With A Heavy Heart, I Say This to Atheists and Christians

[§outh§tar]

I was talking to you §outh§tar, whats your words on that?

Sorry I went back but I couldn't find which post you want me to respond to. There's quite a lot of them and I'm falling behind..

I believe what I can believe in. If I can't believe in the flaws then I don't. If I can then I have reasons for thinking it isn't a flaw. If the reasons turn out to be untrue, then I obviously can't believe in it.

Cyperium, you are now resorting to double speak..

I believe what I can believe in.

That's a redundancy.. it applies to every soul on this forum.

If I can't believe in the flaws then I don't.

That's no longer naivete, it's being dishonest with yourself. You are now purposely ignoring the flaws in order to pursue your faith. Can you name me any God that requires His servants to be dishonest with themselves in their conscious ignorance of His flaws?

Most of the things that I've found in the Bible, have a certain feeling of truth in it. I feel by experiance and faith that it is true. Most things have connections that lead to things that we have experianced ourselves, thus we may see that it has relevence in our life and in the situations that we encounter.

1)What is your reason for having faith in this "feeling of truth" you have?

2)By your logic, if you found something in the Koran that has "connections that lead to things that we have experianced ourselves", then you are going to believe in the Koran. I know you are going to respond by saying 'No', therefore I ask why you contradict yourself here? Moreover, can a person be blamed by a just God if they don't experience this "feeling of truth" with respect to the Bible? After all, a human cannot induce these things.

3)As I asked Patriot in another thread, what is your reason that a message may be extracted from its historical context and applied to a modern audience?

 

[§outh§tar]

The Masoretic was composed after Christ and after Christianity by the Jews. The Septuagint, however, was composed before Christ. By that time there were variations between the Septuagint and versions of the Hebrew text by scribal error. It's conceivable that the Masoretic text is wrong here and the Septuagint was correctly translated from a earlier hebrew text that did not have the same error.

okinrus, I think you are missing my point.

You WANT to believe that there is nothing wrong with the text and therefore you concoct an explanation to reconcile these disagreements.

I could just as easily posit, "It's conceivable that the original document from 1 Samuel contained the same contradiction we see today, hence the contradictions in the texts".

As you can see, there is absolutely NO basis for such an accusation and yet, it is still as "conceivable". Either the text contradicts or not is the issue, not whether some copied it right and others copied it wrong. But if we do change the subject to that, you can see how forced your arguments are going to sound.

 

[§outh§tar]

In a way, I believe it is possible to "define" God. However, this is not a definition with the structure definiens~definiendum. To define is to limit; and once something is limited, it is easy to miss it. Thus definitions like "God is the creator of everything" are forced reductions, and once they are mechanically used in logical arguments, they are bound to fail.

I can sympathize with your fear that unless you define God, you won't be able to find Him. Now, I don't mean to employ the now cheap tactic of "God's wisdom is way beyond our grasp". But I have, via reason, come to the conclusion that you cannot completely define a system (like a belief system) with the elements within this very system; meaning that extrasystemic definitions are necessary. (Do you know Gödel's incompleteness theorems?)

Well I'm not familiar with those theorems, if you could enlighten me..

Christianity does however insist on God's revelation to man through Jesus. The Bible also speaks of His presence manifest in nature, justice and so on. The Bible is also completely void of "extrasystemic definitions", not even words (supposedly) from God's own mouth contain anything extrasystemic. It is ALL material that may easily have been plagiarized from the next religion. Hence my distress when Christians speak of the necessity of faith to a Biblegod who has nothing outside of the human realm about Him. He is jealous, He kills, He drowns, He even demands worship. If there is anything extraneous about that, I fail to see it.

I therefore think that it is premature that one would define God in terms of traditional logic structures. Not because God as such would be flawed, but because traditional logic isn't all there is. There are many kinds of logical reasoning, from traditional or classical logic to fuzzy logic, logic of common sense etc., and what seems to be contradictive in one kind of logic isn't necessarily contradictive if viewed with another kind of logic.

But how does an honest person describe an anthropomorphic Deity as supernatural when it all seems natural. I'm not familiar with the different kinds of logical reasoning either; "a fork is a fork" is good enough logic for me in life..

