Who else besides me believes that the concept of Original Sin is just pure cruelness and insanity?
604145
Next to Jesus being a god, original sin is the most ridiculous thing Christians came up with.
727418
I don;t feel like anyone should put therselves on the same level with God, and GOD is the ONLY  HOLY FATHER.. blaspheme ? i think so..!
798068
I TOTALLY AGREE with you!!!\n\nin your additional details, again, I ABSOLUTELY AGREE with you!\n\ntnmack is right. it's abhorrently evil to kill an innocent human being. i saw a documentary how it's done, it makes me wonder how evil can people be due to selfish reasons. it is HORRIBLE. and only evil people can allow it or condone it.
881633
I'm sorry if you're experiencing something that's upsetting you so much that you hate most all people right now.  I hope it's not the way you feel on a daily basis.  That would be a tough existence indeed.\n\nI do not choose to define you by this one question, as most the rest of the answerers seem to have.\n\nYou may be interested to know - or you may already know - God has destroyed relatively large groups of people in the past who were involved in wicked things such as child sacrifice (as in the case of the Canaanites), debased sexual wrongs (as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah) and extreme violence and physical abuse (as in the case of the flood) among other things.\n\nIt certainly is unfair that righteous, meek people must be constantly affected by people who choose to ruin themselves, others and this planet.  But the Bible, at Revelation 11:18, explains that God will soon "bring to ruin those ruining the earth."\n\nPsalm 37:10, 11, 29 says, "And just a little while longer and the wicked will be no more; and you will certainly give attention to his place and he will not be.  But the meek ones themselves will possess the earth and they will find exquisite delight in the abundance of peace...The righteous themselves will possess the earth and they will reside forever upon it."\n\nJust how many people on the earth today are "wicked" and how many are "righteous?"  We cannot know the number or the percentage precisely, but the Bible makes it clear that the majority of mankind is on the "wide and spacious road leading to destruction" and very few are on the "narrow and cramped road leading to life." (Matthew 7:13)\n\nHowever, you can gain a lot of peace by adopting God's view of the situation.  Though he will do what is necessary to clean up the earth and make life worth living for those who are willing to meet his requirements, "Jehovah is not slow respecting his promise, as some people consider slowness, but he is patient with you because he does not wish any to be destroyed, but desires all to attain to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9)\n\nIf you look at people causing you hardship or pain of any kind as people who potentially will eventually see the light of truth and make changes for the better, just like Saul who later became known as the Apostle Paul, you will find greater joy in life now.\n\nI highly recommend you get yourself a copy of the book called What Does the Bible Really Teach?  I'm sure it will help you deal with troubling situations and so far unanswered questions or unsatisfying answers you've received elsewhere.\n\nI wish you well!
858106
Actually I worked with a very cruel woman who was a minister in the the No Name Church.  She justified mistreating those in her way as necessary in the world at this time.  (I don't think it was their belief, I just think the wrong person in their religion was given some power.)  I witnessed many manipulative cruel schemes in the work place to help her gain a position of power.   I grew up in a fundamentalist hotbed of religion and thought I had seen and heard everything up to that point.  People like Ted Haggard may do damage on a phenomenal scale, but I have never seen evil masked as Christianity as I did with this woman.  It was truly a eye opening experience as I listened to how other members had to come to her for council and her advice . . . such as advising one man to divorce his wife.  Part of her rationalization was the marriage ceremony was not printed in the Bible so it was a man-made contract not supported by the Church.
683204
The christian god those people describe is a psychopathic nutcase with pretty much every mental disorder you can name. And probably a few that haven't been named yet.\n\nFortunately, there is no god. Knowing that, I accept birth life and death as simple physical realities.
749812
God is just a meanie, isn't he?  Shame on him for making Adam sin,   and we all deserve Heaven and a life on this earth to match.
1183891
Supposedly all sins are the same....not to me...but to God.
