is responsible for the existence of the Devil. God, as an omnipotent deity, can stop the Devil at any time (including at the very beginning to start with) to prevent the suffering to begin with.

Suffering continues.

Either God is impotent to stop the devil (and thus isn't much of a god), or God is perfectly happy with the Devil existing and inflicting suffering (and is thus psychotic).

That's his plan that you need to pray to understand.

So his plan is to deliberately cause suffering? That's the goal?

[Genivaria]

The Devil is responsible for the suffering. Try reading a Bible for a few days and come back and argue against us.

The devil is God's will too. So... still his fault.

This is what Christians and Muslims don't get, if all is according to God's will than it is impossible to act against him.
God has no rivals or enemies only agents and unwitting puppets.

[A Humanist Resurrection]

That's his plan that you need to pray to understand.

So his plan is to deliberately cause suffering? That's the goal?

Yes, apparently God's plan is that I be tortured so that it can have the pleasure of hearing me beg for relief ("praying").

On second thought, I might have been wrong to the extent that "psychotic" doesn't really start to capture it.

[Zalxero]

So his plan is to deliberately cause suffering? That's the goal?

Yes, apparently God's plan is that I be tortured so that it can have the pleasure of hearing me beg for relief ("praying").

On second thought, I might have been wrong to the extent that "psychotic" doesn't really start to capture it.

I doubt there is a word in the English language to correctly describe the biblical god's insanity.

[The Alma Mater]

That's his plan that you need to pray to understand.

So his plan is to deliberately cause suffering? That's the goal?

Obviously - the Bible is incredibly clear about that. That is why it give tips on how to resist and even defeat God and chronicles the exploits of Jesus the resistance fighter.

[Constantinopolis]

If I were any kind of deity, I'd find modern human atheists to be incredibly obnoxious spoiled children who complain that I can't possibly be a good entity unless I give them everything they want all the time with no strings attached.

The only thing I've personally asked of God is that it stop subjecting the innocent to pestilance and disease for whatever twisted reason.

It can keep the Ferraris and mansions.

And as I have explained to you numerous times, what you are demanding of God, although it sounds simple, basically amounts to asking Him to have created a radically different universe instead of this one.

So no, that is not a reasonable request.

Humans have no right to make any demands of deities - any more than ants have a right to make demands of humans.

This statement makes me shudder because it is one of the core beliefs of the infants-burn-in-hell Christianity that one has previously claimed is not representative of the whole. After all, if an innocent infant which never had the opportunity to hear or comprehend the Gospel is just a pathetic lowly bug, well, it's easy to toss into hell with the rest of a garbage.

So to God I'm just an insect? I suppose this makes sense, given what its willing to do to the young innocent. Like a demented child with a magnifying glass. Also, if God views me as nothing more than a pest insect, then why bother with the whole gospel and salvation thing? But if, rather, God really does think of us as more than pest insects, then I again assert that it has a very strange way of showing it...

It's not that God views us as insects. Rather, it's that we ARE insects compared to God, objectively speaking, and yet He views us as so much more than that and even went so far as to BECOME one of us and die for us. That's the extraordinary thing about it.

Would we ever do so much for a bunch of ants as God has done for us? No, we absolutely wouldn't. And that is why God is good. Because we are like ants compared to Him, yet He obviously loves us far more than we could ever love ants. And this is also why I'm calling you spoiled and entitled: Because God's goodness is so far beyond any human goodness, and yet you say it's not good enough.

In fact, forget ants. Let's think of higher creatures. If humans ever create sapient robots or other self-aware machines, do you think we would treat them with a fraction of the goodness that the Christian God has shown us? Do you think we would give them their own planet and let them run it as they see fit? Or do you think we would abuse them and treat them as slaves? Be honest.

The Christian God is treating us with FAR greater goodness than we would EVER show if we were in His place. You know this.

What exasperates me is your no-middle-ground approach to things. God is either like "a demented child with a magnifying glass" (although, note, He's not hurting us, He is merely allowing us to hurt each other, like a "demented child"... uh, doing nothing and leaving the ants to their own devices), OR He has to provide us with a perfect paradise world in which we are not even physically capable of hurting each other.

