Godless Business

The Preachings of xXJesusIsLordXx

Every now and then I get a private message or email from some religionist who his convinced I need to hear the salvation story one more time, thus be saved from the eternal torment of their omnibenevolent and merciful deity.  The latest comes from a Youtube user who calls himself “xXJesusIsLordXx“.  Whatever:

Ask Egg,

Not a good start.

Please come onto the LORD by Jesus, a lot of bad things may have happened in your life to cause alternative beliefs to the truth, I am deeply sorry for these but unless you accept Jesus as your personal saviour you are not going to inherit the kingdom of God,

Why does he spell lord in capitals?  This is not the lord’s name for starters, and from what I have read he does not take too kindly to misuse of his name.

Anyway, why is it that ONLY some awful occurrence in my life could the only reason I eventually rejected the idea of god?  The truth is much more boring than that – I thought about the concept, consider the evidence, and found it lacking.  I cannot bring myself to honestly believe things for which there is no evidence.

Please read this, it is important for your eternal life!

My eternal life?  I am pretty certain (based on all the evidence I have at hand) that once I am dead, I stay dead.  There seems to be no spirit or soul.  We cannot weigh a soul, or photograph one, or even detect one on  a geiger counter.  Given I am unable to verify the existence of a soul in the first place, it seems kind of pointless discussing what might happen to it when it leaves my physical body.

 

Alot of people like to think of this part as a joke, or do not like to talk about it…

Oh yeah.  I HATE talking about this stuff.

But hell is real rather you believe in it or not, and it is the only option besides the kingdom of the LORD.

A threat wrapped in Pascal’s wager.  Do we really need to go there?

When a soul falls into the lake of fire, immediately these lost people will raise up in eternal torment and beg for forgiveness realising the true faith, but there is no forgiveness in hell, it is a Godless realm, there is no way out; not even until the end of time because the end of time will never come!

Apparently this guy not only knows souls exist, and what happens to them in the after life, he also knows specific details regarding the geography of various ethereal realms.

Let’s summarise the story: In the beginning there was only god, who was perfect but somehow missing something and decided to create a massively enormous universe so that after 14 billion years of evolution a species would appear on small parts of a rock orbiting around one of the trillions of stars.  These were his chosen people, which he watched struggle for survival at every step until 2,000 years ago when he stepped in and killed himself to save us from this agony.  In his brilliance he forgot that justice means you can’t just let everyone into Heaven – there has to be standards you know.  So he removed himself from part of his creation and send those who have not happened across the one true religion there to suffer for all eternity.

Makes perfect sense.

This is a way God is glorified, by punishing those whom indulge in sin fail to recieve Jesus as their personal saviour.

God is glorified by punishing people?  What a sadistic prick.

The other way God is glorified is by your salvation, God wants YOU to be saved, however, it cannot be done but by the good LORD, Jesus.

If God really does exist, then he knows exactly what is required to convince me of his existence and therefor save my soul.  I am waiting.

Nope.  Nothing.  Shall we move on?

Once you are saved, you reserve your name into the book of life, and into the kingdom of God, what will heaven be like?

 

Oh?  And please do tell me exactly how many people’s name are written in the “book of life”?  Hint:  You will find the answer in Revelations.

Every building is going to be made up of solid gold, beatiful sky, more colors added to your new body’s mind, eternal life, love, and forever peace! No sinful urges, you take on a body of christ.

How boring.  Why is it visions of Heaven are always restricted to Earthly experiences?

What is hell like?

Yawn.

There is no light besides what is emitted from the fire, the only colors are black and red, deep inside an endless cave, you will have an immortal human body, you will struggle all your strength just for a grasp of breathe, while the unimaginable tempratures of hell melt off your immortal skin as it painfully regenerates, day and night, no rest.

For millennia the only light known was that from the fires of stars.  Then it has been the fires of our camps before we harnessed the fires of chemical reactions.  Why should I be worried about fire?

Oh yeah – the immortal human body/spirit thing which the asshole’s all loving god has seen fit to furnish with an indestructible soul for the express purpose of eternal torture or orgasm.

Worse of all, it will NEVER end, God will never change his word and there is no hope for the damned, it is eternal!

Ok.  Be scared.  Got it.

I want you to be saved!

I want to be sure I select the right religion and denomination to avoid this brutal treatment.  That’s why I simply MUST insist you provide evidence for your claims – this is just too important to get wrong.

I have watched some of your videos and you actually speak with sense and intelligence, however, you are embracing a false religion!