I don't consider myself religious, but I do have an issue with those atheists who simply cast away the whole concept of God as "irrational", "unbased", "unnecessary" etc. Namely, when asked to define the God they lack belief in, it turns out that they don't have a defintion for this, or their definition of "God" is eventually revelead to mean 'old man with a beard'. And that's cruel, to go against religionists and say that they believe in the old man with a beard.

Then don't you think any such God bears the responsibility of revealing Himself(or Herself/Itself) unambiguously? Appearing to a group of desert nomads and then requiring the rest of humanity to either believe in the accounts of their oral traditions or go to hell seems rather unjust.

If I simply don't see any evidence of God, must I be held guilty on the charge of being too stubborn to see the evidence?

Apparently, faith is not all that unshakeable and substantiated, is it? You have experienced this yourself.
Each person sets up certain boundary conditions as to how far they are willing to go with their mental wonderings. It is an internal safety mechanism.
Theoretically, one could go on and on doubting and relativizing -- but the risk is that one is left empty-handed and unhappy. And nobody wants that. And some point, we all say hic sunt leones, and stop; and we must stop somewhere, or we will walk into our own demise.

What baffles me is when these same people ignore the flaws in their beliefs and just keep believing. It seems quite clear they are being dishonest with themselves.

If anything, God did not do whatever He has done for us to go and fight over it. The Bible isn't there for us to dispute whether verse ab is in contradiction with verse cd.
Apparently, we have too much time and energy, so we waste it on such pursuits instead of doing something practical.

But the Bible is the inspired Word OF God, therefore the slightest error would be very revealing of God's incapabilities. Somewhere above this, I argue against apologists who dismiss contradictions as "copyist issues" since they are willfully overlooking the implication of an errant Holy Book. Besides, is it not wise to scour any supposed Holy Book before devoting one's life to its precepts?

Also, an example I have brough up in another thread -- the love letter.
A love letter is believed and understood as such only if the writer and the reader already know eachother, if there already exists a relationship between them *before* the letter is written and read.
The reader cannot believe a love letter and take it personally unless he already knows the writer. The love in a love letter isn't established there, it is *recognized* as already existing.
A reader cannot, merely from reading the love letter, without knowing the writer, establish that relationship of love.

And similar goes for your relationship with God.
The argument: "There are many beautiful things in the world. Therefore, there must be a God who loves us, for he has made these beautiful things for us." is flawed and worthless. Unless one *recognizes* this beauty as coming from God as love, this beauty will mean nothing to him. He can, out of fear and obligation to his society, profess that indeed God made this beauty because he loves us. But unless you *recognize* this beauty as God's love, your belief is only institutionalized faith. If you *recognize* for yourself that this beauty is God's love, then your faith is personal.

My argument is if I fail to 'personalize' my faith, then I am held accountable for all eternity in a bottomless pit. If I go along with the rest of sheep, contrary to my good conscience, I am promised joy for eternity. If a Muslim sees his God's beauty in the flower, then he is screwed for eternity. Same goes for a Jew. The sheer unjustice of these things confounds me and leads me to believe these religions are entirely artificial. We are now forced to accept, as Gospel, the private letters of an apostle to his brethren and interpret them as universal moral guidelines. Failure to do so is considered "blasphemy against the Holy Spirit". Did I mention blasphemy against the Holy Spirit can not be pardoned by even God?

"God's Word" as such does not require circular reasoning. It is just that the human mind works in circularities. Albeit they are actually spirals, not circles, but only time can tell this.

The humans that penned God's Word were subject to circular reasoning perhaps. But if what you say is true, then we are all condemned since there is simply no way to "properly interpret" His Word. Seems very much like a catch-22. The safe way out is to allow God to reveal Himself, rather than to search for Him. If He does not reveal Himself satisfactorily, can we be blamed? It seems the answer is yes.

 

[§outh§tar]

Plus, you have assigned me to be a Christian, which I am not -- not in the sense of believing in the Bible and going to church on Sunday.

What "sense" would that be then?Oh, and what's your definition of (your) God?

