Ohhh, this is going to be fun!
He wasn't forgiven as far as I have any reason to believe.
Much as how salvation, as described by Jesus, Paul, and others is not something silly, trite, or reducible to a simplistic ritual or recitation, as degenerate "pop theology", more interested in marketing rather than refinement makes such a thing out to be.
Christ only had 12 disciples out of his potentially millions of lay followers; it's clear being a disciple of Christ required a higher degree of commitment and self-sacrifice than what an ordinary person who merely "identifies" as a follower of Christ would be willing or able to do.
Okay, buddy. The thing is, in Christian Theology, sins can be forgiven by embracing Jesus... By Christian logic, Dahmner repented his past, sought forgiveness for his sins and took Jesus into his heart.
Nah, just because he said he does, doesn't mean so.
By your own standards, he gets an "Admit one" ticket to heaven, assuming his beliefs were sincere. (I have no idea what was going through his brain before it was splattered all over the weight room at the Columbia Correctional Facility, but never mind.)
That's assuming that someone like Dahmer would be capable of such sincerity to begin with, I'm tempted to think not.
Nah, it was atheists, that's what Hilter and his philosophy was, one of nihilism, and a "might makes right" view of the world, akin to Communism as well.
Sorry, buddy, Hitler was a Christian. The Wehrmacht wore belt buckles that said, God's with Us when they proceeded to rampage across Europe murdering people.
Then Trump is a Christian if he wears a "WWJD" bracelet.
I'd venture that those buckles were merely something that already existed as symbols in the German army prior to Hitler anyway.
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She's Jewish.. I'm not a theologian, but your argument is a strawman and a silly and trite one at that.
Not silly at all. 1900 years of Christian Anti-Semitism was justified by "The Jews didn't accept Jesus as the Messiah, therefore they are damned." They really tried to backpeddle it after Hitler turned a bunch of them into lampshades and bars of soap.... but frankly, it's right there in the New Testament.
Exclusivism, to some degree or another, is an element of world religions, including Buddhism; such as the Nichiren school of Buddhism, in which only followers of Nichiren who recite the Lotus Sutra are guaranteed Nirvana, while all others, Buddhist, Christian, and so forth, are damned to an entirety of suffering through endless reincarnation cycles.
Yes, all religions are fucked up in their own little way.
The belief that "all religions" are fucked up, is in itself a "religious" belief, since it's making a moral judgment on the basis of some axiom or another.
If one has faith in nothing, then they can't say that something like rape and murder is 'fucked up' at all, as opposed to just one of many lifestyle choices, whether it's done in the context of "religion" or otherwise?
So by what religion or faith-based axioms do you believe that things about religions are "fucked up"?
Has nothing to do with my point, that if you accept basic CHristian Tenants, Dahmner went to Heaven and Ann Frank went to Hell.
No, not necessarily; much as the status of Jewish people in Christian theology is a topic worth reading into.
Likewise, even if an atheist is asserting something bad or morally repugnant with "religion", Christianity, and so forth, this in itself is ironically, a "religious" belief (or a moral or philosophical one if one detests the term "religious"), putting the views of said atheist on a higher plane than those who believe otherwise, such as in concepts of damnation viewed to be unfair on some moral or philosophical grounds.
Uh, guy, atheism is not a religion
Off is not a TV channel.
Not Collecting Stamps isn't a hobby.
That's the same childish and nonsensical axiom which as been repeated ad nauseum.
The "atheism" isn't what's the "religion", it's everything else that atheists believe that is.
You have positive belief that "Dahmer going to heaven, and Anne Frank going to hell" is wrong. Your belief is a positive one, based off of some religious or philosophical axiom or another.
Much as simply "lacking" a belief in God wouldn't give you any reason to decide that rape or murder is wrong; some atheists such as the Marquis de Sade overly stated they find nothing morally wrong with rape and murder.
So despite being an "atheist", you would be telling a fellow atheists who wants to justify rape and murder that he is morally wrong on the basis of some philosophy, religious, or other belief - where do your positive beliefs in such a thing come from?
The problem we have with "Damnation" is that it's a fear based management technique.
A state threatening rapists and murderers with life in prison or death is a "basic fear managing technique" - and that's not necessarily a "bad thing", so I fail to see the point being made here.
If your argument is that being motivated by selfish "fear" alone is not sincere morality, then I'd agree, much as that's a strawman in regards to the contents of "religion" or religions as a whole anyway.
We can't really promise you that good things will happen if you are a good person in this life. In fact, probably not, no good deed goes unpunished.
But we can threaten you with all sorts of horrible punishments in the afterlife, trust us on this one, And God needs money.
That's a non-sequitur.
So, yeah, if an atheist is a good person, then it's because they are doing the right thing because it's the right thing
According to what religion or system of belief do you assert that its' the "right thing" in some absolute moral sense?
Many atheists, such as De Sade, would disagree, and argue that rape and murder is merely a part of human nature, so there's no reason a person should refrain from such things.
, not because they are afraid of consequences or seeking rewards. That is a superior morality.
Correct, so you have a positive, religious belief in a superior morality, which in and of itself has nothing do with "atheism".
So where does this positive belief in a superior morality come from, and on what axioms is it founded, since it certainly isn't "atheism".