Actually, I do not have a religion at all.  It’s weird how you simply cannot conceive what it might be like not to have dogma to adhere to.

It is impossible to inherit the kingdom of God without the acceptance of Jesus.

This is for eternity! I would sell my home, my computer, my car, and everything I own, I would even give away just to save on soul.

Give it to me and I’ll consider converting.

Eternity is more than anything and everything in this universe by infinite!

To be saved, it does not matter who you were, how you grew up, where you were born or live or who are your relatives, so long as you accept Jesus christ as your personal saviour, for Jesus is LORD.

So all I need to do it accept Jesus into my heart and I can do whatever I like – an eternity with my pal Jesus is guaranteed.

Naaahhh.

Please, before it is too late, come onto the LORD, Jesus, and be saved from your sins.

Please leave me alone.

  • Kristi

    If you believe you have no soul or heart (by which I mean the Christian concept of a heart), maybe you'll appreciate this analogy.

    Put two pop/soda cans on the table.
    Say, a Mountain Dew and a Dr. Pepper. A Coke and a Sprite.
    Now here's the question:
    Who’s winning the argument?

    … what?

    Who's winning the argument?
    No one. They’re just fizzing.

    Precisely.
    Apply that to your materialist view of your personhood. And live by it. Stop taking yourself so seriously if you really believe all you are is matter of the same worth as the dirt you walk on.

    Here's one guy who "gets" it. Karl Vogt: “The brain secretes thought as the stomach secretes gastric juice, the liver bile, and the kidneys urine.”
    This is tragic. Our thoughts as human beings are significantly different gastric juice, bile or urine. You portray that wonderfully by having this website. You consider your thoughts worthy of impact and influence. Only problem is you can't just invent significance for them, and it's certainly not there if you're a materialist.

    So let's stop playing games here, Andrew.

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/askegg askegg

      "Apply that to your materialist view of your personhood"

      While ultimately I hold the belief that we are made from nothing more than matter, it does not follow that I should not care what I do or how my actions affect others. This is the only life I will ever get and I must make the most of it.

      Let's contrast that with the theist's point of view: You have an immortal immaterial soul which will spend eternity by the side of god in total bliss. In comparison to this existence (and I use the term very loosely) why *should* you care about this world? It is irrelevant.

      "Our thoughts as human beings are significantly different gastric juice, bile or urine. "

      Of course our thought are significantly different, but that does not mean they are created by some super magical transcendent soul. You are making an equivocation error of the highest magnitude.

      "You consider your thoughts worthy of impact and influence."

      So do you, otherwise you would not have bothered posting.

      "So let's stop playing games here, Andrew."

      I agree. Demonstrate your claims of souls, Heaven, Hell, and Gods adequately and I will delete this entire web site and evangelise the one true faith.

      • Kristi

        Just in response to this:
        While ultimately I hold the belief that we are made from nothing more than matter, it does not follow that I should not care what I do or how my actions affect others. This is the only life I will ever get and I must make the most of it.

        I understand it quite differently.

        I would seem that if you are only matter, your LIFE is not really life. It is of the same value as that of a curtain, a dead leaf, a live leaf, a star, a rock, a speck of dirt. It's all matter. Isn't that what it means? You cannot even thank luck that you are a human instead of a rock, because luck implies something directing the universe (and specifically an immaterial part of the universe). Your chemical processes, your heart beating, your immune system defense mechanisms, and your neurons transmitting signals, would be equivalent in value to the chemical processes of bacteria, mold, or even the unmoving dirt under your feet. Your self-consciousness, which is a prized dimension of the human life, would be meaningless.
        Just sit and think about that for a little bit, unless you already have, and you understand and can counter the argument. It’s hitting me hard, even though I don’t believe that! I just know so many people that do – or ought to, in line with their other claims! That’s nihilism. Naturalism leads to absolute materialism, which is nihilism.

    • http://www.facebook.com/anwyll David Gibson

      Do you think Douglas Wilson has really experienced any success with the whole "soda fizzing" analogy?

      Next time consider you argument before you make it. Don't just think "well I find this convincing so surely they will" take in to account more than what we lack in beliefs but also what we hold. If we are atheists, rationalists, humanists, socialists, free-market capitalists, etc, etc. Simply assuming that lacking a belief in God immediately results in a lack of value for everything is incredibly naiive.