 

[§outh§tar]

Like I said before, I believe they believe in the Bible still because, despite its "apparent" flaws, there seem to contain some good, perhaps even amazing things. Look at how big the Bible is and how long it took to write it all. People see all sorts of correlations with such a book. And since the book itself claims it's inspired (overall), such correlations/coincidences are not regarded as such, but rather regarded as divine. But with a book as big as the Bible, why is it all amazing that there are coincidences? I think if someone thoroughly analyzed other ancient books, they too could find patterns, etc, if they really believed the books were from God. Ultimately, I think it's figuratively the worship of coincidences/patterns. "Look at all this fulfilled prophecy, it has to be from God." That depends on whether we trust the Bible writers or not. Did Jesus fulfill all those "Messianic prophecies" referred to in the NT, or were some of them not even considered prophetic? Was Jesus just some guy who was born in Bethlehem and thought himself the Messiah? Look at others who thought they were the Messiah, like Bar Kochba. Maybe some of these people were truly sincere. Like take a look at Micah 5:2 which the NT quotes. According to http://www.jewsforjudaism.com, it wasn't referring to the CITY of Bethlehem, but rather a clan, David's clan. All the verse, to them, appears to be saying is that someone will come forth from David's clan, not that he'll necessarily be born in the CITY of Bethlehem (though it doesn't exclude such).

Take a look at this verse:

1 Chron 2:54 The sons of Salma; Bethlehem, and the Netophathites, Ataroth, the house of Joab, and half of the Manahethites, the Zorites.

1 Chron 4:4 And Penuel the father of Gedor, and Ezer the father of Hushah. These [are] the sons of Hur, the firstborn of Ephratah, the father of Bethlehem.

So now Ephratah and Bethlehem are people? I thought it was only a town? Firstborn of Ephratah, the father of Bethlehem? So these are people, not necessarily a town?

Notice that it says the descendants of Salma: Bethlehem, then it goes on to list groups of people, not towns. Remember, Bethlehem meant "house of bread", like the part of the verse that says "the house of Joab". What's the word used for "house"? The same word that is used for "beth", that is "Beyth". So, is this verse is referring to clans, not towns, since it says Bethlehem, "house of bread", and Beth Yow'ab, "house of Joab"?

I guess what I'm saying is, you can look at interpretations besides the one you were used to. Do I know the Jews are right about Micah 5:2? No. But it does open up the Bible somewhat. What you thought was a sure prophecy might no longer be so sure.


People think "Why would the Bible authors lie?" But this question could be asked of any author of religious writings. I have a book called the Desatir which claims to be ancient prophecies of people back in ancient Persia. Funny thing that nobody can produce an ancient copy of this book which dates before these things supposedly happened, but no matter. If the Christians are right, this book is pretty much a LIE and/or Satanic. "Pious fraud" is not a rare thing. Look at all the apocryphal books which aren't in the Bible. Were all these authors, strictly speaking, "liars"? Or were they writing things to build up faith, attributing their writings to people who were believed to be apostles or prophets? Were they using literal language to express symbolic truths?

Anyway, enough for now.

I'll put this here as a placeholder so I can respond to it later. Too much to respond to!

 

[water]

Well I'm not familiar with those theorems, if you could enlighten me..

You'll have to read up on them yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incompleteness_theorem
http://www.miskatonic.org/godel.html

Christianity does however insist on God's revelation to man through Jesus. The Bible also speaks of His presence manifest in nature, justice and so on. The Bible is also completely void of "extrasystemic definitions", not even words (supposedly) from God's own mouth contain anything extrasystemic. It is ALL material that may easily have been plagiarized from the next religion. Hence my distress when Christians speak of the necessity of faith to a Biblegod who has nothing outside of the human realm about Him. He is jealous, He kills, He drowns, He even demands worship. If there is anything extraneous about that, I fail to see it.

What is extrasystemic to our human system is the Word of God originating from God.
The extrasystemic can be only pointed at, but not defined.

But how does an honest person describe an anthropomorphic Deity as supernatural when it all seems natural.

We have no other means but our own anthropomorphic ones. It is therefore beyond our capacity to "describe an anthropomorphic Deity as supernatural". The attribute "supernatural" is there to point at the extrasystemic nature of the "definition" of God.

I'm not familiar with the different kinds of logical reasoning either; "a fork is a fork" is good enough logic for me in life..

Maybe then it is time for you to study up on that too.

Then don't you think any such God bears the responsibility of revealing Himself(or Herself/Itself) unambiguously? Appearing to a group of desert nomads and then requiring the rest of humanity to either believe in the accounts of their oral traditions or go to hell seems rather unjust.

