Out of the Blue [Mar 14, 2006, 10:55 am ET] – Share – Viewing Comments
I figured out what was wrong with my mail last night and everything is working
now... There seems to be an odd gap in my inbox from the middle of the night,
though, so either some messages got delayed or bounced along the way.
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Oh come on, Heather. Nowhere did you answer whether some people go to hell and other people go to heaven. I even went to the site you mentioned and it didn't say either. Not surprising considering the current theological split occurring in the Presbyterian church today. As far as I know, mainstream Presbyterianism has always condemned some people to hell while others go to heaven. As far as non-mainstream, of course there's even more variation there than among the mainstream religions. There will be people attached to mainstream religions who hold their own contradictory views, naturally. So perhaps you personally believe that everybody goes to heaven (you didn't say) but I don't think that opinion is shared by the majority of Presbyterians. I think the concept of any kind of hell is the most irrational component of any religion, but certainly not the only one. Even if there is no hell per se, the belief that some people will get to heaven but not others is pretty high up there too. But this discussion was a comparison of irrationality among religions, not individual people (whose beliefs paint a continuous spectrum from absurd to plausible).
As someone whose father is a PCA pastor (conservative branch of the Presbyterians), I can tell you quite a bit. Heather is from the liberal, far more reasonable Presbyterian branch. The conservative Presbyterians believe that everyone goes to hell, except the select few that God has chosen. An interesting note is that they believe God has to work in the individual and "open his eyes" so that he believes in Christ. Yet they still say people are responsible for thier sins. If there's no free will, how the hell are people to blame for what they do?
The PCA won't come out and say it, but they believe babies go to hell (no wonder they're so against abortion, they have to keep the baby alive so that it grows up and has a chance to become a Christian). Here's an interesting question, if someone is in the "pre-destined" group (meaning God has designated them to become Christian), what happens if they die before they become a Christian? Do they still get to go to heaven? Oh, and Heather, the PCA is still very much grounded in Calvinism (yet they very rarely mention his nationality - I don't think a denomination of primarily Republicans likes to remember their "founding father" was French).
If you can't tell, I'm an atheist now.
I can't believe I thought I believed this shit for 20-some years. One thing that's interesting to note about faith, is that it is in an inverse relationship to humor. The more faith you have, the less you appreciate a good joke. All religions take themselves way too seriously (like the Scientologists, in this case). Remember how much of a ruckus the movie Dogma caused? Even though that movie is hilarious, and brings up lots of good points about religion (my favorite is how the bible is so derogatory towards women, and Chris Rock's whole "black Jesus" comment), but the Catholics (and pretty much every conservative church) got all mad about it, because they can't laugh at themselves.
This comment was edited on Mar 15, 07:32.
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