Philosophy Now Forum

Charlie Kirk

- Learn from his life how things work. (SDG - Soli Deo Gloria)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLZ9Ike ... rt_radio=1

Walker wrote: ↑Mon Sep 22, 2025 7:47 am Charlie Kirk

- Learn from his life how things work. (SDG - Soli Deo Gloria)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLZ9Ike ... rt_radio=1

I'm sorry for your loss.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Mon Sep 22, 2025 1:43 pm

Walker wrote: ↑Mon Sep 22, 2025 7:47 am Charlie Kirk

- Learn from his life how things work. (SDG - Soli Deo Gloria)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLZ9Ike ... rt_radio=1

I'm sorry for your loss.

I didn't lose anything. In fact, I gained additional insights into the limitations of Gary's corner of the world.

Can a mass murderer be "saved" if he repents and "accepts" Jesus in the end? Can an ordinary, average person who hasn't done much harm to anyone, be condemned to hell if they never "accept" Jesus?

According to (at the very least) some understandings of Christianity the answer seems to be "yes" on both accounts. That makes no sense to me. It seems to me that if a mass murderer can be "saved", then everyone ought to be saved. Or if God is stingy and ordinary, average people aren't let into heaven, then only saints would be in heaven and everyone else may as well turn to mass murder for all the good it does them not to be mass murderers.

The world isn't a just place, it just is and if there is a God, then God is little more than the builder of a giant aquarium we all live in. An Epicurean interpretation of life and death just makes the most sense to me. Everyone else (including Stoics) is crazy and deluded.

Happiness without "accepting" misfortune is possible. Seneca must have been a miserable person.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Oct 01, 2025 4:03 pm Can a mass murderer be "saved" if he repents and "accepts" Jesus in the end? Can an ordinary, average person who hasn't done much harm to anyone, be condemned to hell if they never "accept" Jesus?

According to (at the very least) some understandings of Christianity the answer seems to be "yes" on both accounts. That makes no sense to me. It seems to me that if a mass murderer can be "saved", then everyone ought to be saved. Or if God is stingy and ordinary, average people aren't let into heaven, then only saints would be in heaven and everyone else may as well turn to mass murder for all the good it does them not to be mass murderers.

It's one of the many ways that Christianity has perverted the teachings of Jesus. If you go by the teachings of Jesus, then it is not unreasonable for a mass murderer to be "saved" if he "repents". To get there, Christianity has perverted the definition of "saved", "repent" amongst more than a few other words. Let me know how interested you are in making sense of this.

ThinkOfOne wrote: ↑Wed Oct 01, 2025 5:46 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Oct 01, 2025 4:03 pm Can a mass murderer be "saved" if he repents and "accepts" Jesus in the end? Can an ordinary, average person who hasn't done much harm to anyone, be condemned to hell if they never "accept" Jesus?

According to (at the very least) some understandings of Christianity the answer seems to be "yes" on both accounts. That makes no sense to me. It seems to me that if a mass murderer can be "saved", then everyone ought to be saved. Or if God is stingy and ordinary, average people aren't let into heaven, then only saints would be in heaven and everyone else may as well turn to mass murder for all the good it does them not to be mass murderers.

It's one of the many ways that Christianity has perverted the teachings of Jesus. If you go by the teachings of Jesus, then it is not unreasonable for a mass murderer to be "saved" if he "repents". To get there, Christianity has perverted the definition of "saved", "repent" amongst more than a few other words. Let me know how interested you are in making sense of this.

Thank you for the response. I'm not very interested in hearing more on the topic. But thanks.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Oct 01, 2025 6:27 pm

ThinkOfOne wrote: ↑Wed Oct 01, 2025 5:46 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Oct 01, 2025 4:03 pm Can a mass murderer be "saved" if he repents and "accepts" Jesus in the end? Can an ordinary, average person who hasn't done much harm to anyone, be condemned to hell if they never "accept" Jesus?

According to (at the very least) some understandings of Christianity the answer seems to be "yes" on both accounts. That makes no sense to me. It seems to me that if a mass murderer can be "saved", then everyone ought to be saved. Or if God is stingy and ordinary, average people aren't let into heaven, then only saints would be in heaven and everyone else may as well turn to mass murder for all the good it does them not to be mass murderers.

It's one of the many ways that Christianity has perverted the teachings of Jesus. If you go by the teachings of Jesus, then it is not unreasonable for a mass murderer to be "saved" if he "repents". To get there, Christianity has perverted the definition of "saved", "repent" amongst more than a few other words. Let me know how interested you are in making sense of this.

