whereru, "This sort of approach that has one following a Christian life as a kind of insurance policy seems to have no heart in it and so smacks of being neither "cold nor hot".
I would like to know what Christians think. "
Whereru, I used to think like this to be honest,orthodox Christianity basically teaches if your more good than bad etc then you will go to heaven etc,alot of people sincerely believe these things,because this is all they have in mainstream teachings of the churches leaders etc,to look outside the square in these things etc makes people uncomfortable usually,so its easy to be comfortable with what you have rather than test your beliefs and see if they stand up
To be honest,anyone who believes in an eternal place of torture is intellectually lazy imo,these concepts are quite frankly ridiculous and are in stark contrast to what jesus taught,these teachings came about in the dark ages to control the plebs who had no education and were held captive by the religious leaders of the day,tradition of these things still carry on today
Also,you seem to be a well mannered gentleman,i commend you in the way you conduct your conversations on here,but lets be honest,some of the questions you ask of people who believe differantly from yourself imo are strawmen questions in the firstplace to justify your own beliefs,you really have made your mind up on what you believe,so unless someone could explain themselves in 5minutes flat about what sometimes it has taken them a lifetime to learn,you really dont want to know
This is not a personal attack,just mostly non believers vs believers convos usually dont work because of bias in the firstplace,i mean look at the condescending any christian point of view gets from non believers,and yet when someone wants a convo with no religion in it,they complain because they didnt get what they wanted,it goes both ways
