Christian Discussion Thread V

[Tarsonis Survivors]

Yes, and Distruzio was repeatedly beaten over the head until he submitted.

Not so much beaten as taken through a blender.

Nah, I like to think of it more like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PywI0BOxJpI

[Neutraligon]

The garden of evil and heaven are not the same thing. Supposedly there is no sin in heaven (many Christians have this doctrine), and yet Satan is capable of sin in heaven. Does that mean sin is actually possible in heaven?

As for Adam and Eve rebelling, seems to me they did not rebel. They who have no knowledge of good and evil would be incapable of understanding that their acts are bad (even if god told them not to do so, they would not understand why it is wrong to disobey god).

Well the sin of rebellion, is precisely why there were tossed from Heaven. The view that there is no sin in heaven is not that sin doesn't exist in heaven, but rather the human soul will not commit sin in heaven. See the difference? It's more a statement on the state of the being, rather than the characteristics of the place.


Rebellion may be a strong word. They didn't actively try to over throw the God and his empire. But they did rebel against his authority, in the same way a Child rebels against their parent's authority when they do something they know they aren't supposed to, whether they fully understand the consequences or not. Speeding is an act of rebellion in its own way, but you'd be hard pressed to find someone who considers it tantamount to treason.

True but then you do not punish the child to the extent that god has punished human. So why was Satan not affected by the very thing that stops humans from sinning in heaven? Again as far as I know heaven and the garden of eden are not the same thing. If they are the same thing, then why where Adam and Eve able to sin (rebel). If Adam and eve where able to rebel while in heaven what is to stop other humans from doing the same thing?

[Tarsonis Survivors]

The garden of evil and heaven are not the same thing. Supposedly there is no sin in heaven (many Christians have this doctrine), and yet Satan is capable of sin in heaven. Does that mean sin is actually possible in heaven?

As for Adam and Eve rebelling, seems to me they did not rebel. They who have no knowledge of good and evil would be incapable of understanding that their acts are bad (even if god told them not to do so, they would not understand why it is wrong to disobey god).

Well the sin of rebellion, is precisely why there were tossed from Heaven. The view that there is no sin in heaven is not that sin doesn't exist in heaven, but rather the human soul will not commit sin in heaven. See the difference? It's more a statement on the state of the being, rather than the characteristics of the place.


Rebellion may be a strong word. They didn't actively try to over throw the God and his empire. But they did rebel against his authority, in the same way a Child rebels against their parent's authority when they do something they know they aren't supposed to, whether they fully understand the consequences or not. Speeding is an act of rebellion in its own way, but you'd be hard pressed to find someone who considers it tantamount to treason.

Then again you could argue they did try to over throw God, as per their motivation.
But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; 5 for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God,[a] knowing good and evil.

Eve ate it thinking it would make her like God, But I think it would be a stretch to argue she meant to take God's glory for herself.

[Tarsonis Survivors]

Well the sin of rebellion, is precisely why there were tossed from Heaven. The view that there is no sin in heaven is not that sin doesn't exist in heaven, but rather the human soul will not commit sin in heaven. See the difference? It's more a statement on the state of the being, rather than the characteristics of the place.


Rebellion may be a strong word. They didn't actively try to over throw the God and his empire. But they did rebel against his authority, in the same way a Child rebels against their parent's authority when they do something they know they aren't supposed to, whether they fully understand the consequences or not. Speeding is an act of rebellion in its own way, but you'd be hard pressed to find someone who considers it tantamount to treason.

True but then you do not punish the child to the extent that god has punished human. So why was Satan not affected by the very thing that stops humans from sinning in heaven? Again as far as I know heaven and the garden of eden are not the same thing. If they are the same thing, then why where Adam and Eve able to sin (rebel). If Adam and eve where able to rebel while in heaven what is to stop other humans from doing the same thing?

I think that's an assumption. The punishments we dole out are not necessarily the ones God would seem fit to dole out. The Child was just an example, though an imperfect comparison. You'd have to really dive into the concepts of Original Sin, but for a shortened and woefully inadequate version: We have many laws, some worse to break than others. No one would consider the Speeding to be as bad as murder.

Adam and Eve had one law, and they broke it.


As for the rest I wouldn't posit that The Garden of Eden and Heaven are the same, but they are vastly similar. Both are places where humans are immortal and exist in the direct presence of God, and in a state of Grace. Adam and Eve existed for untold time, before they sinned. But why did they sin? Outside influence. Adam and Eve didn't sin until an outside influence, The Devil/Serpent, deceived them. Such influence supposedly is not present in Heaven.


