Nope. Just as many assholes.
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That’s just the view you get as they are carried up to Heaven.
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I don’t think threatening the people criticizing him for his superstitious magical thinking with a magical torment realm that doesn’t exist carries the punch he thinks it does.
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If hell means I’ll never have to hear from MTG and her boyfriend, sign me up!
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That’s not where they’re going… do you honestly think god wants to spend eternity hearing her talk about Jewish Space Lasers and the deep state?
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I’m equally certain that Satan doesn’t want to hear that nonsense either.
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Probably not, but he can do something about her yammering… god has to be the nice one!
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This is said as if humanity hasn’t had knowledge on how to predict eclipses for *checks notes* several thousand years at least. It’d be more worrisome if one happened unexpectedly.
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Total solar eclipses aren’t even that rare - they’re just rare where one happens to live
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Ok, but imagine nothing existed outside America.
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I certainly wouldn’t deny the presence(likely widespread) of heretically simplified interpretation of 'sola fide; some of the more fire and brimstone or ‘spiritual warfare’ focused types look more manichean than monotheistic; and the prosperity theology guys are certainly evidence of the remarkable abilities of the market economy to deliver consumer salvation goods tackier and more vulgar than one would have imagined possible; but, in fairness to protestant theology if not some of its adherents, anyone who actually thinks that salvation on their own initiative is dabbling in some fairly hardcore heresy.
At least in theory, there’s agreement more or less across flavors of christianity that grace is absolutely essential and only available by divine beneficence. It cannot be achieved, earned, or even deserved. The ‘faith’ vs. ‘works’ dispute does not concern acquiring grace, since both sides agree that this is not within the individual’s power, just how justification plays out in the presence of grace: team ‘works’ asserts the efficacy of the sacraments and the position that the effect of grace on the individual will include some amount of behavior. Team ‘faith’ asserts that any amount of ritual is insufficient to merit grace and irrelevant in its presence.
This is not to deny the presence of people who think that having the loudest piety on the block; or a nice cadillac, is proof positive of possession of grace and impending salvation; people believe all kinds of things especially when they are easier and more flattering; just to note that it’s specifically justification rather than grace where the dispute between faith and works theoretically lies.
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Yeah, I’m an atheist. The particulars of theology don’t really interest me that much. But to believe that everyone at birth has already been fated to either heaven or hell seems…stupid.
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It certainly combines cruelty and inefficiency in equal measure; but when you’re dealing with a god that sacrificed himself to himself, more or less, in order to tie up a transgression that was only transgressive because he said so that’s not entirely unexpected.
It’s certainly not my thing; I just hate to see the actual position dragged down to that of its loudest and thickest enthusiasts.
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I assume that if eclipses and cicada brood alignments can be predicted hundreds of years in advance, and if they are the product of our sinful ways, that that means that our current sinful ways must be predictable, and so they’re no such thing as free will? If that the idea?
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I don’t know… Not only I’d have the best teachers and eternity to practice, I also do a lot of stuff for the sheer fun of it, not out of the ambition to be “the best” at something. I think I’d do just fine.
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The idea, as always, is: Do not think on your own, do as we tell you.
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aka American Protestantism.
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Pretty substantial parts of it, absolutely. And not just American; though the American ones are a much closer and more pressing concern.
In a way I sympathize(not with a lot of the individuals, because they are just such assholes that you’d need someone more benevolent than I am to do so); but with the tendency to drift toward believing that certain things(whether they be more orthodoxy-focused, on the protestant side, or more orthopraxy focused, on the catholic one) are proof positive of salvation.
If you are doing christianity, with the self-sacrificial and human/divine mediating role of christ being absolutely essential, the logic behind salvation not actually being possible to deserve or earn; but requiring divine election, is fairly compelling; but honestly pretty grim(it did give rise to an interesting but rather depressing genre of journal/diary keeping, among people who acknowledge that grace cannot be detected but are desperately introspecting for signs that might possibly be of it). Given how badly people endure ongoing uncertainty the temptation to move from either the strict predestination position of “grace is literally undetectable; and can be as easily bestowed on the worst as withheld from the best since all fall immeasurably short of either deserving it or not needing it” or one of the intermediate “formally, grace is freely and undeservedly provided and can’t be directly detected; but acting like a good sort is a pretty good sign” to the theologically questionable (and often obnoxiously self-righteous) position that grace can be discerned by some combination of performative piety and you receiving temporal favors that others do not.
The same is true, to some extent, of the tendency toward downright Manichean flavors on the fire-and-brimstone side. Theologically dodgy, and often a refuge of assholes; but when the alternative is trying to wrap your head around things being as they are despite a benevolent god with no real obstacles to the exercise of his will…
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Me too. I’m 62 and started taking bass guitar lessons 8-9 years ago. I’m having a blast with it.
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If his ignorant rant wasn’t enough to show how stupid this guy is, the fact that he chose to date Empty G should clinch it. There’s something deeply wrong and fcuked-up with this guy.
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