      I lack belief in God, the afterlife, souls, heaven, hell, objective morality, etc. I do however value the nature of the society I live in, I acknowledge the mutual necessity of respect for fellow humans and feel the concept of human rights can carry this forward, I value the quality of life I, my family, friends and, yes, strangers too. I have no difficulty accounting for all of this with our shared human experiences and the solidarity we can achieve by acknowledging our empathy for others. I do not view this life as meaningless in a personal sense, although I do in an ultimate sense (this universe will most likely eliminate humanity). One day I will likely have children and I will care about the society they live in and the lives they are able to live. So I care if people claiming knowledge they can't know or can't support are afforded special place in our social and political structure, I care if people are bent on destroying the way of life I cherish because they believe they will be rewarded in the next life. Most importantly I care about what is true andensuring I have as few false beliefs and as many true beliefs as possible because that appears to be the best manner in dealing with reality according to my values and ideals.

      You seem to think there is something magical that happens in our brains (is that where our soul is?) that somehow transcends the complexity that emerges from an incredibly complex network of cells. We know the brain "secretes" thoughts because we can monitor it and we can observe the outcome of damaging it (which can range from vegetative states to the loss of specific mental capabilities, eg short term memory, to complete personality changes). I have no issue understanding how from this activity non-material things can result, such as concepts, values, ideals, etc.

      Consider: assume there is just a material universe with no supernatural deity or mind and all known and unknown life is extinguished (our sun explodes or the Andromeda galaxy hits the Milky Way or the universe succumbs to heat death). Where can concepts, values and ideals, etc be found – do they really exist if there is no mind to maintain one with its materialistic activities?

      Are your memories real or are they a pre-arranged set of neuron activities that allow you to recall places, faces, patterns, etc?

      OR

      What is happening in your mind when you consider what another person thinks or feels about an issue or topic are you tapping into a nether of conciousness to touch their soul or are you just relaying a compsite of your experiences with that person and extrapolating from there? What about when you think about what God values? Your own values?

      At what point can you squeeze souls into biology, physics, chemistry?

      • Kristi

        I think you misunderstand me. I do not mean that you are void of values or significance. I have no doubt you love your family, your friends, &c. I am quite convinced, however, that those affections do not fit into a lifestyle thoroughly dictated by naturalism. Naturalism, which claims there is nothing more than matter. Wilson’s analogy portrays the same thing the nihilists observed from within the naturalistic movement. And to me, it is the inescapable conclusion. To you it is not – so please tell me where my thinking has gone wrong in tracing naturalism to materialism to nihilism.

        This also approaches what I was getting at about subjective truth in the other forum. Among men, where there is no transcendent truth, who’s to say that one’s view is better than another? That is what postmodernism recognizes but refuses to deal with.

        I just want to push on: Why do you value truth and consistency? What is your basis for freedom? For respecting people's rights?

        These are not self-evident bases, despite what the Declaration of Independence says. Looking around the world, deception is in many instances seen as advantageous, rhetoric is prized over inherent truth, men take the lives of other men “as a means to an end” – these are mild examples that take place despite the rise of reason.

        In response to your questions about the mind vs. the brain-
        I don't know! But thank you for giving me so many questions to wrestle through!

        I’m so sorry that I cannot give you an intellectually stimulating answer. I believe that there is a ‘mind’, which is different, as a concept, than the brain. This is thoroughly based on the supremacy of revelation over empiricism. I believe that the mind is part of the soul as the heart is part of the soul, because the intellect has power over my affections, but the intellect itself is not unaffected from my affections. The first chapter of Jonathan Edwards’ Religious Affections grapples with this issue, if you indeed want to hear the Christian perspective from someone much less simple.

        How would you answer those questions? Not the last one, obviously, but about consciousness and pre-arrangement of neuron activity…

        • http://intensedebate.com/people/askegg askegg

          “…however, that those affections do not fit into a lifestyle thoroughly dictated by naturalism.”

          Why not?

          “Naturalism, which claims there is nothing more than matter.”

          To be strict, that is materialism.

          “… materialism to nihilism.”

          Draw that line for me.

          “Among men, where there is no transcendent truth, who’s to say that one’s view is better than another?”

          We can measure “better” by the effects views have on others (although I know you will not find that a satisfactory answer).

          “Why do you value truth and consistency?”

          Because I want to live in a predictable universe.

          “What is your basis for freedom?”

          Because I want to be free from the oppression of others.

          “For respecting people's rights?”

          See above.

          “These are not self-evident bases”

          Yes they are.

