In Reply to: what I think posted by Acheick on February 21, 2006 at 01:26:03:
Thanks Rocky and Acheick for your honest attempt to answer those difficult questions with your own thoughts. To an unbeliever like me, your responses are far more insightful than someone who merely quotes endless scriptures with an attitude of absolute certainty usually based on nothing more than their own limited understanding and experience.
Personally, I cannot accept any exclusive religious belief system, let alone one with a diety that promises to mete out everlasting punishment to unbelievers. Jesus, in his own words or at least those ascribed to him by the gospel writers, repeatedly talks about the everlasting fires of hell where those who don't accept him and his doctrines will suffer forever. Of course, there is the doctrine of universal reconciliation, which Berg subscribed to, but that in no way diminishes the terror and cruelty of Jesus' message. If he will eventually save everyone anyway, why bother with all the cruel foreplay, unless he gets some perverse S & M pleasure from that?