I'm sorry, but you think like one of Pavlov's dogs.
Okay, please bear with me. I think I could see you through the psycho-logical charade you are in.

In my view, although I am aware that I am in the field of the "holier than thou" argument here, one believes in God because one *recognizes* it as a matter of course, as something that goes without saying; true faith is not that one would believe in something *because* some future reward would be promised for it.
Believing in something *because* of a promised future reward is just a revision of Pavlov, no more.

Truth be told, there is the question "Why do you believe in God?" and many of those who believe catch themselves into the trap of actually attempting to answer this question. "Why do you believe in God?" is a non-question and should not be answered to, lest one should betray one's belief.

If I simply don't see any evidence of God, must I be held guilty on the charge of being too stubborn to see the evidence?

No.

What baffles me is when these same people ignore the flaws in their beliefs and just keep believing. It seems quite clear they are being dishonest with themselves.

Not necessarily. Like I said, setting boundaries is a necessary and inavoidable mechanism.

To you, those things you find "faulty" may be flaws, but to them they aren't necessarily flaws.

But the Bible is the inspired Word OF God, therefore the slightest error would be very revealing of God's incapabilities.

What you are saying comes with the implication that "whatever anyone says that God told him, it is true that God told him". This is not true; it would be insane to believe everyone who says that God has spoken to him.

Somewhere above this, I argue against apologists who dismiss contradictions as "copyist issues" since they are willfully overlooking the implication of an errant Holy Book. Besides, is it not wise to scour any supposed Holy Book before devoting one's life to its precepts?

This is "If a, b, c, then d, e, f" kind of thinking.
Not that there's something wrong with it, but you have to have a good grasp on understanding causality if you want to be true to that kind of thinking.

It's a problem of determinism, so I invite you to look it up here http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=40337&page=2&pp=20

My argument is if I fail to 'personalize' my faith, then I am held accountable for all eternity in a bottomless pit.

I think what you've just said still comes from an "institutionalized Pavlovian dog".
No offense, but this is the shortest way to say that you are conditioned into understanding faith as something institutionalized far more than you are probably able to understand right now.

To rephrase what you've said above:
"My argument is if I fail to 'personalize' my faith, then I am held accountable for all eternity in a bottomless pit. "
If you fail to personalize your faith, then you simply fail to personalize your faith. Nobody here knows what will happen with you afterwards. You will be trialed by God; but not by people. People certainly judge you, and some are judging you severely, but to say that they know God's will about you (you are acting as if others indeed knew God's will about you) is just preposterous!
Eventually, it is just you and God, and nobody else.

If I go along with the rest of sheep, contrary to my good conscience, I am promised joy for eternity.

No. No. No.

It is: If you go along with the rest of "sheep", contrary to your good conscience, you are promised joy for eternity with only the "sheep" vouching for the existence of this joy and eternity.
And it is the "sheep" that you don't hold in high esteem anyway, so why cling on to what they say with such fear and distress as you do?

If a Muslim sees his God's beauty in the flower, then he is screwed for eternity. Same goes for a Jew. The sheer unjustice of these things confounds me and leads me to believe these religions are entirely artificial. We are now forced to accept, as Gospel, the private letters of an apostle to his brethren and interpret them as universal moral guidelines. Failure to do so is considered "blasphemy against the Holy Spirit". Did I mention blasphemy against the Holy Spirit can not be pardoned by even God?

Tell me, do you find satisfaction in loving someone?

The humans that penned God's Word were subject to circular reasoning perhaps. But if what you say is true, then we are all condemned since there is simply no way to "properly interpret" His Word. Seems very much like a catch-22.

For crying out loud, SouthStar! If I were there I'd beat you up!
What you have there is self-sabotaging thinking and the result of it is clear: self-sabotage.
The clue is wisdom. Wisdom takes time.

The safe way out is to allow God to reveal Himself, rather than to search for Him. If He does not reveal Himself satisfactorily, can we be blamed? It seems the answer is yes.

Ahhhhh.

If He would "reveal himself satisfactorily" then you would believe in Him as a matter of course, and no faith would be needed, and you would also lose the sense of free will. It's the cavity and the dentist example I used in the other thread, I think it was "Why isn't God more obvious".

Freedom comes at the "price" of uncertainty, yes.

What "sense" would that be then?

In what sense I am "Christian"? In that I am usually "nice"; but being "nice" doesn't make one a Christian, even though some think it does ...

