YouTube Reply

(This pastebin post is a reply to a series of comments in reply to this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNTiyJhVBEU )

+dantehacker1
"that would never happen so if there is no limit on the time of the punishment and the chance of it ever ending is basically zero then that is no longer a punishment it is torture."
Definition of torture: "Extreme distress of body or mind", not "Infinite punishment".

" yet most christens have  no problem that the same things and worse stuff is done to people in hell"
Whatever happens in hell will be just. The wrongs people do on Earth are not just. Also, we only have vague ideas from the Bible of what people will actually experience in hell.

"also i am a christian too but unlike most other ones i see and call out the evil things god has done"
If God has committed a single evil act, He has betrayed Himself and deserves hell just as much as the rest of us. If God has committed a single evil act, then Jesus was not a perfect sacrifice to fulfill the Law. Jesus said God was good, and also mentioned that an entity will not betray itself and stand - if God has done wrong, how can He stand Himself?

"simple stupid reason then why shouldn't it be ok for his creations to do the same."
Since when should humans have the same rights as God?


+pH7oslo
I never tried to claim that all Christians are perfect and allow questoning of their beliefs.

I never said that all Christians in the past followed Christ perfectly.

I don't know any Christian who argues that anything you find in Exodus is still relevant. The New Testament explicitly says that following the Law defeats the purpose of Christ - thus, your reference to Exodus (the witchcraft thing) is pointless. It was a mistake people made in the past. I have no doubt Christians will continue to make mistakes in the future. It doesn't make Christianity wrong, and more than the countries having dropped bombs on people makes science wrong.

"The qualifier "even from a christian standpoint" says it all."
I only said it because of the stance of those speaking in this thread, *not* because I think Christians hate questions. (I haven't encountered anybody who had this stance, though I'm not particularly experienced - and the world is very large.)

"And how many times have you done these things to others?"
I find myself debating with non-Christians much more than Christians. However, I do disagree with certain interpretations, so I could see myself arguing over meaning. But what does this prove? This thread has been asking whether believing in God or having hope in any religion will cause harm. Everyone has blind trust in something - including you in science (to some degree, presumably). You haven't retested every experiment ever done, have you? Thus, you have trust in the scientific method and the scientists before you (I do too). In the end, we all have to decide what to trust. The question Jeff Holiday brings up is where the line needs to be, between trust in supernatural powers and practical consequences (I agree there needs to be a line, I don't like the stories in this video any more than you do).

"I assume you mean the bible and the quran. In which case you're wrong."
OK, I am wrong. Some day I will stop myself from jumping to conclusions xD
To be fair to myself, you do admit to not fully reading the Quran. Also, I believe it is very easy to interpret the Quran however you want - whether for peace or for violence (there is plenty of both, and when you mix in the concept of abrogation, it becomes a mess).

"No evidence of a global flood" Many Christians believe a local one is not an unreasonable interpretation.

"What exactly is it you're questioning?"
-Why it seemed, in the Old Testament, God judged Pharaoh after hardening his heart
-The Problem of Evil
-Is Hell fair? Shouldn't God be preventing anyone from going there? Why would God allow Satan to exist?
-Does God create us evil, or give us free will? (He did know that we would sin, after all!)
-Is God truly good, or is He an "evil overlord"?
(I have read the Old Testament and am familiar with the references you made. They don't disturb me.)
I have found suitable answers (for me) for each of these questions (though sometimes it would take a while to find acceptable answers).

"That's just one of the many elephants."
What, everything you don't understand is an elephant?! I've read about things that science doesn't understand (especially about the beginning of the universe, how life began (ie before evolution started), and certain areas of physics, if I'm not mistaken). Shall we call those elephants as well? If you want to give science the chance to solve things we don't presently know, why not Christianity? (Of course, some things may not be solvable - this doesn't prove science wrong, nor does it prove Christianity wrong.)

"Allow me to finish that sentence for you:"
Actually, you did well. I genuinely agree with your paragraph (subtract the mocking).

I do believe Jesus is the same God as the one in the Old Testament. When God ordered the massacre of a people, God had the right to do so (being omniscient and knowing the consequences either way). God gave life - would you say that He should not have the right to take it away? Is God incapable of judging a people worthy of death? (It is mentioned in the Bible that all people, including myself, deserve death, by the way. To be clear, that doesn't give humans the right to harm each other.)

If someone hates the God of the Old Testament, they hate Jesus (and vice versa). (Well, I suppose if you don't believe Jesus is God, it might get more complicated.)

