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I feel like that's a fool's errand. There's too much ambiguity for a decisive answer.

Of course. It's interesting. When I try to google an actor's most famous movie quotes, most of the results are not from the movies. George

I was thinking more along the lines of accurately defining the Old and New Covenants using objective/subjective standards which appears to be the topic of this thread.

And thus you are right back at the heart of the issue. Should religious texts be accepted as the authoritative source? Three Abrahamic faiths. Which one? Nobody's right if everybody's wrong....Hey! That would make a good song lyric.

Three agents. Each following the god of Abraham. Each having their own scriptures upon which they justify violent suffering. Did I fix it?

How does one talk about this issue only biblically then? That's what I'm trying to do. If you can develop some rules of the game that would satisfy everyone it would be terrific.

It all boils down to being a geopolitical issue. HERE

How do I know? I don't. I picked a Catholic version (notice I say "a" because there's a schism in catholicism as well) because a friend thought I'd be wanting to return after decades of absence. I took the RCIA course of her church, enjoyed it, and was confirmed. Then I strayed from that and joined a staunch traditional, Latin version. Both guns blazing. It's what I'm doing right now but I'm not opposed to checking out other versions. I've been to other versions and it's all interesting. I'm even open to attending a Muslim meeting if a friend invited me to one.

This is not political... please follow... With the U.S. bombing of Iran, I've gotten into a couple of debates with Jews who believe God gave them that land for eternity and American Christians are supposed to understand that and acquiesce. (Old Covenant) However some Christians (myself) believe that Jesus' crucifixion, burial, resurrection, ascension and glory began a New Covenant wherein Jews who believe in Christ are no more Jews but now members of the body of Christ along with the Gentiles who also believe. The Old has been supplanted by the New (according to my belief). Here are the questions: Would it be accurate to say that both of these beliefs are subjective? Or, is the Jewish religion really the objective one, and the Christian religion the subjective (being an adaptation of the first)?

Well, I'd like to weigh in, here. I'm hoping we can avoid personal shots. In an absolute sense, I'm not sure I'd consider ANY standard as "objective." Let's suppose (for a moment only) that an Omniscient, Omnipotent Deity went and wrote a single standard into all of reality below the quantum level, so that the smallest things that make up the things that make things into things were all based on this single standard. So, all of reality would have it. It would be universally consistent. But would it be "objective"? It would be the decision of a single being whose IQ was so far above mine I couldn't fathom it. So, a standard by a being far, far smarter than me, and potentially far better than anything I could come up with. (Presuming at least as much justice and mercy as me, but more brains and more ability to perform.) That having been said, it would be a subjective standard because it was formed by a being (even if this being was The Being.) So, I may be misunderstanding what we're even discussing. (Forgive me if I am, if I am, it's not on purpose.) When it comes to more general standards of morality, ethics, and so on, I find, for the sake of discussion, I keep drawing on the 9 box alignment grid from AD&D. It's easy to picture. Draw a tic tac toe board on a paper. Leave space all around the nine boxes. Leave space inside each box to write in. Above the top line of boxes, write "Good." Below the bottom line of boxes, write "Evil." To the left of the leftmost, write "Law". To the right of the rightmost, write "Chaos." So, the top row are "Good," the bottom row are "Evil", the leftmost are "Lawful", and the rightmost are "Chaotic." If it helps, think of "Lawful" as "ordered", and "Chaotic" as "independent." (I've found that helps, when discussing this.) So, the nine possible Alignments are: Lawful Good, Neutral Good, Chaotic Good, Lawful Neutral, True Neutral ("Neutral Neutral"), Chaotic Neutral. Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil, and Chaotic Evil. Discussing True Neutral ("Neutral Neutral") starts arguments all by itself, so let's skip it or leave it for later, please. Lawful Good are those who say to benefit the most people, follow the rules. Superman and Captain America are Lawful Good. The Adam West Batman was Lawful Good. Neutral Good says to benefit the most. Follow the rules, or break them, whichever works best. The TOS Jim Kirk was Neutral Good. Chaotic Good says to benefit the most by circumventing the rules and freeing the people. Robin Hood was Chaotic Good. Lawful Neutral says to play by your rules, and that's what matters. Jean-Luc Picard and Frank Martin the Transporter are Lawful Neutral. Chaotic Neutrals avoid the rules and just want their freedom. Captain Jack Sparrow was Chaotic Neutral. Lawful Neutrals say the rules are so I can hold power. Darth Vader, Emperor Palpatine, Saruman were Lawful Evil. Neutral Evil say power is all that matters. Jafar from Disney's "Aladdin" was Neutral Evil. Chaotic Evil's want the freedom to grab or smash anything. Jason Voorhees and Gollum were Chaotic Evil. I left out real people entirely to avoid arguments. (We know Robin Hood by his legends, not his history.) Of course, characters- and people- can have tendencies leaning one way or another while holding an alignment. One Lawful Good may focus more on the Good than the Lawful, another may focus more on the Lawful than the Good. (We might say the first has Neutral Good tendencies, the second has Lawful Neutral tendencies.) We can discuss things in light of the alignment chart. (We don't have to, here or elsewhere, but we can.) I've found it helpful discussing why people or characters are different from each other. https://easydamus.com/alignment.html