Oh, and what's your definition of (your) God?

I don't have a definition, as it seems to me that the above is a non-question and should not be responded to. I know, it's tricky, but it seems to me that any "definition of God" would be a betrayal of God and faith. So my definition is only a place-holder definition.

 

[Jenyar]

But the Bible is the inspired Word OF God, therefore the slightest error would be very revealing of God's incapabilities. Somewhere above this, I argue against apologists who dismiss contradictions as "copyist issues" since they are willfully overlooking the implication of an errant Holy Book. Besides, is it not wise to scour any supposed Holy Book before devoting one's life to its precepts?

It's only wise if you allow it to be, and you've all but denounced wisdom here. I don't know why you'd want adhere to such an ubiblical doctrine of inspiration except to justify your disbelief.

The Bible itself is much more humble about itself. It's not wisdom to stare yourself blind against it, nor to ignore it. None of the people who wrote it stared themselves blinds against doctrine, but they did not ignore God either. Both are possible, but you can hardly blame God for that.

We have every responsibility to seek out the flaws in our beliefs. But we also have the responsibility to allow for our human selves - God certainly didn't use perfect people for his work. On the contrary, it seems He used only the "wrong" people. God's revelation does not depend on your definition of perfection or wisdom. It depends on Him. There is a way to properly interpret His word - and that's to listen to Him. Sift the noise of the medium and listen.

There can be no flaw big enough to come between you and God - not in you or in any text. If you don't believe that, then how will you ever hear Him?

 

[Medicine*Woman]

Jenyar: It's only wise if you allow it to be, and you've all but denounced wisdom here. I don't know why you'd want adhere to such an ubiblical doctrine of inspiration except to justify your disbelief.
*************
M*W: You've just proven yourself to be the idiot we all knew you were. What is wisdom to one person is not necessarily the wisdom of the next. In your usual arrogance, you are saying that unless everyone believes like you do, they've denounced wisdom! What you don't realize in your religioustupidity is that SouthStar has found wisdom. You're the unwise fool! One does not adhere to any particular doctrine when one finds wisdom. That wisdom becomes the inspiration to cast out all outside, man-made, evil influences (false doctrines).
*************
Jenyar: The Bible itself is much more humble about itself.
*************
M*W: The Bible is a book about arrogant men. It was written by men, to men, and for men. Anything man-made is not of humble origin. Men create things out of pride, envy, wrath, greed, gluttony, sloth and lust. There is nothing humble about the Bible. The Bible was written by men who wanted power over others, for control of others, and to conquer others, and to use others, and to fill their coffers with the sweat of others' brows. The Bible is the Instruction Book for Human Evils.
*************
Jenyar: We have every responsibility to seek out the flaws in our beliefs. But we also have the responsibility to allow for our human selves - God certainly didn't use perfect people for his work. On the contrary, it seems He used only the "wrong" people. God's revelation does not depend on your definition of perfection or wisdom. It depends on Him. There is a way to properly interpret His word - and that's to listen to Him. Sift the noise of the medium and listen.
*************
M*W: Wisdom comes when we seek out the flaws in our human beliefs, as SouthStar has thankfully realized for himself. God uses no one. It is not god's work -- it is our human work that leads us to wisdom. To depend on some supernatural unseen deity or on one of the many dying demigod saviors, is to deny the wisdom within. This is what SouthStar has found. Wisdom is always there in the human mind, but many people cannot and will not see or understand it. The wisdom was revealed to SouthStar just like it was revealed to me and many others on this forum.
*************
Jenyar: There can be no flaw big enough to come between you and God - not in you or in any text.
*************
M*W: Unfortunately, this is bullshit. The "flaw big enough to come between you and God" is religion. I can't speak for other religions. I can only speak for Christianity -- the biggest flaw this man-made world has ever known!
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Jenyar: If you don't believe that, then how will you ever hear Him?
*************
M*W: SouthStar has always listened for god, and I'm sure he was always searching for god, and I'd bet my life on it that SouthStar thought he had found god for most of his life. But, wisdom spoke louder, and as time went on, god seemed to be right there with SouthStar because he felt the presence of god most of his life. But, wisdom spoke louder, and wisdom came closer to him, and wisdom broke through the "big flaw" he believed to be true. It is only the blind who do not see. SouthStar's eyes were opened, and his mind freed of the "big flaw" that he had always believed. SouthStar's wisdom set him free from that "big flaw." The wisdom was always there, and SouthStar finally found it, because he always looked for god and listened for god and hoped god would always be with him. Wisdom always comes from within.