Honestly you could write a book, (in fact there are books) on this subject and never fully cover all the little intricacies that go into this.

[Neutraligon]

True but then you do not punish the child to the extent that god has punished human. So why was Satan not affected by the very thing that stops humans from sinning in heaven? Again as far as I know heaven and the garden of eden are not the same thing. If they are the same thing, then why where Adam and Eve able to sin (rebel). If Adam and eve where able to rebel while in heaven what is to stop other humans from doing the same thing?

I think that's an assumption. The punishments we dole out are not necessarily the ones God would seem fit to dole out. The Child was just an example, though an imperfect comparison. You'd have to really dive into the concepts of Original Sin, but for a shortened and woefully inadequate version: We have many laws, some worse to break than others. No one would consider the Speeding to be as bad as murder.

Adam and Eve had one law, and they broke it.


As for the rest I wouldn't posit that The Garden of Eden and Heaven are the same, but they are vastly similar. Both are places where humans are immortal and exist in the direct presence of God, and in a state of Grace. Adam and Eve existed for untold time, before they sinned. But why did they sin? Outside influence. Adam and Eve didn't sin until an outside influence, The Devil/Serpent, deceived them. Such influence supposedly is not present in Heaven.


Honestly you could write a book, (in fact there are books) on this subject and never fully cover all the little intricacies that go into this.

Hence my interest (I honestly do not understand the idea of original sin). Adam and eve may have had one law, but they did not understand why obeying that one law was good or bad since they did not have the knowledge of good and evil. All they had was the law. We do not punish people when they are actually incapable of understanding the consequences of their actions. We may separate them from society, but we do no actually punish them.

[Tarsonis Survivors]

I think that's an assumption. The punishments we dole out are not necessarily the ones God would seem fit to dole out. The Child was just an example, though an imperfect comparison. You'd have to really dive into the concepts of Original Sin, but for a shortened and woefully inadequate version: We have many laws, some worse to break than others. No one would consider the Speeding to be as bad as murder.

Adam and Eve had one law, and they broke it.



As for the rest I wouldn't posit that The Garden of Eden and Heaven are the same, but they are vastly similar. Both are places where humans are immortal and exist in the direct presence of God, and in a state of Grace. Adam and Eve existed for untold time, before they sinned. But why did they sin? Outside influence. Adam and Eve didn't sin until an outside influence, The Devil/Serpent, deceived them. Such influence supposedly is not present in Heaven.


Honestly you could write a book, (in fact there are books) on this subject and never fully cover all the little intricacies that go into this.

Hence my interest (I honestly do not understand the idea of original sin). Adam and eve may have had one law, but they did not understand why obeying that one law was good or bad since they did not have the knowledge of good and evil. All they had was the law. We do not punish people when they are actually incapable of understanding the consequences of their actions. We may separate them from society, but we do no actually punish them.

No we don't punish people who are incapable of differentiating right from wrong. Adam and Eve knew what they were doing was wrong, they just didn't know so much as to why it was wrong. There's a fine line between the two.

Also our reaction to rule breaking versus God's reaction to rule breaking is a false comparison. We show compassion to other humans based on the fact that we are ourselves human. We have empathy for our fellow man, as well as a certain humility. God is not human, (at least until Christ but that's a separate topic)

To put it into perspective, Ants don't know that we don't want them on our property and in our homes. That doesn't stop us from poisoning their colonies and destroying them by the millions, and doing so is not considered a moral injustice. Likewise God, a being of Great power and knowledge far surpassing any in the universe, cannot realistically be held to human conditions of morality. Our punishment of our own is tempered by the fact that we too have in fact done wrong, that we too in fact are human, and must show compassion to our fellow man in order to retain our own humanity. God is under no such restrictions, and the Bible would make the case that our compassion towards our fellow man is in fact obedience to God.

[TomKirk]

Rome lost zero provinces during that crisis. Rome survived all kinds of bad emperors and barbarian wars-- until it adopted Christianity.

No. False. Wrong. Let me repost the relevant explanation.

The Roman imperial system established by Augustus - commonly called the "Principate", this was basically the political system shown in every movie and TV show about ancient Rome - collapsed in the third century. For all intents and purposes, the Roman Empire that most people imagine when they hear the phrase "Roman Empire" ceased to exist during the Crisis of the Third Century. Imperial authority collapsed. There were 26 official Emperors in 50 years (and many other claimants). The Empire split into three competing states. The city of Rome lost its political importance as the capital of the Empire, never to be regained (after the Crisis of the Third Century, the Empire was no longer ruled from Rome). New religions gained popularity, as many people came to believe the old gods had abandoned them, or maybe never existed in the first place. Among the new religions were Manichaeism, Mithraism, the cult of Isis, and of course Christianity.