368450
Eternal torture is perhaps a misleading term.  Eternal separation from God is more accurate.  God is perfect, and we chose (by eating forbidden fruit) to be imperfect.  It was our choice.  In making this decision, we forfeited the ability to atain perfection on our own.  No matter how good natured we are (and most people are), we are not stain free.  Even as adults, we do things that hurt others and take us further from perfection.We cannot return to a perfect God if we are Imperfect.  That is why he himself (as Jesus) sacrificed his own perfect self, so he could GIVE us the perfection we could never attain on our own.  If we refuse to accept this gift, if we refuse to admit that we cannot be perfect, no matter how hard we try, no matter how good we are, then we remain imperfect and cannot return to God.  The common notion of hell was concieved by Middle age monks and radicals and have no foundation in scripture.  By my translation (which I cannot guarantee is correct), Hell does not yet exist, and won't exist until after the End times.
1116262
Excellent point.\n\nMen never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction\nBlaise Pascal
1085834
I think evil must exist, it helps us from stagnating and gives us a reason to be and create good, so I am bad, it is not easy,but someone has got to do it, and I think it is was Voltaire the french philosopher that said artists must have the very devil in them to create, something like that, and I choose to believe him to, so I have the devil inside me as well.
354726
You've stated just a few reasons why I ended up asking the question, "Is it possible that the Christian God and the Muslim God(Yahweh and Allah) are the same entity as Satan? The character flaws exhibited by the religious "good gods" can be lined up point for point with the understood character flaws of "Satan". One of the most sadistic stories I've ever read has got to be the story of God telling Abraham to sacrifice his own son and then, "Oh, sorry just testing". You don't get any more cruel or mind-controlling than that.
917381
I don't like that certain Christians tell me that I'm going to hell because I don't believe exactly what they believe.  If someone lives on an island, has no other people around, knows nothing of society, can you honestly think that this person will spend his afterlife in a fiery pit of despair and pain?  It sounds just like a Sunday School tale to scare children into behaving.  Old fairy tales such as Little Red Riding hood, Cinderella, etc, didn't turn out as happily ever after, they were to teach children to behave, and have good manners.  I respect Christians, they can believe whatever they want, but please I am happy with my own beliefs, and don't want to believe what you do.
1160725
I'm so with you on that one!! Everything starts and ends with God. But people are people.... Sad but true. It makes me sick to hear people mock their own Creator. They're playing with fire!Literally!
836512
only God can determine who is worthy of hell. and all sin is terrible
551825
WE are taught in scripture that we are to love the sinner and hate the sin.  So you are not wrong to feel the way you do.  And I agree it is destroying the foundations of civilization, as it always has every great civilization in history before they came crumbling down as it became more acceptable.
165259
*Shaking my shaggy skull* While I believe that bounties to kill, killing, violence of any kind is wrong, seems a lot of people either forget or just dun understand some basics...\n\nTop of the list, that cartoon to a Moslim is highly highly insulting thing and basically is like 2 "You shall have no other gods besides Me...Do not make a sculpted image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above..."\n\nI mean how would a christian feel if a cartoon was made showing say jesus performing homosexual acts? They wouldn't like it, not one little bit and would be screaming bloody murder...\n\nNext, frankly the Middle East has gotten the short end of the stick from the western society for a loooooooooong time. Now the top superpowers are invading them one country at a time. They are fed up and I dun really blame them for it.\n\nLastly the cartoonist should have known better, so should have the papers that printed them. When the Moslims said "Hey, we don't like that!" an apology should have been made right then and there. But instead all they got was arrogance.\n\nNow before anyone says "But we have freedom of speech and creativity." Do we really? I certainly couldn't put the before mentioned cartoon of jesus in a national/continental newspaper. It would have been nixed purely because it would upset people.\n\nSo before calling them insane, imagine how you would feel if the roles were reversed and it was your savior that was shown in a nasty light...