Originally Posted by ketzer

I do enjoy Mr. Watts. I have not come across that vid before, it is a good one. Thanks for the link. Not much there to disagree with. Once one frees up the mind from the dogmatic prescribed orthodoxies that came out of the Romanization of Jesus's teachings, it is not too hard to see what he may have been trying to say. It is also not hard to see why the Roman Monarchies created the orthodoxies that they did. God became a Roman Emperor with the power to crucify one not just for a few days before death relieves one's suffering, but for all of eternity. If fact, they say you are already condemned to suffer this fate, and your only hope to avoid it is to come to Jesus. And to do that, one must go through the Holy Roman Church. Of course now days one doesn't need the Roman Catholic Church as many free lance operations have opened up to get on the market for souls hoping to avoid damnation. Hard to see Jesus in any of that.

The thing about the whole blood ransom / class action settlement view of Jesus is that even though it seems so patently absurd on the face of it, so many are so afraid to reject it for fear of an eternal horrendous punishment, that one can not get them to consider anything else. One cannot get them to reject it based on showing them the abhorrent image of God it portrays, because it is that very abhorrent image of God that they have been taught to fear so deeply.

When you point out that this image of God they have devoted themselves to is more like a view of an evil demon, they respond by telling you it is not evil and unless you belief what they say, this good and loving father God will eternally torture you in the most heinous of ways. The human mind is a truly strange thing.

Anyway, good vid.