Eventually, through the efforts of the Emperors Aurelian, Diocletian and Constantine, the de facto independent provinces of the Roman world were reunited to form a new state, with the same name and the same borders as the old Roman Empire, but with radically different politics, and tremendous social changes. This was the "Dominate", the second stage of the Roman Empire (or, depending on your interpretation, the Second Roman Empire). The new Empire was not ruled from Rome, but from various other cities, until Constantine established a new permanent capital at Constantinople in 330 AD. It was sometimes ruled by a single Emperor, and sometimes by sets of 2 or 4 co-Emperors (an idea first introduced by Diocletian, then abolished by Constantine in favour of single rule, then re-introduced by Theodosius with the famous East-West split in 395 AD). The old Emperors of the Principate had been, in modern terms, military dictators. The new Emperors of the Dominate were absolute monarchs instead.

As far as religion was concerned, the old gods were dead. Hardly anyone except a few reactionary aristocrats took them seriously any more. The aforementioned new religions were spreading like wildfire across the Empire, and one of them in particular - Christianity - was getting extremely popular among slaves and the urban poor, and proved impossible to stamp out. Diocletian tried to suppress all these annoying new religions and impose a custom-made religion invented by himself - the cult of Sol Invictus - but the attempt failed quite miserably. In the process, however, Diocletian instigated the greatest persecution of Christians in Roman history... which also failed, since it did not seem to even slow down the growth of Christianity. Eventually, Diocletian's successor, Constantine the Great, ended all religious persecution and extended official tolerance to all the new religions, while showing special favour towards Christianity. Constantine's mother, Helena, was a Christian (although his father wasn't), and Constantine himself converted on his deathbed.

Under Constantine and his successors, the Empire experienced somewhat of a renaissance in the Fourth Century, as it became increasingly Christian.
The adoption of Christianity coincided with a REVIVAL of the Roman Empire, not a decline.

It is true that the revival was short-lived, however, lasting only about one century. In 395 AD, the Emperor Theodosius divided the Empire between his two sons. The Eastern half continued to be ruled for Constantinople, as the whole Empire had been since 330 AD, while the Western half established its capital at Ravenna. Over the following decades, a series of catastrophes and invasions struck both parts of the Empire, but the West was hit by far the hardest, and began rapidly losing provinces (starting with Britannia in 410 AD), until the entire Western Empire collapsed in 476 AD. The collapse of the Western Roman Empire took only 66 years, all in the fifth century, which came as a surprise after a fairly successful fourth century.

Finally, between 530 and 560 AD, the Eastern single Roman Empire, under Emperor Justinian, re-conquered North Africa, Italy, and the southern part of Spain, almost restoring the Roman Empire to its historic borders, and making the collapse of the West look like just a temporary setback. So, in the sixth century, the Empire experienced a second century of revival after a second episode of collapse.

Then Islam happened in the seventh century, and that was the thing that put an end to the periodic revivals of the Roman Empire, this time permanently. After the Muslim Conquests, the Empire was reduced to a rump state in a small corner of its former domain, and remained this way for the next 800 years.

All I said was that they lost no territory, despite the massive internal changes. Only after the adoption of Christianity did the Empire begin losing massive amounts of territory.

[Diopolis]

A Christian is one who has been validly baptized. Non-trinitarian baptismal formulas are invalid, and therefore non-trinitarians are not Christians, except for those previously baptized in a trinitarian formula who later convert to non-trinitarianism.

A baptism is valid if it is performed in water, by submersion, immersion or affusion, in the singular name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. The minister must also have the intent to do what the Church does.

Those are the three essential characteristics of a valid baptism.

Edit: Of course, the disposition of the recipient is essential as well. I neglected to include that.

So, by those two claims Protestants are legitimate Christians

Assuming the intent of the baptizing minister was correct(often a problem with protestants), then they are (heretical)Christians.

[The Alexanderians]

So, by those two claims Protestants are legitimate Christians

Assuming the intent of the baptizing minister was correct(often a problem with protestants), then they are (heretical)Christians.

Heretic is thrown around too easily methinks.

[Grand Calvert]

Assuming the intent of the baptizing minister was correct(often a problem with protestants), then they are (heretical)Christians.

