Did god really condemn mankind? Is god a just god?

I agree.

Constantine forced that idiocy into his new religion.

The way he built his Triumphal Arch indicates that he wanted to be the next man god and declare himself to be god the way former emperors had.

Regards
DL

OK, a non-religious response to the question:

About 20 years ago I had premonitions of death. I felt that my own death was imminent, and this due to my deteriorating mental state. I had a severe anger problem. It was making my life hell. By becoming so angry I had condemned myself to a living hell. However, I also live in a society which generates anger and so that society also condemns other people to living in a hell (a hell on earth).

You could say that my first “saviour” was the realisation that, because in this society people are constantly trying to make each other very, very angry, the fault did not necessarily lie with me. I remember the enormous relief I felt when I realised this. It took a huge amount of pressure off me. And this first step allowed me to deal with my own anger (I started off dealing with the problem by taking up meditation, although this alone was not enough to save my life. Meditation only provided a stay of execution, as it were.)

I have now dealt with my anger problem. I have achieved such a degree of detachment that I simply do not allow people to anger me the way they once did. This detachment has also allowed me to see that as well as being angered by people, my bad behaviour also generated anger in other people. You could say that attaining such a degree of detachment was also my “saviour”.

Had I not dealt with my own anger as well as my bad behaviour, then I know I would be dead by now.

Moreover, I note that the government has recently said that anger is a major problem for UK citizens (and, in my opinion, for people all over the world). What the government does not appear to realise is that it is among the worst in our society at generating anger. (Just think of any dealings you may have had with e.g. the DWP or with intractable beaurocracy and then tell me you don’t get angry! And who doesn’t get angry with the unreasonable demands made upon them by their boss? And yet mental health problems are on the up and up?I remember hearing once about a farmer who got so angry with his building society that he took a truck load of slurry into the town centre and sprayed the building society with the slurry. ) Any person or institution or authority that disempowers another, as this, or any, government routinely does, generates huge amounts of anger. So people, whether acting as individuals or as part of another body such as government, generate such huge levels of anger that they create a living hell for both themselves and for other people.

A non-religious answer to a religious question is a deflection by a hypocrite who cannot back up his religious beliefs.

Congrats for becoming a real Christian.

Regards
DL

As this is a philosophy forum, I assume that non-religious answers to religious questions are permissible. However, now that I am a “real Christian” I’d better get my Sunday best out in preparation for church this week!

Pray hard as the genocidal god gets many requests from those who think such a prick to be a good god.

Regards
DL

We’re our own screw-ups. No god required. We’re so good in screwing things up, we even screwed that up!

=D>

Now that may be the problem right there.
One reads black and the other reads white.

Obviously, between those two there are many gray areas.
Perhaps one ought to read the bible as one reads a beautiful sunrise or sunset of many different colors.

Yes, by Christians trying to use Jesus as our scapegoat. That is immoral but they do not care.

Regards
DL

You did not answer the moral question I put that shows our superior moral thinking.

Why not?

Regards
DL

Greatest I Am,

Kindly put it to me here again.

Page 2 second post above.

The one you quoted I think.

regards
DL

“The fox condemns the trap, not himself.”–Blake.

Greatest I Am,

I am not seeing what you are referring to below.

Just ask the question again please.

Try this and see which ideology is better.

I keep a bible in the house even though I think this quote quite correct.

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
― Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Then again, I am a Gnostic Christian and know how to read the filth in it.

Said of Gnostic Christian versus Christian bible reading practices.

“Both read the Bible day and night; but you read black where I read white.”
William Blake.

I would take this further and advise you to read any scriptures from as many POV as is within you. Question everything including yourself.

The bible, if read as a book of wisdom, does have much wisdom though.

You just have to read it the way Gnostics do and reverse a lot of the Christian morals.

Christians call evil good while Gnostic Christians call evil, evil.

I E. Gnostic Christians think that bible God, the demiurge to us, is quite immoral for thinking that torturing King David’s baby for 6 days before finally killing it is good justice. Gnostic Christians think that evil while Christians think that a good form of justice.

Which group do you think is right?

Regards
DL

If you surveyed Christians, I think that you would find that most do not consider it to be “a good form of justice”.

Most probably don’t spend much time on that bible passage. If they do, they see it as contradicted other passages or that God’s reasoning is unclear to them, or it’s a case of “actions can have unpleasant consequences”.

??

What actions did the baby do to gain the unpleasant consequences of torture and murder at god’s hands?

Regards
DL

I am with the fox. If Blake believed that the fox ought to have seen it coming, then Blake is an idiot.
Perhaps he was a hunter who set that trap. lol
But I know what you are talking about here, I think.

The baby didn’t do anything.

Some Christians will see its death as a consequence of David’s actions.

He was saying that the fox doesn’t get into self-hatred and Blake was saying this was good. And I agree. Of course one may also learn from the experience and try to prevent it happening again, but aggressive energy should be aimed at the trap not the self.