In Reply to: My Name Means Song of Joy posted by Carol on October 13, 2004 at 21:35:52:
Hi Carol. I'm not seeking to change your mind, just understand it. When I hear the word "Christian" I usually give it the ordinary dictionary meaning. Here are some of the definitions I usually use, from the Concise Oxford Dictionary:
adjective: 1) of Christ's teachings or religion; 2) believing in or following the religion of Jesus Christ 3) showing the qualities associated with Christ's teaching; noun: 1a) a person who has received Christian baptism; 1b) an adherent of Christ's teachings; 2) a person exhibiting Christian qualities;
When I hear someone say they are a Christian, in my mind that means they purport to be "like Christ". They may or may not be a "good" Christian, however that is determined, but nevertheless, by using that label they are proclaiming that they accept the teachings of Jesus Christ. One of the major defects in Jesus' teachings, imo, were his doctrines concerning hell. Surely you must be aware of those doctrines and that is why I am so surprised to hear you say you are willing to accept the label "Christian", depending on the definition used. Imo, it is pretty hard to reject Christ's teachings on hell and still be considered a Christian. So how do you reconcile those teachings with the ideal that you seek of "unconditional, positive regard (Agape) for every last one of the creatures on the face of this beautiful planet"?
Somewhere on these chatboards I recently posted a comment about Bertrand Russel's essay, "Why I Am Not A Christian". The point I was making in that post was that if someone, eg. a teacher, had shown me that essay after I had met TF, there is a possibility I may not have got sucked into the cult like I did. I bring that essay up again here because he addresses Jesus' teachings on hell in the following 3 parapraphs:
"There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ's moral character, and that is that He believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person that is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment. Christ certainly as depicted in the Gospels did believe in everlasting punishment, and one does find repeatedly a vindictive fury against those people who would not listen to His preaching -- an attitude which is not uncommon with preachers, but which does somewhat detract from superlative excellence. You do not, for instance, find that attitude in Socrates. You find him quite bland and urbane toward the people who would not listen to him; and it is, to my mind, far more worthy of a sage to take that line than to take the line of indignation. You probably all remember the sorts of things that Socrates was saying when he was dying, and the sort of things that he generally did say to people who did not agree with him.
"You will find that in the Gospels Christ said: "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell." That was said to people who did not like His preaching. It is not really to my mind quite the best tone, and there are a great many of these things about hell. There is, of course, the familiar text about the sin against the Holy Ghost: "Whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him neither in this world nor in the world to come." That text has caused an unspeakable amount of misery in the world, for all sorts of people have imagined that they have committed the sin against the Holy Ghost, and thought that it would not be forgiven them either in this world or in the world to come. I really do not think that a person with a proper degree of kindliness in his nature would have put fears and terrors of this sort into the world.
"Then Christ says, "The Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth"; and He goes on about the wailing and gnashing of teeth. It comes in one verse after another, and it is quite manifest to the reader that there is a certain pleasure in contemplating wailing and gnashing of teeth, or else it would not occur so often. Then you all, of course, remember about the sheep and the goats; how at the second coming He is going to divide the sheep from the goats, and He is going to say to the goats: "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire." He continues: "And these shall go away into everlasting fire." Then He says again, "If thy hand offend thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched, where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched." He repeats that again and again also. I must say that I think all this doctrine, that hell-fire is a punishment for sin, is a doctrine of cruelty. It is a doctrine that put cruelty into the world, and gave the world generations of cruel torture; and the Christ of the Gospels, if you could take Him as his chroniclers represent Him, would certainly have to be considered partly responsible for that."