Heretic is thrown around too easily methinks.

I concur.

[Bari]

Assuming the intent of the baptizing minister was correct(often a problem with protestants), then they are (heretical)Christians.

Heretic is thrown around too easily methinks.

In the Catholic Church, it has a definitive meaning and is applied according to that definition. It's not used as a mere insult or slander against someone or a concept.

[The Alexanderians]

Heretic is thrown around too easily methinks.

In the Catholic Church, it has a definitive meaning and is applied according to that definition. It's not used as a mere insult or slander against someone or a concept.

IT is unfortunately used as such by most folks to belittle a branch that they don't like. Even if it has an official definition, it's still used as an insult. Much like Uniate can be one if used as one even though it's a legit classification.

[Bari]

In the Catholic Church, it has a definitive meaning and is applied according to that definition. It's not used as a mere insult or slander against someone or a concept.

IT is unfortunately used as such by most folks to belittle a branch that they don't like. Even if it has an official definition, it's still used as an insult. Much like Uniate can be one if used as one even though it's a legit classification.

I will tell you right now, he was not wrong in classifying Protestants as heretics. In the strictest sense, Protestantism is heresy, just like Americanism or Lutheranism or Modernism or Pelagianism.

[Aelex]

All I said was that they lost no territory, despite the massive internal changes. Only after the adoption of Christianity did the Empire begin losing massive amounts of territory.

You know the principe of the Roman Empire being divided in three different and independent states; just like when Western Francia, Eastern Francia and Lotharingia were split up after the death of Charlemagne; is by it's very notion what we may call a "massive lost of territory".

[Constantinopolis]

All I said was that they lost no territory, despite the massive internal changes. Only after the adoption of Christianity did the Empire begin losing massive amounts of territory.

And what I pointed out was that:

1. The Empire did actually lose massive amounts of territory long before the adoption of Christianity, considering the fact that the north-western and south-eastern provinces split off into separate empires during the Crisis of the Third Century. They were only re-conquered after many decades of war. And some provinces lost during the Crisis of the Third Century, like Dacia, were never recovered.

2. For almost one century after the adoption of Christianity, the Empire became stronger, not weaker, than it had been before.

3. Although the Western half of the Empire collapsed in the fifth century (including the symbolic loss of the city of Rome), the Eastern half was fine, and re-conquered all of the heavily-populated parts of the West in the sixth century (including the symbolic re-conquest of the city of Rome). The Empire of Justianian, 200 years after the adoption of Christianity, was only slightly smaller than the Roman Empire at its height, and contained all the core provinces.

4. The only thing that finally crippled the Roman Empire and prevented it from recovering its full former territory was the rise of a powerful rival Empire - the Caliphate - which conquered most of the Roman provinces, including nearly all of the wealthiest and most populated ones.

[The Hobbesian Metaphysician]

No. False. Wrong. Let me repost the relevant explanation.

The Roman imperial system established by Augustus - commonly called the "Principate", this was basically the political system shown in every movie and TV show about ancient Rome - collapsed in the third century. For all intents and purposes, the Roman Empire that most people imagine when they hear the phrase "Roman Empire" ceased to exist during the Crisis of the Third Century. Imperial authority collapsed. There were 26 official Emperors in 50 years (and many other claimants). The Empire split into three competing states. The city of Rome lost its political importance as the capital of the Empire, never to be regained (after the Crisis of the Third Century, the Empire was no longer ruled from Rome). New religions gained popularity, as many people came to believe the old gods had abandoned them, or maybe never existed in the first place. Among the new religions were Manichaeism, Mithraism, the cult of Isis, and of course Christianity.

Eventually, through the efforts of the Emperors Aurelian, Diocletian and Constantine, the de facto independent provinces of the Roman world were reunited to form a new state, with the same name and the same borders as the old Roman Empire, but with radically different politics, and tremendous social changes. This was the "Dominate", the second stage of the Roman Empire (or, depending on your interpretation, the Second Roman Empire). The new Empire was not ruled from Rome, but from various other cities, until Constantine established a new permanent capital at Constantinople in 330 AD. It was sometimes ruled by a single Emperor, and sometimes by sets of 2 or 4 co-Emperors (an idea first introduced by Diocletian, then abolished by Constantine in favour of single rule, then re-introduced by Theodosius with the famous East-West split in 395 AD). The old Emperors of the Principate had been, in modern terms, military dictators. The new Emperors of the Dominate were absolute monarchs instead.