Accepting both your premise and your source, you're jumping to the conclusion that there are exactly 45,000 completely different, mutually-exclusive concepts of hell, exactly one for each denomination. Your source called them "denominations", as in variations on a theme, but you changed that to "religions", which is more like the differences between Bahai, Islam, Hindu, Judaism, etc. The same source pointed out that there are 3 major and 6 minor denominational branches of Christianity. Even if every one of those had a mutually-exclusive vision, that would be 9 positions, not 45,000- which is a significant difference. That having been said, a quick look at what they teach shows that there's not 9 different, mutually-exclusive positions, because even a glance shows some of them have the same positions with cosmetic differences- Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican to name 3. Most of the other minor branches they mentioned agree with each other and with Protestantism. Even if one can argue that those 2 are mutually-exclusive positions (I'm not going to weigh in on it either way), that's not 45,000 different religions, that's 2 denominational positions. The difference is rather pronounced.

"CNN changed the game. In 1990, during Dessert Storm, still no one else was doing 24hr news-only broadcasts." I kept trying to watch Dessert Storm, but I just kept getting hungry.

There are over 45,000 different Christian religions in the world, so if you accept that Christianity is the correct religion, how do you know you have picked the right version? How have you eliminated the other 44,999 as not being God’s accurate version of hell? https://www.christianwebsite.com/how-many-denominations-of-christianity-2024/

Costner, of course.

I was going to post the Cone of Andrea, but she's already gone... George

That's fair. Each of the studies cited in the article acknowledge that very young children have an innate, intuitive, pro social moral sensibility. The article recognizes that children's moral sense is further developed through experience and even indoctrination. I should point out the careful word choice of "developed" leaves open the possibility moral sensibility is not necessarily improved.

I felt the rest of his post was needed for context, because the idea that we have a natural, built-in sense of morality raises the question how that happened. The post provides a natural explanation for how that could happen.

Maybe it has to do with God giving specific officials in the church the power to forgive sins, but it's only an observation that maybe has some connection with that.

In that video I half watched about "What is the Destiny of the Unsaved?" JS claimed twice that you need to have "the right translation" in order to get to the truth about hell, the second death, etc. I can't remember if he mentions his bible by name, but any verses he puts up show they come from the REV.

A couple of book titles that might relate to this thread: https://www.amazon.com/Being-Wrong-Adventures-Margin-Error/dp/0061176052/ and https://www.amazon.com/Coherent-Mind-Quantum-Lali-Love-ebook/dp/B0F6YCDP2Z/

Want to know what the glove looks like, what it’s made of, how it fits? Want to know where in your imagination to look for that yet undiscovered manuscript? Want to know how to MAKE something fit that doesn’t fit? There’s a Bible version for that.

Exactly!

CNN changed the game. In 1990, during Dessert Storm, still no one else was doing 24hr news-only broadcasts. As a kid in high school at that time, I was glued to CNN, watching the war and the launch of Wolf Blitzer’s career. Elvis Presley made his performance debut October 16th, 1954 on a weekly talent showcase. He was signed to a contract to perform on the program every Saturday for $18 a show. Colonel Tom Parker “discovered” Elvis after 18 months of performing and bought his contract for $10,000. What was the name of the radio program or venue?

Why would God need a witness?

Had to post this one... too funny...