          “…despite what the Declaration of Independence says.”

          I’m not American.

          “I believe that there is a ‘mind’, which is different, as a concept, than the brain.”

          Dualism is a failed hypothesis. Can you point to this “mind” thing? Can you describe how it interacts with the brain? Can you explain why chemical changes to the brain affect the mind? Can you explain why brain damage affects people’s minds? Best of luck.

          “This is thoroughly based on the supremacy of revelation over empiricism.”

          Supremacy? Now you have really lost it.

          “I believe that the mind is part of the soul as the heart is part of the soul”

          Here you introduce another concept – the soul. Again, can you describe how the mind relates to the soul? Can you measure or detect the mind and/or soul?

  • http://www.facebook.com/anwyll David Gibson

    hehe I had someone send me a message to try and convert me which consumed the entirety of the YouTube personal message character length and cut itself off. The whole thing was a garble of doomsday prophecy and plenty of stuff like you quote in this piece.

  • xxjesusislordxx

    Troll'd

    Sucks for you that you wasted your time doing this.

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/askegg askegg

      If you are a troll, then you got me.

      On the flip side, I have received MANY email just like this from people who are deadly serious.

      Either way, everybody can see the counter arguments now, so it's not a waste of time.

  • http://twitter.com/Cynskeptical @Cynskeptical

    I think you are wrong about one thing there Andrew…..

    "Either way, everybody can see the counter arguments now, so it's not a waste of time."

    Theist do NOT see the counter arguement. Much like their invisible god, such counter arguements that we can put forth are also invisible to them.

    As for being troll'd, as usual if that is the case, yet again by someone who is probably an ignorant fool with too much stupid time on their hands. Yes I did just say "stupid time". It's the time the rest of us intelligent, logical and rational thinkers have very little of, if any at all.

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/askegg askegg

      Not necessarily, Ollie. There are many "moderate theists" who have never really considered the issues. It's really these people we are speaking to. The problem is, they also seem to think faith is a good thing and simply refuse to question it.

  • SeriouslyMatSteele

    Was I the only one who thought the phrase, "Please come onto the LORD" sounded really dirty?

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/askegg askegg

      The thought did occur to me, but I had the good taste to leave it alone :)

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/askegg askegg

    "It is of the same value as that of a curtain, a dead leaf, a live leaf, a star, a rock, a speck of dirt. It's all matter."

    Ultimately yes, but that does not mean I should live my life according to the principle. Matter does not matter :)

    "…because luck implies something directing the universe"

    That's not my definition of "luck". Luck is correctly predicting an unlikely event. Who made the prediction of life and humanity before the fact?

    "Your self-consciousness, which is a prized dimension of the human life,…"

    Do you hold that other animals are not self conscious? I think the evidence points the other way.

    "…or ought to, in line with their other claims!"

    No. It does not follow that because you are made from matter that causing pain to others is acceptable, or that life has no value. It is an incredible event that part of the universe is self aware, that we can explore and discover the universe. It's a precious thing, possibly unique. Why would you want to destroy something like that?

    Let me draw a parallel: Why does being made of "spiritual material" make any difference to your argument? Can you draw a logical, unbroken line between "spiritual material" and moral values? The two are seemingly just as disconnected as you accuse others of.

    "Naturalism leads to absolute materialism, which is nihilism."

    Wow. While I think that naturalism and materialism are certainly linked, nihilism asserts that nothing has any value. I am a naturalist. I am a materialist. But I value many things, so I am certainly not a nihilist. It may be comfortable for you to think these concepts are related, but it's completely wrong.

  • HellDemond

    wait y r u guys laffing at this? u have to allow freedom of speech by law lol…………… makign fun of some1 for this is illegal ur just lucky im not reportign this………..

    - iiTz Hell Demond

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/askegg askegg

    Hahahahaha – you moron.

    The exact same laws which allows xXJesusIsLordXx to speak his mind also protects everyone here. So by all means, report this to whatever legal authority you think will pay any attention.

    PS. Your inability to spell or use correct grammar make you look stupid. Please educate yourself in these matters.

  • http://www.facebook.com/NRParsons Nathan Parsons

    Unfortunately, his choice of offensively bad grammar and spelling are his "freedom of expression". Luckily for us, that doesn't mean that we can't take the mick out of him.

    How does this guy think that mocking someone is not allowing freedom of speech? I hate people like this, who either are being deliberately obtuse, or are so stupid that we all hope that they get a Darwin Award.

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