As far as religion was concerned, the old gods were dead. Hardly anyone except a few reactionary aristocrats took them seriously any more. The aforementioned new religions were spreading like wildfire across the Empire, and one of them in particular - Christianity - was getting extremely popular among slaves and the urban poor, and proved impossible to stamp out. Diocletian tried to suppress all these annoying new religions and impose a custom-made religion invented by himself - the cult of Sol Invictus - but the attempt failed quite miserably. In the process, however, Diocletian instigated the greatest persecution of Christians in Roman history... which also failed, since it did not seem to even slow down the growth of Christianity. Eventually, Diocletian's successor, Constantine the Great, ended all religious persecution and extended official tolerance to all the new religions, while showing special favour towards Christianity. Constantine's mother, Helena, was a Christian (although his father wasn't), and Constantine himself converted on his deathbed.

Under Constantine and his successors, the Empire experienced somewhat of a renaissance in the Fourth Century, as it became increasingly Christian.
The adoption of Christianity coincided with a REVIVAL of the Roman Empire, not a decline.

It is true that the revival was short-lived, however, lasting only about one century. In 395 AD, the Emperor Theodosius divided the Empire between his two sons. The Eastern half continued to be ruled for Constantinople, as the whole Empire had been since 330 AD, while the Western half established its capital at Ravenna. Over the following decades, a series of catastrophes and invasions struck both parts of the Empire, but the West was hit by far the hardest, and began rapidly losing provinces (starting with Britannia in 410 AD), until the entire Western Empire collapsed in 476 AD. The collapse of the Western Roman Empire took only 66 years, all in the fifth century, which came as a surprise after a fairly successful fourth century.

Finally, between 530 and 560 AD, the Eastern single Roman Empire, under Emperor Justinian, re-conquered North Africa, Italy, and the southern part of Spain, almost restoring the Roman Empire to its historic borders, and making the collapse of the West look like just a temporary setback. So, in the sixth century, the Empire experienced a second century of revival after a second episode of collapse.

Then Islam happened in the seventh century, and that was the thing that put an end to the periodic revivals of the Roman Empire, this time permanently. After the Muslim Conquests, the Empire was reduced to a rump state in a small corner of its former domain, and remained this way for the next 800 years.

All I said was that they lost no territory, despite the massive internal changes. Only after the adoption of Christianity did the Empire begin losing massive amounts of territory.

So the Germanic Invasions had nothing to do with the empire losing massive amounts of territory in the West?

[Tarsonis Survivors]

IT is unfortunately used as such by most folks to belittle a branch that they don't like. Even if it has an official definition, it's still used as an insult. Much like Uniate can be one if used as one even though it's a legit classification.

I will tell you right now, he was not wrong in classifying Protestants as heretics. In the strictest sense, Protestantism is heresy, just like Americanism or Lutheranism or Modernism or Pelagianism.

Protestants are hererics, but they are also Christians.

[Noraika]

I have a question. If Satan lived in heaven and knew of Gods power, how is it he rebelled?

Lucifer, as far as we are able to tell (and the 'backstory' of satan is as much from Jewish tradition as it is from any Scripture) wanted God's power, position, and glory for himself. That is how, and why, he rebelled.


13You said in your heart,
“I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon.b
14I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.”
15But you are brought down to the realm of the dead, to the depths of the pit.
Isaiah 14:13-15
Verse format edited to take up less space. No words changed.

With all due respect, and I say this with the greatest courtesy, but I find this explanation to inadequate to the question. I would like to pose some questions which I feel go unaddressed by this, and I do this without ill intention, but instead with genuine curiosity.

How did Satan come to feel the temptation to rebel? The only influence upon the world at the time was created by a faultless and perfect deity, which was the creator of all things good, and He was also the creator of all the influences in the physical and spiritual universe. How can influences to do fault come from a universe where faultlessness is the only creator and exerciser of influence upon beings? The Bible is very clear that God does not tempt humans, so where does this first temptation come from, in respects to this?

Even with the predisposition towards free will, in that the options for rebelling are still present, it would never really emerge because the influences necessary for an individual to be pushed towards the idea of sin or rebelling were not present, or rather could not be present, within this early stage in the universe. Free will is not the diversity of actions take or considered by the individual, but simply the existence of different options and paths in action, which do not have to be morally significant. Every word I type is technically an exercise of free will, for example.

The physical and spiritual beings of the base creation would still make the conscious choice to follow the will of the LORD, and still exercise their free will in that sense, but the means of influences pushing them to consider direct, sinful disobedience would also not be present in the minds of the beings of the spiritual and physical universe, because such influences did not exist in the base creation.