 

[David F.]

I don't know whether the Bible is without error. The last firm statement we have is from Jesus himself who said the Scriptures cannot be broken (or so reports John).

Jesus of course was referring to the OT, not the NT. Is the NT just as true as the OT? Probably, but I can't be sure of that. In almost 40 years of study, I have never found an error in the NT. Sometimes I thought I had, but it always turned out to be a translation error, or something I did not understand. Might I find something? Perhaps.

I am very sceptical of something put together and cannonized by the Romans (Catholic Church) under the direction of that Sun God worshipper Constantine, and yet, I haven't found anything to pin error on. I have often found things which people or denominations say is there, only to look for myself and find they were mistaken, or reading incorrectly (or just downright liying). Will I ever find an error, maybe... we'll just have to see.

 

[water]

Medicine Woman,

This is what your talking sounds like: "I am holier that thou, howgh, howgh!"

 

[Persol]

I think MW and Jenyar have the same dad.

 

[§outh§tar]

In almost 40 years of study, I have never found an error in the NT. Sometimes I thought I had, but it always turned out to be a translation error, or something I did not understand. Might I find something? Perhaps.

Are you just trying to be funny or do you just enjoy contradicting yourself?

Your arbitrariness is confounding; for someone who has NO idea whatsoever of the contents of the original epistles, you really are quite naieve to brush aside NT errors as "translation errors".

Your contradiction gave me a good chuckle by the way.

 

[Medicine*Woman]

RosaMagika: Medicine Woman,

This is what your talking sounds like: "I am holier that thou, howgh, howgh!"
*************
M*W: Well, you're wrong, as usual. Since I don't believe in the concept of "holy," how could I believe "I am holier than thou?"

What you have misinterpreted is that I am not as dumb as Jenyar.

 

[Medicine*Woman]

Persol: I think MW and Jenyar have the same dad.
*************
M*W: Persol, this is the worst insult I have ever received on sciforums. If I wasn't the strong bitch that I know I am, I might be crying and thrashing on the floor now. Although I do believe that humanity is one big family, I don't think Jenyar fits in this species.

 

[TheERK]

Persol: I think MW and Jenyar have the same dad.
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M*W: Persol, this is the worst insult I have ever received on sciforums. If I wasn't the strong bitch that I know I am, I might be crying and thrashing on the floor now. Although I do believe that humanity is one big family, I don't think Jenyar fits in this species.

Yet if he lost his faith, you'd claim that you 'loved' him, just like Southstar.

You're judgemental as hell, M*W.

 

[David F.]

Are you just trying to be funny or do you just enjoy contradicting yourself?

Your arbitrariness is confounding; for someone who has NO idea whatsoever of the contents of the original epistles, you really are quite naieve to brush aside NT errors as "translation errors".

Your contradiction gave me a good chuckle by the way.

So? What do you consider an error in the NT? I have often talked to those who say there are errors and then they come up with something like Jesus in one place said: "Those who are not for us are against us" and in another said "if they are not against us they are on our part". This one is obviously just speaking to different audiences concerning different groups of people (the first concerns the Pharisees and the second concerns believers and followers).

 

[water]

M*W: Well, you're wrong, as usual. Since I don't believe in the concept of "holy," how could I believe "I am holier than thou?"

What you have misinterpreted is that I am not as dumb as Jenyar.

You are so full of hate and resentment.

 

[Medicine*Woman]

RosaMagika: You are so full of hate and resentment.
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M*W: And you are so full of yourself.

 

[water]

M*W: And you are so full of yourself.

And guess which is better: to be full of oneself, or to be full of hate and resentment?

 

[Medicine*Woman]

RosaMagika: And guess which is better: to be full of oneself, or to be full of hate and resentment?
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M*W: Just because I don't believe what you believe, that doesn't make me full of hate and resentment. You and Jenyar are both so full of yourselves that in reality you are both empty souls. Anyone who believes in Christianity has lost their soul. Why shouldn't it be hated? Why don't you stick to posting on the forums where you can more knowledgeably post? The Religion Forum is not one of them.