Thank you for the response. I'm not very interested in hearing more on the topic. But thanks.

Wasn't sure if you were making the point that the Christian concepts of soteriology are mindbogglingly ridiculous OR if you were perplexed on how anything that absurd could come to be OR both. Which is why I didn't bother to lay everything out earlier. Evidently it was only the first.

Have you ever gotten an even half-way reasonable explanation from a Christian as to how Christians can possibly believe such nonsense?

ThinkOfOne wrote: ↑Wed Oct 01, 2025 10:55 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Oct 01, 2025 6:27 pm

ThinkOfOne wrote: ↑Wed Oct 01, 2025 5:46 pm

It's one of the many ways that Christianity has perverted the teachings of Jesus. If you go by the teachings of Jesus, then it is not unreasonable for a mass murderer to be "saved" if he "repents". To get there, Christianity has perverted the definition of "saved", "repent" amongst more than a few other words. Let me know how interested you are in making sense of this.

Thank you for the response. I'm not very interested in hearing more on the topic. But thanks.

Wasn't sure if you were making the point that the Christian concepts of soteriology are mindbogglingly ridiculous OR if you were perplexed on how anything that absurd could come to be OR both. Which is why I didn't bother to lay everything out earlier. Evidently it was only the first.

Have you ever gotten an even half-way reasonable explanation from a Christian as to how Christians can possibly believe such nonsense?

I've never really asked, but it's probably no different than any other religion that has believed in Gods, they just make it up as it goes along to serve social necessity.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Oct 01, 2025 4:03 pm Can a mass murderer be "saved" if he repents and "accepts" Jesus in the end? Can an ordinary, average person who hasn't done much harm to anyone, be condemned to hell if they never "accept" Jesus?

Are you aware "gary childress" that your 'interpretations' of words like 'saved', 'accepts', "jesus", and 'hell' could be partly or fully incompatible with what those words actually were intended to mean and were intended to be referring to?

And, thus why 'you' have such a 'conflict' with 'those words'?

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Oct 01, 2025 4:03 pm According to (at the very least) some understandings of Christianity the answer seems to be "yes" on both accounts. That makes no sense to me.

Could 'that', 'some understandings of Christianity', itself, be misinterpreted, fully or partly, itself?

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Oct 01, 2025 4:03 pm It seems to me that if a mass murderer can be "saved", then everyone ought to be saved.

What happens if the so-called "mass murderer", while 'mass murdering', actually 'killed' those who were, eventually, going to 'kill' everyone else. Then would it be 'right' to have 'saved' that "mass murderer", as 'it' just 'saved' everyone else?

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Oct 01, 2025 4:03 pm Or if God is stingy and ordinary, average people aren't let into heaven, then only saints would be in heaven and everyone else may as well turn to mass murder for all the good it does them not to be mass murderers.

Again, could 'your own personal interpretations' of things, here, be so far off or so far skewed that you are not even on the 'right track' at all, here?

Age wrote: ↑Thu Oct 02, 2025 1:22 am

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Oct 01, 2025 4:03 pm Can a mass murderer be "saved" if he repents and "accepts" Jesus in the end? Can an ordinary, average person who hasn't done much harm to anyone, be condemned to hell if they never "accept" Jesus?

Are you aware "gary childress" that your 'interpretations' of words like 'saved', 'accepts', "jesus", and 'hell' could be partly or fully incompatible with what those words actually were intended to mean and were intended to be referring to?

And, thus why 'you' have such a 'conflict' with 'those words'?

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Oct 01, 2025 4:03 pm According to (at the very least) some understandings of Christianity the answer seems to be "yes" on both accounts. That makes no sense to me.

Could 'that', 'some understandings of Christianity', itself, be misinterpreted, fully or partly, itself?

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Oct 01, 2025 4:03 pm It seems to me that if a mass murderer can be "saved", then everyone ought to be saved.

What happens if the so-called "mass murderer", while 'mass murdering', actually 'killed' those who were, eventually, going to 'kill' everyone else. Then would it be 'right' to have 'saved' that "mass murderer", as 'it' just 'saved' everyone else?

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Oct 01, 2025 4:03 pm Or if God is stingy and ordinary, average people aren't let into heaven, then only saints would be in heaven and everyone else may as well turn to mass murder for all the good it does them not to be mass murderers.