[Constantinopolis]

(although Paul might, he attached a lot more significance to mere architecture than Jesus did - suggesting he never really understood the 'church' concept)

There were no such things as dedicated church buildings in the time of St. Paul. So, in fact, he couldn't have attached significance to "mere architecture" even if he wanted to.

How is Satan any worse than God?

God killed so many more people than Satan did (the flood, the murder of first-born Egyptians, the ordering of his 'chosen people' to ethnically cleanse the 'Holy Land' of others).

Good and evil are not measured in "how many people you killed", especially if we are assuming the existence of an afterlife, which makes death not so bad (and if we're talking about God and Satan, then we're talking about a universe in which the afterlife also exists).

[The Alma Mater]

Good and evil are not measured in "how many people you killed", especially if we are assuming the existence of an afterlife, which makes death not so bad (and if we're talking about God and Satan, then we're talking about a universe in which the afterlife also exists).

Yet God cleansed earth because it was filled with "wicked people". Did all of them end up in heaven - together with all the kittens, puppies and other animals that also died ?

[Tarsonis Survivors]

(although Paul might, he attached a lot more significance to mere architecture than Jesus did - suggesting he never really understood the 'church' concept)

There were no such things as dedicated church buildings in the time of St. Paul. So, in fact, he couldn't have attached significance to "mere architecture" even if he wanted to.

How is Satan any worse than God?

God killed so many more people than Satan did (the flood, the murder of first-born Egyptians, the ordering of his 'chosen people' to ethnically cleanse the 'Holy Land' of others).

Good and evil are not measured in "how many people you killed", especially if we are assuming the existence of an afterlife, which makes death not so bad (and if we're talking about God and Satan, then we're talking about a universe in which the afterlife also exists).

Except since the quality of the afterlife depends on the condition of the soul at death, by killing you rob the person of a chanceatredemption in the future thus condemning them to torment

[Constantinopolis]

Good and evil are not measured in "how many people you killed", especially if we are assuming the existence of an afterlife, which makes death not so bad (and if we're talking about God and Satan, then we're talking about a universe in which the afterlife also exists).

Yet God cleansed earth because it was filled with "wicked people". Did all of them end up in heaven - together with all the kittens, puppies and other animals that also died ?

The Flood did not actually happen as a historical event. It is an allegory.

But, having said that, if the Earth really was filled with such "wicked people" that they really did deserve to die - which is a basic premise of the Flood story, in the same way that Sauron being evil is a premise of The Lord of the Rings - then why would it be a bad thing for God to kill them?

Causing the Flood was only wrong if, for some reason, you believe that the Flood happened but you don't believe that the people involved really deserved to die, despite both things being described in the exact same text.

[Constantinopolis]

Except since the quality of the afterlife depends on the condition of the soul at death, by killing you rob the person of a chance at redemption in the future thus condemning them to torment

We're talking about Old Testament times here. The Resurrection of Christ hadn't happened yet. The quality of the afterlife did not depend on the condition of the soul at death.

[Aelex]

So the Germanic Invasions had nothing to do with the empire losing massive amounts of territory in the West?

Completely out of subject but you still didn't responded to me...

Except for the fact Laïcité actually goes out of its way to prohibit free exercise, and can only succeed in a country that actually cares to implement it (France).

Besides I don't think we need to delve into the possibility of the government attempting (or in the case of the French actually drown them) out a religious ethnic minority because they don't want to be part of the U.S anymore.

I am speaking of course about what many call the Vendee massacres (others label it outright genocide).

You know that the "Déchristiannisation" has little to to do with Laïcité itself and even less with it's modern concept right?
Mostly because they are distant of about one century as the first happened during the Terreur in the 1790' while the second has been conceptualized in the late 19th and implemented in 1905 with the law of separation of Church and State.
But also because the massacre des Vendéens had little to do with the fact that they were Christian; the Directoire actually had a quite large support of the clergy, the "Prêtre Réfractaire" (who refused to vow on the Constitution) being only 1/2 of the total number of priests; but rather that they were Royalists and were rebelling against the République at a time were even Républicain were passed under the guillotine in a daily basis.

[Tarsonis Survivors]

Except since the quality of the afterlife depends on the condition of the soul at death, by killing you rob the person of a chance at redemption in the future thus condemning them to torment

We're talking about Old Testament times here. The Resurrection of Christ hadn't happened yet. The quality of the afterlife did not depend on the condition of the soul at death.

That's a distinction we shouldn't forget to make then