"All the heretics being killed"
So, tell me, if I can find someone who murdered while believing in science, can I prove that all people who believe in science are murderers or are a disgusting people?

Jesus never commanded heretics killed. Jesus did forgive someone found in adultery, though - despite the Old Testament punishment being stoning. Therefore, a proper Christian (following Christ's example) would use forgiveness, not killing.

I know of someone who didn't believe in God (therefore an atheist) and tried to kill his father and almost succeeded. Shall I criticize all of atheism for his act?

"The bible has been changed several times"
I tried looking this up, but I'm fairly certain you're referring to a lie/myth/misunderstanding. There are different manuscripts that do have differences between them, but overall (in terms of the New Testament - I've not heard about the Old) they're fairly close. Many Bible translations alert you when there is a discrepancy that couldn't be figured out by the experts, or when certain sections were added in manuscripts written later on (this is very rare, by the way).

I do not subscribe to the idea that different translations (ie into different languages) contain completely different meaning, though there may be minor differences.

We do have several different English translations, but they mostly agree - and, in my culture, it's encouraged to read multiple translations. I find it beneficial to go to biblehub, for instance, which also offers a variety of commentaries and explanations of every verse from many different sources. Yes, some of them have different ideas on what something means, but this doesn't prove Christianity wrong. No where in the Bible does it say "Everyone must agree on every facet of Christianity to the smallest detail." I would say there are some critical core components (like, Jesus is God, for the most basic).



Regarding the Quran:
"I call bullshit. However, I haven't read the entire quran so prove me wrong by naming the sura that says this."
There are many counter-arguments to any verse you can bring up as violent in the Quran. There is also always the question, "Was Muhammad talking to Muslims for all time, or just the specific ones in his immediate area?" Nevertheless, I consider 9:29 to be pretty good, if you start at 9:23 to try and ensure proper context. Earlier in the chapter is another verse with high debate, 9:5 - some argue that the context was defensive warfare (others think it was offensive) - and this colours the meaning either way.
Surah 9:23: "O you who have believed, do not take your fathers or your brothers as allies if they have preferred disbelief over belief. And whoever does so among you - then it is those who are the wrongdoers."
"O you who have believed" sounds very general to me.
24: "Say, [O Muhammad], "If your fathers, your sons, your brothers, your wives, your relatives, wealth which you have obtained, commerce wherein you fear decline, and dwellings with which you are pleased are more beloved to you than Allah and His Messenger and jihad in His cause, then wait until Allah executes His command. And Allah does not guide the defiantly disobedient people."
Jihad in the cause of Allah must be the most important thing.
25: "Allah has already given you victory in many regions and [even] on the day of Hunayn, when your great number pleased you, but it did not avail you at all, and the earth was confining for you with its vastness; then you turned back, fleeing."
This verse shows that the Jihad we're talking about is physical warfare. It is also referring to a historical event, true, but I Christians do this all the time with Jesus - "Jesus did action X historically once, therefore we should keep doing X".
26: "Then Allah sent down His tranquillity upon His Messenger and upon the believers and sent down soldiers angels whom you did not see and punished those who disbelieved. And that is the recompense of the disbelievers."
27: "Then Allah will accept repentance after that for whom He wills; and Allah is Forgiving and Merciful."
28: "O you who have believed, indeed the polytheists are unclean, so let them not approach al-Masjid al-Haram after this, their [final] year. And if you fear privation, Allah will enrich you from His bounty if He wills. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Wise."
29: "Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture - [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled."

29 commands Muslims to "fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day" - ie, fight non-Muslims. Unlike what some Muslims claim, I see no context here that suggests that this shouldn't apply for all people's and all times.


All this said, I am perfectly fine with accepting that many Muslims choose to be peaceful, believing that this verse only applied for a specific time. Nonetheless, I consider this as evidence that Islam is more dangerous than Christianity.

If you take the New Testament away from Christianity, you're left with Judaism (though I'm sure they'd word it differently). They only follow the Old Testament and usually, to my brief-just-now-research aren't violent, though I did find this:
"While the biblical narrative about the conquest of Canaan and the commands related to it, have had a deep influence on Western culture,[16] mainstream Jewish traditions throughout history have treated these texts as purely historical or highly conditioned, and in either case not relevant to contemporary life.[17] However, some strains of radical Zionism promote aggressive war and justify them with biblical texts.[18][19]"
So, with that in mind, perhaps the Old Testament (without the New) might have more dangerous than I thought, to those who really want war.