Again, could 'your own personal interpretations' of things, here, be so far off or so far skewed that you are not even on the 'right track' at all, here?

I've heard some Christians say the very thing which I've written above. I assume, "saved" means someone will go to heaven and not "saved" is being sent to hell. "Accepting" Jesus is to recognize Jesus as the one true incarnation of God/God himself. Not "accepting" Jesus is to doubt that Jesus is the one true incarnation of God/God himself.

I've heard Christians tell me flat out that the only requirement to be "saved" is to "accept" Jesus. And so if a serial axe murderer accepts Jesus after being sorry ("repenting") for his crimes he is "saved" (will go to heaven). But if a person who hasn't hurt anyone doesn't "accept" Jesus, then he will go to hell because he didn't accept Jesus.

I'm not saying that all Christians believe that, however, some do, they've told me so.

It seems to me that if there is a heaven and a hell in some sort of afterlife, that it would be unjust to send an axe murder to heaven but send someone who hasn't hurt anyone to hell. But that situation is possible according to some Christians because they see "accepting" Jesus as all that is required to be "saved" (go to heaven) but if you don't "accept" Jesus, then you are going to hell no matter what you did or didn't do in life.

Does that make sense to you Age? Do you have any further questions about my terms?

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Oct 01, 2025 4:09 pm The world isn't a just place, it just is

The words, 'the world', sometimes refers to 'the way of life' you human beings live within, and create, 'the earth', the Universe, among other things. So, what do you actually mean, here, exactly?

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Oct 01, 2025 4:09 pm and if there is a God, then God is little more than the builder of a giant aquarium we all live in.

But, 'the way of life', in which all of you human beings live in was created solely by you adult human beings, alone, and only.

Sure, what the very Thing is, exactly, which is some times called and referred to as 'God', created you human beings, who the adults of created 'the way of life', or just 'the life', that all of you human beings live in, but do not forget that you human beings are also created with the 'ability to choose' if you want to behave, (and thus create a heaven-like way of life', on earth), or if you want to misbehave, (and thus create a hell-like life, on earth).

God, Itself, never directly created nor creates the 'life' that you adult human beings have 'chosen', for "yourselves".

Now, you may well like to say, 'But it is said that God created every thing'. Which, if you did, then I would just say, but not absolutely every thing 'that is said', by you human beings is always absolutely True and Right, right?

Now, although it could be said and/or argued that God has, actually, created every thing, but some of 'those things' could have been 'indirectly' created, from God, Itself.

For example, if God is, also, what is said and claimed, that is 'good' and 'all loving', then, very clearly, God would not create 'a world', 'a life', nor 'a way of life', were animals were to unnecessarily suffer.

It is only through the Wrong behaving of adult human beings why animals unnecessarily suffer.

God may well have been 'the builder' of, and still 'building', the Universe and the earth, themselves, which you human beings live on, and live in, but the 'only hand' that God has played in 'building' the 'way of life' that you adult human beings are creating on earth, itself, is that you adult human beings have been given the absolute freedom to 'choose' how you want to live, and to 'choose' 'the life' that you all want for "yourselves".

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Oct 01, 2025 4:03 pm An Epicurean interpretation of life and death just makes the most sense to me. Everyone else (including Stoics) is crazy and deluded.

If 'this', here, is your 'new current' view, belief, and/or following, then okay.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Oct 02, 2025 1:32 am

Age wrote: ↑Thu Oct 02, 2025 1:22 am

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Oct 01, 2025 4:03 pm Can a mass murderer be "saved" if he repents and "accepts" Jesus in the end? Can an ordinary, average person who hasn't done much harm to anyone, be condemned to hell if they never "accept" Jesus?

Are you aware "gary childress" that your 'interpretations' of words like 'saved', 'accepts', "jesus", and 'hell' could be partly or fully incompatible with what those words actually were intended to mean and were intended to be referring to?

And, thus why 'you' have such a 'conflict' with 'those words'?

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Oct 01, 2025 4:03 pm According to (at the very least) some understandings of Christianity the answer seems to be "yes" on both accounts. That makes no sense to me.

Could 'that', 'some understandings of Christianity', itself, be misinterpreted, fully or partly, itself?

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Oct 01, 2025 4:03 pm It seems to me that if a mass murderer can be "saved", then everyone ought to be saved.

What happens if the so-called "mass murderer", while 'mass murdering', actually 'killed' those who were, eventually, going to 'kill' everyone else. Then would it be 'right' to have 'saved' that "mass murderer", as 'it' just 'saved' everyone else?

