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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023

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I'm not clear on how this differs from "I could be happy in Heaven despite knowing there are people in Hell because my mind would be rewritten to consider this justice". A divine entity reshaping you like that could make you think of anything as justice. How would you tell the difference between this, and the Hypothetical Reverse God who condemns all Christians making you think you perfectly deserve misery?

...Also, I can't help but notice that this whole "without these specific rituals and beliefs, you suffer forever" business feels a lot more like an idea maximising pressure to spread it than the kind of thing you'd expect from the Almighty. It seems very petty, very suspiciously human, for an entity with the majesty and sheer greatness of God to hold that kind of a grudge.

Who am I to teach God mercy? Well, I don't have a torture-dimension for my enemies, so I have that going for me. I sort of feel like the Almighty should be able to outdo me here, rather than the opposite.

The only necessary belief is that God counts Jesus’ death as fulfilling my death penalty for the harm I’ve caused.

The only necessary “ritual” is that I do not “blaspheme the Holy Spirit.”

The eternal suffering comes from being imprisoned away from the source of all goodness and kindness with all the other hateful people, and malicious powerful spiritual entities imprisoned too.

Boy, all those people with the thick book and the huge churches must be really wasting their time, then.

Necessary is the bare minimum to escape condemnation. It defies belief that you can have misunderstood this when user rolfmoo was talking about the many specific rituals and beliefs he thinks one must hold to enter Heaven and escape fiery damnation. The thick book, huge buildings, many rituals, and ancillary beliefs all serve the minimums, but have additional purposes.