What about just giving us a middle-of-the-road world and letting us run it as we see fit, plus an option to live forever in Heaven after death? By what ridiculous standards is that bad? It seems like a great deal to me.

And, again, a far better deal than we would ever give to a bunch of insects, or even to robots that we created.

[Constantinopolis]

Humans will have a right to complain about God when we stop literally murdering and torturing each other on a vast scale every single day. How about that?

[Neanderthaland]

Humans will have a right to complain about God when we stop literally murdering and torturing each other on a vast scale every single day. How about that?

I can't remember the last time I've murdered or tortured anyone.

God, meanwhile, does it thousands of times a day. Every day.

[United Muscovite Nations]

Humans will have a right to complain about God when we stop literally murdering and torturing each other on a vast scale every single day. How about that?

I can't remember the last time I've murdered or tortured anyone.

God, meanwhile, does it thousands of times a day. Every day.

How, exactly, does he do this?

[Neanderthaland]

I can't remember the last time I've murdered or tortured anyone.

God, meanwhile, does it thousands of times a day. Every day.

How, exactly, does he do this?

Cancer to start.

[Constantinopolis]

If God failing to save people from various kinds of pain and death counts as torturing and murdering, then guess what: By the same standards, you torture and murder too - on a smaller scale - every time you choose to, for example, have fun posting online instead of spending that time volunteering with a local charity that helps cancer patients.

[Neanderthaland]

If God failing to save people from various kinds of pain and death counts as torturing and murdering, then guess what: By the same standards, you torture and murder too - on a smaller scale - every time you choose to, for example, have fun posting online instead of spending that time volunteering with a local charity that helps cancer patients.

No no. You don't get to have your cake and eat it too.

An all powerful creator god, if one exists, is the author of cancer. It exists because he wants it to. He didn't have to include it in his creation. He chose to.

[Genivaria]

How, exactly, does he do this?

Cancer to start.

AIDS is another.

[Constantinopolis]

Also, humans in general, as a species, actively torture and murder thousands of their fellow humans every day. And not by inaction, not by failing to save them, but actively - with guns and knives and bombs and sometimes their bare hands.

[United Muscovite Nations]

How, exactly, does he do this?

Cancer to start.

By the logic that God is responsible for every single thing in existence, this, also, of course, means He is responsible for all the pleasure that has ever happened in the entire world.

[Genivaria]

If God failing to save people from various kinds of pain and death counts as torturing and murdering, then guess what: By the same standards, you torture and murder too - on a smaller scale - every time you choose to, for example, have fun posting online instead of spending that time volunteering with a local charity that helps cancer patients.

No no. You don't get to have your cake and eat it too.

An all powerful creator god, if one exists, is the author of cancer. It exists because he wants it to. He didn't have to include it in his creation. He chose to.

"God is all powerful and there is nothing that is not part of his plan."
*Bring up completely natural pain and suffering*
"Well what do you want God to do about it?"
It's amazing how easily God is suddenly diminished to hide responsibility.

[Constantinopolis]

If God failing to save people from various kinds of pain and death counts as torturing and murdering, then guess what: By the same standards, you torture and murder too - on a smaller scale - every time you choose to, for example, have fun posting online instead of spending that time volunteering with a local charity that helps cancer patients.

No no. You don't get to have your cake and eat it too.

An all powerful creator god, if one exists, is the author of cancer. It exists because he wants it to. He didn't have to include it in his creation. He chose to.

You have a lot of experience creating universes and you know what the various options are, I take it?

[Genivaria]

Cancer to start.

By the logic that God is responsible for every single thing in existence, this, also, of course, means He is responsible for all the pleasure that has ever happened in the entire world.

Yep, and all the pain.
That's what happens when you have the final say on literally EVERYTHING, you also get final blame.

[Neanderthaland]

Cancer to start.

By the logic that God is responsible for every single thing in existence, this, also, of course, means He is responsible for all the pleasure that has ever happened in the entire world.

Yup.

A bit bipolar, isn't he?