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Oct 01, 2025 4:03 pm Or if God is stingy and ordinary, average people aren't let into heaven, then only saints would be in heaven and everyone else may as well turn to mass murder for all the good it does them not to be mass murderers.

Again, could 'your own personal interpretations' of things, here, be so far off or so far skewed that you are not even on the 'right track' at all, here?

I've heard some Christians say the very thing which I've written above. I assume, "saved" means someone will go to heaven and not "saved" is being sent to hell. "Accepting" Jesus is to recognize Jesus as the one true incarnation of God/God himself. Not "accepting" Jesus is to doubt that Jesus is the one true incarnation of God/God himself.

I've heard Christians tell me flat out that the only requirement to be "saved" is to "accept" Jesus. And so if a serial axe murderer accepts Jesus after being sorry ("repenting") for his crimes he is "saved" (will go to heaven). But if a person who hasn't hurt anyone doesn't "accept" Jesus, then he will go to hell because he didn't accept Jesus.

I'm not saying that all Christians believe that, however, some do, they've told me so.

It seems to me that if there is a heaven and a hell in some sort of afterlife, that it would be unjust to send an axe murder to heaven but send someone who hasn't hurt anyone to hell. But that situation is possible according to some Christians because they see "accepting" Jesus as all that is required to be "saved" (go to heaven) but if you don't "accept" Jesus, then you are going to hell no matter what you did or didn't do in life.

Does that make sense to you Age? Do you have any further questions about my terms?

"Accepting" Jesus is to recognize Jesus as the one true incarnation of God/God himself. Not "accepting" Jesus is to doubt that Jesus is the one true incarnation of God/God himself.

Ultimately "accepting" Jesus entails some variation of having faith that Jesus paid for your sins: past, present and future. Though some denominations also add things like believing Jesus is God incarnate.

Have you "accepted" Jesus?

ThinkOfOne wrote: ↑Thu Oct 02, 2025 2:19 am

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Oct 02, 2025 1:32 am

Age wrote: ↑Thu Oct 02, 2025 1:22 am

Are you aware "gary childress" that your 'interpretations' of words like 'saved', 'accepts', "jesus", and 'hell' could be partly or fully incompatible with what those words actually were intended to mean and were intended to be referring to?

And, thus why 'you' have such a 'conflict' with 'those words'?


Could 'that', 'some understandings of Christianity', itself, be misinterpreted, fully or partly, itself?


What happens if the so-called "mass murderer", while 'mass murdering', actually 'killed' those who were, eventually, going to 'kill' everyone else. Then would it be 'right' to have 'saved' that "mass murderer", as 'it' just 'saved' everyone else?


Again, could 'your own personal interpretations' of things, here, be so far off or so far skewed that you are not even on the 'right track' at all, here?

I've heard some Christians say the very thing which I've written above. I assume, "saved" means someone will go to heaven and not "saved" is being sent to hell. "Accepting" Jesus is to recognize Jesus as the one true incarnation of God/God himself. Not "accepting" Jesus is to doubt that Jesus is the one true incarnation of God/God himself.

I've heard Christians tell me flat out that the only requirement to be "saved" is to "accept" Jesus. And so if a serial axe murderer accepts Jesus after being sorry ("repenting") for his crimes he is "saved" (will go to heaven). But if a person who hasn't hurt anyone doesn't "accept" Jesus, then he will go to hell because he didn't accept Jesus.

I'm not saying that all Christians believe that, however, some do, they've told me so.

It seems to me that if there is a heaven and a hell in some sort of afterlife, that it would be unjust to send an axe murder to heaven but send someone who hasn't hurt anyone to hell. But that situation is possible according to some Christians because they see "accepting" Jesus as all that is required to be "saved" (go to heaven) but if you don't "accept" Jesus, then you are going to hell no matter what you did or didn't do in life.

Does that make sense to you Age? Do you have any further questions about my terms?

"Accepting" Jesus is to recognize Jesus as the one true incarnation of God/God himself. Not "accepting" Jesus is to doubt that Jesus is the one true incarnation of God/God himself.

Ultimately "accepting" Jesus entails some variation of having faith that Jesus paid for your sins: past, present and future. Though some denominations also add things like believing Jesus is God incarnate.

Have you "accepted" Jesus?

I'm agnostic. Does that count as "accepting" Jesus?